Abstract
The final burst of global warming enabled the Mongols to rise from subarctic obscurity to world-conquerors. They quickly subdued Korea, went on to take China, and unsuccessfully invaded Japan and Vietnam. The end of the Medieval Warm Period and the beginning of the Little Ice Age proved fatal to Mongol rule in the east. Meanwhile, the Mongol Empire in the west fell apart, as grandsons of Chinggis Khan fought each other and adjusted to new homes in Russia, Mesopotamia, and Central Asia. Nativist rebellions in China and Korea restored Ruist ideals and traditional forms, but the absolutist rule of the Mongols proved too attractive to resist. The Mongols, with their world empire, created a society extremely open to new ideas, especially from the western world via Central Asia. New foods, medicines, and political ideas poured into China and eventually spread throughout East Asia. Trade flourished.
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Anderson, E.N. (2019). The Mongol Conquests of China and Korea and Invasion of Japan. In: The East Asian World-System. World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16870-4_7
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