The Great Wall of the Sui Dynasty

The Great Wall of the Sui Dynasty

The Great Wall of the Sui Dynasty was mainly built for preventing the invasion of nomad nationality Tujue. In Sui Dynasty, numerous labors were requisitioned to repair and build the walls for many times. Most of the times, Sui repaired the walls of the former Dynasties.

Sui Dynasty Unified China Again

In the ruling period of King Zhou Xuan Di, the military power of Northern Zhou was actually controlled by Yan Jian. In 580, King Zhou Xuan Di died and passed his throne to King Zhou Jing Di. In 581, Yan Jian forced the King to give up the throne. Later Yan Jian announced himself the King and established the Sui Dynasty, and he was the King Sui Wen Di. In 589, Sui Wen Di overturned the Chen Dynasty. And then, with the southern dynasties like the Song, Qi Liang and Chen were all dying out. Sui Dynasty unified China again.

 
 

Walls of the Sui Dynasty

Sui Dynasty gradually consolidated its rule all over China, restored from the civil wall and began to thrive, but in the meanwhile, the nomad groups Tujue began to invade its border and the harassed more and more frequently. To prevent the invasion of Tujue, Sui Dynasty repaired and built walls for several times. The following are walls built in Sui Dynasty.

In 581, King Sui Wen Di ordered Jinhu, a desendant of South Hun, to build walls. The construction was limited in 20days.

In 581, King Sui Wen Di ordered to repair the eastern parts of the walls of the Northern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasty.

In 585, Sui ordered about 30,000 labors to repair the wall extending from the eastern bank of the Yellow river to now Suide of Shannxi Province. This wall ran about 350km.In 586, Sui thoroughly repaired its walls in 20 days. To protect the borderline, Sui built over 10 fortresses along the wall in the east part located in now Henshan County of Shanxi Province.

In 587, more than 100,000 labors were requisitioned to fix up the wall in 20 days. The starting point and destination were not mentioned in history recordIn 607, Sui ordered more than 1,000,000 labors to build the wall which ran east from now Yulin of Shanxi Province to the Bank of Hunhe Rive. The construction of the wall was limited in 10days.

In July 608, Sui ordered about 200,000 labors to build the walls which started to east at now Xinning of Qinhai Province.

There is no record about the destination of this wall.Sui Dynasty requisitioned numerous labors to repair and build the walls for many times. Since Sui mostly was repairing the old walls of the former dynasties, it did not take long for each construction. The construction scale of the great wall in Sui Dynasty is not comparable with the Qin and Han Dynasty.