【To this end, Ying Zheng ordered Meng Tian to lead three hundred thousand troops north to attack the Xiongnu, eliminating this potential threat.】
【Meng Tian’s military campaign did temporarily stabilize the northern frontier, but it also consumed vast resources and manpower.】
【However, Qin Shi Huang’s path of conquest did not stop there. After stabilizing the northern frontier, he turned his gaze southward.】
【Qin Shi Huang appointed Tu Sui as the main general and Zhao Tuo as the deputy general, leading several hundred thousand troops divided into five routes to conquer the Baiyue in the south. This military operation successfully incorporated Baiyue into the Qin territory and established three prefectures—Xiang, Nanhai, and Guilin—further expanding the Qin dynasty’s domain.】
【Nevertheless, this war also consumed enormous resources and manpower from the Qin dynasty, placing significant pressure on the already strained national strength.】
At this point, Shi Jin spoke with a helpless expression:
【In 214 BC, to effectively resist the northern Xiongnu invasions in the long term, Qin Shi Huang began large-scale expansion and repairs of the old city walls of Yan, Zhao, Qin, and other states, ultimately forming the Great Wall stretching from Longxi in the west to Liaodong in the east.】
【However, during the implementation of this massive project, its extreme difficulty and immense investment forced numerous common people to leave their hometowns.】
【Long-term engagement in harsh labor left the populace miserable and filled with complaints. Qin Shi Huang bore much criticism for this, being accused of undertaking extravagant construction projects that exhausted the people and wasted resources.】
The northern wind whipped sand and grit against the laborers’ faces, their chapped skin oozing blood, yet no one raised a hand to shield themselves.
The words on the sky screen—”three hundred thousand troops attacking the Xiongnu” and “several hundred thousand conquering Baiyue”—gripped everyone’s throats like iron pliers.
Chen San had just stood up carrying bricks when his legs gave way, and he slumped back to the ground.
His face was sallow from long-term malnutrition, his cheekbones protruding sharply enough to hurt, and his eyes sunken deep. Only when staring at the sky screen did a faint glimmer flash in his muddy eyes before fading again:
“My elder brother was conscripted to fight in Baiyue last year. The officials said there would be honors for military service, but we haven’t even seen his corpse to this day…”
“So this territorial expansion was built with the lives of people like us…” Chen San clenched his calloused hands, his nails digging deep into his palms, yet he felt no pain.
Long-term labor had long numbed his hands and feet.
Not far away, Lao Zhou leaned against the city wall, his stubbled chin coated with dust and dried porridge stains, the wrinkles on his face deep enough to trap sand grains.
He stared at the words “miserable and filled with complaints” on the sky screen, his lips twitching without making a sound.
Lao Zhou had been conscripted the year before last. Most of his family’s three meager acres of land had been seized by the authorities under the pretext of aiding the military. He knew how lightly the word “criticism” weighed.
While the emperor enjoyed meat broth in Xianyang Palace, how could he hear the cries of the starving at the foot of the Great Wall?
Gritting his teeth, Chen San struggled to his feet. As he hoisted the city brick onto his shoulder, the old wound on his shoulder rubbed raw and painful. He gazed at the words “Great Wall” on the sky screen, then looked down at the hardened dirt road beneath his feet, trampled by countless footsteps.
How much blood and sweat of laborers like him had paved this road?
But he dared not think, nor could he afford to.
The Qin law stating that delay in service meant execution hung over his head like a blade. He could only follow the crowd, inching forward step by step, burying all his thoughts under the humble wish to live one more day.
Three hundred thousand troops were merely numbers on paper; placed in historical records, they might go unnoticed. But Ying Qingyue, now living in this era, saw these numbers transformed into lives—the suffering of all common people was real.
Ying Qingyue felt an indescribable suffocation.
History was cruel.
This was no longer about judging right or wrong, but the inevitable collision between the logic of the Qin System and the demands of state expansion against the limits of ancient societal productivity.
Historical limitations formed the core backdrop, but her father Shi Huang’s decisions had amplified this cruelty.
The necessity of defending the borders and constructing the Great Wall was objective.
From the Warring States period to the Qin dynasty, the Xiongnu had become a lethal threat in the north. The states of Yan, Zhao, and Qin had long established traditions of building walls for defense.
For the unified Qin dynasty, forgoing the Great Wall would require maintaining massive border garrisons year-round, equally draining human and material resources.
Building the Great Wall was a defensive strategy trading space for time. From the perspective of long-term state stability, this choice held rationality—it was not mere militaristic aggression.
So where did the root of the problem lie?
It lay in the extremity of the Qin System and her father’s impatient pursuit of quick success.
The core of the Qin System was high centralization and total mobilization, capable of squeezing the people’s labor to the maximum, yet it lacked basic safeguards for their survival.
Her father’s error was not in what he aimed to achieve, but in attempting too much at once, too urgently—
Simply put, defending the borders and building the Great Wall were necessary state actions, but undertaking everything simultaneously without regard for the people’s welfare was the flaw in Ying Zheng’s decision-making.
The exploitative nature of the Qin System and the low productivity of ancient society were the unavoidable historical constraints.
Campaigns against the Xiongnu in the north, expeditions to the Baiyue in the south, constructing the Great Wall, building palaces, and developing the Imperial Highway—all these projects advanced almost simultaneously, pushing the labor force of a population of 20 million to its limits, far exceeding the carrying capacity of an ancient agricultural society.
It was like one person carrying ten heavy loads at once; even the strongest would collapse under the weight. This was the origin of the people’s desperation.
Ying Qingyue sighed, feeling the road ahead was still long.
She understood her father, for she too now wished to accomplish much…
[However, from a military perspective, constructing the Great Wall was undoubtedly a more cost-effective choice compared to the immense grain and fodder consumption of large border garrisons.]
[The Great Wall could effectively block raids by Xiongnu cavalry, buying precious time for Qin forces to assemble and defend.]
[Simultaneously, the beacon towers on the Great Wall could rapidly relay messages, enabling the Qin army to respond swiftly. Though the project required massive investment, its military value was immeasurable and had a profound impact on future military defense.]
[From a socioeconomic standpoint, the construction of the Great Wall also safeguarded the livelihoods of border residents, allowing them to focus on agricultural production and thereby promoting stability and prosperity in the frontier regions.]
Northern frontier, Jiuyuan Commandery.
The northern wind whipped sand against the military tent. Meng Tian silently watched the sky screen’s narration, understanding the Great Wall’s significance to the northern border better than anyone.
In his early years garrisoning the frontier with his father, Xiongnu cavalry would sweep across the grasslands like gales, pillaging multiple villages overnight. The people of Jiuyuan Commandery had wept before him: men captured, women abducted, crops in the fields trampled by hooves.
Now, with the Great Wall gradually rising, the Xiongnu’s three southward incursions last autumn and winter were all blocked south of the desert. Indeed, the smoke from hearths in border villages had grown denser than in previous years.
Yet this security was built upon the lives of countless laborers.
Last month while inspecting the western section of the Great Wall, he found over a dozen laborers collapsed from hunger at the construction site, still clutching half-chewed tree bark in their hands. The foreman reported: “The grain supply was washed away by torrential rain during transport, so we had to prioritize the soldiers first.”
He could only order his personal guards to distribute half of the military’s millet reserves, yet knew this was merely a drop in the bucket.
Was it helplessness? Truly helpless.
Meng Yi had once stayed up late in the military tent reviewing grain supply ledgers, calculating repeatedly – whether to reduce soldiers’ rations or cut laborers’ provisions, each choice concealing human lives.
As a general of Great Qin, defending the territory was his duty, yet he had also witnessed laborers’ frostbitten hands and feet, heard their nighttime whimpers of homesickness.
The sky screen was right – the Great Wall served as the northern frontier’s barrier, yet beneath this barrier lay burdens he could never articulate.
He could block the Xiongnu’s blades, but couldn’t stop the exhaustion of civilian labor under the Qin System, much less resist history’s whirlpool.
Meng Tian brushed dust off his desk, his gaze returning toward the direction of the Great Wall beyond the tent.
The wind still howled, as if speaking for those buried beneath the wall’s foundation.
The Great Wall must be built.
But people must also strive to survive.
The sky screen’s narration continued, yet some hearts were no longer listening.
【Without mechanical engineering in ancient times, the Great Wall was constructed entirely by human labor. Lacking convenient transportation networks, over 90% of grain supplies were lost during transport.】