Steve the 6th Century Silk Road Trader
, passes along the lonely road to Kashgar. Nomads roam at the lands and the altitude neverdips beneath 3500m. The people are stocky Uygur with ruffled beards and big brown eyes (about as un-Han Chinese as they come). It’s still at time of Buddhism on the silk road- but the conquest of Islam is not far away. Steve trades some furs at the biggest trade market in Asia and then has to two choices to make. The Northern Silk Road at the feet of the Tian Shan mountains, with more civilization, more water and a greater chance of getting mugged. Or, the Southern Silk route, starkly more beautiful at the feet of the Kunlun mountain, next to the same desert but with less population, less water, older civilizations and a greater chance of death. It’s naturally a tough choice. He chooses the Southern Route.
Most people travel on the backs of horses and Bactrian camels and live in oases in the middle of nothing. But the going is slow. Howling sandstorms often block the way and its 1300 kms further to the other side of the desert. Dunes in this desert have been known to top 300m and they melt away from the road in waves. On the road Steve passes the ancient Buddhist complex at Khotan reknown throughout the Buddhist world.
at Charkilik, Steve trades some furs and continues on his way to Dunhuang 1000km distant. The average altitude is 4000m and Winter is drawing in . This is one of the toughest sections of the journey as the area is just so remote. The time traveling Chinese even recently tested a nuclear bomb in the area at the Lop Nur test site.
Steve is now at the crossroads of the Gobi and the Taklimakan deserts. To the West the jagged mountainous terrain stretches back the way he has come and to the East the dunes of the Gobi eagerly await. The Jade gate has been both the finishing point and starting point for Southern Silk road traders for hundreds of years. Steve is glad when he finally passes through it and finally reaches China proper. After a brief visit to the thousand Buddha caves, Steve continues his journey west, heading along the Great Wall of China now to Jiuquan, am military outpost on the Silk Road. The name of Jiuquan cast fear into the souls of Chinese for centuries. For here lies the last outpost on the frontier of China where civilization ends and only terrifying wilderness begins. This is the point where Chinese citizens are evicted from their homeland never to be allowed in again.
By now it’s the middle of winter and Steve decides to wait until he can make the final approach to Beijing in the spring. The area surrounding the Gobi is beautiful and Steve decides to buy some more furs. At Wuwei the Tenger desert merges into the plains of Inner Mongolia. Steve strides out across the lands reaching Hohhot and finally Beijing where he does a roaring trade.
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