Thechief official of the Western Regions was a Chinesemilitary official in charge of theWestern Regions during theEastern Han,Cao Wei andJin dynasties.

Since theEastern Han no longer maintained the post ofprotector general, the duty was assumed by the chief official in the course of his management of the Western Regions during the period of theQiang's attacks towards the end of theEastern Han dynasty in the latter part of the 2nd century CE.^[1][2]

Unlike theprotector general of the Western Regions, the chief official (sometimes referred to as the 'chief scribe') did not have a regular office or seat. It corresponded to that of the assistant (郡丞) for the commandery, who received orders from the governor ofDunhuang. So in certain extent, the various statelets ofIndo-European in the possession of the chief official would be under the jurisdiction of the governor of Dunhuang.^[1]

The first to assume the duty wasBan Chao in 83, and subsequently wasXu Gan (徐干), after Ban became the protector general in 91. The post was roughly equal to the secondary position in support of the protector general. It was later assumed as the protector general in 119 under the impulse of the governor ofDunhuang to disengage the leftoverXiongnu from the Western Regions. Only five of their titles were known: Suo Ban (索班),Ban Yong (班勇), Zhao Ping (赵评), Wang Jing (王敬) and Zhang Yan (张晏).^[1][2] The chief official of the Western Regions was last seen in 175.^[3] It was subsequently re-established and maintained by theCao Wei and theWestern Jin until around 328, during the times of Li Bo (李柏), the chief official of the Western Regions inFormer Liang.^[4][5]

• Protectorate of the Western Regions
• Han dynasty in Inner Asia

This article related toCentral Asian history is astub. You can help Wikipedia byadding missing information.

• v
• t
• e

• Administrative divisions of Imperial China
• Government of the Han dynasty
• History of Xinjiang
• Central Asian history stubs

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing Chinese-language text
• All stub articles