Ancient Chinese explorer Xuanzang
Credit: © Almazoff/Shutterstock

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will celebrate the accomplishments and heritage of Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Zhang Qian, Gan Ying, and Xuanzang were Chinese explorers who made an impact on education, international relations, religion, and trade by traveling throughout Asia. Zhang Qian and Gan Ying set out as diplomats and Xuanzang traveled illegally to learn more about Buddhism. Both explorers left a lasting legacy felt throughout Asia.

Zhang Qian was an ancient Chinese explorer who traveled in the service of Emperor Wudi during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty was a series of emperors of the same family that ruled China for over 400 years. Zhang’s journeys expanded Chinese knowledge of the world and laid the foundation for later trade between China and the West. Zhang was born sometime before 150 B.C. in Hanzhong, in central China. He worked in the royal palace in Chang’an (now Xi’an), the capital. During the 100’s B.C., the Chinese wanted to destroy large nomadic tribes called the Xiongnu, who demanded tribute and raided towns and villages in northern China. The Xiongnu already had conquered Chinese nomads called the Yuezhi. Emperor Wudi hoped the Yuezhi would form an alliance with him to defeat the Xiongnu.

Ancient Chinese explorer Zhang Qian
Credit: © beibaoke/Shutterstock

Zhang set out about 138 B.C. with some 100 men. The Xiongnu captured Zhang’s party and took them to their chanyu (emperor) who held Zhang captive. Zhang escaped after more than 10 years and continued on his journey to find the Yuezhi. By then, the Yuezhi had moved west to the fertile lands of Bactria, a former Greek colony in central Asia. Zhang passed through the Ferghana Valley in what is now Uzbekistan. In Bactria, Zhang saw goods purchased from India and learned about the kingdom of Parthia.

Zhang failed to convince the Yuezhi king to join the Chinese against the Xiongnu. He took a different route back to China to avoid the Xiongnu, traveling south of the Taklimakan Desert and north of Tibet. But the Xiongnu again captured Zhang. Zhang escaped the Xiongnu during a civil war, returning to China around 126 or 125 B.C. Zhang gave Wudi a detailed report on his voyage. His accounts of Bactria, India, Parthia, and many other regions were the first accurate descriptions that China had received of these places. Wudi was fascinated with the opportunities Zhang presented for diplomatic, economic, and military expansion in Central Asia. The emperor promoted Zhang and sent him on more diplomatic and military missions. These missions increased the empire’s power and helped open the network of trade routes later known as the Silk Road. Zhang died in 114 B.C.

Gan Ying was a Chinese diplomat and explorer in ancient times. In A.D. 97, he set out to reach Da Qin, the Chinese name for the Roman Empire. Gan Ying traveled farther west than any Chinese person before him. Before Gan Ying set out, the Han Empire already had conquered the Taklimakan Desert and surrounding regions. They called this territory the Western Regions. For the first time in history, trade caravans could travel safely through the Western Regions to the rest of China. However, Parthia, farther west in what is now eastern Iran, controlled trade through its territory. The Chinese general Ban Chao, who had conquered the Western Regions, sent Gan Ying on a diplomatic mission to the Roman Empire. He hoped Gan could establish direct contact and find a way to avoid the high surcharges of Parthian merchants.

Gan Ying traveled west from the Western Regions across what are now Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and into Parthia. He reached a large body of water that most historians think was the Persian Gulf. From there, Gan tried to charter a vessel to sail to the Roman Empire, but Persian sailors would not take him. Gan Ying turned back. However, he collected all the information that he could, probably from sailors and traders gathered in Parthia. When Gan returned to China, he accurately reported that the Romans controlled the largest empire west of China.

Xuanzang was a Chinese Buddhist monk and explorer. Xuanzang traveled by foot and horse from China to India to collect Buddhist scriptures and learn more about Buddhism from other scholars. Chen Hui was born around 602, near Luoyang in the province of Henan. He was raised in the Confucian tradition but converted to Buddhism as a child. Chen was ordained in 622 and was given the monastic name Xuanzang. As a young monk, Xuanzang was troubled by the limited selection and poor quality of Buddhist texts available in China. He resolved to travel to India to bring more such texts back to China.

Xuanzang set off some time between 627 and 629 from the Chinese capital of Chang’an (now Xi’an). The government of the new Tang dynasty had greatly restricted emigration (travel out of the country) at the time. Xuanzang was denied permission to leave China, but he did so anyway, traveling in secret and at night while he crossed the border.

Through his journeys Xuanzang traveled through the Gobi Desert, Taklimakan Desert, Kucha and Turfan, Tian Shan mountains and visited Samarqand and Tashkent in present-day Uzbekistan, what is now northern Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush mountains to arrive in Gandhara, in what is now Pakistan. He also continued to the Kashmir region and the foothills of the Himalaya mountains to Mathura, India, near Delhi. Xuanzang followed the Ganges River east, visiting holy places associated with the life of Buddha.

Xuanzang began his return journey to China in 643 with the help of the Indian emperor Harsha. He arrived back in Chang’an in 645, 16 years or more after leaving China.  Xuanzang was given a hero’s welcome, despite having left Tang China illegally. He returned with more than 650 Buddhist manuscripts, having traveled more than 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers). Xuanzang wrote a book about his journeys and spent the rest of his life translating the manuscripts he had collected from Sanskrit, an Indian language, into Chinese. Xuanzang died in 664.

September 20, 2019

On Sept. 20, 1519, 500 years ago today, the Portuguese sea captain Ferdinand Magellan sailed westward from Spain with a small fleet, hoping to find an alternate sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. Magellan reached and crossed the Pacific Ocean, but he never saw the Spice Islands—nor did he live to finish the voyage. Members of his crew, however, returned to Spain from the east, becoming the first people to circumnavigate (sail all the way around) the world. Many scholars consider the voyage the greatest navigational feat in history.

The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan led the first expedition that sailed around the world. This engraving shows Magellan and his crew in October 1520 as they sail through the strait that separates the islands of Tierra del Fuego from mainland South America. The Strait of Magellan, as it is now called, provided a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Credit: Discovery of The Magellan-Strait (1880), colored wood engraving by unknown artist (© SuperStock)

Magellan, an experienced seaman and soldier, studied astronomy and navigation. His studies convinced him that he could reach the Spice Islands by sailing west around the southern tip of South America. He believed such a route would be shorter than the eastward voyage around the southern tip of Africa and across the Indian Ocean. Magellan asked the king of Portugal to support the voyage, but the king refused. Like Christopher Columbus 27 years earlier, however, Magellan found a sponsor in the monarch of Spain, and he began planning the expedition.

Ferdinand Magellan died in the Philippines in 1521, but members of his crew completed the first circumnavigation of the world in 1522. Credit: Granger Collection

On Sept. 20, 1519, Magellan left Spain with about 240 men and five ships: Concepcion, San Antonio, Santiago, Trinidad, and Victoria. The fleet sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the coast of modern day Brazil and followed the South American coast to southern Argentina. A storm destroyed Santiago, and there were problems with the sometimes mutinous crew, but Magellan discovered a passage around the tip of South America to the Pacific—a passage known ever since as the Strait of Magellan. The crew of San Antonio mutinied and returned to Spain, but the three remaining ships sailed out of the strait and into the ocean. Magellan named the ocean the Pacific, which means peaceful, because it appeared calm compared with the stormy strait.

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This map traces Magellan’s fleet as it completed the first circumnavigation of the world from 1519 to 1522. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

Sailing across the vast Pacific involved great hardship for Magellan and his crew. No Europeans had sailed across the Pacific before them. Consequently, the islands in the Pacific, where ships could resupply with food and water, were unknown. The ships sailed for 98 days without seeing any land except two uninhabited islands. Their food gave out, and their water supply became contaminated. They ate rats that infested their ships, oxhide leather, and sawdust to avoid starvation. Most of the crew suffered from scurvy, a disease caused by a lack of vitamin C in the diet. Several men died before the fleet reached Guam on March 6, 1521.

Conflicts with the people of Guam and the nearby island of Rota prevented Magellan from fully resupplying his ships. But the crew seized enough food and water to continue on to the Philippines. Magellan and his crew remained in the Philippines for several weeks, and close relations developed between them and the islanders. On April 27, 1521, however, Magellan was killed when he took part in a battle between rival Filipino groups on the island of Mactan.

With only about 110 crew members remaining, Magellan’s men abandoned Concepcion, and the two remaining vessels, Trinidad and Victoria, sailed to the Spice Islands, where they were loaded with valuable spices. The leaders of the fleet then decided that the two ships should make separate return voyages.

Trinidad sailed eastward across the Pacific to the Isthmus of Panama. Bad weather and disease disrupted the voyage, and more than half the crew died. The survivors made the terrible trip across the Pacific again, only to be detained in the Spice Islands. Victoria went the other way, continuing its westward voyage across the Indian Ocean. Victoria also experienced great hardship, and many of the crew died, but the ship finally reached Spain on Sept. 6, 1522, nearly three years after the voyage had begun. Only 18 sailors lived to complete the circumnavigation.

Magellan proved that it was possible to reach the Spice Islands by sailing westward. The discovery of the Strait of Magellan led to future European voyages across the Pacific and around the world.

March 16, 2017

March 16 marks the birthday of British navigator Matthew Flinders, who explored and charted much of Australia’s coast in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Flinders was born in England on March 16, 1774. In 1794, he sailed to the British colony of New South Wales, Australia. While on the voyage, he met surgeon George Bass. The two men shared a passion for exploration, and after they arrived in Australia, they explored Botany Bay in a small rowboat called Tom Thumb.

Matthew Flinders, born on March 16, 1774, was a British navigator who explored much of Australia’s coastline. Credit: State Library of South Australia (licensed under CC BY 2.0)

During separate voyages, Bass and Flinders each came to suspect that Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) was an island; at the time, it was generally believed that it was joined to the Australian mainland. In late 1798 and early 1799, Bass and Flinders sailed completely around Van Diemen’s Land, proving their theory correct. At Flinders’s recommendation, the strait between Van Diemen’s Land and the Australian mainland was named Bass Strait in George Bass’s honor.

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George Bass and Matthew Flinders, two English naval officers, made several explorations along the Australian coast in the 1790’s. They sailed around Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), proving that it was an island. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

In 1801, Flinders was tasked with exploring Australia’s southern coast to determine whether a strait separated eastern and western Australia. He reached Cape Leeuwin that December. He sailed eastward, exploring the coast. The expedition arrived in Sydney in May 1802. After refitting his ship, Flinders sailed north in July. He began to survey the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria but discovered that his ship was in a dangerously rotten condition. He decided to complete the journey around Australia’s coast as quickly as possible. He reached Sydney again in July 1803, and his voyage proved that a strait did not divide the Australian mainland.

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Matthew Flinders sailed around Australia from 1801 to 1803. He surveyed the southern coast, and he named Spencer Gulf, Kangaroo Island, and Encounter Bay. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

In August 1803, Flinders left Australia to return to the United Kingdom. After a series of problems with his ship, he landed at Île de France, a French colony in the Indian Ocean that is now the country of Mauritius. France and the United Kingdom were at war at the time, and the governor of Île de France had Flinders imprisoned on the suspicion that he was a spy. He was finally freed in 1810 and he returned to the United Kingdom. He spent the last years of his life writing the book A Voyage to Terra Australis. Flinders died on July 19, 1814.

January 26, 2016

British explorer Henry Worsley’s attempt to be the first person to walk across Antarctica unaided ended tragically with his death this past Sunday, January 24. Worsley was forced to end his trek just 30 miles (50 kilometers) short of his goal because of dehydration and exhaustion. Since the start of his journey on Nov. 13, 2015, on Berkner Island, Antarctica, Worsley had walked alone across the continent, battling extreme weather conditions without outside support, for 71 days. He covered 913 miles (1520 kilometers) before he could no longer continue. He requested help near the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf (see bottom section of map below). A rescue team flew Worsley to a hospital in Punta Arenas, Chile, where he died.

Antarctica (World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc.)

Worsley’s attempt to cross the frozen expanse of Antarctica recalls the gallant, yet ill-fated expeditions of British explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton. These expeditions took place in the first two decades of the 1900′s, a period often called the “Heroic Era” of Antarctic exploration, when explorers first reached the South Pole. In 1911, two groups of explorers raced across Antarctica to be the first to reach the South Pole. One group was led by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, and the other by Robert Falcon Scott. Amundsen reached the pole on Dec. 14, 1911, about five weeks before Scott. Scott and the four other members of his group reached the pole, but they all died on the return trip. A search party found their frozen bodies inside their tent eight months later.

Sir Ernest Shackleton Credit: Library of Congress.

In 1914, Shackleton led an expedition into the Weddell Sea, where ice crushed his ship, the  Endurance. His party escaped in boats to Elephant Island. Shackleton and five companions then made a daring journey by boat to South Georgia Island and crossed the island’s glacier-covered mountainous ridge to summon rescuers. As a result, his entire party was saved.

The Irish-born British explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton began an expedition to Antarctica in 1914 aboard the ship Endurance. This photograph shows the ship in full sail. It later was trapped and crushed by sea ice. © Royal Geographical Society/Alamy Images

Henry Worsley, a distant relative of Frank Worsley, a member of the Shackleton expedition, was trying to complete the mission Shackleton had started more than a century ago. Worsley’s trek across Antarctica was done to raise money for the Endeavour Fund, a charity that provides assistance to wounded British veterans through sporting and adventure challenges. Worsley raised more than 100,000 pounds (143,000 U.S. dollars) before starting his trek. The Endeavour Fund is managed by the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry of the United Kingdom.

Other World Book articles

• Antarctica: The Hidden Continent (a Special report)
• Exploration

May 13, 2014

The long-lost remains of the flagship commanded by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to the Americas may have been located off the coast of Haiti, according to American oceanic explorer Barry Clifford. The discovery of the Santa María, a ship involved in the most important voyage to shape the history of the modern world, is considered by many as the Holy Grail of underwater archaeology. Columbus’s voyage unintentionally changed Europeans’ commonly accepted views of the world. The voyage also set in motion a far-reaching exchange, known as the Columbian Exchange, of plants, animals, and diseases between Afro-Eurasia (Africa, Europe, and Asia) and the Americas.

Christopher Columbus, under the sponsorship of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I of Spain, set out from Palos, in southwestern Spain, on Aug. 3, 1492, to search for a westward route to Asia. His fleet included three ships–the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. Before noon on October 12, the ships landed on an island in the Caribbean Sea. Columbus named the island San Salvador (Spanish for Holy Savior).

Clifford and his team originally discovered the remains of a wooden shipwreck in waters 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) deep off the northern coast of Haiti in 2003. They measured and photographed the wreck, which included an iron cannon that resembled such weapons common in the 1400′s. But the explorers did not attempt collect any of the remains. Only years later, when Clifford was able to examine the photographs in detail and compare them to historical records did he realize they may have come upon the Santa María.

A replica of the Santa María, the ship that Christopher Columbus himself captained on his first voyage to the Americas. (© Slidepix/Dreamstime)

In 2014, Clifford returned with his team to investigate the shipwreck with metal detectors and sonar. They found that the dimensions of the wreck matched well with known measurements of the Santa María. Columbus’s flagship was larger than the small, sturdy caravels of the time (which included the Niña and Pinta), and it had a deck amidships. The location of the wreck also correlated well with accounts written by Columbus himself.  The Santa María sank after it crashed and split apart on a reef near Cap-Haïtien, in present-day Haiti, on Christmas Eve night in 1492. Columbus and the crew managed to salvage some items from the stricken ship, which then drifted some distance on ocean currents. In January 1493, Columbus and his crew boarded the Niña to return to Spain.

So far, Cifford’s team has not conducted any excavations to retrieve artifacts that will be needed to prove the ship is indeed the Santa María. The cannon spotted in 2003 has apparently been stolen by looters. The government of Haiti has agreed to provide funding for excavations that could prove that the wreck is that of this most historically important ship.

Additional World Book articles:

• Exploration (The age of European exploration)
• Indian, American (Indians of the Caribbean)
• Latin America (European discovery and exploration)

Jan. 12, 2012

At least 23 new animal species have been discovered living around hydrothermal vents in the Southern Ocean, near Antarctica. The species include barnacles, sea anemones, starfish, snails, and yeti crabs. The yeti crabs were by far the most abundant species, with heaps of the white creatures jostling for position in the flow of water from the vents. Scientists surveyed the vents using a robotic vehicle tethered to a research ship on the surface. The vents are about 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) beneath the surface.

Hydrothermal vents are areas where heated water flows from the ocean floor. In the Southern Ocean, water exits the vents at temperatures up to up to 720 °F (383 °C), but it quickly cools as it meets the frigid water of the deep Southern Ocean. As the water cools, it releases chemicals that bacteria can use to make their own food. Animals provide the bacteria with a place to live in exchange for food. For example, the yeti crabs are covered in hairlike filaments that house the bacteria.

The deep sea holds some of the most fascinating creatures on Earth. Deep-sea dwellers include the cirrate octopod (an octopus), the tripod fish, and many animals that resemble corals. Other animals live around hydrothermal vents, including tubeworms and mussels. This illustration shows only a few of the creatures from the deep sea. Many of the animals shown in this illustration come from different parts of the deep sea and would not be found living together. World Book illustration by Tony Gibbons, Bernard Thornton Artists

The newly discovered species are unlike those found around other hydrothermal vents, where giant tubeworms, mussels, and shrimp dominate. The scientists believe that harsh conditions in the Southern Ocean probably prevent these animals from colonizing vents there. The researchers expect to identify other new species as they continue to study samples taken from the area.

Scientists have been fascinated by life around hydrothermal vents since the first vent was discovered in 1977. Organisms that live around hydrothermal vents do not depend on the sun for energy, unlike nearly all other life on Earth. Some scientists believe that life first arose around hydrothermal vents. Scientists also speculate that alien planets with harsh environments may support extraterrestrial life similar to the extremophiles found around hydrothermal vents.

Additional articles in World Book:

• Archaea
• Back in Time (Biology 1977)
• Back in Time (Geology 1977)
• Deep sea
• Exploring the Ocean Abyss (A Special Report)