The Silk Road is usually refers to the northern Eurasia trade route, it is the bridge which connect Asia, Europe and Africa; also, it is the communication bridge of economic and cultural in eastern and western countries. The World's Ancient Civilizations-China, Egypt, Babylon and India, together with the birthplace of European civilization-Greece and Rome, are the areas that the Silk Road arrived. In the very beginning, the role of Silk Road is to transport the silk from China; for this reason, the German geographer-Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen named the road as "silk road". The motivation of international trade stimulated the development of Silk Road; in reverse, international trade among countries on three continents has been developed together with the booming of Silk Road. International trade in Pre-Mongol area has played an essential function; characteristic components of international trade in that area are worth to be analyzed. This essay will focus on the analysis of unique characteristics of international trade and the influences.
2. Silk Road and International Trade
The Book of the Later Han described that messengers and command mediators come and go every month, and travelling merchant and Northern Races merchants get accommodation here everyday, which reflected the sense of messengers and merchants come and go constantly (Fan, the Eastern Han Dynasty)."Silk Road" is not just a simple line, but the radioactive business thoroughfares; at the meanwhile, it is the communication road of political, economic and cultural in east and west countries; however, the most prominent thing at that time is international trade (Étienne, 2005).
The goods for international trade on the Silk Road are not only the important luxury consumer goods, but also one kind of effective political tool- when China's envoy sent on the mission to the Western Regions or even farther west countries, silk or other goods will serve as the effective means of friendship. After the Silk Road was opened up, the cast iron smelting, sinking and other technologies were introduced into the Western Regions, which promoted the social production level of Western Regions, and also promoted the development of the economy. After various crops and animals had been brought into the Central China through international trade, people's daily life had been enriched in China, and the food source had been expanded. International trade and the Silk Road played a complementary role to each other (Loewe,1971).
3. Characteristic Components of International Trade
International trade along the Silk Road has some special components, because of which, the international trade could be conducted among countries and the Silk Road can be opened up. Following four aspects will give a brief introduction.
3.1 Businessmen
In the historical data of Silk Road, businessmen were the most frequent group and with the largest number in the Silk Road. Businessmen travelled around the Silk Road earlier than Zhang Qian went to the Western Regions. The open up of silk road had established friendly relationships among Han Dynasty and western countries, and the businessmen often made use of the name of envoy to engage in trade, carried worth immense sums' silk to western countries to change jewelries or other materials. For the concern of sake, businessmen preferred to went on business in troop, the troop often contained fixed person, sometimes businessmen from other countries might joined in temporary, so usually, the troop was huge, contained hundreds of person. The large number export of silk had a great influence towards the input countries (Pegolotti, 2004).
The hardships of life and risk, disease, beast attacks, bandits plunder and slaughter could not stop the businessmen's access to the commercial profit, they had made great contribution to the social progress and economic prosperity in China and other countries. During the trade process, the businessmen had spread our ancient civilizations to western countries, and also had brought back civilizations from western countries.
3.2 Goods
Among the goods in Silk Road, silk is the main commodity. China--as the world's earliest sericulture, silk reeling and woven silk country, its silk were regarded as treasures in ancient Central Asia, West Asia, West Africa, and Europe. After the business communication was open between Han Dynasty and Western Regions, Central Asia and West Asia were popular to wear silk, temples began to use a lot of silk decoration. Europe in Roman Empire period, Chinese silk were used widely, person from the emperor, the senate to the noble were all proud of wearing silk. Besides of exporting silk, China exported iron, nickel, precious metal, bronze ware, lacquer, apricot and sugar cane and so on to central Asia, west Asia and Roman; while China imported wool, glass, stone, agate, perfume and cosmetics, particularly input ferghana horse and tenma from DaWan; grapes, alfalfa, broad bean, pomegranates, saffron, sesame seed, carrots and cucumber plants were transferred from Central Asia to China. At the meanwhile, China introduced kong hou, pipa, tartar pipe and other musical instruments from Western Region and Iran, introduced wool and glass from Parthia and Rome.(Whitfield, 1999)
3.3 Transport means
These goods were in trade among China, Central Asia and Europe countries continuously, and various geographical environment such as plain, grassland, desert and gobi had been passed. Because of the long journey, the greater the amount of the goods, the greater profits was possible, reliable transport tools were needed. Breeding horses and other animals that were suitable for long distance transportation began to be used by people constantly, which made large-scale trade communication became possible. And the nomads dispersion in the Eurasia started to raise the horse since 41 century B.C. Bimodal camels soon were used in the business trip. Asses began to be used by the merchants soon; the goods were mounted in any way that they could to be mounted. (Pegolotti, 2004)
In addition, Eurasia hinterland was the land of vast grasslands and fertile land, for nomads and caravan transport cattle, they could settle down in anytime and anywhere, nearby supply water, food and fuel ( Étienne ,2005). As for the countries in the road of Marine Silk Road, the arrival of the goods could be shipped through ocean shipping.
3.4 Currency and other exchange ways
Countries on the Silk Road carried on trade and exchange, there was one thing that was indispensable, that is the currency. Most of the countries on the Silk Road had its own currency. Currency has always been with the Silk Road. Since the tang dynasty，China's ancient coins continuously flowed to East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia and East African countries, the spread area was broadness. Zhao Rushi in Song Dynasty recorded in his book that, during the song dynasty, Chinese businessmen often took the forbidden copper cashes to oversea countries (Wang,2004). Ma Huan in Song Dynasty recorded that rich people in western countries performed the trade with China's copper cashes. It was confirmed by the unearthed Chinese copper cashed in these areas. In Tang and Song Dynasty, the input currency to China was Sassanian Persian silver and Byzantine coins.
However, coins were not the only form of currency. Barter transaction was one important way at that time. Goods such as grain, carpet and textiles, even animals such as sheep, were all one way of money. (Wang,2004)
4. Influences from Empires along the Silk Road due to the International Trade
Countries along the Silk Road had changed their inherent way, from food-producing economy, they began to exchange goods for livestock or handicrafts. Chinese silk and goods from other countries had a good market, and then huge profits were brought. In Russia and North Europe, more than a million coins had been found; they had represented a little part of the considerable sums of coins which were brought into circulations because of the exchanges ( Étienne ,2005).
In order to control the trade road, countries in Central Asia, West Asia, North Asia and Southern Europe had developed a long-term struggle in order to monopolize the trade. Some large countries like Plug Glassy Ancient Dynasty could conquer the road of trade, for the countries had the strength to control large areas. However, for some small countries, like Sogdian, it did not have the strength to control or monopolize the Silk Road, and sometimes they were forbidden to transport the silk if they had to take way from other countries (Étienne, 2005). The large countries were attempted to monopolize the patent of international trade. More serious thing was that because of the international trade, religions were broadcast to various countries, if religions conflict with each other, the merchant maybe killed, their goods would be rapped, and then the international trade would be stopped. Due to the international trade, the size of cities and even countries were dynamic, the change of the size determined which country or countries could conquer the Silk Road at that moment (Étienne, 2005).
The international trade along the Silk Road had brought war and fight to the countries, however, the most important thing is that it had brought wealth to these countries. Because of the monopoly trade, goods from other countries would be sold at a real high price; the price was even higher if the country was hard to input the goods.
5. Conclusion
In ancient Chinese feudal society, the natural economy occupied the main position of the economy, international trade took up a small proportion of the social product; however, the development of international trade alone the Silk Road had a profound impact on Chinese society and the Asian and African countries. The official trade was not for the purpose of making profit, but for the purpose of strengthening the friendly exchanges. In the process of international trade, the exchange of cultural, person and technology had been encouraged, the world civilization and the economic development had been promoted, and also, the world religious culture had been brought to China. The development of international trade along the Silk Road had promoted the development of economic between the China and foreign countries, especially promoted the economic development of all countries in west Asia, East Asia. International trade had played a very important role for the development of Silk Road.
