Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire became the largest contiguous empire in history. At its height it stretched from the Sea of Japan to Eastern Europe, reaching north into Siberia and south into the Indian subcontinent. It pushed west as far as the Levant and the Carpathian Mountains. All of this grew from the unification of several nomadic tribes in present-day Mongolia, in East Asia. A council proclaimed one man, Temüjin, as ruler of all Mongols in 1206. He took the title Genghis Khan. How did a people once reduced to penury on the steppe come to connect the Pacific to the Mediterranean? What held this vast machine together, and what tore it apart? The answers run through bloody succession wars, an empire-wide mail system, and a question the Mongols could never settle: whether to stay nomads of the steppe or become rulers of cities.
Yesugei had some success fighting the Tatars before they poisoned him, leaving his son Temüjin still young. Temüjin had been born around 1162, the child of Yesugei and Hö'elün, a woman Yesugei had abducted from a previous Merkit husband. After the poisoning, Hö'elün's family were abandoned by their tribe on the open steppe. Temüjin survived that hostility, and he killed his own older half-brother to secure his place in the family.
Merkit raiders kidnapped Temüjin's newlywed wife Börte in retaliation for the earlier abduction of his mother. To retrieve her, Temüjin allied with his father's old friend Toghrul, khan of the Kerait, and with a friend named Jamukha. Börte was recovered, though she had been raped in captivity, leaving the paternity of her son Jochi uncertain. With Temüjin she had three more sons, Chagatai, Ögedei, and Tolui, and five daughters.
In 1187, Jamukha decisively defeated Temüjin, who took refuge in China under Jin sponsorship. He returned to the steppe in 1196 and campaigned successfully with Toghrul against the Tatars. The two men built their power over the next five years, winning in 1201 against a coalition led by Jamukha. In 1202 Temüjin eradicated the Tatars, then overcame Toghrul in 1203. The Naimans were subjugated and Jamukha executed within the next two years, leaving Temüjin the undisputed ruler of a newly unified people.
Genghis Khan died on the 18th of August 1227. By then the empire ruled from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea, twice the size of the Roman Empire at its height. He named his third son, the charismatic Ögedei, as his heir, and was buried in a secret location by Mongol tradition.
Ögedei's general Subutai captured the capital of Emperor Wanyan Shouxu at the siege of Kaifeng in 1232. The Jin dynasty collapsed in 1234 when the Mongols took Caizhou, the town to which Wanyan Shouxu had fled. With the assistance of the Song dynasty, the Mongols finished off the Jin that same year. In the west, Ögedei's general Chormaqan destroyed Jalal al-Din Mangburni, the last shah of the Khwarazmian Empire.
Batu Khan, a grandson of Genghis, overran the Bulgars, Alans, Kipchaks, and other peoples of the southern Russian steppe. By 1237 the Mongols were encroaching on Ryazan, the first Kievan Rus' principality they attacked. After a three-day siege they captured the city and massacred its inhabitants. By 1240 all of Kievan Rus' had fallen except for a few northern cities.
The Hungarian army and the Knights Templar were beaten at the banks of the Sajo River on the 11th of April 1241. Before Batu's forces could continue on to Vienna, news of Ögedei's death in December 1241 halted the invasion. Mongol tradition required all princes of Genghis's line to attend the kurultai that would elect a successor, so Batu withdrew from Central Europe the following year.
After Ögedei's death in 1241, his widow Töregene took over the empire and won most Mongol aristocrats to support her son Güyük. Batu, ruler of the Golden Horde, refused to attend the kurultai, claiming illness and a climate too harsh for him. The resulting stalemate lasted more than four years. Güyük was finally elected in 1246, by then ill and alcoholic, before dignitaries that included representatives from Rome.
In 1248 Güyük suddenly marched westward from Karakorum for reasons that remain unclear. Sorghaghtani Beki, widow of Genghis's son Tolui, secretly warned her nephew Batu of Güyük's approach. Güyük, sick and worn out by travel, died en route at Qum-Senggir, possibly a victim of poison.
Batu called a kurultai in 1250 and nominated Möngke, a grandson of Genghis through Tolui. Members of the Ögedeid and Chagataid families refused to attend, insisting that only descendants of Ögedei could be great khan. When Sorghaghtani and the cousin Berke organized a second kurultai on the 1st of July 1251, the assembled throng proclaimed Möngke great khan. Power had passed from the line of Ögedei to the line of Tolui.
Ögedei's grandson Shiremun sought to topple Möngke, moving toward the imperial palace for an armed attack. Möngke's falconer alerted him to the plot. The investigation led to trials across the empire, and many of the Mongol elite were put to death, with estimates ranging from 77 to 300. Princes of the royal line were often exiled rather than executed.
Möngke died on the 11th of August 1259 in southern China, after disease ravaged his forces with bloody epidemics. Once again a new great khan had to be chosen, and armies across the empire withdrew to convene a kurultai. The decision broke the empire apart.
In 1260 the Mamluks advanced from Egypt and met Kitbuqa's Mongol forces just north of Galilee at the Battle of Ain Jalut. The Mongols were defeated and Kitbuqa executed. This marked the western limit of Mongol expansion in the Middle East, and they never again advanced seriously farther than Syria.
Möngke's brother Ariq Böke used his position at the capital to win the title of great khan, proclaimed at the kurultai in Karakorum. When Kublai Khan learned of this, he summoned his own kurultai at Kaiping, where the senior princes of North China and Manchuria backed him. Battles followed in the Toluid Civil War, fought from 1260 to 1264. Karakorum fell quickly to Kublai, but Ariq Böke rallied and retook the capital in 1261. He finally surrendered to Kublai at Shangdu on the 21st of August 1264.
Meanwhile Hulagu, ruling Persia, clashed with their cousin Berke, the Muslim ruler of the Golden Horde, beginning in 1262. Hulagu died on the 8th of February 1264. By Kublai's death in 1294, the empire had fractured into four separate khanates: the Golden Horde in the northwest, the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the Ilkhanate in Iran, and the Yuan dynasty in China.
Kublai issued an imperial edict on the 18th of December 1271, giving the empire the Han-style dynastic name of Great Yuan and establishing the Yuan dynasty. He moved his headquarters to Khanbaliq, the genesis of the modern city of Beijing. Many Mongols accused him of being too closely tied to Chinese culture, and his establishment of a capital there was a controversial move.
After the fall of Xiangyang in 1273, the Mongols pursued the final conquest of the Song dynasty in South China. The Chinese Song imperial family surrendered to the Yuan in 1276, making the Mongols the first non-Chinese people to conquer all of China. Mongol records list 20,166 public schools created during Kublai's reign.
Kublai's invasions of Burma and Sakhalin were costly. His attempted invasions of Đại Việt and Champa ended in devastating defeat, where Mongol armies were crushed at the Battle of Bạch Đằng. In 1274 and again in 1281 he invaded Japan, fighting the Battles of Bun'ei and Kōan along the coast of Hakata Bay near modern-day Fukuoka, but he could not conquer it.
In 1304, during the reign of Temür, all the khanates approved a peace treaty and accepted Yuan supremacy. The four khanates continued to develop separately as sovereign states. When Ghazan took the Ilkhanate throne in 1295, he formally accepted Islam, a turning point after which Mongol Persia grew steadily more Islamic.
A Mongol messenger typically traveled 25 miles from one relay station to the next, taking a fresh horse or passing the mail to a rested rider. This was the Yam, a system of well-guarded relay posts called örtöö. Mongol riders regularly covered 125 miles a day, better than the fastest record set by the Pony Express 600 years later. When a great khan died in Karakorum, news reached Batu's forces in Central Europe within four to six weeks. During Kublai's reign the Yuan system used some 1,400 stations, 50,000 horses, and 6,000 boats.
The small Mongolian horse was strong and hardy, and though usually not shod, one could travel 600 miles in nine days. A soldier took five or six horses on campaign to ride on alternate days. Every adult Mongol man was a soldier, and most were horse-archers who had ridden since childhood. The Mongol composite bow had a normal range of around 325 metres, reaching 530 in favourable conditions. The total strength in Genghis's lifetime was likely only 50,000 to 75,000 soldiers, so Mongol armies were almost always outnumbered.
Genghis organised his troops using a decimal system so that old tribal loyalties would disappear. He instituted strict discipline, and soldiers who fled or looted without permission faced execution. The keshig, or imperial guard, served as a military academy for future generals. The Mongols favoured fighting in cold weather and planned their winter campaigns at summer kurultai.
The Maragheh Observatory, granted to the astronomer Tusi by Hulagu in 1259, held around 400,000 books salvaged from the siege of Baghdad. Tusi produced the Ilkhanic Tables in 12 years and taught a device called the Tusi couple. That couple, transmitted to Europe by the Byzantine Greek astronomer Gregory Chioniades, would later influence Copernican heliocentrism, a reach that outlived every khanate the empire produced.
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Common questions
What was the Mongol Empire and how large did it become?
The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire in history. At its height it stretched from the Sea of Japan to Eastern Europe, reaching north into Siberia and south into the Indian subcontinent, and west as far as the Levant and the Carpathian Mountains.
Who founded the Mongol Empire and when?
The Mongol Empire was founded by Temüjin, who took the title Genghis Khan. A council proclaimed him ruler of all Mongols in 1206 at a kurultai, where the shaman Teb Tenggeri named him khan of the Great Mongol Nation.
When did Genghis Khan die and who succeeded him?
Genghis Khan died on the 18th of August 1227. He named his third son, Ögedei, as his heir, and by his death the empire ruled from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea, twice the size of the Roman Empire at its height.
Why did the Mongol Empire split into four khanates?
The Mongol Empire split because of wars over succession and a dispute over whether to adopt a sedentary, cosmopolitan life or remain nomadic. By Kublai Khan's death in 1294 it had fractured into the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate, the Ilkhanate, and the Yuan dynasty in China.
How did the Mongol Empire's mail system work?
The Mongol Empire used a relay system called the Yam, built from guarded posts known as örtöö. A messenger typically traveled 25 miles between stations, taking a fresh horse or passing the mail along, and riders regularly covered 125 miles a day, faster than the Pony Express 600 years later.
What made the Mongol military so effective?
The Mongol military relied on horse-archers, mobility, and strict discipline organised through a decimal system that dissolved old tribal loyalties. Their total strength in Genghis's lifetime was likely only 50,000 to 75,000 soldiers, so their cohesion mattered more than numbers, since they were almost always outnumbered.
When did the Mongol Empire end?
The Mongol Empire's parts fell over centuries. The Ilkhanate disintegrated between 1335 and 1353, the Yuan dynasty lost China in 1368 when Ming forces took its capital, and the Golden Horde's rule in Eastern Europe is traditionally considered to have ended in 1480 at the Great Stand on the Ugra River.
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