The Rise and Fall of The Mongolian Empire

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A CONCISE HISTORY
OF THE RISE AND
FALL OF THE
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
The building of an empire
HENRY EPPS
A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE RISE AND FALL OF THE
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
Preface
The Mongol Empire (Mongolian: About this sound listen

Mongol-yn Ezent Güren; Cyrillic: Монголын эзэнт гүрэн, in
Russian chronicles also Horde - Russian: Орда) existed during
the 13th and 14th centuries, and was the largest contiguous
land empire in human history.[1] Beginning in the Central
Asian steppes, it eventually stretched from Central Europe to
the Sea of Japan, covering Siberia in the north and extending
southward into Indochina the Indian subcontinent, the Iranian
plateau, and the Middle-east.
The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of Mongol

and Turkic tribes of historical Mongolia under the leadership
of Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan was proclaimed ruler of all
Mongols in 1206. The empire grew rapidly under his rule and
then under the rule of his descendants, who sent invasions in
every direction. The vast transcontinental empire which
connected the east with the west with an enforced Pax
Mongolica allowed trade, technologies, commodities and
ideologies to be disseminated and exchanged across Eurasia.
The empire began to split as a result of wars over succession,

as the grandchildren of Genghis Khan disputed whether the
royal line should follow from Genghis's son and initial heir
Ögedei, or one of his other sons such as Tolui, Chagatai, or
Jochi. The Toluids prevailed after a bloody purge of Ögedeid
and Chagataid factions, but disputes continued even among
the descendants of Tolui. After Möngke Khan died, rival
kurultai councils would simultaneously elect different
successors, the brothers Ariq Böke and Kublai, who then not
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only had to defy each other, but also deal with challenges from
descendants of other of Genghis's sons. Kublai successfully
took power, but civil war ensued, as Kublai sought,
unsuccessfully, to regain control of the Chagatayid and
Ögedeid families.
The Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 marked the high-water point of

Mongol conquests, and was the first time a Mongol advance
had ever been beaten back in direct combat on the battlefield.
Though the Mongols launched many more invasions into
Levant, briefly occupying it and raiding as far as Gaza after a
decisive victory at the Battle of Wadi al-Khazandar in 1299,
they withdrew due to various geopolitical factors.
By the time of Kublai's death in 1294, the Mongol Empire had

fractured into four separate khanates or empires, each
pursuing its own separate interests and objectives: the Golden
Horde khanate in the northwest, the Chagatai Khanate in the
west, the Ilkhanate in the southwest, and the Yuan Dynasty
based in modern-day Beijing. In 1304, the three western
khanates briefly accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Yuan
Dynasty, but when it was overthrown by the Han Chinese Ming
Dynasty in 1368, the Mongol Empire finally dissolved.
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Table of Contents
Preface ................................................................................ 2
Table of Contents ............................................................... 5
Chapter One........................................................................ 8
The History of Pre-Mongolian Empire ............................... 8
Chapter Two ..................................................................... 21
The Empire Builder Genghis Khan ................................... 21
Chapter Three ................................................................... 33
The Invasion of the Mongol Hordes ................................ 33
Chapter Four ..................................................................... 48
The Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia from 1219 to 1221 48
Chapter Five ...................................................................... 63
The Mongol Invasion of the Kingdom of Georgia ........... 63
Chapter Six ............................................................................ 73
The Mongol conquest of China ........................................ 73
Chapter Seven .................................................................. 84
The Mighty Mongolian Army ........................................... 84
Chapter Eight .................................................................. 103
The great Khan Kublai Khan ........................................... 103
Chapter Nine................................................................... 111
Temür Öljeytü Khan ....................................................... 111
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Chapter Ten .................................................................... 121

Külüg Khan ...................................................................... 121
Chapter Eleven ............................................................... 130
Buyantu Khan ................................................................. 130
Chapter Twelve............................................................... 141
Gegeen Khan................................................................... 141
Chapter Thirteen ............................................................ 149
Northern Yuan Dynasty .................................................. 149
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Chapter One
The History of Pre-Mongolian Empire
The Mongol tribes emerged from an area which had been

inhabited by humans as far back as the Stone Age, over
850,000 years ago. The peoples there went through the
bronzeage and ironage, then forming tribal alliances and
beginning to battle with China. By the 3rd century BC, there
was evidence of a nomadic culture, comprising Turkic peoples
in tribes which battled with each other and neighboring
cultures. They were subdued temporarily by the growing
strength of the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the 7th century. Over
the next few hundred years, the Chinese subtly encouraged
warfare among the Mongol tribes, as a way of keeping them
distracted from invading China. In the 12th century, the
Mongol Genghis Khan was able to unite or conquer the
warring tribes, forging them into a fighting force which went
on to create the largest contiguous empire in world history.
Origins of the Mongols
Archaeological evidence proves that early Stone Age human

habituated in Mongolia 850,000 years ago.
By the first millennium BC, bronze-working peoples lived in

Mongolia. With the appearance of iron weapons by the 3rd
century BC, the inhabitants of Mongolia had begun to form
Clan alliances and lived a hunter and herder lifestyle. The
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origins of more modern inhabitants are found among the

forest hunters and nomadic tribes of Inner Asia. They
inhabited a great arc of land extending generally from the
Korean Peninsula in the east, across the northern tier of China
to present-day Kazakhstan and to the Pamir Mountains and
Lake Balkash in the west. During most of recorded history, this
has been an area of constant ferment from which emerged
numerous migrations and invasions to the southeast (into
China), to the southwest (into Transoxiana—modern
Uzbekistan, Iran, and India), and to the west (across Scythia
toward Europe). By the 8th century BC, the inhabitants of
much of this region evidently were nomadic Indo-European
speakers, either Scythians or their kin. Also scattered
throughout the area were many other tribes that were
primarily Mongol in their ethnologic characteristics.
Xiongnu
The first significant appearance of nomads came late in the

3rd century BC, when the Chinese repelled an invasion of the
Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu in Wade–Giles Romanization) across the
Huang He (Yellow River) from the Gobi. A Chinese army, which
had adopted Xiongnu military technology—wearing trousers
and using mounted archers with stirrups—pursued the
Xiongnu across the Gobi in a ruthless punitive expedition.
Fortification walls built by various Chinese warring states were
connected to make a 2,300-kilometer Great Wall along the
northern border, as a barrier to further nomadic inroads.
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The Xiongnu temporarily abandoned their interest in China

and turned their attention westward to the region of the Altai
Mountains and Lake Balkash, inhabited by the Yuezhi (Yüeh-
chih in Wade–Giles), an Indo-European-speaking nomadic
people who had relocated from China's present-day Gansu
Province as a result of their earlier defeat by the Xiongnu.
Endemic warfare between these two nomadic peoples
reached a climax in the latter part of the 3rd century and the
early decades of the 2nd century BC; the Xiongnu were
triumphant. The Yuezhi then migrated to the southwest
where, early in the 2nd century, they began to appear in the
Oxus (the modern Amu Darya) Valley, to change the course of
history in Bactria, Iran, and eventually India.
Meanwhile, the Xiongnu again raided northern China about

200 BC, finding that the inadequately defended Great Wall
was not a serious obstacle. By the middle of the 2nd century
BC, they controlled all of northern and western China north of
the Huang He. This renewed threat led the Chinese to improve
their defenses in the north, while building up and improving
the army, particularly the cavalry, and while preparing long-
range plans for an invasion of Mongolia.
Between 130 and 121 BC, Chinese armies drove the Xiongnu
back across the Great Wall, weakened their hold on Gansu
Province as well as on what is now Inner Mongolia, and finally
pushed them north of the Gobi into central Mongolia.
Following these victories, the Chinese expanded into the areas
later known as Manchuria, Mongolia, the Korean Peninsula,
and Inner Asia. The Xiongnu, once more turning their attention
to the west and the southwest, raided deep into the Oxus
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Valley between 73 and 44 BC. The descendants of the Yuezhi

and their Chinese rulers, however, formed a common front
against the Xiongnu and repelled them.
During the next century, as Chinese strength waned, border

warfare between the Chinese and the Xiongnu was almost
incessant. Gradually the nomads forced their way back into
Gansu and the northern part of what is now China's Xinjiang.
In about the middle of the 1st century AD, a revitalized Eastern
Han Dynasty (AD 25-220) slowly recovered these territories,
driving the Xiongnu back into the Altai Mountains and the
steppes north of the Gobi. During the late 1st century AD,
having reestablished the administrative control over southern
China and northern Vietnam that had been lost briefly at
beginning of this same century, the Eastern Han made a
concerted effort to reassert dominance over Inner Asia.
Donghu, Toba, and Rouruan
Although the Xiongnu finally had been driven back into their
homeland by the Chinese in AD 48, within ten years the
Xianbei (or Hsien-pei in Wade–Giles) had moved (apparently
from the north or northwest) into the region vacated by the
Xiongnu. The Xianbei were the northern branch of the Donghu
(or Tung Hu, the Eastern Hu), a proto-Mongol and/or Tunguz
group mentioned in Chinese histories as existing as early as
the 4th century BC. The language of the Donghu, unlike that
of the Xiongnu, is believed to be proto-Mongolic to modern
scholars. The Donghu were among the first peoples conquered
by the Xiongnu. Once the Xiongnu state weakened, however,
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the Donghu rebelled. By the 1st century AD, two major

subdivisions of the Donghu had developed: the proto-
Mongolic Xianbei in the north and the Wuhuan in the south.
The Xianbei, who by the 2nd century AD were attacking
Chinese farms south of the Great Wall, established an empire,
which, although short-lived, gave rise to numerous tribal
states along the Chinese frontier. Among these states was that
of the Toba (T'o-pa in Wade–Giles), a subgroup of the Xianbei,
in modern China's Shanxi Province. The Wuhuan also were
prominent in the 2nd century, but they disappeared
thereafter; possibly they were absorbed in the Xianbei
western expansion. The Xianbei and the Wuhuan used
mounted archers in warfare, and they had only temporary war
leaders instead of hereditary chiefs. Agriculture, rather than
full-scale nomadism, was the basis of their economy. In the
6th century, the Wuhuan were driven out of Inner Asia into
the Russian steppe.
Chinese control of parts of Inner Asia did not last beyond the
opening years of the 2nd century AD, and, as the Eastern Han
Dynasty ended early in the 3rd century AD, suzerainty was
limited primarily to the Gansu corridor. The Xianbei were able
to make forays into a China beset with internal unrest and
political disintegration. By 317 all of China north of the Yangtze
River (Chang Jiang) had been overrun by nomadic peoples: the
Xianbei from the north; some remnants of the Xiongnu from
the northwest; and the Chiang people of Gansu and Tibet
(present-day China's Xizang Autonomous Region) from the
west and the southwest. Chaos prevailed as these groups
warred with each other and repulsed the vain efforts of the
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fragmented Chinese kingdoms south of the Yangtze River to

reconquer the region.
By the end of the 4th century, the region between the Yangtze
and the Gobi, including much of modern Xinjiang, was
dominated by the Toba. Emerging as the partially sinicized
state of Dai between AD 338 and 376 in the Shanxi area, the
Toba established control over the region as the Northern Wei
Dynasty (AD 386-533). Northern Wei armies drove back the
Ruruan (referred to as Ruanruan or Juan-Juan by Chinese
chroniclers), a newly arising nomadic Mongol people in the
steppes north of the Altai Mountains, and reconstructed the
Great Wall. During the 4th century also, the Huns left the
steppes north of the Aral Sea to invade Europe. By the middle
of the 5th century, Northern Wei had penetrated into the
Tarim Basin in Inner Asia, as had the Chinese in the 2nd
century. As the empire grew, however, Toba tribal customs
were supplanted by those of the Chinese, an evolution not
accepted by all Toba.
The Ruruan, only temporarily repelled by Northern Wei, had

driven the Xiongnu toward the Ural Mountains and the
Caspian Sea and were making raids into China. In the late 5th
century, the Ruruan established a powerful nomadic empire
spreading generally farther north of Northern Wei. It was
probably the Ruruan who first used the title khan.
Rise of the Türk
Northern Wei was disintegrating rapidly because of revolts of

semi-tribal Toba military forces that were opposed to being
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Sinicize, when disaster struck the flourishing Ruruan Empire.

The Türk, known as Tujue to Chinese chroniclers, revolted
against their Ruruan rulers. The uprising began in the Altai
Mountains, where many of the Türk were serfs working the
iron mines. Thus, from the outset of their revolt, they had the
advantage of controlling what had been one of the major
bases of Ruruan power. Between 546 and 553, the Türks
overthrew the Ruruan and established themselves as the most
powerful force in North Asia and Inner Asia. This was the
beginning of a pattern of conquest that was to have a
significant effect upon Eurasian history for more than 1,000
years. [Clarification needed] The Türk were the first people to
use this later widespread name. They are also the earliest
Inner Asian people whose language is known, because they
left behind inscriptions in a runic-like Orkhon script, which was
deciphered in 1896.
It was not long before the tribes in the region north of the
Gobi—the Eastern Türk—were following invasion routes into
China used in previous centuries by Xiongnu, Xianbei, Toba,
and Ruruan. Like their predecessors who had inhabited the
mountains and the steppes, the attention of the Türk quickly
was attracted by the wealth of China. At first these new raiders
encountered little resistance, but toward the end of the 6th
century, as China slowly began to recover from centuries of
disunity, border defenses stiffened. The original Türk state
split into eastern and western parts, with some of the Eastern
Türk acknowledging Chinese over lordship.
For a brief period at the beginning of the 7th century, a new

consolidation of the Türk, under the Western Türk ruler Tardu,
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again threatened China. In 601 Tardu's army besieged

Chang'an (modern Xi'an), then the capital of China. Tardu was
turned back, however, and, upon his death two years later, the
Türk state again fragmented. The Eastern Türk nonetheless
continued their depredations, occasionally threatening
Chang'an.
Tang dynasty and Uyghur Empire
From 629 to 648, a reunited China—under the Tang Dynasty

(618-906) --destroyed the power of the Eastern Türk north of
the Gobi; established suzerainty over the Kitan, a semi-
nomadic Mongol people who lived in areas that became the
modern Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin; and
formed an alliance with the Uyghurs, who inhabited the region
between the Altai Mountains and Lake Balkash. Between 641
and 648, the Tang conquered the Western Türk, reestablishing
Chinese sovereignty over Xinjiang and exacting tribute from
west of the Pamir Mountains. The Türk Empire finally ended in
744.
For half a century, the Tang retained control of Central Asia

and Mongolia and parts of Inner Asia. Both sides of the Great
Wall came under Tang rule. During this period, the Tang
expanded Chinese control into the Oxus Valley. At the same
time, their allies, the Uyghurs, conquered much of western
and northern Mongolia until, by the middle of the 8th century,
the Uyghur seminomadic empire extended from Lake Balkash
to Lake Baykal.
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Despite these crippling losses, the Tang recovered and, with

considerable Uyghur assistance, held their frontiers. Tang
dependence upon their northern allies was apparently a
source of embarrassment to the Chinese, who surreptitiously
encouraged the Kirghiz and the Karluks to attack the Uyghurs,
driving them south into the Tarim Basin. As a result of the
Kirghiz action, the Uyghur Empire collapsed in 846. Some of
the Uyghurs immigrated to Eastern Turkistan (the Turpan
region), where they established a flourishing kingdom that
freely submitted to Genghis Khan several centuries later.
Ironically, this weakening of the Uyghurs undoubtedly
hastened the decline and fall of the Tang Dynasty over the
next fifty years.
Kitan and Jurchen
Free of Uyghur restraint, the Mongolic Kitan expanded in all

directions in the latter half of the 9th century and the early
years of the 10th century. By 925 the Kitan ruled eastern
Mongolia, most of Manchuria, and much of China north of the
Huang He. By the middle of the 10th century, Kitan chieftains
had established themselves as emperors of northern China;
their rule was known as the Liao Dynasty (916–1125).
The period of the 11th and 12th centuries was one of

consolidation, preceding the most momentous era in Mongol
history, the era of Genghis Khan. During those centuries, the
vast region of deserts, mountains, and grazing land was
inhabited by people resembling each other in racial, cultural,
and linguistic characteristics; ethnologically they were
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essentially Mongol. The similarities among the Mongols, Türk,

Tangut, and Tatars who inhabited this region cause
considerable ethnic and historical confusion. Generally, the
Mongols and the closely related Tatars inhabited the northern
and the eastern areas; the Türk (who already had begun to
spread over western Asia and southeastern Europe) were in
the west and the southwest; the Tangut, who were more
closely related to the Tibetans than were the other nomads
and who were not a Turkic people, were in eastern Xinjiang,
Gansu, and western Inner Mongolia. The Liao state was
homogeneous, and the Kitan had begun to lose their nomadic
characteristics. The Kitan built cities and exerted dominion
over their agricultural subjects as a means of consolidating
their empire. To the west and the northwest of Liao were
many other Mongol tribes, linked together in various tenuous
alliances and groupings, but with little national cohesiveness.
In Gansu and eastern Xinjiang, the Tangut—who had taken
advantage of the Tang decline—had formed a state, Western
Xia or Xixia (1038–1227), nominally under
Chinese[clarification needed] suzerainty. Xinjiang was
dominated by the Uyghurs, who were loosely allied with the
Chinese.
The people of Mongolia at this time were predominantly spirit

worshipers, with shamans providing spiritual and religious
guidance to the people and tribal leaders. There had been
infusion of Buddhism.
A Tungusic people, the Jurchen, ancestors of the Manchu,

formed an alliance with the Song and reduced the Kitan
Empire to vassal status in a seven-year war (1115–1122). The
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Jurchen leader proclaimed himself the founder of a new era,

the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234). Scarcely pausing in their
conquests, the Tungusic Jurchen subdued neighboring Koryo
(Korea) in 1226 and invaded the territory of their former allies,
the Song, to precipitate a series of wars with China that
continued through the remainder of the century. Meanwhile,
the defeated Kitan Liao ruler had fled with the small remnant
of his army to the Tarim Basin, where he allied himself with
the Uyghurs and established the Karakitai state (known also as
the Western Liao Dynasty, 1124–1234), which soon controlled
both sides of the Pamir Mountains. The Jurchen turned their
attention to the Mongols who, in 1139 and in 1147, warded
them off.
Shiwei and Menggu
The Shiwei, though little is known, have been considered the

ancestors of the Mongols according to ancient Chinese
records. During the 5th century, they occupied the area east
of the Greater Khingan Range, what is the Hulun Buir, Ergune,
Nonni (Noon), Middle Amur, and the Zeya Watersheds. They
may have been divided into five to twenty tribes. They were
said to be dressed in fish skins. They collected harvests of
wheat and millet, and also kept dogs, pigs, oxen, and horses,
but no sheep. Records say they lived purely on hunting. Fur
and skins were traded with the neighboring kingdoms. They
may have been nomadic, staying in the marshy lowlands in the
winter and the mountains during the summer. The burial was
by exposure in trees. Their language is described as being
similar to Manchu-Tungusic languages and Khitan. The Türk
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dynasties (550-740) installed tuduns, or governors over the

Shiwei and collected tribute. Other Shiwei may have stayed
and become the Ewenkis. The Kitans conquered the Shiwei
during the late 9th century. One Shiwei tribe, living near the
Amur and Ergune rivers, was called the "Menggu" (Mongol). A
few scholars believe they, other Shiwei tribes, and many other
peoples from the area moved west from the forest to the
Mongolian proper steppe.
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Chapter Two
The Empire Builder Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan (/ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/ or /ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/, Mongol:

[tʃiŋɡɪs xaːŋ] Chingis/Chinghis Khan; 1162? – August 1227),
born Temujin, was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of
the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous
empire in history after his demise.
He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of

northeast Asia. After founding the Mongol Empire and being
proclaimed "Genghis Khan," he started the Mongol invasions
that resulted in the conquest of most of Eurasia. These
included raids or invasions of the Kara-Khitan Khanate,
Caucasus, Khwarezmid Empire, Western Xia and Jin dynasties.
These campaigns were often accompanied by wholesale
massacres of the civilian populations – especially in the
Khwarezmian controlled lands. By the end of his life, the
Mongol Empire occupied a substantial portion of Central Asia
and China.
Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan as his

successor and split his empire into khanates among his sons
and grandsons. He died in 1227 after defeating the Western
Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in
Mongolia at an unknown location. His descendants went on to
stretch the Mongol Empire across most of Eurasia by
conquering or creating vassal states out of all of modern-day
China, Korea, the Caucasus, Central Asian countries, and
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substantial portions of modern Eastern Europe, Russia and the

Middle East. Many of these invasions repeated the earlier
large-scale slaughters of local populations. As a result Genghis
Khan and his empire have a fearsome reputation in local
histories.
Beyond his military accomplishments, Genghis Khan also

advanced the Mongol Empire in other ways. He decreed the
adoption of the Uyghur script as the Mongol Empire's writing
system. He also promoted religious tolerance in the Mongol
Empire, and created a unified empire from the nomadic tribes
of northeast Asia. Present-day Mongolians regard him as the
founding father of Mongolia.
Early life
Family tree of Genghis Khan
Temujin was related on his father's side to Khabul Khan,

Ambaghai and Hotula Khan who had headed the Khamag
Mongol confederation and were descendants of Bodonchar
Munkhag (c. 900). When the Chinese Jin Dynasty switched
support from the Mongols to the Tatars in 1161, they
destroyed Khabul Khan.
Temujin's father, Yesügei (leader of the Borjigin clan and

nephew to Ambaghai and Hotula Khan), emerged as the head
of the ruling clan of the Mongols. This position was contested
by the rival Tayichi’ud clan, who descended directly from
Ambaghai. When the Tatars grew too powerful after 1161, the
Jin switched their support from the Tatars to the Keraits.
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Birth
Because of the lack of contemporary written records, scant

factual information exists about the early life of Temujin. The
few sources that provide insight into this period often conflict.
Temujin was born in 1162 or 1155 in Delüün Boldog near

Burkhan Khaldun mountain and the Onon and Kherlen rivers
in modern-day northern Mongolia, not far from the current
capital, Ulaanbaatar. The Secret History of the Mongols
reports that Temüjin was born with a blood clot grasped in his
fist, a traditional sign that he was destined to become a great
leader. He was the third-oldest son of his father Yesügei, a
Khamag Mongol's major chief of the Kiyad and an ally of
Toghrul Khan of the Kerait tribe, and the oldest son of his
mother Hoelun. According to the Secret History, Temujin was
named after a Tatar chieftain, Temujin-üge, whom his father
had just captured. The name also suggests that they may have
been descended from a family of blacksmiths
Yesukhei's clan was called Borjigin (Боржигин), and Hoelun

was from the Olkhunut, the sub-lineage of the Onggirat tribe.
Like other tribes, they were nomads. Because his father was a
chieftain, as were his predecessors, Temüjin was of a noble
background. This higher social standing made it easier to
solicit help from and eventually consolidate the other Mongol
tribes.
Early life and family
Temujin had three brothers named Hasar, Hachiun, and

Temüge, and one sister named Temülen, as well as two half-
brothers named Behter and Belgutei. Like many of the nomads
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of Mongolia, Temujin's early life was difficult. His father

arranged a marriage for him, and at nine years of age, he was
delivered by his father to the family of his future wife Börte,
who was a member of the tribe Onggirat. Temujin was to live
there in service to Dai Setsen, the head of the new household,
until he reached the marriageable age of 12.
While heading home, his father ran into the neighboring

Tatars, who had long been enemies of the Mongols, and he
was subsequently poisoned by the food they offered. Upon
learning this, Temujin returned home to claim his father's
position as chieftain of the tribe; however, his father's tribe
refused to be led by a boy so young. They abandoned Hoelun
and her children, leaving them without protection.
For the next several years, Hoelun and her children lived in
poverty, surviving primarily on wild fruits and ox carcasses,
marmots, and other small game hunted by Temujin and his
brothers. It was during one hunting excursion that 14-year-old
Temujin killed his half-brother Behter during a fight which
resulted from a dispute over hunting spoils. This incident
cemented his position.
In another incident, around 1177, he was captured in a raid

and held prisoner by his father's former allies, the Tayichi'ud.
The Tayichi'ud enslaved Temujin (reportedly with a cangue, a
sort of portable stocks), but with the help of a sympathetic
guard - the father of Chilaun (who later became a general of
Genghis Khan), he was able to escape from the ger (yurt) in
the middle of the night by hiding in a river crevice. It was
around this time that Jelme and Bo'orchu, two of Genghis
Khan's future generals, joined forces with him. Temüjin's
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reputation also became widespread after his escape from the

Tayichi'ud.
At this time, none of the tribal confederations of Mongolia

were united politically, and arranged marriages were often
used to solidify temporary alliances. Temujin grew up
observing the tough political climate of Mongolia, which
included tribal warfare, thievery, raids, corruption and
continuing acts of revenge carried out between the various
confederations, all compounded by interference from foreign
forces such as the Chinese dynasties to the south. Temujin's
mother Hoelun taught him many lessons about the unstable
political climate of Mongolia, especially the need for alliances.
Marriage to Börte
As previously arranged by his father, Temujin married Börte of

the Onggirat tribe when he was around 16 in order to cement
alliances between their respective tribes. Soon after Börte's
marriage to Temujin, she was kidnapped by the Merkits, and
reportedly given away as a wife. Temüjin rescued her with the
help of his friend and future rival, Jamukha, and his protector,
Toghrul Khan of the Kerait tribe. She gave birth to a son, Jochi
(1185–1226), nine months later, clouding the issue of his
parentage. Despite speculation over Jochi, Börte would be his
only empress, though Temujin did follow tradition by taking
several morganatic wives.
Börte had three more sons, Chagatai (1187—1241), Ögedei

(1189—1241), and Tolui (1190–1232). Genghis Khan also had
many other children with his other wives, but they were
excluded from the succession. While the names of sons were
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documented, daughters were not. The names of at least six

daughters are known, and while they played significant roles
behind the scenes during his lifetime, no documents have
survived that definitively provide the number or names of
daughters born to the consorts of Genghis Khan.
Temujin valued loyalty above all else and also valued

brotherhood. Jamukha was one of Temujin's best friends
growing up. But their friendship was tested later in life, when
Temujin was fighting to become a khan. Jamukha said this to
Temujin before he was killed, "What use is there in my
becoming a companion to you? On the contrary, sworn
brother, in the black night I would haunt your dreams, in the
bright day I would trouble your heart. I would be the louse in
your collar, I would become the splinter in your door-panel....as
there was room for only one sun in the sky, and there was room
only for one Mongol lord."
Religion
He was religiously tolerant and interested in learning

philosophical and moral lessons from other religions. To do so,
he consulted Buddhist monks, Muslims, Christian
missionaries, and the Taoist monk Qiu Chuji. The Secret
History of the Mongols chronicles Genghis praying to the
Burhan Haldun mountain.
Uniting the Mongol confederations
Mongols before Genghis Khan and Mongols
Asia in 1200 AD.
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The Central Asian plateau (north of China) around the time of

Temüjin (the early 13th century) was divided into several
tribes or confederations, among them Naimans, Merkits,
Tatars, Khamag Mongols, and Keraits, that were all prominent
in their own right and often unfriendly toward each other as
evidenced by random raids, revenge attacks, and plundering.
Temujin began his slow ascent to power by offering himself as

an ally (or, according to others sources, a vassal) to his father's
anda (sworn brother or blood brother) Toghrul, who was Khan
of the Kerait, and is better known by the Chinese title "Wang
Khan", which the Jin Empire granted him in 1197. This
relationship was first reinforced when Börte was captured by
the Merkits; it was Toghrul to whom Temujin turned for
support. In response, Toghrul offered his vassal 20,000 of his
Kerait warriors and suggested that he also involve his
childhood friend Jamukha, who had himself become Khan
(ruler) of his own tribe, the Jadaran.
Although the campaign was successful and led to the

recapture of Börte and utter defeat of the Merkits, it also
paved the way for the split between the childhood friends,
Temujin and Jamukha. Temujin had become blood brother
(anda) with Jamukha earlier, and they had vowed to remain
eternally faithful.
Rival tribes in the immediate region
The main opponents of the Mongol confederation

(traditionally the "Mongols") around 1200 were the Naimans
to the west, the Merkits to the north, Tanguts to the south,
and the Jin and Tatars to the east. By 1190, Temujin, his
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
followers, and their advisors, had united the smaller Mongol

confederation only. In his rule and his conquest of rival tribes,
Temujin broke with Mongol tradition in a few crucial ways. He
delegated authority based on merit and loyalty, rather than
family ties.
As an incentive for absolute obedience and following his rule

of law, the Yassa code, Temujin promised civilians and soldiers
wealth from future possible war spoils. As he defeated rival
tribes, he did not drive away enemy soldiers and abandon the
rest. Instead, he took the conquered tribe under his protection
and integrated its members into his own tribe. He would even
have his mother adopt orphans from the conquered tribe,
bringing them into his family. These political innovations
inspired great loyalty among the conquered people, making
Temujin stronger with each victory.
Toghrul's (Wang Khan) son Senggum was jealous of Temüjin's

growing power, and his affinity with his father. He allegedly
planned to assassinate Temujin. Toghrul, though allegedly
saved on multiple occasions by Temujin, gave in to his son and
became uncooperative with Temüjin. Temüjin learned of
Senggum's intentions and eventually defeated him and his
loyalists.
One of the later ruptures between Toghrul and Temüjin was

Toghrul's refusal to give his daughter in marriage to Jochi, the
eldest son of Temüjin, a sign of disrespect in the Mongolian
culture. This act led to the split between both factions, and
was a prelude to war. Toghrul allied himself with Jamukha,
who already opposed Temujin's forces; however, the internal
dispute between Toghrul and Jamukha, plus the desertion of
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
a number of their allies to Temujin, led to Toghrul's defeat.

Jamukha escaped during the conflict. This defeat was a
catalyst for the fall and eventual dissolution of the Kerait tribe.
The next direct threat to Temüjin was the Naimans (Naiman

Mongols), with whom Jamukha and his followers took refuge.
The Naimans did not surrender, although enough sectors
again voluntarily sided with Temujin. In 1201, a khuruldai
elected Jamukha as Gür Khan, "universal ruler", a title used by
the rulers of the Kara-Khitan Khanate. Jamukha's assumption
of this title was the final breach with Temüjin, and Jamukha
formed a coalition of tribes to oppose him. Before the conflict,
however, several generals abandoned Jamukha, including
Subutai, Jelme's well-known younger brother. After several
battles, Jamukha was finally turned over to Temujin by his own
men in 1206.
According to the Secret History, Temujin again offered his

friendship to Jamukha, asking him to return to his side.
Temujin had killed the men who betrayed Jamukha, stating
that he did not want disloyal men in his army. Jamukha
refused the offer of friendship and reunion, saying that there
can only be one Sun in the sky, and he asked for a noble death.
The custom is to die without spilling blood, which is granted
by breaking the back. Jamukha requested this form of death,
despite the fact that in the past Jamukha had been known to
have boiled his opponent's generals alive.
Sole ruler of the Mongol plains (1206)
The rest of the Merkit clan that sided with the Naimans were
defeated by Subutai, who was by then a member of Temujin's
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personal guard and later became one of the most successful

commanders of Genghis Khan. The Naimans' defeat left
Genghis Khan as the sole ruler of the Mongol plains – all the
prominent confederations fell or united under Temüjin's
Mongol confederation.
Accounts of Genghis Khan's life are marked by claims of a

series of betrayals and conspiracies. These include rifts with
his early allies such as Jamukha (who also wanted to be a ruler
of Mongol tribes) and Wang Khan (his and his father's ally), his
son Jochi, and problems with the most important shaman,
who was allegedly trying to drive a wedge between him and
his loyal brother Khasar. His military strategies showed a deep
interest in gathering good intelligence and understanding the
motivations of his rivals as exemplified by his extensive spy
network and Yam route systems. He seemed to be a quick
student, adopting new technologies and ideas that he
encountered, such as siege warfare from the Chinese. He was
also ruthless, as demonstrated by his measuring against the
linchpin tactic used against the tribes led by Jamukha.
As a result by 1206 Temüjin had managed to unite or subdue

the Merkits, Naimans, Mongols, Keraits, Tatars, Uyghurs and
other disparate smaller tribes under his rule. It was a
monumental feat for the "Mongols" (as they became known
collectively). At a Khuruldai, a council of Mongol chiefs, he was
acknowledged as "Khan" of the consolidated tribes and took
the new title "Genghis Khan". The title Khagan was not
conferred on Genghis until after his death, when his son and
successor, Ögedei, took the title for himself and extended it
posthumously to his father (as he was also to be posthumously
30
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
declared the founder of the Yuan Dynasty). This unification of

all confederations by Genghis Khan established peace
between previously warring tribes and a single political and
military force under Genghis Khan.
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32
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Chapter Three
The Invasion of the Mongol Hordes
Mongol invasions progressed throughout the 13th century,

resulting in the vast Mongol Empire which covered much of
Asia and Eastern Europe by 1300. Historians regard the
Mongol raids and invasions as some of the deadliest conflicts
in human history. Brian Landers has offered that, "One empire
in particular exceeded any that had gone before, and crossed
from Asia into Europe in an orgy of violence and destruction.
The Mongols brought terror to Europe on a scale not seen
again until the twentieth century." Diana Lary contends that
the Mongol invasions induced population displacement "on a
scale never seen before," particularly in Central Asia and
eastern Europe. She adds, "The impending arrival of the
Mongol hordes spread terror and panic." Tsai concludes, "The
Mongol conquests shook Eurasia and were of significant
influence in world history."
The Mongol Empire emerged in the course of the 13th century

by a series of conquests and invasions throughout Central and
Western Asia, reaching Eastern Europe by the 1240s. The
speed and extent of territorial expansion parallels the
Hunnic/Turkic conquests of the Migration period (the 6th
century Turkic Khaganate).
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
The territorial gains of the Mongols persisted into the 14th

century in China (Yuan Dynasty), into the 15th century in
Persia (Timurid dynasty) and in Russia (Tatar and Mongol raids
against Russian states), and into the 19th century in India (the
Mughal Empire).
Central Asia
Mongol invasion of Central Asia
Battle of Vâliyân against the Khwarazmian dynasty
Genghis Khan forged the initial Mongol Empire in Central Asia,

starting with the unification of the Mongol and Turkic central
Asian confederations such as Merkits, Tartars, Mongols, and
Uighurs. He then continued expansion of the Empire via
invasion of the Kara-Khitan and the Khwarazmian dynasty.
Large areas of Islamic Central Asia and northeastern Iran were

seriously depopulated, as every city or town that resisted the
Mongols was subject to destruction. In Termez, on the Oxus:
"all the people, both men and women, were driven out onto
the plain, and divided in accordance with their usual custom,
then they were all slain". Each soldier was required to execute
a certain number of persons, with the number varying
according to circumstances. For example, after the conquest
of Urgench, each Mongol warrior – in an army group that
might have consisted of two tumens (units of 10,000) – was
required to execute 24 people.
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
West Asia
Siege of Baghdad in 1258
The Mongols conquered, either by force or voluntary

submission, the areas today known as Iran, Iraq, Syria, and
parts of Turkey, with further Mongol raids reaching
southwards as far as Gaza into the Palestine region in 1260
and 1300. The major battles were the Siege of Baghdad (1258),
when the Mongols sacked the city which for 500 years had
been the center of Islamic power; and the Battle of Ain Jalut in
1260, when the Muslim Egyptian Mamluks were for the first
time able to stop the Mongol advance at Ain Jalut in the
southern part of the Galilee. One thousand northern Chinese
engineer squads accompanied the Mongol Khan Hulagu
during his conquest of the Middle East.
The Mongols were never able to expand farther than the

Middle East due to a combination of political and
environmental factors, such as lack of sufficient grazing room
for their horses.
Battle of Bạch Đằng against Dai Viet
Genghis Khan and his descendants launched numerous

invasions of China, subjugating the Western Xia in 1209 before
destroying them in 1227, defeating the Jin dynasty in 1234,
and defeating the Song Dynasty in 1279. They also destroyed
the Tibetan Kingdom of Dali in 1253, forced Korea to become
a vassal through an invasion of Korea, but failed in their
attempts to invade Japan. They also met defeat in Vietnam
and Java, although much of South Asia agreed to pay tribute
in order to avoid further bloodshed. The Mongols greatest
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
triumph was when Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty

in China in 1271, though this dynasty was eventually
overthrown in 1368 by the native Han Chinese, who launched
their own Ming Dynasty. The Mongols also invaded Burma in
1277, 1283 and 1287, and Sakhalin Island between 1264 and
1308.
Mongol invasion of Europe
Battle of Legnica in the first Mongol invasion of Poland
Historians regard the Mongol raids and invasions as some of

the deadliest conflicts in human history up through that
period. Brian Landers has offered that, "One empire in
particular exceeded any that had gone before, and crossed
from Asia into Europe in an orgy of violence and destruction.
The Mongols brought terror to Europe on a scale not seen
again until the twentieth century." Diana Lary contends that
the Mongol invasions induced population displacement "on a
scale never seen before," particularly in Central Asia and
eastern Europe. She adds, "the impending arrival of the
Mongol hordes spread terror and panic."
The Mongols invaded and destroyed Volga Bulgaria and

Kievan Rus', before invading Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria,
and others. Over the course of three years (1237–1240), the
Mongols destroyed and annihilated all of the major cities of
Eastern Europe with the exceptions of Novgorod and Pskov.
Giovanni de Plano Carpini, the Pope's envoy to the Mongol

Great Khan, traveled through Kiev in February 1246 and
wrote:
36
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
"They [the Mongols] attacked Rus, where they made great

havoc, destroying cities and fortresses and slaughtering men;
and they laid siege to Kiev, the capital of Rus; after they had
besieged the city for a long time, they took it and put the
inhabitants to death. When we were journeying through that
land we came across countless skulls and bones of dead men
lying about on the ground. Kiev had been a very large and
thickly populated town, but now it has been reduced almost
to nothing, for there are at the present time scarce two
hundred houses there and the inhabitants are kept in
complete slavery."
Political divisions and vassals
The early Mongol Empire was divided into five main parts and
various appanage khanates. The most prominent sections
were:
Mongolia, Southern Siberia and Manchuria under Karakorum;
North China and Tibet under Yanjing Department;
Khorazm, Transoxiana and the Hami Oases under Beshbalik

Department
Persia, Georgia, Armenia, Cilicia and Turkey (former Seljuk

ruled parts) under Amu Dar'ya Department
Golden Horde, which was further subdivided into 10

provinces.
When Genghis Khan was campaigning in Central Asia, his

general Muqali (1170–1223) attempted to set up provinces
and establish branch departments of state affairs. Genghis's
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
successor Ögedei abolished them, instead dividing the areas

of North China into 10 routes (lu, 路) according to the
suggestion of Yelü Chucai, a prominent Confucian statesman
of Khitan ethnicity. Ögedei also divided the empire into
separate Beshbalik and Yanjing administrations, while the
Headquarters in Karakorum directly dealt with Manchuria,
Mongolia and Southern Siberia. Late in Ögedei's reign, an Amu
Darya administration was established. Under Möngke, these
administrations were renamed Branch Departments.
Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan Dynasty, made

significant reforms to the existing institutions. He established
the Yuan Dynasty in 1271 and assumed the role of a Chinese
emperor. The Yuan forces seized South China by defeating the
Southern Song Dynasty, and Kublai became the emperor of all
China. The territory of the Yuan Dynasty was divided into the
Central Region (腹裏) and places under control of various Xing
Zhongshusheng (行中書省, "branch secretariats") or the
Xuanzheng Institute (宣政院).
Vassals and tributary states
The Mongol Empire at its greatest extent included all of

modern-day Mongolia, China, parts of Burma, Romania,
Pakistan, much or all of Russia, Siberia, Ukraine, Belarus,
Cilicia, Anatolia, Georgia, Armenia, Persia, Iraq, and Central
Asia. In the meantime, many countries became vassals or
tributary states of the Mongol Empire.
European vassals
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Batu Khan attempted to invade a number of Russian states,

including the Republic of Novgorod, Pskov and Smolensk, in
1239, but could not reach the northern part of Russia due to
the marshlands surrounding city-states such as Novgorod and
Pskov. However, due to the combined effects of Mongol
threats, invasion by the Teutonic order, and diplomacy by
Alexander Nevsky, Novgorod and later Pskov accepted terms
of vassalage. By 1274, all remaining Russian principalities had
become subject to the Horde of Möngke-Temür.
Second Bulgarian Empire During the end of the Mongol

invasion of Europe, the Bulgarians under Ivan Asen II tried to
destroy Mongol tumen. But Kadan's raids through Bulgaria on
his retreat from Central Europe induced the young Kaliman I
of Bulgaria to pay tribute and accept Mongol suzerainty. A
1254 letter from Béla IV to the pope indicated that the
Bulgarians were still paying tribute to the Mongols at that
time.
Kingdom of Serbia. Around 1288 Milutin launched an invasion

to pacify two Bulgarian nobles in today's north-east Serbia, in
the Branicevo region. However, those nobles were vassals of
the Bulgarian prince of Vidin Shishman. Shishman attacked
Milutin but was defeated and Milutin in return sacked his
capital Vidin. But Shishman was a vassal of Nogai Khan, de
facto ruler of the Golden Horde. Nogai Khan threatened to
punish Milutin for his insolence, but changed his mind when
the Serbian king sent him gifts and hostages. Among the
hostages was his son Stefan Dečanski who managed to escape
back to Serbia after Nogai Khan's death in 1299.
Southeast Asian and Korean vassals[edit]
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
Đại Việt (Vietnam).[16] After the Vietnamese captured the

Mongol envoys sent to negotiate safe passage in order to
attack Southern China, Mongol forces invaded the Trần
Dynasty in 1257. The Mongols routed city defenders and
massacred inhabitants of the capital Thăng Long (Hanoi). King
Than Tong agreed to pay tribute to Möngke Khan if he would
spare his country. When Kublai Khan demanded full
submission of the Tran family, Mongol darughachis were well
received,[17] though the relationship between the two states
deteriorated in 1264. After a series of invasions in 1278-1288,
the king of Đại Việt (Trần Dynasty) accepted Mongol
suzerainty. By that time, each side had suffered heavy losses
due to the large but ineffective wars.
Champa.[16] Although King Ve Indrawarman of Champa

expressed his desire to accept Yuan rule in 1278, his son and
subjects ignored his submission. In 1283, Mongol army was
driven from the country and their general was killed, even
though they repeatedly defeated all Champa forces in open
battle. The king of Champa started sending tribute two years
later to avoid further Mongol invasions.
Khmer empire.[16] In 1278, a Mongol envoy was executed by

the Khmer king. An envoy was sent again to demand
submission while the Yuan army was besieging the fortress in
nearby Champa. After this second envoy was imprisoned, 100
Mongol cavalry were sent into Khmer territory. They were
ambushed and destroyed by the Khmer.
Sukhothai Kingdom and Chiangmai or Taiyo. When Kublai

Khan sent Mongol forces to protect his vassals in Burma, Thai
states, including Sukhotai and Taiyo, accepted Mongol
40
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
supremacy. King Ramkhamhaeng and other Thai and Khmer

leaders visited the Yuan court to show their loyalty several
times.
The Kingdom of Goryeo. The Mongol invasions of Korea

consisted of a series of campaigns by the Mongol Empire
against Korea, then known as Goryeo, from 1231 to 1270.
There were six major campaigns at tremendous cost to civilian
lives throughout the Korean peninsula, ultimately resulting in
Korea becoming a vassal of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty for
approximately eighty years.[19] The Mongol Empire and the
Kingdom of Goryeo tied with marriages as Mongol and Korean
royalty intermarried. A Korean princess became the Qi
Empress through her marriage with Ukhaantu Khan, and their
son, Biligtü Khan of Northern Yuan, became a Mongol Khan.
King Chungnyeol of Goryeo married a daughter of Kublai Khan,
and marriages between Mongols and Koreans continued for
eighty years. The Goryeo dynasty survived under Mongolian
influence until King Gongmin began to push Mongolian
garrisons back starting in the 1350s.
Middle East vassals[edit]
Main article: Franco-Mongol alliance
The Principality of Antioch and the County of Tripoli[20] - The

small Crusader state paid annual tributes for many years. The
closest thing to actual Frankish cooperation with Mongol
military actions was the overlord-subject relationship
between the Mongols and the Franks of Antioch and others.
Mongols lost their vassal and ally Franks with the fall of
Antioch in 1268 and Tripoli in 1289 to the Mamluks.
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
The Empire of Trebizond- The Seljuks and the military forces

of Trebizond were defeated by the Mongols in 1243. After
that, Kaykhusraw II, the Sultan of Iconium was compelled to
pay tribute and supply annually horses, hunting dogs, and
jewels. The emperor Manuel I of Trebizond, realizing the
impossibility of fighting the Mongols, made a speedy peace
with them and, on condition of paying an annual tribute,
became a Mongol vassal. The empire reached its greatest
prosperity and had opportunity to export the produce of its
own rich hinterland during the era of Ilkhans. But with the
decline of Mongol power in 1335, Trebizond suffered
increasingly from Turkish attacks, civil wars, and domestic
intrigues.[21]
Tributary states[edit]
The indigenous people of Sakhalin. The Mongol forces made

several attacks on Sakhalin, beginning in 1264 and continuing
until 1308.[22] Economically, the conquest of new peoples
provided further wealth for the tribute-based Mongol
Dynasty. The Nivkhs and the Oroks were subjugated by the
Mongols. However, the Ainu people raided Mongol posts
every year.[23] The native Gǔwéi people finally accepted
Mongol supremacy in 1308, and made tributary visits to Yuan
posts for the next few decades.
The Byzantine Empire.[24] When an Egyptian diplomat was

arrested by emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, Sultan Baibars
insisted his ally Berke Khan attack the Greek empire. In the
winter of 1265, Nogai Khan led a Mongol raid on Byzantine
Thrace with his vassal Bulgaria. In the spring of 1265 he
defeated the armies of Michael and freed the diplomat and
42
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
former Seljuk sultan Kaykaus II. Instead of fighting, most of the

Byzantines fled. Michael managed to escape with the
assistance of Italian merchants. Thrace was subsequently
plundered by Nogai's army, and the Byzantine emperor signed
a treaty with Berke of the Golden Horde, giving his daughter
Euphrosyne in marriage to Nogai. Michael also sent much
valuable fabric to the Golden Horde as tribute thereafter. But
the court of Byzantium had good relationships with both the
Golden Horde and Ilkhanate as allies.
Small states of Malay Peninsula. Kublai sent envoys to

surrounding nations to demand their submission in 1270-
1280. Most such states in Indo-China and Malay acquiesced.
According to Marco Polo, those subjects paid tribute to the
Mongol court, including elephants, rhinoceroses, jewels and a
tooth of Buddha. One notable scholar identified that these
acts of submission were more ceremonial in some regard.
During the Mongol invasion of Java in 1293, small states of
Malay and Sumatra submitted and sent envoys or hostages to
them. Native people of modern Taiwan and Philippines helped
the Mongol armada but they were never conquered.
Timeline[edit]
Main article: Timeline of the Mongol Empire
1205, 1207–1208, 1209–1210, 1225–1227 invasion of

Western Xia
1207 conquest of Siberia
1211–1234 conquest of Northern China
43
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
1213–1235 conquest of Jin dynasty
1216–1220 conquest of Central Asia and Eastern Persia
1216–1218 conquest of the Kara-Khitai
1219-1220 conquest of Khwarazm
1220-1223, 1235–1330 invasions of Georgia and the Caucasus
1220–1224 invasion of the Cumans
1222–1327 Mongol invasions of India
1223–1236 invasion of Volga Bulgaria
1231–1259 invasion of Korea
1235-1279 conquest of Song dynasty
1222, 1236–1242 Mongol invasion of Europe
1236–1242 invasion of Rus
1237-1238 invasion of eastern and northern Rus'
1239-1240 invasion of southern and western Rus'
1238-1239 invasion of North Caucasus
1238-1240 invasion of Cumania and Alania
1241 invasion of Poland and Bohemia;
1241 Battle of Legnica
1241 invasion of Hungary
1241 Battle of Mohi
44
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
1241 invasion of Austria and Northeast Italy
1241–1242 invasion of Croatia
1242 invasion of Serbia and Bulgaria
1240-1241 invasion of Tibet
1241–1244 invasion of Anatolia
1251–1259 invasion of Persia, Syria and Mesopotamia
1253-1256 invasion of Yunnan
1257, 1284, 1287 invasions of Vietnam
1258 invasion of Baghdad
1258–1260 invasion of Galych-Volhynia, Lithuania and Poland
Sack of Sandomierz
1260 Battle of Ain Jalut
1260 Mongol raid against Syria
1264–1265 raid against Bulgaria and Thrace
1264–1308 invasion of Sakhalin Island
1271 raid against Syria
1274, 1281 invasions of Japan
1274 raid against Bulgaria
1275, 1277 raids against Lithuania
1277 battle of Abulustayn
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
1277 invasion of Myanmar
1281 invasion of Syria
1284–1285 invasion of Hungary
1285 raid against Bulgaria
1287 invasion of Myanmar
1287–1288 raids against Poland
1293 invasion of Java
1299 invasion of Syria
1300 Mongol invasion of Myanmar
1300 Mongol invasion of Syria
1303 Invasion of Syria
1307 Mongol invasion of Gilan
1312 Mongol invasion of Syria
1324, 1337 Mongol raids against Thrace
46
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
47
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Chapter Four
The Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia from 1219 to
1221
The Mongol invasion of Khwarezmia from 1219 to 1221[1]

marked the beginning of the Mongol conquest of the Islamic
states. The Mongol expansion would ultimately culminate in
the conquest of virtually all of Eurasia, save for Western
Europe, Fennoscandia, the Byzantine Empire, Arabia, most of
the Indian subcontinent, Japan and parts of Southeast Asia.
Incidentally, it was not originally the intention of the Mongol

Empire to invade the Khwarezmid Empire. According to the
Persian historian Juzjani, Genghis Khan had originally sent the
ruler of the Khwarezmid Empire, Ala ad-Din Muhammad, a
message seeking trade and greeted him as his neighbor: "I am
master of the lands of the rising sun while you rule those of
the setting sun. Let us conclude a firm treaty of friendship and
peace."[2] The Mongols' original unification of all "people in
felt tents", unifying the nomadic tribes in Mongolia and then
the Turcomens and other nomadic peoples, had come with
relatively little bloodshed, and almost no material loss. Even
his invasions of China, to that point, had involved no more
bloodshed than previous nomadic invasions had caused.[3]
Shah Muhammad reluctantly agreed to this peace treaty, but
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
it was not to last. The war started less than a year later, when
a Mongol caravan and its envoys were massacred in the
Khwarezmian city of Otrar.
In the ensuing war, lasting less than two years, the

Khwarezmid Empire was utterly destroyed.
Contents [show]
Origins of the conflict[edit]
After the defeat of the Kara-Khitans, Genghis Khan's Mongol

Empire gained a border with the Khwarezmid Empire,
governed by Shah Ala ad-Din Muhammad. The shah had only
recently taken some of the territory under his control, and he
was also busy with a dispute with the caliph in Baghdad. The
shah had refused to make the obligatory homage to the Caliph
as titular leader of Islam, and demanded recognition as Sultan
of his Empire, without any of the usual bribes or pretenses.
This alone had created problems for him along his southern
border. It was at this junction the rapidly expanding Mongol
Empire made contact.[4] Mongol historians are adamant that
the Great Khan at that time had no intention of invading the
Khwarezmid Empire, and was only interested in trade and
even a potential alliance.[5]
The shah was very suspicious of Genghis' desire for a trade

agreement, and messages from the shah's ambassador at
Zhongdu (Beijing) in China described the exaggerated
savagery of the Mongols when they assaulted the city during
their war with the Jin Dynasty.[6] Of further interest is that the
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caliph of Baghdad, An-Nasir, had attempted to instigate a war

between the Mongols and the Shah some years before the
Mongol invasion actually occurred. This attempt at an alliance
with Genghis was done because of a dispute between Nasir
and the Shah, but the Khan had no interest in alliance with any
ruler who claimed ultimate authority, titular or not, and which
marked the Caliphate for an extinction which would come
from Genghis' grandson, Hulegu. At the time, this attempt by
the Caliph involved the Shah's ongoing claim to be named
sultan of Khwarezm, something that Nasir had no wish to
grant, as the Shah refused to acknowledge his authority,
however illusory such authority was. However, it is known that
Genghis rejected the notion of war as he was engaged in war
with the Jin Dynasty and was gaining much wealth from
trading with the Khwarezmid Empire.[citation needed]
Genghis then sent a 500-man caravan of Muslims to establish

official trade ties with Khwarezmia. However Inalchuq, the
governor of the Khwarezmian city of Otrar, had the members
of the caravan that came from Mongolia arrested, claiming
that the caravan was a conspiracy against Khwarezmia. It
seems unlikely, however, that any members of the trade
delegation were spies. Nor does it seem likely that Genghis
was trying to provoke a conflict with the Khwarezmid Empire,
considering he was still dealing with the Jin in northeastern
China.[5]
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
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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."[7] This led Genghis
Khan to attack the Khwarezmian Dynasty. The Mongols
crossed the Tien Shan mountains, coming into the Shah's
empire in 1219.[8]
Initial invasion[edit]
After compiling information from many intelligence sources,

primarily from spies along the Silk Road, Genghis Khan
carefully prepared his army, which was organized differently
from Genghis' earlier campaigns.[9] The changes had come in
adding supporting units to his dreaded cavalry, both heavy
and light. While still relying on the traditional advantages of
his mobile nomadic cavalry, Genghis incorporated many
aspects of warfare from China, particularly in siege warfare.
His baggage train included such siege equipment as battering
rams, gunpowder, trebuchets, and enormous siege bows
capable of throwing 20-foot arrows into siege works. Also, the
Mongol intelligence network was formidable. The Mongols
never invaded an opponent whose military and economic will
and ability to resist had not been thoroughly and completely
scouted. For instance, Subutai and Batu Khan spent a year
scouting central Europe, before destroying the armies of
Hungary and Poland in two separate battles, two days
apart.[10]
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The size of Genghis' army is often in dispute, ranging from a

small army of 90,000 soldiers to a larger estimate of 250,000
soldiers, and Genghis brought along his most able generals to
aid him. Genghis also brought a large body of foreigners with
him, primarily of Chinese origin. These foreigners were siege
experts, bridge-building experts, doctors and a variety of
specialty soldiers.
During the invasion of Transoxania in 1219, along with the

main Mongol force, Genghis Khan used a Chinese specialist
catapult unit in battle; they were used again in 1220 in
Transoxania. The Chinese may have used the catapults to hurl
gunpowder bombs, since they already had them by this time
[11] While Genghis Khan was conquering Transoxania and
Persia, several Chinese who were familiar with gunpowder
were serving with Genghis's army.[12] Historians have
suggested that the Mongol invasion had brought Chinese
gunpowder weapons to Central Asia. One of these was the
huochong, a Chinese mortar.[13]
A minaret in Samarkand.
In this invasion, the Khan first demonstrated the use of

indirect attack that would become a hallmark of his later
campaigns, and those of his sons and grandsons. The Khan
divided his armies, and sent one force solely to find and
execute the Shah - so that a ruler of an Empire as large as that
of the Khan's, with a larger army, was forced to run for his life
in his own country.[4] The divided Mongol forces destroyed
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MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
the Shah's forces piecemeal, and began the utter devastation

of the country which would mark many of their later
conquests.
Battle of Vâliyân (1221). Jami' al-tawarikh, Rashid al-Din.
The Shah's army, numbering roughly 400,000, was split among

the various major cities. The Shah was fearful that his army, if
placed in one large unit under a single command structure,
might possibly be turned against him. Further, the Shah's
reports from China indicated that the Mongols were not
experts in siege warfare, and experienced problems when
attempting to take fortified positions. The Shah's decisions on
troop deployment would prove disastrous as the campaign
unfolded.
Though tired from their journey, the Mongols still won their
first victories against the Khwarezmian army. A Mongol army,
under Jochi, with 25,000 to 30,000 men, attacked the Shah's
army in southern Khwarezmia and prevented the much larger
forces of the Shah from forcing them into the mountains.[14]
The primary Mongol army, headed personally by Genghis
Khan, reached the city of Otrar in the fall of 1219. After
besieging Otrar for five months, the Khan's forces managed to
storm the main part of the city by entering a sally port gate
that was not secured.[14]
A further month went by before the citadel at Otrar was taken.

Inalchuq held out until the end, even climbing to the top of the
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citadel in the last moments of the siege to throw down tiles at

the oncoming Mongols. Genghis killed many of the
inhabitants, enslaved the rest, and executed Inalchuq.[15]
Ruins of Muhammad's palace in Urgench.
Sieges of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Urgench[edit]
Genghis placed his general Jebe at the head of a small army

sent to the south, intending to cut off any retreat by the Shah
to that half of his kingdom. Further, Genghis and Tolui, at the
head of an army of roughly 50,000 men, skirted Samarkand
and went westwards to lay siege to the city of Bukhara first.
To do this, they traversed the seemingly impassable Kyzyl Kum
desert by hopping through the various oases, guided most of
the way by captured nomads. The Mongols arrived at the
gates of Bukhara virtually unnoticed. Many military tacticians
regard this surprise entrance to Bukhara one of the most
successful surprise attacks in warfare.[16]
Bukhara was not heavily fortified, with a moat and a single

wall, and the citadel typical of Khwarezmi cities. The Bukharan
garrison was made up of Turkish soldiers and led by Turkish
generals, who attempted to break out on the third day of the
siege. The break-out force, of perhaps 20,000 men, was
annihilated in open battle. The city leaders opened the gates
to the Mongols, though a unit of Turkish defenders held the
city's citadel for another twelve days. Survivors from the
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citadel were executed, artisans and craftsmen were sent back

to Mongolia, young men who had not fought were drafted into
the Mongolian army and the rest of the population was sent
into slavery. As the Mongol soldiers looted the city, a fire
broke out, razing most of the city to the ground.[14] Genghis
Khan had the people assemble in the main mosque of the
town, where he declared that he was the flail of God, sent to
punish them for their sins before ordering their execution.
After the fall of Bukhara, Genghis headed to the Khwarezmi

capital of Samarkand and arrived in March 1220. Samarkand
possessed significantly better fortifications and as many as
100,000 men defending. As Genghis began his siege, his sons
Chaghatai and Ögedei joined him after finishing the reduction
of Otrar, and the joint Mongol forces launched an assault on
the city. The Mongols attacked using prisoners as body shields.
On the third day of fighting, the Samarkand garrison launched
a counterattack. Feigning retreat, Genghis drew a garrison
force of 50,000 outside the fortifications of Samarkand and
slaughtered them in open combat. Shah Muhammad
attempted to relieve the city twice, but was driven back. On
the fifth day, all but an approximate 2,000 soldiers
surrendered. The remaining soldiers, die-hard supporters of
the Shah, held out in the citadel. After the fortress fell,
Genghis reneged on his surrender terms and executed every
soldier that had taken arms against him at Samarkand. The
people of Samarkand were ordered to evacuate and assemble
in a plain outside the city, where they were killed and
pyramids of severed heads raised as the symbol of Mongol
victory.[17]
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About the time of the fall of Samarkand, Genghis Khan

charged Subutai and Jebe, two of the Khan's top generals, with
hunting down the Shah. The Shah had fled west with some of
his most loyal soldiers and his son, Jalal al-Din, to a small island
in the Caspian Sea. It was there, in December of 1220, that the
Shah died. Most scholars attribute his death to pneumonia,
but others cite the sudden shock of the loss of his empire.
Meanwhile, the wealthy trading city of Urgench was still in the

hands of Khwarezmian forces. Previously, the Shah's mother
had ruled Urgench, but she fled when she learned her son had
absconded to the Caspian Sea. She was captured and sent to
Mongolia. Khumar Tegin, one of Muhammad's generals,
declared himself Sultan of Urgench. Jochi, who had been on
campaign in the north since the invasion, approached the city
from that direction, while Genghis, Ögedei, and Chaghatai
attacked from the south.
The assault on Urgench proved to be the most difficult battle

of the Mongol invasion. The city was built along the river Amu
Darya in a marshy delta area. The soft ground did not lend
itself to siege warfare, and there was a lack of large stones for
the catapults. The Mongols attacked regardless, and the city
fell only after the defenders put up a stout defense, fighting
block for block. Mongolian casualties were higher than
normal, due to the unaccustomed difficulty of adapting
Mongolian tactics to city fighting.
The taking of Urgench was further complicated by continuing

tensions between the Khan and his eldest son, Jochi, who had
been promised the city as his prize. Jochi's mother was the
same as his three brothers': Genghis Khan's teen bride, and
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apparent lifelong love, Borte. Only her sons were counted as

Genghis's "official" sons and successors, rather than those
conceived by the Khan's 500 or so other "wives and consorts."
But Jochi had been conceived in controversy; in the early days
of the Khan's rise to power, Borte was captured and raped
while she was held prisoner. Jochi was born nine months later.
While Genghis Khan chose to acknowledge him as his oldest
son (primarily due to his love for Borte, whom he would have
had to reject had he rejected her child), questions had always
existed over Jochi's true parentage.[3]
Such tensions were present as Jochi engaged in negotiations

with the defenders, trying to get them to surrender so that as
much of the city as possible was undamaged. This angered
Chaghatai, and Genghis headed off this sibling fight by
appointing Ögedei the commander of the besieging forces as
Urgench fell. But the removal of Jochi from command, and the
sack of a city he considered promised to him, enraged him and
estranged him from his father and brothers, and is credited
with being a decisive impetus for the later actions of a man
who saw his younger brothers promoted over him, despite his
own considerable military skills.[4]
As usual, the artisans were sent back to Mongolia, young

women and children were given to the Mongol soldiers as
slaves, and the rest of the population was massacred. The
Persian scholar Juvayni states that 50,000 Mongol soldiers
were given the task of executing twenty-four Urgench citizens
each, which would mean that 1.2 million people were killed.
While this is almost certainly an exaggeration, the sacking of
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Urgench is considered one of the bloodiest massacres in

human history.
Then came the complete destruction of the city of Gurjang,

south of the Aral Sea. Upon its surrender the Mongols broke
the dams and flooded the city, then proceeded to execute the
survivors.
The Khorasan campaign[edit]
As the Mongols battered their way into Urgench, Genghis

dispatched his youngest son Tolui, at the head of an army, into
the western Khwarezmid province of Khorasan. Khorasan had
already felt the strength of Mongol arms. Earlier in the war,
the generals Jebe and Subutai had travelled through the
province while hunting down the fleeing Shah. However, the
region was far from subjugated, many major cities remained
free of Mongol rule, and the region was rife with rebellion
against the few Mongol forces present in the region, following
rumors that the Shah's son Jalal al-Din was gathering an army
to fight the Mongols. Tolui's army consisted of somewhere
around 50,000 men, which was composed of a core of Mongol
soldiers (some estimates place it at 7,000[18]), supplemented
by a large body of foreign soldiers, such as Turks and
previously conquered peoples in China and Mongolia. The
army also included "3,000 machines flinging heavy incendiary
arrows, 300 catapults, 700 mongonels to discharge pots filled
with naphtha, 4,000 storming-ladders, and 2,500 sacks of
earth for filling up moats."[7] Among the first cities to fall was
Termez then Balkh. The major city to fall to Tolui's army was
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the city of Merv. Juvayni wrote of Merv: "In extent of territory

it excelled among the lands of Khorasan, and the bird of peace
and security flew over its confines. The number of its chief
men rivaled the drops of April rain, and its earth contended
with the heavens."[18]
The garrison at Merv was only about 12,000 men, and the city
was inundated with refugees from eastern Khwarezmia. For
six days, Tolui besieged the city, and on the seventh day, he
assaulted the city. However, the garrison beat back the assault
and launched their own counter-attack against the Mongols.
The garrison force was similarly forced back into the city. The
next day, the city's governor surrendered the city on Tolui's
promise that the lives of the citizens would be spared. As soon
as the city was handed over, however, Tolui slaughtered
almost every person who surrendered, in a massacre possibly
on a greater scale than that at Urgench. After finishing off
Merv, Tolui headed westwards, attacking the cities of
Nishapur and Herat.[19] Nishapur fell after only three days;
here, Tokuchar, a son-in-law of Genghis was killed in battle,
and Tolui put to the sword every living thing in city, including
the cats and dogs, with Tokuchar's widow presiding over the
slaughter.[18] After Nishapur's fall, Herat surrendered without
a fight and was spared. Bamian in the Hindukush was another
scene of carnage during the 1221 siege of Bamiyan, here stiff
resistance resulted in the death of a grandson of Ghengis. Next
were the cities of Toos and Mashad. By spring 1221, the
province of Khurasan was under complete Mongol rule.
Leaving garrison forces behind him, Tolui headed back east to
rejoin his father.
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The final campaign and aftermath[edit]
After the Mongol campaign in Khurasan, the Shah's army was

broken. Jalal al-Din, who took power after his father's death,
began assembling the remnants of the Khwarezmid army in
the south, in the area of Afghanistan. Genghis had dispatched
forces to hunt down the gathering army under Jalal al-Din, and
the two sides met in the spring of 1221 at the town of Parwan.
The engagement was a humiliating defeat for the Mongol
forces. Enraged, Genghis headed south himself, and defeated
Jalal al-Din on the Indus River. Jalal al-Din, defeated, fled to
India. Genghis spent some time on the southern shore of the
Indus searching for the new Shah, but failed to find him. The
Khan returned northwards, content to leave the Shah in India.
After the remaining centers of resistance were destroyed,

Genghis returned to Mongolia, leaving Mongolian garrison
troops behind. The destruction and absorption of the
Khwarezmid Empire would prove to be a sign of things to
come for the Islamic world, as well as Eastern Europe.[14] The
new territory proved to be an important stepping stone for
Mongol armies under the reign of Genghis' son Ögedei to
invade Kievan Rus' and Poland, and future campaigns brought
Mongol arms to Austria, the Baltic Sea and Germany. For the
Islamic world, the destruction of Khwarezmid left Iraq, Turkey
and Syria wide open. All three were eventually subjugated by
future Khans.
The war with Khwarezmia also brought up the important

question of succession. Genghis was not young when the war
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began, and he had four sons, all of whom were fierce warriors
and each with their own loyal followers. Such sibling rivalry
almost came to a head during the siege of Urgench, and
Genghis was forced to rely on his third son, Ögedei, to finish
the battle. Following the destruction of Urgench, Genghis
officially selected Ögedei to be successor, as well as
establishing that future Khans would come from direct
descendants of previous rulers. Despite this establishment,
the four sons would eventually come to blows, and those
blows showed the instability of the Khanate that Genghis had
created.
Jochi never forgave his father, and essentially withdrew from

further Mongol wars, into the north, where he refused to
come to his father when he was ordered to.[3] Indeed, at the
time of his death, the Khan was contemplating a march on his
rebellious son. The bitterness that came from this transmitted
to his sons, and especially grandsons, Batu and Berke Khan, (of
the Golden Horde) who would conquer Kievan Rus.[10] When
the Mamluks of Egypt managed to inflict one of history's more
significant defeats on the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in
1260, Hulegu Khan, one of Genghis Khan's grandsons by his
son Tolui, who had sacked Baghdad in 1258, was unable to
avenge that defeat when Berke Khan, his cousin, (who had
converted to Islam) attacked him in the Transcaucasus to aid
the cause of Islam, and Mongol battled Mongol for the first
time. The seeds of that battle began in the war with
Khwarezmia when their fathers struggled for supremacy.
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Chapter Five
The Mongol Invasion of the Kingdom of Georgia
Mongol conquests of Kingdom of Georgia, which at that time

incorporated Armenia and much of the Caucasus, consisted of
multiple invasions throughout the 13th century. The Mongol
Empire first appeared in the Caucasus in 1220 as generals
Subutai and Jebe pursued Muhammad II of Khwarezm during
the destruction of the Khwarezmian Empire. After a series of
raids in which they defeated the Georgian and Armenian
armies, Subutai and Jebe continued north to invade Kievan
Rus'. After his empire was destroyed, Khwarazm ruler Jalal ad-
Din Mingburnu, son of Muhammed II, battled both the
Mongols and the Georgians before moving on to challenge the
Seljuks in Anatolia. A full-scale Mongol conquest of the
Caucasus and eastern Anatolia began in 1236, in which the
Kingdom of Georgia, the Sultanate of Rum, and the Empire of
Trebizond were subjugated, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia
and other Crusader states voluntarily accepted Mongol
vassalage, and the Assassins were eliminated. The Mongols
also invaded Dzurdzuketia, modern day Chechnya, but faced
continual resistance in that area. After the death of Möngke
Khan in 1259, the Mongol Empire descended into civil war and
Berke of the Golden Horde and Hulagu of the Ilkhanate
repeatedly invaded each other in the Caucasus until the
ascension of Kublai Khan in 1264.
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The second Mongol invasion of the Caucasus started with the

expedition of Chormaqan against Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu,
ordered by khan Ögedei in 1231. The Southern Persian
dynasties in Fars and Kerman voluntarily submitted to the
Mongols and agreed to pay tributes.[1] To the west, Hamadan
and the rest of Persia was secured by Chormaqan. The
Mongols turned their attention to Armenia and Georgia in
1236. They completed the conquest of the Kingdom of Georgia
in 1238 and the Mongol Empire began to attack the kingdom's
southern possessions in Armenia, which was under the Seljuks
the next year. In 1236 Ogedei despoiled Khorassan and
populated Herat. The Mongol military governors mostly made
their camp in Mughan plain. Realizing the danger of the
Mongols, rulers of Mosul and Cilician Armenia submitted to
the Great Khan. Chormaqan divided the Transcaucasia region
into three districts based on military hierarchy.[2] In Georgia,
the population were temporarily divided into eight tumens.[3]
By 1237 the Mongol Empire had subjugated most of Persia,
excluding Abbasid Iraq and Ismaili strongholds, and all of
Afghanistan and Kashmir.[4] The Mongols began conquering
the North Caucasus in 1237, but encountered bloody
resistance from the local populations there.
After the battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, the Mongols under Baiju
occupied Anatolia, and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm and the
Empire of Trebizond became vassals of the Mongols.[5]
Assassin strongholds lay scattered throughout Persia and the
Caucasus, and Mongol commander Kitbuqa, under orders
from Möngke Khan, began laying siege to them in 1253.
Hulagu launched a full-scale assault in 1256 and eradicated
Assassin presence from the region.
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Following the destruction of Baghdad in 1258, civil war broke

out between Berke Khan of the Golden Horde and Hulagu
Khan of the Ilkhanate. Part of the larger succession conflict
between Kubilai and Ariq Böke, the war consisted mainly of
raids and invasions carried out by both sides throughout the
Caucasus region, with Berke enlisting the aid of the Mamluk
Sultanate and Hulagu the aid of the Byzantine Empire. Neither
side gained a real advantage, and the conflict ceased after the
victory of Kublai and his enthronement as Great Khan.
Mongol rule in the Caucasus lasted until the late 1330s.[6]

Greater Armenia stayed under Mongol lordship from 1220 to
1344.[7] During that period, the King George V the Brilliant
restored the kingdom of Georgia for a brief period before it
finally disintegrated due to Timur's invasions of Georgia.
Contents [show]
Initial attacks[edit]
The Mongols made their first appearance in the Georgian

possessions when this latter kingdom was still in its zenith,
dominating most of the Caucasus. First contact occurred early
in the fall of 1220, when approximately 20,000 Mongols led by
Subutai and Jebe pursued the ousted Shah Muhammad II of
the Khwarazmian dynasty to the Caspian Sea. With the
consent of Genghis Khan, the two Mongol generals proceeded
west on a reconnaissance mission. They thrust into Armenia,
then under the Georgian authority, and defeated some 60,000
Georgians and Armenians commanded by King George IV
"Lasha" of Georgia and his atabek (tutor) and spasalar
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(commander-in-chief) Iwane Mkhargrdzeli at the Battle of

Khunan on the Kotman River. George was severely wounded
in the chest. The Mongol commanders, however, were not
inclined to conquer the Caucasus at that time and turned back
south to Hamadan, only to return in force in January 1221. The
battle at Bardav (Pardav; modern-day Barda, Azerbaijan) was
indecisive and the invaders withdrew to the Caspian Sea. Then
the Mongols marched to the north plundering northeastern
Armenia and Shirvan en route. This took them through the
Caucasus into Alania and the South Russian steppes where the
Mongols routed the Rus’-Kipchak armies at the Battle of the
Kalka River (1223).
These surprise attacks left the Georgians in confusion as to the

identity of their attackers: the record of one contemporary
chronicler indicates that he is unaware of the nature of the
attackers and does not mention them by name. In 1223, when
the Mongols had seemingly deferred their plans regarding
Georgia, King George IV's sister and successor Queen Rusudan
wrote in a letter to Pope Honorius III, that the Georgians had
presumed the Mongols were Christians because they fought
Muslims, but they had turned out to be pagans.
During the invasion of Transoxania in 1219 Genghis Khan used

a Chinese catapult unit in battle, they were used again in 1220
in Transoxania. The Chinese may have used the catapults to
hurl gunpowder bombs, since they already had them by this
time. In the 1239-1240 Mongol invasion of the North
Caucasus, Chinese weapons were once again used.[8]
Mongol conquest of Georgia proper[edit]
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The third and final invasion of the Caucasus by the Mongols

took place in 1236. This offensive, which would prove the ruin
of Georgia, was preceded by the devastating conflict with Jalal
ad-Din Mingburnu, a refugee shah of Khwarezmia, who had
demanded in 1225, that the Georgian government support his
war against the Mongols. The ensuing Khwarezmian attack,
Tblisi was captured in 1226, and much of the former strength
and prosperity of the Kingdom of Georgia was destroyed,
leaving the country largely defenseless in the face of the
forthcoming Mongol conquests.
After the death of Mingburnu in 1231, the Mongols' hands

were finally free and the prominent Mongol commander
Chormaqan led, in 1236, a large army against Georgia and its
vassal Armenian princedoms. Most of the Georgian and
Armenian nobles, who held military posts along the frontier
regions submitted without any serious opposition or confined
their resistance to their castles while others preferred to flee
to safer areas. Queen Rusudan had to evacuate Tbilisi for
Kutaisi and some people went into the monuntain part of
Georgia, leaving eastern Georgia (Non-mountain part) in the
hands of atabek Avag Mkhargrdzeli and Egarslan Bakurtsikheli,
who made peace with the Mongols and agreed to pay them
tribute. The only Georgian great noble to have resisted was
Iwane Jakeli-Tsikhisjvreli, prince of Samtskhe. His extensive
possessions were fearfully devastated, and Iwane had to
finally, with the consent of Queen Rusudan, submit to the
invaders in 1238. The Mongol armies chose not to cross the
Likhi Range in pursuit of the Georgian queen, leaving western
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Georgia relatively spared of the rampages. Rusudan

attempted to gain support from Pope Gregory IX, but without
any success. Atabek Avag arranged her submission in 1243,
and Georgia officially acknowledged the Great Khan as its
overlord. The country was forced to pay an annual tribute of
50,000 gold pieces and support the Mongols with an army.
Mongol rule[edit]
Main article: Armenia under the Ilkhanate
The Mongols created the Vilayet of Gurjistan, which included

Georgia and the whole South Caucasus, where they ruled
indirectly, through the Georgian monarch, the latter to be
confirmed by the Great Khan upon his/her ascension. With the
death of Rusudan in 1245, an interregnum began during which
the Mongols divided the Caucasus into eight tumens.
Exploiting the complicated issue of succession, the Mongols
had the Georgian nobles divided into two rival parties, each of
which advocated their own candidate to the crown. These
were David VII "Ulu", an illegitimate son of George IV, and his
cousin David VI "Narin", son of Rusudan. After a failed plot
against the Mongol rule in Georgia (1245), Güyük Khan made,
in 1247, both pretenders co-kings, in eastern and western
parts of the kingdom respectively. The system of dumans was
abolished, but the Mongols closely watched the Georgian
administration in order to secure a steady flow of taxes and
tributes from the subject peoples, who were also pressed into
the Mongol armies.
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Large Georgian contingents fought under the Mongol banners

at Alamut (1256), Baghdad (1258), Ain Jalut (1260) and
elsewhere, losing tens of thousands of soldiers while Georgia,
and the Caucasus in general, was left without native defenders
against the Mongol forces dispatched to suppress
spontaneous revolts erupting in protest to heavy taxation and
the onerous burden of military service.[9] Ironically, in the
Battle of Köse Dag (1243), where the Mongols crushed the
Seljuks of Rüm, at least three thousand Georgian auxiliaries
fought in the Mongol ranks, while the Georgian prince
Shamadavle of Akhaltsikhe was a commander in the Seljuk
army.[10]
In 1256, Georgia was placed under the Mongol empire of

Ilkhanate, centered on Persia (Iran). In 1259–1260, Georgian
nobles, led by David Narin, rose against the Mongols, and
succeeding in separation of Imereti (western Georgia) from
the Mongol-controlled eastern Georgia. David Ulu decided to
join his cousin in rebellion, but was defeated near Gori and
once again submitted to Mongol rule. Beginning with 1261,
the Caucasus became a theater of the series of conflicts fought
between Il-Khanids and another Mongol empire of Golden
Horde centered in the lower Volga with its capital at Sarai.
Georgia's unity was shattered; the nobles were encouraged to

rise against the crown that naturally facilitated the Mongol
control of the country. In 1266, Prince Sargis Jakeli of
Samtskhe (with Akhaltsikhe as the capital) was granted special
protection and patronage by the khan Abaqa, thus winning
virtual independence from the Georgian crown. The next
(eastern) Georgian king Demetre II, "the Devoted" (1259–
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1289), through maneuvering in the intrigues that divided the

Il-khans, attempted to revive his country, but suspected in an
abortive coup against Arghun Khan, he had, to save Georgia
from invasion, to agree to surrender and be executed. Then
the kingdom fell into near anarchy. While western Georgia
maintained a perilous independence from the Ilkhans, eastern
Georgia suffered from both heavy tribute and unstable
political situation. In religious matters the Mongols were
generally tolerant even though many churches and
monasteries were taxed. An uprising by David VIII (1292–
1310), though long-lasting, did not lead to the liberation of
Georgia, but prompted a series of devastating punitive
expeditions. The Mongols attempted to retain the control
over the country by raising and bringing down the rival
monarchs and by inciting the civil strife, but their influence
over Georgia gradually weakened with the disintegration of
the Il-khan power in Persia.
Revival and collapse of the kingdom of Georgia[edit]
There was a brief period of reunion and revival under George

V the Brilliant (1299–1302, 1314–1346). With the support of
Chupan, ulus-beg of the Ilkhanate, George eliminated his
domestic opponents who remained independent of the
Georgian crown. George V conquered Imereti uniting all of
Georgian Kingdom before the death of the last effective Ilkhan
Abu Sai'd. In 1319 George and the Mongols suppressed the
rebellion of the Ilkhanid governor of Georgia,
Qurumshi.[11][12] Presumably due to the internal strife
between the Mongol khanates and ilkhanid generals, almost
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all Mongol troops in Georgia withdrew in 1320s.[13][14] The

Ilkhan Abu Sai'd (d.1335) exempted Ani and the neighbouring
districts of Georgi from any kind of taxes.[15] In a 1321 letter
of Avignon mentions schismatic people (Georgians) who are a
part of Tatar Empire (Ilkhanate).[16]
In the year 1327 there occurred in Persia the most dramatic

event of the reign of the Il-Khan Abu Sa'id, namely the disgrace
and execution of the once all-powerful minister Chupan. Thus
it was a heavy blow and George lost his patron at the Mongol
court. Chupan's son Mahmud, who commanded the Mongol
garrison in Georgia, was arrested by his own troops and
executed. Subsequently, Iqbalshah, son of Qutlughshah, was
appointed to be Mongol governor of Georgia (Gurjistan). In
1330-31 George V the Brilliant annexed Imereti uniting all of
Georgia in the process. Therefore, four years prior the last
effective Ilkhan Abu Sai'd's demise, two kingdoms of Georgia
united again. In 1334, the post of the Ilkhanid governor in
Georgia was given to Shaykh Hasan of the Jalayir by Abu
Sai'd.[17]
Before the Timurids, much of Georgia was still under the

Mongol Jalayirids and Chobanids.[18] The eight onslaughts of
the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur between 1386 and 1403
dealt a great blow to the Georgian kingdom. Its unity was
finally shattered and, by 1491, Georgia was shattered into a
number of petty kingdoms and principalities, which
throughout the Early Modern period struggled to maintain
their autonomy against Safavid and Ottoman domination until
Georgia was finally annexed by the Russian Empire in 1801.
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Chapter Six
The Mongol conquest of China
The Mongol invasion of China spanned six decades in the 13th

century and involved the defeat of the Jin Dynasty, Western
Xia, the Dali Kingdom and the Southern Song, which finally fell
in 1279. The Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan started the
conquest with small-scale raids into Western Xia in 1205 and
1207.[1] By 1279, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan had
established the Yuan Dynasty in China and crushed the last
Song resistance, which marked the onset of all of China under
the Mongol Yuan rule. This was the first time in history that
the whole of China was conquered and subsequently ruled by
a foreign or non-native ruler,[2] compared with the Manchus
(who established the Qing Dynasty) who did so a few centuries
later.
Contents [show]
Conquest of Xi-Xia[edit]
Main article: Mongol conquest of Western Xia
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In the late 1190s and early 1200s, Temujin, soon to be Genghis

Khan, began consolidating his power in Mongolia. Following
the death of the Kerait leader Ong Khan to Temujin's emerging
Mongol Empire in 1203, Keriat leader Nilqa Senggum led a
small band of followers into Western Xia, also known as Xi-
Xia.[3] However, after his adherents took to plundering the
locals, Nilqa Senggum was expelled from Western Xia
territory.[3]
Using his rival Nilga Senggum's temporary refuge in Western

Xia as a pretext, Temujin launched a raid against the state in
1205 in the Edsin region.[3][4][5] The Mongols plundered
border settlements and one local Western Xia noble accepted
Mongol supremacy.[6] The next year, 1206, Temujin was
formally proclaimed Genghis Khan, ruler of all the Mongols,
marking the official start of the Mongol Empire. In 1207,
Genghis led another raid into Western Xia, invading the Ordo
region and sacking Wulahai, the main garrison along the
Yellow River, before withdrawing in 1208.[5][7]
In 1209, the Genghis undertook a larger campaign to secure

the submission of Western Xia. After defeating a force led by
Kao Liang-Hui outside Wulahai, Genghis captured the city and
pushed up along the Yellow River, defeated several cities, and
besieged the capital, Yinchuan, which held a well fortified
garrison of 150,000.[8] The Mongols, at this point
inexperienced at siege warfare, attempted to flood out the
city by diverting the Yellow River, but the dike they built to
accomplish this broke and flooded the Mongol camp.[3]
Nevertheless, Emperor Li Anquan, still threatened by the
Mongols and receiving no relief from the Jin Dynasty, agreed
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to submit to Mongol rule, and demonstrated his loyalty by

giving a daughter, Chaka, in marriage to Genghis and paying a
tribute of camels, falcons, and textiles.[9]
After their defeat in 1210, Western Xia served as faithful

vassals to the Mongol Empire for almost a decade, aiding the
Mongols in their war against the Jin Dynasty. In 1219, Genghis
Khan launched his campaign against the Khwarazmian dynasty
in Central Asia, and requested military aid from Western Xia.
However, the emperor and his military commander Asha
refused to take part in the campaign, stating that if Genghis
had too few troops to attack Khwarazm, then he had no claim
to supreme power.[10][11] Infuriated, Genghis swore
vengeance and left to invade Khwarazm, while Western Xia
attempted alliances with the Jin and Song dynasties against
the Mongols.[12]
After defeating Khwarazm in 1221, Genghis prepared his

armies to punish Western Xia for their betrayal, and in 1225
he attacked with a force of approximately 180,000.[13] After
taking Khara-Khoto, the Mongols began a steady advance
southward. Asha, commander of the Western Xia troops,
could not afford to meet the Mongols as it would involve an
exhausting westward march from the capital Yinchuan
through 500 kilometers of desert, and so the Mongols steadily
advanced from city to city.[14] Enraged by Western Xia's fierce
resistance, Genghis engaged the countryside in annihilative
warfare and ordered his generals to systematically destroy
cities and garrisons as they went.[10][12][15] Genghis divided
his army and sent general Subutai to take care of the
westernmost cities, while the main force under Genghis
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moved east into the heart of the Western Xia Empire and took
Ganzhou, which was spared destruction upon its capture due
to it being the hometown of Genghis's commander
Chagaan.[16]
In August 1226, Mongol troops approached Wuwei, the

second-largest city of the Western Xia empire, which
surrendered without resistance in order to escape
destruction.[17] In Autumn 1226, Genghis took Liangchow,
crossed the Helan Shan desert, and in November lay siege to
Lingwu, a mere 30 kilometers from Yinchuan.[18][19] Here, in
the Battle of Yellow River, the Mongols destroyed a force of
300,000 Western Xia that launched a counter-attack against
them.[18][20]
Genghis reached Yinchuan in 1227, laid siege to the city, and

launched several offensives into Jin to prevent them from
sending reinforcements to Western Xia, with one force
reaching as a far as Kaifeng, the Jin capital.[21] Yinchuan lay
besieged for about six months, after which Genghis opened up
peace negotiations while secretly planning to kill the
emperor.[22] During the peace negotiations, Genghis
continued his military operations around the Liupan
mountains near Guyuan, rejected an offer of peace from the
Jin, and prepared to invade them near their border with the
Song.[23][24] However, in August 1227, Genghis died of a
historically uncertain cause, and, in order not to jeopardize the
ongoing campaign, his death was kept a secret.[25][26] In
September of 1227, Emperor Mozhu surrendered to the
Mongols and was promptly executed.[24][27] The Mongols
then mercilessly pillaged Yinchuan, slaughtered the city's
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population, plundered the imperial tombs west of the city, and

completed the effective annihilation the Western Xia
state.[12][24][28][29]
Conquest of Jin Dynasty[edit]
Main article: Mongol–Jin War
The siege of Zhongdu (modern Beijing) in 1213-14.
One of the major goals of Genghis Khan was the conquest of

the Jin Dynasty, allowing the Mongols to avenge the earlier
death of a Mongol Khan, gain the riches of northern China and
to establish the Mongols as a major power in the Chinese
world.
Genghis Khan declared war in 1211, and while Mongols were

victorious in the field, they were frustrated in their efforts to
take major cities. In his typically logical and determined
fashion, Genghis and his highly developed staff studied the
problems of the assault of fortifications. With the help of
Chinese engineers, they gradually developed the techniques
to take down fortifications. Islamic engineers joined later and
especially contributed counterweight trebuchets, "Muslim
phao", which had a maximum range of 300 meters compared
to 150 meters of the ancient Chinese predecessor. It played a
significant role in taking the Chinese strongholds and was as
well used against infantry units on the battlefield. This
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eventually would make troops under the Mongols some of the

most accomplished and most successful besiegers in the
history of warfare.
As a result of a number of overwhelming victories in the field

and a few successes in the capture of fortifications deep within
China, Genghis had conquered and consolidated Jin territory
as far south as the Great Wall by 1213. He then advanced with
three armies into the heart of Jin territory, between the Great
Wall and the Yellow River. With the help of Chenyu Liu, one of
the top officers who betrayed Jin, as well as the Southern
Song, who wanted revenge on Jin, Genghis defeated the Jin
forces, devastated northern China, captured numerous cities,
and in 1215 besieged, captured and sacked the Jin capital of
Yanjing (modern-day Beijing). However, the Jin emperor, Xuan
Zong, did not surrender, but moved his capital to Kaifeng.
There, his successors were eventually defeated in 1234.
Conquest of Yunnan[edit]
Möngke Khan dispatched Kublai to the Dali Kingdom in 1253

to outflank the Song. The Gao family, dominated the court,
resisted and murdered Mongol envoys. The Mongols divided
their forces into three. One wing rode eastward into the
Sichuan basin. The second column under Uryankhadai took a
difficult way into the mountains of western Sichuan.[30]
Kublai himself headed south over the grasslands, meeting up
with the first column. While Uryankhadai galloping in along
the lakeside from the north, Kublai took the capital city of Dali
and spared the residents despite the slaying of his
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ambassadors. The Mongols appointed King Duan Xingzhi as

local ruler and stationed a pacification commissioner
there.[31] After Kublai's departure, unrest broke out among
the Black jang. By 1256, Uryankhadai, the son of Subutai had
completely pacified Yunnan.
Use of Chinese soldiers in other campaigns[edit]
Main articles: Mongol invasion of Central Asia, Mongol

invasion of Khwarezmia, Siege of Baghdad (1258), Mongol
Empire, and Ilkhanate
During their campaigns, the Mongol Empire recruited many

nationalities in their warfare, such as those of Central and East
Asia.[32][32][33][34][35][36] The Mongols employed Chinese
troops, especially those who worked catapults and
gunpowder to assist them in other conquests. In addition to
Chinese troops, many scholars and doctors from China
accompanied Mongol commanders to the west.
During the invasion of Transoxania in 1219, along with the

main Mongol force, Genghis Khan used a Chinese specialist
catapult unit in battle. They were used in Transoxania again in
1220. The Chinese may have used the catapults to hurl
gunpowder bombs, since they already had them by this time
[37] (although there were other siege engineers and
technologies used in the campaigns too[38]). While Genghis
Khan was conquering Transoxania and Central Asia, several
Chinese who were familiar gunpowder were serving with
Genghis's army.[39] "Whole regiments" entirely made out of
Chinese were used by the Mongols to command bomb hurling
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trebuchets during the invasion of Iran.[40] Historians have

suggested that the Mongol invasion had brought Chinese
gunpowder weapons to Central Asia. One of these was the
huochong, a Chinese mortar.[41] Books written around the
area afterward depicted gunpowder weapons which
resembled that of China.[42]
One thousand northern Chinese engineer squads

accompanied the Mongol Khan Hulagu during his conquest of
the Middle East.[43][44] 1,000 Chinese participated in the
Siege of Baghdad (1258).[45][46] The Chinese General Guo
Kan was one of the commanders during the siege and
appointed Governor of Baghdad after the city was
taken.[47][48][49][50][51] But this is probably wrong since
Hulagu's associate, Nasir al-Din Tusi claims that the darugha
was a certain Asuta Bahadur or according to Rashid and Bar
Heabreus, Ali Bahadur who repulsed the Mamluk charge
under the shadow Caliph in 1262.
Conquest of Song China[edit]
Main article: Mongol conquest of the Song Dynasty
[show] v t e
Mongol conquest of the Song Dynasty
At first, the Mongols allied with Song China as both had a

common enemy in the form of Jin. However, this alliance
broke down with the destruction of Jur'chen Jin in 1234. After
Song forces captured the former Chinese capitals of Luoyang,
Chang'an and Kaifeng from the Mongols and killed a Mongol
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ambassador, the Mongols declared war. Very soon, the

Mongol armies had forced the Song back to the Yangtze, and
the two sides would be engaged in a four-decade war until the
fall of the Song in 1276.
While the Mongol forces had success against the non-Han

Chinese states of the Jin and Xia, conquering the Song took
much more time. The Song forces were equipped with the
best technology available at the time, such as an ample supply
of gunpowder weapons like fire lances, rockets and
flamethrowers. However, intrigues at the Song court would
favour the Mongols. The fierce resistance of the Song forces
resulted in the Mongols having to fight the most difficult war
in all of their conquests.[52] The Chinese offered the fiercest
resistance of among all the Mongols fought, the Mongols
required every single advantage they could gain and "every
military artifice known at that time" in order to win. They
looked to peoples they already conquered to acquire any
military advantage.[53]
After several indecisive wars, the Mongols unsuccessfully

attacked the Song garrison at Hechuan when their Great Khan,
Möngke, died of cholera or dysentery. However, the general
responsible for this defence was not rewarded and instead
punished by the Song court. Discouraged, he defected to the
Mongols. He suggested to Möngke's successor, Kublai, that
the key to the conquest of Song was the capture of Xiangyang,
a vital Song stronghold.
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The Yuan Dynasty under Kublai Khan after the conquest of

Southern Song Dynasty.
The Mongols quickly enclosed Xiangyang and defeated any

attempt to reinforce it by the Song. After a siege that lasted
several years, and with the help of Muslim artillery created by
Iraqi engineers, the Mongols finally forced the city of
Xiangyang to surrender. The dying Song Dynasty sent its
armies against the Mongols at Yehue under the incompetent
chancellor Jia Sidao. Predictably, the battle was a disaster.
Running out of troops and supplies, the Song court
surrendered to the Mongols in 1276.
With the desire to rule all of China, Kublai established the Yuan
Dynasty and became Emperor of China. However, despite the
surrender of the Song court, resistance of the Song remnants
continued. In an attempt to restore the Song dynasty, several
Song officials set up a government in Guangdong, aboard the
vast Song navy, which still maintained over a thousand ships.
Realizing this, Kublai sent his fleet to engage the Song fleet at
the battle of Yamen in 1279, winning a decisive victory in
which the last Song emperor and his loyal officials committed
suicide. Following this, the Mongols established their rule over
all of China. The Yuan Dynasty had ruled China for about a
century, until the fall of Dadu in 1368.
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Chapter Seven
The Mighty Mongolian Army
The Mongol military tactics and organization enabled Genghis

Khan and the Mongol Empire to conquer nearly all of
continental Asia, the Middle East and parts of eastern Europe.
The original foundation of that system was an extension of the

nomadic lifestyle of the Mongols. Other elements were
invented by Genghis Khan, his generals, and his successors.
Technologies useful to attack fortifications were adapted from
other cultures, and foreign technical experts integrated into
the command structures.
For the larger part of the 13th century, the Mongols lost only
a few battles using that system, but always returned to turn
the result around in their favor. In many cases, they won
against significantly larger opponent armies. Their first defeat
came in the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, against the first army
which had been specifically trained to use their own tactics
against them.[1][2][3] But again they would return over 40
years later and defeat the Egyptian Mamluks at the Battle of
Wadi Al Khazandar in 1299 and annex Syria, Palestine as well
as Gaza. The Mongols suffered defeats in attempted invasions
of Vietnam and Japan. But while the empire became divided
around the same time, its combined size and influence
remained largely intact for more than another hundred years.
Contents [show]
Organization[edit]
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Transfers between units were forbidden. The leaders on each

level had significant license to execute their orders in the way
they considered best. This command structure proved to be
highly flexible and allowed the Mongol army to attack en
masse, divide into somewhat smaller groups to encircle and
lead enemies into an ambush, or divide into small groups of 10
to mop up a fleeing and broken army. Individual soldiers were
responsible for their equipment, weapons, and up to five
mounts, although they fought as part of a unit. Their families
and herds would accompany them on foreign expeditions.
Above all units, there existed an elite force called Kheshig.

They functioned as imperial guard of the Mongol Empire as
well as a training ground for potential young officers, the great
Subutai having started his career there.
Mobility[edit]
Drawing of a mobile Mongol soldier with bow and arrow

wearing deel. The right arm is semi-naked because of the hot
weather.
Each Mongol soldier typically maintained 3 or 4 horses.[4]

Changing horses often allowed them to travel at high speed
for days without stopping or wearing out the animals. Their
ability to live off the land, and in extreme situations off their
animals (mare's milk especially), made their armies far less
dependent on the traditional logistical apparatus of agrarian
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armies. In some cases, as during the invasion of Hungary in

early 1241, they covered up to 100 miles (160 km) per day,
which was unheard of by other armies of the time.
The mobility of individual soldiers made it possible to send

them on successful scouting missions, gathering intelligence
about routes and searching for terrain suited to the preferred
combat tactics of the Mongols.
During the invasion of Kievan Rus, the Mongols used frozen

rivers as highways, and winter, the time of year usually off-
limits for any major activity due to the intense cold, became
the Mongols' preferred time to strike.
To avoid the deadly hail of missiles, enemies would frequently

spread out, or seek cover, breaking up their formations and
making them more vulnerable to the lancers' charges.
Likewise, when they packed themselves together, into dense
square or phalanx style formations, they would become more
vulnerable to the arrows.
Once the enemy was deemed sufficiently weakened, the

noyans would give the order. The drums would beat and the
signal flags wave, telling the lancers to begin their charge.
Often, the devastation of the arrows was enough to rout an
enemy, so the lancers were only needed to help pursue and
mop up the remnants.
When facing European armies, whose emphasis was in

formations of heavy cavalry, the Mongols would avoid direct
confrontation, and would instead use their bows to destroy
enemy cavalry at long distances. If the armor withstood their
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arrows, the Mongols killed the knights' horses, leaving a

heavily armored man on foot and isolated.
At the Battle of Mohi, the Mongols left open a gap in their

ranks, luring the Hungarians into retreating through it. This
resulted in the Hungarians being strung out over all the
countryside and easy pickings for mounted archers who
simply galloped along and picked them off, while the lancers
skewered them as they fled. At Legnica, the few Teutonic,
Templar and Hospitaller knights who were able to make a
stand dismounted, and did not rout as quickly. However their
lack of mobility and archers ensured they were defeated all
the same.
Training and discipline[edit]
Mongol armies constantly practiced horsemanship, archery,

and unit tactics, formations and rotations. This training was
maintained by a hard, but not overly harsh or unreasonable,
discipline.
Officers and troopers alike were usually given a wide leeway

by their superiors in carrying out their orders, so long as the
larger objectives of the plan were well served and the orders
promptly obeyed. The Mongols thus avoided the pitfalls of
overly rigid discipline and micromanagement which have
proven a hobgoblin to armed forces throughout history.
However, all members had to be unconditionally loyal to each
other and to their superiors, and especially to the Khan. If one
soldier ran from danger in battle, then he and his nine
comrades from the same arban would face the death penalty
together.
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Cavalry[edit]
Mongol cavalry archery from Rashid-al-Din Hamadani's

Universal History using the Mongol bow.
Six of every ten Mongol troopers were light cavalry horse

archers; the remaining four were more heavily armored and
armed lancers. Mongol light cavalry were extremely light
troops compared to contemporary standards, allowing them
to execute tactics and maneuvers that would have been
impractical for a heavier enemy (such as European knights).
Most of the remaining troops were heavier cavalry with lances
for close combat after the archers had brought the enemy into
disarray. Soldiers usually carried scimitars or battle axes as
well.
The Mongols protected their horses in the same way as did

they themselves, covering them with lamellar armor. Horse
armor was divided into five parts and designed to protect
every part of the horse, including the forehead, which had a
specially crafted plate which was tied on each side of the
neck.[5]
Mongolian horses are relatively small, and would lose short-

distance races under equal conditions with larger horses from
other regions. However, since most other armies carried much
heavier armor, the Mongols could still outrun most enemy
horsemen in battle. In addition, Mongolian horses were
extremely durable and sturdy, allowing the Mongols to move
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over large distances quickly, often surprising enemies that had

expected them to arrive days or even weeks later.
All horses were equipped with stirrups. This technical

advantage made it easier for the Mongol archers to turn their
upper body, and shoot in all directions, including backwards.
Mongol warriors would time the loosing of an arrow to the
moment when a galloping horse would have all four feet off
the ground, thus ensuring a steady, well-aimed shot.
Each soldier had two to four horses so when a horse tired they
could use the other ones which made them one of the fastest
armies in the world. This, however, also made the Mongol
army vulnerable to shortages of fodder; campaigning in arid
or forested regions were thus difficult and even in ideal steppe
terrain a Mongol force had to keep moving in order to ensure
sufficient grazing for its massive horse herd.
Logistics[edit]
A Mongol warrior with a cheetah
Supply[edit]
The Mongol armies traveled very light, and were able to live
largely off the land. Their equipment included fish hooks and
other tools meant to make each warrior independent of any
fixed supply source. The most common travel food of the
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Mongols was dried and ground meat "Borts", which is still

common in the Mongolian cuisine today. Borts is light and
easy to transport, and can be cooked with water similarly to a
modern "instant soup".
To ensure they would always have fresh horses, each trooper

usually had 3 or 4 mounts.[4] And since most of the Mongols'
mounts were mares, they could live off their horses' milk or
milk products when needed. In dire straits, the Mongol
warrior could drink some of the blood from his string of
remounts. They could survive a whole month only by drinking
mare's milk combined with mare's blood.
Heavier equipment was brought up by well organized supply

trains. Wagons and carts carried, amongst other things, large
stockpiles of arrows. The main logistical factor limiting their
advance was finding enough food and water for their animals.
In all campaigns, the soldiers took their families along with
them.
Communications[edit]
The Mongols established a system of postal-relay horse

stations, similar to the system employed in ancient Persia for
fast transfer of written messages. The Mongol mail system
was the first such empire-wide service since the Roman
Empire. Additionally, Mongol battlefield communication
utilized signal flags and horns and to a lesser extent, signal
arrows to communicate movement orders during combat.
Costume[edit]
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A Mongol melee in the 13th century.
The basic costume of the Mongol fighting man consisted of a

heavy coat fastened at the waist by a leather belt. From the
belt would hang his sword, dagger, and possibly an axe. This
long robe-like coat would double over, left breast over right,
and be secured with a button a few inches below the right
armpit. The coat was lined with fur. Underneath the coat, a
shirt-like undergarment with long, wide sleeves was
commonly worn. Silk and metallic thread were increasingly
used. The Mongols wore protective heavy silk undershirts.
Even if an arrow pierced their mail or leather outer garment,
the silk from the undershirt would stretch to wrap itself
around the arrow as it entered the body, reducing damage
caused by the arrow shaft, and making removal of the arrow
easier.
The boots were made from felt and leather and though heavy
would be comfortable and wide enough to accommodate the
trousers tucked in before lacing tightly. They were heelless,
though, the soles were thick and lined with fur. Worn with felt
socks, the feet were unlikely to get cold.
Lamellar armor was worn over the thick coat. The armor was
composed of small scales of iron, chain mail, or hard leather
sewn together with leather tongs and could weigh 10
kilograms (22 lb) if made of leather alone and more if the
cuirass was made of metal scales. The leather was first
softened by boiling and then coated in a crude lacquer made
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from pitch, which rendered it waterproof.[6] Sometimes the

soldier's heavy coat was simply reinforced with metal plates.
Helmets were cone shaped and composed of iron or steel

plates of different sizes and included iron-plated neck guards.
The Mongol cap was conical in shape and made of quilted
material with a large turned-up brim, reversible in winter, and
earmuffs. Whether a soldier's helmet was leather or metal
depended on his rank and wealth.[5]
Weapons[edit]
Mongol soldiers using bow, in Jami al-Tawarikh by Rashid al-

Din, 1305–1306.
See also: Scimitar, Spear, and Battle axe
Mongol bow[edit]
Main article: Mongol bow
The primary weapon of the Mongol forces was the Mongol

bow. It was a recurve bow made from composite materials
(wood, horn, and sinew), and at the time unmatched for
accuracy, force, and reach. The bow's geometry allowed it to
be made relatively small so it could be used and fired in any
direction from horseback.[5] Quivers containing sixty arrows
were strapped to the backs of the cavalrymen. The Mongols
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were extremely skilled with the bow and were said to be able
to hit a bird on the wing.
The key to the strength of the Mongolian bow was its laminate
construction, with layers of boiled horn and sinew to augment
the wood. The layer of horn was in the inner face as it resists
compression, while the layer of sinew was at the outer face as
it resists tension. All of this gave the bow great power which
made it very good against armour. The Mongol bow could
shoot an arrow over 500 metres (1,600 ft). Targeted shots
were possible at a range of 200 or 230 metres (660 or 750 ft),
which determined the optimal tactical approach distance for
light cavalry units. Ballistic shots could hit enemy units
(without targeting individual soldiers) at distances of up to 400
metres (1,300 ft), useful for surprising and scaring troops and
horses before beginning the actual attack.
Mongol archers used a wide variety of arrows, depending on

the target and distance. Chainmail and some metal armour
could be penetrated at close range by using special heavy
arrows.
Sword[edit]
Mongol sword was a slightly curved Scimitar which was used

for slashing attacks but was also capable of cutting and
thrusting, due to its shape and construction, making it easier
to use from horseback. The sword could be used with a one-
handed or two-handed grip and had a blade that was usually
around 2.5 feet (0.76 m) in length, with the over all length of
the sword approximately a 1 metre (3 ft 3 in).
Siege warfare[edit]
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Catapults and machines[edit]
Mongols besieging Baghdad in 1258
Technology was one of the important facets of Mongolian

warfare. For instance, siege machines were an important part
of Genghis Khan's warfare, especially in attacking fortified
cities. The siege engines were not disassembled and carried by
horses to be rebuilt at the site of the battle like European
armies. Instead the Mongol horde would travel with skilled
engineers who would build siege engines from materials on
site.
The engineers building the machines were recruited among

captives, mostly from China and Persia. When Mongols
slaughtered whole populations, they often spared the
engineers, swiftly assimilating them into the Mongol armies.
Kharash[edit]
A commonly used tactic was the use of what was called the
"kharash". During a siege the Mongols would gather a crowd
of local residents or soldiers surrendered from previous
battles, and would drive them forward in sieges and battles.
These "living boards" or "human shields" would often take the
brunt of enemy arrows and crossbow bolts, thus leaving the
Mongol warriors safer. The kharash were also often forced
ahead to breach walls.
Strategy[edit]
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Helmet and costume of the Mongol Yuan warrior during the

Mongol invasion of Japan
The Mongol battlefield tactics were a combination of

masterful training with excellent communication and
discipline in the chaos of combat. They trained for virtually
every possibility, so when it occurred, they could react
accordingly. Unlike many of their foes, the Mongols also
protected their ranking officers well. Their training and
discipline allowed them to fight without the need for constant
supervision or rallying, which often placed commanders in
dangerous positions.
Whenever possible, Mongol commanders found the highest

ground available, from which they could make tactical
decisions based on the best view of the battlefield as events
unfolded. Furthermore, being on high ground allowed their
forces to observe commands conveyed by flags more easily
than if the ground were level. In addition, keeping the high
command on high ground made them easier to defend. Unlike
the European armies, which placed enormous emphasis on
personal valor, and thus exposed their leaders to death from
anyone bold enough to kill them, the Mongols regarded their
leaders as a vital asset. A general such as Subutai, unable to
ride a horse in the later part of his career due to age and
obesity, would have been ridiculed out of most any European
army of the time.[7] But the Mongols recognized and
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respected his still-powerful military mind, who had been one

of the Genghis' most able subordinates, so he was cheerfully
hauled around in a cart.
Intelligence and planning[edit]
The Mongols carefully scouted out and spied on their enemies

in advance of any invasion. Prior to the invasion of Europe,
Batu and Subutai sent spies for almost ten years into the heart
of Europe, making maps of the old Roman roads, establishing
trade routes, and determining the level of ability of each
principality to resist invasion. They made well-educated
guesses as to the willingness of each principality to aid the
others, and their ability to resist alone or together. Also, when
invading an area, the Mongols would do all that was necessary
to completely conquer the town or cities. Some tactics
involved diverting rivers from the city/town[citation needed],
closing supplies to the city and waiting for its inhabitants to
surrender, gathering civilians from the nearby areas to fill the
front line for the city/town attack before scaling the wall, and
pillaging the surrounding area and killing some of the people,
then letting some survivors flee to the main city to report their
losses to the main populace to weaken resistance,
simultaneously draining the resources of the city with the
sudden influx of refugees.
Psychological warfare and deception[edit]
Main article: Total war and the Mongol Empire
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Drawing of Mongols outside Vladimir presumably demanding

submission before its sacking.
The Mongols used psychological warfare successfully in many

of their battles, especially in terms of spreading terror and fear
to towns and cities. They often offered an opportunity for the
enemy to surrender and pay tribute, instead of having their
city ransacked and destroyed. They knew that sedentary
populations were not free to flee danger as were nomad
populations, and that the destruction of their cities was the
worst loss a sedentary population could experience. When
cities accepted the offer, they were spared, but were required
to support the conquering Mongol army with manpower,
supplies, and other services.
If the offer was refused, however, the Mongols would invade

and destroy the city or town, but allow a few civilians to flee
and spread terror by reporting their loss. These reports were
an essential tool to incite fear in others. However, both sides
often had a similar if differently motivated interest in
overstating the enormity of the reported events: the Mongols'
reputation would increase and the townspeople could use
their reports of terror to raise an army. For that reason,
specific data (e.g. casualty figures) given in contemporary
sources needs to be evaluated carefully.
The Mongols also used deception very well in their wars. For
instance, when approaching a mobile army the units would be
split into three or more army groups, each trying to outflank
and surprise their opponents. This created many battlefield
scenarios for the opponents where the Mongols would seem
to appear out of nowhere and there were seemingly more of
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them than in actuality. Flanking and/or feigned retreat if the

enemy could not be handled easily was one of the most
practiced techniques. Other techniques used commonly by
the Mongols were completely psychological and were used to
entice/lure enemies into vulnerable positions by showing
themselves from a hill or some other predetermined locations,
then disappearing into the woods or behind hills while the
Mongols' flank troops already strategically positioned would
appear as if out of nowhere from the left, right and/or from
their rear. During the initial states of battlefield contact, while
camping in close proximity of their enemies at night, they
would feign numerical superiority by ordering each soldier to
light at least five fires, which would appear to the enemy
scouts and spies that their force was almost five times larger
than it actually was.
Another way the Mongols utilized deception and terror was by

tying tree branches or leaves behind their horses and letting
the foliage drag behind them across the ground; by traveling
in a systematic fashion, the Mongols could create a dust storm
behind hills, in order to create fear and appear to the enemy
to be much larger than they actually were, thereby forcing the
enemy to surrender. Because each Mongol soldier had more
than one horse, they would let the prisoners and the civilians
ride their horses for a while before the conflict also to fake
numerical superiority.[8]
Inclusion[edit]
As Mongols started conquering other people, they recruited

the male nomads to their armies if they only surrendered,
particularly the Turks, Armenians, Georgians and others,
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willingly or under a threat to be destroyed otherwise.

Therefore, as they expanded into other areas, their troop
numbers increased as other people were included in their
conquests, such as during the battle of Baghdad, which
included many diverse people fighting under Mongol
leadership.
Ground tactics[edit]
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please

help improve this article by adding citations to reliable
sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
(September 2008)
The tumens would typically advance on a broad front, five

lines deep. The first three lines would be composed of horse
archers, the last two of lancers. Once an enemy force was
located, the Mongols would try to avoid risky or reckless
frontal assaults (in sharp contrast to their European and
Middle-Eastern opponents). Instead they would use
diversionary attacks to fix the enemy in place, while their main
forces sought to outflank or surround the foe. First the horse
archers would lay down a withering barrage of arrow fire.
Additional arrows were carried by camels who followed close
by, ensuring a plentiful supply of ammunition.
Flanking[edit]
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Mongols in battle of Mohi split into more than three separate

formations and one formation under Subutai flanking the
opponent from the right
In all battlefield situations, the troops would be divided into

separate formations of 10, 100, 1,000 or 10,000 depending on
the requirements. If the troops split from the main force was
significant, for instance 10,000 or more, these would be
handed over to a significant or second-in-command leader,
while the main leader concentrated on the front line. The
leader of the Mongols would generally issue the tactics used
to attack the enemy. For instance the leader might order,
upon seeing a city or town, "500 to the left and 500 to the
right" of the city; those instructions would then be relayed to
the relevant 5 units of 100 soldiers, and these would attempt
to flank or encircle the town to the left and right.
Encirclement and opening[edit]
The main reason for these manoeuvers was to encircle the city
to cut off escape and overwhelm from both sides. If the
situation deteriorated on one of the fronts or flanks, the
leader from the hill directed one part of the army to support
the other. If it appeared that there was going to be significant
loss, the Mongols would retreat to save their troops and
would engage the next day, or the next month, after having
studied the enemies' tactics and defences in the first battle, or
again send a demand to surrender after inflicting some form
of damage. There was no fixture on when or where units
should be deployed: it was dependent on battle
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circumstances, and the flanks and groups had full authority on

what to do in the course of battle - such as supporting other
flanks or performing an individual feigned retreat as
conditions seemed appropriate, in small groups of 100 to 1000
- so long as the battle unfolded according to the general
directive and the opponents were defeated.
Feigned retreat
The Mongols very commonly practiced the feigned retreat,

perhaps the most difficult battlefield tactic to execute. This is
because a feigned rout amongst untrained troops can often
turn into a real rout if an enemy presses into it.[9] Pretending
disarray and defeat in the heat of the battle, the Mongols
would suddenly appear panicked and turn and run, only to
pivot when the enemy was drawn out, destroying them at
their leisure. As this tactic became better known to the enemy,
the Mongols would extend their feigned retreats for days or
weeks, to falsely convince the chasers that they were
defeated, only to charge back once the enemy again had its
guard down or withdrew to join its main formation.
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Chapter Eight
The great Khan Kublai Khan
In 1259 Great Khan Möngke died while Kublai Khan, his

brother, was campaigning against the Song Dynasty in South
China and Ariq Böke, his other brother, commanded the
Mongol homelands. A khuraldai, or the great assembly of
higher nobility took place in Karakorum, then the capital of the
Mongol Empire, which proclaimed Ariq Böke as the Great
Khan in the traditional Mongolian style. Hearing of this, Kublai
aborted his Chinese expedition and gathered another great
assembly at his headquarters in the city of Kaiping (Shangdu in
present-day Inner Mongolia) and, in 1260, he was proclaimed
the Great Khan. However, this assembly convened by Kublai
was deemed illegitimate from the perspective of the
Mongolian tradition of throne inheritance: the empire already
had Ariq Böke as legitimate Great Khan, who was in the
capital.[8] In addition, it was said that that Kublai made
extensive use of bribery of princes. Ariq Böke sent an
ambassador to his brother: "By the state's law, the Great Khan
is proclaimed by the great assembly, but you have ignored the
supreme doctrine; sitting in China and, following Chinese laws,
you are acting autocratically."[9]
Kublai declared Ariq Böke to be a usurper, and, following the

traditional Chinese custom, proclaimed the era name to be
"Zhong-tong". According to Chinese history, Kublai Khan
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gained the title of Emperor (huang di), although the Chinese

Song Dynasty at that time still resisted him in South China. In
1261–1264, he fought against his brother, and eventually Ariq
Böke was defeated and surrendered to Kublai. As the winning
Great Khan, Kublai Khan now expected the allegiance of other
khanates.
However, at this time the khans of the Golden Horde and of

the Chagatai Khanate did not recognize Kublai Khan as the
Great Khan. The conflicts between Kublai Khan and the
khanates in Central Asia led by Kaidu had lasted for a few
decades, until the beginning of the 14th century, when both
of them had died. Hülegü, another brother of Kublai Khan,
ruled his Ilkhanate and paid homage to the Great Khan but
actually established an autonomous khanate, and after Ilkhan
Ghazan's enthronement in 1295, Kublai's successor Emperor
Chengzong sent him a seal reading "王府定國理民之寶" in
Chinese script to symbolize this.[10] The four major successor
khanates never came again under true one rule, and border
clashes also frequently occurred among them, although Yuan
Dynasty's nominal supremacy was recognized by the other
three after the death of Kaidu.[11]
Founding of the Dynasty[edit]
Kublai Khan, Genghis Khan's grandson and founder of the Yuan

Dynasty
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From the beginning of his reign (1260), Kublai Khan had

adopted many customs from earlier Chinese dynasties, such
as era names and bureaucracy. He had several Chinese
teachers attached to him since his early years. Not only did
they teach him Chinese history and ideology, but permanently
gave advice on governance.[12]
After winning the war against Ariq Böke, Kublai Khan began his
reign over his empire with greater aspirations and self-
confidence. In 1264, he transferred his headquarters to the
Daning Palace northeast of the former Jurchen capital
Zhongdu. In 1266, he ordered the construction of his new
capital around that site's Taiye Lake, establishing what is now
the central core of Beijing. The city came to be known as
Khanbaliq ("City of the Khans") and Daidu to the Turks and
Mongols and Dadu (Chinese: 大都, "Great Capital") to the
Chinese.[13] As early as 1264, Kublai decided to change the
era name from Zhongtong (中統) to Zhiyuan (至元). With the
desire to rule all of China, Kublai Khan formally claimed the
Mandate of Heaven by proclaiming the new Yuan Dynasty in
1271 in the traditional Chinese style.[2] This would become
the first non-Han dynasty to rule all of China.
The official title of the Dynasty, Da Yuan (Chinese: 大元,

"Great Yuan"), originates from a Chinese classic text called I
Ching, "大哉乾元" (dà zāi qián yuán), literally translating to
'Great is the Heavenly and Primal', with "qián" being the
symbol of the Heaven, and the Emperor. Therefore, Yuan was
the first dynasty in China to use Da (Chinese: 大, "Great") in its
official title, as well as being the first dynasty to use a title that
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did not correspond to an ancient region in China.[14] In 1271,

Khanbaliq officially became the capital of the Yuan Dynasty.
In the early 1270s, Kublai began his massive drive against

Southern Song Dynasty in South China. By 1273, Kublai had
blockaded the Yangzi River with his navy and besieged
Xiangyang, the last obstacle in his way to capture the rich
Yangzi River basin. In 1275, a Song force of 130,000 troops
under Chancellor Jia Sidao was defeated by the Yuan force. By
1276, most of the Southern Song territory had been captured
by Yuan forces. In 1279, the Yuan army led by the Chinese
general Zhang Hongfan had crushed the last Song resistance
at the Battle of Yamen, which marked the end of the Southern
Song and the onset of a united China under the Yuan. The Yuan
Dynasty is traditionally given credit for reuniting China after
several hundred years of fragmentation following the fall of
the Tang Dynasty.
After the founding of the dynasty, Kublai Khan was put under
pressure by many of his advisers to further expand the sphere
of influence of the Yuan through the traditional Sinocentric
tributary system. However, the attempts to establish such
tributary relationships were rebuffed and expeditions to Japan
(twice), Dai Viet (twice during Kublai's rule[15]), and Java,
would later meet with less success. Kublai established a
puppet state in Myanmar, which caused anarchy in the area,
and the Pagan Kingdom was broken up into many regions
warring with each another. In order to avoid more bloodshed
and conflicts with the Mongols, Annam and Champa later
established nominal tributary relations with the Yuan Dynasty.
Rule of Kublai Khan[edit]
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Unlike his predecessors, Kublai established a government with

institutions resembling the ones in earlier Chinese dynasties
and made reforms to maintain his centralized rule.[16]
Kublai Khan was seen as a martial emperor, reforming much

of China and its institutions, a process that would have taken
decades to complete. For example, he consolidated his rule by
centralizing [17] the government of China — making himself
(unlike his predecessors) an absolute monarch. He divided his
empire into Xing Zhongshusheng (行中書省), usually
translated as "branch Secretariat" or "province", each
governing the areas of approximately two or three modern-
day Chinese provinces, and this provincial-level government
structure became the model for later Ming and Qing
dynasties. Kublai Khan also reformed many other
governmental and economic institutions, especially the tax
system. Kublai Khan sought to govern China through
traditional institutions,[18] and also recognized that in order
to rule China he needed to employ Han Chinese advisers and
officials, though he never relied totally on Chinese
advisers.[19] Yet, the Hans were discriminated against
politically. Almost all important central posts were
monopolized by Mongols, who also preferred employing non-
Hans from other parts of the Mongol domain in those
positions for which no Mongol could be found. Hans were
more often employed in non-Chinese regions of the
empire[citation needed]. In essence, society was divided into
four classes in order of privilege: Mongols, Semu ("Various
sorts", for example: Central Asians), Northerners, and
Southerners.[20] During his lifetime, Kublai Khan built the
capital of the Yuan, Khanbaliq at the site of present-day
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central Beijing and made Shangdu (Chinese: 上都, "Upper

Capital", known to Marco Polo as Xanadu) the summer capital.
He also improved the agriculture of China, extending the
Grand Canal, highways and public granaries. Marco Polo, a
Venetian merchant who served under Kublai Khan as an
official, described his rule as benevolent: relieving the
populace of taxes in times of hardship; building hospitals and
orphanages; distributing food among the abjectly
poor.[citation needed]
He also promoted science and religion, and strongly supported

the Silk Road trade network, allowing the contacts between
Chinese technologies and the western ones. It is worth
mentioning that prior to meeting Marco Polo, Kublai Khan had
met Niccolò Polo, Marco Polo's father and Matteo Polo.
Through conversation with the two merchants, Kublai Khan
developed a keen interest in the Latin world especially
Christianity and sought to invite a hundred of missionaries
through a letter written in Latin to the Pope so that they may
convince the masses of idolators the errors of their belief.
Thus Niccolò and Maffeo Polo served as ambasadors for Kublai
Khan to the West. After having completed their mission of
accompanying a young Mongol princess to marry the Mongol
ruler Arghun, their perilous journey would end with them
returning to Venice and meeting young Marco Polo of
seventeen in 1271. The three returned to the East and once
again met with Kublai Khan, and it was said that Marco Polo
served as an emissary of Kublai Khan throughout his domain
for seventeen years. Although Niccolò and Maffeo failed to
bring back any missionaries with them or a letter from the
Pope due to the Great Schism, they were successful in
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returning with oil from the lamp of God in Jerusalem.[17]

Marco Polo's travels would later inspire many others like
Christopher Columbus to chart the passage to the "Middle
Kingdom" the realm of the East, present day China in search
of wealth and splendor.
Yuan dynasty banknote with its printing plate, 1287.
He issued paper banknotes known as Chao (鈔) in 1273. Paper

currency had been issued and used in China before Yuan time;
by 960, the Song Dynasty, short of copper for striking coins,
issued the first generally circulating notes. However, during
the Song Dynasty, paper money was used alongside the coins.
On the other hand, Yuan was the first dynasty in China to use
paper currency as the predominant circulating medium. The
Yuan bureaucrats made paper bills from the mulberry bark
paper.
While he had claimed nominal supremacy over the rest of the

Mongol Empire, his interest was clearly in China, along with
the areas in its traditional Sinocentric tributary system. From
the beginning of his reign, the other three khanates of the
Mongol Empire became de facto independent and only one
recognized him as Khagan. By the time of Kublai Khan’s death
in 1294, this separation has deepened, although later Yuan
emperors had nominal supremacy in the west til the end of
their rule in China. The temple name given for Kublai Khan is
Shizu (Chinese: 世祖).
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Chapter Nine
Temür Öljeytü Khan
Temür Öljeytü Khan (Mongolian: Öljiyt Tömör, Өлзийт Төмөр,

Öljeytü Temür), born Temür (simplified Chinese: 铁穆耳;
traditional Chinese: 鐵穆耳; pinyin: Tiěmùěr; Wade–Giles:
T'ieh3-mu4-erh3), or Emperor Chengzong of Yuan (Emperor
Cheng-tsung of Yuan; Chinese: 元成宗; pinyin: Yuán
Chéngzōng; Wade–Giles: Yüan2 Ch'eng2-tsung1) (October 15,
1265 – February 10, 1307), also spelled Timur, was the second
leader of the Yuan Dynasty between May 10, 1294 and
February 10, 1307, and is considered as the sixth Great Khan
of the Mongols in Mongolia. He, whose reign established the
patterns of power for the next few decades, was an able ruler
of the Yuan.[1] His name means "blessed iron Khan" in the
Mongolian language.
He was a son of the Crown Prince Zhenjin (真金) and the

grandson of Kublai Khan. During his rule, the Tran, Pagan and
Champa dynasties and western khanates of the Mongol
Empire accepted his supremacy.
Early life
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Temür was born the third son of Zhenjin of the Borjigin and
Kökejin (Bairam-Egechi) of the Khunggirad on October 15,
1265. Because Kublai's first son Dorji died early, his second son
and Temür's father, Zhenjin, became the crown prince.
However, he died in 1286 when Temür was 21 years old.
Kublai remained close to Zhenjin's widow Kökejin who was
high in his favor. Like his grandfather Kublai he too was a
follower of Buddhism.
He followed his grandfather Kublai to suppress the rebellion

of Nayan (Naiyan) and other rival relatives in 1287. Then he
and Kublai's official, Oz-Temür, came to guard the Liao River
area and Liaodong in the east from Nayan's ally, Qadaan, and
defeated him. Kublai appointed him the princely overseer of
Karakorum and surrounding areas in July 1293.[2] Three
Chagatai princes submitted to him while he was defending
Mongolia (they fled to Chagatai Khanate soon and returned to
Yuan Dynasty again during the reign of Temür).
After Kublai Khan died in 1294, Kublai's old officials urged the
court to summon a kurultai in Shangdu. Because Zhenjin's
second son Darmabala already died in 1292, only his two sons,
Gammala and Temür, were left to succeed. Temür was Kublai's
provisional choice but he had never been confirmed as
heir.[3][4] In his early life he had been addicted to
drunkenness and gluttony of which he had been reproved by
his grandfather. Even though Temür was given the seal of the
heir apparent when he was dispatched to Mongolia, he was
not given the panoply of an heir. At the kurultai a matriarch
suggested that Kublai Khan had said whoever knew the
sayings (Билэг сургааль) of Genghis Khan best was suited to
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rule at the kurultai on April 14.[citation needed] It was agreed

that the two would compete. Temür declaimed well while his
eldest brother Gammala, who stammered, could not match
him. All cried out: "Temür knows them better! ...It's he that is
worthy of crown and throne!".[citation needed] The grand
councillor Bayan claimed that he could support only Kublai's
choice, Temür, but not someone else. Temür was backed by
his mother Kökejin and by merited officials of Khubilai, namely
Oz Temür, Bayan, the Kankali Bukhumu, and Ölĵei all
experienced with the state bureaucracy and honored military
leaders. These highly estimated persons could enforce the
election of Temür. Although Gammala wanted the throne, he
recognized that Temür had won in the competition.[citation
needed]
Reign[edit]
Temür Khan was a competent emperor of the Yuan Dynasty.

He kept the empire the way Kublai Khan left it though he did
not make any great achievements. He continued many of
Kublai Khan's economic reforms and tried to recover the
economy from the expensive campaigns of Kublai Khan's
reign. He allowed the empire to heal from the wounds of
particularly the Vietnam Campaign. Many other high posts of
his empire were filled with people of different origin, including
Mongols, Han Chinese, Muslims and a few Christians.
Ideologically, Temür's administration showed respect for
Confucianism and Confucian scholars. Shortly after his
accession, Temür issued an edict to revere Confucius. Temür
appointed Harghasun, who was particularly close to the
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Confucian scholars, right grand chancellor in the

secretariat.[5] Nevertheless, the Mongol court did not accept
every principle of Confucianism.[6] Temür bestowed new
guards and assets on his mother and renamed her ordo (great
palace-tent or camp) Longfugong palace which became a
center of Khunggirad power for the next few decades. Mongol
and westerner statesmen were assisted by an array of Chinese
administrators and Muslim financers. The most prominent
Muslim statesman was Bayan (Баян), great-grandson of Saiyid
Ajall Shams al-Din who was in charge of the Ministry of
Finance. Under Mongol administrators, Oljei and Harghasun,
the Yuan court adopted policies that were designed to ensure
political and social stability.
Number of the Tibetans gradually increased in the

administration. The Khon family of Tibet was honored and one
of them became an imperial son-in law in 1296. Temür
reversed his grandfather's anti-Taoist policy and made Taoist
Zhang Liusun co-chair of the Academy of Scholarly Worthies.
In 1304, Temür appointed the Celestial master of Dragon and
Tiger Mountain as head of the Orthodox Unity School. He
banned sales and distillation of alcohols in Mongolia in 1297.
The French historian René Grousset applauded his activity in
the book The Empire of Steppes. Temür was opposed to
imposing any additional fiscal burden on the people.
Exemptions from levies and taxes were granted several times
for part or all of the Yuan. After his enthronement, Temür
exempted Dadu and Shangdu from taxes for a year. He also
exempted the Mongol commoners from taxation for two
years. In 1302 he prohibited the collection of anything beyond
the established tax quotas.[7] Orders were given that portraits
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be painted of the khagans and khatuns during the reign of

Temür.[8]
However, the government's financial situation deteriorated

and the draining of monetary reserves greatly weakened the
credibility of the paper currency system.
One problem was that corrupt officials of the Yuan started to

show up during his reign, but overall, the empire was still in a
good shape. Because his only son Teshou died a year earlier
(January 1306), Temür died without a male heir in capital Dadu
on February 10, 1307.[9]
South East Asia
Imperial edict regarding the protection of the Temple of Yan

Hui in Qufu. Year 11 of the Dade era (AD 1307). The text is both
in Chinese and in Mongol ('Phags-pa script)
Soon after his enthronement in 1294, Temür called off all

preparations for further expansions to Japan and the Đại Việt
whose new ruler ignored his grandfather's envoy in 1291.
Temür sent his messengers to Japan and Champa to demand
submissions. Champa accepted the term but Kamakura
shogunate declined it, and the Japanese Wokou attacked
Ningbo in Zheijiang province in his late reign.[10] The rulers of
Đại Việt, Burma and Sukhotai visited Khanbalik to greet him as
their overlord in 1295, 1297 and 1300. After the compliment
from the prince of Burma, he aborted the Burmese campaign
and said all his ministers: "They are our friendly subjects. Do
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not attack their people". Temür also released envoys of Đại

Việt to show his goodwill and the Tran court began to send
tributary missions. But Temür's government had to quell
rebellions in the southwestern mountainous area, led by tribal
chieftains like Song Longji and female leader Shejie in 1296. It
took long months for the generals Liu Shen and Liu Guojie to
suppress these rebellions.
By the request of the Burmese prince, Tribhuvanaditya, Temür

dispatched a detachment of Yuan army to Burma in 1297.
They successfully repelled the Shans from Myanmar. Temür
also received envoys from Siam and Cambodia. He dispatched
Zhou Daguan to Khmer Cambodia in 1296, and Zhou wrote an
account about his journey.[11] In 1299 Athinkaya murdered
his brother Tribhuvanaditya, who submitted to Temür in 1297.
In 1300, a punitive expedition was launched against Burma for
dethroning Temür's protectorate, Tribhuvanaditya. The Shan
warlords of Babai-Xifu, who were quarreling over the royal
succession of Pagan, also raided the Yuan realms. Temür sent
his Yunnan-based force in turn to halt the advance of Babaixifu
(Lanna Kingdom of Chiangmai) in 1301–03. Although, those
campaigns were fruitless, Athinkaya and the Shan lords
offered their submission.[12]
The costly expedition spurred rebellions of a Yunnan official,

Song Longji, and the Gold-Tooths (ancestors of the Dai people)
in 1301–03. The revolts were eventually suppressed. After
Temür Khan ordered to withdraw his army from Burma,
Central and southern Burma soon came under the Tai rulers
who paid nominal tribute to the Yuan Dynasty.
Relation with other khanates[edit]
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This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality

standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help
improve this section if you can. (October 2011)
The Mongol Empire, ca. 1300. The gray area is the later
Timurid empire.
Ghazan Khan of the Ilkhanate converted to Islam after his

enthronement in 1295. He actively supported the expansion
of Islam in his empire and renounced all relationship with the
"paganish" Yuan Dynasty. In 1296 Temür Khan dispatched
Baiju, the military commander, to Mongol Persia, the western
region of the Mongol Empire.[13] Ghazan was very impressed
with Baiju's abilities. But three years later, he changed his
policy and sent his envoys with precious gifts such as cloths,
jewels and gold to greet Temür who was the most respected
person of the House of Tolui at time. In response, Temür said
"Descendants of Chingis Khan shall be friendly to each other
forever" and sent Ghazan a seal reading "王府定國理民之寶
" in Chinese script, meaning "Seal certifying the authority of
his Royal Highness to establish a country and govern its people
as a prince below Khagan". The Ilkhanid envoys presented
tribute to Khagan Temür and inspected properties granted to
Hulagu in North China.[14] They stayed at the ordo of Temür
Khagan in Dadu for 4 years. Ghazan called upon other Mongol
Khans to unite their will under the Khagan Temür. Kaidu's
enemy Bayan Khan of the White Horde strongly supported his
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appeal. However, the envoys returned to Persia after the

death of Ghazan.
Temür also treated Ochicher, a descendant of Borokhula (one

of Genghis Khan's "4 steeds"), as an elder statesman and
dispatched him to Karakorum to assist his brother Gammala in
pacifying the threat from the House of Ögedei and the
Chagatai Khanate. While Ochicher and Gammala never
achieved the final surrender of Kaidu, head of the Ögedeid and
Chagatayid families, they neutralized him by skillfully
exploiting their divisions and reviving military farms up to the
Altai Range. In 1293 Tutugh occupied the Baarin tumen, who
were allies of Kaidu, on the Ob River. From 1298 on the
Chagatayid Khan Duwa increased his raids on the Yuan. He
launched a surprise attack against the Yuan garrison under
Temür's uncle Kokechu in Mongolia and captured Temür's
son-in-law, Korguz of the Ongud when he and his commanders
were drunk.[15] However, Duwa was defeated by the Yuan
army under Ananda in Gansu and his son-in law and several
relations were captured. Although, Duwa and the Yuan
generals agreed to exchange their prisoners, Duwa and Qaidu
executed Korguz in revenge and cheated the Yuan officials. To
reorganize the Yuan defence system in Mongolia, Temür
appointed Darmabala's son Khayisan to replace Kokechu. The
Yuan army defeated Qaidu south of the Altai Mountains.
However, in 1300, Kaidu defeated Khayishan's force. Then
Kaidu and Duwa mobilized a large army to attack Karakorum
the next year. The Yuan army suffered heavy losses while both
sides could not make any decisive victory in September. Duwa
was wounded in the battle and Qaidu died soon thereafter.
Duwa assisted Kaidu's son Chapar to succeed his father as
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head of the House of Ögedei and insisted him to recognize

Temür's supremacy as Khagan of all Mongols. Because Duwa
was more interested in foreign expansion, especially to India,
and tired of the civil strife of the Mongols.
Letter of Oljeitu to Philip IV of France that announces the

general peace of the Mongol Empire, 1305.
In 1304, Duwa, Kaidu's son Chapar, Tokhta of Golden Horde

and Ilkhan Oljeitu negotiated peace with Temür Khan, in order
to maintain trade and diplomatic relations, and agreed him to
be their nominal overlord.[16] According to the ancient
custom which was inherited from the time of Hulagu, Temür
thus deigned Oljeitu as the new khan of the Ilkhanate, and
sent him a seal reading "真命皇帝和順萬夷之寶" in Chinese
script, meaning "Seal of Mandate of Heaven Emperor [i.e.
Emperor of China] who made peace with all
foreigners/barbarians", which was later used by Oljeitu in his
letter to the French king Philip IV of France in 1305.[17] Soon
after that the fighting between Duwa and Chapar soon broke
out over the question of territory. Temür backed Duwa and
sent a large army under Khayisan in the fall of 1306, and
Chapar finally surrendered. Tokhta Khan of the Golden Horde
also sent his overlord Temür two tumens to buttress the Yuan
frontier.
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Chapter Ten
Külüg Khan
Külüg Khan (Mongolian: Hülüg Khaan, Хөлөг хаан, Külüg

qaγan), born Khayishan, meaning "wall" in Mongolian
(Chinese: 海山; pinyin: Hǎi shān), or Emperor Wuzong of Yuan
(Chinese: 元武宗; pinyin: Yuán Wǔzōng; Wade–Giles: Wu-
Tsung) (August 4, 1281 – January 27, 1311), was an Emperor
of the Yuan Dynasty, and is regarded as the seventh Great
Khan of the Mongols in Mongolia. His name means "warrior
Khan or fine horse Khan" in the Mongolian language.
Contents [show]
Early career[edit]
He was the second son of Darmabala[1] and Dagi of the

influential Khunggirad clan, and the full brother of
Ayurbarwada. He was sent to Mongolia to assume an army
that defended the western front of the Yuan against Kaidu and
other princes of Central Asia under him. In 1289, Khayisan's
force was nearly routed and the Kipchak commander, Tutugh,
rescued him from capture by Kaidu's army. In 1301 he clashed
with Kaidu, who died from a battle wound. In recognition of
the great success, Külüg Khan was given the title of Prince
Huaining (懷寧王) in 1304.
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When Chapar attacked Duwa, Temür helped the latter and

sent an army under Khayisan. In 1306 Khayisan forced Melig
Temür, a son of Ariq Böke,[2] who was aligned himself with
Kaidu to accept a surrender in the Altai Mountains and pushed
Kaidu's successor Chapar westward. For these military
achievements he gained a high reputation among Mongol
princes and non-Mongol corps. Since his uncle Temür Khan did
not have a male heir, he was considered a major candidate for
the emperor.
Enthronement
In 1307 when Temür Khan died, he returned eastward to

Karakorum and watched the situation. Temür's widow
Bulughan of the Bayaud tribe had kept away the Khunggirad-
mothered brothers of Khayishan and Ayurbarwada and
attempted to set up Ananda, a Muslim cousin of Temür, who
was the prince of An-hsi. Her alliance was supported by some
senior officials of the Secretariat under Aqutai. They made
Bulugan regent and intended to put Ananda on the throne.
Ananda was a popular prince who successfully protected the
province of the Yuan against the Ögedeid and Chaghatayid
armies and had a bulk of the imperial army under him in An-
hsi. But he lacked of military power in the imperial capital city
and was a Muslim opposed to the majority of the Yuan
Mongols.
The Darkhan Harghasun, Tura, a great-great grandson of

Chagatai Khan, and Yakhutu, a descandant of Tolui, fought for
the candidacy of Darmabala's sons against them. The pro-
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Darmabala faction arrested Ananda and Bulghan by coup and

recalled Ayurbarwada and Dagi from Henan. Then, Khayishan
decided to hold the coronation ceremony in Shangdu just as
his great-grandfather Kublai Khan did, and advanced
southward with thirty thousand soldiers from Mongolia. He
was welcomed by Ayurbarwada, who gave up emperorship,
and ascended to the throne. He had executed Ananda and
Bulughan before succession. Ariq Böke's son, Melig-Temür,
was also executed because of his support for Ananda.[3]
Khayisan's enthronement at Shangdu on June 21, 1307 was

performed properly at a kurultai. After that he made his
younger brother Ayurbarwada the heir apparent and they
promised that their descendants would succeed each other on
relay.
Reign[edit]
Soon after Khayishan's accession the Hiaoking, a treatise on

filial obedience, one of the works attributed to Confucius,
having been translated into the Mongol language, was
distributed in the empire. He granted the princes and officials
who attended his ceremony lavish gifts in accordance with
amounts set by the previous khan. Huge amounts, moreover,
were spent on the construction of Buddhist temples at Dadu
and Shagdu. Fresh honors were decreed to the memory of the
old sage, and the characters Ta ching were added to his titles.
His administration was founded on the unstable balance

between Khayishan, his younger brother Ayurbarwada and
their mother Dagi of the Khunggirad clan. Khayishan
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appointed Ayurbarwada as Crown Prince on the condition that

he would pass the status to Khayishan's son after succession.
He generously gave bonus to imperial princes and Mongol
aristocrats, and enjoyed popularity among them. Khayisan
Külüg Khan freely gave away noble and official titles and filled
the government with supernumeraries. Having little regard for
the unwritten law of Kublai Khan that only sons of Khagans
could be made princes of the first rank, he granted the
Genghisids and the non-Borjigins many princely titles.
Meanwhile he was plagued by financial difficulties which was
caused by free-spending policies and longstanding military
spending. So he brought back the Shangshusheng (Chinese: 尚
書省, "Department of State Affairs") for financial affairs in
parallel with the Zhongshusheng (Chinese: 中書省,
"Department of Central Governing") for administrative affairs.
He changed branch offices of Zhongshusheng to those of
Shangshusheng to strengthen monopoly in salt and other
goods. He issued new bills (Chao) called Zhida-yinchao
(Chinese: 至大銀鈔) to replace Zhiyuan-chao (Chinese: 至元
鈔). His anti-inflation plans did not achieve adequate results in
his short reign, and dissatisfied Han Chinese officers and
commoners. He attempted to push through a new
nonconvertible silver currency but was defeated by public
resistance.[4]
Although, he first shared with Ayurbarwada the tutorship of

the Confucian scholar Li Meng, he apparently was little
affected by Confucian culture. He transferred Harghasun to
Mongolia as the grand councillor of the left wing of Branch
secretariat of Lin-pei despite his great contribution. Khayisan
heavily relied on his retainers and commanders he had
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brought from Mongolia.[5] He gave key posts to them and

favored non-Mongol corps including the Kipchak, the Asud
(Alans) and the Qanglï. In contrast, he did not reward
abundantly the Khunggirad faction who had carried out a coup
against Bulughan. Because Tula said something suspicious in
rage, Khayisan suspected that he had a further object, and had
him tried and put to death.
Khayisan greatly favored Buddhism, so that he ordered the

Tibetan Lama Chogdi Osor to translate the sacred books of
Buddha. When the Buddhist monks made mistakes except in
cases affecting the Mongol Dynasty, he refused to punish
them. A law was passed that whoever struck a Lama should
lose his tongue, but Ayurbarwada repealed it as entirely
contrary to precedent. However, Khayisan was the first
Khagan to tax the lands held by the Buddhist monks and the
followers of Taoism, hithero exempt.
In order to reduce the cost of supporting the Yuan

bureaucracy, he issued an order in 1307 to dismiss the
supernumeraries and to bring total number of officials in line
with the quota that had been set by his uncle Temür Khan. The
order produced no practical results; the number of bureau's
chief officials jumped from 6 in Kublai's reign to 32. He also
had the building of court officials and a new palace city built
at Dadu and Chungtu.
In 1308 the Goryeo king Chungnyeol of Korea died, and

Khayisan sent a patent for his successor Chungseon. That year
Chapar and other princes of the Khanate of Ögedei came to
Khayisan with their submission, permanently ending the
threat against the Chagatai Khanate and the Yuan Dynasty by
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Khaidu's sons.[6] During his reign, the Yuan completed the

subjugation of Sakhalin, forcing its Ainu people to accept their
supremacy in 1308.[7]
The Mongol Empire and its client states, c. 1311.
The paper became so depreciated in value that in 1309 there

was a fresh issue, made to replace that which was the
discredited paper, but this also sank rapidly in value, and at
length the Emperor, Khaissan, determined upon a recurrence
to the ancient money, and accordingly, in 1310, there were
struck two kinds of copper coins, having Mongol characters
upon them. Some with the inscription, precious money of the
Chi ta period ; and others with this legend, precious money of
the Great Yuan. These copper coins were of three sizes: 1 of
the value of one li; 2 of the value of ten li; and 3 of coins worth
several of those of the dynasties Tang and Sung dynasties.[8]
Khayisan's court encountered financial difficulties. For
example, the total government expenditure for the year 1307
was 10 million ting of paper notes and 3 million dan of grains.
By 1310, 10,603,100 ting had been borrowed from the
reserves for current expenditures.[9]
Tula's son Kokechu conspired against the Emperor with the

high court officials and Buddhist monks in 1310; but their
plans were discovered, the monks were duly executed, and
Kokechu was exiled to Korea. Arslan, the governor of Dadu and
commander of the kheshig, shared same fate with the
conspirators. He was executed with several of his companions.
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During Khayisan's reign, all Branch Secretariats were renamed

Branch Departments of State Affairs. The new major
department of state affairs came under Toghta, the grand
councillor of the left, Sanpanu and Yueh shi, managers of the
government affairs, and Paopa, the assistant administrator of
the right.
The selling price of salt licences issued under the state

monopoly was raised by 35 percent over the price in 1307. A
grain tax surcharge of 2 percent was imposed on the wealthy
families of Chiang-nan. The merits of tax collectors were
evaluated on the basis of the percentage increase in the taxes
they collected the tax quota at the end of Temür's reign.[10]
To fight against inflation, Khayisan's administration
established granaries in localities and drastically increased the
quota for the maritime shipment of grain from Yangtze valley,
reaching 2.9 million shih in 1310.[11] Khayisan reduced the
number of chief officials in the Secreatariat, the Censorate,
the Bureau of Military Affairs, and the Bureau of Transmission
as well as supernumeraries in various offices.
Death[edit]
After the reign of less than 4 years, Khayishan suddenly died

in January 27, 1311.[12] Immediately after his death and
Ayurbarwada's succession in 1311, the unsatisfactory
Khunggirad faction came together under his mother Dagi and
purged pro-Khayishan officials. It also broke Ayurbarwada's
promise to appoint Khayishan's son as Crown Prince. His court
drove Khayishan's sons Kuśala and Tugh Temür out of the
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central government. Pro-Khayishan generals cherished

grievances until they managed to set up Tugh Temür in 1328.
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Chapter Eleven
Buyantu Khan
Buyantu Khan (Mongolian: Буянт хаан), also known as

Emperor Renzong of Yuan (Chinese: 元仁宗, April 9, 1285 –
March 1, 1320), born Ayurbarwada, was the Emperor of the
Yuan Dynasty, and is regarded as the eighth Great Khan of the
Mongols in Mongolia. His name means "blessed/good Khan"
in the Mongolian language. His name "Ayurbarwada" was
from a Sanskrit compound "Āyur-parvata", which means "the
mountain of longevity", in contrast with Emperor Wuzong's
name Qaišan ("mountains and seas" in Chinese).[1]
Ayurbarwada was the first Yuan emperor who actively

supported and promoted the mainstream Chinese culture
after the reign of Kublai. The emperor, who was mentored by
Confucian academic Li Meng, succeeded peacefully to the
throne and reversed his older brother Khayisan's policies.
More importantly, Ayurbarwada reinstituted the civil service
examination system for the Yuan Dynasty.
Contents [show]
Struggle for succession[edit]
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Ayurbarwada was the second son of Darmabala and Dagi

(Targi) of the Khunggirat, and a great-grandson of Kublai Khan
(r.1260–94). He had been tutored by the Confucian scholar Li
Meng, who strongly affected his future political attitudes since
his early teens.[2]
In 1305 Bulugan Khatun removed Ayurbarwada from the court

and sent him to Honan as the prince of Huai-ning. However,
his uncle Temür Khan died without an heir on February 2,
1307, because his son Tachu had died a year earlier before
him.
Temür's widow Bulugan of the Bayaud tribe had kept away the
Khunggirad-mothered brothers of Khayishan and
Ayurbarwada and attempted to set up her favorite Muslim
Ananda, their uncle and the governor of Ningxia. The Darkhan
Harghasun, the right chancellor (Chinese: 右丞相) of the
government who became aware of Bulugan's plan, called
Ayurbarwada and Li Meng back from Huaizhou (Chinese: 懷州
) to the capital Dadu. They successfully developed a strategy
to imprison Ananda and Bulugan. Afterwards, Ayurbarwada
welcomed his older brother Khayishan, who was still far away
from Dadu, to succeed to the throne. After the latter's
coronation, Ayurbarwada was appointed the Crown Prince in
June 1307. The brothers promised each other that their
descendants would rule on relay.
Early career under Khayisan Kulug Khan and

enthronement[edit]
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Ayurbarwada was made head of the top central administrative

organs.[3] He had surrounded himself with the Chinese
scholars Chen Hao, Wang I, Wang Yueh, Chao Mengfu, Wang
Chieh, Chan Yaoho, Shang-ye, Yao sui, and Hsia ku; the artists
Shang cheng and Wang Cheng-peng; Chagaan, a scholar from
Balkh and Haiya, the Uyghur lyricist.
He was able to read and write Chinese and appreciate Chinese

paintings and calligraphy in addition to his deep knowledge of
Confucianism and Chinese history.[4] Strongly influenced by
Confucian political ethics, he was naturally opposed to his
brother's exploitative policies. Khayisan's partisans had
accused Li Meng of having advised Ayurbarwada to keep the
throne for himself; Li Meng left the court immediately after
Khayisan's accession. Ayurbarwada spoke out in Li Meng's
defence but accomplished nothing much in the end. His
disagreement with his brother's high officials remained
concealed until his own enthronement.
Khayishan died in January 1311. Unlike the succession struggle

over Yuan throne in 1307, Ayurbarwada's succession to his
elder brother Khayisan's throne in April 1311 was a peaceful
and smooth transition of the Yuan imperial history.[5] This was
made possible by the fact that he was designated by
Khayishan as the heir apparent in June 1307, in accordance
with their earlier agreement, similar to Kublai Khan had done
when grooming Zhenjin to be his successor.
Ayurbarwada's accession kuriltai was composed of 14,000

princes, each of whom employed relays of from 700 to 1,000
horses. The feast lasted a week. Forty oxen and 4,000 sheep,
besides a great number of animals were eaten daily. At the
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hour fixed by the astrologers, the new Emperor seated himself

on his throne, his face turned towards the south, in the Karshi,
which was hung with silk and brocade. The descendants of
Genghis Khan were on the right, and the descendants of Hasar
on the left of the throne. The Khatuns were seated on stools.
Ayurbarwada was saluted under the title of Buyantu.
Reformation[edit]
Ayurbarwada was highlighted for his reform efforts based on

Confucianism principle for the Yuan government, though
these reforms were made at the displeasure of some Mongol
nobility. As soon as he ascended to the throne, he disbanded
of the Department of State Affairs (Chinese: 尚書省) set up
during Khayishan's reign, which resulted in the execution of 5
high-ranking officials. He also abolished the Zhida paper notes
and coins issued by the court of Khayishan; and restored the
Zhongtong and Zhiyuan notes as the only official currency. The
bureaucracy was trimmed to the 1293 level and new high
offices were reduced to the original status they had had in
Kublai's reign. The various public building projects of Khayisan
were halted. He made Li Meng and Zhang Kui grand councillors
in addition to appointing others including Mongols and
Semuren (a caste of assorted peoples from Central Asia and
the west). The Office of Market Taxes, which was set up to
supervise merchants, was abolished with the attempt at
abolition by the Semuren.[6]
The most prominent reform he made was the reintroduction

of the imperial examination system for public officials similar
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to the one in previous dynasties of China.[7] The imperial

examination system, though had repeated been debated
during Kublai's reign, had not put into effect until this time. It
was now based entirely on Neo-Confucianism, which was thus
established as the state philosophy of China for many
centuries ever since. A race-based quotas were set for these
examinations, allowing a certain number of both Mongol and
Han Chinese to enter the government as civil officials. For
example, starting in 1313 examinations were introduced for
prospective officials – testing their knowledge on significant
historical works – in 1315 300 appointments went to the court,
with an extra quarter of the positions being given to non-Han
Chinese people.
Codification of the law was another area in which

Ayurbarwada's efforts to reform the Yuan Dynasty produced
the desired results. In the same month that he was enthroned
in 1311, he instructed the Secretariat (Chinese: 中書省) to
systematize the codes and regulations promulgated since the
beginning of Kublai's reign. This compilation and editing was
completed in 1316, though the process of reviewing the
collection was not completely until 1323, under his son and
successor Shidibala, who formally promulgated it under the
title Da Yuan Tong Zhi (Chinese: 大元通制, "the
comprehensive institutions of the Great Yuan").[8] In some
ways the new code also reflected certain Mongolian customs
and the institutional features peculiar to the Mongol dynasty
in the history of China.
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A Yuan Dynasty blue-and-white porcelain dish with fish and

flowing water design, mid-fourteenth century, Freer Gallery of
Art.
He believed that the Mongol elites and the Semuren had to

learn from Confucian political philosophy and Chinese
historical experience in order to govern China.[9] During the
reign of Ayurbarwada, a number of Chinese books and works
were translated or published with Ayurbarwada's
authorization. This can also reveal his fondness for Chinese
culture and his and his officials' (especially the Mongols and
Central Asians) desire to benefit from Confucian political
wisdom and Chinese historical experience. Examples of these
translated or published books and works include the
Confucian classic Shang Shu (Chinese: 尚書, "Book of history"),
Daxue Yanyi (Chinese: 大學衍義, "Extended meaning of the
Great Learning"), Zhenguan Zhengyao (貞觀政要, "Essentials
of the government of the Zhenguan period"), and the Xiao Jing
(孝經, "Books of filial piety").
In the winter of 1311 Ayurbarwada ordered the abolition of

the jarghuchi (judge) of the princely establishments that was
created by Ögedei Khan (r.1229–41) and placed all Mongolian
violators under the jurisdiction of chienbu while attempting to
restrict separate appanage judges. He restricted the position
jarghuchi to judicial affairs and organized them under the
Court of the Imperial Clan.[10]
Early in his reign Ayurbarwada encouraged agriculture to

increase the state revenue.[11] His senior councillor,
Temuder, took drastic measures which included collecting salt
and iron monopoly taxes and the state monopoly over foreign
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trade under the Maritime Trade Supervisorate. Despite

commercial ties with Europe increased, Ayurbarwada's
administration, led by Temuder, unsuccessfully attempted a
new cadastral survey called Yanyou Jingli (Chinese: 延祐經理)
which involves a comprehensive land survey in 1314. If it had
been implemented properly, this survey would have greatly
increased the state revenue and helped a more effective tax
structure. Ineffective implementation of the survey by corrupt
officials caused widespread hardship and resentment. As a
result, a serious revolt broke out in Jiangxi in the fall of 1315.
Although the revolt was suppressed within two months, it
forced the government to abandon the survey program
completely to relieve the situation.[12]
Ayurbarwada also granted diploma (yarliq) to exempt the

Franciscans from any taxation in 1314.[13] The friars were still
expected to pray for the Emperor's life and give their blessing
on ceremonial occasions.
Temuder chipped away at the autonomy of the princely

appanages and executed Confucian opponents. Since
Temuder was viewed by Confucians as an "evil minister",
opponents of fiscal centralization charged Temuder with
corruption; and Buyantu Khan had to dismiss him in 1317.[14]
Unwilling to oppose his mother Dagi (Targi), Ayurbarwada
could not eliminate Temuder.
Mongol Empire[edit]
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standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help
improve this section if you can. (October 2011)
Ayurbarwada continued his ancestors' imperialistic policies.

He reminded the vassal states of his accession, and told them
to remember and send their tribute at the proper time, and
assured them that he would make punitive actions if they
failed. Among the tributary princes to whom he notified his
advent to the throne are named those of Champa, Annam, an
island near Japan, Malabar, and kingdoms on the borders of
Yunnan.[15]
Muslim Ozbeg Khan mounted the throne of the Golden Horde

in 1312. He proscribed Buddhism and Shamanism among the
Mongols in Russia, reversing the spread of the Yuan culture.
Yuan envoys seems to have backed Toqta's son, a rival
candidate, against Ozbeg.[16]
Ayurbarwarda also maintained friendly relations with Ilkhan

Oljeitu. The Chagatayid Khan Esen Buqa in 1312 sent the Yuan
border garrison envoys in an attempt to convince them to
adjust their position. The negotiations, however, did not go
well. Esen Buqa sent tributes to Ayurbarwada in 1312 and
1313, but the Yuan court's attempts to restrict trade between
the two states kept tensions high. Esen Buqa attempted to
gain the support of Ozbeg Khan without success.
Ayurbarwada's emissary, Abishqa, to the Ilkhanate while
travelling through Central Asia, revealed to a Chaghadayid
commander that an alliance between the Yuan and the
Ilkhanate had been created, and the allies forces were
mobilizing to attack the khanate. Esen Buqa ordered Abishqa
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to be executed and decided to attack the Yuan. The Yuan

armies repelled his troops twice in 1314.
After his failure, Esen Buqa warned Ozbeg Khan that the
Khagan Ayurbarwada would replace him with another from
the House of Jochi.[17] This testimony was never
corroborated with any evidence. Ozbeg was suggested not to
believe it by one of his vizirs and he therefore refused to help
Esen Buqa.
Oljeitu drove out the Qaraunas of Dawud Khoja, son of

Qutlugh Khwaja from Afghanistan. Esen buqa dispatched his
brother Kebek with a large force to attack Khorasan. Kebek
and Yasa'ur defeated Oljeitu's army at the Murgab River and
advanced to Herat. But they were recalled, for the Chagatai
Khanate was attacked by Ayurbarwada's force under the
Kipchak commander Chongur.[18] Around this time Yasa'ur
defected to Öljeitü and engaged in battle with Kebek's troops.
The Yuan army crushed Esen Buqa's resistance and plundered
his winter quarters on the Issyk Kul as well as his summer
residence in Talas. The disaster was completed when prince
Tore Temür deserted to the Yuan.
After Esen Buqa's death in 1318, his brother Kebek mitigated

the situation with the Yuan and the Ilkhanate. He enjoyed
peaceful relations with the Great Khan despite Ayurbarwada's
reestablishment of nominal authority in Turfanistan.
In 1326 Ozbeg reopened friendly relations with the Yuan

court. From 1339 he received annually 24,000 ding in Yuan
paper currency from the Jochid appanages in China.
Aftermath[edit]
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Ayurbarwada died on March 1, 1320.[19] After Khayishan

died, Ayurbarwada reneged his promise later in his reign by
making his own son Shidibala the new Crown Prince in 1316.
Therefore, his son succeeded him instead of one of Khayisan's
sons.
His death created two decades of political turmoil. The

Khunggirat faction under Temuder and Dagi became even
more powerful at the court. After the assassination of
Shidibala in 1323, none of his descendants ruled the Empire.
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Chapter Twelve
Gegeen Khan
Gegeen Khan (Mongolian: Шидэбал Гэгээн хаан, Shidebal

Gegegen qaγan), also known as Emperor Yingzong of Yuan
(Chinese: 元英宗, February 22, 1303 – September 4, 1323),
born Shidibala, was the successor of Ayurbarwada to rule as
Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, and is regarded as the ninth
Great Khan of the Mongols in Mongolia. His name means
"enlightened/bright khan" in the Mongolian language.
Early in his short reign, the Khunggirat faction played a key role
in the Yuan court. When his grandmother Dagi (Targi) and the
grand councillar Temuder died in 1322, his opponents seemed
to have triumphed. Despite the Emperor's aim to reform the
government based on the Confucian principles, Temuder's
faction linked up with the Alan guard and assassinated the
emperor in 1323. This was the first violent transition struggle
in the Mongolian imperial history, which is also known as Coup
d'état at Nanpo, that the Non-Borjigins overthrew the
Emperor.
Contents [show]
Peaceful succession[edit]
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Shidibala was the eldest son of Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan

(Emperor Renzong) and Radnashiri of the Khunggirad clan. In
return for his own crown princeship, Ayurbarwada promised
his elder brother Khayishan to appoint Khayishan's son as
Crown Prince after his succession.[1] But when Khayishan
died, Khayishan's two sons were relegated to borderlands and
pro-Khayishan officers were purged.
Shidibala's powerful grandmother Dagi installed Shidibala as

Crown Prince in 1316, and then as Khan, since he was
mothered by a Khunggirad khatun. He was made the nominal
head of both the Secretariat and the Bureau of Military Affairs
one year later.[2] At one time, his father Ayurbarwada had
even toyed with the idea of abdicating the throne in favor of
Shidebala.[3] Dagi's protégé Temuder was made as tutor to
the heir apparent, Shidebala, after he failed to increase tax
revenue.
Between Ayurbarwada's death in March 1320 and his own

death in October 1322, Temüder attained a great power with
the full support of Dagi. Immediately after her grandson's
succession, Dagi reinstated Temüder as Minister of the
Secretariat and took politics into her own hands more openly
than during Ayurbarwada's reign.
Puppet regime
Shidebala succeeded his father on April 19, 1320. Empress

Targi (Dagi) reappointed Temuder senior grand councillor.
While Temuder's persecution of his opponents in the
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censorate alienated the new Emperor, Temuder remained in

power until his death, which came only two years later.[4]
The return to power of Temudar was signalised by fresh

excesses, and by the execution of several of those whom he
suspected of having been the cause of his late trial. At length
the young prince began to feel the leading strings of the
Empress Dowager and Temudar rather irksome, and
determined to speed on his inauguration.
From the beginning of his reign, Shidebala showed a political

independence and resolution beyond his years. In a masterly
move to counter the influence of the grand empress dowager
and Temüder, Shidebala appointed the 22-year-old Baiju, a
Jalayir and grandson of Antong, who had illustrious family
background and good Confucian education, as the grand
councillor of the left in the summer of 1320, which gave
Shidabala several political advantages. Temuder was on the
high-road to the attainment of supreme power when Baiju.[5]
However, Baiju, the commander of the kheshig, who was
descended from Muqali, the renowned general of Genghis
Khan, and was a man of high character, gained great influence
over the Emperor, and displaced that of Temuder.
Shidibala, the young emperor, however, did not sit with folded
hands. The throne soon became the focus of loyalty for the
Confucian scholar-officials in their struggle against the
powerful Temüder. Shidibala was prepared for such a role, for
he had been as well educated in Chinese as his father had
been. Deeply affected by Confucianism as well as by
Buddhism, Shidebala could cite Tang poems from memory and
also was a creditable calligrapher.
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Besides Confucianism, Shidibala was also devoted to

Buddhism. In 1321 Shidbala built a Buddhist temple in honor
of 'Phags-pa Lama on the mountains west of Dadu,[6] and
when the censors reproached him he had several of them put
to death; among them a very distinguished officer, named
Soyaoelhatimichi, whose ancestors had been faithful
dependents of the Mongol Imperial house. On the other hand,
Islam suffered particularly severe discrimination during his
reign.[7] It is said that the Emperor destroyed a temple built
by the Muslims, at Shangdu, and prohibited them from buying
slaves from the Mongols and selling them again to the
Chinese.
The growing influence of Baiju greatly disgusted Temuder.

Baiju went to Liau tung to put up a monument to his ancestors.
Temudar thought this a favourable opportunity of regaining
his influence at the Yuan court, and presented himself at the
palace, but was refused admittance, and died shortly after
that. The Empress, Dagi (Targi), died about the same time in
1322–23.
Self-assertion
In 1322, the deaths of Dagi and Temüder enabled him to seize

full power. He was able to dismantle the Khunggirad faction
from the Shidibala-led new administration. The severe
suppression of the powerful faction including the deprivation
of Temüder's titles and estates, the execution of his son drove
it into the corner. On the other hand, he appointed Baiju as
the grand councillor of the right. As the sole grand councillor
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throughout the rest of Shidebala's reign, Baiju became a

powerful ally of Shidebala. They eliminated many offices
subordinate to the personal establishments of the empress
dowager and the empress.[9] The increasing influence of Neo-
Confucianism saw greater limits placed on Mongol women
who were allowed to move about more freely in public.[10]
Soon after becoming his own master and with the help of
Baiju, Shidibala began to reform the government based on the
Confucian principles, continued his father Ayurbarwada's
policies for active promoting Chinese cultures. He and Baiju
recruited for the government a great number of Chinese
scholar-officials, many of whom had resigned when Temüder
was in power. Heading of this list, Zhang Gui, a veteran
administrator, was reappointed manager of governmental
affairs and became Baiju's chief partner in carrying out
reforms. Apart from the three elderly scholars appointed as
councilors to the Secretariat, seven famous scholars were
appointed to the Hanlin Academy. It was approximately at this
same time that the Da Yuan Tong Zhi (大元通制, "the
comprehensive institutions of the Great Yuan"), a huge
collection of codes and regulations of the Yuan Dynasty began
by his father, was revised in order to rationalize the
administration and facilitate the dispensation of justice.
Furthermore, to relieve the labour burdens of small

landowners, Shidebala's administration stipulated that
landowners set aside a certain proportion of the lands
registered under their ownership from which revenues could
be collected to cover corvée expenses.[11]
Death[edit]
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Regardless of the merits of Shidebala's reign, it came to a

tragic end in September 4, 1323, known as the "Coup d'état at
Nanpo".[12] A plot was formed among Temuder's supporters,
who were afraid of vengeance overtaking them. It was headed
by Temüder's adopted son Tegshi. Besides the high-ranking
officials, five princes were involved: Altan Bukha, the younger
brother of the former prince of An-si, Ananda, who was
executed by Ayurbarwada's faction; and Bolad, a grandson of
Ariq Böke; Orlug Temür, a son of Ananda; Kulud Bukha; and
Ulus Bukha, a descendant of Möngke Khan.[13]
When Shidebala stayed at Nanpo on his way from the summer

palace Shangdu to the capital Dadu of the Yuan Dynasty,
Shidibala and Bayiju were assassinated by Tegshi, who
attacked Shidibala's Ordo with Asud guards and other soldiers
under him. Tegshi asked Yesün Temür to succeed the throne,
but Yesün Temür purged Tegshi's faction before he entered
Dadu because he feared to become a puppet of it.
Yesün Temür's reign was short; his direct rule lasted only for a
year after Dagi's death. But he was glorified in Chinese records
since he and his father, aided by their sinicized Mongolian
ministers and Chinese scholar-officials, had made vigorous
efforts to transform further the Yuan along traditional
Confucian lines. From that point of view, Shidibala's
assassination was sometimes explained as the struggle
between the pro-Confucian faction and the opposite steppe
elite faction, for Yesün Temür Khan had ruled Mongolia before
succession and his policies appeared relatively unfavorable for
Chinese officials.
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His marriage to Sugabala, produced no children to succeed

him.
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Chapter Thirteen
Northern Yuan Dynasty
Northern Yuan Dynasty[2] (official name: Mongol Uls, State of

Mongolia; Khalkha Mongolian: ᠬᠦᠮᠠᠷᠳᠦ ᠥᠨ ᠥᠯᠥᠰ/Umard Yuan,
Chinese: 北元; pinyin: Beǐ Yuán, Northern Yuan) refers to
successor state of the Yuan Dynasty that had retreated north
to Mongolia after the expulsion from China in 1368, until the
emergence of the Qing Dynasty in the 17th century. The
Northern Yuan Dynasty began with the end of Mongol rule in
China and this period was marked by factional struggles and
the often only nominal role of the Great Khan. The period
before 1388, when Toghus Temur was murdered near the Tuul
River, is sometimes referred to as the Northern Yuan.[3] It is
also referred to as Post-Imperial Mongolia or Mongolian
khanate[4] in some modern sources.[5] In Mongolian
chronicles this period is also known as The Forty and the Four,
meaning forty tumen eastern Mongols (Eastern Mongolia) and
four tumen western Mongols (Western
Mongolia).[6]Common name of this period in Mongolian
historiography is "Period of political disunion" and the
Mongolian historians don't use the term "Northern Yuan",
"Northern Yuan period and "Post-imperial Mongolia".
Dayan Khan and Mandukhai Khatun reunited the entire

Mongol nation in the 15th century.[7] However, the former's
distribution of his empire among his sons and relatives as fiefs
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caused the decentralization of the imperial rule.[8] Despite

this decentralization there was a remarkable concord within
the Dayan Khanid aristocracy and intra-Chinggisid civil war
remained unknown until the reign of Ligden Khan (1604–
34).[9]
The last sixty years of this period are marked by intensive

penetration of Tibetan Buddhism into Mongolian society.
Contents [show]
History[edit]
Retreating to Mongolia (1368–1388)[edit]
The Mongols under Khubilai khagan (r. 1260–94) of the

Mongol Empire (1206–1368), a grandson of Genghis Khan (r.
1206–27), had conquered all of China by eliminating the
Southern Song Dynasty in 1276 and destroyed the last Chinese
resistance in 1279. The Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368)
ruled all of China for about a century. However, the Mongols
dominated North China for more than 140 years, starting from
the time when the Jurchen Jin Dynasty was annihilated.
Nevertheless, when the Han Chinese people in the
countryside suffered from frequent natural disasters such as
droughts, floods and the ensuing famines since the late 1340s,
and the government's lack of effective policy led to a loss of
the support from people. In 1351, the Red Turban Rebellion
started and grew into a nationwide turmoil. Eventually, Zhu
Yuanzhang, a Chinese peasant established the Ming Dynasty
in South China, and sent an army toward the Yuan capital Dadu
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(present-day Beijing) in 1368. Toghan Temür (r. 1333–70), the

last ruler of the Yuan, fled north to Shangdu (located in
present-day Inner Mongolia) from Dadu in 1368 after the
approach of the forces of the Míng Dynasty (1368–1644). He
had tried to regain Dadu, but eventually failed; he died in
Yingchang (located in present-day Inner Mongolia) two years
later (1370). Yingchang was seized by the Ming shortly after
his death.
The Yuan remnants retreated to Mongolia after the fall of

Yingchang to the Ming Dynasty in 1370, where the name Great
Yuan was formally carried on, known as the Northern Yuan.
The Northern Yuan rulers also buttressed their claim on
China,[10][11] and held tenaciously to the title of Emperor (or
Great Khan) of the Great Yuan (Dai Yuwan Khaan, or 大元可
汗)[12] to resist the Ming who had by this time become the
real ruler of China.
The Ming army pursued the Northern Yuan forces into

Mongolia in 1372, but were defeated by the latter under
Ayushridar (r. 1370–78) and his general Köke Temür (d. 1375).
In 1375, Nahacu, a Mongol official of Biligtu Khan
(Ayushridara) in Liaoyang province invaded Liaodong with
aims of restoring the Mongols to power. Although he
continued to hold southern Manchuria, Nahacu finally
surrendered to the Ming Dynasty in 1387–88 after a successful
diplomacy of the latter.[13] The Yuan loyalists under Kublaid
prince Basalawarmi (the Prince of Liang) in Yunnan and
Guizhou were also destroyed by the Ming in 1381-82.[14]
The Ming tried again towards Northern Yuan in 1380,

ultimately winning a decisive victory over Northern Yuan
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forces around the Buir Lake region in 1388. About 70,000

Mongols were taken prisoner and the Mongol capital
Karakorum was sacked and destroyed.[15] It effectively
destroyed the power of the Khaan's Mongols for a long time,
and allowed the Western Mongols to become supreme.[16]
Rise of the Oirats (1388–1478)[edit]
See also: Four Oirats
In 1388, the Northern Yuan throne was taken over by Yesüder,

a descendant of Arik Böke (Tolui's son), instead of the
descendants of Kublai Khan. After the death of his master
Togus Temur (r. 1378–88), Gunashiri, a descendant of
Chagatai Khan, founded his own small state called Qara Del in
Hami.[17] The following century saw a succession of
Chinggisid rulers, many of whom were mere figureheads put
on the throne by those warlords who happened to be the most
powerful. From the end of the 14th century there appear
designations such as "period of small kings" (Бага хаадын үе)
for this period in modern historiography.[18] On one side
stood the Oirats (or Western Mongols) in the west against the
Eastern Mongols. While the Oirats drew their side to the
descendants of Arik Boke and other princes, Arugtai of the
Asud supported the old Yuan khans. Another force was the
House of Ogedei who briefly attempted to reunite the
Mongols under their rule.
The Mongols split into three main groups: western Mongols,

the Mongol groups under the Uriankhai in northeast, and the
Eastern Mongols between the two. The Uriankhai and some
Borjigin princes surrendered to the Ming Dynasty in the 1390s.
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The Ming divided them into Three Guards: Doyin, Tai'nin and
Fuyu.
Periods of conflict with the Ming Dynasty intermingled with

periods of peaceful relations with border trade. In 1402, Örüg
Temür Khan (Guilichi) abolished the name Great Yuan; he was
however defeated by Öljei Temür Khan (Bunyashiri, r. 1403–
12), the protege of Tamerlane (d. 1405) in 1403. Most of the
Mongol noblemen under Arugtai chingsang sided with Oljei
Temur. Under Yongle (r. 1402–24) the Ming Dynasty
intervened aggressively against any overly powerful leader,
exacerbating the Mongol-Oirat conflict. In 1409 Oljei Temur
and Arugtai crushed a Ming army, so that Yongle personally
attacked the two on the Kherlen River. After the death of Oljei
Temur, the Oirats under their leader Bahamu (Mahmud) (d.
1417) enthroned an Arik-Bokid, Delbeg Khan in 1412.
Although, the Ming encouraged the Oirats to fight against the
Eastern Mongols, they withdrew their support when the
Oirats became powerful. After 1417 Arugtai became dominant
again, and Yongle campaigned against him in 1422 and 1423.
Bahamu's successor Toghan pushed Arugtai east of the
Greater Khingan range in 1433. The Oirats killed him in the
west of Baotou the next year. Arugtai's ally Adai Khan (r. 1425–
38) made a last stand in Ejene before he was murdered too.
Toghan died in the very year of his victory over Adai. His son
Esen (r. 1438–54) brought the Oirats to the height of their
power. Under his Chinggisid puppet khans, he drove back the
Moghulistan monarchs and crushed the Three Guards, Qara
Del and the Jurchen. In 1449 he captured the Ming Emperor
Zhengtong, bringing about a wholescale collapse of the Ming
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northern defence line.[19] Esen and his father ruled as taishis

of Chinggisid khans but after executing the rebellious khan
Tayisung (r. 1433–53) and his brother Agbarjin in 1453, Esen
took the title khan himself.[20] He was, however, soon
overthrown by his chingsang Alag. His death broke up the role
of the Oirats until they revived in the early 17th century.
From Esen's death to 1481 different warlords of the Kharchin,

the Belguteids and Ordos fought over succession and had their
Chinggisid Khans enthroned. The Mongolian chroniclers call
some of them the Uyghurs and they might have some ties with
the Hami oasis.[21] During his reign, Manduulun Khan (1475–
78) effectively won over most of the Mongol warlords before
he died in 1478.
Restoration (1479–1600)[edit]
Second reunion[edit]
Manduul's (Manduulun) young khatun Mandukhai proclaimed

a boy named Batumongke. The new khan, as a descendant of
Genghis Khan, took the title Dayan meaning the "Great Yuan",
with reference to the Yuan Dynasty.[22] Mandukhai and
Dayan Khan overthrew Oirat supremacy. At first the new
rulers operated with the taishi system. The taishis mostly ruled
the Yellow River Mongols. However, one of them killed Dayan
Khan's son and revolted when Dayan Khan appointed his son,
jinong Ulusbold, over them. Dayan Khan finally defeated the
southwestern Mongols in 1510 with the assistance of his allies,
Unebolad wang and the Four Oirats.[23] Making his another
son jinong, he abolished old-Yuan court titles of taishi,
chingsang, pingchan and chiyuan.
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The Ming Dynasty closed border-trade and killed his envoys.

Dayan invaded China and subjugated the Three Guards,
tributaries of the Ming. The Oirats assisted his campaign in
China.
Administrative divisions[edit]
Batmunkh Dayan Khaan reorganized the Eastern Mongols into

6 tümens (literally "ten thousand") as follows.
Left Wing:
Khalkha tumen: Northern 7 otog (Jalaid, Besud, Eljigin, Gorlos,

Khukhuid, Khatighin, and later added Uriankhai) and Southern
5 otog (Baarin, Jaruud, Bayagud, Uchirad and Hongirad)
Chahar tumen: Abaga, Abaganar, Aokhan, Durvun huuhed,

Hishigten, Muumyangan, Naiman, Onnigud, Huuchid, Sunud,
Uzemchin, and Urad[24]
Uriankhai tumen. This tumen was later dissolved.
Right Wing:
Ordos tumen:
Tümed tumen:
Yöngshiyebü tumen: (including Asud and Kharchin)
Four tumen Oirats:
Choros, Olots, Khoid, Baatud, Torghut, Khoshut, Ur (Ör)

Mongol, Barga Mongols and Buryats
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They functioned both as military units and as tribal

administrative bodies who hoped to receive taijis, descended
from Dayan Khan. Northern Khalkha people and Uriyankhan
were attached to the South Khalkha of eastern Inner Mongolia
and Doyin Uriyangkhan of the Three Guards, respectively.
After the rebellion of the northern Uriankhai people, they
were conquered in 1538 and mostly annexed by the northern
Khalkha. However, his decision to divide the Six tumens to his
sons, or taijis, and local tabunangs-sons in law of the taijis
created a decentralized system of Borjigin rule that secured
domestic peace and outward expansion for a century. Despite
this decentralization there was a remarkable concord within
the Dayan Khanid aristocracy.
Last reunion[edit]
By 1540 new regional circles of Chingisid taijis and local

tabunangs (imperial son-in law) of the taijis emerged in all the
former Dayan Khanid domains. The Khagan and the jinong
(crown prince) had titular authority over the three right wing
tumens. Darayisung Gödeng Khan/Daraisun Guden khagan (r.
1547–57) had to grant titles of khans to his cousins Altan,
ruling the Tumed and Bayaskhul, ruling the Kharchin. The
decentralized peace among the Mongols was based on
religious and cultural unity created by Chinggisid cults.
Temple at Erdene Zuu monastery established by Abtai Khan in

the Khalkha heartland in the 16th century.
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"Tsogt Taij's White House (White Castle)" was built in 1601.
A series of smallpox epidemics and lack of trade forced the

Mongols to repeatedly plunder the districts of China. In 1571
the Ming opened trade with the 3 Right Wing Tumens. The
large-scale conversion to Buddhism in the Three Right Wing
Tumens from 1575 on, built on the amity of the Chinggisids.
Tümen Jasagtu Khan appointed a Tibetan Buddhist chaplain of
the Karma-pa order. In 1580 northern Khalkha proclaimed
their leading Dayan Khanid prince, Abtai Khan, khan.
Representatives from all Mongols, including Oirats,
constituted the court of Tümen Jasagtu Khan who had
conquered Koko Nur and codified a new law.[25]
By the end of the 16th century, the Three Guards lost their
existence as a distinct group. Their Fuyu was absorbed by the
Khorchin after they had moved to the Nonni River. Two other,
Doyin and Tai'nin, were absorbed by the Five Khalkhas.[26]
Disunion of Mongolia (1600–1636)[edit]
In the 17th century, the Mongols came under the influence of

the Manchus, who founded the Later Jin Dynasty (Qing
Dynasty). The princes of Khorchin, Jarud and southern Khalkha
Mongols made a formal alliance with the Manchus from 1612
to 1624.[27] Resenting this suborning of his subjects, Ligdan
Khan, the last Khagan[28] in Chahar, unsuccessfully attacked
them in 1625. He appointed his officials over the tumens and
formed an elite military band to coerce opposition. The
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massive rebellion broke out in 1628. The Chahar under Ligden

defeated their combined armies and the Manchu auxiliary at
Zhaocheng but fled a large Manchu punitive expedition. Only
Tsogt Taiji (1581–1637) supported the Great Khan whilst other
nobles of the northern Khalkha remained neutral and inactive.
Ligden died on his way to Tibet to punish the dGe-lugs-pa
order in 1634. His son, Ejei Khan, surrendered to the Manchus
and was said to give the seal of the Yuan Khagan to Qing
emperor Huang Taiji the next year (February 1635), ending the
Northern Yuan.[29]
After the death of Dayan Khan most of Mongolia came under

the rule of descendents of his youngest son, Gersendze
Huangtaizi (Gersenz huntaij). By the early 17th century these
formed four Khanates, from west to east:
The Altan Khans of Khotogoids in the far west, founded by

Sholoi Ubashi,great grandson of Geresandza.
The Dzasagtu Khans, khanate founded by Laikhor-khan, a

cousin of the Altan Khan.
The Tushetu Khans at Ulaanbaatar founded by Abatai, another

grandson. This was the senior branch.
The Sechen Khans at the eastern end of modern Mongolia,

founded by Sholoi, a great-grandson.
In the north, from 1583, Russian adventurers gained control of

the forest tribes of Siberia but did not attempt to interfere
with the numerous and warlike peoples south of the forests.
They had some dealings with the Altan Khan who is said to
have introduced them to Chinese tea.
158
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
To the east, in 1582–1626, Nurhaci unified the tribes of

Manchuria. His son, Huang Taiji (1626–1643) consolidated the
new state and incorporated parts of Inner Mongolia. At his
death Dorgon became regent for his 6-year-old son and was in
charge when the Manchus took Beijing and founded the Qing
Dynasty (1644).
To the west in Dzungaria, about 1600–1620 the Oirats or

Western Mongols became united under Khara Khula and
formed the Zunghar Khanate.This unification was partly driven
by their wars with the Altan Khans.
Struggle against foreign invasions (1636-1688)[edit]
In 1662 the Altan Khan attacked and put to death his eastern
neighbor. This caused the senior Tushetu Khan to drive him
out, but he was restored with Zunghar and Qing support. In
1682 he was captured by the next Dzashgtu Khan and his
Khanate disappeared from history. The loss of the
westernmost Khalkha Khanate opened the way for the
Zunghars. In 1672 Galdan became Khan of the Zunghars. After
conquering the northern Tarim Basin from Kashgar to Hami he
began to dream of uniting the Mongols and restoring the
realm of Genghis Khan.
Decline (1688-1691)[edit]
Main articles: Khalkha-Oirat War and First Oirat-Manchu War
Galdan allied with the Dzasagtu Khan against the Tushetu

Khan, who in turn attacked the Dzashgtu Khan (who drowned
while trying to escape) and then invaded Dzungar territory
where he killed one of Galdan's brothers. Galdan responded
159
MONGOLIAN EMPIRE
(1688) by annihilating the Tushetu Khan's army near the Tarim

River and plundering the tombs at Karakoram. The Tushetu
Khan and the other Khalkha leaders fled to Hohhot at the
northeast corner of the Ordos Loop and begged for Qing help.
By 1690 Galdan controlled the whole Khalkha country as far as
the edge of Manchuria and turned south toward Beijing. This
direct threat to the Qing led the Kangxi Emperor (Enh-Amgalan
khaan-in Mongolian) to block Galdan who withdrew to the
northwest in late 1690. In May 1691 the Emperor held a
Kurultai at Dolon Nor (Dolonnuur) where the Khalkha chiefs
declared themselves vassals of the Qing Emperors. In 1695
Galdan moved east again. The Emperor sent a massive army
and defeated him near Ulan Bator (at Jao Modo or Zuunmod
on June 12, 1696). Galdan fled with a few followers and later
died. Outer Mongolia was thus incorporated into the Qing
Empire, and the Khalkha leaders returned to Outer Mongolia
as Qing vassals. A Qing garrison was installed at Ulaanbaatar.
The Qing forces occupied Hami but did not advance into
Zungharia.Oirats later expanded into Tibet and Kazakhstan
and they tried to liberate all Mongols.
160

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t

The Mongol Empire (Mongolian: About this sound listen

The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of Mongol

The empire began to split as a result of wars over succession,

The Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 marked the high-water point of

By the time of Kublai's death in 1294, the Mongol Empire had

Chapter Ten .................................................................... 121

The Mongol tribes emerged from an area which had been

Origins of the Mongols

Archaeological evidence proves that early Stone Age human

By the first millennium BC, bronze-working peoples lived in

origins of more modern inhabitants are found among the

The first significant appearance of nomads came late in the

The Xiongnu temporarily abandoned their interest in China

Meanwhile, the Xiongnu again raided northern China about

Valley between 73 and 44 BC. The descendants of the Yuezhi

During the next century, as Chinese strength waned, border

Donghu, Toba, and Rouruan

the Donghu rebelled. By the 1st century AD, two major

fragmented Chinese kingdoms south of the Yangtze River to

The Ruruan, only temporarily repelled by Northern Wei, had

Rise of the Türk

Northern Wei was disintegrating rapidly because of revolts of

Sinicize, when disaster struck the flourishing Ruruan Empire.

For a brief period at the beginning of the 7th century, a new

again threatened China. In 601 Tardu's army besieged

Tang dynasty and Uyghur Empire

From 629 to 648, a reunited China—under the Tang Dynasty

For half a century, the Tang retained control of Central Asia

Despite these crippling losses, the Tang recovered and, with

Kitan and Jurchen

Free of Uyghur restraint, the Mongolic Kitan expanded in all

The period of the 11th and 12th centuries was one of

essentially Mongol. The similarities among the Mongols, Türk,

The people of Mongolia at this time were predominantly spirit

A Tungusic people, the Jurchen, ancestors of the Manchu,

Jurchen leader proclaimed himself the founder of a new era,

Shiwei and Menggu

The Shiwei, though little is known, have been considered the

dynasties (550-740) installed tuduns, or governors over the

Genghis Khan (/ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/ or /ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/, Mongol:

He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of

Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan as his

substantial portions of modern Eastern Europe, Russia and the

Beyond his military accomplishments, Genghis Khan also

Family tree of Genghis Khan

Temujin was related on his father's side to Khabul Khan,

Temujin's father, Yesügei (leader of the Borjigin clan and

Because of the lack of contemporary written records, scant

Temujin was born in 1162 or 1155 in Delüün Boldog near

Yesukhei's clan was called Borjigin (Боржигин), and Hoelun

Early life and family

Temujin had three brothers named Hasar, Hachiun, and

of Mongolia, Temujin's early life was difficult. His father

While heading home, his father ran into the neighboring

In another incident, around 1177, he was captured in a raid

reputation also became widespread after his escape from the

At this time, none of the tribal confederations of Mongolia