Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Military prowess
Mongol Exchange
New methods of warfare
Trade from Venice to Beijing and beyond
Demographic change via the plague and major
population shifts
Altered the political histories of Russia, China,
Europe
Unparalleled cultural diffusion
Russia
Western
Mongolia
Europe
Byzantine Empire
China
Persia
India
Africa
Why were the Mongol armies so successful?
Simple, but effective
All males, 15-60, were eligible for conscription
army was only source of honor
Trained using massive hunts
Great discipline
Equipped for mobility and speed: lightly armored, no supply lines;
couriers
Careful planning, reconnaissance, intelligence
Decimal system of organization: arbats (tens), zuuts (100s),
myanghan (1000s), tumen (10,000s = roughly a division)
Very good at adapting to various conditions.
Became adept at siege warfare; recruited well; built effective
catapults.
Combined various types of armed force: mounted archers, lancers,
engineers, rockets, and smoke.
Strong Equestrians and Archers
The Mongols were oriented
around extreme mobility. They
carried their houses with them,
drank their own horse's blood
to stay alive, and could travel
up to 62 miles per day.
They had an elaborate priority-
mail-system which allowed
orders to be transmitted
rapidly across Eurasia.
Mongol archers were very
deadly and accurate
Their arrows could kill enemies
at 200 meters (656 feet)
Psychological Warfare
Genghis Khan used combined fake retreats with accurate
Horse Archers to pick off his European enemies.
Genghis Khan slaughtered a few cities, in an attempt to scare
all other cities to surrender without a fight. He, being a
practical leader, also valued smarts more than bravery
If enemies surrendered without resistance, the Mongols usually
spared their lives, and they provided generous treatment for
artisans, craft workers, and those with military skills
In the event of resistance, the Mongols ruthlessly slaughtered
whole populations, sparing only a few, whom they sometimes
drove ahead of their armies as human shields during future
conflicts
Strategies to create an empire
Weatherford: the
Mongols were
civilizations unrivaled
cultural carriers
Marco Polo en route to China
Mongol
Passport Pax Mongolica
By the mid 13th c, the family of Genghis
Khan controls Asia from China to the
Black Sea creating a period of stability
during which trade flourishes to new
heights along the Silk Routes. Before
lots of fighting in East Asia and fighting
between Muslims & Christians in the SW
Asia, but now stability brings trade in
more volume & people who now travel
the entire distance.
Marco Polo traveling the Silk Roads Encouraged great commercial, religious,
intellectual exchange between the East &
West.
The Mongols made culture portable: it
was not enough to merely exchange
goods, because whole systems of
knowledge had to also be transported in
order to use many of the new products
(e.g. drugs werent profitable trade items
unless one possessed medical
knowledge for their use, so moved Arab
doctors to China & vice versa)
Pax Mongolica: look at all these routes!
Exchanges During the Mongol Era
From From From From
Europe Southwest Asia South Asia East Asia