Keynotes 13

The Mongol Empire - Largest Empire of the World

As a nomadic people the Mongol tribes migrated with their herds between summer and winter pastures. They lived (and until today live to a certain extent) of their animals and of products made from using their milk, meat, wool, and skin. In addition they used to hunt. Hunting at the same time represented an opportunity to train military skills.

Tribes were headed by chieftains who trained the tribe members. An aristocracy presided over the chieftains who were chosen due to their military abilities and personal loyalty to the aristocrats.

There was abundant warfare between different tribes. Stealing animals from other herds and abduction of women were common offences that often led to tribal feuds.

The religion of the Mongols before many of their ruling elite converted to Tibetan Buddhism was a shamanistic belief in deities of nature and in the sky god who held the highest position in the pantheon.

When Chengis Khan (?1167-1227) unified the tribes he replaced the principle of loyalty between the aristocrats and the chieftains with a strict command categorizing the male population (aged 14 and up) into divisions of military units of fixed numbers of tens, hundreds, and thousands. Only shamans and doctors escaped compulsory military service. The extremely mobile and highly disciplined army was manipulated with the help of an elaborate system of signals and signs.
Each individual soldier was responsible for the equipment he needed for his protection and attack in battle, for long distance rides and camping in the wilderness.

The Mongol invasion followed a simple terrifying rule when dealing with the local population: If they surrendered, their lives would be spared, when they showed resistance, they would be killed. The invasions aimed at collecting the riches of the foreign territories and never leaving an enemy in the back of the Mongolian army who might regain strength and build up resistance. The cruelty of this logic of warfare has been incised in the minds of all the people who were conquered by the Mongols ever since. It has been transmitted in historiographical sources as well as in countless legends and stories of the conquered people. Except for specialists of handicrafts (who were sent to the Mongolian Capital of Karakorum in order to work for the Great Khans) the Mongols did not make prisoners of war.

Mongol law included the demand of religious tolerance. Tibetan Buddhism was the principle religion, but there were also Nestorian Christians among the Mongols. Tolerance extended to the Muslim creed of Central Asian peoples as well as Hinduism, the faith of many Indian merchants trading with China during the Yuan Dynasty.

Other laws concerned tax regulations as well as regulations for military service and postal couriers. Theft of a horse was punished by execution of the thief.

Khubilai Khan (1215-1294), a grandson of Chengis and the most important Mongol ruler of China, was educated by his mother. He was trained in the military skills such as riding and hunting, but he was also taught (by an Uighur teacher) to read and write. He married four wives who each headed their own household to which also belonged several concubines. Khubilai was elected Great Khan in 1260, moved his capital from Karakorum to Beijing in 1264 and founded the Yuan Dynasty in 1271. But it should take eight more years until the Song fell in 1279 and all of China for the first time in history was ruled by a non-Chinese people.

Karakorum: Mongol capital

Dadu (= Beijing): capital of the Yuan

[Qin Shi huangdi ling = Mausoleum of the First Emperor of the Qin]

The Yuan [= Origin (in a cosmic sense)] Dynasty (1279-1368)

After several years of steady exploitation of the Chinese population Khubilai Khan had eventually to ensure that the Chinese people were no longer abused by his own officials, especially when abusing arable land as pasture for the horses. He realized that only if he gained a certain level of loyalty from the Han majority he could succeed in making the state governable. At the same time he had to secure the power of the Mongol minority (ca. 400.000 Mongols lived on Chinese territory at the time) over the majority of the Han population. Therefore he divided the population into 4 groups:

1. Mongols
2. Central Asians (Uighurs, Tanguts, other non-Chinese people)
3. Northern Chinese and Manchus
4. Southern Chinese

High ranking military and civil official positions were reserved for Mongol officials, the medium range of the bureaucracy was also staffed with members of group 2. Uighur merchants and merchants from Turk or Persian descent dominated the trade along the silk road. Only as landowners could the Chinese escape humiliation to a certain extent.

Chinese officials were insecure about the role they should play in the administration of this new state: Should they serve in the government in order to make the fate of occupation bearable for the Han majority or should they refuse to serve and stay loyal to the Song imperial clan in order not to be accused of collaboration?

In addition to painting those officials who opted for more or less silent opposition to Mongol rule had another possibility of showing dissent: Writing manuals and encyclopedias as well as novels and especially writing theater plays in the vernacular language. Literature was not censored, because the majority of Mongols could neither read nor write Chinese.

As the site for his capital Khubilai chose Beijing. 30.000 men were involved in building the city according to plans of local architects as well as architects from Central Asia and Nepal. First a sufficient fresh water supply was installed. Then the layout of streets was planned in accordance with an ancient Chinese classical text of ritual. The second stage was the design of a sewage system. After these infrastructure measures had been completed the building activities for the palace city and the city wall began on the territory adjacent to the former capital of the Jin state.

In addition to establishing the capital Beijing the postal system was expanded to a total of 1.400 postal stations, with 50.000 horses, 6.700 mules, and 6.000 boats. The postal riders were equipped with “passports” for identification. Traders like the Polo's were also given such passports which proved that they were legitimately travelling under the protection of the Khan.

Mongol travel passport. Metropolitan Museum. (h.: 18,1 cm; iron with silver inlay)

Cultural assimilation by the Mongols was fostered by Khubilai Khan, though not willingly followed by the Mongol population that especially despised Confucianism. Trade was encouraged and peasants were organized in groups of 50 families who were supposed to support each other in working the land, planting trees and building irrigation channels. Paper money was given out by the state. The indicated value was backed by money reserves in silver. Mining was a state monopoly in order to prevent abuse.

Yuan silver ingot

In the many military campaigns Khubilai led to the neighbors of China, Japan was the only one who successfully showed resistance to the Mongol invasion and whose territory was never conquered (1281). Annam, Champa, Cambodia, and Burma were attacked but the Mongol campaigns did not lead to more than to the acknowledgement of a loose vassal relationship with the Mongols.

Corruption and heavy taxation finally undermined the rule of the Yuan. In addition the Yellow River changed its course and had to be re-routed to the sea south of the peninsula of Shandong. Natural disasters which had always been interpreted as bad omina and signs of a change in rule inspired the suffering population to start rebellions. When the violent uprisings could not be quelled any longer, the last Mongol emperor had to flee into the steppe.