Karakorum

By this time contact with China had somewhat abated the savagery of the first conquerors.

Kublai removed his capital from Karakorum in Mongolia to Peking.

He built walls like those which still surround the city and established on the walls an observatory which is preserved to this day.

Until 1900 two of the astronomical instruments constructed by Kublai were still to be seen in this observatory, but the Germans removed them to Potsdam after the suppression of the Boxers.

By this time, contact with China had somewhat abated the savagery of the first conquerors.

Kublai removed his capital from Karakorum in Mongolia to Peking.

He built walls like those which still surround the city and established on the walls an observatory which is preserved to this day.

Until nineteen hundred, two of the astronomical instruments constructed by Kublai were still to be seen in this observatory, but the Germans removed them to Potsdam after the suppression of the Boxers.

Toward the beginning of the 13th century, Chinchis Khan, leader of a small Tatar tribe, conquered most of Central and Eastern Asia, including China.

under his son okhodai these mongol taitars turned from china to the west conquered armenia and one of the mongol generals named batu ravaged south russia and poland and captured budapest twelve forty one it seemed as if the prophesied end of the world had come and the mighty nations gog and magog had at last burst forth to fulfil the prophetic words but okadai died suddenly and these armies were recalled universal terror seized europe and the pope as the head of christendom determined to send ambassadors to the great khan to ascertain his real intentions He sent a friar named John of Plenocarpini from Lyon in 1245 to the camp of Batu on the Volga, who passed him on to the court of the great Khan at Karakorum, the capital of his empire, of which only the slightest trace is now left on the left bank of the Orkhon, some hundred miles south of Lake Baikal.

here for the first time they heard of a kingdom on the east coast of asia which was not yet conquered by the mongols and which was known by the name of cathay fuller information was obtained by another friar named william roysbroeck or rubrici a fleming who also visited caracorum as an ambassador from st louis and got back to europe in twelve fifty five and communicated some of his information to roger bacon he says these cathayans are little fellows speaking much through the nose and as general with all those eastern people their eyes are very narrow the common money of cathay consists of pieces of cotton paper about a palm in length and breadth upon which certain lines are printed representing the seal of mangookan they do their writing with a pencil such as painters paint with and a single character of theirs comprehends several letters so as to form a whole word He also identifies these Cathayans with the Ceres of the ancients.

Ptolemy knew of these as possessing the land where the silt comes from, but he had also heard of the Sinai and failed to identify the two.

By this time, contact with China had somewhat abated the savagery of the first conquerors.

Kublai removed his capital from Karakorum in Mongolia to Peking.

He built walls like those which still surround the city and established on the walls an observatory which is preserved to this day.

Until 1900, two of the astronomical instruments constructed by Kublai were still to be seen in this observatory, but the Germans removed them to Potsdam after the suppression of the Boxers.