Transcript Eurasian Trade Routes

Eurasian Trade Routes
China
 Tai Zu, the founding emperor of the Ming
dynasty, died in 1398, leaving his grandson as
emperor.
 His fifth son, Cheng Zu, the Prince of Yan, tried
to unseat his nephew after an 18 month reign.
 A civil war ensued, which lasted from 13991402, with the Prince having victory in the end.
Cheng Zu’s Reforms
 Drove the Mongols into the steppe where
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they could not threaten China.
Moved the capital from Nanjing (Southern
Capital) to Beijing (Northern Capital).
Sent embassies far into Central Asia.
Incorporated North Vietnam into the
Chinese empire.
Launched massive expeditions into the
Indian Ocean.
The Chinese Armada
 Admiral Zheng He assembled the largest fleet of
ships the world had ever seen (300 ships,
27,000 sailors) and sailed from China in 1405.
 He had three goals:
1) Track down the Emperor’s nephew
2) Impressing foreign countries with China’s might
3) Encourage overseas trade
(The overland trade routes had disappeared when
the Mongol empire collapsed in the mid-1300s)
From 1404-1407, 1,681 ships were built in China.
Voyages of Zheng He
Seven Voyages
 Altogether, the Chinese mounted seven 2-year
voyages.
 All of the voyages included pilots that could
speak Arabic, since this was the language of
commerce and shipping on the Indian Ocean.
Zheng He himself was Muslim.
 During this time, China established formal
relations with many Muslim nations.
 After the emperor died in 1435, no more naval
voyages were undertaken. The new emperor
chose to focus on rebuilding the Great Wall.
China’s Economy
 China had been experiencing some economic
difficulties.
 China’s monetary system had collapsed in the
mid-1300s, along with the Mongol empire.
 The Ming dynasty had printed more paper
money, increasing inflation.
 Copper coins from other dynasties were soon
substituted, but then silver mines were opened
to produce silver bullion for financial
transactions.
China’s Imports
 China’s need for silver could not be satisfied by
domestic mines.
 It traded Japan for silver initially, but increasingly
obtained silver from Europeans as well.
 China also needed to import horses, some raw
materials, as well as exotic foods (bird’s nests
and sea slugs) and black pepper.
 China saw potential troubles in foreign trade so
most of it was government controlled in the form
of monopolies.
Indian Ocean
 For over 1,000 years, the Indian Ocean was
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arguably the most important crossroads of
trade in the world.
These years can be divided into three periods:
650-1000 Arab traders and mariners
dominated, Islam spread from Africa to China.
1000-1500 Chinese competed with the Arabs
and Indians.
1500-1750 Europeans introduced “armed
trading”.
Second Period of Indian Ocean
 From 1000-1500, the ocean was divided into
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three overlapping zones of trade:
Western zone: Arab traders most active
Central circuit: dominated by Indians
South China Sea circuit: Chinese most active
During this period, no one political power tried
to dominate and trading was carried out
peacefully, without a naval convoy. None of the
great ports of trade were walled or fortified.
Third Period of Indian Ocean
 From 1500-1750, first the Portuguese and
then the Dutch, English, and French sailed
into the Indian Ocean and tried to control
shipping lanes and port cities by force.
 This forced the other groups which were
already there to arm themselves in defense
or to pay the intruders for protection.
 Although they tried to dominate from the
start, Europeans did not control trade in in
the Indian Ocean until steamships were
invented in the late 1800s.
India
 Unlike China, India at this time was not a unified
empire. It had a history of unity/disunity imposed
by outside conquerors.
 The center of Indian civilization was in the north,
in particular the Indus River valley.
Invasions of India
Century
 6th- Huns left numerous weak, warring states
 8th & 10th- Arabs spreading Islamic faith
 12th- Turkish Muslims established Delhi
sultanate.
 14th- Timur the Lame ravaged northern India
and sacked Delhi.
 South India had its own language and political
history. It proved more difficult to conquer.
Dar al-Islam
The Spread of Islam
 632- the Prophet Mohammed died.
 Within a century Muslim, or “believer”, armies
had unified the Arabian peninsula and captured
much of Persia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and
north Africa.
 This created a realm of common language and
custom that covered much of the Old World.
 The largest libraries from the 8th-15th centuries
were in Islamic lands.
 Expansion of Islamic empires into the
Mediterranean cut Europe off from the Indian
Ocean.
Fragmenting Control
 Central political control over the Islamic
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empire began breaking up.
The Abbasid dynasty had its capital in
Baghdad and governed a core region of Islam
until, in 1258, Mongol forces capture and
destroyed Baghdad, killing the last Abbasid
caliph.
Three new Islamic empires arose:
Ottoman- inherited the western part of dar alIslam
Safavids- established rule over Persia
Mughals conquered most of India
Constantinople
 Capital of the
Byzantine
empire and the
eastern outpost
of Christendom.
 Impeded the
westward
advance of
Islam.
 Also controlled trade between the
Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
Fall of Constantinople
 late 13th century-Turkish nomads, led by Osman
Bey, consolidated their power in what is now
Turkey, forming the Ottoman empire.
 14th century- the Ottomans built a military
machine based on gunpowder technology and a
slave-based army.
 15th century- the Ottomans laid siege to
Constantinople, which fell in 1453.
 They renamed the city Istanbul. This was a huge
blow to Christian Europe, and effectively blocked
European access to the eastern Mediterranean.
West Africa
 Developed a number of great empires
which traded with the rest of the world.
Kingdom of Ghana
 The most strategically located state at the time
of the Muslim arrival in north Africa.
 Was situated at the juncture of three different
ecosystems- the savanna, the rainforest, and
the Sahara desert.
 All of the African empires that traded north
across the Sahara converted to Islam between
the 10th and 12th centuries, including the kings
of Ghana.
 Ghana traded gold for cloth, horses, beads,
mirrors and salt.
Mali empire
 The Mali empire replaced Ghana from the 13th to
the early 15th century.
 During this time, Mali controlled almost all trade
in west Africa. Caravans of up to 25,000 camels
brought gold, slaves, and Indian textiles into Mali.
 Timbuktu became a great center of learning.
Scholars, architect, poets, and astronomers
came to the university and Muslim theologians
established many schools.
 Mansa Musa made a pilgrimage to Mecca in
1324, bringing huge amounts of gold with him.
East Africa
 Another route Islam took into Africa to trading
cities along the east coast of Africa. Ivory,
animal skins, gold & slaves were traded there.
 People in these cities converted to Islam and
intermarried with traders from many lands,
giving rise to a new coastal culture and
language called Swahili, which is related to
Arabic.
 In addition to the large empires, political power
in Africa was fragmented into hundreds of “ministates” often with warfare between them.
Slavery
 The word slave comes from “Slavs”, the name
for a group of Eastern European people living
near the Black Sea.
 Slaves were mostly used as domestic servants
of the wealthy and powerful.
 Slavery was not based on skin color and virtually
every society we have discussed so far kept
slaves. Africans kept slaves, generally they did
not own land privately but owned labor instead.
 Wars between mini-states contributed to the
slave trade in Africa.
Europe
 Like Africa, Europe in 1400 was divided into
hundreds of political units that were often at war
with one another. This is in contrast to China,
which was a huge empire ruled by a single man.
 Europe’s system of fragmented sovereignty was
the result of the breakup of the Roman empire in
the 6th century as well as the spread of Islam in
the 8th century.
 At this time, holding a piece of land, along with
its agricultural produce, and having a castle to
secure the land was a primary objective.
Warfare in Europe
 For many years swords, knives, lances, pikes,
and long- and crossbows were used in Europe.
 All this changed when cannons fired by
gunpowder were introduced in the 14th century.
 Gunpowder and cannons had been invented by
the Chinese around 1000 A.D.
 The Mongols improved upon the technology,
using it to bombard Chinese cities in the 13th
century. They also used cannons against
Europeans, who further improved the technology.
Notable Cannon Milestones
1327- 1st evidence of a European cannon
1453- Cannons used to capture Constantinople
1453- France uses cannons to end 100 Years War
1492- Muslims driven from Granada by Spanish
1494- French kings invaded Brittan and then Italy
1500- Pisa develops new fortifications that can
withstand cannon fire
Armed Trading in the
Mediterranean
 Europeans needed a way to preserve their food.
 Salt was available but pepper and other Asian
spices were in high demand.
 Europeans fought constantly over who had
access to the Asia spice trade.
 The city-states of Genoa & Venice had competed
for centuries. Each side built warships to protect
their merchants and all sailors were fighters.
 Venice, by 1400, had secured a virtual monopoly.
Portuguese Explorations
 The Venetian monopoly meant that other
European nations were cut off from the trade.
 Henry the Navigator led the Portuguese
southward in the Atlantic. He had heard from
Arabs that the southern tip of Africa could
rounded, bypassing the Venetians.
 In 1415, he attacked Muslim positions on the
western coast of Africa and sent out yearly
expeditions until he reached the equator.
 He died in 1460 without reaching his goal.
Missed Opportunity?
 At the same time that Henry the Navigator was
sailing down the west coast of Africa, Chinese
sailors under the command of Zheng He had
reached the east coast and had secured
Chinese dominance of the Indian Ocean.
 Had the Chinese naval expeditions continued,
they would have almost certainly rounded the
tip of Africa and opened up a direct trade route
with Europe themselves.
 The Portuguese would have been no match for
the Chinese navy.
Cape of Good Hope
 In 1488, Bartholomeu Dias finally reached the
tip of Africa for the Portuguese.
 When a Genoan sailor named Christopher
Columbus approached Portugal with a new plan
to reach Asia by sailing west, he was rejected.
 After news of Columbus’s “success” reached
Portugal, they redoubled their efforts to open up
a route to Asia past the Cape.
 Vasco da Gama sailed to Calicut, India in 1498.
Armed Trading in the Indian Ocean
 Upon da Gama’s return to Portugal, another
expedition was sent out with the purpose of
driving the Muslims from Calicut.
 The system of peaceful trade on the Indian
Ocean was brought to a halt.
 By 1515, the Portuguese had taken Hormuz and
Malacca and then moved into the South China
Sea.
 While the Chinese banned Portugal from trading
on the mainland, they gave them the island of
Macao on the southwestern edge of the country.
Effect of Portuguese Dominance
 Since trade between China and Japan had
been banned at this time, Portugal took
advantage of this by taking sliver and gold from
Japan and returning with Chinese silks.
 Asian rulers of coastal trading cities were forced
to fortify their territories and equip their own
navies. The ruler of Sumatra built a navy that
could run Portuguese blockades and take their
ships and arms. Imported Ottoman cannons
were even used to threaten Malacca.