Incas

• It was believed that many gods existed such as Viracocha, Kanopa, and Pachamama
• The deities occupied the three realms of Hunan Pacha, Uku Pacha, and Cay Pacha

Similarities & Differences

The Incas and Aztecs were polytheistic and believed that the gods produced the Earth and other realms. Contrastingly, the Mongols practiced Islam, a monotheistic religion with prophets.

Expansion

Mongols

• The Mongolian Empire originated in the steppes of Central Asia and ended up covering land from the Sea of Japan to Central Europe.
• The Pax Mongolica, or Pax Tatarica, describes the stabilizing effects of Mongolian expansion and rule.
• The Mongolian empire was one of the in biggest land continuation.

Aztec

• The Aztecs arrived in Central Mexico during the middle of the 13th Century CE and quickly gained a bad reputation.
• They settled near Lake Texcoco in 1345 and created a strong military to begin their imperial expansion.
• This helped them conquer Oaxaca, which was used as a bulkwark for the Mexica Empire and move to the gulf coast where they made tropical products.

Inca

• They originated as a small kingdom in the Valley of Cuzco
• Their rapid growth was a result of hard diplomacy work, negotiating with neighbors, gift exchanges, marital exchanges, and political alliances by way of military pressure, and coercion.
• "The Four Parts Together" arose around the early 1400s. By 1532, when the Spaniard Pizzaro executed the final Inca ruler, Atahualpa, the empire covered 300,000 square miles
• By the mid 13th Century, they took over the Chimu empire including their irrigation techniques and water supply.
• By the late 15th Century they expanded to modern Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.
• At the time of it's peak, there wasn't anything even as remotely as large as the Inca empire.

Similarities & differences

All three of the empires started as nomadic tribes that expanded rapidly. The Mongols and Incas were benevolent towards their neighbors. While the Aztecs, unlike the Incas and Mongols treated foreign empires malevolently.

Warfare

Mongols

"The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, and to gather into your bosom his wives and daughters." Ghengis Khan

• They understood psychological elements such as surprise and used them to their advantage.
• The Mongols used short, stiff, arrows that were easy to fire on horseback and rode as much as 62 miles a day just ot surprise the enemy.
• Using those techniques, they had control of northern China by 1220.

Aztec

• They allied with the Texcoco and Tlacopan empires
• They believed all men had the capability to become a warrior, therefore all Aztec men received basic training
• Warfare drove their religion and economy

Inca

Battle of Cajamarca

• The Battle of Cajamarca took place between the 169 Spaniards and 80,000 Incas in 1532
• The Spaniards brought many diseases that ultimately contributed to the decline of the empire.
• The battle took place durin a civil war between Huáscar and Atahualpa, two half brothers that were fighting for the empire.

Similarities & differences

All three empires had a military that was strong in expansion and expeditions with a reputation for military prowess. The Mongols had an extremely strong and large military while the Inca's was not quite and strong and the Aztec's was quite weak with the exception of expansion and expeditions

Economy

Mongols and Eurasion Integration

• They sponsored interaction and trade between different peoples
• Lands that were very far away from each other such as China and Europe were linked for the first time due to the ability to travel through the Eurasian landmass
• Roads led to more diplomatic relations between the travelers
• The Mongols recruited artisans and craftsmen from the people they conquered. Uighur Turks were many of the clerks, secretaries, and administrators running the Mongolian Empire. Arab and Persian Muslims also went far from their homes to serve in these positions.

Aztecs

• Trade became more important as the population grew, as the economy couldn't be as self sustaining as it previously was.
• Most parents forced their children into child labor.
• Tianquiztli: marketplace
• Their economy was primarily agricultural, as they grew beans, squash, avocados, tobacco, hemp, peppers, and corn.

Inca

• The Inca implemented a strong road system with roads that ran from north to south and were wide enough for eight horsemen. These roads were paved and shaded by trees.
• The Inca managed to build one especially long and vital road that pased through the mountains while the other roads ran along the Pacific coast.
• There were 9,944 mile of roads that helped the spread of the Quechua language and sun religious cult through relocation and contagious diffusion.
• This road system gave the empire the ability to deliver messages all throughout the empire by way of runners.
• The road system was needed to accommodate Inca population of an estimated 3-5 million. Imagine how vital these roads must have been when there were around 2,000 provincial way stations, and adminstrative/production centers.
• The Inca government believed in breaking up the population and resettling the people in different areas as a means to prevent political insurrection.

Similarities & Differences

The three empires had an economy that was heavily reliant on trade networks, as their empires had such high populations that they couldn't sustain themselves with their own agriculture.

Decline

Mongol

• Excessive spending in Persia
• Power struggles, factional fighting, imperial assassinations

Decline fo the Yuan Dynasty

• The Mongols attempted to introduce paper money, but it couldn't be backed with gold, so the general populatoin lost faith in the money, causing the economy to plummet.

Bubonic Plague

• Started in the 1330s in southwestern China
• Spread through out China and Central Asia
• By the 1340s, it reached southwest Asia and Europe, and became known as the Black Death
• It killed more than half of the exposed population, especially during the first few years of the epidemic
• It's effects were depopulation and labor shortges that were made worse by the fall of the Ilkhanates before the plague

Aztec

• Many "bad omens" were seen before the fall fo the Aztec empire
• Disease was a huge part fo the Aztec empire's decline
• The Aztecs saved some Spanish people in order to sacrifice them to the gods, which led to a word of untold riches in the Aztec empire that attracted the Spanish
• Spanish conquistadors attacked the Aztecs in 1519 after Cortes demanded tribute from the Aztecs, the last Aztec emperor surrendered in 1521

Inca

• Nearly half of the Incas succumbed to small pox and many others died of other Spanish diseases, this greatly influenced the labor shortage.

SImilarities & differences

In all three empires, disease greatly contributed to their eventual decline. This is why today, vaccines are extremely important so that we can gain immunity, what the Incas, Mongols, nor Aztecs had.