Qilian jade is mainly produced in Jiuquan, also known as Jiuquan jade, and is called serpentine in mineral science. Jiuquan jade is rich in color, including jasper, emerald, jadeite, topaz, jet and white jade, among which jasper, emerald and jadeite are the most common and famous, and are called "Lin" in Shangshu Gong Yu. Besides paying tribute to the imperial court, Jiuquan jade has a long history of being developed and utilized as an ornamental stone in the local area. Jade articles have been unearthed from the Huoshaogou Tomb in Yumen, Jiuquan and the Han and Jin Tombs in Jiayuguan. The Qing Dynasty's "A New Record of Rebuilding Suzhou" introduced the "famous stone" of Hongshui River. Hongshui River has the reputation of "one river has stones and half a river has jade". There are countless rivers, creeks and creeks in Qilian Mountain, but jadeite pebbles are mainly found in Hongshui River and Tole River (also known as Tolai River, commonly known as Beida River, suspected of ancient ocean water) which originated from the main peak glacier of Qilian Mountain and flowed through the suburbs of Jiuquan. -Author Publishing House)

The strange stones in Jiuquan are mainly divided into two categories, one is the wind fossil with chalcedony, agate and crystal as the main body in the Gobi desert areas such as Jiuquan North Gobi (including Mazong Mountain in Subei) and Dunhuang Desert, and the other is the snow water stone in Qilian. Qilian snow water stone is named after the rocks in the glacier area of Qilian main peak were washed away by the snow water in the valley. Snow water stones are mainly portrait stones, but there are also a few pictographs, some of which have neither patterns nor pictographs. Their color and texture are extremely excellent, and they are especially cared for by collectors of Tibetan stones in the southeast coast. Qilian geological layer also contains fossils of dinosaurs, elephants, fish and other paleontology.

The traditional stone quality standards of "thinness, wrinkling, transparency and leakage" are put forward for Taihu stone and Lingbi stone. In recent years, the new formulation of "shape, quality, color and texture" in the south is mainly applicable to colored stones and wax stones in the coastal and southern areas, such as giant fossils and Laoshan greenstone. Strictly speaking, most of these stones are not relief stones. These two views are far from the stone evaluation standards generally recognized by collectors, appreciators and buyers and sellers of painted stones, and are far from asking questions. The author believes that the evaluation of stone reliefs should mainly focus on "painting, quality and shape". Painting stone and painting stone, the key and primary factor to determine its taste, of course, is the painting above. "Painting" is composed of intuitive elements such as color, light, shadow and lines. Color includes the color of the picture and the back of the picture, which is the primary color of the strange stone. Since the word "painting" has been selected, we can comprehensively consider its techniques, themes, ideas and artistic conception. The second is to evaluate whether it is quality, which not only determines the mineral grade of the stone painting, but also affects the quality of the picture. The third is its shape. If the advantages of "painting, quality and shape" complement each other and achieve a harmonious unity or surprising combination, then this painting stone is undoubtedly the best.

Over the years, the author has almost traveled all over the country. The author has picked up stones in Yuhuatai, the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, the source of the Yangtze River and Xitianxia Gorge, and has seen strange stones all over the country in stone museums and stone exhibitions in Qingdao, Datong, Wuhan, Nanjing, Xi 'an and Lanzhou. The author thinks that, in terms of bright colors, vivid images and novel artistic conception, and in terms of the combination of painting, quality and shape, Qilian Snow Water Stone is an elegant and novel product.

Because of its ancient Kunlun Mountain, Xueshuishi in Qilian Mountain in Jiuquan is closely related to ancient myths in China, the origin of Taoism and the folk culture in China. Its profound and grand humanistic heritage is unmatched by any other strange stone and jade in China. In Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, it was a tribute. Qu Yuan visited Kunlun Mountain many times in his poems, and Kunlun Mountain is located in Kunlun Mountain. Tao Yuanming praised the Yushu in Kunlun Mountain in his poem Reading the Classic of Mountains and Seas. Li Bai sang the Tianshan Mountains in distant Guan Shanyue, and William Wang's Liangzhou Ci made it more famous in the form of luminous cups. The images of mountains and rivers, birds and animals, pines, cypresses and red berries, mythical figures and realistic social scenes on the stone are extremely rich. Its picture is full of freshness, elegance and beauty. If you really know it, it is undoubtedly the most important candidate according to the criteria for selecting the national stone.

China's stone-hiding and stone-appreciating activities flourished in the Northern Song Dynasty, when the Hexi Corridor belonged to Xixia and was in a state of separation from the Central Plains. When the Taihu Stone and Lingbi Stone were valued by Su Shi, Mi Fei and especially Song Huizong, the snow water stone in Qilian was sleeping in the deep mountain canyon of Xixia, so it was impossible to go to Bianjing and Jiangnan. Since 1980s, another craze for collecting strange stones has spread to Jiuquan, and it has been more than 10 years. The re-understanding of Qilian Xueshuishi is only a local matter for the time being, and it has not caused great influence in the whole country. It can be concluded that this situation will be improved soon.

Yashi is from Qilian!