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Silk Road
China's Silk Road was not a single trade path and contrary to popular perception it did not only trade commodity was silk. The Silk Road can be considered as an East-West system of interrelating routes connecting different Central Asian Kingdoms for example those of Bukhara, Samarkand, Bishkek and Islamabad in the west with foremost Chinese cities; most conspicuously the Han and Tang dynasty capital, Changan in the east which is the present day Xi'an. The two chief routes of traffic evaded the northern and southern boundaries of the Tarim basin, which in the west is commonly known as the Gobi Desert. Both northern and southern paths amalgamated abruptly ahead of the Yumen Pass on the fringes of Dunhuang, whence the traveler trailed the Hexi Corridor southeast into the central plains of China.
It was not usual for traders to pass through the whole length of the Silk Road. Normally, traders distributed goods from corner to corner of their region's markets in quest of the finest price. When the trader reached the periphery of his operational area, he would vend the goods across a border generally to another nationality and racial group who would maintain the goods' route down the east-west axis. Therefore, moving westwards from China, Chinese merchants would trade with Central Asians, who would cope with Persians associated with Syrians, who did trade with Greeks and Jews, who traded with the Romans.
The highest amount of goods was traded along the Silk Road during the Tang dynasty extending from 618 to 907 B.C, mostly during the initial half of this phase. The Chinese mainly brought in gold, gems, ivory, glass, perfumes, dyes in addition to textiles and they vended furs, ceramics, spices, jade, silk, bronze and lacquer objects and iron abroad.
Link between east and west
- Of importance for the world's development was the inventions and thoughts shared between east and west as the consequence of the augmented trade and contact which was made possible by the Silk Road in China.
Buddhism is one of China's three foremost religions along with Daoism and Confucianism. Dissimilar to the latter two nonetheless, Buddhism is not native to China. It is an alien import from northern India. By itself it is symbolic of a strain in Chinese thinking that is open to accommodating overseas ideas.
Within five centuries of the exposure of the Silk Road to Central Asia, Buddhism had become so widespread in China that a number of scholars are of the view that as many as 90% of its population to have been transformed to Buddhism. By the Northern Wei dynasty during 386-535 BC this religious viewpoint had so influenced the resolution of leaders as to encourage massive public works programs at some of the world's premium cave complexes at Mogao, Yungang and Longmen.