Drink the water from any place, according to the customs of the place.

- Mongolian proverb

In 1900, the Qing Dynasty came to an end.

The Qing Dynasty suffered a complete defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War and was forced to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki with Japan, ceding Taiwan and other places, and compensating silver taels, and its international status plummeted.

Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others were worried about the country and the people, and launched the bus to write books, and the people in the capital were boiling and the political situation was worried.

The Empress Dowager Cixi decided to send Dong Fuxiang, the leader of the Gan army, to Beijing to protect him.

The leaders of the Hui rebels, who had earlier defected to the Qing court and were placed under the jurisdiction of the Gan army, followed Dong Fuxiang into Beijing. Ma Anliang served as the supervisor of the three banners of the horse team in Hezhou Town, Ma Haiyan was the flag officer of the middle banner, Ma Fulu still served as the commander of the concise military and the infantry pipe, and Ma Fuxiang was the commander of the cavalry of the concise army.

The old school represented by Cixi was opposed to the Guangxu Emperor, who implemented the Wuxu Reform. Cixi united with conservative officials to suppress the Restoration.

The Western powers were generally sympathetic to the reformers and opposed Cixi's deposition of the Guangxu Emperor.

Cixi held a grudge against Western countries and gradually developed xenophobic feelings.

With the deepening of domestic contradictions and national crises, the sentiment of rejection of foreign countries, especially the foreign churches that had infiltrated various places, was growing day by day, and finally the Boxer Rebellion was triggered.

The Boxers, formerly known as Hequan, were originally an organization of people from all over Shandong who studied martial arts, but were later used by a conservative official, Shandong Governor Yuxian, to counter foreign missionaries and intimidate local parishioners into leaving foreign churches.

Cixi listened to Yuxian's lies and believed that the Boxers were invulnerable and could not be injured by guns, hoping to use the power of the Boxers to practice xenophobia.

With the slogan of "helping the Qing Dynasty and destroying the foreigners," the Boxers set out from Shandong to burn churches, tear down electric wires, destroy railways, and destroy everything related to foreign countries. They first invaded the foreign concession in Tianjin, and then into the city of Beijing.

On May 28, eight major powers, including the British Empire, the United States of America, the French Third Republic, the German Empire, the Russian Empire, the Japanese Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy, formally decided to jointly send troops to protect their embassies and suppress the Boxer Rebellion, which indiscriminately killed foreigners.

Under great pressure from the Great Powers, the imperial court was forced to agree to the entry of the Great Powers' troops into Beijing.

On June 11, British Vice Admiral Seymour led more than 2,000 troops of the Eight-Nation Coalition to seize the Tianjin Railway Station, and then took a train to Beijing.

On the 12th, the Boxers fought jointly with the troops of Dong Fuxiang and Nie Shicheng of the Qing army, cutting off the connection between the Eight-Nation Alliance and Tianjin. As the rear army of the armed guards, the Gan army joined forces with the Boxers in the area of Langfang and Yangcun to repel the invading enemy. The battle was fierce.

Soon, the imperial court dispatched Ma Fulu and Ma Haiyan's troops back to Beijing and stationed them at Zhengyangmen.

One day, one of Dong Fuxiang's Gan soldiers suddenly had the courage to behead Sugiyama Bin, the secretary of the Japanese embassy who had violated the curfew order, and unexpectedly intensified the conflict between the Qing Dynasty and foreign embassies.

Gan's army was ordered to attack foreign embassies.

Ma Fulu led the death squad to charge into battle, but unfortunately was shot and died. His younger brother Ma Fugui, Ma Fuquan and his nephews Ma Yaotu and Ma Zhaotu were also killed at the same time.

The Eight-Nation Coalition began to turn its guns on the Qing court.

Cixi led the Guangxu Emperor to flee in the direction of Xi'an.

Ma Haiyan was ordered to follow Cixi's mother and son to protect him.

On August 14, the city of Beijing fell completely.

After the Eight-Nation Coalition invaded Beijing, they killed people everywhere, set fires, committed rape and looted, and stole and looted countless treasures from the Forbidden City, Zhongnanhai, and the Summer Palace. The famous Old Summer Palace, the Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens, was looted again after being ravaged by the British and French forces 50 years ago, and was finally burned to the ground.

The second generation of Ma Fuxiang and Ma Qi of the Ma family clan were tempered in the battle with the Eight-Nation Alliance, which paved the way for further seizing power in Gansu and even the northwest.

In the northwest of China, there is a province in the northwest of China that is famous for its harsh living environment and the industriousness and simplicity of its people.

As the saying goes, one side of the water and soil raises the other side. The small bridges and flowing water in the south of the Yangtze River have raised delicate and graceful women. The steppe Gobi outside the fortress gave birth to a rugged and majestic man. Gansu has nurtured generations of people with barren water and soil, shaping their personalities that are not afraid of difficulties and have the courage to create.

Gansu is made from the first words of the two place names of Ganzhou (today's Zhangye) and Suzhou (today's Jiuquan). Tang Wu (Western Xia) once set up the Gansu Military Division, and Dayuan also set up Gansu Province, so it is referred to as Gan. And because most of the land in Gansu is in the west of Longshan (Liupan Mountain), Datang has set up Longyou Road here, so it is also referred to as Long.

The provincial capital of Gansu is Jincheng, also known as Lanzhou, located on the south bank of the Yellow River and at the foot of the Gaolan Mountains.

Gansu is located in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, east of Shaanxi, south of Bashu and Qinghai, west of Xinjiang, north of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, northwest can go out of Mongolia, radiation of Central Asia, the terrain is long and narrow, more than 1,600 kilometers from east to west, an area of 453,700 square kilometers.

With a history spanning more than 8,000 years, Gansu is one of the important birthplaces of the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization, as well as one of the birthplaces of traditional Chinese medicine. According to legend, the humanistic ancestors of the Chinese nation, Fuxi, Nuwa and the Yellow Emperor, were born in Gansu. In mythology, it is also said that the Queen Mother of the West descended to the mortal in Huizhong Mountain in Jingchuan County. The Zhou people rose to prominence in Qingyang in the east. The Qin people were in Tianshui and Zhaoji in Longnan. The roots of the Li family, a great family in the world, are also in Longxi.

Gansu is located deep in the heart of the Eurasian continent, and the warm and humid air currents of the ocean are not easy to reach, and there is very little chance of rain, resulting in a dry climate in most areas. Winters are long and cold, and summers are hot and short.

Gansu is located at the intersection of the Loess Plateau, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Inner Mongolia Plateau, with complex and diverse landforms, with mountains, plateaus, plains, river valleys, deserts and Gobi deserts.

Gansu has been a multi-ethnic region since ancient times. The Qiang, Xiongnu, Yueshi, Han, Xianbei, Tubo, Tuyuhun, Dangxiang, Khitan, Mongols, Huihui, Baoan, Saerta and Manchurians all flourished here, creating a rich and colorful national culture.

In the 20s of the 13th century, Ali and Abbas, the Khorezmians, followed the conquerors of the Great Mongol Kingdom to the Han region of the Central Plains. Abbas settled in the eastern mountains of Hezhou, Gansu. Ali continued to be forced to migrate, moving with the Mongol army to the Central Plains, eventually settling in Dayuan's capital.

Later, the Han Zhu Yuanzhang drove out the Mongol nobles, established the Ming Dynasty, and began to suppress the once favored Semu people.

Ali's descendants were forced to flee Beijing and settle in Hezhou, Gansu Province, where they acquired a Han surname, Niu.

At that time, people centered on Hezhou City, and the surrounding places were called Dongxiang, Xixiang, Nanxiang, and Beixiang according to the direction.

Dongxiang in Hezhou is located on a large area of Loess Plateau between the Tao River, the Daxia River and the Yellow River. The mountains here are undulating, drought and rainfall, disasters are frequent, villages are scarce, and people are inaccessible.

After the Qing Dynasty put down the Shaanxi-Gansu Huihui Uprising, a large number of Sarta people living in Hezhou City fled to Dongxiang, which was closed by traffic, mountains and natural conditions were very harsh, in order to avoid disasters.

Ali's descendants surnamed Niu also fled from Hezhou City in the turmoil. They crossed the folding bridge in the southeast corner and walked deeper along a narrow ravine. They reached the top of the ravine, and when they saw that there was really no way out, they stopped their panicked footsteps and settled down in the depths of a large mountain called Jiaozigou.

In order to keep the narrow and smooth bottom of the ditch to grow crops and vegetables, they built their houses and courtyards on steep hillsides. When you work in the fields or carry water for cooking, you have to go down to the bottom of a deep ditch, and then climb up a high mountain beam when you are done.

They work at sunrise and rest at sunset, looking up at the desolate loess mountains and looking down at the thick loess earth. When I looked at each other, I saw faces covered with dust and red blood.

The Han and Hui people in the city of Hezhou called the Salta people who lived in Dongxiang Hui, Dongxiang Tu people, or Mongolian Hui Hui. Because their living habits and religious beliefs are basically the same as those of the Hui people, but the language is relatively close to Mongolian.

In the summer of 1900, the Niu family man of Jiaozigou built a new Zhuang Cave (family courtyard) standing on the slope. When he was building a house and repairing the village, in addition to inviting a small number of carpenters, his relatives and friends in the village came to help with laying the foundation and building the courtyard wall.

They built an earthen wall more than a foot high on the hillside, enclosing a courtyard that was half high and half low, and then built houses in the courtyard.

When he was on the beam, Isa's wife, Mai Liyan, walked over with her pregnant belly and a smile on her face. She prepared a few small pieces of gold and silver jewelry in a red cloth according to the custom of the Sarta people.

Jesus suddenly remembered something, and immediately took a pebble from his coat pocket and handed it to Mai Liyan.

It was the pebble that their ancestor Ali had brought from Samarkand.

Mai Liyan also wrapped the pebbles in red cloth, tied them with a bunch of hemp skin, and then asked the master engineer to tie them to the girders to show that the future days are prosperous and auspicious.

Trees in Togo are extremely scarce. Therefore, except for the doors, windows, and beams, purlins, and rafters, which were made of wood, the rest of the house was made of mud.

Inside the compound are houses on the east, north, and west sides.

The three upper rooms sit north and face south, with a hall in the middle and bedrooms on either side. The upper house is the housing of other elders such as grandfather, grandmother, or parents. The furnishings in the house are slightly better than in the other houses. When you enter the hall, you are greeted by Arabic couplets hanging on the wall. Underneath the couplet is a panel cabinet against the wall. The cupboard is stocked with food, clothing, etc. There is a table clock and tea set on the counter. On either side are very old but polished chairs.

To the east, there are two joyags (sarta, huts) where the children of the family live, and the interiors are simply furnished. On the west side are two joyags, one for young couples and one for miscellaneous items.

The bed is made of adobe, and the empty clay kang in the middle is like a large stove, in which a fire can be lit to keep warm. Dongxiang is located in a mountainous area with a cold climate, and most days of the year you have to burn kang to keep warm. The hole in the kang is usually under the window outside the house. Bring cow, sheep, donkey dung, swept grass clippings, leaves, etc. into the cave entrance, and then light it to enjoy this benefit.

The kitchen is located in the corner where the upper room is connected to the east side of the Joyerge, and is separate from the house. In addition to cooking, the kitchen also serves as a bathhouse for ghusl.

The toilet is behind Joyeg on the west side. Three low walls enclose an open earthen pit. It is convenient to cover it with white soil in the future to avoid the unpleasant smell wafting, and it can also be used as fertilizer in the farmland.

The cattle and sheepfolds are covered in the corners of the doorways.

'Isa chose to move to Singar (home) on the day of the Lord's day.

He and Mai Liyan got up from their beds early in the morning, boiled a large pot of hot water, and prepared to wash Abdeis (bathing).

The Sarta people have strict hygiene habits: wash abusio several times a day, keep the mouth, nostrils, ears, face, neck, hands and feet clean. Do ghusl once a week to keep your whole body clean. He poured the hot water into a bucket hanging from the girder, then pulled the wooden cork from the bottom of the bucket, and the hot water flowed out of the hole, poured it on his head, and washed it from right to left and from top to bottom. Wash this 3 times in a row, and then wipe your body dry with a dry cloth.

In Dongxiang, where there is a drought and lack of water, water is the most precious. Where there is water, there is life and hope. The people of the Sarta regard water as precious as their own lives. It has been said that it is more difficult to borrow a bowl of water from the Sartars than a bucket of clear oil. However, even if a passer-by who did not know each other came to the door and asked for a wash, the owner could not find any excuse to refuse. Because cleanliness is the highest state of the Sarthas.

Isa looked to be about 20 years old, with a burly build, a red face, a white beanie hat on his head, a well-washed white cloth shirt with black shoulders, blue trousers on his legs, and a pair of black cloth shoes. The whole person looks refreshing and shrewd.

She wears a waist-length pink hijab on her head, and a long pink embroidered tunic with a collar, placket and wide sleeves, and a lace of red and green on the cuffs. He wears a blue-blue trouser on his legs, with two black edges embroidered with small flowers on the trouser leg, and a small fork on the back of the trouser leg, which is tied with a black streamer. He wears black heels with wooden soles that are about 2 inches high. The toe cap is embroidered with two bright red peony flowers.

Mai Liyan's belly was high and bulging, and she looked like she was about to give birth.

'Isa had cleaned up his personal hygiene, and the friends and relatives who had come to help him had arrived. Some people cook in the kitchen, and some have three wooden round tables in the center of the courtyard. Today, Jesus invited the villagers in Zhuangzi to participate in the ceremony of moving to a new house and praying for peace, and then feasted everyone for a meal.

On the hillside opposite 'Isa's house was a small mosque painted pale green. At the entrance of the temple stands a minaret that summons people to worship. The chapel is in the middle, and the foundation is higher, so you need to climb the stairs. In the center is a semicircular dome. In the middle of the dome rises a small spire with a crescent moon on it. On both sides of the chapel are water halls for washing and prayer halls for studying.

On the Lord's Day, the middle-aged and elderly men in the neighborhood come to the temple to worship with a sense of devotion and sacredness. They wore scarves made of white or yellow silk on their heads, low-necked folio mid-white coats sewn from black and gray coarse fabric, and black socks, cloth shoes, and galoshes over cloth shoes. To enter the mosque or at home, you only need to take off your galoshes, and the cloth shoes inside are spotless.

They kneel on the carpet and worship and pray reverently facing the West, doing what they consider most holy.

When the sun rose in the middle of the sky, Ahom from the worship mosque on the opposite slope came out with a couple of 10-year-old Xiaomanla (students) and walked down the rugged path into the ravine, and then up the winding path to 'Isa's new home.

The men, women, and children sitting in the compound hurriedly stood up and greeted Ah Hong in unison: "Seran! ”

With a smile on his face, 'Isa stepped forward and led Ahon and Manla to a round table in the middle of the courtyard and sat down.

Ah Hong unwrapped the silk scarf in his hand and took out a scripture book with Arabic characters printed on the cover. Ah Hong spread out the thick scriptures and began to recite the scriptures in a deep voice. The little Mandalas chanted in a low voice after Ah Hong, as if they were the accompaniment of the choir.

The chanting ended with the crowd's "Aminai" (I hope so) voices.

The helpers quickly served a bowl of tea with rock sugar, longan, and red dates.

The guests drank tea slowly and methodically, while chatting with each other for a short time.

After a while, the helpers brought the sata delicacies such as Huang Cancan's tantalizing oil, crispy and steamed dumplings, as well as dried apricots, raisins, red dates and walnuts.

Oil Xiang is a kind of pasta fried with two small slits in the middle. Crispy is a deep-fried twist flower. Steamed dumplings are also a kind of fried food, the yeast noodles should be mixed with supernatant oil and egg white, kneaded evenly and pulled into chopstick-thick noodles, cooked in clear oil and then fished out, coiled into layers of circles, which looks very exquisite.

After eating the aroma of oil and dried fruits, the hot Dongxiang hand-grabbed meat is officially served. The yard was filled with the smell of pure incense.

Dongxiang hand grasp meat is delicious and delicious, the color is fresh and the meat is tender, fat but not greasy, and it is extremely delicious. It has a unique method of making: the whole sheep is put into a pot and first burned over a fierce fire. When the broth is boiling, use a colander to take out the foam with impurities and blood, and then sprinkle pepper, pepper, ginger, grass fruit, garlic sprouts, red pepper, green salt and other seasonings in the pot, and then simmer over slow heat.

By the time the guests had drunk their delicious drinks, it was already afternoon.

'Isa and Maileyam saw off their guests and turned back to clean up the pots and pans with their helpers. In the end, Mai Liyan wrapped a cooked meat for each of the helpers, and then sent them away with great gratitude.