A graph superimposes the growth–decline curves of major Late Rider Empires, from 1200 to 1800. This was a period of shift from horses to sails. West European feudalism indirectly led to respect for law and a curiosity revolution. Inciting exploration, the latter began to give rise to transoceanic empires, first of all Spanish. But at first, Mongol horsemen seized a record-size area, unsurpassed among land-borne empires. Up to 1750 all truly large empires except Spanish remained land bound: Manchu Qing, Russia, Ottoman, and Mughal. The burgeoning French, Portuguese, and British empires were still modest. Much of the Mongol hold meant sparsely populated superficial tribute area, but by conquering China the Mongol empire also became the world’s most populous. Later on, Ming, Mughal, and Qing shared this eminence. Nomad empires were a phenomenon that rose and ended with the Rider phase. The Inca and Aztec empires retraced from scratch the human self-domestication process that the Old World underwent thirty-five centuries earlier, but they still lacked metals and the wheel.

The Epilogue discusses the impact of the Mongol Empire on world history, stressing the role of the Mongols’ nomadic culture and its main features: mobility and redistribution. It refers to the devastation caused by the empire – its reasons, scope, and outcome; the Mongols’ active role in promoting cross-cultural, economic, and religious exchanges; and the geopolitical, ethnic, and institutional transformation it instigated in the different realms (notably China, Iran, Russia, and Central Asia). It concludes with the Mongol contribution to the Age of Exploration, the transition from the medieval to the early modern world, and the eventual decline of nomadic political power.

The Mongols embarked on an explorative incursion in the Caucasus in 1220 before fully invading the area in 1235–1236. Due to their organized and well-thought-out campaign, in a few years they managed to subdue the region from present-day Armenia to Ossetia. From the beginning of their rule, the Mongols relied upon an indirect administrative model, without replacing the pre-existing institutions of the area. The formation of the Ilkhanate in the 1250s moved the focal point of power southward and the political conduct of Caucasia became more indirect and relied on the local aristocracy. The decline of the Ilkhanate in the 1330s opened a process of political readaptation whose more immediate result was the fragmentation of power and the disappearance of a hegemonic center. This chapter discusses the phases of the Mongol conquest, as well as the huge consequences it had for Caucasia.

The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire studies the Mongol Empire from a holistic point of view in its full Eurasian context, putting the Mongols and their nomadic culture at the center. It scrutinizes the Mongol Empire as a multifaceted phenomenon that combined elements from various Asian imperial traditions (steppe, Islamic, Iranian, and Sinitic empires) and created a common imperial culture – political, material, institutional – that has had a broad and enduring impact on world history. The two-volume set comprises a volume about history – political, thematic, regional, and external – and a volume devoted to sources on the empire – literary (in sixteen languages), archaeological, and visual.

The Introduction reviews the raison d’être behind this Cambridge History, its structure, and the state of the field in the study of the Mongol Empire. Finally, it commemorates two contributors, both leading Mongolists, who passed away in 2019, Thomas T. Allsen and David O. Morgan.

Chinggis Khan granted his eldest son Jochi parts of Mongolia, Siberia, Khwārazm, and the Qipchaq steppe. The Golden Horde (Jochid Ulus) rose from these territories and newly conquered lands, including the Russian principalities, in the 1260s. Benefiting from their unique location at the intersection of Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, they pursued a multilateral diplomacy and built lasting trade and military partnerships with the West and the Islamic world. Although politically independent, the Golden Horde kept close ties with the other Mongol khanates until they collapsed gradually in the fourteenth century. The Jochids subsequently adapted to the new environment and created several khanates in the Crimea, Central Asia, and Siberia. These smaller but enduring powers inherited the Golden Horde’s political and literary traditions, some surviving into modern times. The Golden Horde also had a deep impact on the state formation of its sedentary neighbors and former vassals.

Focusing on the deployment of Goryeo troops to China in 1354, this chapter begins by tracing contemporary developments within the Yuan, which shaped the broader geopolitical environment in which the Goryeo regime operated. It then examines the choices Wang Gi and his court made when confronted with the largest military mobilization in East Asia in decades. The chapter concludes with a discussion of what the Yuan dynasty’s southern campaign likely revealed to Wang Gi and his advisers about military and political dynamics within the Great Khan’s realm and what they meant for the Goryeo court. This chapter’s narrative details convey a sense of dynamics within the Great Khan’s regime, which in turn sheds light on the Goryeo–Yuan alliance and Wang Gi’s place in the world.

As a boy, what was Wang Gi's experience of the Mongol empire? How did he and the people around him understand the ties between his family and the Chinggisids, between the Goryeo and Yuan polities? Wang Gi left no memoir of his childhood, and detailed – in fact any – accounts of his first years are vanishingly rare. What follows is a reconstruction of some key structural elements that would shape Wang Gi’s life – his family’s relationship with the Chinggisid ruling house, the broad network of personal relationships between the Goryeo and Mongol courts, and the place of the Goryeo dynasty in the wider Mongol empire.

This chapter is organized into four sections. The first traces Zhu Yuanzhang’s rise, including his consolidation of power over regional polities and his military campaigns against the Yuan court. The second section examines Wang Gi’s relationship with the new master of China, and the third section explores Wang Gi’s ties to the Yuan court after its relocation to the steppe. The final section considers Wang Gi’s 1370 military strikes into Liaodong, a region strategically vital to the Yuan, Ming, and Goryeo courts, in a time of rapidly shifting alliances.

The Chinggisids’ retreat northward from Daidu in 1368, the loss of nearly all their Chinese territory, and Zhu Yuanzhang’s rise to dominance posed monumental choices for Wang Gi. What would he do about his family’s century-old alliance with the Chinggisid ruling house? If Wang Gi remained true to Toghan-Temür, what – if any – alterations would he make to the Goryeo–Yuan alliance? If he abandoned his family’s long-standing ally and lord, how would he justify his action at home and abroad? If he offered his allegiance to Zhu Yuanzhang’s fledgling Ming dynasty, what would be the terms of the relationship?

This chapter looks at the Yuan dynasty in a time of growing chaos. It undertook distant military campaigns, major relief efforts, ambitious river projects, a new legal code, and massive dynastic historical compilations. Envoys like Marignolli came to the Yuan court from the other side of world, a clear reminder of the Great Yuan’s international standing and ties to other lands. If all this evidenced formidable state capacity, Korean observers also saw acute problems: widespread drought and flooding that led to famine and occasionally even cannibalism, virulent banditry that blurred readily into revolt, and court intrigue that shook vast political patronage networks and threw dynastic policy into tumult.

In times of crisis and change, what becomes of the vast and complex network of alliances that undergird all empires? Rather than focus on the major powers or “Great States,” the most common way to think about the rise and fall of empires, here is the story of “the little guy” or the lesser power, the experiences of the Wang Gi and his court as ally first to the Mongols and later to the Ming dynasty of China. The unsettled times threw up both danger and opportunity, and far from passively reacting to the actions of the Great Khan and the Ming emperor, Wang Gi and his advisers actively pursued their interests through diplomacy, military action, and domestic reform. Their efforts failed as often as they succeeded, and if their story reveals the underappreciated initiative and influence of alliances’ junior partners, it also makes clear that stark imbalances of power cannot be waved away by invoking the agency of lesser states.

This chapter analyzes political developments at the Goryeo court during the 1340s, the decade before Wang Gi took the throne. It pays particular attention to how connections to the Yuan dynasty figured in Goryeo politial dynamics and how the young Wang Gi may have understood contemporary events.

This chapter revisits Wang Gi’s measures in the summer of 1356 with attention to two points. First, what do they reveal about the Goryeo–Yuan alliance? Second, and inversely, how does attention to the broader developments of Chinggisid rule in East Asia offer insight into Wang Gi’s actions? As was true in previous chapters, this chapter argues that only through close attention to developments in the Yuan dynasty is it possible to fully appreciate the perceptions, motivations, and strategies of Wang Gi and Toghan-Temür. For this reason, the chapter includes more detail of local events in Yuan territories than is commonly found in histories of Goryeo–Yuan relations.

In the decade from 1357 to 1367, the Goryeo–Yuan alliance reached an inflection point, as mounting instability in the Yuan dynasty meant both steepening costs and broadening opportunities for the Goryeo dynasty. This chapter traces three developments: (a) the Red Turban invasions of Goryeo from 1359 to 1362, (b) the Yuan court’s abortive effort in 1362–1363 to depose Wang Gi, and (c) the rapid expansion of relations between Wang Gi’s court and regional powerholders emerging out of the tottering Yuan realm.