page_title: Suoyang City
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Suoyang City / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Cynomorium coccineum var. songaricum (suoyang) at Suoyang City 中文: 在锁阳城出售的锁阳
context_page_description: Suoyang City, also called Kuyu, is a ruined Silk Road city in Guazhou County of Gansu Province in northwestern China. First established as Ming'an County in 111 BC by Emperor Wu of Han, the city was relocated and rebuilt at the current site in 295 AD by Emperor Hui of the Western Jin dynasty. As the capital of Jinchang Commandery, the city prospered during the Tang and Western Xia dynasties. It was an important administrative, economic, and cultural center of the Hexi Corridor for over a millennium, with an estimated peak population of 50,000. It was destroyed and abandoned in the 16th century, after the Ming dynasty came under attack by Mansur Khan of Moghulistan.
  The city ruins comprise the inner city, the outer city, and several yangmacheng. Outside the city walls, the broader archaeological park includes the original site of Ming'an County, more than 2,000 tombs, and the remains of an extensive irrigation system with over 90 kilometres of canals. The archaeological park also encompasses a number of Buddhist sites, including the Ta'er Temple, the Eastern Thousand Buddha Caves, Jianquanzi Caves, and Hanxia Caves.
context_section_description: In 111 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty established Ming'an County (冥安縣) under the Dunhuang Commandery. Its seat was located 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) northeast of Suoyang. During the Western Jin dynasty, Emperor Hui established Jinchang Commandery (晉昌郡), which governed eight counties. Ming'an was elevated to become the capital of the new commandery, and a new city was built at the current site in 295 AD to serve as the commandery and county seat.
  After the fall of the Western Jin, Jinchang was controlled by a succession of short-lived kingdoms including Former Liang, Former Qin, Later Liang, Southern Liang, Western Liang, and Northern Wei. During the Sui dynasty which reunited China, Ming'an was renamed Changle County (常樂縣). In 621, in the subsequent Tang dynasty, Jinchang Commandery was renamed Guazhou (Gua Prefecture), whereas Changle (Ming'an) was renamed Jinchang County, still serving as the prefectural seat. The city's population during the Tang dynasty is estimated to be 50,000.
  As the Tang empire was severely weakened by the An Lushan rebellion, the city fell under the control of the Tibetan empire in 776, until it was recovered by the Tang loyalist general Zhang Yichao in 849. After the collapse of the Tang, the Western Xia occupied Guazhou in 1036. It became a major city of the Xia empire and the headquarters of its western military region. Emperor Li Renxiao, who was once based there, promoted Buddhism and built many cave temples nearby. After the Mongol Empire destroyed Western Xia in 1227, Guazhou Prefecture was not restored until fifty years later during the Yuan dynasty, when it was governed under Shazhou Circuit.
  During the Ming dynasty, the city was called Kuyu (苦峪), a name that was first recorded in 1405 in the Ming Shilu. When the king of Hami was threatened by the Mongols, the Chenghua Emperor of Ming moved him and his followers to Kuyu in 1472. In 1494, the Hongzhi Emperor repaired the city's walls that remained from the Tang and Western Xia eras. Two decades later, under attack by Mansur Khan, the Ming retreated east to the Jiayu Pass and Kuyu was occupied by Mansur. However, constant fighting among the Mongols, Moghulistan, and other nomadic tribes severely damaged the city and it was eventually abandoned.
  The name "Suoyang City" comes from the Qing dynasty novel Xue Rengui's Campaign to the West, based on the campaigns of the Tang dynasty general Xue Rengui. In the novel and the popular legend it spawned, Xue's troops were besieged in the city by the Göktürks, and survived by eating the suoyang plant (Cynomorium songaricum) that grew wild in the city until reenforcement arrived. The ruined city subsequently became known as Suoyang City.
caption: Dried suoyang (Cynomorium songaricum) from the local area
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