The Silk road Essay

Josh Liu

Humanities 9

3/29/15

The Silk Road

Trading is one of the most important activities in human history and today because when ancient people first started to trade and barter with others, this activity helped human beings to create a modern society. Because of the spread of ideas like languages and religions, as well as inventions from different places that were used as tools by humans such as the movable printing press and compass, humans made themselves richer and smarter. Finally, humans created themselves better environments and dwellings to live, and they also built factories, laboratories, and goldmines to discover new goods and increase the GDP of the society through continual trading. Currently, approximately 45% of China’s GDP comes from trading. In ancient times, people traded with others through a bridge that linked the world together. The Silk Road was this “Bridge”. During 206 BC and 220 AD, the ancient Silk Road started from Chang’an to Dun’huang, and it extended to Kashga, India, Rome, and even Europe. It was a network of routes formed by merchants who traded goods like silk, spices, gunpowder, and paper.

The Silk Road was created in Han Dynasty. In 138 BC, HanWudi, the emperor of China told an ambassador called ZhangQian to go over the edge of China, cross the Great Wall and mountains, and go to a country called YueZhi in the west of China. HanWudi needed him to go to YueZhi because he wanted to conquer an enemy country called XiongNu, so he asked Yuezhi for help. Unfortunately, ZhangQian needed to go through XiongNu in order to get to YueZhi. When he got to XiongNu, he was caught and imprisoned by soldiers in XiongNu for ten years. One day, he escaped from XiongNu, and he decided to continue the journey to YueZhi. To his surprise, YueZhi was invaded by other countries, and YueZhi citizens escaped to the North of YueZhi, and they rebuilt their country again. Because of that, ZhangQian went to a country called DaWan in the South instead, and he met the emperor of DaWan. The emperor was very excited to meet him because he wanted to build a connection with China, but he couldn’t do it because XiongNu obstructed his plans. The emperor welcomed ZhangQian and sent him to KangJu, which was a country in the North of DaWan, now called Uzbekistan. For some reasons, the KangJu Emperor sent ZhangQian to the new YueZhi. When ZhangQian got to YueZhi, the emperor refused the request of cooperating with China, and told him that his country didn’t need to defeat XiongNu anymore because the country was far away from XiongNu, and XiongNu would not give them any danger. In addition, the soil in YueZhi was very rich, so people could grow many kinds of crops and become rich. It wasn’t necessary for YueZhi to trade with China anymore, so ZhangQian went down to another country called DaXia, now called Afghanistan for a short time. In 128 BC, ZhangQian started to go back to China, but he got caught by XiongNu again. He was imprisoned for one more year, and he escaped back to China. After the journey, ZhangQian told HanWudi everything he saw in his journey. He told HanWudi that there were several smaller countries next to China, and they were rich and beautiful. He bought bamboo canes and percales from DaXia, and there were many strange and rare products in DaWan, KangJu, YueZhi and DaXia. ZhangQian convinced HanWudi to send ambassadors to different countries to trade with them. HanWudi sent hundreds of ambassadors to those countries, and the way they travelled began the routes of the Ancient Silk Road. As HanWudi sent many ambassadors to the West continually, more and more traders travelled on the Silk Road, and the Silk Road was slowly formed and extended by traders from different countries in around 300 years. The Silk Road linked the world together in water and on land, so traders travelled by ship in the oceans such as the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, or in caravans with animals like camels through deserts like the Taklamakan Desert and mountains like Tianshan Mountains on land. Although the environment on the Ancient Silk Road was horrible because there was not much water and food on the Silk Road, merchants and traders still wanted to go on the Silk Road to trade. In ancient time, products like silk, spices, and animal feathers were extraordinarily expensive. When merchants with costly products got to the city to trade, they would bring rare products from local merchants back to their countries, and people would buy those products from merchants. In addition, products that were brought back would help citizens develop their societies, and this made their journeys worthwhile. However, there was another reason for why the Silk Road was important. As the population of people on Earth grew, people needed better tools, easier ways to produce products or spread knowledge, more useful weapons in wars, and more food and luxuries to satisfy their desires. Brave and smart merchants caught this chance because people needed those goods in lives and they would make huge profits from their purchasers. In addition, religious people like bishops and monks wanted to spread religions and knowledge to more people, so they travelled along the Silk Road to get to different places easily and increase the population of their religions. Furthermore, the legacy of the Silk Road today is that the products and ideas shared on the Silk Road helped humans create a modern society by giving human easier and more useful methods to complete tasks, providing more trading opportunities for merchants, giving knowledge to people who needed them, and helping the emperors create a country with multiplicity of cultures.

            The location of the city of Istanbul helped develop the Silk Road and provided a gateway between East and West, so more products from more places could get in the city. Istanbul is a very big city in both Europe and Asia, and it is separated into two parts by the Strait of Bosphorus. The city is connected with lands and water, so traders can get in the city in both ways, on foot and by ship. The city is between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, and it is also between Thrace and Asian Turkey. In addition, there is a short waterway called “the Golden Horn” in the city, which is connected to the strait of Bosphorus and the European side of Istanbul. This waterway allowed ships to go deep inside the city, and let traders be able to get into the city by ship. In a word, Istanbul has a fantastic location for merchants on the Silk Road, so people created a Silk Road on the sea for merchants who wanted to go to cities near the oceans. As more products were coming into the city, people would have more tools and choices to develop their cultures and make lives easier.

            The climate in Istanbul also helped traders do businesses on the Silk Road, and more businesses would bring more useful products for humans to use to create a modern society. Istanbul has Mediterranean climate, so it has summers with warm days, and winters with a little snow. In summer, traders who came in the city could take a good break because the weather will be warm and comfortable. Because of its comfortable climate, some merchants who went by the city would choose to stay in the city and take a good break during the trip. Thus, there would be more commercial opportunities for local merchants, and this would improve the GDP of the city through trading. The humidity would also be fantastic for traders to store goods and food such as fish, beef, wooden furniture and metals in the city. As the storage environment was good, merchants would be confident to put their goods to trade in the city, and it brought wealth to the city. In winter, the city was not too cold. Rivers and lakes in Istanbul would not be frozen, so traders who travelled by ship could still get in the city through rivers. As a convenient transportation environment was provided in a cold trading season, traders from afar would like to sail to the city and trade with the local merchants. In conclusion, Istanbul had a very comfortable climate, and this gave merchants in Istanbul more opportunities to trade different products from different parts of the world. The climate of Istanbul was a natural magnet that attracted merchants from different places of the world which still has an important role in marketing activities between Istanbul and different countries in the world.

            As different goods were traded in the city, more and more products could help humans to create a modern society because inventions were spread by merchants, and each invention was useful for humans to improve the living quality of the society, so the society would become more modern. One of the greatest inventions that was traded on the Silk Road was the movable printing press. This invention allowed people to record ideas and make book copies easily without writing. The movable printing press was first invented by Chinese people during the Tang Dynasty. It was first made of small wood pieces and big wooden boards. People used it to reproduce Buddhist religious texts, and they were carried as charms by believers. One day, Arabic merchants brought some copies of books made by the movable printing presses along the Silk Road to Europe.

            In around 1456 CE, a German printer called Johannes Gutenberg looked at the books and built an improved version of the movable printing press. At first, he printed a German poem using his new movable printing presses. Soon, he printed his first Latin Bible, and he made huge profits with his invention. This invention allowed people to make copies of books in a cheaper way without employing workers to write. To sum up, the movable printing press helped merchants on the Silk Road and gave people a new way to record knowledge and ideas.