Mongol conquests

and nearby polities in the mid-12th century|alt=Map of the Mongol tribes and nearby polities in the early thirteenth century The predecessors of the Mongol tribe were first recorded in the late tenth century, as they migrated from eastern Manchuria into the Mongolian Plateau, where they settled southeast of Lake Baikal near the mountain Burkhan Khaldun. During the twelfth century, the Mongols rose to prominence as its khans made allies and led raids on the Chinese Jin dynasty. The killing of the khans Qutula and Ambaghai in the 1160s ended this first confederation. The Mongols were reduced to comparative penury; other tribes, such as the Naimans in the west of the plateau and Kerait in the centre, became much more powerful, while the Mongols competed with smaller tribes like the Merkit and the Tatars, the allies of the Jin, in the east and north. One nephew of Qutula Khan, named Yesugei, had some success fighting against the Tatars, and was a great friend of Toghrul, the khan of the Kerait. With his wife Hö'elün, whom he had abducted from her previous Merkit husband, Yesugei had several children, including a boy named Temüjin (the future Genghis Khan) who was born . Yesugei was poisoned by Tatars when Temüjin was still young and Hö'elün's family were abandoned by their tribe on the steppe. They survived the hostility of other tribes and the dangers of the steppe itself, while Temüjin killed his older half-brother to secure his familial position. As an adult, Temüjin formed alliances with Toghrul of the Kerait and an old friend named Jamukha who was now leader of his own tribe; they worked together to retrieve Temüjin's newlywed wife Börte, who had been kidnapped by Merkit raiders in retaliation for Hö'elün's abduction. The victory over the Merkit brought Temüjin prestige and a considerable following; although he and Jamuqa initially remained close, their individual ambitions soon conflicted and turned hostile. In 1187, Jamukha decisively defeated Temüjin, who took refuge in China. Sponsored by the Jin, he returned to the steppe in 1196 and led a successful campaign with Toghrul against the Tatars in 1196, which re-established his prestige. Temüjin and Toghrul steadily increased their power over the next five years, culminating in a 1201 victory over a coalition led by Jamukha. In 1202, Temüjin eradicated the Tatars; this left the Mongols as the preeminent power in eastern Mongolia. Relations with Toghrul ruptured in 1203, but Temüjin managed to avoid defeat and subdued the Kerait. The Naimans were subjugated and Jamukha was executed in the next two years. With these victories, Temüjin became the undisputed ruler of a newly unified people—the Mongol Empire. ==Military==

The Mongol military eliminated the traditional weaknesses of nomadic armies and built upon their tactical strengths to become one of the most formidable armed forces in history. Previous nomadic armies were based on the skill of horse-archers—armoured cavalry able to shoot accurately and quickly with composite bows—who often overwhelmed their enemies with their speed and mobility, ambushes, or feigned retreats. However, their shortcomings included poor siege warfare capabilities, an inability to satisfactorily occupy defeated enemies, and above all a lack of military discipline, which often in resulted in disunity or even, after a defeat, disintegration. The reforms initiated by Genghis Khan allowed the Mongol army to resolve these weaknesses, but their capabilities continued to evolve in response to new threats or opportunities to encompass, according to the historian Christopher Atwood, "a vision of comprehensive warfare unique in the Middle Ages". Every adult Mongol man was a soldier; when not called up, they resumed their traditional pastoralist way of life. They received no army pay save plunder, which was divided post-battle according to each soldier's contribution. Most were horse-archers, having learned to ride since childhood. The small Mongolian breed was strong, quiet, and particularly hardy—although usually not shod, one could travel in nine days. A Mongol soldier took on campaign, on average, five or six horses to ride on alternate days. Ill-treatment of horses, such as eating before tending to their needs, could be punishable by death. The Mongol composite bow had a normal range of around , but in favourable conditions it could reach . The majority of Mongol warriors had little or no armour, wearing as little as a deel (heavy coat) with an undergarment of dog or goat skin, accompanied by thick felt boots and fur hats. Wealthier warriors could afford lamellar armour, preferred to metal mail because of its easy manufacture and greater effectiveness against arrows. ==Central Asia==

(Spring of 1221) during the invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire Genghis Khan forged the initial Mongol Empire in Central Asia, starting with the unification of the nomadic tribes of the Merkits, Tatars, Keraites, Turks, Naimans, and Mongols. The Buddhist Uyghurs of Qocho surrendered and joined the empire. He then continued expansion via conquest of the Qara Khitai and of the Khwarazmian Empire. Large areas of Islamic Central Asia and northeastern Persia were seriously depopulated, as every city or town that resisted the Mongols was destroyed. Each soldier was given a quota of enemies to execute according to circumstances. For example, after the conquest of Urgench, each Mongol warrior – in an army of perhaps two tumens (20,000 troops) – was required to execute 24 people, or nearly half a million people per said army. Against the Alans and the Cumans (Kipchaks), the Mongols used divide-and-conquer tactics by first warning the Cumans to end their support of the Alans, whom they then defeated, before rounding on the Cumans. The Alans were recruited into the Mongol forces and known as the Asud, with one unit called "Right Alan Guard" that was combined with "recently surrendered" soldiers. Mongols and Chinese soldiers stationed in the area of the former state of Qocho and in Besh Balikh established a Chinese military colony led by Chinese general Qi Kongzhi. During the Mongol attack on the Middle East ruled by the Mamluk Sultanate, most of the Mamluk military was composed of Kipchaks and the Golden Horde's supply of Kipchak fighters replenished the Mamluk armies and helped them fight off the Mongols. The decentralized, stateless Kipchaks only converted to Islam after the Mongol conquest, unlike the centralized Karakhanid entity comprising the Yaghma, Qarluqs, and Oghuz who converted earlier to world religions. The Mongol conquest of the Kipchaks led to a merged society with a Mongol ruling class over a Kipchak-speaking populace which came to be known as Tatar, and which eventually absorbed Armenians, Italians, Greeks, and Crimean Goths in Crimea, the origin of the current Crimean Tatars. ==East Asia==

against the Jin dynasty. Genghis Khan and his descendants launched progressive invasions of China, subjugating the Western Xia in 1209 before destroying them in 1227, defeating the Jin dynasty in 1234 and defeating the Song dynasty in 1279. They made the Kingdom of Dali into a vassal state in 1253 after the Dali King Duan Xingzhi defected to the Mongols and helped them conquer the rest of Yunnan, forced Korea to capitulate through nine invasions, but failed in their attempts to invade Japan, their fleets scattered by kamikaze storms. The Mongols' greatest triumph was when Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty in China in 1271. The dynasty created a "Han Army" (漢軍) out of defected Jin troops and an army of defected Song troops called the "Newly Submitted Army" (新附軍). The Mongol force which invaded southern China was far greater than the force they sent to invade the Middle East in 1256. The Yuan dynasty established the top-level government agency Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs to govern Tibet, which was conquered by the Mongols and put under Yuan rule. The Mongols also invaded Sakhalin Island between 1264 and 1308. Likewise, Korea (Goryeo) became a semi-autonomous vassal state of the Yuan dynasty for about 80 years. ==Europe==

took place during the first Mongol invasion of Poland. led to construction of mighty stone castles, such as Spiš Castle in Slovakia. The Mongols invaded and destroyed Volga Bulgaria and Kievan Rus', before invading Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary and other territories. Over the course of three years (1237–1240), the Mongols razed all the major cities of Russia with the exceptions of Novgorod and Pskov. Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, the Pope's envoy to the Mongol Great Khan, traveled through Kiev in February 1246 and wrote: The Mongol invasions displaced populations on a scale never seen before in Central Asia or Eastern Europe. Word of the Mongol hordes' approach spread terror and panic. The violent character of the invasions acted as a catalyst for further violence between Europe's elites and sparked additional conflicts. The increase in violence in the affected Eastern European regions correlates with a decrease in the elite's numerical skills, and has been postulated as a root of the Great Divergence. ==Middle East==

in 1258. The Mongols conquered, by battle or voluntary surrender, the areas of present-day Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus, and parts of Syria and Turkey, with further Mongol raids reaching southwards into Palestine as far as Gaza in 1260 and 1300. The major battles were the siege of Baghdad, when the Mongols sacked the city which had been the center of Islamic power for 500 years and the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 in southeastern Galilee, when the Muslim Bahri Mamluks were able to defeat the Mongols and decisively halt their advance for the first time. One thousand North Chinese engineer squads accompanied the Mongol Hulagu Khan during his conquest of the Middle East. ==North Asia==

By 1206, Genghis Khan had conquered all Mongol and Turkic tribes in Mongolia and southern Siberia. In 1207, his eldest son Jochi subjugated the Siberian forest people, the Uriankhai, the Oirats, Barga, Khakas, Buryats, Tuvans, Khori-Tumed, and Yenisei Kyrgyz according to chapter 5 of the Secret History of the Mongols. He then organized the Siberians into three tumens. He gave the Telengits and Tolos along the Irtysh River to an old companion, Qorchi. While the Barga, Tumed, Buryats, Khori, Keshmiti, and Bashkirs were organized in separate thousands, the Telengits, Tolos, Oirats, and Yenisei Kyrgyz were numbered into the regular tumens. Genghis created a settlement of Chinese craftsmen and farmers at Kem-Kemchik after the first phase of the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty. The khagans favored gyrfalcons, furs, women, and Yenisei Kyrgyz horses for tribute. Western Siberia came under control of the Golden Horde. The descendants of Orda Khan, the eldest son of Jochi, directly ruled the area. In the swamps of western Siberia, dog sled yam stations were set up to facilitate collection of tribute. In 1270, Kublai Khan sent a Chinese official, with a new batch of settlers, to serve as judge of the Kyrgyz and Tuvan basin areas (益蘭州 and 謙州). Ogedei's grandson Kaidu occupied portions of central Siberia from 1275 on. The Yuan dynasty army under Kublai's Kipchak general Tutugh reoccupied the Yenisei Kyrgyz lands in 1293. From then on, the Yuan dynasty controlled large portions of central and eastern Siberia. ==South Asia==

From 1221 to 1327, the Mongol Empire launched several invasions into the Indian subcontinent. The Mongols occupied parts of northwestern South Asia for decades. However, they failed to penetrate past the outskirts of Delhi and were repelled from the interior of India. Centuries later, the Mughals, whose founder Babur had Mongol roots, established their own empire in India. ==Southeast Asia==

Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty was initially successful invading Burma between 1277 and 1287 and led to the capitulation and disintegration of the Pagan Kingdom but failed to hold it as the Burmese revolt quickly overthrew the Mongol puppet government and rallied under the new Myinsaing dynasty. The invasion of 1301 to retake Burma was defeated and the Mongols abandoned all ambitions towards Burma. The Mongol invasions of Vietnam (Đại Việt) and Java had a similar pattern, largely dominating in open field but were ultimately worn down through irregular warfare and the local environment which ultimately resulted in defeat for the Mongols, although much of Southeast Asia agreed to pay tribute to avoid further bloodshed. The Mongol invasions played an indirect role in the establishment of major Tai states in the region by recently migrated Tais, who originally came from Southern China, in the early centuries of the second millennium. Major Tai states such as Lan Na, Sukhothai, and Lan Xang appeared around this time. ==Death toll==

Due to the lack of contemporary records, estimates of the violence associated with the Mongol conquests vary considerably. Not including the mortality from the Black Death in Europe, West Asia, or China it is possible that between 20 and 60 million people were killed between 1206 and 1405 during the various campaigns of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, and Timur. However, the book from which the figures originate has been criticized for its methodology and the Chinese censuses on which the estimates are based are considered unreliable. Nevertheless, the campaigns killed a large number of people and involved battles, sieges, early biological warfare, and massacres. ==See also==