Original subtitles

They say you can see it from space.

They say it's over 2,000 years old,

and protected China's northern frontier

over a distance of 6,000 kilometers.

(compelling music)

It's a strategic masterpiece,

a monument in stone

to a civilization that has survived

for millenia.

To the world, it is the symbol of China.

(compelling music)

How much of that is truth?

How much is legend?

How old is the wall, really?

How long is it?

And what does this huge structure tell us

about the people who built it?

One thing is for sure,

you can't see the Great Wall from space.

This is its true story.

(ominous music)

In spring, 1907, the British adventurer

and archaeologist Aurel Stein,

struggles through one of the most arid landscapes

in the world, the Taklamakan Desert.

He's following a route

that 2,000 years ago brought Asian luxuries to Europe.

The legendary Silk Road,

the transcontinental trading route

of the ancient world.

Stein has come from India

to look for treasures said to be hidden

under the sand of the desert.

His expedition is extremely successful.

From the buried foundations of Buddhist temples

and dried out oases in the middle of the desert,

he uncovers ancient silks,

unique scrolls, and priceless statues.

Now he and his men are on their way

to the Chinese oasis of Dunhuang.

(ominous music)

Give me my telescope.

This garrison town

has always been a life-saving refuge

after the exhausting march through Taklamakan.

The very name Taklamakan means

"Go in, and you won't come out."

Give me a camel, quick!

(camel grunting)

(intense music)

But what Stein sees through his telescope

is not the looked for oasis.

He's about to discover an archaelogical sensation

virtually unknown to the west.

(intense music)

About 70 kilometers northwest

of Dunhuang oasis,

Aurel Stein has come across the ruins

of a gigantic fortress.

Stein has discovered the Yumenguan,

the Jade Gate.

This hulk of clay bricks measures 24 meters

by 26 meters, its walls are four meters thick,

and it reaches up to a height of 10 meters.

Two gates, one in the west,

and one in the north,

lead into the almost rectangular inner courtyard.

This is the western end of a 2,000 year old

defensive wall.

But this huge earth structure

looks nothing like the familiar wall ramparts

north of Beijing.

Stein believes they are part

of ancient China's Great Wall defenses,

but he cautiously describes them

as the remains of old Chinese road towers.

He wrote that he had found

the line of an ancient Chinese wall,

which traversed the desert for a great distance.

In many places, it had almost been

completely covered by drift sand.

But the tamarisk layers which had been used

to strengthen the agar cropped up so persistently,

that the eye caught the straight line

as it stretched away for miles

on the coarse sand.

But what and who

was the wall built to protect?

(mysterious music)

Chang'An, second century BC.

The emperors of the Han Dynasty

governed the Middle Kingdom from here.

Chang'An is one of the biggest cities

of ancient times, half a million people

live within its mighty walls,

a metropolis designed to be the center of the world.

But peace in this ordered world

is deceptive and expensive.

An ancient chronicle reports,

when Emperor Wu Di came to the throne,

he reaffirmed the peace alliance,

and treated the Xiongnu with generosity

allowing them to trade,

and sending them lavish gifts.

(man yelling)

The Xiongnu were a powerful nomadic people

living in the endless steppes of today's Mongolia.

The Chinese considered them to be barbarians,

and they had already suffered bloody defeats

at the hands of these skilled horsemen.

It seemed like a good idea to buy off

the barbarians with generous gifts.

Wagon loads of the best silk,

wine and grain,

regularly left the capital

for the journey north.

(tense music)

But the dearly bought peace

is not accepted by everyone.

It is a burden on the finances of the state,

and it also demands sacrifices

from the leading families of the empire.

The tribal chiefs of the Xiongnu want more

than silk and other precious goods.

They also demand the daughters

of Chinese nobles as wives.

The Chinese call this policy

of tributes and marriages Hechin

peaceful and friendly relations.

But what's the alternative?

(foreboding music)

The region where the Yellow River

makes its great arch through Northern China

had been disputed by both cultures for centuries.

This Ordos region

lent itself to cultivation by Chinese farmers,

but also to the roaming nomadic horse breeders.

(horses braying)

Year in, year out,

Chinese farmers were victims

of the same bloody ritual.

Through the spring and summer

they would work tirelessly in their fields

until the harvest was complete,

and in the fall, the warriors from the north

would ride in and plunder everything.

(dramatic music)

The nomads needed to take what they couldn't grow,

supplies to help them survive the long,

cold winter of the steppes.

They needed grain to eat,

and iron to fight with.

(men yelling)

These murderous raids had threatened

the stability of the empire,

and the very power base of the Han Dynasty.

The political marriages that followed

were the lesser evil,

even if they involved a serious loss of face.

To the Chinese,

the nomads were savages,

they could only be despised.

(drum music)

What else could they think

of people who foretold the future with sheep's bones

who had no writing, and who lived

not in permanent cities, but in tents.

But in 209 BC,

one clan chieftan united the tribes

that till then had warred among themselves.

(speaking foreign language)

This nomad king called himself Shen Yu,

the equivalent of emperor.

(drum music)

The tributes from the Middle Kingdom

flowed into the Shen Yu's coffers,

reinforcing his control of the nomad tribes.

(soft flute music)

Meanwhile, the forced marriages

with China's noble families

made it clear that the barbarians

wanted equality with the Chinese.

(soft flute music)

For several decades, this foreign policy

had maintained a kind of peace

on China's northern borders.

For the daughters of the Middle Kingdom,

their new life with the nomads

was more than a culture shock.

(soft flute music)

(speaking foreign language)

The suffering of the Chinese princesses

who were married to the barbarians

is immortalized in a poem

written in the second century BC.

My people have married me

in a far corner of earth,

sent me away to a strange land.

The round tent is my palace,

its walls are made of felt.

Dried meat is my only food.

Koomis is my drink.

Endlessly I dream of my country,

and my heart is all bruised.

Oh, to be the yellow swan

that returns to its homeland.

The difference between the two worlds

could hardly be greater.

In the north, the wild, wandering life of the steppes.

To the south, the sedentary population,

subject to strict rituals and rules.

The main props of the Chinese empire

were the officials,

educated according to the teachings

of Confucius that regulated private

and public life in the tiniest detail.

(speaking foreign language)

Confucius pupils had recorded his teachings

in the fifth century, before Christ.

For 2,000 years, the faultless quotation

and analysis of his works,

was the most important element

of civil service examinations.

This tradition lasted until the collapse

of the Chinese empire in the 20th century.

(lighthearted music)

(speaking foreign language)

China saw itself as the protector of civilization,

the cultural center of the world,

and the man who embodied this claim

was the emperor,

the son of Heaven.

(soft music)

The high officials of the empire

gathered in the Imperial Palace in Chang'An.

The sublime emperor had summoned them

to an audience.

(speaking foreign language)

Emperor Wu Di of the Han Dynasty

made Confucian teachings the official philosophy

of the empire.

And such high moral standards

were not compatible with a China

that bought off barbarians with tributes and brides.

Now it is time for the Imperial court

to determine China's future foreign policy.

(speaking foreign language)

Under one of emperor Wu Di's predecessors,

a famous memorial described the natural hierarchy

of the Chinese empire.

Court officials certainly knew it well.

(speaking foreign language)

According to this hierarchy,

the son of Heaven is the head of the empire,

and the barbarians are the feet.

To command the barbarians

is the power vested in the emperor on the top.

And to present tribute to the son of Heaven

is a ritual to be performed by the vassals at the bottom.

The sublime ruler is no longer willing

to pay tribute to the barbarians,

and to continue peaceful, and friendly relations

with them.

(speaking foreign language)

The idea of the world order

as it existed in ancient China,

is best described by the following quotation,

"Everything that Heaven covers,

"as far as the earth stretches,

"whatever is illuminated by the light

"of the son and the moon,

"all this is the emperor's."

Of course, this doesn't mean it belongs to him

in any personal sense.

But he had the responsibility

of maintaining order both inside

and outside China's borders.

He stays in the center,

and in his person,

he unifies everything in a single universe.

(speaking foreign language)

It is 133 BC,

the emperor makes his decision.

Nothing but military action

can re-establish the natural hierarchy

of the empire.

The Imperial army is excellently equipped

and ready to attack.

(speaking foreign language)

The emperor's generals consider

their strategy for the coming offensive.

In the past, the Xiongnu were superior

on the battlefield,

but the generals have learned

from their predecessors' mistakes.

This time, the Chinese will give the barbarians

a taste of their own medicine.

(speaking foreign language)

(suspenseful music)

(men yelling)

After a series of surprise attacks

and skirmishes on the frontier,

the empire marches out

to the first decisive battle.

The general of carriage and cavalry

leads a mounted force of thousands

into enemy territory.

(men yelling)

The offensive is a complete success.

Many thousands of Xiongnu are killed

or captured, and the general's soldiers

see huge amounts of booty.

More than a million cattle and sheep

fall into Chinese hands.

(suspenseful music)

The Imperial army forces the Xiongnu back

to the far north of the steppes,

but more campaigns will follow,

this is just the start

of emperor Wu Di's politics of expansion.

(suspenseful music)

The long disputed Ordos region

was once more in Chinese hands.

As they chased the fleeing nomads,

the empire's armies also reached far

to the west.

They soon occupied the Hexi Corridor,

the bottleneck between the desert to the north,

and the Chuyen mountain range.

But what could they do

with this empty stretch of land?

(exotic music)

For the Chinese, it had considerable strategic importance.

By conquering the Hexi Corridor,

they had gained access to the Silk Road,

and that meant control of the trade caravans.

And there was more.

For the Hexi Corridor, the Imperial army

could break out and conquer new realms,

far to the west.

(exotic music)

And there, they could find the legendary

heavenly horses that the emperor Wu Di so desired.

Because with them, he could perfect his new art of war.

(exotic music)

Under the Han Dynasty,

a number of breeding stations were established

for the heavenly horses.

One of these stations, founded more

than 2,000 years ago

still exists today.

(exotic music)

After the successful campaigns against

the barbarians, the emperor again

summoned his advisors.

He asked the critical question,

how can the new order, one with force of arms,

be maintained?

How can the empire's new frontiers

be made secure, and how can

the conquered territories be protected

from enemy attacks?

(speaking foreign language)

The court falls back on a solution

that already has a long tradition

in the Middle Kingdom.

The frontiers will be secured

by the construction of a long wall.

(speaking foreign language)

The empire's high officials

speak strongly against this proposal.

They warn of the risks and high costs

of such an undertaking.

But they cannot change the emperor's mind.

(speaking foreign language)

Heaven created the mountains and rivers,

and the Han established fortresses and walls.

These all aim to divide the interior

from that which is alien,

says a Chinese quote from the second century.

Today, the farmers in the north

build walls around their houses,

in the same way their ancestors

2,000 years ago once built the long wall

at the border.

First, they fill clay into a mold

made of wooden boards.

Then they flatten the clay with rams.

It's heavy, slow work,

but with enough manpower,

the wall rises meter by meter.

A layer of straw is laid

on the compressed clay to stabilize it

before the next layer of clay is piled on top.

Just as they used to do it,

but only on a smaller scale.

(speaking foreign language)

There's a word in Chinese

that means "country" or "state."

The character for this word

is very old.

Even in the Han Dynasty,

it already had its current form,

and its shape is very significant.

It's a rectangle that represents

an area surrounded by a wall.

In the center of the rectangle,

there is another sign,

symbolizing the son of heaven.

So we can interpret this sign

as meaning that the emperor

is at the center point of the empire,

and that the area of his authority

is surrounded by a wall.

(speaking foreign language)

(horses braying)

(flute and drum music)

The Han Dynasty's gigantic frontier wall

begins near the place Aurel Stein would later find.

Yumenguan, the Jade Gate.

Here, the wall was to protect the caravans

that carried treasures between China

and the Arabian Empires.

(flute and drum music)

Today, no one knows how many people

were recruited for the construction of the wall.

Many of them were soldiers,

others were forced laborers,

condemned to years of work on the wall

often for tiny misdemeanors.

Still, others were landless peasants,

sent to the empire's largest construction site

from all parts of the country.

For royal officials,

they were just beads on an abacus,

we know because we have later dynasties' calculations.

If one soldier can build three paces

of wall in one month,

then 300 men can build one and a half kilometers.

3,000 men can build 15 kilometers.

So then 500 kilometers would take 100,000 men

one month to complete.

(drum music)

But how can thousands of people

be supported in a region

where there is nothing but dust and stones?

(flute and drum music)

(exotic music)

Just 13 kilometers to the east of the Jade Gate,

the walls of a giant grainery rise in the desert.

Huge amounts of grain were brought here

from the fertile regions of the empire.

(exotic music)

This supply camp first saw to the needs

of the construction gangs,

and later, the garrisons of border troops

stationed here in their thousands.

But supply lines like this are expensive.

The emperor's officials

soon found a better policy.

No one knows the names

of the people who had to carry it out.

Perhaps this man was one of them.

We'll call him Jeng Bao.

Like thousands of others,

he became a member of a new class,

that of soldier farmers,

landless peasants inducted into the army.

To cut costs,

their families were recruited with them,

and then they were left

to look after themselves.

(somber music)

By colonizing this unpromising soil,

the entire region was to be absorbed

into the Chinese empire.

There are still towns and villages

in the region that were first colonized

by soldier farmers like Jeng Bao.

(soft flute music)

But few of the settlers willingly stayed

in this no-man's land.

Soliders kept watch for families

attempting to flee north to the barbarians.

Jeng Bao and his fellow villagers

were not the only victims of emperor Wu Di's

expansionary policy.

Two million people were relocated

into the new border regions.

(horses braying)

Those opposed to the wall's construction

had warned of the high costs

of such a gigantic project.

We don't know if they included the price paid

by the emperor's subjects.

But we learn of their suffering

in poems and lamentations.

With hoarse, desperate cries

we build the wall.

The moon and the Milky Way seem low next to it.

If we didn't remove the bleached bones

of the dead, they would reach up

to the very top of the wall.

(drum music)

No one knows how many died building the wall.

Every meter cost one life, that's the legend.

There's no proof,

because today we can only guess

exactly where the wall ran,

and hardly anyone can say for sure

how long the Han wall was.

300 kilometers north of Beijing,

close to the borders of the autonomous province

of inner Mongolia.

(fast-paced music)

By the 16th century,

this mountainous area near the capital

will be one of the best defended border regions

the world has ever seen.

(fast-paced music)

But remains of the Han wall

can be found here too.

The Jade Gate at the far end

of the Han wall lies two and a half

thousand kilometers to the west of here.

In the 1980s, Dong YaoHui

walked the entire length of the Han Dynasty wall.

His discoveries relaunched the interest

in the Han wall and its scale.

These are the best preserved remains

of the 2,000 year old wall.

Our image of a single Chinese great wall

belongs firmly in the realms

of myth and legend.

(soft violin music)

(speaking foreign language)

Archaeological tests

in recent years, show that the Han wall

is probably the longest of all China's

defensive walls.

All together, it's about 20,000 leas long,

that's more than 10,000 kilometers.

Here in the north, it mostly follows the route

of an even older wall,

Huan, the first emperor built

200 years before Christ.

The Han wall runs further north

of the other, better known walls.

The main great wall,

the one the tourists visited, Ba Da Ling,

is about 300 kilometers south of here.

(speaking foreign language)

This is the Ming Dynasty's great wall.

The stone dragon,

that has become the image of

the Great Wall of China throughout the world.

It was built in the 16th century

for much the same reason as the Han walls,

to protect the Middle Kingdom

from the northern barbarians.

But this gigantic construction

is made not of earth, but of baked bricks.

It's more than seven meters thick at the base,

and it's battlements reach up to 20 meters high.

It curves majestically through more than

1,200 kilometers of the mountains north of Beijing.

It follows the natural line

of the mountain peaks,

reaching breathtaking heights

before plunging into the deepest ravines.

Visitors stand speechless

before this architectural masterpiece,

and admire the audacity of its builders.

Even while they wonder

about its real military effectiveness.

(compelling music)

But there's little doubt about the message,

this is the frontier of our world.

On the other side, the alien world begins.

This wall is the expression of a culture

that wanted to be entirely self-sufficient.

(compelling music)

This stone monument

marks the peak of wall building

in China's long history.

Almost every dynasty

had built its own wall.

There was never a single strategic idea.

Some reckon that all the walls added together

would stretch for 25,000 kilometers.

(compelling music)

Many parts of many walls

are still to be discovered.

On the Yellow River,

close to the once so hotly disputed Ordos region,

there are still a few remains.

Here and there, ruined towers

and tumbling sections of wall

still rear out of the sand.

(compelling music)

Over the centuries,

the wind and the rain have taken their toll

on the walls of packed earth.

(compelling music)

The relics of the old ramparts

seem to merge with the natural landscape

as if they were never built by man.

Hard to believe here, in the myth of the wall,

as a symbol of the nation's strength.

(compelling music)

You're not a real man,

if you've not got to the Great Wall,

Chairman Mao said.

But for many of the country people here,

the wall is just a part of their everyday lives.

In their villages, they work beside the wall,

just as their forefathers did

2,000 years ago.

(gentle music)

Sometimes, these practical farmers

make their own breaches in the national icon.

(gentle music)

Further west, in the Taklamakan Desert,

the Chinese always knew

that the ancient wall existed,

but they never paid any attention

to these Han Dynasty relics.

A shame, as the builders had once taken

great trouble to make sure their wall

would be strong and effective.

(gentle music)

(horses galloping)

As soon as a section of the wall was finished,

the local commander ordered a quality test.

It simulated the worst case scenario,

a barbarian attack.

Archers shot a hail of arrows against the wall.

Only if all the arrows bounced off,

did the wall get official approval.

Maybe it passed its quality test once.

2,000 years later, the Han wall

has disappeared into the dust

of the Taklamakan Desert.

(exotic music)

But Aurel Stein's discovery of the ruins

catapulted this first Chinese great wall

into the world's consciousness.

Stein finally reached Dunhuang oasis,

but he soon returned to the desert

with his crew of local diggers

for a more thorough investigation

of the Chinese lee maze.

In some places,

it still rose almost two meters

above the desert floor.

Stein followed the line of the wall

for nearly 100 kilometers.

During his excavations,

he uncovered numerous ancient relics.

(exotic music)

Among them, were wooden strips.

Shovel please.

(exotic music)

Upon closer inspection,

he noticed that these strips

were written records.

Stein had found orders, instructions,

and soldiers' letters

from as far back as the first century BC.

They give a precise picture

of frontier defense at that time.

(mysterious music)

The commanders' seals and secret codes

were split into separate tablets.

One strip, says that a soldier called Huang

is on duty for 355 days a year.

There are private letters,

like invitations to a family celebration.

But the most important records

showed that the wall had a highly developed system

of optic telegraphy as Stein called it.

(mysterious music)

There were watchtowers along the wall,

where the soldiers would pass on a signal

as soon as invaders were spotted.

Using smoke by day, and fire by night,

the signal was relayed to the towers

lined up inside the wall's boundaries,

and ultimately reached the garrison.

Using a standardized code,

the soliders could even pass on

the distance and the strength

of the attacking force.

In less than 24 hours,

the message could travel several hundred kilometers.

(exotic music)

Stein later wrote,

"To the northeast, four towers,

"lit up by the sun behind us,

"could be made out, echeloned in the distance,

"silent guardians of a wall line which I thought

"I could still recognize here and there,

"in faint streaks of brown,

"shown up by my glasses.

"What a fine position, I thought,

"this height of the fort wall must have been

"for a commandant to survey his line

"of watch stations, and to look out

"for the signals they might send along it."

The romantic view of an explorer

from the beginning of the 20th century.

But the private letters written by soldiers

2,000 years before

tell a different story.

The reality of the wall.

(menacing music)

Danger is never too far from the empire,

but I have never felt it as close as I do now.

Yesterday, I saw the silhouettes of these skin-clad

warriors on a mountain ridge.

They were welded to their horses like monsters.

It was a terrible sight.

Now, I'm in LingHu company,

that means destroy the barbarians.

They gave us that name because of our supposed bravery.

If we ever were brave,

that was a long time ago.

The emptiness of this cruel landscape is unbearable.

The Chinese hated serving on the wall.

The soldiers and farmers constantly faced

the danger of raids,

and the terrible weather conditions in summer

and in winter.

(menacing music)

Tough conditions and poor food

were made worse by homesickness.

(menacing music)

Their letters tell of despair,

the despair of men condemned to fritter away

their lives in this miserable country,

and their bitterness when the emperor

ignores their requests for a new posting.

More and more soldiers desert

to the Xiongnu, the barbarians, the enemy.

The blazing heat of summer,

and the freezing winter storms

take their toll on the wall itself.

It does not, after all,

seem to be made for eternity.

This great construction that the officials hoped

was to be of use for hundreds of generations,

turns out to be an economic disaster,

swallowing massive summers for repairs.

(horses braying)

(men yelling)

The barbarians break through the wall

at its weakest points.

Once again in Northern China,

the villages burn.

More than 1,200 years later,

Genghis Khan would say,

"A wall is only as strong as the men who guard it."

Before setting out on his own campaign

to conquer China.

(climactic music)

(speaking foreign language)

In the capital Chang'An,

the emperor and his retinue gather

to receive the report from the border troops.

They await the commanding general,

returning from the front

with the latest news.

(speaking foreign language)

(stressing music)

It is the year 99 BC.

In the 34 years since the emperor's first

military strike against the Xiongnu,

many battles have been fought,

countless men have been slaughtered,

but the enemy has not been defeated.

The bloodletting continues.

(speaking foreign language)

The Chinese have suffered an overwhelming defeat.

An army of 30,000 men has been annihilated.

(speaking foreign language)

Will the emperor send more troops

against the barbarians?

(stressing music)

The sublime ruler, the son of Heaven,

orders another military expedition.

The general is to gather a force

of 5,000 infantrymen,

and lead them against the Xiongnu.

(stressing music)

The general has no choice.

He must obey.

He will not see the capital city again.

(fateful music)

The expedition ends in disaster.

The 5,000 Chinese soldiers are slaughtered

by the all-powerful army of the barbarians.

(crows squawking)

New armies are sent against the Xiongnu.

Victories follow on from defeat,

but the Chinese never succeed

in supressing the people of the steppes.

Nothing is known of the fate of the general.

When he failed to return to the capital,

emperor Wu Di took his revenge,

by executing his entire family.

(tense drum music)

The horrors of war did not reach Chang'An.

Behind its mighty walls, life continued.

At the Imperial Court,

the changeful history of a powerful empire

was recorded in minute detail.

(quiet flute music)

One of these ancient chronicles remains today.

It is a unique source,

a window into a distant, foreign world.

(quiet flute music)

And the wall?

All the chronicle says about the wall is,

"The Han regained control of the area

"south of the bend of the Yellow River,

"and began to build fortifications,

"repairing the old system of defenses

"that had been set up by the first emperor,

"strengthening the frontier

"along the Yellow River."

(quiet flute music)

The Han Dynasty held power in China

until the year 220 AD,

when it was deposed by a rebellious general.

For centuries, the Han Dynasty

had tried everything to defeat

the threat from the north,

bribery, war, and finally,

the construction of maybe 10,000 kilometers of walls,

but nothing could solve the problem

of the barbarians.

The great construction crumbled,

but successive dynasties would build their own walls

for the next 1,500 years.

They had never been a symbol of strength,

they were about political compromise.

The Chinese could not dominate

the peoples of the steppes with their armies,

and they refused to trade with them as equals.

(compelling music)

So these colossal monuments

were stopped absolutions

to a problem that could never be solved.

No one in China particularly valued the walls,

until the modern age.

It was the astonishment of European explorers

that turned the stone dragon

into the national icon of China.

(compelling music)