I know the silk road lasted for a long time, but at it's peak how busy was it, specifically the parts going through Asia? In other words, if I were to have traveled the silk road in a caravan at it's peak, how often could I have expected to cross paths with another caravan? I imagine the closer you got to trading hubs and into Western Europe the busier the routes would become.
Maybe more specific ask? The silk road was a series of trade routes between hubs which no single caravan travelled the whole length. It also wasn't perfectly linear and sequential. My curiosity asks: When the Silk Road was broken or disrupted, where on the route did that occur?