Collected Illustrations of the Three Realms: Humans, Volume 13

Page 7

The woodcut illustration depicts a bearded man from Halie (Herat) riding a horse. He wears a distinctive spotted fur-trimmed cap and heavy, layered robes typical of Central Asian attire. A small child is tucked into the front of his garment, a detail that likely fascinated Ming readers as a glimpse into the domestic or traveling customs of distant peoples.

Halie

Halie original: 哈烈. A Chinese phonetic transcription for Herat, a major city in modern-day Afghanistan. At the time of the Ming Dynasty, it was a flourishing center of the Timurid Empire and maintained significant diplomatic and trade ties with China. possesses walled cities and houses original: 城池屋舍. The inclusion of these terms emphasizes that Halie was a settled, urbanized civilization with permanent architecture, distinguishing it from the nomadic societies of the Eurasian steppe..

The people engage in farming original: 種田. Despite its distance, the text notes the region's agricultural basis..

The land produces sheep and horses original: 出羊馬. Central Asian "heavenly horses" were highly prized by the Ming court for military use and prestige, often arriving in China as tribute..

To travel from this land to Yingtian Prefecture original: 應天府. The southern capital of the Ming Dynasty, known today as Nanjing. Measuring the distance by travel time to the capital was the standard way Ming geographers illustrated the vastness of the world. by horse takes one year and seven months.