Editing Silk Road (section)

=== Mongol Empire (13th–14th centuries) ===
{{See also|Mongol Empire|Pax Mongolica|5=Fonthill Vase}}
[[File:Chinese celadon vase Branly 71.1886.89.1.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|right|[[Yuan dynasty]] era [[celadon]] vase from [[Mogadishu]].]]

The [[Mongol invasions|Mongol expansion]] throughout the Asian continent from around 1207 to 1360 helped bring political stability and re-established the Silk Road (via [[Karakorum (palace)|Karakorum]] and [[Khanbaliq]]). It also brought an end to the dominance of the Islamic Caliphate over world trade. Because the Mongols came to control the trade routes, trade circulated throughout the region, though they never abandoned their nomadic lifestyle.

The Mongol rulers wanted to establish their capital on the Central Asian steppe, so to accomplish this goal, after every conquest they enlisted local people (traders, scholars, artisans) to help them construct and manage their empire.{{sfn|Liu|2010|p=109}} The Mongols developed overland and maritime routes throughout the Eurasian continent, Black Sea and the Mediterranean in the west, and the Indian Ocean in the south. In the second half of the thirteenth century Mongol-sponsored business partnerships flourished in the Indian Ocean connecting Mongol Middle East and Mongol China<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02634937.2019.1652799 | doi=10.1080/02634937.2019.1652799 | title=The role of the ''ortoq'' in the Mongol Empire in forming business partnerships | date=2019 | last1=Enkhbold | first1=Enerelt | journal=Central Asian Survey | volume=38 | issue=4 | pages=531–547 | s2cid=203044817 }}</ref>

The Mongol diplomat [[Rabban Bar Sauma]] visited the courts of Europe in 1287–88 and provided a detailed written report to the Mongols. Around the same time, the [[Venice|Venetian]] explorer [[Marco Polo]] became [[Europeans in Medieval China|one of the first Europeans]] to travel the Silk Road to China. His tales, documented in ''[[The Travels of Marco Polo]]'', opened Western eyes to some of the customs of the [[Far East]]. He was not the first to bring back stories, but he was one of the most widely read. He had been preceded by numerous Christian missionaries to the East, such as [[William of Rubruck]], [[Benedykt Polak]], [[Giovanni da Pian del Carpine]], and [[Andrew of Longjumeau]]. Later envoys included [[Odoric of Pordenone]], [[Giovanni de' Marignolli]], [[John of Montecorvino]], [[Niccolò de' Conti]], and [[Ibn Battuta]], a [[Morocco|Moroccan]] [[Muslim]] traveller who passed through the present-day Middle East and across the Silk Road from [[Tabriz]] between 1325 and 1354.<ref>Daniel C. Waugh, [http://www.silk-road.com/artl/paxmongolica.shtml ''The Pax Mongolica''], {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990505194222/http://www.silk-road.com/artl/paxmongolica.shtml |date=5 May 1999 }}. University of Washington, Seattle</ref> Some Europeans were also living in China for longer periods around this time. Tombstones of the siblings Caterina and Antonio Vilioni, who died in 1342 and 1344, respectively, were unearthed in the twentieth century in Yangzhou.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ilko |first1=Krisztina |title=Yangzhou, 1342: Caterina Vilioni's Passport to the Afterlife |journal=Transactions of the Royal Historical Society |date=2024 |volume=2 |pages=3-38 |doi=10.1017/S0080440124000136}}</ref>

In the 13th century, efforts were made at forming a [[Franco-Mongol alliance]], with an exchange of ambassadors and (failed) attempts at military collaboration in the [[Holy Land]] during the later [[Crusades]]. Eventually, the Mongols in the [[Ilkhanate]], after they had destroyed the [[Abbasid]] and [[Ayyubid]] dynasties, converted to Islam and signed the 1323 [[Treaty of Aleppo]] with the surviving Muslim power, the Egyptian [[Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)|Mamluks]].{{citation needed|date=October 2014}}

Some studies indicate that the [[Black Death]], which devastated Europe starting in the late 1340s, may have reached Europe from Central Asia (or China) along the trade routes of the Mongol Empire.<ref>J. N. Hays (2005). ''[https://archive.org/details/epidemicspandemi0000hays/page/61 Epidemics and pandemics: their impacts on human history]'' {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180227164624/https://books.google.com/books?id=GyE8Qt-kS1kC&pg=PA61 |date=27 February 2018 }}. p. 61. {{ISBN|978-1-85109-658-9}}</ref> One theory holds that Genoese traders coming from the entrepôt of [[Trabzon|Trebizond]] in northern [[Turkey]] carried the disease to Western Europe; like many other outbreaks of plague, there is strong evidence that it originated in marmots in Central Asia and was carried westwards to the Black Sea by Silk Road traders.<ref>John Kelly (2005). ''The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time''. Harper. {{ISBN|978-0-06-000693-8}}</ref>