Mongol Empire

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During the thirteenth century, the Mongols created a vast empire that covered Central Asia, China, and much of the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Their armies threatened Japan, Southeast Asia, and Central Europe. Mongol military strength was based on the extraordinary mobility of their horsemen, tight military discipline, excellent communications, and the ruthlessness and superior leadership of Genghis Khan and others. Under the Mongols, much of Eurasia was united under a single government that encouraged trade and communications to an unprecedented degree. The Mongol empire, however, was relatively short-lived. In the 1260s, the realm split into four subempires in China, Central Asia, Russia, and Persia.

The emergence of the Mongols as a great power stemmed initially from the rise of Temujin (c. 1162–1227) as a war leader. Temujin's charismatic personality and his reputation for treating his followers justly enabled him to create an army that first established his dominance among the Mongols then won him victory after victory over neighboring tribes, notably the Keraits and the Naimans. By 1206, his dominance over the Inner Asian nomadic tribes was complete and he took the title Genghis ("Ocean" or "Universal") Khan.

Genghis Khan then demanded tribute from settled kingdoms to the south and west, and he sent armies to subdue those rulers who refused to submit. Mongol troops attacked the states of Jin and Xi Xia in what is now China, capturing Khanbalig (now Beijing) in 1215. The Uighur state of Kara Kitai fell in 1218. In that year, the ruler of Khorezm refused to punish a local governor who had executed all the members of a Mongol diplomatic delegation on suspicion of espionage. Mongols armies attacked Khorezm in 1219 and took a terrible revenge for the diplomatic incident, systematically destroying the kingdom's cities and massacring their inhabitants. The campaign reached as far as northern India and southern Russia and concluded only in 1222.

Genghis Khan's military success rested partly on the traditional skills of the Mongols in horsemanship and archery, but the Mongol armies were consistently innovative, developing new techniques to cope with siege warfare and warfare in mountainous or swampy country. Mongol generals were willing to recruit troops from among subject peoples, especially the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, and to learn new techniques from their enemies. Rapid communications across long distances enabled Mongol armies to coordinate their movements, while a system of whistling arrows facilitated communications during the turmoil of battle. Genghis Khan also paid great attention to cultivating the loyalty of his followers. He was generous in recognizing and rewarding those who supported him capably, and he promoted his followers largely according to their loyalty and ability. On the other hand, he was ruthless in suppressing disloyalty. After the subject king of Xi Xia refused to join the campaign against Khorezm, Genghis Khan launched a campaign against his kingdom that resulted in Xi Xia's complete destruction.

The existence of a single empire, administered from Karakorum in northern Mongolia and stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Black Sea, facilitated trade between East Asia and the West enormously and contributed to prosperity well beyond the Mongol territories. With trade, too, came the easier movement of religious ideas and culture. In contrast with many other empires, the Mongol empire tolerated all religious beliefs and practices.

When Genghis Khan died in 1227, his empire was divided between his four sons. The eldest son, Jochi (1180–1227), received the lands far to the west in Russia while Ogodei (1186–1241) and Chagatai (d. 1241) obtained the lands in Persia and Central Asia. In Mongolian tradition, the youngest son should be the "keeper of the hearth" and inherit his father's home, so Genghis Khan's youngest, Tolui (1190–1232), received Mongolia proper and the Mongol realm in northern China. In 1229, Ogodei was elected Great Khan to replace Genghis Khan. The military campaigns of expansion continued.

In 1229, Mongol armies attacked the Persians and Cumans (Kipchaks) in the west and began a campaign of expansion that spread first to Georgia and Armenia and then to Russia. Moscow fell in 1238 and Kiev in 1240. In April 1241, the divided Mongol army defeated both the combined forces of the German and Polish aristocracy at Liegnitz and the Hungarian army at Mohi. The lumbering European knights in their heavy armor proved to be no match for the mobile, lightly armed Mongol forces. The invaders seemed likely to sweep through Europe, but Ogodei's death in 1241 obliged the Mongol armies to return home to take part in the election of a new Great Khan.

Meanwhile Tolui had destroyed the northern Chinese state of Jin in a campaign from 1230 to 1234. His successors attacked the Southern Song empire in 1237, beginning a protracted military campaign that ended only in 1279. In order to encircle the Song forces, Mongol armies captured the Southeast Asian kingdom known now as Nanzhao in modern Yunnan in 1253 and invaded Vietnam in 1257.

The campaign against the Song was led by Khubilai Khan (1215–1294), a grandson of Genghis Khan who declared himself Great Khan in 1260 and set up a new capital at Shangdu (Xanadu) in today's Inner Mongolia. Khubilai's claim to be Great Khan was not accepted by other Mongol leaders, however, and from 1260, the four subempires established on the death of Genghis Khan effectively became independent of each other. The Il-khans in Persia did continue to acknowledge Khubilai Khan as great khan, and this is the origin of their name: Il meaning "lesser" or "subordinate." Khubilai Khan later moved his capital from Shangdu and to Khanbalig, and he made increasing use of Chinese officials and administrative structures in ruling China. In 1271, he adopted the Chinese name Yuan for his dynasty. Khubilai also sent armies by sea to conquer Japan (1274, 1281), Champa (1281), and Java (1292), but all these expeditions failed because of difficult climatic conditions and effective local resistance.

Far to the west in Russia, the descendents of Jochi controlled an area stretching from Lake Balkhash and the Aral Sea to the lower reaches of the Volga River, and collected tribute from the petty Russian states further north. The wealth of their capital on the Volga, Sarai, led them to be called the "Golden Horde." During the second half of the thirteenth century, most of these Mongols converted to Islam. Their power fragmented and declined during the fourteen century with the rise of Christian Muscovy and Lithuania, and their influence in Russia ended in 1480. The last major khanates, Kazan, east of Moscow, and Astrakhan, in southeast Russia near the Caspian Sea, fell to Ivan IV in 1552 and 1556.

The Mongol presence in the Middle East was more unstable. In 1258, Mongol armies under the Il-Khan Hulegu, an elder brother of Khubilai, captured Baghdad, the political center of the Muslim world, but they were decisively defeated by Muslim Mamluk forces from Egypt at Ayn Jalut in Palestine in 1260. From its base on the Iranian plateau, the Il-khanate became deeply involved in the complex religious politics of the Middle East, generally siding with local Christian states against the Muslims and even fighting the Muslim Golden Horde. The Il-Khan Mahmud Ghazan (1271–1304) converted to Islam in the late thirteenth century and named himself sultan, but the Il-khanate collapsed in the middle of the fourteenth century.

The khanate of Chagatai in Central Asia prospered initially, but the great trading cities of the south, Samarqand and Bukhara, grew more independent. Samarqand revolted in 1356 and became the capital of Timur (Tamerlane) in the fourteenth century. Mongol rulers of Chagatai khanate were increasingly displaced by a Turkic military elite. By the second half of the fourteenth century, the Chagatai khanate had disintegrated into several rival states.

Although the Mongol conquests were enormously destructive, Mongol rule was generally benevolent, supporting trade, efficient administration, and freedom of religion. The empire fragmented because of rivalry between the descendents of Genghis Khan and then declined as Mongol rulers absorbed the local cultures they had conquered. Even in the twenty-first century, memories of the Mongol conquests influenced Russian and Chinese perceptions of national security and provided the main imagery for Mongol national identity.

Christian, David. (1998) A History of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia. Vol. 1. Oxford: Blackwell.

Grousset, Rene. (1970) The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Soucek, Svat. (2000) A History of Inner Asia. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.