What the HELL?????
In between Mongolia and China...now a Province.
What happened????
We BUILT a huge wall.
(...yeah...ironic, that...after everything we really didn't need it...)
Let me tell you the story.
You see there was the MING DYNASTY.
And the Ming had walls...pretty much surrounding...well, everything.
Their take was
MINGS
(inside)
and EVERYONE ELSE
(outside)
Got it?
MINGS....OUTSIDERS
good...bad
us...them
Anyway, inside the wall the Ming Dynasty was fairly insufferable, as well.
The MINGS...food...wealth..extravagance.
The "peasants"...starvation...poverty...death.
(...tens of thousands of them buried in pit graves...where they fell building the damned wall...ya want an omelette...ya gotta break a few eggs... )
...centuries later the French could have told them how well the HAVES vs HAVE NOTS worked out in the long run...
But I digress.
On the night in question...a Mongol Horde was approaching the Wall.
Inside...a fed up peasant horde was doing much the same.
And on the wall a Ming General (Wu Sangui) was weighing his options.
(...this is an extreme simplifications of the events...)
To make a long story short...General Wu struck a deal with the Mongolians.
He would open the gates and allow them access...if they would take care of his peasant problem.
Yeah...great guy.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
But the Mongolians entered. The peasants were slain. The Great Wall was made redundant...and they lived happily ever...well...for a while anyway.
Eventually Wu would be remembered as a traitor and the man responsible for ending the Ming Dynasty.
When Communist China took over in the 1950's the area was deemed Inner Mongolia.
That's how.
(...hey...ya want details...read a book...okay???)
Next week we will look at all this area has to offer...starting with The Gobi Desert.
Until then...
