People walking along the Silk Road include envoys with imperial edicts, generals with thousands of troops, businessmen who dream of making a fortune, frontier poets who travel romantically, people who migrate with ethnic groups, especially missionaries who are full of faith.
Therefore, the Silk Road is an exchange platform where many civilizations meet, such as trade road, diplomatic road, missionary road, military road, roaming road and migration road. Colorful cultural exchanges have accumulated for more than two thousand years, leaving rich material remains.
In addition to material remains, the charm of the Silk Road is a rich spiritual resource. Different from the western polarization in the post-Silk Road era, the Silk Road has always been supported by multipolarity in space, the most important of which are China, India, the Middle East and Europe. Through this multipolar communication framework, many centers of human civilization echo each other from afar.
Extended data:
As the main communication channel across Asia, Europe and Africa, the opening of the Silk Road has gone through a long process. Taking Central Asia as the dividing line and observing from the east and west, we can more clearly grasp the historical origin of the Silk Road.
Traffic exploration from east to west can be traced back to the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty at the earliest. According to documents such as Chronicle of Bamboo Slips, Biography of Mu, Historical Records and Qin Benji, it started from Chang 'an in the 0/0th century BC, went from north to west, passed through Longxi, Lanzhou, Wuwei, Zhangye, Juyanhai and Badain Jaran Desert, and reached the jungle and Central Asia as far as possible.
Wherever he went, silk, bronzes, coins and cinnabar were given to tribal chiefs, who also gave back horses, cattle, sheep, wine and other items, thus opening the way through the northwest grassland.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the track of communication between the East and the West became more obvious. According to archaeological findings, from the 6th century BC to the 5th century BC, China silk was introduced into Greece.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Silk Road