Unit 2: Networks of Exchange

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Silk, porcelain, spices, gold, salt. 丝绸、瓷器、香料、黄金、盐。

Students spend hours learning who traded what, and then a question asks why trade grew and the list is no help at all. 学生花很多时间去记谁交易什么，结果题目问的是贸易为什么增长，那份清单一点用都没有。

Listing the goods is the most common way to lose marks in this unit. 罗列货物是这一单元最常见的失分方式。

The question is always what made the trade grow, and there are exactly three answers, and they are the same three for every network. 问题永远是什么让贸易增长，而答案恰好有三个，而且对每一个网络都是同样这三个。

Three causes. 三个原因。

Improved commercial practices — money economies, credit, and forms of partnership that spread risk. 商业惯例的改进，货币经济、信贷，以及分散风险的合伙形式。

Improved transportation technologies — better ships, saddles and navigation. 交通技术的改进，更好的船、马鞍与导航。

And state support: empires that secured routes and taxed the trade benefited from protecting it, so the interest runs both ways. 以及国家支持：保障路线并对贸易征税的帝国从保护贸易中获益，所以利益是双向的。

Demand mattered too. 需求同样重要。

Luxury goods from Chinese, Persian and Indian artisans found expanding markets across Afro-Eurasia, and producers increased output to meet that demand. 来自中国、波斯与印度工匠的奢侈品在欧亚非找到了不断扩大的市场，生产者增加产量以满足需求。

That is the link people forget — trade growth changes production, not just transport. 这是人们容易忘记的一环，贸易增长改变的是生产，而不只是运输。

Take the networks one at a time, and for each one ask what it carried, what made it possible, and what it changed. 逐一来看这些网络，每一个都问：它运什么，靠什么成为可能，改变了什么。

The Silk Roads carried high-value, low-bulk goods overland across Eurasia: silk, porcelain, spices, precious metals. 丝绸之路在欧亚大陆上陆路运送高价值、低体积的货物：丝绸、瓷器、香料、贵金属。

Match cargo to carrier — a camel cannot move grain profitably across a continent. 货物要与运具相匹配，骆驼无法跨越大陆有利可图地运送粮食。

Its enabling innovations were commercial as much as technical: caravanserai along the routes, paper money and bills of exchange in China, and forms of credit that let merchants trade without carrying bullion. 使之可能的创新，商业上的与技术上的同样重要：沿途的商队旅馆、中国的纸币与汇票，以及让商人不必携带金银也能交易的信贷形式。

The consequence for producers: Chinese artisans expanded output, and cities along the routes grew wealthy on the traffic passing through. 对生产者的后果是：中国工匠扩大产量，沿线城市因过境贸易而富裕。

Empires collapsed and were reconstituted in this period, and the largest transformation came from the Mongol Empire. 这一时期，帝国崩溃又被重新组建，最大的转变来自蒙古帝国。

Now be careful here, because the exam does not want the conquest narrative. 这里要当心，因为考试要的不是征服的叙事。

Mongol expansion facilitated Afro-Eurasian trade and communication by bringing much of the network under a single authority, which lowered the risk of long-distance travel — the period often called the Pax Mongolica. 蒙古的扩张把网络的大部分置于单一权威之下，降低了长途旅行的风险，从而促进了欧亚非的贸易与交流，这一时期常被称为蒙古和平。

Interregional contacts also encouraged technological and cultural transfers: gunpowder technology moved west, Chinese administrative and medical knowledge circulated, and scholars and craftsmen were relocated across the empire. 区域间的接触也促进了技术与文化的传播：火药技术西传，中国的行政与医学知识流通，学者与工匠在帝国范围内被迁移。

That is the unit's central irony. 这正是本单元的核心反讽。

Conquest and destruction produced the conditions for exchange. 征服与破坏创造了交流的条件。

The Indian Ocean network moved bulkier goods than the Silk Roads — textiles, timber, grain, spices — for the simple reason that ships carry more than camels. 印度洋网络运送的货物比丝绸之路更笨重，纺织品、木材、谷物、香料，原因很简单，船比骆驼装得多。

Its enabling technologies were maritime: knowledge of the monsoon winds, the lateen sail, the dhow, and navigational tools including the compass and the astrolabe. 使之可能的技术是航海方面的：对季风的认识、三角帆、单桅帆船，以及包括罗盘与星盘在内的导航工具。

Its consequences are the most examinable in the unit. 它的后果是本单元最常考的。

The network fostered the growth of states — the Swahili city-states on the East African coast, Srivijaya and Majapahit in Southeast Asia. 这一网络促进了国家的成长，东非海岸的斯瓦希里城邦，东南亚的室利佛逝与满者伯夷。

Merchants established diasporic communities in key ports, introducing their own culture while adopting local ways. 商人在重要港口建立侨居社群，带来自己的文化，同时接受当地的方式。

And long-distance trade depended on and expanded coerced labour, because the movement of people was part of the network too. 而长途贸易既依赖也扩大了强制劳动，因为人的迁移同样是这个网络的一部分。

The trans-Saharan routes crossed the desert on innovations in existing technology — above all the camel saddle, and organised caravans. 跨撒哈拉路线穿越沙漠，依靠的是对既有技术的改进，首要的是骆驼鞍，以及有组织的商队。

Notice the wording: innovations in existing technology, not new inventions. 注意措辞：是对既有技术的改进，不是全新的发明。

The trade itself is easy to remember because it runs in two directions: gold from West Africa moved north and salt moved south. 贸易本身很好记，因为它是双向的：西非的黄金北上，盐南下。

And the expansion of empires, including Mali, facilitated that trade by securing the routes and taxing them. 而包括马里在内的帝国的扩张，通过保障路线并征税促进了这一贸易。

Mali's wealth, and its ruler's famous pilgrimage, advertised the region across the Islamic world. 马里的财富，以及其统治者著名的朝觐，让这一地区在伊斯兰世界广为人知。

Now the consequences, which split into cultural and environmental. 现在讲后果，它分为文化与环境两类。

Increased cross-cultural interaction produced diffusion of literary, artistic, scientific and religious traditions: Islam spreading along the trade routes, Buddhist and Neo-Confucian influence in East Asia, and the movement of scientific and mathematical knowledge. 跨文化互动的增加带来了文学、艺术、科学与宗教传统的传播：伊斯兰教沿贸易路线扩散，佛教与新儒学在东亚的影响，以及科学与数学知识的流动。

Travellers moved within and between regions in growing numbers, and their accounts are the period's key evidence. 旅行者在区域内与区域之间的往来日益增多，他们的记述是这一时期的关键证据。

The fate of cities varied — some declined as routes shifted or invasions came, others grew into major commercial centres. 城市的命运各不相同，有的因路线转移或入侵而衰落，有的成长为重要商业中心。

And the environmental consequences were as large as the cultural ones. 而环境后果与文化后果同样巨大。

Crops and pathogens diffused along the same routes, and epidemic disease travelled with trade, most catastrophically the Black Death, which killed a large share of the population of Afro-Eurasia. 作物与病原体沿同样的路线传播，流行病随贸易而行，最具灾难性的是黑死病，它杀死了欧亚非人口的很大一部分。

Name it, and name why: it moved on the network itself. 要说出它的名字，也要说出原因：它就是沿着这个网络移动的。

Now the comparison of economic exchange across 1200 to 1450. 现在比较一二〇〇到一四五〇年间的经济交换。

The unit's reasoning skill is comparison, so compare the networks on what they carried, what made them possible, and what they changed — never on which was most important. 本单元的推理技能是比较，所以就以下三点比较这些网络：运什么、靠什么成为可能、改变了什么，绝不要比较哪个"最重要"。

And then the sentence shape again. 然后又是句子的形状。

Both the Silk Roads and the Indian Ocean expanded because of improved commercial practices, but the Indian Ocean carried heavier, lower-value goods such as timber and grain because ships could transport far greater bulk than overland caravans. 丝绸之路与印度洋网络都因商业惯例的改进而扩张，但印度洋运送更重、价值更低的货物，如木材与谷物，因为船能运载的体量远大于陆路商队。

The because clause is what turns a difference into an explanation. 那个"因为"从句正是把差异变成解释的关键。

Without it, the answer only describes, and a describing answer does not earn the explanation point. 没有它，答案就只是描述，而描述性的答案拿不到解释的分数。

Five things to carry out. 带走五件事。

First, explain growth with three causes: commercial practices, transport technology, state support. 第一，用三个原因解释增长：商业惯例、交通技术、国家支持。

Second, match cargo to carrier — overland means high value and low bulk; ships carry timber and grain. 第二，货物与运具相匹配，陆路意味着高价值、低体积；海船能运木材与谷物。

Third, learn the enabling technology by network: caravanserai and credit; monsoons, lateen sail and dhow; the camel saddle. 第三，按网络分别记住使之可能的技术：商队旅馆与信贷；季风、三角帆与单桅帆船；骆驼鞍。

Fourth, the Mongols' examinable role is facilitating exchange, the Pax Mongolica, not conquest for its own sake. 第四，蒙古人可考的作用是促进交流，蒙古和平，而不是征服本身。

Fifth, the Black Death is the environmental consequence, and it travelled on the trade network itself. On difference questions, always add the because. 第五，黑死病是环境后果，而且它就是沿着贸易网络传播的。

Mali secured the routes and taxed them. 比较题要始终补上"因为"。