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The
beginning of the Common Era was the age of empires. The Roman, Parthian, Kushan,
and Han Empires maintained significant stability across Eurasia. Imperial
prosperity stimulated consumption, which stimulated exchange. Gradually, a
patchwork of long distance trade routes emerged. The Silk Routes at the time of the Roman Empire (27 BCE
– 476 CE) and Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) differed in several ways from
that of later times. First,
the residual power of the Xiongnu
blocked the northern routes that would flourish since the seventh century,
when the Byzantium Empire, Islamic
Caliphate, and Tang Dynasty maintained another period of
cosmopolitanism.
Second, most trade combined land and sea legs. Third, the initial
purpose of Han activities in the western regions was to counteract the Xiongnu. Thus much of its export served political rather
than commercial interests. From
Changan (today’s Xian) capital of the Former Han,
the Silk Road passed through the thousand-kilometer-long Hexi
Corridor between mountains and deserts. Beyond the Jade Gate that guarded the
western terminus of the Corridor, in now China’s Xinjiang province, the Han
established the Protectorate of Western Territory after a long struggle with
the Xiongnu. There the route split to follow two
strings of oasis. They converged at Shule (Kashga) at the eastern foothill of the Pamir. Crossing
the Pamir along broad valleys, travelers arrived at the Ferghana
Valley, home of superb horses, and Sogdiana, home
to many long-distance traders. Alternatively, they could take the Khunjerab high pass and go directly to Bactra (Balkh) in Bactria, a trading hub until
the Mongols destroyed it. From
Bactria, west-bound caravans headed for Parthia, where they picked up the
Persian Royal Road, passed Ctesiphone, and brought
trade goods to Syria for the Roman market. This is the poster image of the
Silk Road. At its beginning, however, the Silk Road had a twist. The Kushans who ruled Bactria and today’s Pakistan had other
ideas. They directed the goods from China to the south, across the Hindu
Kush, down the Indus River, to the ports of northwestern India, where the
merchant fleets from the Roman realm waited. Egyptian
traders brought the goods up the Red Sea to Alexandria, thus avoiding Parthia
altogether. However, the leading long-distance traders in the Roman realm
were the Arabs who founded the oasis city of Palmyra. Palmyrene
traders organized caravans as well as fleets. From Indian ports, they brought
the goods up the Persian Gulf, then through Parthian territory to Syria. When
Palmyra revolted, Rome destroyed it in 273, dealing a grievous blow to its
eastern trade. Rome
imposed a 25 percent import duty. The Han did not tax foreign trade. However,
the literati-officials who dominated the Latter Han had scant interest in the
outside world and were eager to close the Jade Gate and abandon the Western
Territory to the Xiongnu. It was almost a personal
effort to reestablish the trade routes after decades of disruption. Ban Chao
persuaded the government to send 1,000 soldiers and augmented this core force
by mobilizing native troops. In ten years of strenuous fighting, he
re-pacified the Western Territory. Then, in 97, he dispatched a deputy, Gan Ying, in quest of Daqin,
the Roman Empire as it was called by the ancient Chinese. Gan
reached Mesopotamia, where he turned back for unclear reasons. That was
eighteen years before the Roman Emperor Trajan marched into Mesopotamia. |
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