Chapter 18 Notes 11/11/2007 17:11:00

Guillaume Boucher, a goldsmith, traveled from Paris to Hungary and was

captured by the Mongols, and sent to their capital, Karakorum. The nomadic
peoples made their influence the most well known between 1000CE to
1500CE with Mongols and Turkish states
Turkish migrations and imperial expansion: Never formed a single
homogeneous group by rather organized by clans and tribes that fought
each other. Origins – Xiongnu of identities
• Nomadic economy and society
o Turkish peoples were nomadic herders; organized into clans
with related languages
 Central Asia's steppes: good for grazing, little rain, few
rivers
 Nomads and their animals; few settlements
 Nomads drove their herds in migratory cycles
 Lived mostly on animal products
 Also produced limited amounts of millet, pottery,
leather goods, iron
 Migratory habits make agriculture and large craft
production impossible
 Nomads and settled peoples sought trade, were
prominent on caravan routes; “avidly sought trade”
 Nomads just want agricultural products and
manufactured goods to satisfy immediate needs
 Ideally suited for long-distance trade
 Fluidity of classes in nomadic society
 Two social classes: nobles and commoners
 Autonomous clans and tribes
 Can easily change class; probably due to lack of
wealth
 Religions: shamans, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity;
by tenth century, Islam – help spread
 From the Turks near Abbasid dynasty
 Military organization
 Khan ("ruler") organized vast confederation of
individual tribes for expansion
 Outstanding cavalry forces, formidable military
power
o Turkish empires in Persia, Anatolia, and India
 Saljuq Turks and the Abbasid empire; much like
Germans of Rome
 Lived on borders of the Abbasid realm, mid-eighth
to mid-tenth centuries
 Moved further in and served in Abbasid armies
thereafter
 Overshadowed the Abbasid caliphs by the mid-
eleventh century
 Extended Turkish rule to Syria, Palestine, and
other parts of the realm
 Saljuq Turks and the Byzantine empire
 Migrated in large numbers to Anatolia, early
eleventh century
 Defeated Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071
 Transformed Anatolia into an Islamic society
 Peasants their viewed Turks as liberators
 Ghaznavid Turks dominated northern India through
sultanate of Delhi
 Migrated to plunder at first but gradually set up a
permanent government
 Persecuted all other religion except for Islam
The Mongol empires: Deep kin loyalty – leads to difficulty to organize
• Chinggis Khan and the making of the Mongol empire
o Born in 1167 to noble family
 Father killed, lived in poverty
o Chinggis Khan ("universal ruler") unified Mongol tribes
through alliance and conquests
 o Mongol political organization
 Organized new military units and broke up tribal
affiliations
 Chose high officials based on talent and loyalty
 Established capital at Karakorum
 Created a stronger but less conflicted state
o Mongol strategy: horsemanship, archers, mobility,
psychological warfare
o Mongol conquest of northern China
 Chinggis Khan, Mongols raided the Jurchen in north
China beginning in 1211
 Controlled north China by 1220
 South China was still ruled by the Song dynasty
o Mongol conquest of Persia
 Chinggis Khan tried to open trade and diplomatic
relations with Saljuq leader Khwarazm shah, the ruler of
Persia, 1218
 Upon being rejected, Chinggis Khan led force to pursue
the Khwarazm
 Mongol forces destroyed Persian cities and qanat
 Chinggis died in 1227, laid foundation for a mighty
empire
• The Mongol empires after Chinggis Khan
o Division of the Mongol empires: heirs divide into four regional
empires
o Khubilai Khan
 Chinggis Khan's grandson, consolidated Mongol rule in
China
 Promoted Buddhism, supported Daoists, Muslims, and
Christians; but he is ruthless
 Presided over Mongol empire at it’s height
o Conquest of southern China
 Khubilai extended Mongol rule to all of China
 Song capital at Hangzhou fell in 1276, Yuan Dynasty
founded in 1279
 Unsuccessful conquests of Vietnam, Burma, Java, and
Japan; kamikaze
o The Golden Horde
 Group of Mongols overran Russia between 1237 and
1241
 Further overran Poland, Hungary, and eastern Germany,
1241-1242
 Maintained hegemony in Russia until the mid-fifteenth
century
o The ilkhanate of Persia: Khubilai's brother, Hülegü, captured
Baghdad in 1258
 Realized they needed to be admins, but were not that
good so conquest fell out in a century
o Mongol rule in Persia
 Persians served as ministers, governors, and local
officials
 Mongols only cared about taxes and order
 Ilkhan Ghazan converted to Islam, 1295; massacres of
Christians and Jews followed
o Mongol rule in China
 Outlawed intermarriage between Mongols and Chinese
 Forbade Chinese from learning the Mongol language
 Brought foreign administrators into China and put them
in charge
 Dismissed Confucian scholars; dismantled civil service
examination
 Tolerated all cultural and religious traditions in China
 Khubilai Khan’s favorite wive,Chabi, is Nestorian
Christian
 o Mongol ruling elite became enchanted with the Lamaist
Buddhism of Tibet
 Magic and supernatural power, sucks up to Mongols
• The Mongols and Eurasian integration: Destruction and Trade
o The Mongols and trade
 Mongols worked to secure trade routes and ensure
safety of merchants
 Elaborate courier network with relay stations
 Maintained good order for traveling merchants,
ambassadors, and missionaries
o Diplomatic missions
 The four Mongol empires maintained close diplomatic
communications
 Established diplomatic relations with Korea, Vietnam,
India, Europe
o Missionary Efforts
 Sufi – Islam in central asia, Lamian Buddhism –
Mongols, Roman Catholic also gained favor
o Resettlement
 Mongols needed skilled artisans and educated
individuals from other places
 Often resettled them in different locations to provide
services
 Uighur Turks served as clerks, secretaries, and
administrators
 Arab and Persian Muslims also served Mongols far from
their homelands
 Skilled artisans were often sent to Karakorum; became
permanent residents
• Decline of the Mongols in Persia and China
o Collapse of the ilkhanate
 In Persia, excessive spending and overexploitation led
to reduced revenues
  Failure of the ilkhan's paper money
 Factional struggle plagued the Mongol leadership
 The last ruler died without an heir; the ilkhanate
collapsed
o Decline of the Yuan dynasty
 Paper money issued by the Mongol rulers lost value
 Power struggles, assassinations, and civil war weakened
Mongols after 1320s
o Bubonic plague in southwest China in 1330s, spread through
Asia and Europe
 Depopulation and labor shortage undermined the
Mongol regime
 By 1368, the Chinese drove the Mongols back to the
steppes
o Surviving Mongol khanates
 The khanate of Chaghatai continued in central Asia
 The Golden Horde survived until the mid-sixteenth
century
After the Mongols: Mongols departure did not signal death of nomads.
Instead Tamerlane built strong empire that influenced Mughal in India,
Safavid in Persia and Ottoman in Anatolia
• Tamerlane the Whirlwind (1336-1404) built central Asian empire
o The lame conqueror, Timur was self-made; rose to power in
1360s much like Genghis Khan; established capital in
Samarkand
o Tamerlane's conquests
 First conquered Persia and Afghanistan – took special
care to establish authority in rich city for taxes
 Next attacked the Golden Horde
 At the end of the fourteenth century, invaded northern
India
 Ruled the empire through tribal leaders who relied on
existing bureaucrats to collect taxes
o Tamerlane's heirs struggled and divided empire into four
regions
• The foundation of the Ottoman empire
o Osman
Large numbers of nomadic Turks migrated to Persia and
Anatolia after Mongol conquest
 Osman, a charismatic leader, carved out a small state in
northwest Anatolia
 Claimed independence from the Saljuq sultan in 1299
o Ottoman conquests in the Balkans in 1350s
 Took over Balkan peninsula and used it as base
 Was delayed by tamerlame forces
 Sultan Mehmed II sacked Constantinople in 1453,
renamed it Istanbul
 Absorbed the remainder of the Byzantine empire
 During the sixteenth century, extended to southwest
Asia, southeast Europe, and north Africa
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