2.1

Question 1

What were the Silk Roads?

Answer 1

The Silk Roads was a large expansion of trade routes for luxury and expensive items that spanned across Eurasia between 1200-1450. It was one of the primary conductors of cultural and technological diffusion.

Question 2

What types of items were traded on the Silk Roads?

Answer 2

Luxury items, due to the long distance, time, effort of traveling and trading over the Silk Roads. This meant that it was expensive, and that merchants only carried expensive luxury items to make a profit.

• Chinese Silk

Question 3

Cause and effect: why did the Silk Roads expand during 1200-1450?

Answer 3

Innovations in commercial practice:

• the Chinese started using paper money
  *easier to carry
  *caused the development of banks so that people could deposit money in one location and withdrawal it in another
  *made traveling with a lot of money safer
• increased use of credit systems
  *Chinese: “flying money”, where a merchant would get a paper certificate in exchange for money, travel, and exchange it back for money in a different place with the same merchant family
• rise of banks
  *the use of banking systems in Europe modeled after Chinese banks
  *use of Bills of Exchange

Innovations in transportation technology:

• caravanserai: roadside inns
  *made traveling safer, less prone to theft
  *fostered cultural diffusion
  *helped to spread the Black Plague (Bubonic Plague): stationed animals like camels, that carries fleas, in close quarters with lodging merchants
• saddles: facilitated travel over long distances on camel
  *Frame and mattress saddles: could carry more cargo

Question 4

The expansion of use of the Silk Roads led to the rise of what type of cities? Give some examples of these cities.

Answer 4

Trading cities, where merchants would stop and rest or buy goods. Major hubs of cultural diffusion, and provided a place to access needs that weren’t available for long portions of the Silk Roads, like water.

• Kashgar (bordered China)
• Samarkand (in Central Asia)

Question 5

Explain why Kashgar became a suitable trading city.

Answer 5

Kashgar was surrounded by barren and dry land, but was built around a river. It was therefore attractive to merchants, and its location besides a river made it agriculturally prosperous and provided access to water and food for travelers.

It was at the intersection of major Silk Road routes, and became very profitable. It developed into a city particularly full of Islamic culture.

Question 6

Explain two major characteristics of Samarkand.

Answer 6

It was at the intersection of major Silk Road routes.

It was a hub of cultural diffusion and many different religions. Architects found relics from Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Islam.

Question 7

The expansion of the use of the Silk Roads did what to consumer demand and production?

Answer 7

The increased use of the Silk Roads led to an increase in the demand for luxury goods like Chinese silk and porcelain.

more demand = more production by Persian, Indian, and Chinese artisans

This led to an increased focus on artisan production. For example, peasants in the Yangtze River Valley scaled back significantly on food production in order to increase the production of luxury goods.

This led to proto-industrialization and commercialization in China, which increased profits in China and was promptly reinvested into the Chinese steel and iron industries.

Question 8

What is proto-industrialization?

Answer 8

It’s the same as commercialization - there is more of a good produced than necessary for a state’s own population, and the products are transported to and sold in distant markets for profit.

Question 9

What is another world for the Black Plague?

Answer 9

the Bubonic Plague