The question was are the Mongols uncivilized barbarians or culture brokers on their journey to conquer the world? They served mainly as culture brokers in many ways. They helped evolve trade, spread religion, and share many cultures with others, Mongols, while on their conquest, created many paths and way points to help traders and travelers journey across the land. The path ways and way points that marked where the Mongols have traveled made new courses for traders and to help them get the food and water they need along with horses and lodging.
The Mongols also extended the Grand Canal of Beijing, this allowed cheap transportation of rice from southern to northern China. The Mongols also took aboard many followers of many religions and aided to spread them. Turkic allies that had joined the Mongols were Muslims, they brought Isam to far places such as China. Genghis Khan found that the political knowledge of Lamas useful, he then used them is in his own empire as figures of power. This helped to the spread of Buddhism. Due to all the movement that the Mongols had caused with their conquest, people had to move around as slaves or part of the Mongol amry.
This caused sudden sharing of techniques, goods, and ideas. Since the religion of Islam had arrived in China, a lot of the artisians designed ceramics especially to appeal to their Muslim taste. The Genoese merchants, who traded extensively in the Muslim lands and Inner Eurasia, sold Chinese silk and tatar cloth. This just proves that goods were now sold in foreign places due to the frequent cultural encounters. The Mongols were both savage barbarians and cultural brokers in their conquest. They shared cultures with others from people they met and had joined their army, path ways they made, and religions they encountered.
