Trade route
Sea lanes linking southern China with Southeast Asia, India, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, sailed with the monsoon winds. Austronesian ships dominated the eastern half early on and Persian, Arab and Tamil traders the western half; Chinese junks joined from the 10th century.
The Maritime Silk Road or Maritime Silk Route is an ancient maritime trade route in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific that connected Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula, eastern Africa, and Europe. It began by the 2nd century BCE and flourished until the 15th century CE. The Maritime Silk Road was primarily established and operated by Austronesian sailors in Southeast Asia who sailed large long-distance ocean-going sewn-plank and lashed-lug trade ships. The route was also utilized by the dhows of the Persian and Arab traders in the Arabian Sea and beyond, and the Tamil merchants in South Asia. China also started building their own trade ships (chuán) and followed the routes in the later period, from the 10th to the 15th centuries CE.
The network followed the footsteps of older Austronesian jade maritime networks in Southeast Asia, as well as the maritime spice networks between Southeast Asia and South Asia, and the West Asian maritime networks in the Arabian Sea and beyond, coinciding with these ancient maritime trade roads by the current era.
The term "Maritime Silk Road" is a modern name, acquired from its similarity to the overland Silk Road. The ancient maritime routes through the Indo-West Pacific (Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean) had no particular name for the majority of its very long history. Despite the modern name, the Maritime Silk Road involved exchanges in a wide variety of goods over a very wide region, not just silk or Asian exports.
The Maritime Silk Road developed from the earlier Neolithic lingling-o jade maritime trade networks established by Austronesians in Southeast Asia. This extensive ancient maritime trade network in Southeast Asia, covering a 3000-kilometer area around the South China Sea, existed long before the Maritime Silk Road. It lasted for around 3,000 years, partially overlapping with the Maritime Silk Road, from 2000 BCE to 1000 CE. It was initially established by the indigenous peoples of Taiwan and the northern Philippines. Raw nephrite jade (Fengtian jade) was sourced from deposits in eastern Taiwan and worked into ornaments and tools in the Philippines (the most notable and most numerous of are double-headed pendants and penannular earrings known as lingling-o). This network later included southern Vietnam (the Sa Huỳnh culture), Borneo, eastern peninsular Malaysia, eastern Cambodia, peninsular Thailand, and other areas in Southeast Asia where these jade ornaments, along with other trade goods, were manufactured and exchanged (also known as the Sa Huynh-Kalanay Interaction Sphere). Taiwan-sourced jade declined in use after around 500 BCE, and non-Taiwanese jade and other materials became more common. The distribution of these jade artifacts were also accompanied by other evidence of maritime trade and shared material culture particularly between the Austronesians of the Neolithic Philippines, southern Vietnam, and Borneo.
The wide distribution throughout Island Southeast Asia of the ceremonial bronze drums (c. 600 BCE to 400 CE) sourced from the Dong Son culture of northern Vietnam is also evidence of the antiquity and density of this prehistoric Southeast Asian maritime network.
During the operation of the maritime trade in jade artifacts, the Austronesian spice trade networks were also established by Islander Southeast Asians with Sri Lanka and Southern India by around 1500 to 600 BCE. These early contacts resulted in the introduction of Austronesian crops and material culture to South Asia, including betel nut chewing, coconuts, sandalwood, domesticated bananas, sugarcane, cloves, and nutmeg. It also introduced Austronesian sailing technologies like outrigger boats which are still utilized in Sri Lanka and southern India. Semi-precious stone and glass ornaments showing northern Indian designs have also been recovered from the Khao Sam Kaeo (c. 400-100 BCE) and Ban Don Ta Phet (c. 24 BCE to 276 CE) archaeological sites in Thailand, along with trade goods from the Austronesian Sa Huynh-Kalanay Interaction Sphere. Both sites are coastal settlements and part of the jade trade network, indicating that the maritime routes of Austronesians had already reached South Asia by this period. South Asian crops like the mung bean and horsegram were also present in Khao Sam Kaeo, indicating the exchange was reciprocal. There is also indirect evidence of very early Austronesian contacts with Africa, based on the presence and spread of Austronesian domesticates like bananas, taro, chickens, and purple yam in Africa in the first millennium BCE.
The western circuit of the Maritime Silk Road also developed from earlier maritime trade routes in West Asia. These linked Sri Lanka, the Malabar Coast of India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, the Horn of Africa, and the Greco-Roman civilizations in the Mediterranean. These trade routes (initially only near-coastal, short-range, and small-scale) has existed since the Neolithic, from at least the Ubaid period (c. 5000 BCE) of Mesopotamia. They became regular trade routes between urban centers in West Asia by the first millennium BCE.
By around the 2nd century BCE, the prehistoric Austronesian jade and spice trade networks in Southeast Asia fully connected with the maritime trade routes of South Asia, the Middle East, eastern Africa, and the Mediterranean, becoming what is now known as the Maritime Silk Road. Prior to the 10th century, the eastern part of the route was primarily used by Southeast Asian Austronesian traders using distinctive sewn-plank and lashed-lug ships, although Persian and Tamil traders also sailed the western parts of the routes. It allowed the exchange of goods from East and Southeast Asia on one end, all the way to Europe and eastern Africa on the other.
Austronesian thalassocracies controlled the flow of trade in the eastern regions of the Maritime Silk Road, especially the polities around the straits of Malacca and Bangka, the Malay Peninsula, and the Mekong Delta; through which passed the main routes of the Austronesian trade ships to Giao Chỉ (in the Tonkin Gulf) and Guangzhou (southern China), the endpoints (later also including Quanzhou by the 10th century CE). Chinese records misidentified these kingdoms as being "Indian" due to the Indianization of these regions. Secondary routes also passed through the coastlines of the Gulf of Thailand; as well as through the Java Sea, Celebes Sea, Banda Sea, and the Sulu Sea, reconnecting with the main route through the northern Philippines and Taiwan. The secondary routes also continue onward to the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea for a limited extent. Glass artifacts from India and Egypt that passed through glassworkers in Southeast Asian and South Asian ports have been recovered from graves in the Korean Peninsula (c. 2nd-6th centuries CE), showing the furthest northeastern extent of the Maritime Silk Road.
The main route of the western regions of the Maritime Silk Road directly crosses the Indian Ocean from the northern tip of Sumatra (or through the Sunda Strait) to Sri Lanka, southern India and Bangladesh, and the Maldives. It branches from here into routes through the Arabian Sea entering the Gulf of Oman (into the Persian Gulf), and the Gulf of Aden (into the Red Sea). Secondary routes also pass through the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and southwards along the coast of East Africa to Zanzibar, the Comoros, Madagascar, and the Seychelles. The Maldives was of particular importance as a major hub for Austronesian sailors venturing through the western routes.
The route was influential in the early spread of Hinduism and Buddhism to the east. The close links of these religions to trade with South Asia led to the widespread adoption of Sanskrit as the trade lingua franca in the early Maritime Silk Road by the 4th century CE. Han and Tang dynasty Chinese records also indicate that the early Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to South Asia booked passage with the Austronesian ships (which they called the k'un-lun po) that traded in the Chinese port city of Guangzhou. Books written by Chinese monks like Wan Chen and Hui-Lin contain detailed accounts of the large trading vessels from Southeast Asia dating back to at least the 3rd century CE.
Austronesians were already sailing as far as East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula even during the earlier period. Austronesians settled in the island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa some time in between the 1st century CE to the 6th or 7th centuries CE. It remained a part of the Maritime Silk Road, along with the nearby African, Arab, and Persian trading ports of Kilwa Kisiwani and Zanzibar (Tanzania), and other ports along the mainland coasts of modern Somalia, Kenya, and Mozambique. Records from Portuguese explorers in the late 15th and early 16th centuries indicate that direct maritime links between Indonesia and Madagascar persisted up until shortly before the colonial period.
Srivijaya, a Hindu-Buddhist Austronesian polity founded at Palembang in 682 CE, rose to dominate the trade in the region around the straits of Malacca and Sunda and the South China Sea emporium by controlling the trade in luxury aromatics and Buddhist artifacts from West Asia to a thriving Tang market. It emerged through the conquest and subjugation of neighboring thalassocracies. These included Melayu, Kedah, Tarumanagara, and Mataram, among others. These polities controlled the sea lanes in Southeast Asia and exploited the spice trade of the Spice Islands, as well as maritime trade-routes between India and China.
By the 7th century CE, Arab dhow traders also ventured into the routes earlier pioneered by Persian traders to Sri Lanka, coinciding with the spread of Islam throughout West Asia. They pushed deeper east into Srivijaya and Guangzhou, leading to the earliest spread of Islam into Southeast Asian polities. During this period, the Persian language (Fārsī), became the dominant lingua franca of both the Maritime and overland Silk Road.
The Butuan boat burials of the Philippines, which feature eleven lashed-lug boat remains of the Austronesian boatbuilding traditions (individually dated from 689 CE to 988 CE), were found in association with large amounts of trade goods from China, Cambodia, Thailand (Haripunjaya and Satingpra), Vietnam, and as far as Persia, indicating they traded as far as the Middle East.
By the 10th to 13th centuries, there was an economic boom in maritime trade, led primarily by the fact that the Song dynasty of China started building its own trading ships (chuán) capable of sailing sea routes. The Song court also loosened restrictions on private trade, despite the traditional Chinese Confucian disdain for trade. This was partly due to the loss of access by the Song dynasty to the overland Silk Road. Song maritime technology was developed from observing Southeast Asian Austronesian ships. Before this, Chinese ships were essentially fluvial (riverine) in nature and operation and were not seaworthy.
The Song started sending trading expeditions to the region they referred to as Nan hai (Chinese: 南海; pinyin: Nánhǎi; lit. 'South Seas'), mostly still dominated by Srivijaya, venturing as far south as the Sulu Sea and the Java Sea. This led to the establishment of new trading ports in Southeast Asia (like in Java and Sumatra) that specifically catered to the Chinese demand for goods like "dragon's brain perfume" (camphor) and other exotica. Quanzhou also became a major Chinese trading port during this period, joining the older trading port of Guangzhou. Both became tightly linked to their Southeast Asian counterparts, leading historians to characterize the distinct trading circuit in this region as the "Asian Mediterranean", from its similarity to the Mediterranean Sea Trade. However, the Song enacted a 9-month limit on how long trade ships can stay at sea, limiting the range of Chinese trade ships to Southeast Asia.
Arab and Tamil traders also increased their participation with direct trade to Chinese ports through the Strait of Malacca in the 10th to 13th centuries. The surprise naval expeditions in 1025 of Rajendra I of the Tamil Chola Empire against Srivijaya's ports along the strait, may have been motivated by Srivijaya's attempt to regulate or block Tamil trading guilds. The Chola invasions ended Srivijaya's monopoly on the Strait of Malacca routes for around a century, during which many of the Srivijayan cities were occupied by the Chola. Srivijaya was left greatly weakened and was eventually subjugated by Singhasari by around 1275, before finally being absorbed by the successor thalassocracy of Majapahit (1293–1527).
China was invaded by the Mongol Yuan dynasty in the 13th century. Chinese shipping during this period was monopolized by the state, via foreign Muslim merchants partnered with the Yuan government in ortogh relationships. Though unlike the Song, the Yuan lifted the 9-month limit, allowing Chinese trade to venture as far as South Asia. The Yuan also attempted naval invasions on Japan, Majapahit, and Vietnam (Austronesian Champa, and Kinh Đại Việt), all of which failed. China itself was later devastated by floods, drought, and famine. Concurrently, the Black Death was sweeping through Europe and Western Asia. All of these factors led to a slump in trade along the Maritime Silk Road in the 14th century.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Maritime Silk Road”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.