Horses for the Emperor of China
The immense crowd of warriors, mandarins, eunuchs and servants pack the courtyards and terraces of the newly built Forbidden City, straining to get a view of the emperor. His dais rises so high above the ceremonial bridge he seems to be floating in the sky with the apsaras. He is pronouncing criminal sentences on a common prisoners, heads drooping down by the weight of wooden cangues locked around their necks. Some he orders flogged, some maimed, very unlucky ones decapitated. A handful are pardoned. Sentences are carried out on the spot by impassive, muscled executioners. Gore quickly pools on the granite paving stones of the courtyard of justice. Normally honored guests, ambassadors from far away Samarkand, are being forced to watch the proceedings, with an increasing sense of foreboding.
This is not a scene out of Turandot, but neither is it a typical day of justice for the denizens of the Forbidden City. The Yongle emperor of the Ming, whose name we usually associate with refined blue and white porcelain, has orchestrated this show of power and cruelty to send a message to the embassy. Some years earlier Samarkand’s ruler, Timur, or Tamerlane, had thrown Yongle’s ambassadors into prison, and assembled a huge army to invade China. Timur dreamt of reestablishing the empire of Genghis Khan from Baghdad to Beijing. His advanced age, a freak blizzard and too much alcohol all contributed to Timur’s death on the frontier of China, and the resulting retreat of his army. The recently enthroned Yongle narrowly escaped a dangerous encounter with an undefeated world conqueror. The ceremony today in the Forbidden City is part of his plan for revenge.
Why did the ambassadors throw themselves into the mouth of beast? It had taken them over a year to reach Beijing from Samarkand (then the capital of Timur’s heirs, an empire that included today’s Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and much of Iran). They could have simply let Yongle stew. But their empire in the 15th century was a major exporter of fine horses, and Ming China one of the biggest customer. The horse trade explains why the ambassadors undertook this arduous, and potentially dangerous mission to Beijing.
When the ambassadors first crossed into Chinese territory, riding at the head of a caravan of precious, they met with generous hospitality. The local governors put them up in comfortable guest houses, fed their horses with fresh alfalfa, organized friendship banquets, and entertained their guests with singing and dancing girls and boys, who also extended post-show companionship. The Iranians had anticipated more frosty treatment, before they could offer their apologies and present their horses to the emperor, so they were very pleased with all these attentions. They let down their guard as they approach Beijing. Here they promptly underwent a cold bath.
These proud horsemen, who never walked anywhere, were ordered to dismount at the outside-most gate of the Forbidden City. They had to walk for what seemed like an eternity between serried ranks of soldiers, armed to the teeth with bows, maces, swords and halberds. At each gate they expected to come into the imperial presence, but found always yet another walkway flanked by soldiers in blackened steel armor, and another 100 yards to trudge forward. They had to trudge up stairs to what looked like an audience hall, and then exit the out the back to yet another hall. Then Yongle kept them waiting, standing, in the sun, for hours while he conducted his exercise of justice. Deeply humiliated, the ambassadors from Timur’s realms kept them composure and waited for his summons.
At last the emperor dismissed his executioners, and summoned the ambassadors to come forward. The armed guards pushed them forward so that they almost involuntarily performed the kow-tow, or fell flat on their faces. They offered their diplomas, written in vermillion ink, explaining their mission in the several mutually understood languages- Persian, Turkish and Chinese. At the signal from the presiding mandarins, the gift horses from the ambassadors’ caravan now ambled into the courtyard for the emperor’s inspection. It was customary, in trade with China, to offer part of the merchandise as a gift, in order to dispose the buyer kindly for the commercial goods.
Horses from the western realms, then ruled by Timur’s heirs, were famous throughout Asia. China had been procuring them for centuries. 1,400 years before, the Han dynasty of China had launched an army 100,000 strong across the steppe in order to bring back just 30 horses from Ferghana, not far from Samarkand. More recently, Yongle had sent the great admiral Zheng Ho to transport horses back from the Persian Gulf, an immense undertaking. Horses so transported to China were famed as “1000 mile runners” and “Celestial Horses”.
In the Chinese heartland wet climate and waterlogged soils provided poor conditions for raising horses. This is why China always had to import them. Where pastures existed, land-hungry farmers gradually pushed out herders. Nearby Mongolia and Tibet raised poneys used to hard work and harsh weather. These served as the workhorses for the Chinese empire, but not the mounts of an emperor. Horses from Samarkand grew two or three hands taller than any of these animals. Now as the grooms presented the gift horses and showed off their points, the ambassadors peered anxiously up as the dais to ascertain the reaction of the emperor.
His response was not long in coming. “I understand that Azerbaijan has fine horses, belonging to Yusuf, Sultan of the Black Sheep Turkmen.” His words hit the ambassadors like a whip across the face. One part of Iran that they had not managed to control was the rich grazing land of Azerbaijan, ruled by their wily rival, Yusuf. Not only was Yongle apparently dissatisfied with the gift horses, he compared them unfavorably to those of their enemy. The emperor summarily dismissed them and retired to his inner chambers. Worse was in store for the embassy.
The fact that the emperor of China knew about the horses of Azerbaijan and the distant sultan Yusuf testifies to the fundamental importance of horses in Chinese statecraft. “Horses are the pillar of the state. When horses lack, the state will fall,” opined a Han dynasty general. China used its diplomacy to control the steppe, to ensure a steady supply of horses for cavalry, post horses and civilian use. It sought fine horses for prestige, and even for geomancy, i.e., magic, as the different coat colors of horses symbolized for them the cardinal directions, white for the west, black for the north, grey for the east, and sorrel for the south. Horses played an important role in religious ceremonies. The imperial family was interred with sacrificial horses. This why all embassies from the horse-rich west brought racy steed to the imperial court.
There was little evidence that the latest gift horses were having the effect desired. As the ambassadors sat glumly around in their guest quarters, they heard a great tumult. Stepping outside, they learned that the emperor had gone riding on one of the gift horses and had been thrown, breaking his arm. They immediately set out for the emperor’s bridle path, and threw themselves flat in the dust, with their arms stretch out in front of them, awaiting their sentences—to be executed like the criminals of the morning’s ceremony.
The emperor had indeed angrily ordered his courtiers to go round up the ambassadors and to execute them summarily. But as they set his arm and put it in a sling, his wrath dissipated. By the time he remounted another horse, he had regained his composure. He rode imperiously up to the Iranians, lying prostrate beside the road, and ordered them to stand up. “The horse you gave me”, he explained calmly despite his pain, “was no good. It threw me. When nations wish to establish friendly relations, it is good that their gifts be worthy.”
The frightened ambassadors replied, with much servility, that this particular horse had belonged to the great Timur himself, and that therefore it was the worthiest present they could have made to the emperor. “I understand”, said Yongle, “But then perhaps it has not been ridden in a long time and therefore is no longer good for the saddle”. The emperor rode off, leaving the Iranians to meditate on this close call, and on the sorry success of their embassy so far.
In the end the emperor must have concluded that he had taught the Iranians enough of a lesson. They had seen his might, his anger, but also his mastery of statecraft. They were allowed to return to Samarkand and tell of the Great Ming Khan (as they styled him in Persian), and there would be no more threats of invasion ever again. Yongle left them with a parting barb, “When you come back remember to bring me horses from Azerbaijan!” Perhaps the ambassadors managed to do this, because they did launch subsequent missions, and secured the right to trade with China, and most importantly, to sell their horses. So in this respect, at great expense and risk to their lives, the ambassadors sent from Samarkand accomplished what they had set out to do.
Timur’s empire broke up, but the new rulers of Samarkand continued to sell horses to China down to the middle of the 19th century. Much of the prosperity of Central Asia and western China depended on this trade. It was only in the 20th century, when petroleum-powered transportation replaced horses for military purposes, that the former realms of Timur turned into a poverty stricken backwater. When I bought a horse in Herat in 1975 the dealer promised me “you can ride this horse to China”. I took this to be a nice verbal flourish, but perhaps somehow the memories remained of the once flourishing horse caravans that traveled to distant Beijing.