Mongol Invasion of China

Episode 29: Conquest of Song China

Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)

Dr Kenneth Harl

Film Review

Harl regards Kublai Khan as the greatest of all the Mongol conquerors. His grandfather Genghis Khan was content to control large portions of the Chinese-dominated Silk Road. His uncle Ogedei settled with occupying the rump Jin Dynasty and securing a treaty relationship with the more powerful southern Song Dynasty.

Kublai Khan began his assault on China by moving his forces into Tibet (a  vassal state that paid to the Mongols), on the Song Empire’s western border. He proceeded  with an assault on Dali (currently Hunan), an independent kingdom inhabited by non-Chinese Bai people. Due to China’s large number of settled cities, the war on China proper was mainly one of sieges and logistics. Once he captured cities, Kublai Khan recruited large number of Chinese mercenaries to garrison them.

In 1259 the great khan Mongke died of cholera while Kublai Khan was besieging the fortresses on the Yangtze River. Mongke’s younger brother Verke had himself declared great khan while most of the Mongolian nobility was fighting in China. In 1260 during a brief civil war, Kublai Khan marched to Karakorum and deposed Verke (becoming great khan himself).

Under Kublai Khan, the Golden Horde Mongols on the western steppes were ruled by descendants of his cousin Batu. Kublai Khan’s nephew ruled the Ilkhanate on the central steppes, consisting of the modern day states of Iran, Iraq and. Under Kublai Khan, the Chagatai Khanate broke away from the Mongol Empire and was ruled independently by descendants of Genghis Khan’s second son Chagatai. By the 14th century, all three khanates had adopted the Turkish language and the Muslim religion.

In 1268 Kublai Khan reopened the war against the Song Dynasty. The Ilkhan sent Muslim engineers to assist Chinese engineers in building trebuchets, incendiaries and other siege technologies. The Mongols also deployed great paddled river flotillas to isolate Yangtze fortresses from the river. Eventually numerous Chinese generals defected to fight for Mongols.

Unlike western Mongol victories, Kublai Khan’s victories in China weren’t accompanied by massacres and atrocities. Instead he sought to win over the civilian population.

When the dowager Song empress surrendered on behalf of the child emperor in 1271, Kublai Khan became the new emperor, founding the Yuan Dynasty. For the most part, the bureaucratic Mandarin class generally supported the new regime.

This film can be rented free on Kanopy with a library card.

https://www.kanopy.com/pukeariki/product/5695049

Mongol Invasion of the Islamic World

Episode 28: Mongol Invasion of the Islamic

Barbarian Empires of the Steppes (2014)

Dr Kenneth Harl

Film Review

Unlike Genghis Khan, who made no effort to rehabilitate the steppes cities he leveled, his son Ogedei redeveloped the cities he conquered in the eastern Abbasid Caliphate by appointing trusted administrators to run them. Yet Muslims remained in firm control in the region surrounding Baghdad, and the Mamaluks (aka Slave Sultans)* remained in sole control of Egypt.

The Mongol Empire experienced an internal civil war following Ogedei’s death in 1241. Eventually (1251) the position of great khan passed to Genghis Khan’s grandson Mongke.

He appointed Batu ruler of the Mongols and Turks on the western steppes, a post inherited by Berke following Batu’s death. The heirs of Genghis Khan’s second son  Jugatai assumed responsibility for the central steppes. Kublai Khan assumed responsibility for the eastern steppes, and his grandson Hulagu for the eastern Islamic empire.

In addition to the Mamaluks, who continued to receive slave solders from the steppes (via the Byzantine Empire), the other major threat to Mongol rule stemmed from an extremist Shiite group operating out of Alamut (Persia) that carried out orchestrated assassinations of Middle East and Central Asia political leaders.

In his largest military campaign, Hulagu and his troops left the Mongol capitol of Kharakan in 1253. Arriving in Samarkind by 1255, by 1257 they had leveled most of the Shiite assassins’ palaces and confiscated huge libraries of intelligence the Shiites had collected on Mongol opponents.

After securing Persia, in 1258 Hulagu next moved against the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, with support from Christians in Armenia and Antioch. He slaughtered a total of 800,000 civilians in Baghdad, sparing the Nestorian Christians living there because his wife was a Nestorian Christian.

In 1259 he sacked Al Jazeera, the grasslands and cities comprising modern-day Syria, marching as far southwest as Gaza on the Mediterranean. In response, the Mamaluk army (with the help of Crusaders) marched north to Galilee to confront the Mongol army (consisting mainly of Turkish mercenaries). This resulted in the Mongol Army’s very first defeat.

In 1259, Hulagu suspended operations after being notified of the great khan Monke’s death. This would spell the end of Mongol westward military expansion.

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*Historically Turkish military leaders relied heavily on civilians and troops they conquered in battle and trained as slave soldiers. See 9th Century AD: Mass Migration of Uighur Turks to the Steppes fo China Leads to Rise of Seljuk Turks on the Steppes

Film can viewed free with a library card at Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5695047