Silk Road was a famous route of foreign communication between old China and other countries. It consisted of the Continental Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road. It was explored in Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD), which was a groundbreaking era in the history of Imperial China’s foreign communications.
During the long reign of Emperor Wu of Han (141 BC–87 BC), the travels of Chinese ambassador Zhang Qian opened up China's relations with many different Asian countries for the first time. He brought back detailed reports of lands that had been previously unknown to the Chinese, including details of his travels to the Greek-Hellenized kingdoms of Fergana (Dayuan) and the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (Daxia), reports of Anxi (Persian Empire of Parthia), Tiaozhi (Mesopotamia), Shendu (India), and the Wusun Central Asian nomads.
After his travels, the famous land trading route called “the Continental Silk Road” leading from China to the Roman Empire was established. It became a main artery linking China and west Asian countries.
The Han general Ban Chao (AD 32-102) reconquered the states in the Western Regions (modern day Tarim Basin in Xinjiang) after pushing the Hsiung-nu out of the region. The kingdoms of Kashgar, Loulan, and Khotan returned to the control of China. He also sent his emissary Gan Ying even further to reach Rome (Daqin). Gan Ying made it as far as the Black Sea and Roman-era Syria. He brought back reports of the Roman Empire, and evidence showed that Roman sent embassies to China subsequently.
China was not limited to travelling across land and mountains. During the 2nd century BC, the Chinese sailed past Southeast Asia and into the Indian Ocean, reaching India and Sri Lanka by sea. “The Maritime Silk Road” was created.
This sea route became well traveled not only by merchants and diplomats, but also Chinese religions missionaries in search of further Indian Buddhist texts to translate from Sanskrit into Chinese. There were many other Buddhist missionaries as well, including Yuezhi missionaries and Kushan Buddhist missionaries from northern India who introduced Buddhism to China.
Also by the 1st century AD, the Chinese had made sea contacts with Yayoi Period Japan, inhabited by what the Chinese referred to as the ‘Wa people’. By the 1st century, the Chinese also established relations with the Kingdom of Funan, centered in what is today’s Cambodia, but stretched partly into Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Silk Road was a symbol of China’s foreign relations and trade with the outside world. In the following thousands of years, it continued to play an important role in China’s connection with the rest world.