Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Chinggis Khan and his heirs established the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world, extending from Korea to Hungary and from Iraq, Tibet, and Burma to Siberia. Ruling over roughly two thirds of the Old World, the Mongol Empire enabled people, ideas, and objects to traverse immense geographical and cultural boundaries. Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia reveals the individual stories of three key groups of people—military commanders, merchants, and intellectuals—from across Eurasia. These annotated biographies bring to the fore a compelling picture of the Mongol Empire from a wide range of historical sources in multiple languages, providing important insights into a period unique for its rapid and far-reaching transformations.
 
Read together or separately, they offer the perfect starting point for any discussion of the Mongol Empire’s impact on China, the Muslim world, and the West and illustrate the scale, diversity, and creativity of the cross-cultural exchange along the continental and maritime Silk Roads.

Features and Benefits:

• Synthesizes historical information from Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and Latin sources that are otherwise inaccessible to English-speaking audiences.
• Presents in an accessible manner individual life stories that serve as a springboard for discussing themes such as military expansion, cross-cultural contacts, migration, conversion, gender, diplomacy, transregional commercial networks, and more.
• Each chapter includes a bibliography to assist students and instructors seeking to further explore the individuals and topics discussed.
• Informative maps, images, and tables throughout the volume supplement each biography.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Jul 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9780520970786

Book preview

Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia

The publisher and the University of California Press Foundation gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Philip E. Lilienthal Imprint in Asian Studies, established by a major gift from Sally Lilienthal.

Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia

Generals, Merchants, Intellectuals

EDITED BY

Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack, and Francesca Fiaschetti

UC Logo

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press

Oakland, California

© 2020 by Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack, and Francesca Fiaschetti

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Biran, Michal, editor. | Brack, Jonathan, editor. | Fiaschetti, Francesca, editor.

Title: Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia : generals, merchants, and intellectuals / Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack, Francesca Fiaschetti.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019057899 (print) | LCCN 2019057900 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520298743 (cloth) | ISBN 9780520298750 (paperback) | ISBN 9780520970786 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Intellectuals—Mongolia—13th century—Biography. | Intellectuals—Mongolia—14th century—Biography. | Mongols—History, Military—13th century—Biography. | Mongols—History, Military—14th century—Biography. | Merchants—Mongolia—13th century—Biography. | Merchants—Mongolia—14th century—Biography.

Classification: LCC DS798.66.A2 A46 2020 (print) | LCC DS798.66.A2 (ebook) | DDC 950/.2—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019057899

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019057900

Manufactured in the United States of America

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This volume is dedicated to the memory of Thomas T. Allsen (1940–2019)

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Notes on Dates and Transliterations

Introduction

Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack, and Francesca Fiaschetti

PART ONE. GENERALS

1. Guo Kan: Military Exchanges between China and the Middle East

Florence Hodous

2. Baiju: The Mongol Conqueror at the Crossfire of Dynastic Struggle

Sara Nur Yıldız

3. Qutulun: The Warrior Princess of Mongol Central Asia

Michal Biran

4. Yang Tingbi: Mongol Expansion along the Maritime Silk Roads

Masaki Mukai and Francesca Fiaschetti

5. Sayf al-Dīn Qipchaq al-Manṣūrī: Defection and Ethnicity between Mongols and Mamluks

Amir Mazor

6. Tuqtuqa and His Descendants: Cross-Regional Mobility and Political Intrigue in the Mongol Yuan Army

Vered Shurany

PART TWO. MERCHANTS

7. Jaʿfar Khwāja: Sayyid, Merchant, Spy, and Military Commander of Chinggis Khan

Yihao Qiu

8. Diplomacy, Black Sea Trade, and the Mission of Baldwin of Hainaut

John Giebfried

9. Jamāl al-Dīn al-Ṭībī: The Iraqi Trader Who Traversed Asia

Matanya Gill

10. Taydula: A Golden Horde Queen and Patron of Christian Merchants

Szilvia Kovács

PART THREE. INTELLECTUALS

11. Rashīd al-Dīn: Buddhism in Iran and the Mongol Silk Roads

Jonathan Brack

12. Fu Mengzhi: The Sage of Cathay in Mongol Iran and Astral Sciences along the Silk Roads

Yoichi Isahaya

13. ʿĪsa Kelemechi: A Translator Turned Envoy between Asia and Europe

Hodong Kim

14. Pādshāh Khatun: An Example of Architectural, Religious, and Literary Patronage in Ilkhanid Iran

Bruno De Nicola

15. Islamic Learning on the Silk Roads: The Career of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Akhawī

Or Amir

Glossary

Chronology

List of Contributors

Index

Illustrations

MAPS

0.1. Mongol Eurasia (1206–1368)

0.2. Conquests of the United Empire (1206–59)

0.3. The Mongol Commonwealth: The Four Ulus es, ca. 1290

2.1. The Battle of Kösedağ (1243)

4.1. Countries along the Routes of Yang Tingbi’s Diplomatic Missions

5.1. The Career of Qipchaq al-Manṣūrī

6.1. The War of the Two Capitals (1328)

7.1. Asia before Chinggis Khan

8.1. The World of Baldwin of Hainaut, ca. the 1250s

9.1. The Travels of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Ṭibī

10.1. The Golden Horde and Its Trading Partners

11.1. Map of Buddhist Sites in Ilkhanid Iran

15.1. Al-Akhawī’s Route

FIGURES

1.1. Guo Ziyi Receiving the Homage of the Uighurs

1.2. The Assassins’ stronghold, Girdkūh, in northern Iran

1.3. Qanūn (nineteenth-century Turkish)

1.4. Uighur kalun (Ch. kalong )

2.1. The Kösedağ Plain

3.1. Qutulun wrestling a suitor

3.2. Qutulun, on the cover of Shüüdertsetseg’s Khotol Tsagaan Günj

4.1. Yang Tingbi pingkouji inscription

4.2. Luoyang (Wan’an) Bridge

5.1. The Battle of Wādī al-Khazndār in Hayton’s Fleur des histoires de la terre d’Orient

6.1. The Yangqun Miao area; El-Temür’s ancestral temple

11.1. Shakyamuni offering fruit to the devil (1314)

12.1. Ptolemaic celestial model representing planetary motion

12.2. Yuan map of North China

12.3. Japanese horoscope for the year 1113 C.E.

14.1. The Qutlughkhanids of Kirmān

14.2. The dome of the mausoleum at the Çifte Minaret madrasa, Erzurum (Turkey)

15.1. The Minaret of Vabkent

15.2. Mausoleum of Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, Urgench, Uzbekistan

15.3. The Prophet’s grave and mosque in Medina

TABLES

4.1. Yang Tingbi’s Voyages in South India, 1280–82

13.1. Descendants of ʿĪsa and the Positions They Held

Acknowledgments

The present volume originated in the Jerusalem ERC-funded project Mobility Empire and Cross-Cultural Contacts in Mongol Eurasia (ERC Grant Agreement n. 312397, under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme [FP/2007–13]), to which most authors in this volume are connected as former members or friends. Two of the chapters (one by Mukai and Fiaschetti and another by Hodong Kim, kindly translated by Wonhee Cho) have already been published, in Chinese and Korean respectively. We thank the authors for agreeing to having their articles translated and adapted for the volume.

We would also like to thank Ido Wachtel and Amit Niv, who produced most of the maps for this volume, as well as the anonymous reviewers at the various stages, who helped broaden our biographies’ selection and sharpen our arguments. At the California University Press, thanks are due to our editor, Eric Schmidt, for his enthusiastic encouragement since this volume’s inception, and to Austin Lin, who kindly answered our myriad technical questions.

Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack, Francesca Fiaschetti

Jerusalem-Ulaanbaatar, August 2019

Notes on Dates and Transliterations

Dates are generally given according to the Gregorian calendar. Hijri and Chinese dates are given only when they have a special relevance.

Chinese names and terms have been transliterated according to the Pinyin system.

Arabic words, titles, and names have been transliterated according to the system used in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. The transliteration of words and names of Persian origin have followed in most cases the Arabic transliteration (e.g., Juwaynī, not Juvaynī, nāmah, not nāme). Common words and place names such as sultan, mamluk, amir, Shiraz, and Baghdad, appear in the text without diacritical points. Well-known place names (e.g., Jerusalem or Damascus) appear in their common English form.

Russian has been transliterated according to the system of the Library of Congress.

Names and terms of Mongolian origin have been transliterated according to Antoine Mostaert’s scheme (modified by F. W. Cleaves), except for the following deviations: č has been rendered as ch; š as sh; γ as gh; and ǰ as j. Kh has been rendered q, except for the word khan (instead of qan) and its derivatives. We retained, however, the form qa’an. In general some Mongol terms appear in their Turkicized form, in accordance with their more common appearance in the sources (e.g., yarligh, not jarligh). When this occurs, both forms are indicated in the index.

Introduction

MICHAL BIRAN, JONATHAN BRACK, AND FRANCESCA FIASCHETTI

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Chinggis Khan and his heirs established and ruled the largest contiguous empire in world history, an empire that, at its height, extended from Korea to Hungary, and from Iraq, Tibet, and Burma to Siberia. Ruling over roughly two-thirds of the Old World and profoundly impacting also regions beyond its reach, the Mongol Empire created remarkable mobility across Eurasia, with people, ideas, and artifacts traversing vast geographical distances and cultural boundaries. The exchange of goods, people, germs, and more had far-reaching consequences for the Eurasian political, cultural, and economic dynamics. Introducing new commercial, diplomatic, and intellectual networks, but also revitalizing ancient ones, the Mongol Empire significantly advanced the integration of the Old World.

At the center of these transformations were the Silk Roads, the various trade routes—continental and maritime—that connected East Asia mainly to the Islamic world and Europe, and flourished under Mongol rule. Although the term Silk Road was introduced only in the late nineteenth century,¹ the various roads that crisscrossed the Old World, from east to west and north to south, were used, in changing constellations and volumes of traffic, already in prehistorical times.²

The Mongol era marked a new stage in the history of the Silk Roads, due not only to the growth in volume and scope of the traffic that they channeled. Prior to the Mongol conquests, trade on the Silk Roads was mainly relay trade. Merchants did not travel themselves the entire distance from eastern to western Eurasia; rather, trade was carried out in shorter circuits, eventually linking East Asia and the Islamic world or Europe. Under the Mongols, however, for the first time in history, individual merchants and travelers could, and did, travel the entire distance themselves, from Europe to China and vice versa. The prominent presence of European merchants along the Silk Roads was another innovation of the Mongol period, though Muslim trade networks remained dominant in most of Mongol-ruled Eurasia. In addition to the rise in the number of travelers, their diversity was equally if not more remarkable; in addition to diplomats, soldiers, and merchants, experts in various fields—medicine, astronomy, entertainment, religion, and military affairs, to name just a few—also spanned the continent. Moreover, a considerable group of those who traversed the Silk Roads did so as commodities themselves, ranging from captives and slaves to highly skilled personnel who were delivered as tribute. All were forced to relocate across Eurasia.

The chapters in this volume seek to illustrate life along the Mongol Silk Roads by focusing on the stories of male and female individuals of three elite groups from across Mongol Eurasia: military commanders, merchants, and intellectuals. These people came from diverse backgrounds and ethnic groups. They included Mongols, Chinese, Muslims, Qipchaqs, and Europeans. Their personal experiences elucidate aspects of Eurasian cross-cultural contact and physical and social mobility, beginning with the formative years of Chinggis Khan (r. 1206–27) and ending with the empire’s collapse during the second half of the fourteenth century.

BACKGROUND: THE MONGOL EMPIRE

The Mongol moment in world history (1206–1368) is commonly divided into two: first, the era of the United Mongol Empire (1206–60)—when an ever-expanding polity ruled the newly conquered lands from its center in Mongolia; second, the period of the Mongol Commonwealth, during which the empire dissolved into four regional empires. Known as khanates or uluses,³ these four Mongol polities were centered in China, Iran, Central Asia, and the Volga region, and were headed by contending branches of Chinggis Khan’s descendants. With the dissolution of the United Empire, the Great Khan’s capital shifted from Mongolia to North China, eventually settling in Beijing. Despite the numerous, often bloody, disputes between the four Mongol polities, they retained a strong sense of Chinggisid unity. In the mid-fourteenth century, all four empires were embroiled in political crises that led to the collapse of the Mongol states in Iran (1336) and China (1368), and considerably weakened the two remaining Steppe khanates. The fall of the Great Khan’s state in China is generally considered the end of the Mongol moment in world history, although Chinggis Khan’s descendants continued to rule in the western Steppe, Muslim Central Asia, and India, until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Moreover, the memory of the empire and its political structures continued to influence patterns of imperial formation and rule across Eurasia well into the early-modern period.

MAP 0.1. Mongol Eurasia (1206–1368) (after Biran 2007, 12–13).

THE UNITED MONGOL EMPIRE (YEKE MONGGHOL ULUS, 1206–59)

Most of the empire’s territorial expansion, as well as the formation of its institutions and ideology of world domination, took place during the period of the United Empire. After two decades of bloody internecine wars, Temüjin united the Mongolian tribes and in 1206 was enthroned as Chinggis Khan (literally: universal ruler or harsh ruler). He spent the next few years (1204–9) organizing his nascent state. Relying on the precedents established by the earlier Inner Asian nomadic empires, notably the Turkic Empire of the sixth to eighth centuries, Chinggis Khan borrowed, for the consolidation of his future empire, ideological concepts, a writing system, and military and administrative institutions.

Following its incubation period, the newly organized Mongol army had to be put into action soon to prevent its soldiers from turning against each other, provide booty, and maintain Chinggis Khan’s image as a successful military leader. Hence, principally from 1209 onward, Chinggis Khan led his armies outside Mongolia, gradually expanding from raids to conquests. When he died in 1227, he ruled over the largest territory any single individual had ever conquered—from north China to the Caspian Sea. One turning point in his career was his victories in Central Asia, against the Muslim Khwārazmshāh, who in the early thirteenth century ruled a vast, though recently assembled, empire, from Iran to the Jaxartes River (present-day Uzbekistan’s eastern border). Through his military achievements in Central Asia during the 1220s, Chinggis Khan gained both considerable territory and human capital, including highly qualified nomadic warriors. These conquests also added a new set of Muslim precedents and talent to his administrative and imperial toolkit. The extraordinary success of his western campaign convinced Chinggis Khan himself and everyone around him that he was indeed destined to rule the earth.⁴

How were Chinggis Khan and his heirs able to conquer and rule such a large swath of land, and moreover, to accomplish this in such a short period? Several external factors contributed to the Chinggisids’ success: the political fragmentation of Eurasia in the centuries leading to his rise; the emergence of post-nomadic states along the Eurasian Steppe, in eastern, central, and western Asia, which provided the Mongols with guiding models for ruling nonnomadic populations; and finally, nearly two decades (1211–25) of extremely high levels of rainfall in Inner Asia providing the vegetation and fodder needed for the quick and massive expansion of the Mongols’ nomadic military apparatus, which heavily relied on horses and husbandry.⁵

The main reason for the Mongols’ success, however, was none of the above. It was, above all, Chinggis Khan’s own policies, notably the efficient mobilization of resources—human, material, and spiritual—and his pragmatic willingness to learn from others both in military and civil matters.⁶ The reorganization of the army was one of the major steps Chinggis Khan took toward securing his rule in Mongolia and the empire’s expansion. Military technological innovations or the usage of gunpowder-based artillery appear to have played a minor role, if any at all, in their success. In terms of armament and tactics, the Mongol armies largely kept to the traditional methods of Steppe warfare.⁷ Rather, it was their superior leadership, discipline, and strategic planning that made the Mongols exceptionally successful, and enabled them to mobilize the Steppe’s chief military resource—the mounted archers (and at later stages, sedentary soldiers from the conquered lands as well).

Chinggis Khan retained the typical Inner Asian decimal units (10, 100, 1,000, 10,000), but abolished the tribal division of the military. The new units included individuals from different tribes; they were led, not by tribal chieftains, but by Chinggis Khan’s own nökörs (personal retainers). Selected according to merit and loyalty, the empire’s new nökör elite provided the Chinggisids with a highly professional and reliable military elite. However, the heads of several tribal lineages were allowed to retain a segment of their troops. Their loyalty to the Chinggisids was also secured through marriages with the Chinggisid family. Although some tribal identities proved to be more enduring—or were cleverly resurrected—the Chinggisids never faced a serious tribal threat after this reorganization. The Mongols incorporated large numbers of submitted soldiers into their armies, dividing them among the decimal units.

The army’s allegiance was further buttressed with draconian disciplinary measures on the one hand, and generous distribution of the booty on the other. Both the distribution of plunder and the troops’ discipline were sanctioned by the famous Jasaq (Turkish: Yasa)—the continually evolving law code ascribed to Chinggis Khan. The implementation of the Jasaq was supervised by his newly appointed judges (jarghuchis).

Chinggis Khan moreover adopted the Inner Asian institution of the supratribal royal guard (keshig). A combination of crack troops, police force, and a personal retinue, the keshig became the nursery of the empire’s new military and administrative elite.⁸ The composite army was constantly at war, securing conquest and booty and wreaking havoc.

Another important factor in the Mongols’ success was the unprecedented devastation their armies left behind, and the violent massacres they carried out during their conquests, which have shaped the Mongols’ image ever since. However, the violence they unleashed was not driven by wanton cruelty. Rather, as a strategic ploy, destruction and violence were enacted both as a means of psychological warfare and a brutal but effective way of compensating for the Mongols’ numerical inferiority. The Mongols established a wide belt of destruction around their territories which functioned as a buffer zone preventing future incursions, and facilitated their further expansion, as well as increased available pasture. The Mongols substantially reduced the devastation in the later stages of the conquests (e.g., South China in the 1260s to 1270s). Further, some areas were restored shortly after the conquest, even becoming flourishing sedentary centers of the empire.⁹

Another major reason for the Mongol success was their willingness to learn from others—subjects, neighbors, and visitors—and their skill in doing so. This was particularly apparent in the military field (e.g., the use of siege engineers from both China and the Muslim world, or the establishment of the Mongol navy). Yet, the Mongols were on the lookout for talent and innovation in other fields as well: administration, medicine, astronomy, and entertainment, to name but a few. As early as 1204, Chinggis Khan adopted the Uighur script for writing Mongolian, thereby creating a literate staff. Thereafter, the Mongols drew extensively on their experienced subjects to administer the conquered territories and operate their courts. As with their military successes, the resourceful mobilization of talent and skills greatly contributed to the Mongols’ effective administration. Their policy of religious pluralism and the respect and privileges they conferred upon religious and intellectual elites further enabled them to co-opt their subjects. Their active promotion of trade secured the support of the merchants, who were also often recruited to the imperial administration.

The Mongols’ success in itself was the final factor that led to their further success. After heading out of Mongolia, Chinggis Khan did not suffer one single humiliating defeat, and his later victories were easier and quicker than his initial attacks on China. His record of conquest remained unblemished throughout his campaigns. Each victory further motivated his soldiers and discouraged his rivals. His military successes bolstered Chinggis Khan’s public image as a charismatic ruler, preordained by Heaven (Tengri, the Mongols’ supreme sky god) to conquer the world. Under his heirs, the mission of world conquest became the collective destiny of his entire clan. The Chinggisids’ spate of victories continued throughout the United Empire. When the Mongols began to experience defeat (e.g., in 1258 in Vietnam, or in 1260 in Palestine), these downfalls were still dwarfed by the empire’s previous achievements.¹⁰

Chinggis Khan also tried to avoid one of main weaknesses of nomadic empires, namely royal succession. Several overlapping and contradictory succession principles were employed in Steppe societies, creating the potential for bitter succession struggles after the demise of each khan. Both linear (father to son) and lateral (from brother to brother) succession were common, and principles of seniority and direct progeny (patrilineal and matrilineal) played a role as well. Moreover, the contenders’ skills and success on the battlefield had significant, perhaps even primary, importance in deciding the successor. To avoid his succession turning into a bloody struggle, Chinggis Khan appointed his third son, Ögödei (r. 1229–41), as heir. Selected for his generosity and good temperament, which helped keep the empire together, Ögödei proved to be a fine choice. He not only continued his father’s military expansion; under his reign, the empire’s administration, policies, and ideology were further developed and systemized.

Assuming the title qa’an or great khan, Ögödei thus established his own position as superior to his brothers’, who bore only the title khan. He founded the Mongol capital, Qaraqorum (Black Sands) in the Orkhon valley in central Mongolia, the sacred territory of the Turks and Uighurs, and systematized the jam (Turk. yam), the mounted postal courier system. Post stations were established at stages, one day’s journey apart (about every 33 to 45 kilometers), and provided animals, fodder, and couriers for authorized travelers. Travelers on the jam were therefore able to cover large distances, about 350 to 400 kilometers a day. The jam enabled the effective and quick transmission of imperial orders from the court, and the delivery of information from the far ends of the empire to the ruler. And it further secured the routes for ambassadors and for the merchants who had a special relationship with the Mongol elite.¹¹

Ögödei also shaped the central administration of the empire, separating military and administrative authorities, employing professional administrators from the conquered regions, and regulating revenue collection and military recruitment. The Mongol ideology of world conquest was further elaborated and openly proclaimed, fueling a new wave of expansion. In 1234, the Mongols annihilated Chinggis Khan’s bitter enemy, the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), and in 1237–41 they wrought havoc in Europe, devastating south Russia and the Ukraine, and reaching as far as Germany before retreating to the plains of Hungary. After Jalāl al-Dīn Khwārazmshāh’s death in 1231, the small Mongol contingent that had been pursuing the Muslim ruler went on to subdue Georgia and Armenia, and even advanced into Anatolia during the interregnum between Ögödei’s death (1241) and the succession of Ögödei’s eldest son, Güyük (r. 1246–48). During these five years, when the empire was ruled by Ögödei’s widow, Töregene (d. 1246), most of the empire’s expansion came to a halt. Güyük too died before achieving further major conquests. This situation, however, changed under his cousin and successor, Möngke (r. 1251–59), the son of Chinggis Khan’s younger son, Tolui.

Möngke rose to power after a bloody coup, also known as the Toluid revolution,¹² in which Tolui’s sons replaced the Ögödeids as the ruling family line. Möngke’s accession was secured by massive purges among the Ögödeid and Chaghadaid branches and their supporters,¹³ as well as by administrative reforms that advanced the empire’s centralization. Using censuses, Möngke was able to mobilize the resources of his vast realm to advance the empire’s expansion. He appointed his brothers to lead new campaigns: Qubilai (r. 1260–94) was sent to China, and Hülegü (r. 1260–65) to the Middle East. Hülegü first subdued the Assassins, the Shīʿī Nizārī Ismāʿīlī sect. Based in the fortress of Alamūt in the mountains of northern Iran, the Ismāʿīlīs were infamous for the clandestine assassinations of their enemies.

In early 1258, Hülegü’s forces stormed Baghdad, the seat of the ʿAbbasid Caliphate, putting an end to the more than half a millennium-old Muslim caliphate. While Hülegü was campaigning in the Middle East, his brother Möngke was fighting against the Chinese Song dynasty (r. 960–1279) in southwest China. In 1253–4, another sibling, Qubilai, conquered the kingdom of Dali, in today’s Yunnan province in China. Qubilai then continued to fight the Song forces on the Yangtze River, where, in the summer of 1259, he learned of Möngke’s death.

The process of empire building, briefly sketched above, involved the extensive mobilization of human and material resources throughout Mongol territories and farther afield. This was due, first, to demographic considerations. The Mongols, who by Chinggis Khan’s time numbered less than a million people, were able to create their huge empire only by fully mobilizing all resources, human and material, from the regions under their control. Moreover, mobility was central to the nomadic Mongols’ culture and way of life, and thus it was natural for them to use it for imperial needs. Since the Chinggisids regarded skilled individuals as a form of booty to be distributed across the empire and among the family, myriad people were transferred across Eurasia to provide for the empire’s military, administrative, and cultural needs.

The military was the main catalyst for the mobilization of individuals. The Mongols appropriated the defeated nomadic and sedentary populations, and organized them into decimal units, sent to wage war across the continent. Their formidable army further instigated the mass flight of people, as throngs of refugees from all classes and professions fled the approaching storm. The Mongol campaigns further resulted in myriads of captives flooding the empire’s slave markets, and in defections of both individuals and collectives, though mostly after 1260. The empire transferred thousands of farmers and artisans to repopulate and revive devastated areas. The Mongols looked for experts in fields such as administration, military technology, trade, religion, craftsmanship, science, and entertainment. The recruitment of these professionals was systematized as early as the late 1230s, with the establishment of the census, classifying people according to their vocational skills. After the dissolution of the United Empire, the four khanates competed for and exchanged specialists in order to optimize their wealth and enhance their royal reputation.

MAP 0.2. Conquests of the United Empire (1206–59).

Cross-Eurasian mobility, however, was not just a matter of coercion under Mongol rule. The rulers’ reputation for rewarding loyal retainers, their encouragement of trade, their pluralistic attitude toward the religions of their subjects, and their preference for ruling through foreigners, namely employing nonlocal administrators, all assisted in attracting many gifted individuals to Chinggisid service.

The wide-ranging mobility of experts across the empire further promoted cross-cultural exchanges on a previously unprecedented level. Although it was mainly the cultural elements of their sedentary subjects, and not aspects of the Mongols’ own culture, that were exchanged and trafficked across Eurasia, it was the Mongol elite who initiated the bulk of these exchanges and influenced their direction and extent. Imperial agents, ranging from diplomats, merchants, and administrators, to artisans, soldiers, and hostages, were the prime conveyers of cultures, ideas, and materials across the Mongol Silk Roads. Moreover, these imperial agents prioritized the exchange and transmission of the cultural elements of the sedentary subjects that were particularly compatible with the Mongols’ cultural preferences. These included medical expertise (i.e., healing), astronomy, and divination (the reading of heaven), and geography and cartography (through which military intelligence was acquired). Functioning as cultural filters, the Mongols’ affinities and needs determined, to a large extent, the flow of people, ideas, and artifacts across Eurasia.¹⁴

The Mongols also cultivated economic ties that extended far beyond the empire’s confines. They inherited, invigorated, and extended the various trade routes along the Silk Roads, as well as sundry means for resource extraction and exchange, including plunder, asset redistribution, taxation or tribute, and gifting. Not only did the Mongols provide security and transportation infrastructure, but they were active participants in Eurasian trade, both as investors and consumers.

Trade had long been essential to nomads, since their resources could not cover all their needs. In addition, nomadic political culture required leaders to redistribute wealth (e.g., silk), which was often produced or assembled by their sedentary neighbors or subjects, among their followers. Chinggis Khan was certainly aware of the benefits of commerce, which was the premise behind his expansion into Central Asia. And Muslim and Uighur merchants were among his earliest supporters. As the empire grew, systemic plunder was the major source of luxury goods. Redistributed among the Mongol elite, the khans and princes often chose to invest these considerable fortunes in international trade. Consequently, they entrusted their capital to commercial agents, ortaqs (partners), most of whom were Muslims and Uighurs.

The ortaq was a trader (or trading company) acting on behalf of, or financed by, a Mongol or other notable, in return for a share in the profits. The revenues were often spent on lavish consumption that typified the nouveaux riches, but was also meant to showcase the ruler’s prestige and power. The establishment of Qaraqorum further induced trade, for the resources of Mongolia could hardly support such an imperial center. The Chinggisids were ready to generously pay to enjoy the best the sedentary world could offer, all the while remaining on the Steppe. Many traders eagerly exploited these opportunities, benefiting from the safe roads and access to imperial post stations. International trade, both in luxury and bulk goods, therefore resumed soon after the conquests, and trade along the overland Silk Roads picked up once again during the United Empire.¹⁵

THE MONGOL COMMONWEALTH: POST-1260 POLITIES

The succession struggle that erupted immediately upon Möngke’s demise, from which Qubilai Qa’an (r. 1260–94) emerged victorious, led to the empire’s dissolution. The process was accelerated by the empire’s sheer size, which made its management increasingly challenging. Moreover, the empire’s growth beyond the ecological borders of the Steppe rendered more difficult the additional military expansion, which had served to keep the uluses together. Eventually the United Empire was replaced by four big uluses or khanates.

The Khanate of the Great Khan (in Mongolian Qa’an ulus), later known as the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), ruled over China, Mongolia, Tibet, Korea, and Manchuria, and enjoyed a nominal, though not uncontested, primacy over its counterparts. The Ilkhanate (1260–1335), literally the empire of the submissive khans (in Mongolian Ulus Hülegü, after its founder, Hülegü), ruled in modern Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, parts of Anatolia, and the Caucasus. The Golden Horde (1260–1480), in Mongolian Ulus Jochi, after Chinggis Khan’s firstborn son, governed the northwestern Eurasian Steppe, from the eastern border of Hungary to Siberia, as well as the Russian principalities. The Chaghadaid Khanate (in Mongolian Ulus Chaghadai, after Chinggis Khan’s second son Chaghadai) held power in Central Asia, from eastern Xinjiang (China) to Uzbekistan, until Tamerlane’s rise to power in 1370, and over eastern Central Asia through the late seventeenth century. Until the early fourteenth the Chaghadaids shared rule in Central Asia with their cousins, the Ögödeids. Ögödei’s grandson, Qaidu (r. 1271–1301), resurrected the Ögödeids’ power after it was curbed under Möngke. Qaidu refused to acknowledge the authority of the Great Khan in China, and throughout his reign, raided the Yuan and the Ilkhanate, often with Chaghadaid support. Further conflicts involved Jochid and Chaghadaid claims to Azerbaijan and Khurasan, both territories that had been conquered before Hülegü’s western campaign, but were subsequently incorporated into the nascent Ilkhanate.

Despite these ongoing disputes, the four polities retained a strong sense of Chinggisid unity, seeing themselves as brotherly states. The four khanates, moreover, shared the same Mongol institutions (e.g., the keshig, Jasaq, jam, jarghuchi, darughachi, and the ordo [the Mongol court]), which existed alongside regional variants and local institutions.¹⁶ In 1304, the Chinggisid polities negotiated a peace treaty, which, however, resulted in another decade of internal strife in Central Asia and led to the final annihilation of the Ögödeid ulus. Two decades later, in the early 1320s, the four polities finally acknowledged the superiority of the Great Khan in China, although by this point, it was no more than nominal authority. This peaceful stage in the Mongol Commonwealth did not last long. The fourteenth-century global climatic cooling and the related natural disasters, which had multiplied by the mid-fourteenth century, dealt a strong blow to both nomadic and sedentary economies. The mid-fourteenth century witnessed the collapse of the Ilkhanate in Iran and Yuan China, and the considerable weakening of the two Steppe khanates. The mid-fourteenth century thereby marked the end of the Mongol moment in world history.

The post-1260 period also saw growing rapprochement between the Mongols and local societies in each polity. This gradual process was driven by practical considerations—to gain legitimation and the cooperation of local elites, and to achieve more effective rule overall. It was also motivated by the increased assimilation of the Mongols, especially their rank-and-file, within the native populations, whose size greatly exceeded that of their conquerors. The Mongols’ assimilation was further expressed in their embracing of the universal world religions—Buddhism in China, and Islam in the rest of the Mongol khanates, as well as in the Mongols’ adoption of sedentary imperial models, mainly in China and Iran, where such models existed. However, in a typical nomadic amalgamation, the various legitimizing and spatial concepts—Chinggisid, religious, local, and others—all coexisted in the Mongol states; they were never deemed mutually exclusive.

The post-1260 Mongol polities continued to cling to the Chinggisid ideology of world conquest. However, after 1260, its implementation became far more challenging. Inter-Mongol conflicts prevented the mobilization of the vast imperial resources that had characterized the earlier campaigns. The khanates were forced to channel their troops to defend their borders against rival uluses, rather than concentrate their efforts on their expansion. Furthermore, by 1260, the empire had reached the ecological border of Steppe nomadism on all its frontiers. Further expansion therefore demanded military organization, warfare techniques, and equipment that significantly differed from their earlier light cavalry campaigns. Through the mobilization of Chinese and Korean infantry and sailors, and the assistance of Iranian siege engineers, the Mongols managed to break the ecological border into South China, where their gains were by far the greatest in terms of both the economy and legitimation.¹⁷ Yet, they were less successful on other frontiers.¹⁸ Thus, from the late 1270s, Mongol expansion largely came to a halt.

MAP 0.3. The Mongol Commonwealth: The Four Ulus es, ca. 1290.

However, the deceleration in the Mongol expansion after the empire’s dissolution corresponded with an acceleration in the expansion of trade activities along the Mongol Silk Roads. With taxation replacing booty as the main source of revenue, the Mongol governments promoted local and international commerce, which provided taxes, markets, profits, and prestige. The khanates competed for commercial specialists, laid down infrastructure for transcontinental travel, and played a significant role in facilitating transcivilizational (East-West) and transecological (North-South) exchanges. The conquest of the Song in southern China was decisive also in terms of expanding the continental Silk Roads trade into maritime networks. The Yuan subsequently controlled China’s prosperous southern ports, and when conflict in Central Asia disturbed continental trade, they employed the maritime routes. China’s ports, notably Quanzhou (in modern Fujian), became centers of international trade, attracting merchants from India, the Muslim world, Southeast Asia, and Europe.

The main axes of exchange were through the Indian Ocean: between South China—the terminus and relay station for goods from East and Southeast Asia—and India; and between India and the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. From there, the cargos continued, either by land, to Iran, Iraq, Anatolia, and Europe (both eastern and western); via the maritime routes, through Egypt and the Mediterranean, to Europe; or from Aden to the shores of East Africa. Shorter sea routes catered to the lively slave trade between the Golden Horde’s ports on the Black Sea and Egypt, involving Muslim, Italian, and Byzantine traders. The maritime and overland routes were closely interlinked. The Black Sea ports serviced luxury goods arriving from the east over continental routes. And caravans headed inland from the Indian coast during the seasons when sailing was deemed dangerous. This thriving proto-global exchange reached its height in the 1320s to 1330s; further, it survived the fall of the Ilkhanate (1335), with its routes shifting from Iran to the Golden Horde. However, the Yuan collapse (1368) on the heels of the Black Death in Europe and the Middle East, which also coincided with further upheavals in the Golden Horde, severely curtailed the Mongols’ international system of trade.¹⁹

GENERALS, MERCHANTS, AND INTELLECTUALS ON THE MOVE

This book illustrates life along the Silk Roads by focusing on the stories of individuals from three elite groups—military commanders, merchants, and intellectuals. Their personal experiences elucidate aspects of cross-cultural contact and physical and social mobility during the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries in Mongol Eurasia. Our division of these individuals into the three groups may seem arbitrary at times: their careers often overlap with more than one category, so they could have just as easily been assigned to other groups, such as administrators and diplomats. Thus, the Muslim merchant Jaʿfar Khwāja (fl.1201–21?), whose career Qiu studies in chapter 7 of this volume, began his career as a merchant, but also guided the Mongol troops to attack the Jin capital (modern-day Beijing) and eventually governed the city for the Mongols. As governor, he conversed with Daoist priests and Confucian scholars, among others, regardless of his Muslim identity. Other figures, and in general, many new elite members, were polymaths and thus versed in several disciplines. The Muslim Ilkhanid vizier Rashīd al-Dīn (ca. 1247–1318), whom Brack examines in chapter 11, is a telling example: he was a prolific historian and theologian, a court physician and a cook, with a special interest in agriculture and agronomy, all in addition to his role as chief minister of the realm. Whereas the capable women examined