Unit 1 Essay Planning - Exr0n

be more effective, but it backfired

:CUSTOM_ID: ottoman-military-replaced-cavalry-with-janissaries-to-save-money-and-be-more-effective-but-it-backfired

#source bulliet - Ottoman military was originally made of cavalry and Janissaries - Cavalry were paid with land, while Janissaries were paid with money. Janissaries were also more effective under devshirme - to regain land, government squeezed out cavalry - Inflation from south american silver also caused fixed currency peoples to struggle - all this led to revolt (cavalry + suddenly poor people) - Janissaries took advantage to make "Janissication" hereditary and marry/start businesses - Revolts + Ended up costing more -> government struggling

#source bulliet - European silver created a wave of inflation, where european traders had more silver than ottoman internal merchants - Safavid Iran also needed precious metals so they traded with the ottomans for it, which meant the ottomans had even hard money - Some use of copper coins which were inflation resistant?

#source cleveland - ottoman merchants traded raw materials for european manufactured products - benefited merchants, hurt government revenues - lack of raw materials caused inflation - This meant government couldn't pay military

#source cleveland - treaties originally meant to encourage international trade - later exploited by european merchants with stronger military to back them up

#source cleveland - Caused by inflation - government workers were on a fixed wage - when in inflation happened, they were not paid enough - were more likely to take bribes and "other forms of corruption" - lead to declining military -> embarrassing treaties -> Treaty of Küchük Kay-narja (1774) -> Russia meddling with ottoman politics - "technological advantage lost"

#source mann homogenocene - The conflict - Spanish government wanted all silver in spain - trading silver and gold in china was more profitable than anywhere else - disagreement - Official sources say 25% silver was smuggled to china - Historians assumed no more 10% - New research argues that smuggling took maybe half of silver to china - implications - was the economy driven by european expansion or chinese demand? ### Money Troubles #source mann ming trade - unreliable state currency lead to merchants using hunks of silver - bronze coins too cheap and not enough to go around - paper money easily inflated - new emperors kept outlawing old coins and creating new ones that immediately destabilized - merchants started using small silver ingots

#source silver trade dbq - Doc2: lots of silver was traded through the Philippines - Doc3: silver is scarce (economic deflation) - Doc4: portuguese trade silver for goods in China, goods for silver in japan - Doc5: more strict economics with silver currency - Doc6: spanish silver production - silver mine discovered in 1545 - by spanish records, 326000000 coins - does not include smuggling! - Doc7: ming official asks to repeal trade ban for much profit - Doc8: England trades china silver for "luxary items" that are of no use, but can't stop because someone else would take over trade and just sell to them at higher price.

• "sheer conservatism of the Confucian bureaucracy"
• "did not reassess" when people appeared off the coast
• "dislike of commerce and private capital"
• restricted technology (canals, clocks, printing)
• spent money on land and education instead of technology

• "falter, to turn inward, and to lose the chance of world domination"
• strategical overextension
• many enemy states around (after crazy fast expansion)
• incompetent sultans in succession
  • "an idiot sultan could paralyze the ottoman empire in the way that a pope or holy roman emperor could never do for all europe"
• lack of expansion after 1550 caused Janissaries to turn to internal plunder
• merchants (many foreign) may be seized

• conservative
• stopped military expansion/exploration
• incompetent leaders
• doesn't like merchants

Kennedy said the ming and the ottomans suffered the same downfall due to centralization and economic troubles.

• "[the ottomans] were to falter […] strikingly similar Ming decline" (Kennedy 11)
• "The system as a whole, like that of Ming China, increasingly suffered from some of the defects of being centralized, despotic, and severely orthodox in it's attitude toward initiative dissent, and commerce." (Kennedy 11)
• "dislike trade" similarities
  • "Merchants ant entrepreneurs (nearly all of whom were foreigners), who earlier had been encouraged, now found themselves subject to unpredictable taxes and outright seizures of property" (Kennedy 12)
  • "The mandarins [had] a suspicion of trader" (Kennedy 8)
  • "[The mandarins] dislike of commerce and private capital […]" (Kennedy 8)

Both the Ming and Ottoman empires suffered from economies weakened by instability and revolt caused by inflation.

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