The Secret History of the Mongol Queens - Jack Weatherford [42]
The Mongols exercised ownership of the trade system, but since they knew nothing about commerce, they let the merchants run it. Mongols reaped the rewards and enjoyed the luxuries while opening up all the trade routes under a unified system and consistent policies. The Mongols simply supplied the infrastructure of safe routes, frequent resting stations, ample wells, relief animals, a speedy postal service, stable currency, bridges, and equal access for merchants, without regard to their nationality or religion.
The daughters of Genghis Khan did not create the interlocking network of trade routes, but they made it work much faster. Mongol protection and the organization of an intercontinental system of rest and relay stations permitted new supercaravans that were not only much larger than the old ones but could travel considerably farther by obtaining supplies and replacing animals as needed. Genghis Khan opened new routes, bypassing smaller settlements, and he destroyed whole cities that served as roadblocks. The Mongol routes, like modern superhighways, allowed large caravans to connect not just one oasis with the next but the entire string of oases, as merchants could now travel thousands of miles on a single journey.
The string of Silk Route kingdoms of Genghis Khan’s daughters depended on controlling the points of contact and the direction of movement rather than occupying large areas of land. Gradually the Mongols developed a system of investment similar to those in modern corporations. Thus Alaqai Beki in China had shares of animals in Iraq and furs from her sister Checheyigen in Siberia; Al-Altun had claim on part of the silk production of China, and they all received wine from the Uighur oases of Al-Altun.
During the lifetime of Genghis Khan and his daughters, the Mongol enterprise was not so much an empire as a vast global corporation in which each son and daughter had the assignment to manage one part that provided a particular set of goods. The daughters operated a world financial organization that benefited almost everyone it touched. Through this interlocking set of kingdoms ruled by the daughters of Genghis Khan, the Mongols created a new world system based on a faster flow of goods and information than had been previously practical.
The Silk Route had grown slowly over several thousand years; yet suddenly, under the administration of Genghis Khan’s daughters, it attained a level of complexity and global importance far beyond that of any earlier era. Alaqai Beki and her sisters transformed the chain of competing city-states and nations spread across Asia into an interlocking set of political and commercial units with a new specialization of labor that made them mutually interdependent rather than rivals. Under the control of the Mongol queens, the Silk Route reached its zenith.
In this extensive commercial system, each daughter’s kingdom had its own particular role. Al-Altun’s Uighurs operated the communications center of the Mongol Empire. Their location between China to the east, Mongolia to the north, and the Muslims to the southwest put them in the geographic center of the extensive Mongolian postal relay system that united the empire and made possible the rapid dispatch of messages throughout its length and breadth. The Uighurs did not serve as riders in the system; instead, they worked as translators, scribes, and clerks. From this specialization they became important in information gathering and general intelligence for the Mongol authorities.
Genghis Khan did not permit military information to be written down; it had to be delivered orally. Thus the messengers had to learn to compose and recite military orders through “rhetorically ornate rhyming words and cryptic expressions.” Occasionally