Mongol empire
The Mongol Empire (Монголын Эзэнт Гүрэн in Mongolian) was the second largest empire in history and the largest of the empires made up of continuous territories. It was founded by Genghis Khan in the year 1206 and had its peak when it reached approximately 24,000,000 km² in extension. It came to cover a territory from the Korean Peninsula to the Danube River, to house a population of more than 100 million inhabitants. and to include some regions as rich and important as China, Mesopotamia, Persia, Eastern Europe, part of India or Russia, among others.
History
Training
The warrior Temujin united all the Mongol tribes under his command around the year 1206, when he was proclaimed Great Khan under the name Genghis Khan. He immediately faced the Jhin Empire of the Jurchen and the Xi Xia in northern China and, faced with the resistance of the Corasmian Empire, went to Central Asia where he devastated Transoxiana and eastern Persia and penetrated southern Russia and the Caucasus.. During the war against the Western Xia in 1227, Genghis Khan fell ill and died.
Genghis Khan's army, despite being relatively small, had well-trained cavalry, expert archers, and discipline among its leaders.
After Genghis Khan
After the death of Genghis in 1227, his successors, under the second khan, Ogodei, continued the expansion. This expansion included Persia, wiped out the Xia and the remnants of the Corasmians, and led to conflict with the Song dynasty of southern China, starting a war that did not end until 1279, when the country was fully occupied. and the reunification of the government of China under the Mongols. In the late 1230s, the Mongols under Batu Khan invaded Russia, killing around half the local population, and then reducing most of their principalities to vassalage.
In the year 1241, after having defeated the Polish and German armies in the battle of Liegnitz, the Hungarians in the battle of Mohi and about to embark on the conquest of all of Europe, a campaign that promised to be successful, they had to return to Mongolia to elect the next Great Khan, after Ogodei's death, although they devastated large areas of Eastern Europe, including Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, and Bulgaria.
During 1256, Genghis Khan's grandson Hulagu, setting out from the Mongol base in Persia, conquered the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad and destroyed the cult of the Nizaris, entering through Syria and Palestine into Egypt. But the Great Khan Möngke (his brother) died, so Hulagu had to return for the election of the new Great Khan, and the forces he had left as a garrison in Palestine under General Kitbuqa were defeated by the Mamluks under the command of Egyptian sultan Kutuz and his general Baibars in the year 1260 at Ain Yalut.
During the reign of Kublai Khan (Möngke and Hulagu's brother), the empire began a process of division into several smaller khanates. Kublai waged war against the Song dynasty, gaining dominance over China, naming the region Manzi as the western khanates gradually separated.
The rivalry between the tribes (produced by the complicated process of succession, which twice paralyzed important and remote military operations such as those of Hungary and Egypt, disrupting campaigns that were announced victorious) and the tendency of some khans to drink in too much to the point of killing them (as was the case with Kuyuk), it caused succession crises that accelerated the disintegration of the Empire.
Decay
The decline of the Mongol empire occurred due to various factors, among which the following stand out:
- Tribal Rivality and Successive Crisis: The tribal structure of the Mongolian empire was relatively fragile, and remained cohesive by the fearful figure of Gengis Kan. When he died, the Empire, by its great extension, inevitably ended up splitting. The disappearance of the central authority caused the small groups that controlled each place, already in relation to the primitive inhabitants, to dissociate themselves from commitments to others, giving rise to new states that in many cases followed the form of the old. Different areas returned to different degrees to their previous instituencies and customs, but the Mongolian influence left in all its brand.
- Assimilation of conquered cultures: The Mongols, a people who achieved military success because of their nomadic status, assimilated the culture of the conquered countries, and were quickly absorbed by them. Moreover, their success created divisions, and soon the Mongols began to fight each other for the conquered booties.
- Antiquated military model: Although the tactics used by the Mongols made them almost invincible, they soon showed their limitations when the Mongolian army was on adverse grounds. The Mongolian army was based on the mass attacks of its light cavalry, attacks that could not be carried out when the terrain did not permit maneuvers on horseback. Thus, for example, they conquered the main routes and cities of Afghanistan, but they could never pacify the mountainous regions. Nor were they successful in trying to practice the naval war, for being a people who for a long time had no access to the sea. This aspect had to a certain extent an impact on the defeat of the Mongols in attempting to conquer Japan. Those uncontrolled points were later the focus of the resistance of previous cultures
- Development of agriculture and lack of military personnel: Despite (or should we say because) the vast territory that the Mongols had under their power, they had a limited number of military personnel on the surface to be controlled. There were very few horsemen and horses strong enough and skilled enough to be part of the army, that number was diminishing as the Mongols moved away from their place of origin. Finally, the advance of agriculture and its incursion into the steppes reduced the economic base that supported the production of soldiers and horses.
- Use of gunpowder: Finally, the use of gunpowder in firearms again changed the way of making war, and as these were perfected it was diminishing the value of the cavalry troops, the fort of the Mongols, not only in Asia but also in other parts of the world.
Legacy
Empires resulting from the Mongol Empire include the Yuan Dynasty (Mongol-founded) in China, the Persia-based Ilkhanate, and the Golden Horde that controlled Central Asia and southern Russia.
Army
The Mongol army was during the 12th and 13th centuries the best in the world for his mobility and strategies, which made him fearsome among his peers. Genghis Khan and other Mongol soldiers introduced several innovations that allowed their army to conquer vast territories, even while outnumbered during the battles they fought.
The number of troops assembled by the Mongols is the subject of some scholarly debate, but was at least 105,000 in 1206. The Mongol military organization it was simple but effective, based on the decimal system. The army consisted of squads of ten men each, Arbans (10 people), Zuuns (100), Mingghans (1,000), and Tumens (10,000).
The Mongols were most famous for their horse archers, but the spear-armed troops were just as skilled, and the Mongols recruited other military specialists from the lands they conquered. With experienced Chinese engineers and a bombardier corps that was adept at building trebuchets, catapults, and other machinery, the Mongols could besiege fortified positions, sometimes building machinery on the spot using available local resources.
Forces under the command of the Mongol Empire were trained, organized, and equipped for mobility and speed. The Mongol soldiers had lighter armor than many of the armies they faced, but they were able to make up for this with maneuverability. Each Mongol warrior would normally travel with multiple horses, allowing them to quickly switch to a new mount as needed. In addition, soldiers functioned independently of supply lines, greatly speeding up army movement. Skillful use of mail allowed the leaders of these armies to maintain contact with each other.
The discipline was instilled during a nerge (traditional hunt), according to Ata-Malik Juvayni. These hunts differed from those of other cultures, being the equivalent of small unit actions. The Mongol forces would spread out in a line, encircle an entire region, and then drive all the game meat within that area together. The goal was not to let any of the animals escape and to slaughter them all.
Traditionally known for their prowess with land forces, the Mongols rarely used naval power. In the 1260s and 1270s they used sea power as they conquered China's Song dynasty, although their attempts to mount maritime campaigns against Japan were unsuccessful. Throughout the eastern Mediterranean, his campaigns were conducted almost exclusively on land, with the seas controlled by Crusader and Mamluk forces.
All military campaigns were preceded by careful planning, reconnaissance, and the collection of sensitive information related to enemy territories and forces. The success, organization and mobility of the Mongol armies allowed them to fight on several fronts at once. All adult men up to the age of 60 were eligible for conscription, a source of honor in their tribal warrior tradition.
Organization
Yassa
Genghis Khan had a code of laws called Yassa, which brought together traditions of the people as well as their thoughts and concerns about how government should be run. Under Genghis Khan, all individuals (as long as they were nomads) and religions were considered equal by Mongolian law, while sedentary peoples, especially the Chinese, were discriminated against. The code allowed the use of torture and exempted doctors from paying taxes.
The Yassa was written on scrolls of paper stored in volumes that could only be seen by the khan or his closest advisers, although the rules it contained were known to all and respected.
Genghis Khan also created an extensive postal system for sending government orders and reports.
In view of the ethnic, religious, and tribal diversity of both civilians and the military in the Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan insisted that all loyalty be devoted to him as grand khan and to no one else. Obedience was expected from the poorest to the richest.
Meritocracy
Genghis Khan preferred to rule through the local aristocracies, although if they opposed him he had no qualms about eliminating them. Among the Mongols, however, he applied a meritocracy: titles and offices were assigned based on valor shown in battle or loyalty, as opposed to the older system of inheritance through the family.
Trade
The Mongols valued their trade relations with neighboring countries, and maintained their policy of openness to trade throughout their conquests and expansion.
All merchants and ambassadors who had the appropriate documentation and authorization were protected while they traveled through their domains, which is why land trade intensified, from the Mediterranean to China, through well-maintained and well-traveled routes since they did not there was fear of bandits. However, the Mongols did not have much influence on maritime trade.
Mongol supremacy produced a mixture of cultures on a scale never seen before, giving rise to the so-called Pax Mongolica ("Mongolian peace") establishing a a kind of mixture between the nomadic Mongolian people and the conquered peasant and commercial societies. The "Mongolian peace" Imposed on a large part of Asia, it greatly favored the commercial exchange and ideas between the vast territories of the Mongol empire and with the West. A good example of this period, which began in the middle of the XIII century and lasted just under a hundred years, are the voyages of the Venetian Marco Polo as well as those of other merchants and missionaries.
The fall of the Mongol Empire in the 14th century led to the collapse of political, cultural and economic unity throughout of the Silk Road. Turkic tribes seized the western end of the Byzantine Empire's path, sowing the seeds of a Turkic culture that would later crystallize in the Ottoman Empire under the Sunni faith. In the east, the native Chinese overthrew the Yuan dynasty in 1368, launched their own Ming dynasty, and pursued a policy of economic isolationism.
Society
Religion
By the time of Genghis Khan, virtually every religion had found Mongolian converts, from Buddhism to Christianity, from Manichaeism to Islam. To avoid conflict, Genghis Khan created an institution that guaranteed complete religious freedom, even though he himself was a shaman. Under his administration, all religious leaders were exempt from taxes and public service.
Initially there were few formal places of worship due to the nomadic lifestyle. However, under Ögedei (1186-1241), several construction projects were carried out in the Mongolian capital. Along with the palaces, Ögedei built houses of worship for Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, and Taoist followers. The dominant religions at the time were Shamanism, Tengrism and Buddhism, although Ögedei's wife was a Nestorian Christian.
Eventually, each of the successor states adopted the dominant religion of the local populations: the Sino-Mongol Yuan dynasty in the east (originally the domain of the great khan) embraced Buddhism and shamanism, while the three western khanates they adopted Islam.
Literature
The oldest surviving literary work in the Mongolian language is Secret History of the Mongols, which was written for the royal family some time after the death of Genghis Khan in 1227. The most significant native of Genghis's life and genealogy, covering his origins and childhood up to the establishment of the Mongol Empire and the reign of his son, Ögedei.
Another classic of the empire is the Jami al-Tawarij, or "Universal History". It was commissioned in the early XIV century by the Ilkhan Abaqa Khan as a way of documenting the history of the entire world, to help establish the Mongols' own cultural heritage.
Mongolian scribes of the 14th century used a mixture of resin and vegetable pigments as a primitive form of correction fluid; it is possibly its first known use.
Science
The Mongol Empire saw some significant advances in science due to the patronage of the Khans. Roger Bacon attributed the success of the Mongols as world conquerors primarily to their devotion to mathematics. Astronomy was a branch of science in which the Khans took a personal interest. According to the Yuanshi, Ögedei Khan twice ordered the repair of the Zhongdu armillary sphere (in 1233 and 1236) and also ordered the revision and adoption of the Damingli calendar in 1234. He built a Confucian temple for Yelü Chucai in Karakorum around 1236, where Yelü Chucai created and regulated a calendar on the Chinese model. Rashid al-Din noted that Möngke Khan had solved some of the difficult problems of Euclidean geometry on his behalf and wrote to his brother Hulagu Khan to send him the astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi.
Kublai Khan built a number of great observatories in China and his libraries included the Wu-hu-lie-ti (Euclid) brought by Muslim mathematicians. Zhu Shijie and Guo Shoujing were notable mathematicians in Mongol-ruled China. The Mongolian physician Hu Sihui described the importance of a healthy diet in a medical treatise from 1330.
Ghazan Khan, able to understand four languages, including Latin, built the Tabriz Observatory in 1295. Byzantine Greek astronomer Gregory Choniades studied there with Ajall Shams al-Din Omar, who had worked in Maragheh with Tusi. Chioniades played an important role in the transmission of various innovations from the Islamic world to Europe. These include the introduction of the latitude-independent universal astrolabe into Europe and a Greek description of the Tusi couple, which would later have an influence on Copernican heliocentrism. Choniades also translated several Zij treatises into Greek, including the Persian Zij-i Ilkhani by al-Tusi and the Maragheh observatory. The Byzantine-Mongol alliance and the fact that the Trebizond Empire was a vassal of the Ilkhanate facilitated Choniades' movements between Constantinople, Trebizond, and Tabriz. Prince Radna, the Mongolian viceroy of Tibet based in Gansu province, sponsored the Samarkandi astronomer al-Sanjufini. The Arabic astronomical manual dedicated by al-Sanjufini to Prince Radna, a descendant of Kublai Khan, was completed in 1363. It is notable for having Middle Mongolian glosses in its margins.
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