In this series of articles, I will try to very briefly and easily present the content of the book by Andrey Stepanenko "History is no more".
Continuation, the beginning of the series read: The story no longer exists. The mystery of biblical Jerusalem. / The story is gone. Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. / The story is gone. Persian gambit. / The story is gone. Where was gunpowder actually invented?
Incarnate greatness
Perhaps there is no other such well-known symbol of antiquity and greatness in China as the Great Wall of China. In fairness, it must be said that its antiquity is widely questioned by many.
A unique building of its kind - no doubt about it. It is hardly anywhere else on Earth that you can find such a vivid example of stupidity and absurdity (in terms of the functionality of a defensive structure). Apparently, it should be assumed that the Chinese for several centuries were afraid of the invasion of an army of armed climbers from the North …
There is no other way to explain the presence of the wall in remote mountainous areas, where not only the horse hordes of nomads, but also foot detachments will not pass. Thousands of cities must be lined up along the Wall to meet the needs of the millions of warriors needed to serve throughout the Wall. There are no chains of cities there, which leaves the question of supply and ammunition supply hanging unanswered.
Was it really worth guarding?
Promotional video:
If you do not protect some of the areas, then those crumbs of common sense that remained after finding out its unsuitability for defense in general are lost. In addition, according to legend, the Wall was built for two thousand years. That is, while construction was underway on one site, on another, the enemy could penetrate the country unnoticed. It smells like idiocy….
To this should be added the loopholes and battlements (in areas not restored) facing South - that is, against the Chinese themselves. And also the suspicious coincidence of the line of old sites, with the border of Great Tartary - indeed the Great Eurasian Empire.
Does the ruble swing mean a penny?
This is how it happens …
During the Chinese war against the 1900 intervention, called the "boxing uprising", Russian troops that entered China in four directions - from Transbaikalia to Vladivostok - did not notice the Great Wall of China! The titanic defensive structure, designed to protect against horse armies, these same horse (Cossack) armies did not notice. Isn't it strange?
Moreover, the eight world powers, then dividing China - the last colonial reserve - among themselves, did not notice this Wall. The greatest artifact, hundreds of times larger than the pyramid of Egypt, has become invisible!
Map of 1903.
Here is a Russian map for 1903. Here you can see the image of the Great Wall of China (northeast of Beijing), and the approximate path of Russian troops to Beijing is shown by a bold curved line. As you can see, it was unrealistic for the Russian troops not to know about the wall; the cavalry had to burrow into it or find a gap in the wall (they are there). But … the Great Wall of China was simply not noticed. It is on the map, but not in the memories.
After the capture of Beijing by the allied forces, a number of punitive operations were carried out throughout China, pockets of resistance were suppressed and none of the allies saw this cyclopean structure. The free access is full of testimonies of participants - Americans, Russians, British - with maps, documents. And - no Wall!
They did not see the Great Wall before this war, when the Russians were building the southern branch of the CER. They did not see the Great Wall even after - when Port Arthur was given to the Japanese. But there is a lot of evidence of a three-meter depth ditch and an earthen (or adobe) rampart with willow trees planted on it.
Section of the Wall west of Yinchuan Urban District, June 25, 2007.
This is a real defensive structure that meets the military-tactical thought of the 16th-18th centuries. Russia itself built exactly the same Great Wall in Altai - just in the 18th century. She perfectly helps the shooters to destroy the attacking cavalry, and if the Chinese army decided to stop the Russian troops, our Cossacks would have sipped hard at this wall.
Unlike the Great Wall, the city walls of Beijing were made according to the rules, and when Europeans took them by storm in 1900, bones were broken without counting - they could not take them! If it were not for the paradoxical decision of Lieutenant General N. P. Linevich, to drag a cannon onto one of the walls in order to change the sector of fire, the Russians would not have entered Beijing first. And the Great Wall - no, it does not meet anti-siege standards, since it was originally conceived as a fake. The usual remake.
This photo was taken in 1998 in the Yinshan Mountains. A 200 km section of the Great Wall of China, built during the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC) - in the middle, just to the right of the wall, you can see figures of people - compare the scale.
Versions
There are many versions on the Internet regarding the goals and construction of the Great Wall, here are some of them:
1) the wall was built as a defensive structure not by the Chinese, but by a stronger, more organized and developed Great Tartary from the raids of gangs of southern neighbors, in which each mandarin of the province could declare war on its own and lead (its) army;
- the orientation of the defense to the South, can be seen in the works of Chinese drawings, a number of photographs, on the most ancient sections of the wall not modernized for the needs of the tourism industry;
2) some sections of the Wall were built in order to protect the Ala-Shan and Ordos deserts from sandstorms and this explains the parallel sections of each other, built in different periods - one wall covered with sand was replaced by another;
3) in some cases, the Wall was used to restrict the flight of Chinese peasants to the North for a better life; She would not have kept a serious army, but the Wall could have blocked the path of the peasants walking along the mountain paths burdened with simple belongings, wives and children.
Nothing striking.
4) the most objective version is the tourist one; in the days of Mao Zedong, with a huge army of uneducated and unskilled workers, it was necessary to somehow provide employment; in the USSR at that time, there was also a tendency to epoch-making projects: either they would think of turning the rivers back, or digging the canals by hand - of course, by the hands of prisoners and repressed;
The Chinese remained true to themselves in archeology - "we don't have our own, we will copy the best and sell as our own!"
Young bushes on * ancient * walls …
Continuation: "Mysteries of the legendary Troy"
