1340s
The 1340s was a decade that began on 1 January 1340 and ended on 31 December 1349. It was in the midst of a period in human history often referred to as the Late Middle Ages in the Old World and the pre-Columbian era in the New World.
In Asia, the Mongol Empire and its breakaway states were in a state of gradual decline. The Ilkhanate had already fragmented into several political territories and factions struggling to place their puppet leaders over the shell of an old state; the Chagatai Khanate was undermined by religious unrest and fell to rebellion. The Black Plague swept through the Kipchak Khanate in 1346, and also affected the Genoese colonies under Mongol siege, thence spreading into Europe. The Yuan dynasty in China was struck by a series of disasters, including frequent flooding, widespread banditry, fires in urban areas, declining grain harvest, increased civil unrest and local rebellion – the seeds of resistance that would lead to its downfall. Southeast Asia remained free from Mongol power; two major regional powers, the Tran dynasty and Majapahit thrived in the 1340s, after each defeated Mongol attacks in the 1280s and 1290s respectively.
In Europe, the decade continued the period of gradual economic decline, often mistitled the "depression" of the 1340s. This followed the end of the Medieval Warm Period and the start of the Little Ice Age in the 14th century, and affected most of Western Europe, with the exception of a few Italian city-states. The state increasingly interfered in the socio-economic status of its commoners in the decade. Europe entered a period which saw almost continuous war for the next century. The Hundred Years' War between France and England continued, and Edward III of England led an invasion resulting in notable victories at the Battles of Sluys and Crécy in 1340 and 1346 respectively. The medieval crusading spirit continued in Spain, with a Castilian victory at the Battle of Río Salado and the recommencement of the Reconquista in 1340; and in the Baltic, with Swedish King Magnus Eriksson's Northern Crusades against Novgorod in 1347–1348. In the east, the Byzantine Empire, then under the Palaiologoi, saw the disastrous Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347. Meanwhile, a crisis of confidence in the Florentine banks caused many of them to collapse between 1341 and 1346. The Black Plague which struck Europe in 1348 wiped out a full third of the population by the end of the decade.
In Africa, the two great empires were the Christian Ethiopian Empire in the east and the Muslim Mali Empire in the west. Amda Seyon I, who had brought Ethiopia to its height, was succeeded in 1344 by Newaya Krestos, who continued to foster trade in East Africa. Mansa Suleyman assumed office in the Mali Empire in 1341, and similarly took steep measures to reform Mali's finances. Songhai, which had emerged in this decade, was conquered by Mali for the time being. In the Americas, cities of the Mississippian culture such as Cahokia, Kincaid and Moundville went into an accelerated state of decline in this decade. Factors such as depletion of resources, climatic change, war, disease, social unrest and declining political and economic power have been suggested, although the sites were not fully abandoned until the 15th century. Central America saw the decayed Maya civilization ruled from their capital Mayapan in the Yucatán Peninsula, while the Mexicas from their capital city of Tenochtitlan were on the rise.
Political leaders
Asia
Political developments
Mongol decline
In the Kipchak Khanate, Özbeg Khan of the Golden Horde died in 1341, ending what Muslim chroniclers considered a golden age. His elder son Tinibeg ruled for a year or two, before being dethroned and killed at the hands of his younger brother Janibeg in 1342. Janibeg's fifteen-year reign was notable for the appearance and rapid transmission of the Black Plague along the trade routes from inner Asia in this decade. The nation "struggled into new life" after the plague had passed in the following decade.The Chagatai Khanate was being split by religious dissensions between the traditionalist Mongol adherents of the Yasa and the Mongol and Turkish converts to Islam. The eastern half of Chagatai seceded under the conservative Mongol element when Tughluk Temür seized power in Moghulistan around 1345. The Khanate continued in Transoxiana, but the Chatagai khans became the puppets of the now enthusiastically Muslim Turkish amirs, and the amir Kazghan overthrew the Khan Kazan in 1347.
In the Persian Ilkhanate, the Mongol House of Hülegü had been extinguished in the male line with the death of Il-Khan Abu Sa'id in 1335,. As JJ Saunders wrote, "A crowd of competitors for the vacant throne started up, but of some history has scarcely condescended to record their names, much less their actions, and an interval of more than thirty years was filled with confused political struggles". Numerous claimants were set up in the 1330s; by 1339, the two rivals were Jahan Temür set up by Shaik Hasan-i Buzurg, and Suleiman Khan supported by Shaik Hasan-i Kuchak. In June 1340, the two Hasans and their rival khans met in battle on the Jaghatu; "Hasan-i Buzurg was defeated and fled to Baghdad, where he deposed Jahan-Temür and himself assumed sovereignty as the founder of the Jalayir dynasty". The deposition of Jahan-Temür can be regarded as the final dissolution of the Ilkhanate. Although his rival retained nominal power among the Chobanids for another year or two, he in turn was deposed by Hasan-i Kuchak's brother and similarly disappears into obscurity. "So insignificant had these figureheads become", according to JA Boyle, "that we are not even informed as to the time and manner of their death". Suleiman was replaced as puppet by Anushirvan, "in whose name his Chobanid masters continued to strike coin until 1353".
China
In China, the Mongol Yuan dynasty was in a gradual state of decline, due to complex and longstanding problems such as the "endemic tensions among its ruling elites". Toghon Temür had been installed as emperor at age thirteen in 1333, and was to reign as the last Yuan emperor until 1368. In March 1340, the Yuan chancellor, Bayan of the Merkid, was removed in a carefully orchestrated coup, and replaced by his nephew Toqto'a. In Bayan's overthrow by the younger generation, the movement to restore the status quo from reign of Kublai Khan effectively died. Bayan's purges were called off; his supporters dismissed; positions he had closed to the Chinese were reopened; the meritocratic system of examinations for official service was restored. By this time, Temür had just begun to participate in the formal functions of state, and assisted in the "anti-Bayan coup": he issued a posthumous denunciation of his uncle Tugh Temür; he exiled the grand empress dowager Budashiri and his cousin El Tegüs; and entrusted the upbringing of his infant son Ayushiridara to Toghto's household.Toghto's first term exhibited a fresh new spirit which took a predominantly centralist approach to political solutions. He directed an unsuccessful project to connect the imperial capital to the sea and the Shanxi foothills by water; he was more successful in his attempt to organise funds for the completion of the official histories of the Liao, Qin and Song dynasties. In June 1344, however, he tendered his resignation following a series of local rebellions that had broken out against the Yuan in scattered areas of China.
Toghto's replacement as chancellor was Berke Bukha, an effective provincial administrator who took the opposite, decentralised approach to Toghto. Bukha had learned firsthand from the great Hangzhou fire of 1341 that central regulations had to be violated to provide immediate and effective relief. Accordingly, he promoted able men to local positions and gave them discretionary authority to handle relief and other problems. Similarly, he granted local military garrisons blanket authorisation to prevent the spread of banditry. In 1345, Bukha's administration sent out twelve investigation teams to visit each part of China, correct abuses, and "create benefits and remove harms" for the people.
Bukha's approach failed to arrest the mounting troubles of Yuan China in the 1340s, however. The central government was faced with chronic revenue shortfalls. Maritime grain shipments — vital for the inhabitants of the imperial capital — had seriously declined from a peak of 3.34 million bushels in 1329 to 2.6 million in 1342. From 1348 on, they continued only when permitted by a major piratical operation led by Fang Kuo-chen and his brothers, which the authorities were unable to suppress. Additionally, the Yellow River was repeatedly swelled by long rains, breaching its dykes and flooding the surrounding areas. When the river finally began shifting its course, it caused "widespread havoc and ruin". In 1349, the emperor recalled Toghto to office for a second term. With high enthusiasm and strong belief from his partisans that the problems were soluble, he began a radical process of recentralisation and heavy restriction of regional and local initiative in the following decade.