An in-depth summary of the 'Mongol Empire". All the necessary information from the prescribed reader and lecture slide have been incorporated, thus providing you with a perfect set of notes for semester tests and exams.
The Mongol Empire
● The massive, multicultural, Mongolian ruled state stretched from one side of the
Eurasian landmass to the other, in every direction and almost fully encompassed
the land routes of the Silk Road.
● No empire before or since has held such a large, continuous land border, and
the reason for why this is, lies with the nature of the land itself, the people who
inhabited it, and the leader who united them.
● The Mongol homeland of Mongolia is a region of the Eurasian Steppe nestled
between China and Russia.
● The mongols originated from the Eurasian Steppe:
○ A vast, arid landscape with few water sources and very little in the way of
foliage.
○ Very little grows in the region and large-scale farming is nearly impossible.
● To survive such a landscape, the Mongol tribe adopted a nomadic pastoralist
lifestyle.
○ They moved around constantly from one grazing area to feed their
livestock, which consisted of yacks, goats, sheep, and horses.
, ● Mongols were raised from birth to ride horses, use
bow and arrows and work together in teams to
hunt and herd.
○ This mobile lifestyle alienated them from
their settled neighbours in China, and
meant they were viewed as savages and
barbarians by the Chinese.
● A Mongol Gur tent also known by its Turkic name ‘Yurt’.
Chengiz Khagan (Genghis Khan)
● China regularly interfered in the politics of the Mongol Tribes.
○ In the mid 1100’s it is believed to have aided in the murder of the leader
of the head Mongol Tribe of the time in favour of Turkic Tatars (another
nomadic horse people of the time)
● The son of this assassinated leader (Temujin) was forced to flee into the
wilderness and go into hiding for several years.
○ While these years aren’t well documented, Temujin is believed to have
murdered his elder half-brother and taken the leadership role within his
family.
○ From that point on, Temujin began to make a reputation for himself
among other Mongol tribes, and started to gain their support one by one.
■ Through either the strength of his personality, or the ruthlessness
of his growing army, he came to unite the Mongol tribes together
as a unified people and force.
○ When he had united all the Mongol tribes by 1206, they gathered together
and declared him their ‘Universal Leader’ through the title he is most well
known for today:
■ Chengiz Khagan (Anglicised to Genghis Khan)
● Combining his natural capacity for military strategy, as well as his people’s
affinity for horse archery, Chengiz easily defeated the much larger, slower armies
of China, the Middle East and Eastern Europe of the time.
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