AP World History Notes: Unit 2 (c. 1200-1450)

Networks of Exchange (c. 1200-1450)

Unit Overview

• Increased Economic Activity: Between 1200 and 1450, trade volume and scope grew along existing routes due to technological and commercial innovations, imperial expansion, and demand for luxury goods.

• Cultural, Biological, and Technological Diffusion: Growing trade networks facilitated the spread of culture, biology, and technology across Afro-Eurasia.

Factors Expanding Trade

• Rise of Powerful States and Empires: Played a critical role in increasing the volume and geographical reach of trade networks.

• Mongol Empire: Promoted trade along the Silk Roads, creating a vast commercial network across Eurasia.

• Trade Routes Expansion: Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean routes integrated West and East Africa into the network.

• Commercial Practices Improvement: Including credit forms, facilitated larger exchange networks.

• Demand for Luxury Goods: Drove trade growth, such as silk and porcelain from China and gold from Africa.

Consequences of Trade

• Emergence of Trading Cities: Powerful new trading cities emerged across Africa and Eurasia.

• Cross-Cultural Exchanges: Trade facilitated significant cultural exchanges, with merchants introducing:

  • Religious beliefs (e.g., Islam).

  • Technological developments (e.g., papermaking and gunpowder).

• Spread of Diseases: Rapid spread of deadly diseases, most notably the bubonic plague.

Events Timeline

• 1235: Sundiata establishes the Mali Empire in West Africa.

• 1258: Mongols conquer the Abbasid Caliphate, improving the Silk Road.

• 1324: Mansa Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca.

• 1325: Ibn Battuta starts his travels to Asia, Europe, and Africa.

• 1347: The Black Death begins ravaging Europe.

• 1405: Zheng He begins voyages throughout the Indian Ocean.

• 1417: Samarkand begins building an Islamic school.

• 1440: Margery Kempe dies.

Silk Roads (Topic 2.1)

• Causes and Effects of Growth of Networks of Exchange After 1200:

  • Increased demand for luxury goods in Europe and Africa.

  • Expanded production of textiles and porcelains in China, Persia, and India.

  • Caravans made travel safer.

  • China developed paper money to manage increasing trade.

• Crusades: Paved the way for expanding exchange networks by introducing Europeans to Eastern fabrics and spices.

• Trade Routes Remained in Operation: Despite conflicts, trade routes remained active across the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.

• China’s Exports and Imports:

  • Eager for Europe’s gold and silver.

  • Europe desired silk, tea, and rhubarb from China.

  • China exported porcelain, tea, and silk.

  • Imported cotton, precious stones, pomegranates, dates, horses, and grapes.

  • These luxury goods appealed to the upper class.

• Significant Impact of the Mongol Empire:

  • Unified parts of the Silk Roads under one authority that respected merchants and enforced laws.

  • Improved roads and punished bandits, increasing travel safety.

  • Established new trade channels between Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

• Improvements in Transportation Technologies:

  • Traveling in caravans for safety.

  • Designing saddles for camels to increase load capacity.

• Chinese Advances in Naval Technology:

  • Magnetic compass and improved rudder.

  • The Chinese junk: a large boat with multiple sails and divided compartments.

• The cities of Kashgar and Samarkand were key oases.

Cities and Oases

• Kashgar:

  • Located at the crossroads of northern and southern Silk Roads routes.

  • Watered by the Kashgar River, making lands fertile for crops.

  • Traded textiles, rugs, leather goods, and pottery.

  • Became a center of Islamic scholarship.

• Samarkand:

  • Located in present-day Uzbekistan, in the Zeravshan River valley.

  • A center of cultural exchange and trade.

  • Showed the presence of diverse religions: Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Islam.

  • Known for artisans and Islamic learning centers.

Caravanserai

• Inns sprang up about 100 miles apart along the Silk Roads, the distance camels could travel before needing water.

• Travelers could rest and trade animals.

• The word derives from the Persian words for caravan and palace.

Commercial Innovations

• Flying Cash: China developed a system of credit.

  • Merchants could deposit paper money in one location and withdraw it elsewhere.

  • Became the model for modern banks.

• Banking Houses:

  • Established in European cities in the 1300s.

  • Issued bills of exchange, promising payment on a set date.

• Hanseatic League:

  • A commercial alliance of northern German and Scandinavian cities.

  • Controlled trade in the North Sea and Baltic Sea.

  • Monopolized trade in goods such as timber, grain, leather, and salted fish.

Increasing Demand

• Increase in Demand:
  *Growing demand for luxury goods from Afro-Eurasia, China, Persia, and India led to increased production.
  *Craftworkers expanded production of textiles and porcelains.
  *Expansion of iron and steel manufacturing in China.

Innovations in Commerce (500 B.C.E. to 1603 C.E.)

• Coin: Minted precious metals (silver, bronze, gold) with own inherent value (c. 500 B.C.E., Lydia, Turkey).

• Caravanserai: Inns along trade routes where travelers could trade, rest, and replenish (c. 500 B.C.E., Persian Empire).

• Paper Money: Currency in paper form (c. 800 C.E., China).

• Hanseatic League: First common market and confederation of merchant guilds (1296 C.E., Germany).

• Banking House: Precursor to modern banking (c. 200 B.C.E., China).

• Bill of Exchange: A written order without interest that binds one party to pay a fixed sum to another party at a predetermined date in the future (c. 700 C.E., China).

The Mongol Empire and the Modern World (Topic 2.2)

• Mongol Expansion Influence on Trade and Communication:

  • In the 13th century, the Mongols marched across much of Eurasia, creating interregional connections and exchange.

  • The quest for blood and treasure sparked a period of interregional connection and exchange.

The Mongols and Their Surroundings

• Nomadic Clans: Multiple clans of pastoral nomads who herded goats and sheep and were hunter-foragers, north of the Gobi Desert in East Asia.

Mongol Culture

• Harsh Life: Shaped Mongol culture.

• Skills and Values: Riders, courage in hunting and warfare.

• Neighbors: Tatars, Naimans, Merkits, and the Jurchen in northern China.

• Coveted Wealth: Of tribes and kingdoms closer to the Silk Roads, with access to luxury goods.

Genghis Khan

• Temujin: Born in 1162, created tribal alliances and defeated neighboring groups.

• Focused on Building Power: Appointed talented nonfamily members and killed his stepbrother.

• Personal Loyalty: Considered the best way to run his kingdom.

• 1206: Elected khan of the Mongolian Kingdom, taking the name Genghis Khan, “ruler of all.”

Beginning of Conquest

• 1210: Attacked the Jin Empire.

• Terrifying Warrior: Brutally killed those who resisted.

• 1219: Conquered the Kara Khitai Empire and the Khwarazm Empire.

• 1227: Khanate reached from the North China Sea to eastern Persia.

Genghis Khan at War

• Skilled Soldiers: Strong riders, proficient with the short bow, and highly disciplined.

• Efficient Command Structure: Messenger force and special units for mapping terrain.

• Military Strategies Extended: Surprise and craft.

• Tactics with Enemy Settlement: Killing the aristocrats and recruiting craftworkers, miners, and others with skills.

• Incorporated Weapons and Technology: From conquered peoples.

• Pony Express: Carried oral messages.

Genghis Khan at Peace

• Pax Mongolica: The period of Eurasian history between the 13th and 14th centuries.

• Capital at Karakorum: Consulted with scholars and engineers of Chinese and Islamic traditions.

• Social Policies: Religious tolerance.

• Protecting the Silk Roads: Made them safe for trade and ushered in the third golden age of the Silk Roads.

• Unifying the Empire: Adapted the Uyghur alphabet to represent Mongol.

Mongolian Empire Expands

• Set up Khanates: Expanded with new people absorbed into its economy and networks of exchange.

Batu and the Golden Horde

• 1236: Batu led an army into Russia and conquered the city-states and principalities, and forced them to pay tributes.

• 1240: The capital city of Kiev was looted and destroyed.

• Continued Pushing Westward: An initial period of sympathy evaporated when Western Europe saw the Golden Horde conquer a Christian region, Russia.

• 1241: Batu led the Golden Horde into a successful military encounter with Polish, German, and French knights under the leadership of King Henry of Silesia.

• Defeated a force of Hungarian knights: Set his sights on Italy and Austria, but fate intervened.

• The Mongols Indirectly Ruled Northern Russia By working through existing Russian rulers, who sent regular tributes, to develop an army to resist the Mongols and to build the Russian city-states.

• 1380: This coalition, under Moscow’s leadership, rose up against the Golden Horde and defeated it at the Battle of Kulikovo.

• Mid-16th Century Russia Conquered the Golden Horde

• Impact on Russia: Russia suffered widespread devastation and death. Russian prices improved their military organization and began building an anti-Mongol coalition among the Russian city-states.

• Severed Russia’s Ties with Western Europe and began to develop a distinct culture than they had before

Hulegu and the Islamic Heartlands

• 1258: Hulegu led the Mongols into the Abbasid territories, and destroyed the city of Baghdad and killed the caliph, along with approximately 200,000 residents of the city.

• 1260: Defeated as a result of a temporary alliance between the Muslim Mamluks, under their military leader Baibars, and Christian Crusaders in Palestine.

• Hulegu’s Kingdom: Called the Il-khanate, in Central Asia, stretched from Byzantium to the Oxus River.

• Most of the Mongols Converted to Islam and supported the massacres of Jews and Christians

Kublai Khan and the Yuan Dynasty

• China’s Opponent

• 1260- title of Great Khan and 11 yrs later defeated the Chinese and established the Yuan Dynasty.*

• Instituted a policy of religious tolerance

• Chinese and other reforms were enjoyed.

• Mongol women led more independent lives that led to conflict.

Mongols Lose Power

• Eventually alienated many Chinese: They hired foreigners for the government rather than native-born Chinese.

• By promoting Buddhists and Daoists and dismantling the civil service exam system, the Mongols distressed the Chinese scholar-gentry class who were often Confucians

• They would still try to Conquer countries

• The secret societies revolted and led to the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. (1368–1644).

• The Mongols’ defeat in China paralleled a general decline in their power elsewhere, and the empire began to shrink.
  The Long-Term Impact of the Mongolian Invasions

• The Mongolian invasions played a key role in history in many ways, positive and negative.

• Mongols conquered a larger area than the Romans, and their bloody reputation was usually well-earned.Their empire was the largest continuous land empire in history.

• During the period known as the Pax Mongolica (c. 1250–c. 1350), Mongols revitalized interregional trade between Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The Mongols built a system of roads and continued to maintain and guard the trade routes.

• Interregional cultural exchange occurred as well. Islamic scientific knowledge made its way to China, and paper from China made possible the revolution in communication powered by the Gutenberg printing press (see Topic 1.6). The Mongols transferred Greco-Islamic medical knowledge and the Arabic numbering system to Western Europe.

• The Mongol conquests helped to transmit the fleas that carried the bubonic plague, termed the Black Death, from southern China to Central Asia, and from there to Southeast Asia and Europe. It followed familiar paths of trade and military conquest.

• The Mongols ruled successfully due to their understanding of centralized power, a capacity that would transfer in many cases to the occupied civilizations. The Mongols devised and used a single international law for all their conquered territories. Thus, after the Mongols declined in power, the kingdoms and states of Europe, Asia, and Southeast Asia continued or copied the process of centralizing power.

• Mongol fighting techniques led to the end of Western Europe’s use of knights in armor. The heavily clad knights could not react in time to the Mongols’ use of speed and surprise.

• The era of the walled city in Europe also came to an end, as walls proved useless against the Mongols’ siege technology. Some consider the cannon a Mongol invention, cobbled together using Chinese gunpowder, Muslim flamethrowers, and European bell-casting techniques.

Exchange in the Indian Ocean (Topic 2.3)

• Causes of Expanded Exchange in the Indian Ocean:
  South Asia, with its location in the center of the Indian Ocean, benefited enormously from the trade in the Indian Ocean Basin.

Although some of the causes of expanded trade in the Indian Ocean Basin were the same as those of expanded overland routes, some related specifically to ocean travel and knowledge.

Spread of Islam

• Although the Indian Ocean trade had existed as early as 200 B.C.E., the expansion of Islam connected more cities than ever before.

• Trading partners existed in East Africa, East and Southeast Asia, and South Asia.

• Muslim Persians and Arabs were the dominant seafarers and were instrumental in transporting goods to port cities across the Indian Ocean.

• Cities on the west coast of India, such as Calicut and Cambay, became thriving centers of trade due to interactions with merchants from East Africa and Southwest Asia.

• Calicut, especially, became a bustling port city for merchants in search of spices from southern India. Foreign merchants from Arabia and China met in Calicut to exchange goods from the West and the East, respectively.
  Local rulers welcomed the presence of Muslim and Chinese merchants, as it brought the city wealth and prominence in the Indian Ocean Basin.

Specialized Products

• India: Fabrics, carpets, steel, leather, stonework, and pepper.

• Malaysia and Indonesia (Spice Islands): Nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom.

• Swahili Coast: Enslaved people, ivory, and gold.

• China: Silks and porcelain.

• Southwest Asia: Horses, figs, and dates.

Environmental Knowledge

• Knowledge of monsoon winds was essential for trading in the Indian Ocean. In the winter months, winds originated from the northeast, while in the spring and summer, they blew from the southwest.

• Thus, merchants had to time their voyages carefully, often remaining in port cities for months at a time, depending on when favorable winds would come their way.

Maritime Technology And Arab Sailing

• Required ships capable of navigating the Indian Ocean’s winds. Arab sailors used sailing technology to aid their travel.

• Sailors used the triangular lateen sails that they used, but the sails were popular because sailors found that the triangular shape could easily catch winds coming from many different directions.

• Small wooden dhows used by Arab and Indian sailors dominated the seas during the Postclassical Era.

• Trade facilitated the rapid spread of sailing technology across the many lands bordering the Indian Ocean in this period.

Growth of States

• Traders increased state revenues from taxes and tariffs

• Malacca- wealth by building a navy and by imposing fees on ships that passed through the Strait of Malacca, a narrow inlet that many ship captains used to travel between ports in India and ports in China.

• The Sultan of Malacca became so powerful in the 1400s that he expanded the state into Sumatra and the southern Malay Peninsula.

• Prosperity was based on trade rather than agriculture or mining or manufacturing.

• End-Portuguese invaded in in 1511, to control the trade, which caused conflicts.

Diasporic Communities

• Merchants stayed in western Indian port cities permanently because they married women they met there.
  Arab and Persian merchants settled in East Africa.
  *Settlements arise through the merchants
  In these new communities, settlers introduced their own cultural traditions into the indigenous cultures.

Response to Increased Demand

• Producers needed to find ways to become more efficient—to grow more crops, to make more textiles, to manufacture more iron.

• In some places, the role of the state increased even more to oversee these efforts at efficiency and to raise money through customs—taxes on imported goods—and fees for the use of seaports.

• The western Indian Rajput kingdom of Gujarat, for example, became the go-between for trade between the East and West.

• The revenue from customs in Gujarat was many times more than the entire worth of some European states.

Swahili City-States

• The Indian Ocean trade also created thriving city-states along the east coast of Africa, sometimes known as the Swahili city-states.
  Swahili,” which literally means “coasters,” referred to the inhabitants of bustling commercial centers, such as Kilwa, Mombasa (in modern Kenya), and Zanzibar (in modern Tanzania).

• The traders of Zanj coast Sold ivory, gold, enslaved people to their Arab trading partners

• Trade brought considerable wealth to the cities on the East African coast.

Cultural Transfer

• The voyages of the Muslim admiral Zheng He (1371–1433) reflect this transfer, as well as the conflicts it sometimes generated.
  Emporar sent Zheng to display the sight of the Ming Dynasty and received tribute

• Zheng voyages stirred controversies and confucianism promoted stability and they looked down upon others, this action led to Yongle’s son ending his Voyages.

• Zheng’s voyages did have one positive short-term result: They put a stop to pirate activities off the coast of China and in Southeast Asia.

Trans-Saharan Trade Routes (Topic 2.4)

• Increased with Muslim Merchants in 7th and 8th Centuries, when many empires took over.

• Africans traded gold, ivory, hides, and enslaved people for Arab and Berber salt, cloth, paper, and horses.

Caravans

• Facilitated commerce.

Sahara Desert

• The Sahara Desert is immense

People and Pack Animals

• Muslim merchants from Southwest Asia traveled across the Sahara on camels.
  Camel came from Islamic heartland after 300 C.E.

• Camels replace horses and donkeys, for their desert capabilities.

• Development of 15 types of camel saddles created
  Caravans across the Sahara often had thousands of camels laden with enough provisions, including fresh water, to reach the next oasis.

Commodities and Trade

• Became trans Sahran

• Throughout Europe and Asia, it became famous.

West African Commodity

• Metal acquired from the Senegal River was the most precious.

• African gold spreadIslam into Sub-Saharan Africa as a result.

West African Empire Expansion

• By the 12th century, wars with neighboring societies had permanently weakened the Ghanaian state.

• In its place arose several new trading societies, the most powerful of which was Mali.

• North African traders had introduced Islam to Mali in the 9th century.

Mali’s Riches

• The government of Mali profited from the gold trade but also taxed nearly all other trade entering West Africa.

Trade and Wealth

• The growth in trade and wealth gave rise to the need to administer and maintain it.
  In Mali, the currency was cowrie shells, cotton cloth, gold, glass beads, and salt.

• The government would utilize forces that protect tax revenues in resource rich zones.

Role of Sundiata

• Became subject of legend after being crippled as a child but went to conquer to reclaim what had happened to him.
  Sundiata cultivated a thriving gold trade in Mali.
  Sundiata, “the Lion Prince,” returned to the kingdom of his birth, defeated his enemies, and reclaimed the throne for himself.
  Under his steady leadership, Mali’s wealth grew tremendously.

Mansa Musa

• Brought more fame, however, he was known for Religious leading and not Political or Economic

• Devout Muslim who did Pilgrimage in 1324 to Mecca and displayed his wealth to the outside world

• Established religion after Return

• Established religious schools in Timbuktu, built mosques in Muslim trading cities, and sponsored those who wanted to continue their religious studies elsewhere.

Cultural Consequences of Connectivity (Topic 2.5)

• Goods, people, and ideas traveled with relative freedom through the networks of exchange in Afro-Eurasia in the years between c. 1200 and c. 1450.
  One reason was the stability of the Mongol Empire and the protection it offered merchants and travelers.
  Technological developments, such as gunpowder and paper from China, were diffused by trade, and the world became a large place.

Tech and Cultural Diffusion

Religions, Cultural, and Technological Effects of Interaction
The diffusion of different religions between c. 1200 and c. 1450 had varying effects.
In some cases, the arrival of a new religion served to unify people and provide justification for a kingdom’s leadership. It often also influenced the literary and artistic culture of areas to which it spread, where themes, subjects, and styles were inspired by the spreading religion. In other places, it either fused or coexisted with the native religions.
The interactions resulting from increased trade also led to technological innovations that helped shape the era.

Buddhism and East Asian Art and Culture

• Buddhist monks helped by relating Buddhism to familiar Daoist principles.

• There was a shift toward Chan Buddhism in China.
  Neo Confucianism was influenced as well

• Japan and Korea, countries in China’s orbit, also adopted Buddhism, along with Confucianism.

Hinduism and Buddhism

• Sea Based Srivijaya Empire on Sumatra was a Hindu kingdom, while the later Majapahit Kingdom on Java was Buddhist.

The most successful kingdom in Southeast Asia.
Royal monuments are evidence of both Hindu and Buddhist cultural influences on Southeast Asia.

Islam in Afro-Eurasia

• Spread over Africa, and Asia: through merchants, missionaries, and conquests

• Swahili Language created and used

• Islam spread through all aspects, learning, African states and pilgrimages.

• Languages are used in different societies
  Islamic architecture, design patterns.

Science and Tech

• Islamic scholars studied all the text and saved Greek thinkers.

• Improvements in agricultural efficiency, such as the use of Champa rice, spread from India to Vietnam and China.
  Seafaring technology improved with lateen sails, the stern rudder, the astrolabe, and the magnetic compass as Chinese, Indian, and Southwest Asian expanded their knowledge of astronomy and other aspects of the natural world.

Urbanization

• Because of Marco Polo and his writings, historians get a god picture of the city of Hangzhou in China, which grew in popularity and commerce.

• Trade brought variety to the city and this could lead to Urban Decline. They were both known as centers of Islamic scholarship, bustling markets, and sources for fresh water and plentiful food for merchants traveling the Silk Roads.

Urban- Contributing and Factors to the Growth of Cities

• Political Stability and Decline of Invasions, Transportation, Rise of Commerce, Labor Supply, and Agricultural Output.

Decline

• Factors like invasions, disease, and decline of agricultural productivity.

Travelers

• An Italian native of Venice, Marco Polo, visited and studied under Kublai Khan.
  Marco Polo- kept him focused on trade related matters
  Ibn Battuta- point of view of a Muslim devoted to his faith, learn as much as he could about Islam and its people and accomplishments.
  Margery Kempe- whose The Book of Margery Kempe was one of the earliest autobiographies in English, if not the first, could neither read nor write.

Environmental Consequences of Connectivity (Topic 2.6)

• Agricultural products such as certain citrus fruits introduced to the Mediterranean, and the main environmental products was the disease
  Bubonic plague- swept Central Asia, China, India, Persia, and Egypt arrived in Europe in 1347. estimated to kill 75/200 million peopled deaths decreased economic outputs increased relations between workers and owners
  Increased economic activity that decreased people to work to gain knowledge from Byzantium.

Agricultural Products

• The quick-ripening Champa rice, which was introduced to the Champa states by Vietnam, a Hindu state, and then offered to the Chinese as tribute.
  Because of the Hindu influence on Champa in present-day central Vietnam, some scholars believe Champa rice may have originated in India. It was drought-resistant, flood-resistant, and capable of yielding two crops a year. It was widely distributed in China to meet the needs of the growing population and in turn contributed to the population growth.

Migration

• As caliphs conquered lands beyond the Arabian Peninsula, they spread Islam, the Arabic language, and the cultivation of cotton, sugar, and citrus crops.
  The markets of Samarkand, for example, introduced new fruits and vegetables, as well as rice and citrus products from Southwest Asia, to Europe. Europeans’ demand for sugar would become so high that it became a key factor in the massive use of enslaved people in the Americas in the 1500s and after.

Degradation

• Increases put pressure on resources
  Examples, farmland overuse, deforestation and soil erosion

• Epidemics- spread of disease that was through exchange networks and Mongols
  Black death- Tremendous impact on Europe, The Reduced workers led to new new relations between workers and those who worked for.

Comparison of Economic Exchange (Topic 2.7)

• Trade cities and commerce along well traveled routs in certain areas.
  Differences among trading cities were also reflected in the larger trading networks.
  The similarities and differences among trading cities were also reflected in the larger trading networks.

• Similarities
  Origins- the trade built upon
  purpose- trading and economic
  effects- traded in cities and centralization because of the desire or the desire for stability

• Differences- they exchanged their technologies, goods, practices and even certain religions and cultures depending where there were at.

Social and gender structure,labor

typical structures depended on society and were patriarchal, even though women were freer in certain empires.
increased demands increased the free peasant workers increased workers, because of population growth and the rising need of product production.
Environmental Consequences- Decline because or over use or pollution and caused disease.