of the river Syr Darya (ancient Jaxartes), at the location of the modern city of Khujand, in the state of Tajikistan. Supplemented by Alexander's veterans, it was later ruled by Seleucids before secession of Bactria. After 250 BC, the city probably remained in contact with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom centered on Bactria, especially when the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus extended his control to Sogdiana. There are indications that from Alexandria Eschate the Greco-Bactrians may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar and Ürümqi in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between China and the West around 220 BC. Several statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been found north of the Tian Shan, on the doorstep to China, and are today on display in the Xinjiang museum at Urumqi (Boardman). Of the Greco-Bactrians, the Greek historian Strabo too writes that: The Fergana area, called Dayuan by the Chinese, remained an integral part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom until after the time of Demetrius I of Bactria (c. 120 BC), when confronted with invasions by the Yuezhi from the east and the Sakas Scythians from the south. After 155 BC, the Yuezhi were pushed into Fergana by the alliance of the powerful Xiongnu and the neighboring Wusun from the north and east, invaded urban civilization of the Dayuan, eventually settling on the northern bank of the Oxus in the region of Transoxiana in modern-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, just north of the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. The Greek city of Alexandria on the Oxus was apparently burnt to the ground by the Yuezhi around 145 BC. Pushed by these twin forces, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom reoriented itself around lands in what is now Afghanistan, while the new invaders were partially assimilated into the Hellenistic culture left in Fergana Valley. Han dynasty According to the Han dynasty Records of the Grand Historian or Shiji, based on the travels of Zhang Qian and published around 126 BC, the region of Fergana is presented as the country of the Dayuan (Ta-Yuan), possibly descendants of Greeks colonists (Dayuan may be a transliteration of "Great Ionians"). The area was renowned for its Heavenly Horses, which the Chinese tried to obtain from the Dayuan with little success until they waged war against them in 104 BC. The Dayuan were identified by the Chinese as unusual in features, with a sophisticated urban civilization, similar to that of the Bactrians and Parthians: "The