Nomadic Empires Class 11 History Notes

Nomadic Empires is Chapter 5 in History Book of Class 11.  Nomadic Empires can be said to be an imperial formation constructed by nomadic groups. The Mongols, under the leadership of Genghis Khan, established a transcontinental empire straddling Europe and Asia during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Mongol empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206. Originating from the Mongol heartland in the Steppe of central Asia, by the late 13th century it spanned from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Danube River and the shores of the Persian Gulf in the west.

Sources to understand Mongol  history

Mongol empire was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206. Originating from the Mongol heartland in the Steppe of central Asia, by the late 13th century it spanned from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Danube River and the shores of the Persian Gulf in the west.

1. The steppe dwellers themselves usually produced no literature, so our knowledge of nomadic societies comes mainly from chronicles, travelogues and documents produced by city-based litterateurs.
2. These authors often produced extremely ignorant and biased reports of nomadic life. The imperial success of the Mongols attracted many travelers. These individuals came from a variety of backgrounds – Buddhist,Confucian, Christian, Turkish and Muslim. Many of them produced sympathetic accounts and others hostile.

Social and Political Background of Mongols

1. The Mongols were a diverse body of tribal people, spoke similar languages.
2. Some of the Mongols were pastoralists while others were hunter gatherers.The pastoralists tended horses, sheep and cattle, goats and camels.
3. They lived nomadic life in the steppes of Central Asian a tract of land in the area of the modern state of Mongolia. This was a majestic landscape with wide horizons, rolling plains, ringed by the snow-capped mountains, Gobi desert and drained by rivers and springs.
4. They were a humbler body of people than the pastoralists, making a living from trade in furs of animals trapped in the summer months. There were extremes of temperature in the entire region: harsh, long winters followed by brief, dry summers.
5. Agriculture was possible in the pastoral regions but the Mongols did not take to agriculture. The Mongols lived in tent sand travelled with their herds from their winter to summer pasture lands.
6. Mongols had scarce resources. The richer families were larger, possessed more animals and pasturelands.
7. Periodic natural calamities – either unusually harsh, cold winters when game and stored provisions ran out ,they conflicted over pasture lands and predatory raids in search of livestock.
8. The scant resources of the steppe lands drove Mongols and other Central Asian nomads to trade and barter with their sedentary neighbours in China. This was mutually beneficial to both parties: agricultural produce and iron utensils from China were exchanged for horses, furs and game trapped in the steppe.

The life and Career of Genghis Khan

1. Genghis Khan was born in 1162 near the Onon River in the north of present-day Mongolia.
2. His original name wasTemujin, he was the son of Yesugei, the chieftain of the Kiyatclan.
3. His father was murdered at an early age and his mother,Oelun-eke, raised Temujin, his brothers and step-brothers in great hardship.
4. Temujin was captured and en slavedfor many years.
5. Soon after his marriage, his wife, Borte,was kidnapped, and he had to fight to recover her.
6. During these yearsof hardship he also managed to make important friends. The young Boghurchu was his first ally and remained a trusted friend; Jamuqa,his blood-brother was another.
7. Temujinbecame the dominant personality in the politics of the steppe lands, a position that was recognised at an assembly of Mongol chieftains, where he was proclaimed the ‘Great Khan of the Mongols’ with the title Genghis Khan, the ‘Oceanic Khan’or ‘Universal Ruler’.

Wars and Expansion of Mongols under Genghiz Khan

1. The first of his concerns was to conquer China, divided at this time into three realms:the Hsi Hsia dynasty in the north-western provinces,Chin dynasty ruled north China and the Sungdynasty in south China.
2. By 1209, the Hsi Hsia were defeated,the ‘Great Wall of China’ was breached in 1213and long drawn-out battles against the Chin continued until 1234 but Genghis Khan was satisfied enough with the progress of his campaigns to return to his Mongolia
3. Sultan Muhammad, the ruler of Khwarazm, executed Mongol envoys worried of Mongol invasion. In the campaigns between 1219 and 1221 the great cities – Otrar, Bukhara, Samarqand, Balkh,Gurganj, Merv, Nishapur and Herat – surrendered to the Mongol forces.
4. Towns that resisted were devastated by Mongols. At Nishapur, where a Mongolprince was killed during the siege operation, Genghis Khan commanded that the ‘town should be laid waste in such a manner that the site could be ploughed upon and not even cats and dogs should be left alive’.
5. Mongol forces in pursuit of Sultan Muhammad pushed into Azerbaijan and defeated Russian forces. Another wing followed the Sultan’s son, Jalaluddin, into Afghanistan and the Sindh province.

At the banks of the Indus, Genghis Khan considered returning to Mongolia through North India and Assam, but the heat, the natural habitat and the

ill portents reported by his Shaman soothsayer made him change his mind and he returned to Mongolia without touching India.

Causes for the success of Genghis Khan

1.  His military achievements were astounding and they were largely a result of his ability to innovate and transform different aspects of steppe combat into extremely effective military strategies.
2. The horse-riding skills of the Mongols and the Turks provided speed and mobility to the army.
3. Their abilities as rapid-shooting archers from horseback were further perfected during regular hunting expeditions which doubled chance of victory over the enemies.
4.  The steppe cavalry had always travelled light and moved quickly, but now it brought allits knowledge of the terrain.
5. They carried out campaigns in the depths of winter, treating frozen rivers as high waysto enemy cities and camps.
6. Genghis Khan learnt the importance of siege. His engineers prepared light portable equipment, which was used against opponents with devastating effect.

The Mongols after Genghis Khan

1. We can divide Mongol expansion after Genghis Khan’s death into two distinct phases: the first which spanned the years 1236-42 when the major gains were in the Russian steppes, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary.
2.  The second phase including the years 1255-1300 led to the conquest of all of China, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
3. The Mongol military forces met with few reversals in the decades after the 1260s the original impetus of campaigns could not be sustained in the West.
4. There were two facets to this: the first was a consequence of the internal politics of succession within the Mongol family where the descendants of Jochi and Ogodei allied to control the office of the great Khan in the first two generations.
5. The second compulsion occurred as the Jochi and Ogodei lineages were marginalised by theToluy’s lineage. With the accession of Mongke, a descendant of Toluy, military campaigns were pursued energetically in Iran but as Toluyid interests in the conquest of China.

Military Organisation under Mongols

1. Among the Mongols all the able-bodied, adult males of the tribe bore arms: they constituted the armed forces when the occasion demanded.
2. The unification of the different Mongol tribes and subsequent campaigns against diverse people introduced new members into Genghis Khan’s army. It included groups like the Turks,Chinese and Arabs who had accepted his authority willingly.
3. Genghis Khan worked to systematically erase the old tribal identities of the different groups who joined his confederacy. His army was organised according to the old steppe system of decimal units: in divisions of 10s, 100s, 1,000s and 10,000 soldiers. He divided the old tribal groupings and distributed their members into new military units. Any individual who tried to move from his allotted group without permission received harsh punishment.
4. He divided the army into four units and they were required to serve under his four sons and specially chosen captains of his army units called noyan.
5. The soldiers who had served Genghis Khan loyally through grave adversity for many years were publicly honoured some of these individuals as his ‘blood brothers’ and  others were given special ranking as his bondsmen , a title that marked their close relationship with their master.

Political Organisation under Genghiz Khan

1.  Genghis Khan assigned the responsibility of governing the newly-conquered people to his four sons. These comprised the four ulus.
2. The eldest son,Jochi, received the Russian steppes and it extended as far west as his horses could roam.
3. The second son, Chaghatai, was given the Transoxanian steppe and lands north of the Pamir Mountain adjacent to those of his brother.
4. Genghis Khan had indicated that his third son, Ogodei, would succeed him as the Great Khan and on accession the Prince established his capital at Karakorum.
5. The youngest son, Toluy, received the ancestral lands of Mongolia. Genghis Khan envisaged that his sons would rule the empire collectively, and to underline this point, military contingents of the individual princes were placed in each ulus.
6. The sense of a dominion shared by the members of the family was underlined at the assembly of chieftains, quriltais, where all decisions relating to the family or the state for the forthcoming season campaigns, distribution of plunder, pasture lands and succession were collectively taken.

Development in Trade and communication in Mongolia

1. Genghis Khan had already fashioned a rapid courier system(yam) that connected the distant areas of his regime. Fresh mounts and dispatch riders were placed in outposts at regularly spaced distances.
2. For the maintenance of this communication system the Mongol nomads contributed a tenth of their herd – either horses or livestock – as provisions. This was called the qubcurtax, a levy that the nomads paid willingly for the multiple benefits that it brought.
3. Once the campaigns had settled, Europe and China were territorially linked with Mongolia. Commerce and travel along the Silk Route reached its peak under the Mongols but, the trade route extended up to Mongolia.
4. Communication and ease of travel was vital toretain the coherence of the Mongol regime and travellers were given a pass for safe conduct. Traders paid the bajtax for the same purpose, all acknowledging thereby the authority of the Mongol Khan.
5. Mongols waged their successful wars against China, Persia, Russia etc there was a strong pressure group within the Mongol leadership that advocated the massacre of all peasantry and the conversion of their fields into pasture lands. But by the 1270s, Genghis Khan’s grandson, Qubilai Khan appeared as the protector of the peasants and thecities.

Yasa(legal code of Genghis Khan)

1. yasa,the code of law that Genghis Khan was supposed to have promulgatedat the Assembly of Mongol Chieftains (quriltai)of 1206, has elaborated on the complex ways in whichthe memory of the Great Khan was fashioned by his successors.
2. In itsearliest formulation the term was written as yasa which meant ‘law’,‘decree’ or ‘order’. Yasaconcern administrative regulations: the organisation of the hunt,the army and the postal system.

Situating Genghis Khan and the Mongols in World History

1. For the Mongols, Genghis Khan was the greatest leader of all time: he united the Mongol people.
2. Genghis Khan freed them from interminable tribal wars and Chinese exploitation.
3. Genghis Khan brought them prosperity, fashioned a grand transcontinental empire and restored trade routes and markets that attracted distant travelers and traders.
4. Genghis Khan ruled the diverse body of people and faiths.  Although the Mongol Khans themselves belonged to a variety of different faiths – Shaman, Buddhist, Christian and eventually Islam they never let their personal beliefs dictate public policy.
5. The Mongol rulers recruited administrators and armed contingents from people of all ethnic groups and religions. Theirs was a multi-ethnic,multilingual, multi-religious regime that did not feel threatened by its pluralistic constitution.
6. Today, after decades of Soviet control, the country of Mongolia is recreating its identity as an independent nation. It has seized upon Genghis Khan as a great national hero who is publicly venerated and whose achievements are recounted with pride.