The Geographic Reach and Origin of the Silk Road
The Silk Road, or Silk Route is an interconnected series of routes through Southern Asia traversed by caravans and ocean vessels, con- necting Chang’an (today’s Xi’an), China with Antioch, Asia Minor, as well as other points. It connected the Yellow River Valley to the Medi- terranean Sea, and passed through places such as Chinese Gansu and Xinjiang and present-day countries Iran, Iraq and Syria. Its influence carried over into Japan and Korea.
These exchanges were significant not only for the development and flowering of the great civilizations of China, ancient Egypt, Mesopota- mia, Persia, India and Rome, but also for the foundations they helped to lay, of the modern world.
Originally, the Chinese trade silk internally. Caravans from the empire’s interior would carry silk to the western edges of the region. Often small Central Asian tribes would attack these caravans, hoping to capture the traders’ valuable commodities. As a result, the Han Dynasty extended its military defenses further into Central Asia from 135 to 90 BC in order to protect these caravans.
Zhang Qian, the first known Chinese traveler to make contact with the Central Asian tribes, later came up with the idea to expand the silk trade to include these lesser tribes and therefore, forge alliances with these Central Asian nomads. Because of this idea, the Silk Road was born.
The Prosperity and Expansion of the Silk Road
The route grew with the rise of the Roman Empire because the Chi- nese initially gave silk to the Roman-Asian governments as gifts.
Soon after the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, regular commu- nications and trade between India, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, China, the Middle East, Africa and Europe blossomed on an unprecedented scale. Land and maritime routes were closely linked, and novel products, technologies and ideas began to spread across the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. Intercontinental trade and communication became regular, organized and protected by the “Great Powers”. Intense trade with the Roman Empire followed soon, and was confirmed by the Ro- man craze for Chinese silk, even though the Romans thought silk was obtained from trees.
Trade between East and West also developed on the sea, between Alexandria in Egypt and Guangzhou in China, fostering the expansion of Roman trading posts in India. Historians also talk of a “Porcelain Route” or “Silk Route” across the Indian Ocean.
The Silk Road represents an early phenomenon of political and cultural integration due to interregional trade. In its heyday, the Silk Road sustained an international culture that strung together groups as diverse as the Magyars, Armenians, and Chinese.
The trading relationship between the Chinese and the Indians grew stronger with increased Han expansion into Central Asia. The Chinese would trade their silk with the Indians for precious stones and metals such as jade, gold, and silver, and the Indians would further trade the silk with the Roman Empire. Silk proved to be an expensive import for the Roman Empire.
While the Chinese silk trade played a minor role in the Chinese economy, it did increase the number of foreign merchants present in China in the Han Dynasty, exposing both the Chinese and visitors to different cultures and religions. In fact, Buddhism spread from India to China because of the trade along the Silk Road.
The Decline of the Silk Road
By 760 AD, during the Tang Dynasty, trade along the Silk Road had declined. It revived tremendously under the Song Dynasty. In addition, trade to Central and Western Asia as well as Europe recovered for a period of time from 1276 to 1368 under the Yuan Dynasty.
As overland trade became increasingly dangerous, and overseas trade became more popular, trade along the Silk Road declined. While the Chinese did maintain a silk-fur trade with the Russians north of the original Silk Road, by the end of the 14th century, trade and travel along the road had decreased.
The Far - reaching Influences of the Silk Road
In the late 13th century, a Venetian explorer named Marco Polo became one of the first Europeans to travel the Silk Road to China. Westerners became more aware of the Far East when Marco Polo docu- mented his travels in II Milione (The Travels of Marco Polo). He was followed by numerous Christian missionaries to the East. Luxury goods were traded from one middleman to another, from China to the West, resulting in high prices for the trade goods.
Many technological innovations from the East seem to have filtered into Europe around that time. The period of the High Middle Ages in Europe saw major technological advances, including the adoption, through the Silk Road, of printing, gunpowder, the astrolabe, and the compass.
Chinese maps such as the Kangnido and Islamic mapmaking seem to have influenced the emergence of the first practical world maps, such as those of De Virga or Fra Mauro. Ramusio, a contemporary, states that Fra Mauro’s map is “an improved copy of the one brought from Cathay by "Marco Polo”.
Large Chinese junks were also observed by these travelers and may have provided impetus to develop larger ships in Europe. “The ships, called junks, that navigate these seas carry four masts or more, some of which can be raised or lowered, and have 40 to 60 cabins for the mer- chants and only one tiller. ” (Text from the Fra Mauro map)
The disappearance of the Silk Road following the end of the Mon- gol Empire was one of the main factors that stimulated the Europeans to reach the prosperous Chinese empire through another route, especially by the sea. The wish to trade directly with China was also the main drive behind the expansion of the Portuguese beyond Africa after 1480, followed by the powers of the Netherlands and Great Britain from the 17th century. As late as the 18th century, China was usually still consid- ered the most prosperous and sophisticated of any civilization on earth. Leibniz wrote in the 17th century: “Everything exquisite and admirable comes from the East Indies. Learned people have remarked that in the whole world there is no commerce comparable to that of China."
In the 18th century, Adam Smith, declared that China had been one of the most prosperous nations in the world: “China has been long one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most indus- trious, and most populous countries in the world. It seems, however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultivation, industry, and populous- ness, almost in the same terms in which they are described by travelers in the present times. It had perhaps, even long before his time, acquired that full complement of riches which the nature of its laws and institu- tions permits it to acquire. ” (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations ).
In effect, the spirit of the Silk Road and the will to foster exchange between East and West, and the lure of the huge profits attached to it, has affected much of the history of the world during the last three millennia.
