Zhang Qian's Mission to the West and the Origins of the Silk Road

Zhang Qian was a Han Chinese envoy who set out around 138 BC on a mission to Central Asia for Emperor Wu of Han. Captured twice by the Xiongnu nomads, he spent more than a decade on the journey and returned with only one of his roughly hundred companions. His mission failed in its diplomatic aim, but his reports on Ferghana, Bactria, Parthia and India led Han China to open regular contacts with the West, and he is remembered as the pioneer of the Silk Road.

Background: the Xiongnu and the Yuezhi

In the 2nd century BC the Han empire was overshadowed by the Xiongnu, a confederation of steppe peoples who raided northern China and received gifts of silk and grain under the heqin peace treaties. Emperor Wu of Han, who came to the throne in 141 BC, was determined to end this situation.

Xiongnu prisoners told the court a striking story. The Xiongnu had defeated the Yuezhi, a people who once lived in the Gansu region, killed their king and made his skull into a drinking cup. The surviving Yuezhi had fled far to the west and were said to hate the Xiongnu. Emperor Wu hoped they could be persuaded to join Han in attacking their old enemy.

The problem was that no one in China knew exactly where the Yuezhi had gone, and the only route west lay through Xiongnu lands. The emperor called for volunteers, and Zhang Qian, a junior court attendant from Hanzhong, offered to go.

Captivity among the Xiongnu

Zhang Qian left around 138 BC with a party of about a hundred men. Among them was Ganfu, also called Tangyi Fu, a man of Xiongnu origin who served as guide and was a skilled archer. Soon after they entered the Hexi Corridor, the party was captured by the Xiongnu and brought before the chanyu Junchen.

The chanyu refused to let him pass, pointing out that Han would not allow Xiongnu envoys to cross China to reach the kingdom of Yue in the south. Zhang Qian was held for about ten years. He was given a Xiongnu wife and had a son, but according to Sima Qian he never gave up the envoy’s staff that marked his mission.

Journey to Ferghana, Sogdiana and the Yuezhi

Eventually Zhang Qian escaped with some of his companions and travelled west, probably along the northern edge of the Tarim Basin, crossing into the Ferghana Valley. Its people, whom the Chinese called Dayuan, lived in walled towns, grew rice and wheat, made wine from grapes and bred splendid horses. The king had heard of the wealth of Han and gave him guides to Kangju, in the region of Sogdiana, from where he was sent on to the Yuezhi.

By the time he arrived, the Yuezhi had conquered Bactria, called Daxia by the Chinese, in what is now northern Afghanistan, and had settled on the northern bank of the Oxus (Amu Darya) river. They had found a fertile and peaceful land and had no wish to resume war with the distant Xiongnu. After more than a year Zhang Qian left without an alliance. The Yuezhi would later found the Kushan Empire, one of the great powers of Central and South Asia.

The return and second captivity

To avoid the Xiongnu, Zhang Qian returned along the southern edge of the Tarim Basin, below the Kunlun Mountains, hoping to pass through the lands of the Qiang peoples. He was captured again by the Xiongnu and held for over a year. When Junchen died in 126 BC and a succession struggle broke out, he escaped with his Xiongnu wife and Ganfu.

He reached Chang’an in 126 BC, though some accounts date his return to 125 BC. Of the hundred or so men who had set out about thirteen years earlier, only Zhang Qian and Ganfu came home. Emperor Wu gave Zhang Qian a court post and Ganfu an honorary title.

What Zhang Qian reported

Zhang Qian’s report to the emperor, preserved in the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian, is the earliest Chinese description of Central Asia. He described countries he had visited, including Dayuan, the Wusun, Kangju, the Yuezhi and Daxia, and others he had heard about.

Among them were Anxi, usually identified as Parthia, a large country of farming towns whose silver coins bore the image of the king and whose people wrote horizontally on strips of leather. He also mentioned Tiaozhi, a land on the western sea probably in Mesopotamia, and Shendu, India, where people rode elephants into battle.

The most intriguing detail came from Bactria. There Zhang Qian saw cloth from Shu and bamboo staves from Qiong, both in modern Sichuan. The Bactrians said merchants bought them in Shendu. Zhang Qian concluded that a route must run from southwest China through India, and the emperor sent several expeditions to find it, though they were blocked by peoples in Yunnan.

Military service and the second mission

Zhang Qian’s knowledge of water and pasture was put to use in the wars against the Xiongnu. In 123 BC he served with the general Wei Qing, and the army’s success earned him the title Marquis of Bowang. In 121 BC, however, he arrived late for a rendezvous during a campaign with Li Guang. He was condemned to death but, as Han law allowed, paid to have the sentence commuted and was reduced to commoner status.

After the Han victories of 121 and 119 BC opened the way west, Zhang Qian proposed a new mission to the Wusun, a nomadic people in the Ili region, hoping to persuade them to move back east into the lands the Xiongnu had abandoned. Around 119 BC he set out with about 300 men, each with two horses, along with tens of thousands of cattle and sheep and gold and silk worth huge sums. The Wusun were divided and refused to move, but Zhang Qian sent deputies on to Dayuan, Kangju, the Yuezhi, Daxia, Anxi, India and other states.

He returned around 115 BC with Wusun envoys and was appointed Grand Herald, the minister in charge of foreign relations. He died about a year later. Over the following years his deputies came back with envoys from the countries they had visited.

Consequences: opening the Silk Road

Sima Qian wrote that Zhang Qian “opened up” the western regions, using a word meaning to bore through. After his missions, the Han court sent embassies westward several times a year, some numbering hundreds of people, often carrying silk as gifts. Envoys and merchants who used his title to win trust followed in his footsteps.

Han power followed the envoys. Commanderies were set up along the Hexi Corridor, the Great Wall was extended to Dunhuang, and in 104–101 BC Han fought the War of the Heavenly Horses against Dayuan to obtain its prized horses. Han armies and settlers brought grapevines and alfalfa back from Ferghana. In 60 BC a Protector General of the Western Regions was appointed to oversee the oasis states of the Tarim Basin.

Myths and facts

Myth: Zhang Qian invented or founded the Silk Road. Long-distance exchange across Eurasia was much older. Chinese silk has been found in steppe burials centuries earlier, and nomads had long carried goods between China and the West. What changed after Zhang Qian was that the Han state actively organised, protected and profited from the routes.

Myth: Zhang Qian personally brought grapes, alfalfa, walnuts and many other plants to China. Sima Qian credits Han envoys in general with bringing back grape and alfalfa seeds after Zhang Qian’s time. Later tradition attached the introduction of many more crops to his name without evidence.

Fact: The famous Dunhuang mural is a later Buddhist retelling. A mural in Mogao Cave 323 at Dunhuang, painted in the early Tang period (7th to early 8th century), shows Emperor Wu sending Zhang Qian west to learn about the Buddha. The early sources say nothing of Buddhism in connection with his mission; the scene reflects how later Buddhists reused his story.

Fact: The name “Silk Road” is modern. It was coined in 1877 by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen.

Timeline

• c. 138 BC: Zhang Qian leaves Chang’an and is soon captured by the Xiongnu.
• c. 129–128 BC: He escapes and travels west through Ferghana and Sogdiana to the Yuezhi.
• c. 128–127 BC: He stays more than a year with the Yuezhi near Bactria.
• c. 127 BC: On the way home he is captured again by the Xiongnu.
• 126 BC: After the death of the chanyu Junchen he escapes and reaches Chang’an.
• 123 BC: Made Marquis of Bowang after serving on campaign with Wei Qing.
• 121 BC: Loses his rank after arriving late for a rendezvous.
• c. 119–115 BC: Second mission, to the Wusun; deputies visit many western states.
• c. 113 BC: Death of Zhang Qian.

Why it matters

Zhang Qian’s missions turned a failed search for an ally into China’s discovery of Central Asia. His reports set the direction of Han foreign policy for a century and began the official exchanges that linked China with Iran, India and, eventually, the Roman world along the Silk Road.