10.2—10.8

Xining-Dunhuang-Zhangye

Choosing background music for this article is as difficult as writing the beginning.


"In that distant place"? At the beginning of the journey, the driver proudly introduced that this ballad, which combines the characteristics of Tibetan, Kazakh and Uyghur folk songs, was specially composed by Wang Luobin for Qinghai. It is straightforward and romantic, showing the prairie style. But when used to describe this trip, it lacks some historical significance.

"September"? "Witnessing the death of the gods, there are wild flowers on the grassland." Every time I ride a horse across the grassland alone, I will think of Haizi's poems and Zhou Yunpeng's deep voice. Sighing three times with each step, I felt more than desolate, but somewhat disappointed in the vastness and magnificence of this land.


"Last confession"? Four counties and two passes could not bypass Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. He established a country's unprecedented dignity, and he gave an ethnic group the confidence to stand tall. The history of the Hexi Corridor began in the Han Dynasty, but its richness and brilliance far exceed this era.

Finally, as you can see, I directly chose the most correct answer - the theme song of the documentary "Hexi Corridor".

Close your eyes. Even if you have never visited this land or watched this documentary, I believe you can still recognize this scene: the sun rises slowly from the Gobi Desert, the white crane flies gracefully in the clear stream of the grassland; Zhaojun in red holds the pipa, Feitian looked stunned; he woke up from the stone mural statue and whirled down.


Hear the clanging of war drums and the long line of camel bells, see the solitary smoke in the desert, the white-haired men crying, recall the familiar and distant terms such as Loulan, Dayuan, and Yuezhi, and think about the heroic figures of civil servants, generals, monks, and merchants traveling from north to south... …


Perhaps, there is also a thousand-year sigh from whom I don’t know.

 

Okay, I have finished writing the beginning.

 

Note : Since the entire scenery is too magnificent to be displayed in vertical screen, most of the pictures are presented in horizontal screen. When reading, you can hold your phone horizontally to protect your cervical spine.

One: mountains and rivers

ONE

This trip is as above. The 7-day Qinghai-Gansu Grand Ring Line starts from Xining, passes through Delingha and Dachaidan to Dunhuang in Gansu, and then returns to Xining through half of the Hexi Corridor. Along the way, you can see freshwater lakes, salt lakes, rivers, basins, and deserts. , snow-capped mountains, grasslands and other terrains, as well as rare landforms such as Danxia and Yadan. The Hexi Corridor alone, a piece of land with a total length of 1,000 kilometers, has all the terrain on the earth except the ocean.

 

Zhangye · Colorful Danxia

I come from a small town in the hinterland of the Dabie Mountains, surrounded by mountains and rivers. I have seen mountains and rivers since I was a child, but I have never had any special feelings for the soil and water.

Until I came here, when I walked out of the vast desert and saw the oasis racecourse, I remembered that the rivers formed by the melting glaciers of the Qilian Mountains created this rich area. Suddenly, I could understand why the "Mother River" was called "Mother". Understand the Xiongnu's lament when they were defeated by Huo Qubing and left for Mobei, "The loss of our Qilian Mountains has deprived our animals of their ability to feed."

During the three days in Qinghai, I was more in awe of "the beauty in the world cannot be described" - the deep blue Qinghai Lake, the sky blue Chaka Salt Lake, and the vivid emerald lake, which are really like the colors that God has knocked over. Pan; the strange and rugged Yadan landform, the endless layers of mountains and ridges stretching for thousands of miles, I can hear the sound of it, and the sight of it can make me appreciate it all the way.

"But the cool breeze on the river and the bright moon in the mountains are the endless treasures of the Creator, and they are suitable for me and my son."

Qinghai Lake · Tender and delicious little lamb

Qinghai Lake·Sea of ​​Flowers

 

Qinghai Lake · My dreadlocks

 

Chaka Salt Lake·Xue Baoqin’s Benqin

Chaka Salt Lake · Starry sky tent under the mountains

Living in the Qaidam Basin, I felt like the Sun Wukong in the palm of Buddha's hand, surrounded by mountains, and no matter how fast I drove, I couldn't escape.

These mountains are ugly, bare, and not majestic. They seem to be connected one by one to surround the entire basin. But because it is so desolate, it looks very hard. This reminds me of a couplet: Standing tall against a wall, one can be strong without desire. The word "仞" echoed in my mind for a long time.

Later, when I visited Yangguan, there was a huge relief carving of verses from "Liangzhou Ci" at the entrance of the museum, and I remembered this sentence, "A lonely city in Wanren Mountain." What I saw on the way was not Wanren Mountain! No wonder Li Bai said, "Articles are made by nature, but come by chance." The greatness of a poet lies in accurately depicting the common imagination and emotions of mankind.

 

The northwest is naturally suitable for writing poems. The vast grasslands make people feel heroic; the Yangguan Yumen is the best place to express the grief of traveling abroad; the endless mountains are indeed easy to cause the sadness of "the mountains are difficult to cross"; not to mention that this is a strategic location and the blending of Eastern and Western cultures. A place where heroes emerge in large numbers.

Emerald Lake

Emerald Lake

Dongtai Jinel Lake · Scarlett Benli

Yadan on the Water · combines the two distinctive landforms of Yadan and Salt Lake

Northwest Qaidam is home to the world's largest and most typical Yadan landscape, which stretches over a thousand square kilometers. Therefore, you can see them everywhere on the road through Qaidam. The place we stayed at is called the "Southern Eight Immortals Devil City" - the rocks here are rich in iron and the geomagnetic force is strong, which often causes the compass to malfunction, causing pedestrians to be unable to discern the direction and get lost, hence the name Devil City.

Tips: The Yadan landform in Qaidam is a lake sediment from the late Tertiary and early Quaternary 75 million years ago. It was separated from the water body due to uplift due to geological movements. During this period, the salt and sand condensed crust was sculpted by westerly wind erosion. .

Outside the Earth, there are also Yadan-like landforms distributed, such as the Medusae Fossae Formation in the Amazonis Planitia area near the equator of Mars. Therefore, a newly developed Yadan landscape in Qinghai in recent years is called the "Mars Camp", attracting many tourists to take "Mars Walking Photos".

How can I be left out of such fun things?

I bought this spacesuit temporarily before departure. I carried it from Shanghai to Xi'an and then back to Xining. It attracted the confused looks of countless security guys/girls along the way. I finally unboxed it here and found a place to put it to use. Everyone is welcome to borrow it and play, don’t leave it idle! (The drone I rented, the whole journey, no, yes, on, on, passed)

 

Another surprise during the trip was passing by Delingha.

On the road to Delingha, the pastures along the way gradually turned into Gobi desert mixed with tumbleweeds, making it even more desolate. No wonder Haizi can write such lonely poems, it is so lonely here.

Tonight I only have the beautiful desert sky.

Sister, I don’t care about humans tonight, I just want you

2: Two levels

TWO

As the hills gradually turned into desert, I knew I was about to see you, my Dunhuang, the land I have been fascinated by for ten years.

I like to record the different street lights in various cities. During my trip to Suzhou, Hangzhou and Shanghai ten years ago, the lantern street lights in Suzhou impressed me the most, and Suzhou became my first favorite city. The book I took with me on that trip was " "Cultural Journey", the first chapter is "Taoist Tower", and I have always wanted to visit Dunhuang. And I also moved from Beijing to Shanghai this year, and I felt like I was calling back to this trip ten years ago.
Worried about not being able to catch up with the performance of "Seeing Dunhuang Again" in the evening, the driver temporarily canceled the trip to Yangguan - many tourists felt that Yangguan was just a mound and not worth going. It was better to film ancient blockbusters in "Dunhuang Ancient City". But for me, Yangguan and Yumenguan are the most important places in this trip after Mogao Grottoes. This is because of the sentence "There are no old friends when leaving Yangguan in the west", and also because "the spring breeze does not pass through Yumenguan".

Yumen Pass is more than 90 kilometers away from Dunhuang City, and the journey is even more desolate than the one along Delingha. After more than a thousand years, the spring breeze still seems to "not reach Yumen". We drove the speed to 150 and rode like a horse.

The exhibition hall displays Yumen poems from ancient times to the present. The significance of Yumen Pass has long been beyond a pass.

Yumen Pass, which carries so many famous poems, is now only a small isolated pass city on the Gobi Desert - this place really does not meet my imagination of a "grand pass", it is too small. It turns out that Yumen Pass is like this.

 

I am reminded of the words of Yu Lei, the chief director of "National Treasure" : Only by seeing real cultural relics can we understand why it is good. This is certainly true of exquisite calligraphy and painting, as well as rough and short city walls. Real things have a life of their own.

Yumenguan · The damaged city wall exposes the building materials embedded in it

The shadow of the guardrail flows on the city wall. I can't help but sigh, this is still the city wall from a thousand years ago, this is still the sun from a thousand years ago, and standing here is me at this moment.

Yangguan · Entrance

The scenic spot of Yumen Pass is relatively simple. After passing through the small historical exhibition hall, you can see Xiaofangpan City (Yumen Pass), and then take the shuttle bus to visit Dafangpan City and the Han Dynasty Great Wall. Although I like it very much, I also understand why most travel agency packages do not include Yumen Pass - it is indeed not "fun" enough.
 
Yangguan is very interesting. Not only is the museum richer in content, you can ride camels and donkeys, but it also has antique city gates, general mansions and military camps.

Yangguan · Guancheng Restoration

 

Yangguan · The wanted order at Guanmenkou is restored

 

Yangguan · Trumpet Company Battalion

Yangguan · Autumn troops on the battlefield

 

Yangguan · General’s Inner Tent

 

Yangguan·Tent top

 

There is an old gentleman sitting in the general's mansion, using official script to issue "notices" to tourists, which is Tang Monk's "customs clearance document" and today's passports.

 

In ancient times, there was a 70-kilometer Great Wall connecting Yangguan to Yumenguan in the north. There were beacon piers, or beacon towers, every few dozen miles on the Great Wall. There is only one beacon site from the Han Dynasty left near Yangguan. It is located at the commanding heights of Yangguan and is the only physical witness to the history of Yangguan.

I visited this beacon alone. I stood on the hill and watched the sunset quietly, watching it dim little by little. He has stared at countless passers-by, and also at me, but this glance was only a brief glimpse in a thousand years.

I can no longer remember "no friends from the past when the sun rises in the west". I can only feel the sadness of "Deng Youzhou Taiwan Song": "I will never see the ancients before me, and I will never see the newcomers after me. Thinking of the long journey of heaven and earth, I shed tears with sadness!", Post to Moments:

The Hanguan Tang Tower was finally laid on the ground.

Sadness and joy are all combined in a Yangguan sentence.

The beacons in Pingmo are read for a long time,

The west wind and I are both passers-by.

Three: Mingsha Mountain

THREE

When we were at Mingsha Mountain, Dunhuang happened to be on the hot search list. It was said that the Dunhuang desert was overcrowded with tourists riding camels, and those who didn’t know it thought the Huns had sent troops to attack the Central Plains.
Damn, camel traffic jams are nothing. Have you ever heard of desert traffic jams? Can you understand my despair when I climbed into the desert on foot (without a ladder), taking one step and half a step? o(╥﹏╥)o

Four: Hexi Corridor

FOUR

Finally, on the sixth day of my journey, I actually set foot on the Hexi Corridor. On this day, except for eating melons in Guazhou and briefly paying homage at the foot of Jiayuguan City, I spent most of the time in the car. I no longer remember how the desert Gobi gradually transitioned into a grassland oasis outside the window, because all I could think about was missing the four people. , Wei Qing, Huo Qubing, Zhang Qian, Xuanzang.
Driving on the road they have also walked on, I can't help but imagine. How did Wei Qing, who was originally a riding slave, feel when he went out for the first time? That expedition was divided into four groups: Li Guang, Gongsun Ao, Gongsun He, and Wei Qing. Only Wei Qing won all the way, went straight to Dragon City, and won his reputation - but he kept the flying generals in Dragon City and did not teach Hu Ma to cross the Yin Mountains. .
Is the river in front of me the stream that Huo Qubing poured wine into? How could Huo Qubing be so talented and lucky that he dared to lead his 800 soldiers to surprise the Xiongnu lair on his first expedition and kill the Xiongnu's grandfather Ruohou Chun? Later, he drove straight into the hinterland of the Xiongnu for more than 2,000 miles, sealed the wolf in Xu, and drank from the vast sea of ​​horses. His short 23-year life was as bright as a shooting star.
Since ancient times, beauties are like famous generals, and they are not allowed to grow old in the world. But at least the beauty and the general still have people to pay their respects. The thousands of living lives buried here are just a number in the history books. At least the victors received honors, but the 200,000 Han soldiers led by Li Guangli were completely wiped out here, which is deplorable.
Zhang Qian, Zhang Qian. Tang Zhang Yichao once sent ten teams of messengers to Chang'an. Two years later, nine teams died and one team arrived. Zhang Qian was lucky to be able to return safely after crossing the vast Gobi snowy mountains. Being captured twice, he was able to fulfill his mission to find the Dayue clan and bring back precious information about the Western Regions, which was even more extraordinary.
More than 700 years later, another great journey took place on this land. The difference is that Xuanzang did not have the aura of an envoy, had no companions, and even left the country illegally. He once "not had a drop of his throat for four nights and five days, his mouth and mouth were parched, and he was almost dead." But he said that he would rather die in one step westward than live half a step back east.
The above thoughts unconsciously formed a seven-character sentence in my mind:
Eight hundred light cavalry killed Jiruo, and drove thousands of miles to seal Langshan.
The wine fountain is pouring in Zhang Guoye, and the camel bell is still thinking of General Huo.
One step rings a bell and one cry makes Chang'an unforgettable for ten years.
After traveling thousands of miles to the Ice Grottoes in the desert, Zhang Qian, the envoy of the Han Dynasty, has returned.
The black country has sunk sand and left behind the Heihe River, and the lonely mountains of the Liao Desert have been at war.
I still hate Master Li Er, and his 200,000 men were reduced to bones.
The lonely shadow in the vast desert is long, and there is no doubt that Xuanzang is gone.
I would rather go west to die than return east to live.
ps: The reason why I don’t call it poetry is because my boss, who loves poetry, glanced at it and said: You should learn rhythm. [Spreading hands] I racked my brains to think of rhymes. After changing it over and over again, I still feel that this best expresses my true thoughts and feelings. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t become a poem. I don’t mean to harm the meaning with the words. I just put it here to commemorate everything along the Hexi Corridor. Think about what you feel.

Wu: Mogao Grottoes

FIVE

Performance·See Dunhuang again

I put Mogao Grottoes last because I have really complicated feelings about this place.

At first, I just liked ancient buildings. In 2016, I planned to go to Shuozhou for the Yingxian wooden pagoda. But unfortunately that year the wooden pagoda was under renovation, so I went to Datong to see the Shanhua Temple, and by the way visited the Yungang Grottoes. As a result, I became very interested in the history of the grottoes and the development of Buddhism in China, as well as the history of the Northern and Southern Dynasties. (See my other travelogue: Datong Pingcheng Dream)

The Mogao Grottoes, located on the only way to the introduction of Buddhism, are not only the largest and richest Buddhist art site in the world, but also made me feel the vitality of the living secular culture - the Mogao Grottoes. The themes of the murals are not limited to Buddhist scriptures, but also include the sun, moon, mountains and rivers, birds and animals, pavilions and people from all dynasties.

Donors from different periods carved their eyebrows, frowns, and smiles on the wall, where skilled craftsmen recorded the humanistic features of their own era. Those faces that have long been buried in the loess, those fresh clothes and food that disappear with the wind, and graceful dancing postures all freeze time in their most beautiful moments.

 

When compiling this travel note, I had many confusions in my mind that made me stop writing again and again to look for information. The harvest was more shocking than visiting it in person. Essentially this work should come before traveling.

 

The Mogao Grottoes are severely weathered. The carbon dioxide exhaled by every tourist and every flashlight will cause irreversible damage to them. Therefore, the staff of the Mogao Grottoes told us that everyone is not welcome in the Mogao Grottoes. I personally hope that tourists can fully understand the Mogao Grottoes on their own first, and then come and watch them later. I deeply agree, and at the end of the article I also try to list some information that I think is good for your reference.

The origin of the grotto

 

Grotto It is a kind of Indian Buddha Teach architectural form. Buddhism advocates retreat from the world, so monks often choose secluded places in the mountains to dig caves, some of which are empty and used for daily life. ; Some people offer sacrifices to Buddha statues for preaching and holding Buddhist ceremonies.

In my understanding, grottoes are early cave dwellings, only smaller in scale and more religious. It is worth mentioning that Confucian scholars who live in seclusion in the Hexi area are also in the habit of opening caves. During the reign of Qianliang, hundreds or even thousands of Confucian disciples lived in caves and cliff chambers in the mountains, listening to the teachings and teachings of local great Confucian scholars and solving their doubts.

In AD 366 (the Sixteen Kingdoms Period), a monk named Le Zun passed by Mingsha Mountain. It is said that he saw the golden light shining on the cliff at the eastern foot of Mingsha Mountain, as if ten thousand Buddhas appeared, so he dug the first cave of Mogao Grottoes into the rock wall. Later, a few monks opened caves here, but at this time, the Mogao Grottoes were not famous and did not have a direct impact on later generations.

The grotto known as the "originator" is the Tiantishan Grottoes, which was built somewhere between 412 and 439. During the Sixteen Kingdoms period, Liangzhou was the center of the spread and development of Buddhist culture. King Juqu Mengxun of Northern Liang summoned Liangzhou eminent monk Tan Yao and other skilled craftsmen to dig the Tianti Mountain Grottoes and create statues of Buddha as a sign of piety. One of the 5-meter-high stone statues is that of Che, the mother of King Beiliang. The grottoes of this period were called by later archaeologists as the creation of the "Liangzhou Model" of grottoes.

In 439 AD, the Northern Wei Dynasty destroyed Northern Liang. As "trophies", more than 3,000 monks were taken captive to Pingcheng, the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty, which is today's Datong (Tan Yao was among them. He later became the Buddhist leader and national teacher of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and with the support of the ruler Wencheng Emperor, he founded a more famous Yungang Grottoes).

In Liangzhou, Buddhism and its art were severely damaged. Monks fled one after another, and some of them moved westward to Dunhuang and other places. This promoted the prosperity of Buddhism in Dunhuang, making Dunhuang the center of Buddhism in Hexi after Liangzhou, and thus boosted the development of Buddhism in Dunhuang. The Development of Dunhuang Grotto Art.

There are 492 caves with murals and sculptures in Mogao Grottoes, including 36 from the Northern Dynasties. The shadow sculptures of this period mainly featured flying gods, worshiping Bodhisattvas and thousands of Buddhas, with a simple and heavy style.

With the prosperity of the Silk Road during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Mogao Grottoes ushered in its most prosperous era. During the time of Wu Zetian, there were more than a thousand caves.

 

The shapes of Buddhist statues in the Sui and Tang Dynasties tended to be rich in color, with smooth lines, and the style was more Central Plains-like. Some Bodhisattvas even wore their hair in common people's buns; the themes of the murals became increasingly rich and the scenes were grand. When visiting the museum, I thought I was admiring the exquisite murals of the imperial tombs of the Tang Dynasty. (After all, the ticket price for the Shaanxi Expo Mural Museum is 300 yuan!)

In the Northern Song Dynasty, Western Xia Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty, the Mogao Grottoes gradually declined, and the fronts of the cave chambers of the previous dynasties were mainly renovated and repainted, with very few new buildings. After the Yuan Dynasty, Dunhuang stopped opening grottoes; in the seventh year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, Jiayuguan was closed, and Dunhuang It became a frontier nomadic land until Xinjiang was pacified in the 57th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing government gradually established a city and farmland in Dunhuang, and the Qing Dynasty continued to build and rebuild here.

Although the statues rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty are generally considered ugly, the life that has lasted for nearly 1,700 years still makes people feel alive - what else can condense the common expectations and efforts of so many generations over such a long period of time? ?

 

Wear clothes with flying sky paintings to see the Mogao Grottoes. Although I don’t believe in religion, I may have a connection with Buddha. In Datong, I once saw a Buddha statue that was so beautiful that you couldn’t take your eyes away (I don’t know how to describe it, it’s like the beauty that you can’t help but peek at when you meet a beautiful and handsome guy on the road). In the first cave I visited this time, the eyes of the Buddha statues were made of glass. When I left, I looked at them and felt like an elder was smiling at me. Thanks to the fact that photography is not allowed in the grotto, it is difficult for a camera to record this amazing experience.

Note: To protect the murals, photography is prohibited inside the Mogao Grottoes. The following murals and Buddha statues were taken from the Mogao Grottoes Museum.

 

The stone in Dunhuang is not suitable for carving, so the Buddha statues are made of wood, bone and clay.

Classic bounce pipa

The long-lost Hu Xuan Dance, Mogao Grottoes makes it no longer just a legend

Cave 61

"Mount Wutai" is the largest Buddhist historical painting in Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang. It is located on the west wall of Cave 61 of Mogao Grottoes. The whole picture is 13.4 meters long. 3.4 meters high.

The upper part of the mural depicts the Buddhist scene of Bodhisattvas visiting Mount Wutai, the middle part depicts the main peaks and temples of Mount Wutai, and the bottom part shows scenes of secular life eight hundred miles around Mount Wutai. The entire mural contains 199 buildings, 13 bridges, 20 portraits of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, monks and laymen. There are 428 characters. Some of these monasteries still exist today. It is said that Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin later used this picture as a guide to find the Foguang Temple in the quiet mountains of Shanxi. Its main hall is the largest existing wooden building in the Tang Dynasty in China, and it was also praised by Liang Sicheng as "Chinese Architecture". The first treasure."

 

Interior view of Cave 61, picture from Dunhuang Academy, deleted for infringement

 

Cave 61, also known as the "Manjusri Hall", is mainly dedicated to Manjusri Bodhisattva. It was a merit cave excavated by Cao Yuanzhong and his wife, the Jiedu envoy of the Hexi Guiyi Army in the late Five Dynasties. There are not only this beautiful giant mural in the cave, but also portraits of donors climbing up with people, including the Uighur princess, the Khotan princess, the Uighur queen, and the Khotan queen - the first two are royal princesses who married into the Cao family. The last two are Cao's daughters. The family power of the owner of Cave 61 is evident.

 

Mural of the donor in Cave 61, picture from Dunhuang Academy, deleted for infringement

Out of curiosity about this family, I searched Cao Yuanzhong's life and accidentally discovered a unique army called the "Guiyi Army". Note it here.

 

Guiyijun: The Forgotten Hero

During the Anshi Rebellion, Xuanzong fled in a hurry, and the Hexi area was weakly defended and was captured by Tibet one after another. Until the last city, Shazhou (ie Dunhuang), was forced to surrender after all the food, grass and weapons were exhausted after holding on for eleven years. At this point, all the Tang people in the Hexi area were reduced to slavery.

People think about returning home day and night. According to historical records, Emperor Wenzong of the Tang Dynasty once sent envoys to the Western Regions. Those who had trapped Tubo greeted him with tears in their eyes, saying, "Is the emperor okay? Does the emperor still want to trap the lives of Tibetans?"

Alas, Li Ang, Emperor Wenzong of the Tang Dynasty, was controlled by eunuchs all his life, and in the end he died of depression under house arrest. How can I miss you ? The Tang Dynasty was so overwhelmed that it once completely abandoned this land until a local armed team appeared.

In 848 AD, Zhang Yichao, a local Han leader, raised the banner of "expelling the Tibetans and returning to Tang" and led the people of all ethnic groups in Shazhou to revolt, expelling the Tubo, and ending the 67-year-long Shazhou uprising. state Finally returned to the Tang Dynasty.

Zhang Yichao, whose ancestors have been Shazhou generals for generations, is a powerful clan member of the Ding clan in Dunhuang. He was born in Dunhuang and had never been to Chang'an before, but he never forgot his homeland and did not adopt Hu customs. After the uprising was completed, he sent ten teams of messengers from different directions to Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, to request support.

The Hexi Corridor is surrounded by the Qilian Mountains to the south, the Yellow Sand Desert to the north, and is blocked by Tibet to the east. You can imagine how difficult and dangerous it is. Only a group of people led by the eminent monk Wuzhen from Dunhuang traveled from the northeast through the vast desert to Inner Mongolia and then to Chang'an.

Emperor Xuanzong of Tang was overjoyed and appointed Zhang Yichao as the defense historian of Shazhou and sent troops to support him. At this time, Zhang Yichao had recovered eleven provinces in the Western Regions, including Guazhou and Ganzhou. state , the Later Tang court also sent troops to recapture the three states and seven passes that had been trapped by Tubo for many years. The power of the Tang Dynasty was greatly boosted, and the Guiyi Army became a local armed regime in the northwest region loyal to the Tang Dynasty.

At this time, Zhang Yichao already had a large number of troops in hand, and he could separatize the area. However, he sent his brother Zhang Yitan as an envoy to Chang'an again with the map of the eleven states to win, and took Zhang Yitan as a hostage in Chang'an to show his loyalty. loyalty. Until Zhang Yitan died of illness, Zhang Yichao went to Chang'an at the age of sixty-nine and became a new hostage, leaving his nephew Zhang Huaishen (Zhang Yitan's son) to handle the military affairs of the Guiyi Army.

But the good times did not last long. Zhang Huaishen died due to internal fighting within the family. The entire family gradually declined amidst internal and external troubles, and its territory was repeatedly eroded. After the fall of the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yichao's grandson Zhang Chengfeng separatist and proclaimed himself emperor, and established the "Jinshan Kingdom of the Western Han Dynasty". After defeat, he surrendered to the Uighurs.

After the death of Zhang Chengfeng, there was no successor. Zhang Yichao's grandson-in-law Cao Yijin was elected to preside over state affairs. He canceled the country's title and surrendered to the Later Tang Dynasty. He restored the name of the Guiyi Army in the Tang Dynasty and served as the governor of the Guiyi Army and the governor of Shazhou.

Cao Yijin is the father of the builder of Cave 61.

Looking back at this history, I watched the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I am grateful to Zhang Yichao for copying "Don't you see the empty walls of the city? The general just planted flowers and bamboos." Youthful Ambition , excited about its great victory over Tuhun, The heroic spirit of the army playing the Han army song "Dazhenyue" moved the people who had been occupied for more than 60 years. state Still wearing the right-side-opening robe, Kaiyuan Temple still retains Xuanzong's deep love for his country. Seeing him build a tall building , Seeing him entertain guests , I saw his building collapse. , Seeing him A new building...

 

Don't say that everything will be empty when you turn around. When you don't turn around, it's just a dream.

 

Taoist Tower

Monk's Nirvana Pagoda outside Mogao Grottoes

The "Taoist Tower" described by Yu Qiuyu, where the famous Taoist Wang Yuanlu rests.

"Dunhuang is the sad history of our country's academics"

I really don't know how to write about this past event. So sad. More than 50,000 pieces of Buddhist scriptures, social documents, embroideries, silk paintings, Buddhist instruments and other cultural relics have been displaced; but they don’t know who to blame. Taoist Wang, who was considered the direct culprit, was also a poor man.

Baidu Encyclopedia’s introduction to him is as follows: He is from a poor family, struggling for food and clothing, and has to escape everywhere. At the beginning of Guangxu period of Qing Dynasty, he entered the Suzhou patrol camp and became a brave soldier. He followed Taoism and later left the army. He was ordained as a Taoist priest with the Taoist name Fa Zhen and traveled to Xinjiang.

Later, Taoist Wang traveled to Dunhuang. At this time, the Mogao Grottoes were very desolate, and the caves on the bottom floor had been covered by yellow sand. After Taoist Wang settled here, he accepted alms, and the incense gradually became more popular. He lived frugally, accumulated money, and vowed to rebuild the third floor of the Mogao Grottoes.

The first step in rebuilding is to clear away the accumulated sand. During a cleanup, he and his men accidentally opened the secret room in Cave 17 of the Mogao Grottoes. Unexpectedly, the secret room of less than 19 square meters contained more than 50,000rare cultural relics——Including various manuscripts, documents, weaving and embroidery, paintings, rubbings from the 4th century to the 11th century , including Chinese, including ancient Tibetan, Uighur, Khotanese, Su Special script, Sanskrit and Turkic, etc.; Involving many subjects such as religion, history, geography, language, literature, art, music, astronomy, calendar, mathematics, medicine and so on. Regardless of quantity and cultural connotation, they are well-deserved cultural treasures.

Who would have thought that this discovery would be a disaster for these cultural relics that had been sealed for more than 800 years.

After discovering the Sutra Cave, Taoist Wang walked fifty miles to report to the county magistrate; but the county magistrate did not pay attention to it. After the new magistrate who was a Jinshi took office, Taoist Wang reported again that the new magistrate came to Mogao Grottoes to inspect, but he just picked it up casually. I got a few volumes of scripture to take with me.

Taoist Wang was still unwilling to give in. He picked two more boxes of scriptures from the Sutra Cave and drove his donkey for more than 800 miles to Suzhou to present them to the Taoist platform. Daotai browsed it and concluded that the words on the scriptures were not as good as his calligraphy, so he left it at that.

In this way, seven years later, Taoist Wang asked the authorities again and again, but Mogao Grottoes still remained untouched. At the same time, foreign explorers were eyeing this treasure land.

In 1907, the British man Stein arrived. He compared himself to Xuanzang who was studying scriptures in a foreign country. He "captured" Taoist Wang through religious and spiritual exchanges, and used four pieces of horseshoe silver (a total weight of 200 taels) to defraud him into buying 24 boxes of ancient books with scrolls and printed volumes, Buddhist paintings, and weavings. Five boxes of embroidery, etc. At this point, explorers from all over the world have come in droves, and cultural relics from the Tibetan Scripture Cave have been scattered all over the world.

 

Later, although the remaining Dunhuang cultural relics were transported to Beijing, they were also "plucked" along the way. When they arrived in Beijing, only more than 8,000 pieces were transported, which was only one-fifth of the number when they were unearthed. one.

Taoist Wang has always lived a miserable life. Historical books do not record that Wang Taoist used the silver gained from selling Dunhuang cultural relics for pleasure, but a three-story building was indeed built, and the Mogao Grottoes were further repaired by him. This Taoist Wang, who was called "Wang Abo" (a person with a Bodhisattva heart) by the villagers, his long-cherished wish was finally fulfilled, but he was also forever tied upOn the pillar of shame of history. It's annoying, It's a pity, It's sad.

Dance Score and Pipa Score

 

divorce papers

 

 

land

SIX

The starting point of this journey is actually Xi'an. The original plan was to go to Maoling to visit Wei Qing and Huo Qubing on October 1, and then set off for Xining, but it happened to be the birthday of a good friend. How can a male god be as important as his friend's birthday? So I walked around Xi'an with her that day, but didn't go to Maoling.

 

Cheng Wukong and Jia Jingjing meet again

What I want to say is that at noon on the 1st, I woke up lazily from her home in Xianyang. I saw the green outside the window that had just rained. I said, "The morning rain in Weicheng is light and the dust is light, and the guest houses are green." "Willow color is new" comes to the bottom of my heart. It's great, every meeting with Chang'an is full of surprises.

 

In every city I passed this time, moved me far beyond my expectations. Especially for Dunhuang, I was particularly moved by the respect each staff member had for Dunhuang and its history—every time I thought about a stone statue or mural, they would introduce which dynasty and which cave it came from. During the performance of "Meet Dunhuang Again" , will use a long length to read out the names of the captains of Zhang Yichao's other nine teams who may not even have names in the TV series. It seems that they are old friends with these murals and historical figures.

 

I hope that the Northwest will still be as beautiful decades later. Thinking of my visit in the autumn when I was twenty-five years old, I can also say that I am an old acquaintance of the Northwest. The grottoes and mountains have aged with me, and I have grown old with them.

 

Xi'an · Mix the group

 

Qinghai·Kang pot

 

Dunhuang · Chicken feet and shrimp tails

Dunhuang · Cultural and Creative Ice Cream

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