Genghis Khan came to the Liupan Mountains to escape the summer heat of 1227, according to the Yuan Shi, and the same book records him dying that summer at a travel palace it calls Salichuan Halaotu.
据《元史》介绍,成吉思汗一二二七年来六盘山避暑,同一部书记载他那年夏天崩于一座叫萨里川哈老徒的行宫。
Guyuan, in southern Ningxia, is a frontier city that took most of its own wall down.
固原在宁夏南部,是一座把自己的城墙拆掉大半的边关城市。
Genghis in the Hills
成吉思汗的最后一夏
The Yuan Shi entry for the intercalary fifth month of 1227 says he “escaped the summer heat at Liupan Mountain”, and for the seventh month says he died at the travel palace of Salichuan Halaotu, naming no mountain, according to an essay on Aisixiang. The same essay notes the Xia ruler surrendered in the sixth month, and that Liupan mattered because an army camped there threatened both the Jin and the Song. Some writers treat Liupan as the place he died; the Yuan Shi does not say so.
据爱思想网上的一篇文章介绍,《元史》载一二二七年闰五月他”避暑六盘山”,七月崩于萨里川哈老徒之行宫,没有提到哪座山。同一篇文章指出,西夏国主六月投降,六盘山之所以重要,是因为大军驻扎在此,可以同时威胁金和南宋。一些作者把六盘山当作他去世的地方,《元史》并没有这样写。
The Wall That Went Underground
钻到地下的城墙
Guyuan’s Ming wall was an outer ring added in the second year of the Jingtai era, around an older inner city, according to the Ningxia CPPCC. The Ming–Qing city had a rare square-within-square plan, with nearly 1,100 crenellations on the inner wall and 28 gun platforms, according to The Paper. The 1920 Haiyuan earthquake severely damaged the wall, and in the 1970s the outer wall’s bricks were removed to build underground air-raid works, according to the Ningxia CPPCC. Really? A wall that outlasted the Ming and the Qing was taken apart brick by brick to line air-raid tunnels.
据宁夏政协介绍,固原的明代城墙是景泰二年在较早的内城外加筑的外城。据澎湃新闻介绍,明清时期的城池呈罕见的”回”字形,内城有近一千一百个垛口、二十八座炮台。据宁夏政协介绍,一九二零年海原大地震严重损坏了城墙,二十世纪七十年代外城城砖又被拆去修建地下人防工程。真的吗?一道熬过明清两朝的城墙,被一块砖一块砖地拆下来,砌进了防空洞。
How much survives depends on who counts. The Ningxia CPPCC lists about 500 metres of inner wall in Xihu Park and over 1,000 metres of outer wall near the Heping and Jingshuo gates, and the wall was listed as a regional-level protected unit in 2005, while The Paper says only Jingshuo Gate and about 150 metres remain. The sources do not explain the discrepancy. A local map collector spent decades recreating the whole Ming city in brick carving, according to The Paper.
还剩多少,要看谁来数。据宁夏政协介绍,西湖公园里有约五百米内城墙,和平门、靖朔门一带有一千多米外城墙,二零零五年被列为自治区级文物保护单位;据澎湃新闻介绍,只剩靖朔门和一百五十多米城墙。两个来源都没有解释这一差异。据澎湃新闻介绍,一位当地的地图爱好者花了几十年,用砖雕把整座明代固原城复原了出来。
Silk, Stone and the Long March
丝路、石窟与长征
Guyuan sits on the eastern northern route of the overland Silk Road, the “first city” west of Chang’an, according to China News Service. Persian gilded silver and a glass bowl have been dug up here, and Xiaoguan, one of China’s four ancient passes, lies within Guyuan’s present-day administrative boundaries, according to the Guyuan party secretary in China Daily.
据中国新闻网介绍,固原位于陆上丝绸之路东段北线,是出长安西行的”第一城”。据固原市委书记在《中国日报》上的介绍,这里出土过波斯鎏金银壶和玻璃碗,中国古代四大关口之一的萧关位于固原现辖区内。
Along the same route, the Xumishan Grottoes, carved into soft red cliffs since the Northern Wei, hold more than 160 caves and over 1,000 statues, and in Caves 45 and 49 more than 40 of them stand larger than life, according to China News Service.
据中国新闻网介绍,沿着同一条路线,须弥山石窟自北魏起凿于松软的红色崖壁,共有一百六十多个洞窟、一千多尊造像,其中四十五号窟和四十九号窟里有四十多尊大于真人的造像。
Guyuan’s population is falling despite more births than deaths. In 2024 GDP was ¥46.373 billion, up 6.1 percent in real terms, with services at 58.5 percent, and the resident population was 1.1408 million, down 6,900, even with 14,900 births against 9,600 deaths, according to Guyuan’s 2024 communiqué. Visitors made 16.7253 million trips and spent ¥7.67 billion, and the year’s beef output was 60,400 tonnes from a herd of 673,300 cattle, according to the same source.
固原人口仍在减少,尽管出生人数多于死亡人数。据固原市二零二四年统计公报,二零二四年地区生产总值四百六十三点七三亿元,按不变价计算增长百分之六点一,服务业占百分之五十八点五;常住人口一百一十四万零八百人,减少六千九百人,而全年出生一万四千九百人,死亡九千六百人。同一来源介绍,全年国内游客一千六百七十二万五千三百人次,旅游消费七十六点七亿元,牛肉产量六万零四百吨,年末牛存栏六十七万三千三百头。
The rail is being upgraded. The Pingliang–Zhongwei section of the Baoji–Zhongwei line, 289 kilometres with a design speed of 160 kilometres an hour, started a four-year rebuild in December 2024, with Guyuan one of 15 stations, and the aim is about three hours between Yinchuan and Guyuan, according to China Daily.
铁路正在升级。据中国日报介绍,宝中铁路平凉至中卫段全长二百八十九公里,设计时速一百六十公里,二零二四年十二月开工,工期四年,固原是十五个车站之一,目标是银川至固原约三小时。
In October 1935 the Central Red Army crossed Liupan Mountain, the last major mountain of the Long March, and Mao Zedong wrote the poem Qingpingle on it, according to Xinhua. According to the Guyuan party secretary, forest cover on those mountains has risen from 1.4 percent to 29.7 percent.
据新华社介绍,一九三五年十月,中央红军翻越长征途中最后一座大山六盘山,毛泽东为此写下《清平乐·六盘山》。据固原市委书记介绍,这座山区的森林覆盖率已从百分之一点四提高到百分之二十九点七。
