Alright, alright, we admit Zhang Qian wasn’t an Uzbek, but the Chinese explorer played an such a large part in the establishment of the Silk Road, that we had to give him his due. An imperial envoy sent by the Han Emperor during the 2nd century BC to sniff out potential military allies against the hostile Xiongu tribes that hemmed in China to the West, Qian would actually be captured by the Xiongnu not once, but twice. Enslaved for a total of twelve years, word on the street is that the Xiongnu spared Qian’s life only because they “valued his sense of duty and composure in the face of death.”

Eventually, Qian would escape and make it to, amongst others, the Kingdom of Dayuan in the Fergana Valley, and the territory then known as Transoxiana, which included present-day Uzbekistan. When he returned home, the first ever to bring detailed, reliable news about Central Asia, he told the Emperor that these “distant lands” held great commercial promise, thus setting the stage for the road that would change the course of history.