Connexions module: m17836 1
Central and Northern Asia: A.D.
1401 to 1500
∗
Jack E. Maxeld
This work is produced by The Connexions Project and licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution License
†
1 CENTRAL AND NORTHERN ASIA
Back to Central and Northern Asia: A.D. 1301 to 1400
1
Transoxiana and Samarkand were each ruled by descendants of Timur and they became rival centers of
prosperity and culture equal to any in Europe. Toynbee (Ref. 220
2
), writing in the middle 1940s, described
that culture along with that of Turkey as the "Turkish-Iranian Islamic Society", still existing. One cannot
help but wonder, in the light of activities in the 1970s and 80s, if he still would describe these diverse areas
as a single culture. Timur had lived just into this 15th century and was determined to conquer China and
had moved north from Samarkand, with a horde of 800,000. Camping at Otrar, some 250 miles north of
Samarkand in January of 1401, Timur became ill and died. It was his son Shah Rukh, whom we have seen
took over Persia and a grandson Ulugh Beg, who kept the center land from India to Iraq, for awhile. Ulugh
Beg set up a great observatory and constructed very accurate astronomical tables.
The battle which Timur had had with the remnants of the Golden Horde marked the nal age of the
Mongol conquests, but they were already in decline. The appearance of plague in humans across the steppe as
a result of the establishment of the new reservoir for Pasteurella pestis in the area probably was a real factor
in undermining Mongol military might, as their manpower dwindled. There was a decay of urban centers
on the steppe, irrespective of external factors, such as Timur's destructive frays. Caravan personnel were
particularly vulnerable to plague and from this time on new migrations from the steppe failed to materialize.
The opening of the new sea route to the east around Africa was still another severe blow to the region and
a nal factor was the isolationist policies of the Ming Dynasty in China, which tended to dry up the silk
route. The Ming even cut o grain supplies to Mongolia, as a means of pressuring the steppe people, but the
Mongol response was to go to war and when the Ming retaliated by trying to invade Mongolia, the Chinese
emperor was captured, in 1449. (Ref. 279
3
) Thereafter the Ming reverted to a completely defensive strategy,
withdrawing from Inner Mongolia, so that even the pretense of Chinese military domination of Central Asia
was dropped. (Ref. 149
4
, 137
5
)
∗
Version 1.2: Oct 14, 2008 10:19 pm GMT-5
†
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
1
"Central and Northern Asia: A.D. 1001 to 1100" <http://cnx.org/content/m17825/latest/>
2
"A Comprehensive Outline of World History: Bibliography", reference [220]
<http://cnx.org/content/m17805/latest/#twotwozero>
3
"A Comprehensive Outline of World History: Bibliography", reference [279]
<http://cnx.org/content/m17805/latest/#twosevennine>
4
"A Comprehensive Outline of World History: Bibliography", reference [149]
<http://cnx.org/content/m17805/latest/#onefournine>
5
"A Comprehensive Outline of World History: Bibliography", reference [137]
<http://cnx.org/content/m17805/latest/#onethreeseven>
http://cnx.org/content/m17836/1.2/
