When a Franciscan missionary from Belgium named William of Rubruck visited the capital at Karakhorum, in modern Mongolia, he encountered European prisoners of war from as far away as France. One man was a skilled silversmith who made elaborate fountains. Captives like the silversmith were able to marry, form families, and live comfortably, but they couldn’t return home. The movement of so many people across the grasslands resulted in unprecedented exchanges of information: Iranian and Chinese astronomers consulted with each other, and one Iranian historian wrote a history of the world that
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