Editing Openai/69387669-585c-8006-99a6-cf3a14ca3aad (section)

=== 🏹 1. The Mongols and the Black Death ===

Without the Mongol Empire, the Black Death almost certainly would NOT have spread across Eurasia the way it did.

==== 🧭 A. The Mongol Empire Unified Eurasia Into a Single Epidemiological System ====

Before the 1200s:
* Trade routes were fragmented
* Many regions were isolated by political borders and warfare

After Genghis Khan and his successors:
* The entire route from China to the Mediterranean became connected
* Merchants, animals, and soldiers moved across vast distances with unprecedented speed
* Caravans and armies carried fleas, rodents, and infected goods

Historians call this the Pax Mongolica, but it was also a Pestis Mongolica.

The empire unintentionally created:

: the first transcontinental superhighway for pathogens.

==== 🏰 B. The Siege of Caffa (1346): A Famous Flashpoint ====

The port of Caffa (Crimea) was besieged by Mongol forces linked to the Golden Horde.

During the siege:
* Mongol soldiers began dying of plague (from steppe reservoirs)
* Chroniclers (notably Gabriele de' Mussi) reported that Mongols catapulted plague-infected corpses over the walls

Even if this detail was exaggerated, Caffa was clearly:
* an outbreak zone
* filled with fleas from rats on both sides
* a major Genoese trading port

When Genoese ships fled, they carried:
* Rats infected in Crimea
* Fleas
* Possibly plague-infected sailors

This is how the plague reached:
* Constantinople
* Messina
* Genoa
* Marseille
* and from there, the rest of Europe

Essentially:

: The Black Death followed the Mongol trade system outward from a Central Asian reservoir.

==== 🐿️ C. Mongol Steppe Ecology: The Original Plague Reservoir ====

Modern genetics strongly supports a Central Asian origin:
* Great gerbils, marmots, and ground squirrels carry plague variants closest to the Black Death strain.
* Mongol horsemen traveled through these rodent-inhabited regions constantly.
* Flea-infested furs and animal skins were major trade goods.

So Mongol expansion connected plague reservoirs with densely populated cities for the first time on a massive scale.

==== ⚔️ D. Mongol Military Logistics Spread Plague Efficiently ====

Mongol armies relied on:
* huge numbers of horses
* pack animals
* grain stores
* leather goods

All of these attract rodents.

When armies camped or moved:
* They left trails of rat infestations behind
* They introduced flea-borne pathogens into new regions

In essence, Mongol mobility created:

: a vector conveyor belt running from the plague reservoir into the heart of the medieval world.