After Zhang Qian went to the Western Regions, the envoys and businessmen of the Han Dynasty went westward, and the envoys and businessmen of the Western Regions also came eastward. They transported China's silk and textiles from Chang 'an to West Asia via Hexi Corridor and today's Xinjiang region, and then to Europe, and imported rare treasures from western countries into Chinese mainland. This land artery connecting Chinese and western traffic is the famous Silk Road in history.
1. Businessmen in Europe, Central Asia and West Asia generally bring a lot of gold and silver, jewelry, medicines, rare birds and animals, spices, bamboo cloth and other commodities to China or sell them along the way. They mainly buy China's silks and satins, embroidery, brocade, silk, tea, porcelain, medicinal materials and other commodities.
2. For the grassland Silk Road, the dry farming area in the Central Plains is dominated by agriculture, which is rich in grain, hemp, silk and handmade products, and the development of agriculture requires a lot of animal power (cattle, horses, etc. ); The northern grassland area is dominated by animal husbandry, which is rich in livestock products such as cattle, horses, sheep and skins, wool, meat and milk, but lacks grain, textiles and handmade products.
This mutual demand and interdependence between the Central Plains region and the grassland region is the basic condition for the formation of the grassland Silk Road. Therefore, the grassland Silk Road is also called "Maopi Road" and "Tea Road" because of its characteristics.
3. In the Tang Dynasty, with the development of shipbuilding and navigation technology in China, China's sea routes to Southeast Asia, the Straits of Malacca, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the African continent were successively opened and extended, and the Maritime Silk Road eventually replaced the land Silk Road and became the main channel for China's foreign exchanges.
Extended data:
There are four Silk Roads in China:
1, Han and Tang Dynasties (Chang 'an and Luoyang) passed Hexi Corridor to Xiyu Road, which was the main road of the Silk Road.
2. Grassland Silk Road in northern China.
3. China Southwest Silk Road, Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet.
4. Maritime Silk Road along the southeast coast of China.
Research shows that the grassland silk road is the earliest of the four silk roads. Some scholars have pointed out that before the opening of the Silk Road (the main road), there was already a little-known natural avenue to communicate eastern and western cultures, that is, the grassland Silk Road across the Eurasian grassland. Xu pointed out that the vast grassland in northern China has been a place where nomadic people live and hunt since ancient times.
From the Daxinganling Mountains in the east to the Black Sea in the west, from the 10 century BC to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in the 3rd century BC, nomads moved on this grassland across Eurasia, and China's silk had spread from east to west by nomads.
For more than 400 years from the Sixteen Kingdoms Period to the "An Shi Rebellion", Chaoyang has always been the political, economic and cultural center of Northeast China, played an important role in the ancient ethnic integration and cultural exchanges in Northeast China, and served as a bridge for cultural exchanges between Northeast Asia and Central Asia.
In ancient times, Chaoyang had different names such as "Dragon City", "Yingzhou" and "Liucheng". From ancient times to the present, it has been the main road connecting the east and west of China and the north and south of the Great Wall.
Some scholars believe that from the perspective of regional cultural characteristics, it is also the intersection of grassland civilization, agricultural civilization and forest hunting and fishing civilization, and the culture and civilization centered on the Daling River basin is the representative of the oldest ancient civilization in Northeast China.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Silk Road (an ancient commercial road connecting China and the West)