History of the Great Wall of China the three, China's chief concern since the earliest times had been Mongolia – the home of many of the country's fiercest enemies including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Khitans, and the Mongols. The Gobi Desert, which accounts for two-thirds of Mongolia's area, divided the main northern and southern grazing lands and pushed the pastoral nomads to the fringes of the steppe. On the southern side (Inner Mongolia), this pressure brought the nomads into contact with China. For the most part, barring intermittent passes and valleys (the major one being the corridor through Zhangjiakou and the Juyong Pass), the North China
Hami Desert Hami Desert The Desert of Hami (, Uyhgur: Қумул Қумлуқи) is a section of the Gobi Desert in Xinjiang, China that occupies the space between the Tian Shan system on the north and the Nan-shan Mountains on the south, and is connected on the west with the Desert of Lop. "This classic account is that of Nikolai Przhevalsky, who crossed the desert from Hami (or Khumul) to Suchow in the summer of 1879." The middle of the desert rises into a plateau across, which reaches an average elevation of and a maximum elevation of . On its northern and southern