The Heavenly Horses of Ferghana
Why did the Chinese Emperor Wu send a military expedition to Ta Yüan in 102 BC to capture the ‘Heavenly Horses’?
Individuals are not happy in proportion to the amount of space their persons occupy. Yet certain nations, at certain periods of their history, seem to take it for granted that the wider they spread themselves the happier they will be. China is a case in point. Why did this enormous country in the second century BC, in the first century AD and again at various later periods ruin itself by gratuitous westward expansion? Were her aims commercial or strategic ?
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