Milan Ancient City is 40 km east of Ruoqiang Couty Town, formed with Tibet Old Castle and the relics of the ancient architectures in the period of Wei Jin Dynasty scattered in the surrounding areas, in addition with the facilities of farmland development during garrison and water conservancy in Han Dynasty and Yixun City relics. According to history books, this land belonged to Yixun City of Loulan State of West Region in West Han period. In the second year of Han Zhao Di Yuanfeng (77 BC), Weituyan, king of Shanshan (ancient Loulan State) asked Han Government to send troops here to develop wasteland and farm for grains. A Sima and 40 soldiers then were dispatched to garrison in Yixun for farming. In Tang Dynasty, this land was occupied by Tibet, and the old castle was a military fortress built by Tibet.
In the 19th century, British Stein once unearthed this land and stole away lots of historical and cultural relics of statues and fresco. In 1950s of the 20th century, an exploration team of the Second Agricultural Division of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps discovered here the system of water conservancy project of intact channels built in Han Dynasty as well as vast fertile fields buried under desert. In 1973, archaeologists in Xinjiang unearthed relics of Tibet Old Castle in Tang Dynasty at the bank of the Milan old river.
Milan Ancient City is of an irregular square with a perimeter of 308 meters, with rammed walling of 6 - 9 meters in thickness. There are outstanding fortress mounds at the four sides, which still can be seen on north, east and west walls. There are still gaps left at the north section of the west wall and the west section of the south wall, which were the ancient gate routes. The outstanding castle outside the south wall has height of 9 meters. There were originally thick dust and earth against the foundation of walls inside the old city.Collapsed walls of residential houses are left at the foot of the east and north walls, which were for the ancient people's houses. In the 70s of 20th century, after the work of unearthing and clearing, it was discovered that, all the houses had a flat roof with some of them half under the ground, lots of inscribed wooden slips in Tibet language were unearthed, in addition with arms, lacquered turtle shells, grains and wool and silk fabrics, which are clearly remains in the late period of Tang Dynasty when Tibet came and occupied Xinjiang. Near the old city, in the 4 kilometers stretching from east to west,there are various Buddhism temples and pagodas. There are also quite large relics of the ancient farming development,with inter-linking irrigation trenches very well planned.
Gu Sbu Bao is a representative building in Milan Ancient City, which is at an important spot of Xingan Highway, with a width of about 56 meters from south to north and 70 meters in length from east to west in an irregular squared shape. It has rammed walling with branchy tamarisk branches inside the rammed earth, on which there are sun dried mud bricks.The west wall has two sections of gaps with a width of 5 -6 meters, probably were for the old protection castle's gate.The north part is a big stair-shaped earth slope, with houses built from the hallow area to the north wall of the castle, all with flat tops without door holes. The east part of the castle is a big house. The south part is a mound with a height of nearly 13 meters, on which erected a pole, looking like a watch tower ,At east and west side of the old castle, there are various pagodas orderly set and relics of majestic temples.According history books, Faxian, China's ancient famous monk once taught the doctrines and worshipped Buddhism here on his way to West Heaven or back home in the east.
East Temple is another representative building in Milan Old City relics, with a height of about 6 meters in two floors,surrounded with pretty high courtyard walls. Inside the temple,there is a Buddhist shrine still remained with half-embossed Bodhisattva and the heavenly kings, beneath them, there are surrounded with embossed pillars with the cloud pattern. Under the construction at the east side of the relics of the temple,there are still big Buddhist statues in sitting position and big Buddhist heads abandoned on the'ground, West Temple is a Buddhism architecture matching with East Temple, set in a rectangle of 5.6 meters in width and 12.2 in length centered in Sumeru styled foundation, with the surrounded base set in the corridor, on which built a round structure with a diameter of 3 meters. The Buddhism relic of the temple is a typical example of early Buddhism culture. The Buddhist statures are lively with the pastures, graceful and simple in patterns and fines, offering valuable materials for the research of the history of Chinese and western cultures and arts.
