Great game silk road

Previous Russian consulate in Kashgar I find that the cheapest rooms of the Seman hotel in Kashgar are actually inside what was previously the Russian consulate, so for my second night I reside there. Like this: Like Loading Previous Post. Next Post. Follow Following. Power means Wizard and Cleric means perfect!

You can deal a lot of damage, be a PvE king, and join any party either for your damage as a Wizard or for your buffs as a Cleric. Full INT is surely the way with this build as you want to maximize your damage.

This build can guarantee you a spot in almost any party. Skip to main content. Level up. Earn rewards. Your XP: 0. Updated: 09 Dec am.

BY: M. Here are the top three Wizard builds in SilkRoad: 3. Unique hunter. Your debuffs Such as the Bleed will make any unique easy to kill which will gain you a lot of items, exp, and fame! Robe is the only option but you will need to be full blue in order to have some defenses. Wizard is the main class and the Warlock should be the sub-class.

You will finish monsters faster than normal. Solo farming. Camels were essential to trade along the Silk Road and were frequently depicted in early Tang burials. Copyright image by Paris Franz, all rights reserved. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw explorers from many nations converge on the forbidding deserts of Chinese Central Asia.

An archaeological terra incognita , the region posed an irresistible lure for adventurous scholars from Russia and Britain, Sweden and Germany, Japan and France, each keen on being the first to uncover lost Buddhist civilisations buried in the sands of the Taklamakan Desert. It was an idea as much as a physical reality, its romance embodied in its name, the Silk Road. The German scholar Baron Ferdinand von Richtofen was the first to use the name in the nineteenth century.

The reality was rather more complex. The Silk Road was not just one road, but many; its northern and southern routes skirted the Taklamakan, before branching out in different directions, south to India and west to Central Asia, Persia and beyond, and many goods travelled along it. The road could just as easily received a moniker for jade, horses, or Buddhism, as silk. This period was the high noon of empire, as three empires- the British, the Russian and the Chinese- confronted each other in Central Asia.

It was not an equal contest. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Chinese Qing Dynasty became enfeebled, its power over its western extreme tenuous at best. That left the British and the Russians to compete for influence over strategically important Central Asia.

This competition became known as The Great Game, a game with India as the prize. The archaeological expeditions that ventured along the Silk Road thus took place in a highly charged political context. Robert Shaw, however, was not a government employee, and therefore felt bound by no such restrictions. What Shaw was unaware of was that following close behind him was a rival, also an Englishman. This was a young ex-army officer named George Hayward, who had a passion for exploration and whose one-man expedition had been financed by the Royal Geographical Society in London.

Officially Hayward was there to explore the passes between Ladakh and Kashgaria, but the close personal interest taken in his journey by the Russophobe Rawlinson suggests that there may also have been a political motive behind it.

Indeed, the dividing line at that time between exploration and intelligence-gathering was often extremely narrow. But whatever the truth about Hayward, both men were soon to find themselves inextricably caught up in the Great Game. Shaken by the news, he hastily penned a note to the stranger asking who he was and urging him to turn back lest he endanger the prospects of his own expedition, in which he had invested so much. Hayward, a man every bit as determined as Shaw, refused.

Hayward had no particular wish to take part in a race for Kashgar or Yarkand, merely wishing to make them his base for map-making forays into the Pamirs, then still totally unknown. He therefore agreed to give Shaw a two-week start while he explored some of the passes and river gorges of the Karakorams on the Indian side of the frontier. Nonetheless, although they were often no more than a mile apart, their meeting on that bitterly cold night was to be their last for many months.

Indeed, Shaw comforted himself with the thought that very soon Hayward would not be there. Moreover, Hayward had no reason that would satisfy Yakub Beg for wishing to enter his domains. Almost certainly he would be turned back, if not arrested. Shaw reached Yarkand, where he was cordially received, in the middle of December. But two weeks later, to his intense annoyance, he was joined there by Hayward. For their part, the authorities maintained a wary eye on both of them while awaiting further instructions from Kashgar, miles further on.

Eight days later, after leaving his rival kicking his heels in frustration at Yarkand, Shaw saw in the distance across the treeless plain the great mud walls of the capital — the first Englishman ever to do so. Beyond it, on the horizon, rose the snow-capped Pamirs, while to the east stretched the endless sands of the Taklamakan. Soon afterwards he was met by an armed escort who led him and his caravan through the gates of the city to the quarters which had been prepared for him.

Yakub Beg, he was told, was expecting to see him the next morning. At the appointed hour, followed by thirty or forty servants bearing the gifts he had brought, including examples of the latest models of British firearms, he set off for the palace for his audience with the King — as Yakub Beg now styled himself. After passing through a large but silent crowd which lined the route, he entered the gateway. There followed a succession of large courtyards, each lined with rank upon rank of seated guards and attendants, all clad in brilliantly coloured silk robes.

Instead of firearms some of the guards carried bows and quivers full of arrows. Here, seated on a rug, was a solitary figure. Shaw realised at once that this was the redoubtable Yakub Beg, descendant of Tamerlane, and conqueror of Chinese Turkestan.

Yakub Beg, who Shaw was relieved to see was now smiling, began by asking him about his journey. In replying, Shaw first expressed regret for his poor Persian, but Yakub Beg assured him that he was able to understand it. Recalling that his own country had fought the Chinese three times, the Englishman congratulated Yakub Beg on his victory over them, and on re-establishing a Muslim kingdom in Turkestan.

By now the ruler had signalled his visitor to sit closer, and the courtesies being over, Shaw explained the reason for his coming. He was there, he said, to try to open up trade between their two countries, especially the traffic in tea, which was his own particular business. He was not a representative of the British government, however, and he apologised for the modesty of the gifts he had brought.

In fact, these had been chosen with the utmost care. To allow his host ample time to inspect the gifts, which were intended to whet his appetite for a regular supply of British goods, Shaw suggested that more detailed discussions might be conducted at a subsequent meeting. It was a proposal that Yakub Beg happily fell in with. Friendship requires no interpreter. Consider this place and all it contains as your own, and on the third day we will have another talk.

Finally he summoned an attendant who arrived bearing a magnificent satin robe which Shaw was helped into. Already Shaw could see his dream of tea caravans streaming northwards across the passes coming true. It was no secret that his relations with St Petersburg were anything but cordial, for by driving out the Chinese he had brought to naught the special trading concessions obtained by Ignatiev for Russian merchants under the Treaty of Peking.

It was strongly rumoured in Kashgar, moreover, that the Russians had moved their troops up to the frontier with a view to wresting the territory from its new ruler. What better ally could Yakub Beg want than Great Britain, which had been victorious in war against both Russia and China?

It was only as the days passed and there was no further word from Yakub Beg that Shaw began to feel less sure and to wonder what was going on. The days soon stretched to weeks, and Shaw found himself pondering gloomily on the fate of Conolly and Stoddart at Bokhara and asking himself whether he might not be being held as a hostage or privileged prisoner of some kind.

Although most courteously treated, and provided with everything he asked for, he found that his movements were more and more restricted, until he was not even allowed to leave his quarters, let alone depart from Kashgar.

Despite this, however, he did not waste his time. He learned, for instance, that until his arrival virtually nothing had been known in Kashgar of the British in India, let alone of their power and influence in Asia. Hitherto it had been thought that they were merely vassals of the Maharajah of neighbouring Kashmir — very likely a piece of Russian disinformation.