Ruins of the Tang Dynasty's Shanyu Protectorate General

Ruins of the Tang Dynasty's Shanyu Protectorate General

The Ruins of the Tang Dynasty's Shanyu Protectorate General is a cultural tourism attraction.

Located in Tuchengzi, Helinge'er County, Ulanqab League. The so-called Shanyu Protectorate General was the capital overseeing the prefectures and states in the regions inhabited by the Turkic peoples south of the Gobi Desert, serving as the political and cultural center of the Turkic peoples in that area. In the third year of the Longshuo era of the Tang Dynasty (663 AD), the Tang government built a city at the site of present-day Helinge'er and established the Yunzhong Protectorate General. The ruins remain clearly visible. The city walls were built from rammed earth, with the highest remaining section about 5 meters tall, and the outer city has a roughly diamond-shaped layout. The eastern wall is 1,750 meters long, the western wall 1,200 meters, and the northern wall 1,250 meters. The southern wall has been eroded by the Baobei River, leaving a remnant of just over 500 meters. Today, the ruins of gateways and barbicans can still be seen on the eastern, western, and northern sides. To the south of the outer city lies an inner city, commonly known as the Imperial City, which is roughly square-shaped with each side measuring about 500 meters. The cultural stratum within the inner city is the thickest, where the foundations of large buildings can be found. Stone column bases are still visible on the surface, along with dense fragments of bricks, tiles, and pottery. Surface surveys indicate that this city was built by the Tang Dynasty on the ruins of an older city from the Eastern Han and Northern Wei periods located to the north. Structures from after the Tang Dynasty were later built over the inner city, resulting in a cultural deposit 3–5 meters thick, with some sections protruding about 2–3 meters above the ground. As early as before the liberation, stone inscriptions such as the “Tang Zhen Shi Jiedushi Shanyu Protectorate General Zhang Weiqing’s Virtuous Governance Stele,” engraved in the second year of the Baoli era (820 AD), were unearthed here.