Zhang Qian's expedition to the Western Regions is well known in China, and the overland Silk Road he founded has continued to play a role in the following thousands of years, benefiting today's China to this day. Zhang Qian's great contribution to Chinese history is beyond doubt, but the stories about him are not all true, and many false stories choreographed by later generations have become his "true" history in word of mouth, over-packaging. It can be said that the image of Zhang Qian circulating today is the coexistence of reality and illusion, and the level of beauty filters in some places is too high.
Statue of Zhang Qian in Yangguan
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In 139 BC, Emperor Wu of Han sent Zhang Qian on an envoy to the Western Regions, and there have been many records about why Emperor Wu sent envoys to the Western Regions and Zhang Qian's specific experience in the Western Regions, and have spawned countless stories and legends related to Zhang Qian, which will not be described in detail in this article. Due to Zhang Qian's outstanding achievements in the Western Regions, he was also made the Marquis of Bowang in 123 BC. In 114 BC, Zhang Qian died.
Zhang Qian was already famous in the world during his lifetime, and the famous historian Sima Qian, who was a contemporary of Zhang Qian, called Zhang Qian "the Marquis of great Xia" in the "Records of History", and the "Great Xia" here was in the northern region of present-day Afghanistan. In addition to the "Records of History", Ban Gu in the Book of Han used the eight characters of "Bowang Staff Festival, Receiving Meritorious Service to Bactria" to honor Zhang Qian, and the "Bowang" here refers to Zhang Qian's "Bowang Hou" for his meritorious mission to the Western Regions.
Zhang Qian was not only recorded in the history books and famous throughout the ages, but also became an idol of many young people as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, and Ban Chao followed Zhang Qian's example, throwing pen from Rong, and also making an earth-shattering great deed in the Western Regions.
Movie "Big Han Zhang Qian"
Zhang Qian's legendary experience has been packaged and created by posterity layer by layer, adding a lot of unreal colors, and we have been told in the textbooks since we were young that Zhang Qian went out to the Western Regions to bring back many new species such as alfalfa, grapes, pomegranates, walnuts, garlic and so on. In fact, the record of Zhang Qian bringing back these species from the Western Regions is not found in the history books of Zhang Qian's contemporaries. If we look at the "Records of History" and the "Book of Han" that are closest to Zhang Qian's era, we may be "surprised" to find that there is no record of Zhang Qian's introduction of alien species.
In fact, Zhang Qian's introduction of many western species to the Central Plains was first seen in the book "Natural history" of Zhang Hua of the Western Jin Dynasty. So the question is, why did Sima Qian, who lived with Zhang Qian at the same time, not know, ban Gu in the Eastern Han Dynasty, who was only more than a hundred years away from Zhang Qian, did not know, but Zhang Hua, a Western Jin dynasty man nearly 400 years later, knew that Zhang Qian had introduced so many species from the Western Regions, and wrote a big book? The mystery is worth exploring.
The Naturalist
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="11" >2. Which alien species are Zhang Qian's credit? </h1>
Zhang Hua's "Naturalist Chronicle" records that Zhang Qian brought back alfalfa, grapes, pomegranates, walnuts and other Western products, which are still commonly seen or eaten by people today. So they were really brought back by Zhang Qian? The answer is no. As far as alfalfa and grapes are concerned, considering the literature of the Han Dynasty, their introduction should be attributed to the general Li Guangli. Li Guangli went to conquer Dawan on the orders of Emperor Wu, and when he returned to China in victory, he brought back alfalfa and putao, and the "putao" here is the grape. It can be said that alfalfa and grapes are Li Guangli's "booty", but Zhang Hua attributes it to Zhang Qian's name, which is obviously his "myth" to Zhang Qian.
Li Guangli in film and television dramas
In addition to alfalfa and grapes, pomegranates are also not recorded in the "Records of History" and "Book of Han", and also appeared in Zhang Hua's "Natural History", and his statement was later quoted by contemporaries and posterity, and the Ming Dynasty Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" also regarded the introduction of pomegranates as the credit of Zhang Qian. As for walnuts, there is no relevant record in the Western Han Dynasty, and it is first found in the book "The Book of Eastern Han". The Book of Dongguan Han is a collectively revised history book, the last time was during the LingDi and Xiandi periods, and it seems that walnuts first entered China during the Eastern Han Dynasty. In many records about walnuts, most of them mention that the origin of walnuts is "Xiqiang", and this concept of "Qiang" appeared almost in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the geographical location it refers to is not the Western Region, but the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region today, which shows that Zhang Qian's return of walnuts from the Western Regions is not convincing.
Although the specific introduction time of these alien species is still controversial, one thing is certain, that is, the "Natural history", which is the myth of zhang qian bringing back many exotic species, is not convincing in itself, and cannot produce any substantive evidence.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" >3. Why is the credit attributed to Zhang Qian? </h1>
We can't help but ask, why do people think that the introduction of so many exotic species is all the credit of Zhang Qian? According to scholars, there are three reasons for such an error:
First, there were transcription errors in the process of copying the literature. In the ancient society without printing, the literature and classics were basically copied by people themselves, and it was easy to make transcription errors in the process of copying, which was very common, and then spread falsely. For example, in the "Records of History", it is clearly written that "han envoys picked grape seeds from Dawan", and in the "Naturalist", its subject language was replaced by "Zhang Qian" from "Han envoy", and "Dawan" was also replaced by "Western Regions", and the subsequent "Qi Min Zhi Shu" and "Materia Medica" all followed this statement.
Drama "Sima Qian"
Secondly, later generations have mistaken the association of place names. Zhang Qian not only sent a peaceful mission to the Western Regions, he also accompanied the army to conquer the Xiongnu, and Dawan had already destroyed the country in the Han Dynasty, which could not help but confuse Zhang Qian with the generals who later conquered the Western Regions, blurring Dawan equals the Western Regions, and eventually there was a result that people believed that Zhang Qian went out to conquer the Western Regions and brought back crops.
Finally, it is related to the atmosphere of the times when Wei Jin was talking about it. Zhang Qian has been famous since his return from a mission to the Western Regions, and the Central Plains have since opened the way to communicate with the Western Regions, and in the following hundreds of years, more and more species and related technologies from the Western Regions have been introduced into the Central Plains, and people are increasingly eager to understand their origins. The Wei and Jin dynasties in which Zhang Hua lived was an era when metaphysics was prevalent and people liked to talk about it, and this period also gave birth to many literati notes and anecdotes. In other words, the Wei and Jin dynasties were an era when people liked to create strange and chaotic gods. Zhang Hua also happens to be a kind of person who likes to collect folk rumors, and his masterpiece "Naturalist" was also compiled after collecting various rumors in society, in this case, Zhang Qian, as the founder of the Silk Road, can easily be regarded as a "hero" who brought back exotic species.
The representative of Wei and Jin metaphysics- the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="23" > Wen Shijun said:</h1>
Zhang Qian's feat of sending out the Western Regions is certainly worthy of admiration by future generations, but this does not mean that his true experience can be infinitely mythologized and arbitrarily modified, whether this myth and modification is good or bad. The two Han dynasties were a period of large-scale foreign exchanges between China, and a large number of species and new things spread from the western regions, which was the credit and contribution of countless Envoys of the Han Dynasty, and Zhang Qian was the most prominent one. We commemorate Zhang Qian, but we also want to commemorate those who have no luck to leave their names, they are not nameless people, they all deserve our respect.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="25" > reference:</h1>
1. Zou Jin: "Research on the Legend of Zhang Qian", Master's Thesis of Sichuan Normal University, 2016.
2. Deng Shaoji, "Canons and Legends: Zhang Qian in Ancient Literary Works", Yinshan Academic Journal, No. 1, 1995.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Little Sun)
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