Kashgar, Yarkend, Khotan. Here at the thriving markets they met the caravans from China and bought from them longed-for silk and superfine China porcelain. The Chinese tradesmen did not dare traveling further to the lands beyond these trading posts.
The great overland thoroughfare that put together a series of caravan trails heading from Central Asia to the West and to the South and the paths leading from China to Eastern Turkestan, originated in the mid-second century B.C. when the Chinese for the fist time discovered the territories lying beyond the western borders – the countries of Central Asia.
Retreating for a long time from the western world China itself opened its “door to the west”. In 138 B.C. Chinese emperor Wu Di of the Han dynasty sent an emissary, experienced commander and diplomat Zhang Qian, on a secret mission to Yueh - chi tribes in quest of an alliance against the disruptive Xiongnu. Zhang Qian presented to the emperor the results of this travel in his report called “ The journey that is 25 thousand li long ”. In his report he suggested a thorough plan of developing the relations with the western countries, the plan that soon was put into operation. Thus there met two branches of the great transcontinental road: the trail heading east from the Mediterranean world and the one heading west from the Hun Empire.
It should be noted that there was never a single, static Silk Road, but rather a network of various routes which forked and branched like a big tree. The principal branch traversing Asia from East to West originated in Changan, an ancient capital of China, skirted the Gobi desert up to the north-western borders, across the Tarim Basin and further across Eastern Turkestan. Passing through the Tien Shan some caravans continued their way via the Ferghana Valley and Tashkent oasis to Samarkand – the capital of Sogdiana, to Bukhara, Khorezm and further to the Caspian Sea. From Samarkand a number of caravans headed for Bactria and crossing the Kashkadarya valley reached Termez where they got across the Amudarya river and headed further south to Kabul and India. Another branch of the road skirted the
