"Silk Road Westward Journey" No. 5:
Drive a long car, step through the lack of Helan Mountain, and go to a millennium covenant!
It is noon when you come out of the Western Xia King's Mausoleum, the sun is like fire, the northwest is even worse, the fiery sunlight shines directly on the body without concealment, and the skin is feverish and painful, so that you have to be overwhelmed by this overwhelming enthusiasm.
Drive away from the Tombs and follow National Highway 110. During this time, I didn't eat lunch, just replenished a little water. In fact, in the next seventeen days, we all came this way, eating and sleeping is very simple, resigned to fate, and at ease with the situation. Some days, when there are hundreds of miles of uninhabited people, eat at most one meal a day, eat some dry food and drink some mineral water when hungry. If you get some hot water to make instant noodles, it will be even cooler. If you can't find a hotel to stay in, park your car in the service area and sleep in the car as a family. Unexpectedly, the Silk Road went west, and the Long March of more than 8,500 kilometers survived like this.
To be honest, the Westbound Silk Road, for us, is not so much a tour as a trip. It's not so much travel as it is asceticism. In the summer of 2012, we traveled all the way west, all the way ascetic, all the way to practice, the vision was broadened, the will was sharpened, and the soul was sublimated. There is sweetness in bitterness, and there is pleasure in bitterness!
The Tombs of the Western Xia Kings show the vicissitudes of history
Not far along National Highway 110, turn right into the Yinba Highway. On the right is the Tomb of the Western Xia King, which I just visited, and I look at it from different angles and have different feelings. Directly in front of it is the majestic Helan Mountain, looking at the past, as if it is right in front of you, but walking is very far away, always approaching her, but always close to her. Mysterious Helan Mountain, which feels even more mysterious...
Yue Wumu
After about twenty or thirty kilometers, we finally reached the foot of the mountain, and the road began to twist and turn. I knew that I was about to enter the mountain, and my heart was full of excitement. To tell the truth, from childhood to adulthood, I have dreamed of Helan Mountain, which I don't know how many times, and I am about to cross it, and I am excited, but more than that, I am uneasy. After all, I am full of admiration and respect for the majestic Helan Mountain in Yue Wumu's "ManJiang Hong": "... Drive a long car and step through the Helan Mountain. Zhuangzhi was hungry for meat, laughing and thirsting for Xiongnu blood..." This is not only the ultimate pursuit of Yue Wumu, but also the life dream of countless generations of young descendants behind him.
Directly ahead of Helan Mountain
In this life, who expected that today, a thousand years later, the old cow I came, fulfilled the contract!
The eastern mouth of Helan Mountain is the dividing line between Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Provinces, and the mountain is Inner Mongolia, and the mountain is Ningxia, and the Chu River and Han Border are clear at a glance. Unconsciously, we entered the Inner Mongolia realm again, half surprised and half joyful.
Here are three passes
At the eastern entrance of Helan Mountain, we stopped the car and took photos here. Unexpectedly, there were obvious traces of human engineering on the top of the mountain, and when the camera was zoomed in, it turned out to be the city wall and the beacon, but they all became ruins and broken walls. Based on the experience of visiting the Great Wall in the past, combined with the historical knowledge we have mastered, we judge that this place should be the site of the Ming Great Wall. After the investigation, sure enough, it is indeed the site of the Ming Great Wall, specifically called the Sanguankou Great Wall, built during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty to prevent the invasion of Mongolian Wallachian and Tatar tribal cavalry.
Ruins of the Great Wall at Sanguankou
To be fair, the Great Wall was actually built here, and the ming emperors' brain holes were big enough. However, the effectiveness of the defense should be generalized according to years of experience in reading history. Throughout the Ming Dynasty, Mongol cavalry and Manchurian cavalry repeatedly crossed the defensive line around the Great Wall and approached the city of Beijing, directly threatening the nerve center of the Ming Dynasty. It can be seen that building the Great Wall is really useless!
Juyongguan Great Wall
It is no wonder that a few decades after the Qing army entered the customs, the Kangxi Emperor solemnly declared on the Badaling Great Wall, "Since the beginning of the Fallen, all the kings of the Great Qing Dynasty should hold the royal way, win the hearts and minds of the people, train soldiers and horses, and never build the Great Wall!" ”
It is said that this decision of Ai Xin Jue Luo Xuan Ye stemmed from two poems by the university scholar Zhang Tingyu: "The Great Wall is empty, and the hundred heroes of the hundred worlds dream!" It sounds desolate and distant, and it is too frustrating to think of it.
Zhang Tingyu stills
Entering Helan Mountain, although the route is winding and winding, the road conditions are very good, and the slope is not large. Although the leopard climbs all the way, it is easy to run to about 100 miles. It can be seen that Helan Mountain is not as difficult and dangerous as we think, so that the heart is a little lost. After all, in the dream, I looked for her thousands of degrees, and suddenly looked back, and the person was strange in the ordinary alley. Such a contrast, how not to be lost?!
Winding mountain roads
The road runs through a mountain canyon, next to which it should be a river, which has dried up to the bottom. Surrounded by mountains on both sides, strange rocks and rugged rocks, the sound is not scary. Judging from experience, this road has existed for at least thousands of years, and it is the only way to enter the Tengger Desert from the Hetao Plain in those years. This mountain road precipitates vicissitudes and thick history, recording countless storms and events!
Che Rudder, Ma Xiaoxiao...
There was a moment when an irrepressible impulse burst out in my heart, and I really wanted to crawl to the ground, put my face on this road, and listen carefully to the echoes of the millennium from the depths of history...
Listen to the sound of the horse's hooves shattering, listen to the sound of the trumpet!
Cross the Helan Mountains into the Tengger Desert