Gray and yellow mandala, far away from the oasis.

Yue Guanchao they out of Moyu County, stop at the root of the city wall, this circular mandala city has a city gate on all sides, there are constantly people and camel caravans in the Western Regions come and go, from time to time there will be cars roaring past, driving into the city gate, a busy, bustling and lively.

Thinking back to the Khotanese era thousands of years ago, Moyu County would be thousands of times more prosperous than now!

Located at the foot of the Karakoram Mountains, Moyu County is an ancient city located at the southern end of an oasis.

Looking into the distance, the Hotan Oasis is fertile for thousands of miles, connecting the yellow sand horizon in the distance, only to see the red and green connecting extraordinarily fantastical, and then looking back, you can directly see the endless snow-capped mountain peaks, black and gray complex wild mountains.

In the summer, some of the snow-capped mountains have also melted into stagnant water, forming a rushing river on the mountain, surging towards the Karakash River in Moyu County, bringing turbid and turbid snow-capped meltwater.

At this time, when the river was muddy, they went out of the city just near the Karakash River, and on both sides of the riverbed were many craftsmen and people who came to collect jade, and the black pressure was like a herd of cattle and sheep, piled up near the river.

During the flood season of the river, the jade method is mostly used to mine jade, and many people who go down to the river are dressed similarly:

They were tied a cowhide rope around their waists, which implicated them at one end, and at the other end they were fastened to a stake and stood on the bank of the river, and then they wore shirtless shorts and shorts, or they wore trouser legs and arms up.

The people who had already gone down to the river, with a bamboo basket with a large head hanging from their waists, holding an iron rod in one hand and tongs in the other, kept walking in the muddy river with their feet, feeling the touch under their feet like a minesweeper, so as to find the jade material trapped in the mud.

If there is a little more magnificent, there will be a wooden frame like the jade car, sinking into the river, the front end of these cars has a spiral structure like a waterwheel, each spiral leaf is a trapezoidal funnel, when rotating in the water, it can not only drive the jade car forward, but also transport the jade material in the sediment to the water surface through the spiral and fall into the inner bucket of the car.

A camel bell rang lightly, more than a dozen camels came out of the city gate, Yue Guanchao fixed his eyes to see that it was the old herdsman and a few of his fellows, the old herdsman saw them, first said hello from a distance, and then raised his arm and shook the whip in the air, these camels heard the signal, quieted down in twos and threes, lowered their heads and ruminated the contents of their stomachs, and their nostrils continued to snort hot.

The old herdsman handed over the camels to them and continued: "Young man, although I don't know what you are doing in the Red and White Mountains? It's a desert after all, and if you want to, I and my fellows can help you drive camels halfway, on the one hand, to repay you for buying my camels at a high price, and on the other hand, I want to help you do something. ”

Song Siyuan looked at Yue Guanchao: "Since Uncle Quinny has this idea, let's let him drive the camels for us, after all, these camels are his, and he is very familiar with him." ”

There are many people with great strength, and everyone has no opinion on Uncle Queenie joining, and a few more men can be regarded as a few more people to help them, and a group of people ride camels and walk forward along the Kashgar River.

From the Hotan Oasis to the Red and White Mountain, the straight line length is about 400 miles, according to the camel's foot is about three or four days, they walked for a day, barely out of the Hotan Oasis, the more they go forward, the more they can feel that the oasis is gradually decreasing, the vigorous vegetation begins to be replaced by sparse desert plants, no longer need a telescope, can already see the desert in the distance.

Before Yue Guanchao came to Hotan Oasis, they had already had two experiences of walking the desert in advance, and they still found some ways to find out about the desert environment!

The Great Desert is a general concept, and the state of the desert in each region is completely different.

For example, the deserts in northern Xinjiang are mostly oases, but the deserts are scattered in between, and various oasis cities are linked by rivers to form giant oases, and together with the Tianshan Mountains, they form mountain oases.

In southern Xinjiang, due to the lack of rivers, the oases are distributed in sheets, and the area of the green corridor between the oases is too small, almost negligible, and for example, the desert in western Xinjiang is the most dry, and it is also the location of the hinterland of the desert, which is divided into two by the Red and White Sacred Mountain, and the two sides are all dry sand dunes, without any trace of the oasis.

The eastern Xinjiang is close to the Hexi Corridor, the terrain is complex and changeable, the oasis snow mountains, ravines and rift valleys are mixed with each other, you can see the crescent moon oasis in the desert when walking, the landform is more strange and strange, the wind erodes the mountain peaks, the sandy soil wasteland, the dry Guze, the abandoned fortress, the earth cave sinkhole, the old river is diverted, the barren wild mountains, and the river valley is divided...... These changeable wasteland landforms just prove that Hexi has not been completely desertified, and can still carry diverse topography.

If you make an analogy, Hexi is like a half-dead land, with its last strength, carrying a variety of geographical environments.

Compared with the Hexi Corridor, southern Xinjiang has basically entered the center of the desert!

There is no longer a complex and changeable environment here, and the aristodial and harsh climate of thousands of years has basically corroded all the peaks and plateaus in the desert, and all the hills and platforms that cannot withstand the wind and sand have been corroded into fine yellow sand.

Therefore, in the heart of the desert, except for the red and white mountains, there are no high-lying peaks at all, and everywhere you see the undulating sand dunes, it is easy to get lost without a reference.

This desert in southern Xinjiang is only near the river that extends from the Kashgar River, and can still cover desert plants, most of the desert has turned to yellow sand, and there is no sign of life.

It can only be said that the Hotan River as the green corridor and lifeline of the Hotan people, in the end, worthy of the name, just imagine, in the thousands of miles of arid desert, there is a river that never flows, even if there are no plants on both banks, it is also a lifeline that can make people live.

In the desert, where there is water, there is an oasis, and where there is an oasis, there is a way to live!

At this time, Yue Guanchao and their camel team lined up, like ants in the desert, walking slowly near the sparse river oasis, while the camel team was resting by the river, Uncle Queenie unfolded the map and said: "We have walked for a day, and now we have just come out of the Hotan Oasis, from here, it is already considered to have entered the desert, and then it is the center of the Devil's Desert, and the environment will be a little worse than now, now, we can still see plants by the river, and when we reach the desert, we can only see the river flowing, and we don't see any plants." ”

Yue Guanchao asked curiously, "Uncle Queenie, didn't you say that if there is a river, there will be an oasis?" Since there is a river in the heart of the desert that runs through it, how can there be no vegetation. ”

The old herdsman Queenie's face became mysterious: "The sand in the hinterland of the desert, if you don't drink water, you can't live." ”

"Sand drinks water?"

This statement made everyone curious, Song Siyuan motioned for Queenie to continue, and the old herdsman was not stingy, and continued to explain: "The sand in the hinterland of the Devil's Desert is different from here, the desert here is still mixed with mud, and we do look like it is all desert now, but as long as you dig down ten or twenty meters, it will definitely be mud." ”

"Once a river flows through the groundwater, it nourishes the soil, and when the soil is full, it becomes sticky. You can clay the sand, as long as the soil can be directly turned into moist land, and the water can be stored in the soil, plants can grow, and over time, the oasis we see, the sand of the Devil's Desert, is different from here......"

The sand in the hinterland of the Devil's Desert is not just a thin layer, whether it is excavated down more than ten meters, twenty meters, or hundreds of meters, what you see is still the yellow sand piled up into hard lumps, thousands of years have passed, and I don't know how many layers of these yellow sand have accumulated.

Oases can only appear near the river because of the accumulation of groundwater in the soil, and the sand has no way to retain water if it does not absorb water, and no matter how much water is given to him, the sand is like a funnel, leaking all the water into the underground river, or evaporating in a few days, and of course no plants appear.

Even some deserts will not be able to survive in the soil due to the large amount of water, and in the evaporating climate, saline land will be formed, as if the ground is full of salt soil, and there will be no plants to survive.

When the old herdsman Queenie said this, his eyes became serious: "The hinterland of the Devil's Desert belongs to such an environment, even if the Hotan River flows over, it only makes the surrounding sand a little moister, and the sand can't drink a little water at all, of course, there will be no plants, and there will be saline-alkali land near the river." ”

What Kui Ni said was completely different from the description of the murals of the underground palace, which showed that the red and white sacred mountains did have an oasis during the Tang Dynasty, which was obviously not quite consistent with the description of the saline-alkali tidal flats near the river, Yue Guanchao asked again: "Uncle Kuini, is there no special situation?" How do I remember that there is a Sand Sea King City near the Red and White Mountain, so the Royal City should always be built in an oasis, right? ”

The old herdsman Queenie waved his hand: "You are talking about the imperial city of the ancient Shanshan country, that imperial city was indeed built in an oasis under the red and white mountains, but the appearance of the oasis was not a natural occurrence, it was the kindness of the mother-in-law that made the oasis grow in the saline-alkali land." ”

"This mother-in-law is the last queen of Gu Shanshan, and she was the only one who could create an oasis out of thin air in the saline-alkali land, this is just an example, except for this mother-in-law, there has never been any oasis in the hinterland of the desert, I think it is probably because the saline-alkali flats near the river are not suitable for survival."