Detail from a 15th-century illustrated telling of a Nizami story, commissioned in Herat. (Met Museum)
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Today’s episode is most obviously a story of diplomacy, of participation in the engagement between two imperial powers who had, until quite recently, not been on the friendliest of terms. There had been disagreement over the nature of that relationship, assumptions made by the one which had not sat well with the other. There had even been an invasion, begun but not completed, halted only by the untimely death of a ruler.
This episode is also about employment, about how a career can be derailed not by any fault of one’s own, not by a lack of talent or an abundance of mistakes, but by circumstances, by the death of the CEO, so to speak, and the feeling that something new will be needed, under the new regime. Our protagonist would face such setbacks, but he would still manage to have a successful, and indeed interesting, career.
Hello and welcome. My name is Devon, and this is Human Circus: Journeys in the Medieval World, a podcast that covers medieval history through the stories of its travellers, and a podcast with a Patreon, one where you can enjoy episodes early and with no advertising, and you’ll get extra mini-episodes too. You can do all of that for as little as a dollar a month, and you can do so at Patreon.com/humancircus. Today, I want to especially thank newest Patreon member Chris Taylor for his support. Thank you very much!
And now to the story.
Today’s is one of my Medieval Lives episodes, topics which I cover in just the one episode, and often, like today, a shorter one, rather than the anywhere from 2 to 10 full length ones that make up a series. Today’s looks back to the same period as the last series, the one on Ghiyāth al-Dīn and his journey east, but listening to that is not a requirement before listening to this.
If you did listen to that series, you heard a little of how the relationship between Timur, founder of the Timurid dynasty, and Yongle, the Ming Chinese emperor, was not a happy one. Being treated as the inferior ruler of a more minor power, in effect a vassal, did not sit well with Timur, and he embarked on a massive military campaign to go do something about it, an enormous endeavour which he would not be able to carry through before dying. You heard of how that relationship had substantially improved after Timur’s death, and though there had been some bumps on the road, how a period of friendly diplomatic and commercial exchange had followed.
You might have wondered, in hearing about Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s depiction of that journey from Herat to Beijing, if there wasn’t some source that spoke of the many travellers who had gone in the other direction. If the diplomatic exchange between Ming China and Timur’s heirs was so very lively then surely there should also be examples of the traffic heading west from the Yongle Emperor’s court to that of the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh, writings which survived, and yes, yes there were.
When those Chinese embassies had travelled west to Shah Rukh in the years just before Ghiyāth al-Dīn went east, a man named Chen Cheng went with them, and he had not just accompanied those embassies—he had been in charge of a few of them. That’s who we’re talking about today.
Chen Cheng had not been to the Timurid capital before when he was selected for the first diplomatic mission—it would have been surprising if he had—but he was far from inexperienced. In 1394, he had passed the imperial examination and earned his jinshi degree, the highest one, before taking up a position in the civil service with the Ministry of Rites. It was a modest position, to be sure, but one from which advancement was possible and in which he could become thoroughly familiar with the world of diplomacy and with correspondence from abroad.
By 1396, he was with a mission in what is now Gansu province, then the western border, a military mission securing guard posts, though it’s unclear exactly what his personal role was, and soon after he was helping to settle a dispute on the southern borders. There were promotions, one that had him composing proclamations, and then an appointment as an assistant commissioner. He gave every appearance of being a man with a successful past and a bright future, but he wouldn’t get the chance to settle into that appointment because there was also a setback, one so severe that it could easily have been a career-defining one.
Chen Cheng rose through the ranks in what would prove to be the incorrect administration. It wasn’t his fault. It was not up to him to determine the emperor at the time he received that appointment, but by doing so in 1401 he was ascending the job-ladder during the sunset of the Jianwen Emperor’s very brief time at the top. Jianwen’s uncle was coming, to put an end to that time, to produce a charred body that he claimed to be his nephew’s, and to make himself the Yongle Emperor. Chen Cheng, having generally thrived, found himself on the outside, removed from imperial service, and living again near his old hometown. This was the lull in his story where you might insert a morose or contemplative montage, with him considering where he was in life and maybe also some of the old sights of that hometown. The lull would not last long.
His exile, at least, did not last long. He must have had something about him because only a year later, he was back in action, regaining a position in the civil service, though at lesser pay and at a lesser rank. He didn’t get that assistant commissioner appointment back, and the stink of success under the wrong emperor seems to have been hard to shake. It was true that he again had a job, but he does not seem to have been back on the path to promotion. He was so very far off that path that he was still going to be in that same lesser position when the call came for him to go west and see Shah Rukh. That would be ten years later, ten years in the same position, ten years without advancement after his early rise through the ranks, evidence of just how badly the violent turnover at the top had affected him.
Many would have reacted with horror to the news that they were being dispatched into the outer void, into all that unpleasantness out there beyond the imperial boundaries, but not Chen Cheng. Perhaps partly because he had been stuck in that dead-end job for so long and saw this, at last, as an opportunity to again prove himself, he was apparently quite excited about the whole thing, leaping to his feet with a face full of delight. “These are great times for civil servants,” he is said to have gleefully announced. “Though the western region is far away, our sage emperor’s fame and influence reaches even there.” It certainly showed a healthy positivity about it all, which his friend and colleague who witnessed the moment confirmed, saying “[He] was so virtuous! He saw [such a vast journey] as but going out the door.” Of course, as Bilbo Baggins reminds us, it could be a dangerous business, going out your door. There’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.
In early February 1414, Chen Cheng was swept off to the west. He and his company had two goals in mind. First, he was to go and distribute gifts to those in Central Asia who’d sent tribute, to spread the good will and good feelings around. He was also going to document his journey in a travel log, his “Record of a journey to the western regions,” and the accompanying, more detailed, writings on the cities he passed through, with a particular focus on Herat.
“13th day,” he would write. “Clear; arose during the third watch; travelled south; entered a mountain gorge; path was rugged; after approximately [65 kilometers], made camp at the base of a mountain at a place called T’o-hu-ssu caravanserai.”
“14th day,’ he would record. “Clear; arose at dawn; travelled southwest and crossed low mountains; went on approximately [15 kilometres] and came out of the mountains; made camp near the east side of Herat.”
By 13th and 14th, he would not have meant the day of the journey but rather that of the month. As we heard with Ghiyath al-Din, it was no 14-day journey to take you near to Herat.
By 13th and 14th, you might wonder if he was going to write such a note for every day of his travel, and the answer is yes, very nearly.
As to the content itself, as you can see, Chen Cheng was not necessarily looking to entertain. He was not making it the diary of his own personal experiences, feelings, or day to day encounters. He was there to inform, to provide information for those back in Beijing and for the people they would send after him.
Of a town like Hami for example, he would describe its circumference, and its situation on a plain with mountains to its north; its population, roughly, and their “low earthen houses.” There were orchards of apricots and manured fields of millet, wheat, and beans. There was a stream to the east of the city, flowing southwest. It was, he says, “an important thoroughfare where the various barbarians come and go. The majority of the people are ferocious, but all who travel here seek horses from them.” Those people, he says, were “Mongols, Muslims, and others …, and their dress, customs, and ceremonies are all different.’
In her article on Chen Cheng’s travels, Felicia Hecker outlines his path “along an ancient caravan route that ran across Central Asia north of the Taklamakan desert, turned south at Samarkand, passed through Balkh, and finally arrived at Herat,” likely on October 28th, 1414.
In Morris Rossabi’s summary of that journey, he writes that, quote:
“Though Chen’s expedition was not harassed by bandits, practically every other hazard of desert and mountain travel confronted it: the travellers passed through areas with little, if any, water, in both desert territories and in lands covered by snow and ice; they occasionally resorted to chiselling and boiling ice for water; men and horses were lost in terrible snowstorms; and they traversed rivers that were frozen as well as sand dunes of great height.”
There were ruins on the way, of town walls and temples. There were the bones of animals, emphasizing the hostility of the environment. There was the city of Samarkand, which impressed with its striking mosques and bazaars, but that was not, by this point, the capital of the Timurid world. That capital was Herat, and after this quick break, we’ll get there.
…
In Herat, Chen Cheng described buildings which are easily identifiable, the citadel for example, which he described as the ruler’s house of brick, strong and square. He saw it just a year before Shah Rukh would have large-scale repairs carried out, so likely not in the best shape. Still, there was gold, ceramics, gems, and ornately crafted rugs. There were the interior doors with their elaborate carving and bone and horn inlay that caught his eye. Such doors had apparently been introduced by a Syrian craftsman that Timur had brought back from Damascus after he took that city, just one example of the immense wealth of talent and artistry he gathered at the heart of his empire through force of arms.
Chen Cheng also described “...a big earthen building … . The verandas on its four sides are broad and wide. In its courtyard is a copper vessel constructed like a great wok… . On it are carved characters like a [bronze ritual vessel].” It was the great mosque in the east of the city that he wrote of, and you can still see that same mosque or at least a mosque in that same place.
The Great Mosque of Herat has been through a lot since the initial Khwarazmian construction on the site of an even older temple. There have been fires, earthquakes, a Mongol sacking, repairs, and reconstructions, one period of such work coming under the rule of Shah Rukh, though it’s not clear whether it had been done by the time of Chen Cheng’s arrival. A constant since the Kart dynasty has been that vessel which he compared to a wok. It was made in the 14th century and still in place in the late 20th, still there in the 21st, maybe still there right now. You can find it, if you’re interested, in a photo from 1969 and also in one I’ve seen dated 2006.
Perhaps the most significant observation Chen Cheng made as to Herat’s architecture was his repeated reference to this building or that as “earthen” or “piled up of earth bricks.” Kind of like with that line about Augustus having found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble, this was not yet the fullest expression of Herat as Shah Rukh’s imperial capital. It was still very much outshone by Samarkand, ruled over by one of his sons, not yet richly adorned with glazed tile-work and other ornamentation.
Buildings aside, the Ming visitor noted down all sorts of things that would be useful to those who retraced his steps. He would report on when and how to say salām for example: in greeting or in parting and with a slight forward bend. He would record a number of useful words to know, transcribing the Persian into Chinese for various places, materials, days, titles, rituals, and currencies, all of which would presumably be taken back to the recently created translation bureau, still, at the time, employing scholars from abroad but established with an eye toward training Chinese translators.
One curious omission in what Chen Cheng reported was anything at all of any military consequence, certainly a topic of interest to his employers. Perhaps, as Rossabi suggested, this information was given separately, either as another written account, one that has since been lost, or only as words spoken in person upon his return. By Rossabi’s estimation, it was inconceivable that he would not have been asked to gather and provide such information.
Chen Cheng spent about two months in Herat, in the mosques and in the markets. He went to bazaars ordered in rows by craft or commodity, and recorded information on coin denominations and on the 20% sales tax a purchaser could expect to pay, as well as the lanterns that allowed them to run after dark. He got about and reported on the customs, on food to be eaten with your hands while seated at low tables on the ground, and never including pork or wine, though there were some who were caught and punished for producing the latter.
Of the foods of this extremely fertile region, he noted the pistachios, which, as he had not encountered them before, intrigued him. Just as other travellers to the region, he noted the sweetness and size of the melons.
As to animals, he wrote of ones wild and domestic, picking out the zebra to describe, and of course, as won’t surprise you after the Ghiyāth al-Dīn episodes, he was interested in horses. Ming China needed them, and here, he said, were good ones, care evident in all aspects of their treatment.
Chen Cheng visited the bathhouses, noting with evident enjoyment the way they “rub the muscles and flesh, shake and pinch the bones, and make a person happy,” all for only a copper or two. He also included a few elements of the local culture that did not measure up to the bathhouses in his estimation.
There was the effectiveness of the local medicines, which did not impress him, but mostly this had to do with behaviour. The norms of one society were not those of another. For one thing, the visitor did not approve of the fancy robes that were regularly worn by those who were not of the elite, young boys in embroidered robes with jade at their belts. For another, there was what was, to him, public inappropriateness.
“They have no [understanding] of principles or propriety,” he wrote. “When inferiors meet superiors, they come forward, shake hands, and that is all! If people of equal rank meet, they stop, and shake hands or embrace and consider that proper.”
Clearly, he did not.
“When women go out, they ride horses and mules,” he wrote. “If they meet someone on the road, they chat, laugh, and fool around with no sense of shame. Moreover, they utter lewd words when conversing. The men,” he darkly concluded, “are even more despicable [in their conduct].”
It can be startling to leave your home and be confronted with a culture not your own, and clearly one with entirely different rules of social relation from what he was used to. Earlier European travellers to the area that we’ve covered, like the friars of the 13th century, had fairly similar reactions.
As for Chen Cheng’s own response, “For the most part,” in the words of Felicia Hecker, “[his] report is remarkably free of bias. He seems determined to relate what he saw at Herat without passing judgement on it. Only when his Confucian sensibilities were offended, did his tone change to condemnation.”
Other than that his report gives every appearance of being that of a man with a healthy and open curiosity, and, by Hecker’s judgement, a “spirit of adventure,” perhaps one partly motivated by a desire to do an excellent job, to prove himself once again to those back home, and to escape the professional purgatory that he’d fallen into.
As it happened, Chen Cheng’s work was going to be received very well after he arrived home in November of 1415. He would be sent out on two more diplomatic missions among the Timurids, the second time in 1420, neither leaving the same kind of detailed written record but the first covered in some detail by Persian sources. Though these further missions might be taken to mean that nobody wanted him back home, he was also promoted right away, first to a directorship with the Ministry of Personnel and then, just a year later, to the position of vice-commissioner of a provincial administration.
The star of our traveller/diplomat/administrator was once again on the rise, and again, that rise would again be halted by events well-north of even his increased pay grade, well-well-north.
Another emperor was going to die, was the problem, this time the Yongle Emperor, who, remember, had less than two years left to live at the time Ghiyāth al-Din left his presence in our last series. And just as when Yongle’s nephew had died, earlier this episode, in 1424 Chen Cheng again found his life flung off course.
It wasn’t quite the same situation as before, not a matter of having served the wrong ruler. It was just that his skills did not really align with the new administration’s priorities. Foreign adventures and engagement were going to be deemed unnecessary expenditures under the new, more inward-looking emperor. This time, his expertise no longer in demand, Chen Cheng was not going to wait around a decade for another opportunity.
By 1426, he would submit a request to be released from his responsibilities. That request having been accepted, he would enjoy retirement for thirty years in his old hometown, apparently speaking only rarely of his time abroad. He had played a central role in establishing harmonious relations between his emperor and the foreign power that had, not all that long before, threatened invasion. He had also, I suppose, already said all that he needed to in his written report.
That work, those words, had gone in the archives, been consulted whenever needed, entered into the record of the deceased emperor’s reign, and used in future geographies. It had, Felicia Hecker notes, been reduced, summarized, at a few successive steps, so as the Ming dynasty withdrew engagement, Chen Cheng’s record, their solitary written window on Herat, became a narrowing one.
The original, the full report, would be lost once that summary was extracted, or at least disappear from public knowledge for a few centuries, a manuscript eventually reappearing in a private library in the 1930s.
That’s where we’re going to leave his story. I hope you enjoyed it. If you’re listening on the Patreon, and I think you should, I’ll be back soon with some bonus listening. Otherwise, I’ll be back soon after, with the start to our next series. Thank you for listening. I’ll talk to you then.