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Anita explores why the Great Wall of China is called the World’s Longest Cemetery. Thousands of people were known to have died, helping to build the wall and explore why many dead bodies would be buried near or even under the wall.
To learn more about Are There Dead Bodies Inside The Great Wall Of China?
👉 https://abusonadustyroad.com/dead-bodies-inside-great-wall-of-china/ 👈
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0:01
hi this is Anita from the dusty roads
0:04
podcast sometimes when I'm looking for
0:06
information about my blogs or something
0:08
to write about my blogs I come across
0:10
some really what I consider to be some
0:13
interesting and fun questions and one of
0:16
those questions that I recently came
0:18
about and I answered in one of my blogs
0:20
is are there dead bodies inside the
0:22
Great Wall of China now I have been to
0:25
the Great Wall of China and when I was
0:27
there I honestly never really thought
0:29
much about the this question or about
0:31
much about the wall or how the wall was
0:33
made or about the people that were
0:35
constructing the wall I was just in such
0:37
awe when I was you know there and just
0:40
seeing the wall itself and walking the
0:42
wall and traveling the wall and seeing
0:44
how when you go to the wall outside of
0:46
Beijing there how you can just see it
0:48
for miles and miles and miles you can
0:50
just keep on walking and walking and
0:51
walking and truly if you have not been
0:53
to the Great Wall of China it is quite
0:55
an experience to go there and to see the
0:59
Great Wall of China
1:00
but today I want to talk a little bit
1:02
about the workers of the wall because
1:05
the Great Wall of China has also been
1:06
tered by many as the longest cemetery on
1:10
Earth you know there's no exact number
1:13
of the number of people who died during
1:16
the walls
1:18
construction it's been estimated
1:20
anywhere between 400,000 to one million
1:24
people and it could even be more than
1:26
that because you have to remember this
1:29
war has this wall has been used to keep
1:32
the so-called barbarians out of China
1:34
for centuries so there was fighting
1:36
along that wall so there could be many
1:38
many more bodies there than what we
1:42
know what we know is there are no
1:45
records of the total number of people
1:48
who worked on the wall and who died
1:51
building the wall that there was no
1:53
records
1:54
kept so I want to talk a little bit
1:57
about the why the great wall and why
2:02
people could have died during the time
2:04
of the building of the great wall and
2:07
why it can also be called the longest
2:09
cemetery on
2:12
Earth first of all would be the attack
2:15
by the Waring States the Great Wall was
2:18
built to protect China from the Waring
2:20
factions and States especially those
2:23
coming down from the
2:24
north the building of the Great Wall did
2:27
not stop these attacks so many people
2:29
would have died just simply trying to
2:31
defend the wall you know you could
2:33
imagine it be like anything you know
2:35
somebody's building a wall somebody
2:37
wants to attack you they're going to
2:38
come and they're going to try to you
2:39
know attack you at where they consider
2:40
to be your weakest point or where maybe
2:42
you're building the wall they're going
2:44
to try to enter and come in over that
2:46
wall so there would have been a lot of
2:49
um you know deaths happening just by the
2:51
defense of the wall
2:53
itself the other reason was that it was
2:56
very very poor working conditions
3:00
would have been extremely challenging
3:02
for the those that were working on the
3:05
wall many people would have died just
3:08
from these very poor working conditions
3:11
you know there was not enough food you a
3:14
lot of the workers were given just
3:16
enough food to keep them alive and not
3:19
to have complete starvation so many of
3:22
them simply would not have had enough
3:23
food and would have just starved to
3:26
death there would have been a lot of
3:28
rocks falling on the workers you know
3:30
have to remember that they're build
3:31
taking these massive rocks to be able to
3:33
build these walls and there probably
3:35
would have been many workers that would
3:36
have died just by a rock falling on them
3:39
that they would not have been able to
3:42
survive many of them died from Pure
3:45
exhaustion and
3:47
disease they were worked very very hard
3:50
on the wall the workers on the Great
3:53
Wall of
3:54
China understood and knew that it was a
3:57
terrible place to work
4:00
and that they were working in appalling
4:02
working conditions
4:04
even terrible for the time that they
4:07
were living there were several types of
4:10
workers that were actually on the wall
4:12
and working on the wall and many times
4:15
we don't think about all these workers
4:18
but according to historical data the
4:20
Great Wall comprised of three groups
4:23
mainly soldiers Ordinary People and
4:27
criminals soldiers were one of the main
4:30
groups who worked on the Great Wall
4:32
during 500 to
4:35
555 ad the soldiers were ordered to work
4:39
on the wall and that so in other words
4:42
they were being forced to work on the
4:43
wall they maybe didn't want to work on
4:45
the wall but the government was
4:47
essentially forcing them and telling
4:48
them they needed to work on the wall you
4:50
know many of these soldiers came from
4:52
other parts of China and so you know
4:54
they'd feel homesick they'd feel lonely
4:56
and maybe they were forced to go there
4:57
maybe they did something wrong so they
5:00
were given this terrible assignment that
5:01
they had to go work on the wall you know
5:03
it's been estimated during the Chi
5:05
Dynasty that at least 300,000 soldiers
5:09
were part of the Great Wall construction
5:11
crew and it took them nine years to
5:13
finish this section of or the wall that
5:15
they were working on and of those
5:17
300,000 you can bet that many of those
5:20
soldiers would have
5:22
died on the construction of the
5:25
wall you know these soldiers many of
5:27
them as I said before came from other
5:29
parts of China and China wanted them to
5:32
feel at home so many times the court
5:35
ordered that some of the widows to marry
5:38
these soldiers so the soldiers could
5:40
feel like they felt at home and they had
5:42
a family there there were ordinary
5:45
people who worked on the wall you know
5:47
millions of ordinary Chinese citizens
5:51
were ordered to work on the Great Wall
5:53
many of these ordinary citizens were
5:55
peasants they were poor and that
5:58
millions of peasants were required to
6:00
help build the
6:02
wall then the section of the Sue wall
6:04
from five that was built from 581 to 68
6:08
which is near Inner Mongolia at least 1
6:11
million men were required to help build
6:13
the wall this was a significant burden
6:16
on the ordinary people because many
6:19
times almost all the men were forced to
6:21
make the Great Wall you know that even
6:24
children were asked to join this
6:25
construction and what this meant is they
6:27
were not able to really tend to their
6:29
farms and their fields and their other
6:31
things at home and so you know in the
6:33
process many of their families might
6:35
have been starving or their Farms or
6:37
other things were not being taken care
6:38
of because they were essentially being
6:41
forced to be able to work on the great
6:45
wall and this became quite a problem
6:48
women also at this time did not want to
6:51
have a son because they were afraid that
6:53
if they had a son or they had a male
6:55
child that that child would then be
6:57
forced to work on wall Construction
7:00
because many women lost their husbands
7:02
while they were working on the Great
7:04
Wall so you can imagine the burden that
7:07
this had upon the ordinary peasants and
7:09
the ordinary people that it was a lot of
7:12
these ordinary people that ended up
7:14
having to work on this wall and it
7:17
became a great burden for them for their
7:19
lives and for their families and for
7:21
their Farms that you know the wives had
7:24
to try to you know work on the farms
7:26
take care of the home take care of the
7:28
children and their children and husbands
7:31
were also being forced to work on this
7:33
wall you know so the Great Wall of China
7:37
caused Great hardships to The Peasants
7:39
their families there was famine there
7:41
was poverty and there was many other
7:44
issues going on that happened so if you
7:47
calculate the human cost of the Great
7:50
Wall it was not just the workers but it
7:53
was also their families that they left
7:55
behind that you know that made this wall
7:58
extremely costly and we have no record
8:01
of how many of their families actually
8:04
died of famine or starvation or other
8:06
things because their husbands were
8:07
working on the wall the last group which
8:11
many people have heard about is the
8:12
criminals and how the criminals worked
8:14
on the Great Wall of China many
8:16
criminals were forced to work on the
8:18
Great Wall the labor was a punishment
8:20
for them and their crimes during the
8:23
daytime many of these criminals were
8:25
ordered to take turns patrolling and
8:26
guarding the wall that at night they had
8:29
to build the wall they didn't get much
8:31
sleep or much food many of them just
8:34
died from Pure exhaustion and hunger and
8:37
according to laws of the time the
8:39
criminals were required to serve um at
8:42
least four years of hard
8:44
labor for the Great Wall of China so
8:48
many of the workers you know would have
8:50
just maybe have died there you know the
8:52
going back to the original question are
8:54
there dead bodies buried inside the wall
8:58
I don't think there's dead bodies buried
8:59
inside the wall because you know putting
9:01
a dead body between two stones would
9:03
actually make sure that eventually that
9:06
body would decompose and it would really
9:08
hurt the structure of the wall itself
9:11
they could be buried under some stones
9:13
or parts of the wall like in the center
9:15
part of the wall um but more than likely
9:18
they were probably buried near the wall
9:19
somewhere near the wall there's probably
9:21
a lot of dead bodies buried you know in
9:24
the wall itself they would have
9:26
understood that you know the body would
9:27
decompose and the structure would have
9:29
hurt the wall or they would have had to
9:31
Simply rebuild that part of the wall but
9:34
they probably would not
9:37
have actually put them inside that wall
9:39
there's no evidence at all to show that
9:42
but certainly there will be a lot of
9:44
dead bodies around the wall maybe even
9:46
under the wall maybe even under a big
9:48
stone slab or or something like that but
9:51
it's not like that they were buried
9:53
right in the wall structure itself but
9:56
around the area because those as I said
10:00
before those decomposing bodies would
10:02
have hurt the overall structure of that
10:05
wall this is Anita from Dusty
10:09
roads podcast and we hope that you've
10:12
enjoyed this that you will join our
10:13
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10:15
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10:19
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10:21
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10:23
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10:26
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10:31
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10:33
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