Pax Mongolica
Learn about Pax Mongolica — the period of relative peace across the Mongol Empire that enabled unprecedented trade and exchange between East and West.
Pax Mongolica — the "Mongol Peace" — refers to the period of relative stability across the vast Mongol Empire from roughly the mid-13th to the mid-14th century. After the horrific destruction of the conquest phase, Mongol rule created the most connected Eurasian trading zone in pre-modern history, enabling the movement of goods, ideas, technologies, and diseases across a continent.
The Mongols maintained this peace through several mechanisms. Their yam postal system — a network of relay stations providing fresh horses, food, and lodging — enabled rapid communication across thousands of miles. Merchants traveling under Mongol protection (carrying a paiza, an official pass) could traverse the entire empire in relative safety. The Mongols' pragmatic religious tolerance meant that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and others could trade and travel freely.
The consequences were profound. Chinese technologies — gunpowder, printing, the compass — reached the Islamic world and Europe. Persian artistic styles influenced Chinese painting. Marco Polo's account of his travels (whether fully accurate or not) opened European imaginations to the wealth of the East. But the Pax Mongolica also facilitated the spread of the Black Death, which traveled the trade routes from Central Asia to Europe in the 1340s. The Mongol Peace, like globalization itself, brought both connection and catastrophe.