Silk Road Trade Landscape of the 1470s

Timeline

1. 1471–1475Transoxiana · Central AsiaAfter the Timurid Empire split, khanates in Transoxiana and Khurasan competed for trade taxes and relay-station control. In the early 1470s merchants still transshipped Chinese porcelain and Persian textiles via Samarkand and Bukhara, but regime changes made merchant-protection contracts unstable; caravans paid transit fees to multiple powers, and political fragmentation eroded overland trade profits.
2. 1472–1478Hami · XinjiangThe Chenghua era maintained tributary relations and limited mutual trade along the Hami–Jiayu Pass line. In the ninth year of Chenghua (1473) Sultan Ali of Turfan captured Hami, temporarily blocking the northwestern trade route; the Ming army did not recover Hami until 1482. Turmoil on the Mongolian steppe still forced long-distance caravans to detour through oasis corridors.
3. 1474–1480Trebizond · Black SeaThe Ottomans controlled the Asia Minor passage, and under Uzun Hasan the Aq Qoyunlu the Iranian plateau routes still reached Syria. Eastern goods were transshipped via Basra, Aleppo, or Black Sea ports to Constantinople, then distributed by Venetian and Genoese merchants. By the late 1470s, though the western overland Silk Road still flourished, Venice was actively seeking maritime alternatives to bypass Ottoman intermediaries.