One of the many sites for the Qidan tribesmen’s summer camps was a place north of today’s Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province (northwest from Beijing). It is now known as Angulinao Lake area and is geared for tourists with yurts and horses. To check out this ancient camping ground, I encouraged my friends Sun Xiaoyan and Li Xueqing to go with me to explore that area in June, 2011 and then go on to Inner Mongolia. Protected by rolling hills of grasslands in all directions, the valley around the Angulinao Lake had been ideal for hunting, fishing and camping. There would have been space for thousands of yurts and horses when the Qidan came here about 1,000 years ago. The lake, though, has now shriveled to a small pond, but the expansive dried lake bed provides an image of its size in days gone by. Sun and I each drove sand scooters through the wasteland. Actually, anguli means “red smoke” and nao means “lake” in Mongolian, so we tried to conjure up the spirits of the past sitting around their campfires. This place is also in a wind pocket and when darkness fell there was a wild feeling as Mongol-style colorful flags flapped and snapped loudly in the strong gusts. It had the sound of a military encampment.
The next stop was the ancient Liao fortified town of Fengzhou, about 18 km east of Huhehot in Inner Mongolia. Dating from the year 920, it was the largest and oldest city in the western region of the Western Circuit. It was strategically important being close to the border with the Xi Xia Kingdom and a major trading post. Today only a solitary brick pagoda and a bit of wall are all that remains from the earlier times. The White Pagoda wasn’t officially open to the public that day, but we talked our way into the grounds. Fortunately a group of Tibetan monks came to bless the pagoda and we joined them to climb up to the seventh floor. It was pitch black dark and I felt my way by touching the walls. Along the way up, there were some tablets imbedded in the walls including one with Jurchen (Jin Dynasty) writing. Once at the top, the monks brought out new scrolls, prayer pillows, plastic flowers, prayer flags, white scarves and incense to decorate the prayer hall there. I noticed that the ceiling was in the shape of a dome like a nomadic tent. This pagoda was located near the northern wall of old Fengzhou and from one of the windows one could see just a bit of remaining wall in the southeast corner. I then went over to the site and photographed the lonely piece of five-meter high dirt wall. It was worth it to go there because from that vantage point the White Pagoda looked particularly statuesque and grand.
In Huhehot we visited the giant museum of Inner Mongolia, actually designed by a Japanese architect and were warmly welcomed by the museum director and curators. We also had a marvelous breakfast and dinner of typical Mongolian food. On the way south driving toward Datong, we accidentally came across the walled ruins of another town from Liao and Jin times. Now overgrown with fields of barley and corn, only the crumbling walls keep the shape of what was known as Xuandexian in Liao and Xianningxian in Jin. It was on the main route between Fengzhou and the Western Capital (Datong). As we climbed around what had been large ramparts, a local shepherd pointed out the shapes that had been the main gates. Here, too, as at Angulinao Lake and the White Pagoda, one can feel impressions of history from 1,000 years ago.
