1. The World the Mongols Made
Chapter 13
The World the Mongols Made

2. Review Questions
WHY WERE the Mongols able to conquer such a vast empire?
WHAT WERE the positive and negative effects of the Mongol conquests?
WHY DID the Mongols fail to conquer Egypt, India, and Japan?
HOW DID Kubilai Khan’s reign blend Mongol and Chinese traditions?
WHAT TECHNOLOGIES did the West develop in the thirteenth century and what were the consequences?
WHY DID nothing comparable to the Mongol Empire develop in Africa or the Americas?

3. Rise of the Mongols Nomadism: Mongols, Xiongnu (Huns), Turks
Environmental factors:
Grasslands of Central Asia unsuitable for settled agriculture
Nomadic pastoralism (herding) as a way of life
Diet: animal products--goats, sheep, horses as food sources
Self-sufficiency
Conflict between nomadic groups, continual raiding
Plurality of religious practice
Shamanism
Buddhists, (Nestorian) Christians, Muslims
Idea of a Great Khan

4. Mongol Conquests (1206-1258) Horse and the bow Siege technology
Temujin or Genghis Khan (r )
Unites Mongol tribes
Conquest from Korea to Hungary, Moscow to Baghdad
New technologies, adaptation
Horse and the bow
Siege technology
Use of Terror
Khanates
Use of local elites
Tax farming
Mongol rulers tended to focus on feasting, hunting, and internal disputes rather than day-to-day governing.

5. Effects on Overland Trade
Silk Road
Patrols and passports
Marco Polo ( )
Traveled to the East and back ( )
Influence on European attitudes towards the East
William of Rubruck
Mission to learn and convert,
New Ideas
Paper and paper money, gunpowder, coal, movable type, passports, higher mathematics, etc.

6. Il-Khan Empire Collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate, 1260
Religious conflicts in the Mongol Empire
Attempted interference by the West
The choice for Islam, 1295
Rise of Mamluk power in Egypt

7. Mongol Conquests in Russia
Fall of Kiev, 1240
Batu (r ) establishes “Golden Horde” rule
Mongol capital at Sarai
Use of the Russian Orthodox Church
Church becomes central to Russian culture.
Center of resistance to Mongol rule and domination
Rise of Novgorod and Moscow
Alexander Nevskii (lived around ) argued for cooperation with Mongols rather than resistance.
Mongol “yoke” or oppressive Russian nobility?
Knights Templar and the battle at Lake Chud, 1242
Serfdom introduced in Eastern Europe; slave trade decreases in Eastern Europe.

8. Yuan Dynasty in China, 1272-1368 New capital at Beijing (1265)
Kubilai Khan, r
New capital at Beijing (1265)
Styles himself as a Chinese emperor
Introduces Mongols and Muslims into Chinese government.
Mongol domination caused various effects in East Asia.
Recentralization of China, trade, and government
Prosperity in the cities, poverty in the countryside
Extraction of wealth for benefit of Mongol khans

9. Mongol Empire Impact on Eurasia
Movement of peoples, trade, ideas across Eurasia accelerates
New innovations and ideas reach Europe; increased interest by Europe in the East raised by works of Polo, Rubruck, and others.
Brought new peoples to power: rise of Turkic dominance in the Muslim world (Ottomans, Delhi Sultanate, Mamluks), new elites in the Russian world
Ended political rule by Arabs, checked expansion of Germanic peoples into Slavic lands, first (and only) foreign dynasty in China

10. Today’s Discussion Question
A new world order?
Consider
The 13th-century Eurasian dominance of the Mongols is reminiscent of 1989 global U.S. dominance, which President George H. W. Bush dubbed “a new world order.”
But the debacle in Iraq and the rising economic might of China call the reach, durability, and effectiveness of American world leadership into question.
Are fundamental American values more in line with the aspirations of many of the world’s people than Mongol values?
Can the U.S. lead a realignment of the world’s political and cultural landscape with anything similar to the lasting consequences that the Mongols had on Eurasia?