Rebuilding The Silk Road
It allowed for the expansion of trade and wealth, but these famed routes faced a steep decline before they were once again reborn
How the trading route collapsed and was reborn
Over centuries, the Silk Road became one of the most important trade routes in the world. It connected the Far East to the world beyond, and allowed culture, philosophy and art to reach new audiences just as it brought trade to new lands. Yet the Silk Road was hazardous and, as those who used it found to their cost, subject to the shifting balance of sometimes unstable power.
For nearly two centuries, the continent was ravaged by the Byzantine-ottoman Wars as the Christian Byzantine Empire came under repeated and ultimately devastating attack from the Muslim Ottoman Turks. The Byzantine Empire was riven with internal division and external conflicts. It was ripe for conquer and the Ottomans were swift to take advantage. During the 14th century they moved through Byzantine territory, taking it bit by bit.
Along the Silk Road were many important destinations, but few were as vital as Constantinople, the capital city of the crumbling Byzantine Empire. Constantinople was a vastly wealthy trading hub and it lay at the end of the Silk Road. From here, goods could leave the harbour for transit across the world. Chief among them was silk, which the Byzantines imported for a fortune until they discovered the secret of its production themselves, and began exporting it. The strategic position and wealth of Constantinople had once made the Byzantine Empire one to be reckoned with, but it had also made it a target.
Constantinople survived assaults by the armies of would-be invaders, but in 1453, the end came for the once great city. As the Ottoman Empire grew, it chipped away at Byzantine territory until Constantinople stood almost alone, ready for its last stand. When the Ottoman force launched a brutal assault on the city, barraging the walls with artillery, Constantinople fell to an army that outnumbered Byzantine troops by almost 200,000. Once the city was in their hands, the Ottomans immediately shored up existing trading routes, but used their dominance of the region and its maritime and overland routes to increase the cost of doing business to merchants. Muslims now controlled both of the major ports that were used to take Silk Road goods into western Europe by sea and any previous arrangements, all of which had been preferential to Christian traders, were set aside under the regime. Now Christians were hit with the highest import fees of all, as a little reminder that it had been a bad decision to bet against the Ottoman Empire. Once the port had bristled with Italian trading vessels and the wealth they brought in, but as fees and overheads soared to unaffordable levels, the traffic began to decline.
“The strategic position and wealth of Constantinople had once made the Byzantine Empire one to be reckoned with, but it had also made it a target”
It was the beginning of the end for the Silk Road and even where the road left the city by land, not sea, things were no easier. Stretching for over 11,000 sometimes perilous kilometres, the Silk Road crossed many territories, encountering innumerable religious beliefs and political allegiances. The safety of the Silk Road and access to it for travellers and merchants was subject to the wills of those who controlled the land through which it ran and sometimes, unsurprisingly, there were tensions. Islam was the predominant faith along the
Silk Road, and though Sunni and Shiite Muslims interacted harmoniously and grew their communities together, when factions did disagree, it made the Silk Road a perilous place. The difference of a few kilometres could pitch travellers from one group’s territory into another, constantly at risk from factional leaders looking to increase their own power and influence.
Quite apart from religion, however, the fate of the Silk Road was put in jeopardy by the decline and eventual fall of the Mongol Empire, whose fortunes had been steadily declining as those of the Ottomans grew. Thanks to the efforts of Genghis Khan, the Mongols once dominated a vast part of the Silk Road, having first seized the northern road before heading south. The vast Mongol Empire stretched from China to Europe, and the Silk Road was vital to the empire’s communication and trading routes. Under the Pax Mongolica, or Mongolian Peace, the routes were protected from bandits and local factions, and travellers such as Marco Polo took advantage of this period to travel freely.
By the time the Byzantine powers were in their death throes, and a century before Constantinople fell, the once mighty Mongol Empire was on its knees, devastated by disease and continued attacks on its power bases. As the empire fragmented, the once safe passage of the Silk Road fell into other hands, with factional warlords assuming control of stretches. Merchants and other travellers were no longer confident of their safety should they travel the Silk Road and there was less merchandise to sell even if they did take the risks, as production of onceexclusive items such as silk was now possible in other lands too, meaning that the demand for Chinese produce lessened significantly. In fact, where travellers had once left China with their bolts of soughtafter silks and dominated the distribution of it, by the 14th century, European trading vessels laden with foreign silks were a familiar sight in Chinese ports. Ocean travel was both quicker and more efficient than overland and silk was no longer exclusively produced in China.
In response to these encroaching vessels, China introduced an isolationist policy known as the Haijin, which forbade foreign ships from entering Chinese waters. Land routes began to be far more regulated too, and as isolationism took hold, China closed itself down. Once the Ottoman Empire seized Constantinople, China was effectively cut off from the West, accessible by land only via the declining
Silk Road. Even for those who could access the Silk Road, the increasing dangers made it less attractive. With travel on the Silk Road bringing with it danger from warring factions and religions, those who depended on trade for their income or sought to explore new lands were now forced to look elsewhere. Travellers began to seek new routes to the East that would avoid the hazardous Silk Road, and they were sure that the secret lay in the oceans. They turned to Ptolemy’s Geographical Survey, which was
“The fate of the Silk Road was put in jeopardy by the decline and eventual fall of the Mongol Empire”
written in the 2nd century and claimed that there was no landmass between the westernmost European shores and the distant coasts of East Asia. Should a vessel set off from the former and sail around the circumference of the globe, it would eventually reach the latter. However, ship technology in the 2nd century had not been up to the job, but centuries later, more advanced shipbuilding technology lay within the grasp of explorers.
Christopher Columbus calculated that he would be able to make the voyage from Europe to the East Asian coast and, with funding from the Spanish royal court, he set sail for China. In fact, what Columbus found was the New World, ripe both for import and export. Less than a decade later, Portuguese explorers arrived in India and swiftly set about establishing trading agreements that would allow the movement of goods from India and Asia into Europe and beyond.
For centuries, the Silk Road lay in tatters, the once wealthy trading cities and towns that had flourished along its routes falling into ruin. For centuries the Silk Road fell silent, a relic of a bygone age, but all of that changed in the 21st century as the East once more looked to renew its links with the West. This modern Silk Road, a railway that passes through China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia, was completed in 1990 and has since been extended into a network that allows freight to travel from China all the way to Germany, encountering none of the hazards once common whilst still being far more efficient than a maritime alternative. The network has since widened to ensure that Chinese goods can travel as far as Spain, Italy and the UK.
In late–2013 during a visit to Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled plans for the Belt and Road Initiative as well as a Maritime Silk Road, which will establish transport hubs with a global reach, and embryonic plans for an Ice Silk Road heading into the frozen north. Along the way, cities are beginning to see changes just as they did on the old Silk Road, from investment to immigration and industrialisation. Once said to be a thing of the past, the Silk Road is being reborn.