What was the primary requirement for the emergence of Afro-Eurasian cities as opposed to villages

Summary

A simple approach to imposing order on the study of trade and commerce for the Middle Millennium is to divide Afro-Eurasia into three categories: engines, passageways, and cul-de-sacs. Foreign trade became an important element in the overall Chinese economy under the Song and Yuan dynasties, which together are considered the great age of private commerce. By the end of the thirteenth century, Europe had re-emerged as an engine in Afro-Eurasian commerce, if not yet on the scale of other engines, at least with considerable potential as partner or competitor. The Afro-Eurasian world experienced two cataclysmic events that came as calamities in their immediate impact. In China paper money, which had been in use under the Song and Yuan, increasingly suffered bouts of inflation until the Ming ceased printing it altogether. Under the Song and Yuan, long-distance commerce had been largely in private hands, but this changed under the Ming.

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