Zhang Qian

Biography

The source text states that Zhang Qian was born in 164 BCE, the sixteenth year of the Earlier Yuan era of Emperor Wen of Han, in Chenggu County of Hanzhong Commandery, present-day Chenggu County in Shaanxi. Historical records provide little information about his family background, and the source text infers that he probably came from a locally middling household. When Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, ascended the throne, Zhang Qian served at court in the attendant rank known as lang. Historical sources describe him as strong, broad-minded, and trustworthy: qualities of endurance, generosity, and fidelity that the source text presents as essential to his ability to survive extraordinary hardship and complete his missions.

Zhang Qian lived during a crucial phase in the struggle between Han and the Xiongnu. During the Chu–Han Contention, Modu Chanyu had expanded Xiongnu power across broad areas to China's northeast, north, and west and created a unified steppe polity with formidable military strength. In the early Western Han, the Xiongnu conquered much of the Western Regions, established the office of the Commandant of Slaves, and imposed heavy levies on the local states. The Xiongnu also used the Western Regions as a strategic and economic base for incursions into Han territory. Through this struggle, Western Han rulers increasingly recognized the strategic importance of the Western Regions. After Emperor Wu learned from Xiongnu defectors that the westward-migrating Great Yuezhi wished to avenge an old feud against the Xiongnu but lacked allies, he decided to open contact with the region and seek an alliance with the Yuezhi in order to strike the Xiongnu from both sides and “cut off their right arm.”

In 139 BCE, the second year of Jianyuan, Zhang Qian left Chang'an with more than one hundred followers, guided by the Xiongnu man Tangyi Fu. Their route entered the Hexi Corridor, which had come fully under Xiongnu control after the Yuezhi migrated west. Xiongnu cavalry intercepted the party, captured them, and sent Zhang Qian and his companions to the Xiongnu royal court near present-day Hohhot, where they met Junchen Chanyu, son of Laoshang Chanyu.

When Junchen Chanyu learned that Zhang Qian intended to go to the Yuezhi, he argued that the Han would no more permit a Xiongnu envoy to pass through Han territory to the southern kingdom of Nanyue than the Xiongnu could permit a Han mission through their lands to the Yuezhi. Zhang Qian's party was detained. The chanyu attempted through pressure and inducements to make Zhang Qian abandon the mission, but the source text emphasizes that Zhang Qian did not disgrace the emperor's command and never lost the Han envoy's tally. He remained among the Xiongnu for about ten years, during which time he married a Xiongnu woman and had children.

In 129 BCE, as surveillance relaxed, Zhang Qian escaped with his attendants. During his years in captivity, conditions in the Western Regions had changed. Wusun, with Xiongnu support, had attacked the Yuezhi, forcing them westward from the Ili River basin toward the Oxus region near the Aral Sea, where they conquered Daxia and established themselves in new territory. Zhang Qian apparently learned of these changes. After passing through Cheshi he turned southwest rather than northwest toward the Ili region, entered Yanqi, followed the Tarim River west through Kucha and Shule, crossed the Pamirs, and reached Dayuan in the Fergana Valley of present-day Uzbekistan.

The march was extremely difficult. The party crossed desert regions of blowing sand and intense heat and high mountains covered with snow and exposed to severe cold. Settlements and water were scarce, and because the escape had been sudden they lacked adequate supplies. When provisions ran out, the skilled archer Tangyi Fu hunted birds and animals for food. Many followers died of hunger, thirst, exposure, or other hardships along the route.

When Zhang Qian reached Dayuan, he explained his mission and hardships to its king and asked for assistance in reaching the Yuezhi, promising rich Han rewards if he returned safely. The king of Dayuan had long heard of Han wealth and wished for relations with the east but had been blocked by the Xiongnu. He therefore welcomed the unexpected Han mission, entertained it, and sent guides and interpreters with Zhang Qian to Kangju, in the region of present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The ruler of Kangju then sent people to escort them onward to the Great Yuezhi.

By then, however, the Yuezhi had acquired fertile territory rich in resources, far from the Xiongnu and Wusun, and faced much less danger from external attack. They no longer wished to seek revenge on the Xiongnu. They also considered Han too distant to provide reliable assistance in a joint war. Zhang Qian remained among the Yuezhi for more than a year but failed to persuade them to form an alliance. During this period he crossed south of the Oxus and reached Lanshi in Daxia, identified in the source text with a site in present-day Afghanistan.

In 128 BCE, the first year of Yuanshuo, Zhang Qian began the return journey. To avoid Xiongnu territory he changed route, intending to follow the southern path across the Tarim Basin along the northern foot of the Kunlun Mountains, traveling through Shache, Yutian in present-day Hotan, and Shanshan in present-day Ruoqiang, then returning through regions inhabited by the Qiang in Qinghai. Unexpectedly, those Qiang groups had also become subordinate to the Xiongnu, and Xiongnu cavalry captured Zhang Qian's party a second time. They were detained for more than another year.

Early in 126 BCE, civil disorder broke out among the Xiongnu over the succession. Zhang Qian seized the opportunity to escape with Tangyi Fu and return to Chang'an. His first mission had lasted thirteen years, from 139 to 126 BCE. More than one hundred people had departed; only Zhang Qian and Tangyi Fu returned.

Although the first expedition failed to secure a military alliance with the Great Yuezhi, the source text emphasizes its enormous practical and historical importance. Emperor Wu was highly satisfied with the knowledge Zhang Qian brought back from the Western Regions and appointed him Grand Master of the Palace. Tangyi Fu received the title “Lord Who Fulfilled the Mission” in recognition of his service.

In 123 BCE, the sixth year of Yuanshuo, Zhang Qian served as a colonel under General-in-Chief Wei Qing in a campaign against the Xiongnu. The source text states that Emperor Wu later enfeoffed him as Marquis of Bowang, associating the title with the idea of broad vision and wide-ranging observation, in recognition of his service in the west and his military merit.

In 121 BCE, the second year of Yuanshou, Zhang Qian was appointed Commandant of the Guards and, together with Li Guang on a separate route, advanced from Right Beiping against the Xiongnu. According to the Book of Han, Li Guang led four thousand cavalry while Zhang Qian commanded ten thousand. Li Guang was surrounded by forty thousand cavalry under the Wise King of the Left and fought desperately until Zhang Qian's force arrived the following day, after which the Xiongnu withdrew. Because Zhang Qian had failed to arrive by the appointed time, he was sentenced to death under Han military law. He redeemed the sentence with money and was reduced to commoner status.

In 119 BCE, after losing the Hexi Corridor, the Xiongnu had withdrawn northwestward and increasingly relied on the manpower and resources of the Western Regions in their struggle with Han. Emperor Wu again appointed Zhang Qian General of the Household and sent him west with more than three hundred followers, large quantities of gold, silk, and other valuables, and ten thousand cattle and sheep. The mission had two stated purposes: to persuade Wusun to move east to its old territory and thereby further weaken the Xiongnu, and to display Han power and encourage the states of the Western Regions to enter relations with the Han court.

When Zhang Qian reached Wusun, the state was experiencing internal conflict, and he failed to persuade it to move east. His deputy envoys, however, traveled separately to Dayuan, Kangju, the Great Yuezhi, Daxia, and other Central Asian states. These missions expanded Western Han political influence and mutual knowledge. In 115 BCE, Zhang Qian returned to Chang'an accompanied by several dozen Wusun envoys and was appointed Director of Diplomatic Reception, one of the Nine Ministers.

The Wusun envoys who had traveled to Chang'an returned home in 115 BCE and reported the strength and wealth of the Han state, increasing the confidence of the Wusun ruler Kunmo in relations with Han. Wusun again sent envoys asking to receive a Han princess in marriage. In 105 BCE, Emperor Wu married Princess Xijun, daughter of Liu Jian, king of Jiangdu, to Kunmo. After her death, the Han court sent Princess Jieyou, daughter of Liu Wu, king of Chu, to marry the Wusun ruler Cenzou. The source text presents these marriage alliances as direct consequences of the diplomatic channel established by Zhang Qian's second mission.

On the fifteenth day of the third lunar month of the third year of Yuanding, corresponding in the source text to 25 April 114 BCE, Zhang Qian died. Later envoys sent west were said to invoke the title Marquis of Bowang in commemoration of his pioneering work.

Major Deeds

Zhang Qian's first mission extended direct Han knowledge and influence beyond the Pamirs. The source text contrasts his journeys with the Qin period, when the western edge of Chinese imperial power reached little farther than Lintao and regions beyond the Jade Gate remained outside the reach of Central Plains political and cultural influence. After Zhang Qian's mission, contacts between the Western Regions and the Chinese interior grew steadily, while direct exchanges with Central Asia, Western Asia, and even more distant regions also expanded. This is the sense in which later writers described Zhang Qian as having “opened the route” to the Western Regions.

The source text also treats the first mission as a scientific and geographical investigation as well as a diplomatic expedition. Zhang Qian personally visited a number of Western Region and Central Asian states, including Dayuan, Kangju, the Great Yuezhi, and Daxia, and learned further information about Wusun around the southern Balkhash and Ili regions, Yancai north of the Caspian and Aral seas, Anxi or Parthia in present-day Iran, Tiaozhi in the area of present-day Iraq, and Shendu or Tianzhu, identified with India. On returning to Chang'an he reported in detail to Emperor Wu on their locations, products, populations, cities, and military strength. The basic content of this report was preserved by Sima Qian in the “Account of Dayuan” in the Records of the Grand Historian. The source text characterizes it as one of the earliest detailed records of these regions and therefore an important source for ancient geography and history.

Zhang Qian's two missions promoted economic and cultural exchange between Han and regions to its west. Thereafter Han and the states of the Western Regions frequently exchanged missions, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. Trade grew along the routes. In 105 BCE, the source text states that Han envoys followed the routes pioneered by Zhang Qian into the region of present-day Iran and met the king of Parthia. Han envoys presented fine silk, while the Parthian ruler sent ostrich eggs and a troupe of entertainers in return; the source text presents this as marking the establishment of the Silk Road linking China in the east with the Roman world in the west.

Through these contacts, the source text says, high-quality horses, including so-called heavenly and blood-sweating horses, as well as grapes, walnuts, alfalfa, pomegranates, carrots, carpets, and other products entered the Chinese interior. Han technologies such as iron casting, canal construction, well digging, silk weaving, and metal tools spread westward, contributing to economic development in the Western Regions.

After returning from his first western mission, Zhang Qian reported another observation to Emperor Wu. While in Daxia he had seen bamboo staffs and cloth said to come from Shu and asked how they had arrived there. Merchants told him that they purchased these goods in Shendu, southeast of Daxia. Zhang Qian reasoned that if Shendu possessed products from Shu, it might lie relatively close to Sichuan and could perhaps be reached by a southwestern route that avoided areas controlled by the Qiang and Xiongnu.

Emperor Wu accepted the proposal and ordered Zhang Qian to supervise explorations from Qianwei Commandery, in the region of present-day Yibin, Sichuan. In 122 BCE, the first year of Yuanshou, Zhang Qian sent four exploratory parties from Chengdu and Yibin toward southern Qinghai, eastern Tibet, and Yunnan, all seeking a route to Shendu. Each traveled roughly one to two thousand li but was blocked by groups identified in the source text as Di, Zuo, and Kunming peoples. None reached Shendu. The source text nevertheless states that the effort increased Han involvement in the southwest and laid foundations for later expansion under Emperor Wu.

In 123 BCE Zhang Qian served as a colonel under General-in-Chief Wei Qing in a campaign against the Xiongnu. His detailed knowledge of Xiongnu geography and military conditions from his first western mission provided useful information for Han operations, and he was enfeoffed as Marquis of Bowang for his military service.

In 121 BCE Zhang Qian was appointed Commandant of the Guards and advanced from Right Beiping by a separate route from Li Guang. Zhang Qian led ten thousand cavalry. Li Guang was surrounded by forty thousand Xiongnu cavalry under the Wise King of the Left; Zhang Qian arrived only the next day, after which the Xiongnu withdrew. Because he missed the scheduled rendezvous, Zhang Qian was sentenced to death under military law, redeemed the sentence with money, and was reduced to commoner status.