An outline, era by era

Mongol Empire (Genghis Khan, from 1206)

Medieval / Post-Classical Era · ~500 – ~1500 CE

The Mongol Empire grew out of the steppe lands of Mongolia in the early thirteenth century. In 1206 a council of Mongol and Turkic clan leaders, called a quriltai, proclaimed Temüjin as Genghis Khan, meaning roughly 'universal' or 'oceanic' ruler. Under him and his successors, Mongol armies conquered territory from northern China and Korea to Persia, Russia and the Near East. By the late thirteenth century it was the largest contiguous land empire in history.

The empire was held together by a disciplined cavalry army, a written law code and a relay-station postal system. It also opened the overland routes across Eurasia to merchants, envoys and missionaries, an exchange often called the Pax Mongolica. The empire was soon divided among Genghis Khan's descendants into separate khanates, including the Yuan dynasty in China, the Golden Horde and the Ilkhanate. Its conquests caused great destruction and loss of life, and its rule reshaped the politics of Asia and eastern Europe.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Temüjin unites the steppe tribes

    Event

    What happened

    In the later twelfth century the Mongolian steppe is divided among rival confederations, including the Tatars, Kereyid, Naiman and Merkit. Temüjin, born into a minor Borjigin clan, rises through alliances and wars, defeating the Tatars, the Kereyid and in 1204 the Naiman. By 1206 he has become master of the steppe.

    The rest is history

    At a quriltai on the Onon River in 1206 he was proclaimed Genghis Khan. He reorganised the people into military units based on tens, hundreds and thousands, rather than on old tribal ties, and rewarded loyal followers over noble birth. This gave him a unified army and state, and it was the base for every later conquest. The main source for these events is The Secret History of the Mongols, written soon after his death.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThe Secret History of the Mongols. Mongolian chronicle, c. 1228 CE, probably compiled soon after Genghis Khan's death.
    2. BookMay, Timothy. The Mongol Conquests in World History. London: Reaktion Books, 2012.
    3. BookWeatherford, Jack. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. New York: Crown, 2004.

  2. The war against the Jin and Western Xia

    Event

    What happened

    Between 1209 and 1211 Genghis Khan forces the Tangut state of Western Xia to submit, then invades the Jin dynasty of northern China. In 1215 Mongol forces take the Jin capital Zhongdu, near present-day Beijing. The war with the Jin continues for years and ends only in 1234, after Genghis Khan's death.

    The rest is history

    These campaigns taught the Mongols siege warfare, and they recruited Chinese and other engineers to run it. They also gave the Mongols their first large settled populations to rule, and officials such as the Khitan adviser Yelü Chucai helped set up taxation. The conquest of north China later became the basis for Khubilai Khan's Yuan dynasty. Western Xia was finally destroyed in 1227.

    Sources

    1. BookAllsen, Thomas T. The Cambridge History of China, Volume 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 710-1368. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
    2. BookBiran, Michal. Chinggis Khan. Oxford: Oneworld, 2007.

  3. The destruction of the Khwarazmian Empire

    Event

    What happened

    In 1218 a Mongol trade caravan is seized at Otrar, on the border of the Khwarazmian Empire, and its governor executes the merchants. Shah Muhammad II also kills a Mongol envoy. In 1219 Genghis Khan invades with a large army, and by 1221 the great cities of Bukhara, Samarkand, Merv, Nishapur and Urgench have fallen.

    The rest is history

    The Khwarazmian state collapsed, and the campaign caused huge loss of life and damage, though the scale of the numbers in the chronicles is debated by historians. The Mongols now ruled Central Asia and had a base from which to push into Persia. Genghis Khan returned to Mongolia in 1225, and died in 1227 during the campaign against Western Xia.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryJuvaini, Ata-Malik. Tarikh-i Jahangushay (History of the World Conqueror). Persian chronicle, c. 1260 CE. Translated by J. A. Boyle, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958.
    2. BookBiran, Michal. Chinggis Khan. Oxford: Oneworld, 2007.

  4. Ögedei and the Mongol capital Karakorum

    Event

    What happened

    After Genghis Khan dies in 1227, a quriltai in 1229 elects his son Ögedei as Great Khan. Ögedei completes the conquest of the Jin in 1234 and has a capital built at Karakorum in central Mongolia. He also sets up the yam, a network of relay stations for messengers and officials.

    The rest is history

    Under Ögedei the empire turned from a war band into an administration with a capital, taxes and a courier system. His armies also began new campaigns in Korea, Persia and Russia. Karakorum remained the empire's centre until Khubilai Khan moved his court to Khanbaliq (Beijing). Ögedei died in 1241.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryRashid al-Din. Jami al-Tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles). Persian history, c. 1300-1311 CE. Translated by W. M. Thackston, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1998-1999.
    2. BookAllsen, Thomas T. Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Grand Qan Möngke in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands, 1251-1259. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

  5. The invasion of Rus and Europe

    Event

    What happened

    From 1236 a Mongol army under Batu and Subutai invades the Volga region and Russia. Ryazan, Vladimir and Kiev fall between 1237 and 1240. In 1241 Mongol forces defeat Polish and German forces at Legnica and the Hungarians at the Sajó River.

    The rest is history

    Most of the Rus principalities became tributaries of the Mongol khanate later known as the Golden Horde, which ruled over them for about two centuries. The advance into central Europe stopped in 1242, probably because news of Ögedei's death reached Batu, though historians debate other causes such as supply limits. Hungary was devastated but survived. The Golden Horde's rule shaped the later rise of Moscow.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThe Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471. Russian chronicle, translated by Robert Michell and Nevill Forbes, London: Camden Society, 1914.
    2. BookHalperin, Charles J. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.

  6. Hülegü and the fall of Baghdad

    Event

    What happened

    Great Khan Möngke sends his brother Hülegü west in 1253 with a large army. Hülegü destroys the Nizari Ismaili strongholds in Persia in 1256. In February 1258 his forces take Baghdad and execute the Abbasid caliph al-Musta'sim.

    The rest is history

    The fall of Baghdad ended the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq, a major shock to the Islamic world. Hülegü founded the Ilkhanate in Persia. In 1260 a Mamluk army defeated a Mongol force at Ain Jalut in Palestine, and the Mamluks held Egypt and Syria afterwards. The Ilkhans later converted to Islam under Ghazan in 1295.

    Sources

    1. BookAmitai-Preiss, Reuven. Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260-1281. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
    2. PrimaryRashid al-Din. Jami al-Tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles). Persian history, c. 1300-1311 CE.

  7. Khubilai Khan and the division of the empire

    Event

    What happened

    After Möngke dies in 1259, his brothers Khubilai and Ariq Böke both claim the title of Great Khan, and a civil war follows. Khubilai wins by 1264. In 1271 he adopts the Chinese dynastic name Yuan, and in 1279 his forces finish the conquest of the Song.

    The rest is history

    The empire no longer acted as one state. Khubilai ruled China and was nominally Great Khan, but the Golden Horde, the Ilkhanate and the Chagatai Khanate were in practice independent. The Yuan dynasty lasted until 1368. This is why the empire is often described as a family of related khanates rather than one government after about 1260.

    Sources

    1. BookRossabi, Morris. Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
    2. BookJackson, Peter. The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017.

  8. The Pax Mongolica and the Black Death route

    Event

    What happened

    In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries Eurasian trade routes are relatively safe under Mongol rule. Travellers such as Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, William of Rubruck and Marco Polo reach the Mongol courts. In 1347 plague reaches Caffa, a Genoese trading port in Crimea, and then spreads by ship to the Mediterranean.

    The rest is history

    Mongol rule helped connect east and west for merchants, envoys and ideas, though how safe the routes really were is debated. Many historians think the plague travelled along trade routes in the same Eurasian network, but the exact origin and path of the Black Death are still studied. Pandemic plague reached Europe in 1347-1348 and killed a very large share of its population.

    Sources

    1. BookDawson, Christopher, ed. Mission to Asia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980.
    2. BookMorgan, David. The Mongols. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.

  9. Genghis Khan's birth with a blood clot

    Origin story

    The legend

    Temüjin is born holding a clot of blood the size of a knucklebone in his fist, a sign that he is destined to rule. His father Yesügei has just captured a Tatar chief named Temüjin-üge, and names his son after him.

    The rest is history

    The story comes from The Secret History of the Mongols, written some decades after his birth. His birth date is uncertain, with 1162 and 1167 both proposed. The tale resembles a common motif of marked heroes, and it served to legitimise his rule. The Secret History survives mainly in a Chinese transcription of the Mongolian original.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThe Secret History of the Mongols. Mongolian chronicle, c. 1228 CE. Translated by Igor de Rachewiltz, Leiden: Brill, 2004.
    2. BookRatchnevsky, Paul. Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.

  10. The arrow bundle and the five arrows

    Folk tale

    The legend

    Alan Qo'a, a legendary ancestress of the Mongols, shows her five sons that a single arrow can be snapped but a bundle of five cannot. The lesson is that brothers who stay united cannot be broken.

    The rest is history

    The story is told in The Secret History of the Mongols and has close parallels in tales told elsewhere in Eurasia, including among Scythian and Turkic peoples. It reflects the importance of kinship unity on the steppe. Alan Qo'a is also said in the same text to have conceived by a golden light, which the Mongols used to give their ruling clan a sacred origin.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThe Secret History of the Mongols. Mongolian chronicle, c. 1228 CE. Translated by Igor de Rachewiltz, Leiden: Brill, 2004.
    2. BookAtwood, Christopher P. Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. New York: Facts on File, 2004.

  11. Genghis Khan's tomb and the lost grave

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Genghis Khan is said to have been buried in a secret grave, and the escort that carried his body supposedly killed everyone they met, after which the soldiers themselves were killed. Rivers were said to have been diverted over the site, and its treasure remains hidden.

    The rest is history

    Contemporary sources agree that he died in 1227 and was buried in Mongolia, but they give no clear location. The killing of witnesses is reported in later accounts, including Marco Polo's, and cannot be verified. The tomb has never been found, despite searches such as the Valley of the Khans survey in 2001-2004 that used satellite imagery and remote sensing. Mongol custom favoured unmarked burials, and the region was kept off limits to outsiders.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThe Secret History of the Mongols. Mongolian chronicle, c. 1228 CE. Translated by Igor de Rachewiltz, Leiden: Brill, 2004.
    2. BookMan, John. Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection. London: Bantam Press, 2004.

  12. The Mongols and the kamikaze winds

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Khubilai Khan's great invasion fleets sail against Japan in 1274 and 1281. Both times a divine wind, the kamikaze, is said to have destroyed the ships and saved Japan.

    The rest is history

    The invasions were real, with fleets from Korea and southern China, and the 1281 force was very large. Typhoons did damage the fleets, especially in 1281, but historians point to other factors, including Japanese defences such as the wall at Hakata Bay and the poor coordination of the two invasion forces. The label kamikaze became widespread later, especially in the twentieth century. Archaeologists have found wrecks off Takashima, in Nagasaki prefecture.

    Sources

    1. BookTurnbull, Stephen. The Mongol Invasions of Japan 1274 and 1281. Oxford: Osprey, 2010.
    2. BookConlan, Thomas D. In Little Need of Divine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga's Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan. Ithaca: Cornell East Asia Program, 2001.

← Back to the outline