Zhang Qian's two missions to the Western Regions failed to achieve the expected goal, but its significance and influence far exceeded his direct mission. Zhang Qian's mission to the Western Regions connected the main traffic routes leading to West Asia through Xinjiang, China, opened up the world-famous "Silk Road", strengthened the political, economic and cultural ties between the Han Dynasty and the countries in the Western Regions, and played an important role in the formation and development of China's unified multi-ethnic feudal country. Zhang Qian's two missions to the Western Regions will go down in history forever.
Zhangqian (? A BC 1 14), born in Chenggu, Hanzhong (now Chenggu, Shaanxi), was a diplomat, explorer and traveler in the Western Han Dynasty. He is the first person to go to the western regions in Chinese history. In the early Western Han Dynasty, Xiongnu, a nomadic people living in the north of China, often invaded and plundered south. When Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (reigned in 65438 BC+0465438 BC+0-87 BC), after more than 60 years of recuperation, the Western Han Dynasty enjoyed a prosperous economy and strong national strength. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was determined to remove the threat of Xiongnu to the Han Dynasty for many years and actively prepared for a military counterattack. At that time, there were 36 small countries in the western regions, including hundreds of thousands of big countries and only one or two thousand small countries. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, Xiongnu conquered the western countries, brutally plundered and exploited the local people, and took the western regions as the stronghold and economic backing for attacking the Western Han Dynasty.
In BC 138, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty learned that there was a tribe named Da Yue (Zhi) in northwest Gansu. The Huns once killed the King of Yue and made his head into a wine vessel. The King of Yue was forced to move to the Western Regions and always wanted to avenge himself. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty believed that if the Xiongnu could be attacked with Xi Dayue, the war against Xiongnu in the Han Dynasty would be won. However, the only way to the western regions-Hexi Corridor is under the control of Xiongnu, and the task of contacting Dayue's family is very arduous. So Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered the recruitment of envoys, and Zhang Qian, as the emperor's attendant, bravely undertook this mission.
In 138 BC, he led more than 0/00 people from Chang 'an (near Jin 'an) across Maxing, with Tang Yi's father as his assistant. Unexpectedly, he was captured by the Huns as soon as he entered the Hexi Corridor, and was held for ten years, but Zhang Qian always kept the Han Festival (the letter of the messenger of the Han Dynasty). Hun monarch Khan married and had children with local people in order to surrender to Zhang Qian, but he never wavered in his belief in completing the imperial mission. Later, Zhang Qian finally found an opportunity, led his men to escape, rushed west for ten days, and went through hardships, crossing Qingling (now Pamirs) to Dayuan (now Uzbekistan, the Soviet Union). Dawan sent someone to escort Zhang Qian and his party to Kangzhou (now southeast of Kazakhstan), and found Da Yue's family through Kangzhou. At this time, the Dayue family had settled in Guiguishui (now the Amu Darya River Basin), where the land was fertile and there were few foreign invasions. The big moon family is content with the happy life in front of them and is unwilling to fight with the Huns again. Zhang Qian failed to achieve his goal and returned home a year later. On the way, he was detained by the Huns for more than a year, and then he was able to get rid of the civil strife of the Huns and returned to Chang 'an, the capital of the Han Dynasty, in 126 BC. It took thirteen years before and after Zhang Qian's mission to the Western Regions, and there were more than one hundred people when he set out. When I came back, only he and Tang Yi's father were left.
In BC 1 19, the Han Dynasty launched the third military counterattack against the Xiongnu, which won a great victory, and Wang Ting, the Xiongnu, was forced to move northward to the desert. In order to prevent the resurgence of Xiongnu forces, Emperor Wu appointed Zhang Qian as a corps commander (a senior official in charge of the emperor's bodyguard) and sent him to Wusun. Wusun was originally nomadic in northwest Gansu. Later, it moved westward to the Ili River Basin in Xinjiang today. Zhang Qian's second mission was to persuade Wusun to return to his hometown and fight against Xiongnu together with the Han Dynasty. Zhang Qian led more than 300 people on this trip, each with two horses, carrying "tens of millions" of gold and silk goods and more than 10,000 cattle and sheep. There are also some observant envoys in the mission team so that they can be sent to various places along the way. As King Wusun is old, his sons and nephews are fighting endlessly to inherit the throne, and the country is in chaos, he has no intention of returning to the East. Zhang Qian's original goal was not achieved, but his envoys visited Dayuan, Kangju, Da Yue, Daxia and other countries in Central Asia. When Zhang Qian returned to China in BC 1 15, King Wusun sent dozens of envoys to Chang 'an with him. Later, the envoys sent by Zhang Qian to some countries in Central Asia returned to Chang 'an one after another accompanied by the other's envoys.