The ancient Tibetan-Chinese political civilization road, which passes through Qinghai and parts of Ganzi Prefecture in Sichuan, and reaches Lhasa through Jinsha River and Naqu in Tibet, is the ancient Tang-Fan road in the Tang Dynasty. During the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Sichuan-Tibet Road opened by the imperial court many times brought more tea into Tibetan areas. In the Qing Dynasty, Yunnan Pu 'er tea was also introduced into Tibetan areas. During the Song Dynasty, due to the constant fighting in the northern frontier and the intrusion of nomadic regimes such as Liao, Jin and Xixia, a large number of horses were needed for fighting and transportation, so the focus of "tea-horse exchange" in the Song Dynasty shifted from northwest to southwest. The main roads leading to Kangzang in the Mainland are Lizhou (Hanyuan) and Yazhou (Ya 'an) in Sichuan, which have become important markets for "tea-horse exchange".
In the Yuan Dynasty, because the army and horses were self-sufficient, there was no need to trade tea and horses. The official control of tea was entirely to enrich the finances with taxes. In the Ming dynasty, the war broke out again in the north, and the court was in urgent need of military horses. The old system of exchanging tea for horses was restored, and Tea and Horse Department's "tea introduction system" was implemented. It is forbidden to smuggle tea to ethnic areas, and it is also forbidden to introduce tea seeds across Erlang Mountain. The criminal will be sentenced to death this year. In Qing Dynasty, side tea was one of the important sources of government revenue. During the Qianlong period, the policy of exchanging tea for horses was completely terminated. "Tea introduction system" was changed to "onshore introduction system". Shore means that tea has a fixed purchasing place and sales scope, and the ports and routes are within the officially designated scope. With the gradual relaxation of the control policy on tea in Qing dynasty, the production of tea and the trade centered on the exchange of Tibetan and Chinese tea soil (local products) were promoted. By the mid-Qing Dynasty, many people had made a fortune by operating edge tea. There were more than 70 tea merchants in Ya 'an, Mingshan and Yingjing counties, and the national capital centered on edge tea gradually developed. In the forty-first year of Kangxi (1902), the Qing government set up an official in Jianlu (Kangding) to supervise the tea trade, and Kangding formed a Tibetan-Chinese trade center. Kangding, which was located in the transportation hub of Tibet and Han in the early and middle period of Qing Dynasty, was bound to become an important distribution center of Sino-Tibetan trade, and the development of border tea industry was in its heyday. At that time, Furnace City (Kangding) said in the History of Qing Dynasty that "the basic infrastructure of the city is commerce, and nine times out of ten citizens are businessmen."
All previous dynasties' policies on border tea were "governing the border with tea" and governing ethnic minorities with tea. The rulers implemented a set of policies of re-levying tea tax and monopolizing tea trade by official sales, in order to achieve the political and economic purpose of governing the border with tea.
Since the Tang Dynasty, the "tea-horse exchange" and the later "tea-soil exchange" have contacted the Han nationality in the mainland and the border ethnic minorities, and promoted cultural exchanges and economic exchanges between various ethnic groups. The frontier tea industry, which began in the Tang Dynasty, objectively became an important link between Tibetan and Han nationalities and played an important role in national unity and national economic and cultural exchanges.
From Ya 'an, Mingshan, Yingjing, Tianquan, Luding and other places to Kangding, an important Tibetan-Chinese trade town, from Kangding to Yushu and Qamdo in Qinghai, passing through Mangkang, Chaya and Jiangda in Tibet, until Lhasa, this is the ancient tea-horse road in history; This is the longest history in China, the largest tea transportation volume, and the most important channel for cultural and economic exchanges between Han and Tibetan nationalities; The beginning, middle and middle sections of this large passage are all in Ganzi Prefecture, the hinterland of Kangba. The special geographical location of Ganzi Prefecture has formed a special ecological and cultural pattern, which makes the Sichuan-Tibet tea-horse ancient road run through Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
History is advancing, and today's Ganzi Prefecture is no longer the poor and backward situation of the ancient tea-horse road in history, relying on people to pack horses as transportation capacity. Cars have become the main means of transportation, speeding on highways extending in all directions, transporting tea and daily necessities needed by Tibetans to various places; Chengdu flies directly to Lhasa, Tibet, ending the bitter history of the ancient tea-horse road for thousands of years.