Category Archives: Asia

Asia around 1300
The map shows the Mongol Empire at the time of its greatest expansion around 1300. The enormous expansion of the Mongols was largely the work of Prince Temujin (1167-1227), who called himself Genghis Khan (“Ruler of the World)” from 1206. As a superior general, he organized the best cavalry in the world. Within only two years he united the Mongol peoples and began a permanent campaign of conquest with them. When he died in 1227, he had made himself the ruler of a well-organized empire that spanned Central Asia, Persia, the northern Caucasus and the northern China, including Beijing, and his sons, among whom he had divided his empire, and grandchildren continued expansion, and in 1259 the Mongols advanced into the Middle East and Europe.In China, they were initially resisted by the southern Sung Empire, which they were also able to conquer by 1279.

The Mongolian Khanates
In the empire of the Great Khan, the Yuan Dynasty (1279−1368) created by Kublai Khan, which extended over large parts of today’s China, the population was divided into four groups. The ruling class was made up exclusively of Mongols and Tatars. “Auxiliary peoples” such as Turks, Persians, Syrians and Arabs formed a middle class of merchants and higher officials. The northern Chinese were allowed to do a craft, small-business and occupy local administrative positions, while the southern Chinese, the majority of the population, had no rights whatsoever. Marriage between the individual groups was forbidden, the regulations were monitored by Mongolian inspectors. For more information about the continent of Asia, please check internetsailors.com.