Sima Qian · 94 BCE · overland

The mission of 138 to 126 BC as recorded in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. Sent to find allies against the Xiongnu, Zhang Qian was captured twice, held for eleven years in total, failed entirely in his purpose, and came home with the first Chinese account of Central Asia.

1. 1
   Chang'an

   138 BC, and Emperor Wu of Han sends an officer of the palace guard west to find the Yuezhi and propose an alliance against the Xiongnu - a hundred men, a Xiongnu guide called Ganfu, and no map.

2. 2
   Longxi

   The last Han commandery, and out past the frontier into country the empire has no information about at all - which is the point of the mission and also its immediate problem.

3. 3
   The Xiongnu camp

   Captured within months and held for ten years - during which Zhang Qian marries, has a son, and keeps the yak-tail staff of office that identifies him as an imperial envoy.

4. 4
   Ferghana

   Escaped at last and west across the Pamirs, to a kingdom with walled cities, vines, alfalfa and horses that sweat blood - the horses being the detail that would obsess the Han court for the next thirty years.

5. 5
   Samarkand

   Kangju, and onward with an escort - a settled, irrigated, urban civilisation that the Han had no idea existed, described by the first Chinese official ever to see it.

6. 6
   Bactria

   The Yuezhi found at last, comfortable in their new country and entirely uninterested in a war of revenge - so the mission fails in its purpose and succeeds at something nobody had asked for.

7. 7
   Khotan

   The southern rim of the Taklamakan on the way home, along the route that would become the Silk Road - and at Bactria he had seen Sichuan cloth and bamboo, traded through India, which told him China was already connected.

8. 8
   The Qiang country

   Captured a second time on the return and held a year more - escaping in the confusion after a succession crisis, with his wife and Ganfu, of whom only Ganfu also reached Chang'an.

9. 9
   Chang'an

   126 BC. Two men of a hundred, thirteen years out, and a report that Sima Qian would copy into the Records - the first description in Chinese of the west, and the beginning of everything that followed along it.