The Chinese traded with the peoples to their north, south, and east, but
their most storied foreign trade was with the west, initially with neighbors
like Sima Qian’s horse trader and through them with the settled peoples of
the oasis cities of Central Asia and beyond to India, Persia, and the
Mediterranean. The key to this trade was the nomadic pastoralists who lived
on the steppe, that enormous swath of grassland bordered by the taiga forests
to the north and high mountains andfierce deserts to the south, which
stretched from Hungary in the west to Mongolia in the east. Except in
favored locations, most of this land was unsuited to agriculture, being too
cold or too dry for crops, but it was a great place to raise animals, particu-
larly horses. The pastoral lifestyle provided a natural training ground for
warfare. The skills of horsemanship developed in hunting and the martial
adeptness acquired from frequent raiding common among tribesmen, when
combined with use of the powerful double curved bow, gave nomadic pas-
toralists a potency that made them an almost irresistible force in the ancient
world. The best way for aspiring leaders to secure loyalty was by redis-
tributing valuable goods, hence the role of trade, tribute, and plunder in
steppe politics.
The relationship between nomadic pastoralists and settled communities
existed on a continuum with peaceful trade between equal partners repre-
senting one extreme and chronic plunder the other. When settled and
nomadic peoples lived in proximity, they tended to develop stable relations
based on strategies of accommodation. This might include outright tribute
payment, tribute disguised as trade, trade disguised as tribute, implied and
overt threats and protection guarantees, diplomatic manipulation and nego-
tiated agreements, wall building, limited or sporadic warfare, and temporary
alliances usually directed against another nomadic group. Pastoral economies
were hardly self-sufficient. They needed a range of items, which made them
natural trading partners with settled peoples, and they produced their own
surpluses, which they could use in payment. On the most basic level nomads
required grain as an essential element in their diet. They also desired pro-
ducts manufactured by the specialist craftsmen and artisans of the cities,
ranging from metal goods to medicines. Sometimes the nomads provided the
very raw materials that would be returned in the form of manufactured
goods in a type of circular trade as, for example, in the case of raw wool to be
returned as clothing, carpets, and tapestries. Trade was actually a better way
of obtaining luxury goods than raiding and warfare because it was more
predictable. Crucial to ongoing trade was the existence of border markets. If
these were disrupted, or if settled communities refused to trade, the likely
result would be to raid.
The most important items of direct trade between China and the neigh-
boring nomads were silk and horses. Nomadic chiefs used much of the silk
they got from the Chinese to attract followers into armies that occasionally
became large enough to threaten China. Equally ironic, the most important
From the Jade Road to the Silk Road 125