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Explore the origins, spread, and legacy of the mighty Mongol Empire led by Genghis Khan. Learn about their military tactics, key conquests, and the vast territories they ruled. Discover how they transformed the landscape of Eurasia.
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History 210: The late, great Mongol Empire: origins, spread, and progeny
Who were the Mongols? • Nomads, pastoralists: • Xiongnu (Huns) • Magyars • Mongols • Pastoralism, trade, raiding • Self-sufficiency • Plurality of religious practice • Shamanism • Buddhists, (Nestorian) Christians, Muslims • Idea of a Great Khan
Mongol Conquests (1206-1258) • Temujin (TEH-moo-jeen) • Declared himself: Genghis Khan (b. 1162; r. 1206-1227) • Really: Чингис Хаан, Chingis Khaan = “Ocean King” • United Mongol tribes, “of all those who live in felt tents.” • Used Tengri - the Sky-God - to justify his rule
Why did they begin to expand? • No one really knows • few written records • Booty? • Climatic change? – Population high, temperatures fell, pastures decreased • Population growth? • Steppelanders being steppelanders?
Why were the Mongol armies so successful? • Simple, but effective • All males, 15-60, were eligible for conscription • army was only source of honor • Trained using massive hunts • Great discipline • Equipped for mobility and speed: lightly armored, no supply lines; couriers • Careful planning, reconnaissance, intelligence • Decimal system of organization: arbats (tens), zuuts (100s), myanghan (1000s), tumen (10,000s = roughly a division) • Very good at adapting to various conditions. • Became adept at siege warfare; recruited well; built effective catapults. • Combined various types of armed force: mounted archers, lancers, engineers, rockets, and smoke.
Key Conquests • 1207-1210: The Mongols made war against the Western Xia (northwestern China and parts of Tibet). • Same period, the Uyghur Turks also submitted peacefully to the Mongols and became valued administrators throughout the empire. • 1211: Chinggis Khan led his armies across the Gobi desert against the Jin Dynasty of northern China. • 1219–1221: While the campaign in northern China was still in progress, the Mongols waged a war in central Asia and destroyed the Khwarezmid Empire. • 1223: The Mongols gained a decisive victory at the Battle of the Kalka River, the first engagement between the Mongols and the East Slavic warriors. • 1227: Chinggis Khan died.
Ghengis Khan died in 1227 C.E. • Mongol leaders returned to Karakorum, capital of Mongolia for a kuriltai. • The empire at this point covered nearly 26 million sq. km. • About four times the size of the Roman or Macedonian Empires.
Post-Chinggis conquests • 1229: Ogedei elected as Great Khan. • 1232: The siege of Kaifeng. Missile-rockets were used by Jurcheds for the first time in world history. • 1236: Mongols conquered Jurched-Jin dynasty. • 1236-37: war against Song dynasty, but not completely conquered until 1270s.
Post-Chinggis conquests • 1237: Under the leadership of Batu Khan, the Mongols returned to the West and began their campaign to subjugate Kievan Rus’. • 1240: Mongols sacked Kiev. • 1241: mongols destroyed German, Magyar and Polish forces, and seemed unstoppable, but Ogodei khan’s death forced kuriltai; replaced by Mongke. • 1258: Mongols occupied Baghdad. The fate of Abbasid caliphate. • 1259: Mongol invasion of Syria. Mongke died. • 1260: The battle of Ain Jalut: Mamluks defeated Mongols.
Giovanni da Pian del Carpini, 1246, at the enthroning of Guyuk Khan • After many daies he called for vs againe, demanding whether there were any with our Lord the Pope, which vnderstood the Russian, the Saracen, or the Tartarian language? To whom we answered, that we had none of those letters or languages. …Then Kadac, principal agent for the whole empire, and Chingay, and Bala, with diuers other Scribes, came vnto vs, and interpreted the letter word for word. And hauing written it in Latine, they caused vs to interprete vnto them eche sentence, to wit if we had erred in any word. And when both letters were written, they made vs to reade them ouer twise more, least we should haue mistaken ought. For they said vnto vs: Take heed that ye vnderstand all things throughly, for if you should not vnderstand the whole matter aright, it might breed some inconuenience. They wrote the said letters also in the Saracen tongue that there might be some found in our dominions which could reade and interprete them, if need should require.
Giovanni da Pian del Carpini, 1246 • Guyuk Khan’s reply to the pope: ....you must come yourself at the head of all your kings and prove to Us your fealty and allegiance. And if you disregard the command of God and disobey Our instructions, We shall look up on you as Our enemy. Whoever recognizes and submits to the Son of Gods and Lord of the World; whoever refuses submission will be wiped out."
Rulers of the Mongol Empire • 1206–1227: Chinggis Khan • 1227–1241: Ogedei Khan • 1246–1248: Guyuk Khan • 1251–1259: Mongke Khan • 1260–1294: Khubilai Khan (Partially recognized)
Mongol rule and Mongol Peace • Khanates (1299) • Use of local elites (Persian merchant was the great Khan’s ambassador to the Mongol Il-khan in Persia.) • Tax farming • Mongol rulers tended to focus on feasting, hunting, and internal disputes rather than day-to-day governing. • Very flexible and tolerant: “But just as God has given different fingers to the hand, so He has given different religions to people.”
Effects on Overland Trade • Linked Christian, Muslim and Chinese worlds in one Pax Mongolica • Encouraged Silk Road trade • Patrols and passports • Paid high prices at Karakorum and financed caravans • Marco Polo (1253-1324) • Traveled with father and uncle to the East, made a fortune, and went back (1271-1295) • Great influence on European attitudes towards the East • New Ideas from China went west: • Paper and paper money, gunpowder, coal, movable type, passports, high-temperature furnaces, medicine, etc.
Yuan Dynasty in China, 1272-1368 • Kubilai Khan (b. 1214), ruled 1265-1294 • New capital at Dadu or Khanbalik (modern Beijing) • Styled himself as a Chinese emperor. • Introduced Mongols and Muslims into Chinese government. • Mongol domination caused various effects in East Asia: • Recentralization of China, trade, and government • Prosperity in the cities, poverty in the countryside • Extraction of wealth for benefit of Mongol khans
Il-Khan Empire • Caused collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate. • Hulegu Khan sacked Baghdad in 1258. • 1295: Il-khan Ghazan adopted Islam; end of tolerance. • Great deal of trade with China (silk roads) • Ended 1343 with death of last Il-khan.
Mongol Conquests in Russia • Fall of Kiev, 1240 • “Mongol Yoke”? • Batu (r. 1240-1255) established “Golden Horde” rule • Mongol capital at Sarai • Taxes eventually farmed out to local princes. • Rise of Novgorod and Moscow • Alexander Nevskii (lived around 1220-1263) argued for cooperation with Mongols rather than resistance.
The limits of Mongol rule • Mamluk Egypt • Slaves into warriors • In 1250 Mamluks rebelled • by 1254 placed own ruler on the thrown. • September 1260 at the Battle of Ain Jalut (Syria), Mamluks turned back Mongol armies. • Mamluks were Turks and Circassians. • Used midfa (hand cannon) • Stopped Mongol expansion into Africa.
Mongol Empire’s Impact on Eurasia • Movement of peoples, trade, ideas across Eurasia • New innovations and ideas reached Europe (without the military devastation); increased European interest in the East, raised by works of Polo, Rubruck, and others. • Brought new peoples to power: rise of Turkic dominance in the Muslim world (Ottomans, Delhi Sultanate, Mamluks), and new elites in the Slavic world. • Created the first (and only) foreign dynasty in China. • Opened the path for the plague.
Dissolution of the Mongol Empire • With the election of Kubilai Khan, the Empire started to show its cracks. • Civil War broke out over the perceived illegitimacy of Kubilai, but there were other issues as well (such as a widening divide between the Eastern and Western Mongols, the latter who had converted to Islam). • Kubilai won the Civil War and reunited the Empire, but it wasn’t to last. • By the time Temur Khan took the throne in 1294, the Great Khan had little power and influence over the other Khans. • The overthrow of the Yuan Dynasty in China in 1368 was the last death knell for any centralisation. • The various Khans became fully independent, with the major powers being the Golden Horde, White Horde, Il-Khanate and Chagatai Khanate. • These states would last for varying periods of time, but eventually they all fell to infighting themselves. The last of the Khanates would be conquered by Russia in the 17th-18th Centuries.
Comparison: Which of the following is NOT an attribute that pastoral societies generally exhibit in comparison to settled agricultural peoples? a. They generally offer women a lower status with no roles at all in public life. b. They are far more mobile. c. They live in smaller more widely scattered groups. d. They rely more heavily on their animals.
Discussion Question: Do you think that the modern image of Mongols a. is warranted given their history? b. is partially warranted given their history? c. is misleading because they were little different from other pastoralists in world history? d. is the product of the peoples that they conquered writing their history?
Discussion Question: For you, which of the following was the most important contribution of the Mongol Empire to world history? a. They constructed the largest Eurasian empire to date. b. They destroyed a series of well-established empires. c. They fostered trade, the spread of disease, and the exchange of crops and technology across Eurasia. d. The disruption of trade caused by the collapse of their empire provided an important incentive for Europeans to take to the seas in an effort to secure sought-after Asian goods.
Discussion Question: Regarded as a whole, was the Mongol impact on world history more positive or negative? a. The Mongol impact on world history was more positive than negative. b. The Mongol impact on world history was more negative than positive.
