What broke the Great Wall of China - Juwen Zhang

105,669 views ・ 2024-12-12

TED-Ed


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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According to legend, an emperor long ago declared that he would build
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a great wall spanning thousands of kilometers
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to protect his new empire and ensure his sustained power.
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He ordered many men across China to leave their homes
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and submit to the grueling labor required for its construction.
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As years passed and the wall grew, few returned home.
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Nestled in the foothills of a remote mountain,
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the Mengs and their neighbors, the Jiangs,
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hadn’t yet had to worry about being drafted by the emperor’s soldiers.
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One year, the Mengs grew gourds that flourished along their shared fence.
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One particular gourd crossed the fence and extended into the Jiang’s yard,
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so they cared for it.
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The gourd grew to be the biggest of all.
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At harvest, the Mengs and the Jiangs decided to take equal halves.
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But as they went to split the gourd, something remarkable happened.
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It cracked open to reveal a beautiful baby curled inside,
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smiling up at them.
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They agreed to raise her together
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and named their magical, boundary-breaking daughter, Meng Jiang.
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She grew into a virtuous, accomplished young woman who infused life with joy.
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She cared for her elderly parents and their land with dedication.
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But the surrounding world remained turbulent.
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One day, Meng Jiang stumbled upon a young man hiding in the garden.
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The emperor’s soldiers had come to conscript him into building the wall.
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But he had an elderly mother to care for
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and knew that obeying the soldiers’ orders would mean almost certain death,
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so he escaped.
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Meng Jiang and Fan Xiliang connected instantly,
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and soon enough, they married.
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But their happiness wouldn’t last long.
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When the emperor’s soldiers descended the next time,
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they captured Fan Xiliang.
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For months, she watched the horizon,
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hoping the world would do right and deliver her love back to her safely.
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But he never came.
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And as the air grew frigid, Meng Jiang’s worries only grew,
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so she set out to find him herself.
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Through bitter snow and howling winds, across rivers and mountains,
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she undertook the dangerous journey that many others had been forced to complete.
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Finally, she reached the construction site,
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where thousands of workers toiled, day and night,
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to realize the emperor’s vision.
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Stealing into the fray, Meng Jiang whispered her husband’s name
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to the workers until, eventually, one man’s eyes glimmered with recognition—
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only for him to reveal the tragic news that Fan Xiliang had recently died.
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He was rumored to be buried under the wall alongside many others.
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Heartbroken beyond words, Meng Jiang could only weep.
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As her tears filled the construction halls,
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seeped into the cracks of the wall, and soaked its stone,
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whole portions crumbled and washed away in the flood of her grief.
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Livid, the emperor ordered that the person who’d sabotaged his grand project
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be captured and brought to his palace for punishment.
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But when he beheld the otherworldly beauty and virtue Meng Jiang radiated,
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his plan changed.
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Leering at the devastated widow,
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the emperor instead suggested that she become one of his imperial concubines.
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She had few options, but she realized she could leverage the wretched proposal
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to honor Fan Xiliang and humiliate the emperor.
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She said she agreed—
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but only if the emperor gave her deceased husband a grand funeral
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and that the emperor attend dressed in the traditional mourning attire
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he would wear had Fan Xiliang been his own father.
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The emperor begrudgingly made the arrangements
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and Meng Jiang bid her beloved farewell.
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Finally, with her wish carried out, she refused to either submit to the emperor,
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who now awaited her in his palace, or to face his punishment.
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Instead, she cast herself into the nearby water,
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as all-enveloping as her own tears, never to emerge again.
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She had left an unjust world as mysteriously as she’d entered it.
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But her tears flowed on, a reminder of her virtue and defiance.
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