The Jade Dragon Kashgar River, that is, the famous White Jade River in ancient times. This river originates from the Kunlun Mountains, flows into the Tarim Basin, and the Karakash River confluence and into the Hetian River, the river is 325 kilometers long, there are many tributaries, the basin area is 14,500 square kilometers, the river is rich in white jade, green jade and black jade, since ancient times it is the main river of Hetian jade.

People pick jade mainly in the middle reaches, and the upper reaches are difficult to reach due to the treacherous terrain. After the discovery of white jade in the Black Mountain area, it brought new hope to the jade hunters, and people ventured to it. Montenegro, that is, the ancient name of Karangguitak, its mountain is one of the main peaks of Kunlun Mountain, the peak reaches 7562 meters, the mountains are steep, and the ice and snow cover the ground. The place of jade production is the valley of Agjugai, which is one of the tributaries of the Yulong Kashgar River, about 30 kilometers away from the Lishan Brigade of Kashgar Tash Township, some sections of the river are widely distributed, the slopes collapse, the boulders are all over, only to reach on foot, the glaciers above the snow line are all over, the altitude is more than 5000 meters, and the relative height is 600-1000 meters. At the front edge of the glacier tongue, Hetian gravel is often found from the upper source as the glacier moves down to the snow line and gradually melts. The tongue of the glacier is tens to more than 100 meters high, and it does not break and disintegrate on a sunny day, accompanied by a thunderous sound, and the gravel and ice roll down and fall into the river, so you can also find beautiful jade under the glacier. Snow melt floods once a day, and the flood water washes huge blocks of ice down the river, revealing jade gravel as the ice and the ice melt. The jade produced is white jade and black jade. Two large pieces of white jade found in the past ten years are in the ice ridge. Moyu and the so-called jade of the Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang are also produced here. It is this kind of jade that attracts treasure hunters who are not afraid of difficulties, who look for jade in the snow-capped mountains and in the mountains and valleys. The jade here aroused the interest of geologists, and they went deep into the glacial valleys of the upper tributaries of the Yulong Kashgar River many times, and saw the contact alteration zone of dolomite marble and granite, and white jade can be seen in the foothill slope deposits. Unfortunately, the bedrock outcrops are above the icebergs, surrounded by glaciers, and people can't reach them. Geologists believe that there should be a deposit of native Hotan jade in this area, which is one of the main sources of neutron jade in the Yulong Kashgar River.

In recent years, the Yulong Kashgar River and the Karakash River produce the most jade in the two rivers of the Yulong Kashgar River, and the jade produced is the top grade and the best in the Hetian jade, the main characteristics are: the block degree is small, the jade quality is good, most of them have sugar skin, and they are also called sugar jade, sugar white jade and sugar skin jade. It has a smooth texture, clean and moist, and is called mutton fat jade - just like the fat and translucent sheep's tail oil after the oil is frozen, it embodies not only whiteness, but more importantly, it seems to be staggered by some kind of liquid, which may melt at any time, full of agility, and there is no dull and dead stone at all. The Karakash River, known as the Wuyu River in ancient times, is named after the county seat Moyu by the river. Karakash is consistent with the Turkic name.

However, this Moyu River, which is famous for its production of ink jade, is not found today, and the real place where ink jade is produced is in Montenegro, that is, the ancient Kalanguetak, which is a tributary of the Yulong Kashgar River. It turns out that there is a large amount of jasper in this river, which is green, and its appearance is pitch black after weathering, and the oil shines brightly. The mineral composition of jasper is the same as that of Hetian jade, and the chemical composition is also very similar, which belongs to nephrite. However, its genesis is related to ultramafic rocks, which is different from Hetian jade. Therefore, in ancient times, some people mistakenly called jasper as black jade. But at the same time, some people call it green jade, which is exactly what the Ming Dynasty scientist Song Yingxing said.

Therefore, we believe that the ancient Greenstone River and Wuyu River are actually a large river, that is, the Karakash River, but this river not only produces jasper, but also white jade. There are several Hetian jade primary deposits in its upper reaches, and white jade can also be found in its middle and lower reaches. In addition, the lower reaches of the river also produce sand gold and diamonds, since the discovery of diamonds in the 40s, this year several diamonds have been found in the sand gold. Therefore, the Karakash River is a treasure river flowing with gold, flowing jade, and hiding diamonds. Most of the jade produced by the Karakash River is green jade, green and white jade, blue and white jade, and black jade, and also produces a small amount of jasper, but the white jade produced is very small, and the texture and price of jade are far inferior to the white jade produced by the Yulong Kashgar River. Therefore, there are very few people who pick jade in the Upper Karakash River, and the jade mining in the Upper Karakash River is mostly in the upper reaches of the mountainous area, there is no road, and the main means of transportation is the donkey. Jade mining in the middle reaches of the Karakash River is mainly carried out by the method of jade picking, and the Karakash River is usually not picked by anyone, but after the flood season every year, the banks of the river are surrounded by local Uyghurs who come to pick jade.

At present, the form of jade mining in the Yulong Kashgar River has undergone major changes, and there are mainly two ways of manual jade digging and mechanical jade mining:

First, the manual digging of jade using the traditional way of digging jade, several people in partnership, a family or a single person to dig jade, the tool for digging jade is very simple and practical: a special shovel, a cross pickaxe, a small rake. The excavation of jade is mainly concentrated in the gravel layer on the riverbed and valley terraces, dry beaches, paleochannels and alluvial alluvial fans in front of mountains. Because the labor paid for digging jade is very arduous, confined to a small range for a long time, the acquisition rate is very low, and sometimes it is common to not be able to dig up a decent and valuable jade for several months. In the Hetian jade market in Hotan City (the locals also have a jade bazaar, bazaar, the meaning of the market in Uyghur language) can buy the best good jade, it is a difficult thing, of course, the price is much higher, sometimes for a piece of good jade, several jade merchants are in order to win the ownership of this piece of jade at a high price, and truly experience the "gold is priceless, jade is priceless". It is too difficult to dig up a good piece of jade, and sometimes it is common to dig out a few or a dozen seeds of jade in a day, and sometimes it is not "open" for several months. With the exponential growth of the price of Hetian seed jade, more and more people are engaged in digging jade, from November to the end of May every year, there are about 3,000 people engaged in professional jade digging in the Yulong Kashgar River in Hotan City every day, and the best time to dig jade is from October to May of the following year, there is no flood during this period, it is more suitable for digging jade, and there is no danger. In particular, from October to February of the following year is the peak period of jade digging, this period is the agricultural slack, local farmers pour into the riverbed to dig jade, the most people gather in the river between the Yulong Kashgar River on the side of the road to the Buya Coal Mine to the Yulong Kashgar River in Luopu Jiya Township, no less than 15,000 jade diggers gathered, the jade they dig out is basically sold at the jade digging site, and the price sold at the jade digging site is lower than the price to be sold in the market. In the Yulong Kashgar River about 100 kilometers long jade digging riverbed and riverbank, gathered large and small harvest jade bosses, most of the bosses are locals, more than 95% of them are Uyghurs, each of them with a briefcase under the arm socket (the funds for collecting jade are all inside) every day in the 100 kilometers or so of the jade digging riverbank patrol, see or meet the jade diggers dug out the jade, they hurry to see, see the color, see the quality of the jade, and then bid and then bargain, and finally can be 20% lower than the market This kind of person is the first person to collect jade, and more than 85% of the jade produced in the Kashgar River in Hetian Yulong has passed through them to the market. When they receive a rare good jade or the best jade, they are generally not in a hurry to sell it, but collect it for a period of time and wait for the big customers to come to buy it. Sometimes, they receive rare good jade or the best jade in the jade, and sell it directly to local jade shops. Of course, there is also a time when the jade is taken to the market, and the jade collected when the jade is sold in the market, often cannot be sold at the price when the jade is collected, and only the loss is sold, which verifies the old saying: "The market has the final say". A small number of people who collect jade are local Han people and mainland bosses who collect jade from other places, not to mention that these people are a minority in number, but they belong to the middle and upper chain or the upper chain in the Hetian jade trading market chain. Their "appetite" is very large, 50-80% of Hetian jade is turned to Suzhou, Yangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Xi'an, Guangzhou and other large and small jade carving factories or Hetian jade stores in the mainland, and then these jade carving factories or Hetian jade stores make Hetian jade craft products and eventually go to the whole country. They basically bought Hetian jade in the jade market, and very few went to the riverbed and riverbank to collect jade.

Second, compared with manual jade digging, mechanical jade digging truly reflects what is called modernization, and the efficiency has been greatly increased. However, the cost of mechanical jade digging is much higher than that of manual jade mining. The jade digging industry is different from other industries, and digging jade in the river is not like digging jade in the mountains with jade veins, you can dig down along the veins, and there are goals, and the harvest is big. And digging jade in the river has no goal at all, you can only rely on feeling. I don't know where the jade comes out? I don't know at all, I can only dig in the riverbed prescribed by the local government by feeling, and sometimes I can't dig up a decent and valuable jade for a few days or more than ten days, and the price is very high, and the fuel consumption of an excavator or loader is about 2,000 a day. It's really not open for a few days, and it's open for a few years. Under normal circumstances, the value of the seed jade dug out by mechanical digging jade and the daily expenses of the excavator or loader are roughly equal, no loss or earn, once a good jade is dug up, it can be sent, a piece of about 1000 grams of Hetian seed jade white jade with sugar skin - the price of mutton fat jade is about three million. The price mainly depends on the quality and fineness of the jade, but also on whether there are cracks, cracks, fireworks, soot, variegation, purity, the color of the skin (sugar jade) and the whiteness of the jade