"Jiayuguan" a Jiayuguan Travel Page by mke1963

For thousands of years, Jiayuguan was a wild, inhospitable place where the Wenshushan and the Heishan pushed in like a closing jaw on the western end of the Hexi corridor. Just 17 kilometres wide, with a deep gorge running through it from east to west, the flat plain was the entrance to the civilization of China, a narrow pass from the great plains and deserts of the Taklimakan, to the heavily farmed Chinese oases below the Qilianshan mountains.

A single dusty track, three feet wide, led outfrom the final oasis of Jiuquan, eventually splitting to lead either south-west to Dunhuang, Khotan and the Hindu Kush, or north-west to Hami, the Tianshan and the Parthian lands beyond. Jiuquan, the last oasis in China, was not easily defendable, so a fortress was built during the Han dynasty on a point where the whole 17 kilometres could be seen. It is, in fact, the only point where the whole distance can be observed. It was a lonely spot for the soldiers who were sent here to guard China's front door and was considered almost a point of exile for the generals sent to command them.

Then in Ming times, in the 5th year of the Emperor Hongwu's reign (1372), a fortress was constructed at the same place, a significant and imposing structure, both inspiring and reassuring for the Ming court. At about the same time, the Great Wall was extended and enhanced, to shut off the 17km gap, ensuring that anyone and everyone had to pass tortuously through the multiple, staggered gates of the fort before entering or leaving China. Furthermore, for those actually banished from China, this was where the unlucky soul would have been unceremoniously ejected beyond the fortress gate into the fierce desert beyond.

General Feng Shen was the man tasked with improving the fortress, while he was on an expedition to expel troublesome tribes along and beyond the Hexi Corridor.

Over the centuries, the Great Wall and its fortifications gradually became less important until, by the early 20th Century, they were mere shadows of their former selves. The wall was crumbling and the fortress almost ruined. So Jiayuguan returned to being a dusty, inhospitable place near Jiuquan (or Suzhou as it was then called).

Then in the late 1950s, geologists discovered huge deposits of iron ore in the Qilianshan at Jintieshan. With good coal not far away at Hami in Xinjiang, it was decided that an iron and steel plant would be built at Jiayuguan - both an economic and symbolic choice. As this was precisely when the Soviet advisers were pulling out from China after Mao and Stalin fell out, the Chinese engineers took a long time to get the plant built. In fact, it took no less than 25 years from the first concrete being poured in 1958 until 1973 before the first iron was produced, and a further ten years before any steel appeared. The Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company, which still operates the plant, are proud of a Mao quotation "I shal not sleep until Jiuquan Iron and Steel Factory is completed", although many have suggested that he said it out of frustration and irritation that the work was taking so long!

Today, the iron and steel complex, one of the biggest in the world, is a constant backdrop to the Great Wall, the fortifications and the landscape, and provides plumes of smog and smoke that can be seen from a great distance. More awkwardly, the communications paraphernalia of power lines, roads, railways, a highway and phone lines heading west detract from the views in the area around the fortress: it takes a good deal of imagination now to see the inhospitable desert around and beyond Jiayuguan.

One of the real highlights in the Jiayuguan area is a trip up to see the huge July 1st Glacier at Jingtieshan.

Along the Silk Road, west is Liuyuan and Dunhuang (a long way west), and east is nearby Jiuquan, Zhangye (with the wonderful Matisi grottos to the south), Wuwei, Gulang and eventually Lanzhou and Tianshui, with the even more spectacular Maijishan grottos nearby.

UPDATE: I have put important information on travelling to Anxi and Dunhuang by road in a special Transportation tip. This is currently a long and difficult journey and a little confusing.