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Intro

The distance from Beijing to Ili is almost 3500 kilometers. Nowadays we can go there by plane in 7 hours. But sometimes I wonder how did the people go and come between Ili and Beijing 100 years ago? Until several days ago I knew a book and finally I knew how they have this journey.

Where Is Ili?

First of all, where is Ili? This region is almost in the center of Asia so it results in this region being one of the most distant from the sea. Then, Ili is also a region on the border between China and Kazakhstan so this region is in the far west of China nowadays. But Beijing is a typical city in the east of China. Plus, Ili has an Ili river so it is not a desert but when we go out of Ili, most of the regions between Beijing and Ili are desert and mountains so this should be a very hard trip if we go by land, especially 100 years ago.

The Book

Now let’s talk about this book. Who must have had this hard and very long journey? This man is Konggolo Guanglu(广禄), who was a Sibe scholar, a consul and a Manchu language professor. Because he was born in a Sibe family in Ili, he was a native speaker of the Sibe language and at the same time the Sibe language and the Manchu language are very similar. Basically the speakers of both languages can understand each other. So this is the reason why he could be a professor and scholar in Manchu language.

This book is his memoirs. In this book we can learn that he went to Beijing for university and his university life in Beijing was 6 years long. Then he came back home from Beijing. So this book showed us 2 routes from Ili to Beijing and from Beijing to Ili. 【P16-28, P29-34

https://www.airitibooks.com/Detail/Detail?PublicationID=P20190620326 】

Route 1

Route 1 is from Ili to Beijing. In fact, this was a hard way. Because the railway didn’t start to build in Xinjiang 100 years ago. So he should have to take carriages mostly or maybe he could take some cars in the big cities. This route actually overlapped with the route of the Silk Road. This route was hard to go and meanwhile it was dangerous because in the years there were always armed gangs who were waiting for the travelers and robbing them in the right path. Guanglu also met such a group of robbers but fortunately they didn't get hurt and didn’t decide to rob him.

His destination was Guan Yin Tang(觀音堂) station in Henan. When he arrived there, the most difficult and dangerous part of his trip had just passed because he could finally take the trains. The rest of the trip was just a common railway trip. So finally he spent almost 3 months getting to Beijing from Ili.

In addition, for me Guan Yin Tang is a very strange place name. So in order to figure out where it is. I downloaded an old railway map in 1935, which called Lanzhou-Lianyungang Railway and 陇海铁路 in Chinese. I found that the building of this railway started from 1905 and didn’t stop extending. The years that Guanglu went to Beijing, the last station was Guan Yin Tang but in 1935 the last station was in Xi'an and there were 28 extra stations.

Route 2

Since the first route was hard to go, he decided to make some changes and came back via Northeast China by train. Plus, Northeast China also was his ancestors’ homeland so this should also be a home trip at the same time.

Firstly, he took a train in Beijing and went to Mukden, also known as Shenyang today. Then he changed to another train to go to Harbin. In Harbin, he changed to the third train, which was an international train of Russia and went to Manzhouli city. He would enter Russia after leaving this city. When the international train re-started, they would move into the Trans-Siberian Railway and go though some stations. Finally he arrived at his station, Tacheng Prefecture. So at this moment, he could enter China again.

Now he had been in a very close place to Ili, whose home. Then he went to Ili through Wusu City by car or probably by carriage. Although the author seemingly didn’t tell us how long Guanglu spent on the back trip, we can find that the second trip should be safer, easier and quicker to go.