The western façade of the ruins of The Kākkuduk Beacon
On March 31, 2022, after fierce competition, the final results of the "2021 National Top Ten Archaeological New Discoveries" selection were announced, and the Keyak Kuduk Beacon Site in Yuli County, Xinjiang was listed. Most people may be very unfamiliar with it, but if I say "Four Towns of Anxi", do you suddenly realize it? The site of beacons is a military facility under Yanqi Town, one of the "Four Towns of Anxi", which was called "Sand Pile Beacon" in the Tang Dynasty because it was built on top of the red willow sand pile. Experts have excavated more than a thousand pieces of various relics here, these precious relics together constitute a vivid and vivid life map of the Tang Dynasty Shubian soldiers, after a thousand years of sleep, the desert is gone, and in the gap of time, a period of border memories and historical past are about to come out.
I. Frontier Memories of the Homeland: A Brief Account of the Four Towns of Anxi in the Early Tang Dynasty
Deep in the Taklamakan Desert, the ancient Peacock River meanders and flows to one of the most mysterious regions on Earth, Lop Nur . The fierce wind roared over the desert, rolling up a mess of rocks in the wind and sand, and with the desert sunset and the sun falling to the ground, it wantonly declared sovereignty over the area.
However, in the wind and sand, it seems that a few wisps of smoke gradually ignited, spreading hundreds of kilometers along the Peacock River's old road. Looking around, these more than ten beacons have been sleeping in this desert for a thousand years, firmly guarding a border memory about the Tang dynasty and guarding the supreme dignity of this huge empire.
Today we want to talk about the Xinjiang Weili Keyak Kuduk site, which was once a beacon under the rule of Yanqi Town, located on the "Loulan Road", the main road of the overland Silk Road, and together with the surrounding towns, guards, and beacon shops, it constitutes a set of strict defense system, in addition to guarding the smooth flow of the trade route, it also has an important role, that is, the defense unifies the entire Qinghai-Tibet Plateau powerful Tubo sneak attack on Yanqi Town.
As early as the fourteenth year of Zhenguan (640), Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered the general Hou Junji to lead troops to destroy Gaochangguo and set up the Anxi Capital Protectorate in Jiaohe City, Xizhou, and in the following years, the Tang army successively pacified the yanqi and guizi states. In the third year of Emperor Gaozong of Tang 's reign (658), the famous general Su Dingfang defeated the Western Turk Ashina Helu, destroyed the Western Turks, moved the Anxi Protectorate to Guizi, and promoted it to the Dadu Protectorate, which freed the southern and northern countries of the Tianshan Mountains from the rule of the Western Turks, and for the first time placed the southern Xinjiang region under the rule of the Tang Dynasty.
Situation in the Western Regions of Tang Dynasty
At this moment, Tubo rose strongly, and YueLiangling stepped into the Shule region of the Western Regions, opening the prelude to the hundred-year battle in the Western Regions of Tang Dynasty. Tubo launched an all-out attack on the Tang Dynasty on the Qianli front from Songzhou in the east to the Dadu Protectorate in the west, and in the first year of Xianheng (670), the Tubo army captured the city of Guizi, the seat of the Anxi Metropolitan Protectorate, and the Tang Dynasty Anxi Protectorate was forced to move back to Xizhou, and Tubo gained control of the oasis area in southern Xinjiang.
However, Tubo's lucky victory did not last long, and as the Tang Dynasty's strategic center of gravity shifted from Silla to the Western Regions and the division within Tubo, the Tang Dynasty launched a counterattack against Tubo. In the first year of longevity (692), Wu Zetian made Wang Xiaojie the commander-in-chief of the Wuwei Dao March, and in one fell swoop recaptured the four towns of Guizi, Shule, Khotan, and Shanye, re-established the Anxi Capital Protectorate in Guizi Town, and set up four town guards in four towns, further improving the Tang Dynasty's governance system in the four towns of Anxi.
At the time of the opening of the Yuan Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, with its extremely strong national strength, competed with Dashi for control in Central Asia, and the four major festivals of Anxi, Longyou, Liangzhou, and Jiannan made a comprehensive suppression of Tubo, and Tubo had no chance to continue to expand to the western region during Xuanzong's reign. However, the loss of the four towns deprived Tubo of an important military and economic stronghold, and they were never willing to make a comeback and fight the Tang Dynasty to the death.
Soon, the opportunity for Tubo came. In the thirteenth year of Tianbao (755), the three towns of Pinglu, Fanyang, and Hedong caused An Lushan to rebel. When the Anshi Rebellion arose, the Tang court dispatched the elite of Anxi Town to the east to quell the rebellion, and Tubo took the opportunity to encroach on the Tang Dynasty's western region. During the reign of Emperor Suzong of Tang, the Tubo army quickly occupied the Longyou region of Hexi, cutting off Guanzhong from the western region.
The capital of Anxi protected Guo Xin and the capital of Beiting, Li Yuanzhong, refused to defend the city, and sent emissaries to communicate with Chang'an on false roads. In the second year of Jianzhong (781), the emissaries of the two towns finally arrived in Chang'an after experiencing all kinds of difficulties and dangers, and conveyed to Tianzi the news that the two towns were still holding the territory for the Tang Dynasty, even though they were under siege, and the Manchu Dynasty Wenwu wept. At this time, The Tang Tianzi was facing the threat of the feudal town, and could no longer send a single soldier to the lone army in the Western Regions, but could only add officials to them and express their high respect for the loyal people with spiritual encouragement.
The Ansi Frontier Army stationed in Kamezi
The Tang army held the Western Regions for more than 30 years, the young men who had once been far away in the Western Regions were also bearded and weak, and the once sharp strange knives and spears were gradually bladed and bent in the fierce battle, running out of ammunition and isolated, and the last stronghold of the Tang Dynasty in the Western Regions was attacked by Tubo in the eighth year of zhenyuan (792), and all the remaining soldiers were martyred, and the last blood stained the heavens and the earth with endless sorrow.
Second, the secret in the document: the Tang Border Army also loves to read stories?
The ruins of Keyak Kuduk have been abandoned for thousands of years, but they have also perfectly preserved the true memories of thousands of years ago in a dry desert environment, providing an important basis for us to restore the daily life of the Tang Dynasty border army. In the process of cleaning up the site, more than 1450 pieces (groups) of various relics have been unearthed, all of which are the daily life artifacts of shubian soldiers. Among these items, 883 documents are the most eye-catching, including 758 paper documents, 119 wooden documents, 4 books, and 2 inscriptions, which record a rich and diverse content, from political and military, social economy to religious belief, all of which are included, and some of which are even discovered for the first time and have high research value.
An unsent family letter
Among the paper documents, there are folk tragic love story "Han Pengfu", the legendary novel of the Tang Dynasty "Youxian Grotto", Zheng Xuan's annotation of "Filial Piety", and the Xizi Enlightenment Readings "Thousand Character Text" and "Three Character Classic". The traditional culture of these Central Plains was introduced to the Western Regions, and to a large extent, it was related to these border soldiers. Tens of thousands of soldiers sent from the Central Plains bid farewell to their fathers, wives and children, far away from their homeland, and defended the frontier. Under the prefectural military system, according to normal circumstances, it should be changed once every four years, but at this time, the Tang Dynasty carried out foreign wars many times, the military defense line was getting longer and longer, and the prefectural military system had long been unsustainable, so there was often a situation of "recruiting at an advanced age and not returning to the head of the country". For a long time, the Shubian soldiers have been guarding the southern Xinjiang region with harsh natural conditions, and their lives are inevitably monotonous and tedious. The people of the Bensai language can indulge in the galloping and enjoy the happiness in their hearts with poetry and song, but the soldiers can only get spiritual comfort from some simple and easy-to-understand literary works to fill the emptiness and confusion in their hearts.
At this time, we have to mention a novel that is widely circulated in the border army, "Han Pengfu". From the fragments of "Han Pengfu" excavated from the site, the general content of the story can be understood: Han Peng married a wife named Zhenfu, and soon Han Peng went to the Song Kingdom to become an official, and did not return for six years. Zhenfu Sifu was very anxious and sent a letter to her husband, but this letter was intercepted by the fainting King of Song, who and the chancellor Liang Boding plotted to deceive Zhenfu. Suddenly, one day, Liang Bo lured Zhenfu to get into the car, and before leaving, Zhenfu explained to his mother-in-law, and after I left, I opened the box, and if there was nothing wrong with the box, I could come back safely. Before he could finish speaking, the virgin was forcibly taken into the carriage, and the mother-in-law was in pain. Zhenfu said, "Call out to the heavens, step on the ground, when the horse is gone, when can it return." After Zhenfu left, the mother-in-law opened the box, and a light rushed from the box to the clouds and went straight to the Song Kingdom. "Han Pengfu" is close to the daily life of the pawn, showing the deep love of men and women, and is deeply loved by the pawn. After "Han Pengfu" spread to the Western Regions, the pawns of the "Sand Pile" rushed to read it.
Fragment of Han Pengfu
3. Defending the Town: The Military Career and Daily Life of the Tang Border Army
The number of military documents unearthed at the site is huge, detailing the military town level, the capture arrangement and the beacon official station related to the Kyaker Kuduk Beacon, and other military institutions at all levels, and also found defensive routes such as Loulan Road, Maze Thief Road, and Yanqi Road, which are the first to appear and are not recorded in the historical books. According to the excavated documents, the Keyak Kuduk Beacon was built on top of a red willow sand pile, so it was called "Sand Pile Beacon" in the Tang Dynasty, which was also a place of wandering and playing, and together with other beacons on Loulan Road, it formed a three-dimensional defense system and formed a military barrier in the eastern part of Yanqi.
Military documents include current affairs and war reports conveyed by superiors, combat orders issued, inspection records reported daily by grass-roots units, soldiers' replacement of defenses, scrapping applications for weapons and equipment, revenue and expenditure accounts of military grain, and treatment of warhorses, etc. The records restore the daily military life of the soldiers at the site, the great dynastic system, important activities, and trivial activities of individuals.
On August 4, the fourth year of the new century, the reason for the defense of the Nether Realm was to increase the precautions of the Expedition
Life in the beacon is very difficult, and the beacon is made of three or four layers of adobe with a layer of reed grass, and it is always threatened by wind and sand. The scorching sun and the bitter cold wind tested the endurance of the Shubian soldiers, who needed to strictly implement the beacon system (the so-called beacon, which is called "flint" during the day and "beacon" at night), and regularly set off the "peace fire". In addition, as the border defense situation of the Tang Dynasty deteriorated, the number of border troops under the rule of various sections increased, and the traditional method of "peace and rice" could no longer meet the food needs of the border troops. A certain area of arable land is cultivated around each beacon to grow food crops such as rice, barley, barley, wheat, and horticultural crops such as peaches, apricots, dates, and walnuts. Although there are measures to reclaim the land, but these grains are insignificant, not enough to meet the needs of the pawns, the pawns have to rely on hunting and fishing to improve their lives, in the beacon unearthed a large number of wild boar, yellow sheep, camels, swan bones, it can be clearly proved that the pawns in such a harsh environment harvested grain is naturally very little, the superiors naturally not much better, some pawns in order to communicate with the superiors, the "pickles", "dried vegetable leaves" as gifts to the superiors, this in addition to explaining the hardships of the Tang Dynasty border plug life, It also shows that the currency necessary for gifts in the Central Plains is of little use in the Western Regions.
The dice played by the flintlocks
According to existing archaeological data, on the west side of the top of the sand pile, three houses dug out by the "subtractive land method" were excavated, with an area of about 80 square meters, and there were cool pits, stoves, pillar holes and other remains in the houses, and the living conditions were simple. The domestic water of the pawns mainly relies on an irregular circular pond on the southwest side of the sand pile, and pottery pieces, stones and ashes have been excavated in the silt layer in the pond, which can be used as several relics of the life of the pawns.
Pond at the site of Koyak Kuduk
Interestingly, these precious clerical materials were excavated from several large ash piles. These ash piles were originally garbage drop points for Sergeant Shubian, because Beacon did not build a fixed garbage drop point. Every day, the pawns directly dump garbage to the bottom of the sand pile, and all kinds of domestic garbage roll down the slope and accumulate into ash piles. Over the years, in the long run, the garbage accumulates more and more, up and down, and gradually forms layers. The local climate is extremely dry, and the ash pile is located on the leeward slope, and the garbage is preserved. Today, we actually extract the information of the border army officers from the garbage heap a thousand years ago, which has to be said to be a kind of luck.
Wen Shijun said
The dialogue between time and space spanning thousands of years shows us the real life of the Anxi Border Army and the daily management of the military institutions in the border towns during the Tang Dynasty, and the Keyak Kuduk Beacon may be only a short period of one hundred years, but it is a powerful empirical evidence for the Tang Empire to defend the main road between the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains. The beach is silent, and the beacons reflect the mountains and rivers, which is the continuation of the Great Wall to the west, and it is the eternal border memory of the home country and the world.
bibliography
Dang Lin, "Research on the Traffic of Keyak Kuduk and the Yanqi of the Tang Dynasty", Dunhuang Studies Series, No. 1, 2021.
Zhang Haifeng, "A National Memory Condensed by the Tang Dynasty," Xinjiang Daily (Han), March 25, 2022.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Shenqi)
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