The Silk Road: A New World History of Human Civilization Spanning Two and a Half Centuries from the Persian Empire to the Contemporary International Scenario (2)

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Seventh to Tenth Century: The Islamic Empire, with the rise of the Rus and Seljuks.

The Arabs continued to expand in order to expand their trade and transportation routes, controlling a large territory that included all of Egypt. The Islamic Empire practiced a policy of tolerance and cooperation with the locals in its vast territory.

From the seventh to the eighth centuries, the Arab dynasties succeeded in integrating the Roman and Persian core into the economy and politics. Trade networks and transportation routes concentrated wealth, and large investments were made in central Asia around Syria. The vast new city of Baghdad was built and became the new center of gravity of the empire. Gourmet food, luxury goods, silks, and Tang dynasty porcelain flooded into the Islamic empire, and knowledge was concentrated here, with some of the most brilliant scholars of the day being attracted to Baghdad and other centers of Central Asian learning. Baghdad was a brilliant city compared to the rejection of knowledge and science in Christendom at the time. Trade in the Muslim world flourished, and Islamic coins could later be found in Scandinavia, Britain, and elsewhere, illustrating the extent of trade.

The main targets of exchange with the Islamic world, dominated by the Arabian Empire, during this period were not only the surviving Roman Empire, but also the steppes and trade from Scandinavia in northern Europe, including the Muslims, Turks, Rus, and the Seljuks of the latter and later periods.

Returnees dominate the Orient.

The Islamic Empire continued to expand eastward, defeating the Tang army as far as directly in 751, leading to the An Lushan Rebellion which brought about a long period of instability in China. The Muslims (now the Uyghurs) rose to occupy a position between the Islamic Empire and China, taking the lead in the silk trade and becoming the enemy of the Islamic front.

Turkic domination of the northern steppes in the 8th century

The expansion of the Islamic Empire to the north led to fur trading with the nomadic peoples of the northern steppes. In the Eighth Century, when the economy was not yet monetized, fur was a form of wealth that could be amassed, and the new exchange with the steppe nomads directly increased the people's disposable wealth. While the steppe economy was growing, a new power, the Kossas, emerged, dominated by Turkic tribes. The Kossas, who ruled the steppes north of the Black Sea, resisted the Arab conquests and won leadership of the tribal groups, including those that reached present-day Ukraine and southern Russia.

The powerful Kossans also attracted the remaining Roman Empire to ally with them against the Arab Empire. Interestingly, the Kossans eventually chose Judaism as their main religion because both Christians and Muslims considered Judaism better than any other religion except theirs.

The Romans started out as traders and became the masters of the northern steppes in the 10th century.

The Rus, one of the Vikings from Scandinavia, was attracted to the southeast by the prosperity of the Arabian region, and these people later founded the new state that is the ancestor of Russia.

In addition to the general trade in goods, the Rus' also developed a large trade in slaves, mainly Slavs from the north and later from Africa. There was a great demand for slaves in the Muslim world, and good slaves were sold first to the Kossarian capital of Adil, and eventually supplied to the Muslim world, including Baghdad and other Muslims in Asia, North Africa, and Spain.

As the trade situation evolved, the Viking Rus began to want a share of the considerable Adriatic trade revenues and began to rob the Kossian vassal tribes, and by the second half of the ninth century, the Slavic tribes of south-central Russia were paying money to the Rus. The Rus won the battle against the Kossas, and the Rus became the masters of the western steppe in the 10th century A.D., controlling the land from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea and north to the Danube River.

The Shia Regime and the Byzantine Revival

In the tenth century, civil unrest began in Baghdad. Local Shiite rebellions combined with several consecutive cold winters led to the rise of the Paiyid Dynasty, which established de facto control over Iran and Iraq. The Islamic regime in Egypt was also completely overthrown, and North Africa was ruled by the new Fatimid Dynasty, which was also Shiite Muslim.

Taking advantage of the turmoil in the Islamic world, Byzantium regained some land in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea region and entered the Golden Age. Byzantine trade with North Africa shifted from land to the Red Sea, and no longer relied on the Arabian Peninsula's land routes. As trading opportunities in the south diminished, the Vikings turned their attention to Byzantium in the west, and we can see this period as the origin of exchanges between Europe and Russia.

The Seljuks are the new masters of the Islamic world.

The economic development of Europe was accompanied by an exodus of military power and a deepening dependence on foreign slave soldiers. This in turn led to the establishment of new powers by the descendants of the later Turkic slave officers. At the end of the 10th century, the powerful Seljuks, an offshoot of the Turks, rose to power.

In the Islamic world, the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad was still fighting against the Baiyid Dynasty and invited the Seljuks to expel the Baiyid Dynasty. As a result, the Seljuks themselves converted to Islam and usurped the power of the Abbasid Dynasty, the original ruler.

Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries: The Crusades to the Breakup of the Byzantine Empire

By this time in history, Byzantium had been fighting against the nomads together with its friend Seljuk, but Seljuk had a succession crisis in the 1090s, and the country was too divided to help Byzantium control the nomadic threat, so Byzantium had to turn to the popes of Western Europe, who had always been divided on religious grounds, for help. Byzantium told the popes of Europe that pagans were annexing Christian territories, and the popes began to lobby for expeditions. The Pope's actions were actually aimed at the unification of the Eastern and Western Christian Churches. In short, the result was the Crusades. For the next two hundred years after the First Crusade, Western Europeans struggled to hold on to their conquered territories. Like many historical events before it, the Crusades led to economic exchanges along the routes and created new commercial motives.

Crusaders Business Networking

The First Crusade was a direct assault on Jerusalem, which the Crusaders massacred in the midst of anti-Semitism. After capturing Jerusalem, the Crusaders needed supplies from Europe. The Italic city-states with their fleets saw a favorable commercial opportunity, and the Venetians, among them, took the lead in the struggle, agreeing with the Crusaders to provide help in exchange for duty-free booty and trade.

In Jerusalem, the Crusaders were in fact an organization that valued commercial interests. They maintained a steady and good relationship with the Muslims in order to deal with the Muslim population. Various types of trade and exchanges of scientific and intellectual knowledge stimulated the economies and societies of Western Europe and allowed the Muslims to continue to make large profits.

Western Europe clashed with Byzantium, and the Crusaders caused the Byzantine Empire to disintegrate.

The commercial rivalry between the Italian city-states became more and more heated, and eventually the Byzantines came to be on the opposite side. This was partly due to the competition for profit, and partly due to the anti-Western sentiment between the Italians from Western Europe and the inhabitants of Constantinople in Eastern Europe (not forgetting that Byzantium had to turn to the Pope for help in Western Europe, and that there was a big gap between the two). The Byzantines felt that Western Europeans were always untrustworthy and came to the eastern Mediterranean only for money, and the Crusaders' leadership was only interested in profit.

Saladin, the new leader of Egypt, cultivated a good relationship with Byzantium, after which Egypt repelled the Crusaders in Jerusalem. Driven by profit and religious factors, the Crusaders continued their campaign, but their financial resources were running low. Since Egypt and Byzantium regarded Western Europe as enemies to a certain extent, the Crusaders, driven by the Venetians who were their creditors, eventually attacked other Christian regions including Byzantium in defiance of religion and the Byzantine Empire was disintegrated here.

Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries: Mongol Empire to Ottoman Empire

Mongolian Empire

In the 13th century, the Mongol Iron Horse marched into Europe and expanded outward. The Mongol Empire's territory extended from the Pacific Ocean to the Black Sea (including part of the original Byzantine Empire), northern India, and the Persian Gulf, and it controlled the commercial trade to the Black Sea. After controlling a large area of territory, the Mongols were tolerant of religion and politically astute in delegating responsibility to the local people. Combined with the Mongols' lax policy on commercial taxes, the Black Sea became more attractive for commercial trade than other routes.

Under these circumstances, the Mongols succeeded in reshaping the financial systems of Europe and Asia in the thirteenth century, and brought cultural influences to all parts of the world. Europeans began to wear Mongolian-style clothing, and the desire for the Orient led to a rapid spread of knowledge about the Orient.

However, the Mongol Empire had its own problems in the east, and these territories, far away from the western frontier, did not last long.

Wealth redistribution as a result of the Black Death

The Mongol Empire also brought with it a major infectious disease: the Black Death. The outbreak of the Black Death in the mid-14th century killed at least one-third of Europe's population. In the long term, the Black Death caused a restructuring of society, an appreciation of the labor force due to the dramatic decline in population, a redistribution of wealth across Europe, and an economic transformation of Europe.

Those fortunate enough to survive the Black Death epidemic were healthier, and later Europeans lived longer. Overall, with the redistribution of economic resources, the economy began to grow rapidly, evolving into the fifteenth century, when the demand for luxury goods increased dramatically. The whole of Asia was driven by trade. India prospered, and the Chinese sent Zheng He to the West.

Rise of the Ottoman Empire, Fall of Byzantium

At the end of the 14th century, Ottoman, an emerging Islamic power originating from Western Turkestan, emerged and dominated Thrace and the Balkans.

In Europe in the fifteenth century, the global financial crisis began due to oversaturation of markets, devaluation of currencies, and distortion of balance of payments. Europe still had a strong demand for luxury goods at this stage, but there were no goods that could be exchanged that could attract the Orientals. The production of luxury goods increased to a level greater than the demand, causing a global credit crunch.

The 15th century coincided with the global cooling, which once again affected the steppe ecology and intensified the competition for resources. 1453, Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, was finally captured by Ottoman, and the Islamic world gained a victory, with Ottoman settling the capital at Constantinople.

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