Archaeologists Uncover 2,200-Year-Old Road that connected China's First Empire

The excavation of an extended section of the Qin Straight road reveals much about the original Chinese emperor's movements of troops over extended distances.

The archaeologists in China have unearthed a newly discovered stretch of the Qin Straight Road, which is considered one of the most ambitious projects ever accomplished in the old world. This 13-kilometre-long road was a remarkably sensational discovery; much that it talks about to this day was about how a massive road was made over 2,200 years ago to integrate the central and border regions of the First Dynasty of China.

The find was on December 9, based on a survey last year by the Cultural Heritage Protection and Research Institute of Yulin in Shaanxi Province, Northwest China, according to South China Morning Post.

‘The newly discovered road is physical evidence of a historical record of over 880 km of Qin's Straight Road in the past,' one expert in archaeological excavations confirmed.

According to historic records, the decree for the building of the road was given by the very first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, and it was completed in an astonishing five years. The reason behind the construction of the road was to connect Xianyang, the capitol of the Qin dynasty in the province of Shaanxi, with Jiuyuan, now located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, for the fast movement of soldiers and supplies to repel the Xiongnu nomads.

The excavation also shows extensive use of professional engineering in a manner that is remarkably up-to-date. This is evidenced by the discovery of straight passes in the trenches, slopes constructed by rammed earth, as well as filled roadbeds and valleys, which helped in keeping the whole route level. The average width of the route was 40 meters, capable of handling four-lane traffic, going up to 60 meters in some sections.

They further commented on a number of surfaces that were crushed and areas of compaction by foot and wheeled traffic. It was estimated more so that the distance from the road and passes across the surrounding mountains ranged from 50 to 90 meters, stressing that this area was hard-won and cut through.

Within the same proximity, another auxiliary archaeological site has been identified, thought to have served as a relay point. The archaeological finds in ceramics that provide dating evidence for occupation from the Qin dynasty through to the successive Han dynasty are dated 206 BC to 220 AD. The findings further confirm that the road was not a temporary building endeavor but a durable transport route.

“The Qin Straight Road is the second-biggest national defense project in ancient China, ranking only after the Great Wall,” China Cultural Heritage News, an official magazine linked with the National Cultural Heritage Administration, said. It labeled the structure as “the ancestor of world highways.”

Historic records speak volumes of the magnitude of this project. Thus, ancient sources refer to the construction of this road by deliberately “filling valleys and leveling mountains” to carve out a straight roadbed through difficult terrain. Qin Shi Huang, after incorporating six warring states to create the Chinese empire, entrusted General Meng Tian, who was also responsible for the initial construction of the great wall, with this massive project of road construction.

These events were recorded by the historian Sima Qian in "Records of the Grand Historian"; he described the project in great detail. Indeed, he traveled this route personally. Work had begun on the road, he said, "in 212 BC, when Qin Shi Huang was in his 35th year of reign, and finished after his death in 207 BC, in the reign of Qin Er Shi.”

Along with the Straight Road, the Great Wall was used throughout the Qin dynasty. The road made possible speedy deployment of armies and their supplies, which was to play an important role in resisting northern attacks, while the wall stood as a general defensive line. Ironically, this route sometimes helped the forces against whom it was designed to prevent, once the imperial power had weakened. The good and straight route enabled nomadic tribes to reach as far as deep inside China with the least central authority support. To discourage the routes that could be used to invade China, the routes within Chinese territories had been destroyed at least thrice by the Han dynasty. However, over the centuries, dynastic shifts and lack of historical records erased the knowledge about the route the Qin Straight Road took. Although parts of it were discovered in 1974 and another in Fu county in 2009, much of it was yet to be verified. Yulin Section The Yulin section was particularly hard to explore because so much of the area had fallen under the Mu Us Desert. It was only in recent decades that enough re-vegetation had taken place to make it accessible. 

Archaeologists matched old records against new satellite photos to pinpoint barely visible lines where plants had grown in what was once a desert. Follow-up searches confirmed well-conserved ruins in nine consecutive trenches lying side by side in a clearly straight line. Although some areas have been degraded or completely hidden by the work of erosion or human activity over time, the find will certainly help link the areas of the route that have remained hidden or have been lost over the years. In sum, all these findings not only verify the history recorded in classic books, but they also bring new discoveries to the field of pre-industrial engineering. These indicate that over two millennia ago, China built one of the first long-distance overland transport systems in the world, an infrastructure that was responsible for keeping an empire intact.