HIST 100 Lecture 14: The Mongol Empire, Young China, & the Ming Takeover
Document Summary
Intro: landscape didn"t allow for large populations wasn"t enough water to produce enough crops to feed large cities, also too cold for too much of the year for large crops to be produced, central asian nomads were living in this area, groups of these nomads would grow warlike and would raid and attack richer and more advanced civilizations, popped up from time to time in islamic middle east, main language was turkic or turkish the turks were one of these groups, they were rarely engaged in conquest mainly focused on plunder wanted to steal stuff, experts have determined that around 1200 there was a long period of much colder weather known as the little ice age, one effect of this was to make it much colder more south, which pushed these nomads south, this could have also made them more warlike than they originally were as they became frustrated and were more willing to take risks.
