TIMELINE

1162 -- Temujin (Genghis Khan) born.

1206-1227 -- Reign of Genghis Khan

1211-1234 -- Conquest of northern China (Jin Dynasty)

1219-1221 -- Conquest of Persia

1227 -- Mongol leaders return to Mongolia to attend kuriltai to elect next khan.

1229 -- Ogedei elected Great Khan

1229-1234 - Ogedei attcked northern China.

1235-1238 - Ogedei constructed Mongol capital city at Karakhorum

1236 -- Mongols invaded Korea and begin war against southern China (Song)

1237 - 1241 -- Conquest of Russia (Kievan Rus)

1241 -- Ogedei died, son Guyuk, elected Great Khan

1248 -- Guyuk died

1251 -- Mongke elected Great Khan, sends brothers Hulagu to Mid East, Kubilai to China

1258 -- Capture of Baghdad, Abbasi Caliphate fell

1259 -- Mongols invaded Syria, Mongke dies

1260 -- Mongols defeated by Egyptian Mamelukes

1260 -- Civil war between Genghis Khan's grandsons (Arig Boke, Kubilai Khan)

1262 -- Golden Horde (Russia) and Ilkhanate (Persia) went to war

1264 -- Kubilai Khan became Great Khan

1271 -- Yuan Dynasty established

1274 -- First unsuccessful invasion of Japan.

1276 -- Song Dynasty fell

1281 -- Second unsuccessful invasion of Japan

1288 -- Third unuccessful invasion of Vietnam.

1294 -- Kubilai Khan died

1303 -- Mamelukes defeated Mongols

1315 -- Golden Horde became Muslim.

1335 -- Ilkhanate dissolved

1368 -- Ming Dynasty overthrew Yuan = End of Mongol Empire

MONGOL LIFESTYLE

• Pastoral nomadic group

• Moved regularly looking for pastures for animals.

• From central Asian steppes

• Animals

• Lives revolved around their sheep, goat and yaks

• Used for food, clothing, shelter

• Camels used for transporation

• Horses used for mobility (drank mare's milk or kumis)

• Lived in yurts/gers (tents)

• Organization

• Clan-based society

• Organized around bloodlines

• When warfare threatened, tribes joined together to form confederations.

• Women

• Although men were tribal leaders

• Women had right to speak in tribal councils

STEPPE DIPLOMACY

• Alliances with other pastoral groups

• Elimination of rivals (even within own family)

GENGHIS KHAN (CHINGISS KHAN) (1162-1227)

• Born "Temujin" into noble family

• Father

• Prominent warrior who forced an alliance among several Mongol

• But poisoned when Temujin was 10, destroying the alliance

• Left Temujin and family living in poverty

• Rivals stole the family's animals and tried to get rid of Temujin as a threat to their ambitions.

• Temujin mastered steppe diplomacy

• In early 1200s Temujin made alliance with powerful Mongol clan leader

• 1206 at kuriltai (meeting of Mongol chieftains

• Temujin given Genghis Khan (Chinggis Khan) or "great khan"

• Elected the khagan (supreme ruler) of Mongol tribes

• Unified several Mongol tribes

• Broke individual clan loyalties

• Constructed new military units with allegiance to him as leader

• Ruled over 1/2 million Mongols and 1-2 million over nomads.

• Led the Mongol invasion of China in 1234

MONGOL MILITARY FORCES

• Weapons

• Used short bow - fired from their horses.

• Very accurate, could kill 656 feet away

• Chinese influence

• Catapults, gunpowder, bronze cannons, flaming and exploding arrows, battering rams

• Armies

• All men, 15-70, had to serve

• Each rewarded with captured goods

• Divided into fighting units called tumens.

• Each with 10,000 warriors.

• Each tumen was divided into units of 1000, 100 and 10 warriors.

• Also divided into heavy cavalry (carried lances, wore metal armor) and light cavalry (bow and arrow, leather helmets)

• Scouting parties went ahead of armies, used signal fires, flags.

• Messengers

• Formal code

• Immediate execution for traitors and warriors who deserted

• But generosity for brave enemies

• Mobility

• Unparalleled horsemanship made them very mobile in war

• Carried their own houses

• Drank horse blood (without killing the horse)

• Traveled more than 60 miles a day.

• Military strategy

• Psychological warfare

• "Submit and live, resist and die"

• Towns that fought.

• People slaughtered or sold into slavery.

• Homes, palaces, mosques, temples etc. turned to rubble.

• Towns that surrendered

• Spared violence but required to pay tribute

• Sometimes pretended they were defeated

• Retreated, drawing opposing forces out, then attacked them again.

• After they conquered area

• Mongols were tolerant and peaceful leaders in conquered areas

• Brought peace to much of Asia (Pax Mongolica)

• Usually spared lives of artisans and scholars (who they employed as advisers)

• Open to new ideas, wanted to learn.

WHY MONGOLS LEFT MONGOLIA

• They were nomads so tradition of moving a lot

• Sharp decline in temperature

• May have caused less and shorter grass for horses and animals

• May have forced Mongols to trade or raid settled societies

GENGHIS KHAN EXPANSION

• China (Jin Empire) 1215

• Mongols attacked and destroyed present-day Beijing

• Used siege weapons (battering rams, catapults, explosive balls etc.)

• But couldn't take China

• Then to Bukhara, Samarkand, Herat (in Central Asia)

• Centers of rich Muslim civilizations

• Massacred or enslaved populations

• Russia 1222

• Crossed Caspian Sea

• Raided south Russia (attacked Novgorod)

• Russians called Mongols "Tartars"

• Because struck so much fear that Russians called them "Tartars" (people from hell)

• From Greek Tartarus

• Batu (Genghis's grandson)

• completed subjugation of Russia after 1238

SPLIT OF MONGOL EMPIRES

• Genghis Khan's died in 1227

• When he was about to conquer China

• The empire was divided among his three sons and grandsons

MONGOLS AND RUSSIA

GOLDEN HORDE

• Mongols under Batu Khan (Genghis Khan's grandson) invaded Kievan Rus 1223-1240

• Only successful winter invasion in Russian history.

• Mongols fought better in snow.

• Cities that resisted were massacred or enslaved.

• Kiev - once prosperous city in Kievan Rus (882-1240)

• Burned to the ground.

• Didn't occupy Russia

• Mongols prized steppes of Black Sea as prime pasture land for their horses

• Didn't like Russian forests

• Maintained pastoral way of life.

• From base in steppes

• Mongols went on exploratory expeditions to Poland, Hungary and eastern Germany (1241)

• And raided Russia - exacting tribute from Russian cities and agricultural area

• Created tribute system called Golden Horde.

• All Rus principalities forced to submit to Mongol rule.

• But kept a large number of local rulers intact.

• ​No direct dealing with inhabitants.

• Census, taxes and tributes collected by local princes.

MONGOLS TO EUROPE

• After conquest of Russia, Mongols tried to conquer Europe

• Tried to invade Hungary in 1240 and raid Eastern Europe

• Invasions stopped because of death of Ogedei Khan in 1241

• Third son of Genghis Khan, second Great Khan

• Mongols had to go back to Karakorum in Mongolia to decide succession

• Proposed conquest of Europe never materialized

INFLUENCE ON RUSSIA

• Serfdom created

• Peasants gave up their lands and crops to the aristocracy in exchange for protection from the Mongols

• Rise of Grand Duchy of Moscow 1283-1547

• Kiev destroyed

• Benefited financially as tribute collector for the Mongols

• When neighboring towns failed to make tribute payments, princes of Moscow added their territory to the principality of Moscow

• Moscow became the seat of Orthodox leaders who brought wealth and religious legitimacy.

• Church

• Mongols were Muslim and encouraged conversion but didn't force it

• Orthodox Church strengthened

• Because created sense of Russian identity

• And soothed people after invasion

• Metropolitan became head of Orthodox Church

• Art - iconography and fresco painting

• Division of East Slavic people

• Russia, Ukraine, Belarus

• Isolation

• Mongol rule kept Russia culturally isolated from Western European.

• Meant Russia safe from invasion

• But fell behind - didn't enjoy same trends (like Renaissance)

• Isolation denied Russia opportunities to establish commercial contacts with West

• Language

• Mongol words and names entered Russian language

IVAN I (r. 1325-1340)

• After the prince of Tver joined a rebellion against the Mongols in 1327

• Rival, prince Ivan I of Moscow, joined Mongols, crushed Tver, devastated his lands.

• Ivan granted title of Grand Prince by the Mongols

• He became chief intermediary between Mongol overlords and Rus lands

• While Mongols raided other areas of Rus

• They respected the lands controlled by their principal collaborator

• Attracted nobles and their servants

• Who sought to settle in the relatively secure and peaceful Moscow lands.

• Mongols continued to rule Crimea until late 18th c.

MONGOLS IN THE MIDDLE EAST - ILKHANATE

• Seljuk Turks

• From north of Caspian Sea

• Seljuk Turks had taken over Baghdad in 1055

• They adopted Persian culture and language

• Made Abbasid Caliph a state figurehead, kept Caliphate

• Hulagu Khan

• Grandson of Genghis Khan

• Destroyed Baghdad in 1258

• Persia under Mongols known as the Ilkhanate

• Abbasids

• 800,000 people slaughtered in Baghdad

• Including Abbasid caliph

• Hulagu imprisoned Caliph Al-Musta'sim to starve him

• Then wrapped him in a blanket and trampled him to death

• Ended 500-year dynasty and ended Caliphate

• Ottomans

• Seljuk Turks defeated by Mongols in 1242

• Some had fled to Anatolia (present-day Turkey)

• Disunity in Anatolia until the rise of Osman

• Who created Ottoman Turks in 1299 (See map below)

• Mamelukes

• Mongol threat to the Islamic world ended in 1260

• At hands of Mamelukes ("slaves") of Egypt

• ​Led by Baibars

• Conversion to Islam

• Mongols in Middle East employed local bureaucrats in the government

• And converted to Islam by 1295

• Local rulers

• Permitted to rule

• As long as they paid tax and kept order

CHAGATAI HORDE (1227-1369)

• After death of Mongke Khan

• Chagatai became completely independent

• Invasion of northwestern India (1299-1308)

• Defeated by the Sultans of Delhi

• Collapsed 1369 when defeated by Tamerlane

• Forced to be his vassal

CHINESE YUAN DYNASTY (1260-1368)

• Kubilai Khan (1215-1294)

• Grandson of Genghis Khan

• Assumed title of Great Khan

• Turned attention to remnants of Song Empire

• By 1279 Kublai Khan controlled most of China

• Called the Yuan Dynasty

• First time China under foreign rule

• Yuan Dynasty

• Chinese-style dynasty

• Fixed and regular tax payment system

• Strong central government (present-day Beijing)

• Capital -- Dadu

• Kubilai Khan fascinated with Chinese civilization.

• ​Surrounded himself with Chinese advisers,

• Buddhists, Daoists, Confucians in the court

• Introduced Chinese rituals, classical music in court

• Used Chinese calendar

• Offered sacrifices to ancestors at a special temple.

• But maintained some Mongol traditions

• Kept Mongol religious ceremonies

• Set up Mongol tent encampment in capital

• Didn't use civil service exams

• Scholar gentry lost their status

• No footbinding

• Separated Mongols and Chinese

• Bureaucracy

• Foreigners, not Chinese, were employed in bureaucracy

• Social structure

• Mongols on top of hierarchy

• Central Asian nomadic and Muslim allies below

• First two groups had highest offices in bureacracy.

• Northern Chinese

• Then southern Chinese

• Chinese ran bureaucracy at regional and local levels

• But couldn't exercise power at the top.

• Their activities monitored by Mongol functionaries.

• Chinese subject to different laws

• And separated from the Mongols

• Chinese forbidden to learn Mongol written language

• Language of official records under Yuan Dynasty

• Intermarriage between Mongols and Chinese was outlawed

• But

• Religious toleration

• And Chinese allowed to hold position in local and regional governments

• Women

• Kubilai's wife Chabi

• ​Kubilai's confidant

• Convinced Kubilai not to treat Song royal family badly

• Promoted Buddhism

• Mongol women enjoyed more freedom than Chinese women

• allowed to move about more freely in public

• Mongols didn't adopt Chinese practice of

• Merchants

• Though Mongols not directly involved in trade, they welcomed merchants and foreigners.

• Mongols created horse relay system connecting Dadu to Vienna (1,400 postal stations)

• Pax Mongolica brought peace to regions along the Silk Road (at its height)

• Chinese paper money used in many parts of the empire

• Merchants converted their foreign currency to paper money when they crossed into China

• Marco Polo visited Kubilai Khan with his father and uncle

• Decline

• After death of Kublai Khan

• Leadership weak and ineffectual

• Rivalry among successors of the great Khan

• Vast domain divided among various generals

• By 1350

• Most of Mongol territory reconquered by other armies

• Banditry, famine, peasant rebellion in last years

• Until they were overthrown by a Chinese peasant.

• Founded Ming Dynasty 1368

• Ming

• Emperor Hongwu worked to eliminate all evidence of Mongol rule

• Revived Confucian education system and civil service exam

• Centrall authroity tightened

• Relied on mandarins (powerful class of officials) to implement policies on local level.

• Rebuilt irrigation systems = increased agricultural production.

TAMERLANE (1336-1405)

• Timur-e Lang ("Timur the Lame")

• Married to daughter of Chagatai Khan (son of Genghis Khan)

• Born in Uzbekistan

• Muslim

• Wanted to restore Mongol Empire

• Soldier in Chagatai Khanate

• Rose up the ranks

• 1363 rebelled.

• Replaced Chagatai Khan at his capital in Samarkand.

• Conquests

• By 1394

• Conquered Iran, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Georgia

• 1389-95

• Fought and weakened the Khanate of the Golden Horde

• 1398

• Invaded India, captured Delhi and massacred inhabitants

• 1401

• Took Syria from Mamelukes

• 1402

• Defeated Ottoman sultan, Bayazid I

• Cruelty

• Notorious for cruelty in war, built pyramids from severed skulls

• But loved scholarship and the arts

• Samarkand (in Uzbekistan) became center of culture

• Died 1405

• Timurid Dynasty ruled in Transoxiana and Iran until early 16th c.

MUGHALS (1526–1540)

• Babur

• Descendant of Tamerlane (father's side) and Genghis Khan (mother's side)

• Rose to power in Kabul (Afghanistan)

• Built army

• Founded Mughal Dynasty of India 1526

• Akbar the Great

• Babur's grandson

• Patron of the arts

• Literature

• Had Sanskrit works translated into Persian and back

• Created religion called Divine Faith

• Combined Islam and Hinduism (syncretism)

• to promote religious unity

• and legitimize the ruler as head of state and head of religion.

• Abolished jizya (non-Muslim tax)

• Promoted Hindus to high-ranking government jobs.

• Shah Jahan

• Built Taj Mahal as tomb for his wife.

• Architecture blended Persian and Hindu traditions: Islamic domes, arches, minarets, Hindu ornamentation.

• Aurangzeb (r. 1548-1707)

• Shah Jahan's son

• Extended Muslim control to whole of India

• Wanted to rid India of Hindu influences

• Brought back jizya

• Many wars drained treasury

• Peasant uprising and revolts by Muslim and Hindu princes.

• Weakened empire - left it vulnerable to European traders