Ban Chao

Ban Chao the Chinese general and diplomat of the Eastern Han dynasty (32-102 AD) who reestablished Chinese control over the Central Asian oases and secured the Silk Road for more than three decades. His long campaigns across the Tarim Basin made him one of the greatest frontier commanders in Chinese history.

Early Life and Family

Ban Chao was born in 32 AD in Fufeng, in the region of present-day Shaanxi, into a family of exceptional scholarly distinction. His father Ban Biao was a noted historian, and his elder brother Ban Gu and his sister Ban Zhao would together complete the great dynastic history known as the Book of Han. He grew up among books and documents, and tradition relates that he worked as a copyist for the imperial library while his brother laboured on the history.

Yet Ban Chao was impatient with a purely literary life. A famous story tells that he once threw down his brush and declared that a man of ambition should imitate the exploits of Zhang Qian and Fu Jiezi, the envoys who had won fame on the distant western frontier. He joined the army and quickly distinguished himself, and a fortune-teller is said to have predicted that he would be ennobled far from his homeland.

His family background gave him literacy, discipline and connections, while his temperament drew him toward action. He combined the caution of a scholar with the daring of a soldier, and this blend would serve him well in the dangerous and unpredictable world of the oasis city-states along the Silk Road.

Campaigns in the Western Regions

In 73 AD Ban Chao was sent west as a subordinate officer on an expedition against the Xiongnu, the nomadic power that contested Han authority across the frontier. He distinguished himself in battle and was then dispatched as an envoy to the kingdoms of the Tarim Basin, a chain of oasis cities that controlled the trade routes between China and the west. His mission was to win their allegiance away from the Xiongnu.

His diplomacy was backed by audacity. Sent to the kingdom of Shanshan, he learned that a Xiongnu delegation had arrived to court the same ruler, and he resolved to act before the king could waver. With a small band of followers he attacked and killed the Xiongnu envoys in the night, an act that so impressed the king that he submitted to the Han. Similar combinations of persuasion and force brought other kingdoms into the Han sphere.

Over the following decades Ban Chao campaigned almost continuously, subduing kingdoms such as Kashgar, Khotan and Kucha, and extending Han influence as far as the Pamir Mountains. He worked with small forces and often relied on local allies, and he was skilled at exploiting the rivalries among the oasis states. In 91 AD he was appointed Protector General of the Western Regions, the office that formalised Han authority over the region.

The Silk Road and Frontier Policy

Ban Chao understood that the prosperity and security of the Central Asian routes depended on the goodwill of the oasis kingdoms, and he worked to keep the peace among them and to protect merchants and caravans. Under his protection the Silk Road flourished, carrying silk, lacquer, jade and metalwork westward and bringing horses, glass, precious stones and new ideas eastward. Trade and diplomacy advanced together.

His authority rested on a delicate balance between the display of force and the cultivation of alliances. He permitted local rulers to retain their thrones so long as they acknowledged the Han, and he intervened only when a kingdom defected or obstructed the routes. This pragmatic policy kept the region stable for many years and was far less costly than outright conquest would have been.

In 97 AD he sent an officer named Gan Ying westward with the aim of reaching the Roman Empire, which the Chinese knew as Da Qin. Gan Ying travelled as far as the Persian Gulf or the Black Sea region before being persuaded to turn back by sailors who warned of the perils of the sea voyage, but the mission was one of the furthest diplomatic probes of the ancient world and demonstrated the reach of Han ambitions.

Return and Later Years

Ban Chao spent about thirty years in the west, and in his old age he grew weary of the frontier and asked to be allowed to return home. His sister Ban Zhao, the celebrated scholar, wrote a moving petition to the throne on his behalf, pleading that her brother had risked his life in the service of the empire and deserved to die in his own land. The emperor was moved and recalled him.

He returned to the capital of Luoyang in 102 AD, only a month before his death. He was succeeded in the west by his son Ban Yong, who continued to defend and administer the frontier and who wrote reports on the region that preserved much of what is known about its peoples and geography.

His contributions to the stability of the border were considerable, though the Han hold on the western regions weakened after his death. The oases were again contested, and the protectorate was eventually abandoned, but Ban Chao's reputation as the man who won and kept the west endured.

Influence and Legacy

Ban Chao is remembered as one of the foremost soldiers and diplomats of the Han dynasty, a man who extended Chinese influence across thousands of miles with slender resources and great personal courage. His campaigns opened and protected the Central Asian trade routes at the height of their importance and helped to make the Silk Road a channel of exchange between the civilisations of Asia and the Mediterranean.

He also left a record of the peoples and places of the western regions, information that enriched Chinese knowledge of the wider world and that his son Ban Yong and later historians drew upon. The Book of the Later Han devotes a detailed account to the western regions that reflects the intelligence gathered by Ban Chao and his officers in the field.

His life became emblematic of the frontier spirit, and the phrase of abandoning the brush for the sword, drawn from his youthful declaration, entered the language as an image of a scholar who turns to arms. He stands in Chinese memory as the counterpart of Zhang Qian, the pioneering envoy of the earlier dynasty, and as a symbol of the age when China's reach extended deep into Inner Asia.

See also

• Silk Road
• Book of Han
• Ban Gu
• Protectorate of the Western Regions