When we think of the Mongol Empire's fall, we usually imagine overextension, rebellions, or the Black Death. But what if the culprit was something far more elemental? This episode of The History of Mongolia examines the role of climate change — specifically, the megadroughts that struck Central Asia and China during the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Drawing on tree-ring data from the Khangai Mountains and historical records of famine, we explore how the Mongol steppe, which had supported nomadic armies for centuries, began to dry up. We look at the collapse of the Yuan dynasty under the pressure of rice shortages, the spread of disease among weakened livestock herds, and the desperate but failed policies of Kublai Khan's successors. Central figures include Kublai's grandson Temür Khan, the Ilkhanate ruler Ghazan, and the Persian historian Rashid al-Din, whose writings document catastrophic crop failures. We also consider the broader implications: whether climate-driven collapse has been underestimated in empires from Rome to the Maya, and what the Mongol case teaches us about environmental fragility today. #MongolEmpire #ClimateChange #Megadrought #YuanDynasty #KublaiKhan #TemürKhan #Ghazan #RashidAlDin #TreeRingData #KhangaiMountains #SteppeEcology #Famine #EmpireCollapse #EnvironmentalHistory #Paleoclimatology #History #FexingoHistory #CentralAsia Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo
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