Original subtitles

NARRATOR: For 3,000 years, this vast land, China,

has been defined by one incredible structure,

a giant wonder of the world.

The Great Wall of China.

The Wall helped civilisations to rise,

dynasties to dominate,

trade to flourish.

The Great Wall has become the history of China, ancient and modern.

In a special aerial journey,

we are going to fly the length of the Great Wall of China,

covering a breath-taking 1,500 miles,

following in the footsteps of emperors and soldiers,

traders and invaders...

..to reveal how this Great Wall

shaped one of history's greatest civilisations.

From the Yellow Sea in the east to the far distant deserts of the west,

our spectacular bird's-eye view

uncovers China's hidden secrets,

from Genghis Khan to Kublai Khan,

from Confucius to Mao Zedong...

..as the Great Wall shows how China advanced as an ambitious superpower,

destined to be the richest country on earth.

We explore how this magnificent man-made monument,

that cost a million lives to build,

is now the powerful image of the world's biggest nation.

It took 14 Chinese dynasties

almost 2,500 years

to build the Great Wall of China.

All of them trying to keep out the Mongol invaders

who continued to threaten successive generations.

On our journey along the Great Wall,

we'll be travelling 1,500 miles

from the Yellow Sea in the east,

across northern China

to the edge of the Gobi Desert in the west...

..as we tell the extraordinary story

of the most famous monument in the world.

Our journey begins at Old Dragon's Head,

on the coast of the Yellow Sea,

just 180 miles from Beijing.

It's 5:00am.

A summer dawn on China's Yellow Sea.

Here, local people are already out fishing.

..doing what their ancestors have done for centuries.

In the 16th century, Japanese pirates raided this coastline...

..but the all-powerful Ming Dynasty soon put a stop to all that.

For three centuries,

the mighty Ming Empire was hugely successful

in keeping China's borders secure.

In the distance, you can see exactly how they did it.

Here, at Old Dragon's Head,

standing guard on this shoreline,

is the start of this iconic monument,

the Great Wall of China.

Standing defiant and impressive,

the Great Wall.

More than 2,300 years in the making.

(MAJESTIC MUSIC)

It looks ageless,

rock-solid.

But don't be fooled -

surprisingly, some parts of this section are only 30 years old.

The 1579 original section of wall

was re-built in 1987,

after the coastline was bombed in a trade dispute with Europe in 1900.

It was re-built for tourists, both foreign and Chinese.

These days, China's fast-growing middle classes

want to celebrate their ancient Great Wall heritage

and as the nation's wealth increases,

more and more want to holiday

by this cleverly restored World Heritage site.

Two centuries before Christ,

the Emperor Qin,

who gave China its name and coined the term 'Great Wall',

commanded his subjects to swim here in the Yellow Sea,

in search of an elusive drug that he believed would give him immortality.

He never found this mythical elixir

but his legacy lives on in this world-famous monument.

Leaving Old Dragon's Head and the start of the Great Wall behind,

our journey will follow the Wall inland, away from the coast.

Then our route will snake over dozens of mountain ranges,

just north of China's capital, Beijing,

before crossing the mighty Yellow River

and through to the so-called Heart of the Dragon

at Zhenbeitai.

Beyond, the wall reaches further west to the edge of the Gobi Desert,

ending at Jiayuguan,

1,500 miles from here,

the same distance as London to Moscow.

Coming up, we begin the second part of our journey

as we head inland 6 miles from the sea.

As the Wall faces the first

of many spectacular climbs into the mountains...

..we discover the real reason

that over a third of the Great Wall has already been destroyed.

After leaving the coast behind,

we travel west 150 miles from the Yellow Sea,

just 85 miles north of Beijing,

getting our first Great Wall glimpse

of the lush, green mountains of Gubeikou,

whose name translates as 'Ancient North Pass'.

Here, there's a memorable location

that boasts its own unique claim to fame.

Two centuries ago, some very special visitors

got their first view of the Great Wall from here.

In fact, this picturesque spot

provided the Western world with the first-ever dramatic images

of the Great Wall,

long before cameras had even been invented.

And it was all thanks to one inquisitive British soldier.

Here, in 1793,

Britain's first-ever trade delegation came across the wall

and they were all astonished by it.

Ambassador Earl George Macartney

and his entourage,

representing King George III,

camped here on their way to meet the emperor

in his northern summer residence.

Many of them wrote accounts in their diaries,

overcome by the incredible scale of what they saw.

And one of them, British Army engineer Captain William Parish,

became one of the first foreigners to measure, draw and calculate

how the towers and walls were actually built.

Captain Parish then painted a watercolour

of the view he saw from Gubeikou,

with the Wall snaking off dramatically

over Crouching Tiger Mountain in the distance.

But he could not have imagined the impact it would have back home.

On returning to Britain,

his painting was reproduced

in newspapers, magazines and books across Europe...

..causing a sensation

as the first detailed picture of the Great Wall seen outside China.

It remained the defining image of the Great Wall

until photography emerged almost a century later.

Almost 50 miles on,

as the Wall rises and falls over more mountains,

there's painful proof

of how centuries of damage have scarred and destroyed the Great Wall.

This is our first glimpse of what's known as 'Wild Wall',

here in Liuwenyu.

Nature and time have taken their toll.

The weighty stones of the Great Wall have crumbled

and become part of the natural landscape,

ground down by winter frosts, summer heat, earthquakes...

..and many of nature's greener invaders.

Much of the Great Wall is now in this condition.

In the last 370 years,

since the Wall was completed by the Ming,

more than one-third of the Great Wall has been destroyed.

In the 20th century,

the Wall suffered man-made damage from wars and revolution.

Many sections close to Beijing were severely damaged

in the wars with Japan in the 1930s.

These solid 16th-century towers

still proved useful cover during these wars...

..but always at the cost of the Great Wall.

We take a detour from our main journey

to visit a separate section.

400 miles north-west,

we find the earliest part of the Great Wall.

We're looking for an ancient section of the Wall few have ever seen.

These silent mountains

are near the remote northern border between China and Mongolia.

Long-forgotten and hidden away,

we discover China's oldest remaining section of Great Wall.

Tourists never make it here.

Aside from local goat farmers,

no-one visits this mysterious wall.

And there it is.

Majestic.

Caught in the timeless golden sunrise,

the original first Wall,

built an incredible 2,300 years ago,

looking a bit like Hadrian's Wall.

But the Chinese built it nearly 400 years before the Roman wall,

that was designed was designed

to keep those north of the border out of England.

But its function here was very similar -

designed on a giant scale to keep out the marauding Mongol horsemen

who threatened China in 300 BC.

From around 2,500 years ago,

kings defended their states from raiding nomads

with long walls like this

but when Emperor Qin united China for the first time

in the 2nd century BC,

he also united multiple neighbouring walls

to form what he coined 'the Great Wall'.

Since then, like the Wall itself,

China's history has been shaped by bold Mongol invaders

confronting ambitious dynasty wall-builders,

a military arm-wrestle for control, over 23 centuries.

Between 300 BC and 1644,

more than a dozen different Chinese dynasties built extensive walls.

This led to a network of long walls

that resembles London's Tube map.

So the Great Wall is in fact

a collection of as many as 16 separate walls,

spread across northern China.

The total length of all the walls, including the many subsections,

is a remarkable 13,000 miles long,

half the circumference of the Earth.

The greatest of all Mongol invaders

was warrior-conqueror Genghis Khan.

Khan and his sons

were the first foreigners to defeat and occupy the entire Chinese Empire

in the 13th century.

For almost 160 years,

they ruled China's biggest empire ever

with their Yuan Dynasty,

which also included all of Mongolia.

The mighty Ming finally overthrew the Yuan Dynasty

and re-installed Chinese rule in the 14th century.

But the Mongol threat cast a long shadow over China,

forcing the Ming to fortify their borders.

They were the last dynasty to build the final, most comprehensive wall

across northern China,

completing the longest wall ever -

at 5,600 miles, twice the width of the USA.

Returning to our journey along the main Great Wall,

just north of Beijing,

we're now about 160 miles from the coast.

We head higher into the mountains.

It's easy to see

why the Great Wall was such a barrier to Mongol invaders from the north.

Now restored, the tourists replace the Chinese soldiers

who once defended these impressive ramparts.

But there's an important story here

of how, 500 years ago,

Mongol invaders forced a dramatic burst of wall-building

after they nearly conquered Beijing itself,

and it changed the entire shape of the Great Wall.

This spectacular section of the Wall was constructed

by the most famous and ruthless of all the Great Wall builders...

..Commander Qi Jiguang.

The Great Wall master builder is honoured in this marble frieze.

His amazing story shows us why China so often built walls

as the solution to the constant threat of Mongol invasion.

Mongol horsemanship and warrior skills

meant they could ride easily into Chinese territory...

..to plunder the valuable silks, tea and gunpowder

that China was famous for.

In 1550, Beijing was at the heart of the Ming Dynasty

when a 10,000-strong Mongol attack left the city under siege.

The shock of this immediate Mongol threat

brought a swift response from the powerful Ming Dynasty.

Qi Jiguang was given unlimited cash and resources

to do what the Ming knew worked best...

..build more fortifying walls,

bigger and better than ever.

Over 20 years,

the commander built hundreds of watchtowers on every peak,

to house troops and supplies.

He created wider ramparts to connect all these new towers

and designed the first sophisticated signalling system

to warn against advancing Mongol troops.

For the first time in 2,000 years,

messages could now be transported along the Wall itself

and across the whole nation.

Yet despite this key role and visionary work,

when his imperial supporter died suddenly,

Commander Qi fell out of favour with the new regime.

Aged 55, he was banished south,

never to see his Great Wall again.

Yet it was his vision that helped preserve and protect the Ming Dynasty

until 1644.

Even today, the evidence of his Great Wall ambition

can be seen across the distant, rolling mountains,

here in what the Chinese call the Wall Without End.

Travelling 80 miles west,

in another beautiful valley lies the magnificent Wall at Huanghuacheng.

Look closely at the crafted quality of the brickwork here.

So solid and compact,

it's hard to believe these ramparts have stood here for 500 years.

But this is not re-built tourist Wall -

it's the original work of a master craftsman

and his story, in the life of the Wall, is a tragic one.

The ancient craft of wall-building

offers a unique insight into Chinese culture.

Thousands of wall-building families were imported here for generations

to devote themselves to building this imposing wall.

Many were dedicated to their task,

inspired by the great Chinese philosopher Confucius.

500 years BC,

China adopted Confucius's teachings

and his ideas of perfectionism, caution, justice,

kindness, sincerity

and above all, dedication.

But for the man in charge of the Wall here,

chief wall-builder Cai,

his perfectionism, his cautious, careful attention to detail

and commitment to the cause

were to be his downfall, according to local legend.

His Beijing bosses warned

his team's rate of wall-building was consistently too slow.

A year later, when Cai hadn't speeded up

and his rate of wall construction remained slower than others',

he was removed from the job

and executed.

Years later, destructive rainstorms caused extensive land-slips

and damaged most of the Wall in this region

but Cai's section of the wall remained solid.

Cai was posthumously pardoned

and commemorated on a stone tablet,

which you can still see today inside this tower.

In Chinese culture,

keeping good relationships is of the highest priority.

It's the vital key to success in business,

social and public life.

Losing favour, especially with those in power,

means losing everything -

and it's a recurring theme in China's history,

from the first emperor

to the revolutionary founder of modern China, Mao Zedong.

Ahead, we explore China's oldest railway station

and discover why the busiest section of the Great Wall

attracts 11 million visitors a year.

Continuing our journey, we are now just 40 miles north of Beijing,

approaching a famous part of the Wall

that welcomes up to 65,000 tourists a day.

This is the Badaling section of the Great Wall.

With a high-speed bullet train station right on site,

this is the Great Wall at its most accessible.

Each year, 11 million visitors from around the world

make Badaling the most popular spot on the Great Wall.

This is the very first section of wall to ever open to tourists,

back in 1957.

Badaling certainly has its fair share of monumental history.

This is the oldest surviving train station in China,

built by Zhan Tianyou, father of China's railroads.

Born into a family of tea traders who fell into poverty,

Tianyou's father recognised the power of education

and sent him to school,

where he discovered his passion for engineering.

After studying at Yale,

he returned from America

and in 1905, he became the first engineer

to build a Chinese railroad unsupervised by European expertise.

Today's bullet trains make the journey from Beijing

in as little as 20 minutes,

which explains why Badaling is such a popular destination for tourists

looking for the quickest way

to see one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

Engineer Tianyou wasn't the only American connection at Badaling,

as it was here in 1972

that China first welcomed a US president - Richard Nixon.

After the Revolution of 1949,

which led to the foundation of the People's Republic of China,

its new leader, Chairman Mao,

closed the country to outsiders.

But it was here, on top of the Great Wall,

the very symbol of China's historic aversion to foreigners,

that Mao introduced his nation to Nixon -

and to the world.

Since then, three more US presidents and some 500 world leaders

have visited the Great Wall,

including Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1986.

It's the perfect backdrop

for China's grand entrance onto the international stage.

Today, China and the US are battling it out

to be the dominant global superpower,

with China swiftly catching up as the second-biggest economy on earth.

A measure of its ambition

is the world's deepest and largest underground bullet train station,

being built right here in Badaling

for 2022.

Even the Great Wall isn't immune to China's high-speed modernisation.

Remaining true to its extraordinary history,

China is building its newest, greatest station

500 metres below its oldest.

We leave Badaling and travel on 30 miles.

Peering through the mists of this wild mountain...

..it may be hard to believe

that sections of the Great Wall

were constructed along these perilous peaks,

4.5 centuries ago,

a dizzying 1,000 metres above sea level.

This is perhaps the most recognisable section of the Great Wall,

here at Jiankou.

Although not far away,

these treacherous ramparts

don't attract the same number of visitors as Badaling.

You may recognise it from postcards and coffee table books.

(UPLIFTING MUSIC)

With the help of local peasants,

troops and their families were stationed

all along these dangerous cliffs

to build and then man the Wall and its watchtowers.

It's thanks to their efforts and sacrifice

that we can still enjoy this glorious view today.

Could those wall-builders, all those years ago,

have ever imagined their work would be seen across the world?

(UPLIFTING MUSIC)

But within China,

the Wall hasn't always been appreciated.

During the Cultural Revolution under Mao, from 1966 to his death in 1976,

large sections of the Wall were neglected.

In his mission to propel China into the future,

Mao Zedong declared war on what he called the 'Four Olds' -

old custom, old culture, old habits

and old ideas.

It was in this period that the Wall was relegated as an irrelevance.

There were even stories of people dismantling the Wall,

in order to re-use its bricks.

With extreme levels of poverty during this time,

it's no surprise

that the desperate Chinese people resorted to such drastic measures.

Fast-forward to 2020

and the Wall is under construction again,

this time under the watchful eye of Chinese conservationists.

After decades of falling into disrepair,

a new project aims to preserve this wild section of Wall.

Workers today are using the same techniques and materials

as their ancestors.

They're even using such unlikely ingredients

as sticky rice in mortar.

The Great Wall remains a passion project for this nation.

But whether it has provided protection or building materials,

its purpose has always been the same -

to serve and protect its people.

Now it's the people's turn to serve and protect their Great Wall.

We're now over 250 miles away

from the start of our journey on the coast of the Yellow Sea,

in Laiyuan County.

Here, in these remote hills,

are some of the best-preserved sections of Great Wall.

But we're a long way from the tourist buzz of Beijing and Badaling.

In this provincial corner of China,

we find a land lost in time.

Local farmers still live and work right here, beside the Great Wall,

as their ancestors did when they manned the towers.

Built in just three years in the 16th century,

this section of Wall too

was a reaction to the threat of the Mongols to the Ming Empire.

The soldiers worked in shifts,

manning the towers 24 hours a day,

their eyes always on the lookout for northern invaders.

It was their job to clear the forests around the Wall

in order to keep visibility high,

ready at any time to set off smoke signals, tower by tower,

as a warning.

On mornings like this,

there's a special atmosphere.

The sight of the Great Wall at dawn

remains as incredible today

as it must have been centuries ago.

And yet the Wall has a darker secret.

It's been described as 'the long graveyard',

having claimed countless lives,

perhaps as many as a million.

It stands as a record

to the devotion and perseverance of the Chinese people

and their nation.

For the soldiers who dedicated their life to protecting China,

to see the Wall in the spectacular morning sun...

..the mighty monument must have seemed incredible.

When soldiers were stationed on the Wall,

they had to rely on their wives and families

to bring them food and supplies from the villages while they were on duty.

Without the support of their families,

the soldiers never would have been able to build the Wall.

Nowadays, the farmers that still live here

are like a time capsule of China's agricultural past,

still using century-old techniques.

Despite only 15% of its land being arable,

China has 200 million farms.

Most of them are small, family-run farms like this,

typically around a quarter of an acre each.

And yet today, China feeds over a fifth of all humans on earth.

But in 1958, Mao's Great Leap Forward,

which aimed to modernise China's agricultural sector,

left millions starving in the Great Famine of 1959.

These last remaining farming families

have seen a lot of change over the last century.

The number of farming households

has decreased by over 70% in the last decade alone.

Thanks to the hard work of those soldiers so many years ago,

these robust limestone towers

remain in use.

Today they provide shelter for this farmer's goat herd,

rather than the Ming's imperial troops.

Despite the fast-paced development of modern China

and as many of the young move to China's modern mega-cities,

here, the way of life remains the same.

(GOAT BLEATS)

(BLEATS)

(GOATS BLEAT)

Now we're coming to the end of the stone-wall section of the Great Wall.

Just over a quarter of the way along our journey,

we're about to discover a very different kind of Great Wall.

Channelling through Inner Mongolia,

this is rammed-earth wall.

This is not the Great Wall seen in films or TV.

Made using compacted soil,

it may be surprising to see that this Wall - and its watchtowers too -

have stood the test of time.

Two-thirds of the Great Wall of China were constructed in this way.

As we pass through, we continue to travel west,

discovering a new Great Wall,

less renowned but still impressive.

On the next stage of our journey, we discover

where the mighty Great Wall meets the spectacular Yellow River

and uncover a disaster that killed nearly 2 million Chinese people.

We're now 400 miles from our start point in the east.

We're climbing down from the mountain ridges north of Beijing

and following the wall westwards

into this great plateau across Inner Mongolia.

Out here, the Ming were a long way

from their traditional building material of stone.

Not to be deterred,

they found an alternative.

This wall was made using a traditional method of construction

which compacts wet soil within a wooden frame,

leaving it to bake in the roasting sun.

The result is surprisingly sturdy.

400 years later

and it still stands strong.

Today, Inner Mongolia is a region in the People's Republic of China

and has the largest ethnically Mongolian population in the world...

..outnumbering even the country of Mongolia.

It was from here, in eastern Inner Mongolia,

that the Mongols spread across China under Genghis Khan.

In the 20th century,

the Chinese people were divided by civil war

but the Great Wall in this region saw the country uniting once again,

against a new threat.

This time, it was the Japanese trying to invade.

They had already managed to seize and occupy

the territory north of this border...

..and in 1931,

this ancient Great Wall...

..served as the barricade that kept them at bay.

30 miles further along the wall,

the influence of Ancient China collides with another powerful force.

This Christian village can be seen to the right of the Great Wall,

an unexpected meeting of East and West.

When French missionaries came to China in the 16th century,

the Ming Dynasty that had built the Wall

had already fallen and been replaced by the Qing Dynasty.

The new Chinese emperor

ordered the missionaries to map the Great Wall for him

in 1708.

It was to become the earliest documented map of the Wall,

which has survived to this day.

The drawings were made just under 70 years after the Wall was abandoned

and they show us the disintegration of the Wall.

A recent survey suggests that up to a third of the Wall no longer exists.

But we wouldn't have known this

without the work of those Christian missionaries

as a point of reference.

Nearly two centuries later, in 1899,

there was an anti-Christian rebellion.

The Boxer Rebellion saw organised, wide-scale attacks

on Christians and their monuments.

This church fell victim to the uprising.

It was set on fire and almost destroyed.

(BELL RINGS)

Despite this troubled history, though,

Christianity still continues to thrive in China.

(BELL RINGS)

Today, estimates of the number of Christian Chinese

range between 90 million and 120 million

and it is predicted that by 2030,

China will have the world's largest Christian population.

(CONGREGATION PRAYS IN LOCAL LANGUAGE)

Here in this village,

this church stands side-by-side

with the most commanding monument of Chinese culture,

the Great Wall.

Like China itself, the Great Wall

has both resisted and given in to invasion over the centuries.

Outsiders have continually tried to impose their ideals

and threaten Chinese traditions.

Here, the villagers have learned

to live contentedly with that culture clash.

Travelling further west, we reach the Yellow Earth plateau.

In this area, the land is made up of soft sediment,

blown over from the Gobi Desert,

which has collected here for thousands of years.

Most of the Great Wall in this region

has been destroyed by the elements.

But the locals have made the most

of some of the Great Wall ruins that remain,

such as this walled fortress that has been transformed into a farm.

Farmers in this region have used clever techniques

to make the most of the fertile soil here,

even terracing the land around abandoned watchtowers

to grow crops.

Now we're following the Wall back in time

to discover the origins of China.

For the first time on our journey,

the Wall meets a giant of China's landscape.

(IMPOSING MUSIC)

As the Nile has for Egypt,

the mighty Yellow River

has been dubbed the cradle of Chinese civilisation.

This waterway is often known as the Mother River.

It is the life-giver of this landscape.

Recorded history traces the start of Chinese civilisation

back to the Yellow River.

In fact, Confucius himself

is said to have been born in a village on its waterfront.

As agriculture developed,

the farms on this land were able to feed more people,

sustaining larger and larger communities.

But there was also more and more to protect

and so walls were built...

..first around homes and farms,

then towns and cities...

..and finally around whole regions and nations,

protecting what was inside from the threat of the outside.

At this section of the Yellow River, known as Old Ox Bend,

the extraordinary landscape converges with the Great Wall.

At the very tip of the ox's horn,

there's an imposing hilltop watchtower,

built in 1467,

which is strategically placed.

There are stories of how ancient humans have shaped this river...

..building canals to divert the river into the sea

and protect their villages...

..using the river but protecting themselves from its dangers.

Stretching almost 3,500 miles,

the waters of the Yellow River also have an immense power to destroy.

A catastrophic flood in 1887

killed nearly 2 million people...

..and brought imperial China to its knees.

The Mandate From Heaven,

which was the foundation of China's imperial rule,

was called into question by the devastating flood

and as a result,

in 1912, the Chinese Republic was formed.

The advance of China continues

as ancient ways of life are lost

and Chinese society evolves.

All the while,

this Great Wall watchtower looks out over China's Yellow River,

the birthplace of this mighty nation.

Just ahead, we reveal how the Great Wall helped trade to flourish

and paved the way for the famous Ming vases.

The Great Wall and the dragon are both icons of Chinese history.

They have both come to symbolise wealth and protection.

We have now followed the Wall from Old Dragon's Head,

snaking halfway across China to this midway point,

known as the Heart of the Dragon,

on the outskirts of the city of Yulin.

Here at Zhenbeitai,

during the Ming's empire,

this fortress was the backdrop to a change in tactics

to defend the country.

Before the Ming Dynasty,

the Mongols had ruled over the whole of China

as the Yuan Dynasty, from 1279 until 1368.

It was they who unlocked the great potential of continental trade.

Under the Mongol Empire, indigo from Iran was transported into China

and the resulting blue-and-white porcelain

became so iconic that it inherited the name of the nation -

china.

Then came the Ming, who refined this craft

and created the world-renowned Ming vase.

But they also re-invented the way in which the empire traded.

They build huge fortresses, like Zhenbeitai,

an unmissable symbol of China's might and wealth.

It was in the horse tea markets

that took place in this fortress in the 1550s

that the Ming realised the power of commerce.

Not only did trade create wealth for the country -

favourable trade deals with their northern enemies

created peace.

For centuries, China continued like this,

masterfully in control of its growing economy.

Today, on this battlement,

we see the people of Yulin practising ancient martial arts.

Tai Chi, though a fighting style,

is based on the principles of Yin and Yang

and a deep belief that all things are made up of opposites

that can come to exist in perfect harmony.

Defence and commerce,

fighting and trading -

balancing these apparent opposites

was an essential strategy for China's rulers.

Like Tai Chi,

Zhenbeitai is not what it first appears to be.

It's not a battleground

but a marketplace.

The art of Tai Chi is partly about self-defence

but it is primarily about control over the self

and achieving balance.

By the late 16th century,

China as a nation could certainly be said to have mastered this idea,

keeping control of its borders

and its economy.

For the next 200 years,

goods were traded peacefully all along the Great Wall.

China had what many European powers wanted -

silks, tea, china -

but increasingly,

these trade partners had little to offer China in return,

except the highly lucrative but illegal drug opium.

But with growing mass addiction in China

after Britain turned to illegally smuggling the drug,

tensions escalated, leading to the Opium Wars,

which lasted until 1860.

The Chinese, who invented gunpowder,

were eventually defeated by their very own creation

at the hands of their former European trading partners,

who then dominated the next 100 years of international trade.

By the 1900s, floods, civil unrest and poor trade deals

meant China's grip over its empire had started to weaken.

Building great walls was no longer enough

to keep China protected from the outside world.

When Chairman Mao came into power in 1949,

there had been decades of civil conflict

between the Communists and the Nationalists.

China was one of the world's poorest nations.

Under Mao,

almost three decades of failed initiatives to modernise the country

followed.

When new leader Deng Xiaoping came into power,

it finally brought a new era of Chinese prosperity.

Deng Xiaoping opened up China to foreign investment

by setting up special economic zones in select cities.

60 years later and the tables have turned.

850 million Chinese people have been lifted out of poverty.

The good fortune of the dragon has re-awakened in modern China.

We're nearing the edge of the Gobi Desert,

travelling west over 300 miles from the hubbub of Yulin's urban sprawl.

Even in this barren landscape,

the Great Wall can be seen impressively intact,

standing 7 metres tall as it runs through the desert,

reaching even the remotest corners of this vast territory.

China has once again been innovative

but its latest construction is in sustainability

and it's now well on its way

to being the world's first renewable energy superpower.

China's great legacy of its pioneering past

stands alongside this pioneering future.

Next, the Wall reaches a jewel of the Ming's empire...

..Yongtai.

This walled desert town, built in 1608,

is also known as Turtle Town

and was one of thousands dotted all across northern China.

From the air, it's clear to see how it got its name.

Built 12 metres high,

this mile-long barrier wall provided an effective defence for the town...

..once again protecting the people and the precious resources inside.

Today the town still needs protection -

this time, from neglect.

As China's mega-cities continue to grow,

places like Yongtai have uncertain futures.

Once thriving, the town now only has around 76 households

and with just the elderly remaining,

the primary school lies empty,

classrooms abandoned.

The latest figures show that 60% of China's population

now live in urban areas,

compared to only 16% in 1960.

There is some hope for settlements like these, though.

Turtle Town has been given cultural relic protective status

and much-needed injections of cash

have come from some surprising sources.

The town has drawn in tourists

but it's also caught the attention of film-makers,

thanks to its awesome architecture.

This church

is not an artefact of 16th-century Christian missionary influence -

it was built for a film set

and the locals here were also involved,

taking a break from their usual day's work,

to try their hand at being film extras.

This remote desert town is, in many ways,

a victim of China's modern advancement.

But with the tourist industry in China booming,

these magnificent defensive walls of Yongtai

might yet encourage outsiders in.

Once again, these walls here

might just save the residents of Turtle Town.

Ahead, we explore the Genghis Khan City of Ghosts,

buried in the remote Gobi Desert,

as we finally reach the spectacular end of China's mighty Great Wall.

We're heading 200 miles north

on a Great Wall detour

to one of the most remote, uninhabitable places on Earth -

the Gobi Desert.

This walled city, once an oasis,

was built in 1026

but captured by Genghis Khan two centuries later.

He made it a stronghold for the Yuan Mongol Empire,

a century before the Ming gained power.

This place has a unique and bloody history.

Known as Khara-Khoto,

it's the ancient site of a military massacre

that saw the downfall of one empire

and the dawn of another.

In a siege of the city in 1372,

the Ming's imperial troops attacked,

blocking the river to cut off the water supply.

Trapped inside, the residents held out

but their desert oasis soon dried up.

When it became clear that there was no way out,

their leader, King Khara Bator,

killed his entire family and then himself.

The Ming swarmed into the town,

killing all the inhabitants in the streets.

Their bodies were left beneath the baking sun,

eventually buried by the desert sands.

Some say their spirits still roam the ruins to this day.

This eerie city had been a final bastion of Mongol rule in China,

an emblem of Genghis Khan's powerful legacy and empire.

The famous Silk Road explorer Marco Polo

was invited here by Genghis Khan's grandson, Kublai Khan,

before the Ming takeover.

In Marco Polo's book, he noted

the city dwellers "did not concern themselves with trade,"

despite their position right on the Silk Road,

the cross-continental trading route.

This was an oasis that revelled in its isolation and self-sufficiency,

protected by mighty walls,

much like China itself.

But Khara-Khoto's refusal

to move with the changing tides of power and commerce

led to its demise.

For a nation preoccupied with innovation and development,

the fate of Khara-Khoto offers a stark omen.

Those who dwell in the glories of the past

will be swept aside by progress.

This is now the last section of the journey towards Jiayuguan.

After over 1,200 miles,

the wall runs through an area known as the Hexi Corridor.

This wide valley is nestled between the Qilian Mountains to the south

and the Gobi Desert to the north.

It's at the end of this last stretch

that we find the final watchtower on the Great Wall

and reach our journey's end.

On this westernmost frontier,

the Ming did everything they could

to complete their takeover from the Mongol Yuan Dynasty.

The result -

this spectacular fortress city...

..the final battlement in the Ming's extraordinary Great Wall border.

This is Jiayuguan Fortress,

standing tall at dawn.

(MAJESTIC MUSIC)

630 years ago,

around the same time that Khara-Khoto was captured,

Central Asian commander Timur and his nomad army

were headed eastwards towards China.

He was undefeated,

a devotee to Genghis Khan's military ideology

and equally driven in his conquering ambitions.

His goal was to reinstate Mongol rule across the continent,

drive out the Ming and resurrect the Yuan Dynasty.

And so the Ming rushed to build this powerful, double-walled fortress.

Its aim - to halt Commander Timur and his army

and protect their new empire's border

here at the narrowest point of the Hexi Corridor.

In the end, the death of the formidable Timur,

on his way to China,

meant this grand fortress

never experienced that final, dramatic battle.

Instead, for 500 years,

this magnificent monument became the Ming's imposing barrier to outsiders.

Imagine -

for traders and camel trains arriving from the Silk Road,

this was their intimidating gateway into mighty China.

Heading west, past the fortress and along this final 4-mile stretch...

We reach the very end of our epic, 1,500-mile journey.

This crumbling single watchtower

is the unlikely final end of the Ming Dynasty's Great Wall of China.

Here the Wall meets head-on

with a force of nature from which it cannot be protected.

Instead, the Wall and its builders

took full advantage of it.

The Great Wall stops at the Taolai River,

which has carved out this deep canyon,

framed by the Qilian Mountains.

Against this magnificent backdrop,

this westernmost watchtower

balances on the edge of collapse.

This is the end of our Great Wall journey.

Just over 1,500 miles later,

we have followed the length of the Great Wall.

From its watchtowers, ramparts and fortresses,

we have looked out onto this mighty nation

and seen the birth of civilisations,

the rise and fall of dynasties,

the sites of military victories and massacres,

the lives of ordinary people.

We have witnessed the Wall encompass the history of Christianity,

the geography of Mongolia,

the philosophies and beliefs of Eastern Asia.

Travelling along the Great Wall

has revealed the timelessness of so many of China's customs

and how its turbulent past

continues to shape its attitude towards the present and the future.

The same desire to innovate

that produced the Great Wall

drives the country forward today,

to expand its cities,

grow its economy,

progress its power.

This is the story of how China made the Great Wall...

..and how the Great Wall made China.

Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2022