2.2 The Mongols (Heimler)

Rise of the Mongol Empire

• Gobi Desert

• Pastoral nomads

  • traveling people

• Genghis Khan was born

• Attacked and conquered Northern China, Asia, and even Southern Russia

• Sons kept expansion going

• Peaked in 1279

• Incredibly disciplined and skilled military

• Superior weaponry (bows) and skills

• Skilled horse riders

• Abbasid had been declining and Songs had run into troubles

• Reputation for brutality that even had towns surrendering before the attack even happened

• Pax Mongolica in height of expansion

  • height of silk road prosperity too

• As the empire expanded, it replaced the empires previously expanded, and Genghis’s grandsons divided this huge territory into smaller empires

• Mongols adapted their style of rule to the place they conquered

Kublai Khan and the Yuan Dynasty

• China

• United warring factions across China

• Confucian style ruler

• Mongols adapted their style o frule to the place they conquered

Mongol Influence Upon the Silk Road

• the Silk Roads were never more organized and prosperous than they were under Mongol rule

• Especially during Pax Mongolica

• Mongols ensured the routes were as safe as they could be

Mongol Economics

• Improved infrastructure

  • in the placed they ruled

  • repaired roads

  • built bridges

• Increased Communication

  • efficiency with horseback-riding messengers

  • Yam system

  • cultural and informational exchange

  • Friendly relations during peace led to more trade and more friendliness

Technological and Cultural Transfers

• High opinion of intellectuals and skilled artisans

  • generally respected by mongols

• mongols didn’t kill artisans or innovators

• Mongol policy to send skilled people to all parts of the empire, encouraging transfer of technology, ideas, and culture

• Medical knowledge

  • greek/islamic

• Adoption of script

  • uyghur script

  • written language

Facilitated many cultural transfers across the empire