Battles of Ancient China by Chris Peers

Author:Chris Peers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Ancient / General
ISBN: 9781473830110
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

First Forays into Central Asia

As early as 200 BC the Emperor Kao-ti had encountered the problem of dealing with horse-archer armies when he led an army in pursuit of some Hsiung-nu raiders, only to find himself ambushed and his lines of communication cut by hordes of light cavalry. He extricated his army by buying the enemy off with tribute and the promise of a Han princess in marriage for their ruler, and after this an uneasy peace endured for several decades. In 138 BC, however, the Emperor Wu-ti reversed the policy of appeasement. He had received reports of another tribe known as the Yueh-chih, who lived far to the west, and were said to be mortal enemies of the Hsiung-nu. A young officer named Chang Ch’ien was sent to contact them and returned thirteen years later after many adventures, having escaped twice from Hsiung-nu captivity. The Yueh-chih had turned out to be reluctant to join in a war, but Chang had established relations with several other Central Asian peoples who were keen to open relations with China. Best of all, they seemed to offer a tactical solution to the Hsiung-nu problem. As Ssu-ma-Ch’ien reported, the people of Ferghana, for example, lived in walled cities, grew crops and numbered in the hundreds of thousands, but they retained the fighting traditions of their nomadic ancestors and ‘can shoot arrows while on horseback’. The horses of Ferghana were so superior to the Han mounts that they were known as ‘Heavenly Horses’. Acquiring a supply became a major aim of Chinese policy in Central Asia, but despite their apparent friendliness the rulers of Ferghana refused to part with what they must have realised was a vital strategic asset. Nevertheless Wu-ti ordered a massive surprise attack on the unsuspecting Hsiung-nu, which drove them out of the region known as the Ordos, or ‘Place of Tents’, in the great loop of the Yellow River where the cultivated land met the steppe. This gain was consolidated by settling hundreds of thousands of Chinese farmers in the Ordos, and from this advanced base a series of expeditions was sent west to open the road to Ferghana. Between 121 and 119 BC cavalry armies under Wei Ch’ing and Huo Ch’u-p’ing defeated five Hsiung-nu chiefdoms along the border and forced them to submit, and in 108 BC the important trading centre of Turfan, on the Silk Route to the west, was occupied by a Chinese garrison. Already the silk trade with Rome and the Middle East was becoming an important source of revenue for China, even though it was carried out by Central Asian middlemen, and the producers and customers at either end of the route had no direct contact with each other. Now the lure of trade, as well as military strategy, was drawing the Chinese westwards.

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