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Traders History Part 2: THE SILK ROAD
World trade: from the 1st century AD
The Silk Road links east Asia and western Europe at a time when each has, in its own region, a more sophisticated commercial network than ever before.
The caravan routes of the Middle East and the shipping lanes of the Mediterranean have provided the world's oldest trading system, ferrying goods to and fro between civilizations from India to Phoenicia. Now the Roman dominance of the entire Mediterranean, and of Europe as far north as Britain, gives the merchants vast new scope to the west. At the same time a maritime link, of enormous commercial potential, opens up between India and China.
The map of the world offers no route so promising to a merchant vessel as the coastal journey from India to China. Down through the Straits of Malacca and then up through the South China Sea, there are at all times inhabited coasts not far off to either side. It is no accident that Calcutta is now at one end of the journey, Hong Kong at the other, and Singapore in the middle.
Indian merchants are trading along this route by the 1st century AD, bringing with them the two religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, which profoundly influence this entire region.
Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainText...z5fbumaX9v