Chen Cheng's account of Herat and Samarkand, 1414 to 1415
A Ming envoy's report on the Timurid cities of Herat and Samarkand, known here through a Russian translation.
Full title Description of the Foreign Countries of the Western Regions (1415 embassy to Herat and Samarkand)
西域番國志 (Си юй фань го чжи)
Chen Cheng and Li Xian (Ming envoys); Russian translation by B. I. Pankratov, published 1989 and 1998
Chen Cheng and Li Xian led a Ming embassy in 1414 to 1415 to the Timurid court at Herat, travelling by Hami, Turfan and Samarkand, and wrote a description of the countries they saw. The card lists B. I. Pankratov's Russian translation, published in 1989 and 1998, as a web text on vostlit.info, and says the Chinese original was not found in an open scan. The atlas does not hold the text of this edition: no copy was harvested into the corpus, so nothing from it was read for this guide.
- How they knew
- Eyewitness
- Who “Tartar” means here
- Not recorded. The card names the Timurids, Moghulistan, Hami and Turfan. It does not say whether the Chinese original or the Russian translation uses Tatar for any of them.
- Why read it
- It is a Ming eyewitness of Timurid Central Asia within a decade of Clavijo, with Chinese names and descriptions of Samarkand and Herat.
- Watch out
- The Chinese text survives in Ming manuscripts and was edited by Zhou Liankuan in 1991. A companion itinerary, the Xiyu xingcheng ji, is a separate work.
What it says
No quotes from this one yet. Its text is out of reach for now, or the scan could not be read.
The fine print
How we know
firsthand The author saw the places or people described.
firsthand observation of the 1414-1415 Ming embassy to the Timurid court at Herat via Hami, Turfan, Samarkand
Research notes
- Chinese text survives in Ming manuscripts (Guochao dianggu; Shuofu) and was edited by Zhou Liankuan (1991); the Xiyu xingcheng ji (itinerary) is a companion work. Chinese scan not found on IA/CADAL in this pass (see candidates).
Why it matters
Ming eyewitness of Timurid Central Asia within a decade of Clavijo (W046); gives Chinese names and descriptions of Samarkand and Herat.
Places named
Hami; Turfan; Tarim; Samarkand; Herat; Khorasan
Peoples named
Timurids (Shahrukh); Moghulistan; Hami; Turfan; Ming