The Mongol Empire

The **Mongols** are an East Asian civilization based on confederation of nomadic tribes in central Asia who would eventually form the Mongol Empire under the leadership of Genghis Khan.

Mongol Empire Symbol

## Mongol Empire

### Location

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### Precced by

* The Tibetan Empire
* Song Dynasty
* The Abbasid Caliphate
* Kievan Rus

### Succeded by

* Yuan Dynasty
* The Ilkhanate
* Golden Horde
* The Chagatai Khanate

As a cavalry archer civilization, the Mongols have excellent mounted archers, these units formed a very threatening force.

The Khalkha was widely spoken of the Mongolic languages and the official language of modern-day Mongolia. Mongolian script (Монгол бичиг), derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet, was used to write Classical Mongolian (the one spoken around the 13th century) and has been used until modern times, before being replaced in the Republic of Mongolia by an own version of the Cyrillic alphabet, which also adopts an orthography much closer to the current pronunciation (but Mongolians in China still use the traditional Mongolian alphabet and old orthography).

# History

The Mongols were nomads from the steppes of Central Asia. They were fierce warriors who fought each other over pasturelands and raided developed civilizations to the east and south. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Mongol clans united and began a campaign of foreign conquest.

The Mongols inhabited the plains south of Lake Baikal in modern Mongolia. At its maximum, their empire stretched from Korea, across Asia, and into European Russia to the Baltic Sea coast. They held most of Asia Minor, modern Iraq, modern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet, parts of India, parts of Burma, all of China, and parts of Vietnam.

The Mongol clans called Genghis Khan ("mighty ruler"), in the early thirteenth century. His ambition was to rule all lands between the oceans (Pacific and Atlantic) and he nearly did so. Beginning with only an estimated 25,000 warriors, he added strength by subjugating other nomads and attacked northern China in 1211.

He took Beijing in 1215 after a campaign that have cost 30 million lives. The Mongols then turned west, capturing the great trading city Bukhara on the Silk Road in 1220. The city was burned to the ground and the inhabitants murdered.

Following Genghis Khan's death in 1227, his son Ogedei completed the conquest of northern China and advanced into Europe. He destroyed Kiev in 1240 and advanced into Europe.

When Ogedei died on campaign in 1241, the entire army fell back to settle the question of succession. Europe was spared as Mongol rulers concentrated their efforts against the Middle East and southern China. Hulagu, a grandson of Genghis, exterminated the Muslim "Assassins" and then took the Muslim capital of Baghdad in 1258. Most of the city's 100,000 inhabitants were murdered. In 1260 a Muslim army of Egyptian Mamelukes (warrior slaves of high status) defeated the Mongols in present-day Israel, ending the Mongol threat to Islam and its cities.

The Toluid Civil War began as succession War of Mongol empire fought between Kublai Khan and his younger brother, Ariq Böke, from 1260 to 1264. Ariq Böke's defeat by Kublai could not stop the fracturing of the empire. Most of the western khanates did not recognized Kublai as Great Khan. Although the united Mongol Empire had disintegrated.

Kublai renamed the new Mongol regime in China as the Yuan dynasty and sought to sinicize his image as Emperor of China to win the control of the Chinese people. In 1271 Kublai moved his headquarters to Khanbaliq, the genesis for what later became the modern city of Beijing. His establishment of a capital there was a controversial move to many Mongols who accused him of being too closely tied to Chinese culture.