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4. Princess Loulan
Stein had first visited western Hsin1-chiang in 1900. This time, he planned to travel through Lop Nur to Loulan and Dunhuang, but encountered some diplomatic difficulties. When he learned that Baron Draken was about to take over as the British Consul General in Tientsin, he immediately telegraphed for help. Draken quickly helped him solve the problem and telegraphed back that he would come to Dunhuang to meet him in person. Because he was also very interested in archaeology and happened to be able to get a three-month leave due to a job transfer, he decided to go to Dunhuang to accompany Stein.
In late 1906, Draken departed from Tianjin and arrived in Dunhuang shortly after passing through Sian and Lanzhou. This was essentially an important strategic route for China to control its western border, and the transportation conditions were relatively easy to manage. However, Stein's situation was different. He had to overcome many natural and man-made obstacles on his way from India's Kashmir province into Hsin1-chiang. Therefore, when Draken arrived in Dunhuang, he did not see Stein and decided to go to Loulan to find him himself.
The distance from Dunhuang to Loulan is 380 miles, which would take about ten days by camel. Draken hired a guide, rented camels, and stocked up on supplies. He then set off with a copy of Sven Hedin's 1900 biography of the ancient city of Loulan. Winter in the desert is not only bitterly cold but also prone to sandstorms. The howling winds whip up clouds of yellow sand that can obscure the sun, disorient travelers, and even bury entire caravans.
I have long been interested in the ancient city of Loulan. During the Western Han Dynasty in China, around the time of Jesus, Loulan established a small kingdom with a population of about 10,000 on the south bank of the Peacock River, northwest of Lop Nur. At that time, Lop Nur, known as "Puchanghai", was a large lake with abundant water and grass. It was easy for the residents to make a living by fishing, hunting and animal husbandry. Moreover, as it was the eastern starting point of the Silk Road, there were frequent trade and travel, so the market was very prosperous. However, after the fourth century AD, the water source gradually dried up and the residents scattered, and the place became a desert ruin.
Swedish explorer Sven Hedin first excavated the ancient city of Loulan in 1900. According to his measurements, each side of the square city wall of Loulan was about 1,000 feet long. There are still many government offices, Buddhist temples, houses, courtyards, cups, bowls, glassware, coins, and even the earliest paper products: a page of the "Strategies of the Warring States" written on paper from 150 to 200 AD (Editor's note: According to records, Cai Lun of the Eastern Han Dynasty invented paper in 105 AD, so this is the earliest paper product in the world, which was discovered by a Swede in Loulan).
Sven Hedin also discovered through measurements that Lop Nur, the world's sixth largest inland freshwater lake, was actually a moving lake, so he named it "Wandering Lake." Draken believed that this might be the reason for the disappearance of the ancient city of Loulan.
"Even mountains and lakes change, so how can the nations people build possibly remain unchanged?" Whenever my father reads this passage, he sighs and says, "The world is so impermanent, so mysterious!"
(Figure 1-4-2) Baron Derek was caught in a violent desert storm shortly after leaving Dunhuang, and was eventually rescued by Loulan cavalry.
The desert climate is unpredictable. Not long after leaving Dunhuang, Baron Derek was caught in a violent desert storm. The once bright and scorching sun first turned into an eerie fiery red, then a dark red like embers, and finally was completely swallowed up by the dark sandstorm.
Dreken and his camel were buried in the sand, with only one hand above ground. After an unknown period of time, they were discovered and rescued by a group of passing armed cavalry. They took Dreken to an unnamed oasis to rest and meet the chief, a man in his fifties, who looked very imposing, reclining on a couch in a wool cloak. He spoke to Dreken through his daughter's translator, and Dreken was surprised that someone in such a place could speak such elegant English:
"You were buried in the desert by the storm, and it was my cavalry who rescued you."
"Thank you! Where am I now?"
"Not far from the ancient city of Loulan, a place that doesn't exist on the map."
"So, who are you?"
"I am the King of Loulan, and we are descendants of the ancient Loulan Kingdom!"
"The King of Loulan? How is that possible?" Derek's eyes widened.
"If you are interested in the history of the Loulan Kingdom, I can tell you a story," the king said. "We first built a large ancient city called 'Dragon City' on the shore of Lop Nur. Later, Lop Nur flooded and submerged it, so we moved to the place now known as 'Loulan Ancient City.' More than a thousand years ago, because the water source shifted south and disappeared, our ancestors abandoned Loulan Ancient City and migrated to Central Asia, never to return. Only our branch has lingered nearby, believing that Lop Nur is our mother, hoping that one day we can return to the shores of Lop Nur and rebuild the Loulan Kingdom."
"So Lop Nur really does move, and that's the reason you migrated?"
"You're absolutely right!" the king said with a smile. "Don't think of us as ancient people far removed from civilization. We've simply hidden ourselves to observe the world. For example, I sent my daughter to Sian to attend a school run by American missionaries so she could learn English and modern knowledge."
"No wonder she speaks such good English!" Draken smiled at the princess, who blushed and lowered her head. Her appearance was a blend of Greek and Eastern beauty, reminiscent of goddess statues seen in Indian temples.
"You can stay here as long as you like, we are very hospitable!" said the king.
After leaving the king's palace, Draken and the Loulan princess strolled side by side along the oasis's pool: "I never imagined that the ancient Loulan Kingdom still exists today, and that it's related to the movement of Lop Nur."
"Traditionally, the fate of the Loulan Kingdom rested on the princess, who was born to assume the role of high priest," said the Loulan princess.
"What does a high priest do?" Draken asked curiously.
"The high priest is responsible for worshipping the guardian deity of the Loulan Kingdom and leading the flying fairy dance during the ceremony. The guardian deity in the temple is a thousand-armed Guanyin Buddha statue. There is a luminous pearl in the center of his forehead. Whenever it is bright and clear during the ceremony, Lop Nur will be lush with water and grass, and all things will thrive; if it is cloudy and dark, Lop Nur will dry up, and the Loulan Kingdom will face a crisis."
"That sounds really appealing! Will I ever get a chance to see it?" Draken said.
"The guardian deity ceremony is limited to the king, prime minister and priests. Even ministers and ordinary clansmen are not allowed to enter, let alone foreigners."
The princess said, "But I can think of a way for you!"
"You're so kind! Thank you so much!"
The princess lowered her head and continued walking, seemingly lost in thought. After a few steps, she suddenly turned back and said, "I don't actually want to bear any historical responsibility for the Loulan Kingdom. I want to go abroad and live a Western-style life!"
The princess grasped Draken's hands, her eyes pleading, and said, "James, can you think of a way for me?"
"Don't say that! Your father will blame me if he hears this! Besides, you are the high priest whose fate is tied to the nation..." Draken was startled and quickly withdrew his hands.
"Who says I have to be a high priest? Who says I have to marry him? Why can't I marry the person I love, just like any other girl?"
"Marry him? Who is he?" Draken was a little confused.
From their later conversation, Draken learned that the King of Loulan had only one daughter, and the Prime Minister's son was very fond of her. The Prime Minister also hoped to control the government through a marriage alliance with the royal family. However, she looked down on him because he had never been to other places and had rejected his marriage proposals many times, which made the relationship between the two families very tense!
The king and the prime minister belong to the two most powerful families in Loulan. Traditionally, they have maintained the stability of the regime through intermarriage. Since the current king has only one daughter, the prime minister believes that if his son can marry the princess, his family can control the entire government and even take over the throne.
One morning, the princess woke Draken from his tent, and the two rode to a mysterious place in the desert, somewhere west of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, a place whose exact location was difficult to pinpoint. The princess played a few notes on a small golden flute hanging around her neck, and then found the correct place based on the echoes coming from afar; it was a row of rock walls almost buried by yellow sand, and from the outside, there was nothing special about them. Draken followed the princess as they climbed into the cave through a winding and narrow crevice, and found that below was a vast and deep hall, with an enormous Thousand-Armed Guanyin statue directly in front, and colorful murals on both sides extending from the ground to the dome. Compared to the biting cold and sandstorms outside the cave, this place was a completely different world, both warm and peaceful. The princess lit the oil lamps on the altar, and miraculously, the oil lamps around the main hall lit up automatically in sequence. The oil seemed to have some kind of fragrance added to it, and once it burned, it emitted a mysterious fragrance in the air, giving those who smelled it a dreamlike feeling of ascending to heaven.
(Fig. 1-4-3) James Dracon swings on a rope in the cave and illuminates the Thousand-Hand Guanyin statue in the cave with a torch.
The Thousand-Hand Guanyin is a giant stone Buddha statue about eighty feet tall, located in a huge shrine on the front stone wall. The Thousand-Hand Guanyin is in a seated posture with her legs crossed, and her facial expression is very peaceful. Although she looks somewhat like a woman, she has two small curls on her lips. A bead is embedded in the Buddha's forehead. Countless hands surround her body, each holding a different object.
The walls around the cave are covered with paintings of flying fairies, each of them gracefully dancing in the sky with long ribbons trailing behind them. The murals are painted with a special semi-transparent pigment, so the fairies look as if they might float off the walls at any moment.
Besides the dancing fairies, there were also musician fairies, painted with gold leaf, making them appear as if they would emit the sounds of gold, jade, silk, and bamboo instruments. Before coming to Loulan, Draken had seen similar flying apsara murals in the Dunhuang Thousand Buddha Caves, but compared to these, it was like comparing a country bumpkin to a rich princess—completely incomparable!
"This Thousand-Hand Guanyin statue is the guardian deity of our Loulan Kingdom. Look at the bead on its forehead; that's a luminous pearl. I mentioned before that it represents Lop Nur, the land upon which our people depend for survival. Come! Let me show you..."
Princess asked Draken to sit down, then walked to the center of the cave hall, standing in the area illuminated by a beam of sunlight from the ceiling. She put her flute to her lips and played several long notes. The music seemed to summon a breeze that blew through the stone pillars of varying lengths in the side chambers, producing a heavenly sound like the pipe organs of a European cathedral. Hearing the music, the princess slowly turned around; at that moment, the luminous pearl on the forehead of the Thousand-Armed Guanyin statue began to emit a deep blue light, creating a dynamic effect of shimmering light and shadow on the dark cave walls; suddenly, Draken's eyes widened—the princess was flying through the air!
The most mysterious part was yet to come. The celestial maidens depicted in the murals began to float down from the walls, dancing with the princess to the ethereal music from the stone pillars. The lightness and grace of their dance were indescribable, completely transcending the realm of mortal imagination. Draken thought it must be a hallucination caused by inhaling too much sandalwood smoke, yet everything seemed so real.
After the aerial dance concluded, the princess landed gently, and suddenly, as if losing buoyancy, she fell into Draken's arms. She led him into a nearby stone chamber, the atmosphere of which was somewhat eerie, for its walls were covered with erotic murals of the Buddha of Bliss. The princess lay down on a stone bed in the center of the room and pulled Draken beside her. Derek, of course, understood her intentions and had no intention of refusing, so the two made love on the stone platform.
Afterwards, the princess nestled against Draken, letting him play with the small golden panpipes tied around her neck with a red thread, their movement rippling against her snow-white breasts. The princess whispered, "James, do you know? The High Priestess must be a virgin." Draken jumped in surprise and sat up, saying, "What? Then you..." "I'm no longer the high priest. Can you take me away from here?" "I……"
(Figure 1-4-5) The Grand Master led his followers into the cave to steal the luminous pearl.
"This is the guardian deity of our Loulan Kingdom! No one is allowed to desecrate it!" "Who are you? How dare you block our Grand Master?" the leading official shouted. "I am the princess of Loulan! Tell your men to leave immediately!" the princess said without fear. "I know who you are! That's why we followed you here." The man in the black cloak walked towards the princess from among the assembled officials, lifting his hood to reveal his ashen-faced and sinister expression. Draken, peeking through the crack in the cave entrance, was astonished: "The Grand Preceptor!" He recalled the night Empress Dowager Cixi celebrated her 70th birthday with a movie screening, and the ghostly face reflected in the projector's bright light. The Grand Preceptor spoke in a high-pitched, slow voice, as if it came from the depths of hell, and his mouth emitted a stench like that of a corpse: "Everything under heaven belongs to the emperor, including this luminous pearl. I declare it now belongs to the Empress Dowager. Everyone else, get out of the way!" He waved his cloak, and sand and stones flew everywhere, blinding everyone. At that moment, the sunlight on the cave ceiling seemed to be blocked by the sand and became dark, making the luminous pearl on the Thousand-Hand Guanyin statue shine even brighter in the darkness.
The Grand Preceptor flew towards the Buddha statue and covered it with his cloak, instantly extinguishing the light of the luminous pearl, plunging the cave into darkness. Draken rushed from the stone chamber into the main hall to protect the princess and fumbled for an oil lamp. When he lit it, he discovered the Grand Preceptor and his entourage were gone. As Draken shone the lamp on the top of the Buddha statue, the princess suddenly screamed,
Sure enough, the spot where the luminous pearl used to be on the crown of the Buddha statue is now empty, with only a groove remaining.
The princess sobbed, resting her head on Draken's shoulder: "The luminous pearl is gone! Our Loulan kingdom is doomed!"
"It's alright, let's go and report to the King right away!" Derrick could only comfort her, though he himself was unsure: "Perhaps it's just a rumor; I don't think it's that serious!"
That day was January 17, 1907, the fourth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-third year of the Guangxu reign in the lunar calendar. According to records, a total solar eclipse occurred in western China that day.
(Figure 1-4-6)
When news of the theft of the luminous pearl spread, the entire Loulan tribe was in a state of extreme unease. The princess was the first to be blamed by the court officials for not doing her best to protect the luminous pearl. Draken stood up to defend her but was instead told that he was an outsider and should not interfere. The prime minister even threatened to expel him. Although the king loved his daughter dearly and did not say anything, one could sense that he was very troubled.
Draken was eager to return to Tientsin to complete the handover with Consul General Jin Zhang, and it seemed he could not linger here any longer, so he bid farewell to the princess, promising to return the following spring. The princess escorted him to a beacon tower near Dunhuang and used that spot as a marker to mark their next meeting.
On March 16, Draken returned to Dunhuang alone on a camel and rested briefly. It was not until the next day that he saw Stein and his party arrive in Dunhuang amidst a sandstorm.
"James, thank you so much! The French and Russian expeditions really didn't come, only we dug to our hearts' content in Loulan!" Stein shouted happily when he saw Draken.
Stein's so-called assistance refers to Draken's scheme to obstruct the French and Russian expeditions from entering Hsin1-chiang. Both teams initially had the advantage over Stein, but this time the Russian team was bogged down in the Russo-Japanese War, and the French team, secretly hindered by Draken, couldn't obtain permission from the Chinese government, allowing Stein to gain the upper hand. Actually, at the same time, the Japanese explorer Otani Kōzui also arrived in Loulan, Xinjiang, and looted a large number of Buddhist artifacts, but Sir Draken only learned of this later; otherwise, he would have undoubtedly intervened to stop it.
"It was nothing, just a small favor. It's my honor to help Professor Stein!" Draken said. "May I ask why it took so long?"
"Alas! We defeated the enemy, but fell into our own trap. The British officer stationed at the Sino-Indian border refused to let us pass, wasting so many days!" Stein said, "By the way! I heard there's a Thousand Buddha Caves near Dunhuang with beautiful murals. Could we arrange to go see it?"
"What's the rush? Change into your formal attire first, and take a gift to visit the local officials and general!" Derek said. "In China, you have to build good relationships first before you can get anything done!"
(Figure 1-4-7) Stein bought five cartloads of ancient scriptures from Wang Daoshi in Dunhuang at a very low price.
Draken later saw the original Dunhuang murals brought back by Stein at the British Museum. He considered them, compared to the "Princess Cave" (a name Draken coined), merely crude works by country bumpkins. He said the ethereal beauty of the "Princess Cave" murals seemed otherworldly; he saw them once and was forever haunted by them, unable to describe them in words. He so wished he could photograph the site so the world could share his experience, but the cave could never be found again; the "Princess Cave" seemed to have vanished from the world along with the Loulan princess.
(Figure 1-4-8) The 1907 Peking to Paris Eurasian Cross-Country Rally, with teams from various countries starting from Peking.
In early June 1907, the cars participating in the competition were shipped to Tiantsin and unloaded. Baron Derek, with a suspicious look, watched the French load the cars onto a train for transport to Peking by rail, thinking to himself, "Are these Frenchmen really not willing to give up?" The French government, which had been looking for opportunities in inland China, but whose previous expeditions had been secretly thwarted by Sir Draken, took advantage of Sir Draken's predicament in Loulan to organize this cross-continental car race under the guise of a newspaper. One of the three French teams was sent by intelligence agencies and planned to break away and head to Lop Nur on the pretext of getting lost, while the other two teams would continue on as cover. The French acted swiftly, and by the time Sir Draken returned to Tiantsin, it was too late to stop them. This time, the French government was determined to proceed even if the Chinese government disagreed. The convoys departed from Peking on June 10th. At that time, there were no roads suitable for automobiles along this route. In many places, they had to be pulled by mules or even carried by manpower. The areas they passed through were mostly desolate and uninhabited, or even outlying places where thieves roamed. Chinese officials had long made it clear that they could not provide security guarantees, but Europeans at the time regarded a weakened China as their secondary colony and did not care about the Chinese government's attitude. As planned, a French caravan broke away in Mongolia at the end of June. However, in their eagerness to find the road to the Loulan Caves, they lost their way in the vast grasslands. They were eventually discovered by Mongol cavalry and escorted back to the interior of China, thus thwarting the French attempt. The first-ever intercontinental car race was won by Prince Scipio Borghese's team, who arrived in Paris on August 10, two months after setting off. Undeterred, the French launched another expedition in 1931, led by the renowned explorer Georges-Marie Haardt. The expedition consisted of 14 half-track vehicles specially ordered from Citroën and was called the "Croisere Jaune" (Yellow Journey). The expedition split into two groups and headed towards Loulan, but ultimately returned empty-handed. The leader of the expedition, Georges-Marie Haardt, died of illness upon arriving in Peking.
On a snowy winter night in 1907, Baron Derekton received a mysterious messenger at his consulate residence in Tianjin, who brought him an infant still in swaddling clothes. Only then did he realize that he already had a son. The envoy claimed to be one of the princess's personal guards. The Loulan tribe, having lost the luminous pearl, found their lifeblood, Lop Nur, drying up, pushing the entire tribe to the brink of collapse. The king had sent many warriors to Beijing to infiltrate the palace and retrieve the pearl, but they were all killed by the palace's elite guards. This depleted the kingdom's resources and caused discord among the ministers. In a coup d'état launched by the prime minister, the king was killed. Amidst the chaos, the princess entrusted her newborn infant to him to take to Tianjin. Sir Draken took the baby and saw a gleaming golden panpipe tied around its neck with a red thread. He pressed the messenger for details about the princess's whereabouts, but the messenger simply shook his head, turned, and disappeared into the snowstorm. His last words were: "I am the last Loulan warrior. Tomorrow I will enter the palace and seize the pearl!" Sir Draken named that baby "Paul" and raised him; that baby is me: "Paul Draken"! Sir Draken arrived in Dunhuang in the spring of 1908 as promised, but the beacon tower had collapsed and could not be identified. He searched the area but did not find the Loulan princess, and no one even knew of the existence of the Loulan tribe or the oasis. In the end, he returned disappointed. My father never gave up his efforts to find the Loulan princess. He believed that the key was the luminous pearl, but after the luminous pearl was stolen by the Grand Master and sent to the palace, its whereabouts became unknown. At that time, he was often summoned to the palace because of his status as a diplomat. He secretly observed and privately questioned the eunuchs, but he could not find out anything. "Sir Draken! Why are you asking about this?" A familiar eunuch whispered to him, "If you weren't a foreigner, your head would probably be gone by now! I heard that last winter, an assassin from the Western Regions sneaked into the palace on a snowy night to assassinate the Empress Dowager, all for that bead you mentioned. He was caught by the Grand Preceptor and... well, let's not even go into the details! My lord, please don't ask about this anymore!" In 1911, Sir Draken wrote about his experiences in the book "The Princess of Loulan." He originally intended to publish it, but at the time, Stein's travelogue of his Dunhuang explorations was a bestseller worldwide. My father did not want to be seen as someone who was just jumping on the bandwagon, so the publishing plan was eventually abandoned. In the end, it was incorporated into his autobiography, which was never published. Another reason for the unrest in the Western Regions from 1907 to 1908 was the British invasion of Tibet in 1904, which forced the 13th Dalai Lama to flee to Wutai Mountain in late 1907 via Xining and Lanzhou. Upon hearing this, the ministers of Germany, the United States, Russia, and Japan all went to Wutai Mountain to visit the Dalai Lama, hoping to win him over and establish their influence in Tibet. Britain, being at war with Tibet, could not meet with the Dalai Lama, but was very wary of the activities of other countries, fearing they might seize the opportunity to interfere in Tibet. Therefore, Sir Draken was appointed as an observer, which gave him the opportunity to travel west several times. He met again at Wutai Mountain with Fukushima Yasumasa, a member of the Japanese delegation. They had met in Peking in 1901 through Prince Su, and by then he was a lieutenant general and deputy chief of staff in the army. My father's autobiography contains very little about the Dalai Lama incident; much of it I discovered later when comparing historical materials, and I felt there was something unspeakable about it.
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