Land.Empires.pptx

Elites

 “Manchu and Han are one family”

 Different punishment for Manchu

 Paid in silver not copper

 Chinese not allowed to learn Manchu

 No intermarriage

Legitimizing Rule

 Tang Dynasty adopted Confucian rituals to legitimize rule.

 Claim Mandate of Heaven

 Emperor plowed the first furrow, planted first seen in front of Temple of

Legitimizing Rule

 Emperor Kangzi with a book

 This represents the Manchu embracing Confucian

scholarship.

 Imperial portraits were used to glorify emperors.

 Allowed him to promote his scholarship and earn the

Legitimizing Rule

 During the reign of Qianlong, the Qing expanded the borders and became more multi-cultural.

 Portraits of the emperor were regionally-specific.

 To the ethnic (Han) Chinese, he appeared as a Confucian

scholar.

 To the Mongols, he was a warrior.

Mughal Empire

 Used a military elite for conquest

 Minority group controlled a majority.

Zamindars (compare with boyars)

 Local elites and tax collectors

 Middlemen between the peasantry and the

government..

 Kept 10% themselves.

 Taxes could be paid “in kind”

 Potentially destabilizing to emperor because of their regional power.

Zamindars (compare with boyars)

 Tax reform will remove the importance of the zamidars.

 Akbar monetizes the tax system.

 Peasants pay in currency and sell goods in special markets monitored by the

government.

Akbar

 Religious toleration

 Married Hindu princesses

 No forced conversion

 Will be undone after death- destruction of Hindu Temples

 Major source of weakness will be religious tensions

Syncreticism in South Asia

 Sikhism

 Divine Faith (did not last)

Legitimizing Rule

 Akbar?

Economics

 Prices of spices fall

 Supplement with cotton textiles

 Peasant labor

Minority Management

 Most effective: use minority groups in ways that permit the state to benefit from them while limiting the political influence of the minority groups.

 Ottomans VERY good at this. By the end of the 1500s, 40% of the Ottoman Empire was NOT Muslim.

 Mehmet II introduced the millet system.

 “millet”= “nation”

 ie, cultural or ethnic group

 Each millet was autonomous

Minority Management

 Millets were not allowed to hold military or political posts

 Christian millets turned to craft development.

 Jewish millets turned to finance and brokerage

Elites

 Ghazis

 Military

 Devshirme (dev-shorm)

 Janissaries

State Rivalries

 Safavid

 Persia

 Shia

 Battle of Chaldiran 1514

The Safavids

 Gunpowder Empire

 Leftover from Mongol conquest

 Shia and Sufi influence

 No centralized state after fall of Mongol empire, so Ismail conquered Persis,

Mesopotamia, and parts of Anatolia.

 Population rejected Ismail because he was Sufi

 So converted to Shia

 Syncretic blend of Shia and pre-Islamic Persian beliefs.

The Safavids

 Ismail claimed to be descended from the seventh Imam, but also to be the reincarnation of pre-Islamic kings and prophets.

 Safavid leaders continued to blend Shi'ism with political power.

 Empire was haven for Shia poetry and art

Expansion- Ottoman

 Gunpowder Empire

 Cavalry

Expansion

 Gunpowder Empire

 Ottoman

 Safavid

 _Mughal

 Cavalry

Legitimizing Rule

 The Ottomans had less need for this than other governments because of the millet system.

 Miniature painting

 Influenced by Persian traditions

 Used this art to illustrate and embellish Ottoman military strength.

 Mehmet II used visual art to perpetuate his image as a conqueror.

 Mehmet even asked Renaissance artists to contribute expertise.

 Eventually used this technique for Sultan’s official portraits

 Illustrated genealogy which traced Sultan’s

Sidebar: Sufi Islam

 Mystical Islam

 Emotion

 Major force in spreading Islam

 Missionaries

 Emphasis on experience over doctrine

 United variety of religions: God can transcend religious divisions

Russian Goal: Join the Big Powers

 Ivan III

 Ivan IV

 Peter the Great

 Russia was backward (thanks, Mongols)

Legitimizing Rule

 Ivan III: Married Byzantine

 Moscow as the “Third Rome”

 Close ties to Russian Orthodox Church

 Ivan IV (terrible)

 Conquest

 St. Basil’s

 Peter the Great

 Westernization

Elites

 Boyars held lots of power

 Local aristocrats (comparable to who?)

 Collected taxes

 Ivan IV wanted to crush their power and absorb it.

Peter the Great

 Visited the West (in disguise)

 Learned about shipbuilding, navies

Petrine Reforms

 Military

 Paid military

 Recruit and train peasants

 Pay them

 Gunpowder

Petrine Reforms

 Infrastructure

 Peasants build roads and infrastructure

Petrine Reforms

 Expansion

 Baltic Sea (Swedes)

 “Window to the West

 Warm water

 Tried Black Sea, but Ottomans defeated

Petrine Reforms

 Reorganization of Bureaucracy and Taxation

 Had been boyar controlled (compare to China)

 Table of Ranks- merit based

Petrine Reforms

 Relocation of capital

 St. Petersburg

 Western

 Built in a swamp

 Navy

 Break hold or Russian religious and cultural

Petrine Reforms

 Relocation of peasants

 To Siberia

 Government incentives