Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
It was built in 413 A.D. as the capital of a short-lived minor Hun kingdom, but its
builder, Helianbobo, gave it the extremely pretentious name Tongwan, which means
“ruling over all nations”. It must be pointed out that the year when the city of
Tongwan was founded corresponds to the third year after the West Goths captured
Rome and was nearly half a century before Anglo-Saxons entered Britain. It was
recorded in history that Helianbobo conscripted 100,000 men to construct this enor-
mous city and that in the operation, thousands of artisans were killed for failing to
achieve the desired solidity. Up to the present, this great city, though long aban-
doned, has preserved a 24-m high watch-tower standing aloft amidst the rolling
sand dunes, reflecting dazzling rays in a scorching sun. It was situated in the south
of the Ordos Plateau, close to the north bank of a river called the Red Willow River
(Hangliu River) which crossed the south-eastern corner of the Mowusu Desert, car-
rying vast amounts of sand and clay with it, turning the water turbid. Consequently,
it was called the Salawusu River in Mongolian, meaning “yellow water” (Fig.
8.5
).
The Salawusu River is important in Chinese archaeology because an important late
Paleolithic site was discovered here. The people who lived here some 50,000 years
ago were called “men of the River Bend”, because the site was near the Bend of the
Yellow River.
Although deeply buried in the desert, the city of Tongwan has been investigated
before, but earlier investigations have been satisfied either with mere descriptions of
the ruins or with reporting the discovery of relics. No one appears to have been
interested in pursuing inquiries into the relationship between the development of the
Fig. 8.5
The site of the ancient city of Tongwan
