The Basin Of The Wei Ho, In Which
This Part Of The Province Lies, Has Been For Thousands Of Years One Of The
Granaries Of China.
It was the colour of its loess-covered soil, called
'yellow earth' by the Chinese, that suggested the use of yellow as the
colour sacred to imperial majesty.
Wheat and sorghum are the principal
crops, but we saw also numerous paddy fields where flocks of flamingoes
were wading, and fruit-trees grew everywhere." - H.C.]
[Illustration: Reduced Facsimile of the celebrated Christian Inscription
of Singan fu in Chinese and Syrian Characters]
Kenjanfu, or, as Ramusio gives it, Quenzanfu, is SI-NGAN FU, or as it was
called in the days of its greatest fame, Chang-ngan, probably the most
celebrated city in Chinese history, and the capital of several of the most
potent dynasties. It was the metropolis of Shi Hwang-ti of the T'sin
Dynasty, properly the first emperor and whose conquests almost intersected
those of his contemporary Ptolemy Euergetes. It was, perhaps, the Thinae
of Claudius Ptolemy, as it was certainly the Khumdan[3] of the early
Mahomedans, and the site of flourishing Christian Churches in the 7th
century, as well as of the remarkable monument, the discovery of which a
thousand years later disclosed their forgotten existence.[4] Kingchao-fu
was the name which the city bore when the Mongol invasions brought China
into communication with the west, and Klaproth supposes that this was
modified by the Mongols into KENJANFU. Under the latter name it is
mentioned by Rashiduddin as the seat of one of the Twelve Sings or great
provincial administrations, and we find it still known by this name in
Sharifuddin's history of Timur. The same name is traceable in the Kansan
of Odoric, which he calls the second best province in the world, and the
best populated Whatever may have been the origin of the name Kenjanfu,
Baron v. Richthofen was, on the spot, made aware of its conservation in
the exact form of the Ramusian Polo. The Roman Catholic missionaries there
emphatically denied that Marco could ever have been at Si-ngan fu, or that
the city had ever been known by such a name as Kenjan-fu. On this the
Baron called in one of the Chinese pupils of the Mission, and asked him
directly what had been the name of the city under the Yuen Dynasty. He
replied at once with remarkable clearness: "QUEN-ZAN-FU." Everybody
present was struck by the exact correspondence of the Chinaman's
pronunciation of the name with that which the German traveller had adopted
from Ritter.
[The vocabulary Hwei Hwei (Mahomedan) of the College of Interpreters at
Peking transcribes King chao from the Persian Kin-chang, a name it gives
to the Shen-si province. King chao was called Ngan-si fu in 1277.
(Deveria, Epigraphie, p. 9.) Ken-jan comes from Kin-chang = King-chao =
Si-ngan fu. - H.C.]
Martini speaks, apparently from personal knowledge, of the splendour of
the city, as regards both its public edifices and its site, sloping
gradually up from the banks of the River Wei, so as to exhibit its walls
and palaces at one view like the interior of an amphitheatre. West of the
city was a sort of Water Park, enclosed by a wall 30 li in
circumference, full of lakes, tanks, and canals from the Wei, and within
this park were seven fine palaces and a variety of theatres and other
places of public diversion. To the south-east of the city was an
artificial lake with palaces, gardens, park, etc., originally formed by
the Emperor Hiaowu (B.C. 100), and to the south of the city was another
considerable lake called Fan. This may be the Fanchan Lake, beside
which Rashid says that Ananda, the son of Mangalai, built his palace.
The adjoining districts were the seat of a large Musulman population,
which in 1861-1862 [and again in 1895 (See Wellby, Tibet, ch. XXV.)
- H.C.] rose in revolt against the Chinese authority, and for a time was
successful in resisting it. The capital itself held out, though invested
for two years; the rebels having no artillery. The movement originated at
Hwachau, some 60 miles east of Si-ngan fu, now totally destroyed. But the
chief seat of the Mahomedans is a place which they call Salar,
identified with Hochau in Kansuh, about 70 miles south-west of Lanchau-fu,
the capital of that province. [Mr. Rockhill (Land of the Lamas, p. 40)
writes: "Colonel Yule, quoting a Russian work, has it that the word Salar
is used to designate Ho-chou, but this is not absolutely accurate.
Prjevalsky (Mongolia, II. 149) makes the following complicated
statement: 'The Karatangutans outnumber the Mongols in Koko-nor, but their
chief habitations are near the sources of the Yellow River, where they are
called Salirs; they profess the Mohammedan religion, and have rebelled
against China.' I will only remark here that the Salar have absolutely no
connection with the so-called Kara-tangutans, who are Tibetans. In a note
by Archimandrite Palladius, in the same work (II. 70), he attempts to show
a connection between the Salar and a colony of Mohammedans who settled in
Western Kan-Suh in the last century, but the Ming shih (History of the
Ming Dynasty) already makes mention of the Salar, remnants of various
Turkish tribes (Hsi-ch'iang) who had settled in the districts of
Ho-chou, Huang-chou, T'ao-chou, and Min-chou, and who were a source of
endless trouble to the Empire. (See Wei Yuen, Sheng-wu-ki, vii. 35; also
Huang ch'ing shih kung t'u, v. 7.) The Russian traveller, Potanin, found
the Salar living in twenty-four villages, near Hsuen-hua t'ing, on the
south bank of the Yellow River. (See Proc.R.G.S. ix. 234.) The Annals of
the Ming Dynasty (Ming Shih, ch. 330) say that An-ting wei, 1500 li
south-west of Kan-chou, was in old times known as Sa-li Wei-wu-ehr.
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