Jia Yu Quan (嘉峪關) - The Great Silk Road Fortress In The Shadows Of The Mighty Qilian (祁連山) Mountains
Posted On Friday, September 11, 2015 at at 2:29 AM by Alvin
A couple of thousand years ago, some clever Chinese Emperors came up with the bright idea (good job guys!) of holding The Huns (匈奴) outside the fertile lands and prosperous trade routes along the Silk Road, by building a majestic fortress that would eventually formed the western end of The Great Wall - Jia Yu Quan (嘉峪關). Jia Yu Quan stood imposingly between the Qilian Mountains (祁連山) on the south and The Black Mountains on the north, that would block, stop and defeat The Huns head-on and the incursions and interruptions by these nomadic tribes were kept down for many years, thus allowing The Silk Road to flourish. Yeh, it took a lot of clever strategy, manpower effort, cannons, bows and arrows to maintain The Silk Road and to make this trade route into a legend !
Fast forward to year 2015 and this mighty fort instead welcomed tourists by the bus loads and the history and dramatic location would re-awaken any jaded travellers. We also visited the pleasant new town and strolled along the city river of 討賴河 which was fed year-round by the snow-capped Qilian Mountains; as a result of the constant fresh spring water trundling down these mountain ranges, Jia Yu Quan had been a productive oasis town and the produce which we saw in town, were plentiful which included melons by the truck loads as well as grapes and vegetables of all variety. Such oasis townships would become a constant fixture along The Silk Road during our itinerary; and thus no wonder this stretch of land on the western part of Huang He (popularly known as The Yellow River Western Corridor - 河西走廊) held such importance to successive dynasties in the past. By the way, as we flew out later on during this journey from Dun Huang (敦煌), we witnessed from our comfy aeroplane window seats, almost the whole Qilian Mountain ranges on a bright sunny morning - it was just WOW ! A few photos below - enjoy !
