> It was through the Mongol Empire, Harl writes, that papermaking, block printing, and gunpowder moved from the East to the West, hastening the spread of knowle

> It was through the Mongol Empire, Harl writes, that papermaking, block printing, and gunpowder moved from the East to the West, hastening the spread of knowledge and catalyzing Europe’s conquest of the seas. What is interesting is that this East to West movement of gunpowder is what did in the horse archers. Previously it was very hard to counter horse archers. Gunpowder based artillery and muskets were a perfect counter to the horse archer. Bullets and cannonballs can go faster than a horse, and it is fairly easy to train masses of soldiers to use them thus giving advantage to the centenary civilizations who had both the population and manufacturing ability to be able to exploit gunpowder weapons.