The Silk Road is an ancient trading network that spanned across the Eurasian continent, connecting the West and China. This network made it possible for the Roman elite who lived 8,000 kilometers away from China to wear the most luxurious Chinese silk. Hence why the name.
The name Silk Road was popularized by German explorer Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877. But 2000 years before him, an explorer from China had discovered the existence of this trading network. Though he did not travel all the way to Rome, his discovery led to the expansion of this trading route and cultural exchange between China and Central Asia. His name was Zhang Qian and in this episode, we will go on a virtual tour with him and follow him through his journey across the eastern half of the Silk Road.
Like his journey, we are going to meander a bit. So relax, sit back, and bask in the glory of ancient history. His date of birth was unknown, but Zhang Qian was born in Hanzhong in the 2nd century BC. During the Han Dynasty period, this city still exists today, and it is located in the Shaanxi province of China.
It is only 290 kilometers away from the capital of the Han Empire, Chang'an, which had been renamed to Xi'an today. We know that by at least 139 BCE, he had entered Chang'an to serve as an officer in the imperial court. During that time, the Han Dynasty was under the constant threat of raids and war by the mighty nomadic empire in the north, the Xiongnu Empire. Ever since their disastrous defeat in the hands of the Xiongnu, the Han dynasty had been forced to pay heavy tributes and marry off their princesses to the Xiongnu rulers.
In a treaty called Heqing, the emperor of the time, Han Wudi, wanted to put an end to this humiliating extortion that had been going on for half a century. So he prepared for war against them. But his enemy was the largest empire in the world at the time.
almost twice the size of Alexander the Great's empire. Declaring a war against them willy-nilly is not the clever thing to do. What he needed were allies.
Luckily for him, they had recently extracted a precious intel from a Xiongnu prisoner of war. Apparently, the Xiongnu's former nemesis from a few decades ago, the Yuezhi tribe survived their supposed eradication and they are itching for vengeance. Thinking that they would make the perfect allies, Han Wudi sought volunteers among his officials to seek out the Yuezhi and secure an alliance. All they needed to do was to trek across thousands of miles of enemy-infested Gobi Desert to find this Yuezhi needle in a haystack. Thankfully, Zhang Qian stepped up to the task.
So he was given the staff of authority. And off he went. in search of the Yuezhi with a team of 100 envoys and a Xiongnu guide.
Ganfu, unbeknownst to him, this journey will last 13 years and his discovery of the Silk Road just happened to be the unintended consequence of executing this mission. Had he known about this, maybe he would have thought twice. The mission to find the Yuezhi itself wasn't an easy one to begin with. They were last... spotted somewhere in the west.
But being a nomadic tribe just like the Xiongnu, they could have roamed anywhere by now. This means that Zhang Qian's team would have to search the whole of the humongous Gobi Desert to find them. This desert stretches over 1,500 kilometers across northern China.
It is considered a cold desert because during winter, the average temperature there could go below 26 degrees Celsius. And sometimes you can even see snow on the dunes. However, the Gobi is not all sand dunes.
Yes, it is astoundingly dry. You can't grow crops there either. But there are enough patches of vegetation to sustain a diverse local wildlife.
Over there, you can find tiny creatures like the Jerboa, large predators like the snow leopards and Gobi bears, not Yogi bears, but... The most dangerous creature in the Gobi was actually the highly aggressive and venomous Central Asian firebird. Luckily for this mob, they've brought the Xiongnu former slave, Ganfu, as a guide to help them evade the perils of the desert.
He would even hunt games for them when supplies were running low. The kind of animals he would have hunted would probably be ibex, gazelles, and perhaps even wild Bactrian camels and horses. The real danger here, however, were not the wilderness. It was the Xiongnu raiders.
whose dominion stretched past the Gobi Desert and beyond. They could descend on this team anytime. Like right now.
Zhang Qian didn't get to travel too far before he was captured by the Xiongnu. And through his journey, he was stuck longer with them than he was on the road. Fortunately, he was a strongly built man with generous personality and the Xiongnu liked him enough to keep him alive.
The Xiongnu often recruited people who they considered to be strong or useful, regardless of their background. And the fact that they gave him a wife was a sign that they wanted to keep him around. Zhang Qian wasn't the first person from Han who had visited the Xiongnu. It was a rare opportunity for him to experience the culture of Han Dynasty's arch-nemesis firsthand. The Xiongnu were constantly on the move as they searched for water and pasture.
They have no walled cities or fixed dwellings, nor do they engage in any kind of agriculture. That's why it is so hard to defeat them, because there are no cities to conquer. Their lands, however, were divided into regions under the control of various leaders. They have no writing and even promises and agreements were only verbal.
The little boys started out learning to ride sheeps and shoot birds and rats with bows and arrows. And when they get a little older, they shoot foxes and hares, which they used for food. Thus, all the young men were able to use bows and act as armed cavalry in times of war. In times of peace, they herd horses, cows, sheeps, camels, asses, mules, and other livestock.
It is their custom to herd their flock and make their living by hunting. But in periods of crisis, they take up arms and go off on plundering and marauding expeditions. This was their inborn nature.
For long-range weapons, they use bows and arrows, and swords and spears at close range. If the battle is going well for them, they will advance. But if not?
They will retreat, for they do not consider it a disgrace to run away. The Xiongnus' only concern was self-advantage, and they know nothing of propriety or righteousness. From the chief of the tribes on down, everyone eats the meat of the domestic animals and wears clothes of hides or wraps made of felt or fur.
The young men eat the richest and the best food. while the old get what's left over, since the tribe honors those who are young and strong over the week and age. On the death of his father, his son will marry his stepmother, and when brothers die, the remaining brothers will take the widows for their own wives.
This made Zhang Qian wonder, if they're wearing fur, then what happened to all the silk sent to them as part of the He Qing tribute? Through his 10 years of stay, the Xiongnu progressively relaxed their security measures around him. Until one day, Zhang Jian and his team found the opportunity to slip away.
Whoops, he almost forgot something important. His staff. He couldn't complete his mission without it.
It was the symbol of the emperor's authority. And only with it can he establish alliances and execute other diplomatic affairs in the name of the emperor. Zhang Jian had come across information that... that the Yuezhi had moved further west during his stay with the Xiongnu, so he traveled as far west as he could, crossing the Gobi and the Taklamakan Desert, until he reached a place called Dayuan. The other name for this place is the Fergana Valley.
As he showed them his staff, he requested to see the king of the land and promised that the Han Empire will heavily reward them for any assistance they could provide to form this alliance. Since he met the king of Fergana, it is highly likely that Zhang Qian had visited Alexandria Eschate. It means Alexandria the Furtest. It was a city founded by Alexander the Great and he also named it after himself.
Well, he named a lot of cities after himself, so he needed to add extra descriptor. It also happened to be the furthest outpost he established. Hence the name.
Fergana and the surrounding region was once ruled by the Seleucid Empire. An empire carved out of Alexander the Great's Macedonian Empire after his death. It was later carved up again into the Graco-Bacterian Kingdom. when Diodotus I seceded from the Seleucid.
But by the time of Zhang Qian's arrival, the Graco-Bacterian kingdom had been broken up into many smaller kingdoms and societies through internal instability and assaults by various tribes of nomadic horsemen. Anyway, his negotiations with the king of Ghana was successful. They told him that the Yuezhi was at Daxia, or Bactria, in the southwest. But... He can't go there directly.
He had to circle around the Pamir mountain range. That's why they granted him a safe passage to the Kangju region, or Sogdiana to the west. From there, he travelled to the Bactria region, where he finally met the Yuezi to the north of the Oxus river. This river is called Amudarya today, and it is located in Tajikistan. Apparently, the Yuezi had conquered Bactria.
Impressive! They were once the big dog of the steppes. An alliance with them will surely advance the Han Empire's cause, he thought.
But apparently, they are not too keen to pick another fight with the Xiongnu. They like it here and they wanted to enjoy the fruits of their conquest. Besides, they didn't exactly had a good time on their way here.
They had been bumped around up and down like a billiard ball. between 176 to 162 BC. BCE, they had been under the constant attack of the Xiongnu. During that period, they had defeated the Wusun, and in 162 BCE, they moved northwest and drove the Saga tribe south into Sogdiana and occupied their territory at the Ili River Valley.
In turn, the Sagas attacked the Parthians. But around the 132 BCE, Kunmo, the new leader of the Wusun, sought revenge. ventured against the Yuezhi and drove them past Fergana and into Sogdiana. Now that they have finally found a new home at Bactria, they are not too keen to fight another war so quickly.
Not even the fact that the king of Yuezhi's father Skull was turned into a cub by the Xiongnu could agitate him. A small group of the Yuezhi was even left behind in China, taking refuge among the Qiang people at the Tibetan plateau and formed the Lesser Yuezhi. Since Zhang Qian had been on this mission for 10 years, he can't give up now. So he would proceed to spend a whole year trying to change the Yuezhi's mind. During the course of his stay, he didn't stand idly either.
He took the opportunity to gather information from the surrounding regions. Using Fergana as his hub, he reported that Sogdiana was located in the northwest, and the people there lived as nomads with similar manners and customs to the Xiongnu and Yuezi. They had 80 or 90 thousand archers, and it is under the political influence of the Yuezi. Today, this area would cover part of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. This area would have included Samarkand, the oldest inhabited city in Central Asia.
But he didn't mention this city in his account. The Wusun had settled to the Nizam. northeast of Fergana in the Illy River Valley, replacing the Yuezi.
This location lies between Kazakhstan and China today. The Wusun were also a nomadic people like the Xiongnu. They had a legend that their king was once cast away after his father was killed in an attack. And while he was in the wilderness, a blackbird brought him meat and a she-wolf nursed him with her milk. Astonished by this, the Xiongnu Sanyu decided to raise him and he became a powerful general.
Previously, they were the subjects of the Xiongnu. But now that they have gotten stronger, they stopped going to the Xiongnu's annual meeting. It means that they have ghosted their former boss. They have gone independent. This race by crow and wolf trope is actually a common founding motif among the Turkic and Mongolic people.
And interestingly enough, it is also similar to the Roman founding myth, except that their founders, Romulus and Remus, had a woodpecker instead of a crow. The Chinese characters for Wusun literally means crow grandchildren. Later historians noted that the Wusun had green eyes and red hair.
If you ask, no, they're probably not Irish. Fergana is spread across Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan today. The people Zhang Che noticed were permanent dwellers and grow rice and wheat. He also noticed that they made their wines with grapes.
This was worth noting because it was quite uncommon in China at the time. Even though there were archaeological evidence that grape wines existed in China during the Bronze Age, by his time, it had fallen out of favor for unknown reasons. And the wines made in China were mostly made with grains and other fruits.
Though most important of all, they had astoundingly powerful horses that sweated blood. Modern researchers speculated that the horse sweated blood because blood-sucking parasites cause their blood to mix with their sweat when they are getting a workout. Sometime after Zhang Qian's death, Emperor Han Wudi will receive a divination that says, Defiant horses will arrive from the northwest.
At first, he thought that it was the horses from the Wusun. But once he discovered that the Fergana horses were much more powerful, he switched the labels and called these ones heavenly horses instead. In a couple of decades, a war will be fought over these horses.
Mbactria. This location is spread throughout modern-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It was also part of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom until it was conquered by the Yuezhi. By then, the government structure had been reduced to scattered communities of petty chiefdoms, and what remained of their soldiers are too weak and afraid to fight.
The people, however, were shrewd traders. In the market, Zhang Qian was even surprised to find bamboo and cloth products from the Su region of China. so would be located within the Sichuan area today. But Bactria and Su was divided by the Himalayas.
How in the world did these products get here? He wondered. Apparently, it came here by the way of Shendu.
During the course of his stay, Zhang Qian also gathered whatever second-hand information he could on the surrounding kingdoms and regions. Among those that appeared in his accounts are Shendu, Ansi, also known as Parthia, Xiaozi, also known as Mesopotamia, and Yanchai. To get a better idea of these locations, let me defer to someone who is more knowledgeable about this region, Sai from History with Sai. Thanks CJ.
I wouldn't necessarily say more knowledgeable, but I definitely have an interest in these regions. The region he called Shandu has been identified as Sindh in what's today modern Pakistan. In Zhang Xian's day, it would have likely been one of the southernmost regions controlled by the so-called Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. I say likely because the years between 128 to 126 BCE were quite literally the last for the kingdom, which was dissolved around 125 BCE due to increased pressure from various nomadic invaders into the kingdom.
Most notably, the Ye-Chi and tribes of eastern Scythians, also sometimes called the Saka. Zhongxian describes the region as being hot and damp, and where elephants were used in battle. This is consistent with what we know of both the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, as well as the later Indo-Greek kingdom that was consolidated after Bactria's fall. Another country that Zhongxiang mentions is Parthia, a place that today would consist mostly of parts of northeastern Iran and Turkmenistan.
Though once nomads themselves, by 128 BCE, the Parthians controlled a vast empire and were probably the most powerful state in the region. In fact, just barely a decade before, in 141 BCE, the Parthians captured the great Seleucid city of Seleucia on the Tigris River in southern Mesopotamia. what would today be central and southern Iraq.
Zheng Xian actually seems to mention the Parthians' control of Mesopotamia, which he called Jiaoqi. Based on his sources, he wrote that its many chiefs and petty rulers were ultimately all under Parthian control as vassals. In those days, it was a very populous region whose people made their livelihood by cultivating rice. Zheng Xian Seems to have also marveled over the silver Parthian coins, that depicted the face of the Parthian king, something that's clearly confirmed by the numerous Parthian coins that have been uncovered in places as far apart as Mesopotamia to the steppes of Central Asia. Finally, Zhengxiang also writes about the vast steppe region of Yankai, a place believed to be close to the Aral or possibly the Caspian Sea, in what would today be somewhere in northern Uzbekistan or parts of southern Kazakhstan.
Specifics with regard to this region during his time are scarce, but its rulers must have been quite powerful, as Zhang Xian recalls that he heard the country possessed over 100,000 archers. Though it can't be proven for certain, many of these were probably nomadic warriors from the steppe who may have been in the service of the local lord or ruler. That's a great summary. Thanks a lot, Zai.
By the end of the year, Zhang Qian was still unable to persuade the Yuezhi to form an alliance. However, he had gathered a lot of valuable information regarding the surrounding areas and potential trade opportunities. The Chinese silk would probably sell even better here if they somehow got rid of the Xiongnu as middlemen.
That would certainly improve the empire's economy, he thought. At least, he won't be returning home empty-handed. So Zhang Qian tried to return to Han by skirting around the Qilian Mountain.
But he was caught by the Xiongnu again. As an escapee, it didn't look like they're going to treat him as well this time. To his mercy, his imprisonment didn't last longer than a year this time. The opportunity to escape rose when the former Sanyu's brother tried to usurp the throne from the rightful heir and caused a succession war.
He took advantage of the confusion to escape with only Ganfu, his wife, and son, and the staff of course. He finally made it back to the Han Empire in 126 BCE. Out of over a hundred envoys that had departed on the mission with him, only two of the original members of the team survived.
As reward for his bravery and the information he gathered, he and his faithful companion were generously promoted. But that's not the end of his career. After reporting his findings that Su products could be found in Bactria, Emperor Han Wuti sent four expeditions to the southwest to find a new trading route that is not controlled by the Xiongnu, via Sendu. Well, it sounds dumb to us right now because it is a longer route. But they didn't have satellite imaging back then, and they didn't have a world map either.
Unsurprisingly, that mission failed. Not because of the distance, but the expedition was impeded by the native tribes in the newly discovered southwestern kingdoms and tribes of Dian and Ailao. oh well he will make them pay soon enough and put them on the to conquer list failing to find an alternate route they decided to conquer the hessi corridor instead zhang chen participated in in the campaign.
But due to being jinxed by General Lee Gwang's infamous bad luck, he was delayed on his objective and he was almost punished by execution. The benefit of being a noble was that he had a get-out-of-jail card. As long as they had the money to pay for the fine and were willing to be stripped of their noble titles, they can escape the punishment. Even though he was demoted, he continued to work for the empire. His last important mission before his death in 114 BCE was establishing trade and alliance with the Wusun.
So, that was Zhang Qian's tour of the early Silk Road. How do you find the virtual tour? This format is a bit different than the usual because it is an experiment for me.
Tell me if you like it. If you do, then maybe you will see more of this kind of video in the future. By the way, remember to check out Sai's channel. He is really knowledgeable in the history of the ancient world, Near East and Central Asia.
Say hi for me over there. In the next episode, I will talk about the Witch Hunt scandal that broke the autocratic Han Wuti. So, subscribe to the channel if you don't want to miss it.
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