Rus’ Lands in the Fiscal Policy of Möngke Khan

Abstract

The imperial project of the Mongols was based not only on conquering technologies, the most effective for their time, but also on new technologies for mobilizing, centralizing and managing the resources necessary for further conquests. The most important tool for mobilizing resources, both human and material, was the population census, which had a general imperial character and covered a significant part of the inhabited world — from China to the Rus’ principalities. Each newly conquered people or state, recognizing the power of the great khan, had to put at his disposal all the resources of their country, which was the main condition for the implementation of the imperial project of the Mongols, which had the goal of conquering the whole world and creating a global empire. Throughout the territory controlled by the Mongols, a unified tax and financial system was established, centralization and monetization of tax revenues were carried out, a centralized system was created for using labor resources and replenishing the armed forces through regular recruitment sets. By providing a higher level of integration and interaction between many peoples and creating a new multicultural imperial elite, the Mongols promoted an intensive exchange of knowledge and new technologies, including managerial ones, assimilating and developing them in the interests of the empire. As a result, accounting and resource mobilization tools borrowed from China found a new application at the other end of the empire — in the Caucasus and in the Rus’ lands.