Mongles

The Mongols: An empire that historians hold a great many opinions about. There is the view of the Mongols as one of the most murderous empire of the post classical era and another that put Mongols under the classification of being one of the most terribly "misunderstood peoples". In actuality, the Mongols were more complex than simply good or evil. They did terrorize their surrounding empires, but, they also made some positive contributions as well.






Expanding territory was a big goal for Mongolia. Creating an empire of people who were united was the point of the Empire in the first place. Mongolia started out in the steppes region above China where the pastoral nomadic people were in a constant state of fighting, both among themselves and with other nomadic tribes. Fed up with the fighting, a poor, father-less boy set out to turn Mongolia into a place of no more fighting.That dream – give or take  – did come true. Mongolia did become a very large empire from 1206 to 1368, one that was quite peaceful within their own territory.




The rise and spread of the Mongolians can be attributed to one man, a poor child who grew up with a widowed mother, Genghis Khan, or Timujin, or Chenghis Khan, whichever one fits your fancy. Having grown up enduring the perils of the warring nomadic tribes, Khan made it his goal to create a Mongolia that wasn't in a constant state of fighting. Once he got some political power, he did just that. Using the tactic of fear, Khan built up Mongolia into a large empire. In doing so he used a great deal of force and terror, genocide playing a big factor in getting citizens to surrender to Mongolian rule, killing villagers who wouldn't back down and enslaving those who did. From a poor child to an emperor who conquered by fear, to a man who is currently genetically related to over 6 million men, Genghis Khan built a Mongolian Empire that would (despite not leaving a solid artefactual footprint) be remembered.






Note: Khan made such a mark in Mongolian history that Mongolia in 2008 decided to make the world's largest statue of his head. The statue sits on top of the Genghis Khan hotel and is 10 meters tall.





One thing Khan succeeded phenomenally at was creating a powerful military. The Mongols fought bloody and - though small in population -  there military manages to gain a reputation for winning. The Mongols took their military duty very seriously, the act of fleeing from mandatory military services was punishable by  death. Within the military there were many different ranks, as well as a special rank for those who where part of the army due to their village surrendering to Mongolian rule. In the army women and men shared equal parts, both sexes fighting together with similar weapons, the bow and arrow among the most popular of the weapons, being shot from horseback.








Every Mongol learned to ride a horse at the age of three and were required to join the army from the age of fourteen to twenty-six. The Mongolian military gained a strong upper hand thanks to their system of spies, as well as an inventive list of specific tactics. Mongols deployed a wide variety of military ploys against their enemies  from herding animals into the enemy line for the sheer fun of causing confusion, to blocking of military lines with spears until the other side starved to death. A warrior would always travel with two to three horses to give the animals a break between battles. Horses were trained to stop dead when there rider was shooting, allowing the mongol to get perfect aim. It would be safe to say that the Mongolian empire would have had a difficult time without horses. In fact, horses became a symbol for them: the takhi ('spirit guide' in Mongolian) was the horse. Mongolians considering horses to be their national symbol.



There were some battles that the Mongols did lose such as their battle with Vulgar Bolgarians ( the battle of Kerniks; the first battle Mongolia ever lost) and the Muslim Mamluks (Battle of Ayn Jalut), but there lose during there Japanese attacks became stuff of legend, literally. The Mongols tried to conquer Japan twice. In 1247 theystaged an attack on Japan with a grand total of 40,000 warriors  - and they almost did. Initially the battle wasn't difficult for the Mongols. Japan's forces were not a match for the Mongolian archers and soon they began to retreat with the heavy weight of surrender on there tired shoulders. But then, out of the blue, a  massive typhoon came and completely decimated all the Mongols and the ships they used to travel from Mongolia to Japan. Then, weirdly, it happened again. With a fleet of ships carrying between 4,000 to nearly 120,000 soldiers, the Mongol's tried again to take Japan under there reign. This time they didn't even make it to their own battle. Another typhoon wiped out their army, foiling their plans. These typhoons where claimed as the Kamikaze by the Japanese, the word meaning divine winds because that's how they where thought of: winds brought by Raigin, the god of lightning, to protect them from the Mongols. Later the Japanese military would use that name as a metaphor, naming their World War Two suicide pilots "Kamikaze".



As far as bad things the Mongol's did, high on the list would be the fact that they introduced of the Black Death to Europe. Under Mongolian rule the Silk Road flourished, leading the way to major trade expansion, eventually extending all the way to Europe. With the nursing of the plague within Mongolia, the extensive trade sent merchants carrying disease along with their good and soon enough the plague was everywhere.






The Mongols did build up a substantial trade system, a contribution that actually left a mark on society. Their trade systems involved the Silk Road, canal systems, and trade towns, connecting Mongolian cities to one another and, eventually, to Europe. These extensive routes brought in a surplus of explorers, most famously was Marco Polo. Polo came during the Mongols reign in China (claimed as the Yuan Empire) and wrote some documents about it.






Mongols where religiously tolerant, and, despite having there own religion, the Mongols allowed all religions to be practiced, unless you where a Daoist. Genghis Khan wasn't to keen on the Daoist religion. He had had a bit of a falling out with one of the Daoist leaders and henceforth did not allow people to practice that particular religion. It is said that toward the very end of the empire,  the Mongolian leader learned to tolerate the religion, though practicing it was still not really allowed.

Mali

The 
Mali Empire was one that, at it's peek, thrived. Now it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Still, its historic mosques and religious past keep it a thriving historical location. When Gahna's empire collapsed, Mali took it's place, growing a massive trade industry in West Africa and became a brilliant stop on Islams trail of conversions.








The First king of Mali was crippled when he was younger. Sundaita, meaning "king lion" was born weak. The doctors pronounced him as a sickly child and so Sundaita spent most of his adolescents within the house. As he reached his teen years though, the young prince began to build up some strength, and when his father and brothers where all murdered in the night, the prince suddenly found himself the king. After running away and then coming back, Sundaita found his place as the Monarchy of Mali, helping the people to beat the Soso and creating the Mali Empire. Sundaita was who the character of Simba in the Lion King story was based off of.

Being an Empire that spread through a great portion of West Africa, with many villages placed on the coast, Mali became a country of great affluence within the Trans-Sahara trade. Its biggest trading center was the capital village, Timbuktu. The village became the greatest area in all of Mali, a place for trade to be shared and ideas to be formed. Because Timbuktu was near the center of Mali and had 16 mosques and 180 Koranic schools, the village became a hot-spot for travelers.

Salt was one of Mali's biggest trade products. The salt was mined from deep in the Sahara Desert, near Taghaza and Taoudeni. Camels carried the mineral through the Trans-Sahara trade, their travels bringing the salt to places all throughout the route. One camel could carry up to two slabs of salt and travel for thousands of miles.







Mali also traded gold. In fact, gold was their central object of trade. Gold was first mined from Bambuk, then the center moved to the location of Bure, near the Niger River, then it moved again. The location of gold moved like the wind, as more mining location began to pop up the location would change, moving west through Mali as it did so. At one point the king of Mali (or the Mansa as called by Malians) claimed all gold for himself leaving the people to trade only golden dust. Masa Musa at one point played with Malis surplus of gold to the extreme that he lowered the cost of it enormously, so much so that it took generations to get back the original price (more in sections below).


Mali was divided into villages. The king ruling over all of them. In the Mali empire the king was called the Mansa and they sat in the Malian empire's seat, ruling over the people. Each village was required to pay taxes to the Mansa. The taxes paid for the general upkeep of the villages but there were some added taxes because the king wanted more profits in his coffer. Since Mali was based on a Monarch system of government, this meant that each of the rulers where related to the original founder of Mali Sundaita, leading to the wealthiest leader, Mansa Musa, to Muhmud IV,  who's death brought on the fall of the Mali empire.



Mali started as an empire practicing the Muslim religion, and Mali is still a relatively Islamic country. Since the thirteenth century, when Islam came from the Trace-Sahara trade routes to Mali, the empire was smitten, taken the new religion into the culture. From then on Mali began to build mosques and schools for the teaching of the Koran. The Musa's embraced the religion, many going for long Haji's (pilgrimages to Mecca), bring masses of people along with them. Most famously was Masa Musas pilgrimage, one spanning over three thousand miles with a grand total of almost sixty thousand escorts.




Since Mali was divided up into different villages, each village created there own language. As traders came in from the north, they brought in their languages and an alphabet was created that allowed Malians to be able to translate their Koran into comprehensible script. Indigenous to Mali is one of the village languages of Bambara. This language gained popularity among the Malains during the time of Mali's empire and now is one of the most recognizable native languages within Mali. Currently, Mali is claimed as a French country, and French is considered a neutral languige between tribes.





As Mali was a place for the Islam religion to prosper, it was also home of a great deal of mosques. In Timbuktu are the three biggest of the mosques including the Mosque of Djingareyber. The mosques themselves are currently held under the protection of USCO, as they require a great deal of care due to being primarily built of earth. Also, because they are historical artifacts within Islam, they are on watch for attacks. Nevertheless, these mosques are still in use, their longevity combined with their location keep them in use even today. Each of the three are placed within areas that were more or less part of the trade.

 
Mansa Musa was the most lavish of all the Mansas who ruled over Mali. Musa was the great-grandson of the Sundaita, he was also the richest of all the monarchs. He took the longest trip to Mecha, bringing lots of people along with him. On the trip he also brought a caravan full of gold. The caravan dropped so much of the gold that the price of gold went down substantially.
Musa also was the emperor that decided to only allow himself the privilege of owning gold, allowing the villagers to trade only gold dust. Despite his irrational decisions, Musa was one of the most influential leaders that Mali ever had. He expanded trade, grew Timbuktu as a place of intellect and prosperity within the empire, and his leadership outcomes are still seen today.

Monsoons

Indian Ocean Monsoons

The Indian Ocean Monsoons were essential to the Indian Ocean Trade. With their strong gusts of winds, the monsoons made it possible for ships to travel across the oceans waters. This was convenient to traders in SouthEast Asia, India, Arabia, and Eastern Africa.

Monsoon winds in the Indian Ocean are theorized to be discovered by the Greeks, however that fact is debated as many historians logically assume that there were travelers in the Indian ocean before the Greek Empire. Nevertheless, the Greeks did use the Monsoon winds for their travels and trade, the monsoons making it so that Greek trade ships could get for Greece to India to exchange goods. This exchange is one of the first uses of the Indian Ocean as a trade port, the monsoons making sailing much easier.

Indian Ocean Monsoon winds are seasonal: in the summer winds move to the southeast and in the winter the monsoons move southwest. Unlike other very unpredictable storms that may provide a way through other oceans (aka a hurricane that is not only unpredictable but also will potentially destroy your ships) the Monsoons were very reliable. Learning that the winds blew in two directions, that direction alternating every season, wasn’t a hard fact to tackle and quickly the travelers of the route learned how to use the winds to there strength. This ability helped merchants in the future as the maritime traders learned their best time for travel.

Due to the Monsoons, places built ships especially for the purpose of sailing in winds. The dhow would be be the most well known. A dhow refers to a ship with a triangle sail pointed at an angle. These sails made it very easy to catch the winds of the monsoon abeling ships to get goods to ports faster.

One thing that made the Monsoon winds difficult was that  - despite reliably blowing either in a western direction or a southern direction-  the wind doesn’t always blow exactly where the captain wants it to go, The Chinese created a cheat code for that problem, the invention of a compose helped to make the act of figuring out wind direction a lot easy for the naval expeditioners and traders. Originally the compass was made of a square slab with a spoon atop it as to work in terms of magnetic attraction, the purpose originally being a fortune telling device by ancient Chinese fortune tellers in 200 B.C.E.. Not until the 1400’s did the Chinese realize that there fortune telling device was actually a lot better at telling directions than it was at telling a fortune. Thus, when the Chinese constructed their treasure ships and emperor Zheng went out on his first expedition, he installed a compass into his ship. From then on, this instrument grew in popularity, used on ships to navigate their way through the sea trade and the winds that made a lot of that trade available.

Bangladesh was a port city on the Indian Ocean trade, one of the many places that drew in travelers from the trade routes. These areas (Bangladesh, Swahili,etc) thrived, not only in the money gathered from supporting a massively popular trade city but also the ports held monopolies over goods. Monsoon winds were a big help in the building of port cities because they made certain areas a convenient to stop at, for instance Bangladesh was in the middle of Chinese routes, a place that monsoon winds would carry Chinese ships to before the fleets would have to stop and take a break. This helped the port cities grow economically as the increase of travelers meant that there was more people staying in their cities and paying money to them, but it also convenient to the travelers; maritimers now had a place to stay and a place to trade goods.

For a very long time the Indian Ocean was a place of tranquil trade, most ships void of firearms and, amid the pirates that set about to terrorize merchants, trade on the ocean was relatively peaceful. That was until the Portuguese came about. Stumbling into the epicenter of Afro-Asian trade by means of monsoon winds, the Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama --- found himself surrounded by a whole exchange he had never known about. Perplexed by the fact that non-European merchants had managed to keep a trade system so secret over the years, Vasco sought to grasp ahold of the trade. He went back home to gain the support of his patrons ( the king and queen). The rulers sent him back out with a mission of gaining a substantial foothold within these trade routes. Traveling  back to the place full of very peaceful ships, Vasco --- to Indian Ocean network thought of the Portuguese as merely nuisance pirates, it wasn’t until much bigger European countries like Belgium and France got involved that the Indian Ocean trade found itself in a muddle. 

Monsoons are caused by a change in atmospheric pressure with a flux in participation due to asymmetrical heating, or : monsoons cause the wind to blow a lot and some seasons have a lot of rain. This type of weather, especially being as it is predictable, provides places along the indian ocean coast to have a very specific climate much different than other places. Thus the Indian Ocean coast are given a one up on trade goods such as spices. These goods were coveted by the Europeans many of the goods being deemed as luxury items providing Indian Ocean places with an upper hand on monopolies.

Mombasa was a very important port city, becoming popular with Ibn Sinas’ travels in the 14th century. The coastal port was made a great place to trade with because of its generous supply of ivory, gold, and spices. Monsoons made for the climate to grow spices as the ocean winds placed many ships in the situation of having to stop at the port.

Surate was the biggest city in the Mughal Empire, a big provider to the trade of textiles. However there position in the Indian Ocean didn’t help them out when the Portuguese came into the Indian Ocean by monsoon, the winds leading them to the trade routes. Unfortunately Surate’s success got them trampled on by Europeans and soon there was a major spat over power within the Indian Ocean trade system.