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We tend to have different standards for the ancients. For better or worse. Look at structures such as the Great Wall of China, which according to Wikipedia[1]

We tend to have different standards for the ancients. For better or worse. Look at structures such as the Great Wall of China, which according to Wikipedia[1] estimates say hundreds of thousands, up to a million perished during the construction. I’ve never been, but I doubt there is a lot of “wow we were so awful for building this” going on in the tourists centers. Maybe I’m wrong. Potentially the Cultural Revolution had that impact. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China

csomar 6y ago
A wall is a really different thing. I guess China (at that time) did the math that the wall construction was going to cost a million life; but a wall was going to save them all from the enemy. So it made sense and actually saved lives.
- retrac 6y ago
  In reality, when the enemy finally did cross the wall (multiple times), they just killed the elites, moved into their palaces, and then took over the ever-so-burdensome task of administering the canals... and collecting the taxes.
  - jonny_eh 6y ago
    More: http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/was-the-great-wall-china-effective-did-it-work http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/was-the-great-wall-china-ef...
  - ardit33 6y ago
    you also fail to mention that the mongols did mass slaughtering of the entire population of cities that resisted. It was genocide at mass, even children and women were not spared. Also, their raids will conflict massive damage to local populations (pillaging, plundering and rape). So, yeah..... you make it like it was some kind of 'chivalrous' game between nobles/elites, while it was not at all.
    - retrac 6y ago
      Nothing that didn't happen during Chinese civil wars. My intended point was quite the opposite. The nobles were playing a game, a brutal one -- and the peasants were the pawns.
      - mr_toad 6y ago
        True, but that didn’t make them any less dead. Some estimates put casualties from Mongol invasions as as high as 60 million people. They certainly did kill millions, not just the elites.
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >they just killed the elites, moved into their palaces, and then took over the ever-so-burdensome task of administering the canals... and collecting the taxes. Locals didn't see it as merely "replacing some elite with another" any more than the Nazi Germany winning the war and establishing someone as the "President of the US" would be seen as that. Sure, in the end life goes on, but there are many aspects that change, and domestic versus invading elites are seldom the same... That's if we exclude the mass slaughters at the time, or the treatment of local ethnicities as second class citizens...
coldtea 6y ago
>I’ve never been, but I doubt there is a lot of “wow we were so awful for building this” going on in the tourists centers. Well, the weren't awful to begin with. Whether succesful or not in the end, they built it to avoid Mongol and Manchu raids and invasions, and thus for saving their cities and their lives. So, people perished are more like "people perished in acts of fortification / defense preparations" than "people killed willy nilly for the entertainment of the emperor and the viewers in the arena".
morsch 6y ago
I'm sure many people died building the Great Wall, but the reference for "up to a million" is two travel guides[1], and the reference to "hundreds of thousands" is a throwaway line in pop science book about the Great Wall, whose author gives no evidence on how she arrived at the number. I couldn't find any scholarly articles. Maybe we just don't know how many workers died? Or maybe a search in Chinese would be more fruitful. It seems like something that there would at least be a scholarly agreement on an estimated range. This doesn't take away from your larger point, which stands regardless of whether ten thousand or a hundred thousand or a million died. [1] I think I'll remove those two references from the article, the revision is currently https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Wall_of_China&oldid=998050290 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Wall_of_Chi...
BurningFrog 6y ago
The Great Wall wasn't some monument to a vain ruler. It was part of the war effort against invading Mongolians. People die fighting wars.

csomar 6y ago

A wall is a really different thing. I guess China (at that time) did the math that the wall construction was going to cost a million life; but a wall was going to save them all from the enemy. So it made sense and actually saved lives.

retrac 6y ago
In reality, when the enemy finally did cross the wall (multiple times), they just killed the elites, moved into their palaces, and then took over the ever-so-burdensome task of administering the canals... and collecting the taxes.
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  More: http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/was-the-great-wall-china-effective-did-it-work http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/was-the-great-wall-china-ef...
- ardit33 6y ago
  you also fail to mention that the mongols did mass slaughtering of the entire population of cities that resisted. It was genocide at mass, even children and women were not spared. Also, their raids will conflict massive damage to local populations (pillaging, plundering and rape). So, yeah..... you make it like it was some kind of 'chivalrous' game between nobles/elites, while it was not at all.
  - retrac 6y ago
    Nothing that didn't happen during Chinese civil wars. My intended point was quite the opposite. The nobles were playing a game, a brutal one -- and the peasants were the pawns.
    - mr_toad 6y ago
      True, but that didn’t make them any less dead. Some estimates put casualties from Mongol invasions as as high as 60 million people. They certainly did kill millions, not just the elites.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >they just killed the elites, moved into their palaces, and then took over the ever-so-burdensome task of administering the canals... and collecting the taxes. Locals didn't see it as merely "replacing some elite with another" any more than the Nazi Germany winning the war and establishing someone as the "President of the US" would be seen as that. Sure, in the end life goes on, but there are many aspects that change, and domestic versus invading elites are seldom the same... That's if we exclude the mass slaughters at the time, or the treatment of local ethnicities as second class citizens...

coldtea 6y ago

>I’ve never been, but I doubt there is a lot of “wow we were so awful for building this” going on in the tourists centers. Well, the weren't awful to begin with. Whether succesful or not in the end, they built it to avoid Mongol and Manchu raids and invasions, and thus for saving their cities and their lives. So, people perished are more like "people perished in acts of fortification / defense preparations" than "people killed willy nilly for the entertainment of the emperor and the viewers in the arena".

morsch 6y ago

I'm sure many people died building the Great Wall, but the reference for "up to a million" is two travel guides[1], and the reference to "hundreds of thousands" is a throwaway line in pop science book about the Great Wall, whose author gives no evidence on how she arrived at the number. I couldn't find any scholarly articles. Maybe we just don't know how many workers died? Or maybe a search in Chinese would be more fruitful. It seems like something that there would at least be a scholarly agreement on an estimated range. This doesn't take away from your larger point, which stands regardless of whether ten thousand or a hundred thousand or a million died. [1] I think I'll remove those two references from the article, the revision is currently https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Wall_of_China&oldid=998050290 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Wall_of_Chi...

BurningFrog 6y ago

The Great Wall wasn't some monument to a vain ruler. It was part of the war effort against invading Mongolians. People die fighting wars.