Smoke and Storms over Loulan

A traveler came from the eastern lands. No one knew his name; people simply called him "Ji Yun," courtesy name Xiaoguang. In the time of King Jing of Zhou, the Kunlun snows melted and the first signs of human life appeared at Lop Nur. Ji Yun arrived there as lightly as a breeze and settled by the great lake, remaining for five hundred years.

He witnessed the first reeds taking root, the first pottery jars being made, and herders moving from place to place in search of water and pasture. He taught fishing and hunting, taught the people Chinese characters, and dug wells to draw fresh water, gradually showing those who lived in the wild how to farm. When iron tools arrived, settlements grew into towns. Xiongnu cavalry raided the frontier, and Loulan first emerged as a kingdom between the Han and the Xiongnu. Ji Yun personally witnessed Zhang Qian arrive from the west bearing the imperial credentials, Zhao Ponu take a city with seven hundred cavalrymen, and Fu Jiezi conceal a blade among gold coins before blood was spilled in the royal court. His son, Ji Yuan, entered Chang'an as a court gentleman, then returned to become Loulan's chancellor. His grandson, Ji Zhong, helped install a new king, Weituqi, and rename the kingdom Shanshan. The city of Loulan thus became an important stronghold.

In those days, the Silk Road had just opened. Camel bells rang across the desert, and Hu merchants and Han soldiers lived side by side in the city. Ban Chao pacified the Western Regions, bringing thirty-six kingdoms under Han rule. Ji Yuan, a descendant of the Ji family, assisted him, and the family continued to guard their ancestral city. Buddhist monks from the Kushan Empire arrived, spreading Buddhism eastward. Ji Shan converted and built the city's first Buddhist stupa. With murals of a thousand Buddhas, scriptures on palm leaves, and grand processions of Buddhist images on the eighth day of the fourth month, Loulan became known as the "Buddhist Kingdom of the East." During the Wei and Jin dynasties, the Western Regions Protectorate was established at Sanjianfang. With ten thousand shi of grain from its garrison farms and merchants converging from every direction, the city used both Hu and Han languages alongside Kharosthi script. This was Loulan at the height of its prosperity.

But Heaven and Earth showed no mercy. The climate grew steadily drier, the river changed course, and the yellow sands encroached day by day. After the Battle of Fei River, the voices of the Central Plains fell silent. The Protectorate was withdrawn, and the isolated city was left to fend for itself. Ji Qin guarded the city for twenty years with hair turned white. His son, Ji Shahou, died in battle, and his grandson, Ji Lou, led more than four hundred households south, carrying Buddhist statues and hiding bamboo slips in the stupa's underground chamber. Amid the sound of camel bells, they looked back through their tears at their old city, already half-buried in sand. Fifty years later, Northern Wei conquered Shanshan, and the name Loulan vanished.