The Horde's Ortoq Merchants: Mongol Venture Capital on the Silk Road

Long before Venice, the Mongols invented a form of commercial partnership called the ortoq. This episode dives into how the Golden Horde and other Mongol khanates financed caravans, spread risk, and created a vast trading network from Crimea to China. Lucas and Luna explore the partnership between Mongol princes and mostly Muslim merchants, the legal protections under the Yasa, and how the system collapsed during the Great Troubles. Along the way they discuss specific traders like the 13th-century Andalusian traveler Ibn Said, the port cities of Caffa and Tana, and the curious case of the ortoq who tried to sell a slave that turned out to be a runaway princess. The episode also touches on the ortoq legacy in later Russian and Ottoman commercial law. #Ortoq #GoldenHorde #MongolEmpire #SilkRoad #Caffa #Tana #IbnSaid #Yasa #Jochid #Sarai #MedievalTrade #VentureCapital #MuslimMerchants #PaxMongolica #GreatTroubles #History #FexingoHistory #CentralAsia Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo