Although the Mongols were simply trying to expand their empire, the amount of brutality after practicing their forceful tactics suggests that they were unaffected by the violence as long as conquests were successful. As the Mongols pushed into Russia and China, they killed people of all ages and gender. This resulted in invasions that were over quickly and did not draw out over long periods of time. Their military was trained so strictly that they could execute well thought out plans of attack. When the Mongols began invading China, Chingis Khan did set out to conquer a certain area in the Chin Empire. He and his men set out on horseback to invade the lands and in doing so they captured Fu-chou, Hsuan-te-fu, and eventually Chu-yang Kuan. However, it is not about the simple fact that Chingis and his men went for these areas, it is how they went about it and their attitudes towards innocent people. Chu-yang Kuan was well defended so Chingis applied his tricky tactics to fool the Chinese. It was these tactics performed by the well trained army that allowed for the Mongols to gain territory fast. Chingis’s army beat the best of the best soldiers within the Cathay army. The Mongols were so heartless that they allowed for the deceased bodies to pile up. They had the mindset of no mercy. …show more content…
To invade the Russians, the Tartars (Mongols), came in with an enormous number of soldiers. For Russians this may be intimidating considering the Tartars carried bows, iron maces, and spears in on horseback. Nonetheless, the Russians stood their ground and would not surrender until none of them remained. Saying that statement to Mongols was as bad as making a deal with the Devil. It was no hard task for the Mongols to wipe out boys, girls, men, or women to advance. They did not discriminate against who they killed as long as they were ultimately triumphant, so the conquests were completed
The Mongols were also able to make extremely strong weapons with the great and strong stones and metals that were available to them in their homeland. One of the most well-known weapons that the Mongols used was the bow and arrow. Archery granted the Mongols great advantage over their enemies. Mounted upon their swift steeds, Mongol soldiers were able to shoot their enemies from afar before fleeing quickly. Mongols were known to have great training and discipline from very young ages. Not only boys, but girls too, were trained combat. The Mongol armies were not only known for their amazing combat but also their creative military tactics; it was often that the Mongols utilized shock tactics against their enemies. Fake withdrawals, surprise attacks, psychological warfare, and even hostage-taking and human shields were classic Mongol moves. The fact that the Mongols revolutionized military and combat methods is only a testament to the impact they had on the world as a whole. The rise of the Mongol Empire did not only mark a turning point in warfare and military, but made a mark as a turning point in world history collectively.
The expansion of the Mongol empire had negative consequences considering their strategy of approach. The Mongols used violent methods to conquer and acquire new territories. In most traditional societies violent was a common method of conquering enemies. The weakest societies would be conquered and ruled by the most influential societies. Human rights activists however condemned the violent methods of attacks. Mongols would kill all the people of cities that resisted their colonial rule. In some towns, they would depopulate as well as confiscate their domestic animals
To begin his conquests, Genghis Khan directed his attention to the Chinese, who had plentiful amounts of food and wealth. However, the Chinese were able to defend themselves, and prevented the Mongolians from attacking. “The initial failure in China forced Chinghis to direct his armies westward against the Turks and Persians.” (Adler and Pouwels, 239-41). In the campaigns against the Persians and Turks, Genghis Khan had his armies attack wealthy Muslim cities, and decimated the populations. If the people weren’t massacred, they were forced into slavery. Mongolians had little care for culture or literature, as they burned libraries, turned mosques into stables, and essentially ruined the cities that they attacked. “Never had such destruction been seen; word of an approaching Mongol army sometimes was enough to inspire wholesale flight.” (Adler and Pouwels, 239-41). Stories of Mongol blood thirst were a phenomenon that Genghis Khan wanted to spread among people, as to prevent the demise of Mongolian soldiers, or people. This also made it quite easy to conquer other places, as any idea of resistance disappeared when the Mongols were in sight.
The Mongols did have much success in conquering the land, but there was one piece of land that they couldn’t conquer. Many people would will say that the Mongols were like the Achilles heel of dynasties due to them not conquering Japan twice after a typhoon swallowed them both twice. As this was true, the Yuan dynasty didn’t really need to conquer Japan. This was because the had control of much more land spanning from Eastern Europe to North Korea.
Although the Mongols may seem barbaric through their military strategies, the imperial values of their economic and cultural characteristics exceed the barbarity of their military strategies.
The brutality of the Mongolian military resulted in a large drop of Afro-Eurasian population. Mongol invasions were extremely cruel to the extent where some cities were annihilated and entire populations extinguished. An anonymous author of The Secret History of the Mongols writes about the merciless Chinggis Khan and his gruesome warfare tactics he used on the Tangut peoples. The Mongolian ruler ordered Tangut cities to be destroyed and to have the women, children, and grandchildren all executed. (Doc. 1). This document provides insight to the extent of the impact of Mongol destruction, where cities like Tangut were completely destroyed. One would expect the author to glorify the Mongols by discussing the humane aspect of Mongol conquest, because this account was written for the Mongol royal family. However, an account like this might have been seen as satisfactory for the royal family, since the Mongols celebrated and encouraged horrendous atrocities. Russian monks from the city of Novgorod documents
Also, they were remarkably quick at learning how to administer their vast empire. They readily adopted the system of administration of the conquered states, placing a handful of Mongols in the top positions but allowing former local officials to run everyday affairs. Kublai permitted the existence of various religions. As they had a vast empire the Khan's focused on travel safety was important and it was guarantee empire and a great trading network was form stretching from China to Europe. For the first time in centuries, the Silk Road was reopened, allowing a great deal of cultural diffusion between the East and the West. The Mongols are more notably known for their ruthlessness in battle and to those who opposed them. If a town or city would fight back or resist his armies would lay siege to it. He would starve them out, then go in and kill everybody, and everything, except those that would be useful to him, estimated 30 million people were killed under the rule of the Mongol empire. Even how they handled marital affairs would be
Within a century, the Mongols conquered nearly all of Eurasia and China, with an empire that stretched from the Arabian Peninsula to the Pacific Ocean. The Mongols leader, Genghis Khan, had one simple rule “Whoever submits shall be spared, but those who resist, they shall be destroyed with their wives, children and dependents” (Strayer, 534). This quote gives a brief sense of how the Mongols operated. If you
When asking for mercy, Genghis let all live, solely taking over that area, asking for tribute, and making the men of the village work for the Mongols. Furthermore, his destructiveness “was partly offset by the attempts of Mongol regimes to revive agriculture and trade,” with the Mongols helping areas to remain economically stable. In sum, Mongolian conquest destroyed many towns and killed innumerable numbers of people, but the Mongols gave each area a chance to survive, and treated survivors justly.
The Mongol Conquest was the series of raids and invasions in Asia and Eastern Europe from 1206 - 1337 AD (period 3). The Mongol raids were seen as some of the most violent and deadliest conflicts in history. They were a threat never before seen by the world. The death toll was about 40 million to 70 million deaths, which accounted for approximately 11% of the world’s population at the time. Their advanced methods of warfare and leader, Genghis Khan and his son Kublai Khan led the Mongol Empire to conquer a large area stretching
The Mongols lived their lives with a love to conquer, they did not hesitate to kill and plunder; however, not everything they did was out of savagery. Their way of life had rules and speculations, as they only plundered with permission and must obey their officers orders, many valued justice and had respect for the beliefs of the people they conquered. Their leader, Chinggis Khan, believed that there were many more benefits to conquering land other than just expanding his rule, he believed that the mixing of cultures made for a more diverse army. A diverse army has more tools at their disposal as their knowledge and fighting techniques are taken from the best of various cultures. Although their ways were
During the early thirteenth century Chinggis Khan and his followers helped create multiple societies into a strong alliance that built the biggest empire still to this day. The Mongolian empire grew rapidly, this was because of the strong mongol army and organized policies that the Khan family created. The mongols didn’t hesitate when the time came, they planned every move they made ahead of time, helping the mongol empire strive. Although the empire had a strong sense of peace, helping the empire get so strong, so rapidly was challenging, the empire depended on military tactics, revenge, and patience.
Mongol boys were trained to ride horses, hunt, and fight at an extremely young age in the hopes that they’d be skilled enough to fight whenever the Khan commanded(Burgan). This early training and principle of promotion to leadership roles based on ability and skill led to a motivated and high quality set of troops.While the Mongols did not necessarily have the largest army compared to those that they battled, they truly took the idea of “quality over quantity” to heart and worked to technologically advance their army. The Mongol armies excelled at the use of weapons such as sabres, spears, and halberds, each having a specialized duty during battle time (Craughwell). In order to design effective armor to defend against enemies, the Mongols took advantage of their contacts with China and the Middle East and looked to them for ideas and inspiration. The devastation and carnage of their victims serves as a consequence of their heavy reliance on shock tactics and outright savagery(Turnbull and McBride) . The Mongols mastered the art of surprise attacks and killing sprees which served as beneficial when fighting against unprepared armies or unarmed civilians in the name of conquest. Also, the Mongols engaged in psychological warfare which gave them
Resources were scarce in the fields of Central Asia, which necessitated these practices. The tribes were unified under Genghis Khan, who stated that ‘a man’s greatest pleasure is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them that which they possessed, to see those whom they cherished in tears, to ride their horses, to hold their wives and daughters in his arms’. This identifies the Mongol value of possession and highlights their superiority complex. This complex served as the primary motivation in conquering territory. Sources such as the Novgorod Chronicle imply that their conquest was driven by a thirst for blood, however the absence of torture in their warfare apart from especially grievant circumstances indicates cold efficiency. Additionally, this chronicle is highly emotive and religious, which has caused exaggeration.
Has anyone ever had expectations so high that conquering five million square miles is underachieving? “Legend has it that he came into the world clutching a blood clot in his right hand” (Genghis 1). By the time he was fifteen, he already had authority over ten Mongolian tribes and kept gaining more power. One of the reasons Khan was so effective was because he put his allies, instead of kinfolk, in key spots in his clan. Before Genghis Khan wanted to begin his grand incursion on all of Asia, his plan all along was to unite all of the Mongolian tribes into one and teach them his ways of dominance. Genghis Khan’s ways of dominance were not flanking the opposition; Khan’s ways of dominance were never seen before tactics that changed the world forever.