The end of the importance of the Mediterranean trade routes was not only the result of new trade with America and of the Ottoman domination over the Mediterranean. There were other factors: first, the Ottoman Empire was cut off from the East by the consolidation of two powerful dynasties, the Safavids in Persia and the Great Mongols in India. Second, the Castilians and the Portuguese challenged the Ottoman rearguard; the Castilians opened up routes to the East across the Pacific around 1530, while the Portuguese defeated the Ottomans in the Indian Ocean at the battle of Diu. From that moment on, large-scale trading would cross the oceans
