South Road of The Silk Road
2 min readSouth Road
The South Road was the earliest traffic road from Yangguan to the Western Regions in the Han Dynasty with the routes starting from Yangguan to Loulan(now Lop Nor) along the north foot of the Altun Mountains, traveling along the southwest of the north foot of the Kunlun Mountains to pass through Shanshan(now Ruoqiang county), Qiemo, Jingjue(now Minfeng county), Mi(now Keriya county), Khotan(now Khotan city), Pishan and Shache, and then it climbs over Congling(now Tashkurghan) to go west.
The South Road passes through the Yardang Desert between Yangguan and Loulan and climbs over the Pamirs, and its conditions are harsh and dangerous. But envoys, merchants and masters for obtaining Buddhist scriptures were usually in an endless stream on this road in the Han Dynasty.In the Tang Dynasty, the South road gradually became unfrequented, but the traffic was not stopped. Fa Hsien of the Jin Dynasty, Song Yun of the Northern Wei Dynasty and Xuanzang of the Tang Dynasty came back through this road after acquiring scriptures abroad. In the Yuan Dynasty, Marco Polo traveled east through this road after entering the territory of China as well. With Seas changing into mulberry fields and mulberry fields into seas, some sections of this ancient road have been submerged by quicksand. Most cities and towns of kingdoms such as Loulan, Shanshan, Miran, Jingjue and Khotan have been ruined or submerged by the sand. Over the last one hundred years,a lot of explorers, archaeological teams and desert tour groups have gamely trudged in the most difficult areas of the ancient road to seek for those relics and explore mysteries of the South Road of the Silk Road. They confirm and supplement Chinese ancient books’ records about the history of the South Road by their investigation records.
Besides the North, Middle and South Roads mentioned above, there are many other ancient roads within the territory of Xinjiang, among which, the”Tianshan Road”traversing the Tianshan hinterland and the “Meadow Road”crossing the northern grassland are the most fascinating.
