COVER STORY
唐代的漫漫征途，明代的发现之旅，当代的商贸道路……三个故事带你走过丝绸之路
Three stories from three eras on the Silk Road It’s difficult to say when the Silk Road began or what it constitutes. Indeed, it obviously isn’t a road at all—merely a ries of outposts, oas, fortress—and it’s not as if silk was the main commodity , carrying everything from armies and gold to priests and jade. But, surely , the Silk Road is a tale of the mysteries, wonders, and appetites of the East, of China. The road has changed hands from emperors and kings to local bandits and rebels. None of them owned it; they simply rode in its wake.
Perhaps what most defines the Silk Road is that it endures. It was built in the fires of battle during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), but the path to and the hope of the East existed long before. Long after the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) put the Silk Road in its heyday in the cond Pax Sinica, the Silk Road remained. Even when China itlf was completely overrun by the Mongols of the North, the Silk Road thrived. And, today , even as shipping lanes and international logistics have made the path all but obsolete, the Silk Road endures.
So, where then can the Silk Road be found? Where el but in the enduring stories and people that made it happen—that bore its journeys, that protected it, learned from it, succeeded from it, and died by it. History often records the most famous: Marco Polo, Xuanzang, Genghis Khan; but the Silk Road has a million tales to tell and all of them came at a cost. With each step on the Silk Road, one steps over a story . Here are three of them: a general, a rvant, and a long-haul trucker.
I
e f
o a g
y b
s n o
I
t a r
t s u
l
l I
五班口号霸气押韵
HIS FATHER WOULD STILL GIVE HIM WORRIED LOOKS, BELIEVING HIM TO BE TOO GENTLE AND TOLERANT FOR MILITARY LIFE
Under the scorching midday sun, amidst the drifting dust, the clatter of hoofs, the clang of iron, arrows
swishing through the air, screaming echoed in the valley of the Talas River. It was a summer day in 751 when General Gao Xianzhi (高仙芝) anxiously oversaw the battle—the fifth day since the Tang army engaged the Black-robed Dashi (an ancient Chine name for the Arab Abbasid Calilphate), and the odds were not in the Tang’s favor.
As he watched the glare of shattered armor and the gushing red of fallen soldiers, the stalwart General Gao refud to waver.
His success had elevated him to the very top of the
Tang military ranks, the highest military commissioner of Xiyu (西域), the western region of the Tang Empire, in charge of 30,000 troops spread over four military towns and garrisons, as well as the power to command soldiers from Tang’s many dependent states in the region.
Ahead of him lay a grand fortress, above which black triangle flags billowed in the wind—the city of Talas (near the modern city of Taraz of Jambyl Province in Kazakhstan) and Gao’s ultimate goal. It was a rich city nurtured by the melt water of the snowy mountains, a fertile oasis. Farmers, cattle breeders, craftsmen, and merchants from various nations abounded in this major center of trade, stopping to replenish their stock and ll their wares on what would later be known as the Silk Road. But, this oasis came at a price; every major power wanted it for themlves.
General Gao Xianzhi was a descendent of the Goguryeo (an ancient Korean kingdom), a state
conquered by the Tang in 666, and his father rved as a general guarding Tang’s west, bringing his son into the
military world. By the age of 20, Gao had grown into a good-looking young man, an expert in hor riding and archery , full of courage and decisiveness. But from time to time, his father would still give him worried looks, believing him to be too gentle and tolerant for military life. Now an experienced co
过去式单词mmander, Gao recalled tho looks with pride, knowing he had proved his father wrong, especially with his career defining victory over the Tubo in 747.
A strong rival for influence in the Pamir Mountains and Kashmir region, Tubo (an ancient Tibetan state) married a princess to the king of a small country known as Lesr Bruzha (Gilgrit, Pakistan), exerting control over its affairs. Along with more than 20 other previous dependant states of Tang, Lesr Bruzha stopped paying yearly tribute. More importantly , a path to the West was blocked. Three generals were nt to take the states back, all failing until General Gao was appointed.
The expedition over the Pamir Mountains was arduous. Gao managed to effectively mobilize around 20,000 soldiers and hors with plentiful supplies at a sickening altitude and over the glaciers, a two-month march. When they arrived, the troops still had the energy to fight. From there, he reached Lianyun Fort (Langar, Afghanistan) guarded by a few thousand Tubo soldiers, with its major force of 8 to 9,000 stationed a few kilometers behind. Gao’s army managed to cross a raging river in the night and breach the fortress in the morning while the enemy was barely awake. The battle lasted the entire day . By sundown, Gao’s troops slaughtered 5,000, captured 1,000, and the rest fled in panic.
After a short rest, a 4,600-meter ice mountain became Gao’s newest obstacle. The soldiers were terrified; even
伤感签名Lord of the Mountains
栾姓氏怎么读
if they survived the cold and the climb, there could
be hostile forces waiting for them on the other side. But, Gao knew that forward was their only choice. In order to convince his soldiers, he told them that on the other side was a friendly state that would welcome their arrival. He nt 20 some pioneers to climb the mountain first, disguid as locals. It may have been an accurate divination or perhaps just luck, but when the troops climbed ov野生灵芝怎么吃
er the mountain to the city at the foot of the mountain, the previously Tubo controlled state didn’t put up a fight, opening its gate to the Tang troops. For Gao and his army, the worst was over. Forces were nt
花儿向阳开to Lesr Bruzha, capturing its king and his wife, the Tubo princess, all while blocking Tubo reinforcements by destroying a key bridge.
Military campaigns like this won General Gao wealth and fame, and the gentleness and tolerance Gao’s father saw in the young man faded. It was Gao’s conquest of Shi (Tashkent, Uzbekistan) in 750 that ultimately lead
to the battle of Talas. At the time, Gao accud the country of being disrespectful to the Tang. Its king swiftly surrendered. While pretending to sign a peace treaty, Gao attacked the capital of Shi while its guard was down. He captured the king, who was later nt to the emperor’s court and beheaded. The elderly and the weak among the captives were not spared, while Gao filled his own pockets with loot. The Prince of Shi fled and recounted Gao’s war crimes to the nearby states, and, angered by such atrocities, many states decided to help the Caliphate, a major and rising power in the area, to fight the Tang. Knowing this, Gao planned a preemptive strike. But, this time, he was facing a differe
nt opponent. Serving as the enemy commander, the Persian slave-born military genius Abu Muslin had recently helped the ambitious Caliph As-Saffah ize the throne a year before. With the information on Tang’s imminent attack, the Caliphate was more than ready when he arrived. Although the specific numbers of the forces are still a subject of debate, historical records from both sides show the Arabs had at least double the number of soldiers. Here, General Gao would finally find defeat.
General Gao fought bravely on the field of battle, but it wasn’t until his right-hand man pulled him from battle that Gao realized that failure was palpable. Night fell, and the outcome couldn’t have been any clearer. Not only were the Tang soldiers faltering, but the Qarluq mercenaries under Gao’s command turned against
him mid-battle, cutting the infantry off from the main forces and letting the Caliphate break them one by one. General Gao’s army was annihilated. As such, Gao fled, hoping to avoid the fate of so many he had captured and put to the sword. It was his first defeat and his last battle for the fate of what would someday become known as the Silk Road.
For the rest of his life, Gao wanted nothing more than vengeance against his black-robed enemy, but
a rebellion that shook the Tang Dynasty to its core soon broke out and Gao was pulled away from the West. Before Gao could get his revenge, it was done for him; his vaunted enemy Abu Muslin was beheaded when a new caliph accud him of conspiracy. A year later, the great General Gao met the same fate when, in a battle with the Tang rebels, he was fally accud of corruption. But, there is a bit more to Gao’s legacy. When Gao marched, the earth shook under his soldiers’ feet and city-states quaked at his approach; in his wake he
left a bloody trail of bodies, but also something quite unassuming but unbelievably important: paper. Among Gao’s captured army were craftsmen and papermakers. The battle of Talas is considered by many as the
event that sparked the spread of paper-making in the Arab world and later the West. War spreads violence and horror, but in the ca of the Silk Road, even the bloodiest battles led to cultural rendipity. – LIU JUE (刘珏)
T his is the story of a rvant, an Armenian named Isaac with a wife and a family in his home in Lahore. On a fateful day in around 1603, he would meet a Jesuit traveler on a doomed quest over the Silk Road. Benedict Goës sought a lost empire, a utopia. Legend spoke of a wi and just Christian king called Prester John—descended from the Three Wi Men of Christian myth hidden somewhere in Central Asia, a benevolent ruler with a mystical mirror that showed all the provinces of his rule. Benedict was on a mission to find his kingdom, a 300-year-old fable.
For safety’s sake, Benedict had taken to wearing Armenian garb and calling himlf Abdula. The Jesuit arrived in Lahore with four converted Muslims, but they were all dismisd as “uless”. Upon meeting
this strange foreigner speaking excellent Persian, Isaac took the place of the four Muslims, and on January
6, 1603, Isaac t out with Benedict and his two other companions, a Greek priest and a merchant, on a treacherous march across the Silk Road to Cathay.
It is important to mention that they were looking for Cathay, not China. For all the learning, technology, and ideology that pasd over the Silk Road, tho in the West were still confud as to
食品专业whether China and Cathay were one or two nations—with the hope that Cathay would host a descendant of the legendary Prester John.
Their journey took them north to Kashgar, where Isaac and Benedict would travel with a caravan of over 500 people. From there Isaac followed Benedict and
his entourage to Afghanistan. Thieves and murderers abounded. They traveled to Ghideli, where the bandits callously rolled boulders onto unsuspecting merchants below—so dangerous that merchants traveled with weapons in hand.
There in Kashgar, the Greek priest and the merchant gave up on their trek and turned back. For the most dangerous part of the journey, Benedict and Isaac were on their own. The relationship between the two
is perhaps debatable, but Benedict is referred to as Isaac’s master, and in Wells Williams’ 19th century The Middle Kingdom, Isaac is simply called Benedict’s “faithful
Armenian rvant”.
They traveled north of the Taklimakan Dert, by far the most treacherous part of the Silk Road, over
the dreaded Sarikol mountain range. No hor could make it, and both Isaac’s and Benedict’s mules went lame. Many in their company froze to death. Here, Isaac fell from a cliff into a freezing river, and Benedict worked for eight hours to save his life.
Benedict, despite being Isaac’s employer, was also
his passport. Passage needed to be given by the local leaders’ whims, and Benedict achieved it by trading
in European oddities. For example, the Jesuit traded a pocket watch to Mahomed Khan for the right of royal passage to Cathay.
They continued across the dert in a caravan that promid to take them all the way to Cathay. Besides the terrain and the bandits, in Benedict’s tale Muslims prented another problem for the travelers. The great Ottoman Empire was at its height in the 17th century and for Christians prented an all-purpo bad guy. Once, fearing percution, Benedict and Isaac left each other weeping, wondering if death was at hand—only to be treated to questions and dinner from their Muslim hosts.
After staying a long, dangerous while in a place known as Cialis, Isaac and Benedict made, once again, a rendipitous discovery. They met with a caravan returning from Beijing, the Cathay they so desired. As it happened, the merchants were billeted with members of his own Jesuit society in Beijing, and it was here that Benedict found that his fabled land was not to
be found—that Cathay was indeed China. In Henry
Faithful Isaac
“WHAT ANGEL HAS BROUGHT红烧牛筋
THEE HITHER TO RESCUE ME
FROM SUCH A PLIGHT?”
