Some thoughts on searching for ancient sites and monuments in Guyang County, Baotou City

Since last summer, I have used most of my rest time to explore ancient sites and monuments in Guyang County, Baotou City, including ancient city ruins, ancient Great Wall ruins, ancient stone carving ruins, revolutionary ruins, and modern Catholic church ruins. As well as some protected historical buildings, there are about a dozen of them in total. Although there are not many places to explore, there are still many ancient sites and monuments that have not been visited, but the path of exploration is not as simple as going outdoors to enjoy the mountains and rivers. Simple, first of all, this is completely different from traveling, because almost all of the places I go to are inaccessible places that cannot be found through navigation alone. It is common to get lost along the way, encounter bad rocks and mud roads, and encounter bad weather. Many times, due to the interference of these external factors, the heart becomes more impatient and anxious, and in the end it is still impossible to find the destination (for example: on the way to visit the ruins of Liergou Field Hospital in Xia Shihao, Guyang County, that is Relying entirely on navigation, I ended up entering a valley in Wuchuan County, Hohhot. As I went deeper and deeper, the signal continued to weaken, the road conditions were undulating, and there were gravel everywhere, so my search was hopeless). Therefore, through these previous search processes, I also understand that a good attitude is the most important. Don’t embarrass yourself. If you find it, you will find it. If you can’t find it, you will have another chance to explore. As the saying goes, haste makes waste, if you have a good attitude before setting off, If you are sure to find the "ambition", then most of the results will not only leave you disgraced, but also frustrated and annoyed.

Xiao Xiao is not an archaeologist, but a history major. I have just loved the subject of history since I was a child. I like to watch some historical books, TV series, and documentaries, and about my hometown, Baotou area. History and culture were also learned and understood by some people who studied local history and culture in the past few years by visiting ancient cities, ancient walls, and ancient roads, and through their WeChat public accounts and later published books. From the beginning, I only knew that there was Machi Ancient City in Baotou and nothing else besides the Great Wall of Qin. Later, as I slowly learned about it, I realized that Baotou has such a profound history and culture and numerous ancient sites and monuments dotted in various local areas. My thirst for knowledge in this area is getting stronger and stronger. Just reading and watching some videos about local history can only satisfy my desire to explore the history and culture of my hometown. In order to understand more closely and touch the scenes that happened in the past, I also learned about the historical past and remaining monuments on this land through frequent visits to the Baotou City Museum, and learned about the ancient sites and monuments listed as key cultural relics protection units in my hometown (national key, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region key, and Baotou City key). So I decided to use my free time to visit these ancient ruins, and publish them online through taking photos and writing, so that more people who love this aspect of history can learn about them, thereby enhancing their awareness of cultural relics protection.

The path of exploration is full of happiness, hardship, confusion, and confusion, and the same is true in the process of writing. At first, I simply loved photography, and I have taken many photos of different themes. However, I never touched on the text aspect. Publishing photos only explained what I took. Perhaps it was because I lacked storytelling in my previous photography journey, so I made up for this lack during my subsequent visits to ancient ruins. I am a moderate person. People want to share their experiences and the gains, joys and pains they bring during each search. This makes it important not only to show the photos taken, but also to write narratives. However, due to my strong writing skills The writing is weak and procrastinating, so I often don’t know how to write or describe, and my mind suddenly goes blank. This often makes it more than a month after I visited an ancient ruins on the same day and posted the complete picture and text on the Internet. Something happened. Another important point is that when it comes to the field of history, by searching for ancient ruins, I only achieved the goal of finding it. In order to save time in the process (because of limited rest time, I almost always searched for several ancient ruins in one day). I watched and photographed while walking, so my understanding of the ancient ruins I visited is still superficial. This makes me, a fool, only continue to read the articles of the older generation of local history and culture scholars to deepen the knowledge. To learn and understand and to quote.

In terms of referring to historical documents, here I will focus on the cultural relic protection stone monuments erected near ancient ruins. Every time you explore and visit, you must visit the cultural relics protection stone monuments. This is a status symbol. The representative arrived at the destination and engraved a brief description of the ancient site on the back side of the protection monument. A netizen once asked me and suggested that when I upload my work, I should directly upload a photo of the text on the back of the protection monument, so that I don’t have to write it again, so that readers can see it clearly at a glance. Wouldn’t it be better? But I don’t agree with the other party’s point of view, because this is not a matter of simply uploading a photo and publishing it. It would be perfunctory to do so. I also think that by writing the text on the back of the protection monument in detail, readers will be able to read it more carefully. , the same process of coding is also a way for myself to learn again and deepen my impression. However, these contents alone cannot give a complete explanation of the ancient ruins. In order to have a deeper understanding, I often go to the library to look up cultural and historical materials. I also spend my own money and buy a lot of local historical materials through book shopping. , so that every time after visiting ancient ruins, you can go back and collect relevant historical materials to add more information.

I always used the word "visit" before, but it feels more and more inappropriate because I still don't understand the true meaning of this word in depth. I have to admit that I have achieved the goal of "visiting". , but what about visits? No, the most important thing in the visit process is the visit. This requires taking the initiative to go to the old people in the villages near the ancient ruins to inquire and understand, but I failed to do this, first of all due to time constraints, and The elders in the village may not necessarily know the story of the ancient ruins. Even if they know it, they all have their own stories and different opinions. Even if different information is collected, it is difficult to uniformly judge which one is correct. Of course, I admit it. I was "lazy" in this regard, so I was just a traveler exploring ancient ruins, and the teacher couldn't talk about it at all.

I have a deep affection for Guyang. This is because when I was a child, I often came here to play under the guidance of adults. What I still remember vividly is the Guyang Hot Air Balloon Festival held here before, and The beautiful Chunkun Mountain tourist attraction and the later-developed Ma'anshan tourist attraction are highly praised. Of course, Guyang's delicacies are full of praise, such as the delicious mutton stew, the distinctive butchered pig stew, the hot oatmeal fish, and the wide soup. The greasy haggis and the delicious and refreshing Guyang Mountain Tea bring back endless memories when I think about it.

So far, one-third of the ancient sites and monuments in Guyang County have been visited. Many of them have not been explored, and some are due to the surrounding terrain and other reasons. With my current ability, I am still unable to visit them. Of course, exploring the ancient ruins in my hometown is just a hobby of mine in my spare time. I don’t do it as a living. In real life, working hard and making money is the real thing. I can only spare some ample rest time for searching. I do it, so I believe that in the future, there will be more discoveries and gains (gains at the level of spiritual knowledge), I will gain more insights, and I will present it to everyone in a better way of pictures and texts.

The future is promising. Baotou is now at a critical stage of rapid development. In addition to creating a first-class business environment, I believe that in terms of history and culture, Baotou will also create a famous historical city, allowing these remains to this day. The ancient sites and monuments have been better protected, allowing them to shine their due light.