The Silk Road Opens

c. 130 BCE — Central Asia, Han China / Eurasia

Today: Across Central Asia, linking China to the Mediterranean

When a Han emperor sent an envoy west to find allies against steppe raiders, the envoy returned with something more valuable: knowledge of a whole chain of civilizations to trade with. The route that opened — the Silk Road — carried Chinese silk to Rome and Roman glass to China, but far more importantly it carried religions, technologies, and eventually diseases across the whole of Eurasia. For the first time, a shock at one end of the world could ripple to the other — the first draft of a connected globe.

Worth knowing: Romans paid so much gold for Chinese silk that a senator griped it was draining the treasury — yet the two superpowers never met, each knowing the other only as a rumor at the far end of the road.

Pattern: Trade-route shift — The path or medium of exchange moves, and a place or power rises or declines because it sits on or off the new route.

Entry 64 of 240 in Precedent, a walk through the whole human story in order.