Mongol Horde

Origins

In 1206 an assembly of the steppe tribes proclaimed Temüjin as Genghis Khan, ruler of all the Mongols. He had spent twenty years uniting the warring clans of the Mongolian steppe, often by breaking up old tribal loyalties and rewarding men for loyalty and ability rather than birth. The army he built, and that his sons and grandsons led, created the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire in history, from Korea to Hungary. It rarely outnumbered its enemies and almost never had better equipment. See Mongol Invasions for the wider story of the conquests.

Organization & Training

The instrument was the steppe system perfected. Every man was a horseman from childhood, and hunting on the open plains taught riding, archery and teamwork. Great organized hunts, in which thousands of riders encircled game, served as practice for battle. Each warrior brought several spare horses, often three to five, so he could change mounts and keep moving for days. The army was organized in units of ten (arban), a hundred (jaghun), a thousand (mingghan) and ten thousand (tumen). This decimal system, with strict discipline and collective punishment, made huge forces easy to command.

Weapons & Equipment

The main weapon was the Mongol Composite Bow, a short recurved bow of horn, wood and sinew, shot at the gallop in disciplined showers. Each man carried two or three bows and several quivers with different arrows. Heavy cavalry wore lamellar armor of leather or iron and carried lances, sabers and maces for the decisive charge. Chinese and Persian engineers gave the Mongols siege trains, including the counterweight Trebuchet, built by Muslim engineers for the siege of Xiangyang in the 1270s. The Mongols also used Chinese gunpowder bombs in their wars in China.

Notable Actions

The Mongols first attacked the Jin state of northern China from 1211 and took its capital, near modern Beijing, in 1215. Between 1219 and 1221 they destroyed the Khwarezmian Empire of Central Asia and Persia, sacking great cities such as Bukhara, Samarkand and Merv. Their tactics were psychological as much as physical: feigned retreats that stretched enemies to destruction, and terror meant to make the next city surrender without a siege. In 1237-40 they conquered the Rus principalities. In April 1241, within two days, one army beat the Poles and Germans at Legnica and another crushed the Hungarians at Mohi. In 1258 they sacked Baghdad and ended the Abbasid Caliphate.

The Mongols were not unbeatable. The Mamluks of Egypt stopped their advance at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, and invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281 failed, the second broken by a storm.

Legacy

The conquests changed Eurasia permanently, at a terrible cost in lives. Under the Pax Mongolica, trade and travel along the Silk Road became safer than before, and ideas and goods moved between China, Persia and Europe. The empire split into successor states, including the Yuan dynasty in China and the Golden Horde in Russia, and Moscow, Beijing and Baghdad all carry its mark. As a military achievement, the Mongol conquests have few rivals before the age of gunpowder.

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