Tang Song and Mongols

Causes

• Mongols began raiding and trading with settled societies, possibly because of changing environmental conditions on the steppe
• Mongols adeptness at  mobility and skillful tactics as warriors resulted in huge conquests
• Mongols were unified under one ruler, Genghis Khan

Effects

• Created the largest land-based empire across Eurasia which facilitated the spread of products and disease.
• Facilitated peacefully travel and trade along the Silk Road heralding the Pax Mongolia
• Conquered Beijing in 1215, placing China under foreign rule for the first time
• Kublai Khan (of the Yuan dynasty of China) kept Chinese political and economic systems in place, but ended the civil service exams
• In China, Mongols segregated themselves from Chinese people
• Destroyed the Muslim heartlands around Baghdad ending the Muslim caliphate; were stopped in Egypt by Mamluks, shifting Arab power to Egypt
• Mongols converted to Islam and were absorbed into Muslim society in Southwest Asia
• Russia was made a tribute state resulting in the expansion of serfdom
• Cultural diffusion was facilitated across the Eurasian continent
• India stayed protected from Mongol invasions until the late 14th century
• Marked the final threat of nomadic invasions of settle civilizations

Genghis Khan’s unification of the nomadic tribes in northeast Asia facilitated the eventually consolidation of a vast Eurasian empire
Russia

• Fall of Kiev (1240)
• Russian religion and culture permitted to continue as long as high tributes were paid; as a tribute state the practice of serfdom expands
• Isolation from Western Europe prevents spread of new ideas and inventions
• Moscow emerges as a major city
• Ivan III assumes the title of czar and achieves a bloodless standoff at the Ugra River that leads to separation from the Mongols

China

• Northern China conquered by Ögedei (Genghis Khan’s son) in 1234
• Kublai Khan, completes the capture of southern China
• China united for the first time in 300 years
• Mongol control over Asia opens China to foreign contacts and trade (Marco Polo)

Islamic world

• Hulagu (grandson of Genghis Khan) captures Baghdad and has over 10,000 people killed
• End of Seljuk Turkish rule after the capture of the Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia
• Poor administration of captured regions leads to dissolution of the Mongol Empire and rise of the Ottoman Turks

Silk Road
Long-distance trade route from China to Rome; products from the east such as spices and silk transported west, Roman ideas taken to their eastern provinces; Indian and Arabic traders act as middlemen and grow wealthy; promotion of cultural diffusion between regions that come into contact with each other including the spread of Buddhism from India to China

African Gold-Salt Trade 
Arab and Berber traders took salt from the Sahara to West Africa in exchange for gold; African traders also crossed the Sahara to trade gold for salt in North Africa; Cloth and weapons from Mediterranean ports taken to West Africa.

Islamic caliphates

• Baghdad – House of Wisdom preserves and translates scientific and medical documents into Arabic
• Astrolabe
• Algebra

Tang to Ming China

• Porcelain
• Movable type
• Gunpowder
• Mechanical clock
• Paper money
• Magnetic compass
• Chinese junks (ships), large ships some more than 400 feet in length with a capacity to displace up to 1500 tons of water with four large masts
• Initial fleet of junks included 62 ships that carried nearly 28,000 sailors, merchants, and soldiers