1. Mongol Conquests and Empire
1200s - 1300s
Mongol Conquests and Empire
1200s - 1300s
2. Conquests
• Under the leadership of Chinggis
Khan, the unified Mongol tribes
took control of Central Asia, then
Northern China.
• By Chinggis Khan’s death in the
1200s, Mongol armies had moved
west into the Islamic lands and
Central Europe.
• The choice by many surrender or
die?
3.
4. Conquests
• After Chinggis Khan’s death, the Mongol
Empire was divided in four parts and
controlled by 3 sons and a grandson.
• Khanate of the Golden Horde (Russia)
• Ilkanate (Persia)
• Djagatai Khanate (Central Asia)
• Khanate of the Great Khan (Asian Steppes
and China)
5.
6. THE MONGOL EMPIREs
• Each KHANATE or kingdom then worked
to add territory and tributary states to the
empire which continued under later
Mongol leaders.
• Whether indirect or direct rule,
TAXATION was a major feature of Mongol
rule.
8. Mongols and
other Central
Asian Nomads
characteristics
• Social Classes – relatively egalitarian or based on
abilities
• Women had greater status than in most settled
regions.
• Leaders were “elected” by the free men of the clan,
tribe, or confederation.
(Kuriltai-Meeting of all Mongol Chieftains)
9. Generally speaking, the
Mongols:
• Did not have a long term cultural or social
impact on the regions they conquered.
• Spread no new religions or philosophies
• Had few technological innovations
• Left few structures or buildings
• Wrote little literature
• Didn’t hold on to an empire very long
10.
11.
12. IMPACT of the MONGOLS
• THE MONGOL PEACE
A period of “peace” and stability in many
areas of Eurasia led to economic and
cultural development (for about 100 years).
13. Trade & Infrastructure
Mongol rulers . . .
• protected travel and trade routes in the
Empire
• “caused” people to move to new places for
Mongol government and military posts
• ordered construction of ROADS &
BRIDGES, & extended the Grand Canal in
China
• set up post offices/trading posts
14. SILK ROADs REVIVED!
• Goods and ideas flowed! (Religious
tolerance, too.)
• East and West were more connected than
before (Western Europe was least devastated by the
Mongols but benefitted the most from the flow of goods and
ideas.)
• Plants and crops circulated
“Mongol rule allowed an “exchange of food, tools,
goods, and ideas [that] was unprecedented.”
15.
16. Those dirty Mongols!
• Spread the use of gunpowder in military uses
• Destroyed empires, governments, & towns (&
killed millions) in some areas destroyed
agricultural lands
• Spread the Bubonic Plague (The Black Death)
beginning in the 1330s and lasting for several
decades.
17.
18.
19. THE BLACK
DEATH
• What: A Bubonic and
Pneumonic plague
pandemic
• When: 1330s - 1350s
and continuing
sporadically for
hundreds of years
• Where: Began
somewhere in Central
Asia and spread to
East and West along
trade routes w/
Mongol armies.
20. THE BLACK DEATH
• In Asia and the Islamic World, medical
advancements – treatments and
hospitals-- and sanitation efforts
limited the effects of the plague.
• As it spread into Western Europe, its
effects were more devastating.
21. • Ring around the rosie, pocket full
of posies, ashes, ashes WE ALL
FALL DOWN!
