686 conclusion
The foreign countries traded not only in native products but also
in goods they had received by sea from or via the Middle East or on
the Silk Routes from the West. This included the Chinese government
into a vast international network of commerce, which was only broken
when Southern Sung withdrew into isolationism. It was not until the
Mongols that this kind of trade was again revived.
rejected by the T’ang court. In 971, Khotan proposed to offer a dancing elephant,
which was accepted by the Sung court.