Great question. The Mongols, as world conquerors, most certainly profited under the zenith of Chinggis Khan and his successors. However, with time, Mongol dominance fragmented and dissolved, and the rulers by then had already assimilated into their respective regions, failing to bring prosperity to their steppe ancestral homeland. Furthermore, the steppe would be tamed by foreign factors, "preventing" the Mongol people from reattaining their historical presence and influence. In this post, I will be focusing on the Mongol Empire and its legacy states. I have less background on Ming-Northern Yuan, Qing-Mongol-Dzungar, and USSR interactions of Mongolia. If anyone can expand on this, please do.

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Nomadic pastoralism and geography play a significant role. The Mongol way of life centers around the horse, and the herding of sheep, goats, cattle, and horses, across the steppe and grasslands of Mongolia. Chinggis Khan was keen to preserve this way of life. Even after his empire acquired riches and luxuries of the defeated courts and nations, the Great Khan still maintained a relatively modest lifestyle, preferring to reside in his ger-tereg and eating the traditional meals of boiled meat and horse milk. The differences in the lifestyle of his sons illustrate how various rulers adapted to their respective ulus and local customs.

I will be drawing heavily from Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane, where S. Frederick Starr laments about the devastation Mongol rule brought onto the Central Asian region, stunting growth for generations. This helps to answer the question by illustrating the developments of Mongol successor states.

First, there is Hulagu, who managed to defeat the Muslim powers from Iran to the Mediterranean, creating the foundation for the Ilkhanate wing of the Empire. Second, there is Khublai, who subjugated China and Korea, providing for the Yuan Dynasty. Khublai consolidated his realm with the two capitals of Dadu (Beijing) and Shangdu, while Hulagu and his successors established Tabriz and Sultaniyya as capitals. The Yuan court would come to favor Buddhism, while the Ilkhanids converted to Islam. As for the Golden Horde, a robust regional state did not form like in China or Persia, rather, the local Mongol rulers focused on extracting tribute within their domains.

With that said, Khublai and Hulagu serve to be excellent examples of how Mongol rule resulted in benefits. These two assimilated into the local culture, allowing them to utilize local talent and knowledge. They became patrons of astronomy, medicine, and poetry. The people enjoyed relative stability, allowing for cultural flourishing. Printing became widespread in these realms, spreading knowledge and increasing the intellectual output. However, while the nomadic lifestyle of the Mongols may have enabled them to conquer their enemies across a wide span of geography, their way of life prevented them from effectively handling administration. This meant they had to rely on others and learn the skills themselves, which they did so eagerly, perhaps out of simple necessity.

Thus in China, the Chinese could not be trusted, so administration fell upon Uyghurs, Christians, Muslims, originating from a diverse set of conquered lands. This meant much of the talent that existed in Central Asia and former Khwarezm would be relocated to Khublai's China, providing for much of the economic needs and also importing architectural and scientific abilities. Medicine and astronomy were quite prominent, staffed primarily by Central Asians.

In Persia, support of industry, agriculture, and construction allowed for the region to rebuild after the fall of the Caliphate. The Ilkhanate paralleled China in many regards, developing its own astronomy and medicinal ventures. Religious tolerance also allowed for Sunnis, Shias, Christians, and Jews to amass in the capital, bringing their diverse skills and knowledge to the Khans. This also meant more scientists and artists from Central Asia came to the Ilkhanate realms. In time Persia's astronomers were able to surpass the observatories in Bukhara and Beijing, advancing mathematics significantly. If anything though, Mongol rule in the Middle East, largely due to the Empire's far-flung control of Asia, favored the east, rather than the west. This meant developments in Europe were not able to have as much reach and presence.

Now, unfortunately for Central Asia, the Chagatayid held strong with their nomadic traditions. This was to the detriment of regional development, and reconstruction of Khwarezm's once-great cities were also comparatively slow to China and Persia. Furthermore, consider the incentives of war with each region. Khwarezm and Xi Xia were ravaged for punitive reasons (the mistreatment and disrespect of Mongol envoys, and the failure to back and recognize Mongol supremacy, respectively), whilst the conquests of China and Western Asia were more in regards of territorial expansion and asserting power. As a result, the libraries and intellectual body of Central Asia were crippled. Not only did scholars flee to foreign courts, but those that remained had to deal with the ashes of libraries, bookshops, observatories, endowed institutions, archives, schools, and scriptoria. As Starr puts it, "This sharp tear in the civilizational fabric of Central Asia is the most tragic legacy of the Mongol incursion."

An interesting figure to illustrate the tension of the period comes in Khaidu. Khaidu staunchly kept his steppe nomad roots, in contrast to the "sinicized" Khublai who sat in his walled cities. Khaidu raised a substantial following numbering some hundred thousand, and launched a fairly successful campaign onto Chagatayid territory. Unfortunately for him, he failed to understand urban management and economic matters. The currency he minted plummeted in value, and he clumsily issued gold-plated bronze coins as a means to punish traders. This meant only silver was trusted, which only swayed caravans away to find different routes southwards. Furthermore, unlike Khublai or Hulagu, who had established strong capitals or surrounded themselves and patronized intellectuals, Khaidu remained with the ways of old by hunting.

In the wake of all this destruction and devastation rose the popularity of Sufism. I will only be brief here, because my knowledge of Islam is relatively weak. Sufism, with its spiritual focus on the personal self, allowed for a great wave of poetry and musical tradition. Unfortunately, Sufism discourages rationality in favor of intuition, which was to the major detriment of logic, mathematics, science, philosophy, rational inquiry, and theology.

This all serves to illustrate that the Mongol Empire had unique circumstances across its realm. The Mongols no doubt were patrons of culture and scholars, but this differed from region to region, and while contact between them existed, it wasn't necessarily cooperative. The great distances between the Mongol legacy states, alongside their respective economic and religious differences prevented a truly cohesive unity we might associate with the Pax Mongolica.

It would make little sense for Hulagu or his successors to send his learned scholars back to the Yuan held Mongolian steppe. Not only would he be advancing the developments of his rivals, but there would be little use for the learned man in open grasslands. You mention Rome in your question, but consider the urban, populous, and fertile center of Mediterranean society and civilization. Creating large sprawling capital cities as fixed centers of political and economic management would not be possible on the steppes of Mongolia. Instead, there was the Kurultai, where rulers convened their temporary mobile council to discuss and argue their politics.

If the Mongols were to attempt to create an urban capital space in their homeland, maintaining and feeding such a site would require enormous means of wealth and resources, not possible with the pastoral terrain of the steppe. It would instead most likely be imported from neighboring southbound China. But further inhibiting is keeping a court of science and economics. This is simply unfeasible in such a setting, with evershifting political allegiances that plagued the Mongol successors for centuries. The constant presence of clan rivalries and civil war prevented a fixed center of command, as well as allowing safe and reliable zones for commerce.

But, such a site existed, Qaraqorum, in the Orkhon Valley. Ogodai, second Great Khan of the empire, erected walls and a palace in 1235. Built by Chinese and Muslims, Ogodei found retreat here to feast and hunt, which prompted the further construction of the two cities Saolin and Yingjia dian near Qaraqorum. Apparently, the former served feasting and hunting purposes, while the latter offered food and rest for passing travelers. However, following Ogodei's death in 1241, the development of Qaraqorum was slowed. When Mongke became the fourth Great Khan, he found palaces to be not as important and did not keenly support the citie's development, in the first year of his rule dismissing some 1,500 workers employed in the construction of the city. Qaraqorum's region seemed to be a favored location for hunting, but state affairs were also held in the seasonal camps. The early years of Qaraqorum also have evidence of being a center for artisans and craftsmen, mostly from the conquests of China and the many captives acquired.

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