Land-Based Empires: ADMINISTRATION [AP World History Review—Unit 3 Topic 2]

the rulers of land-based Empires from 1450 to 1750 had to figure out how to keep power and how to administer their Empires and baby that's what this video is all about so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked bureaucratically then let's get to it okay now right here at the beginning I need to explain two very important terms that will probably have you more confused than a fart in a fan Factory this particular topic is all about how rulers of landbased Empires legitimized and Consolidated their power you're going to see those words all

over your exams and your textbook reading and if you don't know what they mean then in the immortal words of elener shellstrop you basic oh and by the way if you want no guys to follow along with this video in all my videos then check the link in the description they're really good for folks who don't like reading their textbook but still want to do well in their class so that's you check it out anyway when rulers take measures to legitimize their power that refers to the methods the ruler uses to communicate to all their

underlings who is in charge what's got two thumbs and will cut your head off if you cross me this guy on the other hand when rulers take measures to consolidate power that refers to the methods the ruler uses to take power from other groups and claim it for him or herself okay so now that you understand those terms we need to consider three way way rulers of land-based Empires legitimized and Consolidated their power first was through the creation of large Imperial bureaucracies and here's another stinking word that you don't understand so let's define it a

bureaucracy is a collection of government officials that ensures that the laws are being kept throughout the Empire and if you remember my last video These landbased Empires were expanding like mad during this period and so the larger the empires became the larger the bureaucracies grew in order to make sure that these vast Empires could be properly administered now this was true of basically all major Empires during this period but I'm just going to give you one specific example from the ottoman Empire namely the dev Sher system now this was a system by which the Ottomans

staffed their Imperial bureaucracy with highly trained folks who in this case were slav for example in their campaigns for territorial Conquest in the Balkans the Ottomans enslaved Christian boys who were then sent to live with Turkish families so that they could learn the language and then they were sent to istan buul for a proper Islamic education now many of those boys ended up in the ottoman military but the cream of the crop were given further education and sent to work in the ottoman bureaucracy where their Elite Education made them wise and effective administrators of the

Empire but then the second way rulers administered their Empires was by expanding their militaries and especially by creating Elite cadres of military Professionals in the Ottoman Empire that same Dev sheer system supplied elite soldiers that became known as the janissaries they were also made up of enslaved Christians and formed the core of the Ottoman standing army which was significantly increasing in size during this period okay now the second Major Way rulers legitimized and Consolidated their power during this period was through religion art and architecture and I'll give you an example of each in terms of

religion European monarchs claim to rule by Divine Right which is to say that the king Queen ruled with the approval of Jesus himself it's not hard to understand why this belief if accepted among the people would legitimize the power of a monarch most of the folks in Europe were Christians and if a monarch ruled by divine right then to oppose the King was to oppose God himself and that was uh no bueno but over in the Americas the Aztecs used the religious practice of human sacrifice to legitimize their power now to be fair this practice

predated the Aztecs and was common among the mesika people before they became you know the Aztec they believe that their son God lost energy at regular intervals and can only be reinvigorated through the spilling of sacrif icial human blood but at the height of the Aztec empire priests and rulers worked in tandem to perform these sacrifices usually with captured prisoners of war and they gathered whole cities for the ritual and all of this had a way of letting everyone know in attendance who was in charge now in terms of using art to legitimize power we

have a great example over in the Ching Dynasty there Emperor kongi displayed Imperial portraits of himself around the Imperial City and maybe to you that just sounds like you know he was really into himself but and I don't know maybe he was but these portraits served to convince the Chinese that kangi was their legitimate ruler remember from the last video that the ching were ethnically Manu which is to say not natively Chinese that means they were Outsiders but in these portraits kangi is depicted according to traditional Confucian values which would have appealed to his Chinese

subjects and hopefully convinced them to accept his Rule and in terms of using architecture to legitimize rule I'm in the mood to give you two examples here you see the Palace of Versailles which was built for the French monarch Louis the 14th and it was a massive when the people of France saw this Palace and all of its grander there was really only one thought they could have whoever lives there uh yeah that guy is in charge but Louie also used this Palace to to consolidate power as well and he did it by forcing the

French nobility to live there at least part-time with that move he was able to remove power from them and situate it right beneath his Fabulous High heeles and then the second example is the Inca Sun temple in kusco now remember that Inca rulers were considered to be direct descendants of the Gods and so to facilitate festivals of worship Inca rulers built this Temple whose walls were covered in sheets of gold and whose Courtyards contained hundreds of golden statues and again since the rulers were associated with the gods buildings like this serve to legitimize their power

and then finally we need to talk about how Imperial rulers Finance these huge militaries and Monumental architecture and fabulous butt cuts and that means we need to talk about systems of Taxation and the mugal Empire rulers established the zamindar system to collect tax revenue now remember that the mugal rulers were Muslim While most of the South Asian population was Hindu which meant a healthy dose of Suspicion toward their Muslim rulers so to combat that mugal rulers employed local land owners called zamindars to collect taxes throughout the Empire on behalf of the emperor this had the

effect of extending Imperial Authority and consolidating Imperial power and then over in the Ottoman Empire they created a system for collecting taxes known as tax farming essentially under this system the right to tax subjects of the Ottoman Empire went to the highest bidder and whoever got that right was authorized to collect taxes from a particular group of people and they enriched themselves by collecting more taxes than were legally required and thus padding their pockets this system helped the ottoman government by providing a reliable source of income at the beginning of every year which came from

the bidding for the right to tax and furthermore since these tax Farmers weren't members of the official bureaucracy the Ottomans didn't have to pay them since they paid themselves by fleecing the general populace Noise Okay click here to keep reviewing for unit three and click here to grab my note guides for all my videos so you can follow along and get all this information firmly crammed into your brain fold and I'll catch you on the flipflop I'm L out