When Mongol power declined in the middle of the fourteenth century, those trade routes shifted from land based to oceanic.
The Mongol Empire created policies to help with long distance trade. When their reign was over long distance trade still existed, but now people were not only trade across land but water as well.
the notion of tianming (“heavenly will” or “heavenly mandate”) has been used across the centuries to legitimate power, whether in imperial, republican, or Communist China, from 221 BCE to the present day.
This idea of divine power still exists today where people believe that they are in power because God appointed them.
Sugar required a great deal of labor to be grown and processed profitably.
The explorers found a way to make profit off the "new land" by way of sugar and felt like they could use the "savages" to help cultivate the land against their will and no one saw a problem with this.
savages
I never understood why they saw the Native people as savages when they killed most of them just by disease and then enslaved the rest.
The Qing established a relatively limited system of trade known as the “Canton system,” in which Europeans were allowed only a fixed period every year in which to trade and in which all trade had to be conducted with a licensed group of merchants known as the Cohong
It is interesting because when people think of trade and leadership people think of Europe not China, but this is before Europe gained control.
To study the Mongols, one must use sources written in Mongolian, Chinese, Russian, Persian, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Old French, Armenian, Turkic, Georgian, and Syriac.
The Mongols ability to reign over this much land is fascinating.