For centuries the great civilisations of East and West grew and fell without any apparent knowledge of each other’s existence. The connection between these two great axes of humanity is considered to have formed sometime on either side of Anno Domini, during a time when Greek power was being eclipsed by a growing Rome, and when China’s first dynasties began to form with the short-lived Qin and Han.
It has long been known that the Romans knew of China and even traded with them. In 166 CE, a mission sent by the Roman Emperor arrived in Jiaozhi, and Roman artefacts have been unearthed in South East Asia dating from around the same time. In the 2nd Century CE, the mathematician Ptolemy wrote his famous work The Geography where he described the method of cartography through geographical coordinates, based on the Greco-Roman world where he lived. Referring to earlier works, and accounts from Roman and Persian gazetteers his descriptive map projection covered 180 degrees laterally, and 80 degrees longitudinally of the world where at the very eastern end, the areas are described as Sercia and Sinae. It is believed that both these terms referred to modern-day China, where Sercia was the north, and Sinae the south.
However, the realisation by the West of there being another great land far to the east is unlikely to have occurred suddenly and would have come on the back of rumour, accounts from merchants, and perhaps the occasional encounter as each probed the extremities of their territory. This linking up of the two great axes of humanity would have far-reaching effects on each other and change the world forever.
Making Contact
The earliest encounters are likely to have occurred much earlier than the 2nd Century Roman expedition. Trying to pinpoint the exact time when East met West is almost impossible, but we can ascertain that it was highly unlikely during the time when Greece was at its apex. The great Greek philosopher Herodotus writes in The Histories that Asia is inhabited as far as India, that the territory further east is uninhabited and no one can say what sort of land exists there. Herodotus is believed to have died in 425 BCE when another giant of the Greeks - Plato - who was born at around the same time, did not refer to any eastern land that could be deemed to be China in his works. During this time Greece was having its own regional issues, ,meanwhile, China was going through the Warring States period. So each was very inward-looking and making no known efforts to understand the world far beyond their own spheres of interest.
By the time Greece itself had any kind of link to China, Rome had already eclipsed them in being Europe’s principal power, and when its mission reached Jiaozhi, trade along the old silk road had been established for some time. The earliest encounters therefore between Western civilisation and Chinese civilisation must have been via an intermediary people. In this regard, we can point to a Greek connection through the Hellenistic kingdoms that grew within central Asia under Alexander the Great.
Alexander succeeded his father King Philip II in the Greek kingdom of Macedon - modern-day Macedonia - and soon began to massively expand his territory. So much so that by the time he was 30, Alexander the Great had built one of the largest empires in history stretching from Greece well into central Asia. His easternmost city - Alexandria Eschate - lay in the Ferghana valley near Khojent in Tajikistan.
Alexander died in 323 BCE and before long his huge empire broke apart under rival factions at hands of former generals, allied families, and friends. Even though his empire was no more, it ushered in a great Hellenistic era. After Alexander’s death, the Ferghana valley came under the rule of the Seleucid Empire, but in around 250 BCE its Greek governors managed to gain their independence. The Greek historian Strabo suggests that this newly independent Greco-Bactrian kingdom soon began to expand their territory eastwards, potentially as far as Kashgar in Xinjiang. Evidence to support Strabo’s claims has come in the form of Hellenistic statuettes, some of soldiers, being found north of Tien Shan and are today on public display in Urumqi.
It is thought that these expeditions by Greco-Bactra under their king Euthydemus may have led to the earliest contact between these western Hellenistic people and those of the Chinese in around 220 BCE. Apparent Greek influences on Han artwork and crafts such as on early bronze mirrors, and the appearance of Bactrian coins being made from a special cupro-nickel alloy (White Copper) - only before seen during the Warring States period that shortly before - point to a degree of possible interaction. There is however some suggestion that both regions may have happened upon the same source sole natural source of this alloy in Eastern Iran.
For generations the Chinese had been menaced by the nomadic Xiongnu to their north who had inflicted a great deal of cost upon the Han, and had resulted in a humiliating peace treaty. In the 2nd Century BC, Emperor Wudi sought to end their treaty and deal with the Xiongnu once and for all. To do this, the Emperor decided that he should form an alliance with the Yuezhi who were too fighting the Xiongnu. With the Yuezhi attacking from the west, and the Emperor the south, the hope was to crush them between each other’s armies. For this task, Wudi decided to send Zhang Qian to make contact with the Yuezhi and forge the Emperor’s plan.
Zhang departed westwards in 138 BCE with a guide called Ganfu and 99 members of his delegation to find the Yuezhi. Their route however meant they had to pass through territory controlled by the Xiongnu, and it was in this area the pair were captured and enslaved. Zhang spent 13 years in captivity, but during this time he had married a Xiongnu wife and bore a son. But after over a decade Zhang sensed his chance to escape, which he did with his new wife and son.
Not forgetting his orders from the Emperor, the small family entarage travelled yet further west towards the Yuezhi. It was on their way there that Zhang encountered the other mysterious kingdoms of Central Asia, including that of Greco-Bactra. By this point - around 160 BCE - Bactra had been shattered by invading Saka tribes who had been displaced by the Yuezhi, themselves fleeing the feared Xiongnu. What remained of Greco-Bactra was only small pockets administered by local governors, and had no real power.
In the Ferghana valley, Zhang encountered numerous small settlements, including Alexandria Eschate, describing them as walled cities containing a sophisticated caucasian people who toiled the farmlands surrounding them and drank wine. This area became to be called Dayuan by the Chinese, believed to have been derived from Yona, which was in itself a Sanskrit translitteration of Ionians - better known as Greeks.
“Dayuan lies south-west of the territory of the Xiongnu, some 10,000 Li directly west of China. The people are settled on the land, ploughing the fields and growing rice and wheat. They also make wine out of grapes. The people live in houses in fortified cities, there being some seventy or more cities of various sizes in the region. The population numbers several hundred thousand” - From the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), by 1st Century BCE Historian Sima Qian
With help from the Dayuan King, Zhang continued further to the south-west to the territory of the Yuezhi, intending to carry out his original orders. However when he reached the Yuezhi he discovered that they had retired from fighting the Xiongnu and so had no interest in forming any kind of alliance.
Whilst there, Zhang came across the Daxia - another old but larger Greco-Bactra pocket subjugated by the Yuezhi. He recorded that they too behaved in a very similar way as the Dayuan, but he noted that he saw bamboo canes from Qiong, and cloth from Shu in their capital Lanshi. When Zhang enquired as to where these merchants came to acquire such goods, they told him they had been sourced from Shendu (India). The items Zhang saw in Daxia do show that trade between the Bactrians and Han China existed albeit through an intermediatory. The earlier examples of trade resulting from the 3rd century BCE push eastwards by the old Bactra may have stalled and fragmented after that kingdom disintergrated at the hands of the Saka and Yuezhi.
Zhang had deemed it was time to return to the Emperor, but not before being again captured by the Xiongnu who fortunately spared his life. He then escaped a second time and successfully returned to the Han capital, and emperor Wudi, in around 125 BCE. The reports he presented to the Emperor were incredible, describing a number of as to unknown kingdoms to the west who were sophisticated, but had no real military prowess. Zhang recommended that despite not being successful with the Yuezhi alliance, the Emperor should develop ties and trade with these other kingdoms. Emperor Wudi agreed with Zhangs recommendations and awarded him the position of being a palace counsellor for his endeavours.
The Emperor would later task Zhang with finding a trade route to these regions that was safe from the Xiongnu, a task that Zhang was unsuccessful. In time however, trade between east and west did begin to flourish. Zhang’s travels in Central Asia are thought to have prompted the establishment of the first Silk Roads, uniting these once separate poles of humanity, and probably the earliest example of ancient globalisation.
Heavenly Horses
Among Zhang’s reports to the Emperor he noted the existence of mysterious horses that roamed the Ferghana valley and used by the local Dayuan population. He noted their light and fast physique, and that they were quite aesthetically pleasing. However, most notabably was that, when running, Zhang noticed a reddish secreation from their necks, and that their veins became particularly pronounced. It was this observation that gave rise to the legend of the Blood Sweating horses. Modern scholars suggest that this phenomenon could be attributed to Parafilaria Multipipillosa, a parasitic worm that burrows into the subcantanous tissues of horses resulting in skin nodules that may bleed, and is still commonly found on the Russian Steppe.
Regardless of the cause, Zhang’s description of these horses excited the Emperor immensely and he decided that his empire must have some. Wudi sent a delegation to the Dayuan with a great horde of coins and gold in order to acquire some of these fascinating beasts. Wudi’s drive for the Ferghana horses was not merely academic. His conflict with the Xiongnu remained a constant thorn in his side, and one key area the Chinese lacked was horses. The Han did have horses, but what they had was heavy and cumbersome, unlike the agile and nimble breeds the Xiongnu had. The Xiongnu had perfected the art of horse back archery and used this to devastating effect against the Han. Wudi needed to emulate them and develop his own lehtal cavalry. For that, the Emperor needed the Ferghana horse.
The Han delegation reached Ferghana and made their proposal. However, the Dayuan King Wugua was not impressed by this overture from the East and turned them away. The Dayuan and the Han had been trading successfully for some time, and so the Dayuan saw no need to sell their highly prized horses. The Chinese were infuriated by the Kings refusal and smashed a golden horse they had brought. On the way back to China, the delegation was attacked and killed by Yucheng soldiers sent by the Dayuan king who felt slighted by their behavour and to take the gold. Emperor Wudi became incensed on learning of these events and decided that if the Dayuan would not sell the horses, he would take them. In 104 BCE, the Emperor ordered General Li Guangli to take his army to the Dayuan and enact his revenge against them.
The Ferghana valley was a great distance from the Han territories and would entail Li’s army crossing the Tarim Basin and the Taklamakan Desert. Li’s plan was to seek aid and rest at the sporadic oasises that dotted the route to the Dayuan. However, many of these isolated settlements would refuse to help, meaning that if his army was to survive, let alone succeed, he would need to attack those who refused them. These attacks had mixed results, and each skirmish would erode away his army’s numbers and energy. The normal practise would be to hold seige to a well defended settlement and starve out its occupants to force their surrender. But it was Li’s army that was starving and they just could not afford to wait potentially many weeks. If they could not force their way in early on, they had to move on defeated and empty handed. By the time the Han army had reached Dayuan, General Li decided that his forces were far too weak to make an attempt on the capital - exhaustion and starvation had taken a heavy toll on his numbers. Li turned back and retreated to Dunhuang in modern day Gansu province to restock and replan.
With Li’s first attempt being such a disaster, the Court Officials advised the Emperor to abandon his plans and concentrate on the continued fight against the Xiongnu. Emperor Wudi refused and decided that a second far larger force should be sent, again under the command of General Li. For the Emperor, the loss of face with his duel failure to acquire the Ferghana horses and Li’s unsuccessful expedition was too much to ignore. If the Emperor did not subdue the Dayuan it would permanently damage Han prestige with the kingdoms to their west.
In 102 BCE, Li set out with a new force of 60,000 penial recuits and mercenaries, along with 100,000 oxen, and 20,000 donkeys and camels. This much larger force would not see the same problems experienced 2 years earlier with the oasis states offering no resistance. The only one to pose a problem would be Luntai. But this time Li had the resources to lay siege to the city where upon their surrender his forces massacred it’s population. Despite better luck with the en route cities, by the time Li had reached Dayuan he had already lost around half of his grand army due to the harsh conditions and widespread dissertion.
Li however pushed on and laid siege to the fortified Dayuan capital Alexandria Eschate. The 2,000 strong Wusun cavalry that accompanied Li refused to partake in the siege not wanting to offend either side of the conflict - one wonders of their reason for being there other than pay.
The Dayuan sent out their own cavalry in an attempt to break the siege, but was driven back behind their city walls by Han archers. Meanwhile Li’s engineers set about diverting the river that flowed through the city to remove their sole source of water. After 40 days, Li’s forces succeeded in breaching the outer walls and captured the Dayuan general Jianmi. The Dayuan nobles retreated behind the inner walls and began to negotiate terms of surrender. They killed their king Wugua and sent his head to Li along with a proposal to hand over as many horses as he’d like providing he and his army would leave. If refused, the nobles threatened to kill all their horses. Considering that this proposal would satisfy all aspects of what objectives Emperor Wudi had set Li, he agreed and took around 3,000 horses from the Dayuan. But not before enthroning the new Dayuan King Meicai who had shown sympathy to the Chinese envoys in the past. Having accomplished it’s aims, the Han army began its journey back to the Emperor with their prized Ferghana horses.
Li may have been victorious, but his mission could still end in failure. The same ardious terrain that had halved his numbers would need to be transversed again. to make things worse, he realised that the Oasis states that they relied upon on the way out to Ferghana would unlikely be able to assist them again, such was the fragility of their existence in this unforgiving land. Li decided that their best chance of making it back to the Han territories, and the Emperor, would be to split his giant army into several smaller groups, with some going by the Northern route, and some the South. Only that way could these smaller sub-armies be able to make the punishing journey.
One of these groups under the command of Wang Shensheng and Hu Chongguo would encounter the city of Yucheng. Wang and Hu decided to attack this city with their rather pitiful group of merely 1,000 men. Laying seige with so small a force was very risky as demonstrated when the Yucheng attacked with 3,000 of their own. Wang’s and Hu’s army group was decimated. A handful of the Han managed to escape and reach General Li’s camp informing him of the defeat, whereupon Li immediately dispatched Commander Shangguan Jie and his force to deal with the Yucheng. Their king upon seeing the much larger force sent by Li, fled to the neighbouring Kangju. Without their king, Yucheng surrendered to Shengguan soon after. The Kangju having learnt of Li’s victory over the Dayuan, and no doubt fearful of a similar fate, handed the Yucheng king to Shengguan where he was soon executed. In fact, word of Li’s triumph had spread quickly and for the remainder of the journey they would have no issues. The oasis states they passed actually sent envoys to join Li back to the Emperor where they intended to pay tribute. These envoys would find themselves held hostage by Wudi when they reached the Han capital however.
Even though the battle against the Dayuan itself had claimed relatively little of Li’s army, when he eventually reached the Emperor, his force was a shadow of what set out originally with only 10,000 men and 1,000 horses fit for military service. Other than the difficult journey, the bulk of his army consisted of convicts and other undesirables meaning that desertion and corruption was rife among the ranks. Despite this, Emperor Wudi was delighted at the results. This had been nothing less than a triumph for Wudi, he had not only subdued the Dayuan and acquired the much desired Ferghana horses, he had seriously elevated Han prestige in the region.
For bringing the Emperor such a victory, General Li was awarded the Marquis of Haixi, and Shengguan became the Privy Treasurer. The remainder of Li’s army was also rewarded handsomely. Back in Alexandria Eschate meanwhile, a year after their defeat, the city nobles banded together and killed King Meicai who they blamed for dealing with the Han in the first place and bringing such destruction upon them. The new King Chanfeng, the brother of Wugua, decided it would be better to foster better ties with the Han. Trade between the two began to grow and the peace was maintained. General Li himself 10 years later would defect to the Xiongnu following defeat in battle, but he was killed sometime later from a dispute with another Han defector.
The Hellenistic kingdoms of Greco-Bactra not only saw some of the earliest contacts between East and West, but also the first war between them with the Dayuan in the Ferghana valley and Emperor Wudi’s Han. The 3rd and 2nd Centuries BCE would mark the time when the two great axes of humanity would join, changing the world forever.
The Terracotta Greeks
In March 1974, a group of farmers were digging a well near the looming pyramid tomb of Qin Huang Shi - China’s first emperor - when they suddenly unearthed ancient pottery. Chinese archaeologists swooped onto the site knowing that this mysterious earthenware would likely be of Qin origin. Soon however they discovered what was probably one of the world’s most significant finds - the Terracotta Warriors.
An army of life sizes statues, each unique, is impressive enough. But what puzzles historians is that these are the first of their kind to be seen in ancient China, and none would be seen again for a very long time. Suspicions arose around whether an outside influence had played a role, and soon archeologists were looking towards the Hellenistic kingdoms that once ruled in Central Asia. Evidence supporting this link came in the form of Mitochondrial DNA discovered in Xinjiang province that seemed to indicate the presence of ancient Europeans. This discovery has shown that it is quite plausible that these Europeans, likely Hellenistic, may settled and died in modern day Xinjiang, well before the reign of the First Emperor.
The senior archeologist at the Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s Mausoleum Site Museum, Dr Li Xuizhen, told the BBC:
“We now have evidence that close contact existed between the First Emperor’s China and the West before the formal opening of the Silk Road. This is far earlier than we formerly thought.” - Source: Western Contact with China began long before Marco Polo, experts say 12th December 2016, BBC.co.uk
Li believes that the sudden appearance of these life-sized statues may have resulted from outside influences, potentially inspired by Greek works. Professor Lukas Nickel Chair of Asian Art History at the University of Vienna supports this theory. He goes further to suggest that he could imagine Greek sculptures may have even been on site to train the locals. This is however disputed and Dr Li disagrees with Professor Nickel, where at a Asia House event in 2017 she dismissed the Greek presence idea, suggesting that there was merely a Greek influence resulting from the early contacts with the Hellenistic Kingdoms, and that the statues were purely the work of Qin artisans.
A great deal of more evidence is needed to substantiate the European link with the Terracotta Warriors, however if Dr Li’s theory is proven it will demonstrate that early contacts between China and the Hellenistic Kingdoms run much deeper and earlier than previously thought. Going further, if evidence could be found to show a European presence at the tomb workings, then that would be the earliest example of a European venturing deep inside Chinese territory and would demonstrate that early ancient China had more than just trade interests with the West. We will however need to wait until the question could be explored futher.
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