China and Rome had progressively inched closer…

China and Rome had progressively inched closer with the embassies of Zhang Qian in 130 BCE and the military expeditions of China to Central Asia, until general Ban Chao’s attempt to send an envoy to Rome.

Chinese military ambassador Gan Ying, who had been sent on a mission to Rome in CE 97 by Ban Chao, had been part of Ban Chao's expeditionary force of seventy thousand, which had traveled as far west to the western border of Parthia.

Gan Ying leaves a detailed account of western countries, although he apparently only reached as far as Mesopotamia.

While he intended to sail to Rome through the Black Sea, some Parthian merchants, interested in maintaining their profitable role as the middleman in the trade between China and Rome, falsely told him the dangerous trip would take two years at the least (when it was actually closer to two months).

Although Gan Ying, who dies in 101, probably never reached Rome, he is, at least in the historical records, the Chinese who had gone the furthest west during antiquity and gathered what information he could.