Here we cannot but say that this is a coincidence.
Lop Nur, a lake in the southeast of Xinjiang, also known as the "Sea of Death", its name means the lake of multi-water collection, the Tarim River, the Peacock River, the Chelchen River, the Shule River, etc. are gathered here, but its main water source is still supplied by the Tarim River, the largest inland river in China. Juyanhai, a lake in the northern part of the Ejin Banner of the Alxa League of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is translated as weak water quicksand in the Notes on the Water Classics, and was called Juyanze in the Han Dynasty, Beihai during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and Juyanhai in the Tang Dynasty. It is the second largest inland river in China, Heihe River, the tail Lu Lake.
Geographical commonality is that Lop Nur and Juyanhai, two lakes fed by China's largest inland river and the second largest inland river, are wandering, and their positions are suddenly east and west, south and north, and the lake surface is large and small from time to time, changing from time to time. 30 million years ago, the Ejina region where the Juyan Sea is located and the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang are both part of the Mediterranean Sea, and after the vicissitudes of paleogeological age, they rose from the seabed to the land, and evolved from an aquatic environment to a desert and oasis.
Although Juyanhai is far less famous than Lop Nur , the geographical commonalities have created cultural and historical coincidences between the two.
Loulan has beautiful women, and Juyan has Lao Tzu
The world-famous Loulan Ancient City, an important historical site in Xinjiang, is located in the west of Lop Nur and is located in the hub of the western region, occupying an extremely important position on the ancient Silk Road. Silk and tea in the interior of China, horses, grapes and jewelry in the western region were first traded through Loulan. Many caravans passed through this oasis and rested there for a while. But to be sure, it is not these that make it famous in the hearts of many.
In 1979, Xinjiang archaeologists excavated a large number of precious cultural relics in Loulan, and also unearthed an ancient female corpse that has been more than 3800 years old, which immediately caused a sensation at home and abroad. Later, the female corpse was named "Loulan Beauty", around which a series of myths and legends, or novels, and the famous Ghost Blowing Lantern series may also be related to this place.
Obviously, Juyan is far less "brilliant" than the hyped Loulan, but it has been an extremely famous place since the Han Dynasty until the Qing Dynasty. It is not only a representative of a region, but also a representative of a culture, and the Juyan area carries the extremely colorful and strong culture of the Chinese nation. Here, there is a legend that goes like this: Lao Tzu left a five-thousand-word "Tao Te Ching" from Hanguguan, which made posterity taste endlessly. But where did he go after he left Hanguguan? Some people say that he finally incarnated into the sea and disappeared. The sea is in Yanhai, and later generations also call this place in Juyan "Quicksand Fairy".
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty puts forward the "Lao Tzu nonsense", believing that Lao Tzu went to the West to educate the Hu people. Some documents record that he went west through quicksand (Juyan), crossed the north of Xinjiang, and crossed the desert all the way to the western region. However, today's people estimate that at that time, he was about 80 years old, the natural conditions were harsh, his own conditions were not allowed, riding a green bull to the west, it is estimated that he will not go too far, and he can only become a fairy in quicksand.
One exists for 800 years, one sleeps for 800 years
Loulan Ancient Kingdom is a small country on the ancient Silk Road, founded before 176 BC, but suddenly mysteriously disappeared in 630 AD, with a history of more than 800 years, leaving only a ruined ruin. The Ruins of the Black City in Juyan are the most complete and largest remaining ruins of an ancient city on the northern route of the ancient Silk Road. The city was built in the ninth century AD during the Western Xia regime. In 1372, the Ming general Feng Sheng attacked the Black City and was abandoned. Since then, it has been sleeping in the desert, and now it has been nearly 800 years.
One exists for 800 years, one sleeps for 800 years, and there are many legends.
There is a beautiful legend about the Taklamakan Desert. A long time ago, people were eager to attract snow water from the Tianshan and Kunlun mountains to water the arid Tarim Basin. A charitable immortal was touched by the sincerity of the people, he gave his precious golden axe to the Kazakhs, used to split the Altai Mountains, attract clear snow water, he wanted to give his other precious golden key to the Uyghurs, let them open the treasure house of the Tarim Basin, unfortunately, the golden key was lost by the young son of the immortal, and since then the center of the basin has become the Taklamakan Desert. Later, countless people died in order to find the golden key, and derived such a legend: walking on this person at night, there will be a "very strange" feeling, walking in front of the people always hear the people behind them talk, but as soon as they turn back, the people behind them disappear, only the air, and the sound of talking is still there, so it is called "ghost talking".
The legend of Ju Yanhai is also familiar to people, during the heyday of Western Zhou, King Mu of Zhou decided to travel around the world in order to publicize his national strength and demonstrations. He rode in a cart of eight horses, led a large group of men and horses, and traveled westward. In addition to his natural love of sightseeing, another important purpose was to visit the Queen Mother of the West. After walking for more than nine months, he came to the state of the Queen Mother of the West. The two meet, one is the mysterious matrilineal queen of the Western Frontier, and the other is the patriarchal male king of the Central Plains who has great power in the world, a hero and a beautiful woman, who feels sorry for each other and has a love. Leaving, he even got the Immortal Elixir from the West Queen Mother, but he did not see the West Queen Mother again. To this end, the Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin has a poem:
Yaochi Amu's window opened, and Huang Zhu sang and mourned.
Eight Jun travels 30,000 miles a day, why doesn't King Mu come back?
Where do the two meet? Some of today's "experts" have calculated and calculated it to the place of Juyanhai, because Juyanhai is also called Tianchi.
This is a legend, in addition to archaeology and exploration, Lop Nur and Yanju Sea have made a large number of foreign explorers. Claiming to be the first to discover Lop Nur was Nikolai Mikhailovich Przewalski, Russia's most famous explorer and traveler of the nineteenth century. His second expedition to China was between 1876 and 1877. This time, he "discovered" Lop Nur and was also an academic expedition with major geographical discoveries. After returning to Russia, he claimed to have found Lop Nur . A stone stirred up a thousand waves, and the news came out of the geography community.
On March 5, 1900, Sven Hedin led a expedition out of the base camp and began a journey through the Robe Desert. The expedition encountered many ancient ruins in the Robe Desert, often for excavation. On March 28, the expedition's guide, Ordek, lost his only shovel while digging into a small ruin. Sven Hedin later discovered this omission and immediately sent Aldek back on horseback to find the shovel. In the process of searching for the ruins, Ordike suddenly blew up a sandstorm, causing him to lose his way. Just as he was breaking through, he accidentally found the ruins of an ancient city. With specimens collected from the ancient city, Ordek eventually caught up with the expedition and reported the discovery to Sven Hedin. Subsequently, the ancient city of Loulan was discovered.
In 1886, the Russian scholar Potanin discovered the Black City during his expedition to Ejina. In April 1908, the Russian explorer Kozlov excavated a large number of Western Xia cultural relics here, including the precious Chinese and Xia Texts of "The Pearl in the Palm of the Fan-Han Combination", "Yin Tong", "Wen Hai" and other ancient books, which caused a sensation in the archaeological and historical circles.
It should be noted that Przewalski and Kozlov were teacher-student relations, and Sven Hedin, who found Loulan, had also set foot in Yanju and Black City. What is more interesting is that Przewalski exchanged food with the locals when he was in Lop Nur and brought water to Kozlov when he was digging the Black City.
There have been two heroes: one is Huo Fu and the other is Fu Jiezi
Loulan culture is the most distinctive and unique historical and cultural type in the Lop Nur area, and is one of the typical representatives of the history and culture of the ancient Western Regions, with extremely rich connotations. The Kingdom of Guloulan, which has been in writing for more than 2,100 years, served as a transit trading post between China, Persia, India, Syria and the Roman Empire on the Silk Road, and was once one of the world's open and prosperous "metropolises". Therefore, Loulan culture is not only Chinese, but also human.
The Juyan region is also one of the birthplaces of human civilization. The long history and splendid culture have made the Juyan ruins as civilized as the ancient silk road of Lop Nur and the ancient country of Loulan. Juyan Hanjian has penetrated into various aspects of politics, military, economy, culture and science and technology, and has extremely high historical value for the study of the document archive system and political system of the Han Dynasty, and is praised by history as one of the "four major discoveries" in the Chinese archival circles in the 20th century. In addition, Juyan also gave birth to a discipline - Western Xia Studies.
According to the "Biography of the General Of the Wei Dynasty", in the summer of the second year (121 BC) of the Han Wu Emperor Yuan Hunt, the General Huo Went ill to attack xiaoyue and went from "Juyan to Qilian Mountain"; the "Chronicle of the Xiongnu Column" also states: (Huo Went ill) "Attacked the Xiongnu, passed juyan, and attacked Qilian Mountain." "Big hero, well-known. Lop Nur also had a great warrior named Fu Jiezi. During the reign of Emperor Zhao of Han, Guizi and Loulan in the Western Regions all united with the Xiongnu to kill Han envoys and loot property. Fu Jiezi demanded that the envoy Dawan be sent, and with the edict of the Han Emperor, he reprimanded Loulan and Guizi, and killed the Xiongnu emissaries, and huiqu was appointed as the pingle supervisor. In 77 BC (the fourth year of Yuan Feng), he was also ordered to carry a golden splendid embroidery to Loulan in the name of reward, behead the king of Loulan at the banquet, and set up another Loulan proton in Han as king. He was enfeoffed as the Marquis of Yiyang.
This is history, or magical enough, the real magic is that these two areas have two major bases in China, one is the military memorial site developed by the "two bombs" - Malan Base; the other is the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (Dongfeng Space City). One detonated China's atomic bombs, one hydrogen bombs, and the other sent Chinese satellites into space.
Two poems by a poet "string" the two places together
Poetry is magical, and so are poets. Wang Changling's two poems "string" Lop Nur and Ju Yanhai together: one of them, "Out of the Plug": Qin Shi Mingyue Han Shi Guan, The Long March has not been returned. But to make the Dragon City fly will be, not to teach Humadu Yin Mountain. The second is "Marching from the Army": Qinghai Changyun Dark Snow Mountain, isolated city looking at Yumen Pass. Huangsha wears golden armor in hundreds of battles, and does not break the Loulan and will not return it.
Both poems are atmospheric and patriotic, the former belonging to Juyan and the latter to Lop Nur. There is also a poem that colores both places at the same time, that is, Wang Wei's "The desert is lonely and straight, and the long river is full of sunsets." What a wonderful place, but we still have to say that in addition to the concept of geography and culture, there is another important factor in the mystery of the two places, that is, ecology, which is destined to become a heart-wrenching topic. (Text/Lu Sheng)