Since ancient times, the people of the Huaxia ethnic group have lived in this part of East Asia. The comfortable environment and the fascination with "one point of cultivation and one point of harvest" made most of the ancient Chinese have a deep attachment to the homeland, so in the ancient times that paid attention to the leaves falling back to the roots, it seemed that the other side of the border mountain and the other side of the sea were wild places, which could not arouse the interest of the ancients.
But there are exceptions to everything, in the heyday of China's ancient feudal era, there are still a group of adventurers who are not afraid of death to go abroad and travel far and wide. Either for the mission of the Emperor, they went to the Alliance as emissaries, or they resolutely hiked for their own convictions.
The peak of China's ancient feudal dynasty, the first to promote the strong Han Sheng Tang. During these periods, most of our people lived a prosperous life under the rule of wise kings. Whether it is the rule of the world or the prosperity of the world, the imperial court has sufficient grain reserves, money, and complete armor, which gives explorers the space and opportunity to go out.
Great Han Tianwei
During the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Zhang Qian to attack the Xiongnu in the north after passing through the western region and attacking the Xiongnu in the north, preparing to join forces with the latter to jointly attack the northern nomads. However, Zhang Qian and his entourage did not fail in their mission and successfully reached lanshi city (in present-day Afghanistan), the capital of the Bactrian kingdom, which was also the farthest area reached by Zhang Qian's mission.
Although no alliance was reached, Zhang Qian brought the legendary "Sweat and Blood BMW" (i.e. the Akhalt Golden Horse, a national treasure of present-day Turkmenistan) to Emperor Wu of Han. For the Han Dynasty, it opened up the western region states and let them know the Great Han Tianwei, which laid a good foundation for the future Han Xuan Emperor Liu Qian to set up the Western Regions Capital Protectorate. Since then, the vast land of the western region has entered the Chinese territory for the first time.
People say that "the future life is terrible", in the Eastern Han Dynasty hundreds of years later in the Western Han Dynasty. The emissary of Emperor Zhangdi of Han, Ban Chao, "threw his pen from Rong", he was more intelligent and courageous, and only led dozens of people to dare to go to the Western Regions, once again opening up the western region passage that was closed at the turn of the two Han Dynasties, creating the "myth of 36 people in the Western Regions", and since then the Eastern Han Dynasty Western Regions Changshifu has been re-established.
It is worth mentioning that among the 36 heroes of the Ban Chao Mission, one of them is named Gan Ying. At that time, among the four major empires on the Silk Road, the Great Han, the Parthia, the Kushan and the Great Qin (i.e., Rome), the Eastern Han Dynasty had more or less contact with the middle two, and only the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Was "only heard of its voice, not its country". Therefore, Gan Ying was ordered by Ban Chao to go all the way west to prepare to visit Rome.
Unfortunately, when he reached the Persian Gulf, Gan Ying was coaxed by the local boatman to mistakenly believe that the Mediterranean side was empty, so he led the crowd back in front of the finish line, which made people sigh. This is also the farthest place to walk Chinese since ancient times to the Eastern Han Dynasty.
But it is gratifying that a hundred years later, during the reign of Emperor Huan of Han, the Roman king "An Dun" sent emissaries from Annam (present-day Vietnam) to land, enter Luoyang to meet the Eastern Han Emperor, and offer gifts such as rhinoceros horns and ivory.
Glory of The Tang Dynasty
At the time of the Tang Dynasty, under the administration of Emperor Taizong, Emperor Gaozong and other heroic emperors, the national strength of the Tang Dynasty was booming. The hundred years from the reign of Zhenguan to the prosperity of the Kaiyuan Dynasty can be said to be one of the happiest stages of the ancient feudal era. Of course, such a glorious moment is of course indispensable to folk cultural exchanges and the expansion of the emperor's territory.
Master Xuanzang, the Tang monk in "Journey to the West", his path to the Western Heavens can be said to be extremely bumpy, more difficult than in the novel. Along the way, there is no protection from the Zhenguan Emperor Li Shimin 's "Pass wenmu" (in fact, Master Xuanzang is smuggled out of the customs), nor the protection of the vast number of monkeys, wild boars and water monsters, and some are just endless deserts, death and wind and food.
However, after 13 years of arduous journey, he also fulfilled his ambition to explore the homeland of the Buddha, and the experience along the way also made him a well-known traveler and explorer in our country while becoming a master of Buddhism.
The only safe stage in Xuanzang's journey was the day when he and Ju Wentai, the king of Gaochang, became "brothers in arms". The king, who was a strong believer in Buddhism, gave Xuanzang a large number of servants, camels, and supplies to help him enter Tianzhu smoothly. However, on Xuanzang's way back to the kingdom, Gao Changguo had already been destroyed by The Tang Emperor Taizong's general Hou Junji because of "no courtesy to the Heavenly Dynasty".
By the late Tang Dynasty, the territory of the Tang Dynasty had extended from Liaodong in the east to the western regions in the west, and the departure of the ancients in the past had become a "domestic tour". In the southwest corner, after marrying Tubo, another "explorer" turned out to be wang Xuance.
Since Xuanzang's return from Tianzhu, the general situation in ancient India was also known to the princes and generals in Chang'an City. Emperor Taizong sent Wang Xuance further and prepared to lead a delegation to visit Tianzhu. However, at this time, ancient India was in a state of chaos between hundreds of large and small city-states, of which Zhongtianzhu was the most powerful.
After Wang Xuance and his party entered the territory, they actually sent a large army to ambush the mission and openly snatched the gifts, and in the end, only Wang Xuance and his deputy Jiang Shiren were left in the dozens of people's mission.
Wang Xuance felt that he had a mission, and the members of the mission were completely destroyed in the foreign territories, so he "took a step back and thought more and more angry", so in the name of the Tang envoys, he borrowed thousands of soldiers in Nepal and Tubo, and Jiang Shiren led them to zhongtianzhu respectively.
In the end, the battle report was simple and clear. The largest kingdom in ancient India was destroyed, thousands of soldiers were beheaded, tens of thousands of soldiers were drowned alive, thousands of soldiers were captured, thousands of men and women were captured, countless defectors were defeated, more than 580 cities were surrendered, and the concubines and princes below Arona Shun, the ruler of Zhongtianzhu, became prisoners of the order. The surrounding Tianzhu city-states saw this and joined the tributary system of the Tang Dynasty.
For the neighboring countries in the early Tang Dynasty, it was really "If you don't come to China to pay tribute, the Tang army will run to you!" Wang Xuance also created the myth of "one person destroying one country".
In the first year, it reached the peak of China's feudal dynasty. The influence of the Tang Empire had reached Persia. The expansion of territory will inevitably lead to a collision between empires, at this time in the distant western border, more than 20,000 Tang Anxi army led by Gao Xianzhi encountered another major empire at that time, the Umayyad Dynasty (the Tang Dynasty called the Great Eating Kingdom) of more than 100,000 troops.
After several battles, both sides had their own victories and losses, and from then on, they took a step back and did not move forward, and DaShi began to send emissaries to The Tang Dynasty to make a good deal. In the course of the war, the Tang army captured a large number of Arab prisoners. Similarly, some of the Tang army's pawns were plundered to the Umayyad Empire. Among them was an official named Du Huan.
Not for the sake of the country's goodwill, nor for his own faith, Du Huan's journey is quite helpless. After revealing his identity, Du Huan immediately received preferential treatment from the Great Eater, so he was also able to follow the envoys of the Great Eater to the four sides.
During his 12 years of captivity, he wrote the Book of Acts, which detailed what he saw and heard from Jerusalem in Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Syria, the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Rome), and elsewhere. He was also the first person in Chinese history to famously record landing on the African continent. In 762, Du Huan set out from the port of Masawa in North Africa, passed through the port of Persia, and returned to Guangzhou by boat, returning to datang.
Unfortunately, a thousand years have passed, and the Book of Sutras has been lost. However, in the literature such as the Taiping Imperial Records that have been handed down, some of the excerpts can still be seen. Among them, it has a more detailed description of the customs, laws, and living environments of the medieval North African countries, Mediterranean countries and the Arab region, and is indeed the first masterpiece to look at the world from the perspective of Chinese.
After Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty went to the West, China gradually implemented a closed country policy, blindly believing that "the heavens and the earth are vast", but ignoring that in the world, explorers from Portugal, the Netherlands and other Western European countries are stepping on every piece of land, ignoring the industrial revolution that followed. China's feudal dynasty has finally fallen silent after a thousand years of domination.