Thread by @Fall_of_Civ_Pod

One of the most remarkable journeys to take place in the ancient world was that of the Chinese explorer Gan Ying.

In the first century, he became the first recorded human to travel the whole length of the route known as the Silk Road, and wrote a remarkable account of his trip.

For the Han dynasty of ancient China, the first century was a time of unprecedented contact with the rest of the world.

They had succeeded in re-conquering a fractious desert region to the West known as the Tarim basin, a sandy depression in the heart of the Tibetan Plateau.

The Tarim basin is home to the Taklamakan Desert, the second largest shifting sands desert in the world.

This desert is the only route to the West in the north of China, and so for millennia trade caravans of Bactrian camels have passed through the oasis cities of this region.

Through cities like Kashgar, Chinese goods like jade and silk had spread to the rest of the world long before diplomatic contact was ever established.

For instance, we have even found traces of silk in the hair of an Egyptian mummy of the 21st Dynasty, dating to around 1070 BC.

But after its westward expansion, China was closer than ever before to the people of the West. Now only a narrow strip of mountains in the Hindu Kush separated them.

It was now time to establish a diplomatic mission, and to find out more about the empires of the West.

The Chinese conquest of the Tarim Basin also came at a uniquely interesting time.

The rise of the Kushan Empire in central Asia meant that there was now an unbroken chain of imperial powers stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic.

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These empires maintained the roads and kept them safe from bandits.

And so it was now possible to travel the whole length of the Eurasian landmass while passing through the territories of only four empires.

Han China --> The Kushan Empire --> The Parthian Empire...

And far to the West, the Han Chinese had heard of an even great power, which was rumoured to rival their own in size and wealth.

They knew this power only by the name "Da Qin" (大秦).

The diplomat Gan Ying was given a mission: to travel the length of the continent, and find out more about this mysterious power of Da Qin.

And so, in the year 97 AD, more than a thousand years before the birth of Marco Polo, he set off.

Gan Ying travelled for what must have been many months, across the shifting sands of the Taklamakan desert, and into the high valleys of the Kushan Empire.

He would have traversed the arid lands of Pakistan, and passed the snow-capped peaks of Iran.

Finally, he reached the distant land of Da Qin, which we know by a more familiar name:

Rome.

When Gan Ying arrived at the borders of Rome in Syria, he made detailed notes about what he saw of this mysterious foreign empire.

The Chinese of the time were proud of their own postal system, and so Gan Ying was particularly impressed to see the workings of the Romans' own.

Gan Ying also made detailed notes about the customs and ways of the Romans, which seemed strange and foreign to him.

He was also amazed to hear about the system for appointing Roman emperors - although it does seem that the Romans gave him a slightly "sanitised" version of their political system.

As befitted his role as a trade delegate, Gan Ying also made detailed notes on the goods that the Romans produced and exported, showing the expansive trade network that Rome operated.

At this time, Han China and Rome were roughly comparable in size and population.

Rome: 5 million km²
Han China: 6 million km²

Rome: 56 million people
Han China: > 60 million

At this time, it's thought that half of all humans on earth lived in either the Roman or Han Empires.

But, sadly, Gan Ying never actually made it to the city of Rome.

He reached the shores of a sea that may have been either the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf. And there some Parthian sailors discouraged him from continuing his journey. They told him:

While the Mediterranean could be dangerous, this is a great exaggeration.

For centuries, the Parthians had grown rich off the lucrative trade running between Rome and China. It's possible these men lied to Gan Ying because they didn’t want the Chinese cutting out the middle man.

But it’s also possible that Gan Ying was simply tired of his journey, and wanted to go home. At the sight of the lapping waves of the Mediterranean, he may simply have decided that he would make something up and head back to his family.

After all, who back home would know?

The journey of Gan Ying reminds us that the ancient world was often more connected than we assume. Even in these earliest days, we have always reached out across borders and geographical divides.

Today, Gan Ying remains a remarkable testament to the spirit of human exploration.

Thanks for listening!

If you'd like to learn more about the Han Dynasty's rise, and the corruption, greed and betrayal that led to its final, dramatic fall, you can hear more in Episode 10 of Fall of Civilizations: The First Empire in Flames.

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