Migrate Westward

In the 29th year of Qianlong's reign (1764), the Qing government ordered the soldiers and civilians of the Xibo ethnic group in Northeast China to move west to Ili, Xinjiang, to guard the border. On the 18th day of the fourth lunar month of the same year, thousands of Xibe officers and soldiers and their families bid farewell to their homeland and embarked on a journey of thousands of miles. During the 16-month arduous journey, the team crossed the Songliao River System and the Gobi Snow Mountains, and endured life-and-death tests such as sleeping in the open air, being without food, and severe cold. Compatriots from the Mongolian and Kazakh ethnic groups also extended a helping hand along the way. Finally, the team arrived in Ili, dug canals on the barren beach to reclaim wasteland, built platforms to guard the border, and successfully turned the barren land into a homeland with a rich rice crop. This magnificent westward migration not only forged the perseverance of the Xibe people's national spirit, but also left an immortal epic in the history of the Chinese nation of defending their homeland, defending their country, and colonizing their borders.