Son of Heaven on hearing all this reasoned thus: Fergana (Dayuan) and the possessions of Bactria and Parthia are large countries, full of rare things, with a population living in fixed abodes and given to occupations somewhat identical with those of the Chinese people, but with weak armies, and placing great value on the rich produce of China" (Book of the Later Han). Agricultural activities of the Dayuan reported by Zhang Qian included cultivation of grain and grapes for wine-making. The area of Fergana was thus the theater of the first major interaction between an urbanized culture speaking Indo-European languages and the Chinese civilization, which led to the opening up the Silk Road from the 1st century BC onwards. The Han later captured Dayuan in the Han-Dayuan war, installing a king there. Later the Han set up the Protectorate of the Western Regions Kushan The Kushan Empire formed from the same Yuezhi who had conquered the Hellenistic Fergana. The Kushan spread out in the 1st century AD from the Yuezhi confederation in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the middle course of the Oxus River or Amu Darya in what is now northern Afghanistan, and southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The Kushan conquered most of what is now northern India and Pakistan, driving east through Fergana. Kushan power also consolidated long distance trade, linking Central Asia to both Han Dynasty China and the Roman Empire in Europe. Sassanid (3rd-5th centuries) The Kushans ruled the area as part of their larger empire until the 3rd century AD, when the Zoroastrian Persian Sassanid Empire invaded Kushan territory from the southwest. Fergana remained under shifting local and Transoxian rulers thereafter. For periods in the 4th and 5th centuries, the Sassanid Empire directly controlled Transoxiana and Fergana, led by the conquests of Shapur II and Khosrau I against the Kushans and the Hephthalite Empire. Hepthalites Sassanid rule of Fergana was interrupted by the Hepthalites, possibly Turkic. Gokturks Hepthalite rule was ended by the Gokturks in mid of 6th century. The Turkic Khaganates ruled it until the first quarter of 8th century when it was subjugated by the Tang dynasty Ikhshids The Kingdom of Ferghana was ruled by the Ikhshids, who submitted as vassal to the Chinese Tang between 659 and 790. It was attacked by the Tibetan Empire in 715. The Umayyad Caliphate in 715 deposed the ruler, and installed a new