Shi Laoqi didn't say a word when he heard this, and took them on the train. After sitting down, he said, "Then let me give you a brief introduction to this journey." ”

"You're all readers, and you've probably looked at the materials. Western Xia was a very peculiar country, and its land was in the shape of a herringbone. There are five provinces in the east, namely Hexi, Hami, Anxi, Khotan, Bac Dinh and Yibo. Among them, Luntai, located south of the Tianshan Mountains, was the old capital of the Great Xia Kingdom and the largest city in the eastern part of the entire kingdom. These five provinces are the hometown of my Han family, since the Han Dynasty Zhang Qian chiseled the hollow, the successive dynasties have many operations, and the Western Xia is also based on this to operate the West after moving west. These places have a large Han population, a strong Buddhist atmosphere, and relatively good economic conditions, and there are railways or trade routes between major cities, so it is more convenient to travel. For travelers in the Central Plains, when they go to Broken Leaf City to see Li Bai's hometown, or look at the ruins of the four towns of Anxi in the Tang Dynasty, they can already feel a strong exotic atmosphere. ”

"After the broken leaves, and then to the west, is the so-called Hezhong Province, which is an area with developed irrigation agriculture, and is also the place where Tianzhong City, the new capital of the Xia Kingdom, is located. Tianzhong is the abbreviation of the world. In this area, there are already Hu and Han mixed places, and after the collapse of the Turks, the various tribes are scattered all over the place, and all kinds of exotic buildings can be seen everywhere. But there is still no need to worry about the security here, and it is still the core area of the kingdom's notice. To the west of the province of Transoxiana is an area known as the Karakum Desert, where Turkmen live only on the shores of the Caspian Sea. They were faithful to the kingdom, and the kingdom respected their faith, and both sides were at peace. The Turkmen made the blankets quite exquisitely, and the golden horses they bred are the most famous bloody horses in Chinese history. ”

"The south of the province in the river is in chaos, and the east is a high mountain near Tibet, which has always been a place for soldiers to fight, and the tribal situation is very complicated, and the Western Xia Kingdom has set up Tocharian Province here. The heart of Tocharian province is the city of Kabul, located in a high mountain valley – the city means trade hub in the local language, and was a transit point for mainland trade long before the opening of the Silk Road. ”

"The province bordering Persia to the west is the province of Khorasan, which was once the homeland of Sassanid Persia and the territory that the Tanguts had stolen from the Persians. To this day, it has not been fully occupied, and it is still a very dangerous area for business travelers. ”

"Tocharian is bordered to the south by Punjab, and to the south by Balochistan to the south. Punjab is located in the upper reaches of the Tianzhu River, and the lower Sindh province means river in Sanskrit. ”

"Across the Tianzhu River to the east, is the puppet Mughal Dynasty of the Western Xia Kingdom, which is the largest country in the northwest of Tianzhu, in addition to him, there are hundreds of large and small princely states in Tianzhu, just like the Spring and Autumn Period in ancient China."

"I suggest that we go to Broken Leaf City first after the transfer of Luntai, which is the westernmost fortress of the former Tang Empire and the capital of Yibo Province, which is densely populated and socially stable, and there are many places of interest for you to visit, if you want to move on, we can consider two routes - one is to Bukhara, which is the capital of Khorezm Province and one of the oldest cities in the Hanzhong region, and was the capital of the Samanid Empire at the end of the Tang Dynasty. There are still many ruins waiting to be unearthed around him. ”

"The other way is to Tocharo. Tocharian is a chess game in which several major forces in history intertwined. When the nomads in the north are strong, they will invade Tianzhu through Tocharo. The flanking Persian power also marched into the Transoxiana region through Tocharo. The rich history leaves plenty of room for imagination for future generations, but the only downside may be that the unruly local tribes can cause trouble on our journey – don't count on the Western Xia court. They no longer have the courage of their predecessors to return blood for blood and tooth for tooth, and blindly Huairou can only make those tribes more domineering. ”

Cheng Qi and the others listened carefully to Shi Laoqi's suggestion. After a serious and serious discussion, they finally unanimously decided to go to the broken leaves and throw stones to ask for directions.

The train rumbled westward. This is an international shuttle. Although it is a first-class sleeper, you can also observe the customs of many different ethnic groups.

As the train travels west, the first thing that changes is the diet. The next morning, when everyone woke up outside the north gate of the ancient capital of Chang'an, the conductor pushing a small cart brought each passenger a local specialty: biangbiang noodles and steamed buns.

Eating a bite of sour and spicy noodles, nibbling on a brown and crispy meat bun, the feeling of delicious gravy bursting in your mouth is simply heaven and earth.

After Chang'an, after another day and night, we finally arrived at Lanzhou, which was the westernmost important town of the Great Song Empire - in the hearts of ordinary people, Lanzhou is probably synonymous with the west, and forget the geographical common sense that Tibet is actually more westward in dimension.

Because the international train was checked before departure, the train only routinely replenished water and coal and continued westward. Along the ancient Silk Road, at the foot of the Qilian Mountains at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour, but for Cheng Qi. It's still snail-slow.

"The Tangut people also used the metric system." Huang Yang leaned against the wall of the car and held a travel booklet given by the car: "Fortunately, I bought a pocket watch with a dual time system, otherwise I wouldn't even be able to read the train timetable." ”

The most troublesome part of cross-border travel is unit conversion. The Song people rigidly used the 12-hour timekeeping method, while the Xia and Liao people both adopted the metric system of 24 hours. In addition, the Song people used the standard Bianjing time, which was one hour earlier than the summer time system used by the Xia people, so after entering the Xia Kingdom and transiting, the conductor reminded everyone to move the watch or pocket watch forward by one by one.

On the eighth day of the third month, that is, the Qingming Festival in the Central Plains, everyone finally arrived at Luntai, the summer capital of the Great Xia Kingdom.

After seven days of train travel, passengers got off the train feeling a little fluttering on the soles of their feet. I didn't have time to take a second look at this famous city since the Han Dynasty, and the sky was already a little dark. Under the leadership of Shi Laoqi, everyone first went to find an inn near the train station to rest. Perhaps because they were too tired, the three strangers slept more than a dead pig after honestly eating a plate of noodles and a large plate of chicken. It wasn't until the next morning that the sun shone through the window and hit his buttocks, that Cheng Qi slowly got up and walked to the balcony to enjoy the scenery of this ancient city.

Because it was the capital of the Tangut Dynasty for the first two hundred years, the city was quite magnificent in construction, and the early westward migration of the Tangut Dynasty was a loyal supporter of Han culture, from the monarch to the important ministers, who entrusted it to a master craftsman from Chang'an to make Wu Dong when planning their capital. Wu Dajiang planned and designed the new Luntai City based on Chang'an City.

Shinluntai Castle is divided into three cities: the outer castle is where ordinary citizens, caravans, and the families of the garrison live, and the inner castle is the residence of the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs and the residence of the imperial elite guard. Miyagi was the private residence of the Western Xia royal family.

In ancient times, the tallest building in Luntai City was the palace of King Xia, but now there are more and more buildings taller than the royal palace because Luntai is only used as a summer resort for the royal family. As far as Cheng Qi's eye can see, there are several tall pagodas.

"Hey, do you know - in ancient times, in order to prevent his concubines from cheating with other men, King Xia stipulated that the pagoda in the palace city forbade the concubines to climb the tower, so as not to take the opportunity to have a tryst with their sweethearts outside the palace." Huang Yang chattered about gossip while doing gymnastics on another balcony: "There is also a gossip that the waitress downstairs told me." It is said that the mutton soup that Xia Wang likes to eat most has a magical effect, which can nourish yin and yang, and strengthen the body. Therefore, several generations of Xia kings have three palaces, six courtyards, and seventy-two concubines. The most powerful is the third generation of King Xia Wu, who has more than a thousand concubines. If these concubines take a bath together, a river that flows out of Miyagi will be stained with rouge. ”

Cheng Qi silently took out a notebook: "Tell me, where can I drink the mutton soup here?" ”

"Let's go out for breakfast!" Guo Shan shouted next door: "Brother Qi said that he knows the road and takes us to eat the best local specialties!" ”

After five generations of Xia kings (since Xia Kangzong Li Bingchang moved west, there were five generations of Xia kings of Zhaozong, Zhuangzong, Muzong, and Xiaozong settled in Luntai, and Xiaozong began to build Tianzhong City in the middle of Xiaozong, and moved the capital to Tianzhong in his later years. By the beginning of the second millennium of the Confucian calendar (the middle of the 15th century), Luntai was already a relatively prosperous city at the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains and the northern edge of the Tarim Basin, with a population of nearly 500,000 at its peak. There are still about 200,000 people.

The inhabitants of the city are mainly Han Chinese, mixed with a small number of indigenous residents of the Western Regions. But after hundreds of years, the boundaries of nationalities are no longer very clear. Moreover, since Li Bingchang moved westward to this place, he promulgated a policy of compulsory sinicization: to be an official and a soldier, he must pass a Chinese language test - the officials must be stricter, and they need to examine the Four Books and Five Classics or Buddhist teachings, and for the big soldiers, they must also examine the spoken Chinese. Moreover, many of the kingdom's preferential policies were issued only to Han Chinese, such as tax exemption in the event of natural disasters, which often only exempted Han farmers and herders from taxes, and the preferential treatment on the Silk Road was only given to Han caravans. Under such a long-term policy, many Turkic remnants with high noses, blue eyes, and curly hair also joined the Han family, and over the generations, the Han people spread all over the Western Regions, while other tribes slowly disappeared into the long river of history, and went with the breeze.

The streets and alleys of the ancient city are horizontal and vertical, and the streets are strictly divided according to the latitude and longitude to form a chessboard pattern of neighborhoods. Different neighborhoods have different names, indicating the uses that the original designers planned for them: mule and horse workshops, tea workshops, silk workshops...... But hundreds of years later, when you come back to these old neighborhoods, you will find that most of them have lost their original purpose.

The most common shops along the street are dried fruits and fruits, which are specialties of the Western Regions. The uncle and aunt who sat at the door and sold it, although they spoke Chinese, had a strong Western style.

The barbecue restaurant, which can smell the fragrance from afar, is the signature of the Western Regions, and the bloody freshly skinned fat leg of lamb hanging at the door, as well as the lamb chops that are bought and sold at the root, are paired with the local thin naan cake, which is really not too beautiful.

The group ate and strolled, and circled around the royal city for half a circle - it is very regrettable that the royal city of the summer capital has not become a public area open to the public, and can only overlook the vermilion palace wall from a distance, as well as the famous "Persuasion of the People from the Han Dynasty and the Vulgar Monument" at the south gate - that is the famous decree issued during the reign of the second Xia king Zhaozong Li Renxiao, and historians of the past dynasties believe that it is comparable to the reform of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty.

Luntai is not a big city in the Central Plains, but it is already a large-scale center in the Western Regions. The group visited several places of interest, and finally arrived at the large library on the west side of the inner city when the sun was setting in the west. This is a representative building of the third generation of Xia King Xia Zhuang Zong, and it has a history of more than 500 years.

The library has a rich collection of books, and since its completion, it has attracted many scholars from Hezhong, Persia and other places to visit. There is also a stone monument carved in multiple languages at the entrance.

The inscription reads: "Here there is truth, here there is no prejudice." ”