Even before Marco Polo, the China Silk Road was the road to go between East and West. Hardship, riches...the fabled Road then and now.
Fertile plains, some carpeted by millet fields to the horizon, others by rice paddies to the horizon; impossibly high, narrow mountain passes obscured by frequent blizzards, sometimes buried under depthless avalanches, mere gratuitous finger flicks of the gods; deserts so arid the sand could die of thirst, so hot the winds could create a searing convection oven; then riches beyond the imaginings of man, so vast even greed could not encompass them - all of these were to be found along the Silk Road, someplace along its 7000 miles.
Even as today, the geopolitics of the time, approximately 200 BC, were primarily motivated by issues of defence against aggression. The Han Dynasty in China needed a buffer against repeated Mongol assaults on their frontier settlements in western China and sought to enlist support from neighbors. While these overtures fell on deaf ears, the Han neighbors had a strong interest in trade, as did the Han when they saw the neighbors' products. So began trade, so began the opening of the first legs of the Silk Road. Ironically, defence (of the trade routes) followed. The Han objective was secured.
The Silk Road, actually four different main "roads", provided the principal overland trade route between east and west into the 15th Century AD, when sea passage finally gained primacy. Notwithstanding that it fell into disuse, the historic importance of the Silk Road remains profound.
The Silk Road was not a non-stop trade freeway; it was a value-added production line. Goods would move over a section, be sold, be crafted or re-packaged, be re-sold; move over another section of the route and the process would recur. By the time commodities reached their end market, they were indeed worth their weight in gold. On the other hand, what mere merchant even today has deep enough pockets to have his capital investment tied up for a decade before he realizes a profit? Value added along the 7000 miles was logical, and around this principle of commerce, cities developed. Once started on the Silk Road, product flow became continuous and grew rapidly.
Silk was only a small part of westbound trade over the Road until Rome became a market. Traded also were precious metals such as gold, stones such as rubies and jade, textiles, coral, ivory, art works, and some spices. Goods from south-east Asia and India also made their way westward, particularly in conjunction with the spread of Buddhism, a dissemination only made possible by the trade route.
The commodities of the west, moving eastward, were furs, ceramics, bronze weapons, and cinnamon bark, to name a few. That arms were in demand may be a harbinger of events to come in the area.
Eventually Imperial China and Imperial Rome melded economic interests at the western terminus of the Silk Road. The overland silk trade flourished until the second century AD, primarily due to Roman demand. By then, however, sea routes were well established, though not around the Horn. More significant to maintenance of the Silk Road, for many products the overland passage remained in favor because of the location of skilled artisans along the way who could turn raw silk into clothing, mere stones into exquisite jewels, jade into intricately carved figures even of the Roman gods.
Opening of the sea routes was only one factor in diminishment of the Silk Road as a trade route. Another was the fall of the Tang Dynasty in China, resulting in political and economic chaos that knocked the bottom out of the import market for luxury items.
The eastward spread of Islam, particularly through the Silk Road heartland, ironically over the Silk Road itself, the Tarim Basin of central Asia specifically, resulted in the destruction of many trade cities, mostly Buddhist. Major waterways in central Asia were changing their courses; land previously fertile became desert; villages disappeared under flood waters as they did under sand dunes.
By the time of Marco Polo, a relative Johnny-Come-Lately in the history of the Silk Road, the Road's heyday was over. This was a period of Mongol rule in China, a time of resurgent interest in east-west trade, but a short-lived time because sea routes were soon to be discovered, notably the route around the Horn.
Today, the Silk Road is ever as exotic to the traveller. It is no paved highway through central Asia. A sheaf of visas would be required for the entire trip, no matter which route, and some countries would be out of bounds to Westerners.
From Beijing and coastal points south, the Roads reach north, passing through Ulan Bator, through Kazakstan to the Black Sea at Tbilsi in Georgia. The exotic Tashkent, Kashgar, and Samarkand lie along the route before it veers northward over the Caspian Sea.. Another branch of the Road, more central, courses south of the Caspian from Marakesh to Teheran and around to the Mediterranean. As well, there remains a southern route swooping through northern India and Afganistan before reaching toward Iran and the Mediterranean, always the destination.
The politics of the region are daunting enough for the traveller. Add, then, the mountains "" several ranges, none particularly hospitable. Finally, add the forbidding, ever treacherous Taklamakan Desert and the Gobi Desert. The former, in Turki, means "go in and you will not come out."
The rewards for a modern-day journey on the Silk Road may be worth the adventure. Peeks at some of the oldest civilizations in the world; definitely some of the finest ancient Buddhist art, sculpture, and architecture extant. Another feature, in widely contrasting forms, is the terrain itself; for example, three of the highest mountain ranges in the world, and, nestled below, perhaps the most dangerous desert in the world.
Yet in this ostensibly primeval environment are also modern cities, for the old Silk Road has added tourism, hydro-electric power generation, mining, and agriculture to its blend of enticements. The Road remains sinister, the route almost mystical, its tradition and tales seeping out to darken the sands and grease the slopes with foreboding. On the Silk Road today, one walks with the caravaniers of 2000 years ago. Their trail. Their passage. And, make no mistake, the sense of their passing remains.
