Ban Chao

Ban Chao was a Han officer. He went out to the Western Regions in 73 as a subordinate of the general Dou Gu and stayed there for most of his working life. The oasis kingdoms of the Tarim basin had belonged to the Northern Xiongnu. Ban Chao took them away one after another, with small forces and with the troops of the states he had already won.^[1] From 91 he was Protector-General of the Western Regions, with his seat at Kucha. In 94 more than fifty states gave hostages to the Han.^[2] He came home in 102 at the age of seventy-one and died a month later.^[1]

Youth

Ban Chao, courtesy name Zhongsheng, came from Pingling in Fufeng. He was the youngest son of Ban Biao, magistrate of Xu.^[1] His elder brother Ban Gu was called to the capital as an editor of books. Chao went with his mother. They were poor, and Chao copied documents for the government for a fee.^[1] One day, worn out, he threw down his brush. A man of ambition, he said, ought to do what Fu Jiezi and Zhang Qian had done: win merit in foreign lands and be made a marquis. He could not spend his life at the writing desk. His companions laughed.^[1] Ban Gu is the historian who wrote the Han Shu.^[3]

The mission of 73

In 73 the general Dou Gu went out against the Xiongnu. Chao served as acting major. He led troops separately against Yiwu. He fought at the Puleixi sea, where he took many heads.^[1] Yiwu is the oasis of Hami. The Puleixi sea is taken to be the Barkol lake to its north-west.^[4] The campaign took Yiwu. The Han put a commandant there for military farming. The states of the Western Regions, Khotan among them, sent sons to the Han as hostages. The Hou Han Shu says that the Western Regions had been cut off for sixty-five years.^[5] The figure probably counts from AD 9, when Wang Mang took the throne. From the end of his reign in AD 23, the break lasted fifty years.^[6] Dou Gu thought Chao able. He sent him to the Western Regions with the secretary Guo Xun.^[1]

Shanshan

At Shanshan the king, Guang, received Chao with great respect. Then he suddenly grew cool. Chao told his men that this must mean that envoys of the Northern Xiongnu had arrived and that the king did not know whom to follow. He called in an attendant of the king. He told the man that the Xiongnu envoys had come several days ago and asked where they were. The attendant, frightened, told everything.^[1]

Chao shut the man in. He called together his thirty-six officers and men and drank with them. When the wine was warm, he spoke. They were all in a far country, he said, and wished to win great merit and wealth. The Xiongnu envoys had been in Shanshan only a few days, and the king’s respect was gone. If the king seized them and handed them over to the Xiongnu, their bones would be food for wolves. The men said that in this danger they would follow the major in life and death. Chao said that without entering the tiger’s den one did not get the cub. The one plan was to attack the envoys with fire by night, so that they would not know how many the Han were and would be seized with fear. The men wanted to consult the secretary. Chao answered angrily that the secretary was a clerk who would be frightened, and the secret would leak. The men agreed.^[1]

That night they went to the Xiongnu camp. The wind was strong. Chao placed ten men with drums behind the huts. They were to beat the drums and shout when they saw fire. He posted the rest with bows and crossbows on both sides of the gate. Then he set fire to the camp, using the wind, and the drums sounded in front and behind. The Xiongnu fell into confusion. Chao killed three with his own hand. His men beheaded the envoy and thirty of his followers. The hundred or so who were left burned to death.^[1] Next morning he told Guo Xun. Xun was shocked and showed it on his face. Chao raised his hand and said that although the secretary had not gone, he would not claim the whole credit for himself. Xun was glad.^[1] Chao summoned the king of Shanshan and showed him the head of the Xiongnu envoy. The whole kingdom was seized with terror. Chao reassured the king. The king sent a son to the Han as a hostage.^[1]

Dou Gu reported Chao’s merit. He asked the court to choose a new envoy for the Western Regions. The emperor replied that when there was an officer like Ban Chao, there was no reason to choose another. He made Chao military major and told him to finish what he had begun. Dou Gu wished to give him more troops. Chao said that the thirty-odd men he had would be enough. More men, he said, would be a burden in an emergency.^[1]

Khotan and Shule

In Khotan the king, Guangde, had just beaten Suoju and was the strongest on the southern road. The Xiongnu had sent an envoy to watch over his kingdom. Guangde’s courtesy was slight. The sorcerer of the kingdom said that the god was angry that the king wished to turn to the Han. The king, he said, should ask the Han envoy for his bay horse and offer it to the god. Guangde asked Chao for the horse. Chao had learned what lay behind the request. He said he would give the horse and told the sorcerer to come and fetch it. When the sorcerer came, Chao cut off his head and sent it to the king with a rebuke. Guangde had heard what Chao did at Shanshan. In terror, he attacked and killed the Xiongnu envoy. He submitted to Chao.^[1]

At Kucha the king, Jian, had been set up by the Xiongnu. He relied on their prestige and held the northern road. He had destroyed Shule, killed its king and put a man of Kucha, Doudi, on the throne there. In the spring of the following year, Chao took a short cut to Shule. He stopped ninety li from the city where Doudi lived. He sent an officer, Tian Lü, ahead to persuade Doudi to submit. If Doudi would not, Tian Lü was to seize him. Doudi saw that Tian Lü was lightly escorted and had no thought of yielding. Tian Lü used the moment when Doudi was unprepared and bound him. Chao hurried up and summoned the officers of Shule. He explained to them what was wrong in the rule of Kucha and set up Zhong, the nephew of the old king. The people were glad. Zhong and his officers asked for Doudi’s death. Chao refused, to show his authority and good faith, and let him go. Shule thus became an enemy of Kucha.^[1]

Alone in Shule

In 75 the emperor Ming died. Yanqi took advantage of the national mourning and killed the Protector-General, Chen Mu. Chao was isolated. Kucha and Gumo attacked Shule again and again. Chao held the city of Pantuo with Zhong, the two supporting each other. With few men, they resisted for more than a year.^[1] The new emperor Zhang called him home. He feared that Chao could not stand alone. As Chao left, the commandant of Shule, Li Yan, said that if the Han envoy abandoned them, Kucha would destroy them. Then he cut his throat. In Khotan the king and nobles wept and clung to Chao’s horse by the legs, so that he could not go on. Chao feared that Khotan would never let him leave. He also wished to carry out his plan in any case. He turned back to Shule. Two cities of Shule had gone over to Kucha in the meantime. Chao seized the rebels and beheaded them. He beat Weitou and killed more than six hundred.^[1]

Building the force

Chao then led the troops of Shule, Kangju, Khotan and Gumi, ten thousand men, against the Stone City of Gumo. He took it and took seven hundred heads. He wished to settle all the states and petitioned for troops. The emperor judged the merit possible. Xu Gan of Pingling, who shared Chao’s aims, offered himself. In 80 Xu Gan was made acting major. He went to Chao with a thousand convict soldiers and volunteers.^[1]

For the attack on Kucha, Chao wished to use the Wusun, who were strong. He reminded the throne that the Wusun were a great state with a hundred thousand bowmen. Wudi had married a princess to them, he said, and Xuandi had in the end had their help. An envoy should now be sent. The emperor agreed. In 83 Chao was made chief clerk in command of troops and given drums and banners. Xu Gan became military major.^[1]^[7]

The guard officer Li Yi escorted the Wusun envoys. At Khotan, when Kucha was attacking Shule, he lost heart. He wrote to the throne that the work in the Western Regions could not succeed. He added that Chao lived in comfort in foreign lands with a beloved wife and son. Chao sighed that he was not Zeng Shen and yet had heard the slander three times. He sent away his wife. The emperor knew Chao to be loyal and rebuked Li Yi. Chao sent Li Yi on to the capital with the Wusun hostage, though Xu Gan advised him to keep the man who had slandered him. Chao said that Yi had slandered him and that he was therefore sending him away. To keep him for his own satisfaction, he said, would be disloyal.^[1]^[8]

Suoju, Kangju and the Yuezhi

Suoju bribed the king of Shule, Zhong. Zhong rebelled and held the city of Wuji. Chao made Zhong’s deputy, Cheng Da, king in his place and attacked with all the loyal troops. After half a year, Kangju sent picked troops to help Zhong. At that time the Yuezhi had just made a marriage alliance with Kangju. Chao sent an envoy with much silk to the Yuezhi king, to tell the Kangju king to withdraw. Kangju stopped the war. It seized Zhong and took him home. Wuji then surrendered.^[1] Three years later, Zhong persuaded the Kangju king to lend him troops. He took Sunzhong and came to terms with Kucha in secret. Then he sent to Chao to feign surrender. Chao saw through it and appeared to agree. Zhong came with light cavalry, glad, and Chao had a feast prepared with music. When the wine had gone round, he ordered his officers to bind Zhong and cut off his head. He broke Zhong’s men and killed more than seven hundred. The southern road was open.^[1]

The next year Chao raised twenty-five thousand men from Khotan and the other states and went against Suoju again. The king of Kucha sent his left general with the troops of Wensu, Gumo and Weitou, fifty thousand in all. Chao called his officers and the king of Khotan together. They were too few, he said. The best plan was to scatter: the king of Khotan was to go east and he himself west, at night at the sound of the drum. He quietly let his prisoners go. The king of Kucha heard of it with joy. He blocked Chao on the west with ten thousand horse. The king of Wensu blocked Khotan on the east with eight thousand. Chao knew that both had left. He called his units together in secret and at cockcrow dashed to the camp at Suoju. The Hu, as the Hou Han Shu calls the peoples of the steppe, fled in panic, and more than five thousand were killed. Suoju submitted, and the Kucha force broke up. From then on Chao’s name shook the Western Regions.^[1]

The Yuezhi had once helped the Han against Jushi. That year they sent gems, the fuba and lions as tribute. They asked for a Han princess in marriage. Chao refused and sent their envoy home. The Yuezhi resented it. They sent their deputy king, Xie, with seventy thousand men against Chao.^[1] The clash is dated to 90. The Yuezhi of the text are the Kushans.^[9] Chao’s men were few and afraid. He told them that the Yuezhi had come over the Pamirs from thousands of li away without transport, and that there was nothing to fear. They should gather the grain and hold fast. In a few tens of days, the Yuezhi would be starving and ready to surrender. Xie attacked, could not take the camp, and plundered without result. Chao reckoned that Xie’s food was nearly gone and that Xie would ask Kucha for help. He sent a few hundred men to wait on the eastern border. Xie sent riders with gold, silver and pearls to bribe Kucha. Chao’s men killed them all and showed Xie their heads. Xie asked pardon and begged to be allowed to go home alive. Chao let him go. The Yuezhi were awed. After that they brought tribute every year.^[1]

Protector-General

The next year Kucha, Gumo and Wensu all submitted. Chao was made Protector-General, and Xu Gan became his chief clerk. Chao put Baiba on the throne of Kucha. With the major Yao Guang he forced Kucha to depose its king Youlido, whom Yao Guang took to the capital. Chao lived at Tangan city in Kucha, and Xu Gan was stationed in Shule. Only Yanqi, Weixu and Weili, which had destroyed the earlier Protector-General, still held back. All the others were settled.^[1] The Hou Han Shu’s chapter on the Western Regions dates this to the third year of Yongyuan, 91. It says that the Wuji colonel was restored at Gaochang in the Front Jushi land.^[5] Kucha fell in 91. Yanqi followed three years later, in 94.^[7] The Han colony at Gaochang is placed at the ruined city of Idikutshahri near Turfan.^[10]

Yanqi, 94

In the autumn of the sixth year of Yongyuan, 94, Chao raised the troops of eight states, Kucha and Shanshan among them: seventy thousand men, together with fourteen hundred officers, soldiers and merchants. He marched against Yanqi. At the border of Weili he sent word that the Protector-General had come to calm three states. If they wished to mend their ways, they should send their chiefs to meet him, and the king would receive five hundred bolts of silk. Guang, the king of Yanqi, sent his left general Beijianzhi to meet Chao with ox and wine. Chao rebuked him. Beijianzhi was a Xiongnu hostage, Chao said, and now held the power of the state. The Protector-General had come, and the king was late to greet him. This was Beijianzhi’s fault. Some of Chao’s men said that Chao could kill him. Chao said that this was beyond them. The man had more power than the king. If he was killed before the Han entered the country, it would make them suspicious, and they would set a guard on the passes. Chao gave him a present and sent him back.^[1]

Guang then met Chao at Weili with his chiefs and brought him gifts. Yanqi was protected by the dangerous crossing of the Reed Bridge. Guang cut the bridge to keep the Han out. Chao crossed by another way. On the last day of the seventh month he reached Yanqi. He camped twenty li from the city in a great marsh. He surprised the king, who wanted to drive all the people into the mountains. Yuan Meng, the left marquis of Yanqi, who had once been a hostage in the capital, sent word to Chao in secret. Chao had the messenger beheaded, to show that he put no trust in him. He then called a great meeting of the kings and let it be known that he would give rich rewards. Guang, the king of Weili, Beijianzhi and others, thirty men in all, came. The chancellor Fu Jiu and others, seventeen men in all, took fright and fled into the sea. The king of Weixu did not come.^[1]

When all had sat down, Chao demanded of Guang why the king of Weixu was absent and why Fu Jiu and the others had fled. He had his officers seize Guang and the king of Weili in the old city of Chen Mu, where the earlier Protector-General had died. The two kings were beheaded, and their heads went to the capital. The troops were let loose to plunder. They cut off more than five thousand heads and took fifteen thousand people and more than three hundred thousand horses, cattle and sheep. Chao set Yuan Meng on the throne of Yanqi. He stayed half a year to calm the country. Then more than fifty states of the Western Regions gave hostages and submitted.^[1] The states as far as Tiaozhi and Anxi at the edge of the sea, forty thousand li away, sent tribute through several interpreters.^[5]

In the years 89 to 91, Han armies under Dou Xian and his officers, together with the Southern Xiongnu, broke the Northern Xiongnu in the steppe, as told in the Han campaigns against the Northern Xiongnu.^[11] Some scholars hold that the collapse of the north had causes beyond those defeats. They count Chao’s work in the Tarim basin among them, since it cut the northern court off from the oases.^[12] A second account puts the same point in economic terms. From 73 Chao’s campaigns secured the Tarim basin and the silk routes for the Han. The Northern Xiongnu lost the wealth and supplies they had drawn from there, and their position worsened. They then made excessive demands on the peoples they ruled, and those peoples rebelled.^[13]

Gan Ying, 97

In the ninth year of Yongyuan, 97, Chao sent his officer Gan Ying to Daqin. Gan Ying reached Tiaozhi on the coast. When he was about to cross, the sailors at the western edge of Anxi told him that the sea was wide. With a good wind, they said, the crossing took three months. With a slow wind it took two years. Travellers carried food for three years. The sea made men homesick, and many died. Gan Ying heard this and stopped.^[5]

Return and death

Chao felt that he had been long in a far land and that he was old. He longed for home. In the twelfth year of Yongyuan, 100, he petitioned the throne.^[1] After three years without an answer, his sister, the wife of Cao Shou, wrote to the emperor. Her text is preserved. She wrote of him as the Protector-General and Marquis of Dingyuan. He had gone out with the will to give his life and had been rewarded far beyond his small merit. When the disaster of Chen Mu cut the roads, he had turned about alone in distant lands. He had explained the case to the states and used their troops. In every battle he had been first. The men who had come out with him had all died. He was almost seventy and sick. There was no black left in his hair, his two hands were numb, and his hearing and sight were failing. He walked with a stick. The barbarians, she wrote, were rebellious by nature and insulted the old. If there were a sudden attack, he could no longer follow his will, and the merit of generations would be lost. She had a letter from him taking leave for ever. Let him return alive and see the court again.^[1] The emperor was moved and called him back.^[1]

The Hou Han Shu says that Chao spent thirty-one years in the Western Regions. His sister’s petition says thirty.^[1] In the eighth month of the fourteenth year, he reached Luoyang and was made colonel of the sound-shooters. His old complaint of the chest and ribs grew worse on arrival. The emperor sent a palace eunuch to ask after him and gave him medicine. Chao died in the ninth month, aged seventy-one. The court mourned, sent envoys to the sacrifice and gave generous funeral gifts. His son Xiong succeeded to the marquisate.^[1] By one reckoning, he was born in 32.^[14]

The Wuji colonel Ren Shang took over from him as Protector-General. Ren Shang said that Chao had spent over thirty years in foreign lands, and that he himself was a small man who followed him in an office of heavy weight and shallow thought. He asked for advice. Chao answered that he was old and had lost his wits. The officers and men beyond the frontier, he said, were not dutiful sons and grandsons but had been sent out for their offences. The barbarians had the hearts of birds and beasts and were hard to feed and easy to spoil. Ren Shang was strict and hasty. In clear water there were no big fish, and a careful rule would not bring harmony below. Ren Shang should be free and easy, forgive small faults and hold only the main lines. After Chao left, Ren Shang told his friends that he had expected some marvellous plan from Master Ban, and that what Chao had said was ordinary. A few years later the Western Regions rose. Ren Shang was called back for his fault, as Chao had warned.^[1]

After Ban Chao

When the Western Regions rebelled, Chao’s youngest son Ban Yong was made military major. He went out of Dunhuang with his brother Xiong to bring back the Protector-General and the troops of the Western Regions. The office of Protector-General was abolished. For more than ten years, no Han officials were in the Western Regions.^[1] The Northern Xiongnu took the states back into their sphere. With them they raided the frontier for more than ten years.^[5]

The Dunhuang prefect Cao Zong sent a chief clerk, Suo Ban, with more than a thousand men to hold Yiwu. The kings of Front Jushi and of Shanshan came to him and submitted. A few months later, the Northern Chanyu and the king of Rear Jushi together killed Suo Ban. They drove out the Front king and took the northern road. Dowager Deng called Ban Yong to a council at the court. Many ministers favoured closing the Jade Gate and giving up the Western Regions. Ban Yong argued against it. In his speech he is said to have told the court that the Xiongnu had sent envoys to the oasis states after the Tibetan revolt. They demanded all the taxes that had fallen due and had not been paid, raised the sums and set a very short term. Shanshan and Jushi were frightened and angry.^[1]^[15] He is said to have argued that the Xiongnu lived off the oases, drawing taxes, soldiers and horses from them.^[1]^[16] He is also said to have called for a military colony at Loulan, to cover the roads from Karashahr and Kucha, to steady Shanshan and Khotan and to check raids from the north.^[1]^[17] The court restored a camp of three hundred men at Dunhuang and a deputy colonel for the Western Regions there. Even so, the Xiongnu with Jushi often raided afterwards, and Hexi suffered much.^[1]

Ban Yong later went out again as chief clerk of the Western Regions, with five hundred men, to Liuzhong.^[5] Liuzhong is the Lukchun of today, in the depression of Turfan near Gaochang.^[18] The choice of seat can be read as a sign that the northern road was then the one in common use.^[19] On one dating, he was appointed in 123, reached Loulan in January 124 and settled the Jushi lands in 126.^[20] Kucha submitted to him. With troops from Dunhuang, Zhangye and Jiuquan and from the states, he beat the king of Rear Jushi, Junjiu. He took eight thousand heads and fifty thousand animals. He captured Junjiu and a Xiongnu envoy bearing a tally. He beheaded them where Suo Ban had died. Later he beat the Huyan king, who fled. Twenty thousand of the king’s people surrendered. He took a cousin of the chanyu and had the new king of Rear Jushi cut him down with his own hand. This was to set Jushi and the Xiongnu at odds. On the same dating, the campaign against the Huyan king fell in the winter of 126.^[21] When the Northern Chanyu came into Rear Jushi with ten thousand horse, Ban Yong’s captain drove him off.^[1] Only the king of Yanqi, Yuan Meng, had not yet submitted. In the attack on him, the Dunhuang prefect Zhang Lang arrived early to clear his own offence. He took Yuan Meng’s surrender and went home. Yuan Meng did not bind himself and sent only a son. Ban Yong was condemned for being late. He was put in prison and dismissed. He died at home.^[1]

The sources

Fan Ye closes the chapter of the Hou Han Shu on the Western Regions with a judgement. Zhang Qian, he says, had the ambition to go far, and Ban Chao rose with the wish to be made a marquis. Both won merit in the far west.^[5] The chapter sends its reader to the biography of Chao for the detail of Khotan, Shule and Suoju.^[5]

The family of Ban Chao stands behind the texts. His father Ban Biao began the Han Shu. His brother Ban Gu and his sister Ban Zhao continued it.^[22] A report that his son Ban Yong wrote about 125 is said to have inspired the account of the Western Regions in the Hou Han Shu.^[3]^[23] The chapter itself ends by saying that it was all recorded by Ban Yong at the end of the reign of the emperor An.^[5] The biography and the chapter on the Western Regions are by one author. They therefore do not confirm each other as independent witnesses.

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap Hou Han Shu, juan 47
^ Hou Han Shu, juan 47; Hou Han Shu, juan 88
^ a b de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 38
^ Herrmann 1910, p. 75,81,124
^ a b c d e f g h i Hou Han Shu, juan 88
^ Herrmann 1910, p. 124
^ a b Herrmann 1910, p. 125
^ Herrmann 1910, p. 89
^ Sinor 1990, p. 163
^ Herrmann 1910, p. 81–82,126
^ Hou Han Shu, juan 89
^ Sinor 1990, p. 147–148
^ Jagchid 1989, p. 65
^ Golden 1992, p. 63
^ Ögel 2015, p. 341
^ Ögel 2015, p. 343
^ Ögel 2015, p. 342
^ Herrmann 1910, p. 47,127
^ Herrmann 1910, p. 127
^ Ögel 2015, p. 344–345
^ Ögel 2015, p. 346
^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 25
^ Herrmann 1910, p. 45–46

Sources

Hou Han Shu, juan 47, 88, 89

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)
Étienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders: A History (2005)
Albert Herrmann, Die alten Seidenstrassen zwischen China und Syrien. Beiträge zur alten Geographie Asiens, Bd. 1 (1910)
Sechin Jagchid; Van Jay Symons, Peace, War, and Trade Along the Great Wall. Nomadic-Chinese Interaction through Two Millennia (1989)
Bahaeddin Ögel, Büyük Hun İmparatorluğu Tarihi II (2015)