Fu An (;

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1395–1429) was a

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

diplomat, who was dispatched in 1395 with two other officials and a eunuch named Liu Wei, to open communications with the nations of

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. They traversed the desert of

Gobi The Gobi Desert (, , ; ) is a large, cold desert and grassland region in North China and southern Mongolia. It is the sixth-largest desert in the world. The name of the desert comes from the Mongolian word ''gobi'', used to refer to all of th ...

and reached

Hami Hami ( zh, c=哈密) or Kumul () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Xinjiang, China. It is well known for sweet Hami melons. In early 2016, the former Hami county-level city merged with Hami Prefecture to form the Hami prefecture-level city ...

; thence on to Karakhoja and Ilbalik, the ancient capital of Kuldja. Their mission was successful as far as

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

, the various places visited acknowledging the suzerainty of China. There however they were imprisoned by

Timur Timur, also known as Tamerlane (1320s17/18 February 1405), was a Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. An undefeat ...

until 1407 as Timur attempted to attack the Ming dynasty. The survivors, including only 17 of their original escort of 1,500 men, were then sent back after Timur's death and were all rewarded on arrival. Fu An and his companions went on six missions altogether, chiefly to Samarkand, Beshbalik and

Herat Herāt (; Dari/Pashto: هرات) is an oasis city and the third-largest city in Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Se ...

, until in 1415 Fu An retired to wait on his aged mother.Herbert Allen Giles, ''A Chinese Biographical Dictionary'', p. 229. (copyright expired).

References

1429 deaths Year of birth unknown Ming dynasty translators Ming dynasty government officials 15th-century Chinese diplomats 14th-century Chinese diplomats {{China-diplomat-stub