Although the ruins of this ancient city are very close to the outside, only six kilometers away in a straight line, the surrounding terrain is very complicated, perhaps because of this, the ruins of this ancient city here will not be discovered lightly, and it is also for this reason that Han Peacock is strange, how did Zhang Mei find here.

Zhang Mei glanced at Han Peacock with a little appreciation: "We discovered this site through satellite remote sensing maps, and organized an expedition team to the scene to confirm that the scale of this large-scale ancient building site is currently second only to the Loulan site in the Luo and Bu Nur areas. ”

"This is the outermost part of Lop Nur, are you sure this site is ancient, not modern?" Huang Shan asked.

Zhang Meile said, "If it weren't for the research, how could we spend a lot of money and waste time here?" ”

"What age is this ancient city?" Han Peacock asked.

"It should have been built during the Northern Wei Dynasty, as for when it was buried by yellow sand, I don't know this, which needs us to continue to research." Zhang Mei.

"Northern Wei period? Can this also be studied? Huang Shan was a little unconvinced.

Zhang Meidao: "We have analyzed the carbon-14 age of the newly discovered ancient city ruins and 18 ancient building samples such as Loulan, Fangcheng, Erqiduke Ancient City, Milan Ancient Fort and Tuyin, and the results show that the age of the ancient city wall here is about 440~500 AD, which is exactly the Northern Wei Dynasty, so this ancient city should be formed in the Northern Wei Dynasty. ”

Han Peacock looked at this new site, about 80 kilometers northwest of Yingpan Ancient City (possibly the capital of Moshan National Capital) and about 110 kilometers east of Loulan Ancient City.

It should not be difficult to verify which city this place is in history, after all, this city is not small, if it is really an ancient city. It should be famous.

Thinking of this, Han Peacock's heart moved: "You should know which ancient city this is, right?" ”

Zhang Mei said approvingly again: "Our preliminary guess is that this should be Zhubin City." ”

"Note Bincheng? The famous city on the Silk Road? So, let's note the riverside below? Han Peacock thought about it for a while, and then remembered the origin of Zhubin City.

Han Peacock is erudite and strong, and naturally knows the record of Bincheng in the "Notes on the Water Classic" of Li Daoyuan of the Northern Wei Dynasty: "The river flows east through the south of Moshan Country. It is also east through the south of Bincheng, and east through the south of Loulan City and east of the city. ”

This shows that Zhubin City and Zhubin River use the same name, and also shows the relative position of Zhubin City and Moshan Kingdom in the northwest and Loulan Kingdom in the east.

From the chronology, geographical location and ancient documents of the new site, it is speculated that it is the Zhubin City recorded in the "Water Jing Note" of Li Daoyuan of the Northern Wei Dynasty, which can be said to make sense, therefore. We tentatively named the new site 'Zhubin River Ancient City Ruins'. Zhang Meidao.

It is feasible to speculate on which ancient city the newly discovered ancient city is based on the age, geographical location and documentary data, but Han Peacock believes that the final conclusion remains to be proved by the excavation work.

"Is that a riverside note? A tributary of the Peacock River? Han Peacock asked, pointing to a place that looked like a dry river.

As the exchange between Han Peacock and Zhang Mei deepened, an old man beside Zhang Mei couldn't help but say: "That should be Zhubinhe, about Zhubin River." According to our previous research, it is believed that the Xiaohe paleochannel to the west of the Xiaohe cemetery. As a tributary of the Peacock River, it is the Zhubin River.

Because the site is close to the ancient Silk Road post stations of Ala and Gan, and is at the crossroads of the east-west and north-south traffic arteries of the Silk Road, it has an important position on the Silk Road, regardless of whether the site is ultimately 'Zhubin City'. There is no doubt about it. ”

"This is Professor Gu Chengliang Gu, the advisor we invited." Zhang Mei introduced the old man.

"You are Han Peacock? Modu University of Science and Technology is famous all over the world because of you, and I think you are also a learned person, so you should judge the origin of this ancient city according to the location of several rivers here. Gu Chengliang finished speaking. The first to walk into the ancient city.

Han Peacock smiled: "You should confirm it, right?" ”

"This Boss Zhang should have told you, right? In the process of research, we used carbon dating to re-determine the specific dates of the ancient cities of Loulan, Fangcheng, Erqiduk, Milan Ancient Fort and Tuyin in the Lop Nur area.

The ages of the five sites are: Loulan Pagoda (about 100~230 AD), Fangcheng City Wall (about 230~300 AD), Jierqiduke City Wall (about 200 AD), and Tuyuan (about 100 AD); The age of the pillars in the ancient fort at the ruins of Milan is about 370 A.D., and the age of the north wall base of the west gate of the ancient fort is the youngest (about 770 A.D.), which belongs to the Tang Dynasty.

Tong Guò analyzed the carbon-14 age of 18 ancient building samples from the newly discovered ancient city ruins and 18 ancient building samples from Loulan, Fangcheng, Erqiduke Ancient City, Milan Ancient Fort and Tuyin, and the results showed that the age of the ancient city wall here was about 440~500 AD, which was formed in the Northern Wei Dynasty, which was about 100~300 years younger than the construction time of the other five sites.

According to the age of the wall and the type and geographical location of the preliminarily discovered cultural relics, the newly discovered ancient city site may be the 'Zhubin City' recorded in the Northern Wei Dynasty documents, so we have tentatively named the site as 'Zhubin River Ancient City Ruins'.

Although the subordination and function of the 'Zhubin River Ancient City Ruins' still need to be excavated in detail, because the site is close to the Silk Road ancient post station Arakan and is at the crossroads of the Silk Road's east-west and north-south transportation arteries, no matter whether the site is ultimately 'Zhubin City', its important position on the Silk Road is beyond doubt.

"Gu Lao, it's time for you to work, Xiao Han wants to know, I'll sue him." Before Gu Chengliang could finish speaking, he was interrupted by Zhang Mei.

However, what Gu Chengliang wanted to say, Han Peacock had roughly guessed that the establishment of a city was naturally not so simple, in ancient times, if you wanted to build a city, resources were extremely important, if there were not enough resources, what would the population of a city have to feed?

Seeing the thoughtful Han Peacock, and then at Zhang Mei, who didn't want him to continue, Gu Chengliang smiled bitterly.

He also wanted to discuss it with Han Peacock, after all, there was no vanity under the fame, and Han Peacock had gained such a great reputation for a while, so he naturally had some ability.

And he had a lot of questions and wanted to figure them out, but most of the people here were laymen and couldn't give him any enlightening advice.

"Whether the ancient city below is Zhubin City or not, you will find out when you go down and take a look later." Gu Chengliang shook his head regretfully and left.

In the distance, Han Peacock can see clearly that this site is composed of an ancient city and residential sites, with an area of about sixty or seventy square kilometers.

With the ancient city as the center, 3 kilometers northwest is the ancient city, and 8 kilometers is connected to the residential site.

When he got closer, Han Peacock found that the city wall of the city site was a rammed earth building, and from some of the excavated and broken city walls, these city walls were built very primitively, because Han Peacock could see the red willow and poplar branches inside the city wall.

After really walking into this ancient city, Han Peacock found that most of this place had been excavated by Zhang Mei and them, and it can be seen from here that they have been here for a long time.

Maybe it's because the excavation time is too long, so Zhang Mei's funds will be scarce, otherwise Han Peacock would not have the opportunity to follow her.

"How did Boss Zhang find out about this?" I'm really curious about this Han peacock.

Zhang Mei said with a smile: "That can only be an accident, at that time I used a laptop at home to retrieve satellite image data of Xiaohe ruins, Milan ruins, Loulan ruins, etc., and when I carried out high-resolution scanning of the 20~30 kilometers around the Xiaohe ruins, I suddenly found that about 5~6 kilometers northwest of the Xiaohe cemetery, the center of the river meanders on the west bank of the ancient river channel is composed of a right-angled shape composed of obvious white strips in the north-south direction and the near-east-west direction.

The right angle is in the southeast, like an inverted L-shape, whether it is near the north-south direction or near the east-west direction, it is completely different from the direction of the extension of the sand dunes controlled by the wind direction and the direction of the distribution of the Yadan landform, and the east-west strip in the south has a dark shadow, which seems to have a bulge, I suspect that it is artificially formed, so I organized people to come and check, but I didn't expect that this is really an ancient city. ”

Han Peacock is skeptical about this statement, after all, this is too lucky, looking at satellite pictures, you can also find an ancient city, which is really incredible.

Looking at the area of this ancient city and the progress of the excavation here, Han Peacock knew that if it was really an ancient city that had never been excavated, just such a discovery, Zhang Mei's harvest would be amazing enough.

Seeing that Han Peacock was a little unconvinced, Zhang Mei could only smile bitterly, to be honest, no one believed it.

Zhang Mei was very busy, so after Han Peacock walked into the ruins of the ancient city, she left.

In fact, Han Peacock didn't know that Zhang Mei really wasn't lying, after she found out here, she couldn't help the excitement in her heart, and organized an expedition, and when they arrived at this site the next day, they headed for the L-shaped suspicious point.

Walking eastward through the desert, on the flat ground between the dunes about 1.5 kilometers west of the suspicious point, they found spinning wheels, pottery shards, animal bones, etc., and found two five-baht coins.

After arriving at the suspicious point, the first thing you see is a piece of red clay with an area of several square meters, and a pile of stones or stone tools with a size of about 10~20 cm appears to the east.

It was then found that the southern wall made of red willow and earth extended to the east end, and samples of red willow branches were collected near the top of the broken wall.

The north-south wall on the east side only exposes the bottom of the wall foundation, which is about 6~8 meters wide and is relatively flat because it is constructed of artificially piled soil.

On the inside of the wall, there are intermittent red clays, charcoal has been found in many places, two charcoal samples have been collected in the southern and middle red clays, and some pottery fragments are scattered on and around the walls.

On the east-west wall to the north, the expedition team measured the width of the top of the wall to be 6 meters.

There are many sand dunes distributed in the west, and no western wall has been found, which confirms that this suspicious point is a large ancient city site composed of three walls about 220 meters long. (To be continued......)