Minh Sang Silk
Request samples

The Silk Road and Vietnam: How Silk Connected East and West

ArticlesĐọc bằng tiếng Việt

The Silk Road was never a single road. It was a web of caravan tracks and sea lanes that, for more than 1,500 years, carried silk, spices, ideas and religions between China and the Mediterranean. Vietnam sat on its maritime branch. This guide covers where the routes ran, how the secret of silk-making escaped China, and where Vietnam’s silk comes from today.

The Silk Road at a glance

Name
“Silk Road” (Seidenstraße), coined by geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877
Active
About the 2nd century BCE to the 15th century CE
Overland
From Chang’an (today’s Xi’an) across Central Asia and Persia to the Mediterranean
By sea
From southern China through Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea
Goods
Silk, spices, ceramics, glass, horses, precious metals, paper
UNESCO
Chang’an–Tianshan corridor inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2014
Vietnam
Maritime routes: Óc Eo (Mekong Delta), Rinan (central Vietnam), Hội An

What was the Silk Road?

“Silk Road” is a modern name for very old routes. Merchants rarely travelled the whole way: goods passed from hand to hand through oasis towns, ports and markets, gaining value at each stage. Silk was the cargo that gave the network its name because it was light, durable and worth a great deal for its weight, which made it ideal for long journeys. In parts of Central Asia, bolts of silk were even used as currency and to pay soldiers.

Historians now often speak of the Silk Roads, plural, to include the sea routes. By ship, cargo moved from southern Chinese ports along the coast of what is now Vietnam, through the Strait of Malacca, across the Indian Ocean and on to Persia, Arabia and East Africa.

How the routes opened

Around 138 BCE, Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty sent the envoy Zhang Qian west to seek allies against the nomadic Xiongnu. His journeys, which ended around 126 BCE, gave China its first detailed knowledge of the kingdoms of Central Asia and opened regular contact. Within two centuries, Chinese silk was reaching Rome, where it was so prized that Pliny the Elder complained about the money flowing east to pay for luxuries.

Silk-making: the secret that travelled

For centuries China guarded sericulture, the raising of silkworms on mulberry leaves and the reeling of their cocoons into thread. Finished silk could leave the country; the silkworms and the know-how could not. The secret spread slowly: to Korea and Japan, to the oasis kingdom of Khotan (where legend says a princess hid silkworm eggs in her headdress), and around 552 CE to the Byzantine Empire, when, according to the historian Procopius, monks smuggled eggs to Emperor Justinian I inside hollow canes. Silk industries later grew in the Islamic world, then in Italy and France.

The maritime Silk Road and Vietnam

Óc Eo: a Mekong Delta port (1st–7th century CE)

Óc Eo, in today’s An Giang province, was a port of the kingdom of Funan. Excavations led by Louis Malleret in 1944 uncovered Roman gold medallions bearing the names of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, Indian seals and Chinese bronze mirrors: physical proof that the Mekong Delta was part of a trade network stretching from the Mediterranean to China.

Rinan: Rome’s envoys in central Vietnam (166 CE)

The Book of the Later Han records that in 166 CE a mission claiming to come from “Andun, king of Da Qin” (usually identified with the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) arrived at China’s frontier through Rinan, a Han commandery in what is now central Vietnam. It is one of the earliest recorded contacts between Rome and China, and it came by the sea route past Vietnam’s coast.

Hội An: a silk port (15th–19th century)

Hội An, known to foreign traders as Faifo, became the main port of Đàng Trong (southern Đại Việt). Chinese, Japanese and later European merchants came for silk, sugar, ceramics and aromatic woods; in the early 17th century, Japanese “red seal” ships called there regularly, and silk was among their main purchases. Silk-weaving villages such as Mã Châu, upriver in Quảng Nam, supplied the trade. Hội An’s old town has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999.

Why the Silk Road ended

The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 is often used as the symbolic end of the Silk Road era. In practice, the change came from the sea: after Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498, European ships traded with Asia directly, and by then silk was produced in many countries. The overland caravans faded; the sea routes past Vietnam carried on.

Silk in Vietnam today

Vietnamese silk has deep roots in the weaving villages of the north and centre, among them Vạn Phúc in Hà Nội, Nha Xá in Hà Nam and Mã Châu in Quảng Nam. In the 20th century, the centre of sericulture moved to the cool Lâm Đồng highlands, where mulberry grows across the hills around Bảo Lộc. Today Bảo Lộc is the heart of Vietnamese sericulture.

Minh Sang Silk has supplied silk yarn and raw and woven silk fabric from Bảo Lộc since 2009, to mills, knitters, fashion labels, ateliers, importers and private customers. The routes have changed; the material that travelled them has not. Send an inquiry for samples or a quote, or read more about us.

Questions about the Silk Road

What was the Silk Road?

A network of overland caravan routes and sea lanes that linked China with Central Asia, India, Persia, Arabia and the Mediterranean from about the 2nd century BCE to the 15th century CE. Silk was its most famous cargo, but spices, ceramics, glass, horses, paper, religions and technologies travelled along it too.

Who named the Silk Road?

The German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen coined the term Seidenstraße (Silk Road) in 1877. People who used the routes never called them that.

Was Vietnam part of the Silk Road?

Yes, through the maritime Silk Road. Óc Eo in the Mekong Delta was a Funan port where Roman, Indian and Chinese objects have been found; the Han commandery of Rinan in central Vietnam is where, according to the Book of the Later Han, a mission claiming to come from Rome arrived in 166 CE; and Hội An was a major port for silk and other goods from the 15th to the 19th century.

How did silk-making spread outside China?

China kept sericulture secret for centuries. It reached Korea, Japan and the oasis kingdom of Khotan, and around 552 CE, according to the Byzantine historian Procopius, monks smuggled silkworm eggs to Constantinople for Emperor Justinian I. Silk production later grew in the Islamic world, Italy and France.

Why did the Silk Road decline?

From the late 15th century, European ships reached Asia directly by sea after Vasco da Gama's voyage of 1498, and silk was by then produced in many countries. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 is often used as the symbolic end date.

Where is silk produced in Vietnam today?

The Lâm Đồng highlands around Bảo Lộc are Vietnam's centre of sericulture. Traditional weaving villages such as Vạn Phúc (Hà Nội), Nha Xá (Hà Nam) and Mã Châu (Quảng Nam) also continue to make silk cloth.

Sources