Author: Jeff Wu
Date: 02-17-02 02:38
The tales of General Ban Chao is remembered and often retold usually in the south of China. In Chinese weekend schools (Los Angeles and San Francisco), he is one often covered figure we read about.
During the Han Dynasty (early 50-60 ADs), General Ban Chao proposed to the emperor the fruits of colonizing the western regions. He met with some success, but a party existed at the imperial court who depreciated any advance into the west as useless and expensive. In 76 A.D., General Ban Chao was recalled on their advice, and his first mission in Xinjiang left no permanent result. On his departure, the Indo-Iranian peoples of the western regions, who had come to respect and admire the justice of this Chinese envoy, and appreciated the peace and order which Han Chinese suzerainty had introduced to their lands, were filled with despair, and implored him to remain. General Ban Chao, however, returned obediently to Luoyang where a new emperor, Han Zhangdi, was now reigning.
Four years later, Gen. Ban Chao managed to reverse the policy of the imperial court, by proposing to the emperor a policy by which he said it would be possible to reduce the whole of the west to Han Chinese obedience with little lost of lives or money. Then, with the aid of the allied western people, they would together attack the the Xiongnu (Huns) in an all out engagement. The emperor agreed to let him make the attempt.
For the next 17 years, Gen. Ban Chao carried out his plan with unbroken success. One by one, the kings of the Xinjiang oases were reduced to obedience, until the whole Xinjiang was under the peaceful rule of the Chinese viceroy. In 97 A.D., after reducing the last contumacious prince of the west, Gen. Ban Chao crossed the Tian Shan mountains with an army of 70,000 men and advanced unopposed to the shores of the Caspian Sea (near today's Turkmenistan and Iran). Then, they so fought an all out war against the northern Xiongnu (Huns) and decimated them. They were slaughtered in great numbers that it is said mostly only the women and small children survived. The Chinese army pursued these remnants of the Xiongnu all the way into what is the now the Russia and Ukraine. Seeing that the Huns were reduced to an unfightable force, Gen. Ban Chao recalled his armies and headed back east towards the Caspian. Never before, and never since, has a Chinese army encamped almost on the frontiers of Europe. They came close to encountering Roman armies.
The whole stretch of land between the Pamirs and Caspian submitted to the Chinese without fighting. More than 50 "kings" acknowledged Chinese overlordship and sent their heirs as hostages to Luoyang. Encamped on the Caspian shore, Gen. Ban Chao dispatched his envoy, Gan Ying to inquire into the nature and state of "Anxi" (Persia).
Before recounting the embassy of Gan Ying, it is necessary to consider the state of Persia (Parthians) in 97 A.D. Many changes had occured since Zhang Qian had first made contact with the Hellenic world. It is at first sight surprising that Gen. Ban Chao should have been met with little or no opposition in the countries which bordered the Parthian (Persian) empire, and which had at times owed allegiance to them. But, Parthia was then passing through an internal crisis, of which little is known (Arab Muslims later burned all records of pre-Islamic Iran). It was known that in 97 A.D. the Parthian king Bakur had to contend against several pretenders throughout his reign, and no doubt this weakness of Parthia contributed not a little to Gen. Ban Chao's easy success (Sir Percy Sykes. "History of Persia." London. 1921. Vol. I. Ch. 33). West of Parthia was Rome, a power which had not emerged in the Middle East during Zhang Qian's days. The Roman Empire was then at the plenitude of its power, under the Emperor Nerva. The 2 world empires, the Han Chinese and the Roman, were now separated only by the Caspian Sea and the Armenian mountains.
The Han history (Hou Han Shu, Ch. 118) contains an account of both Persia and Rome which is undoubtedly based on the report made by Gan Ying after his return to Gen. Ban Chao's headquarters. The identification of the countries visited by the Chinese envoy still has been the subject of considerable debate and dispute, but recent studies based upon the directions given in the Hou Han Shu have established that it was not the Persian Gulf, but the Black Sea, that Gan Ying reached.
After visiting Anxi (Persia), where he was received hospitably and which he describes as a populous land with many towns and villages, Gan Ying reached the coast of the "Great Sea" probably at a point near the modern Batumi (near modern Georgia and Turkey). His aim was to reach Da Qin, that is to say, the Roman Empire. However, the seamen at this port warned him of the dangers of the voyage, saying:
"This sea is very wide. With a favorable wind, one may cross it in 3 months, but if the winds are adverse the voyage may take 2 years. Moreover, there is about this sea something which gives people such a longing for their own country that many die of it. For these reasons, those who embark take at least 3 years provisions. If the Han ambassador is willing to forget his family and his home, he can embark."
On hearing of these perils, Gan Ying's heart failed him, and he went no further. He commissioned some officers to remain in the land of Persia on diplomatic missions and to safeguard the silk routes. He retuned with Gen. Ban Chao back to Luoyang.
There is little doubt that the Parthians deliberately misled the Chinese envoy, fearing that close relations between China and Rome would lead to an alliance of the 2 great empires. Gen. Ban Chao's conquests must have seemed as alarming portent, and of the hostility of the Roman Empire against the Persians, there was no doubt. Moreover, the Persians had dominated the middlemen's role in trade between China and Europe. They did not want to lose this profittable position.
Nevertheless, the Persian seamen had only exaggerated, not invented the dangers of the route. From Parthia, as the Chinese learned, the sea voyage across the Black Sea led to Tiao Chih, which has now been identified as the Crimea (in Ukraine), the Chinese name being derived from the Greek name Taurica. Thence, ships coasted round to Byzantium, which the Chinese, perhaps from later information, knew as the capital of Da Qin (the Roman Empire) and called "An Tu." This was for long thought to be a rendering of Antioch (in Syria), a confusion which led to the belief that Tiao Chih was Mesopotamia. It is now known that in the period between 196 A.D. and 330 A.D., the old Greek city of Byzantium was officially called Augusta Antonina by the Romans, and it is from the word "Antonina" in this name that "An Tu" is derived.
By various ways, the Chinese in the Han Dynasty era came to know much about the Roman empire. Some of this information came from the Chinese officers whom Gen. Ban Chao sent on missions to Parthia (Iran), some from merchants who came to China via the silk and caravan routes through Xinjiang, or by sea routes to Guangdong and Fujian. All this information is summarized in the Hou Han Shu.
General Ban Chao is a national hero. This all Chinese Americans in the diaspora know about. He represents a China that meets no fear in its destiny.
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