Three famous trade routes

Trade has always been one of the important activities of human society. Through trade, people in different regions can exchange goods and services and achieve mutual benefit. In the long history, there are three famous trade routes, namely the Silk Road, the Ancient Tea-Horse Road and the Hanfan Road. This paper will introduce the historical background, importance and influence of these three commercial routes respectively.

The three famous trade routes in history are the following three.

1. The Silk Road starts from Chang 'an, passes through Gansu and Xinjiang, reaches Central Asia and West Asia, and is a land passage connecting Mediterranean countries. This road is also known as the "Northwest Silk Road", and its basic trend was set in the Han Dynasty, including three routes: South Road, Middle Road and North Road.

2. The ancient tea-horse road originated in the tea-horse exchange between the southwest frontier and the northwest frontier, and flourished in the Tang and Song Dynasties, Ming and Qing Dynasties and in the middle and late World War II. The ancient tea-horse road is divided into Sichuan-Tibet and Yunnan-Tibet, connecting Sichuan-Yunnan-Tibet, extending to Bhutan, Nepal and India (this is the ancient tea-horse road in Yunnan and Vietnam) and reaching the Red Sea coast of West Asia and West Africa.

3. Maritime Silk Road The Maritime Silk Road began in the Qin and Han Dynasties, flourished in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, flourished in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, reached its peak in the early Ming Dynasty, and declined in the middle of the Ming Dynasty due to the maritime ban. The important starting points of the Maritime Silk Road are Panyu, Dengzhou, Yangzhou, Quanzhou, Mingzhou and Liujiagang. The biggest ports are Guangzhou and Quanzhou. From Qin and Han Dynasties to Tang and Song Dynasties, Guangzhou was the largest commercial port in China.

The three major trades in ancient China were: tribute trade system, smuggling trade system and mutual trade system.