hi and welcome back to heimler's history in this video we're going to look at all you need to know about unit 3 of AP World History so if you're ready buckle up let's get to [Music] it now a major theme in unit 3 is this how is it that landbased Empires gain and maintain control over such large Empires from 1450 to 1750 and the short answer is this they did it by consolidating power and legitimizing their power and that just means that rulers were basically concerned to communicate the following message I'm in charge and let me show you how I'm in charge so first let me list the major Empires that we'll be considering during this period we're going to look at the Manu in their establishment of the Chin Dynasty in Central and Southeast Asia the mugal in South and Central Asia the ottoman in southern Europe the Middle East and North Africa and the safavid in the Middle East now these aren't the only Empires I'll mention but they're among the most important when we're considering these themes so let's start with how these Empires Consolidated power the first way they did so was by centralizing a bureaucracy the bureaucracy is just a group of people employed by the government who carry out the will of the emperor let me start by giving you some examples in China the Manu people established the Chin Dynasty in 1644 and one of the ways they Consolidated power is by reintroducing the Civil Service examination anyone who wanted to work in the bureaucracy had to pass this examination and therefore it provided the means by which the leadership in China would both think the same things and believe the same things this is important to know because the Ming Dynasty which preceded it was the last native Chinese dynasty when the Manu came in to establish the Chin Dynasty they had a lot of incentive to legitimize their power because they were essentially foreigners the Ottomans Consolidated power through the dev Sher system and this was a system in which the Ottomans enslaved poor Christian boys from southern Europe and the Balkans and made them to serve in their military and their bureaucracy these enslaved boys received a thorough education and philosophy and politics and art and once they were educated some of them joined the janissaries which was an Elite Force in the army or they became bureaucratic workers and some of them even Rose to the highest ranks of government either way these folks ended up being fierce loyal to the sultan okay let's go over to the songi Empire the S rulers Consolidated their power essentially in three ways by controlling trade routes alliances and Military expansion additionally their kings put their power on display through Court rituals if you had been there you would have seen a king on a platform surrounded by 700 Unix and if you wanted to approach you had to do so face down on the ground and that is a way of convincing you who's in charge now there is an exception to this centralizing of power through bureaucracy and that's our friends in the Aztec empire now their empire was still pretty massive but they relied Less on centralized power the way they Consolidated power was through something called a tribute system this manner of ruling meant that the conquered peoples or tribute States owed certain Goods to the conquerors on a regular basis and the result of this is that the Aztecs could rule a diverse Empire without being directly present okay the Aztec being accepted it was pretty common for Empires during this period to consolidate Power by creating a bureaucracy okay I've already mentioned some uses of the bureaucracy what else is a bureaucracy good for you know what it is collecting taxes I mean come on Border expansion and ens slaving form peoples giant palaces full of Emperor swag it Ain going to pay for itself so land-based Empires relied on collecting taxes from their respective subjects and this review would not be complete unless we talked about how they did it in the mugal Empire the emperor appointed a group of bureaucrats called zamindar and they went out to various places in the Empire to collect taxes based on land Holdings or production the Ottomans had a system called tax farming rather than having government bureaucrats go out and collect taxes they had a group of folks called tax Farmers that went out and did it for them now tax farmers were told the amount that they needed to collect but that didn't keep them from collecting a little more to pad their own Pockets if we go across the world and look at the Aztecs they didn't exactly collect taxes but they did something similar for each of their tribute States they made up different tribute lists which outlined the kinds of goods they wanted from those places depending on where those states were located those items could include food or Goods or sometimes people oh they needed people cuz they needed slaves right uh no they needed people because they had religious rituals that required Human Sacrifice all right everyone quiet down quiet down we just got our trib list from the Aztec here and it looks like they're going to need some maze some grain and Kevin what do they need me for okay one other thing that taxes are good for is supporting giant military complexes and that's another thing that land-based Emperors did to consolidate power during this time Eurasian Empires relied on gunpowder based weapons to blow people up and secure a healthy amount of intimidation over in the Americas they didn't have gunpowder but those Empires were Fierce nonetheless and caused a healthy amount of intimidation without it see previous statement on human sacrifice now one of the common features in the militaries of these land-based Empires was that they each had an elite group of soldiers the Ottomans had the janissaries who were enslaved Christians but who through lots of Education and Training became fiercely loyal to the sultan and the safavids had the guls who were fiercely loyal to the Sha and that was true even though they were taken from Minority enslave populations like the Armenians and the circassians and the Aztecs also had an Elite Squad of soldiers made up of enslaved people and this was part of what they called the blood tax to their tribute States okay we've talked about two ways that landbased rulers can Consolidated their power during this period and now let's talk about how they legitimized their power I mentioned before that these Empires were huge and covered lots of territory and included lots of diverse populations and in general sheer military might is not enough to help the people see the power and submit to and that's where religion art and Monumental architecture come in and let's start with religion how did these Emperors use religion to show that they were the ones in charge well Islamic Emperors took on the title caleff which indicated that they were legitimate successors to Muhammad in Europe Kings and rulers embraced the doctrine of the divine right of kings and that just means that the king is God's man on Earth and is therefore necessarily carrying out God's will in his actions in the saai empire in Africa the rulers and Nobles all converted to Islam now all things being equal religion in an Empire can be a real unifying force and can really put the legitimacy of the power of the emperor on display but sometimes religion can crack the whole thing apart over in Europe the Protestant Reformation challenged the Corrupt Practices of the Catholic church and led to a lasting split between Catholics and Protestants so now European rulers had to decide whether their kingdom was going to be Catholic or Protestant and as you can imagine that led to some bitter disputes even so the split actually contributed to the growth of Christianity because as it turns out when Christians live in different houses they can actually think about something other than fighting another example of religious conflict is the ottoman safavid conflict both of these neighboring Empires were Muslim but not the same kind of Muslims the Ottomans were sunnis and the safavids were Shia each considered the other Heretics and although they had many disputes over border territory these conflicts were deeply religious too another way rulers legitimized their power was through ART officials in China's Chin Dynasty commissioned portraits of their Emperors and high officials and if you pass by those portraits enough you're likely to start thinking to yourself I think that guy's in charge and in Europe rulers took care to patronize artists as well and a third way that rulers legitimize their power was through Monumental architecture now what does that even mean well Monumental architecture basically refers to these giant structures built by these Emperors whose features far outstrip their functionality for example in the mugal Empire Sha Jan commissioned the Taj Mahal to be built as a tomb for his wife now what do you need to bury someone basically you just need a box and a hole in the ground so what's with all the extra here well it sends a message what message is that well Shah Jahan wanted everyone to know who saw it that he was great and that he was in charge Louis the 14th also did this in France when he built a palace at Versailles again nobody needs this size of Palace and nobody needs this degree of beauty and ornamentation to live but such a structure sends a message to the people it has a way of legit legitimizing the power of the guy who lives there not to mention Lou had all the nobility living right there with him so he could keep tabs on exactly what they were doing you can imagine how difficult it would be for any of the Nobles to challenge him under those conditions all right I reckon if you can cram all that into your brain folds you got what you need for unit 3 I'm here to help you get an A in your class and a five on your exam so if that's something you're into then subscribe and come along and hey if you liked this video then like it I'm L out