History of the Silk Road - ASMR Bedtime Story

foreign [Music] in my study please find a comfortable position so I can tell you about tonight's story tonight we're going to travel across state deserts and mountains following the trails of ancient Caravans and also across time you certainly heard of the Silk Road a trade route that linked China in the East to the Mediterranean in the west and lasted for centuries but how did it work why did it appear was it a single route or several who transported precious Goods over thousands of miles what happened during more than 1500 years of activity and how did it change the world to have this early form of trade globalization this is what we're going to explore so relax you can close your eyes at any time if you wish and if you fall asleep you can always come back later and now off we go the Silk Road is an invitation to ask ourselves when and how trade on long distances appeared in the history of humanity actually long before the Silk Road was established historians considered a creation of this particular route or more precisely this network we will see why can be dated to the second century BC 2100 years ago when the Imperial Han dynasty in China expanded into Central Asia and pacified regions that were previously too dangerous to cross this put the Empire of their hand close to another large empire of the time the balthian empire with its heart in Persia but that stretched from Turkey to Afghanistan these two large entities formed a bridge between East Asia and the Mediterranean Sea they were both interested in selling and buying goods that they needed and this is what allowed the appearance of such a long trade route that exchanges between Asia and the middle east Europe and Africa existed long before that we know it for example because remnants of what was probably Chinese silk were found in ancient Egypt and they did to the 11th century BC a millennium before the opening of the syrup Road another example is the discovery of silk and belt ornaments made in China in a tomb in Germany near Stuttgart they did from the 8th Century BC so Goods traveled before the Circ Road existed an ancient Trade Network across Eurasia was the step route at least two thousand years before the scenic Road on this step route different goods were exchanged silk was one of them they were also first precious stones and jewels musical instruments and very importantly horses from Central Asia that were sought after by the Chinese these scene four more step route was kept functioning for many generations by nomadic peoples leaving from Ukraine to Mongolia and we know it existed thanks to archaeological finds artifacts were found in tombs or ruins thousands of miles away from where they had been made like these silk pieces in Egypt or Germany that I mentioned before so where precious stones coming from afar including your trade or abyssery It is believed that there is a long distance exchanges appeared because of the lifestyle of the peoples who occupied the steps of Eastern Europe and Asia even though they were in contact with fixed settlements and they had developed their own crafts and a certain level of technical advancement they had maintained their nomadic lifestyle so they were often on the move over a large territory without fixed borders they had louder ears they considered theirs so they also had Neighbors and were well placed to connect people's living far apart by transporting goods this step route was certainly not as intentional as the Silk Road would be it seems that it appeared spontaneously as a vast network of peoples who knew their immediate Neighbors and across this vast area goods and also cultures decorated another precursor trade to the syrup Road was the so-called Jade Road Jade was very sought after in China and it came from Central Asia and Burma crossing the Himalaya Mountains to arrive in Yunnan in the south of China across some of the most remote and difficult regions in the world Jade which is a mineral that can be green to White was a highly valued because it was believed to provide Power and protection to Kings and emperors so they patronized this trade an illustration of cultural influences from afar is Chinese crafts made with Jade from the first millennium BC centuries before the opening of the syrup Road that Drew inspiration from the styles of the scythians idiomatic people from the steps of Western Asia and Eastern Europe and other people the Chinese traded with who lived in the modern Kazakhstan Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in the first millennium BC Diana the land of the sagdians kept changing hands and that he influence of different Invaders the Persians the Persian Empire then the Greeks or the macedonians following the invasion of Alexander the Great and it went on but so Diana and the different rulers maintained an inclination to participate in international trade with different cities drawing important resources from it the most important one would become Samarkand that transformed itself into one of the most important stops for Caravans along the Silk Road the point of these examples the step route of route of the Jade Road is that commercial Roots had appeared before the syrup Road and this is how Chinese artifacts ended up in Europe or in Egypt that they most probably arrived in very small quantities and almost accidentally after having changed hands several times rather than on a trade route with the intention to export them from China to the other side of the ancient world the impulse to create a commercial Road was given by the Chinese in the second century BC but why China had unified under the first emperor Jin and the following Dynasty the Han Dynasty expanded towards Central Asia the Han Administration became aware that deep in the end in Central Asia there were large cities that deserved their interest and they sent embassies the emperor received reports from his ambassadors especially one called zhangjian in the late second century BC who advocated for the establishment of trade relations Central Asia had attractive Goods including gold precious stones and other precious materials horses and these could be obtained by offering Chinese products like tea silk lacquer and other craft Ambassador Chang also made reports on neighboring countries further west and south such as the parthians in Persia India or Mesopotamia the one thing that particularly interested China was that Central Asia had tall and Powerful horses better for fighting than Chinese horses and because they had constant skirmishes with nomadic peoples on their northern and western Frontiers peoples who moved and fought with horses the Chinese needed them so if the emperor's blessing the commercial route was established and policed from China to Central Asia across thousands of miles and this policy would be maintained consistently for decades merchants in Central Asia understood that there was probably a demand there were possible clients to the West towards the Middle East for these Chinese products that were on offer so they carried them by land father and father to the West extending this syrup Road also during the first century BC an alternative route to India opened by the sea it started in the north of modern Vietnam the region of xiaoji which at the time was ruled by the Chinese and they are ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka it also extended all the way to the Middle East arriving by the Red Sea ships on this Maritime route or Caravans on the land route did not go all the way from China to the Western world from the beginning trade along this long road worked with middlemen Indian traders who built the goods in India and took them West to resell them with a profit poor people from the Central Asian steps and deserts who did the same on the land route so the First Merchants on the Silk Road never traveled to the other side they brought the goods to Ports trading posts or marketplaces where the goods changed hands sometimes several times and went on until they reached their final destination months later this is why many historians consider the term syrup Road a bit misleading because in fact there were several routes and they formed a network with alternative paths rather than a single land Road the land route through Eurasia was significant but it is believed that the most important one in terms of volume of goods traded over the centuries would be the maritime route the one crossing the Indian Ocean and on which the products that transited were not only from China or from the Mediterranean there were also spices from Southeast Asia gold and ivory from Africa and Indian textiles and gems in the first century BC while the Han Dynasty ruled over and unified China in the east determinating power in the West was the Roman Republic soon to become the Roman Empire and as the Chinese expanded to their West the ramans were expanding to their East to Syria Palestine Egypt between these two blocks Rome and China there were several kingdoms several States the most important by far being the Persian parthian Empire which became an arch enemy of the Romans but despite the distance Romans and Chinese still became aware of each other on both sides archaeological finds a test that there was an indirect trade between the two in China Roman glassware and silverware have been found in tombs or so many Roman coins and medallions from the 1st Century A.D onwards sometimes coins are not the best indicator they could have arrived in China several centuries after they were minted but there are enough sights and artifacts to confirm that they arrived in China two thousand years ago and interestingly a lot of these Roman remains were found in joji this historical region in North Vietnam that was the final stop of the maritime road on the Chinese side that this trade was indirect and the real level of mutual awareness how much each side knew about the other this remains a topic of speculation and investigation there could have been Chinese embassies to Rome that cities hard to conclude one way or the other based on Roman archives because invoice from the east of their empire beyond the parthian empire were collectively called Ceres by the Romans they did not distinguish clearly Indians Chinese or other peoples from Asia in their Chronicles and literature apart from official embassies multiple encounters with Merchants from serica this unprecise land of the series are mentioned in Roman writings but it is never sure they were actually Chinese on the Chinese side there doesn't seem to have been more knowledge of the Romans he had a name for the Roman Empire that chin and Chinese ambassadors to the parthian Empire with which they had regular diplomatic relations wrote reports that included second-hand testimonies about Rome in the First Century A.D in some texts Chinese historians of the past speak of Roman embassies to China in the second century but this is dubious because these Chronicles were written later and such embassies are absent from Roman historiography so what we can conclude of this is that the Chinese and the Romans the two most formidable empires of the world in the first centuries of our era knew about each other's existence they were aware that some of the products that reached them came from the other side including Roman glassware in China or Chinese silk in Rome but they only had a vague idea about where the other Empire was located what its borders were because of the distance and there are no signs of continuous diplomatic contacts that records on both sides illustrate how this long-distance trade brought prosperity in China silk was a luxury product that was on the accessible to the highest and wealthiest crashes of society starting with the Imperial Court its sale abroad at a very high price became a lucrative activity especially for the state that control production tightly for the ramens access to these Eastern Goods started on a larger scale after the conquest of Egypt and Syria Egypt in particular that had great connections with India by the time of Augustus so that he's at the start of the first Century A.D there would have been up to 120 ships setting sail every year from Roman Egypt to India they traveled following the coastline because ocean-going sailing was very limited and dangerous at the time from the first century onward who cries for silk developed in Rome the Romans did not know how a silk was made they supposed it was obtained from a tree and so they were a very long way from being able to produce some themselves they later learned that the fiber came from certain caterpillars but they didn't know how to replicate the production process so all of their supply had to be imported a lot of this silk arrived by land and as we saw before it was not sold directly by Chinese merchants it was supplied by the parthians who had booted in Central Asia at least it was provided when the intermittent walls with the Romans allowed it sometimes land Supply could be cut by walls which only made silk more difficult to find and so more desirable and expensive together with it arrived spices and perfumes that also became a result after luxury goods for wealthy ramans Rome had products to export to like silverware and glassware but their value was far from a really matching imports from Asia and early on this became a source of concern for authorities because the difference had to be paid in gold this created an outflow of gold that escaped to Asia and in reaction authorities tried to limit silk Imports the Raman Senate issued several addicts to condemn to wearing of silk on economic and moral grounds silk cloth were called decadent and immoral because they were very thin much thinner and lighter than traditional Ramen Fabrics that the real concern was the South flow of gold and this moral or economic condemnation never stopped the appetite for silk the Chinese and the Romans were not the only ones to benefit in between them there were all these middle men from India Central Asia and the Middle East who made their segment of the syrup Road function by acquiring goods and transporting them forward and also selling them locally thousands if not tens of thousands of people lived from this trade from Porters to wealthy merchants harming ships or organizing Caravans on land on hand traveling in group for safety and economies of scale was an ancient practice but it became a standard on the silic road as soon as the Chinese began to impulse the Silk Road to Central Asia they sent Caravans with a regular flow of Caravans accommodation and places to rest became necessary along the Silk Road and this is how specialized Inns the Caravans arise multiplied the word Caravan comes from Persian Caravan and sirai means Palace or building with enclosed courts when Crossing deserts or mountains caravanus would just camp in the open with girls watching at night because obviously the good their transportation could attract bands of Thieves met on other parts of the Silk Road with the actual roads or when they crossed cities they needed places to stay these were the Caravans arise which were often located along roads in the countryside or in the outskirt of cities Caravans arise were enclosed offering protection and they also offered water food and space for Animals horsies or camels endometaries for men they did not appear with the Silk Road they were already some before in India and in the Persian Empire but they became more common and they appeared in new regions with the multiplication of Caravans during the Islamic period that started several centuries after the opening of the syrup Road caravan's arise became a common type of structure from the west of China to North Africa and urban Caravans arise became more than ins they were often located near the bazaar the main Market and the way the places where Goods would arrive or deep out from centers of economic activities that offered things to buy or sell jobs and where integrated in the city's daily life the historic centers of many old cities across the Muslim world still reflect how it worked from fairs in Morocco to Istanbul in turkey or Cairo in Egypt typically the Caravan Sarai was a building with a square or rectangular outer wall and a single entrance a bottle wide enough to let large rule heavily Laden beasts to enter such as camels the building was organized around the courtyard almost always happened to the sky and around the courtyard where an ember of animal stalls rooms and Chambers to accommodate people animals and merchandise sometimes more elaborate Caravans arise provided hamams public baths they had shops where Travelers could acquired the equipment they needed and open ones in medieval times sometimes added more flaws to provide a rental apartments to people living on a low income so from the first century BC to the third Century A.D has both ends of the Silk Road knew a long period of relative prosperity and stability this trade prospered but history happened and the two Mighty empires of the East and the West went into trouble in China for the most part of four centuries under Han Dynasty had ruled over and unified China but it finally fell in a period of fracture began with different states this period in the third century is known as the Three Kingdoms period retrospectively the Han period would be considered a golden age for China it was not a quiet period there were internal conflicts Warfare on the borders and the power passed from one branch of the Han Dynasty to another at the beginning of the First Century A.D but still it remained as an extended period of relative stability when classical Chinese culture could flourish in the West the Roman Empire which had been at its peak in the second century had a major crisis in the third century that related to its fracture and increased pressure on its borders that it had a hard time defending the circrow did not close as we have seen it was a network with different routes and this made it adaptable but it was seriously disturbed by the loss of control of states on the roads of Central Asia and around the Mediterranean finally the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the 5th Century disappearing as an end client and it would take centuries before Western Europe became a significant client again or sophisticated Chinese and Asian Goods remained at the Eastern Roman Empire Byzantium which was still formidable the eastern half of the Empire had not been ravaged by walls and invasions like in the West and it's even reconquered large parts of the Western Empire it was at war with the successor of the parthians in Persia Empire the sasanians control the half of the Middle East fear or the great power in the region being Byzantium but due to their position they were in control of all commercial roads that went through Iran demand for silk and other exotic products went on in Byzantium north of the cecinians in Western Central Asia had emerged a new major actor the turkic kn8 a huge Inland Empire essentially populated by different nomadic peoples that had been unified by a turkic clan turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups originated from West and Central Asia they were unified by language and cultural traits but they are not a single ethnicity and they are different from Modern Turks but historically related Turkish population emerged from the mix of turkic Invaders with the locals who lived in Turkey in the late Antiquity and the Middle Ages so by the 6th Century A.D this turkic calculate had expanded to cover a very large area going from Mongolia into East to the Caspian Sea in the West it was not densely populated and culturally it was a collection of different peoples including the sogdens from Central Asia that I mentioned before sugden was one of the official languages of discogenate together with old turkic is a term that means Chieftain or Kingdom the term is typically used for turkic Mongol and Tatar populations of Asia who were ruled by who can achieve if you want more details about it I made a story about the Mongol Empire that you can listen to with this huge band of land that connected east and west the turkey kagenate was well placed to manage a large portion of the land root from and to China all the more that the Chinese had lost control of their possessions in Central Asia after the fall of the Han Dynasty in the 6th century the Emperor of Byzantium Justin II made an alliance with the turkey kagenate against their common enemy the sassenians and bypassed assassinians for silica trade dealing directly with Stockton Merchants that lived in the turkey kagenate but the byzantines did more they managed to steal the secrets of silk making 50 years before this Alliance Emperor Justinian had sent monks as a spies along the Silk Road from the capital Constantinople to China these spies were able to procure silicone eggs and bring them to Constantinople allowing the byzantines to start their own silk production this became a profitable activity for the Eastern Roman Empire that had a monopoly over silk production for centuries around the Mediterranean this production was centered around the Constantinople and in northern Greece but they could never rival the Chinese for quality China already had thousands of years of experience in Civic making at this point and Chinese silk remained the luxury version of this Byzantine silk so it did not stop Imports and proved that the Silk Road is still operated in the late antiquity is the discovery of coins minted in Constantinople in the 6th century and found in Chinese tombs the story of Byzantium is one of a very long and slow decline with periods of recovery and reconquest and others of collapse but for now in the 6th Century Byzantium was still in good shape it was re-expending and the Chinese noticed that the Roman Empire had changed they did not know precisely what had happened that they were aware that the old Roman Empire that tickled that Jin had fractured or changed capital they called it to Byzantine Empire fulin and they knew that this Foolin was a good and client for silk lacquer or ceramics came the 7th century and with it new big changes on the Silk Road two major events happened in China the rise of the Tang Dynasty and in the Middle East the Muslim Conquest the Tang Dynasty in China is considered another golden age the dang reunified China and their rule and reconquered the Western regions fighting the turkics and Tibetans a reimbursed the Silk Road now that they control the large chunk of the land route to the West which made them able to deal directly with the substance from Central Asia and the Persian merchants is control over regions far from the historical Chinese Heartland is sometimes called Pax cynica by a comparison with the term Pax Romana that was coined to cool the stability and peace wrote by the domination of the Roman Empire Pax Seneca is the same for China there was a first black cynica under the Han and a new one a second one with the tongue compared with previous periods the dang were rather outward looking they were inclined to impose scammers and they will curved foreigners in some of their cities they also developed a maritime presence father Chinese and voice had been sailing through the Indian Ocean to India for several centuries already but they went further than India and punctually they reached the Persian Gulf and the whole of Africa the other big change in the 7th century was the rise of Islam very quickly especially at the expense of Byzantium and the sasanian empire which was the last pre-islamic state in Iran after the conquest Iran was mostly converted to Islam but in return culture also strongly influenced massim states of the Middle East far from destroying the syrup Road all these changes reinforced it after the distraction left by the conquest the Islamic caliphate rebuilt and became a major trade partner with Central Asia and China the Muslim Conquest extended to Central Asia India in the century until it clashed with the Chinese and their westward expansion there was a loud battle in 751 the battle of talas between the Abbasid caliphate and its allies from the Tibetan Empire in an army of the tongue the Muslim side won the battle but after that trade resumed because it was advantageous for both sides it is disputed that a consequence of this military crash could have been further dissemination of Chinese technology techniques to the West diabetes made hundreds of prisoners of War that were taken to a basic territory and would have lived there from crafts they knew including a silk weaving and paper making which would have permitted a transfer of Technology paper making was widespread in China whereas in the Middle East and the Mediterranean world The Masks come in form of support for writing was Papyrus with parchment as a high-end alternative parchment is animal skin and indeed paper making spread throughout the Islamic World by the end of the 8th century the first paper mill was built in Baghdad in 794 795 and paper started to replace papyrus it is a uncertain whether the prisoners of the battle of talas were responsible for the technology transfer or not but one way or the other this particular trade was disseminated imitating Chinese techniques in the 8th to 10th centuries the Islamic World fractured into many states often rivals but the Silk Road entered into a new golden age it was still operated by Peoples from Central Asia like the sovdians and turkeys now converted to Islam for the majority of them by the Persians the Arabs the byzantines and there are plenty of signs of the cultural exchange between east and west especially in decorative Arts Muslim Craftsmen were inspired by Chinese Aesthetics and vice versa some Chinese Ceramics for example emulated the kind of geometric and floral patterns from Islamic art Byzantium had drank to Anatolia in the south of the Pelicans but it was also an important contributor to the syrup Road as an importer of Chinese crafts and an exporter of glassware or animals on the maritime route in the Indian Ocean the spice trade was also prospering and in the west Europe was beginning to reappear on the trade map Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire was no longer a significant participant to the syrup Road that once went as far as Rome from the 5th Century onward the road ended in the 11th and Constantinople and very few exotic products went on to Western Europe but the kingdoms of Western Europe when our emerging from the Dark Ages and rediscovered the appeal of spices and luxury products this would make the fortune of Italian cities like Venice and Genoa and also give economic support to Byzantium that was the natural gateway to the east for Europeans Goods that arrived in Constantinople or other ports of Byzantium will be built by Italian Merchants who took them to Italy and from there they were re-exported to Western Europe this trade was risky and often interrupted by walls threatened by piracy but it was also very lucrative and like it had done long before for nomadic peoples in Central Asia Chinese Craftsmen Muslim merchants it changed the economy and Society it's energized the production of crafts for export change the taste because of these new products arriving it made a class of wealthy merchants appear it changed the lifestyle of the wealthy classes that could afford foreign Goods it favored innovation in Saving or the management of businesses and it connected far away parts of the world in ways that could be catastrophic sometimes a good example of that is the spreading of the Black Death the Bubonic plague pandemic of the 14th century what happened in the 13th century China was overwhelmed by the Mongol invasion of genkiscan and the Mongol Empire expanded very fast to become the loudest land Empire the world had ever seen going from China and Mongolia to the Middle East the Mongol conquest was brutal and very costly in lies and destruction but it was followed by a good and efficient Administration after more and more provinces had been included within the Mongol Empire at the time of its expansion in the 13th and 14th centuries they became connected and relatively spared from Warfare the Mongols also favored trade for its economic advantages but also as a way to unify their gigantic Empire encompassing very diverse peoples so they protected and impulsed the Silk Road that had become essentially an internal trade axis connecting their Chinese Holdings in the east to their more recently conquered provinces of the Middle East in China the Mongol rulers that became Emperors and are called the Yuan Dynasty reunified China and made it the economic Heartland of their empire trade routes great Prosperity again to some Chinese and Central Asian cities like buhar or Samarkand and for a time it reinvigorated rhapsidies like Baghdad that had been destroyed by The Invasion but not only Goods could travel across this Empire pathogens could too the Bubonic plague is caused by a bacterium that could be spread by fleas living on rats and the flea easily passed it to humans it is also considered likely that during the pandemic the bacterium took a secondary form that made it spreadable just by person-to-person contact this bacterium is thought to have appeared in Central Asia somewhere in the tianchon mountains that are on the border of modern China and Kyrgyzstan around the 2600 years ago from there it spread several times leading to antique and medieval epidemics but the one that happened in the 14th century was on another scale supposed to have been introduced to Europe the Ring of Siege the genres had acquired the port of Cafe in Crimea that was a trading post for them directly linked to their trade activity with the east the port was besieged by the golden horde the candidate that ruled over the Northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire the plague had traveled from Central Asia to Crimea along the Silk Road and golden old soldiers were dying from it but instead of retreating the Army threw their bodies over the walls of Cafe so the epidemic began in kefir too and from there most likely carried by fleas living on rats that traveled under his ships spread all around the Mediterranean reaching a Constantinople then Italy North Africa and soon all of Europe for several years the pandemic ravaged Europe and the Middle East killing more than a third of the preparation people had no idea how the disease spread they had understood that avoiding contacts and closing world cities could help and this saved many lives but from 1346 to 1353 the disease Advanced and checked this could have happened without the Silk Road and more broadly without the existence of trade routes connecting Asia to Europe and the spread was that fast and destructive because the intense activity of Caravans and the movement of populations within the Mongol Empire had transformed the Silk Road into a highway for pathogens before this happened in the 13th century Western Europeans had began to reinvest and explore this trade connection with the Far East essentially missionaries and Merchants the most famous is certainly Marco Polo the Venetian Merchant and Explorer who traveled by land that he was not the first his predecessors are little known because their accounts were less red and they failed to make a big impact in Western Europe that they include various men like a Flemish missionary and Explorer Benedict who was a Franciscan Friar from Poland giovanita piander campine an Italian diplomat or on the hay of najimo a French missionary all these men traveled to the heart of the Mongol Empire some of them were received at the quote of the great can and they began to inform Europe of Customs languages and the political situation of the Far East but Marco Polo provided a particularly comprehensive and also successful account so who was Marco Polo despite his Fame there are plenty of unknowns about his life we know he was born around 1254 in Venice in a family of merchants his father and his uncle were traveling Merchants who went into this business together before Marco was born like other Venetian merchants they established trading posts in different locations they had created at least one in Constantinople and another one in Crimea and the time Venetian and genuine Merchants created relays like this with employees would manage day-to-day activity they would receive shipments coming from other trading posts buy and sell Goods keep books look for opportunities the job of creating and maintaining this network implied traveling most of the time and exploring his father and Ankle were particularly enterprising because when Marco was still a child they followed at the Silk Road all the way to the Far East and met the Mongol emperor of China Kublai Khan they were part of the handful of Western Europeans who traveled to China by land in the 13th century they returned safely to Venice in 1269 when Marco was 15. there had been absent for so long that Marco did not know his father yet and his mother had died so he had been raised by a nouns and another ankle he received a good education that destined him to become a merchant like the rest of the family learning on subjects like the handling of cargo ships foreign currencies appraising how to conduct business he probably connected well with his father and uncle because two years later when he was 17 three of them embarked on a New Journey to Asia and his journey would last 24 years and turn out to be a very even full it provided the material that was later published in a book the travels of Marco Polo that spread well beyond Venice and popularized Marco Polo this is why his name eclipsed all other European Travelers of the Middle Ages to China but it wasn't just due to a successful book his adventures were extraordinary with his father and uncle they did to travel again along the syrup road all the way to China where for the second time they were received by Kublai Khan that Kublai Khan liked Marco supposedly for his intelligence and he appointed him has one of his four enemy miseries has a info year of the great Khan and the Emperor of China Marco Polo was sent on many diplomatic missions who wrote that no other European had ever had this is how he traveled across China and Southeast Asia to India Burma Sri Lanka Vietnam for 17 years Marco stayed in Asia has a special Envoy or a high-ranking official around the 1291 Marco was Now 37 and had spent more than half his life in Asia he was sent to a company a Mongol princess to Persia with his aging father and her uncle who were still alive and had also stayed with him in China they arrived in Persia in 1293. and then went on to Constantinople and finally returned to Venice after 24 years Marco would have settled in Venice and finally become a merchant but not yet because Venice and Genoa were at War he joined the war effort and was captured by the genuines he could have been executed or died in a cell but fortunately he ended up in a prison in Genoa with a cell mate who was also a writer and he dictated his stories to him the two co-authored the travels of Marco Polo finally he was released in 1299 now aged 45. and this time he could go back for good to Venice where he married had three children and built a fortune for himself becoming a wealthy Merchant he died there in 1324 aged 70. his book became a medieval bestseller that was met with skepticism it sounded a bit too extraordinary to be true his account was quite different from others who had described the Mongols as barbarians whereas his presented Chinese civilization and the Mongol rule has a prosperous and refined and their positive light they did not all have the same experience and saw the same things which could explain some of these differences and it is also likely that Marco Polo's narrative was embellished but since then many details have been proven true and bring credibility to his account it did not contain a gross geographical errors like other accounts his description of cities of customs of the currency is used of clothing all of these was proven accurate comparing it with archaeological discoveries and Chinese records many of his embassies including the last one when he accompanied a Mongol princess to Persia were proven to be real so there were probably exaggerations or embellishments here and there but overall he provided the most accurate reports among these European Travelers of the Middle Ages and his book had the most insight because he rose high in Chinese Society and stayed there for a long time the Mongol Empire went on in the 14th century but then it fragmented declined the Yuan dynasty in China lost its grip on the country and a new Chinese dynasty replaced it soon the Ming pour the Silk Road this decline of the Mongols was bad it had functioned for decades within the Mongol Empire for the most part but its fragmentation separated different states along the Silk Road and made it more difficult and dangerous in the west bison germ was now agonizing and had lost most of Anatolia turkey two turkic invaders the turkmens and the devastation of the Black Death along the syrup Road had decimated to Nomads and cities that lived from it overall after the collapse of the Mongol Empire nomadic groups in Central Asia de cried strongly Regional sedentary States emerged instead so in the late 14th and 15th centuries the Silk Road declined with them there was little interest from the Ming dynasty in China to impulse it again had a very inward looking policy and a discouraged contacts with foreigners the land road across Central Asia was more dangerous and on the western end of the Silk Road the Ottoman Empire was Rising eventually cutting Western Europe from Eastern trade this was a big hit for Italian city-states like Venice Caravan trade across Asia did not disappear but it never came back to what it once was at the time of Rome and the Han or the Obesity caliphate and the tongue control on the maritime route Indian Ocean spices had largely overtaken Chinese Goods and so the Silk Road didn't close but it became less and less relevant it had been the most important axis for World Trade during 1500 years and was about to be replaced with other routes and the other actors by the end of the 15th century explorers from Europe reached America past south of Africa into the Indian Ocean and soon they reached Asia on their own first the Portuguese by the east then the Spanish across the Pacific very West and they were followed by the Dutch the French the English who would reorganize World Trade to their profit by sailing themselves straight to India and China buying the goods they wanted there and bringing them back to European ports by passing all the intermediaries the middlemen that had prospered along the Silk Road for centuries this is a holiday Silk Road Slowly vanished watch the words in Ruins abandoned fortresses and the Caravans arise in the middle of nowhere her alongside roads that had been busy with Caravans for centuries but we are now mainly used by the locals and the centers of World Trade moved to Europe for a few centuries Lisbon Sevilla Amsterdam London apart from the cultural exchange it allowed for a long time the Silk Road remains as the first step in the globalization process a connection between two of the most far apart ends of the known world its disappearance had a major consequences it was not the only reason met The Disappearance of the Silk Road also contributed to the European effort to seek alternative routes to the Far East which was a major motivation during the Age of Exploration the age of discovery without Chinese silk and porcelain or Asian spices teaser ensure the Portuguese and the Spanish would have sent expeditions across the world's oceans at the moment when they did it and the history of the world could have been very different we have reached the end of our journey you can now let go and fall asleep I will be back soon with another story but for now sleep well sweet dreams

Channel: The French Whisperer ASMR

Views: 149,712

Keywords:

Id: 3624AuACnog

Length: 147min 34sec (8854 seconds)

Published: Mon May 08 2023