Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
distant portion, including southern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghani-
stan and western Xinjiang; this came to be known as the Chaghatai
khanate. The share of the third son, Ogedei, seems to have eventually
been divided between the Chaghatai khanate and the Mongol heartland
inherited by the youngest son, Tolui. Tolui's portion formed the basis for
his son Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty in China.
Unlike the Golden Horde in Europe and the Yuan court in Beijing,
the Chaghatai khans tried to preserve their nomadic lifestyle, complete
with the khan's roving tent encampment as 'capital city'. But as the rulers
spent more and more time in contact with Muslim collaborators who
administered their realm, the Chaghatai line inevitably began to settle
down. They even made motions towards conversion to Islam. It was a
fight over this issue, in the mid-14th century, that split the khanate in
two, with the Muslim Chaghatais holding Transoxiana and the conserva-
tive branch retaining the Tian Shan, Kashgar and the vast steppes north
and east of the Syr-Darya, an area collectively known as Moghulistan.
Timur & the Timurids
The fracturing of the Mongol empire immediately led to resurgence
of the Turkic peoples. From one minor clan near Samarkand arose a
tyrant's tyrant, Timur ('the Lame', or Tamerlane). After assembling an
army and wresting Transoxiana from Chaghatai rule, Timur went on
a spectacular nine-year rampage which ended in 1395 with modern-
day Iran, Iraq, Syria, eastern Turkey, the Caucasus and northern India
smouldering at his feet.
At its height the
Mongol empire
formed the larg-
est contiguous
land empire in
human history,
marking the
greatest incur-
sion by steppe
nomads into
settled society.
THE MONGOL KISS OF DEATH
Alongside the exchange of silk, jade, paper and Buddhism, hitorians rank disease as
one of the Silk Road's less salubrious gifts to the world. One school of thought has it
that the Black Death plague spread in 1338 from a diseased community of Netorian
Chritians at Lake Issyk-Köl in current Kyrgyztan. Disease-ridden rat leas then fol-
lowed merchant caravans along Silk Road trade routes to the Mongol capital of Sarai in
the Russian Volga.
By 1343 Mongol Khan Jani Beg of the Golden Horde was famously catapulting the
plague-riddled corpses of his dead soldiers over the city walls of Kafa, in the Crimea
peninsula, in one of the world's irt examples of biological warfare. The outbreak caused
the Genoese population to lee by boat to the Mediterranean coat, spreading the dis-
ease deeper into Europe.
In the ensuing six years the Black Death pandemic went on to kill between 30% and
60% of Europe's population and around 100 million people across Asia. It was the Mon-
gols' farewell kiss of death to the world.
1261-64
Nicolo and Mafeo Polo
(Marco's father and
uncle) live in Bukhara
for three years before
travelling to the court
of Khublai Khan. The
khan requests they
return with 100 priests
to argue the merits of
Christianity.
1336-1405
Timur's (Tamerlane)
life, whose campaigns
resulted in the deaths
of more than one
million people. He
becomes infamous
for building towers or
walls made from the
cemented heads of a
defeated army.
¨
Ulugbek Medressa, Bukhara, Uzbekistan
