The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s5.53

c10.s5.53

We must now turn to Chang-k’ien.³ He was sent in 138 by the Han emperor, Wu-ti, as his envoy to the Yueh-chi to solicit their alliance against the common enemy, the Hiung-nu. Where the Yueh-chi were at the time, and what route Chang-k’ien took, are not recorded, but it is generally supposed that he followed the northern route through Chinese Turkestan to Kashgar; thence he would have taken the route by Irkishtam and the Terek pass to Ferghana (p. 84), which probably shows that he expected to find the Yueh-chi still north of the Jaxartes. On his way through Chinese Turkestan he was captured by the Hiung-nu and kept in more or less honourable captivity for some ten years; finally he escaped with his attendants and proceeded on his mission as though nothing had happened, a fact which illustrates the man’s force of character. He reached Ta-yuan (Ferghana); the Saca government passed him through to the K’ang-kiu and they in turn to the Yueh-chi,⁴ then camped between Samarcand and the Oxus. This shows that part of the K’ang-kiu, who had perhaps received an accession of strength from the Sai-wang, had, like the Yueh-chi, crossed the Jaxartes and now lapped Ferghana round on the north-west and west; probably the Yueh-chi had driven part of the horde across before them, for Chang-k’ien says that the K’ang-kiu to the south of the river were ‘under the political influence of’ (i.e. subject to) the Yueh-chi as those north of the river were to the Hiung-nu.¹ They may possibly have extended to the Samarcand country,² though if they did it was probably later. But the reason that Ta-yuan entrusted Chang-k’ien to their safe-conduct, which would mean for him a considerable détour to the westward, more probably was, not merely that they were vassals of the Yueh-chi, but that Samarcand was still maintaining itself in some sort of quasi-independence and blocking the direct road; the nomads had no chance of taking a properly fortified town by assault, and could only bring it to terms by ravaging its lands year by year till it agreed to pay tribute for them, as some cities in Ionia had bought off the Galatae. Chang-k’ien failed to obtain the alliance of the Yueh-chi, who told him that they were tired of fighting and trekking and only wanted a peaceful life in the rich country which they had at last secured, and returned to China by the more difficult southern route from Badakshan over the Pamirs and so through Chinese Turkestan; he was again captured by the Hiung-nu, but after a year’s captivity he reached China in 126. In 115 he was sent on a mission to the Wu-sun, then apparently about Lake Issyk Kul (pp. 276 *sq.*) and from there sent out subordinate envoys to visit the Western Countries up to and including Parthia, a country he himself never saw. He died in 114, a year after his return to China.