History 210:

1

• History 210
• The late, great Mongol Empire origins, spread,
  and progeny

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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

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Mongol Conquests (1206-1258)

• Temujin (TEH-moo-jeen)
• Declared himself Genghis Khan (b. 1162 r.
  1206-1227)
• Really ?????? ????, Chingis Khaan Ocean King
• United Mongol tribes, of all those who live in
  felt tents.
• Used Tengri - the Sky-God - to justify his rule

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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?

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Pre-Mongol Eurasia
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Conquests by Chinggiss death (1227)
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Why were the Mongol armies so successful?
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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.

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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.
• 12191221 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.

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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.

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Conquests by Chinggiss death (1227)
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Comparison The Göktürk Khaganate 600 CE
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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.

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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 khans
  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.

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Mongol Empire at its height 1290 CE
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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.

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Giovanni da Pian del Carpini, 1246

• Guyuk Khans 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."

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Rulers of the Mongol Empire

• 12061227 Chinggis Khan
• 12271241 Ogedei Khan
• 12461248 Guyuk Khan
• 12511259 Mongke Khan
• 12601294 Khubilai Khan (Partially recognized)

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Mongol rule and Mongol Peace

• Khanates (1299)
• Use of local elites (Persian merchant was the
  great Khans 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.

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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.

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Marco Poloc. 1254-1324 (aged 69)Venice, Italy
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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Mongol Empires 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.

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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 wasnt 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.

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The nominally independent Khanates 1300 CE
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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.