(2) MONGOL EMPIRE (1206 – 1502)

 

“With Heaven’s aid I have conquered for you a huge empire. But my life was too short to achieve the conquest of the world”

Only just though – as the Mongols were a horse blitzkrieg across Eurasia, conquering the second largest empire in history (second only to the British Empire) and the largest contiguous land empire.

The founder of the Mongol Empire – Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan – was the best military and political leader of his era, or arguably any era. He succeeded in unifying the Mongol tribes as the nucleus of his empire, which at his death stretched from northern China through Central Asia to Iran and the outskirts of European Russia. In doing so, the Mongols conquered glittering states along the Silk Road in central Asia that barely anyone remembers because the Mongols wiped them out so thoroughly – the Khwaraziman Empire of Iran and the Qara Khitai.

His successors extended the Mongol Empire to almost every corner of Eurasia – “the 13th-century section in the history books of all countries in the region can be summed up as Mongols paid a visit and wiped us out”.

In the Middle East, they besieged and sacked Baghdad, the center of Islamic power for half a millennium, occupying as far as parts of Syria and Turkey, with raids advancing as far as Gaza in Palestine, where they were stopped in the battle of Ain Jalut by the Mamluks of Egypt.

In East Asia, Genghis had largely defeated the Jin Empire in northern China – his successors finished it off and conquered the southern Sung Empire as well. The latter was most famously by Kublai Khan – and in Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree. They also invaded Korea, Burma and Vietnam – the last did not go so well, as neither did their naval invasions of Java and Japan.

And of course they also conquered Russia and invaded central Europe, defeating Poland and Hungary, and raiding the Balkans and Holy Roman Empire.

The Mongol Empire was too big to last as a unified polity, fragmenting much like the Macedonian Empire – although unlike the latter, it endured for about half a century in real terms (or a century in nominal terms) after the death of its founder before it was divided up into four khanates among his dynastic successors.

 

 

DECLINE & FALL

The empire of Genghis and his successors somewhat resembles that of Alexander and his successors, albeit more enduring and formidable as a single empire, outlasting the death of Genghis until his grandsons fell out among themselves.

Initially, it was divided up into four khanates, three of which were formidable imperial states of themselves – the Golden Horde essentially ruling over Russia, the Ilkhanate essentially ruling over Persia, and the Yuan Dynasty essentially ruling over China and Mongolia itself. The Chagatai Khanate was still pretty formidable, ruling over central Asia, but just seems the runt of the litter in comparison.

From there, it’s an increasingly bewildering array of various successors to rival those of the Macedonian Empire, with all but the Yuan Dynasty quietly merging with local Islamic or Turkic dynasties.

The Ilkhanate endured least well, disintegrating with the reign and death of its last khan from 1316.

The Yuan Dynasty probably fared next best – its glittering height under Kublai Khan ended with his death in 1294, but it endured under his successors until it was defeated and ejected from China by the Ming in 1368, although they then ruled over their Mongolian homeland for almost three centuries as the Northern Yuan Dynasty.

The Chagatai Khanate proved to be quiet achievers, or at least those that claimed to be its successors did – Timur, founder of the Timurid Empire, saw himself as the restorer of Genghis’ empire and took a damn good swing at it, with one of his successors founding the Mughal Empire in India. The Chagatai Khanate itself continued as the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, before breaking up further and being conquered in turn, with the last khan deposed in 1705.

The Golden Horde was the most enduring, albeit in states ever more distant from Genghis’ empire or dynasty, remaining a powerful state until about 1396 – when invasion and defeat by the Timurid Empire saw it demoted from Golden to merely Great, before falling in 1502 and being succeeded by various Turkic khanates. The two most notable states, the Crimean Tatars and Kazakh Khanate, survived until 1783 and 1847 respectively, when they were conquered by Russia, although I’m going with the fall of the Golden or Great Horde as the end date of empire.

 

THE MONGOL EMPIRE NEVER FELL

On the other hand, the Mongol Empire never fell! Mongol states – not least Mongolia – survive to the present day. Unleash the Horde!

Genghis himself survives in the disproportionate population of the world that can be traced to him. And then there are those that claimed to be his spiritual successors – with the last aspiring Khan as the eccentric Baron Ungern-Sternberg, who deserves a top 10 list of his own for his wildly insane ambitions.

A more serious argument might be made for Russia (and the Soviet Union) as their true spiritual successors, with many of its distinctive political features originating from the Mongol yoke.

 

THE SUN NEVER SETS

From Danube to the Pacific, the Mongol Empire deserves its title for global empire, as well as world empire for its enduring influence – we live in a Mongol-made world.

 

EVIL EMPIRE

And how!

Perhaps not surprisingly, our top three empires would also be among the leading contenders people would advance for an entry if one were to compile a Top 10 Evil Empires – probably even the top three there as well.

History has tended to overlook the positive or even progressive aspects of the Mongol Empire and its Pax Mongolica, but it would rank high as evil empire for the sheer scale of destruction they wrought, which can only aptly be described as apocalyptic, exceeding even the Second World War relative to world population.

As examples, the Iranian plateau didn’t fully recover its population until the 20th century, while some areas in central Asia remained disproportionately populated. The depopulation was such that wild animal species exploded in population and the regrowth of forests caused a noticeable change in climate.

And particularly since we mentioned it for the Spanish Empire, the horseman of the apocalypse that loomed largest was pestilence – the Black Death, spread both inadvertently by trade within the Mongol Empire and deliberately within its warfare, wiping out anywhere from 30% to 60% of the European population.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)