How Did The Great Wall Of China Dbq

The Great Wall of China—started in 221 BCE during the Qin dynasty, was built to keep the northern invaders from attacking China. This 5,488 miles long wall was built over a 2,000 year period by dynasties that devoted their time in its construction. While it did provide benefits such as protection and spread ideas to other empires, it wasn’t enough to outweigh the costs of money, lives, and isolation from families. Chinese people feared their archenemy—the Xiongnu, thinking that they will conquer China. They decided to build a massive wall to keep them away from taking over, but also wanted to keep a peaceful relationship. If people from China didn’t want to have warfare with Xiongnu and wanted to keep a peaceful relationship between each

Most of the laborers who were taken to build the wall lost their lives due to various reasons. Soldiers from the Qin dynasty “died from hunger, sickness, and extreme heat or cold” and from the Han dynasty, the soldiers mainly died from the heavy fighting with the Xiongnu (document E). A poem written by an unidentified author from the Han dynasty explains the life of the soldiers who were protection the Great Wall (document F). They would fight with the Xiongnu in the north or the wall, and sometimes everyone had to face starvation because of the inability to harvest food. This was caused by peasants forced to join the military in order to keep the wall safe and some dying in the battles with Xiongnu which caused scarcity of peasants (document F). The author of the poem seems very proud of all the soldiers and it also seems that they aren’t disappointed to protect the wall at all. Boredom and loneliness was a problem for all the soldiers (document E). It would be better if there was a document that was a diary from a soldier or peasant that showed if they were glad to be serving China by protecting the wall or not. Even if some people were willing to serve China, they shouldn’t have experienced such brutal