Mongol Relay System

Timeline

1. 1231–1234Mongolian Plateau to North China · Mongolian PlateauÖgedei incorporated the Jin dynasty's relays of Central China into the imperial courier system, establishing jam stations, relay horses, and stipends for envoys, and ordered the princes to extend relay roads in their appanages; Chagatai's pledge in the Secret History of the Mongols to maintain the courier service for Ögedei's court shows that by the early 1230s the relay stations had become the empire's administrative artery.
2. 1236–1240Eurasian post roads · Kipchak Steppe to Eastern Europe post roadDuring Batu's western campaign the relay roads advanced with the army into the Kipchak steppe and Eastern Europe; around the 1240 kurultai, stations were established on all the empire's main roads, with gold, silver, and wooden tallies (gerege) used to draw horses and supplies; Uyghur administrative documents and Marco Polo's later account both corroborate the unprecedented scale of the mid-13th-century relay system.