Mongol rule opened a vast new grassland network across Eurasia

Evidence

Not only did large numbers of persons travel very long distances across cultural and epidemiological frontiers; they also traversed a more northerly route than had ever been intensively traveled before. The ancient Silk Road between China and Syria crossed the deserts of central Asia, passing from oasis to oasis. Now, in addition to this old route, caravans, soldiers and postal riders rode across the open grasslands. They created a territorially vast human web that linked the Mongol headquarters at Karakorum with Kazan and Astrakhan on the Volga, with Caffa in the Crimea, with Khanbaliq in China and with innumerable other caravanserais in between. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 471

Categorization

• SHARE: Good for a maps/trade-history enthusiast interested in the Silk Road’s northern grassland extension.