Mongols World Trade and the Bubonic Plague

What major developments in trade and the world economy were in place around 1400? What impact did the Mongols have on this?
In 1400, about 350 million people inhabited the entire planet, most of which concentrated themselves in key areas of the globe. China had some of the world’s largest and most densely populated cities, and increasingly collaborated with Central Asian allies for the establishment and perpetuation of global trade routes. As world populations expanded, geographic and climatic conditions also changed. World trade increasingly became as much a necessity as a drive for economic and political empowerment. This was especially true for the Mongols. A pastoral-nomadic civilization, the Mongols were susceptible to fluctuations in climatic conditions and depended on trade with China to mitigate uncertainties and crises (“Mongols in World History”). As with most of the world, Mongols faced a variety of threats including disease and natural disaster.
Also around 1400, the world started to exhibit geographically distinct trading zones. Often those zones intersected. In fact, the Mongols did straddle several different trade routes, due to their strategic location in Central Asia. For example, the Northern trade route linked the Eastern Mediterranean with the Black Sea and China via the Mongol territories (Marks, 2015). The Mongols were also integral to facilitating trade between Baghdad and the Indian Ocean. During the thirteenth century, the Mongols controlled much of Central Asia including Baghdad. The Mongols had already set in place the means by which to monitor and control world trade. Referred to as “the glue holding much of Eurasia together,” the Mongol Empire also ended up being the hub of disease transmission during the Black Death (Marks, 2015, p. 36). The bubonic plague began in southwestern China, where traders—and rodent populations--would have unwittingly carried the pestilence via the pre-established trade routes.
The plague killed off a substantial number of people in Asia and Europe, something that would not have happened without globalization and world trade. By 1400, world trade had already created networks of interdependency that affected all stakeholders from Europe and Africa to the entire Asian continent. Feudal systems of land management also meant that similar patterns of political and socioeconomic power were becoming entrenched worldwide, with the elites extracting revenues from the vast majority of people in the world who were peasants. Even if the Mongols remained nomadic and did not have the climate or environmental conditions suitable to agriculture, the empire was nevertheless affected by these important political, economic, and social changes. For one, the Mongols traded with societies like those in China and the Middle East which did have well-established systems of agricultural land use and a feudal system of land management. Second, the Mongols occupied and ruled over territories that did have agriculture. The tribute system emboldened the elite and enabled Mongol rulers like Chinggis Khan to thrive, maintaining long distance trade routes. Those trade routes benefitted all members of society to a degree, helping provide a market for peasant goods and services while also making up for gaps in local technological or dietary needs.
In spite of its central role and importance during its heyday, the Mongol Empire started to fall apart by 1400. These changes were due to a number of interrelated factors that culminated in the Black Death, revealing the challenges of global trade. Environmental issues in the Mongol steppe led to food shortages, making the Mongols even more dependent on China than ever before (“Mongols in World History”). At the same time, China’s own internal disputes led to disruptions in the trade networks the Mongols had come to rely on. The resulting instability prompted Chinggis Khan to lead his warriors throughout surrounding regions in order to regain dominance.




References

Marks, R.B. (2015). The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Environmental Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century (3rd Edition). Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
“Mongols in World History.” Asia for Educators, Columbia University