The Mongol Empire

The Eurasian steppe is a belt of grassland running from Hungary to Manchuria. Its peoples lived by herding horses, sheep, goats and camels, moving between seasonal pastures. Nearly everyone rode from childhood, and mounted archery made steppe warriors formidable.

Steppe politics was fluid. Tribes formed alliances, broke them and absorbed each other. Great confederations rose quickly under capable leaders and fell apart just as quickly when those leaders died. What made the Mongols different was that their confederation held together long enough to conquer settled empires.

Temüjin was born around 1162. His father was poisoned when he was a boy and his family was abandoned by their followers, so he grew up in poverty and danger. Through alliances, skill and ruthlessness he defeated rival leaders one by one.

In 1206 a great assembly proclaimed him Genghis Khan, a title usually translated as universal ruler. He broke up old tribal loyalties by reorganising his army into units of ten, a hundred, a thousand and ten thousand, and he promoted commanders for ability and loyalty rather than birth.

• Discipline and mobility: every warrior brought several horses, so armies could cover long distances fast.
• Coordinated tactics such as feigned retreats that drew enemies into traps.
• Intelligence gathering through merchants and scouts before a campaign.
• Rapid adoption of foreign expertise, including Chinese and Persian siege engineers.
• Deliberate terror: cities that resisted were often destroyed and their people killed, which persuaded others to surrender.

Genghis Khan's campaigns took northern China and destroyed the Khwarazmian Empire in Central Asia. After his death in 1227 his sons and grandsons pushed further. Mongol armies reached Poland and Hungary in 1241, sacked Baghdad in 1258 and completed the conquest of Song China under Kublai Khan in 1279.

At its greatest extent the empire covered about 24 million square kilometres. It was too large for one ruler, and by the 1260s it had divided into four khanates: the Yuan dynasty in China, the Ilkhanate in Persia, the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia and the Golden Horde on the western steppe.

Once conquest was complete, Mongol rulers protected trade. A network of relay stations called the yam let messengers and approved travellers cross the empire, and merchants could use a passport tablet known as a paiza. This period of relative security is often called the Pax Mongolica.

Goods, technologies and people moved across Eurasia as never before. Marco Polo's account of travelling to Kublai Khan's court made Europeans aware of China's wealth. Mongol rulers generally tolerated many religions and employed administrators from across their empire. The same connections, however, may also have helped spread the plague that became the Black Death.

The khanates slowly converted to local religions and cultures, fought one another and weakened. The Yuan dynasty was driven from China in 1368 and replaced by the Ming. The Golden Horde lasted longer, and its breakup helped Moscow rise as a regional power.

The Mongol conquests caused enormous destruction and loss of life. They also redrew the map of Asia, joined distant economies, and left successor states, from the Mughals in India, who traced descent from Genghis Khan and Timur, to the political shape of modern Russia and China.