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The overland Silk Road in China's history was the most prosperous during the Han and Tang dynasties, during which the economic, cultural, religious and personnel exchanges were unprecedentedly prosperous.
On this long international road, there was a people who played an important role in the prosperity of the Silk Road, and they were called "Sogdians".
Awa Tokujin Mural
<h1>Trade bearer on the Silk Roads</h1>
Today, the purebred Sogdians have long been a historical term, and they have integrated with many ethnic groups in Asia.
In Chinese historical records, they are known as Zhaowu Jiu surname, nine surname Hu, and hybrid Hu.
The Old Book of Tang, vol. 197, "Biography of Xi Rong Kangguo", explains the "Nine Surnames of Zhaowu" as follows: "The first residence in Zhangye Qilian Mountain, north of Zhaowu City, was destroyed by the Turks, and south of the Onion Ridge (present-day Pamir Plateau), so there was its land." Zhishu takes Zhaowu as his surname and does not forget Benya. ”
The Old Book of Tang argues that the Sogdians also had a process of migration from east to west and then settling in Central Asia.
This Central Asian people was full of commercial vitality, from the 4th century onwards, gradually controlling trade on the overland Silk Road, and by the 5th and 8th centuries, it almost monopolized the international trade of the overland Silk Road, and was considered to be the monopolist and bearer of trade on the overland Silk Road in the Middle Ages.
The Sogdians originally lived in the Zelafshan River basin between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, also known as the River Region or Sogdiana, roughly located in the area of present-day Wustan in Central Asia.
This area is composed of large and small oases and more vast deserts and Gobi, which is a necessary place to travel from China to West Asia by land.
In ancient times, an oasis could form a city-state, and an oasis could feed a single person. Just like in the Han Dynasty, there were 55 countries in the Tarim Basin, and later merged into 36 countries, and the big ones after that were Yanqi, Guizi, Khotan, Shule and so on.
Samarkand, Bukhara, and Tashkent, the three cities that still exist on the map of Eurasia, were once the main settlements of the Sogdians.
This area is located on the Silk Road, an east-west- north-south passageway, a crossroads of civilization and a crossroads of commerce. To the south is India, to the north are the nomadic Turkic, Rouran, Xiongnu and other kingdoms, to the east is China, and to the west is Persia and Rome. The Sogdians lived at the heart of the Silk Roads.
Sogdian countries
The Sogdian State has a gatehouse with the Chinese Emperor painted on the east, the Turkic Khan on the north, the King of India on the south, and the King of Fuling (Eastern Rome) in the east.
The Sogdians, controlled by their strong neighbors, failed to develop into a unified empire, and it was always inevitable to be dependent on one side or even conquered. In its history, the First Persian Empire, alexander's empire, Kushan Empire, and Western Turks successively ruled this region.
In 658, Su Dingfang, a prominent military figure of the Tang Dynasty, led an army to pacify the Western Turks and became the protector of the Sogdian states of Central Asia.
Such a nation is destined to have no sense of belonging, to be home from all over the world, and to be a world country.
This is very different from the relocation of the Han Chinese, who lack attachment to their fragmented homeland and have learned early on how to seek advantages and avoid harm in various powerful forces.
The special political and geographical environment has created their business character. In the history books, they are described as "good merchant Jia, good profit, husband twenty years old to go to the side country, where the benefit is, all to the end" "when the man is five years old, then let the study book, less understanding, then send xue Jia, to gain more for good."
Under the dual oppression of nomadic peoples and agricultural civilizations, this nation embarked on a mobile commercial path early on, and thus continued to migrate in the depths of history.
From the 3rd century onwards, the Sogdians traveled back and forth between Chang'an, Luoyang and Alexandria in Egypt in the form of caravans.
Driven by commercial interests and the turmoil and wars in sogdia, the Sogdians traveled eastward along the traditional overland Silk Road in large numbers to trade, and many of them emigrated to China and never returned.
The Sogdians came and went from east to sell, often in the form of caravans, led by caravan leaders, in gangs, dozens of them, hundreds of people, and armed to protect themselves.
Each caravan was absolutely subordinate to the dispatch of its chief, whose leader was called "Sapo", whose position was established by his financial strength, intellect, experience, and prestige built up in the face of many tribulations.
Dunhuang Mogao Caves 45 Caves "Hu Shang Encountered Theft Map"
When the Sogdian caravan slowly entered Chang'an and Luoyang along the Hexi Corridor, they also came to the end of the eastward movement.
Both the Northern Dynasty and the Sui and Tang dynasties incorporated Sa bao into the bureaucracy, granting an official position to caravan leaders and establishing sabao fu to manage Hu shang from both administrative and religious matters. We see in the historical materials that there are titles of Yongzhou, Liangzhou, Ganzhou and other places of Sapo.
Liangzhou Sabao Tomb
At the same time, the Sogdians used their financial and military power to influence and unite with local political forces, seeking long-term political security and even commercial monopolies for themselves. For example, at the end of the Sui Dynasty and the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the two historians bet on Li Tang, the An family of Wuwei in Hexi, An Xinggui and An Xiuren killed Li Rail, and gave the whole of Hexi to the Li Tang Dynasty.
The Sogdians and the Tocharians, Westerners, and Turks, who were absorbed by them on the way, took root at the beginning of the Silk Road, changed from merchants to merchants, and integrated with the Central Plains peoples.
Influenced by the culture of the Central Plains and intermarriage, their descendants no longer necessarily embarked on the road of business, some joined the army, and some joined the military.
Among the Sogdians who joined the army, the most famous was Tui An Lu Mountain.
The cunning, wandering and deep-seated insecurity of the Sogdians in the blood of the commercial people made him choose to fight back after being favored.
Shi Siming, who followed him, was also a Sogdian, and the two joined forces to push Sheng Tang into the depths of the water.
After the end of the war, a wave of hatred against the Hu people was formed in the Central Plains. The Sogdians, who were good at surviving in various sinister environments, some hurriedly changed their surnames and counties, and tried their best to cover up their Hu characteristics. Some sneaked to the three towns of Hebei, where the old department of An Shi was located.
In the late Tang Dynasty, the Sogdians of Hebei and the former Liuhu Prefecture once again defected to the rising new power, the Shatuo tribe in the north. In the Five Dynasties period, there was a Sogdian who was more notorious than An Lushan, Shi Jingyao. At the cost of ceding Youyun Sixteen Prefectures to the Khitans, he jointly sent troops to destroy Later Tang.
Five generations later, this nation, which had lost its cultural roots, gradually dissolved into the Han civilization after hundreds of years of continuous movement. However, their bloodlines are scattered and unfinished, and they are tortuous among the Han people.
If we don't know the origin of Zhaowu's nine surnames, it is difficult for us to imagine that Han cultural elites like Mi Fu and He Shaoji actually have secret bloodlines from Central Asia.
<h1>Sogdian trade network</h1>
If the Sogdian caravan found a place particularly convenient for trade and habitation on its way eastward, after receiving the approval of "Sapo", some of them stayed, established trading bases, and then multiplied and formed new settlements and tribes.
The other went on, opening up the commercial land in front of them, encountering new strongholds, and separating again.
The constant separation did not weaken the Sogdian caravans, but made them stronger:
First, on the way, the Sogdian caravan would absorb other Central Asian peoples, so that when they arrived in Chang'an, their caravan members had different faces, with blue eyes like the sea and emerald eyes, so they were called "bastard hu";
Second, after years of breeding and breeding, those merchants who stayed in the middle of the way can send a steady stream of reserves to the caravans;
Third, these strongholds, known as trade transit points, were connected to form a huge trade network that hung over Chang'an and Samarkand.
The Sogdians were very systematic in their business, they had a capitalist who took out a sum of money to entrust a man. The man accepted the money and led a caravan on a trip. When they went to a central urban stronghold, such as their base camp with Wuwei, this person sent people everywhere to buy things and transport things.
In 1907, Stein found a parcel under the beacon of the Great Wall, containing eight or nine Letters written in Sogdian. The content was a letter sent by the Sogdians doing business in Hexi to their hometown or to some settlement leaders in the west.
In the Sogdian trade network, raw silk, spices and precious stones were extremely important trade objects.
Raw silk bundles
According to the records of the "Statue Of Statues" of the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, the inscription of yongchang in the first year of the Yongchang Year of the No. 1410 "Beishi Xiangxing Society Statue Niche" located between the Longmen Guyang Cave and the Yaofang Cave writes about the situation that a local Sogdian merchant named "Xiangxingshe" organized to build a Buddha statue.
The "Incense Guild" was a guild specializing in selling incense, and its members included Sogdian merchants such as An Sanda, Shi Xuance, Kang Huideng, Ho Nandi, and Kang Jingzhi. The presence of such a specialized spice organization in the Sogdian settlements proved that spices accounted for a large proportion of the trade at that time.
The ancient Silk Road, even if it was smooth, was very long, and the transportation cost was huge, so the goods that were light and convenient to carry could bring huge profits to the merchants.
Sogdian merchants
During the Tang Dynasty, Chang'an opened a special western market for Hu Shang. Sogdian merchants transported spices to the entrance of the West Market, and the Shaofu Supervisor selected the "knowledgeable people" to evaluate the price, and then entered the market after approving the price.
Any spice can sell tens or even a hundred times the price of the original price after a space displacement of up to 10,000 miles.
After the transaction was completed, they went to the trading house south of West Avenue to buy porcelain and silk at local prices, and then loaded a camel caravan and waited for the opening of the Chang'an City Gate.
As soon as the trade succeeded, a new Hu rich man was born. The tomb of Sa Bao found in Liangzhou is almost the same as the tomb of the Northern Zhou Emperor. The extravagance of Sogdian merchants can be seen from this.
In addition, the Sogdians brought rare animals such as famous horses. For example, Tang Xuanzong once obtained six sweat and blood horses from Fergana, and borrowed the Sogdian language "叱拨" (meaning tetrapod) to name them "Red Ling" and "Purple Ling" respectively.
Sogdian horses
Because of such huge profits, the Sogdians took advantage of their special geographical location and huge trade network to control the pass of land trade and transportation for a long time.
In this vast trade network established by the Sogdians, trade between Central Asia and China, between the Han Chinese and the northern nomads, and between Central Asia and India was basically included.
The Sogdians' absolute control over trade on the Silk Roads in the Middle Ages made it difficult for us to see other peoples on the road, and even Persian merchants had to move to the sea route.
Almost all of the 35 transactions recorded in the Gaochang Neizang Song of the Price Account unearthed in Turpan involved Sogdians. In addition, Gao Changguo's taxes and transactions used higher-value Sassanid silver coins or Byzantine gold coins instead of lower-value Chinese copper coins.
Han turtle two-body money, one side is Chinese, the other side is turtle Ziwen
Sassanid silver coins
At the same time, the Sogdians were increasingly pampered in the wealth that came with the exclusive land Silk Road, and they had every reason to believe that this wealth could be maintained for a long time.
However, three centuries later, the increasingly powerful Arabs, threatening to conquer Persia, began to invade the Sogdian region.
In 712, the Treaty of Samarkand was signed, establishing Arab hegemony over Sogdians. Beginning in 750, the Sogdians, who had originally believed in Zoroastrianism (Zoroastrianism), began to convert to Islam, and their cultural roots began to waver.
By the 10th century, the Sogdians, who had lost their trade lines, no longer had their independence and were gradually submerged in the long river of history.
For less than 100 years, the Arabs controlled the land and sea spice routes from the Malabar coast of India west to Morocco. Later, in order to break the monopoly of the Arabs, the Europeans sent Columbus and da Gama to find the legendary Spice Coast, which was one of the causes of the geographical discovery.
The pattern of the whole world began to take on new changes. By this time it was the 15th century, and the Sogdians, as a people, had been buried in the shadows of history.
As a result of the trade network, there was a considerable factor in the glorious culture of the Tang Dynasty that came from the Sogdian background. To this day, Datang culture still contains cultural elements with deep Sogdian roots.
At the same time, culture is interactive. While the Sogdians assumed the role of trade, they also spread books, cultures and ideas between the East and the West, providing more possibilities for the integration and exchange of world cultures after a thousand years.
Resources:
Lin Meicun, Fifteen Lectures on the Archaeology of the Silk Road, 2006, Peking University Press
Qian Yun and Jin Hailong, "Research on oasis on the Silk Road", published by Xinjiang People's Publishing House in 2010
Rong Xinjiang, "The Silk Road and East-West Cultural Exchanges", 2015, Peking University Press
Rong Xinjiang and Zhang Zhiqing, From Samarkand to Chang'an: Cultural Relics of the Sogdians in China, Beijing Library Press, 2004
Rong Xinjiang, "Medieval China and Sogdian Civilization", 2014, Life, Reading, and Xinzhi Triptych Bookstore
END
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