��PRODUCING THE GLOBAL SPACE OF COMMERCIAL CAPITALISM, 1300-1850�
THE GREAT ASIAN EMPIRES
OTTOMAN, SAFAVID, TIMURID, MUGHAL, MING, QING
Ratio Asia/Western Europe | Estimated GDP in each year | ||||
1 | 1000 | 1500 | 1600 | 1700 | 1820 |
532% | 785% | 365% | 331% | 284% | 260% |
Ratio India/Total Asia | | | | ||
44% | 39% | 38% | 34% | 40% | 27% |
Ratio China/Total Asia | | | | ||
35% | 32% | 38% | 44% | 36% | 55% |
GDP Estimates
Mapping spaces of the most visibly influential social interaction,
at the tip of India,
based on the spatial distribution of references in textual sources.
Note the route of Ibn Battuta, connecting South India and Sylhet, where Shah Jalal arrives from Central Asia in 1295
MARCO POLO (1271-1295) IBN BATTUTA (1325-1354)
Travels in expanding spaces of territorial mobility
BUBONIC PLAGUE
Dramatic evidence of expansive mobility and connectivity across Eurasia in the 1300s
Empires in 1300
Russia
Zrínyi's Charge from the Fortress of Szigetvár [Sziget]
Artistic impression about the battle of Szigetvár (1566)
1550
GUNPOWDER EMPIRES
Early Ming and later ottoman artillery
A special type of firearm first mentioned in Safavid times was the swivel gun, the so-called zanbūrak (little bee), usually mounted on the back of a camel (Plate I). Zanbūraks were often fired from a kneeling camel, but could be employed from a trotting one as well (Dupré, II, p. 297). The origins of the zanbūrak tend to be ascribed to the Afghans, though the fact that the invading Afghans made use of the weapon (Gilanentz, p. 7) is no proof of this. The first eyewitness accounts by foreigners of its use date from the late Safavid period, but the weapon may have been in use already in the early 16th century (Scarcia Amoretti, p. 546, where falconetti are mentioned as being placed on carts).
Ottoman, Mughal, Safavid,
Ming
1259 – 1918 �Ottoman Empire�
Republic of Venice and its Empire circa 1500
Empires and port cities
Trade route connections and �strategic sites for imperial control
Khwarezm and Ilkhanate (timeline)
PERSIA
Ghazan 7th Ilkhan converts to Islam …. Religion and Art under Ilkhans
Timur��Timurid Empire 1370-1450 � �when/where did artillery arrive?� �Safavid Empire 1501-1736�
From Khan, “Firearms in Central Asia”
Expanding from Chaghatai Ulus: Timurids inCentral/Asia-Indo Persia
Samarkand
Monumental artistic urbanism, with commercial and military patronage: Timurids and Samarkand
The Timurids were the final great dynasty to emerge from the Central Asian steppe.
In 1370, the eponymous founder, Timur (Tamerlane), who belonged to a Turko-Mongol tribe settled in Transoxiana, became master of this province and established Samarqand as his capital.
Within thirty-five years, he subjugated all of Central Asia, greater Iran, and Iraq, as well as parts of southern Russia and the Indian subcontinent. To the west, Timurid forces defeated the Mamluk army in Syria and that of the Ottomans at Ankara (1400–1402). In 1405, while preparing to invade China, Timur died.
The vast empire he carved proved to be difficult to keep; his son and successor, Shah Rukh (r. 1405–47), barely managed to maintain the empire’s boundaries, and subsequent Timurid princes sought to establish their own kingdoms, weakening the empire with internal strife. Eventually only Khurasan and Transoxiana remained Timurid, and during the remaining years of the dynasty, these were ruled by separate branches of the Timurid family.
Safavid Empire (1501-1722)
Shah Ismail depicted by an Italian artist, 1560s
Safavid Empire
Chehel Sotoon (Forty Columns) Palace, Isfahan, 1650s
Naqsh-e Jahan Square, Isfahan
Shah Tahmasb (r. 1524-1576)’s Shahnamah (Book of Kings), MET, New York
Ali Qapu Palace, Isfahan, 1590s
Safavids: Aali Qapu palace, Isfahan
India
Mughals: Red Fort, Agra
AKBARNAMA SUBMISSION OF RAJPUTS
Zone of imperial conflict
Schwartzberg Atlas: Iran-Afghanistan-India Conflict zone 18th century
Domingo Paes (sometimes spelt Pais; 16th century) was a Portuguese traveller who visited the Vijayanagara Empire around 1520.
Reports Paes, "The kingdom has many places on the coast of India, which are seaports with whom we are at peace, and some of them have factories, in particular in Amcola (Ankola), Mirgeo (Mirjan, 14.48434, 74.42618 ), Honor, Batecalla, Mamgalor, Bracalor and Bacanor."
Paes reports advanced irrigation technology …and a wide variety of cultures. He describes a busy market of precious stones. The city was prospering and its size, in the eyes of the narrator, was comparable to Rome, with abundant vegetation, aqueducts and artificial lakes.[Wikipedia]
Vijayanagar
Vijayanagar: Hindu Sultans
State Finance: Iqta – Jagir
The Great Sultans: PERSIAN MODELS SPREAD of government
Institutions and legitimation symbolism spread
across Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal imperial space
Body, Court, Person, Vision, Adornment, Honor
China
Drikung Kagyu Lineage Tree
Kublai crushes rebels 1267
Khanbaliq or Dadu was the capital of the Yuan dynasty, the main center of the Mongol Empire founded by Kublai Khan in what is now Beijing, also the capital of China today. It was located at the center of modern Beijing.
Hall for the worship of ancestors, 1267
Marco Polo on Kublai’s defeat of uncle Nayan, 1287.
Nayan had gathered an army of 300,000 with the intent of wresting power from his nephew. Alerted to the threat, Kublai quickly marched north at the head of a force of some 460,000 troops surprising the usurper, as he and his army lay encamped in a shallow valley. We join Marco's story in the early morning as Kublai Khan looks down on his enemy in the valley below:
The Kaan was there on the hill, mounted on a great wooden bartizan, (a wooden defensive tower) which was borne by four well-trained elephants, and over him was hoisted his standard, so high aloft that it could be seen from all sides. His troops were ordered in battles of 30,000 men apiece; and a great part of the horsemen had each a foot-soldier armed with a lance set on the crupper behind him (for it was thus that the foot-men were disposed of); and the whole plain seemed to be covered with his forces. So it was thus that the Great Kaan's army was arrayed for battle.
But why should I make a long story of it? You must know that it was the most parlous and fierce and fearful battle that ever has been fought in our day. Nor have there ever been such forces in the field in actual fight, especially of horsemen, as were then engaged - for, taking both sides, there were not fewer than 760,000 horsemen, a mighty force! and that without reckoning the footmen, who were also very numerous. The battle endured with various fortune on this side and on that from morning till noon. But at the last, by God's pleasure and the right that was on his side, the Great Khan had the victory, and Nayan lost the battle and was utterly routed. For the army of the Great Kaan performed such feats of arms that Nayan and his host could stand against them no longer, so they turned and fled. But this availed nothing for Nayan; for he and all the barons with him were taken prisoners, and had to surrender to the Kaan with all their arms.
The standardization of paper currency allowed the Yuan court to monetize taxes and reduce carrying costs of taxes in goods, as did the policy of Möngke Khan. But the forest nations of Siberia and Manchuria still paid their taxes in goods or commodities to the Mongols; chao was used only within the Yuan dynasty. Ghazan’s fiscal reforms enabled the inauguration of a unified bimetallic currency in the Ilkhanate. Chagatai Khan Kebek renewed the coinage backed by silver reserves and created a unified monetary system throughout the realm.
Mongols patronized, subsidized, and depended on ORTOY MERCHANTS to provision the court with necessities and luxuries and to sustain the army and imperial projects in agriculture and manufacturing …. To the point where these merchants became so powerful that Kublai Khan became determined to limit their power … which grew again after his death.
Rebuilding The Grand Canal
The need for a major transport link again arose during the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty (1279–1368), because its capital at Dadu (Beijing) required a grain-supply system. In 1282–83 the decision was made to build a new canal from the Huang He—which since 1195 had changed its course southward and taken over the former mouth of the Huai below Huaiyin—to the Daqing River in northern Shandong province, which was dredged to give an outlet to the sea. The mouth of the Daqing, however, silted up almost immediately. An alternative canal, cut across the neck of the Shandong Peninsula from the harbour of Qingdao (Tsingtao) to Yixian, also proved impracticable and was abandoned. Eventually another stretch of canal, the Huitong Canal, was built to join Dong’e Zhen on the Huang He with the Wei River at Linqing. In this way, the modern Grand Canal came into being. During the Yuan period, however, canal transport was expensive and inefficient, and most grain went by sea.
The Mongol dynasty, which had been renamed the Yuan in 1271, proceeded to set up a Chinese-style administration that featured a centralized bureaucracy, political subdivisions, and a rationalized taxation system.
Yuan was the first dynasty to make Beijing (called Dadu by the Yuan) its capital, moving it there from Karakorum (now in Mongolia) in 1267.
The Yuan rebuilt the Grand Canal and put the roads and postal stations in good order, and their rule coincided with new cultural achievements including the development of the novel as a literary form.
The vast size of the empire resulted in more-extensive foreign trade and foreign intercourse than at any other time before the modern period.
Culture
In 1313 the teachings of the Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi were declared as orthodox and kept this place until the end of the Chinese empire.
The most powerful, unified, Mongol imperial territory
Ming Dynasty: 1368-1644
Forbidden City, Beijing
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. ��For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government.��Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 720,000 m2(7,800,000 sq ft). ��The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.
Zheng He
Zheng He