Careful observation, most of these city walls are rammed earth compacted, gray stone masonry, up to ten meters high, countless battlements and lookouts are distributed on the city wall, standing under the root of the wall, you can clearly feel the wall of the city wall.

Look at the city towers on all sides again, they present the "mountain" shaped structure, divided into three, the middle is high, the two sides are slightly shorter, the stone yellow stone is built on the city wall, the top is the round helmet of the Western Regions, and the three large and small helmets are all covered by colored tiles.

It's just that now the color tiles have fallen off and lost their color, only some of the remnants of the tiles can still be seen at the original gorgeous and dazzling, the prescription windows are high and exquisite, the window frame coffin has faded lacquer paintings, the shape is like the Han-style eaves appear on the outer wall of the city tower, all traces, you can see the glory of the city.

On the lintel of the city tower, you can see the three ancient Chinese characters of "Mirlan City" made of Xuantie, after the Chinese characters, there will be Sogdian and Arabic characters that can be seen by the Hu people, which are dilapidated after thousands of years, but they can still see the words clearly.

The only thing that distinguishes this Hu city from the Han is the unique structure of these city walls!

On the city wall outside the city tower, with the city gate as the center, there are five small gatehouses with round arches on the left and right, they are only half a meter shorter than the central gatehouse, and the main city tower is flush with the chiseling, so that the city wall on all sides forms a pattern of actually opening ten gates on the face.

To the left and right of these round arches, there are trapezoidal wedge walls that slope down from the height of the lintel, separating each of these arches like lattices and baffles, which can not only serve as a divider, but also support the city wall and make it stronger.

Outside the ten arches, there are more regular grooves, which are cut in parallel, with the width of the wedge wall between the arches, extending forward and at the same time can be seen to be deeply cut downward, directly connecting from the arches to the sand mountain, as if some flood channel, ten channels in rows, magnificent.

They turned their perspective to the lintel, where there are more square windows with a width of one meter, and the windows are in the same style as the Han-style eaves of the city tower, but there are more stone slabs protruding outward than the main door and window lattices, and each arch has a similar structure, which shows that it has a unified certain purpose.

"Do these towers need so many gates?"

Yue Guanchao counted carefully, just this city wall, there have been ten small arches, these arches occupy a total width, accounting for one-fifth of the width of the city wall, this is not counting the three square city gates in the middle, from their point of view, the total number of gates on the four sides of the ancient city of Mirlan will not be less than fifty.

Keli glanced at these strange gate structures, seemed to know why, and explained: "Mirlan City is located at the eastern end of the desert, and when the Hu people from Central Asia and West Asia walked to Mirland, they basically came to the Hexi front line of the Han land, and of course it became the hub of trade between Central Asia and the Han people by virtue of its geographical advantages. ”

He paused and continued: "As I said earlier, this city has the Hu nobles and common people of the Western Regions, the Hu merchants, and the merchants and travelers of the Han land, and even the Rouran people, Xianbei people, Xiongnu people in the north, and the Xiqiang Tibetans near Kunlun Mountain, will also trade and live in this city, plus the Han people once garrisoned Tuntian here, and the Western Buddhism also preached here, making this a mixed Hu and Han trading town and the capital of Buddhism. ”

It can be said that Mirlan is the real trading capital of Central Asia, and the trade atmosphere here is even stronger than that of the Han people.

Even if merchants are allowed to do business, most of them are set up as trade markets in a certain area of the city, allowing merchants to pass through commerce, and most of these places are east or west markets.

This structure of separating residential areas and commercial areas continued from the Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang dynasties, until the trade economy developed during the Song Dynasty, and only then did the residential areas and commercial areas be allowed to mix and operate.

To put it bluntly, the Han city attaches great importance to the taxes brought by commercial interests, but does not respect the merchants, in their eyes, no matter how much taxes they pay for the country, they are still at the bottom of the Shinong industry and commerce.

In this respect, the concept of Mirlan City is completely different from that of Handi City.

In addition to the mix of commercial areas and residential areas, it is also reflected in the city structure shaped for commercial convenience, which cooperates with the environment of Mirandze during the Northern and Southern Dynasties to provide services for merchants and commerce.

Pointing to the grooves and arches they saw, he said, "These arches you see are the tax gates of Myran!" ”

The so-called tax gate is the gate used by Mirlan to collect taxes!

The tax system of Mirlan City is different from the Han-style city, the Han-style city fixes the merchants and merchants in the market in the city, and they can pay taxes after the merchant's goods enter the east and west markets.

In the case of a huge area of the city, waiting for merchants to enter the city and then collect taxes one by one, it will cost a lot of manpower and material resources, and it will also be due to manpower negligence, which will facilitate some merchants to miss the payment of commercial taxes, so these Shanshan nobles created the city gate tax law.

As long as the merchants are willing to pay taxes, they can enter the city for free trade, otherwise, they will not be able to enter the city, let alone obtain the protection of Mirlan City.

Under this system, the merchants mostly gathered outside the city gate to wait for the payment of taxes, if the passage was not smooth, the merchants would be completely piled up outside the city gate, these round arches were all built to speed up the collection of taxes into the city, ten gates on each side, if there were too many merchants, the city gate would be opened to speed up the inspection of goods, the collection of taxes, so as to facilitate the merchants to enter the city.

At the window above the arch sat the tax collectors of Mirran, who were responsible for collecting the customs clearance documents from the merchants above the city gate, and when the merchants wanted to pass the customs, they would first send the customs clearance documents to the window through the hanging basket and show them to the tax collector, and after confirming their identity, the tax arch would open.

At this time, the merchants can let the goods into the arch, and the inner wall of the arch will stick out of the board, directly on the cargo ship, through their customs clearance, pay the tax, and then retrieve the customs clearance papers, from which to enter the city.

Under this structured process, merchants can enter the city as soon as possible, and tax collectors can collect taxes and count goods as soon as possible, which is the most convenient and prosperous.

Speaking of this, Klee pointed to the grooves they saw: "These grooves are not actually flood ditches, but cargo ship canals, and what you see is just a dry river......

At that time, when the lake was not exhausted, the water level of the lake was at the lower part of the sand mountain, just at the level of the water level of the canals they had seen, and the water from these lakes would pour directly into the canals, directly through the round arches to form a waterway inside the gates, so that the cargo ships could sail to the end of the Mirlanze by mooring into the canals and pass through the city gates.

Within the city gate, there is also a circle of the inner city Cao River, which is drilled parallel to the four city walls, as if it is a moat in the city, and is connected with the Cao Canal, which allows the ship to enter the city and go around the city along the Cao Canal, which is not only convenient for trade, but also solves the night suspension of ships.

Keli said this, paused and continued: "Mirlan City is a Daze city, this Mirlan Ze is already a moat, there is no need to dig another ditch outside the city, in order to let merchant ships anchor into the city, it is necessary to dig a hundred-meter-wide Caoqu ditch in the inner city, so that it can not only be navigable but also introduce Daze clean water, and provide water sources for the people." ”

Yue Guanchao said: "If you look at it this way, Mirlan City is completely different from Han-style cities, aren't these cities afraid of being robbed by bandits?" ”

There are so many doors, but if they are favored by bandits, it is like a leaky room, which can be easily broken from anywhere.

Keli shook his head: "It depends on the skills of these bandits, as far as I know, the reason why the tall walls of Mirlan City are built so high is not only to prevent the desert wind and sand in the northwest, but also to protect the safety of the city and defend against enemy bandits." ”

These walls were not rammed earth walls, but stone walls made of riveted stones, and there was a lot of clay on the outside, and it was impossible for ordinary bandits to break through the walls.

Daze outside the Shashan Oasis is also a huge moat to some extent, which can prevent any incoming enemy, as long as the people in the inner city stand on this city wall, they can rely on the advantage of the height difference to see the incoming enemy clearly, and defend the enemy from high to low, just firearms and artillery, so that the bandits can not stand it.

Speaking of this, Keli nodded at everyone: "You are right about one thing, at that time, this place was close to the desert, sparsely populated, and the wilderness was indeed dangerous, in a sense, this Mirlan City was not only a trading town, but also a fortress military town of the ancient Shanshan Kingdom, and undertook the task of encircling the surrounding territory. ”

"The capital of trade, the city of Buddhism, the border military town, the business and travel post city, these different roles are mixed together, but also make the style of the Mirlan City very unique, the architectural style of the entire Mirlan City, for the Western Regions of Central Asia Hu Feng, at the same time, due to the mix of Hu and Han in the city, there are a large number of foreign populations settled in the city, which also makes the architecture of the Mirlan City a fusion of Han, Tibetan, Uighur different architectural decoration styles, it can be said that the collection of Chinese and Western strengths, after entering the city tower, you will understand."

With that, Keli pushed open the gate of the city tower, walked into the ancient city of Myran, thousands of years ago, and walked up the stairs to the walls of the ancient city of Myran.

Standing high and seeing far away, they were standing on the nearly ten-meter-high city wall at the moment, and the inner city scenery of the ancient city of Mirlan gradually came into view.