Chapter 3 Central Asia, Xinjiang, and Tibet 87when possible. Silk played an important role in this exchange, as did horses.
Chinese diplomats exchanged fine silks for fine horses. Xiongnu chiefs and
their descendants donned silk as public evidence that they could negotiate with
the Han in times of peace as well as war. The Han diplomats returned to the
court with steeds that were far larger and more powerful than the horses bred
within the empire. The Han historian Sima Qian based his account of a mirac-
ulous blood-sweating horse on Zhang Qian’s travels to the west. Today, histori-
ans offer several possible explanations of a horse that may appear to sweat
blood, including parasites or burst blood vessels, but the breathless Chinese
accounts of these animals reflected the constant desire to acquire the best
horses of the western regions.
This desire for fine horses and the expansion of the western frontiers was
largely what brought Chinese emissaries and traders into Central Asia. Chinese
silks and other luxury goods, and also some basic foodstuffs, brought the Xion-
gnu and other steppe peoples into contact with Han and other dynasties. The
ecological vulnerability of the pastoral peoples of Central Asia also meant that
slight shifts in the climate could force the Xiongnu and other peoples to bring
their herds farther and farther south in an effort to follow pastures to graze
their livestock of horses, sheep, and goats. These economic connections of the
premodern world led to encounters that were both peaceful and violent, but
either kind of encounter deepened connections and cultural awareness. Per-
haps even more important to world history than the material goods that mer-
chants brought back and forth from one end of Eurasia to the other were the
ideas and cultural practices that were shared, blended, and adopted.
Travelers
The frontiers and borderlands of history are often full of fantastical beasts
and trials awaiting the bold and heroic souls of the “civilized” world. Today,
judging by popular science fiction literature and film, these uncharted regions
are in space or perhaps the deepest depths of the oceans. But in the premodern
world, the lands of Central Asia presented travelers and their eager audiences
with fertile territories for outlandish and even supernatural experiences and
accounts. Perhaps the two best known travelers of the Silk Roads are the Vene-
tian Marco Polo (1254–1324) and the Chinese Buddhist monk, Xuanzang
(602–664), also referred to as Tripitaka in some translations of the novelized
account of his travels. In the sixteenth-century novel inspired by Xuanzang’s
travels, the “real” quickly gives way to the fantastical and allegorical in a story
about the monk and his companions—a shape-shifting monkey king and a lust-
ful pig-man hybrid. The story, replete with violence and sensuous temptation,
is a thrilling account of Xuanzang’s journey (see box 3.1).
The historical Xuanzang traveled to the west, leaving behind his position at
the Tang court in the seventh century. He planned to travel to India in search of
Buddhist texts. As various schools of Buddhism multiplied in China, some
believed that these new schools were not loyal to the original teachings of the