Editing Silk Road (section)

=== Byzantine Empire (6th–14th centuries) ===
{{further|Byzantine-Mongol Alliance}}
[[File:Major powers in Eurasia around 555AD.png|right|thumb|upright=1.3|Map showing Byzantium along with the other major silk road powers during China's [[Northern and Southern dynasties|Southern dynasties]] period of fragmentation.]]

[[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine]] Greek historian [[Procopius]] stated that two [[Nestorian Christianity|Nestorian Christian]] monks eventually uncovered the way silk was made. From this revelation, monks were sent by the Byzantine Emperor [[Justinian]] (ruled 527–565) as spies on the Silk Road from [[Constantinople]] to China and back to [[Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire|steal the silkworm eggs]], resulting in silk production in the Mediterranean, particularly in [[Soufli#Silk museums of Soufli|Thrace]] in northern Greece,<ref name="livius.org">[https://www.livius.org/sh-si/silk_road/silk_road.html "Silk Road"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130906212218/https://www.livius.org/sh-si/silk_road/silk_road.html |date=6 September 2013 }}, LIVIUS Articles of Ancient History. 28 October 2010. Retrieved 14 November 2010.</ref> and giving the [[Byzantine silk|Byzantine Empire a monopoly on silk production]] in medieval Europe. In 568, the Byzantine ruler [[Justin II]] was greeted by a [[Sogdia]]n embassy representing [[Istämi]], ruler of the [[First Turkic Khaganate]], who formed an alliance with the Byzantines against [[Khosrow I]] of the [[Sasanian Empire]] that allowed the Byzantines to bypass the Sasanian merchants and trade directly with the Sogdians for purchasing Chinese silk.<ref>Howard, Michael C. (2012), ''Transnationalism in Ancient and Medieval Societies, the Role of Cross Border Trade and Travel'', McFarland & Company, p. 133.</ref><ref>Mark J. Dresden (1981), "Introductory Note", in Guitty Azarpay, ''Sogdian Painting: the Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art'', Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, p. 9, {{ISBN|978-0-520-03765-6}}.</ref><ref>Liu, Xinru, "The Silk Road: Overland Trade and Cultural Interactions in Eurasia", in Michael Adas (ed), ''Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History'', American Historical Association, Philadelphia: [[Temple University Press]], 2001, p. 168.</ref> Although the Byzantines had already procured silkworm eggs from China by this point, the quality of Chinese silk was still far greater than anything produced in the West, a fact that is perhaps emphasized by the discovery of coins minted by Justin II found in a Chinese tomb of [[Shanxi]] province dated to the [[Sui dynasty]] (581–618).{{sfn|Luttwak|2009|pp=168–69}}

[[File:Solidus Constans II (obverse).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Solidus (coin)|Coin]] of [[Constans II]] (r. 641–648), who is named in [[Twenty-Four Histories|Chinese sources]] as the first of several [[Byzantine emperor]]s to send embassies to the Chinese [[Tang dynasty]]<ref name="halsall 2000" />]]

Both the ''[[Old Book of Tang]]'' and ''[[New Book of Tang]]'', covering the history of the Chinese [[Tang dynasty]] (618–907), record that a new state called ''Fu-lin'' (拂菻; i.e. Byzantine Empire) was virtually identical to the previous ''[[Daqin]]'' (大秦; i.e. Roman Empire).<ref name="halsall 2000" /> Several ''Fu-lin'' embassies were recorded for the Tang period, starting in 643 with an alleged embassy by [[Constans II]] (transliterated as ''Bo duo li'', 波多力, from his nickname "Kōnstantinos Pogonatos") to the court of [[Emperor Taizong of Tang]].<ref name="halsall 2000" /> The ''[[History of Song (Yuan dynasty)|History of Song]]'' describes the final embassy and its arrival in 1081, apparently sent by [[Michael VII Doukas]] (transliterated as ''Mie li yi ling kai sa'', 滅力伊靈改撒, from [[Caesar (title)|his name and title]] Michael VII Parapinakēs Caesar) to the court of [[Emperor Shenzong of Song|Emperor Shenzong]] of the [[Song dynasty]] (960–1279).<ref name="halsall 2000" />

However, the ''[[History of Yuan]]'' claims that a Byzantine man became a leading astronomer and physician in [[Khanbaliq]], at the court of [[Kublai Khan]], Mongol founder of the [[Yuan dynasty]] (1271–1368) and was even granted [[Chinese nobility|the noble title]] 'Prince of Fu lin' ([[Chinese language|Chinese]]: 拂菻王; Fú lǐn wáng).<ref>Bretschneider, Emil (1888), ''Medieval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources: Fragments Towards the Knowledge of the Geography and History of Central and Western Asia from the 13th to the 17th Century, Vol. 1'', Abingdon: Routledge, reprinted 2000, p. 144.</ref> The [[Uyghurs|Uyghur]] [[Nestorian]] Christian diplomat [[Rabban Bar Sauma]], who set out from his Chinese home in Khanbaliq (Beijing) and acted as a representative for [[Arghun]] (a grandnephew of Kublai Khan),<ref>Moule, A. C., ''Christians in China before 1500'', 94 & 103; also Pelliot, Paul in ''T'oung-pao'' 15(1914), pp. 630–636.</ref><ref>Peter Jackson (2005), The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410, Pearson Education, p. 169, {{ISBN|978-0-582-36896-5}}.</ref><ref name="encyclopedia britannica raban bar sauma">Kathleen Kuiper & editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (31 August 2006). "[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rabban-bar-Sauma Rabban bar Sauma: Mongol Envoy]* {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161011121817/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rabban-bar-Sauma |date=11 October 2016 }}. ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 16 September 2016.</ref><ref>Morris Rossabi (2014). ''From Yuan to Modern China and Mongolia: The Writings of Morris Rossabi''. Leiden & Boston: Brill, pp. 385–86, {{ISBN|978-90-04-28529-3}}.</ref> traveled throughout Europe and attempted to [[Franco-Mongol alliance|secure military alliances]] with [[Edward I of England]], [[Philip IV of France]], [[Pope Nicholas IV]], as well as the Byzantine ruler [[Andronikos II Palaiologos]].<ref>Morris Rossabi (2014). ''From Yuan to Modern China and Mongolia: The Writings of Morris Rossabi''. Leiden & Boston: Brill, pp. 386–421, {{ISBN|978-90-04-28529-3}}.</ref><ref name="encyclopedia britannica raban bar sauma" /> Andronikos II had two half-sisters who were married to great-grandsons of [[Genghis Khan]], which made him an in-law with the Yuan-dynasty Mongol ruler in Beijing, Kublai Khan.{{sfn|Luttwak|2009|p=169}}

The ''[[History of Ming]]'' preserves an account where the [[Hongwu Emperor]], after founding the [[Ming dynasty]] (1368–1644), had a supposed Byzantine merchant named Nieh-ku-lun (捏古倫) deliver his proclamation about the establishment of a new dynasty to the Byzantine court of [[John V Palaiologos]] in September 1371.{{sfn|Luttwak|2009|pp=169–70}}<ref name="halsall 2000" /> [[Friedrich Hirth]] (1885), [[Emil Bretschneider]] (1888), and more recently Edward Luttwak (2009) presumed that this was none other than Nicolaus de Bentra, a [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Beijing|Roman Catholic bishop of Khanbilaq]] chosen by [[Pope John XXII]] to replace the previous archbishop [[John of Montecorvino]].<ref name="Bretschneider1871">{{Cite book |last=E. Bretschneider |url=https://archive.org/details/onknowledgeposs00bretgoog |title=On the Knowledge Possessed by the Ancient Chinese of the Arabs and Arabian Colonies: And Other Western Countries, Mentioned in Chinese Books |publisher=Trübner & Company |year=1871 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/onknowledgeposs00bretgoog/page/n31 25]–}}</ref>{{sfn|Luttwak|2009|p=170}}<ref name="halsall 2000" />