Tea-Horse Road of Kangding

The Ancient Tea-Horse Road is the equivalence of the northernly Silk Road in Asia, thus it is also called the "the Southern Silk Road" indicating its feature of international transaction but apparently silk was never a major commodity on this route. This "Road" is more realistically a network of horse trails in Eastern Himalayas, it connects Chinese, Tibetans Mongols and more ethnic people in Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet. Tea and salt were carried by human labour from Sichuan and Yunnan to the border town to exchange for horses or keep going on horseback to further destination in Tibet or even India and Persia.

In 18th century, the Manchuria Emperor Kangxi officially subsided tea-horse trade in Dartsedo(Kangding), Dartsedo became one of the busiest enterport trading center on this route though it has a history of tea-horse trading as early as around 800AD. Tea and salt were repacked with hard-wearing leather bags for a much longer journey, horses and and rare herbal/animals from Tibet met their buyers here and 9 out of 10 living in this frontier town benefited from this old fashioned trade.

In western Sichuan, this ancient route boasts for its high altitude, long history and everchanging terrain. The ancient Tea-Horse Road from Sichuan to Tibet have been replaced by the 318 and 319 Sichuan-Tibet highways over half century ago. The highways practically followed after the ancient business route, so there is not too much original apprearance left to see but in some remote villages and valleys, people are still using the routes, for instance for herding and pilgrimage in the Langma valley.