Chapter 1.

Historical Setting
Archer and hunting dog
MODERN MONGOLIA—the Mongolian People's Republic—
comprises only about half of the vast Inner Asian region known
throughout history as Mongolia. Furthermore, it is only a frac-
tion of the great Mongol empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries that stretched from Korea to Hungary and encompassed
nearly all of Asia except the Indian subcontinent and parts of
Southeast Asia. Because the Mongol empire was so vast—the larg-
est contiguous land empire in the history of the world—the Mon-
gols were written about in many languages by numerous chroniclers
of divergent conquered societies, who provided a wide range of
perspectives, myths, and legends. In addition, because many for-
eign accounts are about the Mongol invasions and were written
by the conquered, the Mongols often are described in unfavorable
terms, as bloodthirsty barbarians who kept their subjects under a
harsh yoke. Mongol sources emphasize the demigod-like military
genius of Chinggis Khan, providing a perspective in the opposite
extreme. The term Mongol itself is often a misnomer. Although
the leaders and core forces of the conquerors of Eurasia were eth-
nic Mongols, most of the main army was made up of Uralo-Altaic
people, many of them Turkic. Militarily, the Mongols were stopped
only by the Mamluks of Egypt and by the Japanese, or by their
own volition, as happened in Europe. In their increasingly sophisti-
cated administrative systems, they employed Chinese, Iranians,
Russians, and others. Mongolia and its people thus have had a
significant and lasting impact on the historical development of major
nations, such as China and Russia, and, periodically, they have
influenced the entire Eurasian continent.
Until the twentieth century, most of the peoples who inhabited
Mongolia were nomads, and even in the 1980s a substantial propor-
tion of the rural population was essentially nomadic. Originally
there were many warlike nomadic tribes living in Mongolia, and
apparently most of these belonged to one or the other of two racially
distinct and linguistically very different groupings. One of these
groupings, the Yuezhi, was related linguistically to the ancient
nomadic Scythian peoples—who inhabited the steppes north and
northeast of the Black Sea and the region east of the Aral Sea—
and was therefore Indo-European. The other grouping was the
Xiongnu, a nomadic people of uncertain origins.
Although in the course of history other peoples displaced, or be-
caine intermingled with, the Yuezhi and the Xiongnu, their activities,

3
Mongolia: A Country Study

conflicts, and internal and external relations established a pattern,

with four principal themes, that continued almost unchanged—
except for the conquest of Eurasia in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries—until the eighteenth century. First, among these four
themes, there were constant fierce struggles involving neighbor-
ing tribes, engaged in frequently shifting alliances that did not al-
ways follow ethnic, racial, or linguistic lines. Second, during periods
when China was united and strong, trade with Inner Asian peo-
ples was allowed, and nomadic states either became vassals of the
Chinese emperor, or they retreated beyond his reach into the north-
ern steppes; conversely, when China appeared weak, raids were
made into rich Chinese lands, sometimes resulting in retaliatory
expeditions into Mongolia. Third, occasional, transitory consoli-
dation—of all or of large portions of the region under the control
of a conqueror or a coalition of similar tribes—took place; such
temporary consolidations could result in a life-or-death struggle be-
tween major tribal groupings until one or the other was extermi-
nated or was expelled from the region, or until they joined forces.
Fourth, on several occasions, raids into northern China were so
vast and successful that the victorious nomads settled in the con-
quered land, established dynasties, and eventually became ab-
sorbed—sinicized—by the more numerous Chinese.
Within this pattern, the Xiongnu eventually expelled the Yuezhi,
who were driven to the southwest to become the Kushans of Iranian,
Afghan, and Indian history. In turn, the Xiongnu themselves later
were driven west. Their descendants, or possibly another group,
continued this westward migration, establishing the Hun empire,
in Central and Eastern Europe, that reached its zenith under Attila.
The pattern was interrupted abruptly and dramatically late in
the twelfth century and throughout the thirteenth century by Ching-
gis and his descendants. During the consolidation of Mongolia and
some of the invasions of northern China, Chinggis created sophisti-
cated military and political organizations, exceeding in skill, effi-
ciency, and vigor the institutions of the most civilized nations of
the time. Under him and his immediate successors, the Mongols
conquered most of Eurasia.
After a century of Mongol dominance in Eurasia, the traditional
patterns reasserted themselves. Mongols living outside Mongolia
were absorbed by the conquered populations; Mongolia itself again
became a land of incessantly warring nomadic tribes. True to the
fourth pattern, a similar people, the Manchus, conquered China
in the seventeenth century, and ultimately became sinicized.
Here the pattern ended. The Manchu conquest of China came
at a time when the West was begixming to have a significant impact

4
 Historical Setting

on East Asia. Russian colonial expansionism was sweeping rapidly

across Asia—at first passing north of Mongolia but bringing in-
cessant pressure, from the west and the north, against Mongol
tribes—and was beginning to establish firm footholds in Mongolian
territory by conquest and the establishment of protectorates. At
the same time, the dynamic Manchus also applied pressure from
the east and the south. This pressure was partly the traditional at-
tempt at control over nomadic threats from Mongolia, but it also
was a response to the now clearly apparent threat of Russian ex-
pansionism.
From the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth cen-
tury, Mongolia was a major focus of Russian and Manchu-Chinese
rivalry for predominant influence in all of Northeast Asia. In the
process, Russia absorbed those portions of historical Mongolia to
the west and north of the present Mongolian People's Republic.
The heart of Mongolia, which became known as Outer Mongolia
(see Glossary), was claimed by the Chinese. The area was distinct
from Inner Mongolia, along the southern rim of the Gobi, which
China absorbed—those regions to the southwest, south, and east
that now are included in the People's Republic of China. Continu-
ing Russian interest in Mongolia was discouraged by the Manchus.
As Chinese power waned in the nineteenth and the early twen-
tieth centuries, however, Russian influence in Mongolia grew. Thus
Russia supported Outer Mongolian declarations of independence
in the period immediately after the Chinese Revolution of 1911.
Russian interest in the area did not diminish, even after the Rus-
sian Revolution of 1917, and the Russian civil war spilled over into
Mongolia in the period 1919 to 1921. Chinese efforts to take ad-
vantage of internal Russian disorders by trying to reestablish their
claims over Outer Mongolia were thwarted in part by China's in-
stability and in part by the vigor of the Russian reaction once the
Bolshevik Revolution had succeeded. Russian predominance in
Outer Mongolia was unquestioned after 1921, and when the Mon-
golian People's Republic was established in 1924, it was as a
communist-controlled satellite of Moscow.
Early Development, Ca. 220 B.C.—A.D. 1206
Origins of the Mongols
Archaeological evidence places early Stone Age human habita-
tion in the southern Gobi between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.
By the first millennium B.C., bronze-working peoples lived in Mon-
golia. With the appearance of iron weapons by the third century
B.C., the inhabitants of Mongolia had begun to form tribal alliances

5
Mongolia: A Country Study

and to threaten China. The origins of more modern inhabitants

are found among the forest hunters and nomadic tribes of Inner
Asia. They inhabited a great arc of land extending generally from
the Korean Peninsula in the east, across the northern tier of China
to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and to the Pamir Moun-
tains and Lake Balkash in the west (see fig. 1). During most of
recorded history, this has been an area of constant ferment from
which emerged numerous migrations and invasions to the southeast
(into China), to the southwest (into Transoxiana—modern Uzbek
Soviet Socialist Republic, Iran, and India), and to the west (across
Scythia toward Europe). By the eighth century B.C., the inhabi-
tants of much of this region evidently were nomadic Indo-European
speakers, either Scythians or their kin. Also scattered throughout
the area were many other tribes that were primarily Mongol in
their ethnologic characteristics.
Xiongnu and Yuezhi
The first significant recorded appearance of nomads came late
in the third century B.C., when the Chinese repelled an invasion
of the Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu in Wade-Giles romanization) across
the Huang He (Yellow River) from the Gobi. The Xiongnu were
a nomadic people of uncertain origins. Their language is not known
to modern scholars, but the people were probably similar in ap-
pearance and characteristics to the later Mongols. A Chinese army,
which had adopted Xiongnu military technology—wearing trous-
ers and using mounted archers with stirrups—pursued the Xiong-
flu across the Gobi in a ruthless punitive expedition. Fortification
walls built by various Chinese warring states were connected to
make a 2,300-kilometer Great Wall along the northern border, as
a barrier to further nomadic inroads.
The Xiongnu temporarily abandoned their interest in China and
turned their attention westward to the region of the Altai Moun-
tains and Lake Balkash, inhabited by the Yuezhi (Yüeh-chih in
Wade-Giles), an Indo-European-speaking nomadic people who had
relocated from China's present-day Gansu Province as a result of
their earlier defeat by the Xiongnu. Endemic warfare between these
two nomadic peoples reached a climax in the latter part of the third
century and the early decades of the second century B.C.; the
Xiongnu were triumphant. The Yuezhi then migrated to the south-
west where, early in the second century, they began to appear in
the Oxus (the modern Amu Darya) Valley, to change the course
of history in Bactria, Iran, and eventually India.
Meanwhile, the Xiongnu again raided northern China about
200 B.C., finding that the inadequately defended Great Wall was

6
 Historical Setting

not a serious obstacle. By the middle of the second century B.C.,

they controlled all of northern and western China north of the
Huang He. This renewed threat led the Chinese to improve their
defenses in the north, while building up and improving the army,
particularly the cavalry, and while preparing long-range plans for
an invasion of Mongolia.
Between 130 and 121 B.C., Chinese armies drove the Xiongnu
back across the Great Wall, weakened their hold on Gansu Province
as well as on what is now Nei Monggol Autonomous Region (Inner
Mongolia—see Glossary), and finally pushed them north of the
Gobi into central Mongolia. Following these victories, the Chinese
expanded into the areas later known as Manchuria (see Glossary),
the Korean Peninsula, and Inner Asia. The Xiongnu, once more
turning their attention to the west and the southwest, raided deep
into the Oxus Valley between 73 and 44 B.C. The descendants
of the Yuezhi and their Chinese rulers, however, formed a com-
mon front against the Xiongnu and repelled them.
During the next century, as Chinese strength waned, border
warfare between the Chinese and the Xiongnu was almost inces-
sant. Gradually the nomads forced their way back into Gansu and
the northern part of what is now China's Xinjiang-Uygur Autono-
mous Region. In about the middle of the first century A.D., a
revitalized Eastern Han Dynasty (A.D. 25—220) slowly recovered
these territories, driving the Xiongnu back into the Altai Moun-
tains and the steppes north of the Gobi. During the late first cen-
tury A.D., having reestablished the administrative control over
southern China and northern Vietnam that had been lost briefly
at beginning of this same century, the Eastern Han made a con-
certed effort to reassert dominance over Inner Asia. A Chinese army
crossed the Pamir Mountains, conquered territories as far west as
the Caspian Sea, defeated the Yuezhi Kushan Empire, and even
sent an emissary in search of the eastern provinces of Rome.
Donghu, Toba, and Ruruan
Although the Xiongnu finally had been driven back into their
homeland by the Chinese in A.D. 48, within ten years the Xianbei
(or Hsien-pei in Wade-Giles) had moved (apparently from the north
or northwest) into the region vacated by the Xiongnu. The Xianbei
were the northern branch of the Donghu (or Tung Hu, the Eastern
Hu), a proto-Tunguz group mentioned in Chinese histories as exist-
ing as early as the fourth century B.C. The language of the Donghu,
like that of the Xiongnu, is unknown to modern scholars. The
Donghu were among the first peoples conqueredby the Xiongnu.
Once the Xiongnu state weakened, however, the Donghu rebelled.

7
Mongolia: A Country Study

By the first century, two major subdivisions of the Donghu had

developed: the Xianbei in the north and the Wuhuan in the south.
The Xianbei, who by the second century A.D. were attacking
Chinese farms south of the Great Wall, established an empire,
which, although short-lived, gave rise to numerous tribal states
along the Chinese frontier. Among these states was that of the Toba
(T'o-pa in Wade-Giles), a subgroup of the Xianbei, in modern
China's Shanxi Province. The Wuhuan also were prominent in
the second century, but they disappeared thereafter; possibly they
were absorbed in the Xianbei western expansion. The Xianbei and
the Wuhuan used mounted archers in warfare, and they had only
temporary war leaders instead of hereditary chiefs. Agriculture,
rather than full-scale nomadism, was the basis of their economy.
In the sixth century A.D., the Wuhuan were driven out of Inner
Asia into the Russian steppe.
Chinese control of parts of Inner Asia did not last beyond the
opening years of the second century, and, as the Eastern Han Dy-
nasty ended early in the third century A.D., suzerainty was lim-
ited primarily to the Gansu corridor. The Xianbei were able to
make forays into a China beset with internal unrest and political
disintegration. By 317 all of China north of the Chang Jiang
(Yangtze River) had been overrun by nomadic peoples: the Xianbei
from the north; some remnants of the Xiongnu from the north-
west; and the Chiang people of Gansu and Tibet (present-day
China's Xizang Autonomous Region) from the west and the south-
west. Chaos prevailed as these groups warred with each other and
repulsed the vain efforts of the fragmented Chinese kingdoms south
of the Chang Jiang to reconquer the region.
By the end of the fourth century, the region between the Chang
Jiang and the Gobi, including much of modern Xinjiang, was domi-
nated by the Toba. Emerging as the partially sinicized state of Dai
between A.D. 338 and 376 in the Shanxi area, the Toba estab-
lished control over the region as the Northern Wei Dynasty (A.D.
386—533). Northern Wei armies drove back the Ruruan (referred
to as Ruanruan or Juan-Juan by Chinese chroniclers), a newly aris-
ing nomadic Mongol people in the steppes north of the Altai Moun-
tains, and reconstructed the Great Wall. During the fourth century
also, the Huns left the steppes north of the Aral Sea to invade
Europe. By the middle of the fifth century, Northern Wei had
penetrated into the Tarim Basin in Inner Asia, as had the Chinese
in the second century. As the empire grew, however, Toba tribal
customs were supplanted by those of the Chinese, an evolution not
accepted by all Toba.

8
 II
r

Chinggis Khan, detail from a sixteenth-century

Iranian genealogical manuscript
Courtesy The Granger Collection

9
Mongolia: A Country Study

The Ruruan, only temporarily repelled by Northern Wei, had

driven the Xiongnu toward the Ural Mountains and the Caspian
Sea and were making raids into China. In the late fifth century,
the Ruruan established a powerful nomadic empire spreading gener-
ally north of Northern Wei. It was probably the Ruruan who first
used the title khan (see Glossary).
Rise of the TUrk
Northern Wei was disintegrating rapidily because of revolts of semi-
tribal Toba military forces that were opposed to being sinicized, when
disaster struck the flourishing Ruruan empire. The Turk, a vassal
people, known as Tujue to Chinese chroniclers, revolted against their
Ruruan rulers. The uprising began in the Altai Mountains, where
many of the Turk were serfs working the iron mines. Thus, from
the outset of their revolt, they had the advantage of controlling what
had been one of the major bases of Ruruan power. Between 546
and 553, the Turk overthrew the Ruruan and established themselves
as the most powerful force in North Asia and Inner Asia. This was
the beginning of a pattern of conquest that was to have a signifi-
cant effect upon Eurasian history for more than 1,000 years. The
Turk were the first people to use this later widespread name. They
are also the earliest Inner Asian people whose language is known,
because they left behind Orkhon inscriptions in a runic-like script,
which was deciphered in 1896.
It was not long before the tribes in the region north of the Gobi—
the Eastern Turk—were following invasion routes into China used
in previous centuries by Xiongnu, Xianbei, Toba, and Ruruan.
Like their predecessors who had inhabited the mountains and the
steppes, the attention of the Turk quickly was attracted by the wealth
of China. At first these new raiders encountered little resistance,
but toward the end of the sixth century, as China slowly began
to recover from centuries of disunity, border defenses stiffened.
The original Turk state split into eastern and western parts, with
some of the Eastern Turk acknowledging Chinese overlordship.
For a brief period at the beginning of the seventh century, a new
consolidation of the Turk, under the Western Turk ruler Tardu,
again threatened China. In 601 Tardu's army besieged Chang'an
(modern Xi'an), then the capital of China. Tardu was turned back,
however, and, upon his death two years later, the Turk state again
fragmented. The Eastern Turk nonetheless continued their depre-
dations, occasionally threatening C hang' an.
Influence of Tang China
From 629 to 648, a reunited China—under the Tang Dynasty
(A.D. 618-906)—destroyed the power of the Eastern Turk north

10
 Historical Setting

of the Gobi; established suzerainty over the Kitan, a semi-nomadic

Mongol people who lived in areas that became the modern Chinese
provinces of Heiongjiang and Jim; and formed an alliance with
the Uighurs (see Glossary), who inhabited the region between the
Altai Mountains and Lake Balkash. Between 641 and 648, the Tang
conquered the Western Turk, reestablishing Chinese sovereignty
over Xinjiang and exacting tribute from west of the Pamir Moun-
tains. The Turk empire finally ended in 744.
For more than a century, the Tang retained control of central
and eastern Mongolia and parts of Inner Asia. During this cen-
tury, the Tang expanded Chinese control into the Oxus Valley.
At the same time, their allies and nominal vassals, the Uighurs,
conquered much of western and northern Mongolia until, by the
middle of the eighth century, the Uighur seminomadic empire ex-
tended from Lake Balkash to Lake Baykal.
It was at about this time that the Arab-led tide of Islam reached
Inner Asia. After a bitter struggle, the Chinese were ejected from
the Oxus Valley, but with Uighur assistance they defeated Mus-
urn efforts to penetrate into Xinjiang. The earliest Mongol links
with Tibetan Buddhism, or Lamaism (see Glossary), also may have
•been established in this period (see Religion, ch. 2). During this
time, the Kitan of western Manchuria took advantage of the situ-
ation to throw off Chinese control, and they began to raid north-
ern China.
Despite these crippling losses, the Tang recovered and, with con-
siderable Uighur assistance, held their frontiers. Tang dependence
upon their northern allies was apparently a source of embarrass-
ment to the Chinese, who surreptitiously encouraged the Kirghiz
and the Karluks to attack the Uighurs, driving them south into
the Tarirn Basin. As a result of the Kirghiz action, the Uighur em-
pire collapsed in 846. Some of the Uighurs emigrated to Chinese
Turkestan (the Turpan region), where they established a flourish-
ing kingdom that freely submitted to Chinggis Khan several
centuries later (see Early Wars in China, this ch.). Ironically, this
weakening of the Uighurs undoubtedly hastened the decline and
fall of the Tang Dynasty over the next fifty years.
Kitan and Jurchen
Free of Uighur restraint, the Kitan expanded in all directions
in the latter half of the ninth century and the early years of the
tenth century. By 925 the Kitan ruled eastern Mongolia, most of
Manchuria, and much of China north of the Huang He. In the
recurrent process of sinicization, by the middle of the tenth cen-
tury Kitan chieftains had established themselves as emperors of

11
Mongolia: A Country Study

northern China; their rule was known as the Liao Dynasty (9 16—
1125).
The period of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was one of con-
solidation, preceding the most momentous era in Mongol history,
the era of Chinggis Khan. During those centuries, the vast region
of deserts, mountains, and grazing land was inhabited by people
resembling each other in racial, cultural, and linguistic characteris-
tics; ethnologically they were essentially Mongol. The similarites
among the Mongols, Turk, Tangut, and Tatars (see Glossary) who
inhabited this region causes considerable ethnic and historical con-
fusion. Generally, the Mongols and the closely related Tatars in-
habited the northern and the eastern areas; the Turk (who already
had begun to spread over western Asia and southeastern Europe)
were in the west and the southwest; the Tangut, who were more
closely related to the Tibetans than were the other nomads and
who were not a Turkic people, were in eastern Xinjiang, Gansu,
and western Inner Mongolia (see fig. 2). The Liao state was
homogeneous, and the Kitan had begun to lose their nomadic
characteristics. The Kitan built cities and exerted dominion over
their agricultural subjects as a means of consolidating their empire.
To the west and the northwest of Liao were many other Mongol
tribes, linked together in various tenuous alliances and groupings,
but with little national cohesiveness. In Gansu and eastern Xinjiang,
the Tangut—who had taken advantage of the Tang decline—had
formed a state, Western Xia or Xixia (1038—1227), nominally under
Chinese suzerainty. Xinjiang was dominated by the Uighurs, who
were loosely allied with the Chinese.
The people of Mongolia at this time were predominantly spirit
worshipers, with shamans providing spiritual and religious guidance
to the people and tribal leaders. There had been some infusion of
Buddhism, which had spread from Xinjiang, but it did not yet have
a strong influence (see The Yuan Dynasty; Return to Nomadic
Patterns, this ch.). Nestorian Christianity also had penetrated Inner
Asia.
In the eleventh century, the Kitan completed the conquest of
China north of the Huang He. Despite close cultural ties between
the Kitan and Western Xia that led the latter to become increas-
ingly sinicized, during the remainder of that century and the early
years of the twelfth century, the two Mongol groups were frequently
at war with each other and with the Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279)
of China. The Uighurs of the Turpan region often were involved
in these wars, usually aiding the Chinese against Western Xia.
A Tungusic people, the Jurchen, ancestors of the Manchu,
formed an alliance with the Song and reduced the Kitan empire

12
 Historical Setting

to vassal status in a seven-year war (1115—1122; see Caught Between

the Russians and the Manchus, this ch.). The Jurchen leader
proclaimed himself the founder of a new era, the Jin Dynasty
(1115—1234). Scarcely pausing in their conquests, the jurchen sub-
dued neighboring Koryó (Korea) in 1226 and invaded the terri-
tory of their former allies, the Song, to precipitate a series of wars
with China that continued through the remainder of the century.
Meanwhile, the defeated Kitan Liao ruler had fled with the small
remnant of his army to the Tarim Basin, where he allied himself
with the Uighurs and established the Karakitai state (known also
as the Western Liao Dynasty, 1124-1234), which soon controlled
both sides of the Pamir Mountains. The Jurchen turned their at-
tention to the Mongols who, in 1139 and in 1147, warded them off.
The Era of Chinggis Khan, 1206—27
Rise of Chinggis Khan
After the migration of the Jurchen, the Borjigin Mongols had
emerged in central Mongolia as the leading clan of a loose federa-
tion. The principal Borjigin Mongol leader, Kabul Khan, began
a series of raids into jin in 1135. In 1162 (some historians say 1167),
Temujin, the first son of Mongol chieftain Yesugei, and grandson
of Kabul, was born. Yesugei, who was chief of the Kiyat subclan
of the Borjigin Mongols, was killed by neighboring Tatars in 1175,
when Temujin was only twelve years old. The Kiyat rejected the
boy as their leader and chose one of his kin instead. Temujin and
his immediate family were abandoned and apparently left to die
in a semidesert, mountainous region.
Temujin did not die, however. In a dramatic struggle described
in The Secret History of the Mongols, Temujin, by the age of twenty,
had become the leader of the Kiyat subclan and by 1196, the un-
questioned chief of the Borjigin Mongols. Sixteen years of nearly
constant warfare followed as Temujin consolidated his power north
of the Gobi. Much of his early success was because of his first alli-
ance, with the neighboring Kereit clan, and because of subsidies
that he and the Kereit received from the Jin emperor in payment
for punitive operations against Tatars and other tribes that threa-
tened the northern frontiers of Jin. Jin by this time had become
absorbed into the Chinese cultural system and was politically weak
and increasingly subject to harassment by Western Xia, the
Chinese, and finally the Mongols. Later Temujin broke with the
Kereit, and, in a series of major campaigns, he defeated all the
Mongol and Tatar tribes in the region from the Altai Mountains
to Manchuria. In time Temujin emerged as the strongest chieftain

13
Mongolia: A Country Study

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14
 Historical Setting

among a number of contending leaders in a confederation of clan

lineages. His principal opponents in this struggle had been the
Naiman Mongols, and he selected Karakorum (west-southwest of
modern Ulaanbaatar, near modern Har Horin), their capital, as
the seat of his new empire.
In 1206 Temujin's leadership of all Mongols and other peoples
they had conquered between the Altai Mountains and the Da
Hinggan (Greater Khingan) Range was acknowledged formally by
a kuriltai (council—see Glossary) of chieftains as their khan. Temujin
took the honorific chinggis, meaning supreme or great (also roman-
ized as genghis orjeng/ziz), creating the title Chinggis Khan, in an
effort to signify the unprecedented scope of his power. In latter
hagiography, Chinggis was said even to have had divine ancestry.
The contributions of Chinggis to Mongol organizational develop-
ment had lasting impact. He took personal control of the old clan
lineages, ending the tradition of noninterference by the khan. He
unified the Mongol tribes through a logistical nexus involving food
supplies, sheep and horse herds, intelligence and security, and trans-
portation. A census system was developed to organize the decimal-
based political jurisdictions and to recruit soldiers more easily. As
the great khan, Chinggis was able to consolidate his organization
and to institutionalize his leadership over a Eurasian empire. Crit-
ical ingredients were his new and unprecedented military system
and politico-military organization. His exceptionally flexible
mounted army and the cadre of Chinese and Muslim siege-warfare
experts who facilitated his conquest of cities comprised one of the
most formidable instruments of warfare that the world had ever
seen (see Historical Traditions, ch. 5).
At the time of his first kuriltai at Karakorum, Chinggis already
was engaged in a dispute with Western Xia, the first of his wars
of conquest. In 1205 the Mongol military organization, based on
the tumen (see Glossary), had defeated the much larger Tangut forces
easily. Despite problems in conquering the well-fortified Western
Xia cities, the results were the same in the campaigns of 1207 and
1209. When peace was concluded in 1209, the Western Xia em-
peror, with substantially reduced dominion, acknowledged Chinggis
as overlord.
Early Wars in China
A major goal of Chinggis was the conquest ofJin, both to avenge
earlier defeats and to gain the riches of northern China. He declared
war in 1211, and at first the pattern of operations against Jin was
the same as it had been against Western Xia. The Mongols were
victorious in the field, but they were frustrated in their efforts to

15
Mongolia: A Country Study

take major cities. In his typically logical and determined fashion,

Chinggis and his highly developed staff studied the problems of
the assault of fortifications. With the help of Chinese engineers,
they gradually developed the techniques that eventually would make
them the most accomplished and most successful besiegers in the
history of warfare.
As a result of a number of overwhelming victories in the field
and a few successes in the capture of fortifications deep within
China, Chinggis had conquered and had consolidated Jin ter-
ritory as far south as the Great Wall by 1213. He then advanced
with three armies into the heart of Jin territory, between the
Great Wall and the Huang He. He defeated the jin forces, devas-
tated northern China, captured numerous cities, and in 1215 be-
sieged, captured, and sacked the Jin capital of Yanjing (later known
as Beijing). The Jin emperor did not surrender, however, but re-
moved his capital to Kaifeng. There his successors finally were
defeated, but not until 1234. Meanwhile, Kuchlug, the deposed
khan of the Naiman Mongols, had fled west and had conquered
the state of Karakitai, the western allies that had decided to side
with Chinggis.
By this time, the Mongol army was exhausted by ten years of
continuous campaigning against Western Xia and Jin. Therefore,
Chinggis sent only two tumen under a brilliant young general, Jebe,
against Kuchlug. An internal revolt was incited by Mongol agents;
then Jebe overran the country. Kuchlug's forces were defeated west
of Kashgar; he was captured and executed, and Karakitai was an-
nexed. By 1218 the Mongol state extended as far west as Lake
Balkash and adjoined Khwarizm, a Muslim state that reached
to the Caspian Sea in the west and to the Persian Gulf and the
Arabian Sea in the south.
Conquest of Khwarizm and Reconnaissance into Europe
In 1218 the governor of an eastern province of Khwarizm mis-
treated several Mongol emissaries. Chinggis retaliated with a force
of more than 200,000 troops, and Khwarizm was eradicated by
1220. A detachment of about 25,000 Mongol cavalry, as part of
the Khwarizmian campaign, had crossed the Caucasus Mountains,
had skirted the Caspian Sea, and had briefly invaded Europe.
After defeating the Georgians and the Cumans of the Cauca-
sus, the small Mongol expedition advanced in 1222 into the steppes
of the Kuban. Combining rapid movement with guile, the Mon-
gols again defeated the Cumans, captured Astrakhan, then crossed
the Don River into Russia. Penetrating the Crimea, they stormed

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 Stone turtle marking the reputed site of
Chinggis Khan 's capital at Karakorum
Courtesy Steve Mann

the Genoese fortress of Sudak on the southeastern coast, then turned

north into what later became known as the Ukraine.
The Mongol leaders now thought they had accomplished their
mission. Before returning to Mongolia, however, they decided to
rest their troops and to gain more information about the lands to
the north and the west. They camped near the mouth of the Dnieper
River, and their spies soon were scattered throughout eastern and
central Europe.
Meanwhile, a mixed Russian-Cuman army of 80,000 under the
leadership of Mstislav, prince of Kiev, marched against the Mon-
gol encampment. Jebe and Subetei, another great Mongol gen-
eral, sought peace; however, when their envoys were murdered,
they attacked and routed Mstislav's force on the banks of the Kalka
River. Historian Charles Halperin estimated that by this time the
"destructive power of the Mongol war machine eclipsed anything
the Russians had seen before," and the Kievan Russians found
themeselves faced no longer with a renewal of the sporadic raids
of the past but with the threat of subjugation and foreign domina-
tion. In compliance with a courier message from Chinggis, the ex-
pedition then marched eastward. As the Mongols were marching
north of the Caspian Sea, Jebe died of illness. In 1224 Subetei led

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Mongolia: A Country Study

the expedition back, after a trek of more than 6,400 kilometers,

to a rendezvous with the main Mongol armies, that were returning
from their victories over the Khwarizm.
The Last Campaign of Chinggis Khan
The vassal emperor of Western Xia had refused to take part in
the war against the Khwarizm, and Chinggis had vowed punish-
ment. While he was in Iran, Western Xia and Jin had formed an
alliance against the Mongols. After rest and a reorganization of
his armies, Chinggis prepared for war against his foes.
By this time, advancing years had led Chinggis to prepare for
the future and to assure an orderly succession among his descen-
dants. He selected his son Ogedei as his successor and established
the method of selection of subsequent khans, specifying that they
should come from his direct descendants. Meanwhile, he studied
intelligence reports from Western Xia and Jin and readied a force
of 180,000 troops for a new campaign.
Late in 1226, when the rivers were frozen, the Mongols struck
southward with their customary speed and vigor. The Tangut, well
acquainted with Mongol methods, were ready, and the two armies
met by the banks of the frozen Huang He. Despite a Western Xia
army of more than 300,000 troops, the Mongols virtually annihi-
lated the Tangut host.
Pursuing energetically, the Mongols killed the Western Xia em-
peror in a mountain fortress. His son took refuge in the great walled
city of Ningxia, which the Mongols had failed to conquer in earlier
wars. Leaving one-third of his army to take Ningxia, Chinggis sent
Ogedei eastward, across the great bend of the Huang He, to drive
the Jin forces from their last footholds north of the river. With the
remainder of his troops, he marched southeast, evidently to eastern
Sichuan Province, where the Western Xia, the Jin, and the Song
empires met, to prevent Song reinforcements from reaching
Ningxia. Here he accepted the surrender of the new Western Xia
emperor but rejected peace overtures from Jin.
A premonition of death caused Chinggis to head back to Mon-
golia, but he died en route. On his deathbed in 1227, he outlined
to his youngest son, Tului, the plans that later would be used by
his successors to complete the destruction of the Jin empire.
Successors of Chinggis, 1228—59
Ogedei and Continuing Conquests
In compliance with the will of the dead khan, a kuriltal at Karako-
rum in 1228 selected Ogedei as khan. The kuriltai also decided to

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