What changed, and what survived, as a result of the plagues and disasters of the fourteenth-century in Afro-Eurasia?
After the Black Death : 3 that “Survived”.
After the enormours plaques and disasters, the religious belief and institution is still the same. It survived. Even more because many of the religious people believe that the Black Death is something to do with God’s curse and God’s will because they did not know what caused the plaque. That’s why it was called “black” death. Nobody actually knew that the death was came from rodents, mostly rats and spread the microbas into humans.
The second, it is population. Europe’s population shrink by one-third. The population however resumed its growth, eventhough slowly and took centuries. In China, its population was downed to 80 millions from 120 millions of people.
Third, Many of the prevailing commercial system survived. It was still in used, and within the century, the trade route also bouncing back, although later on, europeans seek new ways through the sea for Gold Gospel Glory. It was because the blockade of muslim empire power (the Ottoman).
After the Black Death : 3 (political tools) that “Changed”.
But there was a major change in Political consequences. Black Death also created what was called “power vacuums”. New political system change, particularly in the eastern end of the meditteranian and it was a new choke point in global history. The Ottoman Empire rose as a big “hotspot” with the expansive political systems. In China, it was Ming Dynasty who proclaimed as the new forces to driven out “mongol outsiders” from mainland China. Also the new states emerged. Radically different imperial dynasties in Europe, Anatolia, Persia (Iran), India, and China emerged.
All of this change were carried by three new political tools, that is :
First, the ruling family system. It was dynasty sistem, the hereditary ruling family that passed over the control from one generation to the next. And the ruling families, such as chinese dynasties, european monarchs were self-proclaimed as the mandate of heaven (china), or by “divine right” (europe) that they were closer to the gods than to commoners. In muslim world, Khilafah became a system to pass the throne to the successfor. All of this scenarios were colored by frequent struggles for the throne and leadeship of the dynasties.
Second, it was a Warfare system that the ruling families expand their power through conquest or alliances –by ordering armies to forcibly extend their domains, or by marrying their royal members to other elite royal family of different forces. Warfare then become an instrument of state-craft and their expand their territories even more.
Third, the identities politics. Rulers make appeals to the identities of their subject people to make them support their “nation’s dignity”. For example, Ming dynasty renounced the Han identity against the foreign, barbaric, nomads Mongol. European also inspired themselves with the glorious Greek and Romans models of governance. Islamic world governed their dynasty with new faith-based model of law for all subjects. So, we could find the people of Islamic world held fiercely to their religion as two successor states, the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid State in Iran. Also the Mughal Empire in India.
From the emerge of these kingdoms and empires, especially the blockade the trade route by the Islamic Empire and State, the European then find themselves a way to reach the passage into the east. The modern seafare was begun. With the new kings and queens accross europe and to spread the spirit of Gold, Gospel, Glory, then we know the “Columbus era” of finding a new world, Rivalry of European to established their colonies in Asia and also the found of “new world” of America and the settler began to govern the New World.
