the mongols ch 12. beginnings pastoral nomads in mongolia organized in clans and tribes, fighting...
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The MongolsCH 12
Beginnings
• Pastoral nomads in Mongolia• Organized in clans and tribes,
fighting part of daily life, superior horseback warriors
• Unified by Temujin in 1206, takes title of Genghis Khan
• Shamanism, Buddhism
•Genghis •Khan
The Mongol Empire under Genghis
• Conquest of Tangut empire in Central Asia
• Conquest of Northern China (Jin-Empire)
• If a city resists, everybody is slain, only artisans and scholars are spared
• If town surrenders only tribute has to be paid
• Capital Karakorum
The Mongol War Machine
• Use of heavy and light cavalry, spies, later siege engines and cannons
• Feigning defeat and ambushing enemy• Very well organized, used flags in battle to
give commands• Very mobile, covered up to 90 miles a day• Composite bows with range of 300 yards• Multi-ethnic army, Chinese, Persians,
Turks also included
Siege Warfare
Fighting on Horseback
The Empire after Genghis
• Genghis sons fight campaigns in Russia, the Middle East, Central Asia, and China
• Russia: Golden Horde
• Middle East: Ilkhan Empire
• China: Yuan dynasty
• Central Asia: Djagatai Empire
•Kubilai Khan
Mongol Impact on China
• All of China conquered by Kublai Khan, Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)
• Tried to conquer Japan twice, Mongol fleet destroyed by typhoon (kamikaze), rest of Mongol army defeated by samurai
• New capital Bejing (Tatu)
Impact on China
• Keep Chinese system of tax collecting, governing, but foreigners (first Mongols, then other Central Asians) have highest position in government, Chinese only at local and regional level
• Chinese barred from learning Mongolian, intermarriage outlawed
• scholar gentry resents Mongols
Mongol Impact on China
• Improvements in transportation, widespread use of paper money
• Increase in foreign trade (Pax Mongolica)• economic boom under early Yuan• later plague, corruption, factionalism,
xenophobia lead to fall of Yuan• 1368 Ming dynasty, rules to 1643• Chinese cultural practices remained unbroken
(revival of Neoconfucianism, civil service examination)
Mongol Impact on Middle East• Seljuks defeated• Turkic groups pushed into Anatolia (Ottomans)• 1258 Baghdad destroyed, last Caliph killed,
200.000 people killed (according to Hulagu Khan)• Widespread destruction• Iraq ceases to be center of Islamic world• Mongol onslaught stopped by Mamluk dynasty in
Egypt• Mamluks build strong centralized state based on
fear of Mongols
Mongol Impact on Middle East
• Mongols found dynasty (Ilkhan) that rules Middle East, center in Persia
• Heavy taxes, farmland turned into pastures• Only wine and silk industry flourish• Ilkhan rulers convert to Islam (Shiite), Persian
became more influential• Mongols intermix with Persian and Turkic
population• No Mongol cultural traces
Mongol Impact on Russia• Mongols destroy Kievan Rus
• Russia isolated from Europe, trade declines
• Only loose control by Mongols
• yearly tributes, collected by Moscow
• Mongols and their Turkic allies become Muslim
• No intermixing with Russian population
Mongol impact on Russia• Moscow becomes stronger, centralizes
government, first to collect tribute then to organize fight against Mongols
• Renounces Tatar overlordship by 1480, pushes Mongols to the East
• Peasants have to pay twice, to Boyars (Russian nobles) and to Mongols
• Serfdom increases• Orthodox Church strengthened (tax
exempt)
Global Impact
• Exchange of ideas: gunpowder, paper, papermoney
• awareness of other cultures, global trade grew (Marco Polo: reports about paper money, use of coal, safe and wealthy China under Mongol rule)
• International diplomacy on the rise (letters exchanged between pope and great Khan, Ilkhan offer alliance to crusaders in 1287)
• Spread of disease: - plague spread along silk road, with Mongol armies- Killed about 30 % of Chinese and European
population in mid 1300s
