古蜀道网络 / Shu Road Network

Overview

古蜀道网络 / Shu Road Network is the historical route system crossing the Qinling and Daba mountains between northern political centers, 汉中, 巴蜀, 成都, and the upper Yangtze region.

Current Profile

The source rejects the image of one timeless road. The network joined northern approaches such as 褒斜道 to southern routes such as 金牛道, while 荔枝道 connected the Chongqing-Sichuan side toward Hanzhong and the Ziwu corridor. Its active lines, surfaces, and purposes changed with capitals, war, settlement, trade, water transport, and engineering capacity.

The network is both infrastructure and archive. Trestle holes, cliff roads, inscriptions, bridges, old place names, salt-trade memory, modern road overlays, and walkable fragments preserve different periods without forming one continuous untouched artifact.

Key Characteristics

• Plural road system rather than a single fixed itinerary.
• Cross-mountain connector among political centers, Hanzhong, Ba-Shu, and the upper Yangtze.
• Infrastructure used for warfare, official communication, migration, trade, and ordinary travel.
• Layered heritage in which routes were destroyed, rerouted, resurfaced, and reused.
• Network whose importance rose or fell with political geography and transport technology.

Evidence

• Network form: EP285 distinguishes broad Shu roads from the narrower Qinling-Daba network and connects multiple northern and southern routes through Hanzhong.
• Changing function: EP285 follows military roads into later civilian and trade use, including salt movement along the Litchi Road.
• Layered remains: EP285 uses Mingyue Gorge to place trestles, old road, Republican-era highway, railway, expressway, and high-speed rail in one corridor.
• Political geography: EP285 links route prominence to the location of capitals and the later rise of Yangtze water transport.

Qualifications

The episode is a reporter-and-expert synthesis, not a definitive route gazetteer. Individual alignments, dates of origin, and the relationship between legendary names and material remains remain unevenly evidenced.

What Changed

• Created the network page.
• Defined Shu roads as a changing system rather than one route.
• Joined military, political, trade, and heritage functions in one current profile.

Relationships

• 金牛道 - long-lived southern trunk linking Hanzhong toward Chengdu.
• 褒斜道 - northern Qinling corridor meeting the southern system near Hanzhong.
• 荔枝道 - eastern-southern route with contested legend and later trade use.
• 汉中 - strategic and cultural hinge joining northern and southern approaches.
• 道路考古 - mixed-evidence method used to reconstruct missing sections.
• 交通技术与地形关系 - explains changes in alignment and engineering form.