Can we speak of the Mongol Empire’s achievements?

The short answer

• How the routes were protected. A merchant going to China crossed lands governed by several rulers. Related regimes could make the journey more predictable through passes, relay stations and agreements. Around 1340 the merchant Pegolotti called the road “perfectly safe, whether by day or by night.” His judgment describes a particular route and time, not a guarantee for every traveler. As the khanates diverged and fought (Chapter 9), risks and barriers changed; maritime routes offered other ways to reach Asian markets. A road’s usefulness depended in part on the political arrangements that protected those using it.
• Specialists and knowledge on the move. Mongol rulers moved expertise across their territories as well as military equipment (Chapter 10). Chinese physicians and engineers worked at Tabriz, and Persian astronomers contributed to Beijing’s observatory. In the Ilkhanate, Rashid al-Din drew on Chinese informants and Frankish envoys for his ambitious world history. Gunpowder, the idea of printing and the compass moved west along networks that included Mongol routes but also predated the empire. Rulers sought skills for their own purposes; once people and knowledge moved, their uses could extend further.
• Plague travels through connections. The bacterium Yersinia pestis lived in Central Eurasian animal reservoirs, including marmot and gerbil populations. Caravans, armies and shipments connected inland regions with ports, providing opportunities for infection to travel. The account of bodies thrown into Caffa is memorable, but the routes and carriers of the pandemic remain debated. The Black Death was not deliberately caused by a Mongol ruler. Its spread belongs to the wider history of the commercial and political connections across this region.

What it changed

Successor states and Mongol authority. Mongol rule ended in different places at different times, but its institutions and claims to authority continued to be used. The Yuan fell in 1368, leaving a reunified China with its capital at what is now Beijing. Muscovy grew under the Horde’s tax system and later expanded into the steppe. In India, the Mughals drew on Mongol and Timurid inheritance; on the steppe, Chinggisid descent remained a powerful source of legitimacy into the eighteenth century. Each inheritance served new rulers and ambitions.

Routes toward the sea. Overland commerce continued, although khanate wars, plague and changing costs affected it. European interest in Asian goods and accounts of Asian courts also endured. Columbus carried an annotated copy of Polo’s book as he sought a westward route to Asia, long after Khubilai’s death. Later maritime ventures grew in part from interests and knowledge sustained by those earlier overland connections.

Return to the map. Free Explore lets you follow several different outcomes. Watch Hungary change and recover, then trace Syria after Ain Jalut. Japan, Delhi and Egypt faced Mongol advances with different obstacles available to them: water, climate and capable opposing armies. Finally return to Mongolia, the homeland from which the empire grew. Its territorial color changes less than those of many conquered regions. The map shows that difference; understanding the changes in Mongolian life would require looking beyond its colors.