788, into the Dunhuang of the colorful flying

"The Yellow River is far above the white clouds, a lonely city and ten thousand mountains. Why should Qiang Di complain about the willows, the spring breeze does not pass the jade gate. ”

This poem "Lianglan Ci" is the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Zhilian's true portrayal of the Yellow River, Baiyun, Liangzhou (now Wuwei City, Gansu Province) lonely castles, spring breezes, and Yumen Pass outside Dunhuang City.

Dunhuang is a dazzling pearl on the "Silk Road" in the Gobi Desert in the Western Regions. Sweet, warm as spring, blue, fragrant, clear, and faint poetry, it surrounded her and in the distance.

She ushered in a new day, which was the 14th day of November in the midwinter of the third year of Liang Kaiping, that is, the third year of Anqing in Chang'an (909). She lay on the west bank of the Dang River in the sunshine very gently. However, it was an important border town, a choke point on the Silk Road, so a large army had to be stationed here to maintain order in the city and prevent foreign invasions.

"Silk Road", a shining pearl in the ancient roads and historical classics of the Central Plains. It starts from Chang'an, the ancient capital of the Central Plains, and passes through the "Hexi Corridor" through grasslands, deserts, mountains, rivers and oceans...... Like blood, criss-crossed, connecting and circulating along the way, colluding with the Central Plains, Khitan, Turkic, Uighur, Tuyuhun, Bailan, Tubo, Subi, Nanzhao, Tianzhu, and Dashi...... and other peoples, tribes, and other civilizations. It is clearly a long chain of glorious pearls, interlocking with the sturdy Great Wall of History, with the head and tail (tail) and the cycle repeatedly. However, on this avenue of silk, gold, jewelry, and human history, it was also full of blood, tears and desolation.

The "Silk Road", starting from Chang'an, the ancient capital of the Central Plains, and entering the Western Regions through the "Hexi Corridor", must pass through the Dunhuang City; However, the "Silk Road" is divided into two roads in the north and south, the south road out of Yangguan, and the north road out of Yumen Pass.

In the sixth year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (111 BC), Dunhuang County was set up here. Li Wei in the first year of Xiliang Gengzi (400 AD) built the capital here, Yongjian two years (421) Beiliang Fuqu Meng Xun led 20,000 people, embankment on three sides, irrigated the city with party water, and the Xiliang country perished. In the second year of Tang Wude (619), Dunhuang was called Shazhou because there was Mingsha Mountain in the south.

Now when you walk into Dunhuang, you will see the unpredictable fairyland. As a storyteller, I will tell you the story here, and I hope you can have an immersive feeling!

Mogao Grottoes

Mingsha Mountain

Yumen Pass

On both sides of the road, there seem to be two waves in the air, ethereal and unpredictable, like a fairyland, and you can also see things that seem to be buildings haunting the waves. It makes people suddenly wake up and see a mirage!

There is a shuttle bus from Jiayuguan to Dunhuang every day, which departs at 2:30 p.m., and it takes about five to six hours to reach Dunhuang bus station on the road. The time of that day was extremely tight, because if you couldn't catch this bus, you had to rent a car to Dunhuang, and the cost of renting a car was considerable, at least five or six hundred yuan. The taxi driver between the two places is out of breath, and if he is less than 500 yuan, he will talk a lot of nonsense, and he will not be sincere in negotiating the price with you at all.

But we finally caught the bus, and before we could sit down, the car started. I was glad that my Chinese atlas still had the phone number of the Jiayuguan bus station, and I called in advance to reserve two seats, otherwise we would have had to spend a few hundred yuan more to take a taxi to Dunhuang.

It was nearly 8 o'clock in the evening in Dunhuang, and the sky was still bright. They say the sun doesn't set until around 9 p.m. here. We originally booked a hotel through the travel card, but the price was not cheap, and we were always unwilling, thinking that it would be so expensive in the off-season. I saw a guest house across the street from the Dunhuang bus station, so I dragged my suitcase in and bargained with others, grinding it all the way, and sold it for 100 yuan a night in a standard room.

Encounter a camel courtesy by the crescent spring

At 5 o'clock the next morning, we were ready to leave for the crescent moon spring in Mingsha Mountain.

Mingsha Mountain is about 5 kilometers south of Dunhuang City, and is a national key scenic spot. The whole mountain is made of fine rice grains and yellow sand accumulation, when the wind rises, the sand mountain will make a huge sound, like military music, when the breeze blows, the sand mountain makes a sound like an orchestral silk bamboo, so it is called Mingsha Mountain. People say that there are two peculiarities about Mingsha Mountain, one is that if people slide down from the top of the mountain, the sand under their feet will whine, and the other is that the footprints left by people climbing the sand mountain during the day will have no traces the next day.

Surrounded by Mingsha Mountain, the Crescent Spring is called the Crescent Moon Spring because the surface of the water resembles a crescent moon. Tian Zhen's song "Crescent Spring" sings about this beautiful place. If you have time, you can also come to this beautiful place to take a look and take a walk.

The source of the crescent moon spring is the Dang River, relying on the river water, surrounded by yellow sand on all sides, the spring water is still clear and translucent, and it does not dry up for thousands of years, which is really amazing. However, in recent years, the flow between the Dang River and the Crescent Spring has been cut off, and the current status of the spring water can only be maintained by artificial methods.

The Crescent Moon Spring of Mingsha Mountain is a camel ride, which takes about 2 hours. Camels are very docile and kind animals on the surface, and people have always held this understanding of them, but in fact camels are very stubborn, if they don't like you, they don't like you, they don't negotiate at all. But the good thing is that we are always friendly, whether it's camels or horses or dogs and cats, we are very kind to us, so don't worry.

The most thrilling thing about riding a camel is the two processes of the camel getting up and squatting, and the unexpected "flickering" is like riding a crazy roller coaster, and it is weightless. As for walking in the desert on a camel, it's a pleasure, the camel moves around with a lot of ups and downs, the bumps are very rhythmic, and the rocking is enjoyable

Worship the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang

Mogao Grottoes is also known as "Thousand Buddha Caves", about 25 kilometers away from Dunhuang downtown, has always had the reputation of "Oriental Art Pearl", is the largest existing grotto in China, preserved ten dynasties. After thousands of years, there are nearly 500 caves, more than 45,000 square meters of murals, more than 2,000 colored sculptures, most of the themes are taken from Buddhist stories, and there are also murals that reflect the folk customs of the time. These mural sculptures are highly skilled and are recognized as the "dawn of human civilization" and the treasure house of Buddhist art in the world.

The Mogao Grottoes are also a veritable treasure trove of cultural relics. More than 50,000 pieces of scriptures, documents, weaving and embroidery, portraits, etc. have been unearthed in the Tibetan scripture cave, and the artistic value is extremely high, but it is a pity that the Wang Taoist priest who presided over the Mogao Caves at that time was ignorant, and these treasures were almost all stolen abroad.

I once read an academic article ——— "Stein's Humiliation Complex in the Academic World", which is to reflect on the loss of cultural heritage and cultural relics in the ancient Western Regions. People who have been to the Western Regions do not know that Stein and Sven Heding, these two guys have robbed countless historical and cultural relics, although from another point of view, they have uncovered a corner of the historical mystery of the Western Regions of China, and the world has been able to begin systematic archaeological investigations, but as Chinese, their kind of despicable theft and deception is unacceptable. This kind of pain for the loss of the treasure house is deep to the bone, and I feel numb when I think about it.

Nowadays, under the Sanwei Mountain opposite the Mogao Grottoes, the Dunhuang Art Exhibition Center has been built, which imitates part of the original caves, which not only protects the cultural relics in the cave, but also enriches the content of the visit, which is worth seeing.

The former site of Yangguan meets a mirage

The site of Yumen Pass is about 80 kilometers away from Dunhuang, on the Gobi Desert in the northwest direction, it is just in the opposite direction to Yangguan, and forms a triangle with Dunhuang. The ancient Silk Road was divided into two roads from Dunhuang to the north and south, Dunhuang was the dividing point between the South Road and the North Silk Road, and entered Hami, Turpan and other places through Yumen Pass in the north, and entered Loulan, Ruoqiang and other places in the south through Yangguan.

The name of Yumen Pass is related to Hetian Jade, the king of Chinese jade, and it is said that "Hetian Jade" entered the Central Plains through this road, so it was named Yumen Pass. The existing city wall is only left with ruins and broken walls, and in the meantime, you can still faintly feel the atmosphere of the iron horse Jinge at the border pass, which makes people have to sigh the heaviness and desolation of history.

Not far away, the Gobi Oasis, dotted with sheep like stars, the dazzling sunlight makes people lose themselves.

The former site of Yangguan is on the antique beach in the west of Dunhuang City. The ancient city of Kanto is farmland, there are the ruins of Shouchang City in the distance, sand dunes on three sides, surrounded by sand beams, the quicksand is boundless, there is a Han Dynasty beacon in the north, it is well preserved. The east is the Red Mountain Pass, and the west has a deep ditch in the north-south direction.

Now the ancient Yangguan has been buried by quicksand, and the Yangguan Museum has been newly built. But from the antique beach to the west over a few mountain beams, you can still see the ruins of Yangguan, the wall base of the same height as the ankle is faintly recognizable, the broken tiles and broken bricks have been scattered all over the place, can only make people think about the ancient feelings, look at the ruins and sigh.

On the straight road in the middle of the Gobi, we have the fate to see another wonder of Dunhuang——— mirage. I heard that on the highway from Dunhuang to Yangguan and Yumen Pass, it is easiest to see the surging "sea water", the tall "mountains and rivers", the neat "buildings", and the patchwork "city". These landscapes loom in the clear and hot weather, and they are spectacular.

At first, we didn't pay attention, and we didn't know that we could easily see the legendary mirage. It was 12:30 p.m., our car broke down and the driver was repairing it. I braved the scorching heat to get out of the car and stood on the Gobi Desert with a sun umbrella pretending to be comforting, knowing in my heart that neither a parasol nor sunscreen would help, but I had to resign myself to fate. It's just that playing an umbrella in this scorching heat is a kind of psychological comfort, which is the same as "painting cakes to satisfy hunger", "looking at plums to quench thirst", and "covering ears and stealing bells".

That's when I saw something I'd never seen before.

On both sides of the highway, there seem to be two waves in the air, ethereal and unpredictable, like a fairyland, and you can also see the east and east as if they were buildings. I thought I was dazzled, so I shook my head vigorously, and when I looked at it again, it was still a few waves rising. It dawned on me that I had seen a mirage. To be precise, it is the "sand mirage" or "atmospheric mirage", which is uniformly called the "mirage" phantom phenomenon.

Later, I checked the relevant scientific information and learned that the mirage is actually a virtual image formed by the refraction of light reflected by objects on the earth through the atmosphere, that is, optical illusions. The meteorological conditions for the formation of most mirages depend on the abnormal distribution of air temperatures.

In the summer desert when the scorching sun is headed, the sand is scorched, the temperature rises quickly, the temperature of the lower air near the sand rises high, and the temperature of the upper air is still very low, which forms the abnormal distribution of air temperature, due to the thermal expansion and contraction, the density of the lower layer of hot air close to the sand is small, and the density of the upper layer of cold air is large, when the light reflected by the higher object in the distance is constantly refracted when entering the lower layer of sparse air from the upper layer of dense air, and its angle of incidence gradually increases, and the total reflection occurs when it increases to equal to the critical angle, At this time, if one looks against the reflected light, one will see a mirage.

Travel tips

Transportation: There is no direct bus in Dunhuang City, you can charter a car to go, the cost is about 150 yuan (you can negotiate the price). There are many buses in the city that go directly to the Mogao Grottoes, and the ticket price is about 2 yuan. This feeling is good and cheap.

Tickets: 30 yuan in the off-season and 40-50 yuan in the peak season; 80 yuan for Mogao Grottoes (including the 10 representative caves of Mogao Grottoes and the Tibetan Scripture Cave Exhibition Hall); Yangguan Museum 40 yuan per person.

Special note: It is forbidden to take photos in the Mogao Grottoes; The cave is not open on rainy days; It is best to bring a flashlight when visiting (it can also be rented outside the scenic area); It is best to visit early in the morning (due to the limited number of visitors and the better light in the morning).