Silk Road Information

The Silk Road refers to the land route opened by Zhang Qian during the Western Han Dynasty (202-8 BC) on his mission to the Western Regions, with Chang'an (present-day Xi'an) and Luoyang as the eastern starting point (or Luoyang as the starting point, as it was said), passing through Gansu and Xinjiang to Central and Western Asia, and linking up with the Mediterranean countries (the road is also known as the "Northwest Silk Road (this road is also known as the "Northwest Silk Road" to distinguish the other two later named "Silk Road" name of the transportation routes). Because the goods transported westward by this road to the silk products have the greatest influence, so it gets this name. Its basic direction was set in the two Han dynasties, including the South Road, the Middle Road and the North Road.

Broadly speaking, the Silk Road refers to the long-distance commercial trade and cultural exchange routes that have been formed one after another since ancient times, covering the Eurasian continent and even including North and East Africa. In addition to the above routes, it also includes the Maritime Silk Road, which was formed during the North and South Dynasties and played a great role in the late Ming Dynasty, and the Southern Silk Road, which appeared at the same time as the Northwestern Silk Road and replaced the Northwestern Silk Road as a channel of exchange at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and so on.

The term Silk Road (German: die Seidenstrasse) first came from the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen's 1877 book China, and is sometimes shortened to Silk Road.

While the Silk Road was a product of the countries along the route **** together to promote economic and trade development, many believe that China's Zhang Qian opened a new era of Sino-foreign exchanges when he twice passed through the Western Regions. And succeeded in lifting the last pearl curtain between East and West. From then on, this route was stepped out as a "national highway", and emissaries and merchants from various countries came and went along the road opened by Zhang Qian. On to the princes and nobles, down to the beggars and prisoners, have left their footprints on this road. This east-west access road, the Central Plains, the Western Region and Arabia, the Persian Gulf closely linked together. After centuries of continuous efforts, the Silk Road stretched westward to the Mediterranean Sea. The eastern section of the Silk Road in a broad sense has reached Korea and Japan, and the western section to France and the Netherlands. By sea it also reaches Italy and Egypt, becoming a friendship road for economic and cultural exchanges between Asia and European and African countries.

[edit] Route

The Silk Road can generally be divided into three sections, and each section can be divided into three routes, north, central and south.

Eastern section: from Chang'an to Yumen Pass and Yang Pass. (opened in the Han Dynasty)

The middle section: from Yumen Pass and Yang Pass west to Onion Mountain. (opened in Han Dynasty)

Western Section: from Onion Ridge westward through Central and West Asia to Europe. (Opened in Tang Dynasty)

The following are the names of important cities on each section of the Silk Road (ancient place names in parentheses).

[edit] Eastern Segment

The routes of the Eastern Segment were chosen with much consideration for the safety and convenience of crossing the Liupan Mountains as well as crossing the Yellow River. All three routes start from Chang'an, converge at Wuwei and Zhangye, and then follow the Hexi Corridor to Dunhuang.

North route: from Jingchuan, Guyuan, Jingyuan to Wuwei, the route is the shortest, but water is scarce and not easy to supply along the way.

South route: from Fengxiang, Tianshui, Longxi, Linxia, Ledu, Xining to Zhangye, but the route is long.

Central route: from Jingchuan to Pingliang, Huining, Lanzhou to Wuwei, moderate distance and supply.

See

Xi'an (Chang'an): Sumeru Grottoes, Maiji Mountain Grottoes, Bingling Temple Grottoes

Wuwei (Liangzhou)

Zhangye (Ganzhou)

Jiuquan (Suzhou)

Dunhuang (Shazhou): Mogaoku Grottoes, Yulin Grottoes

In the 10th-century AD period the Northern Sung government, in an attempt to circumvent the territories of the Western Xia, opened up the the "Qinghai Road" from Tianshui to the West via Qinghai. It became a new trade route after the Song Dynasty.

See also

Tianshui

Xining

Fuqicheng

Solcuri Basin (Solcuri)

[edit] Middle section

Caravans traveling on the Silk Road. The middle section was mainly the routes within the Western territories, which changed from time to time as oases and deserts changed. The three routes had many forks and branches halfway through, especially in the four towns of Anxi (established in 640).

South Road (also known as the ü-Tsang Road): Starting from Yangguan in the east, it followed the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, passing through Ruoqiang (Shanshan), Hotan (ü-Tsang), and Shacha, etc. to the Onion Ridge.

Yangguan

Ruoqiang (Shanshan)

Zhimao

Niya (Jingjie), one of the 36 states in the Western Regions during the Western Han Dynasty.

Hetian (ütep)

Middle Road: Starting from Yumen Pass, along the northern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, it passes through Lop Nor (Loulan), Turfan (Cheshi, Gaochang), Yanqi (Yuli), Kuqa (Guzi), Aksu (Gumo), and Kashgar (Shule) to the Ferghana Basin (Dawan).

Yumen Pass

Loulan (annexed by Shanshan, now part of Ruoqiang County, Xinjiang)

Tulufan (Gaochang): the old city of Gaochang, the old city of Yarhu, and the Berziklik Thousand-Buddha Cave

Danqi (Yuliu)

Kuche (Guz): the Thousand-Buddha Cave of Kizil, and the Thousand-Buddha Cave of Kumtula

Aksu (Gumo)

Kashi (Shule)

North Road: from Anxi (Guazhou), through Hami (Yiyu), Gimusar (Tingzhou), Yining (Yili), up to Shattered Leaves.

Hami, with its long waterways, produces cantaloupe melons

Urumqi, which is interpreted as a beautiful grassland

Yining (Yili)

Shattered Leaves

[edit] The Western Sector

From the Onion Ridge westward to Europe is the Western Sector of the Silk Road, whose northern, central and southern routes correspond to the three routes of the Central Sector. Among them, the route via the Caspian Sea to Constantinople was opened in the middle of the Tang Dynasty.

Northern route: along the northern shores of the Aral Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea, through Shattered Leaves, Tantalus, and Astrakhan (Itil) to Istanbul (Constantinople).

Urumqi

Almaty (Kazakhstan)

Jambul City (Tantalus, today's city in Kazakhstan)

Tokmak (Shattered Leaves, today's city in Kyrgyzstan)

Sale (Russia)

Sakr

Istanbul (Constantinople, today's city in Turkey) < /p>

Central Route: from Kashgar, take the Ferghana Basin, Samarkand, Bukhara, etc. to Mashhad (Iran), where it joins the Southern Route.

Kashgar or Kashgargar

Peshawar: Harrah's and Forest Avenue

Kabul

Bamiyan: The famous Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

South Route: Starting from the Pamir Mountains, you can travel from Kashmir into Pakistan and India, and from Peshawar, Kabul, Mashhad, Baghdad and Damascus to Europe.

Mashhad (Iran)

Sabzevar

Hecatompylos, fandango, and casket, probably located between Damghan and Shahrud in present-day Iran.)

Tehran

Hamadan

Kermanshahan

Bakubay (Iraq)

Baghdad

Abdulhaleb

Fallujah: along the Euphrates to Aleppo.

Ramadi

Aleppo (Syria)

Damascus

Adana (Turkey)

Konya

Antioch

Bursa

Constantinople (Istanbul)

[edit] Others

In addition there were, amongst others, the Southern Silk Route which communicated mainly with South Asia South Asia for exchanges and the Southern Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road, which traveled along the coast.

[edit] Economic and cultural exchanges

[edit] Commodity exchanges

As the name "Silk Road" suggests, silk, along with porcelain, which also originated in China, became a symbol of a strong East Asian civilization of its time along the more than 7,000 kilometers of the route. Silk was not only an important luxury consumer product on the Silk Road, but also an effective political tool for the Chinese governments: when Chinese friendship envoys traveled to the West and beyond, silk was often used as an effective means of expressing friendship between the two countries. And the spread of silk to the west also changed the impression of the western countries on China a little, because the silk and porcelain west to Constantinople the price is very high, so that a lot of people think that China and even East Asia is a rich rich region. Heads of state and aristocrats once wore Chinese silk dyed with Phoenician red and used porcelain at home as a symbol of wealth and honor.

In addition, Afghanistan's lapis lazuli also with the caravans traveled continuously into all parts of Europe and Asia. This far before the silk trade goods in the Eurasian continent of the wide dissemination of the Eurasian trade exchanges contributed to driving the Eurasian. This precious commodity was a symbol of wealth for the countries of the Two River Basin. When lapis lazuli spread to India, it was worshiped by the Buddhists there as one of the seven treasures of Buddhism, which added a distant religious color to lapis lazuli. The spread of grapes, walnuts, carrots, peppers, carrots, beans, cabbage (also known as Persian cabbage), cucumbers (called hu gua in Han Dynasty), pomegranates and so on added more choices to the daily diet of East Asians. Wine, a specialty of the West, was integrated into the traditional Chinese wine culture through history. Caravans shipped from China mainly iron, gold, silver, mirrors and other luxury items. Shipped to China were rare animals and birds, plants, leather goods, medicinal herbs, spices, and jewelry.

[edit] Cultural exchanges

[edit] Ancient Chinese technology spreads west

The oldest known print: the Tang Dynasty's Diamond Sutra was found in Dunhuang. Papermaking had contributed greatly to ancient China's technological leadership in the world, yet the technology seems to have been limited to East Asia and parts of South Asia, where there was a well-developed papermaking industry. With the opening of the Silk Road, paper products began to appear in the West and beyond. Archaeological discoveries of ancient paper from the 2nd century have been made at the ruins of Loulan. In Central Asia, on the other hand, although paper was also used, no evidence of a papermaking industry has been found. Many believe that the spread of papermaking westward brought about a great change in Europe and Central Asia, but initially this change was brutal: the friction between the Tang dynasty and the emerging Abbasid power in Central Asia was constant. During the Battle of Tantalus, which had a strong influence on the political landscape of Central Asia, the Arabs brought Chinese prisoners of war back to Samarkand along the Silk Road, and among these prisoners were Chinese artisans skilled in papermaking. Eventually the art of papermaking spread around the world.

The deserts of the Western Regions were densely populated, and the prosperity of each country was often linked to water. The melting snow water from the Tianshan and Kunlun mountains was one of the main sources of water supply for the Western Regions. However, collecting this snow water is not an easy task, and the water that accumulates at the foot of the mountains after melting is evaporated or seeped into the ground in a very short time. Since the Han Dynasty sent troops to stock the Western Regions to develop agriculture, the technology of qaner wells and wells and canals, which had been passed down in the mountainous regions, was used in the Western Regions by soldiers who were also in need of water, and gradually spread to countries further afield. Whether the qanats were introduced to the West by China or Persia has been a matter of debate. However, it has been confirmed that the technique of wells and ditches and the method of piercing wells were transmitted from China to the West: The Records of the Grand Historian recorded that Li Guangli, the general of the Second Division, led his troops to attack Dawan and besieged the city by cutting off the water source. However, "the new Han people in the city of Wanyuan knew how to thread wells", which made the people of Wanyuan hold out for a long time.

Ancient Chinese printing was also one of the technologies that gradually spread westward along the Silk Road. In Dunhuang, Turpan and other places, woodblocks and some paper products for engraved printing have been found. Among them, a remnant of the engraved version of the Diamond Sutra from the Tang Dynasty is still preserved in England today. This indicates that printing had already spread to at least Central Asia during the Tang Dynasty. 13th century, many European travelers came to China along the Silk Road and brought this technology back to Europe. 15 century, Europeans Gutenberg used the printing press to print a Bible. 1466, the first printing press appeared in Italy, which facilitated the dissemination of cultural technology spread very much across the whole of Europe.

[edit] Exchanges of religious ideas

Western missionary statues found in northern China during the Tang Dynasty (7th century) In the early Eastern Han Dynasty, Buddhism was spread to all the countries in the Western Regions along the Silk Road, which runs north and south of the Taklamakan Desert, from Yuwen. About Buddhism spread to the western region, there are still many claims. But at home and abroad, "the basic view of the academic community is: Buddhism as early as the 2nd century BC after the late 1st century BC has been introduced to the Western Region. Accordingly, Buddhism was introduced to the Western Region in 87 BC after ürüm, 60 BC to about 10 BC from the Buddhist holy land of ürüm to the west or northward spread to Ye Cheng, Shache, Tashkurgan, Kashgar, Aksu, Kuqa, Yan Shou, and other Western regions of the "Silk Road," the northern part of the road and to the northeast to spread to the and the end of Ruoqiang, Milan, Loulan, and other Western regions of the Silk Road, and to the northeast to spread to the and the end of the Silk Road. The "Silk Road" of the western region, such as Loulan, north and south of the road is a matter of course.