The Supporting Skills of the Mongolia-Xinjiang Silk Tea Camel Road: with the Travel Notes of O. Lattimore as the Core

With focusing on the travel notes of American Orientalist Owen Lattimore on the Mongolian-Xinjiang Camel Road from 1926 to 1927, this paper explores the practical skills and knowledge system on this branch of the Silk Road in early modern times. Through a detailed study of camel caravans' choices of transportation, organization and division of labor in caravans, travel equipment and security maintaining, seasonality and route selection, supply and medical care, logistics management, market transactions, currency adaptation, and the collection and transmission of business travel information, this paper reveals the various daily skills that supported the operation of the Silk Road, and shows how camel caravans used these skills to overcome environmental and social uncertainties and promote trade and cultural exchanges. The research concludes that it was these long-term accumulated and constantly practiced skills that made the Silk Road a trade and cultural network across Eurasia. O. Lattimore's travel notes are of great historical and practical significance for understanding this process.