Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
war against the Xiong-nu. The Yueh-chi were very wealthy and at peace.
Both of these observations surprised and impressed Zhang Qian, who
noted their jade (much valued in China). They noticed his silk and agreed
to trade with China. The Yueh-chi, from their base in Bactria, were also
trading with India (to the south) and with peoples further westward who
were unknown to Zhang Qian. His hosts informed him that 200 years
previously, a great conqueror from the West (Alexander the Great) had
overrun Bactria. Zhang Qian noticed the Greek coins, script, and sculp-
tures that had accrued from this Western contact. These, and the pres-
ence of Chinese bamboo and cloth, showed Zhang Qian the extent of Yueh-
chi trade.
He left the Yueh-chi and passed through the territory of his enemies
once again on the way home. Again he was captured—this time he was
held for a year—and again he escaped. After 13 years away from home,
Zhang Qian returned to China in 125 BCE, with a Xiong-nu wife, a son, and
one companion. He was the first man to bring back a reliable account of
Central Asia to the Chinese court, and for this service he was rewarded by
appointment to a high o≈ce within the imperial bureaucracy. His emperor
wanted the ''heavenly horses'' and so established firm trade links with the
Yueh-chi, thus joining China with the emerging Silk Road to the west.
19
Ibn Battuta
For a di√erent view of the Silk Road—from the other end and from a time
much closer to the era of European expansion—consider the amazing
travels of Ibn Battuta. His story also serves to show why the overland route
to the Orient was closed to medieval Europeans.
In 1325, a 21-year-old Moroccan called Abu Abdallah ibn Battuta set out
on a journey from Tangier that was longer than his name.
20
Initially, he was
traveling to Mecca on pilgrimage, the
hajj
that all Muslims should try to do
at least once in their lives. He joined a caravan and crossed the Maghrib to
Alexandria in Egypt—a 3,500-km first leg of an epic journey that would
keep the young legal scholar away from home for the next 24 years.
19. To learn more about Zhang Qian's exploration and about the Silk Road in general,
see Gosch and Stearns (2008) and Wood (2002); also
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, s.v. ''Zhang-
Qian.''
20. This is the shortened version of his name, his full handle being Shams al-Din
Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn
Ibrahim ibn Yusuf al-Lawati al-Tanji Ibn Battuta.
