Tekes Eight-diagram City

On the northern slope of the beautiful mt Tianshan there is an eight diagram city which is the largest and most complete city in the world which called tekes county. tekes County is well-known for its peculiar street style and strange city planning, honored as”eight-diagram city”, and its peculiar eight-diagram building layout has been recorded in Shanghai guinness World Records. Furthermore, in 2004, it was named”famous historic and cultural city by the People’s Government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Area

The magical western small city

This is a full of magic, and in history, it was the place for the people of 22 ethnic groups to live, such as Sak, Yuezhi, Uisin, Uigur, Turk, Mongolian, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Uygur and Han. It was the westernmost place for Chinese Taoist culture spreading, as well as the only place in the world where Uisin culture and Yijing culture connected. It was also the place for the first peacemaking princess by marriage in the Chinese history-Xijun Princess of the Han dynasty to live as well as the place where the ancient han dynasties of China had the longest time of peacemaking by marriage and maintained the closest relationship with the nomadic ancient kingdoms

Uisin in history

Tekes was the location of the largest nomadic kingdom -Uisin in the Western Regions in history. Sima Qian of the Western Han Dynasty first recorded Uisin in Biography in the Ferghana in the Historical Records At that time, in order to lessen the threat of Huns to the Han DynastyEmperor Han Wu(157 BC-87BC) dispatched Zhang Qian to serve as an envoy to the Western Regions to ally with Uisin for containing Huns. Uisin king Mokun received Zhang Qian, thinking that it would guarantee the prosperity of Uisin to ally with the powerful and rich Han Dynasty by marriage, and then offered over 1,000 horses to emperor han wu

Emperor Han Wu previously opened Yijing and got a divinatory symbol saying “magical horses will come from the northwest”when practicing the divination, thus Emperor Han Wu was very happy to get these Uisin horses and named them the Heavenly horses”(Latter, Emperor Han Wu saw the Ferghana horses were more vigorous, and then he renamed Uisin horses”Xiji and gave the name of Heavenly horses”to the horses of Dayuan ) And then he married the daughter of Jiangdu King Liu Jian, Liu Xijun to Uisin king Uisin king also built a palace called”summer capital”in Tekes and married Xijun Princess with a grand wedding according to the customs of Uisin and the Han Dynasty

Princess Xijun was the first peacemaking princess by marriage in Chinesehistory. She was also called as the “Princess Jiangdu”or “Princess Uisin Because Princess Xijun was born in water region, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, and brought up in the palace of Changan, who had fair and clear skin as well as beautiful face, thus the people of Uisin called her “Princess Kemuzi, meaning fair and beautiful skin like kumiss”. as a tender woman she cared a bout the people’s safety and made great contributions to the solidarity and integration of the multinational country as well as the peace of the Western Regions andprevention of great affliction of the people, who was called the peacemaking ambassador between the western han and uisin

After Princess Xijun passed away the one to carry forward the peacemaking ion was the granddaughter of Chu king Liu Wu, Princess Jieyou. After marrying to Uisin, Princess Jieyou was deeply loved by the people of Uisin and honored as the first lady of uisin

Feng Liao is another significant character in the relationship between the Western Han and Uisin, who was the servant of Princess Jieyou and married ageneral of Uisin. She used to “follow the Han etiquette as the envoy of the princess”, visit some neighboring countries by herself, thus the local people honored her as Mrs feng”. In order to consolidate the kingship of Uisin, she made two journeys between Changan and Uisin Kingdom. Feng Liao could be honored as the first excellent woman diplomatist as well as a woman politician at that time

During the reign of Emperor Han Xuan(91 BC-49 BC), Uisin Kingdom had been already under the jurisdiction of the protectorate of the han dynasty in the Western regions

The origin of eight diagrams

Tekes eight-diagram city was built in the period of the Republic of china

(1912-1949), but it is said that its rudiment was formed in the Southern Song Dynasty(1127-1279)

A story is going around that at that time Changchun’s Pilgrimage Qiu Chuji one of the Seven Quanzhen Disciples of Taoism and hierarch of Dragon GateTaoism, at the invitation of Genghis Khan, went to the Western Regions to instruct methods of state administration and immortality he had traveled along the west of Mt Tianshan for three years and was touched by the scenery of Tekes Valley combining rigidity of mountains, flexibility of rivers and abundance of water, then he determined it as the geomantic omen core of the eight-diagram city”and identified four directions, including kan north, li south, Zhen east and dui west. Since then, it had become the most original rudimentof Tekes eight-diagram city. Tekes thus also became the westernmost place for Chinese Taoist culture to spread

In the winter of 1936, Qiu Zongjun, father-in-law of Sheng Shicai, the Kuomintang warlord in Xinjiang at that time, was transferred to lli as cultivation envoy and garrison commander, and found this rudiment when hemade survey in Tekes. Qiu Zongjun was a big fun of Lao-Zi, Chuang Tzu and Zhou Yi, excelling in philosophy of”Yi”, so he believed that the eight-diagram city had concentrated the advantages of “Yi”philosophy, which could be considered as geomantic treasure land. And then he took the artistic conception in Zhou yi that “when heaven and earth emerges all things on the earth grow, and that when superiors and subordinates communicate, they share the same mind”, and designed the urban construction drawing of eight diagrams. In 1939, Ban Jichun, the second Tekes County magistrate chose the land to build a new county according to the planning blueprint of Qiu Zongiun At that time ban jichun invited russian experts to help with measurement, piling and paying-off

Tekes city was built according to the “posterior eight diagrams”of Zhouyi,centered on the eight-diagram central park of 28 mus. Eight lines were plowed n eight directions with eight cattle in equal distance, i. e the eight arteries of the current Eight-Diagram City, including qian, dui, li, xun, kan, gen and kun There was a 30m wide circular avenue every other 350 m, thus once adding a circular road will be followed by eight radial roads, similar to a maze. the layout of 64-diagram streets made all roads of the county town connected to present the position theory of magical Zhou Yi in a tangible form. In the October of that year, the new city just basically built, while the government went to run the offices already.Tekes now owns 4 circular roads and 32 streets and it is developing the 5th loop at present

take is a city with a layout of sixty four diagrams and 386 trigrams, including all diagrams and trigrams of Zhou Yi, thus it is truly a city of eight diagrams. What is wonderful is that the people designed a city with 64 diagrams and 386 trigrams in Zhou Yi. Therefore it can be called as the solidified Zhou Yi. Only by ascending to the observation tower which is over 50m eight-diagram at the center of the city, people can immediately appreciate its magic. looking down from the observation tower the cinerous streets and green lawns are crisscross, like an eight-diagram kanpen. If you have a chance to fly over the city, you will enjoy the full views of the eight diagram city.

Tekesi County backs on continuous and lofty Uisin and faces Tekesi river of roaring waves and winding course. It has abundant water and grass, wide terrain and pleasant environment, plus the magical urban area of the long standing history and culture, so Tekesi has extraordinary charm Wonder of Eight-diagram Style Town

At present, the Town representing cultural connotation of Yi Jing andprofound mystery of eight diagrams has begun to take shape. the whole county is in a radial circle and the layout of streets like a maze with every street and road connected

There are two things of queerness of Tekesi Eight-diagram

The first thing is that there are no traffic lights on the roads of this town In 1996, relevant authority and experts and scholars all believed that all roads were connected according to the current construction of the town, so it would have no traffic jam for a county town and that vehicles can get to their destination from any direction. So the traffic lights on the roads are cancelled, and Tekesi became a town without traffic lights

Besides that there are no traffic lights, Eight-diagram has the other thing of queerness, that is, it can make strangers “get lost”. There is one joke about this It is said that one driver, who severely overloaded goods, realized he might come across a traffic police in the street after driving into Eight-diagram. So he chose one road which he thought was far-off, and rounded to the centra eight-diagram cultural square. With the help of light, he saw one police on duty, so he steered immediately to round him. When he rounded to the place from other roads seeking for luck he still saw the police. he then once again surreptitiously rounded through other roads but he couldn’t stay always from the “annoying”police. He wouldn’t give up, so he rounded more and farther than the previous time, and at last he even couldn’t remember how many times he rounded On the second day the exhausted driver told his “experience to the peers, and it became a joke and spread in the whole county. Actually, the traffic police he met for the whole night was the police at the crossing of the central eight-diagram cultural square

When a stranger sees that every street in tekesi is the same they can get lost easily, but as a matter of fact, they can identify the roads by all kinds of sculptures on the roads or in the streets