Primordial Flower

Author: Nanzi / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: For her, our historical records have been too unfair. Later readers of history only know her as the wife of Zhang Qian from the Xiongnu. In the grand gallery of Zhang Qian's "Opening Up the Western Regions," she is a woman ignored by historians, a woman behind a hero, a victim. When Zhang Qian and his party left Chang'an westward toward the Western Regions, traveling day and night without rest, they grew exhausted, and their supply of drinking water was completely depleted. In their thirst, they painfully killed several horses to drink their blood. But it was just a drop in the bucket. The exhaustion and stagnation caused by hunger and thirst nearly drove them to the brink of despair. Just as they reached a clear spring and drank heartily, they were surrounded by a unit of Xiongnu cavalry. This was a trap set by the Xiongnu. The Han envoys led by Zhang Qian became prisoners of the Xiongnu. When the Xiongnu king learned that the Han envoys were sent to contact the Da Yuezhi people, he was both shocked and terrified. After days of relentless interrogation yielded no results, the Xiongnu had no choice but to send Zhang Qian and his deputy, Galfu, to a more harsh pastoral region, where they were handed over to a tribal leader and held captive as prisoners. The accompanying party was enslaved and scattered to various tribes.
Soon after, a plump and beautiful Xiongnu woman came to Zhang Qian's side, assigned to him as his wife by the Xiongnu king. What should she be called? In history, she left no name at all. At first, her marriage to Zhang Qian was not a voluntary union but a forced one, imposed upon her. She was the Xiongnu khan's beauty trap used against Zhang Qian. According to the modern interpretation, she was a "Bond girl" who had infiltrated "enemy ranks," a generous gift from the Xiongnu king to Zhang Qian. A naive, beautiful Xiongnu woman, yet she still could not escape her fate as a gift. The Xiongnu king was a rough man, a man hardened by the struggle for survival. During the process of presenting her as a gift to Zhang Qian, there was no trace of "humanity" but only the cruelty of "anti-humanity." For the Xiongnu king's imperial dream, he demanded that she unhesitatingly spy on Zhang Qian's every move. To bind his heart with the sweet bonds of love and soften his will. In reality, this beauty weapon used as a "human bomb" by the Xiongnu king, though charming, was ultimately just an ordinary, naive Xiongnu woman. How did she reconcile her dual identity? Would reason and emotion clash within her? These are all stories best left untold. P54-56