Xīliáng

Xiliang, better known as Liangzhou or Wuwei, stands at the eastern entrance to the Hexi Corridor. Rivers descending from the Qilian Mountains water an oasis between the highlands and the desert, and roads passing through it have long connected the Chinese interior with Central Asia. Once called Guzang, the city served as the capital or regional centre of several successive states. Under the Western Xia it was known as Xiliang and remained an important western centre of the Tangut realm.

The Ming established a garrison at Liangzhou as part of its defences in Gansu. Between 1437 and 1439 a Confucian temple was built in the city, with halls and courtyards for learning and ceremony; it was repaired repeatedly under later dynasties. The older Buddhist temples of Liangzhou also preserved traces of its varied past. In 1094, during Western Xia rule, a bilingual inscription had recorded the rebuilding of a temple and its pagoda.

In 1804 the local scholar Zhang Shu encountered that inscription at Dayun Temple. One face was written in Chinese and the other in the unfamiliar script of the Tanguts. His account brought renewed attention to a monument left by the vanished kingdom, linking Qing scholarship to a much older chapter of Liangzhou's history, and its many languages and traditions left their marks in the city.