A variety of internal and external factors contribute to state formation, expansion, and decline. Governments maintain order through a variety of administrative institutions, policies, and procedures, and governments obtain, retain, and exercise power in different ways and for different purposes

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Explain the process of state building and decline in Eurasia over time

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

K.C.-3.2.I.B.iii.--Empires collapsed in different regions of the world and in some areas were replaced by new imperial states, including the Mongol khanates.

As societies develop, they affect and are affected by the ways that they produce, exchange, and consume goods and services.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Explain how the expansion of empires influenced trade and communication over time.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

K.C.-3.1.I.E.i.--The expansion of empires—including the Mongols—facilitated Afro-Eurasian trade and communication as new people were drawn into their conquerors’ economies and trade networks.

The development of ideas, beliefs, and religions illustrates how groups in society view themselves, and the interactions of societies and their beliefs often have political, social, and cultural implications

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

• Explain the significance of the Mongol Empire in larger patterns of continuity and change

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

K.C.-3.2.II.A.ii.--Interregional contacts and conflicts between states and empires, including the Mongols, encouraged significant technological and cultural transfers.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES

Technological and cultural transfers:

§ Transfer of Greco– Islamic medical knowledge to western Europe

§ Transfer of numbering systems to Europe

§ Adoption of Uyghur script

Chinggis Khan also established a capital at Karakorum

• he built a luxurious palace.

• Karakorum symbolized a source of Mongol authority superior to the clan or tribe.

• Chinggis Khan’s policies created a Mongol state that was not only much stronger than any earlier nomadic confederation

• The most important institution of the Mongol state was the army, which magnified the power of the small population.

  • • Mongol forces relied on outstanding equestrian skills

    • Their bows, short enough for archers to use while riding, were also stiff, firing arrows that could fell enemies at 200 meters (656 feet).

    • Mongol horsemen were among the most mobile forces of the premodern world, sometimes traveling more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) per day to surprise an enemy

• Mongols understood the psychological dimensions of warfare and used them to their advantage. If enemies surrendered without resistance, the Mongols usually spared their lives, and they provided generous treatment for artisans, crafts workers, and those with military skills.

• In the event of resistance, however, the Mongols ruthlessly slaughtered whole populations, sparing only a few, whom they sometimes drove before their armies as human shields during future conflicts.

• Chinggis Khan was a conqueror, however, not an administrator.

  • • He ruled the Mongols through his control over the army, but he did not establish a central government for the lands that he conquered. Instead

    • he assigned Mongol overlords to supervise local administrators and to extract a generous tribute for the Mongols’ own uses.

    • Chinggis Khan’s heirs continued his conquests, but they also undertook the task of designing a more permanent administration to guide the fortunes of the Mongol empire.

• Chinggis Khan’s heirs divided Chinggis Khan’s vast realm into four regional empires.

  • • The great khans ruled China, the wealthiest of Mongol lands.

      • • brought foreign administrators into China and put them in charge.

        • Mongols’ administrative staff included Arabs, Persians, and perhaps even Europeans: Marco Polo may have served as an administrator in the city of Yangzhou during the reign of Khubilai Khan

    • Descendants of Chaghatai, one of Chinggis Khan’s sons, ruled the khanate of Chaghatai in central Asia.

      • • Hülegü established Mongol ilkhanate in Persia.

        • Mongols and their allies occupied the highest administrative positions

        • Persians served as ministers, provincial governors, and state officials at all lower levels.

        • Mongols basically allowed the Persians to administer the ilkhanate as long as they delivered tax receipts and maintained order

    • Persia fell under the authority of rulers known as the ilkhans,

    • and the khans of the Golden Horde dominated Russia.

Mongols sponsored interaction among peoples of different societies and linked Eurasian lands more directly than ever before.

Pax Mongolia: Period of stability and economic prosperity in central Asia following Mongol conquest

• The Mongols were not interested in buying/selling goods

• But they did encourage long-distance trade (more tax money!)

• Remember, strong gov’t → more trade (usually)

• Mongol governance led to forced migration of many

• Massive movement of technology and knowledge

• Spread of religious ideas (but not a lot of converts)

  • • Sufi missionaries helped popularize Islam among Turkish peoples in central Asia

    • Lamaist Buddhism from Tibet attracted considerable interest among the Mongols

    • Nestorian Christians, who had long been prominent in oasis communities throughout central Asia, found new opportunities to win converts when they went to China to serve as administrators for Mongol rulers there

    • Roman Catholic Christians also mounted missionary campaigns in China.

Yam system: Chinggis Khan and his successors maintained a courier network that rapidly relayed news, information, and government orders. The network included relay stations with fresh horses and riders so that messages could travel almost nonstop throughout Mongol territories. The Mongols’ encouragement of travel and communication facilitated trade, diplomatic travel, missionary efforts, and movements of peoples to new lands.

• long-distance travel and trade became much less risky than in earlier times. Merchants increased their commercial investments, and the volume of long-distance trade across central Asia dwarfed that of earlier eras. Lands as distant as China and western Europe became directly linked for the first time

Resettling peoples in new lands: moved people far from their homelands to sites where they could best make use of their services. Among the most important of the Mongols’ allies were the Uighur Turks, who lived mostly in oasis cities along the silk roads. The Uighurs were literate and often highly educated, and they provided not only many of the clerks, secretaries, and administrators who ran the Mongol empires but also units of soldiers who bolstered Mongol garrisons. Arab and Persian Muslims were also prominent among those who administered the Mongols’ affairs far from their homelands

Khubilai Khan (China -- Yuan dynasty)

• known for generosity toward the poor and his efforts to build roads.

Khubilai Khan (China -- Yuan dynasty)

• He actively promoted Buddhism, and he provided support also for Daoists, Muslims, and Christians in his realm.

• They tolerated all cultural and religious traditions in China, including Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Of Khubilai Khan’s four wives, his favorite was Chabi, a Nestorian Christian

• Mongols also resisted assimilation to Chinese cultural traditions.

• They ended the privileges enjoyed by the Confucian scholars, and they dismantled the Confucian educational and examination system, which had produced untold generations of civil servants for the Chinese bureaucracy

• outlawed intermarriage between Mongols and Chinese and forbade the Chinese to learn the Mongol language.

• went so far as to suggest that the Mongols exterminate the Chinese people and convert China itself into pastureland for their horses

Hülegü -- Mongol ilkhanate (Persia)

• Mongol rulers of Persia mostly observed their native shamanism

• they tolerated all religions—including Islam, Nestorian Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism—and they ended the privileges given Muslims during the Abbasid caliphate.

• Gradually, however, the Mongols themselves gravitated toward Islam. In 1295 Ilkhan Ghazan publicly converted to Islam, and most of the Mongols in Persia followed his example

• Ghazan’s conversion sparked large-scale massacres of Christians and Jews, and it signaled the return of Islam to a privileged position in Persian society.