ABSTRACT
Wealth creation through finance and trade was the driving force for the development of money during the Mongol Empire. Originally, currency copied prevailing systems in each conquered area that eventually became more or less integrated with steppe traditions and imperial ambitions. With the first moves outside Mongolia into Tangut territory, Chinggis Khan’s initial financial arrangements centered on tribute in the form of products, such as camels. Tribute became a standardized policy through most of the Mongol hegemony; i.e., the Mongols expected products, labor, and shortly money to be delivered in a timely fashion, if not yearly then sometimes quarterly or stretched to several years. The Qipchaq Steppe was supplied with coinage in the earliest days of Mongol control from the Upper Volga based in and around the prosperous city of Bulghar, near modern Kazan close to the confluence of the Volga and Kama Rivers.
