Unit 1-2 Notes PDF

Unit 1.1 Notes East Asia welcome to AP World History my dear pupils we're going to begin right in the beginning and talk about developments in East Asia from 1200 to 1450 and it was China who arguably possessed the biggest popsicle of power in that time and oh baby it was a tasty one so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked Song Dynasty style well let's get to it so we'll begin this course around the year 1200 and we'll start by getting acquainted with the song dynasty in China and the truth is China 's kind of the biggest deal there was in the ancient and post-classical World okay so first we're going to focus on how the Song Dynasty maintained and Justified its power? all right stop what in the fresh heck do those words mean well it means we're going to talk about how song rulers stayed in charge and how they convinced everyone that they should stay in charge after all if there was only one popsicle of power in song China then song rulers wanted to make sure that they licked that puppy clean so how did they do it well I got two ways you need to know, first song rulers carried over a Revival of Confucianism from the previous Tang Dynasty now Confucianism became the official Chinese State philosophy way back during the Han Dynasty about 200 BCE basically this philosophy taught that human society was hierarchical by nature which is to say Society was composed of unequal relationships fathers were greater than Sons, husbands greater than wives, rulers greater than subjects you get the idea so in order to make this kind of society work properly the greater entity should treat the lesser entities with concern and benevolence while the Lesser entity should drink a tall glass of shut the heck up and obey their superiors and if everyone lived according to their roles well which is nice and one of the key ideas in this whole system was Filial Piety which was the practice of honoring one's ancestors and parents this was emphasized by Chinese rules because hey if people could learn how to honor their deceased grandpappies and their living parents well that served us a pretty good training to honor the Emperor as well so you know bonus anyway those confusion ideals work to keep ancient Chinese Society working for a long time but once the Han Dynasty fell Confucianism fell along with it and their cultural Harmony fractured until it sounded more like not pretty but starting with a Tang Dynasty the one right before the Song Dynasty Confucianism experienced a Revival and that Revival was carried into Song Rule now because this was a new implementation of an old philosophy we call it Neo-Confucianism, Neo meaning new and Confucianism meaning you know Confucianism and one thing that made it new is the influence of Buddhist and Daoist (Confucianism) philosophical ideas so don't miss what I just said because this is 100% showing up on your test the Revival of Confucianism demonstrates historical continuity between ancient China and the song period but it also illustrates Innovation Tong and song rulers didn't just Jam the old crusty version of Confucianism into their society they changed it to suit their contemporary purpose anyway back to the point song rulers use this hierarchical view of society to maintain and justify their rules again they were the ones in charge and if everyone just deferred to their rightful leadership in Chinese Society would flourish hey that sounds great for the people on top of the hierarchical pile but maybe not so great for those on the bottom case in point women in song China now under the system of Confucianism women were relegated to the subordinate position in the hierarchy men didn't want to make their own sandwiches so the best candidate in their eyes was the women so for example under song rule women's legal rights were restricted poor woman's property became her husband's and if she was widowed or divorced she was forbidden to remarry but maybe the most dramatic example of female subordination of the Song Dynasty was the practice of Foot Binding here are the feet of young girls were broken and bound up tightly for a period of time until their feet were much smaller than they were to begin this often meant that women had trouble walking or in some cases they couldn't walk at all and to be clear this practice was especially prevalent among the more elite members of society because it was kind of a status symbol for elite men like if your wife couldn't walk she couldn't very well perform manual labor or household labor and that meant you were wealthy enough to hire servants to do the rest. Now the second Way song rulers maintained and justified their power was with the increasing use of an Imperial Bureaucracy is a governmental entity that carries out the will of the emperor, the bureaucracy make sure everyone was obeying the emperor's dictator okay now during the Song Dynasty the Imperial Bureaucracy grew in scope and thus helped them to maintain their rules and how did it do that well in order to get a good job in the bureaucracy eligible men had to take and pass a Civil Service examination this exam was heavily based on Confucian Classics and that did two things to help song rulers maintain and justify their power first it meant that the bureaucracy was only staffed with the most qualified member so that means bureaucratic jobs were awarded by merit and not based on who you knew which is kind of how they did things back in the Han Dynasty, hey you want a job I got a guy, so this system helped song rulers to maintain their rule because the best men got the jobs and thus increased the competency and efficiency of bureaucratic tasks, okay now because song China was kind of a big deal on the world stage during this time it probably is not going to surprise you to know that it had significant cultural influence on various states around it and here I'm going to mention three of them first let's visit our friends in Korea right here on China's Northeastern border the Korean Empires were pretty much much independent politically but they were able to do that because they maintained a tributary relationship with the big boys in China what that means is that from time to time Korean officials would visit the song Court acknowledged that China was the awesomest and then fall prostrate on the floor before the emperor acknowledging that his power popsicle was the biggest and most delicious of all as long as that kind of tribute was paid China and Korea were able to maintain friendly political and economic relationships now because of this close relationship some aspects of Chinese culture were adopted by the Korean for example the Korean Court used a similar Civil Service examination to staff their bureaucracy, additionally Korea adopted many confusion principles which organized their family structures, and went even further than China in marginalizing (isolating or limited right) the role of women however to be fair much of the Chinese Cultural influence here applied mostly to the elite members of Korean Society okay second let's go visit Heian Japan right over here don't miss what's obvious that Japan is separated from China by a big honking chunk of ocean even so China still influenced Japanese culture but the big point to remember here is that whatever cultural traits the Japanese adopted they did so voluntarily and not because like Korea there was is always the looming threat of being invaded so you know that's nice anyway the biggest chunk of Japan's cultural borrowing from China occurred before our time period that we're dealing with here it was around the 7th and 9th century CE and during that time they attended a large-scale overhaul of their power structure and organized it according to what they observed in China's imperial bureaucracy and then later on Chinese Buddhism took root among the Japanese Elite as well as the Chinese writing system so whatever Japan found useful about Chinese society and politics they used and adopted and whatever they thought was a turd they flushed and third we need to visit our friends in the Kingdom of Vietnam right here now because Vietnam had its hind Parts shoved squarely against China's Southern border it had a similar relationship with China as we saw in Korea now Vietnam was also basically independent politically but they still participated in the China is the best tributary system additionally Elite members of Vietnam Society adopted Confucianism, Buddhism, Chinese literary techniques, and the Civil Service examination system however despite the Vietnamese adoption of Confucianism women in Vietnam were not nearly as marginalized as they were in China you can see evidence of a higher view of women by the fact that several of their nature did these were female and they conceived of a female version of the Buddha. More to the point Vietnam never adopted foot binding and for that matter neither did Korea or Japan okay now I've mentioned Buddhism in China a couple of times already but let's stop dancing around it and look that puppy square in the face now Buddhism has a belief system originated in South Asia right over here but it had spread to China by the time of the Han Dynasty basically the whole of Buddhism is summarized in its Four Noble Truths: life is suffering, we suffer because we crave, we see suffering when we cease craving, and the Eightfold Path leads to the cessation of suffering and craving, and basically the Eightfold Path outlines the principles and practices that a Buddhist must follow most notably a moral lifestyle and a practice of meditation additionally Buddhism carried over several features from the dominant religion of South Asia namely Hinduism features like Karma and rebirth so it's a very simplified explanation of Buddhism in its original form but once it began to spread significant changes occur first you need to know Theravada Buddhism (The oldest Buddhism) which originated here in Sri Lanka and it was pretty close to the original form of Buddhism with an emphasis on escaping the cycle of birth and death however here Buddhist practice was mainly restricted to monks who devoted their entire lives to you know monking and therefore this kind of Buddhism was only available to a select few however as Buddhism spread from there into East Asia it changed again and this region gave birth to another branch called Mahayana Buddhism and the main difference here is that the Mahayana Branch emphasized that Buddhist teachings were available to all and not just to select few, additionally Mahayana Buddhism emphasized compassion and made the Buddha into a kind of God or at least you know an object of devotion, but then as Buddhism spread over here into Tibet yet another Innovation took place and it was known as Tibetan Buddhism again it had all the same basic doctrines as the others but its practitioners emphasized more mystical practices like lying prostrate and elaborate imaginings of deity so the point is although the Song Dynasty made it their policy to emphasize more traditional Chinese ideas like Confucianism Buddhism continued to play a significant role in their society and even more to the point the Chinese developed their own distinct version of Buddhism known as Chan Buddhism okay now finally we need to talk about the prodigious amounts of boom boom China was raking in during this period which is to say we need to talk about the Song economy and baby that economy was humming however the song rulers were not completely responsible for that magnificent prosperity because that trend began in the Dynasty before namely the Tang Dynasty anyway how did they do it well I got four ways you should know first was the widespread commercialization of the economy basically that just means that China produced more goods than they needed to survive and then sold the excess on the World Market and in order to become that land-based Tony Stark that they were song officials moved more and more toward the use of paper money which resulted in related practices of using credit and promissory notes and all that meant that China was thoroughly commercialized and then they could focus on building that indestructible flying suit they always want okay second China's home industry is producing Iron and Steel exploded during this period by the 11th century both large-scale manufacturers and home-based Artisans were producing enough Iron and Steel to create all the suits of armor needed for war all the coins needed for trading taxation and many of the tools needed for agriculture and speaking of Agriculture the third cause of China's economic Prosperity was Innovations in agriculture in addition to the widespread use of iron plows and rakes one of the most significant agricultural Innovations was the introduction of Champa Rice which came to China via the Champa Kingdom in Vietnam look I know you're not used to getting excited about rice but dang this stuff was awesome for example it was drought resistant and it could be harvested not once but twice a year effectively doubling the agricultural output so what who cares you care because China was the most populous state in the world at that time and what does that mean metric butt loads of mouth holes to feed because Champa Rice came into stuffed those mouth holes full with plenty left over that led to a population explosion y'all and as a general law of the universe more food equals more babies and finally fourth Transportation Innovations also contributed to the prosperity to the song economy they expanded the Grand Canal which linked the yellow and young sea rivers and made trade among different regions much cheaper. In addition to that several other Innovations and transportations were made during this time as well for example the Perfection of the magnetic compass which improved navigation on the water and further facilitated sea-based trade among various regions and then there were new ship building techniques for example song Engineers improved the design of the massive trade ships called Junks by creating water type bulkheads and Stern mounted Rudders which made navigation more accurate which in turn led to more trade among various regions and that led to even more economic prosperity in the Song Dynasty. Unit 1.2 Notes Dar-Al-Islam All right let's talk about Dar-Al-Islam which one being translated means the house of Islam or everywhere Islam was the majority religion around 1200 and a quote an imminent historian of this period that's a big old honking house, let's get to it again I need to tell you about three of the major religions that interacted with one another during that time Judaism, Christianity, and Islam you're going to need to know something about the core beliefs of each of these and how these beliefs affected the Societies in which they were practical, so Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jews and it originated in the Middle East probably the most important thing you need to remember about this religion is that it was monotheistic which is to say they worshiped one God and not many God that's the important piece because Judaism was the soil out of which the other two monotheistic faiths grew, so Christianity was established by a Jewish Prophet namely Jesus Christ maybe you've heard of it now Jesus claimed to be the Messiah or the Savior that the Jews had long been waiting for and after his crucifixion at the hands of Roman authorities his followers began to spread his message of salvation by grace all the earliest Christians Were A persecuted minority eventually the Roman Empire adopted Christianity and that began the most significant influence of Christianity upon Society in fact entire States in Europe and Africa were organized and influenced by a growing hierarchy of popes and Bishops and Cardinals considered the third major monotheistic religion you need to know namely Islam and it was founded by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th Century right here on the Arabian Peninsula Muhammad claimed to be the final prophet in the line of God's Messengers and stretched all the way back through Jewish and Christian scripture and he taught his followers that salvation would be found in righteous actions like alms giving him prayer and fasting now after the death of Muhammad in 632 the faith that he established began spreading rapidly throughout the Middle East North and sub-Saharan Africa into Europe and all the way down to South Asia and this is what we call Dar al-Islam or the house of Islam and Islam deeply affected the societies where it was practiced but perhaps no effect was more important than the trading connections that existed between the various places within Dar-Al-Islam just so happened that before he was a revelatory prophet of Allah Muhammad was a merchant so he was all about the tradesies and so were his followers compare that to Jesus teachings on accumulating wealth which can be summed up in about one word ‘don't’ and so it's not hard to understand why Islamic States in general became far more prosperous than Christian States prior to 1200. now in addition to the Islamic faith facilitating trade throughout afro-eurasia it also facilitated the rise of giant honking Empires as well and for our purposes let's begin with the Abbasid caliphate which was founded in the 8th century so back to the Abbasids and there are two things you really need to remember about first they were ethnically error second the Abbasids were empowered during what became known as the Golden Age of Islam during that time there were metric butt loads of Innovations and advancements in Science and Mathematics and literature and Technology all of which we'll talk about later but by 1200 well baby it ain't the Golden Age anymore because the Abbasid Empire was fragmenting and beginning to lose its place of ascendancy as the center of the Islamic world and I'll throw on a third thing to know just for fun as I mentioned a second ago the Abbasid rose to power around the mid 8th Century replacing the Umayyad caliphate and the Abbasids engaged in lots of battles against the Umayyad to get there but you want to know how they finished the job I know you do after they had squarely whipped the Umayyad the Abbasids invited about 80 members of the Umayyad court to a nice dinner and then hacked their crap to pieces and that's how you do it anyways the power of the Abbasid began to wane (decreased) right before the beginning of our period this is the important part listen several new Islamic Empires began to rise in its place here's the spicy part those new Islamic Empires were largely made up of Turkic peoples not Arab people why are you not falling out of your seat right now that's a huge development look from the time of Muhammad to the fall of the Abbasid caliphate Islamic empire for a run by Arabs but not now the Turkic Muslims are coming in and setting up new rival Empires out of the crumbling edifice of the Abbasid Empire and let me tell you about three of them first was the Seljuk Empire which was established in the 11th century in Central Asia now the Seljuks were a pastoral people from Central Asia who were brought in irony of ironies by the Abbasids as a professional military force both to expand their empire and to culturally integrate their empire by force but by the 1200s those Seljuk Warriors began to claim more and more power for themselves and in the end the Abbasid caliphs were still in power and claimed to speak for all of Islam but the Seljuks had most of the political power because you know when you're really good at killing large swaths of people it's relatively easy to gain power okay second was the Mamluk sultanate over in Egypt and it's kind of the same story over here now prior to the Mamluk takeover the Ayyubid sultanate ruled Egypt under the leadership of Saladin in order to advance the goals of his State Saladin needed more labor so what did he do well Saladin went ahead and enslaved a group of fierce Turkic Warriors who were known as Mamluks which just means enslaved person so Saladin dies and The Sultans who followed him were pretty incompetent and so what happened well the Turkic Mamluks went ahead and seized power giving rise to yet another turkic Muslim state so what's the lesson here well if you're ruling over a Muslim empire in the post-classical period and want to stay in power don't bring in the turkic Warriors because eventually they're going to take all your crap over see who said that world history wasn't practical to your anyway the third Turkic Muslims stay to arise during this period was the Delhi Sultanate over here in South Asia here the invading Turks established a Muslim state in the north and ruled over the Indian population for about 300 years now they had all kinds of problems as well but we're going to say that for the next video but the main point here is that as Arab Muslim empires like the Abbasid declined new Muslim empires made up of Turkic peoples were on the rise that was a big change however these new Muslim states also resembled the former Arab empires in several ways for example in these new states it was mostly the military which was in charge of administration additionally they retained the Islamic practice of implementing Sharia law (acts as a code for living that all Muslims should adhere to, including prayers, fasting and donations to the poor) which was a code of laws established in the Quran okay now during this period Islam continued to expand in places all across Afro-Eurasia and that spread was carried out in basically three ways first military expansion and we already saw how that worked with the establishment of the Delhi Sultan second Islam expanded through Merchant activity which is to say trade for example much of North Africa was ruled by Muslims and that reality stimulated trade and movement of merchants throughout Africa further south the Empire of Mali gradually converted to Islam for many reasons but Chief among them was the increased access to trade among our all Islam and then third Islam expanded due to the efforts of Muslim missionaries a large branch of which was known as the Sufis during this period Sufism was a new and emerging form of Islam that emphasized mystical experience furthermore it emphasized that those spiritual experiences were available to anyone regardless of class or gender and although the Islamic scholar class poo Pooh this Innovation but with its lack of theological rigor it became a significant Force for the spread of Islam across the world okay now the last thing you need to know is that all across Dar-Al-Islam there were an awful lot of thinky-thinky kinds of people and their developments were kind of astonishing first of all there were Innovations in mathematics and for this let me introduce you to my boy Nasir al-din- Al-Tusi I mean this guy invented trigonometry so you know noise the whole reason he developed it was so he could better understand how planets and stars move through the sky and look if you believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around then you have Al-Tusii to think because later Nicholas Copernicus used Al-Tusi's math stuff to develop the heliocentric theory of the sun additionally during the Golden Age of Islam under the Abbasid caliphate the House of Wisdom was established in Baghdad this was a massive and world famous library to which Scholars from all over the dang world came to study religion in the Natural Sciences and even spicier Scholars at the house of wisdom were responsible for preserving the great works of Greek moral and natural Philosophy by folks like Plato and Aristotle they translated them into Arabic and made extensive commentaries on them and without that effort those Works would likely have been lost forever but they weren't and instead those Arabic translations of classical texts were transferred to Europe where they became the basis for the Renaissance and all the cultural flowering. Unit 1.3 Notes South Asia and Southeast Asia All right let's take a tour of South Asia and Southeast Asia around the year 1200. I'm going to answer those up at night how did various belief systems affect over time and well don't worry because I'm about to explain it up real nice for you so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked well let's get to it so first things first if you have no idea what I'm talking about when I say south Asia and Southeast Asia I'm talking about this place and this place the first thing you need to know about these places around the year 1200 is that three main belief systems have been well established and we're struggling for dominance namely Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism so let's start in South Asia the main portion of which consists of this giant honking subcontinent known as India so from time immemorial the dominant religion in this region was Hinduism and if you're in the mood for a gross oversimplification of its doctrines and beliefs well here it is first Hinduism is a polytheistic belief system which means its adherents believe in many gods not just one God like they do in monotheistic faiths like Judaism or Islam second the ultimate goal of the believer is to reunite his or her individual soul to the all-pervasive world Soul known as Brahma but because human beings for the most part are the moral equivalent of sentient turds that reunion with Brahman usually takes many lifetimes cycling through death and rebirth otherwise known as reincarnation to achieve now it's very important to understand about Hinduism is that it created the conditions for a more or less unified culture in India for Millennia and one significant way that it did that was by structuring Indian Society according to the caste system now this was essentially a five-tiered system with the more virtuous people on top and what they considered the refuse of society on the bottom and in general it wasn't possible to move up in status during your lifetime but if you were pretty good in this lifetime and avoided egregious sins like failing to disclose a camel's illness when selling said camel well then when you were reincarnated maybe you get born into a higher cast okay now I spent a good deal of time on Hinduism because it's real important to understanding Indian culture but second Buddhism established itself in South Asia as well now explain Buddhist beliefs in more detail in the video on East Asia so I'm not going to rehash that here however it is important to know that Buddhism was founded in India and shares several beliefs with it for example Buddhism carried over the idea of the cycle of birth and death and reincarnation and the ultimate goal was similar which is to design evolve into the Oneness of the universe however there were some significant differences as well for example Buddhism rejected the caste system and emphasized the quality of all people and that's crucial to understand and let me explain Hinduism is what's known as an ethnic religion which means that the belief system is tightly bound to a particular people in a particular place and in general ethnic religions don't spread very well like can you imagine Hindu missionaries showing up in China and being like all right y'all let’s organize all your crap according to the caste system yeah not gonna happen but Buddhism is what's known as a universalizing religion which means it can be planted in any culture without completely overturning that culture that means that a belief system like Buddhism is much more likely to spread and I'll tell you more about that spread in a moment but for now you need to know that by the time 1200 rolled around Buddhism's influence in the land of its birth was waning ( decrease) big time okay now the third belief system you need to know for South Asia, Islam and again I talked about this in the last video but here you need to know that in 1206 Turkic Muslim Invaders came into South Asia and set up a Muslim empire known as the Delhi sultanate and that meant that in India while Buddhism was going the way of the do do Islam became the second most important belief system there and because in large parts of India the Muslims were in charge it became the religion of the elite and then throughout southeast Asia okay we'll get back to the deli sultanate a little bit later but now I've neglected belief systems in Southeast Asia for far too long so let's see what's going on over there going to be fair southeast Asia was a very diverse place but in general States in this region practiced Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam and I'll show you what effect that had in a minute but now that you know the three main belief systems present in this region it's going to be important to know that during this period each of them experienced some change as well the Hinduism front a new expression of the faith known as the Bhakti movement this is a form of Hinduism that encouraged Believers to worship one particular God in the Hindu Pantheon of God additionally it rejected the hierarchy of Hinduism and encouraged spiritual experiences of all people regardless of social status and then Islam also experienced some change as well recall in the last video we talked about the rise of Sufism which was a more mystical spiritual experience-based version of Islam I don't know about you but I smell a comparison in the air now Bhakti's and Sufis had a lot in common obviously they fell under the banner of different belief systems but both of them emphasized mystical experience, both of them rejected the elaborate doctrines and religious requirements of the elite and both of them emphasized access of spiritual experience to all people which made both of them better candidates for spreading through the region and finally Buddhism changed as well during this period now even though the original teachings of the Buddha emphasized access to enlightenment for all people by this time in South Asia to become more and more exclusive basically the only Buddhists seeking that sweet Nirvana sandwich were monks who had confined themselves a monastery so at least in South Asia Buddhism was definitely on the decline okay now let's turn the corner and talk about how states formed in these regions and how they maintained their power and I recommend we start with South Asia now earlier I mentioned that the Muslims had established the Delhi sultanate in 1206 and it ruled over Northern India however Muslim rulers in the Delhi sultanate even though you know they were the ones in charge had a lot of trouble imposing Islam on India at the end of the day Hinduism was just too dang trend socially and culturally and so Islam remained a minority religion here and there were other pockets of resistance to Muslim rule as well namely the Rajput kingdoms which was a collection of rival and warring Hindu kingdoms that it existed since before Muslim rule in Northern India over time some of them were conquered by Muslim rulers but some of them maintained independent Hindu States and to further annoy Muslim rulers in the north a new and Powerful Hindu Kingdom was founded in the South namely the Vijayanagar empire in the 14th century and the events leading to its establishment were kind of spicy so Muslim Sultans in the north wanted to extend the rule of the Delhi sultanate to the South so they sent a group of emissaries down there to make it happen but as it turned out those Emma series were Hindu who had converted to Islam and once they found themselves out from under the watchful eyes of their Muslim overlords they went ahead and tossed their Muslim faith in the trash and established a rival Hindu Empire so that's fun okay now let's head over to Southeast Asia and see how State Building is going over there and first let's begin with sea- based States now back before our time period began the Srivijaya Empire which is here Rules From The 7th to 11th century they were a Buddhist state but they were also heavily influenced by Indian Hindu culture and the main source of their power was their control over this little Waterway right here namely the Strait of Malacca it's kind of the best way for merchants to get anywhere in the Indian Ocean and so Srivijaya rulers got Filthy Rich by slapping taxes on on ships passing through that straight okay now later which is to say the end of the 13th century the Majapahit kingdom was established here on Java formerly it was a Hindu Kingdom but there were strong Buddhist influences there as well the way the Majapahit had maintained power was to create a tributary system among the various states in the region if you forgot what tributary means it just means the reality that the Majapahit had had the biggest popsicle of power in the region and exerted some control over other states by requiring tribute or goods and services from them and finally let's move out of the sea and check in with the major land-based states in southeast Asia and first let's check in with the Sinhala dynasties right here in Sri Lanka now this is a Buddhist state that existed in some form or another for something like 2 000 years to which I say damn maybe you're looking at this map and you're like looks like an island to me but you're just flapping your mouth hole about it being a land-based state excellent observation let me explain when we designate a state a sea based or a land-based state what we're really talking about is where they get their power from the sea or the land remember the Srivijaya and the Majapahit had gathered up all the power in the region because they controlled the sea but the Sinhala dynasties weren't messing around much in the sea because they had everything they needed for the most part right there on their land which is why it is a land-based state and then one more land-based State let me introduce you to the Khmer Empire which was located right here now the khmera empire was founded as a Hindu Empire and that's kind of weird because didn't I say like two minutes ago that Hinduism was an ethnic religion and therefore didn't spread to other places well yeah but there are exceptions to the rule and the Khmer Empire is one of them anyway this became an exceedingly prosperous State and so they took a lot of that boom boom and built the most magnificent Hindu temple in existence namely Encore watch it was supposed to represent the entire Hindu Universe in a single building but later Khmer rulers converted to Buddhism and they just went right ahead and added Buddha's statuary all over this Temple without destroying the Hindu elements and when two religions blend like that we call it syncretism. Unit 1.4 America what's that you want to know how State Building is going in the Americas from 1200 to 1450 you know I got you so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it first let's start our little tour in Mesoamerica which is right about here if you're in the mood for a little historical context and I know you are so let's back up before 1200 and get acquainted with the Maya civilization which ran from about 250 to 900 CE the Maya were insane they built huge Urban centers had the most sophisticated writing system in all the Americas during that time and got real complex with all their Math stuff including but certainly not limited to using the concept of zero anyway their state structure was basically a decentralized collection of city-states that were frequently at war with one another when the Maya thought to expand their power their goal wasn't necessarily to gain more territory but rather to create a vast network of tributary States among neighboring regions that just means that the local power is conquered by the Maya remains somewhat independent but they were required to send tribute payments to the Maya bigwigs including things like textiles and military weapons and various building material and one key feature of Maya culture was its emphasis on human sacrifice they believed that the sun was a deity and was constantly losing energy and it’s struggle against darkness and therefore required the life-giving energy of human blood so that's fun but anyway put all that in your pocket and we will come back to it but maybe at this point you're like why are you flapping your mouth all about a civilization that isn't even part of the time period covered in this course well my dear pupil I assure you I am not just doing it for funsies you need to know something about the Maya because now as we move into our time period 1200 to 1450 you need to understand how the States during this period demonstrated continuity and Innovation compared to these states that came before so that means it's time to get to know the Aztec empire which ran from 1345 to 1528 and here you see the Empire at its greatest extent but despite that metric butt load of territory this Empire had much humbler Beginnings the Mexica people were a semi-nomadic bunch who migrated South around the beginning of the 14th century and got busy building up their military prowess and strategically marrying into more powerful families it's the kind of wedding we all dream about anyway by 1428 they consolidated a lot of power in the region and entered into an alliance with two other Mesoamerican States thus establishing the Aztec empire with an aggressive program of expansion now don't get confused the Mexica and the Aztecs are not two separate Empires or states the Mexica ethnic group were the folks that established the Aztec empire so Mexica, Aztec samezies anyway the Aztec ruled their massive honking Empire in a few ways that demonstrate continuity with older Mesoamerican States like maybe I I don't know the Maya you see what's happening here historical thinking and don't lie you know you love it anyway the political power structure of the Aztecs was decentralized meaning that all the various peoples that they conquered were set up as tributary States so again what that means is for the privilege of being a conqueree of the Aztecs the various peoples under their power had to provide regular payments of food and animals and building material this was how the Aztecs administered their vast and rapidly expanding Empire but their Wars of expansion also had religious motivations too the sun god needed blood and so Human Sacrifice remained a key motivator for extending their power over more and more people all right guys we just got our tribute list from the Aztecs looks like they're gonna need some maze some grain and Kevin what do they need me for don't worry about it anyway in order to secure their legitimacy as rulers over all these people the Mexica claimed Heritage from older more renowned Mesoamerican people this is a theme you're going to see in Empires and States all across the world like people from outside come in and grab hold of power in order to keep that power they claim relations to ancient peoples that everyone revered now I should also mention that the city building projects of the Aztecs were pretty magnificent for example the seat of power and religious Authority was located right here in their magnificent capital city of Tenochtitlan which boasted a population of something like 150 to 200 000 people to which I say dang and within the city vast marketplaces were set up which tells you that their economy was commercialized to some degree like we saw in the first video on song China there were also elaborate palaces for rulers and pyramid temples one of which was like 200 feet tall that's a big old pyramid Tony sure is but now let's move South and consider the Andean civilizations down here in this region now from ancient times a series of societies were developed along the Indian mountains and in their valleys and coastlands and one of the most significant of these earlier societies was known as the Wari which collapsed around 1000 CE now I mentioned them because around the mid-1400s the Inca Empire will be established in roughly the same area as the Wari and the Inca borrowed a whole heck of a lot from those older civilizations including the Wari anyway like I said the Inca did establish their empire and in some ways it was similar to the way the Aztecs established there for example the Inca were also a group of Outsiders who because of their military prowess quickly Rose to power in the region and expanded their empire rapidly with said military prowess but whereas the Aztec power structure was decentralized and relied on tributary relationships the Inca centralized the crap out of their power structure what I mean is that in order to rule such a vast and diverse Empire the Inca set up a massive bureaucracy to ensure that the will of the ruler was followed in all parts of the Empire now the Incas also made requirements of the people they conquered but not so much tribute payments as labor payments it was known as the Mit`a system and it meant that the Inca state required the labor of all people for a period of time each year to work on state projects like mining or military service Additionally the Inca made prodigious use of systems employed by earlier civilizations like They developed the Wari and others, not least their religion-centered political structure ( a political structure that connected religion and leadership, ensuring the emperor was seen as a divine figure), and the use and expansion of infrastructure including a vast networks of roads and bridges okay now the last stop on our tour of American civilizations will take us to North America and first let me introduce you to the Mississippian culture which emerged around the 8th or 9th century CE it was established in the Mississippi River Valley and represented the first large-scale civilization in North America because the soil in this Valley was all kinds of fertile their society developed around farming or if you're nasty agriculture, their political structure was dominated by powerful Chiefs known as the Great Sun which ruled each town and extended political power over smaller satellite settlements, in short their society was thoroughly hierarchical now one of the things these cultures were most known for is their extensive mound building projects I have to be honest as far as Mountains go these are pretty fantastic they were mostly memorial in nature acting as burial sites for important people and they hosted religious ceremonies on the tops of the map in each major urban area in the civilization was surrounded by these mounds and it should tell you something about the political structure of these settlements that they were able to marshal enough people to construct such massive public projects and the biggest and most significant of all these mounts was built in the urban center of Cahokia which was the largest urban center of the Mississippian culture okay now going Westward we have the occasion to meet the Chaco and Mesa Verde Society they established themselves in the southwest portion of what we call today the United States after the rise of the Mississippian culture now this region is to use the technical term dry as heck and so these people developed innovative ways of transporting and storing water and because it's dry as heck there weren't many trees to provide timber for building structures so what did they do well the Chaco carved sandstone blocks out of massive quarries imported timber from distant locations and built massive structures that were some of the largest ever built in North America Mesa Verde people solve this problem by building housing complex right into the sides of cliffs using sandstone and they are magnificent. Unit 1.5 Africa okay now it's time to see how State Building was going over in Africa from 1200 to 1450 and if I'm honest y so if you're ready to get them in Cal's milk well let's get to it so let's begin in sub-Saharan Africa and that's the region that's sub or you know below the massive Saharan Desert right here and let me introduce you to this Swahili civilization which emerged on Africa's East Coast around the 8th Century now this is a collection of independent city-states which rose to prominence because of their strategic location right here on the coast which gave them access to the bustling Indian Ocean trade it turns out they found that Merchants that arrived on the coast from Arabia and Persian India Etc were real interested in Goods like gold and ivory and Timber and to a limited degree enslaved people because these commercial City stays focused mostly on trade they imported many of the goods that they sold from folks in the African interior who were farmers and pastoralists now it's also important to know that Islam became a dominant belief system in the Swahili civilization and that's not hard to understand right like these cities throw arrived on trade and which kind of merchants in the Indian Ocean were kind of the biggest deal, Muslim merchants, and so conversion among the Swahili Elite took place voluntarily and that was great for them because it connected them to the wider economic world of Dar-Al-Islam Additionally the influence of Islam can be seen in the Swahili language itself which was spoken across the civilization it was kind of a hybrid between the Bantu family of languages which were indigenous to the area and Arabic which came from the outside now each of these cities was ruled by its own King because the main source of wealth for them was International Trade there was pretty Fierce competition between them and I could see it in your eyes you're getting restless and you're like can we please compare the Swahili states with State structures that we considered in previous videos and you know that's the kind of Desire I cannot help but Grant so let's do it and just for funsies let's bring in our friends over in Song China both of them to various degrees expanded their wealth by participating in trade beyond their borders both of them featured a hierarchical class structure that organized their societies China did it with confusion ideals while the Swahili States elevated the merchant Elite above commoners but there were important differences too whereas China's political structure was highly centralized with an emperor telling everyone what to do there was no larger political structure that unified the Swahili State anyway let's move further south and consider the rise of another commercial African State namely the Great Zimbabwe now even though the state was further Inland they also got Filthy Rich by participating in the Indian Ocean trade which they facilitated by controlling several ports on the coast now mainly they were exporting gold although their economic bread and butter revolved around farming and cattle herding and rulers and people in Zimbabwe never converted to Islam but rather maintained their indigenous shamanistic religion additionally with the prodigious amounts of boom boom raked in Zimbabwe rulers constructed this massive capital city which after the pyramids in Egypt were the largest structures in all of Africa it housed the members of the Royal Court and represented the seat of power for this state but now let's Head West and get acquainted with some states in West Africa and over here we have a mixture of different state structures over the course of centuries large centralized Empires Rose and fell including Ghana and Mali and the Songhay which we're going to talk a lot more about in unit 2. but for now let's focus on the Hausa Kingdoms which were scattered throughout this region right here now these were a collection of city-states that were independent politically and gained power and well through trade across the trans-saharan Trade Network and what other network of commercialized city-states on the East Coast does that sound like what was that does anybody know is anybody oh me yeah it's the Swahili civilization definitely yes the Hausa Kingdoms resemble the Swahili States in a lot of way, Hausa states were urbanized and commercialized and acted as kind of middlemen for goods grown in the interior which they integrated into trade patterns with other states across West and North Africa (Like the Swahili states, the Hausa Kingdoms acted as middlemen, connecting the interior regions where goods were produced to the broader trade networks across West and North Africa. ) additionally each of these Hausa States was ruled by a king and imposed social hierarchies on their society and even more additionally Hausa rulers eventually converted to Islam which again further facilitated trade with Muslim merchants now it's fair to say that in general more influential and Powerful African States during this period adopted Islam to both organize their societies and facilitate trade with the larger Network present in Dar-Al-Islam but generalizations are made to be broken y'all and so let me tell you about the big honking exception to this rule namely Ethiopia this African kingdom was Christian and as such it fit in with the rest of the African States about as well as that kid who goes to high school dressed like this every day and that was me I was that kid anyway Christian rulers here commissioned the construction of massive Stone churches which communicated to their subjects who was in charge and then starting in the second have the 13th century this Kingdom grew wealthy through trade both in the Mediterranean Sea and in the larger Indian Ocean network not least by trading one of their most valuable Commodities namely salt now Ethiopia was also a centralized power with a king sitting at the top in a stratified class hierarchy cascading below him and in those ways Ethiopia resembled a lot of other power and social structures across the world. Unit 1.6 Europe okay let's finish our unit one tour of the world and see what kind of spicy developments are going on in Europe from 1200 to 1450. so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked feudalistic ally well let's get to it okay first let's talk religion and for Europe we're going to talk about Christianity now back during the time of the Roman Empire Christianity became the official state religion thanks to our boy emperor Constantine after a while that belief system United Romans all over the dang place but in 476 CE the Western half of the Roman Empire fell so sad but cheer up because the eastern half of the Roman Empire known as the Byzantine Empire kept the faith and its politically and socially organizing properties alive for another Millennium now the Byzantine flavor of the faith was known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity and it provided a belief structure that helped Byzantine rulers justify and consolidate their power structure which was highly centralized but over in the West after the highly centralized Roman Empire fell this region broke apart politically into many decentralized entities and we'll talk more about that in a minute but despite that fragmentation in the west Christianity maintained a powerful presence in the form of Roman Catholic Christianity Now by 1200 the Byzantine Empire had experienced a thorough butt whipping by neighboring Islamic powers and ended up losing significant amounts of territory too however that didn't mean that they didn't still wield enormous influence on the Eastern Mediterranean and Southwest Europe because they did that is until 1453 when a new Muslim power known as the Ottoman Empire sacked the crown jewel of Byzantium namely the capital city of Constantinople and went ahead and changed the name to Istanbul and that was the end of the Byzantine Empire moment of silence please okay that's enough now wipe that single tear from your face because while the Byzantine empire fell Eastern Orthodox Christianity would be picked up off the ground and embraced by another group who would keep it alive namely the Kievan Rus now to be fair they had adopted Eastern Orthodoxy way before the fall of Constantinople but now that the Byzantines were smashed to Pieces the Rus became the main embodiment of this branch of Christianity and doing so they borrowed quite a bit from their Byzantine PALS like their architectural Styles or alphabet the idea of using Church structures to organize the state but again over in Western Europe this kind of centralization was not occurring these days were pretty isolated from everyone else in the World in terms of trading connections but still Roman Catholicism was one constant across the continent the church hierarchy of popes and Bishops and Cardinals provided at least some common structure among the various states of Western Europe and in addition to the common structure of the Roman Catholic Church also provided occasions to whip European Christians into a religious Fury and go fight Muslims in distant lands these occasions of course are known as the Crusades and with the exception of the First Crusade Europeans pretty squarely got whipped by the Muslim but it did have the effect of connecting Europeans to larger trade networks but we'll talk about that in unit too but before we move on to the juicy political organization of these states it's important to know that while Christianity was certainly the dominant belief system here Islam and Judaism held important minority positions for example over here on the Iberian Peninsula Muslims had invaded in the 8th century and by our period they ran the place additionally Jews were scattered throughout Europe and regularly facilitated and participated in trade but as it turns out a lot of European Christians were suspicious of Jews and so various ways of anti-Semitism or you know Jewish marginalization and persecution kind of kept them living at the edges of European Society okay now if you've been watching my previous unit one videos hold on to your butts because what I'm about to say might come as a shock around the start of this period there were precisely no large empires in Europe what like think about all the places that we visited in unit one the Aztecs and the Incas were running crap in the Americas the song dynasty in China was massive Islamic Empires were grabbing land all over the dang place but not in Europe instead decentralization and political fragmentation was the soup du jour in Europe and so let's talk about in Western Europe the social political and economic order was essentially organized around a system known as feudalism and maybe that's an unfamiliar word but don't worry your efforts to understand it are not feudal anyway feudalism was a system of allegiances between powerful Lords and Monarch basically the greater Lords and Kings gained Allegiance from lesser Lords and kings and land was exchanged to keep everyone loyal now all these patches of land were owned and ruled pretty much independently and the system at work here was known as Manorialism so here peasants were bound to the land and worked in exchange for protection from the Lord and his military forces and that kind of makes it sound like a mutual exchange but in truth these peasants known as Serfs were little different than slaves the big difference was that surfs were not owned by the Lord but rather as I said they were bound to the land in the manor and that's how it was for a long time in Europe however around the start of our period in 1200 and you know a little bit before Europe's political structures began to change monarchs in various states began to gain power and centralize their stage by introducing large militaries and bureaucracies and this is a big deal because prior to this it was the European nobility that held most of the power but more and more monarchs in this period are going to get on their power pants and centralize their Authority under themselves but you didn't think there weren't going to be any consequences for that increasing centralization did you don't be crazy no with powerful monarchs On The Rise they would increasingly be looking toward one another and competing for influence and territory which led to all kinds of Wars of Conquest to determine who indeed worethe biggest power paint. Unit 2.1 Silks Road all right we're starting unit two and I reckon that means we ought to talk about the Silk Roads and as far as roads come they're about as silky as they come so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked networks of exchange style then let's get to it so let's start by defining our terms the Silk Roads were a vast network of roads and trails that facilitated trade and the spread of culture and ideas across Eurasia in and before the period 1200 to 1450. and I said some very important things there that you can't sleep through yes these were trading routes first and foremost but perhaps of equal importance as trade in Goods occurred across these routes various ideas and cultural traits were exchanged as well which is what we call cultural diffusion and I'm going to show you why that's such a big deal in a moment but for now you just need to know that across these vast network of Roads it was mainly luxury items that were exchanged most notably Chinese silk and that's not hard to understand when you consider that it was expensive to haul goods from one end of these roads to the other and so selling luxury goods was the only way to earn prodigious amounts of profits and that as we say here in the south is finer than a frog here split four ways okay hold on a second you might want to get that clicky finger out and check the description for my AP World heimler review guide It's got everything you need to get an A in your class and a five on your examin including whole unit review videos thatare not here on YouTube no guides to follow along practice questions and full AP style practice exams so you know have a look if that's the kind of thing you're into anyway here in unit 2 we're looking at many of the same places we looked at in unit one but through the lens of connection like how are all these various states connected to each other and the answer networks of exchange like the Silk Road but even more specifically we need to consider the causes and effects of why these networks grew and expanded during this time period so first exchanges along the Silk Roads grew in scope during this period because of Innovations in commercial practices and you need to know about three of them first was the development of money economies and it was the Chinese who pioneered this sweet Innovation basically means they started using paper money to facilitate trade among various regions and this was kind of a huge deal like I know we're used to slapping down to Hamilton to get a burrito at Chipotle but have you ever stopped to consider how crazy that is like it's just a piece of paper why would they freely surrender That Glory Beauty into my hands in exchange for this flimsy thing right here well because we have all agreed in our society that this thing is worth something and in this case it's worth a burrito large enough to feed a small horse and that's essentially how China transitioned into a money economy with the introduction of paper money to facilitate trade a merchant could deposit bills in one location and then withdraw the same amount in another location thus increasing the ease of travel and the security of transactions and second this is related to the increasing use of credit to facilitate trade as well here instead of paper money Merchants could secure pieces of paper from Merchant families in one region and then go to another region and exchange that paper for coins now the Chinese call this new Arrangement flying money and it's increasing use led to the expansion of trade and networks of exchange and then third to facilitate all these exchanges of paper money and bills of credit Banks became increasingly necessary to keep the flow of trade humming along for example over in Europe they introduced banking houses based on the Chinese model their emergent could present a bill of exchange and receive the amount of money equal to the bill but there were also Innovations in transportation technologies that led to the expansion of trade over the Silk Roads as well and maybe the most important here is the rise of Caravanserai which were a series of Inns and guest houses spacedabout a Day's Journey apart on the most frequented routes where the traveling merchants and their animals could lodge for the night and these little rest stops serve two important functions first they provided safety from those Wiley Bandits and plunderers along the routes who targeted these large Merchant Caravans carrying expensive luxury items second the Caravanserai became centers of cultural exchange and diffusion like Merchants from all over the dang place with various different cultural backgrounds would meet at these rest stops and mingle Hey Man Nice Campbell what's that on its back oh that's a saddle I got to get me one of those which leads me to the second innovation in transportation namely a saddle instead of chafing their legs Raw on the bare back of a sweaty camel Saddles were introduced to make riding easier over long distances and then if you had more than one camel you could sling a frame and Mattress saddle across its back and load it up with way more Goods to sell than you otherwise could okay so all those commercial and transportation Innovations meant that it was easier for merchants to pay for goods and get paid for goods and travel long distances safer and more comfortably and one of the most significant effects of that increase in trade was the rise of powerful trading cities along the Silk Roads it was precisely because these cities were strategically located along these routes that they grew in power and wealth I mean a merchant wasn't just going to travel from one end of the silk Rose to the other without stopping like there were long stretches of these roads that had very little water and were hotter than a Jalapeno's armpit so these cities along the way provided places to stop and resupply and I'm kind of in the mood to introduce you to two of these cities first is Kashgar on the Eastern edge of China right here it was located at the convergence of two major routes of the Silk Roads which before and after pass through exceeding really hot and dry terrain which is to say the hottest part of the Jalapeno's armpit but Kashgar was built around a river which made the Lush Valley suitable for agriculture and that meant that traveling Merchants could stop there for water and food anyway with the increasing demand for inter-regional trade kashgar became a destination in itself hosting highly profitable markets and eventually becoming a thriving Center for Islamic scholarship all right the Second City to know is Samarkand hand here in Central Asia and most of what you should know about it is a repeat from kashgar it was strategically located at the convergence of important trade routes on the Silk Roads and as Merchants from all over the world arrive their profound cultural exchange occurred like archaeologists have found relics from many different religions there like Christianity and Zoroastrianism and Buddhism and Islam Etc and then the second effect of this growth of exchange networks is the increased demand for luxury goods in all places along the Silk Roads and chief among those luxury goods were Chinese silk and Porcelain if you know anything about economics you'll know that as buyers demand more Goods that means sellers are going to get busy supplying more or you know making more goods and that is exactly what happened as demand grew for these luxury items Chinese Indian and Persian Artisans increased their production of these goods and that shift to producing more and more luxury items for sale in distant markets had significant effects on the population for example as peasants in China's Yangtze river valley spent more time producing silk textiles for trade they began significantly to scale back on food production but regardless reorienting the economy like this created the conditions in China for what's known as proto-industrialization and all that means is that they began producing more goods and their own population could consume and all those extra goods were sent off with Merchants destined for distant lands with all that money coming back into the Chinese economy they went right ahead and reinvested it into their growing Iron and steel industry and finally the third effect of the expansion of the Silk Roads is all about cultural diffusion so remember not only did merchants carry Goods they also carried and exchanged their culture Islamic Merchants spread Islam and Buddhist Merchants spread Buddhism Etc when Merchants met at the Caravanserai they were exposed to new Innovations like saddle additionally and we'll talk more about this in the next video growth in the Silk Roads facilitated the spread of people's nasty germs the most notorious of which was the Bubonic plague. Unit 2.2 The Mongol Empire oh my goodness it is time to talk about the Mongols y'all when you think of the largest land-based empires in history maybe you think of the Greeks or maybe you think of the Romans but write that thought on a piece of paper burn it and then dance upon its ashes because it was in fact the Mongols who hold the title for the largest honking contiguous land-based empire ever so we need to talk about how they did it and the effects that it had so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's getto it now let's begin in the beginning with the birth of a guy named Temujin who according to a legend was born holding a giant blood clot in his fist which in his culture was a sign that this kid was going to grow up to be a mighty leader and run everybody's crap like a boss now speaking of his culture Temujin was a Mongol and the Mongols were pastoral nomads living right about here around the Gobi desert and Nomads in case you don't know are traveling people they move from place to place depending on the season and that's their whole way of life anyway Temujin grew up and proved to be a powerful leader and through skillful diplomacy Allied himself with powerful people then after leading several important military raids and finding himself Victorious Temujin United the various Mongol groups under himself in 1206 put on his power pants and assumed the title Chinggis Khan now maybe you've heard of him under a different name namely Ghenghis Khan but we say Chinggis now for two reasons first it's funner to say chingus chingas I'm just having a great time second Genghis is the westernized version of his name and Chinggis is closer to how it will be pronounced in Mongolian so we're sticking with chinga from there old Chinggis got busy taking over the world he attacked and conquered northern China then territory in Central Asian then up to Southern Russia and then Chinggis went ahead and died in 1227 and then his sons who succeeded him one after another just kept right on expanding until the Empire reached its peak in 1279 including all this land right here now hold on a minute if you've been with me since unit one this should sound a little weird like the military forces of the Seljuk Empire and the Delhi sultanate and song China were nothing to sneeze at so how did the Mongols who are often very much outnumbered by other military forces in these Empires win so many victories well partly it was their military organization Chinggis Khan organizes forces into groups of Ten Thousand and One Thousand and 100 and 10 which made controlling and commanding them devastatingly efficient and then partly it was Superior weaponry and skill the Mongol's weapon of choice was a bow that was larger than traditional bows and can sink arrows into their enemies from much farther away also they were exceedingly skillful horse riders and they could often outride those they encountered and another part is that their timing was pretty lucky the Song Dynasty had recently lost control of its Northern Territory and large states like the Abbasid Empire have been declining in power for a long time and it was the Mongols who brought it to an end with the destruction of Baghdad in 1258 but the juiciest explanation of their success was their reputation for brutality in some cases Mongol armies would Slaughter nearly everyone in a settlement and then leave just a few alive so they could run to the next town and warn them of the poop your pants ferocity of Mongol invasion and in that way the Mongols didn't even have to fight in some places they just showed up and then everyone unceremoniously pooped their pants and they were like oh hey y'all just come on in Randy's over there grilling some Camel meat if y'all are hungry but what's interesting is that even though the Mongol body count was staggering during their Wars expansion once they kind of ruled everything they were pretty peaceful in fact there's a whole phrase for the piece experienced under about a century of Mongol rule namely the Pax Mongolica so the point is as the Mongol Empire expanded it replaced the empires we talked so much about in the last unit and after Chinggis Khan's death his grandsons organized the empire into several khanates or military regions and in many cases Mongol rulers kind of adopted a lot of the cultural norms of the people over which they ruled for example Kublai Khan ruled in China and went ahead and set up a new Chinese dynasty namely the Juan Dynasty and because he had United warring factions from across China many of the Confucian Elite believed that he possessed the Mandate of Heaven to rule China which was a way of saying that because he United everyone well he must be our rifle ruler additionally Kublai Khan styled himself as a benevolent confusion style ruler now to be clear the Mongols in China did not become Chinese but I'm just trying to show you that in China and elsewhere Mongols adapted their style of rule to the conditions of that place okay now let's talk about the economic situation under Mongol rule and if you remember in the last video we talked about the Silk Roads you'll remember that that those trade routes were expanding like mad but arguably the Silk Roads were never more organized and prosperous than they were under Mongol rule and here's why now these trade routes passed through a lot of different states and Empires over time and depending on where you were these routes could be less safe or more safe but with the whole stinking length of the Silk Roads fell under the control of the Mongols then that meant that one state was responsible for keeping everyone safe and goods flowing from one side of the world to the other additionally Mongol rulers improved the infrastructure of many of the places they ruled by building metric but loads of bridges and repairing roads all of which facilitated more trade and so thanks to the Pax Mongolica trade flourished across the Silk Roads during this period and a side benefit of the increased flow of the Silk Roads was an unprecedented increase in communication and cooperation across Eurasia for example Persian and Chinese course often work together across distances sending skilled Artisans back and forth and exchanging ambassadors they also shared military intelligence and all this was done with the help of the Yam System which was a series of communication and relay stations spread across the Empire and because of this inter-regional diplomatic hug Fest far- flung part parts of the empire were more friendly and that further increased trade which further increased the wealth of all involved and certainly no discussion of the Mongols would be complete without talking about the technological and cultural transfers that occurred during their Rule now the Mongols had a high opinion of intellectuals and skilled Artisans and when they were on their tours of pants pooping conquests they were often careful not to kill those kinds of people oh hey I could see you're about to kill everyone and look you're doing a great job but I just want to let you know I'm a pretty smart guy I even know how to write hey y'all don't kill this guy you guys are the best but because it was the policy to send skilled people to all different parts of the Empire that movement encouraged the transfer of technology and ideas and culture now one significant consequence of that was the transfer of medical knowledge developed by ancient Greeks and Islamic scholars over to Western Europe another significant transfer was the Mongol adaptation of the Uyghur script to write their language it was Chinggis Khan who first decided that conquering a bunch of literate societies probably meant that his own Mongolian language needed to have some kind of written form too so he adopted the Uyghur script from a conquered people in Central Asia and that written form of the language became a kind of Lingua Franca or widely adopted Imperial language of the Empire anyway the point is despite their brutal rise the Mongol Empire facilitated loads of cultural transfers across many parts of Eurasia but the Mongols fell out of power about as quickly as they Rose to power and as the Mongol Empire exited the world stage many of the people who were under Mongol rule redoubled their efforts to install powerful centralized leaders and create a unified culture thus Paving the way for the rise of the modern world. Unit 2.3 Indian Ocean Trade Network all right let's talk about the Indian Ocean trade Network and we ain't got no time to waste so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it now let's begin with a definition the Indian Ocean trade refers to a network of sea routes that connected the various States throughout afro-eurasia through trade now this network was in use for a long time before the start of our time period around 1200 but during this time period the Trade Network expanded significantly what caused that says you well I got four causes for you and hey if you want no guys to follow along with this video and all my videos then check the link in the description anyway the first reason was the collapse of the Mongol Empire in the 14th century now maybe you'll recall in my last video when I talked about how trade along the Silk Roads flourish during the reign of the Mongols because basically the entirety of that network was controlled by Mongol power well when the Mongol Empire started falling apart so too did the ease and safety of travel along the Silk Roads and that led to a greater emphasis on Maritime trade in the Indian Ocean all right stop that word Maritime always seems to confuse students and it always shows up on the national exam Maritime it just means sea-base like if you're on a boat well generally you're having a merry time and then the second reason for the increasing scope of trade in the Indian Ocean was Innovations in commercial practices and we see the same practices here that we saw used on the Silk Road for example money economies and the ability to buy Goods on credit May trade easier and therefore increase the use of these routes and the third reason for the expansion of the Indian Ocean network was Innovations in transportation technology for example improvements were made in existing navigation Technologies like the magnetic compass which helps sailors know for sure which direction they were going in the middle of this giant honking ocean there were also improvements made to the astrolabe which was a tool used to measure stars and then get an accurate Reckoning of location and let us never forget the increasing use of the Latin sale which allowed ships to take wind in almost any direction and speaking of wind all of this trade in the Indian Ocean was made possible by Monsoon winds which predictably blew in different directions depending on the time of year and if you input increasing knowledge of monsoon winds in a pot throw in those fancy Innovations in navigational technology well baby we got a stew going and that stew smells like the expansion of Maritime trade in the Indian Ocean but also Under The Heading of transportation technology we need to talk about improvements in ship builds the Chinese junk for for example was a massive ship that could carry metric but loads of cargo and made other Merchant ships poop their drawers with him but also we can't forget about the bigger and better Dows during this period also Arab traders had used these for centuries in the Indian Ocean but now they were making them bigger and better and could thus haul more cargo destined for trade and distant market and that leads me to an important thing that you need to know about the Indian Ocean trade namely the kinds of goods that were traded I recall that it was mainly luxury goods that made their way across the Silk Roads and that was because more common items wouldn't be worth transporting across the stinking Known World on the back of a camel but with the increasing girth of these trading ships more common items could be shipped and sold in bulk items like cotton textiles and Grains right along with the luxury goods that were in demand across the world and finally the fourth cause for the expansion of the Indian Ocean network was the increasing spread of Islam now remember Islam was a belief system that was very friendly to Merchants since you know Muhammad himself was a merchant and just like Islam created the conditions for connectivity across land-based routes like the Silk Roads that also facilitated increased trade along sea-based routes as well okay now you knew this was coming about the causes of the expansion of the Indian Ocean trade and now I reckon we ought to talk about its effects and the first effect was the growth of powerful trading cities and I'm going to mention three first we have the occasion to visit the friends we made over in unit 1 in the Swahili city states on the east coast of Africa and recall that each of these states grew powerful and Wealthy precisely because they were strategically located to benefit from trade in the Indian Ocean these States imported gold and ivory and enslaved people from the interior of Africa and then sold them to themerchants showing up on their shores and as converts to Islam they took that prodigious amount of scratch that they made and built magnificent mosques and other Public Works that displayed their great will and all that happened because they participated big time in the Indian Ocean Trail the second trade City that grew because of trade was Malacca it was the capital city of the sultanate of Malacca here on the melee Peninsula and because they controlled this little Waterway here called the Strait of Malacca they were able to get stupid rich in the Indian Ocean trade and expand their power throughout the region since this was basically the Eastern entry and exit point of the whole dang Network malakan leaders taxed ships passing through their Waters and that ended up being a real nice for compare that to the Gujarat State here on India's West Coast it also was situated in a fine position being a kind of midpoint between East and Southeast Asia and Africa because of its massive Coastline and Rich agricultural areas Inland they were able to trade goods like cotton textiles and indigo in exchange for gold and silver coming out of the Middle East and like folks in the salt native Malacca Gujarat authorities tax Ships coming and going from its ports and that only increased their wealth okay now another effect of the growth of the Indian Ocean network was the increased establishment of diasporic communities and I'm going to go ahead and bet that you have no idea what that word means so diaspora is related to the word disperse and that's essentially what a diaspora Community is namely a group of people from one place who established a home in another place while retaining their cultural Customs so in the Indian Ocean region Chinese Merchants established permanent communities in Southeast Asia and Arab and Persian Merchants did the same in East Africa so these diaspora communities became a kind of connective tissue holding the Indian Ocean Network together and increasing its scope so for example Chinese Merchants would arrive in various ports around southeast Asia and the diasporic Chinese Merchants living there would interact with the local merchants and the government to facilitate trade okay now let's talk about the final effect of the expansion of the Indian Ocean Network namely cultural and technological transfers and I cannot emphasize this point enough and you will certainly see it on your exam so may it haunt you both in sleeping and in Awakening the cultural and technological exchanges that occur over trade routes are just as significant as the goods exchanged over those trade routes as Merchants travel back andforth they bring their religion with them they bring their language with them they bring their technology with them and as they mingle with other cultures those traits come to influence each party maybe there's no more significant example of this than our boy Zheng He who was commissioned by China's new Ming Dynasty to go explore the Indian Ocean and enroll other states in China's tributary system and the guy's Fleet to put it mildly was uh impressive on his first voyage it included something like 300 ships with Crews totaling more than 27 000 men and in case you're not fluent with the various sizes of post-classical Maritime Expeditions that was big but in terms of transfers Zheng He ships were equipped with the latest in military technology like gunpowder cannons which were later adopted in many regions additionally with the Ming Dynasty's insistence on state-led trade Partnerships various states around the Indian Ocean began taking more significant roles in trade. 2.4 Tran-Saharan Trade all right we've looked at Silk Roads we've looked at Sea roads and now it's time to consider some sand roads namely the trans Saharan Trade Network in Africa so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it so the trans Saharan network was a series of trade routes that connected North Africa and the Mediterranean world with interior West Africa and to some degree the rest of sub-Saharan Africa and just like other trading routes we've covered in unit 2 they existed long before our period began around 1200 but in this period these routes began expanding and that's going to lead to some juicy consequences But first you need to know the causes of that expansion and the big one here is Innovations and transportation technology now in case you don't know the Sahara Desert is you know a desert and a giant one at that and the environment there is as we say here in the South about as dry as a popcorn fart the point is this is not easy terrain to cross and so a massive turning point in the development of these networks was the introduction of the Arabian camel about a thousand years before our period started but in our period we start to see the use of camel Saddles both for riding and for carrying bigger loads of merchandise additionally just like on the Silk Roads Caravansarai were established along these routes as well and if you forgot what those are they're basically little rest stops along the trade routes where Merchants can rest and sleep and eat and with Merchants now able to travel more comfortably and carry bigger loads and find shelter along the way by 1200 the trans Sahara Network expanded larger than it had ever been and I know you're sitting there thinking but heimler what did they trade I got you boo various regions exported gold and crops like colon nuts which were a fabulous source of postclassical caffeine other regions exported horses and salt and it was especially salt that was in demand across the continent and so the point is each region specialized in creating and growing various goods and that difference created the demand to trade with each other and created the occasion for the expansion of those trade networks now just like we've seen with other trade routes the expansion and increased use of the trans Saharan Network also led to the rise and expansion of powerful states and the most important one you need to know is the Empire of Mali right here now this state had been established in the 13th century but Islam had been introduced to this region hundreds of years earlier and what happens during this time when a state converts to Islam well if your answer was they get connected into the economic trade Partnerships throughout Dar-Al-Islām well then you're right and that religious and economic connection meant that Mali once it was established grew exceedingly wealthy because of its participation in the trans Saharan Trade Network and not only did Mali export goods of their own most notably gold but they also gained wealth and power by taxing other Merchants traveling the trade routes through their territory and I reckon we ought to get our comparison pants on because that sounds an awful lot like how the salt made of Malacca gained power and wealth in the Indian Ocean trade both of them controlled strategic points along high traffic trade routes and both grew in power and wealth because of it and without doubt the most extravagant example of Mali's wealth was on display and it most powerful and influential ruler Mansa Musa hey grandpy what's that thing you say about rich people well that boy's got enough money to burn a whip mule that's it andI have no idea what that means but Mansa Musa had that wet mule kind of money and let me illustrate Mansa Musa as a Muslim decided he would embark on the Hajj which is a pilgrimage to the Muslim holy side in Mecca and he went ahead and left with a giant Entourage and stopped for a while in Egypt to resupply and while they were there Mansa Musa and his crew injected so much gold into the Egyptian economy that the value of all existing gold plummeted the point is he could do all that because Mali had grown so rich by participating in trade across the trans Saharan network with the expansion of Mali's power under the influence of Mansa Musa he further monopolized trade between the North and the interior of the continent both increasing the wealth of Mali and facilitating the growth of existing trade networks. 2.5 Cultural Diffusion by far one of the most important effects of the increasing connectivity among states During the period 1200 to 1450 was the exchange of ideas and cultural trades which is what we call Cultural Diffusion every one of these states was connected into a larger network of exchange and in that way what one did affected the rest and that's what this unit is all about baby connections so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked let's get to it so as Merchants spread throughout the world Hawking their Wares they also brought their culture and Technology with them which had an influence on the places where they arrived and on the other side the culture and Technology of the places where the merchants traveled also had an effect on them and you're going to need to know three categories of these kinds of transfers oh by the way if you want note guides to follow along with this video check the link below okay first there were significant cultural transfers along trading routes and perhaps nothing is more important under this heading than the spread of belief system for example Buddhism spread from India to East Asia via the Silk Roads around the 2 Century CE and as it took root among the Chinese for example Buddhism also changed over time what I mean is in order to make Buddhist teachings intelligible to the Chinese population merchants and monks explained them in terms of Chinese Daoism which was a belief system indigenous to China and the result was a new blending of ideas which is what we call syncretism that resulted in a distinctly Chinese form of Buddhism known as Chan Buddhism which became popular among Chinese people of lower class and then later Buddhism was exported to Japan where it was changed again and became known as Zen Buddhism and if you've been with me through unit 2 you'll know that the spread of Islam was a massive deal as well don't forget that Islam was exceedingly supportive of merchant activity and that the spatial arrangement of Dar al-Islam meant that Muslim merchants had plenty of places they could go to sell their goods it was the possibility of inclusion into that giant Islamic network of exchange that encouraged leaders in various States across Africa and Southeast Asia to convert for example the Swahili civilization on Africa's East Coast was a series of independent city states that grew powerful through trade but one significant reason they were able to do that is because they adopted Islam and got all connected into the larger Islamic Network in fact you can see the influence in their language namely Swahili which is a blend of Bantu which is indigenous to southern Africa and Arabic which came in with the Muslim Traders okay second there were significant literary and artistic transfers across networks of exchange as well recall that Muslim Scholars translated and commented upon classical works of Greek and Roman philosophy at Baghdad's House of wisdom and eventually those Works would be transferred to southern Europe where they would spark the Renaissance near the end of this period and then third scientific and technological innovations were transferred across trade networks as well for example Chinese paper making technology spread to Europe by the 13th century along with movable type which was adopted by Europeans and led to an increase in literacy and perhaps even more significant was the spread of gunpowder from China thanks to our friends the Mongols it was adapted by Islamic Empire and later European States who would perfect the use of this material to blow up everyone's crap and as we'll see in the next unit that development fundamentally altered the balance of power throughout the world and now let's consider the consequences of connectivity on the rise and fall of cities during this period on the rising side of the equation networks have exchanged led to the increasing wealth and power of trading cities oh you want some examples I got two for you first was Hangzhou in China it was situated at the southern end of the Grand Canal that prodigious artery of Chinese trade and therefore became one of China's most significant trading cities and the increasing amount of trade led to further urbanization of the landscape and the population second and this is a two for one deal you've got Samarkand and Kashgar now because these cities were located along strategic routes on the Silk Roads the cities grew in power and influence by facilitating trade along them and for all these cities the expansion of trading networks only increased their influence and that resulted in an increase in productivity in those places but there were some cities that did not do so well as connections were increasing because not only did merchants use these routes but so did militaries with an appetite to conquer stuff and here are two examples of the decline of cities first was Baghdad that flowering capital of Islamic and cultural artistic achievement but as it turned out the Mongols Rose to power in the 13th century and sacked Baghdad in 1258 which led to a significant decline for the city and kind of like a bonus it brought the Abbasid Empire to an end as well and it was kind of a similar story over in Constantinople which was the political and religious capital of the Byzantine Empire with the rise of the Islamic Ottoman Empire and their itch to expand the Ottomans went ahead and sacked Constantinople in 1453 and renamed it Istanbul but that's enough sacking for one video let's finish up by talking about how networks of exchange facilitated interregional travel and this was made possible by the increasing Safety and Security of these routes thanks Mongols and I reckon I'll introduce you to three of these Travelers first was our boy Ibn Battuta who was a young Muslim scholar from Morocco who over the course of about 30years traveled all over Dar all- Islam and wrote detailed notes about the places he visited the people and rulers he met and the cultures that hosted him and his travels were made possible because of trade routes Battuta sailed on Merchant ships down the east coast of Africa he rode on camels and Merchant Caravans across the Sahara desert Etc and his travels were important because he wrote about them and he told Grand stories of the places that he visited which helped his readers developed an understanding of far-flung cultures across the world similarly the European Marco Polo traveled from Italy to China and all throughout the Indian Ocean as well he wrote about his experiences in the Chinese Court of Kublai Khan and China’s Grandeur and the wealth of China as well his writing seemed almost Fantastical to his European audience but later Travelers made similar Journeys and confirm Polo's observations and third there was Margery Kemp and she was a Christian Mystic who made pilgrimage to Christianity's most holy sites in Jerusalem and Rome and Spain Etc though she was illiterate she had a marvelous memory and dictated her observations about her travels to others who wrote them down for her and while her writing emphasized her own spiritual journey in the places she visited her observations still provided invaluable insights for the cultural variations of how Christianity was practiced across different cultures of Europe and the Middle East. Unit 2.6 Environmental Consequences okay now there were also environmental consequences that arose from the various trading connections across the world in 1200 to 1450. and here we're going to focus on agricultural transfers and transfers of people's nasty germs which is to say disease so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked Bubonic plague style well let's get to it okay now we've established in previous videos that with all these states being linked through trade routes like the Silk Roads and the Indian Ocean trade and the trans-saharan trade lots of people are moving around and intermingling but they weren't just Hawking porcelain and salt and gold through these connections they were also introducing new crops to various places oh by the way if you want no guys to follow along with this video then check the link in the description anyway let's talk about bananas in Africa these sweet little bippies were first domesticated over in Southeast Asia but thanks to Merchants Crossing the Indian Ocean bananas were introduced to Africa and as it turned out the Lush rainforests in sub-Saharan Africa provided Prime conditions for the flourishing of the banana and you're like are bananas really that important well yeah because when bananas were introduced here the diets of the people were expanded and that led to population growth additionally various Bantu-speaking people were able to migrate things and parts of the banana like their main source of sustenance was the yam which I admit is a word that gives me great pleasure to say but they were able to move places where the yam couldn't grow because they could count on stuffing their bellies with bananas anyway another important agricultural transfer was Champa rice in East Asia now recall that this drought resistant grain of rice was introduced to China from the Champa Kingdom in Vietnam and because it matured quickly and could be harvested more than once a season it meant way more food to stuff in people's mouth holes and never forget more food equals more babies and thanks to Champa Rice China experienced a population explosion during this period and third citrus fruits like the sour orange and limes were introduced by Muslim Traders into Europe via the Mediterranean trade routes where they spread throughout Europe and North Africa and again the effects were more variation in diets Better Health Etc and look I have as much fun as anyone talking about the spread of bananas and rice and sour oranges but you're here for the drama and the environmental drama in this period my friend was the spread of the Bubonic plague or maybe you've heard it by its sweeter more cherubic name The Black Death now for the spread of this devastating disease we have our friends the Mongols to think remember how they mounted the world stage in our Russian base basically conquered everyone's crap across Eurasia yeah well in doing so they increased the pace and volume in geographical extent of trade by keeping those various routes safe thanks Pax mongolica and that sounds great Until you realize that in 1331 the Bubonic plague which was exceedingly deadly erupted in northern China and from there it traveled rapidly across the Silk Roads and through the Indian Ocean trade route oh you're staying in a caravansari ride tonight please oh you're shoving out on a ship to get rich by trading please if you consider the spatial arrangement of where this disease spread it's almost entirely in line with trade routes and significant trade cities anyway this disease had a devastating effect in this period in the Middle East the plague killed nearly a third of the population and parts of Europe it killed half the population so the point is whether it was crops or germs the consequences of connectivity during this period were uh significant

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