Ban Chao's son, who inherited the western business, argued the court back into the Western Regions and recovered it with a staff of five hundred.
Let a Protector-General be appointed, and a Resident Colonel at his side, and five hundred garrison men led out to settle the states' hearts. If their hearts are settled, the Xiongnu's hope is cut off.Ban Yong's proposal for holding the Western Regions; Hou Han shu, juan 47, Hereditary Biographies of Ban Chao and Ban Liang — the plan as the memoir gives it, in compressed wording
Appears in
Relations
- Ban Chao father — He inherited the western business and did it smaller: five hundred men where his father had worked with dozens and borrowed cavalry.
- Ban Gu uncle — His uncle wrote the history his father's campaigns supplied; the west stayed a family office.
Myth vs record
The story you may know
When Ban Chao came home his son carried on where his father had left off, and the Silk Road stayed open.
What the sources say
The road was lost first. The court gave up the Protectorship in 107 and left the garrison men to come back on their own; Ban Yong's recovery of the lanes, with a staff of five hundred, belongs to the 120s, not to his father's evening. The record also has him punished — under examination for a lost engagement and deprived of the western command he had rebuilt. Han's western dominion was never a thing inherited; it was re-won or abandoned, and after Yong it was abandoned.