The Mongols were the most probable agents in the spread of the plague toward Europe.  Their forays into parts of China and central Asia where plague is indigenous took place at a time when weather conditions allowed plague’s hosts to travel with them through China, the plains of central Asia, southeast Asia, and southern Russia.  It is unclear exactly where the plague came from.  One possibility is that the Mongols picked it up from China, and carried it back to the Central Asian plains with them.  From there the disease migrated through the rat and human populations to the Black Sea and Europe.  Other sources suggest that the Mongols picked up the plague in Southeast Asia.  These sources believe it spread to China when the Mongol overlords attempted to invade Southeast Asia.

    It is possible that the Mongols contracted the plague in both areas.  They traveled so frequently, and the plague-infested rats are indigenous to both areas.  It is known, however, that in one of the first documented examples of biological warfare, the Mongols flung contaminated corpses into besieged cities such as Kaffa (a Crimean port on the Mediterranean.)  This, no doubt, greatly assisted the spread of the plague.

Political Effects Religious:Popular/Official Responses Economic Effects Social Effects Military Implications