中国长城真的是一个失败之作吗？ [美国媒体]

Was the Great Wall of China really a failure?

中国长城真的是一个失败之作吗？



Patrick Koh, former Government, Consultant, Business Man
Updated Jan 7
No, quite effective.
Looking at overall effectiveness over 2300 to 2700 years, the wall was as effective as it could possibly be. If the walls were not useful, many Kings wont have built them, and the First Emperor would not have spent so much resources to link them up. The costs is astronomical.

不，相当有用。看看这2300-2700年来长城所发挥的作用。如果没用的话，就不会有这么多国王去建造它了，而中国的首个皇帝花了大力气将这些城墙连接起来。成本是天文数字级别的。



How did Genghis Khan breach China Great Wall?
Even the mighty Manchus didn’t want to attack the wall, they get General Wu to collude and that is another story (Transition from Ming to Qing - Wikipedia)

成吉思汗是如何打破中国长城的？即使是强大的满族都不想攻击长城，于是他们勾结吴三桂。

Let me share other aspects.

让我们来看看其他方面。

Size of Troops: How much troops do you think would be needed to secure such a long border. The costs of the troops and supply would be very high, and hard to sustain. The huge number of troops needed to be tied down depriving the emperor from other strategic purpose. It would be so long and porous, and Chinese troops have no idea when or where the barbarians will attack. And enough troops won’t have the time to respond to the right location nor able to stop enemies from escaping. With the wall, only a small number is needed to act as sentry and first response. Reinforcements are then deployed to the danger spots.

军队规模：要用多少军队才能保护这么长的边界。军队和供给成本将会非常高，而且很难持续。这样就占用了大量的军队，使得皇帝无法使用军队实现其他的战略目的。边界那么长，很容易被渗透，中国军队根本不知道蛮人会从哪里开始攻击。即使军人足够多，也没有时间做出反应，或者也无法阻止敌人逃跑。有了长城以后，只需要一小部分的军人作为哨兵，来进行紧急响应。然后增援部队就可以部署到危险地带。



Negating Enemy Advantage: Their superior cavalry was also negated as walls were built at locations that will not favor the use of cavalry or attack. Arrows flying down would be far more dangerous than shooting up. Advanced high power projectiles on the walls would be an added combat advantage, shooting longer distances. So the barbarians would not have an advantage even when they are larger in number.

抵消敌人优势：对方更强的骑兵优势也会被抵消，因为长城建在了不适合骑兵攻击的地点。射下来的弓箭比往上射的弓箭可怕多了。在长城上进行先进的高能投射也会增加战斗优势，攻击更远的目标。所以即使蛮人数量更多，也没有优势。



Even Trump also wants a wall. We shall see if US divisive politics allows and whether it is effective for 2700 years or just 20? Or will it hold the next new tourist record for the most tourists (more than 10 million a year which by the way may cover the material cost of construction in just some decades)

即使是川普都想要建墙，我们等着看美国国内是否能达成共识真的建墙，看看这座墙能维持2700年还是只有20年？或者能成为拥有最多游客的旅游景点？（每年超过1000万游客的话，就能在几十年内收回建筑材料成本）