The next destination was Xi’an. Xi’an was the capital of unified China in the early AD centuries. It was the start of the Silk Road and home to a million people (although like many other Chinese facts I heard from the guides, this number seems to be in conflict with western figures)! Now it is a relatively minor city in China with only 4 million people, but there is a great deal of history in this small city.

The key tourist attraction in Xi’an are the terracotta soldiers. These lifelike scupltures were man-made and meant to accompany the emperor into the afterlife. The interesting thing about these soldies is that they were soon destroyed after they were buried (revolutionists wanted the buried weapons). Now in the modern day, they were found broken in pieces, and have been painstakenly glued backed together for display. We also visited a recently unearthed tomb with smaller, and less precise soldiers. The story for this was that the later emperor realized what a drain on the economy it was to make these soldiers, and decided to save some money.

The emperor who comissioned the first soldiers was the same one that unified China. In addition to conquering the other feudal states, he made some important changes. He unified the written language, monetary system, and measurement system. He built a network of roads that were sunken in the ground so that troop movements could not be observed, and in addition to the 40 years it took to build his tomb, he started building the Great Wall of China.

In addition to the terracotta soldiers, we visited the Shaanxi History Museum, glimpsed the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, visited the Small Wild Goose Pagoda, and did some photography at the City Wall.

Also, quick note about photos. I took a whole bunch but I’m rather lazy about selecting, resizing, uploading, and adding photos to my album. So that’s why I don’t have a lot up.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: china06, diary, travelling