Tossing and turning, crossing the grassland.
It took Yue Guanchao and the others half a month to follow the convoy of Yongsheng Trading Company and cross the grassland to the foot of the snow-capped mountains northeast of Lake Baikal.
It is August and September, and autumn is coming to Lake Baikal. The pine forests everywhere are dyed, and the mountains are particularly beautiful as if they were burned by fire. The waves of Lake Baikal further away are as flat as a mirror, rippling with the blue sky and sky. The lake water occasionally touches the shore, which is exciting. Countless snow-white water splashes arose.
If you look further to the northeast, you can see the snow-capped mountains stretching from the West Siberian Plateau, along the streamlined Lake Baikal, scattered in the basin between the two sides of the northeast corner, forming a geographical landscape of snow-capped mountains and basins.
It can be seen that the forest above the basin is full of beauty. Looking up to the mountains above, the autumn wild mountains around the basin are creeping down. The snow-white high mountains are stacked on top of each other, like gods standing quietly by the lake in the distance.
Their car stopped at a mountain basin not far from the snow-capped mountains, and then entered the nearby ancient city of Yasa!
According to what John Hua said, the ancient city of Yasa is the northernmost town on the Mongolian grassland. Further on, we reach the inaccessible West Siberian Plateau, which is truly outside the country's borders.
The ancient city they arrived at was mainly inhabited by the Yassa people, a nomadic tribe in the northernmost part of the Mongolian people. The town where they lived was also called the Yassa Tribe or the Yassa City. In addition to the ancient city where they were located, the people in the north There are many large and small Yasa cities scattered on the grassland, but they are not as big as the ancient Yasa city where they are located.
The city of Yasa where they are located is called an ancient city because this city has been the settlement point of the Yasa people since the previous dynasty. The pastures on the shores of Lake Baikal are fertile and the woodlands are diverse. They can graze their livestock without moving far away. Over the years, a semi-settled and semi-nomadic life has been formed, and they have lived in this ancient city for three to four hundred years without knowing it.
Entering the city, you can see that the structure of this ancient city is circular. The streets in the city have not been planned. They have been divided according to the outline of natural buildings for hundreds of years. There are few horizontal and vertical roads, and most of them are like The veins of the leaves are also complicated, with main veins and side branches.
Various residential houses are arranged along the streets extending in all directions. Most of the residential buildings are two-story stone buildings or simply single-story wooden buildings. There are few gaps between each other. Occasionally, you can see a few spire churches. The clear and distant sound of the bell ripples out.
As you walk around, you can see the tall chimneys of buildings and courtyards everywhere. They emit thick smoke, making the sky above the entire ancient city misty and illusory, with clouds covering the air and fog.
Along the outside of the city wall of the ancient city of Yaku, you can still see dome tents scattered across the grassland, just like mushrooms of different sizes scattered around the city wall. It can be seen that the Mongolian people live in mixed settlements, with cattle and sheep in herds, livestock everywhere, and noisy. It can be seen that in addition to the Yasa people, there are many people from various grassland banners and tribes living there. It can be regarded as an ancient city where many ethnic groups live together.
They entered the ancient city and found the inn where some caravans were resting. They sent most of their things into the inn room and were led out of the ancient city by John Hua to the foot of the snow-capped mountain closest to them.
As they approached the shores of Lake Baikal, they realized why Lake Baikal was called the North Sea.
This lake is hundreds of kilometers long from front to back and forty to fifty kilometers at its widest point. It is shaped like a crescent moon embedded under the Siberian Plateau. No river or lake on the Mongolian grassland can compare with it. As long as someone crosses it, After crossing the vast grassland to reach the northernmost point, Lake Baikal cannot be ignored. With its huge size, it makes sense to say that it is the ocean located at the northernmost point of the grassland.
For thousands of years, Lake Baikal has always been the pearl of the grasslands and emerald snowfields of the Mongolian people. It is also the North Sea of the civilization of the Central Plains.
As mentioned earlier, during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Su Wu was not afraid of the power of the Xiongnu. He shepherded sheep here for twenty years. After he returned to the Han Dynasty, he informed Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty of all the conditions he had observed in the North Sea and the conditions of the grasslands along the way. , which enabled Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to have a general grasp of the national conditions and landforms of the Xiongnu in the northwest and the customs and customs of the grassland people, which provided great help for the subsequent Han family's expulsion of the Xiongnu from the north. As a result, Su Wu was granted the title of a marquis and an official, honoring his lintel.
During the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty exterminated the East Turks. From then on, the territory of the East Turks, including the Hexi Corridor in the west, the Xing'an Mountains in the east, the Yinshan Mountains in the south, and the West Siberian Plateau in the north, were all under the control of the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty established Yunzhong Protectorate and Beiting Protectorate here to administer the vast Eastern Turkic territory.
At that time, the area including Lake Baikal was divided into Xuanque Prefecture by the Tang Dynasty, and local tribal leaders were appointed as governors and prefects to manage the place and implement imperial rule. From this point on, Beihai was officially included in the official management of the Central Plains civilization. The scope is no longer the same as before, only heard about but never reached.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty also surrendered to the forest people on the shores of Lake Baikal and divided the area under the jurisdiction of Lingbei Province. In the previous dynasty, branches of the Mongolian tribe continued to live here and were under the supervision and management of the previous dynasty officials.
It can be said that although Beihai has flowed out of the hands of the Central Plains civilization intermittently, it still maintains inextricable relationships and has never been truly independent from the Central Plains civilization and culture.
At this moment, they were standing on the shore of Lake Baikal, and they always had an indescribable emotion. Yue Guanchao and Song Siyuan also wanted to see why the ghost island that sometimes appeared and sometimes disappeared appeared in the lake. What secrets are hidden in this lake?
"If you want to find Ghost Island, why don't you send divers down to have a look?" Yue Erpao said, pointing to the lake.
John Hua waved his hands towards them: "We have tried it a long time ago. The depth of Lake Baikal is far beyond that of ordinary lakes. The shallowest place is nearly 700 meters. This is only the shallow area along the lake. As for the deeper areas, Considering the water pressure and depth, we dare not dive casually, but judging from the ratio of the depth of the lake shore to the depth of the lake bottom, the deepest point will be at least more than two thousand meters."
At this point, John Hua's face became serious: "With such a depth, it would take four or five buildings to completely fill in the Empire State Building in New York, which is 400 meters high, end to end."
Looking at two thousand meters alone, it really doesn't feel like much. Now John Hua has given them an example. The Empire State Building in New York is at least 400 meters tall, and it would take four or five consecutive buildings to fill it up. It is even taller than the seabed and ocean basins in most offshore areas. Be deep!
Song Siyuan looked at the map in her hand and said: "This is indeed a bit too weird. Lakes are mostly formed by surface rivers that merge into relatively gentle depressions on the surface. No matter how large the area is, the depth is mostly between ten meters and one hundred meters. This is because water flow can only erode the surface soil, but cannot wash away all the rock layers below the soil layer."
A lake like this is more than 700 meters deep at its shallowest point, and its deepest point may have cut deep into the underground rock formations. Most of these underwater structures that are hundreds of meters deep are caused by gaps in the rock formations on the ground. After the rivers merged, a lake-like state was created.
Since underground fissures range from hundreds to thousands of meters deep, they certainly create many unparalleled lake depths. However, such structures mostly appear in the depths of the ocean or in karst landforms. Could it be that Lake Baikal is also built on rock formations? huge crack?
Speaking of this, John Hua's tone became mysterious, and he nodded to everyone and said: "When we send divers to dive, in addition to finding traces of the ghost island, we also need to explore the space below the surface of the lake and see what's going on in the lake. What is the cause? Judging from the rock specimens we obtained, the formation of Lake Baikal is not only due to the injection of surface rivers, but also related to geological movements in ancient times..."
Tens of millions of years ago, the Indian Plate and the Eurasian Plate continued to squeeze and collide. The resulting geological movements caused the snow-covered plateau to rise as a whole. At the same time, the huge force also caused geological changes to occur directly within the Eurasian Plate. In the Siberian Plateau and At the junction of the Mongolian grasslands, a crescent-shaped tearing canyon is formed.
Since the location of the torn canyon is in the basin, this also makes the canyon the lowest point of the surrounding basin. The surrounding rivers, large and small, began to pour water into the canyon under the terrain difference. This process went on for tens of millions of years. Only then did the canyon completely fill up, forming the lake they see today.
John Hua nodded to everyone: "If there is no water in Lake Baikal, then it should be an underground canyon thousands of meters deep. With our current technology, it is impossible to reach the bottom of Lake Baikal."
Yue Guanchao questioned: "If there is really a ghost island in Lake Baikal, it should be completely floating. Otherwise, the water that is thousands of meters deep cannot come up from the depths of the lake."
John Hua shook his head at this, as if he was not very clear. Song Siyuan thought about the situation of the lake and said casually: "Just now, John Hua explained that the geological structure of Lake Baikal was caused by geological movements in ancient times. I was thinking, Couldn’t the Xianbei Ghost Island appear here? Is it also related to geological movements?”
After that, Song Siyuan looked at the snow-capped mountains in the distance and her eyes lit up: "As far as I know, the name of the Siberian Plateau comes from the Siberian Tatar language. The Siberian Khanate was once established by the Tatars here and was later conquered by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. In the Tatar language, Siberia is also called Xianbelia, which is the sleeping place in the Tatar Xianbei language. The appearance of mountains like Xianbei Jinshi here is related to the Siberian Plateau.
John Hua's eyes became curious, and it seemed that he also thought this was a possibility. Song Siyuan continued: "Plate collision is actually the same as an earthquake, and what changes before and after an earthquake is the electromagnetic field..."
Speaking of this, Song Siyuan's thoughts became clearer: "Before and after earthquakes, the electromagnetic field will cause changes. At the same time, the electromagnetic field will also affect the magnetic field changes in the nearby environment, thus causing the distortion of the magnetic field. Perhaps during the geological tectonic period, the Siberian Plateau and the Mongolian Plateau were The intense geological movement produced some twisted and strange electromagnetic fields, which affected some islands near Lake Baikal and turned them into so-called Xianbei gold stones."
Under this geomagnetic influence, these islands have the ability to travel between the mirror world and the real world. At the same time, due to the characteristics of the island stones, they have also become a medium for communication between the two worlds.
She paused and guessed: "If that's the case, could we put the Yin-Yang fish pendant into Lake Baikal, and rely on the mutual induction of Xianbei gold and stone to find out the approximate location where the ghost island originally appeared? We also I have used instruments to detect the tiger talisman made of Xianbei gold and stone, and it turns out that there is indeed an abnormal ability contained in it, which causes changes in the magnetic field and magnetic force, thus affecting the five senses of the human body!"
