Storm from the east, p.21
Storm from the East, page 21
Arab dhows also sailed east and became regular visitors at the ports of Hangchow, Quinsay and Zaiton, and with the construction of the Grand Canal, ocean-going vessels regularly called at Ta-tu, making it one of the busiest inland ports anywhere. More than 200,000 ships navigated up and down the Yangtze each year. Silk, rice, sugar, ceramics, pearls and other precious stones were exported in return for exotic medicines, herbs, ivory and other luxuries. Chinese manufactures reached everywhere under the custody of Mongol world dominance, and for the first time in human history Europe had direct contact with Cathay, through trade. Merchants travelled the vast Mongol highways from the Crimea, through the land of the Golden Horde to Sarai and Utrar, across the Altai Mountains and into the empire of the Great Khan, to Ta-tu. Others travelled from the cities along the Yangtze across the empty steppes to Besh-balik, through the Chaghadai Khanate to Samarqand and Bukhara, and down to the cities of Persia.
APPEALS TO EUROPE
There was also an increase in diplomatic traffic between the empire and Europe, particularly to and from the Ilkhanate. This took on a more urgent character after 1260, a year in which many historians claim the serious fracturing of Mongol unity began. Before that date, most contacts had been instigated by the Pope and were devised to appease the Mongols and perhaps even effect a conversion. However, after the humiliation at Ayn Jalut the traffic was reversed; the Mongols began making serious appeals for an alliance with the Christian forces in Palestine, if that would mean the swift elimination of Muslim resistance. Following Hulegu’s now famous letter to Louis IX, written in 1262, many attempts were made by both sides to establish good relations. Letters passed back and forth between the respective courts as first Abaqa, Hulegu’s successor, and then in turn his successors, tried to nail down an alliance with Christendom. Europe’s response was always favourable (especially if there was a prospect of some large-scale conversions), though ineffectual. No European power actually ever despatched an army, but the Mongols were nothing if not persistent and by the time of the fourth Ilkhan, Arghun, their appeals to Europe had reached a new pitch.
In 1287, Arghun sent an emissary to Rome, an Eastern Christian monk by the name of Rabban Sauma who had travelled to the Middle East on pilgrimage from Ta-tu. Unable to reach the Holy Land because of the conflicts in Syria, Rabban Sauma was commissioned by Arghun to impress the crowned heads of Europe with how well Christianity had flourished under the empire. The envoy did just that: in Rome he took part in long theological discussions with cardinals, in Paris he was received by Philip IV ‘the Fair’ in the glorious Ste-Chapelle, and in Gascony he so impressed Edward I of England that he was allowed to conduct a Mass and give holy communion to the King. On his return through Rome, he conducted further Masses during Holy Week and Easter, this time in the presence of the Pope himself, after which the cardinals rejoiced, declaring: ‘the language is different but the use is the same.’
Rabban Sauma returned with an extremely positive response from Philip IV, who proposed: ‘If the armies of the Ilkhan go to war against Egypt [the Mamluks], we too shall set out to go to war and to attack in common operation.’ To which Arghun replied:
…we decided, after consulting heaven, to mount our horses in the last month of winter in the Year of the Tiger [1290] and to dismount outside of Damascus on the 15th of the first month of spring [1291]. Now, We make it known to you that in accordance with Our honest word, we shall send Our armies [to arrive] at the [time and place] and, if by the authority of heaven, We conquer these people, We shall give you Jerusalem.
It was a time when Christianity enjoyed unprecedented acceptance right across the empire – not just in Persia, but in Mongolia and China, where Khubilai encouraged its spread as a way of improving his contacts with Europeans and so proving to his Chinese subjects that he was indeed the Great Khan of the world. Following Rabban Sauma’s visit to Rome, during which he had reaffirmed the willingness of the Church of the East to accept the Pope’s supremacy, a bishopric was eventually established at Sultaniyya, a new city being constructed by the Ilkhans in Persia, and another in Ta-tu itself.
During Arghun’s reign, relations with the Pope were so strong that it must have seemed possible that the Ilkhanate might convert to Christianity. How that might have affected the course of Middle Eastern history is open to speculation, but needless to say it did not come about. The Mamluks had by March 1291 already stormed the crusader fortress at Acre, the last Christian outpost in Palestine, and within a few days Arghun had died of a long illness. His successor, Geikhatu, devoted his short life to drink and the pursuit of young boys, and never once showed the slightest interest in either war or alliances.
THE PERSIAN ILKHANATE
So, for the first forty years of Mongol rule, Persia was forced to accept the demotion of Islam as the pre-eminent religion of the area. To the locals’ great distress, in all the great towns and cities Buddhist temples were constructed in even greater abundance than the new Christian churches. Although some of the Ilkhans showed distinct leanings towards either Buddhism or Christianity, in the main they were fairly impartial – that is until the reign of Ghazan the ‘Reformer’, who became Ilkhan in 1295.
The year before, in faraway China, the great Khubilai Khan had died. Although all the other khans accepted his successor, Temur Oljeitu, as Great Khan in name, he did not enjoy anything like the same authority as his father. There would never be another universal khan at the head of the empire, and the next generation of Ilkhans never felt they had to demonstrate the same deference as had their forefathers. By the 1290s the Ilkhanate was going through a period of great internal unrest: the economy had virtually collapsed, foreign debts were not being met, and the cities were torn by riots and the threat of insurrection. This had largely been brought about by a combination of Geikhatu’s heady excesses, a haphazard and somewhat ruthless form of tax collection, and an ill-judged attempt to cure these ills through the forced introduction of Chinese-like paper currency to an economy that had been based upon gold and silver for more than 2,000 years.
When the throne became vacant in 1295, the new pretender, Ghazan the ‘Reformer’, was advised that if he wanted to be khan he had better find some way of forging a link with the already restive populace, who were by now tired of being ruled by pagans. As there was no longer any need to seek Ta-tu’s approval for the election of a local khan, Ghazan split with Mongol tradition and embraced Islam, as did most of his Mongol generals.
Ghazan had other changes in mind too. According to the Persian historian Rashid al-Din, who was also his chief minister, when the new Ilkhan argued with the Mongol elite about reforming the Ilkhanate administration, he explained himself in the following words: ‘If you insult the peasant, take his oxen and seed, and trample his crops into the ground – what will you do in the future?’ Just like Khubilai, thirty years before, the Mongol khan had begun to identify with his subjects. Their wellbeing was equated with the wellbeing of the state. He went on: ‘You must think, too, when you beat and torture their wives and children, that just as our wives and children are dear to our hearts, so are theirs to them. They are human beings, just as we are.’ The influence of civilisation had again prevailed over the instincts of the nomad.
Under Ghazan’s firm and pragmatic government, the economy gradually improved. The system of taxation was reformed, as was the judiciary, and incentives were offered to the peasantry to return to the land. Most importantly, Mesopotamia and Persia were returned to the bosom of Islam, where they have remained ever since.
Ghazan’s brother, Oljeitu, was the next Ilkhan, and he too adopted the Muslim faith and continued the process of reform. However, his greatest monument was built in stone: the lavish embellishment of the new city of Sultaniyya with its domed and octagonal buildings, many of which were architectural masterpieces – none more so than his own tomb, constructed in 1313. Just as Khubilai had wanted to prove himself a great builder as well as conqueror, so the Ilkhans were keen to demonstrate their wealth with lavish constructions.
The Mausoleum of Oljeitu is one of the great Islamic landmarks; its cupola stands more than 75 m (nearly 250 feet) above the ground and is decorated with the most dazzling blue ceramic tiles. The windows are made of intricate cast iron, while the interior walls are decorated with typically ornate stonework. When it was built it was the largest domed cupola anywhere in the world – a breath-taking engineering breakthrough, and a milestone in Islamic architecture. It was a resoundingly pro-Islamic statement and underscores how the Mongol aristocracy in this part of the world had absorbed the Islamic culture.
This was also an era of great artistic expression in general, fostered by the Ilkhan’s patronage. Poetry, painting and ceramics, but above all architecture, all flourished under the Mongols. Oljeitu’s son, Abu Sa’id, who in 1316 became the first Ilkhan with an Islamic name, ruled during what was described as the ‘best period of the domination of the Mongols’. The economy boomed, a treaty was negotiated with the Mamluks and Persia looked forward to peace and prosperity.
The only thing that Abu Sa’id failed to produce was an heir, and when he died in 1335 so did the house of Hulegu. There was no one to take up the reins of power, and the line of the Ilkhans abruptly ceased. The majority of the Mongol elite who had not embraced Islam had emigrated, while those who had assimilated were simply absorbed into the population. Mongol control over Persia ceased and the Ilkhanate itself disappeared. Meanwhile, Persia drifted without a unified government until another Turko-Mongol warrior, Timur the Lame, rode out of Samarqand thirty years later.
NATURAL CATASTROPHE AND REBELLION
The Ilkhanate was the first Mongol nation to collapse. The next was China. Under Khubilai’s successors China, and the empire as a whole, enjoyed thirty years of stability and peace. However, following the assassination of the fifth Yuan emperor in 1323 there erupted more than ten years of factional fighting between various branches of the Mongol aristocracy. Altogether five separate descendants of Khubilai were made emperor by different warring factions. In 1333, Toghon Temur, the eleventh Yuan emperor, was crowned; and although he ruled uninterrupted for the next thirty-five years, he did so over a dynasty that was already in terminal decline.
Before his enthronement, while the Yuan factions were still squabbling among themselves, southern China had been racked by a series of peasant rebellions. These were not proto-nationalist movements, but uprisings born out of simple poverty. In earlier times they would have been promptly crushed, but the Mongol garrisons were no longer led by seasoned campaigners and many of the officers in charge had never actually been to war. Gradually the rebellions turned into a contagious infection of guerrilla movements that spread north until by the 1330s open civil war had become established in central China. As the Yuan authorities seemed helpless against the rebels, the local Chinese gentry raised their own private militia, thus increasing the numbers of armed soldiery in the country.
In the midst of this rising sea of troubles, a number of natural disasters struck that would have tried the strengths of even the most resilient administration. First there was an earthquake, followed by the great flood of 1352 when the Yellow River burst its banks and inundated vast tracts of countryside, bringing with it both disease and famine. To cope with the great damage, the Yuan authorities set about conscripting a vast army of labourers to repair the dykes and dams. This was frustrated by yet another disaster in the following year, when a terrible pestilence swept through the country and killed enormous numbers. According to traditional Chinese superstitions, nature was no longer in harmony with the ruling dynasty, and this did not augur well for its future. Because of labour shortages, work on the flood control became haphazard. Conditions were harsh and the pay low, which led to further rebellions. Out of these new insurrections emerged a number of bandit leaders who began to attract to their cause people from different classes. Soon landowners, master artisans and even the clergy began flocking to what became a massive, yet wholly disorganised national rebellion. It had become a great popular movement against the Emperor’s utterly ineffectual attempts at dealing with the various natural disasters.
By 1356 a single leader had emerged from among the rebel forces: Chu Yuan-chang. Under his charismatic leadership the rebellion became more focused, and soon the gentry were also flocking to his banner, now they could sense a real opportunity to be rid of the foreign dynasty once and for all. Chu Yuan-chang’s forces, augmented by the numerous militia armies, marched north and eventually captured Nanking, thus cutting off supplies to the north and creating a rallying-centre for other rebel groups. With the support of the gentry his cause had acquired a degree of legitimacy, but before he confronted Yuan authority head-on, he was urged to form an alternative government – and for the third time in history a peasant became the founder of a Chinese dynasty.
He chose the name Ming Hung-wu, and the motif for the new Ming Dynasty would be ‘Rule Like the T’ang and the Sung’; a return to traditional Chinese values. As the Ming forces grew in strength, the Mongols lost sight of the danger they were in and became embroiled in another brief civil war, once again between the houses of Ogedei and Tolui. While the Mongols were at each other’s throats, the Ming forces consolidated their hold on the south and effectively eliminated Yuan authority anywhere south of the Yangtze River. By 1368, Chu Yuan-chang was ready to march on Ta-tu, which he did virtually unopposed. By the time the Ming army had breached the city walls the last Yuan Emperor, Toghon Temur, had fled to Qaraqorum where he died in 1370.
It is no coincidence that the first khanates to collapse, the Persian and Chinese, also happened to be the most urbanised and sophisticated. In both cases the Mongol rulers were effectively overwhelmed by the difficulties of governing large sedentary societies. Though China had indeed become too much for the Mongols to cope with, their brief reign brought that society closer to the rest of the world than it had ever been in its entire history. Persian merchants plied their wares in its markets, designed its irrigation systems and sometimes even governed its cities. Nevertheless, most Chinese chroniclers saw the Mongol dynasty as a most disagreeable period of their history and dismissed the benefits of contact with the rest of the world as an unfortunate infection that was eventually cauterised.
The physical manifestation of their determination to keep the Mongols out was of course the construction of the Great Wall, which the new Ming Dynasty undertook in the sixteenth century. Though the Mongol empire had brought Europe into contact with China, the influences flowed almost exclusively in one: despite the foreign religions, merchant houses and even architecture, China remained the most culturally self-sufficient of civilisations. Most Christian and Islamic presence withered after the death of Khubilai, the last emperor with truly international ambitions. The Chinese took very little notice of Persian culture, though the Persians were influenced especially in the areas of painting and ceramics. But it was Europe that benefited and learned the most. Its knowledge of Asia expanded enormously and led directly to the great Age of Discovery. When Christopher Columbus set sail in 1492, he did so in search of the sea route to Cathay, the land of the Great Khan.
THE GOLDEN HORDE
In contrast with Persia and China, the Mongols in central Asia and Russia put down very deep roots. After the great campaign through Poland and Hungary in 1242, Batu made his base in the lower Volga region and eventually laid the foundations of the city of Sarai, situated on the banks of the Akhtuba River. From here, he maintained control over the Russian princes and watched the traffic of merchants and envoys that proceeded from Europe across the steppe to Qaraqorum and China. With the rich tribute he exacted from the Russian states, the Golden Horde – as the Russians came to call Batu’s khanate – grew fabulously rich.
However, it was Batu’s younger brother, Berke Khan, elected in 1257, who finally determined the territory of the Golden Horde. Its heart lay in the lower Volga and extended to the steppes around the rivers Don and Dnieper, the Crimean peninsula, the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains and even into Bulgaria and Thrace. If anything, Berke strengthened Mongol control, ruthlessly crushing the slightest hint of a rebellion among the Russians. He might also have launched another invasion of Europe had he not been diverted by Hulegu’s savage campaign against Islam.
Being a Muslim himself, Berke had been appalled by the destruction that had been wrought upon Baghdad and the eventual quarrel that erupted between the Ilkhanate and the Golden Horde not only shelved his ambitions towards Europe, it also guaranteed the survival of the new Mamluk kingdom that had emerged from Cairo.
The next Khan, Mongke-Temur, who was a son of Batu’s, led the Golden Horde into an era of great prosperity from which it emerged a real world power. Peace was agreed with the Ilkhanate, after Khubilai’s insistence, while relations were maintained with the Mamluks in Egypt. Trade flourished between Egypt and Russia, and north of Batu’s capital a new city was eventually constructed called Berke Sarai (New Sarai), where many of the mosques and palaces were built by Egyptian architects. But under Mongke-Temur’s successors the Golden Horde never shone quite as brightly. New campaigns were launched into Poland and Hungary, but this time the Mongols were defeated and turned back; there was no Subedei to lead the armies.
In the early fourteenth century, under Ozbeg Khan, the Golden Horde officially adopted Islam as the state religion and throughout the Middle East the Muslim states rejoiced. Nevertheless, good relations were maintained with the Christian West and the Genoese strengthened their foothold at Kaffa on the Black Sea. After Ozbeg, the Golden Horde seemed to wither somewhat, especially when the line of Jochi-Batu finally came to an end in 1359. Other Mongol pretenders from the Chaghadai khanate attempted to place puppet khans on the throne at Sarai, but none of these enjoyed proper power or distinction. In 1371, with the khanate appearing to disintegrate, the Russian princes refused to make their annual journey to Sarai to pay tribute, and when a Mongol army was sent to persuade them, it was defeated by the Grand Duke of Moscow at Kulikovo Pole. However, Russian freedom was still just a dream, for there had emerged a new power out of Transoxiana that would wreak havoc throughout Central Asia.
