The Mongols

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The Mongols
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The Mongols

• Of all the pastoral peoples who took a turn on
  the stage of world history, the Mongols made the
  most stunning entry.
• Their thirteenth-century breakout from Mongolia
  gave rise to the largest land-based empire in all
  of human history, stretching from the Pacific
  coast of Asia to Eastern Europe.

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The Mongols

• The Mongol Empire at its height

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The Mongols

• This empire would join the nomadic peoples of the
  inner Eurasian steppes with the settled
  agricultural civilizations of outer Eurasia more
  extensively and more intimately than ever before.
• It also brought the major civilizations of
  EurasiaEurope, China, and the Islamic worldinto
  far more direct contact than in earlier times.

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The Mongols

• Both the enormous destructiveness of the process
  and the networks of exchange and communication
  that it created were the work of the Mongols,
  numbering only 700,000 1,000,000 people.
• This would be another of historys unlikely
  twists because for all of its size and fearsome
  reputation, the Mongol Empire left a surprisingly
  small cultural imprint on the world it had
  briefly governed.

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The Mongols

• Unlike the Arabs, the Mongols left the world no
  new religion or civilization.
• Where the Islamic community offered a common
  religious home for all convertsconquerors and
  conquered alikethe Mongols never tried to spread
  their own faith among subject peoples.

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The Mongols

• The Mongols offered the majority of those they
  conquered little more than the status of
  defeated, subordinate, and exploited people,
  although people with skills were put to work in
  ways useful to Mongol authorities.
• Unlike the Turks, whose languages and culture
  flourish today in many places far from the Turkic
  homeland, Mongol culture remains confined largely
  to Mongolia.

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The Mongols

• Many Mongols became absorbed into the settled
  societies they conquered.
• After the decline and disintegration of the
  Mongol Empire, the tide turned against the
  pastoralists of inner Eurasia who were
  increasingly swallowed up in the expanding
  Russian or Chinese empires.
• Nonetheless, while it lasted and for a few
  centuries after, the Mongol Empire exercised an
  enormous impact throughout the entire Eurasian
  world.

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The Mongols

• The Mongols, like most of the peoples of central
  Asia, were nomadic pastoralists who kept herds of
  animalshorses, sheep, goats, cattle, and camels.
• Their society was built by adapting to the
  ecological conditions of arid lands.
• Central Asia does not receive enough rainfall to
  support large-scale agriculture, but grasses and
  shrubs flourish on the steppes.

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The Mongols

• The steppes where the Mongols came from are flat,
  grassy areas with few treessimilar to the
  northern plains of North America.
• The Onon River in Mongolia.

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The Mongols

• The steppes of Eurasia form "the largest unified
  area of flatlands in the world," an area too dry
  for farming without irrigation.
• Without farming, the Mongols had to rely heavily
  on the animals they kept they rode horses, used
  oxen and camels to transport things, drank milk
  and ate meat and dairy products.
• They used animal bones for tools and animal poo
  as fuel for their fires.

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The Mongols

• They made shoes and clothes out of wool and
  animal skins and they also covered their homes
  with felt that they made from their sheep's wool.
  
• They even made an alcoholic drink from fermenting
  mares milk (called kumiss).

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The Mongols

• Their herds lived on native grasses, and since
  these nomads moved their homes from place to
  place, their animals did not overgraze any area
  of land. (Consider parallels with traditional
  Native American societies of the plains form and
  portability of their dwellings, management of
  animals, their impact on the environment.)

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The Mongols

• Their traditional type of dwelling, practically
  unchanged from the time of Chinggis Khan, is
  called a ger but is also known by the Russian
  word yurt.
• These structures are made of a wooden support
  that stands in a cylindrical form, then covered
  with a thick layer of felt, and have a hole in
  the top (with a felt flap to close it when
  necessary) to let out the smoke from the
  household fire.

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The Mongols
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The Mongols

• Since nomadic peoples produced limited amounts of
  pottery, leather goods, iron weapons, and tools,
  they avidly sought opportunities to trade with
  settled peoples.
• With their mobility and knowledge of the steppes,
  they were ideally suited to organize and lead the
  caravans that crossed central Asia and linked
  settled societies from China to the Mediterranean
  basin along the Silk Roads.

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The Mongols

• Nomadic society generated two social classes
  elites and commoners.
• Leaders among the elites organized clans and
  tribes into alliances.
• Normally, these elite leaders did little
  governing because clans and tribes looked after
  their own affairs and resented interference.

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The Mongols

• But during times of war, elite rulers wielded
  absolute authority and dealt swiftly with those
  who didnt follow their orders.
• This nomadic nobility was a fluid class and
  even though elite status was passed onto heirs,
  it could easily be lost and elites could return
  to the status of commoners, tending their own
  herds and following new leaders.

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The Mongols

• Meanwhile, commoners could win recognition and
  become elites by outstanding conduct,
  particularly through courageous behavior during
  war.
• Then, if they were clever diplomats, they could
  arrange alliances between clans and tribes and
  gain enough support to displace established
  leaders.

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The Mongols

• World historians focus attention on large-scale
  and long-term processes of change in explaining
  what happened in history, but to understand the
  rise of the Mongol Empire, most scholars are
  forced to look closely at the role of one
  individualTemujin (1162?-1227), later known as
  Chinggis (or Genghis) Khan.

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The Mongols

• The twelfth-century world he was born into saw
  the Mongols as an unstable and fractious
  collection of tribes and clans, much reduced from
  a somewhat earlier and more powerful position in
  the shifting nomadic alliances in what in now
  Mongolia.
• Everyone was feuding, declared a leading Mongol
  shaman. Rather than sleep, they robbed each
  other of their possessionsthere was no respite,
  only battle. There was no affection, only mutual
  slaughter.

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Chinggis Khan

• The early life of Temujin (Turkic temuriron and
  jinsmithblacksmith) showed few signs of a
  prominent future (this association with a strong
  metal would later be shared with Josef Stalin.)
• His father had been a minor chieftain of a noble
  clan, but he was murdered (poisoned) by a tribal
  rival before Temujin turned 10.
• The family was deserted by other members of their
  clan/tribe and they became social outcasts.

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Chinggis Khan

• Temujins small family, led by a resourceful
  mother, was forced to live by hunting, fishing,
  and gathering wild roots instead of the mares
  milk and mutton that was the staple diet of a
  Mongol warrior.
• Without their own livestock, his family had
  fallen to the lowest level of nomadic life.
• Several times a young Temujin eluded enemies
  wanting to eliminate him as a potential rival.

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Chinggis Khan

• In these desperate circumstances, Temujins
  remarkable character came into play.
• A rival once captured him as a teenager and
  imprisoned him in a wooden cage, but Temujin made
  a daring midnight escape and regained his
  freedom.
• As Temujin grew, his personal magnetism and
  courage became well known and caught the
  attention of a Khan (leader) of a tribe that had
  been loyal to and allied with his father.

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Chinggis Khan

• That Khan (Toghril) along with 20,000 warriors
  helped the young Temujin reunite other tribes
  that had been aligned with his father.
• Temujin mastered the art of steppe diplomacy,
  which called for displays of personal courage in
  battle, combined with intense loyalty to
  alliesas well as a willingness to betray allies
  or superiors to improve ones positionand the
  ability to entice unaffiliated tribes into
  cooperative relationships.

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Chinggis Khan

• His followers were men like himselfwarriors who
  lacked powerful connections because their clans
  had been defeated in battle.
• His raids against his tribal enemies annihilated
  his opponents, and his inclination to rely on
  trusted friends rather than ties of kinship
  allowed him to build up an extremely loyal
  following of officers chosen on the basis of
  their ability rather than their lineage.

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Chinggis Khan

• His tribal alliances also received a boost from
  Chinese patrons, who were always eager to keep
  the nomads divided.

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Chinggis Khan

• But his rise to power (and keeping it) amid the
  complex tribal politics of Mongolia was never a
  sure thing.

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Chinggis Khan

• What contributed to his growing power base were
  the constantly shifting alliances and betrayals,
  a mounting string of military victories, the
  indecisiveness of his enemies, a reputation as a
  leader generous to his friends and ruthless to
  his enemies, and the incorporation of warriors
  from defeated tribes into his own forces.

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Chinggis Khan

• In 1206, at the age of 44, a Mongol tribal
  assembly (a kuriltai) recognized Temujin as
  Chinggis Khan (universal ruler), supreme leader
  of a now unified Mongol nation.
• A remarkable achievement that wasnt noticed
  beyond the highland steppes of Mongolia.
• That would soon change.

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Chinggis Khan

• The unification of the Mongol tribes raised an
  obvious question What was Chinggis Khan to do
  with the large and powerful army he had
  assembled?
• Without a common task, the new (and fragile)
  unity of the Mongols would dissolve into quarrels
  and chaos and without external resources to
  reward his followers, he would be hard pressed to
  maintain his supreme position.

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Chinggis Khan

• Both issues pointed in a single
  directionexpansion, particularly towards China,
  long a source of great wealth for nomadic
  peoples.
• In 1209, the first major attack on the settled
  agricultural societies south of Mongolia set in
  motion a half century of a Mongol world war, a
  series of military campaigns, massive killing,
  and empire building without precedent in world
  history.

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Chinggis Khan

• Khan attacked various Turkish peoples living in
  Tibet, northern China, Persia, and the central
  Asian steppes.
• By 1215 the Mongols had captured the Jurchen
  capital (near modern Beijing), renaming it
  Khanbaliq (city of the khan) and this would be
  their capital in China.
• By 1220, the Mongols controlled northern China.

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Chinggis Khan

• The early campaigns established Chinggis typical
  methods agents were sent ahead to demoralize and
  divide the garrison and inhabitants of an enemy
  city massacres were regularly used populations
  could be slaughtered despite a prompt surrender.
• The Great Khan allowed no enemies to survive in
  his rear as he progressed onto the next campaign
  (even dogs were killed).

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Chinggis Khan

• His most famous credo was
  The greatest pleasure is to vanquish
  your enemies and chase them before you, to
  rob them of their wealth, and see those dear to
  them bathed in tears, to ride their horses
  and clasp to your bosom their wives and
  daughters.

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Chinggis Khan

• In the process, Chinggis, followed by his sons
  and grandsons (Ogedei, Batu, Mongke, and Kubilai)
  created an empire that contained China, Korea,
  Central Asia, Russia, much of the Islamic Middle
  East, and parts of Eastern Europe.

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Chinggis Khan

• A recent historian wrote In a flash, the Mongol
  warriors would defeat every army, capture every
  fort, and bring down the walls of every city they
  encountered. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and
  Hindus would soon kneel before the dusty boots of
  illiterate young Mongol horsemen.

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The Mongols

• Various setbacksthe Mongol withdrawal from
  Eastern Europe (1242), their defeat in Egypt
  (1260), the failure of their invasion of Japan
  (1274, 1281), and their difficulty penetrating
  the tropical jungles of South East Asiamarked
  the outer limits of the Mongol Empire.

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The Mongols

• How did a Mongol confederation, with a total
  population of less than 1 million people and few
  resources beyond their livestock, create an
  imperial structure of such staggering
  transcontinental dimensions?
• According to one historian, Mongol armies were
  simply better led, better organized, and more
  disciplined than those of their opponents.

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The Mongols

• Each fresh victory brought new resources for
  making war and new threats or insecurities that
  seemed to require further expansion.
• Like the Roman Empire, but far more rapidly, the
  Mongol empire grew of its own momentum without
  any grand scheme or blueprint for world conquest.

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The Mongols

• By the end of his life Chinggis Khan came to see
  his career in terms of a missionI have
  accomplished a great work, he declared, uniting
  the whole world in one empire...but it is not
  sufficient that I succeedall others must fail.
• Thus the Mongol Empire acquired an ideology in
  the course of its construction.
• But what made this great work possible?

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The Mongols

• The odds seemed overwhelming, for China alone
  outnumbered the Mongols more than 100 to 1 and
  possessed incomparably greater resources.
• Nor did the Mongols initially have any
  technological superiority over their many
  adversaries.
• The key to the Mongol success was in their army,
  which numbered between 100 125,000.

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The Mongols

• A quote from an Arab source They had the
  courage of lions, the patience of hounds, the
  prudence of cranes, the cunning of foxes, the
  long-sightedness of ravens, the wildness of
  wolves, the passion of fighting-cocks, the
  protectiveness of hens, the keenness of cats and
  the fury of wild boars.

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The Mongols

• It was also said that one of the defining
  features of Mongol warriors was their smell
• Amir Khuzru (Persian poet) Their eyes were so
  narrow and piercing that they might have bored a
  hole in a brazen vessel, and their stench was
  more horrible than their color. . Their chests,
  in color half-black and half-white were covered
  with lice, which looked like sesame growing on a
  bad soil. Their bodies, indeed, were covered with
  these insects

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The Mongols

• Like other nomadic peoples, Mongol forces relied
  on outstanding equestrian skills.
• It is said the Mongols learned how to ride even
  before they learned how to walk when they were
  2 years old.
• They honed their skills by hunting and playing
  competitive games on horseback.

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The Mongols

• Mongol horsemen were among the most mobile of all
  pre-modern armies, sometimes able to travel 100
  km (60 miles) a day to surprise an enemy.
• The Mongols also had physical advantages over
  their enemies

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The Mongols

• Because they lived on the high plains of
  Mongolia, their bodies would have more red blood
  cells to transport an equal amount of oxygen.
• When they moved to the lower levels of Asia and
  Europe, this meant that their endurance and
  strength would be increased this is the same
  trick track and field athletes use today when
  they have their training camps in high elevations
  like Mexico City or Denver for several months.

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The Mongols

• They were known for having incredible eyesight
  it was said that they could distinguish a man
  from an animal from 18 miles away.
• They had great visual memory a built-in map
  generator/GPS in their head.
• They often did not have maps on paper, but could
  remember a place and the way to it after riding
  there once.

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The Mongols

• This was an essential survival skill in the
  steppes, because in most areas, there were no
  roads.

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The Mongols

• Each warrior was equipped with a bow which gave
  tactical flexibility during an attack  the
  English at Crecy and Poitiers (100 Years War)
  also won through the use overwhelming firepower
  against a numerically superior enemy (the
  French).
• The Mongol bow 166lbs pull, 350 yards rangeThe
  English longbow 120lbs pull, 150-200 yards
  range.

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The Mongols

• Mongolian Bow and English Longbow

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The Mongols

• Mongol iron arrowheads

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The Mongols

• The Mongol army consisted of professional
  warriors no peasants, all warriors 10,000
  Mongols 10,000 fighters(European army 500
  knights and 9500 peasants).
• All warriors were on horses (cavalry).
• Average speed for the whole army 60 miles per
  day (4 to 5 times faster than any European army).
• Each warrior had four or more horses and rode
  them in turns.

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The Mongols

• The Mongols fought differently
• Retreat, other than in Europe and Japan, was not
  dishonorable but used as a tactical weapon.
• They did everything they had to, to win. Chivalry
  and courtesy on the battlefield did not exist for
  them.
• European knights and Japanese Samurai cherished
  the noble idea of individual combat against a
  worthy opponent.
• This was not the way Mongol warriors fought.

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The Mongols

• In an effort to reduce divisive tribalism,
  Chinggis Khan reorganized the entire military
  structure of the Mongols into units of 10, 100,
  1000, and 10,000 warriors.
• This created more efficient and effective command
  and control.
• Conquered tribes were broken up and their members
  scattered among these new units.

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The Mongols

• A highly prestigious imperial guard was also
  recruited across tribal lines. From the imperial
  guard the field commanders were drawn.
• How to chose a commander Chinggis Khan There
  is no man alive who is braver than Yessutai no
  march can tire him and he feels neither hunger
  nor thirst that is why he is unfit to command.
  
• Because a commander has to care about his men and
  protect the weakest of them, which Yessutai
  apparently did not care about, he was not
  promoted and remained in the ranks.

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The Mongols

• Promotion in the army was due to proven
  capability, not birthright.
• For example Toguchar, Chinggis Khans
  son-in-law, disobeyed orders and plundered
  villages when he was a general, so he was reduced
  to a simple soldier, where he remained until
  killed in action.

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The Mongols

• Discipline and loyalty to their leaders
  characterized Mongol military forces, and
  discipline was reinforced by the provision that
  should one or two warriors of a unit desert in
  battle, all were subject to the death penalty.
• Loyalty was cemented by their leaders
  willingness to share the hardships of their men.

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The Mongols

• I eat the same food and am dressed in the same
  rags as my humble herdsmen, wrote Chinggis Khan.
  I am always in the forefront, and in battle I
  am never at the rear.
• Such discipline and loyalty made possible the
  elaborate tactics of encirclement, retreat, and
  deception that proved decisive in many battles.

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The Mongols

• Whenever there was a great assembly (Kuriltai),
  the commanders discussed the military strategy
  for the next several years.
• Everything was thoroughly planned in great
  detail, from logistics to who would lead the
  different armies.
• The Mongols had the best intelligence and
  reconnaissance networks of spies and agents in
  the enemy's countries and cities reconnaissance
  forces surrounding the army no one ever
  surprised a Mongol army. 

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The Mongols

• The Mongols never attacked without a declaration
  of war
• Whoever obeys us remains in possession of his
  land, but whoever resists is destroyed. We send
  you this order, so if you wish to keep your land,
  you must come to us in person and thence go on to
  him who is master of all the earth. If you dont,
  we know not what will happen, only God knows.  

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The Mongols

• The Mongols understood the psychological
  dimensions of warfare and used them to great
  advantage.
• If an enemy surrendered without resistance, the
  Mongols usually spared their lives (and they
  especially valued artisans, craftsmen, and those
  with military skills).
• Resistance however, was met with annihilation as
  they slaughtered those who tried to stand against
  them.

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The Mongols
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The Mongols

• One of the many legends surrounding Chinggis Khan
  was that one Persian ruler offered his submission
  in a unique way he gave the Khan a pair of
  socks, which had his portrait painted on the
  soles, so that his master might walk on his face.
  

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The Mongols

• They did almost everything differently than their
  enemies
• For example, in Europe and Persia, the
  campaigning season was summer, after the spring
  planting and before the harvest in autumn.
• The Mongols had no fields to plow they carried
  their food with them (cattle, horses, goats)
  their campaigning season was winter.

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The Mongols

• For the Mongols, frozen soil was the best ground
  for fast movement on horseback.
• Rivers were frozen and not an obstacle anymore
  (they fought some battles on frozen
  rivers/lakes).
• They were used to harsh winters in Mongolia, so
  they were accustomed to, and prepared for those
  conditions.

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The Mongols

• Communications on the battlefield were done with
  black and white flags which ensured tactical
  control over the army at all times.

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The Mongols

• Communications in that form did not exist in
  European armies everybody fought for himself,
  and most of the time, there wasnt even a battle
  plan.
• Mongol Battlefield Tactics
• Light cavalry stormed forward and showered the
  enemy with arrows to harass and disorganize them.
• Followed by two rows of heavy cavalry in armor
  with lances and swords.

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The Mongols
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The Mongols

• They often used pincher maneuvers.
• There was always an escape given to a surrounded
  enemy that led to routing, as those escaping
  were cut down quite easily because there was no
  unit cohesion anymore.
• The Mongols were known to pursue their enemy for
  days, stretching dozens, even hundreds of miles.

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The Mongols

• Dummies, women and slaves were put on the spare
  horses, so that the strength of the Mongol army
  would appear larger.
• Their favorite tactic was the fake retreat After
  this tactic became known to their enemies, they
  just retreated longer, sometimes for days.
• At the Battle of Kalka River they retreated for 9
  days until the Russians were spread out so far,
  they could be cut down one by one very easily.

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The Mongols

• But they were not perfect
• The only defeat in the European/Middle Eastern
  region came in 1260 at Ain Jalut in Palestine, at
  the exact same site David had defeated Goliath
  thousands of years before.
• They were beaten by a Mamluk army from Egypt. The
  Mamluks (means literally slave) were slaves
  from Turkic tribes, sold to Egypt by the Mongols
  after they had been defeated in 1238.Mamluks
  120,000 menMongols 25,000 men

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The Mongols

• They used terror and cruelty as weapons,
  sometimes winning battles and sieges by
  reputation alone.
• The poor were promised liberation by the Mongols.
• The rich were promised greater riches and
  privileges.
• Rumors were spread about deals that single
  leaders made with the Mongols to drive alliances
  apart.

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The Mongols

• The Mongols were not initially good at siege
  warfare until they captured Chinese engineers,
  who taught them how to do it (some 1,000 Chinese
  artillery crews took part in the Mongol invasion
  of Persia).

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The Mongols

• The siege weapons they most often used were the
  mangonel and the trebuchet (which could catapult
  huge rocks), giant crossbows mounted on stands,
  gunpowder propelled arrows and rockets.

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The Mongols

• The Mongols then became masters of siege warfare
  with the average time to take a city about a
  week.

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The Mongols

• They used captives from already conquered cities
  to fill moats, build ramparts and operate siege
  machines how many of them would get killed was
  of little importance, they were conquered and
  enslaved people who had been lucky to not be
  slaughtered right away when the Mongols took
  their city.

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The Mongols

• They would surround the besieged city with a
  wooden palisade, which gave them protection
  against the missiles from the city and against a
  possible relieving army from the rear.
• The palisade also prevented messengers from
  leaving the city and new provisions from being
  brought in.

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The Mongols

• Rumors about the vast numbers of the Mongol army
  were spread to instill fear.
• They put whistles on their arrows to terrorize
  their enemy, especially the horses.

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The Mongols

• They often used poison-tipped arrows (often with
  snake venom), which killed quickly and painfully.
• In 1209 Chinggis Khan besieged a fortress in
  China. He built a dyke to flood the fortress, but
  his engineers flooded his own camp instead. The
  fortress surrendered anyway, because they figured
  that eventually the Mongols would get it right
  and by then they would be very, very angry

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The Mongols

• It apparently was not originally the intention of
  the Mongol Empire to invade the Central Asian
  kingdom of Khwarizm (eastern Iran).
• According to a Persian historian, Chinggis Khan
  had originally sent the ruler of the Khwarezmid
  Empire a message seeking trade and greeted him as
  his neighbor  "I am master of the lands of the
  rising sun while you rule those of the setting
  sun. Let us conclude a firm treaty of friendship
  and peace."

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The Mongols

• The Khwariz king reluctantly agreed but the
  treaty lasted only a year.
• The Great Khan was highly offended by the killing
  and mutilating of Mongol envoys and merchants at
  the city of Otrar (along the Silk Road in
  Kazakhstan).
• Chinggis Khan responded by utterly destroying
  virtually every city in Khwarizm, and their
  soldiers were passed out in lots to Mongol troops
  for execution, while women and skilled craftsmen
  were enslaved.

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The Mongols

• Unskilled civilians were used as human shields
  for attacks on the next city or were used as
  human fill in the moats surrounding those cities.
• In 1220, after the siege of Bukhara (Uzbekistan),
  they poured molten gold down the throat of the
  Governor.
• Apparently he had killed Mongol merchants for
  their money, (under the pretext of spying).
• The Mongols apparently thought, if he wants our
  gold, he shall have it...

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The Mongols

• During the siege of Bukhara, legend has it that
  Chinggis Khan announced inside the mosque, "I am
  the punishment of God. If you had not committed
  great sins, he would not have sent a punishment
  like me."

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The Mongols

• In 1221 at the city of Merv (Persia), they
  slaughtered an estimated 700,000 people. Only the
  useful, like engineers, doctors, artisans, were
  spared and enslaved. Not even dogs were left
  alive.
• The reason revenge for the death of Toguchar, a
  son-in-law of Chinggis Khan, who was killed
  during the siege.

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The Mongols

• After the Battle of Kalka River in 1223 against
  the Russian principalities, they promised to let
  the Kiev detachment go for a ransom.
• The men from Kiev agreed, but were captured
  instead. Most were slaughtered, the rest
  enslaved.
• This was revenge for the killing of the Mongol
  ambassador in Kiev.

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The Mongols

• In 1237, the city of Ryazan (Russia) was
  conquered after a siege of five days.

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The Mongols

• Before the citizens were slaughtered (by impaling
  and flaying), they were forced to watch how the
  Mongols raped all young women, including nuns.
• The Mongols assessed the extent of their
  victories by cutting off an ear from each dead
  enemy. After the battle of Liegnitz, Poland in
  1241, they collected nine large sacks of ears and
  sent them back to the great Khan as proof of the
  victory.

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The Mongols

• In 1258 they conquered Baghdad (the Abbasids).
• They locked up the Caliph in a tower with all his
  gold and silver to punish him, because he had
  refused to spend his personal wealth on the
  defense of the city.
• That insulted the professionalism of the Mongol
  commanders, who never would have held back
  anything to achieve victory.

90
The Mongols

• The destruction of Baghdad by Hulegu in 1258.

91
The Mongols

• Baghdad was looted for seven days during which
  the Caliph starved to death amongst his riches.
• They then slaughtered about 800,000 people in
  Baghdad.
• After that, Damascus surrendered immediately when
  the first Mongol patrol was in sight of the city.
  

92
The Mongols

• In Russia and in Europe the Mongols were known as
  the Tatars or Tartars which comes from the
  Latin Tartarus Hell.
• At first they were seen as heavenly punishment
  for the sins of the people. 
• Then they just became known as demons from
  Hell.

93
The Mongols

• In 1239, the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II,
  received a message from Khan Batu in which he
  demanded the surrender of the Holy Roman Empire
  and offered Frederick a position in the Mongol
  hierarchy.
• Frederick II responded by attacking the Pope
  because it was rumored that the Pope actually
  encouraged the Mongols to attack his enemy,
  Frederick II.

94
The Mongols

• In 1241, when the Mongols invaded Hungary, the
  Hungarian nobility would only fight if the King
  rewarded them with greater powers and more
  privileges.
• They finally agreed to ride with the King to meet
  the Mongols, but their quarreling and bickering
  went on.
• The resultthe Battle of Mohi ended with 65,000
  Hungarians dead.

95
The Mongols

• On the same day as the Battle of Mohi in Hungary,
  the Battle of Liegnitz (Poland) was fought
  25,000 Polish troops, Teutonic Knights and
  Knights Templar were killed by the Mongols.

96
The Mongols

• When the Mongols marched towards Cracow in
  Poland, a trumpeter sounded the alarm from the
  highest tower in the city and continued through
  the storming of the city, until a Mongol arrow
  struck him down.
• To this day, every 24th of March, a trumpeter
  from the Cracow fire department sounds the alarm
  call from the cathedral tower he ends it
  abruptly at the exact time, when the original
  trumpeter was struck down by that Mongol arrow.

97
The Mongols

• Yet the two strongest powers in Europe, The Holy
  Roman Emperor (Frederick II) and the Pope
  continued their war against each other despite of
  the invasion of Hungary, the battle of Liegnitz
  (Poland) and the threat to Western Europe.
• The way to the heart of Western Europe was wide
  open, and nobody was there to stop the Mongol
  onslaught.

98
The Mongols

• Europe was saved, not by its knights, but only by
  the death of the Great Khan Ogodei (Chinggis
  son) in 1242.
• As per tradition, all Mongol commanders were
  called back to the Mongol capital of Karakorum to
  elect a new Khan and they took their armies with
  them. 

99
The Mongols

• Several modern scholars believe they can explain
  Mongol savagery
• Extremely conscious of their small numbers and
  fearful of rebellion, Chinggis often chose to
  annihilate a regions entire population if it
  appeared too troublesome to govern.

100
The Mongols

• But not everything the Mongols did was brutal or
  savage (and some historians argue that they were
  no more brutal than several other conquerors in
  history).
• For example, writing became an important tool for
  Chinggis Khan's empire.
• The Mongols were illiterate until Chinggis Khan's
  reign, when he commanded a Naiman captive (part
  of todays Kazakhstan) to explain their written
  language to him.

101
The Mongols

• A Mongol writing stone

102
The Mongols

• A Mongol script (from the Naiman script that was
  based on the Uighur (wei-ger) language) was
  created.
• With a newly established writing system, the
  Mongols were able to record a set of laws, the
  Yasa, that Chinggis Khan had declared.

103
The Mongols

• The Yasa recorded the Mongol's cultural beliefs,
  rules of conduct, and a system of punishment,
  laying the foundation for Chinggis Khan's empire.
  
• A court was then established to enforce the Yasa
  fairly.

104
The Mongols

• By law, the following were forbidden
• To cut the throat of an animal killed for food
  (like the Muslims) instead, the belly
  should be slit open and the
• heart pulled out.
• Urinating in running water or ashes (death
  penalty)
• Washing in running water
• Adultery, whether married or not (death penalty)
• Cattle theft (death penalty)
• As a merchant, bankruptcy for the third time
  (death)
• Desertion (death penalty)
• Theft (death penalty)

105
The Mongols

• A man who chokes on food must be driven out of
  the camp and immediately killed.
• Hunters who let an animal escape during a
  community hunt were ordered to be beaten with
  sticks and in some cases to be put to death.
• Death to anyone who intentionally lies, or
  practices sorcery, or spies upon the behavior of
  others, or intervenes between the two parties in
  a quarrel to help the one against the other.

106
The Mongols

• Death to anyone who finds a runaway slave or
  captive and does not return him to the person to
  whom he belongs.
• Chinggis forbade anyone to wash their clothes
  until they were completely worn out.
• He ordered them to present all their daughters to
  the Khan at the beginning of each year that he
  might choose some of them for himself and his
  children.

107
The Mongols

• Scribes in Karakorum translated official decrees
  into the various languages of the empire, such as
  Persian, Uighur, Chinese, and Tibetian.
• Chinggis Khan also established a messenger
  system, a medieval pony express, known as the
  yam.

108
The Mongols

• Outposts were established about a days ride
  apart from each other where horses and riders
  waited to relay messages through the empire,
  greatly speeding up communications.
• Not only were there rapid communications within
  the empire, these outposts fostered trade because
  merchants could follow these postal roads in
  safety.

109
The Mongols

• The Silk Roadsthat off and on for centuries
  linked Europe, Africa, and the Far East in trade
  and cultural exchangehad been under the control
  of various local powers, became unsafe during
  times of conflict, and therefore, fell out of
  use.
• Under Mongol protection, the Silk Roads
  flourished, and during the Pax Mongolica under
  Chinggis Khan's successors, people commonly
  traveled the full length of the Silk Roads,
  greatly increasing cultural exchange.

110
The Mongols

• In this atmosphere, Europeans like Marco Polo
  traveled to the East and returned with tales of
  the Mongol empire.
• Polo claimed the Mongols maintained 10,000
  outposts along with 200,000 horses available to
  authorized users.
• Interested in commerce, Mongol rulers often
  offered 10 or more above a merchants asking
  price and allowed them free use of the relay
  stations for transporting their goods.

111
The Mongols

• Unfortunately, the Silk Roads also allowed
  diseases to spread.
• The bubonic plague traveled from somewhere in the
  Himalayas to Yunnan and Burma eastward to China
  and westward to Europe along the roads and sea
  lanes of the Mongol empire.

112
The Mongols

• Cities were ideal hosts for rats, and outbreaks
  of the plague occurred from time to time.
• However, the massive outbreak of the bubonic
  plague in Europe was indirectly caused by the
  deliberate actions of a Mongol military maneuver
  (and the first known account of biological
  warfare).

113
The Mongols

• Under Janibeg Khan, the last Khan of the Golden
  Horde, the Mongols were fighting against the city
  of Caffa, located on the Black Sea in Crimea,
  when they witnessed an outbreak of the plague.
• Just before fleeing the disease, the Mongol
  commander catapulted plague-ridden corpses over
  the walls of the city.
• The disease was carried to European ports by boat
  and eventually became the Black Death that
  decimated medieval Europe.

114
The Mongols
115
The Mongols

• In administering conquered regions, Mongols held
  the highest decision-making posts, but Chinese
  and Muslim officials held many advisory and
  lower-level positions in China and Persia.
• In religious matters, the Mongols welcomed and
  supported many religious traditionsBuddhist,
  Christian, Muslim, Daoistas long as they didnt
  become the focus of political opposition.

116
The Mongols

• Their policy of religious toleration allowed
  Muslims to seek converts among Mongol troops and
  gave Christians much more freedom than they
  enjoyed under Muslim rule.
• One of Chinggis grandsons (Mongke) arranged a
  debate among representatives of several faiths
  and concluded Just as God gave us different
  fingers to the hand, so has He given different
  ways to men.

117
The Mongols

• The Mongol moment in world history represented an
  enormous cultural encounter between nomadic
  pastoralists and the settled civilizations of
  Eurasia.
• Differences among these civilizationsConfucian
  China, Muslim Persia, Christian Russiaensured
  considerable diversity as this encounter unfolded
  across thousands of miles.

118
The Mongols

• China Long the primary target of nomadic
  steppe-dwelling peoples looking for agrarian
  wealth, China proved the most difficult and
  extended of the Mongols many conquests, lasting
  nearly 70 years (1209-1279).
• The invasion began in northern China, which had
  been ruled for several centuries by various
  dynasties of nomadic origin, and was
  characterized by massive destruction and plunder.

119
The Mongols

• Southern China, under control of the native Song
  dynasty was different, for the Mongols were far
  less violent and more concerned with
  accommodating the local population.
• Landowners were guaranteed their estates in
  exchange for their support or at least their
  neutrality.

120
The Mongols

• By whatever methods, the outcome was the
  unification of a divided China, a treasured ideal
  among the educated Chinese.
• The achievement persuaded many of them that the
  Mongols had indeed been granted the Mandate of
  Heaven, and despite their foreign origins, they
  were legitimate rulers.

121
The Mongols

• Having acquired China, one consideration of the
  Great Khan Ogodei (in the 1230s) was to
  exterminate everyone in northern China and turn
  the country into pastureland for Mongol herds.

122
The Mongols

• That suggestion was rejected in favor of
  extracting as much wealth as possible from the
  countrys culturally advanced civilization.
• This meant accommodating and absorbing some
  Chinese culture and ways of governing since the
  Mongols had no experience with the operation of a
  complex agrarian society.

123
The Mongols

• That accommodation took on many forms the
  Mongols made use of Chinese administrative
  practices, techniques of taxation, and their
  postal system.
• They gave themselves a Chinese dynastic title,
  the Yuan, meaning Great beginnings.
• They transferred their capital from Karakorum
  (Mongolia) to what is now Beijing, building a
  wholly new capital city known as Khanbalik (the
  city of the Khan).

124
The Mongols

• The Mongols had rooted themselves solidly on the
  soil of the worlds most sophisticated
  civilization, well removed from their homeland on
  the steppes.
• Khubilai Khan, a grandson of Ghinggis and Chinas
  Mongol ruler from 1271-1294, even ordered a set
  of Chinese-style ancestral tablets to honor his
  ancestors and posthumously gave them Chinese
  names.

125
The Mongols

• Many of Khubilais policies evoked the values of
  a benevolent Chinese emperor as he improved
  roads, built canals, lowered some taxes,
  patronized scholars and artists, limited the
  death penalty and torture, and prohibited Mongols
  from grazing their animals on peasants farmland.

126
The Mongols

• When Marco Polo arrived in China in 1275, the
  splendor and wealth of the country overwhelmed
  him.

127
The Mongols

• He described Khubilai Khan as the mightiest man,
  whether in respect of subjects or of territory or
  of treasure, who is in the world today or who
  ever has been, from Adam our first parent down to
  the present moment.

128
The Mongols

• The Mongols used traditional Confucian rituals,
  supported the building of some Daoist temples,
  and were attracted to the Tibetan form of
  Buddhism, all of which gave them increased
  political support.
• Despite these accommodations, Mongol rule was
  still harsh, exploitative, and foreign.

129
The Mongols

• Marco Polo observed the hostility between the
  Mongols and their Chinese subjects
• The Cathayans (Chinese) detest the Grand Khans
  rule because he set over them governors who were
  Tartars (Mongols), or still more frequently
  Saracens (Muslims), and these they would not
  endure, for they were treated by them just like
  slaves.

130
The Mongols

• The Mongols did not become Chinese, nor did they
  accommodate every aspect of Chinese culture.
• Deep inside their capital they established the
  Forbidden-City, where the royal family and court
  could continue to experience something of steppe
  life.
• Animals roamed freely in large open areas,
  planted with steppe grass.

131
The Mongols

• Many of the Mongol elite preferred to live, eat,
  sleep, and give birth in their traditional felt
  tents (gers/yurts) which sprung up everywhere.

132
The Mongols

• In administering the country, the Mongols largely
  ignored the traditional Chinese examination
  system and relied heavily on foreigners,
  particularly Muslims from Central Asia and the
  Middle East.
• Few Mongols learned Chinese, and Mongol law
  discriminated against the Chinese, reserving for
  them the most severe punishments.

133
The Mongols

• In social life, Mongol law forbade intermarriage
  and prohibited Chinese scholars from learning the
  Mongol script.
• Mongol women never adopted footbinding and
  scandalized the Chinese by mixing freely with men
  at official gatherings and riding to the hunt
  with their husbands.
• Plus, the Mongols honored and supported merchants
  and artisans far more than Confucian bureaucrats
  had been inclined to do.

134
The Mongols

• However you look at Mongol rule in China (as the
  Yuan dynasty), it was brief, lasting little more
  than a century.
• By the mid-fourteenth century, intense
  factionalism among the Mongols, rapidly rising
  prices, epidemics of the plague, and growing
  peasant rebellions combined to force the Mongols
  out of China.

135
The Mongols

• By 1368, rebel forces had triumphed, and
  thousands of Mongols returned to their homeland
  in the steppes.
• For several centuries thereafter, they remained a
  periodic threat to China, but during the Ming
  dynasty that followed, the memory of their often
  brutal and alien rule stimulated a renewed
  commitment to Confucian values and practices and
  an effort to wipe out all traces of the Mongols
  impact.

136
The Mongols

• Persia The second great civilization conquered
  by the Mongols was that of an Islamic Persia.
• There the Mongol takeover was far more abrupt
  than the extended process of conquest in China.
• The first invasion (1219-1221) was led by
  Chinggis Khan himself, followed thirty years
  later by a second assault (1251-1258) led by his
  grandson Hulegu (brother of Khubilai).

137
The Mongols

• Hulegu became the first il-khan (subordinate
  khan) of Persia.

138
The Mongols

• More destructive than the conquest of Song
  dynasty China, the Mongol offensive against
  Persia and Iraq had no precedent in its history,
  even though Persia had been repeatedly attacked,
  from the invasions of Alexander the Great to that
  of the Arabs.
• The most recent incursion was from Turkic
  peoples, but they had been Muslims (recently
  converted), small in number, and only wanting
  acceptance within the Islamic world.

139
The Mongols

• The Mongols were infidels in Muslim eyes, and
  their stunning victories were a profound shock to
  people accustomed to seeing history as the
  progressive expansion of Islamic rule.
• Mongol victories brought ferocity and slaughter
  that simply had no parallel in the Persian
  experience.

140
The Mongols

• The sacking of Baghdad in 1258, which put an end
  to the Abbasid caliphate, was accompanied by the
  massacre of more than 200,000 people, according
  to Hulegu himself.

141
The Mongols

• Beyond this human catastrophe was the damage to
  Persian and Iraqi agriculture and their peasant
  farmers.
• Heavy taxes, sometimes collected 20-30 times a
  year and often under torture or whipping, pushed
  large numbers of peasants off their land.
• The nomadic Mongols, with their immense herds of
  sheep and goats, turned much agricultural land
  into pasture and sometimes into desert.

142
The Mongols

• Some sectors of the Persian economy fared pretty
  wellwine production increased because the
  Mongols were fond of alcohol, and the Persian
  silk industry benefited from close contact with a
  Mongol-ruled China.
• But generally, Mongol rule in Persia represented
  disaster on a grand and unparalleled scale.

143
The Mongols

• The Mongols in Persia were themselves transformed
  far more than their counterparts in China.
• They made extensive use of the sophisticated
  Persian bureaucracy, leaving the greater part of
  government operations in Persian hands.
• During the reign of Ghazan (1295-1304), the
  Mongols made efforts to repair the damage caused
  by earlier policies of ruthless exploitation.

144
The Mongols

• Ghazan had cities rebuilt and agricultural areas
  restored.
• More importantly, many Mongols followed Ghazans
  lead (in 1295) and converted to Islam.

145
The Mongols

• No such widespread conversion to the culture of
  the conquered happened in China or in Christian
  Russia.
• Members of the court and Mongol elites learned at
  least some Persian, unlike most of their
  counterparts in China.
• A number of Mongols also became farmers,
  abandoning their nomadic ways, and marrying local
  women.

146
The Mongols

• When the Mongol dynasty of Hulegus descendents
  collapsed in the 1330s for lack of a suitable
  heir, the Mongols were not driven out of Persia,
  as they would be in China.
• Rather they simply disappeared, through
  assimilation into Persian society.
• From the Persian point of view, the barbarians
  had been civilized.

147
The Mongols

• Russia When the Mongol military machine rolled
  over Russia between 1223 and 1240, it encountered
  a relatively new civilization located on the far
  eastern fringe of Christendom.
• Whatever political unity the Kievan Rus had
  enjoyed was now gone, and various independent
  princes were unable to unite even in the face of
  the Mongol onslaught.

148
The Mongols

• Even though the Kievan Rus had interacted
  extensively with nomadic people of the steppes
  north of the Black Sea, nothing had prepared them
  for the Mongols.
• The devastation wrought by the Mongol assault
  matched or exceeded anything experienced by the
  Persians or the Chinese.

149
The Mongols

• City after city fell to Mongol forces, which were
  now armed with catapults and battering rams
  adopted from Chinese or Muslim sources.

150
The Mongols

• The slaughter was described by Russian
  chroniclers, They likewise killed the Prince and
  Princess, and men, and women, and children,
  monks, nuns, and priests, some by fire, some by
  the sword, and violated nuns, priests wives,
  good women and girls in the presence of their
  mothers and sisters.
• Kiev was so thoroughly destroyed that the
  countryside for miles around was littered with
  human bones.

151
The Mongols

• From the survivors and the cities that
  surrendered early, skilled craftsmen were
  deported to other Mongol lands or sold into
  slavery.
• Several Russian crafts were so depleted of their
  workers/artisans that it took centuries before
  they recovered.

152
The Mongols

• Even though the ferocity of initial conquest was
  similar to that of Persia or China, Russias
  incorporation into the Mongol Empire was very
  different.
• To the Mongols, it was the Kipchak Khanate, named
  after the Kipchak Turkic-speaking people north of
  the Black and Caspian seas, among whom the
  Mongols had settled.

153
The Mongols

• To the Russians, it was the Khanate of the
  Golden Horde.
• Golden because yellow was the imperial color of
  the khan and his clan.
• The name is believed to come from an ancient
  Chinese system that assigned colors to the points
  of the compass black was north, red was south,
  blue was east, white was west. Yellow,
  representing the center, became the imperial
  color.
• Horde comes from the Mongolian word ordu,
  meaning camp.

154
The Mongols

• The Mongols conquered Russia, but they didnt
  occupy it as they had in China or Persia.
• Since the Mongols didnt set up any garrisoned
  cities or permanently stationed administrators or
  Mongol settlements, the Russian experience with
  Mongol rule was quite different.

155
The Mongols

• From the Mongol point of view, Russia had little
  to offer.
• Its society and economy were not nearly as
  developed as Chinas or Persias and it wasnt
  located on any major international trade routes.
• It simply wasnt worth the expense of occupying
  since they could easily dominate and exploit
  Russia from the steppes.

156
The Mongols

• And the Mongols certainly exploited the Russians.
• Russian princes (appointed by the khan) had to
  send substantial amounts of tribute to the Mongol
  capital at Sarai (located on the lower Volga
  River).

157
The Mongols

• Mongol taxes were a heavy burden and occasional
  border raids sent thousands of Russian peasants
  into slavery.
• But the Mongol impact was very unevensome
  Russian princes benefited considerably under the
  Mongols because they could manipulate their role
  as tax collectors to grow wealthy.

158
The Mongols

• The Russian Orthodox Church also flourished under
  the Mongol policy of religious toleration, and it
  was exempted from most taxes.
• Nobles who participated in Mongol raids got a
  share of the loot.
• Some cities, like Kiev, resisted the Mongols and
  were devastated while others collaborated and
  were left undamaged.

159
The Mongols

• Moscow in particular emerged as the primary
  collector of tribute for the Mongols, and its
  princes parlayed that position into a leading
  role as the nucleus of a renewed Russian state
  when Mongol domination receded in the fifteenth
  century.

160
The Mongols

• Since the Mongols didnt practice direct rule,
  they were less influenced by or assimilated into
  Russian culture than their counterparts in China
  or Persia.
• The Mongols in China turned themselves into a
  Chinese dynasty, with the khan as a Chinese
  emperor.
• Some learned calligraphy, and a few came to
  appreciate Chinese poetry.

161
The Mongols

• In Persia, the Mongols had converted to Islam,
  with many settling down as farmers.
• Not so in Russia where the Mongols of the Golden
  Horde were still spending their days in the
  saddle and their nights in tents.
• Even though they remained culturally separate
  from Russia, eventually the Mongols assimilated
  to the culture and Islamic faith of the Kipchak
  people of the steppes, and in the process, lost
  their identity and became Kipchaks.

162
The Mongols

• Despite their domination from a distance, many
  historians believe their impact was greater on
  Russia than on China or Persia.
• Russian princes, who were more or less left alone
  if they paid their tribute, adopted Mongol styles
  of clothing, weaponry, diplomatic rituals, court
  practices, taxation system, and military
  conscription.

163
The Mongols

• Several Russian historians, trying to explain
  their countrys economic backwardness and
  political autocracy in modern times, have held
  the Mongols responsible for both conditionsbut
  most Western historians believe this to be an
  oversimplification and exaggeration of reality.

164
The Mongols

• Divisions among the Mongols and the growing
  strength of some Russian noble families (centered
  in Moscow) enabled the Russians to break the
  Mongols hold by the end of the fifteenth century
  (by 1480 under Ivan the Great).
• With the earlier demise of Mongol rule in China
  and Persia, and now Russia, the Mongols retreated
  from their brief, but spectacular incursion into
  the civilization of outer Eurasia.

165
The Mongols

• Nonetheless, they continued to periodically
  threaten these civilizations for several
  centuries, until their homelands were absorbed
  into the expanding Russian and Chinese empires.
• The Mongol moment in world history was over.