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Daxia, Ta-Hsia, or Ta-Hia (Chinese
Chinese character

A Chinese character, also known as a Han character , is a logogram used in writing Chinese language ,'' Japanese language ,'' less frequently Korean language ,'' and formerly Vietnamese language .''...
: ??; Pinyin
Pinyin

Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most commonly used Romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu is the Chinese Language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"....
: Dàxià) is the name given in antiquity by the Han Chinese
Han Chinese

Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and, by most modern definitions, the largest single ethnic group in the Earth.Han Chinese constitute about 92 percent of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98 percent of the population of the Republic of China , 75 percent of the population of Singapore, and about 19 percent...
 to the territory of Bactria
Bactria

Bactria is a historical region of Greater Iran. Known by the ancient Greeks as "Bactriana" the region is located between the range of the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya ; in later times, the region became known as Tokharistan. The name of the region has survived to present time in the name of Afghan province "Balkh"....
.

The name Daxia appears in Chinese from the 3rd century BCE to designate a mythical kingdom to the West, possibly a consequence of the first contacts with the expansion of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BCE....
, and then is used by the explorer Zhang Qian
Zhang Qian

Zhang Qian was an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BCE, during the time of the Han Dynasty. He was the first official diplomat to bring back reliable information about Central Asia to the Chinese imperial court, then under Emperor Wu of Han, and played an important pioneering role in the Chinese colonization an...
 in 126 BCE to designate Bactria.

The reports of Zhang Qian
Zhang Qian

Zhang Qian was an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BCE, during the time of the Han Dynasty. He was the first official diplomat to bring back reliable information about Central Asia to the Chinese imperial court, then under Emperor Wu of Han, and played an important pioneering role in the Chinese colonization an...
 were put in writing in Shiji ("Records of the Great Historian") by Sima Qian
Sima Qian

Sima Qian was a Prefect of the Grand Scribes of the Han Dynasty. He is regarded as the father of Chinese historiography because of his highly praised work, Records of the Grand Historian , an overview of the history of China covering more than two thousand years from the Yellow Emperor to Emperor Wu of Han China ....
 in the 1st century BCE.

They describe an important urban civilization of about one million people, living in walled cities under small city kings or magistrate
Magistrate

A magistrate is a judicial officer; in ancient Rome, the word magistratus denoted one of the highest government officers with judicial and executive powers....
s.






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Daxia, Ta-Hsia, or Ta-Hia (Chinese
Chinese character

A Chinese character, also known as a Han character , is a logogram used in writing Chinese language ,'' Japanese language ,'' less frequently Korean language ,'' and formerly Vietnamese language .''...
: ??; Pinyin
Pinyin

Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most commonly used Romanization system for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu is the Chinese Language, and pinyin means "phonetics", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound"....
: Dàxià) is the name given in antiquity by the Han Chinese
Han Chinese

Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and, by most modern definitions, the largest single ethnic group in the Earth.Han Chinese constitute about 92 percent of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98 percent of the population of the Republic of China , 75 percent of the population of Singapore, and about 19 percent...
 to the territory of Bactria
Bactria

Bactria is a historical region of Greater Iran. Known by the ancient Greeks as "Bactriana" the region is located between the range of the Hindu Kush and the Amu Darya ; in later times, the region became known as Tokharistan. The name of the region has survived to present time in the name of Afghan province "Balkh"....
.

The name Daxia appears in Chinese from the 3rd century BCE to designate a mythical kingdom to the West, possibly a consequence of the first contacts with the expansion of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom

The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BCE....
, and then is used by the explorer Zhang Qian
Zhang Qian

Zhang Qian was an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BCE, during the time of the Han Dynasty. He was the first official diplomat to bring back reliable information about Central Asia to the Chinese imperial court, then under Emperor Wu of Han, and played an important pioneering role in the Chinese colonization an...
 in 126 BCE to designate Bactria.

The reports of Zhang Qian
Zhang Qian

Zhang Qian was an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BCE, during the time of the Han Dynasty. He was the first official diplomat to bring back reliable information about Central Asia to the Chinese imperial court, then under Emperor Wu of Han, and played an important pioneering role in the Chinese colonization an...
 were put in writing in Shiji ("Records of the Great Historian") by Sima Qian
Sima Qian

Sima Qian was a Prefect of the Grand Scribes of the Han Dynasty. He is regarded as the father of Chinese historiography because of his highly praised work, Records of the Grand Historian , an overview of the history of China covering more than two thousand years from the Yellow Emperor to Emperor Wu of Han China ....
 in the 1st century BCE.

They describe an important urban civilization of about one million people, living in walled cities under small city kings or magistrate
Magistrate

A magistrate is a judicial officer; in ancient Rome, the word magistratus denoted one of the highest government officers with judicial and executive powers....
s. Daxia was an affluent country with rich markets, trading in an incredible variety of objects, coming as far as Southern China. By the time Zhang Qian visited Daxia, there were no longer a major king, and the Bactrian were suzerains to the nomadic Yuezhi
Yuezhi

The Yuezhi or Rouzhi , also known as the Da Yuezhi or Da Rouzhi , were an ancient Central Asian people.They are believed by most scholars to have been an Indo-European people, and may have been the same as or closely related to the Tocharians of Classical sources....
, who were settled to the north of their territory beyond the Oxus. Overall, Zhang Qian depicted a rather sophisticated but demoralized people who were afraid of war.

Following these reports, the Chinese emperor Wudi was informed of the level of sophistication of the urban civilizations of Ferghana, Bactria and Parthia
Parthia

Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, after which the Arsacid Empire is then also known as the 'Parthian Empire'....
, and became interested in developing commercial relationships with them:
"Thus the emperor learned of Dayuan
Dayuan

The Dayuan or Ta-Yuan were a people of Ferghana in Central Asia, described in the Chinese literature historical works of Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Han, which follow the travels of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian in 130 BCE and the numerous embassies that followed him into Central Asia thereafter....
, Daxia, Anxi
Anxi

Anxi is the ancient Chinese name for Parthia. Anxi was described by the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian who visited the neighbouring countries of Bactria and Sogdiana in 126 BC, making the first known Chinese report on Parthia....
, and the others, all states rich in unusual products whose people cultivated the land and made their living in much the same way as the Chinese. All these states, he was told, were militarily weak and prized Han goods and wealth." Shiji 123.


These contacts immediately led to the dispatch of multiple embassies from the Chinese, initiating the development of the Silk Road
Silk Road

The Silk Road is an extensive interconnected network of trade routes across the Asian continent connecting East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world, including North Africa and Europe....
.

Footnotes