Studying: Mongolian Impact on China, Japan, and Korea

The last question specifically focusing on the Mongolian Empire asks how it impacted the histories of the three countries above. This has elements that lead me to suspect that I'll need to know it for the exam: it's open-ended, vague, and has to do with a nomadic people's interaction with settled agrarians (which my professor really likes to dwell upon). But I'm a little tired of talking about the Mongols, so I'll keep this in outline form.

The Mongols in China:

• Unified the north and south for first time in a long time
  
• Militarized China. We see the Chinese arming themselves (Mongols had banned weapons) as control loosened. The countryside fell into chaos. Multiple warlords cropped up in microeconomic regions, and the eventual victor (Zhu Yuanzhang) was in the richest of these regions (Jiangnan).
• Encouraged interchange of ideas, arts, culture (see culture post).
• Prohibited Chinese scholars from getting positions, so they turned to writing dramas and operas.

The Mongols in Japan:

Okay, I need to tell this story. You know the word "kamikaze," right? But originally it did not mean a suicide-missioned pilot; it meant "divine wind" and referred to the storm that saved Japan from a Mongol invasion. Twice.

The Mongols had Korea and China, and Kublai wanted to enter into friendly relations with Japan. He wanted to send Japan a letter. Korea didn't want to send it; they had been suffering from "Japanese" pirate attacks for years. But Kublai knew how to twist Korea's arm, so they ended up sending the letter in 1266. The letter called for peace, saying ominously "nobody would wish to resort to arms." The Korean king appended the letter, saying that submitting would lead to prestige.

Japan said nothing but began fortifying defenses.

In 1268, Kublai sent another envoy. In 1269, he sent two more. 1271 and 1272, one each year. Nothing from Japan. The Japanese court was pretty terrified and wanted to surrender, but it was out of the emperor's impotent hands; the Kamakura shogunate (Tokimune) was in charge and ordered forces to be stationed at the most probable point of Mongol entry: Kyushu.

When the Mongols came in 1274, they landed on Kyushu a few times and just wiped the floor with the Japanese warriors. The Mongols were soldiers used to fighting in units; the Japanese had a tradition of one-on-one combat, even on a battlefield. Picture a lone samurai, expecting to fight just one Mongol at a time, yelling at the enemy--and getting shot by 10 arrows from all directions.

Then a storm came, and Mongol leaders told their troops to get in their boats (which had been made by Korean hands) so as not to be marooned. Smart move, that; about 200 ships were lost in what would later be called the Kamikaze, the storm that defended Japan. Japanese boats, which were better maneuverers, quickly finished off the remaining Mongol fleet. (wiki)

You'd expect the Khan to go back right away. Well, maybe he wanted to, but his navy had just been destroyed by wind. He needed time to build it up again. In the meantime, he sent embassies to Japan, telling them not to leave until they got a response. The shogun, after a while, decided to behead the ambassadors. Kublai, showing remarkable restraint for a Mongol whose ambassadors had just been killed, sent a few more. Same result; five heads came back.

In 1279, Kublai had conquered the Song (finally) and now had possession of their formidable navy. (Unfortunately, they picked riverboats to go to Japan in, and the Korean boats they commissioned were also unsuitable on the high seas.) In 1281, the Mongols landed once on Japan, but this time the samurai were much better trained to deal with them; the Mongols were forced back to their ships. All along the coast, they were repulsed, until finally, the second Kamikaze wiped out between 69-90% of the army.

Kublai was seriously put out, and he nearly planned another invasion, but didn't go through with it. Still, his historical impact on Japan was tremendous, even though the Mongols didn't actually succeed in invading.

• The shogun had no money to reward both the samurai he used and the priests (who claimed the Kamikaze was due to their prayers). He gave what little he had to the priests. The samurai, who were used to getting land after fighting, were discontent. They would stay dissatisfied with the Kamakura bakufu.
  
• This was a signal of the shift in power from the kuge (landed aristocrats) to the buke (the warriors, like those who had fought the Mongols).
• Kamakura became further unpopular due to the extra taxes it charged people for more defenses against a future invasion.
  
• The Hojo lineage used the occasion of the invasions to expand their power. They did this by promising more land to warriors, but they could not follow through. This was even more unpopular, and their power decreased.
• Pirates had taken advantage of the invasions to raid the countryside--people took this as further proof that the Kamakura bakufu couldn't do anything right.
• All in all, the invasions paved the way for Emperor Go-Daigo to make a play for power in 1333-1334, beginning the middle ages of Japan.

The Mongols in Korea:

• Neo-Confucianized Korea. They invited Korean successors and scholars to Beijing, where they could meet Neo-Confucians from China and eventually take the ethos back. This changed Korean society from partly matriarchal to very patriarchal.
  
• Bad economic situation. Big landowners became bigger, especially if they allied themselves with the Mongols. Land was snatched away.
• as they militarized China, Korea also became more reliant on military. The next leader, Yi Songgye, rode to power in 1392. He was from a military family and he was a yangban. His goal was to strengthen the monarchy, a direct result of the Mongol vassalship that Korea had been in.
  
• Yeah, I really don't know much else about the effect of the Mongols on Korea. I should ask the TA.
  

Studying: Mongolian Empire's Cultural Implications

The second question on this study guide asks about the cultural implications of the Mongolian Empire created by the carnage I related to you in the previous post. Again, a fun question, but I doubt that it will be the big essay on the exam--because the answer is at once too obvious and too impossible.

The obvious answer: it connected all of Asia with Eastern Europe and Persia, enabling globalization of culture and goods.

Take a look at the post below, again, and look at that animated GIF that I nabbed off of Wikipedia. The empire was huge. No other empire has ever covered that kind of area in the history of the world.

But just conquering the world would not have led to such a profound effect on these countries, had it not been for the way the Mongols ruled. Unlike Chinese and other governments of the time, the Mongols did not look down on merchants. On the contrary, they liked them, encouraged them, and protected them. The Mongols invented a kind of passport for travelers riding through their lands; it protected their right to be on the trade route. (Interestingly, the passport was written in the Mongol script, which was related to Aramaic.) The Mongols created and protected a unified, continuous, and safe trading network: the old silk routes as well as new avenues (maritime, etc.). The flow of goods was unmatched in world history.

The two hubs in this system, the two areas of privileged positions, were China and Persia. These were the two richest settled regions in the world of that time. Persian and Chinese scholars translated each other's countries' works on medicine, politics, economics, and agriculture. Artistic styles spread. And a very important export of China became so much more beautiful: blue-and-white porcelain.

While true that porcelain production had been going on for some time during the Song, and while true that the cobalt (for the blue color) had been able to be obtained from Baghdad since at least as far back as the Southern Song Dynasty, the Yuan period swiftly developed the art, the craft, and the market of the porcelain wares. The Mongols supported ceramic production at Jingdezhen, where cobalt was never in short supply (due to the stable trade routes). The kilns there were upgraded, and higher temperatures could be reached, which made the porcelain more durable and more sanitary. Arab orders for porcelain affected the pictoral style, the content of the pictures, and the very forms of the ceramics themselves.

Market goods, arts, and scholarly works flowed freely, and so did religion. The Mongols were originally animists, and they were extremely religously tolerant. From the textbook: "Khublai, for instance, welcomed Buddhist, Daoist, Islamic, and Christian clergymen to his court and gave tax exemptions to clerics of all religions" (page 165). On the same page the author goes into the fact that "European popes and kings sent envoys to the Mongol court" and it wasn't just to get them on their side against the Muslims; it was also to find "Christians who had been cut off from the West by the spread of Islam, and in fact there were considerable numbers of Nestorian Christians in Central Asia... there were enough Europeans in Beijing to build a cathedral and appoint a bishop."

So who were the winners in this situation? Merchants, of course. The Mongols allowed mercantilism to rise so much that, as we'll see when we get to Ming China, nothing could stop the economic development, not even Daoism.

Who else won? Islam. The Mongols enabled Islam to stretch all the way into Central Asia, pushing out Buddhism (the previous benefitor of the silk route, all the way back in 300-500 AD) in some areas.

Who else? Europe. Europe was far behind in the 1200s, technologically and scientifically, compared to the East. Europe got gunpowder, printing, and the compass from China and learned astronomy and mathematics from Persia (page 166 of text).

What did China get? Money. And an economic system that would only grow in the next dynasty.

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.

How To Study Chinese History, Part 1

I'm taking an East Asian Civ course right now, and it's by far my favorite class. I'd always heard that China is fascinating, but, well, it really is. So much intrigue. So many grasps for power. So much time spent thinking about how to govern. China's had so much success in ruling vast amounts of land, and yet the failures are fascinating, too.

At any rate, going into my class, I had no frame of reference. I couldn't even get the hang of how to pronounce the names of people and places. And there were so many people to remember. but on the test, I ended up with a 97%. I did it by: watching movies.

The first major player in Chinese history, the dude who changed it all, was Ying Zheng, king of Qin, who conquered all the other territories and became the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di. His dynasty lasted... 15 years. Qin Shi Huang Di is regarded as ruthless, violent, militaristic, bloodthirsty, but brilliant and visionary. He certainly changed the game forever by uniting his people, but he did so in a bloody and catastrophic way that caused a huge amount of suffering. Thus he's dealt with in contradictory ways. There are two great movies to watch to get some background on this guy.

• Hero (the Jet Li movie).
  Qin Shi Huang Di is shown to be highly protected due to all the attempts on his life. And he's shown to be powerful and mighty. But we're never shown all the blood spilled by the First Emperor; we're only told that he's disliked. This movie was directed by a Chinese man whose loyalty to China was questioned by the government; my teacher theorizes that that's why it shows Qin Shi Huang Di in such a moderately-good light.
  
  Why it's a good movie: Jet Li, swords, fighting, cinematography
  Why it's useful for studying: short, easy to remember
  
  
• The Emperor's Assassin.
  We're told a story about Qin Shi Huang Di at the beginning of his rise to power (back when he was just Ying Zheng) and shown how he progresses through the land, gradually encroaching upon every land. As he gains power, he loses his ability to connect to people.
  
  He sends his wife to a neighboring territory to encourage them to send an assassin, so he can have a pretext for invading. She sees how terrible Ying Zheng is becoming, and sends an assassin to kill him for real. There's also a love affair. Also lots of intrigue.
  
  What's great about this movie is that the acting pulls you through all the intrigue. Great acting all around. Another great thing for studying is that it shows you all the places that Ying Cheng conquers, and gives you two more important names to remember: Lü Buwei and Li Si. Don't worry that they try to make the case of Lü Buwei being the Emperor's father--that's ridiculous.
  
  Why it's a great movie: acting, plot, suspense, a little fighting
  Why it's useful for study: you'll never forget Ying Zheng afterwards

Like I said, Qin Shi Huang Di's dynasty lasted for 15 years. That's less than half of the time it took him to wage war and unify his country. He spent most of his life killing people, won the whole shebang in 221 BC, and died in 210 BC. The government was too severe for the populous to support, and none of the warlords in the outlying counties liked the Qin government much for destroying their lands. So then there was a brief period of unrest--a very fascinating time called the Chu-Han Contention.

See, when Ying Zheng/Qin Shi Huang Di died, his eunuch Zhao Gao conspired with Li Si to put the ony one of the Emperor's sons whom they could control on the throne. Bad mistake; the emperor was completely unable to quell rebellion that sprang up all over the land. I'm not sure he even tried. There were many people vying to take down the Qin, and the two prominent people among them were Liu Bang and Xiang Yu. Xiang Yu is portrayed in history like a barbarian, as ruthless as the Qin emperor. Liu Bang is thought to have been more of a diplomat and much more lenient with respect to vanquished foes and the commoners.

I nailed this part of my test, and I lay the credit all at the feet of the Chinese TV drama called "The Story of the Han Dynasty". I don't know how to buy this series here in the US, but, if you search, I'm sure you can find it online somewhere...

"Story" is a bit of a soap opera when it comes to the female roles (but make no mistake, Liu Bang's wife was quite ruthless and became a powerful figure in Chinese history). I suggest watching at least the first 40 episodes to completely understand all that went on. It's not superbly acted, but it's involving enough to get hooked on. I admit some of the episodes suffer from bloat, where some dude laments his fortune for five or ten minutes, but ehh, just fast forward through that. Liu Bang is portrayed as such a buffoon, but he's lovable nonetheless.

I also suggest watching it on your computer with an eye on Wikipedia in another screen. That really helped me; as I watched and thought, That can't possibly be accurate, I'd look it up and, sure enough, what I was seeing matched up with ancient Chinese texts.