The land Silk Road passes through Eurasia, mainly in the Asian inland between China and Europe. The geographical feature of this area is that the climate is extremely dry and the rainfall is extremely scarce. In the middle of the Silk Road, there is the Pamirs, which is called the "roof of the world". With Pamirs as the center, Himalayas, Kunlun Mountain, Karakorum Mountain, Tianshan Mountain, Altai Mountain, Alai Mountain, Hindu Kush Mountain and other mountain ranges, the ice peaks and canyons extend around, making it difficult to walk. Another unique landform and landscape here is desert and Gobi, such as Taklimakan Desert in Xinjiang, Karakum Desert in the east of Caspian Sea, and Cavil Desert in Iran, which makes people thirsty to travel. In addition, the rugged terrain of Ya Dan formed by salt crust deposition is also an important geographical obstacle. Poets in the Tang Dynasty described that "the snowy peaks are still dark, and people are often surprised when riding ice horses" (Yang Shidao's "Dragon Head Water") and "Yellow sand faces the sea in the west, and white grass reaches the sky in the north" (Cen Can's "Crossing Jiuquan and Remembering Ling Du"), which is a vivid portrayal of these geographical landscapes. The description of "there are no birds in the sky, no beasts in the sky and no aquatic plants on the ground" ("The biography of Master Sanzang") by Buddhist monks seeking Buddhist scriptures in the Western Heaven is the feeling of standing on their own feet.
However, the rivers flowing down from the snow-capped mountains standing on the edge of the desert irrigate and moisten the oases in the desert, fill the "biological vacuum" of the quicksand world, and also provide the intermediate station on the way between China and the West. Our ancestors were not isolated from the world because of unfavorable geographical conditions. Because of the need of communication, people began to explore the outside world very early.
Archaeological data unearthed in the East and the West reveal the existence of communication between the East and the West in the pre-Qin period. For example, the Neolithic ceramic nude statue found in Dongshanzui, Kazuo Mongolian Autonomous County, Liaoning Province, which is the so-called "Venus statue" in western archaeology, is very similar to the isomorphic statues unearthed in Central Europe, southern Russia and Siberia. The Shang Dynasty Hetian jade unearthed from Fu Hao's tomb in Yin Ruins in Anyang, Henan Province, and the bronze mirrors and silks of China from the 5th century BC to the 4th century BC found in Pazrik's tomb in the western foothills of Altai Mountain in Russia indicate that nomadic people in the north and northwest, such as Huns, Yues and Scots, have long played a leading role in cultural exchanges between the East and the West.
Qin and Han Dynasties unified China and accumulated the strength of the Central Plains dynasty. In the second century BC, in order to defeat the Xiongnu, a nomadic kingdom that dominated the desert and harassed the farming residents in the Central Plains, the wise emperor sent Zhang Qian to the western regions to contact the Dayue people who were driven out of Hexi by the Xiongnu and settled in the Amu Darya region. Zhang Qian experienced difficulties and obstacles. Although he did not move to Dayue, he had a comprehensive understanding of the political and geographical situation in the Western Regions. Later, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Zhang Qian to the Western Regions for the second time. There were as many as 300 delegations this time, and Zhang Qian and his party traveled more widely, reaching Dawan (Fergana), Kangju (a nomadic kingdom centered on present-day Tashkent), Dayue's family, Rest in Peace (the ancient kingdom of Parthia in Persia), Body Poison (India) and other countries. Zhang Qian's two voyages to the West broke the monopoly of nomadic people on the Silk Road trade and established direct trade relations between China and countries in Central Asia, South Asia and West Asia. The report brought back by Zhang Qian and others is also China people's first insight into the outside world. In Historical Records, Sima Qian and Ban Gu wrote it respectively? #22823; Wan Chuan and Han Shu? #35 199; From then on, Biography of Domains ended China's ancient understanding of western mythical hearsay. It is precisely because of the historical importance of Zhang Qian's development that people call the communication between Zhang Qian and the western regions "hollowing out".
The direct consequence of Zhang Qian's Western Expedition was to urge the Han Dynasty to defeat the Huns. As a result, the Han Dynasty not only established the four counties of Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan and Dunhuang in the Hexi Corridor, but also sent troops to the West Bay in the jungle, and obtained the heavenly horse that Emperor Wu dreamed of-the blood horse. By 60 BC, the Han Dynasty had established the Western Regions Duhu House in the Western Regions and controlled the Tarim Basin. Ambassadors of the Han Dynasty can get supplies from oasis kingdoms in the western regions, and it is easier to travel to the west. Ambassadors face to face on the road, and the communication is endless.
At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the relationship between the Central Plains and the Western Regions was once interrupted by Wang Mang's dictatorship. At the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Emperor Han Ming sent Ban Chao to govern the Western Regions and restore the rule of the Western Regions to the Tarim Basin. At the same time, the Xiongnu was divided into two parts, and the northern Xiongnu moved westward to the northern shore of the Black Sea under the joint attack of the southern Xiongnu and the Han Dynasty, which caused the migration of many ethnic groups in West Asia and Europe. In the history of the Silk Road, Gan Ying's voyage to the West was another feat of the people of China. In 97 AD, Gan Ying, a subordinate of Ban Chao School, the capital of the Western Regions, was sent to Daqin (Roman Empire). Gan Ying came all the way to Antioch, where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers originated in the Persian Gulf, and prepared to cross the sea to the west. However, in order to monopolize the trade between the East and Rome, the others exaggerated the danger of sailing in the Arabian Sea to Gan Ying, and prevented Gan Ying from further westward and returning on its own. Although Gan Ying didn't reach his original destination, he can still be said to be the first messenger of China and a revered hero of the times. He personally traveled more than half of the Silk Road and learned about the route from Tezinan to the Persian Gulf and bypassing the Arabian Peninsula to the Roman Empire.