A historical review of the Silk Road

Abstract

During the process of trade, some factors can decide whether the trade can continue fluently and which side has more dominance. This essay will focus on the trade of ancient China and the Silk road to discuss which factor has an important influence on the trade and explain the background and reasons. When ancient China was in strong period, like the early period of Tang dynasty (China at that time was one of the most powerful countries among the world), Chinese government had more trade dominance as they didn’t necessarily rely on the goods of foreign merchants. However, with the decline of Chinese power, its trade dominance decrease at the same time and the government gradually lost its control of the Silk Road. Consequently, Chinese government began to develop other trade routes-- the Maritime Silk Road.