Silk Road Collection of Literature Related to Cultural Contexts

(Ancient Trade Route Connecting China and the West)

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The "Silk Road" refers to the ancient road commercial trade routes that began in ancient China and connected Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Silk Road in a narrow sense generally refers to the land-based Silk Road. Broadly speaking, it is also divided into the land and sea Silk Road.

"Land Silk Road" is connected to the hinterland of China and the European land commercial trade routes, formed in the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD, until the 16th century is still retained in use, is a road between the East and the West for economic, political and cultural exchanges. [1] The Han Dynasty sent Zhang Qian on a mission to the Western Regions to form its basic trunk road. It started from Chang'an in the Western Han Dynasty (Luoyang in the Eastern Han Dynasty) and traveled through the Hexi Corridor to Dunhuang. From Dunhuang, it was divided into two routes: the south road from Dunhuang through Loulan, ütep, Shache, crossing the Onion Mountains to the Pamirs to the Dayuezhi, Anshi, and then westward to the Jiaozhi and Daqin; and the north road from Dunhuang to Jiaoha, Guzi, and Shule, crossing the Onion Mountains to Dawan, and then westward to Daqin through Anshi.[2] It was originally intended to serve as a route to the Western Regions, and was formed by Zhang Qian's mission to the West. [2] Its original role was to transport silk produced in ancient China. Thus, when the German geographer Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen first named it the Silk Road in the 1870s, it became widely accepted.

The Maritime Silk Road was a sea route for traffic, trade and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries in ancient times, which was mainly centered on the South China Sea, so it was also called the South China Sea Silk Road. The Maritime Silk Road was formed in the Qin and Han Dynasties, developed in the Three Kingdoms to Sui Dynasty, prospered in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and transformed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and is the oldest known maritime route.

On June 22, 2014, China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan jointly declared the eastern section of the land Silk Road, "Silk Road: Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor Road Network," as a World Heritage Site, making it the first transnational cooperative project to be successfully declared. [3]

History

The Silk Road is usually referred to as the commercial road in the northern part of the Eurasian continent, contrasting with the Tea Horse Road in the south. In the Western Han Dynasty, during the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian led a group of people on a mission to the Western Regions, uniting with the Greater Yuezhi to **** together to fight against the Xiongnu. For the first time to open up the Silk Road, known as "chiseling trip." [2] Since then, the Han Dynasty has frequently traveled the Silk Road. [2] After that, the Han Dynasty frequently sent envoys to the West, and the furthest Han envoys during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty went to Li Xuan (present-day Port of Alexandria, Egypt), and after the Romans conquered the Seleucid Empire in Syria and the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt, they obtained Chinese silk from the Silk Road through the Sabbatean Empire, the Kushan Empire, and the Aksumite Empire. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the Silk Road was cut off for a time, and Ban Chao in the Eastern Han Dynasty re-opened the Western Regions, which had been isolated for 58 years, and the Roman Empire followed the Silk Road for the first time to Luoyang, the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty at that time. In this long road through the trade of goods, China's silk is the most representative, "Silk Road" so named. Silk Road is not only the ancient Asia-Europe trade avenue, or to promote friendly exchanges between Asian and European countries and China, communication between Eastern and Western cultures of the Road of Friendship. Some famous figures in history, such as, the mission to the Western Regions of Zhang Qian, put the pen to the military Ban Chao, Yongping seeking Buddhism East, the West to obtain the scriptures of Xuanzang, some of their stories are related to this road. This is about 7000 kilometers long long road is formed after more than three hundred years of efforts of several generations, the successive generations have maintained and extended. [3]

With the development of the times, the Silk Road became the collective name for all the political, economic and cultural routes between ancient China and the West. There was the official channel of the Western Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian, who opened the Western Regions, the "Northwest Silk Road"; there was the "Grassland Silk Road", which traveled north to the Mongolian Plateau, and then west to the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains to enter Central Asia; there was the "Southwest Silk Road", which traveled from Xi'an to Chengdu, and then to India on the rugged mountain passages; and there was the "Southwest Silk Road", which traveled from Xian to Chengdu and then to India. Southwest Silk Road"; and from Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou and other coastal cities, from the South China Sea to the Arabian Sea, and even as far as the east coast of Africa, the maritime trade of the "Maritime Silk Road" and so on. [4]

The Jade Road

Before the opening of the Silk Road, there were close cultural exchanges between the Central Plains and the Eurasian steppes. Central Plains bronzes, carts, and weapons often appeared in the tombs of steppe peoples in the northern regions of China. During the Warring States period, the Chinese silk, lacquer, bronze mirrors, etc. by the steppe people spread to Xinjiang, Kazakhstan Altai region and more distant Greece, the Eurasian steppe popular animal patterns from west to east into the northern region of China, including the Qin craftsmen, including the Chinese craftsmen to learn from and innovate, the formation of a new with the rich steppe flavor of the beast pattern. This beast pattern was favored by the Central Plains countries, was used to decorate the horse harness, lacquer ware, decorative shell belt waist ornamental plate, and even in the early Western Han Dynasty also formed a kind of aristocratic fashion popular in the Western Han Dynasty. At the same time, western glassware, gold and silverware were also imported to China through the steppe region[5] . The "Silk Road" of the Han Dynasty was expanded on an ancient "Jade Road".

In the pre-Qin period, a channel connecting China's East and West already existed. Jade has an unrivaled significance in Chinese culture, and all of China's beautiful jades came from the West. At least 12,000 years ago, the first people discovered jade in ordinary stones, and through the exchange of jade to the East, the continuation of 10,000 years of jade road, is the predecessor of the Desert Silk Road[6-7] . There are many historical records of jade in the Western Regions. During the Western Jin Dynasty, a batch of ancient slips were unearthed from the Warring States Tomb in Ji County, in which a piece of "Biography of Mu Tian Zi" was compiled, which recorded that nearly 3,000 years ago, King Mu of the Zhou Dynasty traveled westward on a hunting tour with his eight-steered horse-drawn carriage. King Mu of Zhou set out from the Central Plains and traveled through Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, eventually arriving at the western foothills of the Kunlun Mountains. Xiwangmu, the tribal leader of a matrilineal society at that time, not only entertained King Mu, but also gave him eight carriages of precious stones, leaving a good story. On his way back, King Mu of Zhou obtained a lot of jade from some jade-mining and jade-cutting tribes, and returned home with a full load of jade. [8]

Ancient forefathers transported Hetian jade from the Kunlun Mountains and Hetian area to the east and west from near and far. To the east, through Gansu, Ningxia, Shanxi, into Henan; to the west, through Uzbekistan, to the Mediterranean coast of the Eurasian countries. This is the earliest "Jade Road". The route of King Mu of Zhou's western tour was the eastern route of this ancient road.[9] This account, though not a complete one, is not a complete one. [9] Although this account is not entirely credible, it can be learned that people before the epoch had already begun to communicate through a channel connecting the East and the West.