How does China’s Silk Road Work?
The Silk Road was the ultimate route for messengers, merchants, and explorers alike. The roads were used in a few manners, with the main being for commercial trade.
China and The Roman Empire
It’s because of this network that Han China and the Roman Empire were aware of each other’s existence. Still, the distance and time between the two powers was too great for anything substantial to come about. Communication was just too difficult over such vast distances.
The silk road sort of ended when the Roman empire fell. Then silk became a valued commodity when the Spanish empire, the French empire and British empire came about. The Chinese only accepted silver as payment for trade, which may have indirectly led to the search for silver mines by the Spaniard.
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Before the conquest of Constantinople, trade to Europe through Silkroad was mainly done by Genoese and Venetian traders. After the conquest, Ottomans dispelled Genoese traders from their ports and banned them from trading goods as well, because of the help Genoese provided to Byzantium in the siege (they had sent their fleet to blockade the golden horn, if I’m not mistaken). To damage Geneose in Mediterranean even more, Ottomans gave Venetian traders -competitors of Genoese – privileges in trading. Any other foreign trader had to pay much more taxes contary to their Venetian counterparts. That said, trading goods from Venetians was almost much more cheaper than paying taxes to Ottomans. The first capitulation in Ottomans’ history, later they gave such and more privileges to French in Suleiman’s reign.