 Areas of difficult terrain once considered impassable were also walled off, leading to the well-known vistas of a stone-faced Great Wall snaking over dramatic landscapes that tourists still see today.Except for a lull in the 1590s due to resources being diverted to deal with the Japanese invasions of Korea, wall construction continued until the demise of the Ming dynasty in 1644.The last decades of the Ming saw famines, floods, economic chaos, rebellions, and invasions.