Under the Mongol Empire, Eurasia was unified. These cities no longer went to war against each other, and the Mongols mandated a policy of open trade(Skaff 3). Items from China and Southeastern Asia made it into Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and vice versa. The Mongols also maintained the roads needed to conduct this trade and used their army to protect the roads from bandits. The Silk Roads connected the world in a way that had never truly been done before. Italian merchants like Marco Polo traveled to China and opened up trade relations that made Italian trading cities incredibly wealthy. This wealth flowing into Europe was directly responsible for the rise of the powerful, educated, and art-obsessed cities that formed the basis of the
