The Tea Horse Road or chamadao, now generally referred to as the Ancient Tea Horse Road or chamagudao was a network of caravan paths winding through the mountains of Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet in Southwest China. This was also a tea trade route. It is also sometimes referred to as the Southern Silk Road or Southwest Silk Road, and it is part of a complex routes system connecting China and South Asia. There are numerous surviving archaeological and monumental elements, including trails, bridges, way stations, market towns, palaces, staging posts, shrines and temples along the route. Besides the route's importance for commercial activity, more significantly it was crucial for cultural exchange between the Indian subcontinent, Tibet and Southwest China. Especially, it was vitally important for the interchange of Buddhism between China and South Asia.
History
Sichuan and Yunnan are believed to be the first tea-producing regions in the world. The first record of tea cultivation in the world suggested that tea was cultivated on Sichuan's Mount Mengding between Chengdu and Ya'an earlier than 65 BC. Ya'an has been an important hub of tea trading till the 20th century. Besides tea, silk products from Chengdu, notably Shujin, was also traded through this road toSouth Asian from around 2000 years ago. From around a thousand years ago, the Tea Horse Road was a trade link from Yunnan to Bengal via Myanmar; to Tibet; and to Central China via Sichuan Province. In addition to tea, the mule caravans carried salt. Both people and horses carried heavy loads, the tea porters sometimes carrying over 60–90 kg, which was often more than their own body weight in tea. The porters carried metal-tipped staffs, both for balance while walking and to help support the load while they rested, so they didn't need to lay the bales down. It is believed that it was through this trading network that tea first spread across China and Asia from its origins in Pu'ercounty, near Simao Prefecture in Yunnan. The route earned the name Tea-Horse Road because of the common trade of Tibetan ponies for Chinese tea, a practice dating back at least to the Song dynasty, when the sturdy horses were important for China to fight warring nomads in the north.
Future
In the 21st century, the legacy of the Tea-Horse Road has been used to promote a railway that will connect Chengdu to Lhasa. This planned railroad, part of the PRC's 13th 5-Year Plan, is called the Sichuan-Tibet railway ; it will connect cities across the route including Kangding. Authorities claim it will bring great benefit to the people's welfare.
