You know about Zhang Qian (200–114 B.C.)????


In the second century B.C., the Chinese weren’t too sure of what lay west of them. So the Han government commissioned its envoy, Zhang Qian, to locate Central Asian kingdoms and open up new markets for Chinese exports.

Qian made it as far as Bactria (Afghanistan) where he encountered the remnants of a fascinating culture that had been forced south into India by nomads. The Greco-Bactrians were Hellenic colonists who settled in the area following Alexander the Great’s conquests. They brought grapevine cultivation, European horses, and traditionally proficient artists to the area - which Qian reported to the Han court.


But Qian wasn’t done yet. Despite the occasional kidnappings by Xiognu nomads, Qian continued to crisscross the Central Asian steppe and frequently saw Chinese goods, like silk, command outrageous prices. Qian forged trade agreements with countless peoples as he travelled. And within about a decade of Qian’s death, Chinese traders were regularly traveling between the continents to exchange goods along routes similar to Qian’s. Those routes formed one of history’s greatest networks of commercial exchange, the Silk Road.

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