Mongol Empire

I

Introduction

Mongol Empire, area ruled by the great Mongol khans in the 13th and 14th centuries; uniting almost all of western and eastern Asia, it was one of the largest land empires in history.

The original homeland of the Mongols, situated in the eastern zone of the Asian steppe, was bounded by the Khingan Mountains on the east, the Altai and Tian mountains on the west, the Shilka River and the mountain ranges by Lake Baikal on the north, and the Great Wall of China on the south. Today this region comprises approximately the Chinese Autonomous Region of Nei Monggol (Inner Mongolia), the Republic of Mongolia, and the southern fringes of Siberia. Consisting for the most part of fertile prairies and wooded mountains in the north, the Gobi Desert in the central zone, and vast grasslands in the south, the entire region lies about 1,000 m (3,000 ft) above sea level. With the exception of the northernmost extremities, it is extremely arid.

In this environment Mongolian-speaking peoples developed a pastoral economy based on the sheep and the horse, the latter supplemented by the camel in the most arid regions. Certain commodities, such as grain, textiles, tea, and metals, were obtained through trade with the adjacent agricultural civilization of China. Other than tending the flocks, hunting was the foremost occupation. The way of life was nomadic and social organization tribal. Tribal warfare was endemic, and individuals of great personal prowess moved easily to positions of leadership. The political-military hierarchy of the tribe was bound together by personal bonds of mutual protection and loyalty extending downwards from the chieftain, to subordinate chiefs and to individual warriors.

II

Establishment of the Empire by Genghis Khan

The first flowering of the Mongol Empire occurred in the 13th century. At a convocation of tribes in 1206, the powerful conqueror Temujin, then master of almost all of Mongolia, was proclaimed universal ruler with the title Genghis Khan, or Great Khan. The city of Karakorum was designated his capital. Genghis’s army, although not particularly large for its day, was distinguished by its superb horsemanship and expert archery, the discipline and control of its aristocratic leaders, and the khan’s own brilliant military strategy and tactics. The neighbouring Jin empire of northern China and the Central Asian states, both militarily weak and fragmented, inevitably surrendered, as did the decaying Arab-Turkish society of the Middle East, to the Mongol hordes racing over Asia. It was thus a foregone conclusion that the empire Genghis subsequently welded together should achieve a degree of centralization and power unprecedented among the earlier domains of Mongol-speaking peoples. Genghis presided by virtue of self-asserted divine right, acknowledging as his only superior authority, the Great Yasa, an imperial code that he drew up and that remained the permanent basis for Mongol rule. Genghis’s vast empire stretched from the China Sea to the Dnepr River and from the Persian Gulf virtually all the way to the Arctic Ocean.

After the death of Genghis, his empire in accordance with tribal custom was divided among the sons of his primary wife and their heirs. The khanate of East Asia was ruled directly by the third son, Ogadai, who succeeded Genghis as the great khan. The khanate included Outer Mongolia, Dongbei, Korea, much territory in China, Tibet, and the northern fringes of Indochina.

Although Ogadai was in turn succeeded by his son and his grandson, the next great leader of the khanate was his nephew, Mangu Khan. Together with his brother Kublai, Mangu Khan succeeded in conquering nearly all of China.

III

Empire of Kublai Khan

In 1279 Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, defeated the Southern Song dynasty, bringing the remainder of China under his control. Kublai transferred the capital to Beijing, which he called Khanbalik. There he ruled as emperor of the Chinese Yuan dynasty as well as great khan of the Mongols. Rather than attempting to amalgamate the sedentary agricultural society into tribal units, he successfully followed the bureaucratic system through which Chinese dynasties since the Tang had ruled. The Mongols carefully guarded, however, their cultural identity and ruling-class prerogatives; Chinese talent was systematically excluded from positions of authority, and discriminatory social and legal codes were followed. His efforts to spread Mongol rule to Japan and Java were disastrous failures.

The Mongol emperors following Kublai succumbed to the decadent life of the Chinese court and became intrigued with the superstitions of Tibetan Buddhism. When disaster struck with flooding of the Yellow River and severe famine in northern China during the middle decades of the 14th century, the Mongol leadership was unable to meet the administrative challenge. In 1368, while the Mongols’ Asian empire was torn by internal dissension, the great khans in China were replaced by the Ming, a native dynasty.

IV

Empire of Jagatai

Upon the division of the Mongol Empire at Genghis’s death (1227), the khanate of Turkistan was ruled by Jagatai, his second son, and subsequently by Jagatai’s successor. This khanate extended from what is today the Xinjiang Uygur (Sinkiang Uighur) Autonomous Region of China westward south of Lake Balqash to the area south-east of the Aral Sea and was bordered on the south by Tibet and the Kashmir region of India and Pakistan. The western reaches were inhabited largely by sedentary Muslims, but the remainder of the populace were nomadic Mongols. A strategic central communications zone of the Mongols’ Asian empire, it became the focus of political rivalry among the descendants of Genghis, and it required the constant attention of the Great Khan Kublai to keep it under control.

In the 14th century the authority of the khans of Turkistan over their Muslim subjects diminished sharply. After 1370 the western portion of the khanate became part of the empire of Tamerlane, a Mongol leader not descended from Genghis. The khans’ rule was thereafter confined to the eastern region of the original khanate.