Visit the Ancient City of Jiaohe in Turpan

Title Picture 1: Come to Jiaohe Ancient City and listen carefully to the explanation

Picture 2 with five questions: Group photo with five group members

On September 20, 2009, visit the Old City of Jiaohe in Turpan!

The Turpan area is located in the central part of Xinjiang, in the southeast of Urumqi. To reach Turpan, it passes through Daban District of Urumqi City. When the car arrived at Chaiwopu Community in Wulabo Street, Bancheng District, there were huge windmills standing on both sides of the expressway, stretching for several miles. This is the largest wind power plant in Asia - Dabancheng Wind Power Plant.

Daban City is famous at home and abroad for the song "The Girl of Daban City". Because it is located in the valley between the Central Tianshan Mountain and the East Tianshan Mountain, it has become the airflow channel between the north and the south, so the wind resources are very rich. It is one of the nine windy areas in Xinjiang. Areas with the best development and construction conditions.

Chaiwopu is also a famous old outlet in the Dabancheng Valley. The local folk song says: "Dabancheng, the old outlet, there is a small wind every day, and the small wind blows crooked trees, and the strong wind flies stones." Cen Shen, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, also wrote here The poem said: "Don't you see that you are walking along the snowy seaside on Machuan, and the flat sand is vast and yellow into the sky. The wind roars at Luntai in September at night, and the broken stones in the river are as big as a bucket, and the stones are all over the ground with the wind." There are windy days here every year. 148 days, sometimes reaching more than 200 days. In order to develop the wind energy here, the local area has invested 900 million yuan to build Asia's largest wind turbine "phalanx", and is building China's first wind energy museum. The picture below is the rendering of the Wind Energy Museum.

Turpan is located in the intermountain basin in the eastern part of the Tianshan Mountains. It is a transportation hub connecting China's Xinjiang, Central Asia, and northern and southern Xinjiang in mainland China. The Turpan area has jurisdiction over Turpan City, Shanshan County and Toksun County. The main scenic spots we visited are all concentrated in the urban area of ​​Turpan.

The name "Turpan" was first seen in the book "Records of Fan Guozhi in the Western Regions" written by Chen Cheng of the Ming Dynasty. Turpan, in Uyghur language, means a rich and fertile place. According to the records of "Tongwen Zhi of the Western Regions", "Turpan" means "water storage" in Hui language. The "Dictionary of Common Names" published by the Commercial Press also stated that "Turpan" is a Uighur language, meaning "metropolis".

Turpan City, 185 kilometers away from Urumqi City, is located at the southern foot of Bogda Mountain in the east of Tianshan Mountains and the center of Turpan Basin. It is an important town on the ancient Silk Road and was once one of the political, economic and cultural centers of the Western Regions. A large number of cultural relics and historical facts show that Turpan is the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures, the four major civilization systems of China, India, Islam, and Greece and Rome. Jiaohe Ancient City, known as the "Oriental Pompeii City", is the testimony of Turpan's long history.

Jiaohe Ancient City is located in Yaerhu Township, 10 kilometers west of Turpan City, in Yaernaiz Valley, which is a river valley formed by floods in ancient times. A willow-shaped Hexinzhou is formed in the center, and Jiaohe Ancient City is located on this huge loess platform.

The ancient city is about 1,650 meters long from north to south, and about 300 meters wide at its widest point from east to west. It is surrounded by cliffs with a height of more than 30 meters. The total area of ​​the ancient city is 430,000 square meters, of which the construction area is 360,000 square meters, all of which are concentrated in the southeast of the ancient city, accounting for two-thirds of the total area of ​​the ancient city. The local Uighurs call the ancient city of Jiaohe "Yarhetu", which means "Yaer City". The buildings of the city use cliffs as barriers, without building walls, and because the river meets the prime minister of the platform, it has the name of the city of Jiaohe. According to the "Hanshu • Biography of the Western Regions" records: "Cheshi Qianguo, Wang Zhijiaohe City, the river diverges around the city, so it is named Jiaohe." Chen Cheng, a member of the Ministry of Civil Affairs in the Ming Dynasty, went to the Western Regions as an envoy to Jiaohe, and wrote in the ancient city. The poem "Yaer City": "The three rivers of the Shahe River communicate with each other, the sky is a dangerous city above the water, the cliffs are so dangerous, and the ruined terraces and ruins are several years old." This poem succinctly and vividly expresses the characteristics of the ancient city of Jiaohe. The picture below is a picture from the Internet, a bird's-eye view of the ancient city of Jiaohe, the natural earth cliffs, neighborhood houses, temple towers remain the same, like a giant ship sailing.

The ancient city of Jiaohe was built by Cheshi (also translated as Gushi). It was built earlier than the Qin and Han Dynasties, about 2,000 to 2,300 years ago. Like the ancient city of Gaochang, the ancient city of Jiaohe was also an important traffic town on the Silk Road in history. In 109 B.C., Zhao Puonu, a general of the Han Dynasty, attacked Gushi and divided the original territory of Gushi into eight countries according to the geographical situation. Among Qianguo, Cheshihouguo and Shannan six kingdoms, Jiaohe is the political, economic, military and cultural center of Cheshuaiqian kingdom, and also the capital of Cheshiqian kingdom. At that time, there were "700 households, 6,500 mouths, and 865 victorious soldiers." In the first year of the Yuan Emperor of the Western Han Dynasty (84 BC), Jiaohe set up Wuji Erxiaowei (Wuxiaowei and Jixiaowei should be He is the highest officer in the region, in charge of farming affairs in the Western Regions), stationed in Jiaohecheng farming. During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Jiaohe County was established. In the Tang Dynasty, Jiaohe County was set up, and it was once the place where Anxi Dufu was stationed. At the end of the 8th century, Jiaohe fell to Tubo, and after the middle of the 9th century, Jiaohe Prefecture was established, which was under the jurisdiction of the Uighurs. In the second half of the 13th century, Haibu Duwa, an aristocratic group in Northwest Mongolia, launched wars, and the ancient city of Jiaohe was repeatedly hit and severely damaged. During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty (1403-1424), the city was abandoned. The picture below shows a pottery lamp with a human face unearthed in Jiaohe Ancient City. It is cylindrical and hollow, 28 cm high and 12 cm in diameter at the bottom. The combination of human face engraving and relief sculpture, with long beard and beard, is a work of the 7th and 8th centuries.

"Flying birds are plentiful near Jiaohe City, and horseshoes are slippery on Luntai Road." In the formerly prosperous Jiaohe City, only the city foundation and broken walls and ruins remain, but the city pattern, government offices, temples, pagodas, squares and alleys are still there. It can be distinguished from time to time. The existing relics of Jiaohe Ancient City are roughly the scale of the heyday of the Tang Dynasty. The urban architecture has two notable features: one is that there is no city wall, and the surrounding cliffs are erected to form a natural barrier; the other is that most of the buildings, including the wide streets, are excavated from the original soil.

Under the entrance to the south of the ancient city, there is a Tang-style building - Jiaohe Ancient City Cultural Relics Exhibition Hall, which displays the ancient city sand table, historical materials and unearthed cultural relics.

Looking at Jiaohe Ancient City, there are only two gates in the whole city, the South Gate and the East Gate. From the perspective of layout, Jiaohe Ancient City can be divided into three parts: the central street running through the north and south divides the residential area into east and west parts, and at the north end of the street is a large-scale temple, which constitutes the northern temple area. There is a majestic government office in the south of the Eastern District, and a group of magnificent pagodas in the north of the city, which may be the pagoda forest where eminent monks of all ages are buried.

The east gate of the ancient city, the gate and the city are integrated, standing high on the loess cliff bank with a height of more than ten meters. There are several large deep wells scattered all over the place. The area around the east gate is a typical Weng City. This structure can facilitate the defenders to eliminate the intruders who break into the city. It can be seen from this that this is an important strategic fortress of Jiaohe City. In addition to playing a defensive role, it also has an important role. Caravans entering Jiaohe must report here and wait for approval.

In the center of the Buddhist hall of the Great Buddha Temple is a square pillar tower. The east and west sides of the main hall are the monks' rooms. In the left front of the temple, there is a 10-meter earthen platform. It is said that standing on this platform, you can have a panoramic view of the whole city. Some people say that this earthen platform used to be a Buddhist pagoda, some say it was a drum tower, and some say it was a beacon tower. Which one is correct remains to be verified. Legend has it that Ban Chao, a famous general of the Han Dynasty, and his son Ban Yong wrote important poems in their military career here. The internet picture below is the Buddhist altar on the tower pillar in the center of the main hall. These Buddha statue sculptures have the same style in the Jin and Tang Dynasties, but it is said that during the dispute between Islam and Buddhism, the heads of many Buddha statues were destroyed.

To the northeast of the main hall, there is also a group of neatly arranged and magnificent Tallinn ruins, with a total area of ​​about 200 square meters. There are walls around the towering, with a south gate, 87.15 meters long and 84.8 meters wide. In the center of Tallinn is a big tower, about 10 meters high, standing majestically. There are 25 small pagodas arranged in four directions of the big pagoda, which are arranged in a square array of five vertically and horizontally. These 101 pagodas of different sizes form a majestic pagoda forest. According to reports, the pagoda is the large mandala mandala of the Vajra world, built in the Jiaohe County period (5th-7th centuries, more than 1640 years ago by carbon dating), and is the earliest surviving Tantra Vajra Throne Pagoda in my country. The first picture below is the Tallinn Tower, and the second is the remake of the Tallinn Phalanx.

Due to Turpan's unique dry and rainless climate, after 2,300 years of vicissitudes, the main structure of the city's architectural layout has been miraculously preserved, and many city walls are still standing tall, making Jiaohe Ancient City the world's largest cultural heritage. The oldest, largest, and best-preserved adobe city, in 1961, Jiaohe Ancient City was included in the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. Looking at the majestic appearance of this willow-leaf-shaped ancient city, chanting the poems of the ancients "drinking a horse at dusk and crossing the river", "the purple camel crossing the river at night", can't help but make people's thoughts flutter, and they are filled with emotion...

Jiaohe Ancient City is the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units announced by the State Council on March 4, 1961.

The area where the ancient city of Jiaohe is located belongs to a continental warm zone with arid desert climate, with plenty of sunlight, resulting in drought and extreme heat in the sunken basin. The spring is windy, the temperature is dry in summer and the winter is dry and cold. There are only two seasons of cold and warm every year, and the temperature difference is huge, the highest can reach 47.4 ℃, the lowest is -7.28 ℃, the annual average temperature is 35 ℃, and the high temperature above 40 ℃ can last for 36 days. The average precipitation is 16.2mm, and the annual evaporation is 2787.1mm. The annual average of 8-10 strong wind is 36.2 days, the average annual storm is 11.2 days, and the longest duration of strong wind is 8 days. It is the main disaster area of ​​strong wind and sandstorm.