THE ANCIENT SILK-TRADERS' ROUTE. 



379 



transmission of the silk-trade across the passes 

 into India and over the Pamir. 



The second period of the silk-trade, embracing 

 the period of direct traffic between China and 

 Turan, began with the year 114 b. c, in which 

 the first caravan set out westward, and ended 

 about 120 a. d., when the power of the Han 

 dynasty was on the wane. The direct traffic only 

 flourished when all Central Asia was subject to 

 one sovereign will. It was never more prosper- 

 ous than when the Mongols exercised supremacy 

 over the lands between China and Europe, but 

 before that time it had revived in the seventh and 

 eighth centuries, when the Tang dynasty extended 

 their rule to the Caspian Sea. One of the chief 

 circumstances which helped to develop it was the 

 building of the Great Wall, which the great Tsin- 

 shi-wang-ti erected to protect his kingdom from 

 the attacks of the Hiungnu, who had for centuries 

 molested the vassal princes and chiefs on the north- 

 ern borders of the empire. During the Han dynasty 

 (205 b. c.) the successive waves of invading hordes 

 from the steppes broke themselves against the 

 wall, and gradually falling out among themselves, 

 dispersed and retired through the Dzungarian Val- 

 ley or depression into the Aralo-Caspian Basin. 

 At the beginning of the second century, the Usun 

 people, who lived in the Alashan Mountains and 

 near the Etsina River, engaged in conflict with 

 the Yuetchi people, who lived about Kan-chow- 

 fu, and were vanquished by the latter, who mi- 

 grated through Dzungaria to Hi, where they came 

 upon the &' people. Twenty-two years later, 

 the Usun revenged themselves by driving the 

 Yuetchi out and settling themselves in Hi and 

 the Tien-shan, while the Yuetchi and the Sz' mi- 

 grated toward the Jaxartes. 



These wanderings now began to have their 

 effect on the silk-trade. In 140 b. c. Hsia-wu-ti, 

 the greatest king of the Han dynasty, wishing to 

 break the power of the Hiungnu, sent his gen- 

 eral, Tchang-kien, into Central Asia to conclude 

 a treaty of alliance with the Yuetchi. This is the 

 first Chinese expedition to the west of which we 

 hear, and the report which, after thirteen years' ad- 

 venturous wanderings, the general furnished, on 

 his return home, has the appearance of a descrip- 

 tion of previously-unknown wonders. Although 

 the expedition failed in its immediate object, it 

 returned with the novel intelligence that in the 

 far west of Turan there dwelt great and civilized 

 nations, who owned grand cities and engaged in 

 commerce, who esteemed very highly the Chi- 

 nese silk, and wished further to do direct trade 

 with China, of whose greatness they had often 



heard. The emperor recognized the impor- 

 tance of acting on this wish, and endeavored by 

 every means in his power to further its fulfill- 

 ment. The ways by which this was attempted to 

 be carried out are interesting. Tchang-kien re- 

 ported that westward the Hiungnu formed an in- 

 superable bar to commerce, as they commanded 

 the entrance to the Tarim Basin. But he sug- 

 gested an alternative. Among the Tahia, a peo- 

 ple dwelling in towns south of the Upper Oxus, 

 he was surprised to see a certain sort of reed or 

 grass, and a stuff which in his opinion must have 

 come from his native home, Shu (the plain of 

 modern Ching-tu-fu). He was informed that they 

 came from a land called Yin-tu, which lay some 

 thousand li southeast of Tahia, and where the 

 people lived in hot plains and rode on elephants. 

 Through this land of Yin-tu (i.e., India) Tchang- 

 kien thought it would be easy for people from 

 Shu to reach Tahia. This suggestion was fol- 

 lowed up with energy, and a number of expeditions 

 were sent, but unfortunately failed through the 

 hostility of the mountain tribes, and led to no 

 other result than the discovery by some merchants 

 of Burmah and of the great rivers of Southeastern 

 Asia. 



In the mean time, affairs in the north took a 

 more favorable turn. A young leader, called 

 Ho-kiu-ping, placed himself at the head of a Chi- 

 nese army, and for the first time in Chinese his- 

 tory advanced into the Steppe, and easily van- 

 quished the Hiungnu, opening the road into the 

 Tarim Basin. 



This was an event of great importance for the 

 future history of China. The road referred to 

 was called the Yue-monn passage, or the way of 

 the Yue gate : yue being the name applied to the 

 jade of Khotan, and the Yue-gate being a rocky 

 defile through which the precious mineral was 

 conveyed along the only natural way between the 

 Tarim and China — a sort of depressed road be- 

 tween high mountains on the one side and a steppe 

 plateau on the other. This approach proved to 

 be the key of Central Asia and of great future 

 moment, both in political and commercial exi- 

 gencies. 



The inhabitants of the oases on the south of 

 the Tarim, freed from the presence of the Hiung- 

 nu, received the Chinese with open arms, and in 

 the year 114 b. c. the first caravan started for the 

 West. Judging from the fact that it reached the 

 land of Tahia and Ansi, it must have crossed the 

 Pamir. But the city of Tawan formed the chief 

 mart ; it lay on the Jaxartes and the way to it 

 was over the Terek Pass. From five to ten large 



