Caravans and Crossroads

(yeah) Silk Roads open, luxury trade,

Chinese porcelain, silk is made.

Caravanserai along the track,

Resting camels, heavy pack.

Genghis Khan, the Mongol horde,

Pax Mongolica, peace restored.

Yuan Dynasty, Golden Horde,

Conquered lands by the bow and sword.

Paper money, banking cashing bills,

Trading over

deserts, valleys, hills!

We gotta learn the networks,

Of the ancient trading,

when the world was braiding.

We gotta learn the networks,

No, we didn't start them,

but we gotta chart them!

(chart

them!) Indian Ocean, maritime,

Monsoon winds dictate the time.

Lateen sails and astrolabe,

Compass helps the sailors brave.

Diasporic communities, Spreading culture across the seas.

Zheng He sails the Ming fleet wide,

Swahili Coast on the western side.

Calicut spices, cotton threads,

Trade is expanding where the sailor treads!

Trans-Saharan, camel caravan, Gold and salt across the sand.

Mali Empire, Mansa Musa’s gold,

Hajj to Mecca, wealth untold.

Timbuktu, Islamic lore, Scholars knocking on the door.

Ibn Battuta writes it down,

Marco Polo checks the town,

Margery Kempe,

a mystic's view,

Travelers telling what

they knew!

Buddhism spreads to East Asia's core,

Islam knocks on Hind’s front door.

Champa rice makes populations grow,

Bananas to Africa make food security show.

But along the routes,

a dark despair, Yersinia pestis in the air!

Bubonic Plague, the Black

Death strikes, Feudalism falls,

the peasant hikes! Population drops,

the system breaks, Look at all the change the network makes!

Networks of Exchange, 1200 to

1450... Keep those trade routes nifty!

DBQ prep,

ready to go...

Time to ace this history show!

(ace it!)