China authorities arrest 2 for smashing shortcut through Great Wall with excavator

China's Great Wall has been pierced by Genghis Khan, the Manchus, and now, allegedly, a couple of construction workers named Zheng and Wang who wanted a shortcut.

Authorities in China arrested the two men for smashing a path through a section of the ancient wall, a cultural icon and United Nations protected heritage site.

The area of the breach was a broken-down section far from the restored segments most Chinese and foreign tourists are familiar with.

State media showed a dirt road cut through a the wall against a rural landscape in Youyu County, hundreds of kilometers (miles) west of Beijing, and identified the suspects only by the surnames Zheng and Wang. The pair wanted a shorter route for some construction work they were doing in nearby towns, the reports said.