Meng Jiangnü Weeps Down the Wall

The Great Wall Lament

A widow’s grief for her conscripted husband crumbles the Great Wall in China’s great labor protest tale.

Meng Jiangnü is the widow whose grief outlasted an empire. When her husband Fan Xiliang is conscripted to build the Great Wall, she travels a thousand miles to bring him winter clothes — and learns he has died in the work. Her weeping shakes the wall for ten days until it collapses, exposing his bones, which she recognizes by dripping blood upon them. The tale turned a historical lament into the people’s great protest against forced labor.