History_Class XI�Chapter - V�Nomadic Empire

Prepared By

Mr. Rakesh Kumar Jha

PGT(History)

JNV, Nuapada, Odisha

The First Khan and the Mongol Empire

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• Before Genghis Khan became the leader of Mongolia, he was known as Temujin.
• He was born around 1162 in modern-day northern Mongolia
• In his early 20s he married his young wife Börte, a bride from another powerful tribe.
• Soon she was kidnapped by a rival tribe. During this era, and possibly spurred by the capture of his wife, Temujin united the nomadic

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• His meritocratic policies tended to gain a broader range of followers, compared to his rival brother, Jamukha, who also hoped to rule over greater swaths of Mongolian territory.
• This split in policies created conflict with his uncles and brothers, who were also legitimate heirs to Mongol succession, as well as his generals.

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Sources to understand Mongol  history

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• 1.      The steppe dwellers themselves usually produced no literature, so our knowledge of nomadic societies comes mainly from chronicles, travelogues and documents produced by city-based litterateurs.
• 2.      These authors often producedextremely ignorant and biased reports of nomadic life. Theimperial success of the Mongols attracted many travelers. Theseindividuals came from a variety of backgrounds – Buddhist,Confucian, Christian, Turkish and Muslim. Many of them produced sympathetic accounts and others hostile.�

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Genghis khan

Genghis Khan

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• Genghis Khan ruled between 1206 and 1227
• expanding trade across Asia and into eastern Europe
• enacting relatively tolerant social and religious laws,
• leading devastating military campaigns that left local populations depleted and fearful of the brutal Mongol forces.

The life and Career of Genghis Khan�

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• 1.      Genghis Khan was born in1162 near the Onon River in the north of present-day Mongolia.
• 2.      His original name wasTemujin, he was the son of Yesugei, the chieftain of the Kiyatclan.
• 3.      His father was murdered at an early age and his mother,Oelun-eke, raised Temujin, his brothers and step-brothers in greathardship.
• 4.      Temujin was captured and enslaved for many years.
• 5.      Soon after his marriage, his wife, Borte,was kidnapped, and he had to fight to recover her.
• 6.      During these yearsof hardship he also managed to make important friends. The youngBoghurchu was his first ally and remained a trusted friend; Jamuqa,his blood-brother was another.
• 7.      Temujinbecame the dominant personality in the politicsof the steppe lands, a position that was recognisedat an assembly ofMongol chieftains,
• where he was proclaimed the ‘Great Khanof the Mongols’ with the title Genghis Khan, the ‘Oceanic Khan’or ‘Universal Ruler’.
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Wars and Expansion of Mongols underGenghiz Khan�

• first of all his concerns was to conquer China, divided at this time into three realms:the Hsi Hsia dynasty in the north-western provinces,Chin dynasty ruled north China and the Sungdynasty in south China.
• By 1209, the Hsi Hsia were defeated,the ‘Great Wall of China’ was breached in 1213 and long drawn-out battles against the Chin continued until 1234 butGenghis Khan was satisfied enough with the progress of his campaigns toreturn to his Mongolia
• SultanMuhammad, the ruler of Khwarazm, executed Mongol envoys worried of Mongol invasion. In the campaigns between1219 and 1221 the great cities – Otrar, Bukhara, Samarqand, Balkh,Gurganj, Merv, Nishapur and Herat – surrendered to the Mongol forces.
• Towns that resisted were devastated by Mongols. At Nishapur, where a Mongolprince was killed during the siege operation, Genghis Khan commandedthat the ‘town should be laid waste in such a manner that the sitecould be ploughed upon and not even cats and dogs should be left alive’.
• Mongol forces in pursuit of Sultan Muhammad pushed intoAzerbaijan and defeated Russian forces. Another wing followed the Sultan’s son, Jalaluddin, intoAfghanistan and the Sindh province.
• At the banks of the Indus, Genghis Khan considered returning to Mongolia through North India andAssam, but the heat, the natural habitat and the ill portents reportedby his Shaman soothsayer made him change his mind and he returned to Mongolia without touching India.

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• Social and Political Background of Mongol

1.      The Mongols were a diverse body of tribal people, spoke similarlanguages.

• 2.      Some of the Mongols were pastoralists while others were huntergatherers.The pastoralists tended horses, sheep andcattle, goats and camels.
• 3.      They lived nomadic life in the steppes of Central Asiain a tract of land in the area of the modern state of Mongolia.
• This was a majestic landscape with wide horizons, rolling plains, ringedby the snow-capped mountains, Gobi desert and drained by rivers and springs.
• 4.      They were a humbler body of peoplethan the pastoralists, making a living from trade in furs of animals trappedin the summer months.
• There were extremes of temperature in the entire region: harsh, long winters followed by brief, dry summers.

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Hunter gatherer people

•     Agriculture was possible in the pastoral regions but the
• Mongols did not take to agriculture. The Mongols lived in tentsand travelled with their

herdsfrom their winter to summer pasture lands.

• .  Mongols had scarceresources. The richer families were larger, possessed more animals

and pasturelands.

•   Periodic natural calamities – either unusually harsh, coldwinters when game and stored

provisions ran out, they conflicted over pasture lands and 

predatory raids in search oflivestock.

•    The scant resources of the steppe landsdrove Mongols and other Central Asian nomads to

trade and barter with their sedentary neighbours in China.

• This was mutually beneficialto both parties: agricultural produce and iron utensils from

Chinawere exchanged for horses, furs and game trapped in the steppe.

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Innovations Under Genghis Khan

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• As a ruler over a vast network of tribal groups, Genghis Khan innovated the way he�ruled and garnered power as he expanded his holdings.
• These unprecedented innovations encouraged a relatively peaceful reign and helped to�develop stabler trading routes and alliances
• He also successfully brought technology, language, and goods farther west. Some of his major accomplishments include:
• Organizing his army by dividing it into decimal subsections of 10, 100, 1,000, and 10,000, and discarded the lineage-based, tribal bands that once dominated warfare.
• Founding the Imperial Guard and rewarding loyalty with high positions as heads of army units and households no matter the class of the individual.
• Proclaiming a new law of the empire, called the Yassa, which outlawed the theft of property, fighting amongst the population, and hunting animals during the breeding season, among many other things.

Other works of Genghis khan

• Forbidding the selling of women.
• He also encouraged women to discuss major, public decisions. Unlike other leaders in the region, Ghengis allowed his wives to sit at the table with him and encouraged them to voice their opinions.
• Appointing his adopted brother as supreme judge, ordering him to keep detailed records of the empire.
• Decreeing religious freedom and exempting the poor and the clergy from taxation.

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• Encouraging literacy and adopting the Uyghur script, which would form the Empire’s Uyghur-Mongolian script.

Innovations Under Genghis Khan

KEY POINTS

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• Genghis Khan generally advocated literacy, religious freedom, and trade, although many local customs were frowned upon or discarded once Mongol rule was implemented.
• In terms of social policy, he forbade selling of women, theft of property, and fighting.
• This ruler used groundbreaking siege warfare and spy techniques to understand his enemies and more successfully conquer and subsume them under his rule.
• Genghis Khan led merciless conquests of the Western Xia Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty in 1234, the Kara-Khitan Khanate, and the Khwarazmian Empire.
• Many local people across Asia considered Genghis Khan a dark historical figure.

Causes for the success of Genghis Khan

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1.       His military achievements were astounding and they werelargely a result of his ability to innovate and transform differentaspects of steppe combat into extremely effective military strategies.

• 2.      The horse-riding skills of the Mongols and the Turks provided speed and mobility to the army.
• 3.      Their abilities as rapid-shooting archersfrom horseback were further perfected during regular huntingexpeditions which doubled chance of victory over the enemies.
• 4.       The steppe cavalryhad always travelled light and moved quickly, but now it brought allits knowledge of the terrain.
• 5.      They carried out campaigns in the depths of winter, treating frozenrivers as highways to enemy cities and camps.
• 6.      GenghisKhan learnt the importance of siege. His engineers prepared lightportableequipment, which was used against opponents withdevastating effect.

The Mongols after Genghis Khan

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• 1.      We can divide Mongol expansion after Genghis Khan’s death into twodistinct phases: the first which spanned the years 1236-42 when themajor gains were in the Russian steppes, Bulgaria, Poland andHungary.
• 2.       The second phase including the years 1255-1300 led to theconquest of all of China, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
• 3.      The Mongol military forces met with few reversals in the decadesafter the 1260s the original impetus ofcampaigns could not be sustained in the West.
• 4.      There were two facets to this: the first was a consequence of theinternal politics of succession within the Mongol family where the descendants of Jochi and Ogodei allied to control the office of the greatKhan in the first two generations.
• 5.      The second compulsion occurred as the Jochi and Ogodei lineages were marginalised by theToluy’s lineage. With the accession of Mongke, a descendant of Toluy, militarycampaigns were pursued energetically in Iran but asToluyid interests in the conquest of China.

Military Organisation under Mongols�

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• 1.      Among the Mongols all the able-bodied, adult males of the tribe bore arms: they constituted the armed forces when the occasion demanded.
• 2.      The unification of the different Mongol tribes and subsequent campaigns against diversepeople introduced new members into Genghis Khan’s army. It included groups like theTurks,Chinese and Arabs who had accepted his authority willingly.
• 3.      Genghis Khan worked to systematically erase the old tribal identitiesof the different groups who joined his confederacy.
• His army wasorganised according to the old steppe system of decimal units: in divisionsof 10s, 100s, 1,000s and 10,000 soldiers. He divided the old tribal groupingsand distributed their members into new military units. Any individualwho tried to move from his allotted group without permission received harsh punishment.
• 4.      He divided the army into four units and they were required to serve under his foursons and specially chosen captains of his army units called noyan.
• 5.      Thesoldiers who hadserved Genghis Khan loyally through grave adversity for many years were publicly honoured some of these individuals as his ‘bloodbrothers’ and  others were givenspecial ranking as his bondsmen , a title that marked theirclose relationship with their master.

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Political Organisation under Genghis Khan

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• 1.       Genghis Khan assigned the responsibility of governing the newly-conquered people to his four sons. These comprisedthe four ulus.
• 2.      The eldest son,Jochi, received the Russian steppesand it extended as far west as his horses could roam.
• 3.      The second son, Chaghatai, was given the Transoxanian steppe and landsnorth of the Pamir Mountain adjacent to those of his brother.
• 4.      Genghis Khan hadindicated that his third son, Ogodei, would succeed him as the GreatKhan and on accession the Prince established his capital at Karakorum.
• 5.      The youngest son, Toluy, received the ancestral lands of Mongolia. GenghisKhan envisaged that his sons would rule the empire collectively, and tounderline this point, military contingents of the individual princeswere placed in each ulus.
• 6.      The sense of a dominion shared by the membersof the family was underlined at the assembly of chieftains, quriltais, whereall decisions relating to the family or the state for the forthcoming season campaigns, distribution of plunder, pasture lands and successionwere collectively taken.
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Development in Trade and communication

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• 1.      Genghis Khan had alreadyfashioned a rapid courier system(yam) that connected the distant areasof his regime. Fresh mounts anddespatch riders were placed inoutposts at regularly spaceddistances.
• 2.      For the maintenanceof this communication systemthe Mongol nomads contributeda tenth of their herd – eitherhorses or livestock – asprovisions. This was called thequbcurtax, a levy that thenomads paid willingly for themultiple benefits that it brought.
• 3.      Once the campaigns had settled, Europe and Chinawere territorially linked with Mongolia. Commerce and travel alongthe Silk Route reached its peak under the Mongols but, the trade routeextended up to Mongolia.
• 4.      Communication and ease of travel was vital toretain the coherence of the Mongol regime and travellers were given apass for safe conduct. Traderspaid the bajtax for the same purpose, all acknowledging thereby theauthority of the Mongol Khan.
• 5.      Mongols waged their successful wars against China, Persia, Russia etc there was a strong pressuregroup within the Mongol leadership that advocated the massacre of allpeasantry and the conversion of their fields into pasture lands.
• But bythe 1270s, Genghis Khan’s grandson, QubilaiKhan appeared as the protector of the peasants and thecities.

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Yasa(legal code of Genghis Khan)

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• 1.      yasa,the code of law that Genghis Khan was supposed to have promulgatedat the Assembly of Mongol Chieftains (quriltai)of 1206, has elaborated on the complex ways in whichthe memory of the Great Khan was fashioned by his successors.
• 2.      In itsearliest formulation the term was written as yasawhich meant ‘law’,‘decree’ or ‘order’. Yasaconcern administrative regulations: the organisation of the hunt,the army and the postal system.�
• Situating Genghis Khan and theMongols in World History
• 1.      For the Mongols, GenghisKhan was the greatest leader of all time: he united the Mongol people.
• 2.      GenghisKhan freed them from interminable tribal wars and Chinese exploitation.
• 3.      GenghisKhanbrought them prosperity, fashioned a grandtranscontinental empire and restored trade routes and markets thatattracted distant travelers and traders.
• 4.      GenghisKhan ruled the diverse body of people and faiths.  Although the Mongol Khans themselves belonged to a variety ofdifferent faiths – Shaman, Buddhist, Christian and eventually Islam they never let their personal beliefs dictate public policy.
• 5.      The Mongolrulers recruited administrators and armed contingents from peopleof all ethnic groups and religions. Theirs was a multi-ethnic,multilingual, multi-religious regime that did not feel threatened byits pluralistic constitution.
• 6.      Today, after decades ofSoviet control, the country ofMongolia is recreating its identity as an independent nation. It hasseized upon Genghis Khan as a great national hero who is publiclyvenerated and whose achievements are recounted with pride.

�Rise of the Mongol Empire�

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• The Mongol Empire: Expansion of the Mongol empire from 1206 CE-1294 CE.
• During Europe’s High Middle Ages the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire in history, began to emerge.
• The Mongol Empire began in the Central Asian steppes and lasted throughout the 13th and 14th centuries.
• At its greatest extent it included all of modern-day Mongolia, China, parts of Burma, Romania, Pakistan, Siberia, Ukraine, Belarus, Cilicia, Anatolia, Georgia, Armenia, Persia, Iraq, Central Asia, and much or all of Russia.
• Many additional countries became tributary states of the Mongol Empire.

Expansion of the empire

• The empire unified the nomadic Mongol and Turkic tribes of historical Mongolia under the leadership of Genghis Khan, who was proclaimed ruler of all Mongols in 1206.
• The empire grew rapidly under his rule and then under his descendants, who sent invasions in every direction.
• The vast transcontinental empire connected the east with the west with an enforced Pax Mongolica, or Mongol Peace,
• Allowing trade, technologies, commodities, and ideologies to be disseminated and exchanged across Eurasia.
• Mongol invasions and conquests progressed over the next century, until 1300, by which time the vast empire covered much of Asia and Eastern Europe.
• Historians regard the Mongol raids and invasions as some of the deadliest and most terrifying conflicts in human history.
• The Mongols spread panic ahead of them and induced population displacement on an unprecedented scale.

�Destruction and Expansion Under Genghis Khan�

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• Despite his many successful political and social changes, Genghis was also a destructive and intimidating leader.
• He initially forged the Mongol Empire in Central Asia with the unification of the Mongol and Turkic confederations on the Mongolian plateau in 1206. Then Mongol forces invaded westward into Central Asia including:
• Western Xia Dynasty in 1209
• Kara-Khitan Khanate in 1218
• Khwarazmian Empire in 1221
• These conquests seriously depopulated large areas of central Asia and northeastern Iran, complicating the image of Genghis Khan as a peaceful ruler practicing religious tolerance.
• Any city or town that resisted the Mongols was subject to destruction. Each soldier was required to execute a certain number of persons in cities that did not cooperate.
• For example, after the conquest of the city of Urgench, each Mongol warrior, in an army that might have consisted of 20,000 soldiers, was required to execute 24 people.

Decline

• decline of Mongols has been attributed to:
• a series of incompetent leaders:
• Corruption and disgust with the non-tax-paying Mongol elite by tax-paying local people;
• Feuding between Mongol princes and generals and other divisions and fragmentations; and
• The fact that the rivals of the Mongols had adopted Mongol weapons, horses riding skills and tactics and were able challenge them and the Mongols in turn had become increasing dependent on these people for their own welfare.
• Contd….

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Decline of Mongol empire

• There were a number of reasons for the relatively rapid decline of the Mongols as an influential power.
• One important factor was their failure to acculturate their subjects to Mongol social traditions.
• Another was the fundamental contradiction of a feudal, essentially nomadic, society's attempting to perpetuate a stable, centrally administered empire.
• The sheer size of the empire was reason enough for the Mongol collapse.
• It was too large for one person to administer, as Genghis had realized, yet adequate coordination was impossible among the ruling elements after the split into khanates.
• Possibly the most important single reason was the disproportionately small number of Mongol conquerors compared with the masses of subject peoples."

IMPORTANT TERMS

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• Barbarian: A person who is uncultured and behaves in a rough or cruel manner and is ignorant of good taste.
• Kiyat: A group of families related to the Boijigid clan
• Anda: Real or blood brother
• Confederacy: A union of states, groups of people or political with the same aim.
• Tuman: A group of ten thousand soldiers
• Noyan: Captain of army unit
• Naukar: Bonded man, a rank to common but intimate people
• Ulus: Conquered but not fixed territory

• Tama: Military contingents
• Quriltais: An assembly of chieftains
• Qubcur: A tax imposed on nomads for communication facility provided to them.
• Yam: Courier system
• Qanat: Underground canal in the arid plateau in Iran
• Paiza: A pass or permit to move from one place to another.
• Bjg:A tax imposed on traders
• Yasa: A code of law promulgated by Genghis Khan in 1206.

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