Blog Entry #2

I found chapter 4 of "The Silk Road" to be very informative, interesting and not that confusing (still getting used to the names of all the towns, rivers, etc). It was interesting to learn that a small part of the Great Wall in China was built due to Nomadic shepherds that lived in China's northwestern borders constantly raiding their Chinese farming neighbors. Although parts of the wall were constructed for this purpose, they proved to be very ineffective. Some questions posed such as whether the Xiongnu were proto-Turkic or proto-Mongol were pretty mind blowing my opinion. Just to theorize about these peoples whom existed thousands of years ago is very interesting. The only evidence that points to the fact that the Xiongnu were proto-Mongol was the fact that Chinese goods and architectural remains were dug up during excavations in Mongolia. This suggests that the Xiangnu demonstrated great power over the Chinese. During the Han dysnasty, princesses and sons of rulers were sent to Xiongnu in order to avoid frontier wars. Wood's book states that this method can be seen as a method of balance. The contemporary Chinese account of the Xiongnu found on page 50 describes the Xiongnu as people that wear animal skins, eat meat raw and drink blood. This description alone answers my question as to why the Chinese gave up twenty thousand rolls of silk and twenty thousand pounds of silk floss as "gifts". The Chinese were probably so intimidated by these nomads that they opted to give pricey gifts in return of not being killed. One of the positives that came out of the intimidation tactics set out by the Xiongnu was the fact that the Chinese explored Western regions this way, when they started setting out their own armies, convoys and teams to battle the Xiongnu or find another group willing to partner up with them for the same cause. What I foudn quite interesting and shocking in the same time was the practice of passing the wife of the deceased on to another family member. This was the particular case of Xinjun, who was the daughter of the 'cruel' and 'perverted' king of Jiangdu. She was sent to the ruler of Wusun in order to cement links between Wusun and China. In return, China recieved 1000 hourses. It's quite interesting that her value was 1000 horses. Why not 10000 horses or 100? I wonder how many horses I would have been worth. Anwyays, that's it for now. Until next time....