Download Mongols

Key Concept 3.2:
Continuity &
Innovations of
State Forms &
Their Interactions
(Mongols)
Period 3: 600 – 1450 CE
Who were the Mongols?
Genghis Khan
United the
Mongol tribes
 1206- “The
Great Khan”
– Leader of
all Mongols

Genghis Khan

Two genius ideas:
 Promotion
based on merit not family
 Brought people of lower classes into his
tribe and executed the leaders of
conquered clans

Peasants LOVED him
Genghis Khan

One failure:
 Did
NOT create a single political unit out of
all his empires
 Who does this remind you of???
 Alexander
the Great
Four Khanates
 Yuan
Dynasty
(Khanate of the
Great Khan)China
 Chagatai
KhanateCentral Asia
 Ilkhanate- Persia
 Khanate of the
Golden HordeRussia
Mongol Military Power

Horses and Archery

Adaptable
 Learned
how to lay siege to fortified
castles
 Learned how to use gunpowder

Fear
Mongols in Russia
 Kievan
Rus
 Considered
“birthplace” of Russia
 Trade & Agriculture center
 Converted to Byzantine Christianity
 Fell to Mongols in 1240
Russia Under Mongol Rule
Khanate of the Golden Horde
 Serfdom arose as peasants gave up
land for protection
 Moscow benefited by acting as tribute
collector for Mongols
 Mongol rule isolated Russia from
Byzantium and Europe

 This
isolation will influence Russia for
centuries
Mongols in Persia
Siege of Baghdad
(1258)
 800,000 people
killed- including the
Abbasid Caliph

 Ends
500 year
Islamic dynasty

Added to the
Ilkhanate
Mongols and China

Kublai Khan
 Completed
the
conquest of
China that
Genghis Khan
(his
grandfather)
began
 First
time
China has
been unified
since end of
the Tang
Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)
Centralized government and
bureaucracy
 Shortest of the Chinese dynasties
 Maintained a separateness from
the population and used foreigners
(Marco Polo) to staff bureaucracy

 This
leads to their downfall
Were the Mongols Awesome?

Reinvigorated Trade
 Pax

Mongolica & Silk Roads
Increased communication in Eurasia
 Yam

Introduction of new foods
 Rice

System
becomes staple in Persian diet
Cross-cultural pollination
 Forcibly
relocated people useful to them
(especially administrators)

Religious tolerance
Were the Mongols Awful?
Genghis Khan’s
definition of
happiness
 Brutal Conquerors
 Empires did not
last
 Not interested in
art or architecture
 Maybe responsible
for the Black Death
