Among the many records of the ancient Chinese world in the Islamic world, the record and credibility of Timur's heir Shaharu's envoy may be the highest, because he not only had the opportunity to face the saints, but also visited the towns and cities in various parts of China, very intuitively saw the customs and customs of various parts of China, and through his brushstrokes, we can also see the impression of ancient China by the Muslim world of the same era.
Shaharu
In the Timurid era, the Timurid Empire slaughtered all sides in Central Asia, and it also had the ambition to re-enter the East for the Ming Dynasty in the east, and Timur was mercilessly detained the envoys sent by the Ming Dynasty twice---- the Fu An Mission and the Chen Wende Mission. However, in the era of his son Shaharu after his death, as the Timurid Empire was fragmented and the various princes fell into a state of chaos, Timur's son did not dare to show too much toughness towards the Ming Dynasty, so his attitude towards the Ming Dynasty was much better, in this context, Fu An, who had been detained for a long time, was able to return to the Ming Dynasty, the Ming History recorded nine times timur emissaries came to China, and the Persian history books also recorded several emissaries sent by the Ming Dynasty to the Timurid Empire. Relations between the two countries eased a lot during this period, and at this time the Timurid state moved its capital to Herat in Afghanistan, which is also known as the "Kingdom of Hare" in Ming history. As a member of the mission, Khoga-GaiyeSudin recorded in his diary the visits of a mission sent by Shaharu to the Ming Dynasty in 1421-1422.
In the sixteenth year of Yongle, Shaharu sent emissaries to the Ming Dynasty, as a return visit, when Ming Chengzu Zhu Di sent the lieutenant Li Da as an emissary to visit Shaharu, and in the eighteenth year of Yongle, Shaharu organized a group of emissaries to return to the Ming Dynasty, and they took Li Da on a journey to China. From Samarkand, they passed through Tashkent and Lake Issyk-Kul, and then entered the Ili River Valley, where they crossed the Tianshan Mountains and became a densely populated Oasis of Turpan.
Turpan
In the Turpan Basin, the members of the mission saw many exquisite pagan temples with newly sculpted giant clay statues of Shakyamuni Buddha and many more earlier sculptures, no doubt they are All Buddhist temples, and most of the followers here are descendants of the Gaochang Uighurs who previously embraced Buddhism, who are the last remnants of the classical Western Buddhist culture, and the opposite of these Buddhist temples and grottoes are various mosques. Moreover, in places such as Hami and Hala and Cho (Huozhou), the local magistrates were Muslim Wu'er or Chagatai Mongol descendants, such as Hami's governor Mangli Timur Bayeri, a very handsome Muslim youth, who also built a workhouse in Huozhou. Buddhist cultures were temporarily tolerated by the rulers under the rule of the Muslim rulers, but they will disappear completely in the next century. Gaiye Suding's account of Turpan in eastern Xinjiang can be echoed in Chinese literature such as Chen Cheng's "Records of the Fanguo of the Western Regions".
After Hami completed the last supply trip through the desert to Han China, a group of people crossed the desert to the east and came to a place 10 days away from Suzhou, which was the farthest western outpost of the Ming Great Wall in the west, where the mission reported the news of their arrival to the Chinese officials, and the Chinese officials who had heard about their actions were also prepared accordingly, and they prepared various fruits, chickens, cattle and sheep, preserved fruits, grains and other supplies for the visiting mission on a grassy field, packed in porcelain plates. Various drinks and beverages were packed in bottles, and behind the banquet seats, there were sheep, barley, travel supplies and other materials for the envoys to use, and the missions here reported to the Chinese officials the total number of the missions for future reception by the Ming Dynasty. Under the city of Suzhou, Wang An, the eunuch of Gansu Town, led 5,000-6,000 border guards out of the city to meet the mission, most of whom adopted Mongol-style equipment and tactics, and there were many Mongols among themselves, here, Gaiye Suddin recorded the Ming Dynasty border guard army's platoon and encampment tradition, which seemed to be really well-trained operations, which were rumored to be false on the Internet in the future, and were rumored to be a fictitious "Yongle Parade" that shocked the envoys of the Timurid Empire:
The sergeant camped according to the square, as if planning with a compass and a ruler, when setting up the camp, the ropes of the tent should be twisted together, not giving pedestrians room to enter and exit, the four sides of the phalanx opened four doors, leaving a large open space in the middle, in which a large platform of one size of one zarib was built; in the front field, according to the style of the royal camp, a large tent was set up with two Chinese-style poles, and the curtain was rolled up, supporting a pavilion with a tarpaulin, so that the ground of a zaribu was completely covered by it, just under the two poles. A chair was set up for Lord Wang, and then there were other chairs to its left and right, with the envoys sitting on the left and the Chinese officials sitting on the right...
This was followed by tedious cultural performances: including acrobatics, song and dance, etc., and the toasts of civil and military officials at all levels below the eunuchs. As a welcome to the foreign friends, Grand Eunuch Wang prepared ten days of travel materials for the mission and supported them in their way to the next town. More than ten days later, in front of the mission, a strong Helawala, that is, a fortress, was protected by a strong trench on all four walls, and all divisions and regiments had to pass through the middle of the fortress to enter and exit the Chinese pass, which refers to the famous Jiayu Pass.
After Jiayuguan is Suzhou City, in Hasharu's pen, this is a very regular, very clean city, the urban pattern is like a square drawn with a ruler and compass, the city's central market will be swept with water every day, clean and clean, Gaiye Suding made an exaggerated analogy, even if the oil is poured on the ground, it can also collect the oil that was spilled, but what makes Gaiye Suding feel unhappy is that the Han people raise a lot of pigs in the city, and also sell pork and mutton in the butcher shop at the same time. Every few dozen steps in the Chinese market there are pavilions made of bamboo poles, the pavilion has a Chinese conical wooden roof, every 20 steps on the city wall, there are watchtowers with roofs, four city gates are facing each other, there are two hundred streets in the middle of the silly city that are more crossed into a cross shape, the main moving plots of the city are divided, there are several large Buddhist temples in the city, the temple is cleaned spotlessly, there are handsome little boys at the door as a temple guide; there are also smooth dry brick paving on the ground of the city. Ming officials learned that from Suzhou they would pass through 99 caravanserais, each of which was surrounded by villages and settlements that looked like a large village, and that there were beacon towers and courier shops in the middle of each town. The guardians of the courier shop are generally inherited from generation to generation, they are responsible for guarding the shop, usually working next to the shop, but once there is news, they must pass the news to the next station.
The situation of the Ming Dynasty beacon tower
From Suzhou through nine stations is Ganzhou, where the population is larger, the city is larger, the city regulations are more luxurious, Lord Wang sent 450 mules and horses, and 50 rickshaws, each rickshaw has 12 children responsible for pulling the car, they look handsome, everyone has a string of beads made of fake beads around their necks, the hair on the top of their heads is knotted, they run very hard, and it is difficult to achieve this speed in Central Asia. In each station, the Ming Dynasty provided the corresponding level of goose meat, beef, chicken, rice noodles, honey, rice wine, pickled garlic and kimchi according to the number of members of the mission, as well as other must-have foods in the station. Whenever the envoys arrived in a town, they had to go to the town hall for a feast as required, and on the 12th day of the month of Ramazam, because the Muslim religious taboo missions could not eat on this day, they euphemistically apologized and refused the invitation of the king to feast, and the grand eunuch also tolerated it, did not further harass them, and sent someone to deliver their food to the residence. After that, the process of writing is that every time Gaiye Suddin goes to a big town, he must praise China's cityscape and city scale, in general, the closer to Beijing, the more prosperous the city, of course, this may be the Daming official specially set the route to Beijing, deliberately avoiding those withered towns. Later, the delegation crossed the Yellow River (Halamullian) in Lanzhou and saw the earliest Yellow River Bridge, which was composed of 23 ships, all of which were fixed by thick chains fixed on both sides; the group also specifically mentioned that there were three large hostels in the city, which had many beautiful ladies, and all kinds of skilled craftsmen could be found in the city.
The appearance of Zhendingfu meant that Beijing was getting closer and closer, and after the Battle of Jingnan, Beijing became the new capital of the Ming Empire, so Gaiye Suddin and his party found that Beijing was undergoing a large-scale expansion at that time, and there were many bamboo poles on the city wall for construction workers to climb up and down, under the guidance of eunuchs, the delegation entered the inner city palace from a paved road with bricks and stones, and there were 5 stone elephants on each side of the road to the inner city, and it was through these ten elephants that the officials entered the palace to participate in the imperial meeting. Chinese palaces are generally stone bases + wooden structures, all kinds of excellent craftsmen will feel very surprised when they see it; there are more than 2,000 soldiers standing in the inner city, wearing armor and helmets, holding axes, long halberds, hooks and forks, crescent knives, round hammers, and some people holding umbrella covers, feathers and other honor guards, flags will have sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, birds and animals and gossip and other Patterns with Chinese characteristics, looking very majestic, the team of thousands of people is silent, as if there is no one; in addition to the garrison, There were also more than 2,000 palace ladies and eunuchs singing eulogies to the emperor according to the beat, praising the emperor's wisdom and divine martial arts, and when different officials entered the scene, the guide in front would also hold wooden signs to lead the way in front. This material may be another source of the "Yongle Parade" that is not imaginary on the Internet, and it was made up by a group of brainless fans to make the emissaries of the Timurid Empire tremble and even deter the military parade of the Timurid Crusade.
Finally, Gaiye Sudin and his party saw the most important target of the bank: Zhu Di, the great tomorrow's son, and Gaiye Suddin, as a foreign emissary, observed the Ming Emperor closely: medium stature, no more beard, but a long beard; when he came out of the harem, the eunuchs put the golden throne on the throne, and then placed silver pedals under the throne for the emperor to step on and then sit on the golden throne, and on the left and right of the throne there were two beautiful palace women with beautiful faces like the bright moon, and they still tied their hair into a bun on the top of their heads. In Muslim parlance, they tied knots, wore beautiful large pearls on their ears, and with paper and pen in their hands, recorded everything the Emperor had said, and when the Emperor had finished speaking, the Emperor would read their handwritten records and listen to the Emperor's holy words, and then issue the next orders on this basis.
After listening to the holy oracles and dealing with some of the most heinous prisoners, the mission was given the opportunity to meet the Ming emperor in close proximity: at Zhu Di's side, there was a Semitic judge named Murana-Haji-Yusuf, who was fluent in Persian, Arabic, Turkic, Mongolian and Chinese, and could switch freely between several languages, and he was responsible for translating for the emperor and the mission: he asked all the Accompanying Muslim envoys to kneel down first, and then prostrate their heads three times, but the Muslims still had reservations in the face of pagan monarchs. Just symbolically bowing his head, not completely slamming his head on the ground, and the emperor did not take excessive responsibility, the next scene was the scene of diplomatic activities: the envoys wrapped the national letter of their own monarch in yellow silk and presented it to the eunuch, and then the emperor rewarded the envoy and their families with more than 3,000 sets of robes, and the emperor then asked them whether their journey was laborious, the price of grain in the country, whether the trip to China was safe, and what the specialties of the country were. After completing the ritual question-and-answer, the emperor motioned for the eunuch to take a group of people to dinner, eliminating the fatigue of the journey.
After the elaborate and cumbersome banquet, the envoys were led to rest in the foreign guest hotel, where there were benches with splendid cushions and sheets, exquisite mats with carpets and widths that could be rolled up at both ends, and each person was assigned to a group of such rooms, as well as the corresponding cooking utensils, cups, spoons and coffee tables, and a dozen people could get a sheep, a goose and two chickens every day, as well as a number of quantities of rice, flour, sugar cakes, honey, garlic and onions, vinegar, salt, and various wines, and each group would be assigned several good-looking servants. Travel non-stop for foreign missions. Prepare various supplies.
Gaiye Sudin accurately recorded the architectural habits of the Chinese, that is, sitting north to south; before the banquet began, the eunuchs prepared plates, food, umbrella covers and wine utensils for the bureaucrats and delegations attending the banquet, and after the courtiers bowed to the emperor 5 times, the courtiers sat down, first of all, everyone had to watch the acrobatics performed by beautiful children, the program was to step on stilts; then there was music played with cymbals, gongs and drums and other instruments, after the performance, the emperor rewarded them with a lot of paper money as a reward, followed by a grand banquet. After eating, the delegation visited Zhu Di's huge bird and poultry garden, which contained a variety of rare birds of prey from the northern western region and Central Asia: such as crows, Haidongqing, doves, various falcons, etc. Later, Zhu Di personally gave 13 imperial eagles to envoys from Central Asia as gifts.
Beijing Niujie is the last remnant of the Yuan Dynasty Semu people in Beijing
During their stay in Beijing, they coincided with the Muslim Eid al-Adha, and Zhu Di also specially approved the construction of a mosque for the Muslims in Beijing, so the envoys went to the mosque with the descendants of the local Semu people in Beijing to worship and spent Eid al-Adha together. Hasharu also found that in fact, there were many Arabs, Persians and wuer descendants from the western region in Beijing at that time, and they also retained recognizable exotic characteristics, they played an intermediary role in the exchange between the Ming Dynasty and the western regions, central Asia, and they were also familiar with the customs and festivals of Muslims, so that the Ming Dynasty avoided making many offensive moves in specific religious festivals because they did not understand each other's customs when receiving Visitors from Central Asia. It turns out that spending Eid al-Adha in the Ming Dynasty,
Of course, in addition to the Great Ming Dynasty that Zhu Di deliberately showed to foreigners, the mission still saw a lot of discordant pictures, such as death row prisoners and poor people freezing to death under the walls of Beijing in winter, such as civilians and ordinary soldiers who had to bear a lot of additional expenses and labor in order to welcome the mission to China; although Zhu Di rewarded many gifts to foreign guests, some gifts did not have any practical economic value for the mission, such as ordinary robes, spears, condiments and other items for the mission, it seemed to be more chicken ribs.
Viva Lamp
After completing their diplomatic mission to Beijing, the delegation embarked on a long journey back to China, which took 2 years, 10 months and 5 days in total, and compared with the journey they came to, they passed through Pingyang, in addition to the other routes and the situation at the time of arrival, because they heard that the Mongols threatened the northwest border of the Ming Dynasty, so they returned to Khotan by Khotan on the southern edge of the Tarim Basin. Overall, the mission had a good impression of China and the Ming Dynasty, because compared with the chaos after the division of the Timurid Empire at that time, the destruction of the Ming Dynasty by the war and the post-war reconstruction of the Ming Dynasty were much faster than the Timurid Empire. Moreover, compared with the travelogues of many non-governmental figures, Because Gaiye Suddin was received by the Chinese authorities with high standards, the content he wrote was full of dry goods and high credibility, and some of the historical events he accurately recorded were echoed by the Chinese historical materials: Ming Chengzu issued a general amnesty decree in the first month of the nineteenth year of Yongle, exempting all people except death row prisoners from committing crimes, exempting the poor from paying taxes to the state, and not sending large-scale envoys to foreign countries within three years; and also planting a "long live lantern on the mountain" outside the noon gate of the imperial palace that year. As well as the lightning struck the Forbidden City in April of the nineteenth year of Yongle, burning the Fengtian Hall, the Huagai Hall, and the Zhensheng Hall.
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