The tale most often told is that of Emperor [I 005 / Qin Shi Huang] (ruled 246-210 BC). He started building the wall around the land he conquered from [G 14 / nomadic] tribes in the north. Construction took about 10 years, trailing across [P 008 / mountains] and semi-desert, using 4.26 billion cubic feet of stone and earth, and requiring the labor of 400,000 men.
An account which is easier to prove states that such a monumental wall could not have been built, especially since Qin Shi Huang died only four years after construction on the wall along the Yellow River frontier was supposed to have begun. The architectural evidence which remains today suggests that walls were sometimes supplemented with new construction at a later date, and that the new parts did not always fit in with the original plan.
