The Mongol Empire

The conquests of the Mongols

Great Empire of Mongols was founded as the union of Mongol and other neighboring tribes and as a result of wars which were conducted by the Mongols against the tribes of Central Asia, Zabaykalye, China and against many other people and states. For many centuries China pursued the policy of setting different tribes on each other, bringing some tribes closer, fighting against the others, and declaring wars on those who were considered a threat. This way those tribes were kept from unification.

Temuchzhin (future Chingis Khan) was able to use these intrigues to unite Mongol tribes. The history of creating the Empire was described in several Mongol chronicles and in “Innermost legends” as well. Just in that time the word “mongol” appeared, meaning the tribes faithful to Chingis-Khan. Wars began in 1190s when Mongol tribes lead by Van-Khan, Temuchzhin and his sworn brother Dzhamukha started a military campaign against the Merkits to release Temuchzhin’s wife and nurse from the captivity. Before that, skirmishes of the Mongols and the Karaits against merkits had been quite regular because of the territory, but they didn’t lead to a great war.

During a 5 year-old war Temuchzhin crushed the Merkits and was given a title of Chingis-Khan. Then he took over a large tribe of Naymans. In 1207 his elder son Dzhuchi and a “thousander” (a leader of thousand soldiers) Bukha were sent to conquer “wood tribes”, that were living on the territory of present North-Western Mongolia, Tuva, the South of Krasnoyarsky region - the Oyrats, the Uryankhats, the Yenisey Kirghizes-ancestors of the Khakases and other small tribes, including the ancestors of the western Buryats. After Chingis-Khan had conquered all tribes inhabiting the territory of present Mongolia, he sent his main forces to Chinese lands and lands of Khori-tumats. But he wasn’t able to conquer the Khori-Tumats at once. However the whole Zabaikalye was included into the Mongolian State –Khamag Mongol Uls. The tribes living in the country of “Bargudzin-tokum” joined this state voluntarily.

Military campaigns to Tangut Kingdom brought rich prey and considerably strengthened the economy of Mongolian state. Raids to the Nothern and Southern China lasted more than ten years. The Mongols had taken great amounts of Chinese treasures. The capital of the Mongols, Karakorum -“nomadic Rome” founded by a son and a heir of Chingis-Khan, Udege-Khan became the richest capital in Asia. Thousands of slaves were working there and many scientists, craftsmen and builders came to live there.

Campaigns to Central Asia followed later. The Mongols established trade with South China and Central Asia, but Khores Khorezmshakh prevented them by plundering their caravans. The 200 thousand army of the Mongols crushed down Khoresm. Later the “Great Silk Way” was created along the paths of Mongol caravans and their armies.

Then the Mongols started their conquest of Korea and other countries of South-Eastern Asia. Having conquered Russia, Caucasus and some European countries, the Empire controlled a vast territory stretching from the Pacific Ocean and the Yellow Sea in the east to the Black Sea and the Balkan in the west. The only country the Mongols couldn’t conquer was Japan, because of the storm that destroyed their fleet during the campaign.

The Mongols created the army that was the most powerful and the most disciplined in the world. They used the experience of nomadic life to march thousands of kilometers from their homeland. They used the most advanced tactical decisions and strategies of those times. For example, they were able to convince the enemies that they had a great number of warriors by putting straw figures on horses (each soldier had at least 5 horses). More than a million of horses were used in the seige of Khoresm. Many of these innovations were introduced by Chingis-Khan. Besides, the Mongols had a special group of spies - “Dzhiyurt”, that investigated pastures, studied language and life of the potential enemy.

There are two hypotheses that explain the beginning of Mongol empire expansion:

• It was a result of Chingis-Khan’s personal ambitions for the world domination. But the circumstances themselves demanded the expansion of Mongolian State, and only in wars the state and the Army could become stronger. 
• The second hypothesis suggests that it was the answer to aggression of neighboring tribes, first the Merkits and then China. Moreover, peace suggested by the Mongols was declined, so the only way to resist these threats was to create of a powerful state. Khanstva (kingdoms) were created on the whole territory of the Empire. They became strong points through which the governing of the Empire was conducted and due to them the Mongolian Empire existed more than 300 years.

Short periods of the Mongol invasions were followed by lasting peaceful periods when countries that became a part of the Mongol world could restore cities that had been destroyed and explore innovations brought by the Mongols.
 

The Mongol-Tatar Yoke

In 2000, there was a conference of archeologists in Moscow who studied the consequences of Baty-Khan invasion to Russia. The facts given by researches testified that there were no catastrophic changes in Russian culture as a result of Mongol arrival. The archeological excavations showed that the first astronomical devices appeared in Povolzhye with the Mongol arrival. The blossoming of economy and culture took place in all parts of Mongol world. Everywhere there were active city-buildings. The whole Golden Horde was a city. Archeologists founded more than 100 cities and settlements built during the ruling of the Mongols. The cities were built without any fortifications that indirectly prove the fact that there was no danger of wars in the Empire. The Mongols brought new technologies of metal processing, including molding of crude iron. The monetary circulator increased, the issue of paper money began in Yuan China, and paper money was so widely circulated that it surprised Marko Polo, a merchant from Venice. He called one chapter in his book “How great Khan spends pieces of paper instead of coins”. In the vast state of the Mongols the powerful government cruelly punished revolts and internal conflicts. Safety and justice were supported through law and order. Abul-Gazi (1605-1664) wrote: “all places between Iran and Turan (Central Asia) were so peaceful that a man going from the East to the West with a golden plate on his head could not be attacked by anybody”.

The Mongols acted as the carries of an idea of Eurasiasm, their purpose was to connect West and East, nomadic and settled worlds. But this connection was often violent. Their states were stretching along the axis – “the steppe corridor", serving as a road to the west for nomads during many centuries. The Mongols not only had united the whole nomadic world of Great Steppe, with its cultural achievements and a style of life, but they went further. They strived to destroy isolation, narrow-mindedness, religious intolerance and tried not only to create the open Eurasian space but a new planetary outlook. But the world didn`t understand the plans of great Mongols and was not ready to accept their ideas. In that time the Mongols were thought of as barbarians and savages, a lot of attention was paid to destructive wars while their creative activities were ignored.

This order, economic prosperity and new philosophy that wasn’t attached to one central idea, resulted in intellectual explosion in the whole Empire. New types of literature and art appeared and thrived in China. New works on mathematics, agriculture, and new engineering projects started to appear. The same thing was happening in Iran: fast development of literature and miniature painting. In the cities new areas for scientists were built. The Mongols supported scientific research (they built observatories where scientists of different nations worked). Talented people of different origins and religions were included in governing the state; however the main control stayed with Mongols. The purpose of the Mongols was exactly expressed by the Confucianist scientist, a tyurk by birth, Bukhum, who was close to the imperial court: ”To have many able people (capable to govern the state), it is necessary to establish schools everywhere as in ancient times … And to order, to start learning the relations between people…One must know how to behave himself in the society, to manage his family, his country…No matter how high of a ranks a Mongol is and no matter how high in his position a Sezhen is (natives of Central Asia and Europe), those who haven`t reached success in studying, should learn till they are ready for administrative work”.

The top of Yuan aristocracy included the Kidans, the Uigurs, the Kynchaks, other representatives of different nations, and the natives from Bargudzhin-Tokum. A Venice merchant Marko Polo mentioned a native from the Khory-tribe among the people close to Khubilay-Khan, Rashid-ad-din in his turn named famous Barguts. The Mongol Empire reached its peak during the reign of Khubilay-Khan, a grandson of Chingis-Khan.

Russia was submitting to the Mongol Empire for more than 200 years. First, nomadic Mongols were not interested in Russian forests and rather poor Russian princedoms. The reason for their attacks on Russia was the actions of Russian princes who killed Mongol ambassadors when they came to Russia demanding the extradition of Polovetsk leaders.

They refused to submit to the Great Khan and fled to the Northwest. Thus the Mongols declared a war. In the battle near the Kalka-river in 1223, the Mongol army of 20-thousand defeated the 80-thousand Russian and Polovetsk Armies. Next time the Mongols came to Russia in 1237, lead by the grandson of Chingis-Khan - Baty-Khan. Mamai-Khan, Tokhtamysh-Khan and others lead military campaigns against Russia, too. But the relations between Russian princes and Mongol Khans were not always hostile. The Mongols allowed the Russians to keep their troops, moreover, the Russians adopted the tactics of war and armaments from the Mongol cavalry. It is known that Baty-Khan made an alliance with Alexander Nevsky who became a sworn brother of his son Sartak. This alliance was both military and political. Its goal was a fight against expansion from the West, against Livonian Knights. The Mongol cavalry helped the Russians to stop Knights` attack on Pskov and Novgorod. Those Mongol Khans who ruled in the area near the Low (Nizhnya) Volga stopped all intrusions of Asian nomads, supporters of Chinese ongols or the dynasty of Yuan. The Russian princes asked the Mongols for help which led to the foundation of the Great Russian Empire. The common silver rouble was introduced in the economy, the church became independent from the state. Language, culture, art and clothes were enriched with the elements of the Eastern culture.

The laws of the Mongols united isolated princedoms. The Moscow princedom collected taxes, “yasy”, which then was paid to Golden Horde. The Mongols founded mail, which used 400 thousand horses. New roads were built and post-stations turned into cities. Two centuries in the history of Russia between Kiev Russia and Moscow Russia became the period that changed the image of Russian civilization and its further geopolitical destiny. In the 17th century, Russian Empire began to explore the spaces to the East, following the Mongol Empire and created a new Eurasian civilization with the boarders that reached further to the North in comparison the Mongol Empire. For a while the territory of Mongolia was included into the Russian Empire.

Religion in the Mongol Empire

The Chingisids (descendants of Chingis-Khan) treated all religions with respect. Moreover, they not only conducted the policy of freedom in religions, but also provided financial support for building Orthodox cathedrals and Muslim mosques, though official religion in that time was Buddhism. The major part of Mongol-speaking people in Mongolia were Christians (of Nestrorian branch), that played a great role in rapprochement of two great ethnoses: tyrk-mongolian and Russian. The main postulates of Christianity were close and clear to nomads, who really liked the respectable attitude of the Nestorians to local traditional beliefs. Later Mongols-Nestorians played an important role in the history of relations between Golden Horde and Russia.

Chingis-Khan, knowing the history and geography of the Great Steppe, purposefully weakened those regions that could have potential opposition. These lands included his native Bargudzhin-Tokum and also the area of Kyrghyz (medieval Khakasiya) with governors of ancient Kyrghyz family. Aristocracy was strong there with influential local traditions. That`s why the most notable and strong families were resettled to Manzhuria and Northern China. Voluntary migration was forbidden.

Mongolian towns were also built in Zabaikalye. New aristocracy of the Empire needed prestigious things including jewelry and furs, so new colonies appeared in the whole wood zone of tradesmen, often Muslims. Archeologists found trading stations nearly everywhere were the majority of the population was concentrated: the Unginsk trading station, the Barguzin trading station and the Dzhida one on the Temnik-river. In all places we can find things that are typical for Central Asian culture: lamps, glass from Bukhara oasis, ceramics decorated with ornaments that are not specific for local traditions. In these centers merchants bought and traded furs that were coming from the whole eastern Siberia, then they sold them with great profits in China and Central Asia, where rich customers inclined to luxury and bliss lived. Trade ways called “Khan`s high road” provided trade between East and West.

A great number of historical works and works of art are devoted to the era of Chingisids. The one-sided point of view on the role of the Mongols in the history of mankind that has been stated before, is in the process of re-evaluation now. A number of scientists began this work. A great contribution was made by Leo Gumilev who having studied the history of great empires, put forward the idea of “passionarity”. In Buryatia this theme was revealed in a new way in the novel “Severe age”(Zhestokiy Vek) written by Isai Kalashnikov. Boris Khalbaev published the book “Chingis-Khan –a genius”, in which he represents his point of view on the state of the Mongols. Special attention is paid to their creative activities. Jean Pole Rue named this period the epoch of friendship and agreement between people - “Golden Age”, “An Ideal state”, “Mongol sphere”.

The decline of Mongol Empire finished the era of great nomadic empires of Central Asia. The decline occurred in the 14th century. After overthrow of the Mongolian dynasty Yuan (1368) in China the periods of alliances were followed by the periods of severe civil strife in Mongolian history. More than a million of Mongols who had formerly subdued China and became its citizens were destroyed by new rulers or turned into slaves. An ancient Chinese proverb “The one who will conquer China will become a Chinese himself with time” came true.  At the end of the 13th century Great Horde divided into White and Blue.  The longest centralization was during the ruling of Dayan-Khan (1479-1543). Civil strife led to the isolation of many Mongolian tribes, the Kalmyks left Mongolia and founded Kalmytskoye Khanstvo (Kingdom) in Povolzhiye and Prikaspy and later became the vassal of Russia. The Oyrats staying in Mongolia had founded the Dzhungar Khanstvo in 1630, which had conquered the major part of South Siberia but later was destroyed. In 1691 all Mongolian Kingdoms declared themselves nationals of Manchzhur-Chinese dynasty-Qin. Zabaikalye was also included into the sphere of Manchzhur influence. After Russians came here, a vitrual border between the cultures of West and East was marked at the border between Russia and Mongolia (the latter was a part of China at that time), it has been existing till present time and modern Buryatia has been a buffer territory where these cultures mix and coexist.