--- title: China: the Silk Road and the Tang — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «China: the Silk Road and the Tang», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Mei says China built the Silk Road and only silk went along it. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / China: the Silk Road and the Tang # China: the Silk Road and the Tang Lesson 54 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/0/) — Mei says China built the Silk Road and only silk went along it. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/1/) — The teacher calls it «a road». - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/2/) — Both miss something: it was a web of land and sea routes with China at one end, and merchants of many peoples, like the Sogdians, carried goods both ways. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/3/) — Think of a school swap shop: you bring stickers and go home with a ball. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/4/) — Silk, paper, porcelain and tea went west; horses, glass, grapes and cotton came east, and so did ideas, like Buddhism from India. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/5/) — Under the Tang dynasty, from 618 to 907, the capital Chang'an was one of the greatest cities on Earth, full of traders, poets and travellers. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/6/) — The monk Xuanzang walked all the way to India for holy books, and a later novel turned his trip into the adventures of the Monkey King. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/7/) — Golden ages end too: the An Lushan rebellion of 755 shook the Tang so hard that it never fully recovered. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/8/) — The Silk Road was a network of land and sea trade routes linking China with Central Asia, India, Persia, the Middle East and Europe, from the Han period onward. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/10/) — Silk, paper, porcelain and tea went west; horses, glass, grapes, cotton and new religions came east, and ideas and diseases travelled too. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/11/) — Buddhism began in India and reached China around the 1st century AD; it became one of China's great traditions, and Chinese forms spread to Korea and Japan. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/12/) — The monk Xuanzang walked to India in the 7th century and brought back Buddhist texts; centuries later the novel «Journey to the West» turned his trip into an adventure with the Monkey King. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/13/) — The Tang dynasty, 618–907, was a golden age; its capital Chang'an was among the largest cities in the world, though Baghdad was also huge. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/15/) — A legend says Li Bai drowned reaching for the Moon's reflection, but he probably died of illness. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/16/) — Wu Zetian ruled as emperor in her own name from 690 to 705, the only woman to do so; later, Empress Dowager Cixi held great power without the title. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/17/) — The An Lushan rebellion, 755–763, devastated the Tang; the counted population fell sharply, and the dynasty never fully recovered. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/18/) — In 751 Abbasid (Arab Muslim) forces beat a Tang army near the Talas river; a later story says Chinese prisoners taught paper-making in Samarkand, but historians think paper probably reached Central Asia earlier. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/19/) — Go (weiqi) and xiangqi (Chinese chess) are old Chinese games, Go over 2,500 years old; modern chess grew from the Indian game chaturanga. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/54-china-the-silk-road-and-the-tang/20/) — Chopsticks have been used in China for at least 3,000 years and spread to Japan, Korea and Vietnam; in much of Asia, like India and Thailand, people traditionally eat with hands or spoons and forks. - ← previous: [China: the four great inventions](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/53-china-the-four-great-inventions/) - next →: [China: the Song and the Mongols](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/55-china-the-song-and-the-mongols/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)