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the Mongol Watershed

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Military Commercialism

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Commercial Militarism

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Forging Imperial Regimes of Trade and Production across Eurasia,

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from the Mongols to the Renaissance

“Mongol Centuries”

• In our expansive spatio-temporal perspective, Mongol centuries appear to be accelerators of transformations that eventually produced commercial capitalism, not only in Europe but rather in networks of connectivity radiating outward from among port-cities along coastlines all around the world.
• Expanding spatial scale of mobility and commercial connectivity(networks); of territorial order/ranks; of military alliances and conquests; of military coercion and wealth extraction; of state administrative authority (taxation); and therefore of accumulation of wealth moving up the ranks, invested in urban centers, and of commercial capital circulation and accumulation, which sustain growing imperial systems.

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The Renaissance in the context of expanding commercial connections

• History.com: The Renaissance was a fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic “rebirth” following the Middle Ages. Generally described as taking place from the 14th century to the 17th century, the Renaissance promoted the rediscovery of classical philosophy, literature and art.
• Romaniello, in OREAH: Mongol expansion and the Black Death are “significant events” in the “establishment of new, ‘early modern’ Eurasian trade networks.
• Post-Mongol regimes, particularly the Ottoman Empire, opened new Mediterranean markets where European merchants could purchase Asian exports. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, in 1453, “… Genoese community…asserted itself as an economic go-between. The Genoese thrived in a Muslim environment … due to their willingness to acculturate while attempting to maintain strong cultural ties … they combined “economic dexterity” with a “cultural aptitude for innovation.” (Dauverd)

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The Mongols' Mark on Global History

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IN CHINA: The Status of Merchants: Improved under Mongol Rule

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Under Mongol rule, merchants had a higher status than they had in traditional China. During their travels they could rest and secure supplies through a postal-station system that the Mongols had established.

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The postal-station system was, of course, originally devised to facilitate the transmission of official mail from one part of the empire to another. Set up approximately every 20 miles along the major trade routes and stocked with supplies of food, horses, and lodging, the stations were an incredible boon to all travelers, whether they were traveling for business or otherwise.

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Under the Mongols, merchants also had the benefit of not being faced with confiscatory taxation, as was the case during the rule of the traditional Chinese dynasties.

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Support for trade characterized not only Mongol policy in China but their policy throughout their domains. In Persia the Mongols granted higher tax breaks and benefits to traders in an effort to promote commerce. The Mongols even tried to introduce paper money into Persia — though this would become merely a failed experiment. Nonetheless, the attempt indicates the desire of the Mongols to provide additional assistance to traders.

The Mongols' Mark on Global History

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Merchant Associations Alleviate the Perils of Caravan Trade

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To further support trade and commerce, the Mongols established merchant associations, known as Ortogh, specifically to promote caravan trade over long distances.

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The Mongols recognized that the caravan trade across Eurasia was extraordinarily expensive for any single merchant. Often there would be as many as 70 to 100 men on each mission, and all had to be fed and paid and provided with supplies (including camels, horses, and so on) over a lengthy period of time.

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Quite a number of the caravans simply did not make it, either because of natural disasters of one sort or another or plundering by bandit groups. Travelers, for example, mentioned coming across numerous skeletons, animal and human, on these routes. Because of the expense involved in such a disaster, just one such failed caravan could devastate an individual merchant's holdings.

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The Mongol solution to these concerns was the establishment of Ortogh — through which merchants could pool their resources to support a single caravan. If a caravan did not make it, no single merchant would be put out of business. The losses would be shared, as would any risks, and of course, profits when the caravans succeeded. The Mongols also provided loans to merchants at relatively low rates of interest, as long as they belonged to an Ortogh.

The Mongols in China

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Life in China under Mongol Rule: For Peasants

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The Mongols gave strong support to the peasants and peasant economy of China, believing that the success of the peasant economy would bring in additional tax revenues and ultimately benefit the Mongols themselves.

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Relief measures — including tax remissions, as well as granaries for the storage of surplus grain — were thus provided for peasant farmers in North China, in the areas that had been devastated during the war between the Mongols and the Chinese. And early in their reign, in 1262, the Mongols prohibited the nomads' animals from roaming in the farmlands and thereby undermining the peasant economy.

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The Mongols also sought to help the peasants organize themselves and initiated a cooperative rural organization — a self-help organization comprising about 50 households under the direction of a village leader.

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These rural cooperatives had as their principle purpose the stimulation of agricultural production and the promotion of land reclamation. The village/cooperative leader had the task of guiding and helping his organization through everything from farming, planting trees, and opening up barren areas, to improving measures for flood control and increasing silk production. In addition, the cooperatives conducted a periodic census and assisted in surveillance over recalcitrant Chinese and other possible saboteurs of Mongol rule. They also served as a kind of charity granary to assist the unfortunate during poor harvests or droughts, providing food and other supplies to orphans, widows, and the elderly.

(Continued next slide)

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The Mongols also devised a fixed system of taxation for the peasants. Rather than having to anticipate unpredictable and extraordinary levies, as in the past system they had much resented, peasants under the Mongol system could know exactly how much would be required of them.

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Perhaps the one area in which the Mongols did not much take into account the interests of the peasantry was labor obligations. During their rule the Mongols embarked on a series of extraordinary public works projects throughout China, including the extension of the Grand Canal to Daidu (present-day Beijing), a vast postal-station system, and the building of a capital city in Daidu. All these projects required vast investments of labor, and most of this labor was recruited from the peasantry. This policy became one that generated much animosity from the peasant ranks. [Also see The Beginnings of Mongol Collapse: Public Works Failures]

WARS AND COMMERCE AT SEA – (REMEMBER THE CHOLAS AND SRI VIJAYA, CIRCA 1000) – UPSWING IN POST-MONGOL CENTURIES

The impact of Zheng He's expeditions on Indian Ocean interactions

Tansen Sen

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Ming maritime expeditions led by Admiral Zheng He (1371–1433) … not only introduced an unprecedented militaristic aspect to the Indian Ocean region, but also led to the emergence of state-directed commercial activity in the maritime world that extended from Ming China to the Swahili coast of Africa.

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Additionally, these expeditions stimulated the movement of people and animals across the oceanic space and might eventually have facilitated the rapid entry of European commercial enterprises into the Indian Ocean region during the second half of the fifteenth century.

In 1292, after 17 years in China, Kublai Khan agreed to let Marco Polo, his father and uncle return home, after they convoyed a Mongolian princess Kokachin to marry a Persian king. In 1295, they finally reached Venice by sea via the Black Sea

WIKIPEDIA�

• The colonies of the Republic of Genoa were a series of economic and trade posts in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Some of them had been established directly under the patronage of the republican authorities to support the economy of the local merchants (especially after privileges obtained during the Crusades), while others originated as feudal possessions of Genoese nobles, or had been founded by powerful private institutions, such as the Bank of Saint George.
• POPE BANS TRADE WITH MAMLUKS …. :
• Gherardo Ortalli (1995) “Venice and Papal Bans on trade with the levant: The role of the jurist,” Mediterranean Historical Review, 10:1-2, 242-258.

TRADING POSTS AND FORTIFICATIONS ON GENOESE TRADE ROUTES. FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN TO THE BLACK SEA

• After 1261 and the Treaty of Ninfeo, they established another monopoly across the whole of the Black Sea, with its stronghold in the Crimea at settlements like Cembalo (Balaklava), Caffa (Feodosia) and Sudak (Soldaia).
• Here, a more sophisticated and extensive urban system was built, similar to those in other areas controlled by Genoa, i.e., based on the municipal system in Genoa itself.
• Subsequent history has demonstrated that thanks to good relationships between the Genoese and the Turks, the Crimea proved to be of such strategic importance that it continued to be defended even after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, right up until 1475.

GENOESE MERCHANTS AND THE SPANISH CROWN�(CAMBRIDGE CORE)

• The political testament of Emperor Charles V is an indication of their function not only as a republic, but also as a financial and merchant empire within the Habsburg Empire.
• The Genoese “posted” in southern Italy stood as one of the knots of the commercial empire, which up to 1480 linked places east and west of the Mediterranean through commerce, and from 1528 on linked Old and New Worlds through finance.

WARS FOR CONTROL OF SEA TRADE ROUTES AND PORT CITIES ---

• 1352 to 1512: Wars between Venice and Genoa for control of trade in the Mediterranean and its the Black Sea connections
• Russo-Turkish wars, series of wars between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in the 17th–19th century. The wars reflected the decline of the Ottoman Empire and resulted in the gradual southward extension of Russia’s frontier and influence into Ottoman territory. The wars took place in 1676–81, 1687, 1689, 1695–96, 1710–12 (part of the Great Northern War), 1735–39, 1768–74, 1787–91, 1806–12, 1828–29, 1853–56 (the Crimean War), and 1877–78. As a result of these wars, Russia was able to extend its European frontiers southward to the Black Sea, southwestward to the Prut River, and south of the Caucasus Mountains in Asia.

GENOA, PERSIA, AND RENAISSANCE

Monumental Asian Empires of Early Modernity

West

Ottoman Empire 1299 - 1914. (1453 - Constantinople becomes Istanbul)

Central

Timurid Empire 1370-1450. Safavid Empire 1501-1736

South

Delhi Sultanate: 1206-1555. Mughal Empire: 1526-1857

East

Ming Dynasty: 1368-1644. Qing Dynasty: 1644-1912

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