Khara Khoto is an ancient city located in the western part of Inner Mongolia. It was once a thriving city thanks to its location on the famous Silk Road. But the devastating massacre left the city in ruins, and until recently, many locals refused to approach the ruins of Hara Hoto, fearing its ancient ghosts.
This contributed to the discovery of the city's ruins only at the beginning of the 20th century. Excavations at Hara Khoto have unearthed thousands of Tangut manuscripts, possibly one of the most impressive finds from the site. They were preserved by the dry climate of the area and protected from marauders due to the remoteness of the ruins.
The name "Hara Khoto" literally means "black city" in Mongolian. This is also evident from the name given to the city by the Chinese, that is, Heicheng. Interestingly, Hara Hoto is mentioned by the famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo. It was identified (by the archaeologist Aurel Stein) as Etzina (also spelled as Ezina) in the Travels of Marco Polo. The description of the town of Marco Polo is as follows: “Leaving this town of Campion and traveling north for twelve days, you come to a town called Ezina at the beginning of the sandy desert and within the province of Tangut. The inhabitants are idolaters. They have camels and many different types of livestock. Here you will find lanner falcons and many excellent bakers. The fruits of the soil and the meat of cattle provide for the needs of the people, and they are not engaged in trade. Travelers passing through this city lie in the food storage for forty days, because after they leave to move north, this space of time is used to cross the desert, where there is no kind of housing and no inhabitants except several during the summer, among the mountains and in some valleys."
As Marco Polo mentioned, Hara Hoto is located on the edge of the "sandy desert", that is, the Gobi desert. Although the city lies on the Silk Road, its inhabitants did not engage in trade and commerce. Instead, they made their living by supplying those who made the journey into the desert. When Marco Polo wrote his work on his travels to Asia in the 13th century, Hara Hoto had existed for several centuries. It is often claimed that the city was founded in 1032 by the Tanguts.
The Tanguts were an important ethnic group in northwest China. They were mentioned in Chinese sources as early as 6-7 centuries. During this time, the Chinese invited the Tanguts to settle in today's Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces. The Chinese hoped that the Tanguts would become a buffer zone between them and the Tibetans. Although the Tanguts sometimes joined the Tibetans in attacking the Chinese, on the whole they did their job well. However, by the 11th century, the Chinese under the rule of the Song Dynasty were forced to turn their attention to the east. This was due to the fact that they were in conflict with the Khitans, who founded the Liao Dynasty shortly after the collapse of the Tang Dynasty in the early 10th century.
As a consequence, the Chinese had little time to focus on the western borders of their empire, and the Tanguts seized the opportunity to create their own state, Xi Xia, or Western Xia, in 1038. This state flourished for about two centuries until it was conquered by the Mongols in 1227. The Tanguts controlled such a powerful state that it took the Mongols about 20 years to subdue them.
Hara Hoto was captured only in 1226, a year before the Tanguts surrendered to the Mongols. According to a common misconception, the city fell into decay, becoming part of the Mongol Empire. In reality, Hara Hoto continued to flourish. One of the positive results of the Mongol conquests was the restoration of the Silk Road, which led to more traders passing through Hara Hoto. However, the city's prosperity came to an end shortly after the fall of the Mongol Yuan dynasty.
In 1368, the Yuan Dynasty was overthrown by the Ming Dynasty and the Mongols were expelled from China. It is believed that many of the surviving Mongols fled to Hara Hoto. They were allowed to settle there by its inhabitants. Since the Ming Dynasty's immediate concern at the time was to bring law and order to their newly conquered territories, they did not really care about the pursuit of the fleeing Mongols. However, by 1372 there were so many soldiers in Hara-Khoto that the Mongols were able to develop the idea of invading China in order to take it away from the Ming Dynasty.
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When news of the Mongols' plans reached the ears of the Chinese, they were alarmed. By this time, the Ming Dynasty had consolidated their rule over China, which meant that they were able to more decisively confront the Mongol threat. Therefore, in 1372, the Chinese sent an army to attack the Mongols in Hara Khoto. This military expedition is briefly mentioned in the historical records of the Ming Dynasty. According to these records, the Khara Khoto Mongols, led by Buyan Temur, surrendered to Feng Sheng, a Chinese general, when he arrived in the city. Feng Sheng's army was in fact part of a much larger Ming Dynasty expedition to destroy the Northern Yuan Dynasty, which had been founded by the surviving Mongols.
The Chinese military expedition consisted of 150,000 men and was divided into three divisions, each of which moved north of the Gobi Desert along its own route. The western division was led by Feng Sheng, while the eastern and central divisions were led by Li Wenzhong and Xu Da, respectively. Despite the strength of their army, the Chinese were defeated by the Mongols. In subsequent centuries, the Mongols continued to threaten the Ming Dynasty until they were conquered by the later Jin Dynasty (the predecessor of the Qing Dynasty) in 1635.
Although the fall of Hara Hoto is a small episode in a military expedition of 1372, more details of this event can be found in local legend. According to this legend, the leader of the Mongols in Hara Hoto is said to have been a general named Hara Bator (meaning "Black Hero"). Legend also says that the fortifications of the city were so strong that the Chinese could not take it by force. So they laid siege to the city. To increase pressure on the defenders, the Chinese diverted the Ejin River, which flowed outside the city and was its main source of water. As a consequence, the wells of Hara Hoto soon dried up, and the defenders were forced to choose between dying of thirst or dying in battle against the besiegers.
According to one version of the legend, Hara Bator went insane over this dilemma and killed his family before committing suicide. Another version of the legend says that a Mongol general fled the city through a breakthrough he made in the northwest corner of the city walls. Apparently, in Hara-Khoto, you can still see a hole in the walls large enough to drive the rider through.
The remaining Mongol soldiers waited in the city until the Chinese finally launched their final assault on Hara Hoto. The defenders were mercilessly killed, leading to rumors that the ghosts of fallen Mongol soldiers still haunt the ruins of the city. Until recently, many locals refused to approach the ruins of Hara Hoto for fear of these ancient ghosts.
Unlike the Mongols, who retained Hara Khoto when they captured it from the Tanguts, the Chinese did not bother to preserve this city on the edge of the Gobi Desert. As a result, it was abandoned. It is believed that one of the reasons for the rejection of Hara Hoto was the lack of water. In the centuries that followed, Hara Hoto finally collapsed. But it was not completely forgotten, as rumors of its existence continued to circulate. In fact, it was in the early 20th century that these rumors led to the re-discovery of the city's ruins.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the Russians were conducting scientific expeditions in northern China and Mongolia. Two of the explorers, Grigory Potanin and Vladimir Obruchev, have heard of a lost ancient city somewhere downstream along the Edgin River. Back in Russia, these rumors attracted the attention of the Asian Museum in St. Petersburg (now part of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences). The Mongolian-Sichuan expedition led by Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov began in 1907. Within a year, Kozlov discovered the whereabouts of Hara Khoto. In May 1908, Kozlov received permission to excavate from Dasha Beil, the local leader of Torgut. In exchange for his permission to excavate, Kozlov gave Dasha Beila a free dinner and a gramophone.
The most remarkable discovery of the expedition to the ruins was the large number of texts, including manuscripts, books and scrolls. They were written in Tangut and survived thanks to the dry conditions of the surrounding desert. By the time the first expedition ended, Kozlov had sent 10 chests with artifacts back to St. Petersburg. In addition to over 2,000 Tangut texts, the chests also contained Buddhist items. In 1909, Kozlov returned to Khara Khoto, and several more manuscripts were found. Artifacts remain in St. Petersburg to this day.
In the following decades, other expeditions to Hara Hoto were undertaken by various explorers. For example, in 1917, Aurel Stein visited Hara Hoto on his third Central Asian expedition and surveyed the site for eight days. Other archaeologists, such as the American Langdon Warner and the Swedish Folke Bergman, also visited the ancient city, the first in 1925 and the second in 1927 and 1929. On his second visit, Bergman stayed in Hara Hoto for a year and a half, surveying and mapping the area. The Chinese also showed interest in the area. For example, between 1927 and 1931. A Sino-Swedish expedition led by Sven Hedin and Xu Bingchang excavated the site. In addition, between 1983 and 1934, Li Yiyu of the Institute of Archeology of Inner Mongolia excavated at Hara Hoto, excavating 3,000 more manuscripts.
The remains of buildings in Hara Hoto have received much less attention than the manuscripts. These structures include the city ramparts, which are 9 meters high, the outer walls are 4 meters thick, a pagoda 12 meters high, and crumbling mud houses. In addition, there is a building that could be a mosque outside the city walls. It is believed that this building was used by Muslim traders who stayed in the city.
Considering the fact that Hara Hoto is inaccessible due to the surrounding desert, the ruins have not turned into a tourist attraction. While this means that the ancient city does not benefit from tourism, it also does not suffer from the damage caused by receiving numerous tourists. This could help preserve the ruins for the future.