The Mongols
Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
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Rise of Mongol Power
About 1162, there was born to a noble clan of the Mongols a child named
Temuchin. He grew in prestige and power the way any charismatic individual did
in that society, by success in raiding and clan warfare. It was common for
charismatic leaders among Asiatic nomads to assemble short-lived confederations
as large in area as the United States, only to have them disintegrate when the ruler
died or lost his power. By 1206 Temuchin had done what no other tribal leader had
ever done before: assemble all the Mongol tribes under a single ruler. At a
ceremony in that year he was given the title Khan of Khans and the honorific name
by which he is better known to history - Genghis Khan. What separates Genghis
Khan (1162-1227) from all his predecessors is that Genghis extended his authority
over a vast region and created institutions to perpetuate Mongol power.
China has historically existed in one of three patterns: a unified whole when the central government was
powerful, at other times division into northern and southern kingdoms, and occasional periods of
disintegration and civil war, called Warring States periods. When Genghis Khan came to power, China was
divided into a northern Kin Dynasty and the southern Sung Dynasty. The Mongols invaded the Kin realm
and raided it and Korea from 1211 to 1214 before the Kin surrendered and agreed to pay tribute.
In 1218, the event took place that would change Genghis' realm from just another nomadic confederation to a
world empire. A caravan traveling from Mongol lands to the Persian Empire was stopped by the governor of
a Persian frontier province in modern Uzbekistan. Suspecting, probably correctly, that the caravan included
Mongol spies (the Mongols were voracious intelligence gatherers), he ordered the caravan massacred and its
goods seized. To the Mongols, ambassadors and caravans under safe-conduct were inviolate, and this
violation was unforgivable. Genghis sent ambassadors to the Shah of Persia demanding that the offending
governor be turned over. To the Shah, ruler of a populous empire of a million square miles, this request
seemed as preposterous as it would seem to us for the President of Haiti to demand that the President of the
United States turn over the governor of Florida. The Shah humiliated the Mongol emissaries and put them to
death, another unforgivable offense to the Mongols.
Genghis declared war, and although the Mongols took many rich cities with frightful bloodshed, they had
barely touched the frontiers of the vast Persian Empire. However, Genghis made good use of the Mongol
passion for accurate intelligence; he knew that the Shah's Empire was fragmented and filled with ethnic and
religious groups who were held in check only by force. If the demand to turn over the offending governor
was bold, what followed next was all but incredible: Genghis ordered two of his generals to hunt down the
Shah in his own empire. To use the modern analogy above, imagine that the President of Haiti, having been
refused, sends troops to fight their way across the United States to capture the President of the United States.
Imagine further that they actually do it. The Mongols obliterated resistance when they encountered it but
bypassed areas that offered none. The word soon got out that the Shah was the target, and that interfering
with the pursuit was certain death. The Shah was soon in full flight for his life and barely made the Caspian
Sea ahead of the Mongols. There, on an island, he died with only a few loyal followers, so poor they could
not even afford a burial shroud. Mopping up operations continued until 1223. Intrigued by stories of the
Caspian being landlocked, the Mongols sent a reconnaissance in force around the sea on a two-year journey
(1222-1224). The Mongols carved a bloody track across Armenia and Georgia, and for the first time Europe
learned of the Mongols.
The Mongol conquest of Persia had an interesting effect on Europe. There had long been a rumor of a great
Christian King of the East, Prester John. The attack on Persia was thought to be the start of Prester John's
campaign to help Europe destroy Islam. The rumors, interestingly enough, had a slender basis in fact. About
500 A.D. an aberrant Christian sect called Nestorianism was suppressed in the Byzantine Empire. (Orthodox
Christianity holds that Christ was simultaneously human and divine; Nestorians believed Christ had two
distinct personalities. If this seems subtle and irrelevant, welcome to the Middle Ages. It mattered to them.)
Many Nestorians took refuge in Persia and from there diffused far across Asia. Many of the Mongols were
technically Nestorian Christians, although their Christian beliefs were heavily mingled with other belief
systems, and many Mongols saw no contradiction in being both Nestorians and adherents of other religions.
The Mongols were sometimes called the Tatars, which is actually a corruption of the Chinese term for one of
the Mongol peoples. In Roman mythology, however, Tartarus was the Roman equivalent of Hell. Thus it's
not surprising that Europeans equated the two and soon began calling the Mongols Tartars, the people from
Tartarus. (The tartar on your teeth and the cream of tartar in your cupboard come from an Arabic word for a
type of resin and have no connection, in case you were
wondering.)
Why the Mongols Succeeded
Mongol battle tactics were an outgrowth of their natural
lifestyle. Between their nomadism and their traditional
clan warfare, they received constant practice in riding
and archery. Unlike the cumbersome European armies
of the time, the Mongols traveled very light and
demonstrated extraordinary endurance, living off the
land and often spending several days at a time in the
saddle.
Once they launched their conquests, they demonstrated
remarkable ability to coordinate armies separated by
great distances, using dispatch riders to communicate
across hundreds of miles of unfamiliar terrain. Their
mobility - up to 100 miles a day - was unheard of by armies of the time. The Mongol combination of
mobility and communication was probably not equaled again until World War II. Time and again we read of
the Mongols performing feats that would not be matched until the Twentieth Century; it's as if Erwin
Rommel and George Patton fell through a crack in space-time and came out in the Thirteenth Century.
Mongol tactics were innovative. A favorite ruse was to open a hole in their lines and allow panicked enemy
soldiers to flee. After wiping out the disciplined troops who remained, the Mongols hunted down the
stragglers. A similar ruse was to put up a stiff fight, then retreat and lead pursuers into an ambush. The
Mongols were extremely ruthless in battle but displayed extraordinary military discipline. When a Mongol
general violated orders and sacked a city promised to another chief, Genghis Khan ordered him to step down
and serve as a common soldier in his own army, which he did, falling soon afterward in battle. Almost alone
of the world's armies of the time, the Mongols could be ordered not to pillage a city and would obey; contrast
the Crusader sack of Jerusalem in 1099. Although originally nomads, the Mongols were very pragmatic
about adopting useful innovations and readily assimilated advanced siege technology. And they were superb
and voracious gatherers and users of military intelligence.
Mongol rule in conquered territories had two faces. Resistance and rebellion was countered by ruthless
annihilation, but Mongol rule was remarkably benevolent when the populace was cooperative. Conquered
areas were generally left under native governors (China was the exception; there the Mongols tended to use
outsiders whenever possible). Religious tolerance was important in consolidating rule and gaining the
support of minorities oppressed by Moslems. The administration was commonly more benign than preMongol government. In the conquest of Persia, these strategies amounted to "Resist, and you die; cooperate,
and you will be better off." This attitude wasn't entirely restricted to the Mongols; the prevailing rule of war
was that a besieged city could obtain surrender terms, but if the city resisted and forced the issue to the bitter
end, it would bear the consequences.
Mongol Values
Genghis Khan's value statement
Some of the Mongol tribes were literate, so we have written collections of the history and traditions of the
Mongols, as well as accounts by Persian and Chinese chroniclers. One of the most telling is Genghis Khan's
purported value statement. During a respite from his campaigns, he once asked some friends what the
greatest pleasure was. After they variously answered hunting, falconry, or archery, Genghis is reputed to
have said:
"The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their
horses and take away their possessions. To see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with
tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms"
Or to paraphrase it in the bluntest possible modern terms: "To kill people, take their property, see and enjoy
the pain you have caused their families, and rape their women as a final gesture of power."
These remarks have significance far beyond Mongol history. We often suppose war or crime could be
eliminated through social reform and forget (more often deny) that some people enjoy subjugating others,
despite massive evidence to the contrary. Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean", once fired an employee on
Christmas Eve. Did she forget it was Christmas? Not likely. She enjoyed causing the man and his family
extra pain by firing him on Christmas Eve. Saddam Hussein once forced an officer, under threat of death, to
divorce his wife so Saddam could marry her. Did he really want the woman? Only temporarily at most - his
real thrill was in humiliating the officer and his wife. The idea that people enjoy hurting others is horrifying,
even more so the idea that some people freely choose it without the usual modern rationalizations of abuse or
poverty.
Many people deal with these issues by simple denial, by believing that with enough equality, no violent
cartoons or spanking, and perhaps a vegan diet, we can eliminate cruelty from the world. Genghis' value
statement suggests, however, that there will always be those who enjoy hurting others; that we will always
need police and armies. And it does no good to say that normal, healthy people don't have such values.
Hitler, Stalin, and Idi Amin weren't normal or healthy; until we can guarantee that nobody has such values,
we will need to protect ourselves against such people.
Positive qualities of the Mongols
One of the fascinating paradoxes of the Mongols is that they combined appalling disregard for human life
with steadfast adherence to noble values. Even their harshest detractors commented on their physical
courage, endurance, discipline and obedience to their own laws. Women in Mongol society enjoyed a high
status and rights that were rare for that time and much later.
One of the most salient characteristics of the Mongols was a strict sense of honor and loyalty, and respect for
these qualities in others, even opponents. When Temuchin was still struggling for power, and at a low point
in his fortunes, he was wounded in a skirmish. While riding away, he and his band were overtaken by a lone
horseman, who rode up and announced that he had fired the arrow that had wounded Temuchin. Temuchin
could kill him if he chose, but if not, he would become Temuchin's loyal follower. Temuchin commented on
the man's courage and integrity, accepted the offer, and conferred on him the name Jebei, The Arrow. It was
a good choice. Jebei became one of Genghis Khan's greatest generals, led the invasion of Persia, and led the
great exploratory raid around the Caspian Sea.
In another example, Ye-Leiu Chu-Tsai was a court official in Peking and was captured when the Mongols
conquered the city in 1213. His family was part of the Liao Dynasty, which had only recently been
overthrown by the Kin Dynasty. Genghis Khan remarked that he should be glad the Mongols had avenged
his family, to which Ye-Leiu Chu-Tsai replied that he could not rejoice in the defeat of the Emperor he had
pledged to serve. Genghis Kahn, impressed by this loyalty to a defeated Emperor, made him an adviser. YeLeiu Chu-Tsai dissuaded Genghis Khan from invading India in 1218 (one can only imagine the carnage had
the Mongols invaded India). He also dissuaded Genghis' successor Mongke from a genocidal plan to
massacre much of the population of China. Author Michael Prawdin remarks "If we reckon the importance
of a statesman by the number of human lives he saves from destruction, Ye-Leiu Chu-Tsai was certainly one
of the greatest statesmen the world has ever known." He acquired enemies, but his association with Genghis
Khan made him untouchable, even after Genghis' death. Only after Ye-Leiu Chu-Tsai died about 1240 did
his enemies dare to act. He was accused of embezzlement. A search of his effects showed that in years in the
center of Mongol power, with daily access to the most powerful conquerers on the planet, he had amassed no
personal wealth.
Consider the moral dilemmas of a good man in the service of a brutal conqueror. Ye-Leiu Chu-Tsai must
certainly have seen and heard of many things that repelled him to the core. Outright opposition would be
suicide - worse yet, it would have been ineffective. On the other hand, preserving our own lives to be able to
help others can very easily degenerate into a rationalization for cowardice. Navigating between the two
extremes requires both physical courage to stand up in the face of overwhelming power, and moral courage
to face relentlessly our own tendency to rationalize and to question our own motives constantly.
The Mongols in Europe
Following the conquest of Persia, Genghis turned his attention to some not-yet-conquered lands closer to
home, and to the final subjugation of Kin China. When Genghis died in 1227 his son Ogadai was chosen
Khan. The Mongols invaded Russia in 1236, eventually conquering all but the northern forest fringes. In the
process, a tribe called the Kumans fled west into Hungary. The Hungarians allowed them to stay if they
accepted baptism, a requirement the desperate Kumans willingly accepted. The Mongols considered all
nomadic peoples their rightful subjects and demanded that King Bela return the Kumans to Mongol control.
When he refused, the Mongols attacked in 1241.
Bela prepared as well as any European ruler could, but he was no match for the Mongols. He blocked the
mountain passes in the Carpathians with his best troops and hurried back to Buda (In those days Budapest
was two cities, Buda west of the Danube and Pest to the east) to convene parliament. He was hardly there
when a messenger arrived with the news that the mountain passes had been overrun; three days later Mongol
raiders were outside Buda, having covered 300 miles through hostile territory in three days. In a few months
the Mongols had smashed all military opposition in Poland and the Balkans and were regrouping to push
west. Given this pace and their performance in Persia, they could probably have overrun Europe in a year.
But just as they were regrouping, a messenger came with the news of the death of the Khan. Genghis Khan
had made a law, to ensure the permanence of his dynasty, that all his descendants, wherever they may be,
must return to Karakoram to elect a new Khan. The Mongols broke off the invasion, never to return. This is
surely one of the most important but least-known turning points in history.
In What If?, a collection of essays on alternative military history, Cecilia Holland pictures the likely result of
a Mongol thrust into Western Europe. She pictures a massive raid rather than a complete occupation;
nevertheless, the picture she paints is chilling. Driving across the North German plain, the same route Cold
War planners pictured for a Soviet invasion, the Mongols would have made use of expert reconnaissance to
target plunder and grazing land. They would have sacked Belgium and Holland, destroying the embryonic
financial centers of Europe. They would have turned south into France, destroying Paris and with it the
revival of ancient philosophy that it would have hosted a few decades later. Perhaps they would have crossed
the Alps and ravaged Italy, destroying the other birthplaces of the Renaissance. In his foreword to the piece,
editor Robert Cowley says "The Dark Ages were pure light compared to what could have happened..."
Mongols in the Middle East
By about 1250 the Mongol empire had split into three semi-independent realms: China and Mongolia, Persia
and Russia (the Khanate of the Golden Horde). Although in theory they were subject to the Khan in
Mongolia, in practice they were fully independent. In 1255 the Mongol rulers of Persia went to war against
the Caliph, invading Syria and Palestine. In 1258 they captured Baghdad, destroyed the city and killed the
Caliph.
Iraq in 1258 was very different from present day Iraq. Its agriculture was supported by a canal network
thousands of years old. Baghdad was one of the most brilliant intellectual centers in the world. The Mongol
destruction of Baghdad was a psychological blow from which Islam never recovered. Already Islam was
turning inward, becoming more suspicious of conflicts between faith and reason and more conservative.
With the sack of Baghdad, the intellectual flowering of Islam was snuffed out. Imagining the Athens of
Pericles and Aristotle obliterated by a nuclear weapon begins to suggest the enormity of the blow. The
Mongols filled in the irrigation canals and left Iraq too depopulated to restore them.
The westward advance of the Mongols was halted at one of the decisive battlefields of history, Ayn Jalut,
near Nazareth in Israel, in 1260. Here Turkish and Egyptian forces routed the Mongols, preventing an attack
on Egypt and North Africa. Significantly, the Golden Horde Mongols of Russia, allied with the Turks,
supported the Egyptians as well. For the first time since Genghis Khan, one Mongol group opposed another
in war.
Final Mongol Expansion
Between 1267 and 1279 the Mongols completed the final conquest of China. The amazing element of the
conquest is that the Mongols first invaded Yunnan and Sichuan in southwestern China, outflanking China to
the west. In 1279 and again in 1281 they made attempts to invade Japan. Both times they found themselves
up against a foe as determined as they were. Both times the Mongols were unable to expand their beachhead
and the Japanese were unable to drive them out. And both times the issue was decided when a typhoon
wrecked the Mongol fleets. These miraculous events gave rise to the notion of "Kamikaze" or "divine wind",
the term applied 650 years later to the suicide bombers who attempted to stem the U.S. advance across the
Pacific in World War II. The Mongols made a number of forays against Southeast Asia and Indonesia, but,
thwarted by unsuitable terrain, distance, and waning energy, these expeditions were unsuccessful. Many of
them were punitive expeditions or intended to suppress piracy rather than serious invasion attempts.
Pax Tartarica
Intelligence Gatherers
In the aftermath of the Mongol blitzkrieg through the Balkans, the first priority of Eastern Europe was to find
out who these people were, where they came from, and what they were going to do next. The Pope selected
two envoys. One was John of Plano Carpini, selected because he was familiar with the trade routes to Russia.
At sixty years old, fat, and in poor health, he seems an unlikely candidate for one of the most heroic
diplomatic missions ever carried out. In 1245, he traveled to Kiev, thence to the Mongol camp on the Volga.
Upon leaving Kiev, he wrote that he literally did not know if he was going to life or death. When the
Mongols discovered he was an emissary, they dispatched him to Mongolia on a journey taking five months,
often spending days at a time in the saddle. He traveled 5000 miles through territory totally unknown to
Europeans. He earned the respect of the Mongols and completed his mission successfully. His report was
accurate and detailed, and correctly diagnosed the Mongol military threat. After 700 years, it is still one of
our most valuable historical insights into this era. One could hardly ask more of an agent.
Carpini stands in stark contrast to another papal envoy, Ezzelino, whose arrogance made his mission a
complete failure. Ezzelino was dispatched to the Middle East, where it would seem the well-established trade
routes would make his mission easier. But Ezzelino's plan was simply to find the first Mongol official he
could, deliver a message from the Pope, and get back to Rome. When asked what tribute he was bringing,
Ezzelino haughtily replied that the Pope did not give tribute, he received. This was a complete joke to the
Mongols, who had superbly accurate intelligence about Europe and who knew perfectly well that the Pope's
domains were insignificant compared to the vastnesses the Mongols ruled. They seriously considered killing
the entire party on the grounds that they were too preposterous to be real emissaries, but finally yielded to
Mongol discipline and sent them onward. So Ezzelino, to his horror, found himself being packed off to
Mongolia, from whence he finally returned having impressed nobody, accomplished nothing, and learned
nothing.
Marco Polo
On the heels of these first emissaries came other missionaries like William of Rubruck (1253-55), and traders
like brothers Maffeo and Niccolo Polo (1266). On their return to Venice, they invited eighteen-year old
Marco to join them. Marco was bright and on the two-year journey learned the four official languages of the
Mongol realm. In keeping with the Mongol tactic of using outsiders for sensitive duties in China, Marco and
his father and uncle traveled all over China on missions for the Khan. In the process they acquired enemies,
and, sensing that the Khan was soon to die, began looking for a means of leaving. It finally came when they
were dispatched to escort a Chinese princess to marry an Indian prince. Upon arriving in India, they learned
that the Khan had died.
The Polos arrived back in Venice in 1291. According to legend, they were initially denied entrance to their
own home, since nobody recognized them. In an incident that, if it's not true, ought to be, the Polos were said
to have celebrated their return with a gala banquet. At each course they took off progressively more costly
clothes and gave them to the servants. At the final course they reappeared in the tattered rags they wore on
their return to Venice, slit the linings, and a flood of gems poured out.
There matters might have ended, if Venice had not gone to war with Genoa. Marco was captured in 1298,
and, while waiting to be ransomed, passed the time by telling traveler's tales to his fellow POW's. One of
them, a bookseller named Rusticiano of Pisa, recognized a best-seller when he heard it and wrote the stories
down, publishing them as Livre des Diversites et Marveilles du Monde (Book of Diversities and Marvels of
the World). Rusticiano, of course, had to have scribes write the book by hand - this is before printing.
The book was an instant sensation, too fabulous to believe and too beguiling not to. On his deathbed in 1323,
Marco was urged to recant his tales for the good of his soul and retorted that he had not told half of what he
actually saw. And if he described fantastic things like the roc, that could carry off an elephant in its talons, he
described many things we now know are accurate. One of the things that was widely cited as a disproof of
his tales was his story of seeing the Sun on his right as he sailed from China to India, yet that's exactly what
he would see in the tropics in Northern Hemisphere summer. (Marco is probably the first recorded European
to cross the Equator.) He describes stones used for fuel (coal) and cloth that will not burn (asbestos). He
describes tribes in the far north that see months of darkness in the winter - an accurate account of life above
the Arctic Circle.
From Europe to China
Interestingly enough, it wasn't the fables that aroused suspicions of lying, but the ordinary things. Europeans
could believe in rocs and tribes of one-eyed men; they couldn't believe in the endless list of country after
country, full of ordinary people, with China at the far end, bigger than Europe, with larger and cleaner cities,
ships larger than anything in Europe, and money made of paper.
But the stakes were too high to ignore the possibility that Marco's tales might be true, and people went to see.
The Mongol pacification and unification of a vast area had made it possible for the first time to travel safely
from Europe to China. By 1340 trade between Europe and China was so continuous that Francesco Pegolotti
wrote La Practica della Mercatura (The Practice of Trade), one of the first travel guidebooks. Pegolotti
describes what to buy and sell on each leg of the journey, where to find guides, translators and housekeepers,
and hammers away on the still-incredible fact that travelers can get a piece of paper for their goods in Persia
and redeem it for something valuable in China. In the early 1300's there were two dozen recorded diplomatic
missions between Europe and China in both directions, and Roman Catholic archbishops presiding over
congregations on the East China Sea. Mongol ambassadors came to Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Valencia, and
London.
This incredible window of trans-Eurasian contact lasted only a few decades but its impact was profound.
Gunpowder, the compass, a siege machine called the trebuchet, possibly the concept of the clock
escapement, and the concept of printing came to Europe. Even more important, perhaps, was the broadening
of European horizons. Even the earliest visitors to Mongolia found Europeans already there, caught up and
swept along in the tides of war. Nobody ever wrote their amazing stories down, but below the level of the
Marco Polos were huge numbers of Europeans for whom China was no longer a myth but a place.
Aftermath of the Mongol Invasions
Kublai Khan was the last great Mongol Khan. After him came a succession
of weak and increasingly assimilated rulers. Peasant revolts broke out and
eventually became widespread enough to topple the government. The
Mongols reverted to their traditional role on the periphery of China with
one exception: now the Chinese army knew how to fight Mongol style. This
time the Chinese pursued them into Mongolia and destroyed the Mongol
capital at Karakoram. Also the Chinese introduced Tibetan Lamaism, with
its emphasis on celibacy and pacifism, as a means of subduing the
Mongols. Never again would the Mongols threaten China. The Mongol, or
Yuan Dynasty was over; the Ming Dynasty had begun. The Ming Dynasty
was a golden age of Chinese culture but also an isolationist period. The
Chinese expelled foreigners and the land route to China closed in 1368.
Successor kingdoms of the Mongols played a role in Asian history for centuries after. If China was no longer
Mongol, Central Asia, Russia and Persia still were. Timur the Lame, or Tamerlane (1336-1405) briefly
created a huge Mongol empire from the Middle East to India. In 1526, the Mongol Babar founded an empire,
the Mogul (Mongol) Empire, that covered much of present Afghanistan and Pakistan. His successor Akbar
(ruled 1556-1605) conquered India. Mogul rule in India lasted until 1857. The term "mogul" has come to
mean any extremely powerful person.
The Mongol subjugation of Russia was brutal and humiliating and contributed greatly to that sense of
tragedy that so deeply imbues Russian culture and art. Finally, though, the Russian czars, by marriage and
conquest, eventually assumed some of the Mongol titles. The amazingly rapid and uneventful Russian
expansion to the Pacific in the 1600's may have been facilitated by the Russian czars being seen as the
legitimate successors of the khans. In Mongol society, subordination to a powerful chief was not seen as
subjection but as sharing in his power. The last surviving remnant of the once vast Khanate of the Golden
Horde lingered in the Crimea until 1783, when it was absorbed by Russia. However, the Crimean Tartars
remained a distinct ethnic group until many of them were deported to Siberia by Stalin during the 1930's and
1940's.
References
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Chambers, James. 1985; The Devil's horsemen : the Mongol invasion of Europe New York :
Atheneum, 190 p.
Prawdin, Michael, 1967, The Mongol Empire, MacMillan, Free Press, 582 p.
Edwards, Mike, 1996; Genghis Khan, National Geographic, v. 190, no. 6, December 1996, p. 2-37.
Edwards, Mike, 1997; The Great Khans, National Geographic, v. 191, no. 2, February 1997, p. 2-35.
This and the above are generally good articles marred by a couple of inclusions of revisionist junk
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scholarship. For example, Genghis didn't massacre cities because a modern historian "doesn't think
he'd waste the time", etc.
Cowley, Robert, ed., 1999, What If?, Putnam, 395 p. Cecelia Holland's essay, The Death That Saved
Europe, is on pages 93-106. An otherwise excellent essay is marred by two inexplicable errors. She
says that after the Caliph was killed by the Mongols in 1258, the caliphate was never restored (not
true - it endured until 1920), and places the battle of Ayn Jalut in 1284, 25 years late.
Rachewiltz, Igor de. 1971. Papal envoys to the great khans, Stanford, Calif., Stanford University
Press, 230 p.
Howorth, Henry Hoyle, Sir, 1876. History of the Mongols, from the 9th to the 19th century. 4 vols.
London, Longmans, Green, and Co.
Rubruquis, William de, The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 125355, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian de Carpine.
Nendeln, Liechtenstein, Kraus Reprint, 1967. 304 p.
Created 27 August 1998, Last Update 25 September 1998
Tolerance
One of Chinggis Khan's greatest legacies was the principle of religious tolerance. In general, Chinggis
provided tax relief to Buddhist monasteries and to a variety of other religious institutions. And though
Chinggis himself never converted to any of the religions of the sedentary peoples he conquered (he remained
loyal to Mongolian shamanism), he was quite interested in Daoism, particularly because of the Daoists'
pledge that they could prolong life. In fact, on his expedition to Central Asia Chinggis was accompanied by
Changchun, a Daoist sage from China, who kept an account of his travels with his Mongol patron.
Changchun's first-hand account has become one of the major primary sources on Chinggis Khan and the
Mongols. [Also see The Mongols in China: Religious Life under Mongol Rule, to compare Chinggis's legacy
to Khubilai Khan's policy of religious tolerance.]
Written Language
The creation of the first Mongol written language was another legacy of Chinggis Khan. In 1204, even
before he gained the title of "Chinggis Khan," Chinggis assigned one of his Uyghur retainers to develop a
written language for the Mongols based upon the Uyghur script. [Also see The Mongols in China: Cultural
Life under Mongol Rule, to compare Chinggis's legacy to Khubilai Khan's commissioning of a Mongol
script.]
Trade and Crafts
A third legacy was Chinggis's support for both trade and crafts, which meant support for the merchants and
artisans in the business of trade and craft. Chinggis recognized early on the importance of trade and crafts for
the economic survival of the Mongols and actively supported both. [Also see The Mongols in China: Life for
Artisans under Mongol Rule and Life for Merchants under Mongol Rule, to compare Chinggis's legacy to
Khubilai Khan's support artisans and merchants.]
Legal Code
Chinggis also left behind a legal code, the so-called Jasagh, which consisted of a series of general moral
injunctions and laws. The Jasagh also prescribed punishments for transgressions of laws relating particularly
to pastoral-nomadic society.
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