Zhang Qian was an imperial envoy in the 2nd century BCE, during the time of the Han Dynasty. He was the first official diplomat to bring back reliable information about Central Asia to the Chinese imperial court, then under Emperor Wu of Han, and played an important pioneering role in the Chinese colonisation and conquest of the region now known as Xinjiang. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Zhang Qian. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Qian
