Looking around, it's magnificent!
Hu people’s earthen buildings with domed windows, Western fortresses with towering towers, Tibetan Buddhist pagodas covered with red and white colors, Han-style temples with owl-kissed flower eaves, exquisite and gorgeous Uighur mansions... Endless gray and yellow houses, endless towers. , there are endless stretches of yellow sand and ruined walls.
Looking at the details, you can even see the towering and sharp Gothic church, the ancient Roman-style marble column hall, and the magnificent Buddhist temple in Tianzhu. These are buildings from the Han Dynasty, the Western Regions, or the West, which together make up the An ancient Silk Road city with rich exotic customs and prosperous commerce.
When all these grand scenes are covered under the yellow sand and dead leaves, they look more like mausoleums and tombs of the splendid culture of the Western Regions, with a richer and more powerful atmosphere of history!
It is unimaginable that if the climate of the Hexi Corridor had not changed in the past thousand years, this endless oasis would have nurtured a splendid exotic civilization.
From their high position, they were able to see clearly the layout of the entire city.
The layout of this square oval city is "high", which is completely different from the square they thought of with equal width on all sides. The small "mouth" in the north only accounts for one-sixth of the area of the large "mouth". It looks like It's a gourd with a small head and a big belly.
Let’s talk about the big city first!
The architectural ruins they saw were mostly concentrated in the large square city, and the tax gates were mostly concentrated on the three relatively straight city walls, which seemed to be outflanking the small city to the north.
In the big city, they can see a canal with a width of about a hundred meters. This canal is shaped like the inner outline of the big city and is built along the city wall. It is shaped like a moat in the inner city and outlines the outline of the inner city.
The main city tower in each direction has a nine-hole arch bridge across the canal, directly connecting the inner city and the city gate. This is true for the three city walls. This not only satisfies the navigation of the canal, but also allows people to walk along the bridge. Free access.
After passing the canal and the arch bridge, we have arrived at what they call the inner city. According to Keli, Milan City is a city that serves commerce and merchants. There has long been no distinction between residential buildings and commercial cities. In other words, Any residential building can be converted from a residential building into a commercial building as long as it is willing to engage in business.
These large and small buildings and mansions are all distributed along the small ditches branched out by the Cao Canal. They are like capillaries extending from the Cao River, penetrating deep into the streets and city life. People can take a boat to Parading the city, you can also walk on the roads on both sides of the canal, and use horse-drawn carriages to travel throughout the city.
Regardless of the style, most pavilions have two floors or even multiple floors. The first-floor street-facing houses are almost all commercial shops and tiled buildings with hooks and tiles. It can be seen that the outer walls have traces of shop signs, forming a mixed atmosphere of Chinese and Chinese. Lively and solid.
After thousands of years, both the Caohe River and the canals have dried up completely, leaving only a large number of dry ditches dividing the residential streets and lanes of the city. Some canals have been filled with yellow sand. In just a few decades, they will have been transformed. It is flat ground, and it is difficult to see the shadow of the ditch.
Walking further north along the canal, when they reached the northernmost city wall, they saw the small city.
The city gate of this small city is also characteristic of the Western Regions, but it is much smaller than the big city gate. After passing the city gate, you can see the more exquisite and gorgeous palaces and mansions in the small city.
Judging from the ruins left by the dried plants, there was originally very dense and verdant vegetation in the small town, but it has dried up to ashes over the course of thousands of years, leaving a lot of open land. Only some cold-resistant sea buckthorn and Elaeagnus are still in the sand. barely growing.
Perhaps because of this, the density of buildings in the small town is relatively loose. Divided by vegetation ruins, a cluster of scattered buildings is formed.
Song Siyuan said: "According to Keli, the urban land in Milan City is tight in the later period, and waste of land is not allowed. This kind of building density, including vegetation, is likely to be the residence of nobles, right?"
Her guess was obviously correct. Keli nodded: "Milan City specializes in serving merchants and commerce. It does not have an atmosphere of discrimination against commerce, but it is not that all people are equal. At least the status of the common people is still not as good as that of the nobles. The big city is mainly composed of common people and merchants. The small town is inhabited by the nobles of Shanshan Kingdom and some of the officials who manage Milan City."
After talking about the situation, everyone got off the wall and walked across the arch bridge to the ancient city market!
As they walked around, they took in more details of the streets and alleys. They could see the decorative patterns of the medieval Western Regions on many churches and temples. They were completely different from those of today. Most of the buildings were covered with a layer of yellow sand and loess, and collapsed buildings. There are countless people. When walking around, it is already difficult to walk in a straight line on the street. They can only pass through some collapsed buildings.
As Keli walked, he continued: "According to our speculation, the main entrance is at least ten miles away on one side. Counting the area of the small city, Secret Orchid City is even bigger. Where do we find it? It is really a problem."
On this trip, their route was exactly the same as Keli's - Keli wanted to find news about Gunizi, and they also wanted to find the records of Queen Shanshan, at least to investigate clearly what Stein Hein had concealed. At the moment, they were facing For such a large city, they were like headless flies, not knowing the direction at all.
Yue Guanchao said: "This city is bigger than we thought. Many of the cities we met along the way have been covered with loess. Some ancient cities and even ruins have been weathered, leaving only a few sand platforms. Why can this place be so beautiful?" Is it so completely preserved? This place has experienced nearly two thousand years of soil erosion, so it should be like other ancient cities."
Song Siyuan had already noticed this just now, and now Yue Guanchao mentioned it again. She thought about the reason carefully. She felt the wind and dust around her carefully, and her eyes lit up: "Maybe it has something to do with Mi Lanze."
When Miranze was prosperous, the water level of the entire Miranze was located at the middle of the sand mountain, and most of the mountain was submerged underwater. This structure was destined to absorb a large amount of water in the sand mountain, forming a ridge protruding from the water surface of Daze. oasis.
In addition, the structure of Milan City is extremely special. Ten gates are opened directly on the city gate for tax collection. At the same time, internal and external canals are used to communicate between Milanze and the Cao River in the city. There are also small canals between the Cao River and the streets. Get down to the nitty gritty details.
Such a structure is like the heart of Miranze, constantly circulating water from Miranze into the city, and then draining it through the city's canal system, thus continuously forming living water and keeping the entire city clean.
In addition, such canals also extend from the central oasis to other oases to form irrigation canals, which continue to play a role in Milanze. Although when Milan City was originally built, the role of water in reducing dust and eliminating sandstorms may not have been considered, at least In terms of actual function, these water channels still play a practical role!
Under the combined action of Milan Ze and Cao Canal, although there is a lot of wind, sand and dust in the desert, once it blows to Milan Ze, it will be captured by the water bodies around Milan City and sink into the water to become silt, even if it is really blown. Now that the city is close, they will face even more difficulties.
The oasis is much higher than the water surface, and the city wall at the top of the oasis is ten meters high. This height is already the highest oasis in Secret Orchid even from the mountainside where the water level is.
When the sand is blown by the wind, it is easy to blow it downwards, but it becomes difficult to overcome the gravity and blow it upward. Under this structure, when the sand is blown near Secret Orchid City, it will mostly sink on the water surface instead of facing it all the way. Enter the city along the high wall.
In this way, when the sand blows in, it is blocked by the waters of Milanze and the tall city walls, so there is very little sand that can be blown into the city. In addition, there are canals everywhere in the city, so there is no sand that can blow into the city. Save it and use it to completely eliminate the sand in the city.
Even if the Secret Orchid River dries up, it will gradually dry out over the course of thousands of years and will not suddenly lose all moisture. Until the water surface dries up completely, the Secret Orchid Zee will be functioning, and of course it will be protected by the Secret Orchid City. A lot of sandstorms hit.
At this point, Song Siyuan has made her meaning clear: "Under the unique terrain of Secret Orchid Ze, they have delayed the decline of the city for Secret Orchid City."
While they were talking, Keli was walking closer and closer to the corners of the ruined buildings. After walking a long distance, the look on his face became more and more serious. Yue Guanchao asked: "What's wrong? Did you find out?" What’s new?”
Keli gestured for them to walk over, and when everyone approached him, he used his gesture to look nearby. There was clearly a newly carved symbol on the corner of the collapsed building. The shape of the symbol was similar to an eagle's claw.
He stroked the symbol and said in a low voice: "This is the symbol left by my father. Whenever he walks, he will leave these symbols nearby. Firstly, it reminds him that he has been here. Secondly, he also wants to give himself If someone wants to find him, he can also find the route he took through these marks."
Speaking of this, he paused: "I can confirm that these are the marks left by my father. If we follow the marks, we should be able to restore their route."
Just now, everyone was worried about running around like headless flies. Now that they have Gunizi's mark, they can be regarded as getting some hints from him. As long as they follow the direction of the mark, they can always know where Stan Hein and others are going. Which places.
Then, they began to pay special attention to the marks carved in the corners, and finally followed the route of these marks, all the way through the street to the small town.
Although the route the mark extended was crooked, they finally stopped at a certain ancestral temple building deep in the small town and found the final destination of Steinhein's expedition team.
They looked ahead. This ancestral temple building was completely different from the horizontal, vertical, and square structures of the Han Dynasty. Its shape was closer to the domed fortresses of the Western Regions. It could be seen that the earthy yellow, blue and gray building was covered with flower eaves, colorful paintings, glazed, and colored tiles. The overall shape is irregular, consisting of three buildings combined to form a nearly "concave" shape.
The protruding positions on both sides are the corridors outside the fortress, with plaster-colored Roman columns and statues of winged gods. On top of the three domes, there are richly colored and towering Tubo golden-domed white pagodas. It can be said that Western, Western, Chinese and Tubo elements are mixed together to form a very special style. The look and feel is very special, making this building completely independent from other mansions and pavilions, giving it a majestic feeling.
