Qiaowan Fort (桥湾城) is a Qing Dynasty garrison fort built in 1732, about 50 kilometres east of Guazhou on the road toward Jiayuguan. The earthen walls are largely intact and enclose a rectangular compound with the remains of watchtowers at the corners. A small archaeological museum attached to the fort displays objects recovered from the garrison period: ceramic water vessels, bronze belt fittings, wooden eating implements, and a remarkable collection of inscribed wooden administrative documents.
The fort is smaller and less dramatic than the larger Silk Road sites, but the attached museum is better than its remote location would suggest — the everyday objects from the garrison tell a more immediate story than monumental architecture does. It is the right size for an hour's stop on the way between Guazhou and Jiayuguan, and the desert landscape around it is uniformly desolate in a way that clarifies why maintaining a garrison here was considered a military achievement.