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Conditions for the silk road travelers were tough and difficult, to put it simply. They traveled on caravan, to make it somewhat more acceptable. The different routes passed through inhospitable climates and terrain. They had to travel through desserts and deal with heat, thirst, and sandstorms! When going through mountains, they encountered painfully low temperatures; ice, avalanches, frostbite, and altitude sickness were just some of the hardships they faced. In Central Asia, the trade routes usually became irregular trails and when dealing with winter snow and summer floods, this was very difficult to deal with. Weather issues aside, the travelers faced other hardships. They were constantly dealing with bandit raids, bribes, and looters!
Even though the economic significance of the Silk Road was limited, there was great cultural impact. Merchants, artisans, and missionaries that traveled along the trade routes brought new products, ideas, and technologies. Through the Silk Road, Buddhism was introduced to China! Buddhism greatly influenced China's spiritual views, diets, funerary practices, knowledge of the outside world, arts, and the economic structure of their society. When foreign merchants, artisans, and missionaries come to new places, they bring in new ideas and cultures, this was displayed numerous times during the silk dynasty.
The purpose of the silk road was actually for military and political purposes. It was made to seek allies to fight against and invasion by Xiongnu. However, some things went wrong, and this plan was a failure. Although the mission failed in its original purpose, there was information conveyed to China about Central Asia, and vice versa... making people in each area want goods produced in the other. This is what sparked the trading aspect of the silk road.
SILK ROAD
The silk road or silk route is a network of trade routes across the Asian continent. It connects East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world (including North Africa and Europe.)
FUN FACT! The silk road didn't only trade silk! It also traded things like: Ironware, gold and platinum, bronze mirrors, Ceramics, lacquer and bamboo wares, Furs, Medicinal herbs and drugs, Farming and smelting technology, Chinese inventions of gunpowder, paper-making and printing, Perfumes, ivory, jewels and glassware, Alfalfa, grapes, sesame, pomegranates, walnuts cucumbers, carrots, Lions, peacocks, elephants, camels and horses, Wines and spices
