Heqin Policy During the Western Han Dynasty Contributed Accidentally to the Silk Road Trade Development

Abstract

The Silk Road is known as a cross-Eurasian trade route with silk as the most popular goods. There is plenty of research about the Silk Road timeline, routes, goods, merchants, cultural exchange, etc. In a study of different historical materials, records, and excavation evidence in both Chinese and English, some impactful correlations are identified between heqin (和親, “peace through kinship”) and the Silk Road, which is rarely discussed in other research. This work will elaborate in detail that heqin policy during Western Han dynasty contributed to Silk Road trade development accidentally by strengthening Han court’s political stability, offering goods in high demand - silk as annual payments or imperial gifts to Xiongnu (匈奴) and Western Regions (xiyu西域), opening up border markets (guanshi 關市) and facilitating direct connections of Han China with Western regions to build stable trade routes linking China to Western countries, known later as Silk Road.