Ilkhanate

In its heyday, it sustained an international culture that strung together groups as diverse as the Magyars, Armenians, and Chinese.

The Silk Road reached its peak in the West during the time of the Byzantine Empire, in the Nile-Oxus section from the Sassanid Empire period to the Ilkhanate period, and in the Synedic zone from the Three Kingdoms period to the Yuan Dynasty period.

Trade between East and West also developed across the Indian Ocean, between Alexandria in Egypt and Guangzhou in China.

Persian Sassanid coins emerged as a means of currency, just as valuable as silk yarn and textiles.

In China, Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty is remembered as a golden age of science and culture.

In Iran, the Ilkhanate inaugurated the development of new monumental architecture and Persian miniature painting.

In Central Asia, the Chagatai Khanate brought forth leaders like Timur and his descendant Babur, who founded the Mughal Empire in India.

And in Eastern Europe, the Golden Horde ruled for years until a trading post named Muscovy grew into a major world power.

Let's look straight at it, because everything else in this episode is really just Timur maneuvering around something he can never remove.

In every one of the successor states the Mongols left behind, the Golden Horde ruling the steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas, the Ilkhanate that had taken Persia and Iraq, the Chagatai lands in the middle, one rule outlasted the empire itself, a rule so deeply embedded in the political culture that a century of chaos and civil war couldn't shake it loose.

The ruler's title was Khan, and by a custom that traced all the way back to how Genghis Khan's own successors had organized legitimacy in the first place, only a direct, verifiable descendant of Genghis Khan could hold that title and be accepted as Khan by the people whose acceptance actually mattered.

The other commanders, the tribal elders, the soldiers whose loyalty put real armies in the field rather than just names on a claim.

biological shock severed the logistical lifeblood of the empire.

The Golden Whore in Russia, the Ilkhanate in Persia, and the Yuan Dynasty in China were completely isolated from one another.

The implications for modern doctrine are severe.

The transition from an untethered, resilient, distributed expeditionary force to a static, highly interconnected bureaucracy literally engineered their own destruction.

And also, Clement had an embassy with the Mongol leader, Yeah.

Oljetu Khan of the Ilkhanate.

Eleanor, what else we got on Clement other than that top line?

He's a real mixed bag because the other thing that's quite interesting about him is like, so on the one hand, it's like, yeah, probably don't kill all the Knights Templar, but at the same time, kind of fuck the Knights Templar, dude.