Mongol Empire and Successors

When the vast empire of Genghis Khan fractured in the mid-thirteenth century, the northwestern wilderness fell to the descendants of his eldest son, Jochi.

The world that the young Venetian merchant entered in 1271 was one of vast, unmapped distances, but by the time Marco Polo returned to his native lagoon twenty-four years later, he had shrunk those distances forever.

When the riders of the Mongol Empire swept across West Asia, they did not merely conquer; they eventually established a state that would resurrect an ancient identity.

When Kublai Khan laid claim to the Mandate of Heaven in 1271 CE, he did something no non-Han ruler had ever accomplished: he established a dynasty, the Great Yuan, that would eventually bring the entirety of China…

By the late fourteenth century, a single man had reconstructed the terrifying shadow of the Mongol Empire across the plains of Eurasia, establishing himself as an undefeated force of sheer military devastation.

To climb the Ulu Tagh mountainside in modern Kazakhstan is to encounter a boulder carved with a stark declaration: Timur, the "Sultan of Turan," had marched north with three hundred thousand men.