Hexi Corridor: Han China's Gateway to the Silk Road

The Hexi Corridor is a narrow chain of oases in Gansu province that links the Chinese heartland with Central Asia. From 121 BC Han China, led on the battlefield by the general Huo Qubing, seized it from the Xiongnu nomads and organised it into four commanderies: Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan and Dunhuang. Guarded by walls, watchtowers and the Yumen Pass, the corridor became the main gateway of the Silk Road.

Geography

The corridor stretches about 1,000 kilometres northwest from the Yellow River near Lanzhou to Dunhuang. To the south rise the snow-capped Qilian Mountains, whose meltwater feeds rivers that create fertile oases. To the north lie lower hills and the Gobi and Badain Jaran deserts. Its Chinese name, Hexi, means “west of the river”.

The corridor was the only practical route for large numbers of people and animals between northern China and the Tarim Basin. Before the Han, it was home first to the Yuezhi and Wusun peoples and then, after about 176 BC, to the Xiongnu, whose Kings of Hunye and Xiutu ruled its pastures.

Huo Qubing’s conquest in 121 BC

Emperor Wu of Han made the corridor a target of his war against the Xiongnu. In spring 121 BC the general Huo Qubing, then about 20 years old, led 10,000 cavalry across the Yanzhi Mountains and defeated the Xiongnu there. He captured a golden statue that the King of Xiutu used in sacrifices to Heaven. In the summer he struck again, deep into the Qilian Mountains, killing or capturing over 30,000 people according to Han records.

The defeats angered the Xiongnu chanyu, who summoned the Kings of Hunye and Xiutu to answer for them. Fearing execution, the King of Hunye decided to surrender to Han. When the King of Xiutu hesitated, Hunye killed him. Huo Qubing crossed the Yellow River to receive the surrender, suppressing a mutiny among some of the Xiongnu, and some 40,000 people, reported as 100,000, came over to Han. The corridor was left almost empty of Xiongnu.

The four commanderies

Han turned the conquered lands into commanderies, the standard units of imperial administration, each with a governor and subordinate counties. Their founding dates are uncertain because the Book of Han gives contradictory dates, ranging from 121 BC to the 80s BC. Many modern historians think Jiuquan and Zhangye were set up first, around 111–104 BC, that Dunhuang was separated from Jiuquan around 100–90 BC, and that Wuwei came last.

The names were statements of purpose. Wuwei means “martial might”; Zhangye comes from a phrase about stretching out the empire’s arm; Jiuquan means “wine spring”, later linked to a legend that Huo Qubing poured imperial wine into a spring to share with his troops; Dunhuang is usually interpreted as “great and flourishing”.

The government moved settlers, convicts and soldiers into the oases. Garrison troops grew their own grain on military farms, and the Great Wall was extended westward from Lingju through Jiuquan to Dunhuang and beyond, with lines of beacon towers reaching towards Lop Nur.

The Yumen Pass and the road west

West of Dunhuang stood two frontier checkpoints: the Yumen Pass, or Jade Gate, and the Yang Pass to the south. Travellers, envoys and merchants needed passports to go through. The name Yumen is usually explained by the jade from Khotan, in the southern Tarim Basin, which was traded east along this route.

The ruined fort at Xiaofangpan, a square of rammed earth with walls about 10 metres high, is traditionally identified as the Han Yumen Pass, though some archaeologists think it was a military headquarters rather than the pass itself. The Yumen Pass ruins and the Xuanquan relay station near Dunhuang were included in the UNESCO World Heritage listing of the Silk Roads in 2014.

Life on the frontier

Unusually rich records survive from the Hexi frontier because the dry climate preserved wooden writing strips. In 1907 the explorer Aurel Stein found Han documents along the wall near Dunhuang. Around 10,000 strips were recovered at Juyan in 1930 and many more later, and excavations at Xuanquan in 1990–1992 produced tens of thousands of strips. They record rosters of soldiers, grain rations, letters, legal cases and the movements of foreign envoys.

The corridor remained vital long after the Han. Buddhist monks carved the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang from the 4th century, and the Ming dynasty built the fortress of Jiayuguan in 1372 at the corridor’s western neck.

Timeline

• c. 176 BC: The Xiongnu drive the Yuezhi from the Gansu region.
• 121 BC, spring: Huo Qubing’s first campaign through the Yanzhi Mountains.
• 121 BC, summer: Second campaign into the Qilian Mountains.
• 121 BC, autumn: The King of Hunye surrenders to Han.
• c. 111–104 BC: Jiuquan and Zhangye commanderies probably established.
• c. 100–90 BC: Dunhuang commandery probably separated from Jiuquan.
• 1907: Aurel Stein finds Han documents along the Dunhuang frontier wall.
• 2014: Yumen Pass and Xuanquan site listed as part of the Silk Roads World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

Control of the Hexi Corridor turned Han China from a power facing the steppe into one reaching into Central Asia. It made the journeys that followed Zhang Qian’s mission possible on a regular basis and opened the main overland route between East Asia and the West for the next two thousand years.