The Sogdian Merchant Who Bankrolled the Tang Dynasty

Trade Routes That Changed Human History Forever — Fexingo History · Jul 18, 2026 · 6m · transcript

Before the Silk Road was a single route, it was a web of personal relationships and trust. This episode follows one of the most extraordinary figures in that web: An Sogdian merchant named An Shigao, who in the 2nd century CE left the merchant life behind to become a Buddhist translator in Luoyang — but whose family's commercial network, the An clan, would go on to finance the rise of the Tang dynasty. We trace the An family from their homeland in Bukhara, through their role as middlemen in the overland jade and horse trade, to their transformation into the financial backbone of the Tang…