Nomadic Empires

The Mongols under the leadership of Genghis Khan built a transcontinental empire spanning Europe and
Asia during the 13th and 14th centuries.

Genghis Khan

Sources
● The Mongols produced little literature on their own.
● So we have to rely on chronicles, travelogues and documents produced by city based littérateurs.
● These authors often produced extremely ignorant and biased reports of nomadic life.
● Many travellers came from a variety of backgrounds such as Buddhist, Confucian, Christian,Turkish
and Muslim.
● Many of them produced sympathetic accounts and others hostile.
● The earliest narrative on Genghis Khan was The Secret History of the Mongols.

Mongols-Background
● The Mongols were a diverse body of people and spoke similar languages.
● Some of the Mongols were pastoralists while others were hunter-gatherers.
● They nomadised in the steppes of Central Asia.
● The Mongols were divided into patrilineal lineage.
● The richer families owned more animals and pasture lands. Hence, they had large followers and
were influential in local politics.
● Whenever there were harsh winter or drought conditions then there were conflicts among the
families over pasture lands.
● Predatory raids occurred in search of livestock.
 ● Groups of families form alliances in defence or offence during these occasions.
● But these alliances were for a short period.

MONGOLIAN EMPIRE

Genghis Khan's Political System

● The size of Genghis Khan's confederation of Mongol and Turkish tribes perhaps matched in size to
that of the confederation in the fifth century by Attila (Attila the Hun was the leader of the Hunnic
Empire; nomadic people who lived in Central Asia)
● Genghis Khan's political system was different from Attila's. It was more durable as it survived its
founder.
● It was stable enough to counter large and better equipped armies of China, Iran and Eastern
Europe.
● They also administered complex agrarian economies and urban settlements far from their home.

The Great Wall of China

● The Great Wall of China was a visual testament to the disturbance and fear that was brought by the
nomadic raids on the agrarian societies of north China and Central Asia.
● It was built by the Chu State and lasted until 1878 in the Qing Dynasty. The most
remains we see today were built in the Ming Dynasty about 600 years ago.
● The Great Wall was continuously built from the 3rd century BC to the 17th century AD on
the northern border.

Genghis Khan: Early Career

● Genghis Khan was born in 1162 near the Onon river in the north of present day Mongolia. Originally
named Temujin,Genghis was the third son of the minor chieftain Yesugei.
● He was 9 when his father was assassinated by the neighbouring Tatars.
● He, along with his brothers and step-brothers, was brought up by his mother.
● The next ten years were full of hardships. He was captured and enslaved.
● Soon after his marriage he had to fight to recover his wife (Borte) who was kidnapped.
● He formed alliances with Boghurchu, a friend-Jamuqa, his brother and his old uncle, Ong Khan.
● Between 1180 and 1190 ,he used his alliance with Ong Khan against Jamuqa. After this he gained
confidence and moved against other tribes.
● He defeated the Tatars, the Naimans, the Keraits etc.
 ● Finally he defeated the powerful Jamuqa in 1206.
● Then the assembly of Mongol chieftains(quriltai),declared Genghis Khan the Great Khan of the
Mongols. He took the title Genghis Khan: 'Oceanic ruler' or Universal Ruler.

Campaigns of Genghis Khan

● Genghis Khan united the Mongol people into a more effective,disciplined military force.
● The first of his concerns was to conquer China. By 1209, Hsi Hsia were defeated.
● The Great Wall of China was breached until 1213 and Peking sacked in 1215.
● Long-drawn battles against the Chin continued until 1234.
● Defeated Qara Khita who controlled the Tien Shan mountains Northwest of China in 1218, Mongol
dominions reached the Amu Darya and the states of Transoxiana and Khwarazm.

Military Success of Genghis Khan

● The military achievements of Genghis Khan were astounding.
● He had achieved all the military victory by his ability to innovate and transform various aspects of
steppe combat into effective military strategies.
● The horse riding and hunting skills of Mongols and Turks provided speed and mobility to the army.
● Their abilities as rapid shooting archers from horseback were further perfected during regular
hunting expeditions which doubled the chance of victory over the enemies.
● They carried out campaigns in the depths of winter by using frozen rivers as highways to enemy
cities and camps.
● They brought their knowledge of moving light in terrain as an effective military strategy.
● He learnt the importance of siege engines and naphtha bombardment quickly.
● His engineers built light portable equipment which he used against his opponents.

Military Organisation under the Mongols

● Among the Mongols all the able-bodied,adult males of the tribe bore arms.
● They constituted the armed forces when the occasion demanded.
● The army of Genghis Khan was composed of different people which complicated the relatively small
undifferentiated army into a mixed mass of people.
● He altered the old steppe system of decimal units system.i.e,divisions of 10s, 100s, 1,000s and
10,000 soldiers.
● He divided the old tribal groupings and distributed their members into new military units.
● No individual could move from his allotted group without permission. If they did so they were
punished severely.
● Thus ,the largest unit of soldiers (10,000 soldiers (tumen) now included different tribes and clans.
● The military units were to serve under his four sons and specially chosen captains of his army units
called noyan.

Conferring titles
● Genghis Khan conferred the title of 'blood brothers' (anda) publicly to military persons.
● He also honoured humbler persons as bondsmen (naukar), a title that indicated their close
relationship with Genghis Khan.
● It did not preserve the rights of old clan chieftains and the new aristocracy derived its status from its
closeness to Genghis Khan.
Political Organisation under Genghis Khan

● Genghis Khan assigned the responsibility of governing the newly-conquered people to his four
sons. These comprised the four ulus.,a term that did not originally mean fixed territories.
● Genghis Khan envisaged that his sons would rule the empire collectively.
● Military contingents of the individual princes were placed in each ulus
● The sense of a dominion shared by the members of the family was underlined at the assembly of
chieftains, quriltai.
● Quriltais, where all decisions relating to the family or the state for the forthcoming season
campaigns, distribution of plunder, pasture lands and succession were collectively taken.

Communication and Trade Under the Mongols

Courier System (Yam)

● Genghis Khan had formed a rapid courier system that connected the distant areas of his regime.
● Fresh mounts and despatch riders were placed in outposts at regularly spaced distances.
● The Mongol nomads contribute a tenth of their herd, either horses or livestock-as provisions for the
maintenance of this communication system.
● This was called the qubcur tax, a levy that the nomads paid willingly for the multiple benefits that it
brought.
● The courier system (yam) was further refined after Genghis Khan's death and its speed and
reliability surprised travellers.
● It enabled the Great Khan to keep a check on developments at the farthest end of their regime
across the continental land army.

Trade
● When peace was established after Mongol conquest (Pax Mongolica),trade connections matured.
● Travel and trade along silk routes increased under the authority of Mongols.
● It continued north of Mongolia and to Kara korum.
● Communication and ease of travel was essential to maintain the authority of the Mongol regime.
● Travellers were given a pass (paiza in Persian) for safe conduct. Traders paid by tax for the same
purpose, thereby acknowledging the Mongol authority.

Administrative features of Genghis Khan's Rule

● During the reign of Genghis Khan,civil administrators were recruited from the conquered lands.
● But they were deployed in distant areas. Chinese Secretaries were posted in Iran,and Persians in
China.
● These administrators retained the confidence of their masters till the time they continued to increase
the revenues for them.
● These administrators could sometimes command considerable influence.

Yasa (Legal code of law of Genghis Khan)

● It is believed that Yasa was officially proclaimed by Genghis Khan at the Quriltai of 1206.
● In its earliest formulation ,the term was written as 'yasaq' which meant 'law' 'decree' or 'order'.
● By the middle of the thirteenth century, Mongols started using the term yasa in a more general
sense to mean the 'legal code of Genghis Khan'.
● The yasa was most probably a compilation of the customary traditions of the Mongol tribes.
 ● The yasa served to join together the Mongol people around a body of shared beliefs.
● It recognised the affinity to Genghis Khan and descendants and ,even as they absorbed different
aspects of sedentary lifestyle ,it gave them the confidence to retain their ethnic identity and impose
their 'law' upon their defeated subjects.
● It was an extremely empowering ideology inspired by Genghis Khan's vision and was vital in the
construction of a Mongol universal dominion.

Situating Genghis Khan and the Mongols in World History

● Genghis Khan is remembered in history as a conqueror, destroyer of cities and a person

responsible for the death of thousands of people.
● But for the Mongols ,Genghis Khan was the greatest leader of all time.
● He united the Mongol people,freed them from wars, brought them prosperity and restored trade
routes and markets.
● Mongols were a diverse body of people. In Spite of their own faith in Buddhism,Christianity, Islam
etc. the Mongol rulers never allowed their personal beliefs to dictate the public policy.
● They recruited administrators and armed contingents from various conquered lands. All this was
unusual for the time when they were ruling.
● Mongols provided ideological models for the Mughals of India.
● Timur ,another monarch who aspired to universal dominion ,hesitated to declare himself monarch
because of Genghis Khan.
● After decades of Soviet control,the country of Mongolia is recreating its identity as an independent
nation.
● Genghis Khan has appeared as an iconic figure for the Mongol people,mobilising memories of a
great past in the foraging of national identity that can carry the nation into future.

Key Words
➢ Barbarians: The term barbarian is derived from the Greek barbaros which meant a non-Greek,someone
whose language sounded like a random noise: 'barbar'. Cruel,greedy and politically unable to govern.
➢ Yasa: Genghis Khan's code of law.
➢ Tama:The military contingents of the individual princes
➢ Quriltai: The assembly of chieftains where all decisions relating to the family or the state-campaigns,
distribution of plunder, pasture lands and succession- were collectively taken.
➢ Anda: Blood brothers of Genghis Khan.
➢ Naukar: Special ranking as his bondsmen, a title that marked their close relationship with their masters.
➢ Qanats: Underground canals
➢ Yam: A courier system introduced by Genghis Khan
➢ Qubcur Tax: A levy that few the nomads paid willingly for the multiple benefits that it brought.