Plague would have reached Europe across the Silk Road, they say.
migrated along the Silk Road, the trans-Asian route by which Chinese silk was brought to Europe. and to the trade routes of the Silk Roads, we find the Chinese Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire suffering large-scale outbreaks of epidemic disease. An epidemic of plague that reached East Africa was probably spread by the voyages of the Chinese admiral Zheng He who led a … These include gerbils, but there are many other species that harbor plague long-term. There are two reasons for believing this was the case. The first is that outbreaks of the plague were recorded in 1346 in Astrakhan and Saray, both caravan stations on the lower Volga River in … The Central Asian scourge struck Persia just a few years after it appeared in China—proof if any is needed that the Silk Road was a convenient route of transmission for the deadly bacterium. 1 The most destructive of these diseases were probably smallpox and measles, and epidemics of bubonic plague may also have erupted.
Making its way westward via Silk Road merchants and caravans, the plague took several years to reach Persia, where it killed the Khan overlord Abu Said as well as half the population. Bubonic plague, the Silk Road and Zheng He The bubonic plague originated in China more than 2,600 years ago. Plague (Yersinia pestis) has survived across the centuries because it remains an enzootic (persistent infection) in rural rodent populations. The medieval Silk Road brought a wealth of goods, spices, and new ideas from China and Central Asia to Europe.

In 1335, the Il-Khan (Mongol) ruler of Persia and the Middle East, Abu Said, died of bubonic plague during a war with his northern cousins, the Golden Horde. It then spread towards Western Europe along the Silk Road, starting more than 600 years ago, and then to Africa, probably by an expedition led by Chinese seafarer Zhang He in the 15th century If we go back to the second and third centuries C.E.