DBQ Essay: The Great Wall Of China

Thousands of years ago, people started being punished to work on a monster of a project called The Great Wall of China. The Great Wall of China was an inconvenience to the country; even though it was a very famous historical landmark, it was a waste of time, resources, and men. In 221 BCE the Qin dynasty rose to power. Shi Huangdi, who called himself The First Emperor, was the emperor of the dynasty. He started building The Great Wall. He used going to work on the wall as a type of punishment. When he died, the Han dynasty rose to power, and continued building the wall as a defense mechanism. The Great Wall is located in the North of China. It is about 3,000 miles straight, but including going up and down mountains, it is about 6,000 miles long. Creating a wall this long takes a lot of time. It also takes up your resources. And most importantly, it takes people to build it. These are the main reasons that building The Wall was not a good thing. Building The Great Wall of China took a wasteful amount of time. Even though the wall is approximately 6,000 miles long, it should not have taken over 400 years to build (Doc A). Since they had everybody working on the same part …show more content…
Soldiers from the Han dynasty were sent to work on the wall for two to five years (Doc E). All these men didn’t really have to be there, they could have been working in the fields to produce food for the people since nobody was doing that. 300,000 men from the Qin dynasty were sent to work on the wall and guard it. This would split families apart, and a majority of the men would end up dying from starvation or extreme temperatures anyway (Doc E). Most men were forced to move away from their homes and families to work on the wall (Doc F). These men would move away and end up doing so much or so little work that they die there and never get to return