Tip: If these histories are combined, it is not difficult for people to discover the secret of the "Western United-2021" exercise that China and Russia will hold in Qingtongxia - Qingtongxia not only has the richness of Ningxia River and the geography of fortresses, but also a good place for diverse military training with mountains, rivers, plains and Gobi.
Qingtongxia is now a city. It belongs to Wuzhong City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. It is located in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, in the middle of the Ningxia Plain, across the Yellow River from Lingwu City and Litong District of Wuzhong City in the east, bordering Zhongning County of Zhongwei City with Niushou Mountain in the south, adjacent to Alxa Left Banner of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the west by the Ming Great Wall, and connected to Yongning County in the north. It is located between longitude 105°21′ and 106°21′ E and latitude 37°36′ and 38°15′ N.
However, before Qingtongxia became a city, it must be Gorge. This gorge is the Yellow River Grand Canyon on the city border. Located in the middle of the Ningxia Plain, it is the last canyon in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, with a length of about 10 kilometers. The canyon is high and deep, and the cliffs on both sides of the river are steep. Legend has it that the Dayu Zhishui came here, split the mountains into a gorge, the Yellow River water poured thousands of miles, at this time it was the sunset in the west, the sunset and the river reflected on the cliffs, showing a bronze color, the Bronze Gorge got its name.
The Qingtongxia Grand Canyon is formed by the remnants of Helan Mountain and Niushou Mountain, and is known as "Plugging the Three Gorges" and "Little Three Gorges of the Yellow River". Dayu, the first person in Chinese history to declare war on nature and achieve brilliant achievements, the founder of China's first slave state, and one of the ancestors of Chinese civilization, as a collection of Chinese history and culture, Dayu has accompanied Chinese civilization for thousands of years. Today, on the banks of the Yellow River in the Grand Canyon, the layers of Dayu Cultural Park have once again created a monument and spiritual home belonging to the Chinese nation for people.
However, it is also certain that Qingtongxia must not be called Qingtongxia when it was in Dayu. According to the available data, as a place name, Qingtongxia has appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty. During the Battle of Lingzhou in SongXia, Zhang Shunmin, who accompanied the Army of the Northern Song Dynasty to "open up the secret text", wrote a poem called "Two Absolutes on the Way Back to the Western Expedition", two of which were: "Qingtongxia Liweizhou Road, ten to join the army and nine will not return." That is to say, at least from this time on, Qingtongxia was called Qingtongxia.
Before the Tang Dynasty, people called Qingtongxia "Tongkou". The "Notes on the Water Classic" says: "The river is north, and there are branches and canals coming out of the east, which is called the copper mouth." The "Chronicle of Qianlong Ningxia Prefecture" says: "Tongkou is now the Xiakou Mountain, and the Qin and Hanqu mouths of the prefecture are also in Yan." Qingyu Ruqin also said in the "Records of the Temple of The King of Xiakou": "The people of the gorge, the danger of the Yellow River, the great defense of Zisai (the Great Wall of the North). Formerly known as Tongkou, that is, Qingshan. Therefore, the earliest name of Qingtongxia should be "Tongkou", before or after people called it Qingtongxia, the name parallel to "Tongkou" is "Xiakou", "Xiakou" comes from the Xiakou Mountain that formed Qingtongxia, which is a steep wall tens of meters above the water surface of the Yellow River.
This is the origin of the name Qingtongxia, so, from a geographical point of view, what does it mean for China? Now, let's take a look at the map of Ningxia.
In Ningxia, there is a folk song that goes like this: "Ningxia River, two points, east of the Yellow River, west of Helan Mountain." "The song did not say what the two-pointed Ningxia River looks like, looking at the map, I suddenly felt that the two-headed Ningxia River was like a big man standing in the wind, guarding the gateway to the northwest. If you can make it more square, less than the two pointed parts, it is more like a door, and the bronze gorge in the upper part of the middle is more like a door lock. Locks can be locked, locks can be locked, and so can doors. Therefore, locked on the door, more or less like the meaning of "door god", is the soul of the door, the good people come to open the door and enter the house warmly welcome, the bad people come to make the gun stick the cold stop. It's like a song that goes, "Friends come with good wine, jackals come with shotguns."
Among the gods or people of the gate, I prefer to interpret The Qingtongxia as follows, that is, it is almost an isosceles triangle with Lanzhou and Xi'an, and it appears above, completing the protection of these two cities. Xi'an, the political and cultural center of China's Han and Tang dynasties, the capital of the country, and Lanzhou, the central city of China's great northwest, the importance of the two in China's territory is self-evident. Or a person standing in the wind, or a god pasted on the door, Qingtongxia is the arch guard to the north of Lanzhou and Xi'an.
There is also a geographical structure like this, that is, our Beijing-Tibet Expressway today, the 109 line from Beijing to Lhasa in the past, also has the protection of Qingtongxia, and the depth of the protection is Lanzhou, Xining and Lhasa. If on this road, from Lanzhou to the west into the Hexi Corridor, then Qingtongxia guards not only the gateway to Hexi, but also Xinjiang, which is more distant than Hexi. In this way, Qingtongxia became a guard and a pass in the West Tao Arm Bay of the Yellow River, which was of extraordinary military significance and even affected the history of ancient China.
Let's start with the Qing Dynasty. The Three Expeditions to Kaldan refers to the historical event of the Qing Dynasty's Kangxi Twenty-ninth Year (1690) to the Thirty-fifth Year of Kangxi (1696) Three Expeditions by the Qing Army to conquer the Dzungar chieftain of the Western Mongolia (Weilat) Dzungar Clan, and was the Qing army's campaign to quell the rebellion of the Dzungar Kaldan. The first two times we omitted here, the third expedition was in 1697, when the Kangxi Emperor crossed the Yellow River with his troops and arrived in Ningxia on the 27th day of the third lunar month. The route is basically along the Great Wall of the North to the west, from northern Shaanxi into the Hetao area to Reach Ningxia City, where it stayed for 18 days and also worshipped Helan Mountain. At that time, the Kangxi Emperor felt that "Ningxia was the most important place" in quelling the Gardan rebellion, but when the Qing army had just arrived in Ningxia, the news of Geldan's death came from the front, which also meant that the Third Imperial Expedition of the Kangxi Emperor was over.
Why is it that "Ningxia is the most important place"? This point has actually been mentioned in the concept of doors or locks in the previous article, Standing behind Ningxia and Qingtongxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Tibet and even Xinjiang. Because of its importance, it must be stationed and protected, and in 1474, ningxia town imitated the practice of Yansui Town and supervised the construction of the Great Wall of Ningxia River East, "from Huangsha Tsui to Huamachi, three hundred and eighty-seven miles long." Huangsha Tsui is the heng castle of present-day Lingwu County, Ningxia, and Huamachi is the county seat of present-day Yanchi County, Ningxia. The east of this Great Wall borders the town of Yansui, which the Ming people called "Hedong Wall". In 1476, Jia Jun served as the Governor of Ningxia, and spent eight years presiding over the construction of the southwest border wall of Ningxia from the south mouth of Shuangshan Mountain on Helan Mountain (present-day northwest fork of Qingtongxia City, Ningxia) to Guangwuying (present-day Guangwu Township, Qingtongxia City), Yong'an Dun (southwest of present-day Zhongwei County, Ningxia) to Xisha Tsui (present-day Rouyuanbao Village, Zhongwei County). At the same time, on the east bank of present-day Taole County, Ningxia, the "Eighteen Piers Border Wall" was built, from the east bank of the Yellow River opposite the town of Yuanguan (present-day Northeast of Shizui Mountain in Ningxia) in the north, and the "Hedong Wall" of Heng castle in the south.
Ningxia Sanguankou Great Wall
During the period from Jiajing to Jiajing, these Great Walls were built and rebuilt, and were connected into one, starting from the junction of Huamachi and the Great Wall of Yansui Town in the southeast, passing through Xingwuying and Hengcheng in the northwest, traveling north along the east bank of the Yellow River to Shizui Mountain and crossing the Yellow River, passing through Zhenyuan Pass around a large arc, and then going south along the eastern slope of Helan Mountain until Zaoyuan Fort turned westward, and stopping at the north bank of the Yellow River via Ningxia Zhongwei.
Why? It was to prevent the Mongols from coming from the east and crossing the Helan Mountains, so that Ningxia and Gansu had the same fate as the Western Xia that was wiped out by Genghis Khan. Because of this, a large number of Great Walls were built at some passes of Helan Mountain, such as the Three Passes, and the Great Wall at the North Fork of Qingtongxia was also a masterpiece at that time. The Great Wall of North Fork is located at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain in Qingtongxia, with complex terrain and steep mountains, and has been a fortress since ancient times. Built with the direction of the mountains, the Great Wall has a unique structure and is a relatively well-preserved part of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall in Ningxia so far.
The Great Wall at the north fork of Qingtongxia
And because Genghis Khan attacked Western Xia in that year, he also adopted the route from the present-day Ejin Banner into the Hexi Corridor, and the Ming Dynasty went southwest from Zhongwei to Shimen Township in present-day Jingyuan, Gansu, about from here across the Yellow River to Jingtai, and built the Great Wall all the way to Jiayuguan.
Because the Song Dynasty was not as powerful as this area, the result was that the Western Xia became an independent separatist regime, which brought a lot of trouble to the communication between the imperial court and the Western Regions. At that time, the Song people had two routes to travel through the western region, one was from Bayannaoer in the present-day Hetao area to the northwest into present-day Hami, Xinjiang; the other was along the present-day Longxi and Dingxi in Gansu to reach the Linxia and Qinghai Haidong regions, and then from the Haidong region along the route of the present-day Qingxin Highway to the southern Xinjiang region of Xinjiang. This is the sadness of the Song Dynasty's weakness but the fact that it had to walk a more difficult road over the mountains and mountains.
The Tang Dynasty, a powerful dynasty, did not build a Great Wall, but let the grassland Silk Road, from the Lingwu near The Qingtongxia, like the root system of a large tree, densely distributed in the northern grassland. On March 15, 630, the fourth year of Zhenguan (630), Zhang Baoxiang, deputy commander of the Datong Province March, captured Jieli Khan alive and presented it to the Beijing Division. On the 29th, Li Shimin reported to the Taimiao temple that he had captured Jieli Khan. On the second day of April, the officers captured Jieli to offer victory. Tang Taizong set out from the capital Chang'an and crossed the Liupan Mountains to lingwu in present-day Ningxia, and the eleven tribes of Tiele Hui, Bayegu, Tongluo, and Qiujie, who originally belonged to Xue Yantuo, requested to submit to the Tang Dynasty, calling themselves "Tang Min" and asking Taizong to be called "Heavenly Khan". After that, Tang Taizong issued edicts to all ethnic groups in the northwest with the seal of "Heavenly Khan", which not only harmonious ethnic relations, but also enabled the Tang Dynasty to have an unusually vast territory. Behind this glorious glory is the shining smile of Bronze Gorge.
Compared with the Tang Dynasty, the early Han Dynasty was more like an era of entrepreneurship, and the river water of Qingtongxia also reflected the footprints of Huo's expedition. In the spring of 121 BC, Huo was appointed general of the Huns and led 10,000 cavalry alone on the xiongnu. After he led his army from Longxi County, he crossed the Wujian Mountains, crossed the Yellow River, cut down the Pubu, quickly beheaded the King of Pu, waded through the fox slave water, and fought for more than a thousand miles in six days, breaking through the five kingdoms of the Xiongnu, and crushing the small kings of Hexi like a decay. This was the First Battle of Hexi. In the summer of the same year after the victory, Emperor Wu of Han ordered Huo to lead an army to attack the Hexi region for the second time and launch the second Battle of Hexi.
Huo fuyi used a large-depth outer line to detour, first crossing the Yellow River from present-day Lingwu in Ningxia, crossing the Helan Mountains to the north, wading through the vast Tengger Desert and badain Jaran Desert, bypassing juyanhai (northwest of present-day Inner Mongolia), turning from north to south, advancing along the weak water, passing through the Xiaoyue clan (the Yueshi people who did not migrate west, around present-day Jiuquan, Gansu), and then turning from northwest to southeast, penetrating more than 2,000 miles into xiongnu territory, and launching a fierce attack from the flank of the Hun Evil King and the Hun Tu King's army in the weak water upstream area between the Qilian Mountains and the Heli Mountains. As a result, the Hexi Corridor was opened. Therefore, Qingtongxia naturally remembers the footsteps of the young hussar general in the early Han Dynasty.
Today, people come to Qingtongxia, probably do not forget to look at the barrage dam, more than 40 meters high, nearly 700 meters long, built in 1958-1960, majestic, spectacular, set power generation, irrigation, flood control in one of the large-scale water conservancy hub project. The scenery of Gaoxia Pinghu Lake can't help but remind people of the words "there is Dujiangyan in the south and Qingtongxia in the north". At the same time, it is also the outlet of the nine major trunk canals such as the Qin Canal, the Han Canal and the TangLai Canal in the Yinchuan Plain, starting from the Qin, Han and Tang Dynasties, and has achieved the reputation of "the Yellow River in the world, Funingxia, and the Ningxia River in the South of the Jiangsu". If these histories are combined, it is not difficult for people to discover the secret of the "Western United-2021" exercise that China and Russia will hold in Qingtongxia - Qingtongxia not only has the richness of Ningxia River and the geography of fortresses, but also a good place for diverse military training with mountains, rivers, plains and Gobi.
The pictures in this article are from the network, thanks to the original author!