Comments by "Winston Smith" (@kryts27) on "Gravitas Plus: Why is Xi Jinping cracking down on everyone?" video.

  1. The Great Wall of China is even a dubious military stucture. Dubious, because it does not work military in the main historically; in the gunpowder and even pre-gunpowder era. While it's cheaper to garrison foot troops than cavalry in a fortress, it is most militarily effective to make a keep (or fortress) and garrison it with mixed archers (crossbowmen) or musketmen (in a later era) with an additionalmobile cavalry force inside. The cavalry controls the lands around with mobility and counters other attacking or roving bands of cavalry. Easier and cheaper too to build a line of independant forts than also a massive wall connnecting them.The Great Wall was primarily an expensive political border symbol rather than an effective military counter to the northern cavalry mounted tribes incursions south (e.g. the Mongols and Jurchens tribes that both conquored and ruled China, at different times, and the purpose by which the Great Wall was built). These cavary mounted tribes were massively outpopulated by China, even in that remote history, but the Great Wall was hardly a barrier to them.
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