ABSTRACT
In Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian The Biographies of Merchants, there is a proverb that says “You don’t go a hundred miles to peddle firewood; you don’t go a thousand miles to deal in grain”. On the long, ancient commercial roads that were blocked by mountains, what kind of cargos were worth being transported thousands of miles away for trading? These items must meet the following conditions. First, they were luxury goods with high values or high profits or some irreplaceable necessities; second, they could be kept for a long time and be easily transported. Based on the historic records, the main goods traded on the Silk Road include: silk, jade, spices, tea, horses, salt, medicinal herbs, porcelain, etc. The exchanges of goods and people naturally led to exchanges of technical knowledge, animal and plant species, religious beliefs, literature and art with goods and people as carriers. In fact, to a large extent, the latter is more significant than the former.
