It blows my mind that this was kept a secret for so long. I realize communication technology was much slower, but it seems amazing to me that not a single soul told someone from another country. No one was bribed, tortured, persuaded, intimidated, or accidentally revealed the secret. Every person across multiple generations, governments, personalities, etc., kept their mouth shut.
How is this possible? I can't believe how little I've been able to find on this. How much would the average Chinese person be aware of the silk-making process? Were silk-weavers kept under constant guard? Was there ever a time when the secret became close to being revealed? Why didn't other countries capture a silk-weaver and torture the secret out of them? Or send spies to discover the secret? Or bribe someone for the information? It just boggles my mind that for over 3,000 years this was kept secret.
Not the presence of silk but the production of silk. It is a very difficult and laborious process to cultivate silk worm larvae, much like glass making in the early renaissance it is a trade that needs to be mastered. The trade secret is well guarded