Peking to Moscow: The Trans-Siberian Caravan Route
William Gardener describes how silks, tobacco and tea from China were exchanged across the deserts northwest of Peking for furs, cloth and leather from Asiatic Russia.
Though suspended at times because of prolonged warfare across them, or an outbreak of fanaticism at an oasis city through which they had to pass, or as a result of a change in provenance of a staple article of commerce that they had been providing, the great caravan routes came always back into use along their customary tracks. They remained in use for millennia.
Three in especial brought the familiar products of China to a world outside, where they were coveted luxuries. Longest of all in distance, and faced with the formidable barrier of the Pamirs, the Roof of the World, to surmount, and the desert at its widest to negotiate, the Silk Road stretched to the Mediterranean, and clad the wealthy of Rome.
Another ancient track, mules and ponies its pack-animals in place of the camels of Inner Asia, carried Szechuan silk south and west on a switch-back trail over the rivers and divides of Yunnan to Bhamo on the Irrawaddy, to supply Lower Burma and beyond, until the Japanese blocked the route.
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