The Mongols

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The Mongols
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Mongols

• The Choice is made! Whoa! Ho! Ho! Whoa-oa! The
  Traveller has come! Nobody choose anything!
  Did YOU choose anything? No. Did YOU? My
  mind is totally blank. I didn't choose anything.
  I couldn't help it. It just popped IN there.
  What? What just popped in there? I... I... I
  tried to think... LOOK! No! It CAN'T be!
  What is it? It CAN'T be! What did you do, Ray?
  It's the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man

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Mongols

• Ghostbusters
• When the evil time traveler comes to destroy
  earth.

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Mongols

• Who were they?
• Nomads
• Herded livestock
• Generally acknowledged with coming from the area
  of Eurasia open plains of Central Asia
• Mongolia
• Also called Tartars
• Expert horsemen
• Excellent archers and conducted most warfare on
  horseback

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Mongols

• Class Question
• What was so important about the Mongols
  conducting warfare on horseback at this time?
• What effect did it have on their enemies?
• What psychological effect did/does horseback or
  mobilized warfare have?

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Mongols

• Who were they?
• Often seen as bloodthirsty and most times were
  ruthless to their adversaries but they did have a
  somewhat complex society
• They did have
• Laws
• Religious practices
• Advanced military technology
• Saddle
• Stirrups
• Didnt have
• Most Mongols were illiterate

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Mongols

• Who were the Mongols
• The Mongols are seen as borrowers not creators
• As we will see that while the Mongols will not
  produce a Golden Age and they will not impact the
  world with their own culture they will diffuse
  other cultures and unite cultures

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Mongols

• The Fear
• It was generally known that if the Mongol Horde
  was heading towards your town, village, city you
  did not have many options
• Fight and be crushed and lose your life
• Retreat to you homes or houses of worship and be
  burned alive
• Or give in an hope that you and your people would
  be saved-this did not always happen!

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Mongols

• Warriors and Warfare
• While the Mongols were brutal they were not
  without organization
• They could cover 25 miles in a day
• Horsemen could cover 90 miles
• Their bows were effective at up to 300 yards-even
  on horseback
• Mongol horses were very hardy and could endure
  traveling great distances
• The army numbered 80,000 to 100,000 men

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Mongols

• Warriors and Warfare
• Armies were divided into
• Units
• Light and heavy cavalry
• Scouting units
• spies
• Men were rewarded for bravery and punished for
  cowardliness

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Mongols

• Warriors and Warfare
• The goals of the Mongols prior to a battle was to
  
• Know their enemy
• Know the land
• The goals of the Mongols during the battle were
• Win
• The goals of the Mongols after the battle
• Destroy those who resisted
• This ensured that future villages, towns and
  cities did not resist in the future

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Mongols

• Genghis Khan
• In the 1100s and beginning of the 1200s the
  Mongols were involved in clan wars
• The Mongols lacked a sense of unity
• Mongols fought themselves more then they fought
  their enemies
• There were approximately 30 tribes and about 1.5
  to 3 million Mongols

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Mongols

• Genghis Khan
• Born between 1155 and 1162
• His family had been disgraced in a clan war
  however Genghis became an important clan leader
• Genghis had tremendous military and
  organizational skills
• This allowed Genghis to organize and united the
  Mongols and then turn them on the world

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Mongols

• Quick notes about Genghis Khan
• You should know that he is also known as
• Temujin (original name)
• Chingiz Khan
• Jenghiz Kahn
• Chinggis Khan
• Genghis Khans adopted name means
• Genghis-limitless strength
• Khan-ruler

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Mongols

• On to China
• Once Khan had unified the Mongols he turned
  towards China
• In 1211 the Mongols invaded China
• By 1215 the Mongols had crossed the Great Wall
  and seized the Jin (Jurchen) capital of Beijing
• By 1218 the Khwarazm Empire home of the Silk Road
  and the trade city of Samarkand had be captured
• By 1219 the city of Heart in Afghanistan had been
  captured
• By 1223 the Mongols had defeated and absorbed the
  Jin
• Genghis Khan and the Mongols now turned to the
  west and Russia

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Mongols

• Genghis Khan
• In 1227 Genghis Khan dies
• This became the end of the first expansion of the
  Mongols
• Genghis sons carried out the second wave of
  conquest
• Genghis third son Ogodei or Ugedei became the
  great Khan

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Mongols

• What the Mongols had done so far
• The now controlled key points of the Silk
  Road-which means they had a great source of
  wealth
• They had learned new technology especially from
  China-siege warfare that would be useful in their
  conquest of Russia
• Their small but effective army was able to
  conquer large amounts of land and bigger empires
  in a short period of time
• 1209-1227

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Mongols

• Ogodeis Empire
• The Mongols did not stop when Genghis Khan died
• Ogodeis armies moved into China and by 1234 the
  Mongols were at the doorstep of the Song Empire
• Korea was forced into a tributary system
• Ogodeis real goal however was the Mongol
  expansion into the west

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Mongols

• In 1236 the Mongols were ordered west
• 150,000 to 200,000 troops Lead by Batu (nephew to
  Ogodei) known as the Golden Horde moved into
  eastern Europe

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Mongols

• Europe
• From 1237 to 1240 most of Russia and Ukraine were
  captured
• From 1240 to 1242 Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and
  Poland fell under Mongol occupation
• The Mongol invasion had caused great fear and
  panic in eastern Europe
• However in 1241 Ogodei died and Batu returned to
  Mongolian homeland

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Mongols

• Class Questions
• 1
• The Mongols pushed into eastern Europe and China
  in a relatively short period of time 1209-1242
• What do you see as a major problem of this for
  the Mongols?
• 2
• The Mongol push into Europe stopped short of what
  is today Austria and Germany because of two thing
• What two things would have stopped the Mongols in
  this area

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Mongols

• Europe
• By 1242 the Mongols were overextended from China
  to eastern Europe especially with having such a
  small army
• Hard to keep supplied
• Hard to maintain control of territory conquered
• In Eastern Europe the Mongols were unfamiliar
  with fighting in forest and against castled
  cities
• Mongols were better equipped to fight on open
  plains and flat grasslands

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Mongols

• Pax Mongolica
• In the 1240s and 1250s the Mongols continued to
  expand their empire mostly in the east and south
• The Mongols moved further into China putting
  pressure on the Song Empire
• Tibet was controlled by the Mongols
• The Mongols moved into the Middle East destroying
  the Abbasid Caliphate and now controlled
• The Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Turkey, Persia, and
  Syria

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Mongols

• The Empire
• The created a single system of government for the
  areas they controlled
• They imposed laws
• Encouraged economic growth
• Mostly for their tribute system

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Mongols

• The Empire
• They created safe routes of travel for people to
  move about and trade
• Silk Road
• Traders from the East could meet with and
  exchange goods and ideas with those from the west

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Mongols

• Pax Mongolica
• This era of peace was called Pax Mongolica
• It was created in two ways
• Fear
• Fear of or the use of force by the Mongols
• Administratively
• The Mongols used the Turkic language as their
  adopted language
• The Mongols created a system of codes or laws
  (yasa) mostly borrowed from the Chinese
• Adopted the use of paper currency
• Adopted and allowed for religious tolerance
• Accepted Buddhism and Islam
• Created a postal system to keep news flowing from
  one end of the empire to the other

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Mongols

• Pax Mongolica
• The Empire
• The Empire was divided into smaller independent
  empires or hordes
• The Mongols began to assimilate into the cultures
  they had conquered

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Mongols

• Class Question
• A Chinese proverb says
• One can conquer an empire on horseback, but one
  cannot govern that empire from horseback
• What does this mean and what will it mean for the
  vast empire of the Mongols?

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Mongols

• The Empire Breaks Apart
• In 1260 civil war breaks out among the Mongol
  leaders to see who will become the next great
  Khan
• The nephews and grandsons of Genghis Khan begin
  to break up the empire into small independent
  states called Khanates

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Mongols

• The Khanates
• The Golden Horde-Russia and Eastern Europe
  (Kipchak Khanate)
• Domain of the Great Khan-Mongolia Homeland
• The Jagadai (Chaghadai) Khanate-Central Asia and
  lands to the west
• Il-Khan-Middle Eastern

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Khubilai Khan

• One great leader does rise out of the battle for
  the empire
• Khubilai Khan
• By 1271 Khubilai Khan had conquered and united
  all of China
• In 1279 the Song Dynasty feel to the Mongols

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Khubilai Khan

• Khubilai did several things for China
• Rid China of the many warring factions and
  created the Yuan Dynasty
• The Mongols adopted the Buddhism and rejected
  Confucianism
• Mandarin became the official language of China
  and is still the official language
• Expanded and secured the Chinese boarders with
  the strong Mongol troops
• Forced most of Chinas neighbors to pay tribute

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Khubilai Khan

• Internal Repairs
• Rebuilt the roads which increased trade
• Created a government bureaucracy
• Built new cities for trade
• Restored trade with the west
• The Silk Road became the vital avenue of trade
  and cultural exchange

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Khubilai Khan

• Economy
• Because of the increase in trade and the
  re-opening of the Silk Road China became a very
  wealthy country
• The merchant class in China became very important

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Yuan China

• While the Mongols opened trade and increased
  their wealth they also increased the cultural
  diffusion of Europe?
• Discuss how?
• Could one say that the cultural diffusion under
  the Yuan and the Mongols was as if not more
  important than the cultural diffusion of the
  Crusades?

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Marco Polo

• In the 1270s Marco Polo visited China
• Polo spoke of the rich and glorious land of China
• This further stimulated trade with China

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Yuan China

• After the death of Khubilai Khan China feel into
  disarray
• In the early 1300s China lost 30 to 40 percent
  of its population because of the bubonic plague
• There was severe economic loss because of the
  loss of population and the plague

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Yuan China

• Civil Wars
• China experienced a series of civil wars brought
  on by leaders trying to fill the role of Khan
• In 1368 Zhu Yuanzhang finally ended the Yuan
  Dynasty and established the Ming Dynasty (Chinas
  longest lasting Dynasty)

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The Other Mongol Khanates

• The Golden Horde
• Established control over Russia
• They did little to promote the advancement of
  Russia and contributed to the economic and social
  problems Russia would experience after the
  Mongols

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The Golden Horde

• In Russia the Mongols cut Russia off from Western
  European ideas of the times
• The Russian did not incorporate any ideas from
  the Renaissance or Reformation into their society
  so Russia fell behind the western Europe
• Because of the hard tariff system most of Russia
  remained poor and most people were serfs because
  of little money in the country.
• Both of these problems will keep Russia behind
  western Europe

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The Other Mongol Khanates

• Il-Khans
• Most Mongols in this area converted to Islam
• Assimilated into the Islamic culture
• Were attacked by fellow Mongols
• Finally were displaced by the fast growing
  Ottoman Turks

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The Other Mongol Khanates

• Jagadai Khanate
• Controlled Central Asia
• Most converted to Islam
• Controlled parts of the Silk Road
• Jagadai warlord Timur tries to take back all the
  lands of Genghis Khan
• Timur is a ruthless warrior
• Attempts to take over
• Russia, Persia, northern India, and parts of the
  Il-Khan in the Middle East
• After his death his empire shrinks until the
  1500s when it finally falls apart

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Impact of the Mongols

• The Mongols did not advance cultures but instead
  diffused cultures
• Mongols in some cases became assimilators like
  the Il-Khan
• In areas where Islam was the primary religion
  they became Muslims
• In other areas they reject the Mongol ways for
  the cultures of the conquered people
• China
• Khubilai Khan kept the Chinese from speaking
  Mongolians, forbid them from marry Mongols and
  reject Confucianism
• China never became Mongolized

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Impact of the Mongols

• The expanse of the Mongol Empire
• Because of the great expanse of the empire and
  trade routes cultures were able to interact
• Europe and China
• China and the Middle East
• While the Mongols were brutal they expanded and
  empire that touched every major civilization in
  the world
• The Mongols connected the world and this
  connection would last until today

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Impact of the Mongols

• Effects of Europe and Russia
• Because the Mongols were illiterate the Mongols
  retarded cultural advancement in Russia
• The forms of tribute weakened the Russian economy
• Cities were destroyed
• In Russia many Mongols became inhabitants of
  Russia and assimilated into the culture

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Class Questions

• Could one say that while the Mongols culturally
  diffused the areas they conqueror that they also
  caused problems in the world
• What were some of the problems?
• What major event probably would not have happened
  in Europe if not for the Mongols?