Download The Mongols

The Mongols
Mongol Origins
The Rise of the Mongol Empire
The Decline and Fall
1.
Early period of nomadism
(struggle for dominance in the region by the Turkic and Mongol tribes)
2. The period of unified Mongolian State
Pax Mongolica
3. Adoption of Buddhism
 “Man’s highest joy is victory:
to conqueror one’s enemies, to
pursue them, to deprive them
of their possessions, to make
their beloved weep, and to
embrace their wives and
daughters.”
From tent to palace
Genghis Khan
32 million square kilometers
1.5 million people (Yurt, Ger, Gur)
positive aspects of the Mongol conquests
 Made possible and promoted commercial
and cultural exchanges between global
civilizations of Eastern Hemisphere
 brought stable government based on
precedents in Islamic and Chinese
administration and religious toleration to
much of Asia
 provided lengthy period of peace
predicated on establishment of unified
law code (Yasa) at least until 1260
Mongol Origins
Nomadic horse people
N. China Grasslands
Raised horses, tended sheep
Felt tents: Yerts, Ger
Language: Altaic (Rel. To Turkic,
Manchurian)
 Could not marry between tribes and
clans
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Organization
 Families-->Clans-->Tribes-->
 Tribes gathered during annual migration
 Chiefs elected. Based on nobility,
military ability, wisdom, leadership skills
 Religion: Shamanism
 Nature deities, but key God is the Sky
God
 Sacred color: blue
Temujin: Ghengis Khan
 b. 1167, son of tribal chief
 Father poisoned…fled as youth
 Returned as adult, avenged father,
Eventually chief
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By age forty had unified all Mongol tribes
Battles, alliances, ability to survive
Elected as the Great Khan
Amazing talents along with sons and grandsons
Some Questions to consider
 Why did such a remarkable family,
gifted and competent, arise from
such an isolated area at this time?
 How did the Mongols, with a total
population of less than 1.5 million,
conqueror such a large area and hold
it for a century?
Mongol Army Tactics
All males 15-70 served in army all as calalry
Organized army in “Myriads” (10,000’s)
Units within each of 1000, 100, and 10
No one in the army was paid, though all shared to
varying degrees in the booty. All contributed to a
fund to take care of those too old, hurt, or sick.
 Elaborate signals: every part can move in concert in
battle. Flags, hand signals
 Had to supply their own bows and other military
equipment
 Tactics: retreat, turn, flank, destroy
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Armaments: horsemanship, compound bow
Reputation created paralyzing fear
By 1241: reached Poland and Hungary
Conquest
 Gathering intelligence had high priority
 Foreign experts and advisors, in particular
Persian and Chinese
 Every man carried their own supplies and had 2
horses. Ate horse blood and milk
 Thousands of vassals took loyalty oaths: became
commanders, ran army, ran government
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Took walled cities by using Chinese siege technology
Brought Chinese engineers with them
Conquered most of Asia, Middle East, Russia
Creation of Law
 Yasa
 Law code
The Conquest of China
 Genghis Khan wanted the riches of China
 First secured his back: conquered Tibetan
State of NW China, Manchu State (N)
 Took land all the way to Peking by 1227
 Ghengis Khan died 1227
 Successors reached the Yellow River 1234
 Took all of China by 1241
Divisions at Genghis Khan’s Death
 Four Khanates
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Kipchak Khanate (Golden
Hoarde)
• Russia
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IlKhanate
• Persia
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Chagatai Khanate
• Mongolia
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Great Khanate
• China, Outer Mongolia,
Border States, to which the
others owed allegiance. Later
became the Yuan Dynasty
Territory of the Mongols
Kublai Khan
 Grandson of Genghis Khan
 Moved capital to Peking 1261
 N. enough to stay in contact with other
Khanates
 S. enough to control most of China
 Conquered the S. Sung by 1279
Building Projects
 Too far from prosperous south to easily
collect taxes
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Built the Grand Canal to Beijing
Palace of the Khan: designed by Arab
architects.
Summer palace: Shangtu (Xanadu)
Where a Mongol can be a Mongol
Developed hereditary succession
Chinese Rule of China: Yuan
Dynasty
Originally, plundered and robbed
Learned the art of taxation
Mongols ruling elite: Highly centralized
Emperor-->Secretariat--> Roving
Secretariat
 Ruling minority segregated
 Majority ranked according to ethnicity
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Ethnic Ranking
 Mongols: Top military, civilian posts
 Persians, Turks, Non-Chinese nomad stock:
High civil posts
 N. Chinese, border people, Manchurians:
Next highest posts
 S. Chinese: Lowest civil posts
 All records and proceedings in Uighur
Turkic, than translated word by word into
Chinese (sounded barbaric)
Foreign Contact
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Large, multi-ethnic empire facilitated
diffusion
Subject states: Persian, Arab, Russian,
Turkic
Goods, art, technology and ideas spread
Chinese communities found as far west as
Moscow
Printing, gunpowder, medicine diffuse west
Marco Polo
Role of Religion in Yuan China
 Policy of toleration
 Christianity
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Kublai Khan’s mother was a Nestorian Christian
Papal Mission created Peking Archbishop and cathedral, complete
with Mongol and Turkic sermon and Mongol choir boys
Wanted 100 learned Catholics to be sent by the Pope
 Buddhism
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Tibetan Buddhism gained 500,000 converts
 Islam
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Islam gained many converts.
A mosque was built in a new Islamic quarter of Peking and others
built in SW China
 Confucianism survived Considered a tax free religion.
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No real influence at court
 Most of China in the South remained unchanged
Decline and Fall
 Yuan Dynasty: Shortest lived major Chinese
dynasty (1264-1368)
 By the death of Kublai Khan’s son, series of
weak rulers
 The Khanates lose cohesion due to religious
and cultural differences
 Yuan Dynasty becomes more isolated
Decline and succession
o Chinese never really accepted as legitimate
o Succession wars between heirs and generals
o High Taxes, Corrupt officials
o Paper money controversy
o Yellow River changed course and flooded Grand Canal
among other natural disasters
o Decentralization & Rise of Warlords
o Last Khan fled to Mongolia in 1368 after the Red Turbans
Buddhist led revolts
o Zhu Yuanzhang, a Buddhist monk and member of the secret sect
within the Red Lotus called the White Lotus, led the peasant
rebellion
o Zhu Yuanzhang razed the palaces of the Mongolians in Beijing and
became the first emperor as Hongwu (great martial) and named his
dynasty Ming or brilliant
Impact of the Mongol conquests of Russia & the Islamic
heartland had similarities
 In both cases the traditional political structure was removed and
the path was smoothed for new political organization to take
place.
 In Russia, Kievan superiority was forever destroyed and Moscow was able
to achieve political dominance among the petty kingdoms through its control
of tribute and by becoming the seat of Russian Orthodoxy.
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Brought the 3 areas together in the defeat of the Golden Horde
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Serfdom institutionalized as tribute had to be paid
 In Islamic Empires, the Abbasid dynasty was ended and the Seljuk Turks
who had ruled through its appurtenances was devastated
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opening the way for the rise of the Mameluks in Egypt and the Ottoman Turks in
Asia Minor
Mameluks gained dominance after they slowed the advance of the
Mongolians
Effect of Mongolians???
 There used to be the city of Riazan in the land of
Riazan, but its wealth disappeared and its glory
ceased,and there is nothing to be seen in the city
excepting smoke, ashes, and barren earth....And
instead of joy, there are only uninterrupted
lamentations.
• --Tale of the Destruction of Riazan
 The city of al-Sara [Sarai] is one of the finest of
cities, of boundless size...choked with the throng of
its inhabitants, and possessing good bazaars and
broad streets.
• --Ibn Battuta
The Pax Mongolica
by Prof. Daniel C. Waugh, University of Washington, Seattle
• Not the least of the explanations was the relative openness of the Mongols to
individuals of different religions.
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Marco Polo, for one, emphasized the apparent willingness of Qubilai Khan to entertain
all the "religions of the book" at the same time that he practised the rituals of traditional
Mongolian religion.
Among Qubilai's astrologers/astronomers in the observatory he built were Muslims
from the Middle East.
Mongol rule witnessed a revival in Nestorian Christianity throughout Eurasia, the
spread of Tibetan Buddhism through China to Mongolia, and the expansion of Islam in
areas of Eastern Europe. Ibn Battuta could converse in Arabic with Muslims almost
anywhere he traveled in the Mongol world.
Yet, as the example of the Golden Horde shows, even when the khans converted firmly
to a religion such as Islam they seem to have avoided a fanaticism that would have
imposed conversion on their subjects.
• They certainly did nothing to cut their Russian subjects off from the West, a misconception
that has been fostered by Russians to explain why Russia never experienced the Renaissance
and all the benefits that flowed from it in the emergence of modern European culture. The
cultural traditions of Russian Orthodoxy [the real barrier between Russia and the West] were
left alone to flourish, just as traditional culture in China exhibited great vitality under the rule
of the Mongol Yüan dynasty.
• Mongol rule did bring with it initial destruction, the imposition of heavy financial
burdens, and the loss of political independence, at the same time that it seeded
political renewal in some areas and contributed selectively to economic expansion.
In short, Riazan and Sarai can coexist on the same historical canvas.