The Great Wall and other building projects

The move into the north followed the recovery, by one of Shih Huang Ti's generals, of territories formerly lost to the Hsiung-Nu. Previous kingdoms had built walls to protect themselves against attack by the “barbarians.” Shih Huang Ti ordered the repair and extension of these walls. From this command sprang the largest structure built by human hands, the Great Wall of China, which under Ch'in rule (it was later expanded) stretched some 1,500 miles (2,414 kilometers). Eventually it would be even longer. It remains the only manmade object visible from the Moon.

It was said that some 300,000 people worked on the Wall. Thousands died from sickness and starvation. No doubt such slave labor built another of the Ch'in Dynasty's great constructions, a system of three imperial highways. These highways, parts of which survive today, were 300 feet (91.4 meters) wide and stretched some 4,216 miles (6,785 kilometers) in all.

More slave laborers built a palace for Shih Huang Ti. The palace measured 1.5 million square feet (1.39 square meters)—that is, the size of 1,000 average single-family homes in modern-day America, let alone ancient China. Its entrances were equipped with magnets to detect secret weapons; after Shih Huang Ti's death, however, a rebellious general set the palace on fire. Supposedly, it burned for three months.

Aerial view of the Great Wall of China.

AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.

One of the most amazing structures built by Shih Huang Ti, however, was his tomb, or mausoleum. It included a vast network of hallways. The builders used great quantities of mercury to create the illusion of moving rivers and seas inside the tomb. Millennia before the deadly traps seen in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, the builders of Shih Huang Ti's tomb designed the inner room so that anyone who tried to enter it would set off a rain of arrows that would kill them. The tomb, which also contains some 6,000 life-size soldiers and horses, was discovered in 1974. It is one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world.