Centuries-old beacon archaeology restores thousands of rivers and mountains
——Visiting Hu Xingjun, a research librarian at the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
Guangming Daily reporter Shang Jie Li Hui
The desert is lonely and smokey, and the Xiongguan is rambling. A beacon was discovered 1200 years after it stood in the western region, which has aroused widespread concern in the archaeological community. Among the top ten new archaeological discoveries in the country in 2021 announced recently, the site of Xinjiang's Yulik Kuduk Beacon was selected.
Yan Yalin, director of the Department of Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeology of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said that the site of Xinjiang's Yulik Kuduk Beacon is another important discovery in China's frontier archaeology, Silk Road archaeology, and Great Wall archaeology in recent years, and is of far-reaching significance. In particular, the excavated documents are the largest number of Tang Dynasty documents excavated from archaeological sites so far. The content recorded in the document is very rich, and many of the contents are discovered for the first time, which has high historical research value.
What are the contents of these excavated documents, what kind of information is revealed, what kind of value is it, and how was it discovered? The Guangming Daily reporter interviewed Hu Xingjun, the person in charge of the archaeological project and a research librarian of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
Fragments of "Han Pengfu" paper documents unearthed Courtesy of the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
Military documents provide empirical evidence for revealing the "beacon system"
"Writing is the most important carrier of Chinese civilization, and the documents unearthed by the Beacon can be described as 'a word and a thousand gold.'" Hu Xingjun said that in the archaeological process of the Keyak Kuduk Beacon Site, more than 1,450 pieces (groups) of various cultural relics have been cleaned up and excavated, and 883 of their Chinese books (758 paper documents, 119 wooden janes, 4 books, and 2 inscriptions) are numerous and rich in content, which is exciting and amazing.
Judging from the content of the records, the largest number of military documents confirms the military attributes of this beacon.
The 3 pieces of wood that have been interpreted have been completed, made of red willow branches, in the shape of a plate, with lengths ranging from 14.5 cm to 47.5 cm, widths of about 3 cm, and thicknesses of about 0.5 cm, all written in double-sided ink. It reads: "August 19Th Linhe Beacon Sends Ma Pu Feng", "Fourth Row Delivery", "Seventeenth First Card Sending Sand Pile", "Linhe Beacon On the Four Sides of the Beacon Cut Off Without Movement" "and Five People of the Beacon and Get Safe New Year Four August 10Th Beacon Marshal Jiang Guo." ”
In the Tang Dynasty, papermaking has been widely promoted, why use wooden Jane? Hu Xingjun was initially quite confused, but after careful study, he found that the information recorded on the wooden jian was basically the information transmitted between the most grass-roots beacons, or the content of the work reported to the higher-level fortress. There are obvious scratch marks on the wooden jane, indicating that it has been used repeatedly. In the end, it was concluded that these wooden janes should be physical specimens of the "counting and handing over cards" between the game house and the beacon shop recorded in the literature.
The content of the records is different, and the shape of the excavated wooden jane is also different. Some have perforations at both ends, and some have grooves at the lower ends, and Hu Xingjun speculates that the uses are different. In addition to the "handing over cards of the Planning Commission", wooden and simple objects with records of the "Peaceful Fire" and "Duyouyi" inspection systems were also unearthed, which were unearthed for the first time in China, making up for the lack of detailed military records in the Tang Dynasty.
The content of the paper documents is more abundant. On a fragment of the document 27 centimeters long and 17 centimeters wide, it can be seen that there are 8 columns totaling 77 words, "Precautions, according to the previous boundaries of the Yangjiayuan Domain, if there is any movement, the fire rushes to report, and the Yulin Town quasi-ruler." Each of them is in order, so it is accurate. On August 4, 2004, Li Ermu was appointed, and the judge Zhang Huaixi entered Tibet on the sixth day□ guarded and arrested □□□ eleventh, and the official Jue Rong was guarded. "The document is also stamped with two sides of the zhu seal, but the seal is not recognizable. The content of this instrument is the preparedness arrangements made.
An epistle is recorded on the unearthed paperwork. Photo courtesy of Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
On another document, there are only a short of more than 20 words: "Zhao Liude, a beacon soldier in Shangzhen Shaqi, who is in the town of Youyi, borrowed a wool bag and got a piece of fengzi", which describes the application for war readiness materials.
The large amount of military information contained in the excavated documents mainly includes: the current situation and war reports conveyed by the superiors, the military intelligence orders issued, the daily inspection records reported by the grass-roots level, the replacement and promotion of soldiers, the scrapping application for heavy weapons, the revenue and expenditure accounts of military grain, and the treatment of warhorses, all of which are the first discoveries in domestic archaeology.
"In these documents, we have also newly discovered military institutions such as Covering Ears and Guarding Capture, Yanqi Guarding and Catching, Yulin Town, LinheFeng, and Pig Spring Valley Shop, as well as defensive routes such as Loulan Road, Maze Thief Road, and Yanqi Road, which are not found in any records, providing new first-hand information for studying the defense system of Yanqi Town and the changes in the Silk Road in the Loulan area in the Tang Dynasty." Hu Xingjun said.
Excavated documents show that the site of The Keyak Kuduk Beacon is the former site of the Tang Dynasty's "Sand Pile Beacon", which is also a place of residence for youyi, which belongs to the next grass-roots military management agency of Yanqi Town, one of the four towns in Anxi in the Tang Dynasty. Combined with historical documents, Hu Xingjun's team believes that the Keyak Kuduk Beacon was first built shortly after Wang Xiaojie recaptured the four towns of Anxi in the first year of Longevity (692), and was abandoned in the sixth year of zhenyuan (790) before and after Tubo captured Beiting, which roughly lasted for 100 years.
"From the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, the Beacon has existed and operated in China for thousands of years, and through the study of this Beacon Site, many details of its operation can be revealed." Hu Xingjun said.
Unearthed documents restore the life of Shubian in the Tang Dynasty 1200 years ago
In addition to a large number of military documents, the excavated documents also include letters, novels, IOUs, Buddhist scriptures, etc. From the canon system, major events and the activities of historical figures, to the trivialities of private life, they are recorded, which can be said to be an "archive" that comprehensively reflects the life of shubian in the Tang Dynasty.
An unearthed document records: "The winter scenery is over, the spring light is forced, the seasons are waiting for each other, the new and the old are shifting, and it is not entrusted to any others. Tai serves in the town. It can be seen that this is a family letter written by a soldier at the turn of winter and spring, expressing his thoughts about his family.
Shazhou, Hezhou, Yongzhou, Qizhou... The recurring place names in these excavated documents indicate that most of the Tang Dynasty Shubian soldiers came from the Central Plains thousands of miles away. It is supposed to change the defense once every four years, but when the troops are insufficient, it is impossible to change the defense as scheduled, and it is seen in the excavated documents that some of the guards are still in service at the age of fifty or sixty, and the longing for their hometown grows with the extension of the time of the border.
At the same time, the excavated documents also appear in novels for the entertainment of the Shubian soldiers, including fragments of the folk love story "Han Pengfu". On a fragment 27.4 cm long and 18 cm wide at its widest point, it is recognizable that it is written in letters and ink, in six columns: (front missing) Look, if it is not opened, the bride will return. Before the words were finished, he went out to pray to the messenger, and the servant even put the reception on the car, and the wind and rain were as fast as the wind and rain. The mother then called out to heaven and earth, and Zhenfu said: "Call out to the heavens and what is the benefit, how late to step on the ground, when will the four horses go, when can they return." After the bride of the mother went, nai kai looked at the bright colors, and the light and shadow suddenly came out, flying to the virgin, and this light reached The Song Yuan, gathered the courtiers, and entered (after the lack)... This passage describes a virgin woman bidding farewell to her mother-in-law, and after comparing it with the existing version of Han Pengfu, it is found that they are not the same.
On the back of this fragment of the document, two columns of 27 characters indicate the list and date: Ma Bin Lu Yuan Festival Xin Chongfu Zhang Sixun, the twenty-seventh day of the first month of the first month to cover the ears of the first three years of the first month. "Historically, the xiantian year number was only used in 712 and 713 AD, and then the era name was changed to Kaiyuan, and the unearthed documents recorded that the 'three years of the congenital era' showed that even such a major event as the change of the year number of the central government could not be transmitted to the western region in time, and there may be a time difference of several months." Hu Xingjun said that it is now certain that the unearthed "Han Pengfu" document was copied before 714 AD, enriching the version of this folk tale.
What is even more surprising is that the physical specimen of "Youxian Cave" was found in the excavated documents. Written by Zhang Que in the Tang Dynasty, the novel has long been lost in China, but it is widely circulated in Japan. In order to bring this precious cultural heritage back to China, Lu Xun has done a lot of collation work. The relevant paper documents excavated at the site of The Kyaker Kuduk Beacon are the earliest and only physical specimens in China, which have extremely high value.
Common names for cattle cultivated in the Tang Dynasty such as "Bo Jian" and "Huang Te" also appear in excavated documents. Coupled with the large number of plant seeds and animal bones unearthed, as well as the wooden handle of the sickle and the wooden shuttle that weaves the fishing net, it is confirmed that the soldiers need to guard and cultivate the land at the same time, and they also have to rely on hunting and fishing to improve their lives. Unearthed documents also record that some pawns also gave "pickles" and "dried vegetable leaves" as gifts to their superiors, which shows the hardships of life in the border plug.
It is worth noting that 99% of the documents excavated from the Fengzhu site are written in Chinese, and most of them are xingshu and calligraphy, but paper documents and wooden janes written in Yanqi documents have also been unearthed, and "Yu Khotanese soldiers" have also been mentioned. This shows that in the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty, Chinese characters were the official common language of the localities, and some ancestors of the Western Regions and soldiers from the Central Plains guarded the frontier together to guard the tranquility of their homeland.
Ten years later, the gold panning in the sand finally got the "treasure"
Hu Xingjun, born in 1980, has worked in the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology since graduating from university, and has participated in the archaeological work of many important sites and ancient tombs such as Xiaohe Cemetery.
Hu Xingjun's computer desktop is a picture: the ruins of the Khyak Kuduk Beacon stand alone in the desert no man's land, and the blue sky in the background is like a blue sky. In the archaeological excavations that lasted for 3 years, such weather was countless, and the harsh climatic conditions and the intense work around the clock made him whitehead.
Staff are sorting out documents excavated at the Site of Yulikk Kuduk Beacon in Xinjiang. Xinhua News Agency
As early as 2007, Hu Xingjun began to contact the Peacock River Beacon Group. In 2011, he and his colleagues entered the Site of Thek Kuduk Beacon for the first time to investigate and explore, and in 2016 they participated in the test excavation. In 2019, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology conducted an active archaeological excavation of the site of Keyak Kuduk Beacon, with Hu Xingjun as the project leader.
At the beginning of the excavation, Hu Xingjun and the team did not have too high expectations. Archaeologists found 6 ash piles on the slopes around the sand pile where the beacon site was located, of which 5 were accumulations of various types of domestic garbage and one was formed after the collapse of the top of the beacon. Surprisingly, it was in the ash piles where household garbage was piled up, especially in pile 1, that they found a large number of wooden janes and paper documents.
These ash piles are sealed by natural wind-accumulated sand and are four or five meters thick at their thickest point. Like the construction workers, the archaeologists set up a sieve next to the beacon, "sifted the sand" over and over again, and wore two masks to prevent the dust from pouring into the mouth and nose. The paper documents hidden in the ash pile were not rolled or large, they were all badly damaged fragments, and after thousands of years of wind and sand deposition, they became fragments the size of fingernails, and they were also rolled into clumps, which were difficult to distinguish from the wild grass. "We call the large pieces of paper with more words 'camel', the medium and large ones call 'sheep', and the small ones call 'rabbits', and every time we find a 'camel', everyone will cheer and rejoice, but we will not let go of 'rabbits', because some words are few but critical and of higher value." Hu Xingjun said that the ash pile was sieved little by little, sieved 6 times, and finally "screened" more than 1,400 cultural relics.
West façade of the Kyak Kuduk Beacon Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology Courtesy of Xinjiang Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
In 2021, in the documentary "Tang Dynasty Shubian Life in Cultural Relics" broadcast by CCTV's "Exploration and Discovery" column, a picture of the life of archaeologists at the Site of Kyak Kuduk Beacon was recorded: in the background of the desert sunset, seven or eight Men gathered on the mound, one in the middle holding a long pole and picking up a small bucket, and the rest holding mobile phones to contact their families. It turned out that the mobile phone signal in the desert no man's land was very weak, and the archaeologists had to run to the nearby mound after finishing work, pick up a mobile phone, and the rest of the people took the opportunity to "rub" the network. This picture made many viewers truly feel the hardships and difficulties of archaeologists.
At the end of 2021, when leaving the archaeological site, Hu Xingjun wrote a couplet: the desert is lonely and lonely, and the sunset of the Long River is brilliant. Horizontal batch: a ten-year period.
Guangming Daily ( 2022.04.07 09 edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily