From here the Silk Road bifurcates. In times of unrest, the caravans would move south through the sparse towns along the foot of the Kunlum Mountains, protected from robbers by the Taklimakan desert. But more often they would brave the great northern route with its line of rich oases - Turfan, Korla, Kuqa, Aksu - and hope to evade marauders from the grasslands just to the north.