Mongol Empire: Encyclopedia II - Mongol Empire - Overview

Mongol Empire - Overview

The notion that the Mongol Empire was tremendously destructive should be viewed with caution. Historian R. J. Rummel estimated that 30 million people were killed during the reign of the Mongol Empire, and the population of China fell by half in fifty years of Mongol rule. However, it should be noted that most of the history which modern historians rely on was written by enemies of the Mongols. Thus, there is always a room for exaggeration. Nonetheless, as David Nicole points out in The Mongol Warlords, "terror and mass extermination of anyone opposing them was a well tested Mongol tactic."

One of the more successful tactics employed by the Mongols was to ruthlessly exterminate urban populations that had refused to surrender (but on the other hand, if they chose to submit, the populations were spared and treated fairly leniently). In addition to such fear-inducing slaughters, the rapid expansion of the Empire was facilitated by sheer military hardiness (especially during bitterly cold winters), military skill, meritocracy, and discipline. (Subutai, in particular, among the Mongol Commanders, viewed winter as the best time for war - while less hardy people hid from the elements, the Mongols were able to literally use frozen lakes and rivers as highways for their horsemen, a tactic he used with devastating effect in Russia)

The Mongol Empire had a lasting impact, unifying large regions, some of which (such as eastern and western Russia and the western parts of China) remain unified today. The Mongols themselves were assimilated into local populations after the fall of the empire, and many of these descendants adopted local religions — for example, the eastern Khanates adopted Islam, largely under Sufi influence. The influence of the Mongol Empire may prove to be even more direct — a recent highly controversial genetic survey indicates that as many as one out of every 200 males in Eurasia may be descended from Genghis Khan.

At the time of Genghis Khan's death in 1227, the empire was divided among his four sons, with his third son as the supreme Khan, but by the 1350s, the khanates were in a state of fracture and had lost the order brought to them by Genghis Khan. Eventually the separate khanates drifted away from each other, becoming the Ilkhanate Dynasty in Persia, the Chagatai Khanate in central Asia, the Yuan Dynasty in China, and what would become the Golden Horde in present-day Russia.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Overview", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki