History Xinjiang | Kanerjing Stone City

"History of Xinjiang" series of micro-videos no. 39

karez

In the southern foothills of the Bogda Mountains, on the gobi outside the oasis in the Turpan Basin, from a high place down, at intervals, there is a "round earth bag", arranged in a line of beads, forming a rather unique landscape. These "round earth bags" are actually a unique groundwater conservancy project in Xinjiang - the shaft mouth of the Karez well.

Qan'er well, meaning "well hole", is composed of four parts: shaft, culvert, open channel and waterlogged dam. Determine the water source at the alpine snow water ambush, according to the terrain, each interval to open a shaft, the bottom of the well with the culvert to communicate, divert the water downflow, the culvert outlet and the surface nullah connected, so as to lead the groundwater to the ground, for life, irrigation. Most of the karez is hidden underground, unafraid of hot winds and sands, and the artesian flow is stable, which is a special irrigation system for maintaining the survival of oases in arid areas.

There are more than 1,600 karez wells in Xinjiang, with a total length of more than 5,000 kilometers, mainly distributed in Turpan and Hami, which is one of the great projects created by all ethnic groups in China.

Although the Turpan Basin is extremely hot and rainy, it is north of bogda mountain, west of the Kara Wucheng mountain, a large amount of ice and snow meltwater seeped into the Gobi, converged into the undercurrent, providing a rich underground water source for the karez. In addition, it has good geological conditions, the texture of gravel and clay cement soil is solid, and the well walls and culverts are not easy to collapse, so the number of karat wells is particularly large in Turpan.

The history of Qanerjing has a long history.

According to the Book of Rivers and Canals, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty "sent more than 10,000 people to cross the canal and self-imposed (present-day Chengcheng, Weinan) to lead the Luoshui to the foot of Shangyan Mountain." The shore is a good collapse, but it is a well, and the deep one is more than forty meters. Often for wells, downholes pass water... The birth of the well canal began from this point".

Studies have shown that the karez wells in Xinjiang originated from the wells and canals in the Central Plains, and the well canal method was transmitted to the Xinjiang region and developed into the karez wells through the improvement of the people of all ethnic groups.

In the "Book of Han and The Tale of the Western Regions", there is a record that "during the reign of Emperor Xuan, the Han general Xin Wuxian sent 15,000 soldiers to Dunhuang, sent emissaries to the west of the Beihou Well according to the line list, wanted to pass through the canal to the valley, and accumulated in Lucang to seek it." During the Three Kingdoms period, Meng Kang commented on the "Beiju Hou Well": "Six large wells, through the canal, the undercurrent gushes out, under the Bailongdui East Tushan Mountain", the engineering style of the six shafts and the underground canal to divert water is no different from the existing Kar'er well.

The Qing Dynasty was a period of great development in Xinjiang's Karez. According to the "Western Regions Tuzhi", "Xinjiang Tuzhi" and other records, at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, Barikun, Manas, Hami, Turpan, Hotan and other places have Qalez, and most of the existing Karez wells were built or maintained in the Qing Dynasty.

Karez has a far-reaching impact on the socio-economic development of Xinjiang, lin Zexu once wrote an article commenting: "Here (referring to Turpan) the field soil is creamy, the annual production of kapok is not counted, and the water conservancy of the ka well is also for it." Under the impetus of Lin Zexu, Turpan, Shanshan, and Toxon vigorously dug new karez wells. There are more than 60 Karez wells in Qiketai Township, Yanshan, most of which were excavated after being promoted by Lin Zexu, and the locals called them "Lin Gongjing" as a memorial.

"The road traveled back to the Flame Mountain, and Gaochang City Guo Sheng lian. The springs are watered in parts, and the grass is full of water." These karezes, which sneak in the vast Gobi, moisten the land of Xinjiang, are a true portrayal of the Chinese culture of "the unity of nature and man" and the concept of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and witness the great achievements of people of all ethnic groups in building Xinjiang for thousands of years.

"History of Xinjiang" series of micro-videos no. 40

Stone City

Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County, Xinjiang, is located west of the Kunlun Mountains, at the southeastern end of the Pamir Plateau, bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Here the snow peaks are high, the river valleys are open, and the grass beaches are beautiful. It was once the only way for the ancient Silk Road to cross the Onion Ridge through Xinjiang to Central, West Asia and South Asia. Together with Shicheng in Liaoning and Shicheng in Nanjing, the ruins of The Stone City, known as the "Three Famous Stone Cities of China", stand on the left bank of the Tashkurgan River in the north of the county seat.

Stone City is the site of an ancient city built on a stone mound about 20 meters high. Shigang is bordered by the Tashkurgan River to the east. The river valley has become very open, from the river beach to the front of the mountain is a lush grassland, sometimes scattered with cattle, horses and sheep.

The ruins of the ancient city are built according to the situation of Shigang, slightly square, and are divided into two parts: the inner city and the outer city.

The inner city is relatively well preserved, with the ruins of monasteries to the east and more than 40 remaining living quarters to the west and southeast of the city. The foundation of the city is made of stone, the city wall is made of mud and stone, and most of the walls, horse faces, female walls, corner towers and northeast corner gates are well preserved.

The outer city was badly damaged, and the remains of the forts and houses could be faintly identified, while the outside of the city was built with multiple layers of intermittent or continuous city walls, and the stone mounds between the partition walls were staggered and piled with stones.

As early as the Han Dynasty, Tashkurgan was called the Puli State, one of the Thirty-six Kingdoms of the Western Regions, and was under the jurisdiction of the Western Regions Capital Protectorate. According to the Book of Han, the Tale of the Western Regions: "Pu Li Guo, Wang Zhi Pu Li Valley, went to Chang'an for 9,550 miles. Six hundred and fifty households, five thousand mouths, two thousand victorious soldiers... Hou and Du Wei each have one", and the stone city is the royal city of the Puli Kingdom.

From the Three Kingdoms period to the Tang Kaiyuan period, Tashkurgan was known as Shupantuo. According to the New Book of Tang in the Tale of the Western Regions, "Shu Pan Tuo ... In the middle of the Onion Ridge, the capital city has moved to many rivers, and thousands of victorious soldiers have been defeated." In 644 AD, Xuanzang passed through this place after taking the Eastern Gui, leaving in the Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang Dynasty that "the kingdom of Shupantuo ... The account of the National University, the capital city of Dashiling, and the back of many rivers is in line with the geoscopic characteristics of stone city.

In the middle of the Kaiyuan Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty set up a guard and capture station in Stone City, which was under the jurisdiction of the Anxi Capital Protectorate.

Shoujiao was the Tang Dynasty garrison in the border areas. The New Book of Tang and Bing Zhi records that "in the early Tang Dynasty, the soldiers who were on the edge, the big yue army, the small yue shou catch, the city, the yue town, and in short, the tao." The Onion Ridge Guard was one of the Tang Dynasty's forts on the Pamir Plateau, which fully shows that it was the direct territory of the Tang Dynasty at that time.

At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, Stone City was expanded. In the 28th year of Guangxu (1902), the Qing Dynasty government established the Puli Hall (under the jurisdiction of Shache Province) here, which repaired and supplemented the Stone City, and later built a new city south of the Stone City, which was gradually abandoned.

The stone city site has unearthed fragments of pottery pieces, Brahma mystery documents and fragments of Buddhist temple murals. In 2016, archaeologists unearthed an elaborately workmanic four-legged box-shaped wooden coffin in a public cemetery during archaeological excavations at the Stone City site.

Burying the deceased with a coffin and letting the deceased be buried in the ground is a popular funerary custom in the Central Plains. The excavation of the wooden coffin reflects the spread of the Central Plains culture in the Pamir Plateau region.

A stone city, inscribed with more than a thousand years of years of time, also records the history of successive central governments to govern the western region.

History Xinjiang | Episode 1 - Episode 18

Source: Propaganda Department of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Committee of the Communist Party of China

Kuitun Rong Media Center

Editor: Liang Yi

Editor-in-charge: Chen Shijian, Wang Qian

Editor-in-Chief: Xu Zhong

Director system: Zhang Daiwei