preface
In the eyes of the world, Afghanistan has never been an ordinary mountain country in Central Asia. As a key point on the East-West Silk Road, its unique geographical location brought the glory of integrating Eastern and Western cultures, and brought tragic wars and killings to this landlocked country. Moreover, the war and killing have not subsided. Lord Curzon, governor-general of British India in the 19th century, said: "Afghanistan is a cocktail of Asia, and its strategic geographical location dictates that empires, regional powers and many of its neighbors will come to stir it up." "The mighty Russian Tsar Peter the Great told his descendants that whoever conquered Afghanistan conquered the world. The great conquerors of world history, such as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Timur the Cripple, have been to this "crossroads of Asian destiny." In modern times, Afghanistan has had a creepy nickname - "the graveyard of empires".
Since the "Great Game" between the British Empire and the Russian Empire in the 19th century, Afghanistan has been placed in the center of the battlefield of imperial competition. After three stoic resistances and bloody wars, Afghanistan finally defeated its arch-enemy Britain and achieved unyielding independence. Independent Afghanistan tried to bounce itself and find a way to survive in the midst of a complex international situation, but it was unable to escape another old enemy, Russia. Against the harsh backdrop of the cold war, Afghanistan continued its unfortunate fate. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and fought a nine-year war. Like Britain, the Soviet Union decided that it could achieve its strategic goals in Afghanistan by virtue of its strength. However, the natural and human geographical conditions created in Afghanistan have become the touchstone of the operating system, political philosophy and comprehensive national strength of the "Red Empire". Soon after the favorable situation was maintained, the Soviet army fell into the quagmire of guerrilla warfare. After a long 9 years, this quick decisive battle to conquer Afghanistan turned into a protracted battle, until it became a sad battle for the Red Empire.
The war ended, the Cold War came to an end, and "Soviet Union" became a historical term. Yet peace did not favour Afghanistan. Civil war broke out, and military strongmen fought over the scraps of the previous war. In this scorched country, the "Taliban" gradually abided by the traditional Islamic Shariah. The Taliban took Afghanistan culturally back to the Middle Ages, while hosting the sworn enemy of the United States, "terrorist tycoon" bin Laden. Thus, while 9/11 changed the course of world history, it also brought another war to Afghanistan.
The war continues to this day, making it the longest overseas war in U.S. history. On the soil of Afghanistan, the war is still the same, but there has been a different generation, and several opponents have changed. Afghanistan is a headache for all sorts of great strategists, who say that America's war in Afghanistan is actually a never-ending war. The world has never forgotten the horror of the "graveyard of empires", but is more concerned about the safety of this "Asian crossroads" and the future fate of Asia and the world. The current era is full of uncertainty, and the rise of China has gradually made the "Belt and Road" a new option for world history; More and more people believe that this is the best option to continue Afghanistan's history and reshape its future. We'll see about all this.
1. The legend of the conqueror
Open the world map, there is a brown mulberry leaf-shaped region in the center of Eurasia. This place is called Afghanistan, and its full pronunciation is "Afghanistan", which means "land of the Afghans". Afghanistan has a land area of about 650,000 square kilometers, which is nearly 100,000 square kilometers larger than France in Europe (France has an area of about 540,000 square kilometers) and about 16,000 square kilometers more than France and Austria combined. As the only landlocked country in Western Asia, Afghanistan is not a small country. Unfortunately, it is caught in the midst of many real powers. The western part of Afghanistan is connected to a string of lakes on the Persian plateau and thus borders Iran, which has an 820-kilometer border. The northeast corner of Afghanistan is a narrow strip of land known as the Wakhan Corridor, which shares a 75-kilometer border with Xinjiang, China. To the north of present-day Afghanistan are the three Central Asian states, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which belonged to the Soviet Union and the vast Russian Empire. Afghanistan's southeast is submerged in a blurred border line never seen in history with Pakistan, which shares a 2,180-kilometre border. In addition, Afghanistan has a 120-kilometer border in Kashmir to the northeast.
The border between Afghanistan and Iran may have been the will of the Allah, and they belong to the Persian plateau and inherit the same mountainous highland characteristics. Unfortunately, Afghanistan does not have Iran's amazing oil reserves, nor does it have fertile soil like Iran, which can produce a variety of fruits and melons. Compared with Iran, Afghanistan is a true mountain country, with four-fifths of the land covered with lofty mountains and rolling "plateaus" above 5,000 feet (1 foot = 0.3048 meters) above sea level, and only one-fifth of the flat land. According to statistics, 89.9% of Afghanistan's land is above 600 meters, the capital Kabul is as high as 1760 meters above sea level, and the important city of Ghazni reaches 2360 meters. Not far east of Kabul is the famous Khyber Pass, which is a very difficult terrain, and it is an important gateway from Afghanistan to Pakistan. North of Kabul lies the famous Salang Pass, a choke point that runs north and south of Afghanistan.
The plains are distributed in the southwest and north of Afghanistan, many of which are deserts, or moraine wastelands that are not much different from deserts. In the gray and monotonous sea of sand, you can occasionally see an oasis shimmering with water. The northern plain, located between the Hindu Kush and Amu Darya Rivers, covers an area of about 110,000 square kilometers and is narrow and relatively low in altitude. There are pastures and water sources here, which can produce grain, cotton, and grazing, and the purple lambskin produced is famous all over the world. The southwestern plain covers an area of about 130,000 square kilometers, and this vast desert area is composed of two deserts: one is the gravel desert, or Registan (meaning "land of sand"); The other is the clay desert, the Dashti Margo (meaning "desert of death"). The entire plain is hot and uninhabited, but across it is the Helmand River, the longest river in Afghanistan. The oasis along the river is even produced with grapes, pomegranates and walnuts. These oases concentrate most of Afghanistan's inhabitants.
The 1,300-kilometre-long Helmand River flows from north to southwest and upstream through alpine valleys, forming a natural reservoir that then flows into the Legistan Desert. Its basin covers two-fifths of Afghanistan's total land area. There are actually a number of mountain rivers in Afghanistan, but most of them are at their source or upstream. In spring and summer, the snow in the mountains melts, the turbulence is straight, and the amount of water is barely sufficient; In autumn and winter, the amount of water decreases abruptly. So there has been a saying in Afghanistan since ancient times: "I am not afraid of no gold, but I am afraid of no snow." "In addition to the Helmand River, Afghanistan's other famous rivers are the Amu Darya River, the Khali River and the Kabul River. The Amu Darya River originates in the Pamir Plateau and is 2,620 kilometers long, of which 1,100 kilometers become the natural border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The river flows rapidly up and down from east to west, and many tributaries flow into the interior of Afghanistan from north to south, forming two major tributaries of the Cork River and the Kunduz River; The Khali River is 900 kilometers long, 650 kilometers in Afghanistan, flows east-west, turns north after passing through the oasis south of Herat, about 130 kilometers becomes the border river between Afghanistan and Iran, and finally flows to the Karakuchi Desert in Turkmenistan; The Kabul River originates at the northern foot of the Koymayar Mountains, is 700 kilometers long, 460 kilometers in Afghanistan, and crosses Kabul from west to east and 1. The legend of the conquerors
Open the world map, there is a brown mulberry leaf-shaped region in the center of Eurasia. This place is called Afghanistan, and its full pronunciation is "Afghanistan", which means "land of the Afghans". Afghanistan has a land area of about 650,000 square kilometers, which is nearly 100,000 square kilometers larger than France in Europe (France has an area of about 540,000 square kilometers) and about 16,000 square kilometers more than France and Austria combined. As the only landlocked country in Western Asia, Afghanistan is not a small country. Unfortunately, it is caught in the midst of many real powers. The western part of Afghanistan is connected to a string of lakes on the Persian plateau and thus borders Iran, which has an 820-kilometer border. The northeast corner of Afghanistan is a narrow strip of land known as the Wakhan Corridor, which shares a 75-kilometer border with Xinjiang, China. To the north of present-day Afghanistan are the three Central Asian states, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which belonged to the Soviet Union and the vast Russian Empire. Afghanistan's southeast is submerged in a blurred border line never seen in history with Pakistan, which shares a 2,180-kilometre border. In addition, Afghanistan has a 120-kilometer border in Kashmir to the northeast.
The border between Afghanistan and Iran may have been the will of the Allah, and they belong to the Persian plateau and inherit the same mountainous highland characteristics. Unfortunately, Afghanistan does not have Iran's amazing oil reserves, nor does it have fertile soil like Iran, which can produce a variety of fruits and melons. Compared with Iran, Afghanistan is a true mountain country, with four-fifths of the land covered with lofty mountains and rolling "plateaus" above 5,000 feet (1 foot = 0.3048 meters) above sea level, and only one-fifth of the flat land. According to statistics, 89.9% of Afghanistan's land is above 600 meters, the capital Kabul is as high as 1760 meters above sea level, and the important city of Ghazni reaches 2360 meters. Not far east of Kabul is the famous Khyber Pass, which is a very difficult terrain, and it is an important gateway from Afghanistan to Pakistan. North of Kabul lies the famous Salang Pass, a choke point that runs north and south of Afghanistan.
The plains are distributed in the southwest and north of Afghanistan, many of which are deserts, or moraine wastelands that are not much different from deserts. In the gray and monotonous sea of sand, you can occasionally see an oasis shimmering with water. The northern plain, located between the Hindu Kush and Amu Darya Rivers, covers an area of about 110,000 square kilometers and is narrow and relatively low in altitude. There are pastures and water sources here, which can produce grain, cotton, and grazing, and the purple lambskin produced is famous all over the world. The southwestern plain covers an area of about 130,000 square kilometers, and this vast desert area is composed of two deserts: one is the gravel desert, or Registan (meaning "land of sand"); The other is the clay desert, the Dashti Margo (meaning "desert of death"). The entire plain is hot and uninhabited, but across it is the Helmand River, the longest river in Afghanistan. The oasis along the river is even produced with grapes, pomegranates and walnuts. These oases concentrate most of Afghanistan's inhabitants.
The 1,300-kilometre-long Helmand River flows from north to southwest and upstream through alpine valleys, forming a natural reservoir that then flows into the Legistan Desert. Its basin covers two-fifths of Afghanistan's total land area. There are actually a number of mountain rivers in Afghanistan, but most of them are at their source or upstream. In spring and summer, the snow in the mountains melts, the turbulence is straight, and the amount of water is barely sufficient; In autumn and winter, the amount of water decreases abruptly. So there has been a saying in Afghanistan since ancient times: "I am not afraid of no gold, but I am afraid of no snow." "In addition to the Helmand River, Afghanistan's other famous rivers are the Amu Darya River, the Khali River and the Kabul River. The Amu Darya River originates in the Pamir Plateau and is 2,620 kilometers long, of which 1,100 kilometers become the natural border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The river flows rapidly up and down from east to west, and many tributaries flow into the interior of Afghanistan from north to south, forming two major tributaries of the Cork River and the Kunduz River; The Khali River is 900 kilometers long, 650 kilometers in Afghanistan, flows east-west, turns north after passing through the oasis south of Herat, about 130 kilometers becomes the border river between Afghanistan and Iran, and finally flows to the Karakuchi Desert in Turkmenistan; The Kabul River originates at the northern foot of the Koymayar Mountains, is 700 kilometers long, 460 kilometers in Afghanistan, and crosses Kabul from west to east and 1. The legend of the conquerors
Open the world map, there is a brown mulberry leaf-shaped region in the center of Eurasia. This place is called Afghanistan, and its full pronunciation is "Afghanistan", which means "land of the Afghans". Afghanistan has a land area of about 650,000 square kilometers, which is nearly 100,000 square kilometers larger than France in Europe (France has an area of about 540,000 square kilometers) and about 16,000 square kilometers more than France and Austria combined. As the only landlocked country in Western Asia, Afghanistan is not a small country. Unfortunately, it is caught in the midst of many real powers. The western part of Afghanistan is connected to a string of lakes on the Persian plateau and thus borders Iran, which has an 820-kilometer border. The northeast corner of Afghanistan is a narrow strip of land known as the Wakhan Corridor, which shares a 75-kilometer border with Xinjiang, China. To the north of present-day Afghanistan are the three Central Asian states, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which belonged to the Soviet Union and the vast Russian Empire. Afghanistan's southeast is submerged in a blurred border line never seen in history with Pakistan, which shares a 2,180-kilometre border. In addition, Afghanistan has a 120-kilometer border in Kashmir to the northeast.
The border between Afghanistan and Iran may have been the will of the Allah, and they belong to the Persian plateau and inherit the same mountainous highland characteristics. Unfortunately, Afghanistan does not have Iran's amazing oil reserves, nor does it have fertile soil like Iran, which can produce a variety of fruits and melons. Compared with Iran, Afghanistan is a true mountain country, with four-fifths of the land covered with lofty mountains and rolling "plateaus" above 5,000 feet (1 foot = 0.3048 meters) above sea level, and only one-fifth of the flat land. According to statistics, 89.9% of Afghanistan's land is above 600 meters, the capital Kabul is as high as 1760 meters above sea level, and the important city of Ghazni reaches 2360 meters. Not far east of Kabul is the famous Khyber Pass, which is a very difficult terrain, and it is an important gateway from Afghanistan to Pakistan. North of Kabul lies the famous Salang Pass, a choke point that runs north and south of Afghanistan.
The plains are distributed in the southwest and north of Afghanistan, many of which are deserts, or moraine wastelands that are not much different from deserts. In the gray and monotonous sea of sand, you can occasionally see an oasis shimmering with water. The northern plain, located between the Hindu Kush and Amu Darya Rivers, covers an area of about 110,000 square kilometers and is narrow and relatively low in altitude. There are pastures and water sources here, which can produce grain, cotton, and grazing, and the purple lambskin produced is famous all over the world. The southwestern plain covers an area of about 130,000 square kilometers, and this vast desert area is composed of two deserts: one is the gravel desert, or Registan (meaning "land of sand"); The other is the clay desert, the Dashti Margo (meaning "desert of death"). The entire plain is hot and uninhabited, but across it is the Helmand River, the longest river in Afghanistan. The oasis along the river is even produced with grapes, pomegranates and walnuts. These oases concentrate most of Afghanistan's inhabitants.
The 1,300-kilometre-long Helmand River flows from north to southwest and upstream through alpine valleys, forming a natural reservoir that then flows into the Legistan Desert. Its basin covers two-fifths of Afghanistan's total land area. There are actually a number of mountain rivers in Afghanistan, but most of them are at their source or upstream. In spring and summer, the snow in the mountains melts, the turbulence is straight, and the amount of water is barely sufficient; In autumn and winter, the amount of water decreases abruptly. So there has been a saying in Afghanistan since ancient times: "I am not afraid of no gold, but I am afraid of no snow." "In addition to the Helmand River, Afghanistan's other famous rivers are the Amu Darya River, the Khali River and the Kabul River. The Amu Darya River originates in the Pamir Plateau and is 2,620 kilometers long, of which 1,100 kilometers become the natural border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The river flows rapidly up and down from east to west, and many tributaries flow into the interior of Afghanistan from north to south, forming two major tributaries of the Cork River and the Kunduz River; The Khali River is 900 kilometers long, 650 kilometers in Afghanistan, flows east-west, turns north after passing through the oasis south of Herat, about 130 kilometers becomes the border river between Afghanistan and Iran, and finally flows to the Karakuchi Desert in Turkmenistan; The Kabul River originates at the northern foot of the Koymayar Mountains, is 700 kilometers long and 460 kilometers in Afghanistan, crosses the Kabul and Jalalabad plains from west to east, enters Pakistan, joins the Indus River, and finally empties into the Arabian Sea. The middle and lower reaches of the Kabul River are accessible to rafts and barges, Afghanistan's only waterway to the Indian Ocean.
The famous Hindu Kush is one of the largest mountains in the world. It stretches diagonally across Afghanistan from northeast to southwest, stretching for 1,200 kilometers, with tall mountains and narrow river valleys running through it. The mountains are steep and inhospitable, with almost no trees. Steep mountains and steep rivers meander through deep mountain valleys before joining the Indus River, some of which serve as arteries between the Persian plateau and the Indus plain. The Hindu Kush Mountains are covered with snow all year round, and in ancient China they called "Daxue Mountain". As far as the eye can see, the conical rocky peaks covered in ice and snow sparkle against the background of the blue sky. Some say that the Old Persian word "Afghanistan" is a continuation of the word "mountain man". The central mountains, formed by the Hindu Kush Mountains and their tributaries, cover an area of 410,000 square kilometers and form the main body of Afghanistan's land area.
The Hindu Kush Mountains determined the geography and climate of Afghanistan and determined the way of life of ancient Afghans. Although Afghanistan is subtropical, it is far from the sea and has a high altitude, so it has a standard continental climate. Summers are unusually hot, winters are extremely cold, and the temperature difference between day and night varies drastically. Afghanistan is the hottest around July every year, with an average temperature of 25-30 degrees; It is coldest around January, with temperatures ranging from 0 to 5 degrees. The air is dry, with a dry season from May to September and a rainy season from October to April, but the average precipitation is less than 300 mm. Rainfall in Afghanistan during the dry season is extremely rare, and places like Kandahar and Herat have no rain at all in summer and autumn. However, the climate in Afghanistan is better in spring and autumn, especially at night. Even in the hottest season, the sunset is often accompanied by cool nights. In Jalalabad, despite the difficult summers, the winters are warm. In addition, in the western mountains of Afghanistan, there are many winds from June to September every year. When the wind blows, the sky flies sand and rocks, and the ground is extremely hot; Every two or three days, there will be a continuous wind for three or four days, and the cycle will last for up to four months. People call it the "One Hundred and Twenty Day Wind", aka the "Afghan Hot Wind".
In this climate, Afghans struggle to live on livestock and farming. Arable land accounts for only 0.2 per cent of the country's land, and ancient settlers were mostly concentrated in the oases of Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat, while herders made long-distance migrations once a year, moving north with their herds in summer and back south in winter. If you go to today's Afghanistan, if you go into the mountains, you will see that the barren valley is full of the flowers of eternal sin, poppies. Although drugs have soaked Afghanistan's gravel land, making Afghans struggling to survive, Afghanistan still has God-given resources - Afghanistan has the world's largest untapped comprehensive mineral resources, the proven resources are mainly natural gas, coal, salt, chromium, iron, copper, mica and emerald, etc., and the proven natural gas alone is 10.6 trillion cubic meters. Afghanistan may have the world's richest copper deposits, the world's fifth-largest iron ore vein, and 400 million tonnes of coal. In addition, Afghanistan has a unique resource, and that is its strategic geographical location.
According to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great, whoever succeeded to his throne should advance south to Constantinople and India. "Whoever rules there will rule the world." Peter the Great said, "When Russia has free access to the Indian Ocean, it can establish its own military and political rule throughout the world." Peter the Great envisaged three routes for his descendants that the Russian Empire would take south: from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea via Turkey's Bosphorus, from the South Caucasus via Iran to the Persian Gulf, and from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea via Afghanistan. If one opens the map, one will find that of the three routes, the passage through Afghanistan is the closest.
Peter the Great's words are tantamount to telling the world that whoever controls Afghanistan takes the first step to control the world. So Lord Curzon, the governor-general of British India in the 19th century, gave Afghanistan an impressive nickname, saying that Afghanistan was an Asian "cocktail" that often attracted "agitation" from many countries.
It is no longer known where the earliest Afghans came from, and the history of Afghanistan can be traced back to the ancient Persian Empire. In the 6th century BC, Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, made an expedition to Central Asia, and the region of Afghanistan was incorporated into the territory of the Persian Empire. Cyrus started as a small state in the southwestern part of the Persian plateau, and after years of conquest, defeated the three great powers of Medes, Lydia and Babylon, unified most of the Middle East to Central Asia, and built a huge empire from India to the Mediterranean. As the ancient Greek historian Herodotus said, "Cyrus himself subjugated the upper half [of Asia], conquering every nation and not allowing a single one to escape." At that time, Afghanistan, as an important eastern region ruled by the Persian Empire, was the bridge between the empire and Central Asia and India. Herat, Sistan, Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad were all important cities of the Persian Empire on Afghan soil.
The Persian Empire ruled over a wide variety of subjects in the East and West, so the inhabitants of Afghanistan had to interact not only with the Persians and Medes, but also with the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and Asia Minor. The most important change in Afghanistan during this period was the adoption of the ancient Zoroastrianism (i.e., "Zoroastrianism" or "Zoroastrianism"). This state religion of the Persian Empire was introduced from Persia to Afghanistan, and then through Afghanistan to Central Asia, until it was introduced to China from Central Asia, becoming the earliest Western Regions religion introduced to China in addition to Buddhism.
Hundreds of years later, Alexander the Great of Macedonia swept across Eurasia, and Afghanistan became part of the Macedonian Empire on this expedition. Alexander the Great is arguably one of the most famous figures in human history, and the ancient Greek historian Arian once said: "For myself, I think that at that time there was no race, no city, or even a single person, who did not touch Alexander's name and fame." For this reason, I feel that a hero, very different from ordinary people, will never be born into the world without God's commission. With an obsession unimaginable to ordinary people, Alexander conquered almost the entire world known to Westerners at that time. When he conquered Afghanistan, he built three "Alexandria" cities that bore his name. Alexandria was a product of the great conqueror's idea of a "world empire", Alexander sought to unite all his subjects in the East and West into one people, so that behind his expeditionary army there was a scene of two cultural exchanges: one was a caravan of Greeks and Phoenicians, many of whom settled in Afghanistan and intermarried with the natives; The other is the rise of new cities along trade routes, with both strategic and commercial significance. Alexander thus controlled the ancient trade routes that ran through Europe and Asia.
Alexander took the Bactrian region including Afghanistan as the center, conquered Sogdian in the north and India in the south, and the war was unceasing. Alexander continued to promote his idea of a "world empire", stipulating that Persian etiquette and kneeling rituals were adopted in his court; He himself wore a Persian purple robe and crown, and dressed himself as a Persian emperor. East-West exchanges in the form of war were gradually replaced by cultural exchanges that "followed the customs of the countryside". In the winter of 328 BC, Alexander married Roxana, the daughter of the Bactrian nobleman Okeshat, through a half-Greek and half-Persian ritual. "Roxana" means "light", and there are many legends about this marriage in Afghanistan, and many Afghans still like to name the girl "Roxana". According to Macedonian custom, Alexander cut a wheat cake with a sword at a wedding ceremony and ate it with Roxanna each, which is testimony to the meeting of Eastern and Western cultures.
After Alexander's death, the empire was divided into three parts, and the Bactrian region was transferred to the eastern Seleucid kingdom (known as the "Tiaozhi" in ancient Chinese historical texts). Later historians spoke highly of the founder of the kingdom, Seleucid, such as Arian, who said: "Of all those who succeeded to the throne after Alexander, only Seleucid became the greatest king." He was the man with the heart of a king, ruling the greatest territory after Alexander. "The Seleucids also led an army across the Hindu Kush to attack the Mauryan dynasty in India. At its peak, the Seleucid kingdom expanded from the Mediterranean to India. Ashoka, a famous king of the Mauryan Dynasty, also invaded Afghanistan, leaving a stone pillar edict in Afghanistan that spread Buddhism and propagated Buddhism. As the largest Hellenistic kingdom in the world at the time, the Seleucid kingdom controlled the Silk Roads between East and West, while acquiring Indian spices and Chinese silk to enrich its economy. The prosperity of trade has become a new driving force for communication between East and West.
Around 250 BC, an event occurred in the Bactrian region, located between the Amu Darya River (known in ancient Chinese historical texts as the "Wuhu Water") and the Hindu Kush Mountains, when the governor Theodotus became independent from the Seleucid kingdom and established the Hellenistic Bactrian kingdom. This Bactrian kingdom is known as "Daxia" and "Tocharian" in ancient Chinese historical texts. In the first half of the 2nd century BC, the Bactrian kingdom reached its strongest and expanded into India. The four great civilizations of Greece, Persia, India and China met in Bactria through the Silk Road connecting East and West. Merchants from East and West passed through Bactria, connecting the Aegean Sea, the Two River Valley, Persia, India, China and Siberia, allowing world cultures to mingle. Western scholars have said: "If European ideas spread to the Far East through Bactria, then Asian ideas also came to Europe through here and through the same channels." "The Gentiles are full of gold. Unfortunately, Bactria, which later slowly turned into decline due to civil unrest.
The first half of the 2nd century BC was the early period of the Western Han Dynasty in China. The Dayue clan (known to Westerners as the "Scythians") who originally lived in the Hexi corridor of China were defeated by the Xiongnu and had to move west to the Amu Darya region. Around 140-130 BC, the Otsuki clan conquered the region of Afghanistan and drove the Bactrian kingdom south. By the Eastern Han Dynasty of China, the Dayue clan was divided into five departments: Xiumi, Shuangjing, Guishuang, Dumi, and Dedun. In the 1st century, Kushan unified the various tribes and established the powerful Kushan Empire. At its peak, the empire's territory stretched from the Aral Sea in the west to the Pamir Plateau (known as the "Green Ridge" in ancient Chinese historical texts) in the east, spanning Central Asia and the northwestern part of the Indian Peninsula, and Afghanistan was almost in the center of the Kushan Empire. It is worth mentioning that the Kushan Empire revered Mahayana Buddhism. The 1st and 2nd centuries were one of the most active periods on the East-West Silk Road, and the Kushan Empire was located at the crossroads of the Silk Road and flourished for a while. The traditional route of the Silk Road was through Persia (known in ancient Chinese historical texts as "Sabbath") to Herat and then south. Due to the hostility of the king of Rest and the blocking of trade along the Silk Road, the Kushan Empire opened a trade route from Bactria to the Indus Delta; Goods sailed from India, via the Silk Road to Arabia, across the Red Sea, and from Egypt into Europe.
Despite the glorious achievements of Gandhara art, after the 3rd century the Kushan Empire fell into decline, splitting into several smaller states. In the first half of the 5th century, these small divided states were finally destroyed by the Muda people who came from the north. Originally inhabited in the Altai Mountains in northern Xinjiang, China, the Muda were once subordinates of Rouran, whom the Romans called the "White Huns". At the beginning of the 5th century, the Muda people moved west, and later conquered the Ili River valley in China, the middle region of Central Asia (i.e., the middle of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers), Afghanistan, and northwestern India, and defeated Sassanid Persia to become a formidable power. The center of his rule is in present-day Afghanistan. It is worth mentioning that Zoroastrianism has been revived. The Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang recorded in the "Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang Dynasty" that the king of the Tang Dynasty, Mavon Luo, vigorously rejected Buddhism: "Taking advantage of its victory, the west sought Jian Luo Guo, lurked in the armor, killed its king, the minister of the state, and hoeed and annihilated." Destroy the blockage, destroy the Sangha Lan, where there are 1,600 houses. "Buddhism in Afghanistan was thus devastated, and the glory of Gandhara art was never restored.
According to ancient Chinese history books, the Muda people were brave warriors and their customs were very similar to those of the Turks. "Luoyang Jialan Ji" said that the people of Gongda "sat on the golden bed of the king's brocade clothes". Unearthed coins also show that the rulers of the Sada were dressed in sumptuous costumes, with hair ornaments and intricate headdresses resembling those worn by Sassanid Persian kings during military parades. The "Northern History and the Legend of the Western Regions" records the side of the Gongda people who retain the original legacy: "Brothers share a wife, husbands have no brothers, the wife wears a horned hat, if there are brothers, according to the number of them, it is more horned hat." According to the Liang Shu Hui Guo Biography, this horn hat was "carved into wood, six feet long, and decorated with gold and silver." It can be seen that the Muda people, like other nomads, have a great demand for gold and silver.
The Sassanid Persian king Bachran and his court had always been famous for their luxury, and had always attracted the Auda people with a strong desire to plunder gold and silver. He sent a large army across the Amu Darya River and attacked Khorasan. Bachran was a resourceful man and had the nickname "Bachran Gur" ("Gul" means "wild donkey") because of his love of hunting wild asses. When he learned of the attack of the Raiders, he ignored it and ordered a safari, and then went to the great surprise of his ministers. In fact, after leaving the court, Bahran Gul moved very covertly, and quickly moved eastward, collecting soldiers everywhere he went, preparing to launch a night attack on the Sada people. He employed novel tactics, tying leather bags full of pebbles around the neck of war horses. During the night raid, the Sassanid Persian cavalry made an earth-shattering sound, startling the horses of the people and running wildly. Bahran Gul defeated the Ida and chased them all the way across the Amu Darya River, killing the king of Aida and forcing them to make peace. The Ida were forced to set the border 400 km west of Bactria in the contract. Despite this defeat, Gyuda maintained its status as a Central Asian power.
The war with Sassanid Persia lasted for many years. Their war was essentially a struggle for control of trade routes between East and West, a war for the Silk Road. The Gyuda mastered the overland and Caspian trading ports, manipulating trade between Persia, Byzantium, India and China. Around 567, Sassanid Persia and the Western Turks finally joined forces to defeat the Sada and divide their territory around the Amu Darya River, and the name "Tocharian" reappeared in historical records. "Tocharian" is not strictly synonymous with Afghanistan, it is the northern region of Afghanistan centered on today's Kunduz, located west of the Pamir Plateau and south of the Amu Darya River, which is the birthplace of ancient Daxia. According to the agreement after the defeat of Tanda, Tocharian was assigned to Persia. After about a year, it was captured by the Western Turks. In 627, the Western Turkic ruler Yehu Khan sent his eldest son to establish a Turkic dynasty in Tocharia. In 657, the second year of Xianqing of the Tang Dynasty in China, Emperor Gaozong of Tang sent the Right Tunwei general Su Dingfang to lead an army to destroy the Western Turks, and the Turkic dynasty of Tocharian became a vassal to the Tang Empire. The Tang Dynasty set up the Yue Clan Governor's Mansion here. In addition, at this time in and around present-day Afghanistan, there were a number of small kingdoms belonging to Tocharian, including Guarding Secret, Guarding Shiqian (Governor's Mansion of Tangzhisha Prefecture), Yubin (Governor of Xiuxian Prefecture), Fan Yan (Governor of Wufeng), Khandarochi (Governor of Tiaozhi), and Bone Chu (Gao Fu Governor's Palace).
In addition, the Tang Dynasty also made Belus, the son of the last king of Sassanid Persia who came into exile in Tang from 662 to 674, as the king of Persia, and placed the Persian capital in eastern Persia and Afghanistan. At the beginning of the 8th century, the newly rising Arab Empire entered the region and took control of Tocharian. The Arabs entered Afghanistan in pursuit of the defeated last king of Sassanid Persia, Izuku III (father of Belus). As Edward Gibbon wrote in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "Caliph Uthman promised to give the rule of Khorasan to the first general to enter a huge and populous state, the ancient kingdom of Bactria." This condition was accepted, and this award was well deserved; Because Muhammad's banner had been planted on the walls of Herat, Merv, and Balkh, the victorious general neither stopped nor rested until his sweaty cavalry tasted the waters of the Uhu River. ”
The Arabs did not expect that they would encounter stubborn resistance everywhere in Afghanistan. The Caliph of the Arab Empire often sent additional troops to suppress untamed Afghans. Some mountainous areas remained independent, such as Balkh not finally stopping fighting until 707, Kandahar submitting to the Arabs until the 9th century, and Kabul being a symbol of Afghan indomitability. Over the course of half a century, Arab armies attacked Kabul no less than nine times, all of which ended in failure. Kabul remained independent until 871.
After initial control of Afghanistan, the Arab army continued its eastward advance. The Arab Empire to the east, the Tang Empire to the west, the two empires inevitably collided in Central Asia, that is, the Battle of Tyros, which changed the course of the history of world civilization. In the Battle of Taros in 751, the Tang Empire was defeated, thus losing all of Central Asia. After the Battle of Tyros, all the countries of the Western Regions west of the Green Ridge were returned to the Arabs. Prior to this, many faiths coexisted in Afghanistan, such as Zoroastrianism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, and even the primitive religion of animism. The arrival of the Arabs gradually Islamized Central Asia, including Afghanistan, to this day. For more than 1,300 years, Afghans have thoroughly embraced the religious values of Allah oneness, Allah omnipotence, the equality of the Muslim brotherhood and the sharing of brotherhood among others. For Afghans, Islam has given them a cohesive force under a common faith. The original martial spirit of the Afghan tribes has been deepened by the "jihad" with religious colors. Successive dynasties in Afghanistan have adopted Islam as the state religion, and the clergy have a close relationship with the regime. Unlike many Islamic countries, Afghanistan sanctified not only the Prophet Muhammad, but also his disciples, and the cult of saints prevailed. As for the mullahs (i.e. Islamic clerics), they are not only the officiators of births, marriages, deaths and religious festivals, but also teachers, judicial arbiters and spiritual leaders of a village or even a region.
Along with the Islamic faith comes the Arabic language and the full Islamic culture. The new rulers adopted Arabic as the Chinese and standard language of Afghanistan, and the local dialects of Afghanistan were also spelled in the Arabic alphabet. Arabic, as the language of the Koran, gradually blended with the local Afghan dialect as Muslims recited it religiously. Islamic culture, which absorbed Egyptian, Greek, Mesopotamian and Persian cultures, was widely spread in Afghanistan. As the Afghan historian Mohammad Ali puts it: "It is impossible to trace the extent of Islamic culture in Afghanistan in detail, but its influence is everywhere and vividly and picturesquely." Living customs, costumes, culinary arts, festivals, weddings and funerals, and even the details of daily life are all influenced by Islamic culture. "Islamic culture came into contact with local Afghan culture, merged into a new culture, and became the main source of modern Afghan culture; This spread and integration itself is also the significance of the ancient East-West Silk Road.