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Zhang Qian

person

Han envoy sent west by Emperor Wu in 138 BCE to seek an alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiongnu. He was captured by the Xiongnu and held for around ten years, escaped, reached Bactria, failed to obtain the alliance, and returned in 126 BCE with one surviving companion out of an original party of about a hundred. The mission failed diplomatically and succeeded in every other respect: his report gave the Han court its first detailed knowledge of Ferghana, Bactria, Parthia and the routes between them, and directly prompted the westward expansion that followed. Chinese tradition describes his mission as zaokong, the hollowing out or piercing open of the passage. He died in 114 BCE. A person, not a place.

A person is not a place. Drawing it on a map would assert something about the world that no stored fact supports.

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Evidence · 1
Timeline

No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.

Connections · 2
Assembled narrative · 1

Assembled from 22 blocks · 1 evidence · 11 related

  1. Story
  2. Han envoy sent west by Emperor Wu in 138 BCE to seek an alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiongnu. He was captured by the Xiongnu and held for around ten years, escaped, reached Bactria, failed to obtain the alliance, and returned in 126 BCE with one surviving companion out of an original party of about a hundred. The mission failed diplomatically and succeeded in every other respect: his report gave the Han court its first detailed knowledge of Ferghana, Bactria, Parthia and the routes between them, and directly prompted the westward expansion that followed. Chinese tradition describes his mission as zaokong, the hollowing out or piercing open of the passage. He died in 114 BCE. A person, not a place.
  3. Knowledge
  4. Han Empire
  5. Horses
  6. Zhang Qian
  7. Connections
  8. Han Empire
  9. Horses
  10. Zhang Qian is sent west by Emperor Wu
  11. Zhang Qian returns to Chang'an
  12. Taklamakan Desert
  13. Silk
  14. Zhang Qian
  15. Zhang Qian is sent west by Emperor Wu
  16. Han campaigns against Dayuan for the Ferghana horses
  17. Han establishes the Protectorate of the Western Regions
  18. Zhang Qian
  19. Zhang Qian returns to Chang'an
  20. Han campaigns against Dayuan for the Ferghana horses
  21. Evidence
  22. The earliest and closest account of Zhang Qian's missions, the peoples and kingdoms he reported from Ferghana, Bactria and Parthia, and the Ferghana horses that prompted the Han campaigns of 104 to 101 BCE. Sima Qian was writing within living memory of the events.
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Observed changes · 0

No public Signals are attached to this object. Signals show what changed and when it was observed — never a direction or a rank.

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/atlas?object=PERSON_ZHANG_QIAN&experience=PERSON_ZHANG_QIAN