AP World -- Unit 2

Networks of Exchange -- 1200-1450

Silk Road: Innovations in transportation

Caravanserai were a series of roadside inns and guest houses where traveling merchants could rest for the night. Caravanserai helped protect merchants from bandits. They also became centers of cultural exchange and diffusion

Saddles made riding easier and could be used to load up camels with more goods.

Made trading more comfortable and easier.

Silk Road: Economic developments

Paper money made trading easier, as merchants could deposit money in one location and withdraw it from another. There was an increasing use of credit and banks became popular, along with bills of exchange (an order to pay a certain sum at a specified time in the future).

Kashgar

On the eastern edge of China. Located at convergence of two major routes on Silk Road, and these routes passed through very hot and dry terrain. Kashgar was a strategically located trading city since it was built around a river and had lush valleys suitable for agriculture. → Merchants could stop there for water and food

Hosted highly profitable markets and became a thriving center for Islamic scholarship

Silk Road: Environmental Consequences

Facilitated spread of bubonic plage.

This killed one-third of Europe’s population. In China, a population of 120 million became 65 million people. 30% of the Persian population died

Silk Road: Spread of religion

Facilitated the spread of religions such as Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity.

• Primary route for the spread of Buddhism. The religion was losing popularity in places like India, but through the Silk Road the belief spread and followers of the religion grew rapidly.

• Religions conformed to each society’s existing ideas and often became less harsh to encourage people to join.

  • e.g. in Central and East Asia, Mahayana Buddhism became prominent — focused more on earning a pleasant afterlife instead of on the cycle of suffering

• Additionally, monasteries became rest stations for caravans

Silk Road: Development + spread of gunpowder

In the ninth century, Chinese innovators found that mixing certain chemicals with honey resulted in a great explosion. This mixture, known as gunpowder, was spread throughout Asia and to Europe by way of the Silk Road, and the West found much use for this gunpowder in its military, leading it to develop new weapons using gunpowder. These weapons later played pivotal roles in the European conquests of various parts of the world.

Silk Road: Paper

Invented in China and spread along the Silk Routes, causing an enormous development in education and commerce. This helped bring Europe into the Renaissance. The conversion to paper money in China and various other states helped to make trade and commerce more convenient.

Silk Road: Spices

Big deal for Europe:

• Before the introduction of spices, Europe lacked proper refrigeration and hygiene practices.

• Spices helped to mask the flavor of their unfresh food.

• Utilized in religious ceremonies and medicines

Silk Road: Weapons made with gunpowder

Europe: guns, cannons

China: rockets, arrows, flamethrowers

Silk Road: Magnetic Compass

Invented in China, made maritime trade easier

• Metallurgists in China realized that if they heated and cooled metal in a particular way, they could magnetize it.

• Helped Italian sailors orient themselves, causing a large increase in maritime trade.

Silk Road: Irrigation

• Food such as grapes, tea, and rice were introduced to new regions due to the exchange of agricultural knowledge.

• Irrigation helped to create vast systems of underground canals in Iran

• Good for regions with dry climates

Silk Road: Samarkand

Located at convergence of important routes.

Presence of diverse religions

(similar to Kashgar)

Islamic architecture: Bibi-Khanum mosque, the Shakhi-Zaki compound, and Ulugh-Beg’s Observatory

Indian Ocean: Navigational skills

Long-distance trade: needed to hire people with good navigational skills and knowledge of the monsoon winds.

Indian Ocean: Indonesian Archipelago

Malay language became widespread and interacted with local languages to form Javanese texts in Indonesia.

Indian Ocean: Spread of Islam + Swahili language

Arabs and Persians married African women, leading to the spread of Islam and the Swahili language, which was a mix of Bantu and Arabic languages.

Indian Ocean: Dhow ships

Sailboats with tightly caulked hulls → rugged and reliable.

• Merchants could carry heavier goods/more goods in one trip.

Indian Ocean: Lateen sails

Triangular, enabled ships to sail against the wind. Merchants became less dependent on favorable winds, so they could sail and trade more frequently

Indian Ocean: Astrolabe

 Latitude could be determined using the height of the pole star and the sun. Traders could determine their position more easily and accurately, which made trade more efficient and safe, contributing to the expansion of Indian Ocean trade.

Diasporic merchant communities

Malacca

Strait of Malacca

Gujarat

Hangzhou

Trans-Saharan: salt

Indian Ocean: Textiles

Indian Ocean: Admiral Zheng He

Indian Ocean: Chinese merchant communities in Southeast Asia

Trans-Saharan: Mali expansion

Ibn Battuta

Margery Kempe

Marco Polo

Diffusion of crops

Iron and steel manufacturing in China

Expanding production of textiles and porcelains for export

Mansa Musa

Timbuktu

Mongol Empire: How it expanded

Mongol Empire: How they facilitated trade

Mongol Empire: cultural transfers

City-states of the Swahili-Coast

Constantinople

Cairo

Hangzhou (why did people migrate there, what did it connect, what was there)

Military defeat of the Song led many people to migrate south to places like Hangzhou

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Connected major rivers. 

Connected maritime trade on the East China Sea and in Southeast Asia

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Major center for silk and jewelry production/trade

Large influx of imports from Grand Canal → attracted merchants and generated funding

Mongol Empire: Yam system

Series of communication and relay stations spread across the empire

Indian Ocean: Causes of expansion

Decline of Mongol Empire meant travel along Silk Road was less safe/easy so it led to the expansion of maritime trade