Act of 2 Chinese workers puts them in same league as Genghis Khan, Manchus

Two Chinese workers were arrested for piercing the Great Wall of China for making a shortcut

Genghis Khan and the Manchus pierced the Great Wall of China. A couple of Chinese construction workers named Zheng and Wang allegedly did the same as a shortcut.

The Chinese state media showed a dirt road cut through a wall against a rural landscape in Youyu County, hundreds of kilometres (miles) west of Beijing, and identified the suspects as a 38-year-old man surnamed Zheng and a 55-year-old woman surnamed Wang.

The pair wanted a shorter route for construction work they were doing in nearby towns, reports said. The area of the breach was a broken-down section far from the restored segments most Chinese and foreign tourists are familiar with.

Later, authorities arrested the two for smashing a path through a section of the ancient wall, a cultural icon and United Nations-protected heritage site.

China places immense pride in the system of towers and connecting walls wide enough for carriages to pass that stretch approximately 8,850 kilometres (5,500 miles), built mainly during the Ming dynasty that lasted until 1644.

In that year, Manchu tribespeople from the north overcame China's defences and took over the empire as the Qing dynasty.

The wall was subsequently abandoned and plundered for bricks and stones by local villagers, only to be revived by the Communist government as a symbol of patriotism, mass mobilisation and resistance to outside pressure.

The Youyu County government said the arrests were made after a report of the breach was received on August 24. It said the two suspects were in custody with further legal action pending.

In its citation of the Great Wall of China, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) described it as reflecting the collision and exchanges between agricultural civilisations and nomadic civilisations in ancient China.

It provides significant physical evidence of the far-sighted political strategic thinking and mighty military and national defence forces of central empires in ancient China and is an outstanding example of the superb military architecture, technology and art of ancient China, the reports say.

(With agency inputs)