In ancient China, large canals for river transport were established as far back as the Warring States ( 481 – 221 BC ), the longest one of that period being the Hong Gou ( Canal of the Wild Geese ), which according to the ancient historian Sima Qian connected the old states of Song, Zhang, Chen, Cai, Cao, and Wei.

Early reference to the Chinese export of ivory is recorded after the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian ventured to the west to form alliances to enable for the eventual free movement of Chinese goods to the west ; as early as the first century BC, ivory was moved along the Northern Silk Road for consumption by western nations.

Vega is mentioned in a Chinese legend about Zhang Qian, though some argue that the historical person is not the subject of the legend ; he just shared a name.

Zhang read many of the great works of history in his day and claimed he had found ten instances where the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian ( 145 – 90 BC ) and the Book of Han by Ban Gu ( AD 32 – 92 ) differed from other ancient texts that were available to him.

Also in the 2nd century BC, the Han dispatched the explorer Zhang Qian to explore the lands to the west and to form an alliance with the Yuezhi people in order to combat the nomadic tribe of the Xiongnu.

Emperor Wu of Han sent Zhang Qian to explore the west world and to discover other confederates against Xiongnu.

* Zhang Qian, Chinese diplomat and explorer

He sent Zhang Qian to find allies against the Xiongnu.

In 194, Cao Cao went to war with Tao Qian of Xu Province, because Tao's subordinate Zhang Kai had murdered Cao Cao's father Cao Song.

The weakness of the Greco-Bactrian empire was shown by its sudden and complete overthrow, first by the Sakas, and then by the Yuezhi ( who later became known as Kushans ), who had conquered Bactria by the time of the visit of the Chinese envoy Zhang Qian ( circa 127 BC ), who had been sent by the Han emperor to investigate lands to the west of China.

Zhang Qian taking leave from emperor Han Wudi, for his expedition to Central Asia from 138 to 126 BC, Mogao Caves mural, 618 – 712 AD.

The name Daxia appears in Chinese from the 3rd century BC to designate a mythical kingdom to the West, possibly a consequence of the first contacts with the expansion of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and then is used by the explorer Zhang Qian in 126 BC to designate Bactria.

The reports of Zhang Qian were put in writing in the Shiji (" Records of the Grand Historian ") by Sima Qian in the 1st century BC.

By the time Zhang Qian visited Daxia, there was no longer a major king, and the Bactrian were suzerains to the nomadic Yuezhi, who were settled to the north of their territory beyond the Oxus ( Amu Darya ).

Overall Zhang Qian depicted a rather sophisticated but demoralized people who were afraid of war.

The central Asian sections of the trade routes were expanded around 114 BC by the Han dynasty, largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian, but earlier trade routes across the continents already existed.

This came around 130 BC, with the embassies of the Han Dynasty to Central Asia, following the reports of the ambassador Zhang Qian ( who was originally sent to obtain an alliance with the Yuezhi against the Xiongnu ).

* Zhang Qian begins his explorations in central Asia for Chinese emperor Han Wu Di.

* Zhang Qian, Chinese explorer and diplomat ( b. 195 BC )

138 – 126 BC: Zhang Qian travels west to Bactria and returns with first information on the Western Regions.

The Han Dynasty made preparations for war when the Han Emperor Wu dispatched the explorer Zhang Qian to explore the mysterious kingdoms to the west and to form an alliance with the Yuezhi people in order to combat the Xiongnu.

While Zhang Qian did not succeed in this mission, his reports of the west provided even greater incentive to counter the Xiongnu hold on westward routes out of China, and the Chinese prepared to mount a large scale attack using the Northern Silk Road to move men and material.

According to Zhang Qian, the Yuezhi were defeated by the rising Xiongnu empire and fled westward, driving away the Saka ( Sai ).

However, Chiang's allied commander Zhang Xueliang, whose forces were used in his attack and whose homeland of Manchuria had been recently invaded by the Japanese, did not support the attack on the Communists.

The strike did secure some concessions, but Mao and other student leaders felt that they were now under threat from the furious Zhang, and were sent as representatives to China's provincial centers ; thus, Mao once again traveled to Peking.

In 1928, Kuomintang generals Li Jing Lin, Zhang Zi Jiang, and Fung Zu Ziang organized a national martial arts tournament in China ; they did so to screen the best martial artists in order to begin building the Central Martial Arts Academy ( Zhongyang Guoshuguan ).

Two of China's most famous poets, Li Bai and Du Fu, belonged to this age, as did many famous painters such as Han Gan, Zhang Xuan, and Zhou Fang.

Sun Quan did agree to Zhou Yu's plans to consider attacking Liu Zhang and Zhang Lu ( who controlled the modern southern Shaanxi ) to try to take over their territories, but after Zhou Yu died in 210, the plans were abandoned.

According to Zhang Yaoci, who carried out the arrest, Jiang Qing did not say much when she was arrested.

Zhang and Yang suffered great losses in their attempted suppression of the CPC, and Chiang did not give them any support in manpower and weaponry.

Some of them, such as Zhou Enlai and Zhang Wentian, did realize it could bring more damage to the anti-Japan movement if Chiang was executed.

Zhang was incarcerated for most of the rest of his life, and his armies disbanded in the meantime ; he did not publicly reveal any more details about the incident and died in 2001.

The later 3rd century Three Kingdoms era Chinese writer Zhang Yan asserted in his writing that the Warring States Chinese named the boats this way because halberd blades were actually fixed and attached to the hull of the ship in order to rip into the hull of another ship while ramming, to stab enemies in the water that had fallen overboard and were swimming, or simply to clear any possible dangerous marine animals in the path of the ship ( since the ancient Chinese did believe in sea monsters, see Xu Fu for more info ).

Knowing that Zhang Liao was a righteous man, Guan Yu refrained from hurling insults at his enemy, nor did he go out to meet the attack.

When he did, he showed little respect for Zhang Wen.

When Zhang Wen and the rest returned to the capital Luoyang, however, the court held that the army did not engage the enemy and thus no honor was accorded.

Cao Zhen was demoted as a result, but Zhang He apparently did not receive much punishment due to his effort in the battle.

Wang Mang was considered one of the possibilities, while another was his cousin Chunyu Zhang ( the son of Empress Dowager Wang's sister ), who had a much closer personal relationship to Emperor Cheng than Wang Mang did.

When this alleged plot was reported to Emperor Xuanzong by Wei Zhigu, Emperor Xuanzong, who had already received advice from Wang Ju ( 王琚 ), Zhang Shuo, and Cui Riyong to act first, did so.

When Zhang Fei met Guan Yu, he refused to believe that Guan did not renounce his loyalty to Liu Bei, and fought with Guan without giving the latter any chance to explain himself.

Modern historians have split opinions on the issue, but largely believe that the boys were actually Emperor Hui's sons by concubines and that Empress Zhang did indeed put their mothers to death and make them her own children.

( As, for example, Bo Yang pointed out, it would be logically incongruent, if Empress Zhang did steal these children from elsewhere, for her to put only the mothers but not the fathers to death.

When Xu's wife heard this, she became extremely angry and refused, but because Zhang was Xu's superior, Xu did not dare to renege on the promise, and Bingyi and Pingjun were married, in a ceremony entirely paid by Zhang ( because Bingyi could not afford to ).

In legend, Zhang Liang returned to the indicated site 13 years later and did see a yellow rock there.