From Takow to Kaohsiung

Jiuquan (酒泉) Street, Datong District, Taipei City

Literally meaning "Alcohol Spring(s)", this street's name sounds as though there might be an interesting story behind it, parhaps something about aborigines' ancestral spirits causing some kind of wine to gush spontanously from a rocky fissure on the nearby Yuanshan (圓山; "Round Hill").

Sadly, this is not the case. Rather, like a large proportion of Taipei's streets, it is named for a place in China, that is, the prefeture-level city of Jiuquan in northwestern Gansu (甘肅) Province.

Founded in late-2nd century BCE as a military garrison protecting traffic where the Silk Road passed through the Gansu (Hexi) Corridor, it was originally called Fulu (福祿; lit. "Blessed [&] Fortunate"). This followed successful campaingns against the Xiongnu (匈奴) pushing southwards out of today's Mongolia by General Huo Qu-bing (霍去病; 140~117 BCE), nephew of Empress Wei Zi-fu (衛子夫), wife of Western Han Emperor Wu (漢武帝; r.141 to 87 BCE). Accounts suggest Huo wasn't particularly caring or generous towards the troops he led, but when awarded a jar of fine wine by Emperor Wu following this victory, he is said to have poured it into a stream so that all his men could share its taste.

Fuli was renamed Suzhou (肅州; lit. "Solemn State") in the 6th century CE (when it was apparently the center of the rhubarb trade), before it subsequently fell to firstly the Tibetan Empire and later Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom, which also largely practiced Tibetan Buddhism.

Sometime later, the legendary story of Huo's pouring of the Emperor's wine into a stream led to the name Jiuquan becoming adopted, initially for a part of this extensive area, and then for it all.

An alternative explanation is that the spring waters of this area tasted "as sweet as wine".



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