Dayuan

Dayuan was the Chinese name for a wealthy, urbanized country in the Ferghana valley of Central Asia, described in the Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Han. The name probably renders “Great Ionians” and refers to the descendants of Greek colonists settled in the region by the Achaemenids and Alexander the Great, whose city Alexandria Eschate, modern Khujand, controlled the valley. Chinese envoys under Zhang Qian reached Dayuan around 130 BC and reported walled cities, vineyards and horse herds, including the “blood-sweating” horses that the Han court prized. A first Han mission was rebuffed, and in 104-101 BC Emperor Wu sent an army across the Pamirs; after a difficult campaign the Dayuan submitted, and the Han obtained breeding horses and established influence in the region. These contacts opened the route that became the Silk Road, linking China with Sogdia, Bactria and the Mediterranean world. Dayuan later passed under the Kushan and other Central Asian powers, but its name survived in Chinese geographical writing as a marker of the far west.