Chapter Two　Economy of the Tea-horseAncient Road

Chapter Two　Economy of the Tea-horseAncient Road

Section 1　Overview of the tea-horse trade

The Tea-horse Ancient Road is an ancient civilization with rich historical charm.Itrefers to the roads that came into place with tea-horse trade between the Han and theTibetans from the Tang and Song Dynasties to the modern times.There was the trade first,and then the road.The tea-horse trade was developed on this ancient road by countlesspeople who strove for survival at all risks,leaving their footprints and hoof prints.Itstarted in the Tang and Song Dynasties,flourished in the Ming Dynasty,and declined inthe Qing Dynasty.

Tea horse exchange has a very long history.According to historical records,it emergedin the Tang and Song dynasties.In the 8th year of Wude in the Tang Dynasty(625),tea wasalready the basic commodity of trade with the northwest ethnic groups such as the Turkicand Tuyuhun.During the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty,Emperor Taizongagreed to marry Princess Wencheng to Songtzen Gampo.When Princess Wencheng wentto Tibet,she took with her a large number of seeds of crops,agricultural production tools,daily necessities including tea,as well as some books on literature and history and medicine.During the reign of Emperor Zhongzong of the Tang Dynasty,Princess Jincheng wasmarried to the Tibetan Tsanpo Kriedê Zukzain.She went to Tibet with tens of thousands ofpieces of brocade,as well as many books,musicians and acrobats.

During the Song Dynasty,the production of tea in the inland areas had been greatlyimproved,and the habit of drinking tea in Tibetan-inhabited areas had been popularizedfrom the upper classes to the folk.Tea was loved by Tibetans,thus becoming one of theirdaily necessities.Therefore,the demand for tea in the Tibetan-inhabited area increased,making the“tea-horse exchange”a common trade.The central government of the SongDynasty formally established the trade system of“trading tea for horses”with the Tibetaninhabited areas.Every year,the government transported a large amount of tea to thenorthwest to exchange horses with Tubo and other tribes for the fight against the invasionof nomadic regimes such as Liao,Jin and Western Xia in the north.To make the tea-horsetrade proceed in an orderly way,the Song Dynasty also set up a“tea trade managingdepartment”to manage border trade.With frequent trade exchanges,the Tea-horse AncientRoad also had a larger expansion.During this period,the Ancient Tea-horse Road wasmainly“Qinghai-Tubo Road”,which is commonly known as the“Tang-Tibetan AncientRoad”.With the large-scale opening of the ancient road,it can be said that the tea-horsetrade between Han and Tibet arose on a large scale in Song Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty was the heyday of tea-horse trade between the Han and Tibetannationalities.Under the guidance of“controlling the Tibetans by tea”,the government-runtea-horse trade system was established and developed.The Ming government prohibitedprivate tea trade and established the system of“tea certification”,later developed“teamonopoly system”.The Ming court only allowed official organizations to conduct tea tradein order to contain ethnic minorities and maintain social stability through tea-horse trade.Inspite of this,the private tea trade between the Han and Tibetan peoples was not interrupted,and the trade of exchanging tea for horses or horses for tea still existed.In addition to thetea-horse trade organized by the government and private trade,the Tibetan-inhabited areaalso paid tribute to the inland for trade.The chieftains of Tibetan monks and vultures inthe Ming Dynasty not only got a large amount of tea from tribute,but also bought a largeamount of private tea on their return trip.It shows the prosperity of tea-horse trade in theMing Dynasty.Tea is not only an important economic bond between the Han and Tibetanpeoples,but also a political and cultural bond to maintain the interdependent relationsbetween them.

In the Qing Dynasty,the scale of tea-horse trade was further developed compared withthe previous dynasties.In the early years of the Qing Dynasty,due to domestic unrest,it basically inherited the Ming system to prepare for the supply of war horses.In thesecond year of Shunzhi(1645),the system of tea-horse trade as well as the system of“teacertification”was officially restored and continued,and Tea-Horse Divisions were set upin Sichuan,Yunnan and Qinghai to manage and control the tea-horse trade.During thisperiod,Yunnan became the main tea and horse trading area.In the 18th year of the reign ofEmperor Shunzhi(1661),Dalai Lama requested to open an exchange of trade in Shengzhou,Yunnan.Sichuan also played a more important role in the tea-horse trade.In the 35th yearof Kangxi’s reign(1696),tea trade was allowed to take place in Dajianlu and Tibetan teatrade was allowed to carry out.Then in the 41st year of Kangxi(1702),tea pass was set upin Dajianlu and Luding Bridge was built on the Dadu River to open up the“Wasigou Road”leading directly to Dajianlu.Since then,it has become an important town in western China.

During the reign of Qianlong,the Tea-horse Ancient Road in Sichuan,Yunnan and Tibetwas further expanded.It had more branches and was operating more smoothly,but the“teahorse trade”system gradually disappeared,later replaced by the“border tea trade”system.Due to the frequent trade between the Han and Tibetan nationalities and the developmentof economy and the society,more and more commodities were traded,and the demand forother commodities except tea in the Tibetan-inhabited area was also increasing gradually.However,demand for Tibetan warhorses in the inland decreased significantly,and demandfor Tibetan leather,medicinal materials and other articles also increased significantly,whichbroadened the scope of Han-Tibetan commodity trade.In order to change the shrinking ofthe official-run tea trade,the Qing Dynasty tea trade system underwent a major reform.Inoperation,the change of official tea to commercial tea promoted the diversity of ethnic tradecommodities and greatly promoted the prosperity and development of ethnic trade along the“Tea-horse Ancient Road”.Since then,it opened a new chapter.

In general,with the expansion of the Tea-horse Ancient Road and the tea-horse trade inthe middle and early Qing Dynasty,the tea-horse trade continued to develop and flourish.In the late Qing Dynasty,the government established horse ranches with Tibetan areasand other ethnic areas,which basically guaranteed the supply of horses.As the main roleof the tea-horse trade,horses gradually faded out of the market,and the tea-horse tradedeclined.

Section 2　The Tea-horse Ancient Road and the Spread of Tea

1.Influence of the Tea-horse Ancient Road on tea-horse trade in differentages

(1)The Tang Dynasty

In the Tang dynasty,with the marriage of Princess Wencheng and Jincheng,the political,economic and cultural exchanges between Tang and Tubo arose,which resulted in the socialclimate of“embracing the Chinese style”in Tubo.The custom of drinking tea in the TangDynasty was also introduced into Tubo and gradually became a social custom.During thisperiod,tea planting was very common in China,which laid a material foundation for thetea-horse trade.After Tibetan Zapurangdama cracked down on Buddhism,the art of teadrinking was spread to the folk by a large number of monks.Tea soon became a custom ofthe whole Tibetan society and the whole nation,and became popular among the masses.At the same time,the Tang government formulated special policies on tea trade,such asallowing the transfer of horses and trading with each other,implementing tea tax and the“monopolized tea system”.In addition,private tea trade was strictly prohibited in the TangDynasty,with the purpose of placing tea business under the monopoly of the government.During the reign of Tsanpo Kriedê Detsen,the tea-horse trade began to develop,and theTibetans exchanged horses in large quantities for tea from the mainland.In addition,Tuboalso sent special people to manage tea trade between China and Tibet to strengthen themanagement of the tea trade.Both the Tang and Tibetan sides were very supportive of thismutually beneficial tea-horse trade.For example,when the Tubo Dynasty collapsed,thenumber of envoys between the two sides was more than 50 to 100 people,and there was191 envoy visits.Thus it can be seen that the tea-horse trade areas in the Tang Dynastyspread to most of the western regions,and the trade forms were mainly“tribute”and“grant”,which laid the foundation for the Ancient Tea-horse Road in the Song Dynasty.The government of the Song Dynasty was not sound in its operation and management ofthe trade,and the number of trade showed a surging expansion,which took place in theformation and development stage.

(2)The Song Dynasty

In the Northern Song Dynasty,the tea-horse trade between Han and Tibet mainly tookplace in Lizhou,and its trade route was from Shencun,Moxi to Hanyuan.In the SouthernSong Dynasty,Diaomen was the main tea and horse market.Therefore,the Tibetan and Hantea-horse trade road was changed from Danjianlu(Kangding)through Wasigou,Tianquanto Ya’an.The forms of tea-horse trade were as follows: the Song government set up Tea-Horse Divisions in various places along the border,recruited superior horses extensively,and recruited many Tibetan traders.The government attached great importance to the teahorse trade,and the official exchange mainly consisted of paying tribute and granting.The regimes of the two Song Dynasties exercised political rule,and strictly controlled thesales of tea economically,so as to fetter the minorities,offering or selling tea to and buyingwarhorses from those who were willing to bow down to the court.Therefore,“tea-horsetrade”became the link between the central dynasty and the minorities.The expansion of theTang-Tubo Ancient Road made the tea-horse trade more frequent,which not only increasedtea profit greatly for the imperial court,but also objectively promoted the social stabilityand economic development of the Tibetan-inhabited area,and met the needs of the state forwar horses.

(3)The Yuan Dynasty

During the Yuan Dynasty,Tibet was formally incorporated into the territory of Chinaand the local government was established in Tibet.The Yuan court began to strengthenits governance over Tibetan-inhabited areas.The Yuan government learned from theexperience of animal husbandry and adopted the strategy of“educate people with the helpof local customs”to govern Tibet.At the same time,the chieftain system was establishedand characterized by“governing local people by local officials”,which had great influencein history.Since then,great changes had taken place in the expansion of the road and thedevelopment of the tea-horse trade.The Yuan government attached great importance to thedevelopment of ancient roads,and actively developed the communication between Tibet andthe hinterland by setting up post roads and post stations in Tibetan-inhabited areas.Those19 post stations in Duogansi greatly extended the Tea-horse Ancient Road between westernSichuan,northwest Yunnan and Tibet,thus expanding the scale of tea-horse trade.Sincethen,the“Tea-horse Ancient Road”was not only the road of economy and trade,the road ofcivilization,but also the road of border consolidation and security,which greatly highlightsthe strategic significance of the“Tea-horse Ancient Road”.For the central government,thepolitical significance of the road is more important than the economic significance,and thetea-horse trade has gradually developed into a free trade between Tibetan and Han peoplefrom the government’s management,control and operation.

(4)The Ming Dynasty

The ancient roads of the Ming Dynasty were further perfected.The Ming Dynasty wasthe peak period of the tea-horse trade between Han and Tibet for which the tea-horsetrade system was improved in its contents and methods and the management was morestrict,which gave the tea-horse trade economic and political attributes,and consolidatedthe ruling over Tibet.In terms of trade there were mainly three types in the Ming Dynasty:the government trade,tributary trade and private tea trade,among which the governmenttrade was a distinctive feature different from that of the previous dynasties.At the sametime,although the Ming Dynasty enacted strict laws to prohibit private tea trade,it hasbeen relatively prosperous after the abolition of the system of exchanging tea for horsesin the later period.In addition,the ancient roads in this period were further improved anddeveloped.The government opened Diaomen Road,which facilitated the transportation oftea with the protect of guards in Yanzhou.From the 3rd year to the 6th year in Chenghua,Sichuan also became the main producing area of border tea,and formed five tea markets,namely Li,Ya,Baoshan,Men,Yanzhou and Songpan,which became the main trade zoneof tea-horse trade.According to relevant statistics,from 1490 to 1601,tea from Gansu,Qinghai and Tibet was the main source of tea-horse trade in the Ming Dynasty.The salesvolume in Sichuan and Shaanxi alone reached 300,000 to 800,000 jin.

(5)The Qing Dynasty

In the early Qing Dynasty,the country was in turmoil.It inherited the system of theMing Dynasty,and added tea- horse inspectors in Sichuan,Yunnan,Qinghai and otherplaces.It also imposed stricter trade measures to guarantee the huge profits brought by thetea-horse trade.In addition,the Qing Dynasty also carried out major reforms on the teatrade system in Sichuan to change the gradual decline of the official tea trade.The tea-horsetrade expanded to Yunnan.Yunnan tea was sold to the Tibetan region in large quantitiesand became the main tea-horse trade area,with its status rising day by day.Sichuan alsoplayed an important role in the tea-horse trade during the Qing Dynasty.In the 35th year ofthe reign of Emperor Kangxi,Dajianlu in Sichuan became an important town in the westof China and a gathering place for border tea along the southern route,making the bordertea market extend from Diaomen,Ya’an to Tibetan-inhabited areas.During the reign ofEmperor Qianlong,the Tea-horse Ancient Road in Sichuan,Yunnan and Tibet was furtherexpande.There were three routes on the Yunnan-Tibet Line from Lijiang to Deqin.TheSichuan-Tibet Road also had two routes in the south and north.Qamdo became the mostimportant trade center on the Tea-horse Ancient Road,and was the conjunction of Yunnan,Tibet,Qinghai-Tibet traffic,as well as the meeting point of the two Sichuan-Tibet tearoads.In short,the early and middle periods of the Qing Dynasty witnessed the continuousdevelopment of the tea-horse trade in history.By the late Qing Dynasty,horses as the mainrole in the tea-horse trade gradually faded out,as the government established horse ranchesin Tibetan-inhabited areas and other ethnic areas in consideration of horse shortage.

2.Influence of the Tea-horse Ancient Road on economy

The Tea-horse Ancient Road serves as an economic link on which trade between theHan and Tibetan people was accelerated and among the people a mutually beneficial andinterdependent relationship was promoted.Moreover,Tibetan people have been living aself-sufficient life for a long time,however,the Tea-horse Ancient Road appeared to makethis relatively closed areas open up,and also introduce various native products of Tibetaninhabited areas to the inland,which provided enough war horses against the intrusions ofethnic minorities.Also,the Tea-horse Ancient Road is an economic link that closely linksall ethnic groups.All of them have formed a lasting economic relationship,complementaryand mutually beneficial.This further made the road a political link,which promoted socialstability and the reunification of the country,as well as united the Han and Tibetan ethnicgroups.In history,thanks to the Tea-horse Ancient Road,there was no large-scale unrestduring the Song and Ming Dynasties,and they have always maintained an inseparablerelationship with the Tibetan-inhabited areas.

With the continuous development of the Tea-horse Ancient Road,tea-horse trade hadbeen expanding continuously,which not only made the tea-horse exchange frequent,butalso the commodities traded were diversified,no longer limited to tea and horses.This wasreflected in the fact that a large number of industrial and agricultural products,productiontools,advanced technologies and skilled craftsmen from the inland areas entered Tibetaninhabited areas,which had enriched the material life and talent reserve in Tibetan-inhabitedareas and promoted the social and economic development.Driven by this trade,commercialactivities in the Tibetan-inhabited area rose rapidly,and there appeared a number of famousTibetan enterprises,such as“Bangda Cang”,“Sanduo Cang”,“Risheng Cang”and so on(Cang,which means home in Tibetan,is used here as a business name); Guozhuang,aspecial economic organization,which was a combination of inns,shops and intermediariesalso emerged.For another example,due to the development of trade,the technology ofgold mining,planting and building construction and artisans in the inland were imported tothe Tibetan-inhabited areas,which promoted the development of planting technology,goldmining technology and commodity processing industry in the Tibetan-inhabited areas.Atthe same time,Chinese herbal medicines were also developed here,and ethnic handicraftindustry was also promoted,which promoted the prosperous development of Tibetaneconomy.

The Tea-horse Ancient Road promoted the urbanization of the Tibetan plateau.Due tothe development of trade and commerce,many temporary trading markets,distributioncenters and lodging places for horse caravans and business travel were formed along theTea-horse Ancient Road,which gradually evolved into towns and cities,promoting thedevelopment of urbanization in Yunnan and Tibet Plateau.Dajianlu,for example,quicklybecame a commercial city“where Han and Tibetan merchants gathered”.Horse caravansfrom Tibet and from west of Jiayuguan streamed here,and traders from all over the countrygathered here.Another example is Qamdo,as it was the transportation hub and materialdistribution center of the three Tea-horse Ancient Roads of Sichuan,Yunnan and Tibet,andalso with the development of tea-horse trade,it has become an important town of KangDistrict and another center of Han-Tibetan trade.

In the modern sense,the Tea-horse Ancient Road has magnificent natural resources.Inthe history of China,the road and the tea-horse trade played an important role.At present,although the road and trade have gradually withdrawn from the stage of history,theconnotation of the Tea-horse Ancient Road has not disappeared under the impact of moderneconomy.For example,as a tourism resource,it still appears in front of people with itsunique landscape culture and ethnic cultural customs,becoming an important element ofattraction,which not only helps to protect the ancient culture,but also helps to promote thegrowth of the local economy.And the government also provides convenience and promotesthe spread of local culture.

In addition,although the Tea-horse Ancient Road has disappeared,various new forms oftrade have replaced it.For example,before the completion of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway,the Sichuan-Tibet Highway and other inland areas were connected with Tibet through theSichuan-Tibet Highway,which was an important traffic artery built along the Sichuan-TibetTea-Horse Ancient Road.At the same time,with the continuous development of reformand opening up,modern means of transportation replaced the previous human horsepower,which provided a variety of transportation forms for the ancient road,making the economyand trade more convenient.

3.The Tea-horse Ancient Road and the formation of tea culture frontier

Tea,one of the representatives of Chinese civilization,embodies a highly developedcivilization.Due to the differences in geographical environment,Tibet and the mainlandhave developed their own tea cultures with their characteristics.Tea,a seeminglyinsignificant plant,was introduced into Tibet through the Tea-horse Ancient Road,andbecame a gene and treasure of Tibetan culture,for which it is integrated with the“coretechnology”of the Tibetan plateau semi-farming and semi-pastoral society,and it became anecessity of their lives.Tea has been an irreplaceable thing on the plateau,Because of theroad,the mainland’s rich tea was introduced into Tibetan-inhabited areas to exchange forhorses and mountain goods and other resources which were scarce in the mainland.Thistwo-way interaction congeals into a stable Han-Tibetan relationship,which is a relationshipof peaceful communication,harmony,elasticity and self-repairing.

Every spring,as soon as ice melted and grass grew,large groups of horses caravansstarted to cross Hengduan Mountains to the Tibetan-inhabited areas.Thanks to theirappearance,commercial activities have spread from Ya’an and counties of westernSichuan,the tea-growing areas of southern Yunnan,through the Hengduan Mountains,to the Tibetan hinterland,deep in the Himalayas,and even into the South Asiansubcontinent.Where this trend touched,a road of communication was formed,linkingthe production and consumption of goods in a long term,which not only directlycontributed to the formation and development of the commodity markets on both ends,but also formed a harmonious relationship between Han and Tibet.Although the climate,environment and culture of the Hengduan Mountains region are different from that ofthe Himalayas region,the two regions are naturally connected.For thousands of years,human beings have carried out continuous contact here,forming a very unique andstrange communication network.

When these merchants arrived in Lhasa,the best gift to the upper monks and nobleswas,of course,tea.Ordinary farmers and herding people expected to exchange their ownoutput for daily necessary and scarce local tea.

Therefore,the Tea-horse Ancient Road and tea culture,is a topic well worth recalling.

(1)Pu’er tea and the Yunnan-Tibet Tea-horse Ancient Road

In Yunnan,the Lancang River basin was known as the kingdom of plants.It still has thegeographical and climatic advantages of high mountains,hot and humid weather and heavyfog.It is especially suitable for the growth of tea,as the saying goes“famous tea comesfrom high mountains and clouds”.Since 1949,people have discovered a number of wild andhome-cultivated tea trees,known as“King of Tea Trees”,in Nannuo Mountain,MenghaiCounty of Xishuangbanna Prefecture,Bada Mountain,Jinuo Mountain of Jinghong City,inthe mountainous areas of Yiwu ,Xiangming and Yibang of Mengla County,and Jingmaiin Lancang County of Simao Prefecture,and Mengkou of Lincang Prefecture.Tea treeswith an age of more than 800 years and more than two or three years grow into forests.In 1980,a wild tea tree was discovered in Bada,with a preliminary identification of 1700years of age.Later,an ancient tea tree still growing was discovered in Zhenyuan County,Pu’er Prefecture.The tree was as old as 2,700 years,older than Confucius and BuddhaSakyamuni.In 1983,a large cultivated tea tree was discovered in Manlong Village,YiwuTown,Mengla County,with a diameter of 45 cm,a girth of 120 cm,a height of nearly 12meters,and a leaf length of 24 cm.The tree age was initially identified to be more than 1,000years.In Mengla,Dai nationality is the the local majority ethnic group and in its language,“meng”is the region,“la”is tea,so“Mengla”in the Dai language means“Hometown ofTea”,that is to say,Mengla has always been the hometown of tea production.

As the origin of tea,Yunnan broke through the barrier of great rivers and mountains tothe north and the west,and transported tea to Tibetan-inhabited areas,which was not laterthan the Tang Dynasty,namely the Tubo Period in Tibet and the Nanzhao Period in Yunnan.Tubo and Nanzhao had close political and economic relations at that time.However,therewas probably not much trade at that time and it was probably more of a gift exchange,forwhat we later called the Tea-horse Ancient Road was just being conceived.Among thetea spread to Tibet,the large-leafed Pu’er tea,a specialty of Yunnan,is especially lovedby Tibetan people because of its rich tea fragrance and endless aftertaste.It is particularlymellow when made into buttered tea.

In the early and middle years of the Qing Dynasty,the production and marketing ofPu’er tea in Yunnan were at its peak.The highest annual output of the Six Tea Mountains inXishuangbanna was up to 80,000 dan.As a result,“almost every family in Xishuangbannaplanted tea and sold tea.During this period,about 50,000 horses were used to transport teaback and forth between western Yunnan,southern Yunnan,Burma,Vietnam and Laos inspring and autumn“.“During the reign of Emperor Qianlong and Emperor Jiaqing of theQing Dynasty,the annual output of Pu’er tea,Mengku tea and Fengqing tea in Yunnan was100,000 to 120,000 dan.Except for a small amount of these tea for local drinking,80%of them were mainly transported to counties inside and outside the province,Sichuan andTibet,and some of them was exported to Burma,Vietnam and other countries.”

In the seventh year of Yongzheng,the Qing government set up Pu’er Prefecture,and setup a tea bureau in Pu’er,specializing in issuing tea certificates,hence Pu’er tea got its name.At the same time,Pu’er Prefecture oversaw the running of tribute tea factories to providethe government with large amounts of tribute tea.Some of these tribute tea was given bythe Qing government to Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama as well as the living Buddhas andmonks in the Tibetan-inhabited areas.Therefore,Pu’er tea entered the Tibetan-inhabitedareas in another way and became an important strategic material for the government tocontact the Tibetan-inhabited area and maintain stability in the border area.In the 1st yearof the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty,the Qing government transferredYunnan Youle Tongzhi to Simao and renamed it Simao Tongzhi.From then on,Simaobecame the tea transfer station between Pu’er and Xishuangbanna,and Simao City alsoprospered because of the“popular tea sold in distant markets”.From Daoguang to the earlyGuangxu period,Simao City witnessed a large number of business trips and a prosperousmarket.

In the tea mountains of southern and western Yunnan,many ethnic minority womendevote themselves to tea picking and making,and use the income as their dowry,thushaving the daughter tea mentioned in A Dream of Red Mansions.It is also recorded thatonly in the 5th year of Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty,tea sales in Tibet amounted to 30,000Dan.Lijiang trade market in northwest Yunnan saw every year from September to the nextspring,Tibetans driving horses to come here in an endless stream,getting tea certificate(license to deal in tea trafficking),rushing to Pu’er and Simao to sell tea.From Lijiang viaXiaguan,Weishan,Jingdong to Simao,the annual trade volume of tea by horse caravansreached as many as 50,000 jin.Han,Bai,Naxi,Hui,Yi and Tibetan merchants oftenparticipate in the annual grand“Mule and Horse Fair”in Lijiang,which shows that a veryprosperous mechanism of production,purchase,transportation and marketing has beenformed.

After entering the People’s Republic,the sales of Yunnan tea in Tibet have alsomaintained a strong momentum.According to Tan Fangzhi’s statistic,during the Republicof China,the number of Yunnan tea transported to Tibet was at least 10,000 dan a year.“Compressed tea is not only a commodity,but also an important economic connectionbetween China and Tibet,which also has a political impact.”Mr.Wang Turui also talkedabout the situation in the northwest of Yunnan:“Tea is the biggest export of Yunnan inthe Kangding-Tibet area.The tea consumption capacity of people of Kang and Tibetlisted the first in the world.They eat three meals a day; they cannot live without tea for amoment; Yunnan’s 100,000 packs of crude tea,that is more than 2/3 of it were sold in theKangding-Tibet area.In the tea-producing areas along the Pu’er-Simao border,merchantsof Kangding,Tibet,Zhongdian and Adunzi came in an endless stream.

In the early days of the prosperity of the the Tea-horse Ancient Road in moderntimes,from about the middle of the Qing Dynasty,to the 1930s,in Lijiang,landlords andmerchants in villages,with each village as a unit,formed horse caravans with a capacity ofthousands of horses and mules each year.They went to the south of Yunnan tea mountainsto purchase tea back to Lijiang,repackaged and transported to Xikang and Tibet.At thattime,they called the business“going to tea mountains”.

It was these seemingly ordinary tea that was important to people’s livelihood that createda road and shaped the rich and colorful culture on this road.

(2)Sichuan tea and Sichuan-Tibeta Tea-horse Ancient Road

Located at the western end of Chengdu Plain and the southern edge of LongmenMountain,Sichuan has also been an area rich in tea since ancient times.Shu people are alsomasters of tea planting.Later,the rivalry between Ba and Shu led to the invasion of Qin,butthe tradition of growing and drinking tea was passed down.In the Western Han Dynasty,tea trees had been cultivated artificially in Mengshan Mountain of Ya’an County.Mengshantea had been used as tribute tea since the Tang Dynasty,and the tribute lasted until the endof the Qing Dynasty,which lasted for a long time and became world-famous.The TangDynasty was the golden age of Mengshan tea,when the dignitaries scrambled to pay a lotof money to buy it.In the Song Dynasty,the production and marketing of Mengshan teacontinued to flourish,and the tea-making technology was further improved.It is said thatthe tea production in Sichuan at that time ranked first in the country,and the famous tea ofMengshan ranked first in Sichuan.

At the end of the Western Han Dynasty,Zen master Wu Lizhen planted seven tea treesin the stone barrier in Ganlu Temple of Mengshan Mountain,and successfully domesticatedwild tea trees for the first time.It is said that tea from these tea trees can cure a variety ofailments and was considered to be immortal.Later generations respected Wu Lizhen as the“God of Tea”and built a tea temple to commemorate him.Today,it is said that the stonehouse where Wu Lizhen lived is still well preserved,and the seven tea trees he planted inthe imperial tea garden still exist in the reign of Emperor Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty,and have been planted to this day.The Imperial Tea Garden was officially named in the13th year of Enperor Xiaozong of the Song Dynasty,and it produced tribute tea in the TangDynasty.It supported each other with the Southwest Silk Road in history and promotedprosperity of the ancient road,economic development,cultural integration and nationalunity.

In Xindian Town at the east foot of Mengshan Mountain,and beside the current nationalroad 318,there is still a memorial building of the Tea-Horse Division,which is a brickand wood structure courtyard of red sandstone eaves column,rebuilt in the 29th year ofDaoguang’s reign in the Qing Dynasty,and has been well preserved up to now.It is said thatit was first built in the 7th year of Xining in the Song Dynasty.It should be the best witnessof the Tea-horse Ancient Road.In the past,the Tea-Horse Division was set up by the SongDynasty to deal with tea-horse trade between the inland and Tibetan-inhabited areas,andto manage the tea-horse trade.The establishment of Tea-Horse Division brought the folktea-horse trade under administration of the government,which was very important for theSong Dynasty,who had scarce horses,and played a positive role in promoting economy andcultural exchanges between the mainland and Tibet.

As a result of the prosperity of tea-horse exchanges,the production of Sichuan tea hasbeen greatly increased.According to Mr.Jia Daquan’s research,its highest annual outputreached more than 30 millionjin,exceeding the total output of the rest of the country at thattime.Of course,most of these tea went west to Tibetan-inhabited areas.Later,in the heydayof the Qing Dynasty,the border tea trade here reached as much as“20 thousand packs of teafrom famous mountains”were transported per year,each pack calculated byjin,which wasworth 20,000 jin”,and one Tea-Horse Division would receive more than 2000 caravansand countless pack horses each day,which shows how prosperous the tea-horse trade wasduring that period of time.

Since the reign of Tianbao in the Tang Dynasty,“Mengshan Tea”from Sichuan Provincehas been elaboratedly picked and made as tribute to Xi’an and Luoyang.After the SongDynasty,a large amount of tea was imported into Tibetan-inhabited areas,which was called“border tea”.The parts picked and the methods of making tea were very different fromthose in the inland.“border tea”was usually made of old tea leaves,which were fermented.Some of them were ground and pressed into the shape of bricks,while others were madeinto bricks.They were packed into long strips with bamboo strips and shipped to Tibetaninhabited areas,so it was also called“big tea”.

It is these seemingly ordinary tea again that related to people’s livelihood that havecreated another road and shaped the rich and colorful culture along this road.

(3)The Tea-horse Ancient Road and the tea culture frontier

Tea and the ancient roads were interdependent and complement each other.The Teahorse Ancient Road arose and continued because of tea,and tea developed and disseminatedbecause of the ancient road,which is a unique phenomenon in the history of tea culturedissemination.

The Tea-horse Ancient Road is an ancient and continuous way of cultural transmission,which is complex and three-dimensional: the superficial level is commodity trade activities;the deeper level is the mutual infiltration of architecture and living habits; At a deeper hiddenlevel is the interplay between languages and religious beliefs.The Tea-horse Ancient Road,anancient way of communication rooted in the depths of human nature,has brought economicprosperity and cultural integration and infiltration to the villages and cities it passed.

Along the Tea-horse Ancient Road,the caravans were constantly moving,and tea waspassed from one trader to another.The Chinese,Indians,Persians,and others transportedtea station by station to the other side of the world.In addition,tea culture spread eastwardto Japan and westward to Europe.Without exception,tea played an important cultural roleeverywhere it went.Tea,the special bearer and disseminator of Chinese culture,has gonethrough the long river of time for thousands of years,crossed the highest roof of the world,crossed the ocean and endured hardships to spread the tea culture to every part of the worldand become the first beverage in the world.

A few pieces of tea leaves grown in the mountains flow and spread along the ancientroads connecting the mountains.For thousands of years,they have become an importantcultural communication link that breaks down the ethnic differences and connects differentcountries and regions in the east and the west,which is a miracle in the history of culturalcommunication.

In recent years,there is a new type in the field of world heritage protection -- culturalroute.According to the Criterion of the Madrid Conference(1994)for judging the culturalroutes -- emphasizing the cultural impact brought by the use of the cultural routes and thecontribution to the spread of civilization.In view of this,the Tea-horse Ancient Road can becalled a model of cultural routes.

Cultural route“is a kind of land road,waterway or a mixed type of passage.It representsmigration and flow of people,communication of people within or between countriesand regions in a certain period of time,and the reciprocity and continuous exchange ofgoods,ideas,knowledge and values in multiple dimensions.And represents the exchangeand mutual nourishment of the resulting cultures in time and space,which have beencontinuously reflected through material and intangible heritage for a long time”.As adynamic concept that emphasizes the overall significance of culture,it pays more attention tothe communication and mutual influence among cultural communities brought by the routes.In August 2009,China Tea-horse Ancient Road Research Center announced that it wouldapply for World Cultural Route Heritage.Unlike other heritage categories,cultural routeplaces more emphasis on communication and interaction among the many communitiesbrought about by the route,and the impact is usually indirect,not only in the material aspect,but non-material aspects.The most common example is the dissemination of religion,ideology and cultural concepts along some routes.These dissemination are often significantbecause they are involved in shaping the formation and development of various cultures.

In a word,cultural routes emphasize the dialogue and exchange between differentcountries and regions.They are multi-dimensional and have a variety of development andadditional functions and values in addition to their main aspects,such as religion,commerce,and management.Therefore,cultural route is not only a type of declaration and protection ofheritage,but also a dynamic concept emphasizing the overall significance of culture,whichrequires human beings to re-understand and view the development and dissemination of theirown history and culture and the diversity of culture from a new perspective.

4.The connection between the Tea-horse Ancient Road and the Silk Roadand the Maritime Porcelain Road(https://www.daowen.com)

(1)The Northern Silk Road and the Tea-horse Ancient Road

It was the Silk Road that first entered people’s vision.As early as the end of the 19thcentury,German geologist Richthofen called the east-west passage of Chinese silk intoCentral Asia and Europe the“Silk Road”.Later,Sven Hedin made a complete investigationof the Silk Road and theoretically proved the existence of this passage.In addition,Stein,Paul Pelliot and other scholars also demonstrated the existence of the Silk Road fromaspects of literature and archaeology.Thanks to the efforts of these pioneers,the Silk Roadlater became a famous transportation route both at home and abroad.

It is generally believed that the Silk Road in China started from Chang’an(Xi’an),thecapital of the Han Dynasty,and then divided into two roads at Guazhou(Anxi).This is justabout the main route of the Silk Road in general.In fact,the specific routes they traveledon varied greatly from one trader to another or from traveler to traveler.Moreover,theabove several main lines are also connected and linked up with each other.They are like anet,stretching from Chang’an to Central Asia,WestAsia,Africa,Europe and other places,promoting people’s communications and exchanges.

In terms of the opening time of the Silk Road,it is generally believed that the Silk Road,the major east-west transportation artery connecting Asia,Europe andAfrica,was openedonly after Zhang Qian’s diplomatic mission to the Western Regions during the reign ofEmperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty.However,it is not difficult to find that the opening of theSilk Road is undoubtedly closely related to the early nomadic and migratory activities ofvarious nomadic peoples along the route.It was with the continuous expansion of the rangeof nomadic life of many unnamed nomadic peoples in history that the different sectionsfrom Chang’an of the Western Han Dynasty to the Western Regions were connected.Therefore,not only did the opening of the Silk Road predate Zhang Qian’s mission,butZhang Qian’s mission probably followed the route opened up by these nomadic peoplesduring their nomadic life and migrations to the Western Regions.At the same time,it shouldbe pointed out that although the Silk Road was basically fullyjoined up through the wholeline after Zhang Qian’s pioneering work,some sections of the road were still on and off inhistory due to wars,diseases and other reasons.

Even so,the opening of the Silk Road undoubtedly greatly facilitated the personnel,material and cultural exchanges between China and the West,thus bringing China’s landtransportation into its heyday.After the Tang Dynasty pacified the Turks,with enhancementof economic and military strength of the Tang Dynasty,as well as the development of thetraffic and economy between China and the West,the Silk Road became more unimpededand the economic and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries becamemore prosperous.It ushered in the golden age of the Silk Road and formed the peak of theeastern-west traffic since the Han Dynasty.

In the meantime,through the domestic Tea-horse Ancient Road system,tea once becamean important motive force to maintain the operation of the Silk Road.This was most evidentafter the Uighur,Tubo and other peoples became dependent on tea.Fengyuan recorded:“In previous years,the Uighurs came to China,drove their horses and traded tea back”,theUighur people had learned to drink tea during at least 788 ～ 805 years.And may have beendependent on tea,constantly purchasing a large quantity of tea from Chang’an and otherareas.Later,the Uigurs,who had developed a dependence on tea,migrated westward forvarious reasons,and at the same time spread their love for tea to the main sections of theSilk Road.Many ethnic groups or countries developed the habit of drinking and relyingon tea,thus creating a strong demand for tea,which“activated”the Silk Road to a certainextent and gave it new vitality.

Russia is not only China’s neighboring country,but also an important market for China’stea export.In the 28th year of Kangxi(1689),after China and Russia signed the Sino-RussiaNegotiation in Nerchinsk,Chinese tea officially entered Russia on the basis of preliminaryexploration.In the 5th year of Yongzheng(1727),after the signing of the Border Treatybetween Kiakhtu and Russia,Kiakhtu was officially established as a place for trade betweenChina and Russia.Chinese tea began to be transported from Fujian to Moscow by boat,porters,cattle caravans and horse caravans.After the entire Siberian Railway was openedto traffic in 1901,tea produced by Russian merchants in the Hunan and Hubei areas beganto be shipped from Hankou to Vladivostok railway by ship,and the tea trade in Kiakhtudeclined.

(2)The Maritime Porcelain Road and the Ancient Tea-horse Road

Unlike the inherent limitations of the Silk Road,sea travel from the Western Pacific tothe Indian Ocean is much easier.At the same time,China has a long coastline,since theTang Dynasty,the economic focus has begun to move south along the coast to the YangtzeRiver Basin.After the Tang and Song Dynasties,the production bases of tea,porcelain,silk and other export commodities were mostly located in the south and the coastal areas ofChina.These areas are highly developed in shipbuilding and navigation in China.Ceramicsand tea were bulk export commodities except silk after the Tang and Song Dynasties.

In terms of shipping routes,before the middle of the Tang Dynasty,China’s merchantships had already reached the west of India,but they were mainly in the South China Seaand the South Indian Ocean.After the middle of the Tang Dynasty,Chinese merchants notonly expanded the long voyage with the Persian Gulf,but also opened up the connectionbetween China and East Africa by means of merchant ships equipped with deep-watersounding equipment,such as sand barge.In terms of personnel exchange,after the middleperiod of the Tang Dynasty,especially after the opening of the route from Guangzhou to thePersian Gulf,more and more Arab and Persian merchants settled in Guangzhou,Quanzhouand other coastal cities in the southeast of China.Although a number of merchants fromCentral Asia and WestAsia had stayed in China before,they mainly traveled along the SilkRoad to Chang’an and Luoyang and stayed in the north.However,after the middle of theTang Dynasty,an increasing number of foreign merchants came to China mainly throughthe South Sea Porcelain Road,and stayed in the seaport cities along the southeast coast.Guangzhou,a major international trade port in the middle and late Tang Dynasty,was atypical example of the concentration of foreign merchants in this period.It was not onlythe distribution center of goods from the east and the west,but also the center of foreignmerchants.

Before the British succeeded in opening up tea plantations in Assam,China was almostthe only tea exporter in the world,accounting for 96% of the world tea trade and almostmonopolizing the global tea trade.Due to the large-scale foreign trade of tea,a series of teaexport roads have been formed in the southeast coastal area,the northern Eurasia continent,the southwest and the northwest frontier area.The export of the southeast coastal areaswas formed as early as the Ming Dynasty.In the early Ming Dynasty,the government setup Bureau for Foreign shipping in Ningbo,Zhejiang,Quanzhou,Fujian and Guangzhou,Guangdong.While importing rhino horn,ivory,spices and other commodities fromSoutheast Asian countries,it also exported tea,porcelain and silk on a large scale.DuringZheng He’s seven voyages to the Western Seas between the 3rd year of Yongle(1405)andthe 8th year of Xuande(1433),the fleets were always full of tea,porcelain,silk and otherspecial products,which further laid the foundation for China’s tea export to Southeast Asia,India,the Arabian Peninsula and even the east coast ofAfrica.In 1757,Emperor Qianlongof Qing ordered the concentration of merchant ships in Guangzhou,so that Guangzhoubecame the only port for tea export in China.Then,tea from Fujian,Jiangxi,Anhui andother places was loaded onto ships in the Hekou Town of Qianshan,Jiangxi Province,and transported westward from Xinjiang River to Poyang Lake.Then,tea was transferredto southern Jiangxi Province via Ganjiang River.Tea was transported by porters throughNanling to Guangzhou and then handed over to foreign firms.Merchant ships of Britain,France,Spain,Holland,Portugal,Denmark,Sweden,the United States and other countriesbought tea from foreign firms and shipped it to Europe and the United States.After theOpium War,Guangzhou lost its position as the only tea export port and was graduallyreplaced by Shanghai and Fuzhou.Later,Ningbo,Xiamen,Hankou,Hangzhou and otherplaces also became important ports for tea export to Europe and the United States.

Yunnan and Sichuan are also important tea production areas in southwest China.The teaproduced is not only sold to Tibetan-inhabited regions and the northwest market,but also alarge part of the tea from Yunnan and Sichuan provinces is sold to Thailand,Myanmar,Indiaand other places,which is another important channel for Chinese tea export.The spread oftea on the Porcelain Road started in the Tang Dynasty and reached the peak of trade beforeand after the Opium War.In the 1st year of Zhenyuan’s reign of Emperor Dezong of the TangDynasty(785),the Japanese monk Zuicheng went to Tiantai Mountain to study Dharma.When he returned home,he brought back a large number of Buddhist classics and tea seeds,and planted the tea seeds in the Japanese Shinto shrine,which later became the earliest teagarden in Japan.Although the first person to plant tea in Japan was the Zen master Zuizhen,it was Rongxi in the Song Dynasty who introduced a whole set of Zen tea ceremony to Japanand popularized it among ordinary people.When the latter went to Tiantai Wannian Templeand Tiantong Temple to study Buddhism as an emissary of the Song Dynasty,tea-drinkingin Chinese temples was already very popular.He was deeply infected by the tea-drinkingcustoms in Chinese temples.When returned to China,he brought back Zen Buddhism,aswell as tea drinking custom in China to Japan,making tea-drinking the common custom of allclasses in Japan,so he was also respected as the ancestor of Japanese tea.Both Zuicheng andRongxi were influenced by Chinese tea culture in Mingzhou,and thus brought tea to Japanfrom here,setting a precedent for tea spreading by sea.

The large-scale sea traffic of tea started after the British and other western peoplelearned about tea and began to“rely on tea”around the 17th century.The first introductionof tea into Europe was entirely due to Portuguese and Dutch traders.Then,the French andBritish royal families first developed the habit of drinking tea in Europe,which then spreadto the nobility and the middle class,and was eventually imitated by a larger number ofpeople such as workers and farmers with the communication and learning between differentclasses.As a result,throughout the 17th century,Dutch merchant ships continued to bringtea to European ports from China,Manila,and Macau,China.In 1689,the British EastIndia Company for the first time shipped Chinese tea directly from Xiamen to England,starting the direct trade of tea between China and England.In 1784,the American merchantship Empress of China sailed to Guangzhou via New York to begin direct tea trade betweenChina and the United States.Since then,Chinese tea has been continuously importedinto the United States.The Americans were also the first to design and build the clipper,which effectively shortened the time it took for tea to be shipped by sea.After arousingthe attention of Western European countries,countries competed to develop fast sailboats,causing a competition to transport tea by sea,thus comprehensively shortening the cycle ofsea transport of tea on a global scope.

(3)The reasons for the rise and fall of the Tea-horse Ancient Road and the twoarteries

Furthermore,we need to explain clearly the reasons for the ups and downs of the Teahorse Ancient Road,the Northern Silk Road and the Maritime Porcelain Road .

The reason why the Northern Silk Road gradually declined was related to its congenitaldeficiency.First of all,it would pass through a series of nations and countries on theEurasian Continent,and silk was not a necessity in their daily life.Once any country ornation was in chaos,or any nation controlled this ancient road out of various motives,itspassage would be affected and the Silk Road would be forced to stop.Moreover,the SilkRoad had to cross mountains and the Gobi desert,which was filled with wind and sand,andthe natural conditions were very harsh.The journey was difficult and transport could only becarried out by camel caravan with limited capacity and very slow speed.Moreover,the SilkRoad was located in the northwest inland region,and the production areas of silk,porcelain,tea and other commodities popular in foreign markets after the Tang and Song Dynastieswere all located in the southeast region.The land transportation of the Silk Road was farfrom the production areas,which increased the transportation cost,and it could not betransported to the countries and regions around the Pacific Ocean.Finally,goods transportedby camel caravans and horse caravans on the Silk Road could only be light,expensiveand not easily damaged goods such as silk,while porcelain,which was popular amongforeign people,was heavy and easily damaged goods,so difficult to guarantee the safetyof transportation through the Silk Road.It was due to various congenital deficiencies thatafter the middle of the Tang Dynasty,the Silk Road,an overland transportation network thatstretched for thousands of miles,gradually declined,while the South Maritime PorcelainRoad gradually rose and reached its peak.Porcelain was the main export commodity ofthe Sea Porcelain Route.It was heavy and fragile.In the process of mass export,the searoute was undoubtedly the most reliable.For the reason that ship’s capacity was large,andrelatively stable,and the freight was relatively cheap.These advantages made sea transporthave huge potential.In the middle of the Tang Dynasty,taking advantage of the declineof the Silk Road,the Maritime Porcelain Road rose rapidly and replaced the northern SilkRoad.In the 1930s and 1940s,during the World War II,the southeast coast of China wassubjected to a complete blockade by Japan,and the Southern Maritime Porcelain Road wasinterrupted.However,the Tea-horse Ancient Road in the southwest region was extremelyactive with its flexibility and tenacious adaptability,coruscating unprecedented vitality andreaching the peak of material trade and personnel exchange.

When discussing the historical connection of the three major passageways system,avaluable reference is the three necessary conditions for the formation of the Tea-horseAncient Road put forward by Chen Baoya: First,the emergence of the tea-dependentnations.Because of people’s dependence on tea,ancient tea routes must exist.Second,nations that were dependent on tea should be away from the tea production area.The teaconsuming areas are far from the tea-producing areas,so there must be expeditionarygroups.Third,the steep terrain.To cross high mountains,gorges,turbulent rivers anddangerous shoals,horse caravans or similar means of transportation were indispensable.

In fact,apart from“the Silk Road since the Tang and Song Dynasties exactly met thethree necessary conditions for the formation of the“Tea-horse Ancient Road”,we canalso replace the words“high mountains,valleys,rapid and treacherous shoals”and“horsecaravans”with“far seas,violent storms and roaring waves”and“fast ship”to explain thereason why the South Maritime Porcelain Road has been rising since the Ming and QingDynasties.With the diffusion of tea producing areas and the internal and external transportand marketing of tea,the“Tea-horse Ancient Road”passageway net has been expandedfor thousands of years,and finally,the Silk Road since the Tang and Song Dynasties andthe Southern Maritime Porcelain Road since the Ming and Qing Dynasties,the two majorarteries with one in the north,one in the south,and with one on the land and one on the sea,have been integrated into an organic whole.The“Tea Road”between China and Russia,which was parallel to the Silk Road on the Mongolian steppe,discussed byAi Meixia andDeng Jiugang,was,in fact,also an extension of the“Tea-horse Ancient Road”.

Therefore,based on the investigation of historical documents,it is not difficult for usto draw the following preliminary conclusions: firstly,the Tea-horse Ancient Road is animportant channel for Chinese tea to spread synchronously from its origin inward andoutward,and to the north and the south.Secondly,tea was also an important commodityexported by the Silk Road in the north and the Maritime Porcelain Road in the south.Finally,the Tea-horse Ancient Road was an important link connecting and communicatingthe northern Silk Road and the Southern Maritime Porcelain Road.

Section 3　The fragrance of Pu’er tea on the Tea-horseAncient Road

1.Hometown of tea in the south of colorful clouds

(1)Naming of Pu’er tea

There are three explanations for the origin of the name of Pu’er tea.The first one comesfrom“Pu people”in Yunnan -- the ancient ancestor of tea farmers.The second is fromthe name of Pu’er Prefecture，an important distribution center of Pu’er tea.Pu’er tea waslisted as tribute tea after the establishment of Pu’er Prefecture in the Qing Dynasty，andit has been further developed since then.According to The Historical Evolution of theEstablishment of Pu’er，there was no independent government office in the ancient Pu’erarea until the Yuan Dynasty，and there was no such name as Pu’er.In the 16th year ofHongwu in the Ming Dynasty（1383 AD），the name“Pu’er（耳）”was used.During the Wanliperiod of the Ming Dynasty（1573-1620 AD），it was renamed“Pu’er（洱）”.In 1664 A.D.，Yuanjiang Prefecture was set up in Pu’er，which governed 13 places including Simao andPu’er.In 1729 A.D.，Pu’er Prefecture was set up after the implementation of the policy of“changing the management mode of minority chieftains into that of government offcials”.The third explanation is that it is named after the place of origin： in the Sui，Tang，Yuan andMing Dynasties，the pronunciation of the place was slightly different.In the Sui Dynasty，itbelonged to the Pu tribe.In the Nanzhao period of the Tang Dynasty，it was called“Burilian”.In the Song，Yuan and Ming Dynasties，it was called“Buribu”and“Pu Er”.In the 7th yearof the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty（1729），Pu’er Prefecture was set up，andtea was called“Pu tea”before the Qing Dynasty.From the perspective of archaeology，ethnology and linguistics，it is concluded that“Pu’er”is the homonym of“Bu Ri”and“BuEr”in Wa language，“Pu”is the homonym of“Pu”（“朴”），“Pu”（“蒲”）and“Pu”（“濮”）”，and“Pu（普）tea”is“Pu（濮）tea”.

(2)Origin of Pu’er tea

In 1826,Ruan Fu of the Qing Dynasty wrote Pu’er tea records,which states:“the socalled Pu”er tea is not produced in Pu’er Prefecture,but in Simao,which belongs to Pu’erPrefecture.There are six tea mountains in Simao: Yibang,Jiabu,Kong,Manzhuan,Gedengand Yiwu,which are different from those in General Chronicle.

In history,Pu’er tea was produced in Jinghong and Mengla County of XishuangbannaPrefecture,originally belonging to the Six Tea Mountains in Yinsheng,namely Mansa(Mansa),Yiwu,Manzhuan,Yibang,Gedeng ,and Yole proposed by Jiang Quan afterseveral times personal investigation,which had a circumference of 800 li.According to LiYuanlie’s statistics,there are 48 tea-producing areas of Pu’er tea in Xishuangbanna.

(3)Three stages in the development history of Pu’er Tea

Zhang Jun and other scholars divided the development history of Pu’er tea into threestages.The first stage(the Tang and Song Dynasties): Central Plains had entered thestage of ball tea and cake tea,while Yunnan Pu’er tea was in a period of free developmentwithout picking and processing methods.In the second stage(the Yuan,Ming,and QingDynasties),tea culture in the Central Plains underwent a huge transformation from balltea to loose tea under the will of Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty.However,theproduction of Pu’er tea developed faster due to the needs of border ethnic minorities andwith long-distance transportation(into Tibet)as the main consumer groups.As Pu’er teawas favored by the Qing court,it entered the heyday of development.This period was thereal stage of Pu’er tea in the geographical sense.The third stage(since the end of the QingDynasty): namely the stage of modern Pu’er tea.Modern Pu’er tea processing technologysprouted,and a social pattern of multi-tea production emerged.Since the end of the QingDynasty,Pu’er tea in the traditional historical and geographical sense withdrew from thehistorical stage.The reasons are as follows: first,Pu’er tea has gradually lost its positionas the tea refining and distribution center since the end of the Qing Dynasty.The changeof administrative divisions made the former Pu’er tea area decompose into Simao(presentPu’er),Mengla,Menghai and Jinghong tea areas,and tea is no longer labeled with Pu’ertea.Second,with the progress of processing technology,in the original Pu’er tea areas,there are black tea,baked tea,sun-dried tea,and other diversified forms of tea.Third,theancient Pu’er tea mountains declined gradually and were replaced by emerging tea areas.Inhistory,the long-term circulation of Pu’er tea products laid a foundation for the formationof post-fermentation aging technology and modern Pu’er tea aging technology.Consumersfound that aged Pu’er tea tasted better in the long-term storage process,and foreign studiesconfirmed that aged Pu’er tea had a better therapeutic effect.As people gradually deepentheir understanding of the quality transformation of Pu’er tea induced by post-ripeningand aging,a special consumer group of aged Pu’er tea formed.In 1973,the Yunnan TeaImport and Export Company borrowed the production technology of dark tea and createdthe artificial post-fermentation technology.Since 1974,it has promoted the artificial postfermentation technology of Pu’er tea in Xiaguan Tea Factory and Menghai Tea Factory.Theproducts are well received by consumers in Hong Kong,Taiwan,Japan,Western Europe,and other regions.

(4)Fermentation and efficacy of Pu’er tea

Pu’er tea is made from authentic Yunnan big-leafed tea,its shape is characterizedby: long and strong bud ,abundant pekoe,big and soft leaves,and thick stems and longinternodes,long growth period of new shoots,tender leaves and vigorous development.Tested by experts,Pu’er tea is rich in alkaloid,tea polyphenols,vitamins,amino acid,andaromatic substances.Professor Liang Mingda,a famous international expert in oncologymedicine,put forward a positive conclusion after scientific research:“Pu’er Tea -- the anticancer health food in the 21st century”,which has attracted attention of the society andacademic circles.Simao is the hometown of Pu’er tea.According to expert research andclassification,Pu’er tea is usually divided into compressed tea and loose tea.TraditionalPu’er tea is compressed tea made by natural fermentation and special technology,includingvarious specifications of Pu’er ball tea,Pu’er brick tea,Qizi cake tea,blended loose tea,etc.Loose tea is divided into spring tea,summer tea,and autumn tea.In Pu’er tea,the varietiesof spring tea-shoot and autumn tea are the best,which are made into Oolong tea withmellow,sweet and long aftertaste,delicate fragrance and delicious flavor; made into greentea,the tea liquid is clear and thick with rich fragrance and mellow aftertaste,the brewedleaves are green; made into black tea,the liquid is thick,dark red and bright with a mellowand refreshing taste.Pu’er tea has the functions of relieving alcoholism,helping digestion,reducing phlegm,relieving greasiness,reducing fat,strengthening teeth,reducing weight,anti-cancer and health care.It is known as“beauty tea”,“slim tea”,and“longevity tea”abroad.

The processing of Pu’er tea is quite special.After picking,withering,Shaqing,rollingand drying the fresh leaves of the large-leafed tea tree into loose tea,it is further steamedand pressed into compressed tea at high temperature.According to customer requirementsfor different shapes,Pu’er tea is made into ball tea,brick tea,Qizi cake tea and smallcake tea,etc.,the size and weight also have certain specifications,which is convenient forcaravans to load and unload and for the long journey.Pu’er tea had a unique fermentationprocess on the Tea-horse Ancient Road,which was very long and difficult to travel,and thetransportation speed of horses was slow,sometimes only once a year,so the preservationof tea leaves was very important.To make Pu’er tea into compressed tea is becausethatcompressed tea has high density,is moisture-proof and sunscreen,thus can adaptto long-distance transportation and storage.Because Pu’er tea is carried on horsebacks,sometimes through valley basins,sometimes through plateau snow peaks,and there wasgreat difference in altitude,which was from 50 meters to more than 5000 meters,the climatewas unpredictable with heat,wind,rain and snow.In such a transportation environment,Pu’er green tea began to slowly ferment with the influence of temperature and moisture inthe air.After a certain period of natural fermentation,Pu’er crude tea turns into Pu’er ripetea.This natural fermentation is called“natural post-fermentation”.After post-fermentation,the tea liquor is red,thick and bright,the aroma is unique and aged,the taste is mellow andsweet,and the longer the time,the better the quality,which forms a fundamental differencefrom the non-post-fermentation tea,and also becomes the unique technological symbol ofPu’er tea.Since then,horse caravans on expedition did not worry about the deteriorationof tea in the mountains.Compaction and post-fermentation are the secrets of Pu’er teaclimbing over mountains and mountains on the Tea-horse Ancient Road.

2.The five Tea-horse Ancient Roads within Yunnan with Pu’er City astheir center.

Within the territory of Yunnan,through the continuous development of Pu’er tea andhorse caravans,the five Tea-horse Ancient Roads radiating outward from the center of Pu’ertea were gradually formed.

(1)The Official Horse Road

The most important route of the Tea-horse Ancient Road,starts from Pu’er,passesthrough Kunming and travels through various provinces to Beijing.It is extended toJinghong and Menghai in the south to Daluo and then exported to Jingdong in Myanmar,where it can be directly transported to Thailand,Malaysia and Hong Kong.Much timehonored tea and tribute tea were transported to various places by horse caravans alongthis route.Luo Yangru,states in his book that Yunnan tribute tea was introduced into theimperial court.Since the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty,the governor of Yunnan senthis staff to purchase 5 dan of Pu’er tea and transport it to the capital for the court to drink.Thus,it became a rule to pay tribute once a year.During the reign of Jiaqing,the numberwas changed to 10,costing ever more.It was not until 1911 that the practice of payingtribute with tea,which had been followed for 249 years,was abolished.The total length ofthis route was 580.7km,with a one-way walk of 17 days.Because this road was particularlyimportant,the Ming and Qing Dynasties set up several battalions and posts along the way todefend it.

(2)Xiaguan-Tibet Tea-horse Ancient Road

It started from Pu’er and went through Xiaguan,Lijiang,and Zhongdian(today’sShangri-La)to Tibet and Nepal.The route also extended to many foreign countries,suchas Bhutan and India,until it reached West Asia and the Red Coast.The whole journey wasover 5000km,and the caravan would travel for 3-4 months.In history,the Qinghai-TibetPlateau and the Hengduan Mountains were depopulated zones with no life to step on.TheTea-horse Ancient Road was created by people of all ethnic groups with their wisdom and atthe risk of their lives.While enhancing trade,it also enriched the customs,culture and ideasof different ethnic groups along the road.Due to the dangerous high mountains and deepvalleys in northwest Yunnan,people often had to walk through sparsely populated primitiveforests.Most of them were intrepid Tibetan merchants.According to existing ancientcultural relics and historical materials,as early as the Tang Dynasty,this ancient road withtea transported by horses as its main feature came into play.During the War of ResistanceAgainst Japanese Aggression,when the coastal area was occupied and the Yunnan-BurmaRoad was cut off by the Japanese aggressors,this Tea-horse Ancient Road became the onlyoverland international passage in China at that time.

(3)Jiangcheng-Lai Chau Tea-horse Ancient Road.

Pu’er tea passed through Jiangcheng from Pu’er to Lai Chau,Vietnam,and then betransported to Tibet and Europe.The maximum amount of tea shipped to Vietnam fromMenglie,Jiangcheng was 3,000 dan per year.In the 22nd year of Guangxu,Menglie Branchof Simao Customs was set up here.

(4)The Tea-horse Ancient Road in dry seasons

Transporting tea,Mohei salt,and Pu’er cloth from Pu’er,crossing the Lancang Riverto Lancang via Simao and Nuozha,and leaving Myanmar via Menglian.In rainy seasons,Lancang River rose and the roads were blocked.

(5)Mengla Tea-horse Ancient Road

Tea was transported from Pu’er to Mengla and Yiwu tea mountains,and then exported tonorthern areas of Laos,and from Daluo to go out of the country,and then entered Jingdong,Myanmar,which was an extension of Kunming Official Horse Road.

For more than 1,000 years since the Tang Dynasty,Pu’er tea has been transported toTibet and the rest of the world through these five Tea-horse Ancient Roads.On December25,1952,the highway from Kunming to Daluo was opened to traffic to Pu’er,and thehighway from Xiaguan to Pu’er was also opened to traffic to Pu’er.In September 1953,thehighway from Pu’er to Simao was opened to traffic.On December 7,the same year,thehighway from Pu’er to Jinghong was opened to traffic,ending the history of more than 1000years of transporting tea by horse caravans and porters.The role of the Tea-horse AncientRoad has been gradually replaced by new roads and various means of transportation,andithas lost its former charm and is gradually being forgotten by people.

3.The Tea-horse Ancient Road: soul of Pu’er tea culture

The development history of Yunnan is almost inseparable from roads,and the Teahorse Ancient Road is an illustration of this development history.It can be said that thesearch for the road is actually the search for the history of Yunnan.The Tea-horse AncientRoad originated in the Han and Jin Dynasties,rose in the Tang and Song Dynasties,anddeveloped in the Ming and the Qing Dynasties.They are found all over Yunnan.If the sixtea mountains starting from Mount Yiwu are the place where the production and sales ofPu’er tea began,then Pu’er is the distribution center of the Tea-horse Ancient Road.

Pu’er tea is the most famous in Yunnan.From the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynastyto the Republic of China,a lot of tea guests from western Yunnan and Sichuan came hereone after another,which made the remote tea in the high mountains famous far and wide.In such mountains and deep valleys,there appeared a lot of winding roads for tea pickingand tea trading.The Tea-horse Ancient Road,which used to transport tea to Sichuan andTibet,mainly ran from Xishuangbanna through Simao,Pu’er,Lincang,and then to Dali andLijiang,and then into Sichuan and Tibet.In the Qing Dynasty,a kind of ingot tea producedin the Six Tea Mountains in Xishuangbanna was also sold to Southeast Asia besidesdomestic sales,so the Tea-horse Ancient Roads used to transport abroad also emerged inan endless stream.There were channels from Yiwu to Laos,Boten,Phongsali and otherareas and channels through Laos and Ude to Vietnam and other places.These channels wereinternational trade routes.

Regarding the Tea-horse Ancient Road leading from the Six Tea Mountains to theinland,according to records in various chronicles,tea was transported to Pu’er by horseand cattle caravans and then sold to the mainland.According to literature,in 1845,in orderto facilitate the transportation of tribute tea,government officials built a flagstone roadfrom Yiwu to Pu’er,and this road can still be clearly seen in Yiwu and its vicinity today.For commerce and trade,transportation is an indispensable condition for carrying out allkinds of activities.The Tea-horse Ancient Road from Simao through Yibang to Yiwu notonly promoted the rapid development of the tea industry of the Six Tea Mountains,but alsoguaranteed the timely purchase of tribute tea and official tea,and also created favorableconditions for tea guests from all over the world to enter the six tea mountains.Even teadrinkers from Sichuan,Jiangxi and Tibet had traveled thousands of miles to buy tea fromthe tea mountains.Tea merchants from all over the country transported blankets,cloth,production tools,daily necessities and etc.to the tea mountains along the Tea-horse AncientRoad.Tea was also transported to the mainland in this way.Thus the tea trade began,andat the same time,it also brought about prosperity of culture.Today we can see the Six TeaMountains,the Tea-horse Ancient Road and cultural relics are still presenting the prosperityof the past.From the late Ming Dynasty to the 30’s and 40’s of the Republic of China,theexport sales of the Six Tea Mountains was also fair enough.Yibang and Yiwu were themost critical center of the Tea-horse Ancient Road.On the road from Yibang to Yiwu,therehad always been teams of mules and horses coming and going.The huge group of horsesand oxen carried all types of tea which had been processed and made to sell to foreigncountries.They were brave of difficulties and obstacles and stepped out of the ancient roadconnecting with the world with their own feet.Moreover,they introduced Yunnan and theprofound national culture of this multi-ethnic region to the world through tea trade.Todayit is still sung in Southeast Asian countries.In the eyes of foreign people,Yunnan horsecaravans not only delivered the famous Pu’’er tea but also spread the Chinese tea culture.Tea was transported in Yunnan by porters and caravans of various ethnic groups during theQing Dynasty.

Pu’er City has also retained a lot of the Tea-horse Ancient Road relics.Cha’antangTea-horse Ancient Road is relatively wide,the width is built according to the“five-Chi”standard of official roads,and all are built with blue stones.Tribute tea transported fromPu’er via Kunming to the capital,and tea transported to other places,must pass throughhere.The marks on the road seemed to record the busy scene of those years.

In addition to Xishuangbanna,Lincang is also an important tea-producing area and teahorse passageway in Yunnan.There were two ancient roads in Lincang: one was to go northfrom Lijiang into Sichuan and Tibet.Another was to enter Xiangyun in the east,Chuxionginto Kunming,connecting with the mainland.Fengqing is a famous cultural city in westernYunnan,and it has a strong flavor of Confucian culture and many Confucian temples.FromJingdong to Lushi,which is closest to Xiaguan,one can still find some of the spinningsheels on this road.The ancient town of Lushi is a representative multi-cultural gatheringplace on the ancient road of Lincang.In 1598 AD,a Patrol Inspection Division was set upto open up markets.A large amount of Fengqing tea was also transported from Lijiang toTibet,Xinjiang and other Tibetan areas.From today’s Lincang to Lushi Town,there is theLincang River in the middle.in 1761,the Shunning Magistrate Liu Qing supervised theconstruction of Qinglong Bridge by scholars and civilians,which was more convenientfor the tea-horse transport.Also foreign silk,cotton yarn,cloth,salt and local tea,walnut,fungus and other goods began to trade in this place.Under the influence of tea and advancedinland culture,not only commerce and handicraft industry developed rapidly,but alsoeducation and religion experienced a fast growing .

Leaving Lincang to the north,the Yunnan-Tibetan Tea-horse Ancient Road fromnorthwestern Yunnan into Tibetan areas was also very rugged.This section of the Teahorse Ancient Road had high mountains,deep valleys and cliffs.On the road connectingYunnan and Tibet,footprints and histories have been left by ancestors of various ethnicgroups.It’s hard to separate Diqing from the Tea-horse Ancient Road.It is inseparablefrom the history of the whole country,and at the same time,it is also inseparable from thehistory of all ethnic groups in Yunnan.Its special historical geography and ethnic culturealso increase the strong historical and cultural connotation of the Tea-horse Ancient Road.The“Iron Pillar of Nanzhao”is still preserved in Taihua Township of Midu County,whichindicates the unification of the six tribes in Dali and the establishment of Nanzhao regime.In the southern Tang Dynasty,Nanzhao seized the border areas of Sichuan and the northernpart of west Yunnan,and the Diqing area belonged to Tubo at that time.Although the ironpillar set up in the Tang Dynasty is lost now,the Jiangtacheng Iron Bridge in Lijiang is stillthere.Although there were confrontations and wars at that time,messengers and merchantswere still active on this road.Struggle was only temporary,and economic and culturalexchanges were always there.During the Northern Song Dynasty,relations between Daliand the Song Dynasty were established.Exchanges between Dali Tubo and various ethnicgroups during the Song Dynasty were later replaced by a more far-reaching economic andcultural exchange under the tea-horse exchange proposed by the Song government.The oldtown of Lijiang contains a lot of rich ethnic cultures,many of which have been listed onthe world cultural heritage list.In the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty,Nanzhao and Daliwere closely connected with the mainland,and the tea-horse trade was flourishing.Thisspecial history made the economic and cultural exchanges in Yunnan,Sichuan,Tibet andother regions more frequent.Diqing on the Tea-horse Ancient Road is a place of economictrade and cultural exchange mainly based on tea and salt among ethnic regions.Since theTang and Song Dynasties,economic and cultural exchanges have been frequent on the Teahorse Ancient Road in Diqing.In this region with vast land,grasslands,high mountains andalpine climate,many ethnic groups coexist together,and human beings and nature live inharmony.

Through thousands of years of history in Yunnan,the horse caravans,the Tea-horseAncient Road,ancient towns,rich and colorful national culture all over Yunnan have leftpeople rich spiritual wealth.The phrase“Yunnan’s economic and cultural exchange iscarried out by horses”is indeed true.The Tea-horse Ancient Road helped to build thosetowns,big or small,which not only made for the starting point of tea and salt transport,but also the distribution center of horses,medicinal materials,and daily necessities.Theyall have a common historical development pattern,both of which are rising and decliningbecause of tea.We know that tea is related to the culture of a country and a nation.Althoughthe Tea-horse Ancient Road has declined from its prosperous stage,it has a permanentsignificance and role for ethnical cultural exchanges and social harmony.The disseminationof tea culture is a very difficult proposition,its way of dissemination is diverse,its path ofdissemination is also varied.Yunnan is the birthplace of Pu’er tea,which is a multi-ethnicand vast place.Of course,it is one-sided to only consider these several ancient roads whichclosely related tea to various ethnic groups.

The cultural connotation of Pu’er tea is very rich,including the material culture andspiritual culture related to tea created by Simao people from ancient times to the present.Pu’er tea culture,as a concept with a broad meaning,is a combination of material andspiritual culture generated in the process of tea discovery,domestication,cultivation,utilization,production,processing,transportation,sales and drinking by the people ofall nationalities in Simao-Pu’er district.It is closely connected with nature,geography,nationality,economy and culture,and involves the lifestyle,living customs,ideas,religiousbeliefs,culture and art of tea growers and tea drinkers.Since ancient times,Pu peopleand various ethnic groups living in Simao-Pu’er district along the Lancang River basindiscovered the use of wild ancient tea trees in production and living practice,and thencultivated,domesticated and used them,a new chapter of tea culture began.The methodsof drinking tea of various ethnic groups in Simao area are varied,including the Hani’sbaked tea and steamed tea; the Yi’s salt tea; the bamboo-tube tea of the Dai; baked tea ofthe Lahu; Blang’s sour tea,etc.Among different ethnic groups,tea has become a symbolof social civilization and progress and friendship among the people by its application inserving guests,marrying,offering sacrifices,paying tribute,entering the market,singingsongs,practicing art,trade,medicine and poetry.Today,we promote trade,agriculture andliterature with tea,help people get rich,increase friendship,make friends with the worldwith the help of tea,as well as promote the unity of all ethnic groups,promote economicand social development,international exchanges and reform and opening up,contributingsignificantly to the construction of China’s tea city Simao.

In April 1997,the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued a set of 4 stampstitled Tea.The first stamp,Tea Tree,was the transitional ancient tea trees in Bangwai,Lancang in the Simao area with a face value of 50 cents.Meanwhile,a postcard of theseancient tea trees was also issued,marking the beginning of the introduction of Chinese teaculture into the postal service and playing a role in promoting international postal service.The Pu’er TeaArt Performance Team in Simao has performed in Simao,Kunming,ChiangRai,Thailand and other places.It was formed by tea-drinking customs of Hani,Yi,Lahu,Dai and Wa people.With the essence of tea art of“honesty,respect,harmony and love”,guests were presented with green tea,baked tea and wine tea.The tea art performancefocused on the environment of tea tasting and the atmosphere of drinking and presentedthe local ethnic characteristics such as tea set,tea viewing,smelling,soaking and tasting,which embodied the elegant taste of Pu’er tea culture.Ancient and modern scholars havewritten books about Pu’er tea,and there are many of them who have written poems.CaoXueqin,a writer in the Qing Dynasty,wrote about Pu’er tea in A Dream of Red Mansions,and Ruan Fu,a writer in the Qing Dynasty,wrote A Book of Pu’er Tea .In Simao-Pu’er teaareas,there are many ancient poems and songs related to Pu’er Tea,such as Song of Pu’erTea,Song of Tea Picking and folk songs in the Qing Dynasty.Tea planting,tea picking,teakneading,tea drinking,tea chanting and tea offering,all of which are a series of“tea culturephenomena”derived from tea.These tangible and intangible resources of tea culture are ofgreat practical significance to the construction of China’s tea city--Pu’er City.

In Pu’er area,there are living fossils of wild ancient tea trees and wild tea treecommunities in Ailao Mountain,Qianjiazhai Village,Zhengyuan County,in Bangwai,Lancang,transitional millennium ancient tea tree cultural relics unique in the world,andcultivated ancient tea forest of ten thousand mu in Jinmai,Lancang.These three types of“ancestor trees of Chinese tea”are living material evidence of the origin of tea trees in China,precious heritage of tea culture in the world,and important resources for scientific researchof tea,with worldwide historical value and scientific value.There is Yunnan LongshengGreen Industry(Group)Co.,Ltd in Pu’er area,which has a tea plantation of 25,000 mu,andYingpanshan sightseeing tea plantation of 10,000 mu,producing famous“Longsheng GreenTea”and“Imperial Pu’er Tea”,which has won the Tea King Award.Simao Xingyang TeaIndustry co.LTD.produces traditional Pu’er tea and features good marketing.