He was supposed to forge a military alliance. He opened the trade routes that connected the ancient world.

Zhang Qian and the Opening of the Silk Road

China's diplomat discovers the western world — and gets captured twice

Zhang Qian, China's diplomat to the western world, survived 13 years including a decade of imprisonment to return with knowledge that created the Silk Road.

In approximately 130 BC, the Chinese diplomat Zhang Qian returned to Emperor Wu's court in Chang'an after a remarkable odyssey that had lasted thirteen years. He had set out to forge an alliance against the nomadic Xiongnu confederation — and returned having discovered that the known world was far larger than anyone in China had imagined.

Emperor Wu had dispatched Zhang with a mission: find the Yuezhi, a people displaced by the Xiongnu, and persuade them to join a military alliance. Zhang set out with 100 men. The Xiongnu captured him within the first year. He spent a decade as their prisoner, married a Xiongnu woman, had children — and never forgot his mission.

When he finally escaped, he traveled westward through the Fergana Valley (in modern Uzbekistan) and Bactria (modern Afghanistan), where he found Chinese goods already present from indirect trade routes. He discovered the Dayuan people's magnificent "heavenly horses," which Emperor Wu would later covet so intensely he fought wars to obtain them.

Zhang Qian never achieved his military objective — the Yuezhi had no interest in fighting their old enemies. But his detailed reports transformed Chinese knowledge of the world an…

💡 The 'heavenly horses' Zhang Qian reported — Ferghana horses — were considered divine and Emperor Wu sent 60,000 soldiers on two campaigns to capture just a few thousand.