Silk helps weave Chengdu's fortunes

According to a traditional Chinese saying, it is easier to climb to the heaven than to take the road in or out of Shu, the ancient alias for Sichuan province that normally refers to it's capital, Chengdu.

But a recent archaeological discovery has proved that, Chengdu, sits in the middle of the Sichuan Basin with mountains bordered in all directions, was not an isolated "Land of Abundance", an alias it has acquired thanks to its fertile soil, favorable climate, and novel Dujiangyan Irrigation System.

Last December, four tombs date back to the Western Han Dynasty were unearthed in Chengdu's Tianhui township while the city was building the subway line 2. Four models of jacquard looms dating back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 9) were found in the tombs.

The discovery was listed as one of the Top 10 archaeological discoveries of China for 2013 by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage on April 9.

Zhao Feng, director of China National Silk Museum, said the jacquard loom models were the world's earliest ever discovered and represented for the highest level of the then textile industry.

The discovery has offered physical evidence to justify Chengdu's another alias "Brocade City" and the archive-based presumption that Chengdu, with a tradition of silk producing for more than 2,000 years, had served as the major source of silk products at the North Silk Road and the beginning of the South Silk Road, Zhao said.

The North Silk Road, or the generally known Silk Road, was as long as 6,000 kilometers. It started from Chang'an, the then national capital and now known as Xi'an in Shaanxi province, went through India, Iran and Middle East countries, and ended at the Mediterranean sea.

Opened by a diplomat named Zhang Qian, the Silk Road was extremely prosperous from the Western Han Dynasty to Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). It connected the world's two biggest empires – China and Roman, carrying out silk and china from China, and bringing back to the country spices, gemstone and crops.

Zhao said a large proportion of brocades sold to Xinjiang, Russia and the Middle East in Han Dynasty was from Chengdu. Shu brocade became more famous in Sui Dynasty (AD 581-618) and Tang Dynasty, and was the major silk products sold along the Silk Road.

"The best-quality brocade unearthed along the Silk Road are mainly Shu brocade," said Wang Yi, director of Chengdu Museum. "It is widely believed that Shu brocade is the best and the origin of the four greatest brocades of China."

The other three are the Song brocade (from Suzhou), the Yun (from Jiangsu), and the Zhuang (from Guangxi).

The South Silk Road, less famous but opened earlier than the North Silk Road, started from Chengdu, went through Yunnan province, then Burma or Tibet, and ended in India and the Bangladesh.

Can Cong, the first king of Shu, was an expert in breeding Can, the silkworm that spins silk.

Its environment made Chengdu a perfect city to grow mulberry, whose leaves provide the food of silkworms. The Jinjiang River, whose name derives from the weavers washing Shu brocade in its waters, gives the brocade a shinier appeal.

After the Qin state annexed Shu in 316 BC, about one hundred years before China's first emperor Qin Shi Huang united the country, it set a special government department named "Jinguan" (or "brocade office") to supervise the production of Shu brocade.

The Qin also dispatched great numbers of officials, scholars and craftsmen to develop Chengdu, so as to strengthen the power of Qin and conquer the other states.

Chengdu became the "Land of Abundance" after Li Bing, a major Qin official in Shu, built the Dujiangyan irrigation system upstream of the city. The water-control project has prevented Chengdu from frequent floods and droughts.

The city was one of the five most flourishing cities in the Western Han Dynasty. It became the second richest city in Tang Dynasty only after another commercial city in the east--Yangzhou. The city had 270,000 families, only 30,000 less than the national capital.

Chengdu was always a center of silk producing. In fact, the most important handicraft in Chengdu was brocade making. There was poetry saying "Walking on the streets of Chengdu, I heard non-stoping sound of looms."