Ancient tea route

The Tea Horse Road (Chinese茶 马 道, Pinyin Chámǎdào or茶 马 古道, translated Chámǎgǔdào: " Ancient Tea-Horse Road" ), was a trade route between the Chinese provinces of Yunnan (云南) and Sichuan (四川) in the east and Tibet and India to the west. Sometimes it is also called Southern Silk Road. Of the numerous Teerouten that led in all directions from the tea growing regions in these two provinces, they had to overcome the greatest obstacles landscape. She crossed several ridges of up to more than 4000 meters high and several large rivers. Eight months a year she was interrupted because of snowy passes.

Goods

The most important commodities were tea from China, went from the the greater part of Tibet and the smaller part to India, and horses from Tibet, which were used in China, above all, for the army (in the south of the kingdom ). The tea trade explained by the fact that there was no tea cultivation in India before 1830. Tibet also referred salt from China. Were also transported silk from China and opium to China.

Routes

Strictly speaking, there was the Tea-Horse Road to a large extent mule tracks and had several variations. Horses were indeed performed as a commodity on these paths, but as pack animals served as in many other mountainous regions mules. Quite a few caravans consisted of carriers.

The northern routes from Chengdu in Sichuan to the west and from Dali (大理) in Yunnan to the northwest, united in a circle Markam ( སྨར་ཁམས ), Chinese Mangkang (芒康) in the east of Tibet Qamdo ( ཆབ་མདོ་ ), on the upper reaches of the Mekong and led from there south of the headwaters of the Salween to Lhasa ( ལྷ་ས་ ). From there we went over Gyantse ( རྒྱལ་རྩེ ) and the pass Nathu La ( རྣ་ཐོས་ལ་ ) through Sikkim to Calcutta in Bengal. From Chengdu to Lhasa or Dali, it was about 2000 km, to Calcutta about 3000 km, from the Hauptteeanbaugebieten in southern and eastern Yunnan's still a few hundred kilometers more.

Were less heavily used the southern route to India, which reached from Dali through northern Myanmar, Nagaland and the Brahmaputra - Ganges delta Calcutta. Although they were shorter and passed lower heights than the northern, but more boundaries and areas of uncontrolled mountain peoples. And Tibet lay off these routes. Since Tibet was the horses Exporter, they are not the Tea-Horse Road Act.

Northern and southern routes avoided the most impassable mountains Hengduan Shan (横断 山).

History

In 7/8 Century, the Tibetans came to the taste of so-called brick tea from Yunnan. As exchange goods they offered horses, since these were extremely rare in parts of southern China. A war horse had the equivalent of 20 to 60 kg of tea. Thus came in the Tang Dynasty ( 618-907 ) of the trade between Tibet and Yunnan in momentum.

It had its heyday in the Song period, as checkpoints up to 2000 dealers listed on the day and were partially deprived of the 7,500 tons of tea per year to Lhasa.

Under the Mongol rule (Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368 ) of the trade broke something. Under the Ming emperors (1368-1644) he recovered, but was increasingly regulated.

The Manchu rulers ( Qing Dynasty ) eventually banned in 1735 the import of horses. And than came the tea production in India to 1840 in transition, the country went south of the Himalayas as a market for Chinese tea lost, but not Tibet. With the construction of rural roads in Tibet in the 1960s ended the caravan traffic.

Swell

• China Expat ( a forum for overseas Chinese ): The ancient Tea - Horse Road

• Altstrasse
• Former trade
• Cross-border traffic
• Traffic History (China)
• Street in China
• Road in India
• Tibet
• Sikkim
• Yunnan
• Sichuan
• Myanmar
• Nagaland