How the Silk Road Made the World | Full Documentary

foreign [Music] Eurasia the world's largest landmass some ten thousand kilometers from the Pacific to the Atlantic oceans a formidable distance even in today's world and yet over that vast distance human beings have pursued one of History's Greatest Enterprises the Silk Road a tremendously profitable trade route and so much more for thousands of years exotic Goods new technologies [Music] conquering armies [Music] and Brilliant ideas traveled along the Silk Road foreign trade helped to build Empires and to break them it fanned the fires of revolution drove Great Explorations and forged powerful bonds between far away peoples the Silk Road made human beings realize that there are other people out there and it opened the eyes of the East and the West this is the story of how Silk Road trade made so much more than money the Epic tale of how the Silk Road helped create a world a world that created us [Music] two thousand years ago the Roman Empire seemed Unstoppable Rome had conquered much of Europe and was sending its Legions beyond the Eastern Mediterranean to the Middle East gateway to the riches of Asia but a journey to the east could become a road of blood in 53 BCE near the Mesopotamian town of Kari the parthians an empire-blending Persian and Greek cultures confronted a Roman army [Music] the outcome of the battle seemed Beyond doubt some forty thousand Romans faced only ten thousand parthians and Rome's Legions were Europe's finest foot soldiers there was just one problem the parthian Army didn't fight on foot the parthians they were Cavalry they were horse archers versatile Road Like the Wind what the Romans did was what the Romans always did they took a fixed position they were ordered into a hollow Square defending all sides but that was nothing to the parthian horse art just because they could just ride around them and they did they galloped around and around and around and around shooting as they went thousands and thousands of arrows loosed into those Romans [Music] what the Romans eventually did was they were ordered to go into testudo that's that Roman formation where they lock their Shields together and put the next layer of shields to make a roof testudo is Latin for tortoise [Music] but the parthians had the answer to this tortoise they had a hammer to break open its shell the parthian hammer was a cataphract a Greek word meaning clothed in full armor Horse and Rider wore heavy coats of mail the cataphract was the ancient world's equivalent of a battle tank at Kare charging cataphracts broke open the testudo [Music] exposing the Romans inside to more Arrow attacks some thirty thousand Romans were killed or captured parthian losses were minor it was one of Rome's worst military defeats but it may have been something else as well [Music] a Roman historian wrote that the parthians dazzled the Romans with banners made of a beautiful fabric silk that may only be a legend but around the time of Curry Romans began coveting Chinese silk and China began selling silk to Rome in exchange for fine Roman glassware and gold inspiring the name we give Eurasian trade today Silk Road [Music] but long before Romans and parthians fought at Kare trade between the peoples of Eurasia were shaping lives making new things possible and changing the world [Music] the parthians won with a style of warfare that had evolved centuries earlier and thousands of kilometers away on the steps of Central Asia an ocean of land where Victory and battle and life itself depended on moving very far very fast thousands of years before the battle of karei Transportation Revolution took place on these vast planes [Music] there is good evidence for the existence of domesticated horses in what is today Kazakhstan and Southern Russia by 3 500 BC actually think that probably horses were domesticated and began to be ridden 500 or maybe a thousand years before that maybe as early as 4 500 BC [Music] the domestication of the horse was the first step towards Cavalry Warfare but the second step would be a long time coming the first use of horses and warfare was with Chariot Warfare and we have that well-established Tutankhamun's chariot which many people have seen in museum exhibits and we know that people were using chariots in Warfare starting in the near East in about 1600 1700 BC [Music] horses were not used as organized cavalry until after about 900 BC almost a thousand years after Chariot Warfare began and it's always seemed odd to me that Cavalry began after chariotry cherry tree is very difficult to manage you have to train horses to work together they have to pull this a clumsy vehicle that has two people in it a driver and a warrior training the units to work together very difficult thing to do whereas jumping on the back of a horse is an easy thing so why did Cavalry come after a cherry entry I think the real reason that Cavalry waited is that you needed to have really three Innovations [Music] the earliest evidence for the recurve bow is in Shang Dynasty China probably dated between 1300 and 1100 BC Shang Empress communicated with their ancestors by heating animal bones or turtle shells until they cracked and then interpreting the patterns made by the cracks one of these so-called Oracle bones is carved with a Chinese character for Beau the earliest known image of a recurved bow and in the Tomb of Lady fuja an imperial consort and renowned military commander archaeologists found more evidence it's a thumb cover for drawing the bow string and there's another piece that went in the middle of a recurve bow a hand grip the bows themselves are not preserved so it's a difficult thing to identify the origins of the recurve bow the different components of it probably came from different places geographically just how far the recurve bow traveled across Eurasia was revealed in 2005 at young hai in China's xinjiang region wooden bows rarely survive burial in the ground but xinjiang's cold dry climate preserved one in a 3 000 year old tomb other grave goods and the human remains found in the young hai tombs confirmed that the bow was made by the scythians a highly sophisticated culture that originated in southern Russia and migrated on Horseback across the length and breadth of Eurasia thank you the true birthplace of the recurved composite bow remains an archaeological mystery but there is no doubt that 3000 years ago anyone who fought on Horseback would have found it revolutionary a bow is as strong as it is long it derives its strength from its length and the recurve bow packs the same length into this very a short uh bow that can be swung over the horse's rear and over the horse's neck [Music] and it was much much easier to use on horseback and the reaper of bows are technologically quite difficult to make it took a long time to develop the craft of bow making to that point the recover all these sinewy bends reflex and deflects that gives it inbuilt spring but that can only be created with Composite Materials what we mean by that is it's made of a number of materials the heart of it is wood usually Beach and then you have horn horn from the water buffalo and then sinew the tendons of an animal that when you bash it you can tease apart and get these very fine fibers fibers with tremendous tensile strength that has elasticity and spring and it stops the bow bursting apart these are all materials that enhance the power the spring of the bow but only if bow makers could solve a very big problem how to keep such a powerful bow made from so many different materials from breaking up when its own power was pulling it apart somewhere in Eurasia some time long ago some unknown genius discovered the answer this is the swim bladder of a sturgeon fish from the Black Sea and if you start to break these up then put it in hot water and you get this wonderful viscous glue this simple idea of making a glue out of a swim bladder of a fish was a technological breakthrough of immense consequences it is what enabled the composite bow to exist and in turn the composite bow was a military revolution of far-reaching consequences foreign the composite recurved bow gave birth to a new kind of warrior the horse Archer the horse Archer was able to shoot from the saddle in part because of the new technology of the composite bow they were short compact bows and that meant that you can shoot them from horseback you see I can cross to the other side of the horse I can turn and shoot behind it's much more suitable for shooting on horseback everyone who fought with Eurasian Nomads whether as enemy or friend wanted a recurved composite bow by the early first millennium BCE it was in use from East Asia to Eastern Europe [Music] a recurved bow gave a horse Archer unprecedented killing power but it didn't make him a cavalryman before horse archers could fight as an effective military force they needed a large supply of identical arrows and that didn't exist arrowheads were a variety of different sizes and weights some were made of bone some were made out of Flint some were made out of bronze all of them would be individually made and you had to adjust your shot for the weight of different arrows also a unit of soldiers who were firing at the same time would be firing arrows of slightly different weights and they might go different distances foreign s was the invention of the socketed Arrowhead they were made of bronze usually and they were made in a mold and cast in a mold so that an infinite number of socketed arrowheads of the same weight could be made from the same Bowl making a socketed projectile points was actually a big deal you have to have a mold with a core where the socket is going to be that you can pour molten metal around so that it's the same thickness all the way around making arrowheads of the same size and weight was another Central Asian technological Revolution oh for the first time mounted Warriors could unleash coordinated Arrow attacks on their enemies with arrowheads of the same weight every time you drew the bow to shoot you knew that you were firing an arrow that was exactly the same way as the last arrow that you fired so you could determine the range and the distance well and also all of the archers that were firing were firing arrowheads of the same weight at the same time so the distance for all of them would be the same foreign archaeologists believe that sometime in the second millennium BCE socketed bronze arrowheads began spreading East while the composite recurved bow spread West sometime around 900 BCE socketed arrowheads and recurved bows met in the tarim Basin area of Central Asia brought together by Traders Warriors and migrating nomads after about 700 BC you begin to see really thousands and thousands of arrowheads and dozens of arrowheads in a single quiver and a gray it's like they're being mass produced bronze socketed arrowheads turn Central Asia into an arsenal but Cavalry still couldn't exist until Warriors could become soldiers it was really the age of heroic Warfare individuals going out and doing great Deeds by themselves and attracting glory for their own name and this is the kind of warfare that's described in The Iliad and the Odyssey or in the rigveda uh religious text that's at the deep roots of modern Hinduism what had to change was the psychological change in the nature of the warrior it had to change from individuals to units working under the command of a Commanding General who would attack and Retreat upon command the psychological change from the heroic Warrior to the soldier probably is a feature of urban Warfare the the armies that were associated with the great cities of Mesopotamia and Iran foreign had to spread northward up into the steps and be accepted by Warriors in the in the steps in the same area where the recurve bows and the socketed arrowheads were crossing while recurved bows was spreading West and socketed arrowheads were spreading East the concept of military discipline was spreading North sometime around 900 BCE all three combined in the heart of Central Asia when those three things came together Cavalry became a really deadly form of military force a force that would severely test the ancient world's most powerful armies a thousand years ago as the Romans pushed East to expand their empire China was pushing West and like the Romans the Chinese encountered a formidable enemy on horseback the song knew were Nomads from the Central Asian steps armed with recurved bows and socketed arrows they fought under commanders as a disciplined military force they raided Chinese villages and plundered the growing trade between east and west and no one could stop them the shonu was the migraine for the Chinese they simply just kept pumping and they would not stop the show Nook wanted the finest material Goods produced by the Chinese that is why they raided imagine you're a villager in China and these men come from nowhere they come from over the hill without warning tearing into your village they shoot the head man they shoot your husband they chase the women out there is no hiding place in his flurry of dust and arrows they're in and they're out and they take the stuff and they go [Applause] China sent its military might against the shangnu the famed terracotta warriors reveal the size and power of Chinese armies but the Chinese fought on foot and from chariots not effective against Hit and Run cavalry a Chinese courtier wrote that the xiongnu moved like a flock of birds over the land impossible to control once mounted Warfare really became deadly and effective it became a real problem if you're a farmer the nomads know where you're going to be all the time your houses in the same place 12 months of the year and when your crops become ripe you have to harvest them and the nomads know when that season is whereas when you're trying to strike them back it's impossible to know where they're going to be or when they're going to be there you have to search to find them to beat the shongnu the Chinese needed soldiers who could fight like them thank you they needed cavalry there are manuals of warfare that were written to instruct Chinese warriors on how to counter the tactics and the methods of the show new those manuals introduced the idea of Cavalry to the Chinese military the Chinese military had not really used Cavalry before about probably 350 BC Chinese military at first with some resistance from the old aristocratic families said well my father fought on a chariot and his father fought on a chariot and I'm gonna fight on a chariot in my long robes like my ancestors [Music] but it wasn't long before Chinese warriors traded their traditional long flowing robes for shorter tunics that didn't get in the way of fighting on horseback [Music] eventually the practicalities forced them to get rid of their robes to put on riding trousers to learn to shoot the bow on Horseback and they too became a mighty horse Archer Force Chinese Cavalry became experts at shooting the recurved composite bow and a lethal Chinese weapon the crossbow while it's Cavalry trained China agreed to show new demands for payments of money and silk until the year 133 BCE when Emperor Han wudi refused to pay [Music] and sent his army to attack the shanglu oh [Music] [Music] Chinese Cavalry defeated the nomads and China seized new territories in the steps pacifying trade routes and opening New Horizons on one hand we have this Perpetual comp in in Chinese culture will be the shonu and the Han Chinese that created incessant Warfare on the other hand it is this conflict that demolished physical boundaries even territory boundaries were constantly being pushed farther pushed back between the two forces this was a stimulus for exchanges for political changes for new ideas for artistic traditions [Music] it was also a new era for the Silk Road fortune in Roman gold traveled East in exchange for Chinese silks and the Central Asian Kingdom of kushan made its own fortune selling another luxury to China Jade Silk Road Caravans passed through this Border Station on China's western frontier so many of them carried kushan Jade that this station became known as the Jade gate Chinese Aristocrats coveted Jade for its beauty and something more they believed that Jade would keep them alive forever the ruling Elite commissioned Jade burial suit to preserve their bodies in the grave they believe that upon death all the orifices should be plugged in to preserve the spirit inside the person and this notion of Jade as a a material with protective power in the afterlife is further enhanced by the fact that they built an armor made of thousands of pieces of jade and of course if you're the emperor you're you're Jade armor would be made from the finest Jade from the Western regions during the Roman Empire Silk Road trade flourished as Chinese Persian and kushan armies kept the trade routes open across Eurasia [Music] China had leveled the battlefield with Nomad Raiders from the steps [Music] Central Asian horse archers were about to carve their names on history in the 4th Century CE Europe was invaded by a Central Asian people whose name still evokes barbaric cruelty foreign s who fought their way west all the way to Rome European peoples like the garths and Visigoths the so-called barbarians fled before their Onslaught and sought refuge in Roman territory when the Huns withdrew from the Roman world those Barbarian refugees stayed and the rest is history the Western Roman Empire was plunged into chaos as Barbarian tribes dissatisfied with their lot rebelled against Roman Authority and weak Roman emperors failed to crush them as Rome declined migrating horse archers called the avars carved their own country out of Eastern Europe bringing with them another Asian military innovation the stirrup this Chinese statue from the 4th Century CE is the earliest known depiction of stirrups some 300 years later an avar Horsemen was riding with these syrups across Hungary by the 8th Century CE the Stirrup had spread from one end of Eurasia to the other mounted Warfare was entering a new era the importance of the Stirrup relates to what kinds of weapons can you use from horseback and it and it made it possible to use certain kinds of weapons from horseback that you couldn't use without stirms those weapons are the long saber you have to lean over and absorb shock if you're going to use a long saber in battle and the stirrups allow the rider to absorb the shock of contact with a stationary Target the other big weapon that was possible with stirrups was a seated Lance held under the arm you could stab somebody with the Lance and then remove it riding past them without Sterns but if you seated it under your arm and used the Lance as a shock weapon it would knock you off the back of the horse if you didn't have Stirrup so stirrups made it possible to use long swords and lances as shock weapons against stationary targets and keep your seat and of course that made it possible to have really heavy mounted Warriors now the rider becomes a unit with the horse he's so anchored with his stirrups anchored with this and then with his long Lance he becomes a single projectile unit man horse saddle launch all locked together for the impact charge this was the age of the medieval night a medieval Knight's power came from combining the Asian Stirrup and the ancient shock tactics of the Persian cataphract with a European invention articulated plate armor strong enough to protect the wearer from sword and Lance thrusts while light enough to allow him to move freely on horseback and on foot heavy Cavalry had never been a more potent weapon of War medieval mounted Warfare could be Warfare that generated a lot of force on the rider a high impact Warfare in that case the mounted Warrior is being used really is a shock weapon to strike the enemy [Music] but even Europe's formidable mounted Knights would be out fought by Central Asian cavalry that burst out of the steps and change the world the largest Conquest Empire that the Earth has ever seen was created by pastoral nomads from Central Asia in the 13th century the Mongols conquered as far west as Poland and as far east as the Sea of Japan Mongol armies combined the devastating shock tactics of horse arches with a highly sophisticated military organization is foreign foreign but they were also sophisticated open-minded often generous conquerors they pacify the Silk Road trade between West and East flourished under this Mongol enforced piece the Pax mongolica before the age of pax mongolica banditry was a very serious problem for Traders for Caravans along the Silk Road the reputation of Genghis Khan and his descendants created peace and safe passage along the Silk Road because Bandits or so afraid of the Mongol Soldiers the Pax mongolica the the control of uh trade and exchange that was made possible under the Mongols connected China with Europe and with the near East in a really close way for the first time in world history and that had a profound effect on the development of European civilization protected by the Pax mongolica and anxious for good relations with the Mongol Empire Europeans began traveling East as never before Merchants missionaries and diplomats float East along the trade routes bringing back popular Asian Goods like cloth and spices and tales of the wealth and wonders of the East some true some fabulous but all fascinating from Europe to China Silk Road trade spread new knowledge of far away lands the Silk Road made human beings realize that there are other people out there and it opened the eyes of the East and the West the Italian cities of Venice and Genoa reaped huge Rewards their Merchants travel safely throughout Eurasia and found a trading posts on the Black Sea to receive and pass on Silk Road Goods their Silk Road profits funded magnificent art and architecture but their competition frequently plunged them into war with one another these wars Genoa captured a prosperous Phoenician Merchant named Marco Polo imprisoned by the genuese polo dictated the story of his Silk Road journey to China to a fellow prisoner today experts debate whether Marco Polo really visited China or was simply retelling stories he'd heard from fellow Silk Road Travelers foreign but there's no debate that the travels of Marco Polo was one of the most influential books in all of human history it tantalized Europe with Tales of China's immense wealth and advanced civilization and years before Marco Polo was telling those tales in a genoese prison a Chinese invention was making its way across Eurasia to the West [Music] something created centuries earlier when an experiment ended very badly ancient Chinese Alchemists prepared potions of lead or Mercury for their aristocratic patrons who believed that drinking these Metals would help them live forever those concoctions killed them all made them insane another deadly combination with sulfur heated with an organic nitrate found in soil throughout China known today as saltpeter when Alchemist experimented with this formula it burst into flame injuring The Alchemist and burning down their Laboratory from that disaster was born a chemical mixture like none other it may have failed as an elixir of immortality but it would prove to be a potent agent of death this Chinese Buddhist scroll dating from around 950 CE depicts demons surrounding a seated Buddha one demon holds what the Chinese called ahua Chang or firelights it's the earliest known image of a weapon powered by that deadly mixture of saltpeter and sulfur known to history as gunpowder in the early 13th century the Mongols attacked China's Qin dynasty the Qin Dynasty's Army fought back with exploding gunpowder bombs but as the Mongols conquered more and more of China Han Chinese artilleryman joined their armies and marched West bringing their gunpowder weapons with them the Mongols attacked Russian and Polish cities with exploding firebombs and Europeans found out the hard way what gunpowder could do by the end of the 13th century the formula for gunpowder was known as far west as England and Europeans were inventing their own versions of the new weapons it wasn't long before this Chinese invention changed European history on 26 August 1346 near the village of Cressy in northern France the armies of France and England prepared to fight [Music] mounted on their War steeds encased in their armor the flower of French nobility formed their battle line while the English deployed a very different Force thousands of expert archers [Music] the French sent their higher genoese crossbowman to attack the English before French Knight annihilated them but the English king Edward III had spent years training his longbowmen and all that training was about to pay off nothing like this had been seen on a western Battlefield up to this time the first time that a volley of arrows was Unleashed by the artist at Cressy would have represented something completely new to many of those in the French army watermute a cloud of arrows descending towards them it would have been frightening and of course the effect almost immediate showered by English arrows the genoese turned and ran and according to Medieval accounts of the battle they were also panicked by another English weapon shibani villani writing very soon after the battle says in his Chronicle that so loud and intimidating was the noise created by the guns that they thought God was thundering the English Guns cast iron balls by means of Fire they made a noise like thunder and caused much loss in men and horses noise like that would have been unprecedented to the soldiers on the battlefield nothing in their lives could have prepared them for a bang of that size and accompanied by smoke an acrid sulfur smell which would hang in there the impact of which of course they couldn't see until men around them dropped not even professional soldiers like the genoese would have experienced anything like this before in their lives that would have been terrifying and it's no wonder that they scattered and ran they turned and fled into the face of the oncoming French cavalry charge the French Cavalry were now coming onto the battlefield and they were appalled at these people they had hired running away and they cursed them and they rode into them and as many genoese fell to French Hooves as they did to English arrows and gunshots and the French Knights all 12 000 of them double the size of the English army they came charging down onto the English [Music] and they too fell to the English arrows and the English gunshot and they came again and again and again 15 16 times they came and their horses were ripped to shreds and the men were thrown from their horses and those that weren't thrown they had the opportunity that the daggermen rushed in and they brought these Knights down this was a moment in history where the world changed it spelled the beginning of the end for the medieval night the Battle of cressey has gone down in history as one of the earliest uses of gunpowder weapons on a European Battlefield some 500 years after it burned down a Chinese Alchemist Workshop gunpowder had become Destiny's weapon of choice after Chrissy it was only a matter of time until the fates of peoples and nations were decided by the gun within two centuries Europeans would use their powerful gunpowder weapons to dominate the world [Music] creating Empires that would evolve into today's global trading culture which binds people together by Commerce instead of the gun [Music] but before Europe could embark on its Empire Building Adventure its medieval social order would be shattered by a catastrophic event one that would Forge a new Europe in a crucible of Horror foreign something else was spreading along the Eurasian trade routes something that would kill tens of millions of Europeans [Music] apocalyptic destruction of human life that would lay the foundations of the modern world

2023-05-08 06:54

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