Renovation of Southern China Great Wall Kicks OffThousands of workers have been mobilized to repair segments of an ancient Great Wall in south China's Hunan Province.Archeologists have ascertained that the segments of the south China Great Wall in Fenghuang (Phoenix) County in the western part of Hunan Province were built in the Ming Dynasty for the military defense purpose as the Great Wall in north China. The Great Wall in north China was built more than 2,000 years ago and it was renovated by numerous dynasties in the years following the Qin Dynasty (221-207 B.C.), when China's first emperor Qinshihuang ordered the linking of the separated wall sections. Most sections of the Great Wall in the north were rebuilt after the Ming Dynasty (1368--1644). The south China's Great Wall used to meander 190 kilometers in the Wuling Mountain area in Hunan. But most of the wall has collapsed or has been eroded due to its isolation. Some local farmers removed bricks from the wall to build their own cottages. Nowadays, only a small section in Fenghuang County remains. Renovations will be done on 1.5 kilometers of the wall in the first phase, and are expected to eventually restore 10 kilometers for tourism, according Long Chunsheng, a senior county official. Long estimated that the whole project would cost 53 million yuan. The renovation is now under way with building materials such as bluestone and lime mortar are prepared, which are the necessary materials that constituted the original wall. |
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