Mongol Empire Impact

The exchange of goods and services for other goods, services, or money, also known as trade, has had a massive impact in the world. It brought human civilization from small, local, and personal nomadic tribes to bustling cities, greedy rulers, and an outstandingly high standard of living. Early on, mass trade began with trade between Europe, Africa and Asia. But later, as new countries entered the fray, technology improved and empires changed, trade expanded greatly, becoming a global phenomenon, resulting in nearly everyone trading with nearly everyone else. Some countries, such as Japan were almost completely dependent on the world trade to sustain their empire, while others such as the United States were nearly self-sustaining. Regardless …show more content…
Thanks to the Mongol empire, China was opened to the west, and with this came a massive shift. Explorers such as Marco Polo brought expeditions all the way to Chinese territory, finally uncovering what lay in the far east. Back with him, he brought stories of the riches and wonder in Chinese and Mongol land, also recounting a personal encounter with the Great Khan (Mckay, Ebrey, Beck, Haru & Crowston, 2014). The collapse of the Mongol empire brought even more opportunity. Shortly afterward, China began minor exploration and massive agricultural expansion, leaving the door wide open for Europeans to get a foothold into the Asian economy, allowing them to advance their civilization greatly. Overall, Afroeurasian trade, as it was later called, mostly took place over the Indian Ocean, and it had a huge impact on the daily lives of Europeans, and their expectations for products. The desires for eastern goods were sky high, spices and silks were two of said luxury goods, while the Europeans struggled to export anything of substance (or at a decent price) to the east, falling back on (or at last the Venetians had) firearms and slaves to turn a profit. From these European ventures, a great deal of competition grew. Monarchs and Empires across the European continent competed fiercely with each other to find the mystical trade route to India through the Atlantic, not realizing America was in the …show more content…
Christopher Columbus took to the seas in 1492 in search of a shorter (or easier) route to India, hoping that Europe would be able to participate in the global market more easily. Instead, Europe mistakenly found the New World, and by extension new opportunities. The Americas became a major focus of many European empires looking to expand, Spain and Portugal we’re two of the first nations to the new world, very quickly claiming land and establishing colonies. The focus, though, was on plantations growing cash crops, such as sugar. Mining silver and gold was also a major focus for the colonies, leading to massive profits for Spain and the Chinese. Building off the monstrous need for labor on these plantations, the transatlantic slave trade began and became the main catalyst that allowed the sugar plantations to exist. Overall, the work was brutal, and the conditions throughout the slave trade were truly awful, many Africans died during transportation, and if not they were treated brutally, beaten, branded, and starved, slaves were treated as the lowest of the low. The launch of colonies and plantations in the Americas brought with it the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch entrance into the global market as major trading empires. In addition, some major trading posts were established in Africa and that linked up many of these empires with India and the rest of the far east. A region that had been in contact with Europe for a long