Did Classical Empires Always Impoverish Its Core?

I've been reading about some of descriptions about "Mongolia Proper" during Yuan Dynasty, when the Mongols were supposed to be on top of the Empire's hierarchy. But instead, it turned out that ordinary Mongol herders lived quite miserably, when the spoils of the empire was not given to these ordinary Mongols, but the burdens of maintaining the empire fell on their shoulders.

An ordinary Mongol herdsman had to provide horses, weapons and services during military campaign as well as for the noblemen's recreational hunting. He has to work, unpaid, for the Great Khan's postal system, knowing how hazardous riding across the steppe in those days. No help arrives when a snowstorm kills his sheep, and in the end, he was reduced to selling his wife and children to survive, often to the Semu, the Han and the Southerners.

The thing about a Classical Empire was that when its boundaries grows, the burden its core ethnic group had to carry also grows disproportionately. And thus an Empire's hour or glory might be the most unbearable one for it primary subjects.

This was not quite the same as modern imperialism, when, say, a worker in Victorian Britain might be benefited from its growing industries, which were in turn made possible by the raw materials provided by Britain's colonies.

Did such impoverishment happen to the Empire you are currently reading about?
 
Not quite for the Roman Empire.The Romans used much of the wealth squeezed from their provinces to provide free bread and games for the people of Rome.You generally see these kinds of situations only in nomadic empires where the imperial center clearly isn't in the barren lands the nomads originated from.
 
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PhilippeO

Banned
Interesting.

it might be that Empire benefit those who left to serve as soldier and bureaucrats, and left those who stay at home impoverished.

Mongols who serve in golden horde, Iran and China certainly benefit from wages and loot they get when tribute distributed. Arabs who served as Caliphate soldier benefit, while those in Medina and Mecca benefit only from pilgrim, they certainly no longer important in Umayyad time. Iranian ? and Chinese ? did their center benefit or impoverished ?
 
Chinese ?
For the Song and the Ming it's a moot point because they generally shouldn't be considered empires.
The Qing core was actually the innerland (what westerners called China proper) but if you think of southern Manchuria as the original core, it generally benefited economically. The Manchu themselves as an ethnic group of course benefited immensely from the wealth of China.
 
Well, there is a reason why the balance of power eventually shifted away from Rome itself to Ravenna and Constantinople.
 
I've been reading about some of descriptions about "Mongolia Proper" during Yuan Dynasty, when the Mongols were supposed to be on top of the Empire's hierarchy. But instead, it turned out that ordinary Mongol herders lived quite miserably, when the spoils of the empire was not given to these ordinary Mongols, but the burdens of maintaining the empire fell on their shoulders.

An ordinary Mongol herdsman had to provide horses, weapons and services during military campaign as well as for the noblemen's recreational hunting. He has to work, unpaid, for the Great Khan's postal system, knowing how hazardous riding across the steppe in those days. No help arrives when a snowstorm kills his sheep, and in the end, he was reduced to selling his wife and children to survive, often to the Semu, the Han and the Southerners.

The thing about a Classical Empire was that when its boundaries grows, the burden its core ethnic group had to carry also grows disproportionately. And thus an Empire's hour or glory might be the most unbearable one for it primary subjects.

This was not quite the same as modern imperialism, when, say, a worker in Victorian Britain might be benefited from its growing industries, which were in turn made possible by the raw materials provided by Britain's colonies.

Did such impoverishment happen to the Empire you are currently reading about?

"Mongolia Proper" during Yuan Dynasty seems to be an exception.
It happened for various reasons. While Yuan Dynasty was expanding the Mongols from "Mongolia Proper" served in the armies and greatly benefited from loot of the war.
But then at one moment the expansion stopped, but the Empire failed to find another way of enriching "Mongolia Proper".
It was not too urgent as the riches were enough to survive for a few years/decades till the first drought.

As it was an embarrassment for the imperial government the Yuan tried to distribute food during the hardest years in Mongolia Proper though. So they did try to do something. But certainly not enough.

Everywhere else in other Mongol Empires the Mongols were the elite - in Iran, in the Golden Horde, Chagatai Ulus, even in "China Proper".

As for the other ancient empires...
Well, "Persia Proper" was not the most prosperous region of the Persian Empire of the Achaemenides. But the Persians living outside Persia Proper greatly benefited from the Empire - they hold the most prestigious posts in state and the army. Actually "Persia Proper" was not the poorest region either, just an ordinary semiarid land with ordinary semi-nomadic population.
They did not pay taxes IIRC, there were some other benefits like every time when a shahinshah visits Persia he has to give a gold coin to every Persian girl/woman (that was a reason why some shahanshahs visited Persia very rarely).

There was one way of thought:
- if the core of the Empire was some agrarian region which gave excellent warriors it was not considered a good idea to change their traditional way of life. Changing it you may spoil the conditions which made best soldiers.

I just remembered about Assyria Proper of the last Assyrian Empire.
The Empire just killed away all the male population of Assyria Proper in innumerable wars and had to settle these lands with Aramaic settlers.
That's the more extreme example when the "core people" did not benefit from their Empire :D
 
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