We have all heard of Marco Polo, the Venetian merchant and traveller who left us one of the earliest European accounts of China, detailing the years he spent as an administrator at Kublai’s court in the 14th century. But how did he come to be there? Thomas Allsen’s ground-breaking work paints a picture of a Mongol empire that actively patronized trade by setting up partnerships, or ortaq, with merchants, creating a vast network of cost-effective, long-distance trade. Lesser known, however, is the role that merchants played as administrators in the empire.

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