Site of the Twelve Connected Cities

Site of the Twelve Connected Cities

The site of the Twelve Connected Cities is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The site of the Twelve Connected Cities is located in Shierliancheng Township, Jungar Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, commonly known as Shierliancheng.

Folklore claims that the city was built by She Taijun, the matriarch of the Yang family generals during the Northern Song Dynasty, who led twelve widows to campaign westward. However, according to the "Yuanhe Junxian Tuzhi," the Twelve Connected Cities were originally Yulin City of Shengzhou from the Sui and Tang Dynasties, first constructed in the third year of the Kaihuang era (583 AD) under Emperor Wen of Sui. At that time, the city was located at a strategic point, with the natural barrier of the Yellow River to the north controlling the Mongolian grasslands, and facing the Central Plains to the south, making it easy to advance or retreat.

On the existing city walls of the Twelve Connected Cities, one can still clearly see rammed layers about 18–20 cm thick, indicating that the walls were entirely built by manual ramming. At the same time, within these layers, there are also ramming pits about 10 cm in diameter, formed either by single ramming rods or bundled ones. On the surface layer of the city wall and nearby areas, bronze weapons such as ge (dagger-axes), swords, and arrowheads have been unearthed, but no relics from the Qin and Han Dynasties or later periods have been found deep within the walls. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Twelve Connected Cities were artificially constructed during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.

Judging by the winding layout and the over 10-li length of the “Twelve Connected Cities,” it does not resemble the walls of a single city but may have been a border wall used for defense — that is, a section of the Great Wall. Based on historical records and geographical location, the Twelve Connected Cities might have been part of the Wei State’s Great Wall from the Warring States period. However, what later generations saw were twelve intermittent wall segments, so locals began calling it the “Twelve Connected Cities.”

To this day, although the ancient city is left with only broken walls, one can still imagine the extraordinary grandeur of the fortress from its faintly discernible outline. Complementing it is the Qin Dynasty Great Wall located to the west of the city. Historical records state: “Meng Tian invaded the northern tribes for the Qin, reclaiming thousands of li of land, using the river as a boundary and piling stones to build the wall, planting elm trees to form a frontier barrier.” This evokes even more vividly the scenes and atmosphere of ancient warfare — with beacon fires connecting the horizon and war horns echoing across camps.

Archaeologists have excavated many precious cultural relics from the ruins of this ancient city, ranging from the Neolithic Age to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, each period represented by certain characteristic artifacts. Among them, the green-glazed pottery puppy and white-glazed porcelain little goat from the late Tang Dynasty have been hailed by experts as “rare artistic treasures in the world,” and are now on display at the National Museum of China.

In May 2006, the site of the Twelve Connected Cities was announced by the State Council as part of the sixth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Further Reading:

· Sixth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units