over two thousand years ago, zhang qian, an outstanding diplomat and explorer of the western han dynasty, was the one that opened up the ancient silk road connecting asia, europe and, africa, and unveiled a legendary commercial route that lasted for thousands of years to come. with his contribution to the silk road, zhang qian has become a house-hold name in china, with his stories introduced in textbooks. chinese historian sima qian called him “the first person to explore the western regions,’’ and chinese scholar liang qichao praised him as “an unusual-ly persevering and honest man, and the first man to draw the curtain of the world history.’’

ⅰ. zhang qian’s first mission to the western regions

zhang qian, born in chenggu of hanzhong, in the shaanxi prov-ince, served as one of the emperor’s attendants in the palace when he was young. in the early years of his reign, emperor wu of the western han dynasty had learned about the enmity between greater yuezhi and the huns in the western regions from several huns that surrendered to the han dynasty. since greater yuezhi was located to the west of the hun, emperor wu thought that the hun was in a position to lose much ground when attacked jointly by the han dynasty and the greater yue-zhi. in order to contact the greater yuezhi, he ordered a recruitment of messengers to the western regions, and zhang qian applied and was succesul in his mission.

in 138 bc, zhang qian led over 100 people, including a hun named tang yifu, and set off westward from chang’an through longxi, thus starting his first mission to the western regions and lands. he was captured halfway by the hun cavalry because the road to the western regions was controlled by the hun at that time. the chief of the hun hoped that zhang qian would surrender, and so they put him under house arrest as well as

him take a hun woman for his wife. zhang qian, however, never gave in. he kept the envoy certificate that the han dynasty issued to him as proof, and looked for a chance to es-cape. he was detained by the huns for ten years before he finally found an opportunity to flee with his entourage and continued westward for the greater yuezhi, suffering all the while from the lack of food and re-lying on the animals killed by tang yifu. dozens days later, they reached dayuan after crossing the pamir mountains. the king of dayuan, who had since long heard about the prosperity of the han dynasty and was very pleased to see zhang qian for the king’s willingness to commu-nicate with the han dynasty. when he was informed of zhang qian’s intention, he ordered one of his people to send zhang and his entourage to kangju, where he would then be escorted from kangju to the greater yuezhi. the greater yuezhi had occupied the land of the bactria king-dom by then, thus lacking the intention to fight the huns. zhang qian lived in the greater yuezhi for more than a year but in vain and had to leave for china. they were once again caught by the huns on the road on their way home and detained for more than a year. sometime later, the chief of the huns passed away, which triggered infighting in the country. zhang qian took advantage of this opportunity to take off along with both his hun wife and tang yifu. together they escaped back to china of han dynasty. thirteen years of this expedition led by zhang qian had resulted in the reduction of the people accompanying the mis-sion from over 100 to only two, zhang qian and tang yifu. after their return, zhang qian reported to emperor wu his understanding of the western regions in details, and the latter honored him with a position of palace counselor to commend for his first mission to the western re-gions.

in 123 bc, zhang qian took his part as a commandant in wei qing’s campaign against the hun, during which he prevented the han dynasty’s army and horses from lacking water and grass. because of his familiarity with the geographical situation of the huns and the location of water and grass, he would strategically rule out unnecessary hardship for wei qing’s forces. therefore, he was conferred by emperor wu the title of bowang marquis (bowang means profound prospects).

ⅱ. zhang qian’s second mission to the western regions

in 119 bc, emperor wu accepted zhang qian’s proposal to estab-lish an alliance with the kingdom of wusun to “break the right arm of the huns.’’ he then appointed zhang qian as lieutenant general. zhang qian, therefore, set off on his second mission to the western regions, leading the deputies and an entourage of more than 300 people, with two horses for each man and thousands of cattle and sheep, as well as a great deal of gold, silver, and silk.

due to the control of the hexi corridor by the han army, zhang qian, dressed in the official costume of the han dynasty, led a large-scale mission and went smoothly through dunhuang to loulan. he then head-ed westward through the tarim river to kucha, and finally northward to chigu city (the southeast of lake seker in kyrgyzstan today), the capital of the kingdom of wusun, located in the ili river valley.

zhang qian was warmly welcomed by the king of wusun, but who only sent a messenger to chang’an with zhang qian to thank emperor wu because he did not dare to ally with the han dynasty due to his fear of the hun forces. although zhang qian himself merely reached wusun during the second expedition, he sent many assistants to dayuan, kangju, the greater yuezhi, bactria, parthia, tiaozhi, yancai, shendu (india), yu-tian, yumi, among other states. during his first mission, zhang qian had learned about the lack of paint and silk in central asia, so he brought an abundance of silk along with him on his second mission. this was also the first batch of chinese silk to the west, as recorded in historical docu-ments.

and so, in 115 bc, zhang qian returned to the han dynasty and was honored with the post of grand messenger. he died the year after. the following year, the deputy envoys he sent out also came back one after another, together with the envoys many other countries sent to re-ciprocate the han dynasty. ever since, the han dynasty had very frequent exchanges with the western regions. plants produced in the western regions were gradually spread to and cultivated in the central plains, including grapes, alfalfa, pomegranates, walnuts, shallots and others. the silk and other goods of the han dynasty were continuously exported to the western regions and eventually even to europe through the western regions. the economic and cultural exchanges between the han dynas-ty and the western regions experienced further development. because of the large amount of chinese silk transported westward on this road, the ancient transport artery across asia d by zhang qian was also known as the “silk road”.

ⅲ. the significance of zhang qian’s missions to the western regions

zhang qian’s missions to the western regions occupied an import-ant position in chinese history, especially in the history of chinese and western transportation. his contribution to history is known as great. as stated earlier, his missions to the western regions in the 2nd century bc d the first silk road from china to the west. this is why rich-thofen believed that the silk road emerged in the 2nd century bc.

zhang qian was indeed more of a diplomat than a pioneer of trad-ing. the intention of his missions to the western regions was not for economic trade or cultural exchanges, but, most importantly and origi-nally, for military and political purposes, ing emperor wu’s strate-gic military plan to ally with states in the western regions, such as the greater yuezhi, to jointly attack the hun and “break the right arm of the huns”. even though they failed in both their missions and their strategic goal, this unexpectedly resulted in the creation of the silk road across the east and west.

zhang qian’s second mission to the western region revealed fur-ther strategic implications for the smooth development of the silk road. this time, visiting the states in the western regions under the order of emperor wu, he established close political, economic and cultural ties between themand the western han dynasty. since these missions, the western regions established close ties with the central plains; thus the history of the western regions became part of chinese history. and so, the central asian grasslands became a bridge connecting china and western civilizations.

during zhang qian’s missions to the western regions, silk was be-ing served as gifts to award each emperor in the areas. originally silk was not yet used as a common commodity on the silk road. however, after zhang qian’s visits, the western merchants started seeing the silk trade profitable when the pr of silk was now comparable to that of gold since the silk passed to persia and rome formed a huge market demand. consequently, they did not hesitate to go back and forth on this road, continuing the trading, even at the cost of life, contributing to the for-mation and development of the silk road.