Well, that was pretty anticlimactic. Suggest you go read about a more interesting abandoned city in the Gobi Desert instead:
> Built in 1032, the city thrived under the rule of the Tangut-led Western Xia dynasty. It has been identified as the city of Etzina, which appears in The Travels of Marco Polo. ...
> According to a legend of the local Torghut population, in 1372 a Mongol military general named Khara Bator was surrounded with his troops by the armies of the Ming dynasty. Diverting the Ejin River, the city's water source that flowed just outside the fortress, the Ming dynasty denied Khara-Khoto water for its gardens and wells. As time passed and Khara Bator realised his fate, he murdered his family and then himself. After his suicide, Khara Bator's soldiers waited within the fortress until Ming troops finally attacked and killed the remaining inhabitants.