When we had finished tea the Jalang put on a portentously solemn expression and said that it was reported that a dispatch had reached Taichinār Dzassak viâ Korluk from the Hsi-ning Amban, by which all the chiefs of the Ts'aidam were forbidden to supply guides, ponies provisions or camels to a certain foreigner with a Pekinese cook and several Hsi-ning followers, who was desirous of going to Tibet.
Source: wiktionary
A highway also connects Lan-chou with Hsi-ning in Tsinghai Province. The Tsinghai-Tibet Highway further stretches 2,100 kilometers from Hsi-ning through Ko-erh-mu across the Kunlun Mountains to Lhasa, making Ko-erh-mu the new highway center of Kansu, Sinkiang, and Tibet.
Source: wiktionary
Hsi-ning, to a simple herdsman, is a metropolis of enormous proportions. Munpa had visited Hsi-ning before, and now again he felt lost in its crowded streets, and gaped at the impossible variety of articles displayed in the stores.
Source: wiktionary
They followed an ancient caravan route that took them west along the Great Wall of China to the Yellow River and Hsi-ning (now Xining), at that time the westernmost city of China.
Source: wiktionary