The catalogue card points to an English web selection (Wylie, Hirth and a University of Washington edition), which is not in the corpus. What the corpus holds is the full Chinese text of both histories from the Kanseki Repository (CC BY-SA 4.0). The Shiji chapters on the Xiongnu (ch. 110) and on Dayuan (ch. 123), built on the envoy Zhang Qian's report of his journeys around 139 to 126 BCE, describe herding peoples of the northern steppe and the walled farming towns of Central Asia. These books are more than a thousand years older than the name 'Tatar' and never use it. They matter here as the oldest Chinese template for describing steppe nomads, which later writers applied to the 'Tartars'. The translations below are our own working versions.
How they knew
Official record
Who “Tartar” means here
The word does not occur. The northern nomads are the Xiongnu (匈奴) and, more loosely, Hu (胡). Much later Chinese sources call the Tatars 韃靼 (Dada).
Why read it
The contrast Zhang Qian drew over two thousand years ago, between herders who 'follow water and grass' with no walled cities and settled oasis peoples with 'walled cities and houses', is the same one later European travellers drew for the Tartars.
Watch out
Not about Tartars as such. The Shiji is an official court history, hostile to the Xiongnu. The web selection named in the catalogue is a separate, condensed English edition that was not read here.
Ferghana: walled cities, rice, wine and blood-sweating horses
Editorial contextIn contrast to the Xiongnu, Zhang Qian reported that the people of Dayuan (Ferghana) were settled farmers growing rice and wheat, made grape wine, and bred fine 'blood-sweating' horses descended from 'heavenly horses'. They had walled cities and houses, some seventy towns large and small, and several hundred thousand people. The same chapter labels the Wusun, Kangju and Yuezhi as 'moving nations' (行國).
Their custom is to stay settled on the land; they plough fields and grow rice and wheat. They have grape wine. They have many fine horses; the horses sweat blood, and their ancestors were the offspring of heavenly horses. They have walled cities and houses; the towns under them, large and small, number over seventy, and the people several hundred thousand.
Editorial contextSima Qian opens his chapter on the Xiongnu with their way of life: they move their herds of horses, cattle and sheep in search of water and grass, have no walled cities, fixed homes or farming, though each group has its own pasture land, and they keep no written records. Later in the passage he adds that from the ruler down they eat meat and wear hides, felt and furs. It is the oldest Chinese model of the 'people without cities' that later writers used for the Tartars.
They move about following water and grass, and have no walled cities, fixed dwellings or work of tilling fields; yet each has its own allotted land. They have no writing, and make agreements by word of mouth.
About Xiongnu (northern steppe nomads of the Han era)
Keep in mind
The Xiongnu are not 'Tartars'; the passage is included as the earliest Chinese description of steppe nomad life. Archaeology has since found Xiongnu fortified settlements.
The fine print
How we know
compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.
Court compilation incorporating early missions
Research notes
UW combines condensed Han chapters with inserted Zhang Qian material; not the complete Chinese histories.
Why it matters
Early names, routes, political communities and contacts.