Chapter 10 Section 3 The Prosperity and Prosperity of the Maritime Silk Road

With the further development and prosperity of the Land Silk Road, the Maritime Silk Road in the Tang and Song Dynasties also prospered greatly. The appeal and cohesion of the Tang Empire also attracted people of various ethnic groups in the vast areas of Southeast Asia, and even more distant countries in the Indian Ocean, which greatly promoted the further development and prosperity of the Maritime Silk Road. It turns out that the Tang Empire, whose capital was in Chang'an, was mainly concerned with land exchanges with Central Asia and West Asia for a period of time after the founding of the People's Republic of China.Subjectively, it does not focus on maritime transportation and trade.However, with the prosperity of the Tang Empire and the prosperity of its culture, it naturally attracted some overseas countries.Guangzhou has inherited the tradition since the Qin and Han Dynasties, and continues to play the role of an international maritime trade center.Especially because of the excavation of the Grand Canal in the Sui Dynasty, the economic status of Luoyang and Yangzhou was greatly prominent, and they became the two largest commercial centers in the Tang Dynasty.The prosperity of Yangzhou has effectively promoted China's trade activities in the South China Sea. To a certain extent, Luoyang and Yangzhou have become Guangzhou's new support bodies.Yangzhou was not the capital of the Tang Empire, and it was able to develop into a major commercial port without being under the foot of the emperor. The poet Du Mu wrote a well-known sentence like "Yangzhou dream once every ten years", which shows that the business and market it operates are no longer It is no longer limited to the needs of the royal family, but also includes the needs of a wider range of citizens.This is very important for the development of maritime trade and transportation.

In the 7th century AD, maritime traffic and trade in the South China Sea became very active.It is manifested in countries in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region coming to the top one after another.Persian merchants arrived in the South China Sea, and then went north to China’s coastal ports for activities; further, Persian and Arab merchants gradually became intermediaries in the South China Sea trade, and their merchant ships gradually became very important tools for trade in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.The development of this situation finally attracted enough attention from the Tang government.At the beginning of the eighth century AD, sometime before 714, the Tang Dynasty established a new institution dedicated to maritime trade: the Shibosi.

It is not accidental that China gradually paid more attention to maritime trade in the Tang Dynasty.Compared with the land traffic situation, the sea route shows its necessity more and more.On the one hand, land transportation was affected by the Arabs’ conquest of the Persian Sasanian Dynasty and the subsequent conflicts between the Tang Empire and the Arabs. "Cang" huge ship, 50-60 meters long, can carry five or six hundred people.At this time, Chinese sea ships were fully capable of long-distance voyages, and there was no need for "barbarians to provide ships and send them to them" as in the Han Dynasty.In 851 AD, the Arab businessman Suleiman said in his "Journey to China from the East" that Chinese ships often berthed at Siraf in the Persian Gulf.In the famous historical work "Golden Grassland and Gemstone Mine" (written in 947 AD, not long after the death of Tang Dynasty), Masudi, the great Arab traveler, recorded that Chinese ships often sailed to "Oman, Siraf, Austria Bora and Basra".

During this period, the quality, scale and navigation technology of foreign merchant ships that came to China for trade also made great progress.Among them, "Kunlun Ship" and "Ceylon Ship" are well-known both at home and abroad.In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, it was said that the Ceylon ship was the largest foreign ship, with a size of 20 feet long and a capacity of six or seven hundred people.As for the ships of the Arabs and Persians, they are also "stairs up and down several feet", and their scale can be imagined.At that time, the Karimi merchant group in Egypt had hundreds of merchant ships sailing all over the Indian Ocean.

Concentrating on the culmination of foreign navigation knowledge, Jia Dan of the Tang Dynasty described the famous South China Sea Commercial Road around 800 AD, which was called "Guangzhou Tonghaiyi Road" at that time.This sea route started from Guangzhou, crossed the South China Sea, crossed the Strait of Malacca, and arrived at Srivijaya (an ancient country in the Sumatra region of Indonesia), which was a big country in the South China Sea at that time. ),India.Sailing from India to the Gulf of Oman, arrived at the important commercial port of Basra (in today's Iraq) at the head of the Persian Gulf, and finally arrived at the capital of the Arab Empire (ie Baghdad) from Basra.It took about three months for Chinese ships to sail from Guangzhou to Basra.This route connects China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Arab region, and becomes another important channel for the communication of Chinese and Western economies and cultures.

Guangzhou in the south of my country was a world-famous port at that time.Ships sailing from Basra, Siraf, Oman, India, Java, Vietnam, Cambodia and other countries in the Persian Gulf were packed with masts; spices, treasures and other goods were piled up like mountains.During the reign of Emperor Daizong of the Tang Dynasty, 4,000 ships from various countries arrived in Guangzhou every year. It can be seen that the Maritime Silk Road was unprecedentedly grand at that time.Due to the prosperity of foreign trade, in addition to Guangzhou, ports and cities such as Mingzhou (now Ningbo, Zhejiang) and Jiangdu (now Yangzhou, Jiangsu) also developed.In Guangzhou and other port cities, there are also urban areas for foreigners to conduct transactions, all of which are managed by the Department of Shipping.

In this way, the land silk road and the sea silk road from China to the west converge in the Nile Delta.The warm sea breeze blows on the Mediterranean Sea all year round, connecting the coastal cities and ports from the sea.The land route parallel to the coastline is the main artery in northern Africa, and was called the "road" and "right road" by the people at that time.It starts from the Isthmus of Suez in the east, passes through the 500-kilometer desolate area of ​​Sirtika, and stretches west along the coast of Tripoli to the Atlantic Ocean.Along the way, it passes through Barka, Tripoli, Kairouan, Sétif, Tiaret, and goes directly to Fes.This post road from Egypt to Fes has a total of 146 stops along the way.

The post roads on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea are connected to southern and western European countries through coastal ports.For example, in the westernmost Tangier, the Iberian Peninsula can be reached by crossing Gibraltar by sea.In 756 AD, the descendants of the Umayyad dynasty established an independent dynasty there, and soon became prosperous and strong, becoming an important channel for absorbing oriental culture.Another sea route leads from Tunisia and Bejaia to Sicily.In the 9th century AD, Muslims began their military campaign to conquer Sicily.Since then, Sicily has been an important springboard for spreading oriental civilization to Italy.