Border control. That’s what we would call the Jade Gate today, a series of fortress and structures that guarded the pass from northern China to the entire west. The Silk Road in the northeastern part of Asia slid between the stark Taklamakan Desert , one of the harshest in the world, and the ridge of Tien Shan mountains. As the road skirted this harsh climate for 600 miles, it dropped down through a “bottleneck” into a beautiful and fertile countryside. Xi’an, the end or beginning of the road depending your point of view, was right on the other side.
Yumen Pass
It was called jade because jade, the product, passed through going to and from China. The royals wore jade in their tombs. Today, a lot of the jade comes out of Myanmar and the mines in the south traversing north; in 150 BCE, there were a lot of options to push it through circulation, but the northern Chinese emperors surely wanted it.
Yet there were raiders to prey on the caravans, though they also would have had to hide in the desert or the mountains. And if they wanted to pour into China, they had to pass through this relatively small place, big enough for large raiding parties perhaps, but not a massive army.
The Han dynasty emperors built some barricades and placed guards along the barricades, as well as compelling the travelers to pass through the gate.
Yumen guan 玉門關 are derived from: yu 玉 = ‘jade’ + men 門 = ‘gate’, ‘door’; guan 關 = ‘frontier-passes’.
Continue reading “J is for Jade Gate”
