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The Tea-Horse Road (Ⅱ): The Rise and Fall

In the Song Dynasty, the large-scale commerce in tea and horses between the Chinese dynasties and the Tibetan developed very quickly.

The government then required a large number of warhorses to defend against the invading northern nomadic. It established the tea and horse office in charge of the tea and horse trade and set up many markets for selling tea and buying horses in Northwest China.

In the Yuan Dynasty, bureau responsible for the tea trade was established. At first, tea was sold through the government bureau, but later it was gradually handled by individual businessmen. The Ming Dynasty was the most prosperous period for the tea and horse trade. The quality of the horses offered to the court by the Tibetan as “tribute” determined the quality of the tea.

During the Qing Dynasty, the head of Tibetan asked the Qing government to set up a large market exclusively for the tea and horse trade, and it was approved. Then, there was a rapid increase in the amount of Yunnan tea transported to Tibet along the Tea-Horse Road. Later, the government paid less and less attention on the trade, but it continued to prosper in the hands of private traders, and they still traveled along the road and made a lot of interesting stories.

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