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History: The late, great Mongol Empire:
origins, spread, and progeny
Who were the Mongols?
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Nomads, pastoralists:
 Xiongnu (Huns)
 Turks
 Mongols
◦ Pastoralism, trade, raiding
◦ Self-sufficiency
◦ Plurality of religious practice
 Shamanism
 Buddhists, (Nestorian) Christians, Muslims
 Idea of a Great Khan
Mongol Conquests (1206-1258)
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Temujin (TEH-moo-jeen)
Declared himself: Genghis
Khan (b. 1162; r. 1206-1227)
Really: Чингис Хаан, Chingis
Khaan = “Ocean King”
◦ United Mongol tribes, “of
all those who live in felt
tents.”
◦ Used Tengri - the SkyGod - to justify his rule
Why did they begin to expand?
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No one really knows
few written records
Booty?
Climatic change? – Population high,
temperatures fell, pastures decreased
Population growth?
Steppelanders being steppelanders?
Pre-Mongol Eurasia
Conquests by Chinggis’s death (1227)
Why were the Mongol armies so successful?
Why were the Mongol armies so successful?
 Simple, but effective
 All males, 15-60, were eligible for conscription
 army was only source of honor
 Trained using massive hunts
 Great discipline
 Equipped for mobility and speed: lightly armored, no supply lines;
couriers
 Careful planning, reconnaissance, intelligence
 Decimal system of organization: arbats (tens), zuuts (100s),
myanghan (1000s), tumen (10,000s = roughly a division)
 Very good at adapting to various conditions.
 Became adept at siege warfare; recruited well; built effective
catapults.
 Combined various types of armed force: mounted archers, lancers,
engineers, rockets, and smoke.
Key Conquests
◦ 1207-1210: The Mongols made war against the
Western Xia (northwestern China and parts of Tibet).
◦ Same period, the Uyghur Turks also submitted
peacefully to the Mongols and became valued
administrators throughout the empire.
◦ 1211: Chinggis Khan led his armies across the Gobi
desert against the Jin Dynasty of northern China.
◦ 1219–1221: While the campaign in northern China
was still in progress, the Mongols waged a war in
central Asia and destroyed the Khwarezmid Empire.
◦ 1223: The Mongols gained a decisive victory at the
Battle of the Kalka River, the first engagement
between the Mongols and the East Slavic warriors.
◦ 1227: Chinggis Khan died.
Ghengis Khan died in 1227 C.E.
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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.
Conquests by Chinggis’s death (1227)
Post-Chinggis conquests
 1229: Ogedei elected as Great
Khan.
 1232: The siege of Kaifeng.
Missile-rockets were used by
Jurcheds for the first time in
world history.
 1236: Mongols conquered
Jurched-Jin dynasty.
 1236-37: war against Song
dynasty, but not completely
conquered until 1270s.
Post-Chinggis conquests
 1237: Under the leadership of Batu Khan,
the Mongols returned to the West and
began their campaign to subjugate Kievan
Rus’.
 1240: Mongols sacked Kiev.
 1241: mongols destroyed German, Magyar
and Polish forces, and seemed
unstoppable, but Ogodei khan’s death
forced kuriltai; replaced by Mongke.
 1258: Mongols occupied Baghdad. The fate
of Abbasid caliphate.
 1259: Mongol invasion of Syria. Mongke
died.
 1260: The battle of Ain Jalut: Mamluks
defeated Mongols.
Giovanni da Pian del Carpini, 1246,
at the enthroning of Guyuk Khan
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After many daies he called for vs againe, demanding whether there were
any with our Lord the Pope, which vnderstood the Russian, the Saracen, or
the Tartarian language? To whom we answered, that we had none of those
letters or languages. …Then Kadac, principal agent for the whole empire,
and Chingay, and Bala, with diuers other Scribes, came vnto vs, and
interpreted the letter word for word. And hauing written it in Latine, they
caused vs to interprete vnto them eche sentence, to wit if we had erred in
any word. And when both letters were written, they made vs to reade
them ouer twise more, least we should haue mistaken ought. For they said
vnto vs: Take heed that ye vnderstand all things throughly, for if you should
not vnderstand the whole matter aright, it might breed some
inconuenience. They wrote the said letters also in the Saracen tongue that
there might be some found in our dominions which could reade and
interprete them, if need should require.
Giovanni da Pian del Carpini, 1246
Guyuk Khan’s reply to the pope:
....you must come yourself at the head of all your
kings and prove to Us your fealty and allegiance.
And if you disregard the command of God and
disobey Our instructions, We shall look up on
you as Our enemy. Whoever recognizes and
submits to the Son of Gods and Lord of the
World; whoever refuses submission will be
wiped out."
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Rulers of the Mongol Empire
1206–1227: Chinggis Khan
 1227–1241: Ogedei Khan
 1246–1248: Guyuk Khan
 1251–1259: Mongke Khan
 1260–1294: Khubilai Khan (Partially
recognized)

Mongol rule and Mongol Peace
Khanates (1299)
Use of local elites (Persian merchant was the
great Khan’s ambassador to the Mongol Ilkhan 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 Polo
c. 1254-1324 (aged 69)Venice, Italy
Yuan Dynasty in China, 1272-1368
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Kubilai Khan (b. 1214), ruled
1265-1294
◦ New capital at Dadu or
Khanbalik (modern Beijing)
◦ Styled himself as a Chinese
emperor.
◦ Introduced Mongols and
Muslims into Chinese
government.
Mongol domination caused
various effects in East Asia:
◦ Recentralization of China,
trade, and government
◦ Prosperity in the cities,
poverty in the countryside
◦ Extraction of wealth for
benefit of Mongol khans
Il-Khan Empire
Caused collapse of the
Abbasid Caliphate.
 Hulegu Khan sacked
Baghdad in 1258.
 1295: Il-khan Ghazan
adopted Islam; end of
tolerance.
 Great deal of trade with
China (silk roads)
 Ended 1343 with death
of last Il-khan.
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Mongol Conquests in Russia
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Fall of Kiev, 1240
“Mongol Yoke”?
Batu (r. 1240-1255)
established “Golden Horde”
rule
◦ Mongol capital at Sarai
◦ Taxes eventually farmed
out to local princes.
Rise of Novgorod and
Moscow
◦ Alexander Nevskii (lived
around 1220-1263)
argued for cooperation
with Mongols rather than
resistance.
The limits of Mongol rule
Mamluk Egypt
 Slaves into warriors
 In 1250 Mamluks rebelled
 by 1254 placed own ruler on the thrown.
 September 1260 at the Battle of Ain Jalut
(Syria), Mamluks turned back Mongol armies.
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◦ Mamluks were Turks and Circassians.
◦ Used midfa (hand cannon)
◦ Stopped Mongol expansion into Africa.
Mongol Empire’s Impact on Eurasia
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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.
Comparison: Which of the following is
NOT an attribute that pastoral societies
generally exhibit in comparison to settled
agricultural peoples?
a. They generally offer women a lower status with no
roles at all in public life.
b. They are far more mobile.
c. They live in smaller more widely scattered groups.
d. They rely more heavily on their animals.
Discussion Question: Do you think that
the modern image of Mongols
a. is warranted given their history?
b. is partially warranted given their history?
c. is misleading because they were little different from
other pastoralists in world history?
d. is the product of the peoples that they conquered
writing their history?
Discussion Question: For you, which of the
following was the most important contribution of
the Mongol Empire to world history?
a. They constructed the largest Eurasian empire to date.
b. They destroyed a series of well-established empires.
c. They fostered trade, the spread of disease, and the exchange of
crops and technology across Eurasia.
d. The disruption of trade caused by the collapse of their empire
provided an important incentive for Europeans to take to
the seas in an effort to secure sought-after Asian goods.
Discussion Question: Regarded as a
whole, was the Mongol impact on world
history more positive or negative?
a. The Mongol impact on world history was more positive
than negative.
b. The Mongol impact on world history was more negative
than positive.