The Biography of Ban Chao

The Yellow River flows far into the clouds; a lone fortress stands amid mountains ten thousand ren high.

Why should the Qiang flute lament the willows? Spring breezes never pass through Yumen Pass.

“Spring breezes never pass through Yumen Pass.” We have all read this line of poetry, yet few have asked: who guards the places the spring breeze never reaches?

Ban Chao guarded them for thirty-one years. Thirty-six men rode out beyond the pass; ten returned alive. He pacified the fifty kingdoms of the Western Regions and was enfeoffed as Marquis of Dingyuan. The history books summed up his life in two words, “Dingyuan,” yet gave the woman he loved only nine characters: “Wife: a woman of Shule; later, they parted over an incident.”

Why should the Qiang flute lament the willows? True sorrow has never lived in the sound of a flute. It lies behind city gates the spring breeze will never reach, in a lock of brown hair wrapped in sheepskin for two thousand years, and on a bamboo slip bearing just three characters, sealed with wax and hidden by Ban Zhao in the depths of the Lantai archives.

History remembers his achievements. This book remembers what they cost him.