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n 126 B.C.E. an emissary of the Chinese Han Empire arrived in the Central
Asian Yuezhi kingdom after escaping 10 years of captivity by Xiongnu
nomads. Zhang Qian had traveled from the Han court to request the mili-
tary assistance of the Yuezhi in fighting their rival neighbors, the Xiongnu.
Both the Yuezhi and Xiongnu lived in what is today far western China and
Central Asia, and they had been at war for decades when Zhang arrived.
Zhang explained that on his mission to reach the Yuezhi court, he had been
captured and enslaved by the Xiongnu, and in that 10 years he had married a
Xiongnu woman who gave birth to their son. After his long captivity, Zhang
was able to escape with his wife, child, and servant, but he did not flee east and
back to the safety of the Han court. Rather he continued west to the Yuezhi
kingdom in an effort to complete his mission of seeking allies for the Han.
In spite of this determination, Zhang could not persuade his Yuezhi hosts
to join in the Han’s campaigns against the Xiongnu. Yuezhi leaders were
exhausted by years of conflict with the Xiongnu, and they had retreated farther
to the west and away from the punishing campaigns of the Xiongnu. Zhang
Qian learned that the Xiongnu ruler, according to custom, now drank his wine
from the skull of a vanquished Yuezhi leader. In defeat, the Yuezhi had been
fractured and pushed westward where the group that Zhang Qian encountered
had established stable communities and had, in turn, come to dominate regions
of Bactria and Sogdia, later moving as far west and south as the Ganges plain.
Zhang Qian remained among the Yuezhi for a year, extending his long
absence from the Han court and collecting information about the people and
the region. Then, without having secured the military alliance that he had
sought, he left the Yuezhi and began his return trip to the Han capital of
Chang’an (today Xi’an). Forced to return via Xiongnu territory, he was way-
laid and once again taken prisoner. A chaotic period of infighting among the
Xiongnu gave Zhang the chance to escape again, and he finally made his way
back to the Han court, failing in his diplomatic mission, but contributing enor-
mously to the Han knowledge of their western neighbors.
Zhang Qian told of magnificent steeds that sweat blood and were swifter,
larger, and stronger than any horses known in the Han realm. Today, the “fly-
ing horse of Gansu” has become an iconic image of early imperial China.
While the remarkable bronze sculpture is Chinese in origin, the horse is not. It
is based on the celebrated horses of Fergana (today Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
and Tajikistan) that Zhang Qian reported on when he returned to the Han
court. Zhang’s mission served in part to establish contacts and mutual aware-
ness between the Chinese cultural sphere and Central Asia. In the centuries
I
Chapter opener photo: A Mongolian woman leads a caravan of camels.