Chapter 7
A week before they had left Kaschgar, the site where the two branches of the Silk Road that traverse the north and the south of the Taklamakan desert meet. They had followed the south route because on the previous trip Andrea had chosen the north and now wanted to explore the area of the Yurungkasch River and its deposits of jade, material whose crafts were highly prized in Europe, but in reality his main purpose was very different .
Taklamakan is a gigantic desert of dunes surrounded by mountains from which several rivers flow that provide water to a series of oases that line the Silk Road and end up pouring the rest of its waters into the desert where they disappear swallowed by the sands and evaporation.
Andrea Bembo, his nephew Cosimo, their thirty Asian assistants includi
