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"

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...