From a distance, it is like the most exquisite mirage you could image. Shimmering in the shifting sands of the Gobi Desert, a towering Tibetan stupa rises up. You can just make out the edges of the crumbling city wall but the sand of the desert hisses like a great slithering snake-- as if to warn you: stay away!
And, you cannot help but think-- how did it come to this? How did this great city on the crossroads end up crumbling in the sands of the desert? And, will this be our fate as well? Will someday people stumble through the ruins of Tokyo or Los Angeles and say, "how beautiful it must have been?"
**
Yes, we are back on the road with NHK (see Part 1). After having been shown around the famed sites of Dunhuang by none other than my favorite novelist Inoue Yasushi), the team hit the road again. But this time they were traveling backwards-- that is, back in the same direction from which they had already traveled-- motoring East back toward China!
Back within the embrace of the Great Wall, they arrive in Jiuquan (closest city to China's main rocket launch center). After gathering up the necessary supplies, the team once again boards their jeeps to head due northeast on what was once called the Old Gobi Trail. A dusty trail that cuts straight through the Gobi Dowser;, half-way to their destination, their cars gave out and so they had to exchange cars for camels for the last leg. The Chinese-Japanese team was now joined by a group of Mongolians who were there to guide the way and help manage the camels. They still had 60 kilometers to travel, which on the back of a camel is a day and a half.
That night, setting up camp in the desert, the Mongolians show the Chinese and Japanese how to erect a traditional felt yurt. Compact and very warm, the yurts, they say, make the best tents for camping in the freezing desert. Exhausted the men sit around the camp fire drinking black tea and smoking cigarettes. Before long, talk turns to their destination-- the legendary city of Kharakhoto.
Kara signifies "black" in Altaic languages like Japanese, Manchurian and Turkish-- and Khoto means city or fortress, so Kharakhoto literally means the "Black City." In English, "black city" doesn't perhaps conjure up the most promising images. However, as Hattori in his book Letters of the Silk Road reminds us, black (kara) does not have the same associations in the East as it does in the West. The Black Sea is no more black-- and no more "dark"-- than the Red Sea is red. In the East, black signifies North (with red being south, white being west and blue being east).
Closely associated with China's theory of the five elements, from the earliest of times four celestial beasts 四獣 have been associated with each of the cardinal directions: the tortoise (black warrior of the north): the white tiger of the west; the red phoenix of the south and the blue dragon of the east. These concepts (along with so many others) traveled East to Japan and west as faraway as Turkey. According to this cosmology, the Black Sea really just means the "northern sea" and the Red Sea the "southern sea." In Turkish, the Mediterranean is known as the White Sea (that is, the Western Sea).
The "black city" of Kharakhoto, then, is the "northern city;" which makes sense since the city is located to the north of the Silk Road. It should also be noted (though I don't think it's particularly relevant here) that also according to this ancient system, black was the position of authority. The Imperial Palaces of China were always positioned in the north-- facing south.They sat, in fact, beneath the Northern Pole Star, which was associated with the color purple and abode of the Celestial Emperor. For this reason the Imperial Cities 紫禁城 of Peking and Hue are called in Chinese "Forbidden Purple Cities" (that is, located in the place of authority-- the north-- under the Northern Pole Star). You have to admit there is something very Chinese about imagining the Emperor sitting in a place literally beneath where the heavenly emperor sits in sky above.
In Japanese "kara" (using a different character) is has for 2000 years been used to refer to China, but the concept (kara→black→north→authority) is actually believed to have been of Mongolian or Turkish origin (which is why it perhaps spread so far West into Turkey).
In any case, the city of Kharakhoto probably got its named from the waters of the Heihe (Black River) which flowed just outside the city gates, and indeed, the Chinese called the city: Heishuicheng (黒水城 "black water city")
Getting back to our team in the desert, though, as everyone was sitting around the campfire smoking cigarettes and drinking black tea, the elder member of the Mongolian contingent took out a traditional Mongolian stringed instrument and as he played a melodious tune began to speak of the famous legend of the last King of Tanguts who perished within the walls of his great capital city of Kharakhoto.
The Tanguts, as I mentioned before, were the people most dreaded by the Chinese of the Song dynasty. Their empire-- the Xixia Empire-- had caused nothing but trouble. Try as they might, though, the Chinese were unable to crush them. Ethnically Tibetan, the Tanguts were devout Buddhists of the Tibetan school. In fact, as the team finally approaches the ruins of the city, huge towering stupas rise up from the sands. It must have been a city full of Buddhist temples and monasteries, the narrator tells us (still in his hat).
Like all the Buddhist kingdoms and cities of the desert, Kharakhoto was a huge fortress city with city walls 9 meters high. During the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty, the city served to link Karakorum to the west with the Mongol capital of Xanadu to the east along a far northernly route. During this time, the city flourished not only as a place of Buddhist scholarship but as a market town as well. Just outside the walls (which were believed to be Chinese-style walls of colorfully glazed tiles) there was a Muslim mosque (pictured at left). The Japanese archaeologist (along for this segment of the show) was delighted to find pieces of Chinese silk, wooden combs and fabric shoes just lying scattered in the sand.
Again: How did it come to this?
Well, it seems that the King of the city had angered the Emperor of China (Who happened to be none other than Genghis Khan). The Mongol warrior sent a great Chinese army to destroy the Black City of the Gobi Desert. After engaging in several battles, the Chinese army had the Tanguts cornered in their capital city. But it was really a stalemate as the Chinese could not breach the 9 meter-tall walls. The Chinese growing tired of waiting (for how long could an army really wait in the blisteringly hot desert?), decided to cut off their water supply. Filling thousand of bags full of sand, they built a dam to divert the river (which served as the city's sole water supply) off to the west-- away from the thirsty city.
Digging desperately for water, it became clear that the Chinese plan had worked and there was nothing to do but face the enemy. The ruler of the Tanguts, put his massive collection of treasures down the well along with that of the bodies of his two wives and their sons (who he had killed to keep them away from Chinese hands). He then cast a spell over the well to keep it hidden from his enemies.
Charging out to face the Chinese army, he along with his entire army were decimated and their glorious city reduced to ruins. The Chinese, it is said, desperately tried to find the Tangut King's treasures. Said to be the angry spirit of the dead king, all they found, though, were red and green snakes which slithered all over the city.
It was this city (and its treasure) that so captivated the Russian Colonel Petr Koslov, who led the infamous Russian expedition to the site in 1908. Since I am now re-reading Peter Hopkirk's Foreign Devil's of the Silk Road, I will be writing more about the topic of the Great Game in Part 3 of this series. For now, suffice it to say, that as a "foreign devil" in East Asia myself, while I don't much like the term, it is probably well-deserved when it comes to the Russians, Americans and Brits (and Japanese) of the story.
For Colonel Koslov, Kharakhoto was the lost city of his dreams; he said: "Ever since reading about the ruins in the explorer Potanin's book Khara-Khoto has been constantly on my mind." Me too.
They were in a very remote part of the Gobi desert and were needless-to-say stunned to stumble upon it: "The walls of the town," he reported, "are covered in sand, in some places so deeply that it is possible to walk up the slope and enter the fortress." The Chinese will never forgive what took place during the early part of the 20th century when Western explorers waltzed into Western China and literally lugged off tons of important paintings and ancient documents (many being ruined in the process). The Russians, actually come off looking better than the others. It was really only at Kharakhoto that they carted away vast amounts of important relics, treasures and documents.
While they were unable to find the legendary treasure of the last tangut King, they did uncover enough books, coins and documents to launch an entire new field of study: Tangut Culture and Xixia Language Studies. His discoveries were all sent back to St Petersburg where they remain today in a special wing of the Hermitage.
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