The Mongols Take Over!
The Mongols! Central Asian Steppe (plains) Can get to 80 below zero in the winter time Sparsely populated More land conquered in 25 years than Rome did in 400 Perhaps responsible for ending Feudalism
House on Wheels
Stirrups and Crossbows!
Ghengis Khan (1162- 1227) Blood Clot (a sign from the gods) Born Temujin- Became Genghis Khan “Universal Ruler” Led Mongols on Horseback Conquered from China to Poland! Ruled the Steppe Mongolians were Pastoral
How “Genghis” was he? Took over more land in 25 years than the Romans did in 400! Empire size of Africa! (11- 12 million square miles!) In today’s world it would be 30 nations and 3 Billion People! His ascendency would be comparable to an American slave during the Revolutionary War period leading the revolution and becoming an American emperor!
Kahn’s Accomplishments Formed alliances Defeated the Tartars 1,000 men regiments led by meritocracy not aristocracy (reward of loyalty) Oracle Bones suggested Mongols could conquer China 1211 Mongols attack Beijing Conquered modern day Russia, Korea, Iran and Iraq too “Korea to Kiev!”
Kublai Khan (1275- 1294) Ghengis Khan’s Grandson (he had 100s) Took over China in 1275 (Yuan Dynasty) China United for first time in 300 years Increased International Trade (Marco Polo) Tried to Invade Japan (lost to the Samurai and Kamikaze “Divine Winds”- likely a typhoon
Pax Mongolica
Protecting the Silk Road Rest Areas Passports Brought Rice to Persia Harshly punished thieves Religious Freedom May have spread the Black Death from China to Europe
Global Contributions “ The Mongols made no technological breakthroughs, founded no new religions, wrote few books or dramas, and gave the world no new crops or methods of agriculture. Their own craftsmen could not weave cloth, cast metal, make pottery, painted no pictures, and built no buildings. Yet, as their army conquered culture after culture, they collected and passed all of these skills from one civilization to the next.”
Marco Polo
“The Travels of Marco Polo” Served Kublai Khan from 1275- 1292 Brought Chinese Items to Venice Wrote his accounts in Jail Was not believed by many
Xanadu
Xanadu—Marco Polo “In this city, Kublai Khan made a vast palace of marble cunningly worked and of other fair stone…The halls and rooms and passages are all gilded and wonderfully painted within with pictures and images of beasts and birds and trees and flowers and many kinds of things, so well and so cunningly that it is a delight and wonder to see. From this palace is built a second wall which in the direction opposite to the palace….encloses sixteen miles of land. IT is fortified like a castle in which are fountains and rivers of running water and very beautiful lawns and groves….” “The Great Khan keeps all sorts of beasts there, that is, harts and bucks and roe deer, and has them given to the falcons….In the middle of the park where there is a most beautiful grove, the Great Khan has made for his dwelling a great palace…of bamboo..and on top of each piller is a great dragon all gilded that winds the tail round the pillar and holds up the ceiling with the head.” Marco Polo, even more amazingly, claimed this whole structure was collapsible and portable, just like the modest urts in which the nomadic Mongols dwelled.
Venice!