The Silk Road and Ancient Trade: Crash Course World History #9

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The Silk Road let merchants become wealthy without becoming kings, giving commerce its own political influence.
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Silk Road merchants funded Buddhist monasteries that served as caravan waystations, treating donations as supernatural insurance for trade and health.
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Before paper, China used silk as fishing line, tribute for nomadic raiders, and writing material. Abroad, silk meant luxury clothing.
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Roman senators repeatedly tried to ban silk, but elite demand defeated government efforts to control its trade and morality.
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Goods traveled farther than people did, passing through chains of regional traders who resold them at marked-up prices.
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The Black Death reached the West in 1346, killing nearly half of Europe within four years, including most Italians and two-thirds of Londoners.
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Merchants funded Buddhist monasteries because they provided caravan waystations and prayers for successful missions and patrons’ health.
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Central Asian nomads became key traders because mobility suited transport, herding fit poor farmland, and constant travel increased disease resistance.
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Silk Road trade connected populations widely enough to transmit measles, smallpox, and bubonic plague between East and West.
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The Silk Road’s interconnectedness spread benefits beyond luxury-buying elites, but it also spread catastrophic risks to everyone.
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Mahayana Buddhism spread through China, Korea, Japan, and Central Asia, teaching that the Buddha was divine and heavenly afterlife was possible.
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Silk Road commerce expanded dramatically in the second and third centuries CE, with the Kushan Empire serving as a major trade hub.

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