Studying: Mongol Campaigns

The first study guide question is about the military campaigns of the Mongols. This topic is the most fun, because the Mongols are just a heck of a lot of fun to talk about. It's also least likely to be the big essay on the test. So I'll attempt to be brief.

I knew about Temudjin (later called Chinggis/Genghis Khan) through having seen the movie Mongol. My professor had seen it, too, and said that it was pretty darn accurate according to historical record. Temudjin did marry Borte, his father was assassinated by a rival tribe, he did live in poverty and enslavement for much of his young life, and there was some question about the paternity of Temudjin's first child. The only big thing the movie left out: that Temudjin killed his own brother.

The movie only takes you up to when Temudjin had just begun uniting the tribes of Mongols under himself. Imagine, if you will, the kind of man you would have to be to gather all of these commanders, who are used to doing things their own way, under you as Great Khan. You would have to have a superior military, great tactics, and a vision for unification.

You would also have to bribe them all. That's what began Genghis Khan's raids.

As a Mongol, your life generally sucked. Your food was pretty scarce. You relied on grass plants on the Steppe and on horsemilk (which was usually made into an alcoholic drink called "kumis," strong stuff). Since this sucked so much, you looked to your local khan to lead you into raids to plunder settled people, so your life could get better. The Mongols were really good at this, because they were horse people. They could ride the hell out of their little horses. They also had light armor, which they supplemented by wrapping silk around their bodies as a base layer. Was this just for comfort's sake? No way. Silk could not be punctured by arrows. If a Mongol got shot by an arrow, yeah, it would pierce the skin, but it would take the silk in with it. Upon taking out the arrow, the silk was immeasurably useful, ensuring the arrowhead could be cleanly retrieved from the wound.

The normal ways of the Mongols: small-time raids of settlements, or extorting tribute from same. So why did these guys build the biggest empire Asia had ever seen? What changed?

One interesting theory is that the mean temperature of the Steppe regions declined leading up to the 1200s, leading to an increased scarcity of resources and restless, hungry Mongols. Their economy, which relied on trading horses with settled peoples (when they weren't raiding them) just couldn't sustain them. So a leader emerged from the North. Temudjin had had little-to-no contact with the settled peoples of the South, so he had very little respect for them. He gathered khan after khan under him, and, since so many people in the tribal confederation demanded lots of rewards in return for their service, Temudjin, now Genghis Khan (had been as of 1206), led his armies into China.


1209: Genghis Khan led armies into the area of the Tangut Xia dynasty (another traditionally nomadic people who had taken a chunk of China long ago). He captured a few cities, and the Xia were forced to surrender.

1211: Not content with petty raids, Genghis Khan made a major move into Jin Dynasty territory (North China). The Jin did not strike first, to their cost. The Mongols would raid and destroy a city, then withdraw, leaving the Jin to pick up the pieces. During this time, a Jin messenger, instead of delivering a message, totally stabbed the Jin in the back, informing the Mongols of the Jin army's location.

1214: Jin negotiated peace, and the Mongols withdrew, but their new emperor was worried about the security of their capital (modern-day Beijing). They up and moved south. Genghis took this as a violation of the peace accords, so set out again.

1215: Mongols burned the Central Capital of the Jin (Beijing). Jin's control diminished to almost nothing, a mere province around their Southern Capital (Kaifeng).

1218: Genghis led his First Western Campaign into Central Asia (Kazakhstan and such) and captured all the big cities there, then went to the Indus River in 1221. This is the first time Mongol forces were conquering Islamic cities. And boy, did they ever. This stuff was quite bloody, even though Genghis at first claimed he only wanted trade relations with the Khwarezmid. The Khan sent a 500-man caravan of Muslims to establish trading ties, but all of them were arrested on suspicion of spying. Then he sent three ambassadors, and (from wiki) this happened:

Genghis Khan then sent a second group of three ambassadors (one Muslim and two Mongols) to meet the shah himself and demand the caravan at Otrar be set free and the governor be handed over for punishment. The shah had both of the Mongols shaved and had the Muslim beheaded before sending them back to Genghis Khan. Muhammad also ordered the personnel of the caravan to be executed. This was seen as a grave affront to the Khan himself, who considered ambassadors "as sacred and inviolable." This led Genghis Khan to attack the Khwarezmian Dynasty. The Mongols crossed the Tien Shan mountains, coming into the Shah's empire in 1219.

After that, it was pretty much a bloodbath. The Khwarezmid empire was done. So much more to go into here, but we didn't really concentrate on it, so...

1222-1224: Genghis left for Mongolia, leaving main forces behind to finish the job.

1226-7: Xia had been sneaking around, trying to build support against the Mongols, and finally the Khan had had enough of that. He led the assault against the Xia again, and this time, it was personal. He obliterated every city in his path. He led the siege against the Xia capital. He died during this siege, but the army kept it under wraps. Quoting from the textbook by Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais (link):

When the Xia ruler offered to surrender, he was persuaded to walk out of the capital with a small entourage.... he was promptly hacked to death, and the Mongol troops, on entering the city, did their best to slaughter every living being in it.

At this point, when the Great Khan died, the Mongols had to regroup. That's the Mongol way. Genghis had picked his son Ogodei to be his successor, but this was not finalized for two years (until 1229). Our story pauses here, while, I assume, Ogodei was strengthening his empire, building his capital (Karakorum), and letting a few raids go around at the edges of their already quite large empire.

1235-1241 (2nd West Campaign): Ogodei's general Subotei and Jochi's son Batu (Jochi was Temudjin's first son, who was a bit bitter about Ogodei's succession) led the campaign to the West, first destroying the Bulgars, then going on to Moscow (not so important back then) and Vladimir (very important back then). They galloped through the Kipchak Steppe, Kiev, Liegnitz (Poland), Lithuania, Thrace, Bulgaria, Serbia, and part of Hungary. They might not have stopped there, were it not for Ogodei's death in 1241 that called them back.

1235-1281 (2nd East Campaign): Bam! no more Jin. Then Mongke Khan (successor of Ogodei) wanted to dip into the real South: the Song Empire. His brother Kublai was assigned this task. Problem: the Chinese navy was too good in the wetlands of South China. So the idea was to go around and flank them to the west. Kubilai went for the land of Dali, at first sending an envoy. Envoy was executed--and Mongols HATE that. Kublai captured the Dali king and found & killed the envoy murderer.

• 1250s: Mongols had Korea (Koryo).
  
• 1253-1257: Mongols still flanking Song, going south into Annam (Vietnam), but it's a little too wet for them and their horses.
• 1257-1279: The invade the Song empire. Back-and-forth until 1279.
  
• Success for the Mongols depended on Chinese generals surrendering.

1255-1260 (3rd West Campaign): Mongols go into Persia. Sack Baghdad, take Aleppo, then Damascus. Tried for Lebanon and Egypt, but were beaten back, finally settling in Persia for a good long time. The Khans of this region converted to Islam.

Kublai ruled in China in what became the Yuan Dynasty. For the first time since the Han Dynasty (one thousand years previous), China was united. And it took a nomadic conquest to do it.

I guess that wasn't very brief. I'd make a terrible history professor; I love the little details.