Most enduring of the many legends about the Great Wall is the story of Meng Jiangnu, whose wails toppled it.

Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor launched a grandiose project of linking various defensive walls in the noth of china to create what was to become known as the Great Wall.

He sent one of his generals north with 500,000 labourers. Among those conscripted for the task was Meng Jiangnu's husband Wan Xiliang, who was seized on the night of their wedding. Before they parted, Meng took a hairpin of white jade from her head and broke it in two. She gave half to Wan Xiliang with the words: "My heart is as white and pure as this jade. Keep this half and you will feel that I am with you".

Tales of the toll the wall was taking had reached her native place. The pace was brutal and the overseers merciless. Thousands upon thousands of labourers died of overwork and maltreatment. Ancient books were later to record that "the ditches were filled with corpses," and that "piled-up skeletons supported one another."

Nothing was heard of Wan Xiliang after he left. When autumn came and the birds began to fly south, Meng Jiangnu recalled that when he left he had been wearing only thin clothing. She made him some padded clothes, bade her parents goodbye and left in search of her husband.

One day, hungry and exhausted, she fainted by the roadside. When she came to, she found that she was lying on a comfortably heated kang brick bed and a white-haired old woman was attending her. Meng was very eager to continue with her journey, and the old woman accompanied her. After three days and nights, Meng Jiangnu decided to say goodbye to her and thank her for her kindness, but when she turned to her the old woman had disappeared. The legend suggests that she was an immortal who, moved by Meng's devotion, had assumed a disguise to care for her.

Once Meng Jiangnu became lost and was wandering around in the mountains. Then she heard a flock of wild geese that seemed to be beckoning her. She followed them and finally reached the Great Wall.

There she saw the workers dressed in rags and reduced to skin and bones. But where was her husband? She mounted a guard's platform high above the wall and shouted until her voice was hoarse and the wall is said to have shaken. Alas, she found no sign of her husband.

Legend adapted from Shanghai on Internet