Khara-Khoto

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Coordinates: 42°16′N, 101°15′E Khara-Khoto (mong. Khar Khot, chin. 黑城 Heicheng, literally "black city", probably identical with Marco Polo's Etsina) is a medieval Tangut city in the Ejin Banner (Inner Mongolia) khoshuu of Alxa League, in western Inner Mongolia, near the ancient Juyan Lake. Its ruins were excavated in 1908 by Russian explorer Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov, who had paid a bribe to the local Torghut lord Dashi Beile for permission to dig in the sacred site.

The city was founded in 1032 and became a thriving center of Tangut trade in the 11th century. Over 2,000 books in Tangut language were uncovered there by Kozlov's team. There are remains of 30-foot-high ramparts and 2-foot-thick outer walls—as much as 45 yards to a side. The walled fortress was taken by Genghis Khan in 1227, but — contrary to a widely-circulated misunderstanding — the city continued to flourish under Mongol overlordship. During Kublai Khan, the city was expanded, reaching a size three times bigger than during the Tangut Empire. Togoontemur Khan concentrated his preparation for reconquest of China at Khara-Khoto. The city was located on the crossroads connecting Karakorum, Xanadu and Kumul.

In 1372 a Mongol military general named Khara Bator^[1] {Mongolian: Black hero) was surrounded with his troops by the armies of China's Ming dynasty. Diverting the Ejin River, the city's water source that flowed just outside the fortress, the Chinese denied Khara-Khoto water for its gardens and wells. As time passed and Khara Bator recognized his fate, he murdered his family and then himself. After his suicide, Khara Bator's soldiers waited within the fortress until the Ming finally attacked and killed the remaining inhabitants. Another version of the legend holds that Khara Bator made a clearance in the northwestern corner of the city wall and escaped through it. The remains of the city has a clearance through which a rider can pass.

A historian from Inner Mongolia Chimeddorji is studying Yuan time scriptures written in Phagspa and Mongolian scripts found in the ruins of Khara-Khoto.