Hi and welcome back to Heimler's History. Well we're moving on to Unit 3 in our AP World History curriculum, and in this video we're going to talk about how land-based empires developed and expanded from 1450 to 1750. And if you're already starting to taste the sauce, let's get to it. So one of the main features common to several of these land-based empires during this time is gunpowder.
And we find these gunpowder empires mainly in Southwest Asia, Central Asia, and South Asia. So what is a gunpowder empire? Basically, they're just large states that relied on firearms to control the territory that they had and to expand into new territories. You see, these empires were pretty big and they had a lot of territory and a lot of diverse kinds of people within them, and one way to keep them under control is to blow a few of them up now and then.
And you see this kind of control especially in Russia, the Ottoman Empire, the Safavid Empire, and the Mughal Empire. At their core, these empires were fundamentally militaristic, but don't let that tempt you into thinking that they didn't also produce some magnificent cultures. They did, but even the art and architecture produced by these empires served the purpose of legitimizing the power of the ruler. But I get ahead of myself, we'll talk about that in the next video. books and pamphlets much easier and as a result the European population began to experience an increase in literacy.
Also you may remember that in the previous period Europe was just emerging from the feudalistic organization of their society. But in this period that process really picks up steam. New monarchies began to arise all throughout Europe by the 1500s and one of the key features of all these monarchies is that they began to centralize power. In feudalism, power was distributed throughout the territory and was largely in the hands of the landed elite. But in this period, kings began to gather up all the people and the people of Europe that decentralized power and centralize it in themselves.
And they did that by exercising control over taxation, control over the armed forces, and control over the religion of their state. And as a result of this consolidation of power, the bureaucracy expanded. Now, in these next few videos, I'm going to be throwing that word around a lot. bureaucracy.
Basically, a bureaucracy is just a group of government officials that carries out the will of whoever is in power. Now, I've been talking about all this in general, but if you want to throw a couple names on these new European monarchs, here's a few. You had the Tudors in England, you had the Valois in France, and you had Isabella and Ferdinand in Spain.
And one little side consequence of all this consolidation of power is that the middle class begins to grow. And as it turns out, that happened at the expense of the nobility and the clergy. And since we're talking about Europe, let's talk about Russia.
Russia's territories stretch from the east to the south. the west and therefore it was in a pivotal position to get wealthy on trade. Ivan IV was crowned Tsar in 1547 and later became known as Ivan the Terrible. You might say he was a fourth to be reckoned with.
Now Ivan was able to expand the Russian territory even further east and took much of the land that was held by the Mongolian Khan. Now how did he do that? Gunpowder. Okay, let's move over to East Asia and see how they expanded their empires. The Yuan Dynasty, established by the Mongols, was overthrown in 1368 and was replaced by the Ming Dynasty, which held power in China well into the 1600s.
Even so, the Mongolians were still a threat, and so it was the Ming state that restored and expanded the Great Wall of China. But right around the mid-17th century, another group called the Manchu from neighboring Manchuria seized power and established the Qin Dynasty in 1644. And under the leadership of Emperor Kangxi, the Chinese territory was significantly expanded into Taiwan, Mongolia, Central Asia, and Tibet. Wait, how did they do that?
Gunpowder! Okay, now let's turn our attention to the rise of Islamic gunpowder empires. Now in order to set the stage, let's reach back into the last time period. Let me introduce you to Tamerlane. Tamerlane was the Mongol Turkic leader of Samarkand.
He was known for his ruthless invasions of Persia and India. In fact, some historians estimate that when Tamerlane invaded India, he killed up to 100,000 Hindus. before the gates of Delhi. Now Tamerlane's empire was heavily dependent on his military, and that was good and bad for him. It was good because he used the power of his military to stabilize and protect the comings and goings of merchants on the Silk Roads.
But it was bad because that huge military ain't gonna pay for itself. And unfortunately, the enormous amounts of hooch that was required to keep that military operating eventually ravaged the economy and the empire fell apart. Okay, who cares? Tamerlane isn't in our period. That's true, but when his empire collapsed, three empires that you'd do need to know rose up out of its ashes.
The Ottoman Empire, the Safavid Empire, and the Mughal Empire. And we're going to look at those each now. The Ottoman Empire was the largest and the greatest of all the Islamic Empires during this time.
It was established in the 1300s and lasted 600 years. So how did the Ottomans expand? Well in 1453, under the leadership of Mehmed II, the Ottomans seized the crown jewel of Byzantine Christianity, Constantinople.
And that was no small feat. Constantinople was well fortified with three layers of walls. So how did the Ottomans expand?
The Ottomans conquer that. Seriously? Do you still not know the answer? Was it gunpowder?
Yes, it was gunpowder! Anyway, the Ottomans changed the name of that city to Istanbul and they found that because it was at the nexus of all these different trade routes, they benefited tremendously. Now, it's generally agreed that the Ottomans peaked in-Wait a minute, what's the past tense of peak?
Peaked? Poke? It's generally agreed that the Ottomans poke under the leadership of Suleiman the Great, who held power from 1520 to 1566. In 1526, Suleiman conquered Hungary and a slew of other territories, and he attempted to push further into Europe but was thwarted. Nevertheless, this put some fear into the European britches.
So how did Suleiman conquer so much territory? Uh, diplomacy. Pfft.
Ugh, it's gunpowder. Alright, let's check in with our friends in the Safavid Empire. The early hero of the Safavids was an empire by the name of Ismail.
He conquered most of Persia, parts of Iraq, and here's the kicker, Ismail did all this when he was 14 or 15 years old. Hey, 15 year olds watching this, what have you done with your life? Do I even need to tell you by what means Ismail conquered all this territory? Could you make it multiple choice?
A. Gunpowder. B. Gunpowder. C. I hate you.
A. Gunpowder. That's correct, but I would have also accepted B or C. Now another thing you need to know about the Shah Ismail is that he made Islam the official religion of his empire. But it wasn't just Islam, it was a particular form of Islam called Shia Islam.
This had a way of uniting his empire, but while While doing this, he denied legitimacy to any member of the other major branch of Islam, the Sunnis. And as it turned out, this caused frequent conflicts with the Ottomans, who just happened to be Sunnis. There were many conflicts between these two empires, but we'll get to that in another video.
Okay, let's look at our friends in the Mughal Empire. In the 1520s, a guy named Babur, who was a descendant of Tamerlane, founded the Mughal Empire when India was in disarray. And in the middle of all this chaos, Babur completed conquest of northern India, gunpowder, and established a central government similar to Suleiman's.
Now the greatest leader of the Mughal Empire was Akbar. Nope. Yep.
And under his leadership, the Mughal Empire was one of the most prosperous and well-led states in all the world. And it shouldn't surprise you to know that all of these Islamic Empires eventually fell. Without overloading you with details, it's sufficient to know that each of these empires declined basically because they failed to modernize their economies and their militaries. And compare this with the Europeans, who modernized like mad, especially their navies. and you've got a recipe for the downfall of those left behind.
Okay, that's what you need to know about the development and expansion of land-based empires from 1450 to 1750. If you're into this kind of thing, then click here and subscribe, and I'll keep making these videos for you. If you like blowing things up, hit the like button and let me know. Heimler out.