The palaces of Lishan and the Great Wall stretching across the frontier passes of the Hexi Corridor — though soaked in the joy, sorrow, blood, and sweat of countless souls — have endured through millennia to become the most defining symbols of a unified civilization. They tell us this: in an agrarian age of severely limited productivity, through a highly unified social organization, it was possible to mobilize construction on a scale never seen before across a vast land. In the dust of history, only the traces left by human invention and creation can truly represent a civilization. Qin conquered the six rival states, unified the realm, standardized axle widths and the written script — and this grand unified civilization began spreading across China, outward along the post roads and imperial highways stretching toward the frontier.
“The ashes of the burning books had not yet cooled when Shandong rose in rebellion — because Liu and Xiang were not scholars.” When a wholly new civilization is in its infancy, it inevitably faces unprecedented turbulence. But that birth-pain always carries within it the seed of a completely reborn life. The ancient Roman Empire, built likewise on military glory and grand construction, encircled the entire Mediterranean — yet never found a system of social organization capable of governing an empire of such scale. In the end, it fragmented and dissolved into the long river of history.
From the time of the ancient tribal confederacies, the rulers had always come from the leading families of the Huaxia tribal alliance. From the tribal confederation of Yan and Huang — the Yellow and Flame Emperors — to the First Emperor’s unification of the realm, the world had always been held in the hands of a single bloodline across the ages. The founding ancestors of the Xia, Shang, Zhou, and Qin dynasties all traced their lineage to the family of the Yellow Emperor.
Only Liu Bang, founder of the great Han dynasty, came from the common people. This was not merely a change of dynastic bloodline — it signified the end of an aristocratic society rooted in antiquity. It was a revolution: the old Mandate of Heaven was swept away and a new value system established. To sit upon the throne is to carry the mission of the state — and the foundation of the state is the people. Whoever could build and maintain order on the greatest scale, securing the people’s livelihood, would become the king of ten thousand people. From that point forward, the turning wheel of the Dao decreed that nobility and power belonged only to those of genuine virtue. And what is virtue? To establish the great unified social order and sustain it — so that the people may find peace and prosperity within it — that is virtue at its highest.
In the early days of the Han dynasty, the realm was in turmoil: wars unceasing, the outcome still uncertain. Emperor Gaozu had already cut down his rivals and reshaped the land — but the Xiongnu loomed in the north and nothing could be done about them. Through the reigns of Emperors Wen and Jing, over seventy years of rest and recovery built the solid foundation that would allow Emperor Wu to chase the Xiongnu deep into the northern desert — carrying a civilization reborn like the phoenix beyond the Great Wall to the four corners of the world. And so, in the agrarian age, a unified empire arose: westward past the Pamir Mountains (Congling), east to the Three Hans of the Korean Peninsula, south absorbing Jiaozhi (northern Vietnam), north reaching the great desert — allowing this reborn civilization to develop and gradually mature.
In those days, our civilization was young — like a razor-sharp youth.
He was the pioneer of blitzkrieg in human history. His feat of “sealing the Wolf’s Den” — planting the victory banner atop Mount Langju Xu deep in Xiongnu territory — became the glory that every general in later generations dreamed of achieving. He was romantic to the extreme: not only did he cry out, “The Xiongnu are not yet destroyed — why speak of building a home?” but at the moment of victory, he poured the emperor’s gifted wine into the river so his entire army could share in the drink — and that place has been called Jiuquan, the Wine Spring, ever since. “Why say we have no coats? We share the same robe.” That is a man’s romance.
When Wei Qing — a man born into slavery — led the empire’s armies out through the western gate of Chang’an for the first time, no one could have imagined that along the Hexi Corridor, the empire would stretch out its arms and one after another the names Zhangye, Wuwei, Dunhuang, and Jiuquan would appear — names that still carry their fierce vitality a thousand years on. The empire didn’t merely stretch its arms: through this narrow Hexi Corridor, it drew the Western Regions into the embrace of Huaxia civilization, weaving the lands north and south of the Tianshan Mountains into a single fabric with the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. Two thousand years later, in a remote borderland village in southern Xinjiang, a silk armband was unearthed — worn by a garrisoned soldier, embroidered in the ancient seal script of the Han: “Five stars rise in the east — fortune favors China.”
The Hexi Corridor is the linchpin connecting the three great geographic plates of Chinese civilization: the grasslands, the plateau, and the Central Plains (Zhongyuan). It was not merely a trade route between these three — it served as the channel through which they collided and fused over the course of our civilization’s evolution. Through a thousand years of history, countless people and events are bound to the storied place-names of the Hexi Corridor. The joys and sorrows expressed in verse and song resonate through the traces of history across the centuries — still striking the same chord as the ancients. This is the unique beauty of our civilization.
In that year, the Han military banner unfurled in the winds sweeping across the Pamir plateau. In that year, the might of Han rang out to the ends of the known world. A young man named Chen Tang — unable to find his path in life — went west to join the army, and then, forging an imperial edict, led forty thousand soldiers from the various peoples of the Western Regions in a famous expedition. The dispatches of victory and the head of the northern Xiongnu chieftain were sent together back through the Hexi Corridor to Chang’an. In that victory report, there was a line that still makes the blood run hot two thousand years later: “Any who dare insult the great Han, no matter how far — shall be destroyed.”
That was the youth of our civilization. The courage of youth, the audacity of youth, the boldness and driving ambition of youth. When I was young, my peers idolized pop stars from Hong Kong and Taiwan. My idol was Ban Chao, the Marquis Who Pacified the Distant West.
He may have been the founding father of special operations in our civilization’s history. At the time, the northern Xiongnu were eroding the Western Regions — intimidating, bribing, sowing chaos — the order maintained under the Anxi Protectorate was on the verge of collapse. If this continued, Huaxia civilization would lose the Western Regions it had only recently drawn into its embrace. The distances were vast, supply lines difficult, the times perilous and the empire’s strength waning. The court had the will to govern but lacked the means. Just as everyone wore looks of helplessness and unresigned regret, a scholar who had been recording history alongside his historian father put down his brush, picked up his sword, mounted his horse, gathered his men, and rode westward.
When these thirty-six men set out from the western gate of Chang’an, passing one by one beneath the Qilian Mountains through Zhangye, Wuwei, Dunhuang, and Jiuquan, arriving at Turpan, the situation had grown even more unmanageable. This scholar made his decision without hesitation and cried out that phrase which has echoed across centuries: “How can you catch tiger cubs without entering the tiger’s den?”
With only thirty-six men — facing enemies within and no reinforcements from outside, amid a tangle of complications — Ban Chao used his wisdom, courage, and diplomatic maneuvering to restore order across the Western Regions under the Anxi Protectorate, governing with remarkable effectiveness. Truly a Confucian scholar with a sword at his hip: capable both of the pen and the blade, able to command armies in the saddle and govern the people on the ground.
Standing in the Hexi Corridor, I see the original mark of Huaxia civilization. A youth galloping across the plains — daring both to charge with drawn sword at the head of an army and to venture alone into danger — with ambitions that span the world and a name destined to be carved into history. No anguish. No hesitation. Only the sharp, driving spirit of one who dares to lead the world forward. This is what youth looks like. This is a man’s aspiration.
Through these ruins soaked by a thousand years of wind and rain, you can feel those turbulent and magnificent scenes — and resonate with them across the transformed expanse of time and space. When General Patton visited the ancient battlefield of the Second Punic War, he stood before the crumbling ruins of ancient Carthage and said to General Bradley beside him: “A poet once wrote these lines here: ‘Through these ruins, I see those ancient struggles across time — I have always been a part of them, fighting in every battle, in different guises.’” Bradley asked him who that poet was. Patton raised his head proudly, glanced sidelong at Bradley, and said with a smile: “Me.” The true poet never writes with a brush — just as Ban Chao, the Marquis Who Pacified the Distant West, never did. I have always taken more pride in my marksmanship than in my prose.
“The glint of swords has grown dim; the drums and horns of battle have faded into the distance. Before your eyes fly the vivid faces of those who lived. The ancient roads and desolate cities are buried and gone, the frontier watchtowers grown wild and empty — yet the years cannot take away those familiar names we know so well. The sky of history gleams with brilliant stars, and across the human world surges a tide of heroic spirit.” You can feel it — as long as you have been raised in the light of this civilization.
“I will not forget the snow on the peaks of the Qilian Mountains, though I mistook Zhangye for the misty south. What need have the Qiang flutes to lament the weeping willows? The spring wind has never crossed the Jade Gate Pass.”
This is the Hexi Corridor — bearing within it so much heroic spirit and so much joy and sorrow. It is the Hexi Corridor that lit the blazing fire of Chinese civilization, the one that haunts the soul and the dreams. If you extend the span of time far enough, you suddenly realize: it is not we who came here to witness history’s changes through these cultural ruins. It is the Hexi Corridor that has been watching us — watching how we enact our own past and future. Measured against our lifespans, the ruins along the Hexi Corridor — casually stretching back a thousand years — are more like eternal witnesses. We are only the hurrying travelers passing through.
The silk of Han and Tang passed through this narrow corridor, fading into the distance with the sound of camel bells. The footsteps of envoys and merchants smoothed the endless yellow sands, linking ancient and modern, East and West.
About fifteen years ago, I heard a professor say: at this stage, we should not pour all our resources into the race to seize the oceans. Instead, we should concentrate our strength on rebuilding the overland connection linking Asia and Europe — and in doing so, restore the glory of the Han and Tang dynasties. I don’t know if that professor is still alive today, but his remarkably far-sighted idea has come true. It is not that we forsake the ocean — it is that at different stages, we make choices and set priorities based on reality. Many choices in life are exactly like this. Strength determines standing; public opinion determines image. People sometimes care too much about image, forgetting that strength and position are the ultimate weights on the scale by which everything is measured.
Hexi Corridor — how much glory and romance came to be because of you. How much sorrow and heartbreak was born along your length. At this moment, standing here between the unbroken Qilian Mountains and the vast Qin plateau, it seems we stand once again at a crossroads of history.