The+Mongol+empire

Mongol empire The Mongol empire first started in the high middle ages in Mongolia year 1206 with Genghis Khan as leader and conqueror. The Mongols were a people who travelled and fought at the back of their horses, they are known for being very brutal and ruthless. Because of that, their enemies feared them very much. But why isn’t this tribe of people so well known as for example Alexander the great and Columbus? That’s one reason why I choose to do a research about the Mongols but also to get a clearer view of some of the most important Khans.

Genghis Khan was born 1162 and died 1227, but that fact is still a little uncertain because in Mongolia they think he was born 1155. But he lived for sure in a Mongol tribe near Burkhan Khaldun Mountain in modern day Mongolia. He’s first name was Temujin but he changed it to Genghis when he proclaimed himself to the greatest khans of all in 1206 when his conquering train first took its start. It all started as mentioned above in Mongolia, Genghis khan followed in his father’s footsteps as a leader of their clan. But Genghis were supposed to succeed better then he never could have mentioned. And it wasn’t just luck, firstly he started to build an army of well skilled soldiers, ranked after ability and not after descent. And before he started to attack China he made sure that he had his back clean so no nomad leader would be able to stab him in the back. It was factors like this and of course his ability of being a great leader and making people do as he said that made him so successful. And beyond that he also took command over some other clans in Mongolia and used their soldiers as they were his own.

But he was smart enough to realise that he wouldn’t even be able to control “small” Mongolia and for sure not other continents without help. So he divided his territories between his four first sons in his first marriage before he died. The oldest son Jochi was assigned all the captured places in west but he died even before Genghis so the land went to heritage to Jochi’s son Batu. Batu enlarge his territories further over Russia and formed the area later called “the golden horde”. The second son of Genghis named Chaghadai got the command over the north-east parts of Mongolia and china. This area would be ruled by his next generations. Ögödei was the third son of Genghis and so was he allocated an area, the south-east parts of the empire. Last and for certainly the smallest, the last brother Tolui. Nor would he be without an area to rule over. according to Mongolian law of inheritance was he the one that to rule over the country where it all took place, home in Mongolia (see the map and the family tree). The Mongolian law of inheritance main task was to keep the conquer family in good shape of collaboration and of curse to have better control over such a huge empire. ( See the map for furtherer information about the locations of the empires)



 Funny facts

The Mongols also tried to conquer Japan, and not only once but twice! Somehow they failed in a pretty weird way, both times they faced an tropical cyclone who brought the Mongolian army down into the blue. And you may have heard of the word kamikaze? It’s Japanese and often has the meaning suicide pilot to people. But it really originates from the two tropical cyclones that saved Japan from most likely getting conquered by the Mongols. The leader who led these two fleets was Kublai Khan, the first 1274 and the second 1281. If you translate Kamikaze straight it means “divine wind”. Kublai Khan Kublai Khan was the grandson of Genghis Khan and he is probably the most known emperor beside his grandfather. He was the one who completed the final conquering of China along with his brother Mönke, Kublai was invested with full civil and military responsibility. That’s probably one reason why he’s more famous than his other relatives in today’s society. One other thing that made Kublai a little special was that he introduced a new behavior towards the ones he had conquered. He started to learn he’s generals the importance of showing clemency to the one who had been conquered. This was unique compared to his father and his contemporary’s methods expiring on massacre in central Asia. But also he got put in front of an insoluble dilemma. Because in cultural terms, when inexperienced Mongols begun to settle down they automatically started to adopt Chinese methods and that led to Mongols who got more and more into the Chinese pattern of living. This means that they in the long race lost their identity all together. As an adviser to Kublai sad “I have heard that one can conquer the empire on horseback, but one cannot govern it on horseback.” And he seemed to have right. This can perhaps be a reason why we haven’t inherited almost anything from Mongol culture. Part that but another reason can also be that they didn’t wrote down especially much and they wasn’t so very into architecture neither as for example the Greeks who booth built beautiful sculptures and wrote down a lot. Kublai elected Khan When Kublai was in the middle of a war against southern Sung dynasty in China. He heard that his youngest brother Böke back in Mongolia assumed to elect himself to Khan. Fast as possible he made up a truce with Sung and set of back home. He arrived 1260 and put his younger brother to place even though he didn’t gave up right away. And believe it or not, ten days later Böke with help of an handful of powerful supporters also had Böke elected Khan. He did this with total ignorance to Kublai. Of course, a battle between them was self-written, in 1264 Kublai defeated his younger brother. But only 2 years later Böke dies.

Later when Kublai headed back to china, he after a while failed with being a Mongol leader at the same time as he ruled China. He eventually became a trustful Chinese emperor. He even participated in civil wars against rival Mongol princes at some moments. One last interesting thing about Kublai is that he and he’s adviser founded the political theory called “dual principle” which supports the dignity of church and state in political affairs. This theory would came to mean a lot in furtherer Mongolian history. Summary The Mongols were as you hopefully have noticed a tribe who enlarged a lot. They succeeded thanks to Genghis Khan who divided the already conquered places to his sons who later enlarged it even more. But the furtherer the bounds went away the more was Mongolian people mixed with other cultures, and this made other living patterns take over the Mongol’s slowly. This was possible because the Mongols weren’t that experienced when it was up to culture so they took after others quickly. This is probably the main reason why we haven’t inherited almost anything from Mongolian culture. But we can’t forget that a small country like Mongolia succeeded to conquer such a huge peace of our earth.

Process of the Mongol empire evolution. The colours symbolises the different areas of regional rulers.


Sources and furtherer reading:
The book World History number 5, written by H;Aschehoug & co (W.Nygaard) []

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