"Snap!" It was the sound of a whip whipping on the horse's ass, and a young man in a sheepskin robe was riding on horseback, his legs clamping hard on the horse's belly to make the horse run faster. The young man, Tashi, was a local Tibetan herder.
After crossing the mountain bag, Tashi finally let the horses stop. Only because on a hill not far in front of him stood a ruined ancient city.
Looking at the somewhat eerie castle under the moonlight, Tashi was a little angry. But not knowing what he thought, he gritted his teeth to suppress the fear in his heart, got off his horse and walked into the ancient city...
Tashi had just walked into a half-collapsed house, but suddenly felt something stepping on the soles of his feet, and hurried down to look at it.
When he saw through the moonlight that there was a broken hand bone at his feet, next to a severely weathered dry corpse. What was even more tingling was that in front of him were densely lined with countless human bones, as if they had come to hell.
"Ah!" Tashi, who had been straining his nerves, screamed in fright by the scene in front of him, and then rushed out with a rolling belt...
How did the herdsman Tashi find this ancient city, why were there so many bones in the ancient city, and what unknown stories happened in it?
In search of yaks, he mistakenly entered the ancient city
In June 1984, in the Ali region of Tibet on the mainland, a Tibetan boy Tashi was grazing cattle on an endless grassland. He lay lazily on the grass, holding a piece of grass in his mouth, looking a little absent-minded.
At about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, Tashi looked up at the sky, spit out the grass in his mouth, and got up to drive the yak herd in the direction of home.
Along the way, Tashi felt uncertain, always feeling that something was going to happen today. When she returned home with herds, her aunt counted the number of yaks and found that there were a few missing. Tashi slapped his head hard, and on the way there was something wrong, he forgot to count the cattle.
At this time, it is close to dusk, and the characteristics of the large temperature difference between day and night on the plateau are also reflected, and the morning is still more than 20 degrees to the present, which is less than 10 degrees.
But yaks are the lifeblood of the herders in the Ali region, and young Tashi still has to count on them to say that they are daughters-in-law. Tashi knew that if he couldn't find the yak today, he wouldn't be able to find it later.
Watching the wind and sand gradually rise on the grassland, Tashi, who was reluctant to let the yak, put on a thick sheepskin jacket, brought a pot of water and some rice dumplings, rode on his horse and galloped to the pasture.
Tashi rode his horse around the pasture, but sitting on the horse he looked around, there was nothing but endless grass, by this time the sky had long been dark, relying on the stars and moonlight in the sky, Tashi could barely see around.
Do you continue to search far away or do you go back home? After coming out to look for so long and now going back, when he thought of those fat and strong yaks, Tashi was unwilling, and losing these cattle was a waste of time for their family this year.
But if you continue to search farther away, you are not only tired but more likely to face danger. Tashi knew how terrible the night on the Tibetan Plateau would be, not only facing bad weather, but also encountering wolves, black bears and other beasts of prey.
Sitting on horseback and pondering for half a minute, Tashi finally chose to look for the lost yak. Tightening the sheepskin jacket on his body, Tashi did not dare to delay in finding a direction and ran wildly.
At night, Tashi was still looking for yaks on the vast grassland, and by this time he had been galloping around the west and south directions of the grassland for a long time, during which he had a short rest. In order to replenish his strength, the rice he brought had already entered his stomach, and there was not much water left in the pot.
Looking around at the vast green grass, but a dry Gobi, Tashi knew that he had to go back quickly, and if he went farther, the physical strength to sit down on the horse was not enough to return.
Even Tashi, who has lived on the Ali Plateau for nearly 20 years, does not dare to sleep on the grassland, and if he spends the night on the grassland, Tashi thinks of a Han slang phrase to describe this behavior, which is really an old life star eating arsenic - living impatiently.
Tashi, who was about to turn the horse's head, suddenly faintly saw a large yellow thing on a hill in front of him, which aroused Tashi's curiosity. Thinking that the distance was not too far, Tashi decided to ride his horse to find out.
As he got closer, Tashi was surprised to find that the large yellow thing was a dilapidated building. When he got closer, Tashi was shocked by the building in front of him - this was clearly an ancient city!
I saw that on that hill, there were ancient buildings lined up, and the volume of the buildings from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain gradually became larger and higher, and the building on the top of the hill looked like a royal palace.
Tashi had only seen such a magnificent building in the Potala Palace in Lhasa, and he thought he had seen the flowers, so he rubbed his eyelids with his cracked palms, and then looked up at the palace that had stood here for an unknown number of years, still standing proudly on the top of the mountain.
Tashi had never set foot in this area, nor had his elders told him about the rumors of this ancient city, and if it were not for the search for the lost yak today, Tashi might not have known for the rest of his life that there was such an ancient city ruins in the southwest of the pasture.
Although the ruined ancient city under the moonlight seemed a little desolate and infiltrative, tashi still walked in to think about whether the yak was also here to hide from the wind and sand...
And this also returns to the beginning of our article, Tashi did not find the yak, but found a large number of human bones in the ancient city, and Tashi, who was so frightened that he almost lost his soul, fled in a panic.
Along the way, the horse was tired and foaming, but Tashi was still whipping on the horse's ass, and turned back in panic from time to time, as if the skeletons were chasing after him.
Mysterious rumors of Ghost Town
With the stars in the sky, Tashi, who found the right direction, finally returned home without any danger. The family saw the terrified Tashi and asked him what had happened.
"Dead people... There are countless dead people. Tashi said with a pursed lip. Although he had returned home and was surrounded by relatives he knew, Tashi's eyes still revealed panic, as if he had just returned from hell.
Aunt took Tashi in her arms and kept comforting him. In his aunt's arms, Tashi gradually calmed down, and then recounted to his family what had just happened.
"What, you actually went to Devil's City?" Tashi's Bola (the Tibetan name for grandfather and grandfather) listened to his grandson's story and said such a sentence with a surprised face.
"Bora, is that ancient city called Devil's City?" Tashi saw that Bora seemed to know something about the ancient city full of bones, and then asked curiously.
"To come out of The Devil's City alive, I can only say that your life is hard!" Bora sighed, then slowly told the crowd about the rumors of Ghost City.
It turned out that among the herdsmen in the Ali area, there had always been a secret story passed down by the old people. According to legend, the Gobi southwest of Ali was a land of abundant water and grass hundreds of years ago, and there was a powerful kingdom that had been inherited for thousands of years, with as many as 100,000 people.
Here's a mouthful, you viewers don't think that these 100,000 people are very few, thinking that it is not as good as a bigger town. But you must know that the Population of Tibet is still less than 4 million, and the Ali region of Tibet has only 120,000 people after the Seven Censuses in 2020. In the harsh climate of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, especially in ancient times when productivity was backward, it was not easy to have such a large population.
The kingdom flourished for a thousand years, and successive kings strengthened the royal city on the mountain, making the royal city impregnable. The subjects thought that the kingdom would be passed on forever, but who knew that something had gone wrong in the hands of the last generation of kings.
According to legend, the last king was disrespectful to the gods, so the gods sent down divine punishments, and overnight all the rivers in the kingdom dried up and the grass withered. The gods then summoned countless demons from hell, killing the king and slaughtering all the people in the city.
Since then, the kingdom that was originally rich in water and grass has become a desolate and dead place, and the royal city where the people live and work in peace and contentment has become a paradise for the devil. If a shepherd enters this place by mistake, he will be tortured to death by the devils digging their hearts and lungs.
Over time, this place has become a taboo in the mouths of local herders, and no one dares to talk about it, only some elderly people know the rumors of Ghost City.
After Bora finished telling the story of the Devil's City, Tashi's clothes were already soaked, and he couldn't help but feel a pang of fear.
For a long time after that, Tashi often had nightmares about the ghost city, and the skeletons in the ancient city got up one by one in his dreams and turned into terrible demons to pounce on him...
The expedition unveils the ancient city: a lost dynasty
By 1985, Tashi's life had returned to calm, and he still grazed his cattle as usual every day, and then drove the cattle back home before sunset. But sometimes he would sit on the grass and look at the west with the grass in his hand, a place he would never want to set foot in this life.
On this day, after carefully counting the cattle, Tashi drove the cattle back to the village. As soon as he arrived at the entrance of the village, he saw several cars coming towards the village from a distance. Tashi was a little curious, it was very close to ali's western frontier, what were these people doing in such a remote place?
Tashi deliberately waited at the entrance of the village for the arrival of the vehicle, wanting to ask what he had come to do. "Tashi Delek! Boy, we're from Shaanxi, here to resupply. A middle-aged man with glasses got out of a jeep, greeted Tashi and explained his intentions.
Tashi heard that they had traveled thousands of miles from Shaanxi, and as hospitable Tibetans, Tashi enthusiastically led them to his home. "Mom, here you come." Tashi shouted at his mother in the house.
Needless to say, a middle-aged man wearing glasses at the banquet also introduced himself to the Tashi family: "Thank you for your warm hospitality, my name is Zhang Jianlin, I am a staff member of the Shaanxi archaeological team, these are my team members." ”
Zhang Jianlin
As soon as Tashi heard that he was an archaeologist, he asked, "Uncle Zhang, how did your archaeological team come to Ali, and there are no ancient tombs here." As he asked, he cut the meat on the roast leg of lamb into slices and handed it to everyone.
"Just to the west of your village, there is the remains of the capital of the Gurg Dynasty, and the purpose of this time is to explore and excavate." Zhang Jianlin, who was a bit braced, said with a full burp.
"The capital of the Gurg Dynasty? It won't be Ghost Town! Tashi exclaimed, and the kitchen knife in his hand slipped to the ground.
"What is Devil's Town?" Zhang Jianlin was also a little surprised and asked Tashi.
Therefore, Tashi heard the rumors about the Devil's City from his own Bora, told Zhang Jianlin and his party as they were, and also told everyone about the fact that he had seen a large number of skeletons.
Zhang Jianlin listened to Tashi tell this story with relish, and naturally did not believe in supernatural things such as gods and demons, but he was quite interested in the historical facts behind this mythical rumor, and he was now looking forward to this mysterious Guge kingdom more and more.
He then told Tashi a brief history of the Guge dynasty. Originally, this Guge kingdom was a local kingdom established by the descendants of the last zampu (equivalent to the king) of the Tubo kingdom.
Ordinary people in the Guge Kingdom should feel very unfamiliar, but I believe that everyone still knows something about the Tubo Kingdom. "Princess Wencheng entered Tibet" is an allusion that Chinese is very familiar with, and Princess Wencheng married Songzan Gampo, the 33rd Zampu of the Tubo tribe, and the actual founding prince of the Tubo Kingdom.
The former Tubo kingdom was very powerful, fighting back and forth with the Tang Dynasty in the east, and even invaded Chang'an after the Anshi Rebellion, and repeatedly thwarted the attacks of the Abbasid dynasty in the west, resisting the invasion of Islamic forces.
But even the most powerful dynasty also had a day of decline, and the tubo kingdom in the later period was soon in a slump due to internal strife. In 843, after the assassination of the last Zampulang Damma, the Tubo kingdom fell apart and was annihilated in the long river of history.
However, a few years later, Randama's descendant, Gidnimagun, came to the border area of Ali and established a divided force here, and later Gidnimagun divided the territory into three and divided it into three sons, and the fief of the younger son Dezugun was the Kingdom of Guge.
The Kingdom of Guge was much longer than the fiefdom of dezugun's two brothers, and although the country was weak and could not restore the glory of the Tubo royal family, it also continued the Zampu bloodline for hundreds of years, until the middle of the 17th century, when it was destroyed by infighting.
As for how the Guge Kingdom was destroyed, Zhang Jianlin did not know it, but it was because there was very little research on this mysterious ancient country in China at that time. The remains of the Gug Kingdom were not discovered by British explorers until the early 20th century, and no one explored the ruins for decades to come.
In the 1960s, China also wanted to excavate the remains of the Guge Kingdom, but due to the harsh climatic conditions of the plateau, coupled with the inconvenience of transportation, the materials were difficult to reach, and the exploration plan could only be shelved.
This time, with the approval of the State Council, led by Zhang Jianlin, the elite forces of the Shaanxi archaeological team were drawn to excavate the remains of the Guge Kingdom to unveil the veil of this mysterious kingdom and fill in the relevant historical materials.
When the archaeological team was about to leave, Tashi also took Zhang Jianlin's hand and asked him not to go to the "Devil's City", afraid that they would encounter the devil inside and never return.
Zhang Jianlin smiled brightly and patted Tashi's shoulder: "Atheists are not afraid of these cows, ghosts, snake gods!" "After saying that, I led the team to set off...
When the archaeological team finally arrived at the Guge ruins, all the team members, including Zhang Jianlin, were stunned by the scene in front of them.
It was morning, and the gurg king city on the hill was shining with a dazzling golden light under the sun, like a castle made of gold. There is no eerie eerie that Tashi saw at night, but there is a sense of sacredness.
In the days that followed, archaeologists conducted detailed excavations of the lost royal city. After counting the skeletons, Zhang Jianlin found that there were not as many as Tashi described, probably dozens of dry corpses.
However, the careful Zhang Jianlin found that there were many wounds caused by swords on their bodies, and even there were traces of arrows on their bones, and then a large number of machetes, shields, arrows and other weapons were found around them. Combining these clues, Zhang Jianlin made a bold guess: there was a tragic war here.
Subsequently, some human bones and broken weapons were found on the path leading to the palace, which confirmed Zhang Jianlin's speculation, and he also deduced that there should be a foreign enemy attacking the Guge King's City, and the palace on the mountain was easy to defend and difficult to attack, making this siege battle extremely fierce, and according to the abandoned royal city, the outcome of this war is not difficult to guess.
Next, the archaeologists found many exquisite cultural relics, many of which had written texts, especially a large number of scriptures written in gold and silver juice, which made Zhang Jianlin ecstatic, and immediately said that these cultural relics were sent to Lhasa in batches, and relevant experts were invited to conduct more detailed research.
The mystery of the disappearance of the ancient kingdom
While waiting for the research results of ancient Tibetan experts and relevant scholars, Zhang Jianlin also hurried to consult the relevant materials of the Guge Dynasty. The disappearance of the Guge Kingdom has always been a mystery in the academic circles, because there are too few relevant historical materials, but Zhang Jianlin still wants to find some clues from the obscure historical materials.
Artifacts excavated from the Guge site
A few months later, the experts sent the deciphered materials and identification results to Zhang Jianlin, who combined the information he searched for after reading it to roughly outline the mystery of the disappearance of the Guge Kingdom, which is interesting to some extent, which also fits the description of ali locals about the rumors of "Devil's City".
After hundreds of years of stable development of the Guge Kingdom in the Ali region, natural and man-made disasters have annihilated this ancient country in the long river of history. The so-called natural disaster is that from the second half of the 16th century, the climate in the territory of the Guge Kingdom suddenly changed, and the lush grasslands of water and grass gradually became the desolate Gobi Desert, which greatly hit the animal husbandry and agriculture of the Guge Kingdom, of course, this process lasted for a long time.
Just when the Gurg people were feeling more and more difficult to make ends meet, civil unrest broke out in the royal family. The last Guge king, Tashi Chabad, felt that the Domestic Buddhist power was becoming more and more powerful and had seriously threatened the king's power, so the Gug king wanted to attack the Buddhist forces to consolidate his rule, which naturally triggered strong opposition from lamas and some conservative nobles.
These people spread rumors that Ali's grassland had become desert because king Guge was disrespectful of the Buddha. And this rumor in the mouths of the herders hundreds of years later, it became the king angering the gods, and the gods sent down divine punishment.
Subsequently, King Guge's younger brother took advantage of the critical illness of Tashi Chabad to collude with the southern Kingdom of Ladakh to invade the palace, and the Ladakh soldiers who had paid a heavy price in the siege of the city captured the local people to Ladakh after capturing the gug king's city, and those who did not want to leave were slaughtered on the spot.
Later generations of herders, in word of mouth, described the brutal Ladakh soldiers as demons from hell.
At this point, the mystery of the loss of the Guge Kingdom was also revealed to the world, and this kingdom that had been passed down for hundreds of years fell under natural disasters and man-made disasters. The demise of the Gug Kingdom cannot help but be lamented, but it also tells us a truth: behind some myths and legends may be the interpretation of historical facts.
Although the excavation of the ruins of the Ancient Kingdom has been 37 years ago, many of the secrets of this mysterious ancient country are still waiting to be explored by future generations. There is good news that the ruins of the Gug Kingdom have been developed into tourist attractions, and we ordinary people can also go to this ancient country to explore it.
Readers in front of the screen, if you are tired and bored with life now, you may wish to explore this mysterious ancient country in Ali, which may bring a long-lost excitement to the silent life.