Genghis Khan Dies in 1213 ("Empires of the East")

This was a useful link. I'd definitely use it if I should ever rework my Chaos TL.

Yes, I think too that the Muslims will eventually get gunpowder. This will be very bad news for the Byzantines, especially if they'll face an even greater Choresm instead of the Ottomans.

And I wonder whether there'll be more contacts between Muslims and Chinese ITTL.
 
Although, it's not as if the Byzantines won't get gunpowder, so if the Byzantine state otherwise has a chance, adding Muslim gunpowder doesn't eliminate it.
 
Max Sinister said:
Yes, I think too that the Muslims will eventually get gunpowder. This will be very bad news for the Byzantines, especially if they'll face an even greater Choresm instead of the Ottomans.
They will eventually, definitely. But perhaps a few decades to a century later than in OTL. But it depends a lot on how strong the contacts between the Muslims and the Chinese are.

Max Sinister said:
And I wonder whether there'll be more contacts between Muslims and Chinese ITTL.
Well, in OTL, the Mongols created lots of contacts between the Chinese and the Muslims (and the Europeans). So that would all be gone, but that doesn't mean there won't be other opportunities for contact between Chinese and Muslims, particularly if the Khwarezmians are an active trading power in Central Asia, and the Southern Chinese become a major mercantile power in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Both of which seem in a good position to happen ITTL. So it looks like it might take longer than OTL for the Chinese and the Muslims to develop strong contacts without the Mongol conquests, but these contacts might be much longer-lasting once established.
 
I'd assumed that without the Mongol invasions, the Black Death would have probably erupted in China at the same time at least, and that in OTL the Mongol Empire and trade routes only served to spread the plague, and had nothing to do with its ultimate cause.

But this suggests otherwise (from Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire):
Although the plague spreads to human populations from fleas that infest black rats, the plague bacillus, Pasteurella pestis, is fatal to humans and rats and hence needs a separate long-term reservoir. In nature it exists as an endemic disease in burrowing rodent populations. In the 20th century, for example, after spreading by ship from Hong Kong to port cities of North and South America, it became nativized among Andean and Rocky Mountain ground squirrels and marmots. Since plague outbreaks occasionally reached the Mediterranean but never became a constant threat before the great outbreak of 1347, the plague bacillus, now endemic among marmots in the neighboring Black Sea steppe zone, probably became nativized there only in the 14th century. From then on the burrowing rodents of the Black Sea and Caspian steppes served as reservoirs for constant outbreaks in western Eurasia until trade and lifestyle changes occurred in the 17th century.

The 14th-century Black Death first appeared in Mongol-ruled China. From 1313 a series of epidemics struck Henan province; they culminated in 1331 with an epidemic that supposedly killed nine-tenths of the population. Epidemics broke out in coastal provinces in 1345–46. Finally, in 1351 massive epidemics began to strike throughout China yearly up to 1362, causing catastrophic population decline. William McNeill has thus speculated that the plague was originally native to burrowing rodents of the Himalayan foothills. The Mongols, by joining YUNNAN on the southeastern skirts of the Himalayas to China proper and hunting marmots there, inadvertently transmitted the plague to Henan and the Chinese heartland by 1331, if not before. From there Mongol activity introduced it into the marmot colonies of Inner Asia, whence it began to spread west. European and Muslim writers virtually all recorded the plague as beginning in China and then crossing the steppe to the Crimea. Excavations of a Christian cemetery near Ysyk-Köl Lake (Kyrgyzstan) suggest a devastating outbreak of plague in 1338–39. Muslim writers noted the progress of the plague from KHORAZM in 1345 to the center of the Golden Horde in 1346 and south to Mongol soldiers in Azerbaijan in 1346–47. Mongol military operations then spread it to Mosul and Baghdad in 1349. Early outbreaks in Sindh had probably followed caravan routes south from Khorazm; evidence of an Indian Ocean transmission route is slim.
Now this is interesting. The Black Death could be completely butterflied away...
 
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It's possible, but I'm not sure. Evidence too slim.

But the possibilities might be worth exploring, for the timeline's sake.
 
I'd assumed that without the Mongol invasions, the Black Death would have probably erupted in China at the same time at least, and that in OTL the Mongol Empire and trade routes only served to spread the plague, and had nothing to do with its ultimate cause.

But this suggests otherwise (from Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire):
Now this is interesting. The Black Death could be completely butterflied away...

I mean, yes, I assume the Black Death could be butterflied away completely, in the sense that the bacterium that develops in this timeline shouldn't be the same, nucleotide for nucleotide, as the one historically.

I've heard from a few sources that Yunnan was the source of the Black Plague, so I think this is believable too. But if Yunnan ever gets invaded in this timeline, wouldn't a similar disease spread across the world too?
 
I mean, yes, I assume the Black Death could be butterflied away completely, in the sense that the bacterium that develops in this timeline shouldn't be the same, nucleotide for nucleotide, as the one historically.
Indeed. But this means I have a plausible explanation for butterflying it away, which is always better than just saying "there's no Black Death in this world because I say so."

I've heard from a few sources that Yunnan was the source of the Black Plague, so I think this is believable too. But if Yunnan ever gets invaded in this timeline, wouldn't a similar disease spread across the world too?
Well, according to that theory, the ultimate cause was the Mongols hunting marmots in Yunnan. The Mongols are known for enjoying marmot-flesh. Any other group that invades Yunnan would probably not have such an appetite for marmots. :D

But the Mongols also created the perfect conditions for the spread of a massive pandemic in their trade routes stretching across Eurasia. Without that, any diseases popping up (in Yunnan or elsewhere) would likely only be regional problems.
 
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And yet there are already trade routes doing this - the difference, assuming these marrots aren't the problem, is it going through Iran, not SE Russia.

The Mongols are given far too much credit for connecting Europe and Asia.
 
And yet there are already trade routes doing this - the difference, assuming these marrots aren't the problem, is it going through Iran, not SE Russia.

The Mongols are given far too much credit for connecting Europe and Asia.
Point taken, but I don't think I'm going to have the Black Death in this TL. It would just be so interesting to see the implications...

On another topic, I'm getting rid of those European PODs I'd been considering. I was thinking Louis VIII becoming King of England in 1216 would be a fascinating POD (and it very nearly occurred in OTL). I still think it would be, but I've decided it's best to stick with my main POD. Butterflies can only start occurring in regions that have been affected by the POD. But at the same time, no butterfly net around the Americas. America is isolated for long enough for butterflies to start forming naturally; Europe is not.
 
I think the Mongol invasion would really destabilize the Jin dynasty, particularly if the Mongols continue to carry out raids on Jin towns. But with Genghis dead and his sons fighting over the succession, the Mongols aren't able to take Jin China themselves. I'm not sure the Song would be able to take it back either, as their offensive capabilities aren't very good. The Jin were able to defeat attacks from the Jin while fighting at the Mongols at the same time. Korea will take advantage of the Jin Empire's period of weakness by taking Manchuria. But what about the Jin Dynasty? Their land is still being ravaged by the Mongols, there's tons of starvation, and so on. Looks to me like they don't have the Mandate of Heaven any more. But who does? What new dynasty might rise out of the ruins of the Jin, and how might it come to power?
 
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