Transcript Golden Horde

Chapter 12
Mongol Eurasia and its Aftermath,
1200-1500
Chapter 12
Mongol Eurasia and its Aftermath,
1200-1500
I. The Rise of the Mongols,
1200-1260
The Mongol Empire
The creation of the vast Mongol Empire facilitated communication across Eurasia and
led to both the spread of deadly plagues and the transfer of technical and scientific
knowledge. After the death of Chinggis in 1227, the empire was divided into four
khanates, ruled by different lines of his successors. In the 1270s, the Mongols
conquered southern China, but most of their subsequent campaigns did not lead to
further territorial gains.
A. Nomadism in C. & Inner Asia
1.
Nomadic groups depended on scarce H2O & pasture resources;
in times of scarcity, conflicts occurred, resulting in the
extermination of smaller groups and in the formation of alliances &
out-migration.
1.
2.
Around 1000, Mongol lands experienced unusually dry weather w/ its
attendant effects on the availability of resources & pressures on the
nomadic Mongol tribes.
Mongols were a strongly hierarchical organization headed by a
single leader or khan.
1.
But the khans had to ask that their decisions be ratified (accepted0 by
a council of the leaders of powerful families.
Powerful Mongol groups demanded & received tribute goods & in
slaves from those less powerful.
A. Nomadism in C. & Inner Asia
3.
The various Mongol groups formed complex federations that were
often tied together by marriage alliances.
•
4.
Women from prestigious families often played an important role in
negotiating these alliances.
The seasonal movements of the Mongol tribes brought them into
contact with:
•
5.
Manicheanism, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam.
Mongol khans were thought to represent the Sky God, who
transcended all cultures and religions; khans were thus conceived
of as universal rulers who both transcended and used the various
religions of their subjects.
Nomads strove for economic self-sufficiency, but they always
relied on trade w/ settled peoples for certain goods, including iron,
wood, cotton, grain, & silk.
1.
When normal trade relations were interrupted, nomads tended to
make war on settled agricultures.
B. The Mongol Conquests, 1215-1283
1. BTW 1206 & 1234, under the leadership of
Genghis Khan & his successors, the Mongols
conquered all of N. China & were threatening
the S. Song.
1. During this period & onward to about 1265 the
Mongol realms were united as the khans of the
Golden Horde, the Jagadai domains of C. Asia, &
the Il-khans all recognized the authority of the Great
Khan in Mongolia.
2. When Khubilai declared himself Great Khan in
1265 the other Mongol khans refused to
accept him; the Jagadai Khanate harbored a
particular animosity toward Khubilai.
B. The Mongol Conquests, 1215-1283
3. Khubilai founded the Yuan Empire w/ its
capital @ Beijing in 1271;
1. 1279 he conquered the Southern
Song.
2. After 1279, the Yuan attempted to
extend its control to SE Asia.
3. Annam & Champa were forced to pay
tribute to the Yuan, but an expedition to
Java ended in failure.
Mongol army attacking walled city
Rashid-al-Din (ca. 1247-1318), a
Jew from Persia, converted to
Islam at the age of 30 and
entered the service of the Mongol
khan of Persia as a physician. He
rose to government service and
traveled widely. He later wrote a
history of the world that was more
comprehensive than any that had
been previously written. This
illustration, which accompanied
one of his manuscripts, depicts
the Mongol army attacking a
walled city.
B. The Mongol Conquests, 1215-1283
4. Historians have pointed to a # of factors that may have
helped the Mongols’ ability to conquer such vast
territories. These include:
~superior horsemanship,
~better bows
~technique of following a volley of arrows w/ a
deadly cavalry charge.
Other reasons for success:
~ability to learn new military techniques,
~adopt new military technology,
~& incorporate non-Mongol soldiers into their
armies;
~their reputation for slaughtering all those who
would not surrender; & their ability to take advantage
of rivalries among their enemies
C. Overland Trade & the Plague,
1215-1283
1. The Mongol conquests opened overland trade
routes & brought about an unprecedented
commercial integration of Eurasia.
1. The growth of long-distance trade under the
Mongols led to significant transfer of military &
scientific knowledge btw Europe, ME, china, Iran,
and Japan.
2. Diseases including the bubonic plague also
spread over the trade routes of the Mongol
Empire.
1. The plague that had lingered in Unnan (now SW
China) was transferred to C. & N. China, to C. Asia,
to Kaffa, and from there to the Mediterranean world.
C. Overland Trade & the Plague,
1215-1283
3. Some historians have had some startling assertions:
That the Mongol army hurled plague-infected cadavers
into the besieged Crimean city of Caffa (Kaffa), thereby
transmitting the disease to the inhabitants; and that
fleeing survivors of the siege spread plague from Caffa
to the Mediterranean Basin.
Note: If this is correct, Caffa should be recognized as
the site of the most spectacular incident of biological
warfare ever, with the Black Death as its disastrous
consequence. Although this may be true I believe that
the event was unimportant in the spread of the plague
pandemic.
The Culprits
The Symptoms
Bulbous
Septicemia Form:
almost 100%
mortality rate.
The Disease Cycle
Flea drinks rat blood
that carries the
bacteria.
Bacteria
multiply in
flea’s gut.
Human is infected!
Flea bites human and
regurgitates blood
into human wound.
Flea’s gut clogged
with bacteria.
C. Overland Trade & the Plague,
1215-1283
4. There has never been any doubt that
plague entered the Med.
~From the Crimea, following est. maritime trade
routes.
~Rat infestations in the holds of cargo ships would
have been highly susceptible to the rapid spread of
plague, & even if most rats died during the voyage,
they would have left abundant hungry fleas that would
infect humans unpacking the holds.
~Shore rats foraging on board recently arrived ships
would also become infected, transmitting plague to city
rat populations.
C. Overland Trade & the Plague,
1215-1283
5. Plague appears to have been spread in a
stepwise fashion, on may ships rather on
a few, taking over a year to reach Europe
from the Crimea.
~This conclusion seems fairly firm, as the dates for the
arrival of plague in Constantinople & more westerly
cities are reasonably certain.
C. Overland Trade & the Plague,
1215-1283
6. Furthermore, a number of other Crimean
ports were under Mongol control, making
it unlikely that Caffa was the only source
of infected ships heading west.
~And the overland caravan route to the M.E. from
Serai & Astrakhan insured that plague was also
spreading south, whence it would have entered
Europe in any case. The siege of Caffa & its
gruesome finale thus are unlikely to have been
seriously implicated in the transmission of plague from
the Black Sea to Europe.
C. Overland Trade & the Plague,
1215-1283
Despite its historical unimportance, the siege of
Caffa is a powerful reminder of the horrific
consequences when disease is successfully
used as a weapon. The Japanese us of plague
as a weapon in World War II and the huge
Soviet stockpiles of Y. pestis prepared for use in
an all-out war further remind us that plague
remains a very real problem for modern arms
control, six and a half centuries later.
The Mongol Empire, 1294
The creation of the vast Mongol Empire facilitated communication across Eurasia and
led to both the spread of deadly plagues and the transfer of technical and scientific
knowledge. After the death of Chinggis in 1227, the empire was divided into four
khanates, ruled by different lines of his successors. In the 1270s, the Mongols
conquered southern China, but most of their subsequent campaigns did not lead to
further territorial gains.
Western Eurasia in the 1300s
This map of the Mongol domains in the Middle East demonstrates the delicate balance of power
that was upset by Ghazan's conversion to Islam in 1295. During the conflict between the llkhans and the Golden Horde in the 1260s, European leaders hoped to ally themselves with the
ll-khans against Muslim defenders in Palestine. These hopes were abandoned after Ghazan's
conversion to Islam in 1295, and the powerful alliance between the Mamluks and the Golden
Horde kept the ll-khans from advancing west.
II. Mongols and Islam,
1200-1260
A. Mongol Rivalry
1.
In the 1260s the Il-khan Mongol Empire controlled
parts of Armenia & all of Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, &
Iran.
1.
2.
@ the same time, Russia was under the domination fo
the Golden Horde, led by Genghis Khan’s grandson
Batu, who had converted to Islam & announced his
intention to avenge the last caliph.
1.
3.
Relations btw the Buddhist/shamanist Il-khan Mongols & their
Muslim subjects were tense because the Mongols and
murdered the last Abbasid caliph & because Mongol religious
belief & customs were contrary to those of Islam.
This led to the first conflict btw Mongol domains.
During this conflict European leaders attempted to
make an alliance w/ the Il-khan s to drive the Muslims
out of Syria, Lebanon, & Palestine, while the Il-khans
sought European help in driving the Golden Horde out
of the Caucasus.
1.
These plans for an alliance never came to fruition because the
Il-khan ruler Ghazan became a Muslim in 1295.
B. Islam and the State
1.
2.
The goal of the Il-khan State was to collect as much
tax revenue as possible, which it did through a tax
farming system
In the short term, the tax farming system was able to
deliver large amounts of grain, cash and silk.
1.
3.
In the long term, over-taxation led to increases in the price of
grain, a shrinking tax base, and, by 1295, a severe economic
crisis.
Attempts to end the economic crisis through tax
reduction programs coupled w/ the intro. Of paper
money failed to avert a depression that lasted until
1349.
1.
2.
Thus the Il-khan domains fragmented as Mongol nobles fought
each other for resources.
And, Mongols from the Golden Horde attacked &
dismembered the Il-khan empire.
B. Islam and the State
1. As the Il-khan Empire & the Golden
Horde declined in the 14th century, Timur,
the last C. Asian conqueror, built the
Jagadai Khanate in central & western
Eurasia.
1. Timur’s descendants, the Timurids, ruled the
M.E. for several generations.
C. Culture & Science in Islamic Eurasia
1. In literature,
III. Regional Responses in
Western Eurasia