Origin of the Alans

[Alanus]

The Yuezhi Empire and Origin of the Silk Road: Part 1

You may have noticed I've been impressed by the Yuezhi cultural connection to China. But it doesn't stop there, because every major Pazyryk kurgan also contains materials or artifacts from Persia and India. It's also obvious that I considered Graig Benjamin's assessment of the Yuezhi as "provincial," as he shank the Yuezhi burial sites into 12 modest podboi graves in Gansu. Let's step back and look at a bigger picture.

9th-8th Centuries BC: Arzhan bridles, snaffle bits, and weapons found in Tarim Basin graves.
645 BC: The Yuezhi sell Khotan (Tarim) jade to the Chinese.
4th Century BC: Pazyryk art-forms copied by the Chinese.
3rd Century BC: Pazyryk saddles, crenelated manes, and "S"-shaped cheek pieces, adopted by Qin cavalry.
Mid 3rd Century BC: Yuezhi queen annexes Qinghai, headwaters of the Yellow River, and northern Tibet.
204 BC: Xiongnu shanyu Modu breaks from Yuezhi confederation and attacks his former overlords.
176 BC: Modu again attacks the Yuezhi and breaks 30 states from the Yuezhi confederation.
162-161 BC: Modu's successor kills Yuezhi leader and drives the Yuezhi westward.
161 BC: Yuezhi plow through the Wusun, killing the Wusun leader.
161 BC: Part of the Yuezhi pass east to west through Tarim City States, no military conflicts.
c. Late 150's BC: Yuezhi settle in Illi Valley, no war, incorporate Sakarauli into their midst.
c. 135 BC: Wusun leader's son takes revenge, attacks Yuezhi with heavy aid from Xiongnu.
c. 135 BC: Yuezhi cross Dayuan (Fergana), no military resistance.
c. 134 BC: Yuezhi arrive in Kanju territory and resettle. No war, no resistance.

Is there anything unusual about this progression? And why would a severely weakened Yuezhi "remnant" encounter no resistance from the Tarim city states, Ferghana, or the four Saka states of the Kangju?

   
The answer is very impressive. Pictured above, we have a map of the Silk Road. We see Qinghai, where the Lesser Yuezhi resettled with no resistance from the Ch'iang Tibetans. West of the Han Dynasty border (Zhengye), we find the 12 city states in the Tarim Basin, all of them part of the Yuezhi confederation. We then move west to Sogdiana-Afghanistan (Kangju, gateway to India), where the Yuezhi finally resettled in the western part of their Empire. What we don't see, yet part of original Yuezhi territory, is the entire area cut from the top of this map-- the Altai, plus all of Western Mongolia, and a large chunk of the Central Asian steppe to Yancai (renamed Alanliu). All of this territory, including the unseen northern half, was the original Yuezhi Empire.

From the timeline above, we find no resistance from the Ch'iang Tibetans in the extreme south to the Kanju in the far west... because these tribes were part of the Yuezhi Empire to start with. Only the unfortunate death of the Wusun leader created military resistance. From the Silk Road map, we view an expanse of territory that ran from Han China, Tibet, all of Inner Mongolia, most of Western Mongolia, and included Kangju and also Yancai (north to the Aral Sea). As such the Yuezhi Empire was the largest confederation in Central Asia.

The southern half of the Yuezhi Empire coincides precisely with the known trade route. As such, the Yuezhi were the founders of the Silk Road six centuries before modern historians attribute its beginning to the Chinese. By the inclusion of Kangju and Yancai, we find the Yuezhi in former Massagetae territory, and also abutting Parthia, and we have a direct southern route to India. Is this just my odd opinion, or can we find someone to corroborate this premise? More to come.