The+Mongols


 * ESPIRIT Chart on Mongols:**


 * E || **Economic:**
 * Kabul Khan (Chinggis Khan’s great-grandfather) won glory by defeating an army sent against them by the Qin kingdom of north China
 * Temujin’s reputation grew as a warrior + military commander = won him allies + clan chiefs eager to attach themselves
 * Livelihood depended on well-being of goats + sheeps
 * Main Idea: One of the greatest achievemenst of the Mongols was creating a far flung economic system in Eurasia that stretched from the Mediterranean to China, enabling people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds to freely and safely engage in an intercontinental trading network.
 * Question: How did the Mongols ensure that people were safely able to participate in this newly-formed trade network? ||
 * S || **Social:**
 * Mongols epitomized nomadic society
 * Survival dependent on well-being of herds of goats + sheep
 * Food was meat + milk from herds
 * Dressed in sheepskins
 * Made boots from tanned sheep hides
 * Lived in round felt tents made of wool (sheared from their animals)
 * Hunted with animals
 * Boys + girls could ride ponies (as soon as they could walk)
 * Mongol warriors ride for days (slept and ate in the saddle)
 * Women influence w/ family + had right to be heard (tribal councils)
 * Mongol tribes = natural warriors (trained from youth to ride, hunt + fight)
 * Natural warriors = physically tough, mobile, used to killing + death
 * Mongol forces dived into armies made up of basic fighting united called tumens (consisting of 10,000 each)
 * Tumens also divided into heavy cavalry (carried lances + worse some metal armor)
 * Tumens also divided into light cavalry (bow, arrows, leather helmets + body covering)
 * Mongols were astute and tolerant rulers ||
 * P || **Political:**
 * Tribe was divided into kin-related clans whose members caped + herded together on a regular basis
 * When threatened by enemies = tribe + clans combine (for months/years)
 * Leaders were elected by free men of the groups
 * Men dominated leadership positions
 * Kuriltai(meeting of all of the Mongol chieftains) = Temujin renamed Chinggis Khan -> elected the khagan (supreme ruler) of the Mongol tribes
 * Chinggis Khan + commanders brought organization, discipline + unity of command
 * Khan consulted with Confucian scholars about how to rule China
 * Both Chinese and Muslim bureaucrats was created ||
 * I || **Interactions:**
 * Drove goats +sheep from one pasture area to another (depending to the cycle of the seasons)
 * Grain + vegetables gained through trade w/ sedentary farming peoples
 * Traded ides + dairy products for jewelry, weapons + cloth
 * Khan improved trade with the lands father west
 * Trade routes made for prosperous merchants + wealth ||
 * R || **Religion:**
 * Khan consulted with Daoist holy men (hoped could be given an elixir = immortal)
 * Shamanistic(focused on nature spirits)
 * All religions were tolerated in Khan empire
 * Beliefs of his ancestors ||
 * I || **Cultural & Intellectual:**
 * Mongols epitomized nomadic culture
 * Spoke the Mongolian languages
 * Khan was interested in their arts and learning
 * Khan consulted with Muslim engineers about how to build siege weapons
 * Script was devised for the Mongolian language to aid recordkeeping + laws
 * Handicraft production + scholarship flourished + artistic creativity was allowed free expresion ||
 * T || **Technology and demographic changes**:
 * Empire stretched from the Middle East to the China Sea
 * Weapons = lances, hatchets, iron maces + short bows(range of 350 yards) ||


 * Ether Pad ESPIRIT Chart on Mongols: []**

//Gender Roles and the Convergence of Mongol and Chinese Culture// Main Idea: The Mongolian women stood up for themselves, and didn’t conform with the Chinese lifestyle for women. Details:
 * Notes on Yuan Dynasty:**
 * Refused to participate in foot binding
 * Retained their rights to property + within their homes
 * Maintained their freedom to move about the town

//Mongol Tolerance and Foreign Cultural Influence// Main Idea: Mongols really appreciated the ideas of different culture and their creativity, and their taste for the finer things in life. The most favored were Muslim Details:
 * The Muslims were 2nd after the Mongols (social grouping)
 * Turks + Persians on Kubilai Khan’s circle of advisers
 * Muslims supervised the building of Kubilai Khan’s Chinese style city + created a well organized tax collection
 * Muslims ran imperial hospitals + translated medicine
 * Persians astronomers advanced (Middle Eastern instruments + Chinese calendars)
 * Kubilai tolerated all religion
 * Marco Polo lived + served in Kubilai Khan’s administration(17 yrs)

//Social Policies and Scholar-Gentry Resistance// Main Idea: <span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Kubilai Khan attempt to promote Mongol adaptation was looked down upon by the ethnic Chinese, which was a majority of the south. They stilled viewed them as barbarian who put the Chinese customs in jeopardy Details:
 * Refused to bring back the civil service exam = prevented the administrative office being run by Confucian scholars
 * Had a special regard for the artisan class
 * Mongols improvement of transportation = economics + commerce prospered
 * Expanded the supply the paper money
 * Developed a navy = which helped in the conquest of the Song Empire + helped put down pirates + launch overseas expeditions
 * Urban expansion + sedentary lifestyles + cities flourished
 * Entertainment of poetry + essay writing = popular
 * The Romance of the West Chamber a popular

//The Fall of the House of Yuan// <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Main Idea: <span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Kubilai Khan had a long ruling of nine years in all of China. At the end of his reign the empire was showing weakness and as he ended his rule so did the Mongolian dynasty. Details:
 * Successors lacked his capacity of leadership + failed to carry on the empire
 * Mongols trusted = richer due to corruption
 * The scholar gentry over threw the Mongols(barbarians)
 * Dynasty was declining
 * Pirates and bandits spread in the empire
 * Famines hit lots of places
 * White Lotus Society planned to overthrow the dynasty

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Thesis Statement: Between 200 BC and 1450 CE, there was a constant stream of good, ideas, and religions being exchanged along the Silk Roads between Europe, Central Asia, and China. However, the types of people and the types of goods being exchanged changed on this road continued to change in this 1650 year period.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2009 AP World History Free-Response Question: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Base Paragraph: In 200 BC the Silk Road was especially important in connecting Han China which traded with Rome silk, luxury goods, and other manufacturing goods. At the beginning it was Buddhism the main religion in Han China, Rome, and other civilizations. The nomads were the ones in charged of trading, there wasn’t any merchants that went back and for taking care of trading goods.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Change: Trade on the silk roads endured despite changes in empires. After the fall of the Roman Empire in 500 CE, the Byzantine empire, or the eastern portion of the old Roman empire reestablished trade with parts of China, via the Silk Roads. Likewise, in China, after the fall of the Han dynasty in 200 CE, the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties picked up where the Han had left off, driven by the allure of speciality goods from Europe and the Middle East. Later on, after 1200 CE, the Mongols were able to create an interconnected trading network across Eurasia that was centered around the Silk road; this made trading safer and more effective throughout most of the civilized world.