The chapter covers the main aspects of the relations between the Mongol Empire and European powers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It first discusses the main events and assumed motivations of the Mongol invasion of Europe, which set the stage for the later development of political, diplomatic, and commercial relations. It summarizes the European efforts to gain information on the Mongols by sending missionaries to the heart of the Mongol Empire. Mutual knowledge and formal contacts led to several attempts to establish diplomatic relations between European powers (such as the Pope and the kings of France and England) and the Mongol khans. Furthermore, the chapter examines the commercial relations between European traders and Mongol rulers that flourished in the late thirteenth century and the fourteenth from the Black Sea to China. Finally, material and cultural influences in art, manufacturing, geographical knowledge, and technology are illustrated.

Under Mongol rule and the Pax Mongolica, Song China became part of the much wider world of the Mongol Empire. Although it was split into four khanates in 1260, Qubilai consolidated control over Goryeo and Dali and, where conquest failed (as in Dai Viet, Kamakura Japan, and Java), pursued diplomatic and commercial relationships, especially on the Indian subcontinent. Mongol rule integrated China into an overland global economy parallel to the maritime one in the South Seas and the Indian Ocean. Ceramic production under the Mongols played a major role in maritime trade, while the blue-and-white porcelain seen in the Yuan exemplifies contact across Eurasia. Textile production likewise stimulated commerce and contact across Eurasia. Silk production long antedated this era, but patterns and designs produced under the Mongols exhibit Central Asian influences, as silk from China made its way westward as far as the Mediterranean and beyond. The Mongol era dietary, A Soup for the Qan, illustrates Eurasian interconnections visible through the lenses of food and medicine. Along with steppe shamanism, the Mongols favored Tibetan Buddhism, but they also implemented policies of official toleration toward recognized faiths (including Eastern Syriac and Roman Catholic Christianity), creating one of the most ecumenical societies in world history.

Chapter 3 examines cross-cultural contacts between the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392) in Korea and the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) in China and Mongolia (and the broader Mongol Empire), in order to refine our historical context to make clear the kind of Sino-Korean interactions that made the transfer of distilled liquors to Korea possible. As its suzerain state on Koryŏ’s border for nearly 150 years, the Mongols were able to exert considerable influence on Korea. This opened the way to a wide range of cross-cultural interactions, from the stationing of Mongol soldiers on Cheju Island to trade to court relations and intermarriage, situations that created opportunities for the exchange of such things as liquors, concepts of drinking culture, and still technologies, laying the foundations for soju’s development. Such a process is not excusive to alcohol; we see similar patterns in a variety of cultural artifacts (even Korean foods and national dress). Cross-cultural interactions between the Yuan and Koryŏ realms provided Koreans with access to genuinely cosmopolitan societies in Eurasia, so the range of influences went well beyond China or the Mongols. In this way, soju provides an excellent vehicle for understanding both the extent of Eurasian influence on Korea and also Korea’s place in Eurasia under the Pax Mongolica.