How to Defend Against the Mongols

INTRO Many things have been said   about the Mongols, but one thing that can’t be  denied is that they affected the lives of almost   everyone in Eurasia. From the Western and Eastern  Europeans to the west, to the Chinese, Koreans   and Japanese in the east and Vietnamese, Burmans,  and Javans to the south, every polity had to fight   against them. In this video we will talk about how  various peoples, including the Mongols themselves,   tried to defend against the Mongol attacks, about  their armies, strategies, tricks and much more.  This video is made available for free thanks to  our Youtube Members and Patrons. We fund our free   content through our program of exclusive  videos made for our members and patrons,   who get two documentaries per week not  available to the public. 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Thanks for supporting us! #1 Western Europeans When the armies of Batu and Subedei   withdrew in 1242, Europe was in a state of panic.  Hungary had been occupied for a year, the Polish   Duchies had been ravaged and Mongol forces had  darted into the eastern parts of the Holy Roman   Empire and Austria. Early in 1242 Mongol armies  had also cut through the Balkans, with one force   perhaps even approaching Constantinople,  then under the rule of the Latin Empire.   During Batu’s leisurely withdrawal from Hungary,  he thoroughly sacked anything which had survived   the first Passover. Then, he sent more troops  into Halychyna-Volhynia when passing through   there. Ultimately he did not return to Mongolia,  but settled on the Volga Steppes. The Mongols   did not disappear into the distant mists, but  seemed all too close and ready to strike again.  The situation in Europe was tense. Pope Gregory IX  had died in August 1241 in the midst of a violent   confrontation with the Holy Roman Emperor, and  his successor had reigned only days before he too   passed away. It took two years for a new Pope,  Innocent IV, to be ordained. In the Holy Roman   Empire, an attempt at an anti-Mongol Crusade in  1241 under the Emperor’s son Conrad had collapsed   into civil war in Germany by that autumn. In 1242,  the Saintonge War broke out between France and   England. Despite optimistic suggestions  by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II,   there would be no united front among the European  monarchs in the immediate aftermath of the Mongol   Invasion. For those on the frontline of a  possible Mongol return, such as Béla IV,   King of Hungary, this was unwelcome news.  The powers of Europe had, by and large,   offered no real support during the midst of the  Mongol onslaught, and it was clear no assistance   would be forthcoming for further preparation. When King Béla returned to his kingdom in the   fall of 1242, he quickly got to work. He had  no pretensions that the Mongols would not come   back to finish the job, and threatening letters  demanding his submission were a regular feature   of the rest of his reign. Béla had to prepare  for their inevitable return. One of his first   actions was to bring the Cumans back to his realm.  These Turkic nomads had previously sought shelter   in Hungary before the murder of their leader  caused them to abandon Béla to the Mongols.   Béla coaxed them back with promises of land and  a marriage alliance. His son István was married   to a Cuman Princess who was then baptised.  The Cumans were given a section of the Great   Hungarian Plain depopulated by the Mongols.  The hope was for the now-settled Cumans to   be a first line of defense should the Mongols  return. For the rest of the thirteenth century,   Cuman horse archers remained one of the  most important parts of the Hungarian army.  Much of the kingdom’s population had been  driven to the westernmost part of Hungary,   near the Austrian border, or north into what is  now Slovakia. From the Danube River westwards Béla   ordered, and encouraged the nobility, to build  more fortifications, particularly in stone, and   on more rugged, hard-to-access locations. These  had been some of the few fortifications which   had survived the first Mongol assault, such as at  Esztergom, though they also represented ongoing   trends in European castle construction. With the  death of the last Babbenburg Duke of Austria in   1246, Béla then went to war, unsuccessfully, with  his Bohemian neighbour Ottokar over those lands,   a failed effort to push his kingdom even more  west. One of his key strategies was also to   establish a network of marriage alliances with  Polish Dukes, the Duke of Bavaria, the Princes of   Halychyna-Volhynia, and with Rus’ princes who  had fled into Hungary. With Halychyna-Volhynia,   Béla offered encouragement for  its ruler, Daniil Romanovich,   to declare his independence from the Mongols as  King of Ruthenia, making a convenient buffer-state   between Hungary and the Mongol Empire. Alongside those relationships, Béla   continued to contact the Pope and the Holy Roman  Emperor, seeking aid, funds, troops, whatever they   could spare, presenting himself as the front-line  defender of Christendom. With Pope Innocent IV,   Béla had a relatively supportive ally, who  organized the First Council of Lyons in 1245   to deal with the threats to the Christian peoples:  the Mongols, the fall of Jerusalem in 1244, and   the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick. But Innocent’s  Papal successors were less keen on Béla’s   continued exultations for support. Pope Alexander  IV and his successor Urban IV both essentially   told Béla to shove it, critiquing his reliance on  pagan Cumans and basically telling him the Mongol   invasions were punishments for the sin of the  Hungarians. In the end, little material Papal   assistance ever actually came to the Hungarians.  The results of Béla’s policies we will return to   in a few minutes, but we can compare his efforts  with the suggestions his contemporaries made.  The most deliberate European response to the  Mongol invasion was the Council of Lyons in 1245.   Pope Innocent IV invited hundreds of prelates from  across Europe to discuss the problems facing the   Church. Among other important pontifical matters,  such as deciding the colours of Cardinals’ hats   and excommunicating Emperor Frederick, the Church  Council heard from those who had experienced the   invasion first-hand in Eastern Europe. It was  decided to learn more about these Mongols,   and to do so several embassies were organized.  These were made up of the Mendicant Orders, the   Franciscans and Dominicans. The most well-known  of these was Giovanni de Pian del Carpine,   or John de Plano Carpini as his name is more  commonly rendered. Carpini departed on his   mission in 1245, arriving in the Mongol imperial  capital of Qaraqorum in time for the election of   Great Khan Güyük in 1246, before returning  with the Khaan’s letters demanding the Popes   and King come to Mongolia to submit. It was an  impressive journey for a 65-year-old Italian.  During his travels Carpini took extensive notes,  observations and conducted interviews with as many   people as possible, especially from European  captives taken during the Mongol invasion who   provided Carpini first-hand details of Mongol  battle strategy. Together, Carpini compiled   a lengthy manual on how to battle the Mongols.  Thoroughly he described the appearance, dress,   and customs of the Mongols; not in exaggerated  mythic terms, but with the detailed eye of   an observer who felt lives depended on it.  His information is accurate, corroborating   well with other European, Chinese and Persian  accounts. Carpini’s extensive ethnography of the   Mongols —whom he calls Tatars throughout— was no  accident. One of the key strategies, he suggested,   was recognizing the difference between the  Mongols, and the people they ruled over,   for Carpini believed that should these people be  freed, they would fight against the Mongol menace.  Indeed, unity in the face of the Mongols was one  of Carpini’s primary arguments for a successful   defense. Carpini was quite aware of the disunity  within Europe even in the face of the previous   Mongol attack, and Güyük Khaan himself told  Carpini that he was preparing to finish the   conquest. Carpini’s work stressed the need  for cooperation between European powers, both   at diplomatic, strategic levels — that is, not to  allow one kingdom to face the Mongols on its own—   and at operational and tactical levels — tight  discipline must be kept over troops, they must not   break formation to pursue fleeing Mongols, and the  army itself needed to be under unified command.   No single power or army, Carpini stressed,  could stand against them. Much of Carpini’s   suggestions were to emulate the Mongolian army.  Scouts should always be on watch day and night,   while the army itself should be organized  in the Turko-Mongolian decimal structure to   ease command. The army had to advance or retreat  together, follow orders and not break off into   small parties that could be picked off piecemeal. In Carpini’s view, the Mongols had to be defeated   in the field. He actively discouraged  hiding in castles; doing so, he argued,   only allowed the Mongols to overrun the  countryside and kill whoever they came   across. A castle was worth nothing if the kingdom  was reduced to ash and its people were taken   captive. While he offers advice on how to design  fortifications to resist the Mongols, this was a   last line of defense rather than a primary means  of protection. Carpini’s suggestions for castle   design mirrored ongoing efforts in Hungary at the  time: that is, on elevated positions difficult   to target by siege machines, well supplied,  with deep ditches and well-built walls. But,   Carpini urges the defenders not to base their  entire defence on such forts. As he wrote:  “Moreover, in regard to this point, it should be  known that the Tartars much prefer men to shut   themselves into their cities and fortresses  rather than fight with them in the open,   for then they say they have got their little  pigs shut in their sty, and so they place   men to look after them as I have told above.” No, the Mongols had to be confronted head-on,   before their armies split to attack several  points. For equipment, Carpini listed the   following: “Whoever wishes to fight against  the Tartars ought to have the following arms:   good strong bows, crossbows, of which [the  Mongols] are much afraid, a good supply of arrows,   a serviceable axe of strong iron or a battle-axe  with a long handle; the heads of the arrows for   both bows and cross-bows ought to be tempered  after the Tartar fashion, in salt water when   they are hot, to make them hard enough to pierce  the Tartar armour. They should also have swords   and lances with a hook to drag the Tartars from  their saddle, for they fall off very easily;   knives, and cuirasses of a double thickness,  for the Tartar arrows do not easily pierce such;   a helmet and armour and other things to  protect the body and the horses from their   weapons and arrows. If there are any men  not as well armed as we have described,   they ought to do as the Tartars and go behind the  others and shoot at the enemy with their bows and   crossbows. There ought to be no stinting of money  when purchasing weapons for the defence of souls   and bodies and liberty and other possessions.” On his return in 1247, Carpini had his account   read out and copied as he travelled, ensuring  that it spread across Europe. As such, his work,   the Ystoria Mongalorum, became the most popular  account of the Mongols in Europe in the thirteenth   century. Later writers plagiarised and adapted  it. The most famous of these was John Mandeville,   a fourteenth century author who copied  from Carpini for his own fictional travels.  The question remains though; did Carpini’s work  influence European defensive measures against   the Mongols? It is difficult to answer in the  affirmative. While Carpini’s work was quickly   popularized, there’s little evidence to connect  it to defensive or offensive measures employed   against later Mongol attacks. Aside from the  improved fortifications, Carpini suggested,   something which originated independently  of Carpini, the hopes for united armies   operating as one body to prevent the Mongols from  overrunning the countryside never materialized.  After the Prince of Halychyna-Volhynia Daniil  Romanovich had been encouraged by the Hungarians   and Pope to assert his independence against  the Mongols, he received no support beyond a   Papal-approved crown, and this independence was  soon crushed. The 1260 invasion of Poland by   Boroldai Noyan was immensely destructive, more  so than the first Mongol attacks according to   the Polish chronicler Jan Długosz. Here  there was no record of any of Carpini’s   suggestions being adhered to; the Poles received  no outside aid, and the battles were all sieges,   in which the Mongols overran quickly the  Polish defenders. The Mongols retreated   laden with booty and captives, having been given  free roam to ravage the countryside. In Bulgaria,   the Jochid prince Nogai’s troops plundered  annually over the 1270s. Only in 1283 did Nogai’s   troops, commanded by a Byzantine ally, meet a  significant military defeat against the Serbians,   during a failed crossing over the River Drim. Nogai and Prince Tele-Buqa led a large attack on   the Hungarian Kingdom in 1285. Here the defensive  measures of the late Béla IV were put to the test,   and once more no influence of Carpini’s  suggestions can be determined. The Cumans   who Béla had so carefully recalled to the  Kingdom revolted at the start of the 1280s,   in response to Christianization efforts  led against them. Though the revolt was   put down in 1282, many of these Cumans fled the  Hungarian Kingdom outright, a number defecting   to the Golden Horde, thus unraveling Béla’s  intended offensive arm against the Mongols.  The second Mongol invasion of Hungary is only  poorly covered in the extant primary sources,   though study of these sources has advanced  our knowledge of the campaign since even   our own video on it. While it remains  a popular claim in online circles to   assert that fierce European heavy cavalry  under King László routed the Mongol armies,   there is no surviving source that describes  any such encounter. Charters issued by László   seem to indicate that he stayed in the western  part of the kingdom, mostly in Buda and Pest,   throughout the Mongol assault. As  archaeologist Michal Holeščák noted,   it seems unlikely that a King so beleaguered and  suffering from harassment from the Church and his   Barons would have missed an opportunity  to glorify a victory over the Mongols,   had he one to share. Instead, the campaign was  largely one of the small skirmishes and short   sieges. The Mongols seemed unwilling to besiege  major sites and ravaged the countryside instead,   and when they began to withdraw in the spring of  1285, the sources described them as carrying a   considerable amount of slaves and booty; it  seems up to that point, the campaign was by   and large successful. Carpini’s doctrine here  evidently played no role in the defence. Only   the botched withdrawal through the Carpathians  stopped the campaign from being a success,   where lightly armoured Vlachs, Saxons and Szekély  harassed the Mongols armies and freed a number of   prisoners. As reported in sources from Poland,  the Rus’ Principalities to Egypt, Tele-Buqa’s   army was lost to severe weather, epidemic and  starvation, turning the mission into a disaster.  It seems that Carpini’s suggestions were not  heeded in Hungary. When Nogai and Tele-Buqa,   now Khan of the Golden Horde, attacked Poland  in 1287, the campaign was much less successful.   Major cities repulsed the Mongol attacks, and  the Mongols had to contend with pillaging the   countryside and undefended areas. But Carpini  would have found some solace in the fact that some   Hungarian lords travelled in Poland to provide  assistance against the Mongols: this was the   closest to a united military front ever offered. The 1280s marked the last of the major Mongol   attacks on Europe. Raids launched by the Golden  Horde continued well into the fourteenth century,   but these were on a considerably smaller  scale. Throughout the first half of the 1300s,   Khan Öz Beğ showed a remarkable willingness to  negotiate for diplomatic settlements when he,   the Polish King and the Lithuanian Grand Duke  butted heads over Halychyna-Volhynia. While Öz Beğ   wasn’t afraid to threaten a Mongol invasion, his  desires to conquer the Ilkhanate stopped him from   ever committing any real strength to the far west.  But after Öz Beğ’s death, the balance shifted.   The ravages of the Black Death, ecological and  economic catastrophes and repeated civil wars   left the Golden Horde in a state of anarchy from  1360 through to 1380. After being stabilized by   Toqtamish Khan, the Horde was once again plunged  into turmoil with the invasion of the great Emir,   Tamerlane. In the midst of this, the rulers of  Hungary, Poland and Lithuania invaded Horde’s   western lands. The Lithuanians took Kyiv and  drove to the Black Sea. Unfortunately, the sources   generally offer little detail into the specifics  of a given victory. Strong cavalry forces marked   much of these armies, with their own horse  archers; these were the types of forces which,   ironically, often fared the best against the  Mongols, as was the case with the Mamluk Sultanate   of Egypt and the Delhi Sultanate. Thus, Carpini’s  suggestions had little influence on the actual   successes European armies did have; but in regard,  he was quite correct. When the Mongol armies   were no longer providing a disciplined, united  front, they fell victim to the armies that could. #2 Ruthenians Eastern Europeans also had to deal with the   Mongols. We will focus on the princes of Halych  and Volhynia, today the western part of Ukraine,   and the lives of Danylo Romanovich and his  brother, Vasylko. They were sons of Knyaz Roman   Mstislavich, who became the powerful prince of the  Rus' principalities in the late twelfth century,   becoming Grand Prince of Kyiv, renewing an  alliance with the Byzantine Empire and inflected   crushing defeats on the nomadic Cuman people. He  even intervened in the war between Hohenstaufen   and Welfs in the Holy Roman Empire and was killed  campaigning against the Welfs' Polish allies in   1205. His sons Danylo and Vasylko were no more  than four and two years old. Halych-Volhynia fell   to independent boyars and rival Knyaz, while  Hungary, Cumans, Poland, and the Lithuanians   tried to raid or exert control. The city of  Halych switched hands constantly, the young   Danylo Romanovich fighting almost every year for  his birthright; the Hungarian King András II,   for instance, installed his young son  Kálmán there as Prince of Halych. Steadily   the Romanovichi brothers brought their family  back to influence. Alliances turned quickly;   Danylo and Vasylko would ally with the Poles and  Hungarians in one year and fight them the next.   Plots and rebellions challenged them regularly. Danylo and Vasylko grew up fighting,   soon becoming warriors famed for their strength,  courage, and skill, who took lead roles in combat.   Gradually they reclaimed their family lands  throughout Halych and Volhynia, though the city   of Halych itself remained under constant threat  from Hungarians and rival knyaz. By the start   of the 1220s, the young princes were among the  fiercest warriors in all the Rus' lands. Danylo   Romanovich was among the many princes, boyars,  and knyaz who attended the great council in Kyiv,   listening to the accounts of terrified Cumans  seeking assistance against a frightening enemy   from the east. A great host of Rus' and Cumans,  some of whom had been baptized to seal the   coalition, marched into the steppes in the spring  of 1223. Danylo was one of the princes leading   parties to observe this new foe, eager to make  a name for himself with his courage, to make a   worthwhile comparison to his late father Roman's,  and ancestor Volodymyr Monomakh's victories over   nomadic foes. But the Mongols would not be  accommodating to the young prince's desires.  The Rus' princes, their retinues, and the  Cumans fought as skilled horse archers, with   the Rus’ better equipped. They made a good show  of themselves in the first skirmishes, capturing   great numbers of Mongol cattle. They captured and  executed a Mongol commander who had been scouting   out the coalition. The Rus' chronicles record  the great excitement of the Cumans at getting   their revenge on this Mongol leader, whom they  called Gemya-Beğ. In the opinion of historian   Stephen Pow, this was the ultimate fate of Jebe  Noyan, one of the great generals of Chinggis Khan.  Jebe's co-commander, Sübedei, could not let this  go unpunished. The Rus' and Cumans pursued the   Mongols deeper into the steppes until reaching the  Kalka River, where Sübedei's troops turned about   and crushed the alliance. The Halych-Volhynian  Chronicle records Danylo Romanovich fighting   fiercely but suffering a wound to his chest,  which, through adrenaline, he did not realize he   had incurred until during the bedraggled retreat  from the battle. So ended Danylo's first encounter   with the Mongols, but it would not be his last. Though regarded as the greatest defeat the Rus'   princes had ever suffered to that point,  it did not stop their continued fighting.   The principalities remained a mess of shifting  alliances, and the Romanovichi grew in strength.   The Halych-Volhynian Chronicle reports that  from 1227 onwards, Danylo and Vasylko knew   no peace. They continued to battle Poles,  Hungarians, Lithuanians, rival Princes,   and Cumans, suffering defeats and victories.  Relations with the Hungarians eased after the   death of András and his son Béla IV's ascension  as Hungarian King. Over the late 1230s, Danylo   and Vasylko visited Béla and began negotiating a  marriage alliance between their families. Danylo   was one of these trips in 1240 when the Mongols  attacked Halych-Volhynia. Like many Rus’ princes,   Danylo seems to have failed to take heed of the  fall of the eastern principalities. In late 1239,   as the prince of Kyiv, Mikhail Vsevolodovich, fled  the city with the approach of the Mongols, Danylo   was content to appoint a boyar, Dmitro, to govern  it on his behalf before departing for Hungary.   This Dmitro commanded the city when it fell to the  Mongols in the winter of 1240. Surprisingly, we   are told the Mongols spared Dmitro because of his  courage and that he urged Batu to attack Hungary.  Danylo learned of the Mongol attack when he  encountered waves of refugees on his way back   to Halych. Riding with only a small escort,  Danylo fled into Poland, where he found his   wife, children, and brother Vasylko had also  escaped. Late in 1241, after the Mongols moved   into Hungary, Danylo and his family returned to  Halych-Volhynia. The sight that awaited them was   beyond comprehension; we are told that they could  not enter the city of Berestia on account of the   stench of the corpses; at the city of Volodymyr’,  not a single person was seen alive, its Church of   the Blessed Virgin filled with the fallen. Whatever pain and anger Danylo felt,   he did not let it despair him but turned  his wrath instead against the boyars,   many of whom refused to listen to him or acted as  independent lords. But Danylo’s campaign had to be   called off with the return of Batu and Sübedei's  great host from Hungary. The Mongols dispatched   a portion of the army to track down Danylo. He  evaded his pursuers, though they wrecked more   damage on the country as far as Volodava. Even then, the shadow of the Great Khan was   not far away. Despite the common claim, the Mongol  army did not retreat to participate in an election   in Mongolia. Batu only went as far east as the  Volga River, and began dividing up the western   steppes to his princes and generals, assigning  tax collectors in the Rus' lands and putting down   a Cuman rebellion in the steppe. One of Danylo's  most hated enemies, prince Mikhail Vsevolodovich,   was put to death on Batu's order for failing to  show proper reverence to an icon of Chinggis Khan.  While almost all Rus' princes and church leaders  paid homage in Batu's court on the Volga,   Danylo tried to avoid any formal recognition  of Batu's authority. Danylo was fortunate too,   that the destruction in Halych-Volhynia was  not total, for he was quickly able to raise   an army for a four-pronged assault on eastern  Poland in 1243, while in 1244, fought Rostislav   Mikhailovich, a rival prince backed by Béla IV  to take control of Halych city. By this point,   Danylo's son Lev was old enough to join his  father in battle against the Lithuanians,   Poles, and Hungarians. Whatever the terror of the  Mongols, Danylo saw the opportunity to consolidate   his power; an opportunity his rivals grasped  too. Danylo hoped the Mongols would not return,   or at least not immediately, to give himself time  to strengthen his position and fortify his cities.  But in 1245, envoys came from the Mongols  demanding his formal submission. Here the   Halych-Volhynian Chronicle specifies Danylo’s  fear, as his fortification project was barely   begun. With great trepidation, Danylo traveled  to Batu. Tearfully saying goodbye to his family,   he spent 25 days with Batu, who greeted Danylo  warmly; Batu considered it wise for Danylo to   have come of his own volition, though he felt it  was late. As Batu gave Danylo fermented mare's   milk to drink, he told the Knyaz that he was now  one of them and should share in their custom.  If the lengthy condemnation in the Chronicle  that follows this encounter is any indication,   then Danylo hated his experience with Batu.  Despondent, while returning to Halych-Volhynia,   he met a Franciscan monk, John de Plano Carpini,  who the Pope had sent as an envoy to the Mongols.   Carpini had already met with Danylo's brother  Vasylko, and now Danylo learned from the   Franciscan that the Pope was seeking to organize a  crusade against the Mongols, and an offer was made   to Danylo that he could join such an alliance,  if he abandoned the Greek Church for the Roman.  While not keen on the religious concession,  the promise of military aid stuck in Danylo's   mind. By the time Carpini returned from  Mongolia and met with Danylo in 1247,   he found Danylo excited by the plan, sending  letters and envoys back with Carpini to the   Pope. Carpini tells us he learned much about  the Mongols from the Romanovichi brothers;   some of the anti-Mongol defence measures  Carpini made, and we covered previously,   likely came directly from Danylo and Vasylko. Over the next years, Danylo Romanovich   exchanged envoys with the Pope while building  up fortifications, securing his lands,   and strengthening his army. The thought of armed  support from the west against the eastern enemy   could allow Danylo to punch above his weight. In  the meantime, he used official subordination to   Batu to his advantage; Béla IV finally agreed  to a marriage agreement between his daughter   and Danylo's son Lev, rather than an attack  on the vassal of the Khan, which would raise   Batu’s ire. Danylo also acquainted himself with  Mongolian equipment; in 1248, Danylo personally   led an army to Bratislava to assist Béla against  the Holy Roman Emperor. Here, we are told that   Danylo, his guards, and their horses were adorned  in "Tatar armor," which was resplendent to behold.  By 1253, in Dorohyčyn, Danylo formally adopted  the Catholic faith while being crowned by the   Pope's representatives as King of Ruthenia (rex  ruthenorum). Unfortunately, no effort was made to   provide material support to Danylo. He received  a crown and nothing else. Once he realized this,   Danylo quickly reneged on the commitment  to Catholicism, which resulted in Papal   letters demanding his return to the fold. Danylo  likely did not think highly of these threats.  Still, by the mid-1250s, Danylo felt strong enough  to take the fight to the enemy. The constant   battles with the Lithuanians and other neighbors  made his armies experienced and cohesive,   a powerful body of heavy cavalry armed with bows  and javelins, supported by Cuman light-horsemen   and sturdy heavy infantry fighting with shield  and spear. Fighting began first as skirmishing   along border towns, Mongols and Danylo trying  to secure the loyalty of boyars and punishing   those who defected. In 1255, perhaps following  the death of Batu, King Danylo, his brother   Vasylko and his son Lev campaigned along the Bug  River, taking several towns under their rule.  But the Mongols struck back the following winter  under the command of Quremsa. At Volodymyr,   his advance troops were repulsed by Vasylko's  troops. A pitched battle was avoided, though,   as Danylo’s had been gathering his troops  at Chełm until the town was destroyed in a   devastating fire. The Halych-Volhynian Chronicle  blamed a “damned peasant woman” for the blaze.   But people and troops fled, assuming  Chełm had already fallen to the Mongols.   While Danylo tried to gather his forces, Quremsa  tried his luck at Lutsk, an unfortified town where   many refugees had gathered. He failed to ford  the deep, freezing river, and the townspeople   cut down the bridge before Quremsa's troops could  cross it. His attempt to bombard the foe failed   on account of strong winds allegedly throwing the  stones back onto the catapults, according to the   Halych-Volhynian Chronicle. Quremsa withdrew  soon after, and was promptly removed from his   position. Danylo was fortunate, as Quremsa was  a poor commander unable to take advantage of   the Knyaz’s misfortune. The Halych-Volhynian  Chronicle reports Danylo was never afraid of   him. Quremsa's successor was a different story. Boroldai Noyan was an experienced general who   had accompanied Batu and Sübedei on the great  campaign. He came with a great army too; the new   Jochid Khan, Berke, wanted to tighten the leash  on his western frontier. His messengers to Danylo   in 1257 came with a simple message: Boroldai was  going to march against the Lithuanians, and if   they were truly at peace, then Danylo would join. After deliberation, it was deemed too dangerous   to send Danylo to Boroldai, so Vasylko went in  his brother’s stead. Vasylko fought alongside   Boroldai in a number of battles against the  Lithuanians over 1258: Boroldai commended him on   his ability. Meanwhile, Danylo navigated away from  Boroldai, successfully avoiding him. An annoyed   but placated Boroldai returned to the steppes. A year of rare peace followed: in Volodymyr’   in November 1259, Danylo and his family were  celebrating the wedding of Vasylko’s daughter,   when more messages came from Boroldai, demanding  Danylo and Vasylko in his presence. Vasylko,   Danylo’s son Lev, and the Bishop of Chełm went  to Boroldai, whose fury at Danylo’s absence left   them trembling. He then ordered they demonstrate  their loyalty by dismantling their fortifications.   Reluctantly, they carried out Boroldai’s will  and tore down many of Halych-Volhynia’s walls   and towers. Boroldai accompanied Vasylko  to Volodymyr’, and watched as Vasylko set   fire to the great wooden walls and dug up the  entrenchments. Boroldai even entered Volodymyr’,   enjoying a dinner in Vasylko’s home there. Only at Chełm was Boroldai denied. The garrison   stood their ground, barring the doors and arming  crossbows and catapults against them. Boroldai   sent Vasylko to receive their surrender. Under  the eye of Boroldai’s officers and interpreters,   Vasylko urged the garrison to submit; but as  he spoke he threw rocks at the ground. His   men in the city knew how to interpret it, and  refused the order. Boroldai was frustrated but   moved on. Perhaps hearing of Danylo’s flight to  Poland, Boroldai took Vasylko and his army into   the Polish duchies and unleashed a swath of  devastation there, sacking several cities and   departing with considerable loot. Danylo  avoided this too, by fleeing to Hungary.  Danylo returned to Halych, having been  humbled. He spent his last years quietly,   passing from illness in 1264, and Vasylko a  few years later. Danylo’s son Lev succeeded   the throne as King of Ruthenia. Unlike his father,  Lev Danylovich did not try to resist the Mongols;   instead, he used them. To deal with raids  by the Lithuanians or Poles, Lev regularly   requested support from the Khan or prince Nogai,  who would in good order provide an army to protect   Lev’s border. He learned the lessons of his  father and enjoyed a long reign of comparative   stability compared to him. The rule of his family  continued into the early fourteenth century. #3 Mamluks The southeastern limit of the Mongol invasion   was Ayn Jalut. The famous battle and the campaign  surrounding it provided the Mamluk Sultan Baybars   with a plethora of lessons he would employ against  the Mongols. Baybars and many of the Mamluks were   Qipchaqs, Turkic nomads who lived in the great  grass steppe, which stretches from Ukraine through   Kazakhstan. When the Mongols conquered those  steppes in the 1230s, thousands of Qipchaqs were   displaced and sold abroad. Baybars and other boys  like him were purchased by the Ayyubids of Egypt,   descendants of the mighty Saladin. They were  converted to Islam, and trained to become fearsome   soldiers on foot and horseback, equipped with the  finest arms, armours, and horses. Skilled with   bow and mace, these slave soldiers, or mamluks,  became some of the greatest horseback warriors   of the age. When the French King Louis IX and  his army invaded Egypt on the Seventh Crusade,   at the battle of Mansura in 1250, 600 knights  charged against the Mamluks; only a handful of   knights escaped alive. In the ensuing days, the  Mamluks not only defeated the Crusader army and   captured Louis IX, but murdered the last Ayyubid  sultan, beginning a long period of fighting   between Mamluk factions for control of Cairo. Baybars and his own Mamluk regiments were   forced to flee to the Ayyubids of Syria. There,  Baybars urged the Ayyubid ruler, al-Nasir Yusuf,   to rally his forces against the approaching  Mongol prince Hülagü. Al-Nasir chose instead   to trust in the walls of Damascus and Aleppo.  Baybars, who had always a clear head, knew the   great army of Hülagü which had taken Baghdad  would find no trouble picking off poorly-led   Ayyubid defenders. Thus, Baybars abandoned  the Ayyubids, and made peace with his rival,   Qutuz, now the Sultan of Egypt. Al-Nasir shortly  after abandoned his cities, and Syria swiftly   fell to the Mongols in the spring of 1260. After that, there was no Islamic power in the   region to stand against the Mongols other  than Cairo itself. Believing the Mamluks   too disunited and weak, and not desiring to  cross the desert in the heat of the summer,   Hülegü withdrew with most of his army to the  cooler pastures of Azerbaijan. He sent letters   to the Mamluks demanding their submission and  made it apparent that he would return in the   autumn. Hülegü left his commander Ket Buqa to  consolidate Syria and Palestine, establishing a   new government under a puppet Ayyubid prince named  al-Ashraf Musa. Contrary to some claims, Ket Buqa   was not in the midst of preparing to march  on Egypt; he separated his forces into   various local pastures to rest for the summer. Baybars and Qutuz could not let this opportunity   slide. The emirs were terrified of the Mongols  and believed them invincible. With difficulty,   Qutuz and Baybars assembled a force  commonly estimated at 10,000 Mamluks,   and a few thousand refugee soldiers who had fled  the disintegration of al-Nasir Yusuf’s realm,   including Turkmen, Kurds, and Bedouin. The march  was daring, and several times Baybars and Qutuz   needed to rally the emirs into advancing. They caught Ket Buqa Noyan off guard, who had   to quickly collect his soldiers from across the  region: a core of Mongols with Georgian, Armenian,   and local forces, with a large Syrian contingent  under al-Ashraf Musa, the prince the Mongols   made titular head of Syria. Its exact size is  uncertain, but likely similar to the Mamluk army.   The two armies met in early September 1260 at  Ayn Jalut. It was ground well-suited for cavalry,   the backbone of both armies. Fighting began with  skirmishing; Baybars led the Mamluk vanguard, a   day’s ride ahead of Qutuz, and was forced to fall  back after the first day. On the 3rd of September,   the full Mamluk army arrived and formed up. Different medieval sources emphasize different   aspects. Mamluk accounts stress the early arrival  of the Mongols, while the Ilkhanid sources   describe a Mamluk ambush. Uniformly, they depict  a hard-fought battle, with the Mongols pushing   back the Mamluks and requiring Qutuz to reform his  army twice, lest it breaks. Three factors led to   the ultimate Mamluk victory that day. While it’s  sometimes claimed the Mamluks defeated the Mongols   through superior numbers or with gunpowder,  neither seems born out. Notices of these weapons   at Ayn Jalut come from later military treatises  which aim to glorify these weapons. Instead,   Qutuz and Baybars’ leadership preventing a Mamluk  rout was key. But also commonly overlooked was   the defection of al-Ashraf Musa, an Ayyubid prince  allied to the Mongols and stationed on their left   flank. Either fearing the outcome of the battle  or in agreement with the Mamluks, al-Ashraf and   his forces fled the field, allowing the Mongol  army to be enveloped. And hence the third factor   for the Mamluk victory was their superior armour,  weapons, and training for extended close-quarter   combat. Thus, with some difficulty, the Mamluks  cut down the Mongols and killed Ket Buqa.  Qutuz and Baybars pushed the Mongols to the border  and set about gaining the submission of regional   princes, rewarding those like al-Ashraf Musa, or  punishing those who had allied with the Mongols,   while appointing a new governor for Syria.  Qutuz was not long to enjoy his victory;   Baybars assassinated him, revenge for Qutuz’s  murders of Baybars’ allies. According to   Baybars’ chancellor and favoured biographer,  Ibn Abd al-Ẓāhir, Baybars’ own sword,   rightly guided by Allah, struck down Qutuz. Baybars was enthroned as Sultan and set about   consolidating power. Ayn Jalut hadn’t broken  Mongol military power; Baybars had gambled   everything he had in order to defeat what was  essentially a garrison, not the full Mongol   army. He knew the Mongols would seek revenge in  greater numbers. At the end of 1260, another small   Mongol army attacked Syria, which was defeated  handily at Homs in December, a much-needed   boost to confirm the outcome of Ayn Jalut. From his own experience and reports of other   Mongol conquests, Baybars built his defense.  Several factors were seen as key to the Mongols’   victories: a disunited defense and too much trust  in city walls gave the Mongols freedom of movement   and local superiority of force. Detailed  information networks were needed to track   and prepare for Mongol advances. Diplomatically  the Mamluks needed friends and allies to relieve   some of the pressure, while also maintaining their  own internal lines of communication. In effect,   to prevent the situation al-Nasir Yusuf had  experienced. The Mamluks had to play to their   strengths, particularly their strong core of  heavy horsemen and the limited routes of advance,   and deny the Mongols their own advantages, their  mobility, and numbers. Baybars was going to design   his entire kingdom to counter Mongol invasions. Baybars was also extremely fortunate. When Hülagü   learned of the death of his brother, Grand Khan  Möngke, he began to annex territories in Iran   and the Caucasus that his northern cousins  considered theirs; the soon-to-emerge Golden   Horde. Their tax collectors had been stationed  throughout these lands, and after Möngke’s death,   Hülagü ousted them for himself. The ruler of  the northern branch of the Mongols, Berke,   was a Muslim who already disliked Hülagü for his  murder of the Caliph; the annexation of lands he   considered his own, coupled with the mysterious  deaths of some of Berke’s kinsmen in Hülagü’s   army, and without a Great Khan to mediate between  them, led to war breaking out between the two   princes in 1262. Hülagü spent the remainder of  his life at war with Berke of the Golden Horde;   when he died in 1265, his son Abaqa took up  the throne and continued the fighting. This   provided Baybars valuable years to nurture his  strength without any significant Mongol attacks.  Baybars’ first steps were securing  the internal situation. Cities   and principalities from Jordan through to  Syria were subdued through force or treaty,   while he incorporated the Bedouin Arabs of Syria  into the defense, preventing them from allying   with the Mongols. The governor of Syria appointed  by Qutuz rebelled and declared himself Sultan,   forcing Baybars to lead a campaign there to  crush him and further consolidate his hold there.   Baybars forced most of the Crusader settlements  to accept treaties that protected his routes and   allowed Baybars to reinforce Syria with soldiers  and food supplies to overcome famine. The Crusader   states were generally a minor annoyance, to fall  at the Mamluks’ leisure: Antioch fell to Baybars   in 1268, Krak des Chevaliers in 1271, and a slew  of other Crusader sites by the end of his life  Given his lack of royal background  and shaky claim to legitimacy,   Baybars needed to reinforce his position in  Cairo. To this end, he found a distant relation   to the last Abbasid Caliph, and quickly had him  declared as a new Caliph in 1261. Inexplicably,   he declared an attack on Baghdad with his new  Caliph, marched as far as Damascus with him,   and then sent the Caliph out with only some 400  men into Mongol lands. The result was the second   caliph was killed on Hülegü’s order. What exactly  Baybars hoped to achieve here confused even people   at the time, and despite efforts to justify it,  it seems Baybars simply made a rare misstep.  But, generally, Baybars was more effective.  He focused strongly on control of information;   with spies in the Ilkhanate, he wanted to know if  a Mongol army was moving before even the Mongols   knew it. His spies are alleged to have spread  misinformation to destabilize the Ilkhanate   at times. It was important to the Sultan to know  immediately about Mongol movements and other news,   and for this, he established the barid. Perhaps  inspired by the Mongols’ yam postal system,   this was a system of relay stations for messages  to travel quickly right into the Sultan’s hands.   This was supported by signal towers, permanently  manned and with bonfires and smoke signals,   as well as messenger pigeons, improved roads,  and bridges. At its height, a rider could   travel from Egypt to Damascus in three days. He also refocused the fortifications of the   region; when taking a Frankish or rebel city or  castle, Baybars had its fortifications destroyed,   while border fortresses, primarily  along the Euphrates frontier with   the Ilkhanate like al-Bira and al-Rahba, were  strengthened. Permanently garrisoned, these   forts survived numerous failed Mongol assaults. There was also a strict system in place should the   Mongols pass the border forts. As stated, Baybars  wanted to prevent isolated garrisons from being   picked off one-by-one by the Mongols, as had  happened to the Khwarezmian Empire. Baybars’   order was for garrisons to retreat to an agreed  point, where they would mass up and face the   Mongols in a unified body, or await the arrival  of the Sultan and the main army This strategy was   employed in every major Mongol attack on Syria  over the decades, and proved a most effective   defensive measure. Baybars also made it customary  to advance with his forces as soon as the news   came of a Mongol attack. This generally served  to frighten off smaller Mongol raiding parties,   while also reminding the Syrian population  that the Sultan would be there immediately   to protect them, or to punish defectors. And  when smaller Mongol parties withdrew, Baybars   could then raid over the border, particularly  against the Il-Khan’s allies in Armenian Cilicia.  Baybars also improved the army, especially  the Royal Mamluks whose ranks he expanded   and rewards heaped upon them, but also the halqa,  the non-Mamluk, lower-status army. These were free   men, native Egyptians, Kurds, Turkic auxiliaries,  or the sons of Mamluks, who grew to dominate   this body over the fourteenth century, and  fill roles the prouder Mamluks refused to.   The Mamluk garrisons in Cairo, particularly of  the Bahriyya Mamluks to whom Baybars belonged,   were reinforced, with hippodromes built in  the city to train them, which also served to   give entertainment to the population, while  also reminding them of the Sultan’s power.  But Baybars also had to expand the  Mamluk regiments, and for this,   he needed steady access to Turkic slaves from  the steppe. For this, Baybars made treaties and   encouraged good ties with the Genoese and the  newly restored Byzantine Empire under Michael   VIII. The Genoese ferried the Qipchaqs on their  ships or sold them from the Crimean ports, and   the Byzantines kept the Bosphorous open for their  passage. But most importantly, Baybars needed the   cooperation of the Mongols in the Golden Horde to  allow this trade in the first place, or to stop   them from harassing the Byzantines. This brings  us to the alliance between Berke and Baybars.  Upon learning of the war between the Golden Horde  and Hülegü in 1262, Baybars sent a letter to Berke   Khan through an Alan merchant. It stressed the  Islam of both men, and encouraged Berke’s war   against the Ilkhanate, but with no response from  Berke. A more fruitful opportunity came later that   year, with a host of Mongol refugees. There were  troops originally from the Golden Horde who had   been provided to Hülegü for the campaign  against the Nizari Isma'ilis and Baghdad,   but were betrayed and attacked by Hülegü at the  beginning of hostilities. Some fled to Afghanistan   under their commander, some to the Golden Horde,  and the rest to Egypt. Baybars quickly jumped on   the opportunity. He welcomed them to Cairo with  a glowing reception, and made a great show of   how well he treated these Mongols. Their leaders  were made emirs, and the rest were incorporated   into the Mamluk army. These were the first of the  wafidiyya: the Mongols who fought for the Mamluks.   They were far from the last. Periodically, other  Mongol refugees fleeing turmoil in the Ilkhanate,   captured by the Mamluks after a victory, or sold  as slaves during Mongol civil wars, ended up in   Mamluk Egypt and incorporated into the army and  elite. In time, some became the most powerful men   in the Mamluk state. One, named ironically  Ket Buqa, even became Sultan in the 1290s;   the longest reigning Mamluk Sultan, an-Nasir  Muhammad, had a Mongolian mother; and Baybars   himself took three wafidiyya women as wives. They gave Baybars deeper knowledge of the   Mongol army. In addition to his spies  within the Ilkhanate, Baybars was likely   among the most well-informed individuals  in the Mongol military as there ever was,   allowing him to further finesse his strategies. On the initial welcoming of Mongols into Egypt in   late 1262, Baybars installed a new Caliph, then  sent another letter to Berke Khan telling him of   how he had so kindly treated Berke’s soldiers.  He urged Berke to take up Jihad against Hülegü,   and this time Berke responded kindly, kicking off  a diplomatic relationship that would last another   two centuries. So began the alliance between  the Golden Horde and Mamluks, and while it never   resulted in any military cooperation, it did keep  access to Qipchaq slaves open for the Mamluk army,   despite some periods of cooler relations.  Additionally, it unbalanced the Ilkhanate,   which always feared a joint attack by the Mamluks  and Golden Horde, a threat the Mamluks always   encouraged. Preventing the Ilkhanate from massing  all of its considerable strength on the Mamluks,   served Baybars’ defenses all the better. While Mamluk sources like to present this   as a relationship of equal partners, with the  Mamluk Sultan in a role as guardian of Islam   and the religious senior, it’s speculated that  the Golden Horde saw this as a submission of   the Mamluks to them. The Golden Horde Khans, as  rulers of the Qipchaq steppe and its peoples,   may have seen it natural for the Qipchaqs in  Egypt to submit to them, made all the easier   by their shared religion. For in Mongol imperial  ideology, only the Chinggisids were legitimate   rulers. Further, Mamluk embassies always bore a  great number of expensive gifts for the Khans,   while the Golden Horde rarely sent gifts in  return, as it may have seen this as tribute.   This is not just a modern observation;  a later Mamluk scholar, al-’Ayni,   complained of how uneven the relationship was, and  believed the Golden Horde had the better of it.  By the time of his death in 1277, Baybars  had created a system designed to negate   Mongol military prowess. A strong army  well-versed in Mongol attacks was one thing,   but in addition to this offensive weapon, Baybars  effectively prepared a lengthy defensive network,   too, while diplomatically preventing the Ilkhanate  from focusing solely on the Mamluks militarily.   And it is a testament to its ability, that  only on a single occasion did it fail in 1300,   when the Il-Khan Ghazan overcame  the boy-sultan al-Nasir Muhammad   at Wadi al-Khazandar. As a result, the Mamluks  outlived the Ilkhanate by almost 2 centuries. #4 China When Chinggis Khan invaded   North China’s Jin Dynasty in 1211, this was  the latest, if most dramatic, round in a series   of invasions going back well over a millennium.  When his armies crossed the Gobi desert, much   of northern China had already been under the rule  of nomadic and semi-nomadic horse-archer conquest   dynasties since the 10th century. From active  defence to dissuasion and everything in between,   all sorts of tactics and strategies had been  employed, with varying levels of success,   to stymie the advance of the nomads.  These relationships were not uniform,   but we can observe some general trends. Firstly  was the difficulty for Chinese armies to operate   in the open steppes of Mongolia. Nomads subsisted  off their herds, who survived off the veritable   ocean of grassland. For Chinese armies reliant  on baggage trains and products of farmland,   the steppes seemed a desert. Additionally, more  mobile nomadic armies generally avoided direct   conflict with Chinese invaders, dragging them  along as their supplies wore thin and striking   when they weakened, or dispersing utterly and  denying confrontation at all. Though these   challenges could be met by skilled commanders  like the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, for   lesser generals it led to humiliating disasters. With that said, let us look at the means employed   against the nomads. It’s best to deal first with  the most famous; the Great Wall of China. Though   Chinese border fortifications go back before  even the first imperial unification by the Qin,   the Great Wall of China is not a single structure  that has survived history. China’s first emperor,   Qin Shi Huangdi, constructed an infamous Long  Wall on his state’s northern border. However, that   wall, made of pounded earth and layers of reeds,  long since eroded. Rather, different dynasties in   China built a number of walls in different places  and maintained them for short periods. The iconic   winding structure that stands today was built by  the Ming Dynasty during the sixteenth century,   some 400 years after the Mongol conquest of China.  In the time of Chinggis Khan, there were border   walls constructed by the Jin Dynasty which ran  through flatlands in Inner Mongolia, consisting   of low rammed-earth walls and ditches. But the  tribes manning these fortifications submitted   to Chinggis Khan, and allowed him free passage. Border walls were neither the first nor last line   of defense. They served three primary purposes:  first, dissuading nomadic attacks along a certain   route; second, a signaling service to alert of  enemy attacks, and give time for garrisons behind   the wall to mobilize for the threat; and third,  control over border trade. Chinese dynasties often   restricted the sale of weapons to the nomads,  and building their border walls could, in theory,   control this trade or funnel it to a few select  choke points for tax purposes. Over-reliance on   walls as pure defensive structures, were usually  signs of the dynasty’s weakness, as occurred in   the late-Ming period after the humiliation of  the Tumu Crisis in 1449, when Mongols captured   the Ming Emperor and besieged Beijing. After this,  the Ming began the expansion of the Great Wall to   first protect the route to Beijing from the north,  and gradually almost the entire northern frontier.  Generally, the actual first line of defence  against nomadic attacks was prevention.   That is, dissuading them diplomatically, or  encouraging the nomads to fight each other.   A common tool of persuasion was extensive gift  giving, essentially a sort of Danegeld to buy off   the nomads before their attack. Though more than  one court-official bemoaned this as humiliation,   it was considerably cheaper than an actual  invasion. While sometimes claimed these treaties   intended to ‘civilize’ and weaken the ‘martial  ability’ of the nomads with Chinese culture, there   isn’t great support for this. For nearly the first  century of its existence, China’s illustrious Han   Dynasty had to recognize the Xiongnu rulers  in Mongolia as ‘equal brothers,’ who were owed   annual tributes, known as the heqin 和親 treaties,  sending mammoth amounts of silk alongside grain,   princesses and other treasures. As a ‘means to  civilize the barbarians,’ they rather failed,   and appears a retroactive justification. The  Han had more success against the Xiongnu by   encouraging revolt among its vassals and princes  and strengthening its rivals, coupled with a   few well-placed campaigns of its own. The most effective means of defence was   preventing nomadic unity through divide-and-rule  tactics. Over the 10th to early 12th centuries,   eastern Mongolia and parts of North China  were controlled by the Liao Dynasty,   which was ruled by the Khitans, a people related  to the Mongols. After their conquest of Mongolia,   they established garrisons, forts, and towns  across Mongolia, and ruled through what is called   a Dual Administration: using customary law of  Khitans and other nomads in the steppe, and Tang   Dynasty laws for its Chinese and Bohai population.  In addition to garrisons and a more familiar law,   the Liao Dynasty also reorganized the population  of the Mongolian plateau into a number of   bu 部, which can be translated as unit, department,  or tribe. This saw the removal of existing nomad   leaders, and their replacement with loyalists to  the Liao Dynasty, each given an allotted region to   call their own, while also serving as units for  taxation and administrative needs. This method   kept the Liao secure on their steppe border,  though less so on their northeastern border,   where the Jurchen people in Manchuria  eventually rose up, toppled the Liao, declared   the Jin Dynasty, and conquered north China. However, the Jin did not take Mongolia and with   the passing of the Liao garrisons, the steppes  were in a power vacuum. Groups like the Kereyid   who had not been under direct Liao control,  grew to become the most powerful, while others,   like the nascent Mongols ruled by the grandfathers  of Chinggis Khan, were becoming a nuisance. Here,   the Jin employed a very different technique  than the Liao: they made the peoples along   their borders their vassals, who manned the  lines of fortifications the Jin built in the   steppes just south of the Gobi, and provided  titles, luxury goods, beneficial trade ties,   and military support to those specific group.  For the second half of the 12th century,   this was chiefly the Tatars in eastern Mongolia,  who acted as the enforcers of Jin interests,   and stopped any other group from becoming too  powerful. And when the Tatars grew too rebellious,   the Jin switched their support to another people  who would then push down the Tatars. In the   1190s this was a Kereyid Khan named To’oril,  and a rising Mongol warlord named Temüjin.   Unfortunately for the Jin, while their attention  was distracted by internal troubles and war with   the Southern Song Dynasty, this young warlord  in the north went on to subjugate the nomads.   In 1206 he declared the Mongol Empire and took  a new title: Chinggis Khan. Soon after, he took   his new nation on the offensive against the Jin. What did the Jin do to confront the Mongol attack?   As already noted, the Jin’s border guard largely  submitted to the new Mongol Emperor. Yet the Jin   themselves were no meek force, and arguably  held the single greatest military in the world   at the time. At their core were Jurchen horse  archers and fearsome heavy cavalry, supported   by Khitan horsemen and thousands upon thousands  of Chinese infantry and crossbowmen. As the North   China plain is divided from the Mongol steppes  by the Yan Mountains, the Jin defense focused on   the select navigable passages through them, which  were guarded by strong gates and towers. The Jin   reinforced these gates, spreading caltrops and  ditches before them. Fierce fighting followed,   but the Jin were overconfident. The Mongols  relied on deserters, spies, and scouts to   inform them of Jin positions, allowing them to  find unguarded passes and exploit weakness. To   overcome the Jin forts while lacking their own  siege tools, the Mongols employed feigned retreats   in abundance, and haughty, or revenge-seeking, Jin  defenders fell for it with startling regularity.  The Jin were hampered by poor leadership; within  the first two years of the war with the Mongols,   the Jin’s offensive and political capabilities  were ground down. A coup in 1213, and the new   emperor abandoning the central capital of  Zhongdu heralded this. Soon after arriving   in the new capital of Kaiping, the new Jin Emperor  launched a large invasion of the Song Dynasty to   the south! The further division of the strained  Jin forces weakened their ability at organized   resistance. Many cities were simply left to their  own devices against the Khan’s horsemen. With the   accession of a new Jin Emperor in 1224, and the  absence of the main Mongol armies in Khwarezm,   and peace between Jin, Song and the Tangut  Kingdom, efforts were made to better prepare   against the Mongols. The Yellow River now stood  as the primary barrier between the Jin state and   the Mongol Empire, and the few routes around or  over it were given extra garrisons and reinforced.  This also saw the creation of a new army to  better combat the Mongols. Called the “Loyal   and Filial Army,” this was an army specially made  for anti-Mongol activities. Composed of captives   and deserters from the Mongol army, it was a  mixed force of Northern Chinese, Tangut, Uighur,   Naiman and Qipchaq origin, fighting as mounted  horse archers like the Mongols. Paid triple that   of regular soldiers and armed with fire weapons,  this became the vanguard of the new Jin offensives   to reclaim their lands. Shortly after the  enthronement of the new Great Khan Ögedei,   news came that this army inflicted several  serious defeats on the Mongols. One of these   was even against a rising Mongol general named  Sübeedei, whom a furious Ögedei nearly removed   permanently from command in his wrath.  The Jin were at their most effective   when they fought the closest to the Mongols. However, this final effort was too little,   too late. By 1234, in alliance with the Song  Dynasty, the Mongols crushed the last of the Jin   resistance. Soon after, the Mongols and Song were  also at war. Here, the Song frontier differed from   the Jin experience. The Song had fought with  armies of horsemen back to Khitan invasions,   when one of their strategies had been planting  a belt of forests along the frontier to break up   Khitan cavalry formations. The Song territory  was less forgiving to cavalry, both hillier,   and damper, cut by many rivers, marshes, wetlands,  and rice fields that could rot the hooves of   horses and spread disease among the northerners.  The Song Dynasty’s modern reputation for military   incompetence is undeserved though. The resistance  of the southern Chinese was some of the fiercest   the Mongols would face. The Song’s large cities  were protected by mighty walls and wide moats;   border forts and walls guarded major routes,  while the mighty Yangzi River served as an immense   natural barrier, patrolled by the Song navy. The  Song employed all matters of defensive weaponry,   from counter-artillery catapults and  giant cross-bows, fire-lances and bombs,   to well-armoured infantry protected by long  spears and stout shields. The Song court,   if far from ideal, still managed to produce some  skilled leadership, most famously Jia Sidao, and   managed a surprising degree of flexibility. While  the Mongols often deeply penetrated the Song   borders, rapid mobilization of several Song armies  made it difficult for Mongol gains to be held,   and often these cities were retaken soon  after the Mongols passed. In Sichuan province,   there was fierce resistance in over forty years  of almost continuous warfare, which bogged down   Great Khan Möngke and cost his life from infected  waters in a siege, while Song defenders killed   his top generals. The Song defence was  based around employing the maximum amount   of friction against the Mongols, hoping that  their tenacity would eventually wear them down.  It proved, however, a misplaced strategy. Courtly  infighting and arrogance of Chancellor Jia Sidao   struggled to deal with the economic cost of the  decades long war. Court expenses didn’t end as   more and more financial and manpower was thrown  into the conflict. Despite its immense population,   the Song struggled to field enough troops against  the Mongols, who were mobilizing not just Mongols   and men from across Northern China, but from  across Asia. Turkic horsemen, siege engineers   from the Ilkhanate, ship builders from Korea,  were all compiled for Khubilai Khaan’s conquest   of the Song. The vigour with which the Mongols  approached the Song war outstripped that which the   Song could produce and finally, after tremendous  effort, the last of their hold-outs fell in 1279.  The expulsion of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty from  China in 1368 did not end Mongol attacks,   and the new Ming Dynasty had to relearn  how to defend against them. The early Ming   period saw invasions of Mongolia, some  led by the Yongle Emperor himself. This   disrupted life in the steppe, destabilized the  Northern Yuan and won a number of victories,   but never resulted in conquest or definite  gains. Under the Yongle Emperor’s watch,   the Ming encouraged rivalries between the Western  Mongols, the Oirat, and the Yuan remnants,   sending supplies and titles to both parties,  helping create a division in Mongol society   and never letting either become too powerful. But  the Yongle Emperor’s death in 1424 ended the most   effective campaigns and political meddling,  which allowed the Oirat under their leaders   Toghon and his son, Esen Taishi, to dominate  Mongolia by the end of the 1430s. The few Ming   armies sent against him were crushed, as  Esen Taishi campaigned from Manchuria to   Central Asia. The Ming decided instead to cut  off trade with Mongolia entirely. In response,   Esen Taishi began raiding the Ming border. When  the young, inexperienced Ming emperor tried to   face him in the battle directly, Esen Taishi  captured him in 1449 and laid siege to Beijing.  In reaction to this humiliating failure, the Ming  went on the defensive, beginning their Great Wall   along their northern border. Even still, Northern  Yuan armies penetrated the frontier, and in 1550   Altan Khan laid siege to Beijing again. The  greatest protection the late Ming received,   was the break-up of this renewed Mongol unity  and the growth of rival aristocrats in Mongolia   itself as the Khan’s influence waned. This  precipitated the expansion of the descendants   of the Jurchen, the Manchu under Nurhaci and his  Huang Taiji, who managed to diplomatically isolate   the last reigning Chinggisid monarch in Mongolia,  Ligdan Khan. With Ligdan Khan’s death in 1634,   his son submitted to the Manchu and their newly  established Qing Dynasty. With the young khan   as their subject, the Manchu managed to take  submission, through threat, force, or diplomacy,   of almost all the Mongols. Here, the Qing employed  the actions of the Khitan Liao; Mongol political   units were broken up and reassigned to Qing  loyalists to make a new aristocracy, and thus   dismantle the network that would previously have  led revolts. Mongol horsemen thus accompanied   the Qing in the conquest of China in the coming  years. Though sporadic Mongol revolts broke out,   they were too few and disunited against  the immense Qing armies, well armed with   ample gunpowder weapons, to pose an existential  threat, though they certainly alarmed the Qing. #5 Korea  The Conquest of China opened the road to Korea.  The thirteenth century kingdom of Koryo, ruled   by the house of Wang, had successfully resisted  previous northern invasions by the Khitan Liao and   Jurchen Jin, who had also fought as horse archers  like the Mongols. Generally, the Koreans entered   into beneficial tribute relationships with these  states in order to maintain peace. After 1170, the   Korean kings were reduced to figureheads, while  military dictators acted as the de facto rulers of   Korea. General Ch’oe Ch’unghon took power in the  1190s, beginning the military dynasty that would   rule over Korea throughout the Mongol conquests. The 1211 Mongol invasion of the Jin Empire,   Koryo’s northern neighbour, brought unease to  the peninsula. The Korean ambassador to the Jin   was killed in the fighting, while new break-away  states and Jin deserters began to harass Korea’s   border at the Yalu River. In autumn 1216, several  thousand rebelling Khitan horsemen blazed through   the frontier. Skilled horse archers, the Khitans  drove deep into Korea, menacing the capital,   modern Kaesong. With effort, the Koreans halted  their advance. Unexpectedly, in the winter of   1218, the Mongols sent some 30,000 troops into  Korea with a simple message to the Koreans: they   would crush the rebel Khitans, the Koreans would  provide troops and supplies to assist with this,   and would then pay tribute to the Great  Khan. After a brief delay in answering,   the Koreans acquiesced, sending 1,000 picked  troops and 1,000 bushels of rice. The rebel   Khitans were crushed, and Korea began  sending tribute to the Mongols in 1219.  Korea’s first Mongol experience was relatively  peaceful. Though forced to send tribute,   their cities had not suffered. The dictator  Ch’oe Ch’unghon’s advancing age, failing health,   and desire to pass his rule onto his son stopped  him from provocating. A keen observer, he had   judged the danger of this new foe, expecting the  relationship would differ little from Liao’ or   Jin’s tribute demands. Ch’oe Ch’unghon died in  late 1219 and was succeeded by his oldest son,   Ch’oe U. A military man like his father and  decisive leader, Ch’oe U, helmed Koryo for the   next two decades. Ch’oe U detested the Mongols’  demands, especially for valuable otter skins   desired for their water-resistant properties. While Chinggis Khan was absent in Central Asia,   his chief commander Muqali had been left  to maintain pressure on the Jin Dynasty.   With Muqali’s death in 1223 and a reduction in the  Mongol military presence, the political situation   changed dramatically; while the Jin made peace  with their neighbours, a Mongol vassal kingdom   in Manchuria ruled by Puxian Wannu declared  his independence. He sought to ally with Koryo,   which declined but made their own moves. In 1225  the chief Mongol envoy to Korea mysteriously   disappeared while transporting the annual tribute  north. The Koreans insisted it was bandits,   but the Mongols put the blame square on Koryo. Ögedei Khaan was enthroned in 1229, and demanded   both Puxian Wannu and the Koreans to be punished.  Initially the new Khaan demanded Koryo aid in an   attack against Wannu. With the failure of the  Koreans to comply, Ögedei ordered an invasion   of the peninsula, the first of six Mongol  invasions. Led by Sartaq-Qorchi, the army   crossed the Yalu River in autumn 1231. The attack  was overwhelming; Koryo’s armies were annihilated   in the field and Kaesong surrounded. Yet there  was notable resistance at a few fortified cities,   especially Kuju. Famed for a victory over  the Khitans in 1018, in late 1231 through   early 1232 under the command of Pak So, the city  withstood weeks of assault. The most famous event   occurred early in the siege. The southern wall  of the city was defended by Kim Kyongson and a   skilled unit of pyolch’o, translated as Defense  Command Patrol, Extraordinary Watches or Night   Patrol. These were local troops from outside  the regular army, an elite militia specializing   in guerilla warfare. Sending most of the unit  inside the city, Kim Kyongson led a group of   12 picked men before the south gate. Telling  them “not to think of their lives and accept   death as their fate,” Kim and his men withstood  four or five Mongol charges, girding the city to   further resistance. Attacks were launched on  the walls day and night: the Mongols pushed   carts of dry grass and wood to the gates to burn  them, only to be destroyed by Korean catapults;   a tower built before the walls to protect sappers  was destroyed when the Koreans dug holes through   their own walls to pour molten iron onto it. 15  large catapults were driven off by the Korean   counter artillery; scaling ladders were toppled  by Korean polearms. Bundles of sticks soaked   allegedly in human fat, set aflame and hurled  into the city could not be put out with water,   but the crafty Koreans smothered them with mud and  earth. Another catapult team made 50 breaches in   the walls, which the defenders filled as they were  made. After a month of terrible destruction but   no success, the siege was lifted, the Mongols  declaring the city was protected by heaven.  Military ruler Ch’oe U came to terms with the  Mongols in January 1232, and was so frustrated   that Kuju had continued to resist that he wanted  to have its commanders, Pak So and Kim Kyongson   executed, fearing that their defiance would  provoke Mongol retaliation. Here the Mongols   interceded, saying: “Although he went contrary  to our orders, he is a loyal subject of yours.   We are not going to kill him now that you have  already pledged peace with us. Would it be proper   to kill the loyal subjects of all your cities?” Still, Koryo had submitted to Sartaq-qorchi   in the first month of 1232. The tribute demands  were massive. 20,000 horses, 20,000 otter skins,   slaves, royal hostages and clothing for 1  million men were demanded, alongside gold,   silver and other treasures. Appointing overseers,  Sartaq withdrew his forces, considering the   peninsula conquered. The Koreans were less  keen to comply. The demands were onerous;   while Koryo sent much in gifts, it was unwilling  to send royal hostages and could barely produce   1,000 otterskins. By the summer of 1232, Ch’oe U  moved King and court moved from Kaesong to Kanghwa   island, under naval protection. Mongol officials  in Korea were murdered, and the peninsula was in   open revolt. Sartaq returned in the fall of  1232, blazing a trail of destruction across   the country's northern half until he was killed  during a siege by a Buddhist monk-turned-archer,   Kim Yunhu. On Sartaq’s death, the Mongol army  withdrew. As Ch’oe U ably predicted, the Mongols’   lack of navy would stop them from being able to  get the royal court into their hands by force.  The Mongols were not done with Korea.  The defection of one Korean commander,   Hong Pogwon, gave them control of the lands north  of Pyongyang, which Hong was made the overseer of.   The next attack came in the summer of 1235, after  the conquest of North China. This campaign, led   by Tangut Ba’atar, was hugely destructive; with  the assistance of Hong Pogwon, by winter 1236,   he had penetrated some 470 kilometres into Korea.  The Koreans could not field armies against them,   and alternative strategies were developed  to respond. Just as the court had fled to   Kanghwa Island, most of the population outside  of fortified settlements fled to coastal islands   or mountain refuges to escape Mongol riders.  Offensives were limited to guerilla warfare,   pyolch’o units launching surprise night raids,  ambushes through mountain passes and striking   small parties. Hitting quickly and hard and using  local terrain, these small units were more mobile   than even the Mongols. It was a frustrating  way of war for the Mongols, and destruction   increased when they got frustrated. Fortified  settlements were left to fend for themselves,   and when they did fall, the destruction  was horrific. The countryside was ravaged,   and the death toll was horrendous. The guerilla  tactics harassed but could not stop the Mongols,   who could not bring the country to submission.  Korean defections to the Mongols were enormous.  By winter 1238, the Korean court was willing  to come to talks with the Mongols to halt the   destruction. As the Koreans feared, Mongol demands  were stiff. Alongside the expected tribute,   the Mongols required a census and for the  Korean King Kojong to present himself to the   Mongol court at that time. For the military  ruler Ch’oe U, this presented an issue.   His legitimacy rested on his control of the King;  Mongol demands would remove him from power. Peace   on Mongol terms could not be accepted as long  as the Ch’oes wanted to remain in control. For   two years, the Koreans made excuses not to send  the King until a distant relation was made up   to be the Crown Prince and sent to the Mongol  capital of Qaraqorum in 1241. The Mongols found   out about the deception… 14 years later. By then,  he was a loyal member of the Mongol court and even   married the daughter of Great Khan Möngke. With the “royal” hostage and resumption of   tribute, Ch’oe U achieved a six-year truce. The  Mongols still wanted the royal court to return to   the mainland though, and their envoys grew ever  more insistent on the matter. Ch’oe U spent the   next six years building elaborate fortifications  on Kanghwa Island and readying militia units,   while consecrating Buddhist projects like the  Tripitaka Koreana to secure heavenly favours.  In autumn 1247, the new Khan, Güyük, ordered  another attack under Amukhan and Hong Pogwon.   Again the countryside was abandoned for  coastal islands and mountain fortresses;   guerilla attacks were launched; the northern half  of the peninsula was desolated. The deaths of Khan   Güyük in summer 1248 and Ch’oe U in winter 1249  brought a relative calm. Ch’oe U was succeeded   by his son, Ch’oe Hang, not the equal of his  father or grandfather. More arrogant and hasty   than his father, he struggled to maneuver the  complicated politics of Koryo and Mongol attacks,   and within months he faced coup attempts. In 1251 Möngke was confirmed as Great Khan;   again, envoys demanded the Korean King visit the  Mongol court and abandon Kanghwa island. Again,   excuses were made. King Kojong was too old and  sickly for such a trip, but the Koreans suggested   sending the crown prince again, while preparing  for the expected invasion. By 1252 Möngke sent   Prince Yeku into Korea in August 1253 alongside  Amukhan and Hong Pogwon. Mongol envoys announced   that King Kojong had six days to comply and meet  Mongol representatives on the mainland. Though   the King actually met with Mongol envoys  on the straits across from the island,   it achieved nothing. Once more Mongol forces were  unleashed on the peninsula while the people fled   to their hideouts. Pyolch’o raids attacked  Mongol parties, and Mongols destroyed the   cities which fell to them. Yeku was held up and  fell ill during the long siege of Ch’ungju, ably   defended by Kim Yunhu, the same Buddhist Monk who  had killed Sartaq some 20 years prior. Ultimately,   Möngke recalled Yeku before the end of the year  due to his feuding with another prince. Amukhan   and Hong Pogwon continued the campaign for a  few more weeks, organizing a brief effort at   amphibious warfare: seven captured Korean ships  landed Mongol troops on Kal Island in early 1254,   to no great result. Amukhan pulled the  troops back in spring, returning in August   with reinforcements under Jalayirtai Qorchi, with  more demands for submission that went unheeded.  Early in the summer of 1255 Jalayirtai and  Amukhan fell back to the northern border;   by then, aside from years of destruction and  abandonment of farmland, the peninsula was also   in the midst of an ongoing drought. In the first  year of Jalayirtai’s command in Korea an estimated   206,8000 persons were taken captive. The suffering  was horrific. Jalayirtai’s forces attacked   again in autumn 1255, beginning a ship building  program. Frustrated with the continued resistance,   the Mongols were considering assaulting the well  defended Kanghwa Island. A sense of Jalayirtai’s   frustration is evident in his response to Korean  envoys in mid-1256. The envoys came asking for   peace and Mongol withdrawal, to which Jalayirtai,  incensed with pyolch’o attacks in the night,   snapped “if you desire peace and friendship, then  why do you kill our soldiers in great numbers?”  Jalayirtai’s withdrawal in the autumn of 1256 was  no respite. Famine gripped even Kanghwa island.   When Jalayirtai returned in the spring, it must  have been apparent that the Ch’oes were hanging   by a thread. Ch’oe Hang soon died, succeeded by  his son Ch’oe Ui, who proved a very poor choice.   His attempts to win favour by grants of food to  the populace and court did not offset bad advisers   enriching themselves and his own poor decisions.  Alienating just about everyone in the court,   the pressure of the situation finally led to  a coup. Officers led by Kim Injun assaulted   Ch’oe’s palace in May 1258. Ch’oe Ui tried to  escape over the walls but was too fat to get   himself over. Caught by the assassins, Ch’oe  Ui’s death ended six decades of Ch’oe military   rule in Korea. Gaining the support of the elderly  Kojong and handing out the wealth of the Ch’oe’s,   Kim Injun made himself the new military  governor. However, his position was much weaker   than the Ch’oe’s had been and still refused  to submit to the Mongols. Mongol envoys who   arrived in the summer of 1258 brought threats that  they would storm Kanghwa Island, and in August,   Jalayirtai received further reinforcements.  Refusal to supply either the Crown Prince or   the King was met with unchecked destruction across  the Korean peninsula. If the Royal court did not   come to them, the Mongols would impose direct  rule. No matter how bloody the pyolch’o attacks   were, they could not stop the Mongols. Resistance broke in 1259. Revolts against   military rule began across the country, and towns  and cities surrendered on the arrival of the   Mongols rather than continue fighting. With food  supplies exhausted, their military forces ground   nearly to dust, and in the spring of 1259, a peace  deal was reached. The Crown Prince, Wang Chon,   was to travel to the Mongol court as a royal  hostage, the court moved back to the mainland, and   the defences of Kanghwa were demolished. Kim Injun  was not removed, but his power was considerably   lesser than that of the Ch’oes. Organized Koryo  resistance to the Mongol Empire was over. In May   1259, Prince Wang Chon set out for the imperial  court and inadvertently became the first foreign   ruler to recognize MKhubilai as the next Great  Khan of the Empire. In turn, Khubilai provided   Wang Chon with an armed escort to return to  Korea and be installed as the new king, as   the venerable Kojong had died in July 1259. Kojong  had reigned through the entire Mongol-Korean war,   and fittingly he died only weeks after it ended. Wang Chon, known better by his temple name,   Wonjong, proved a loyal vassal to Khubilai Khan,  marrying his son and eventual successor to one   of Khubilai’s daughters. Military rule  in Korea ended in 1270 after a series of   assassinations and rebellions, and the Korean  court finally returned to the mainland. With that,   Koryo was a fully incorporated client kingdom. The  King ruled in earnest, though with Mongol backing;   when briefly ousted by a coup, Khubilai’s  forces came in and reinstalled him. Yet   Mongol demands upon Korea did not grow any less  burdensome. Wonjong had to mobilize the Koreans   for another war, this time fighting alongside the  Mongols. Korean ships, food supplies and men were   needed by Khubilai Khan against the island  of Japan, which had spurned his demands for   submission. Korea was to be a launchpad for  the first Mongol Invasion of Japan in 1274. #6 Japan The Kamakura   Bakufu had been preparing for a Mongol attack for  several years before the first invasion in 1274.   Diplomatic contacts between the Mongols and Japan  had begun in 1266, and repeated envoys followed   over the next few years. The rude, silent  treatment of Mongol envoys would have been   an offensive maneuver regardless of the Mongols’  rather infamous opinion on the matter, and the   potential consequence could not have been lost on  the part of the Japanese. Mongol emperor Khubilai   Khan’s letters demanding Japanese cooperation  and submission became increasingly harsh, which,   coupled with contacts with Southern China’s  Song Dynasty, meant the Japanese must have   been quite aware of the risk they faced on such  a course of action. But being an island nation,   Japan must have felt reasonably secure at first. This began to change in 1268. That year, a new,   more energetic and confrontational man became  the shikken, the de facto ruler of Japan and   regent for the shogun, and in turn, regent for the  emperor. This was the 18-year-old Hojo Tokimune,   the man who steered Japan through both Mongol  invasions. Never one to back down from a fight,   Hojo Tokimune anticipated early on the  potential threat Japan faced, and, soon   after his appointment, began to send additional  soldiers to patrol and prepare defences on Kyushu,   one of Japan’s southern islands close to Korea.  Not only its proximity to Korea, but its wide,   accessible and protected beaches and bays made  it an ideal landing site. The likeliest of these   was Hakata Bay, the most direct harbour for ships  approaching from Korea. Thus the Kamakura Bakufu   centered defence preparations here, with  scouts and patrols keeping watch over it   and garrisons steadily being placed in proximity. The Hojo clan was right to expect an invasion via   Korea. In 1268, the same year of Hojo Tokimune’s  ascension, Khubilai Khan ordered the Koreans   to begin the construction of a new fleet of  1,000 ships. Though the Southern Song Dynasty   remained the primary target, the construction  of the fleet in such proximity to Japan could   not be kept hidden. Indeed, when a large revolt  broke out in Korea the next year, which briefly   deposed the Korean King Wonjong, some Koreans made  their way to Japan. They brought news with them of   the revolt, and requested Japanese assistance  against the Mongols. None was forthcoming,   and the Mongols crushed the revolt by 1271,  reinstalling Wonjong and strengthening their   hold over the peninsula. A Mongol army was  now stationed in Korea to further secure it.  But the words of the Koreans confirmed  the suspicions of Hojo Tokimune. They must   have brought with them words of the fleet  construction and rumours of an attack on   Japan. As Khubilai Khan’s envoys continued to  come to Kamakura, there could have been little   doubt of the threat now on the horizon. Hojo  Tokimune’s government had to put Japan on a   war footing. Yet the curious nature of Japan’s  government at the time had to be navigated.   While Japan was nominally ruled by the Emperor,  the Emperor was a powerless figure, reduced to   figurehead by the Shoguns of the Minamoto clan in  the late twelfth century. But at the very start of   the thirteenth century, the death of the shogun  left only young boys as heirs, prompting the   creation of a regent position, the shikken, from  the Hojo clan, who did not give this position up.   Thus the de facto ruler of Japan in the 1200s  was the regent of the regent for the emperor.   This caused some legal troubles for the Bakufu,  that is the shogunate, as it could only raise   troops who were gokenin, landholders who were  vassals of the shogun. In the lead-up to the first   Mongol invasion, Hojo Tokimune legally could not  raise any great army from across Japan. By sending   troops from Kamakura, who he had direct access  to, Tokimune could only hope that other lords may   follow his example, but he could not enforce it. Another issue plagued Kamakura’s troops. Many of   the gokenin, reliant on their landholding  for income, had, in the decades since the   establishment of the Bakufu, parcelled out their  lands in each generation. By the eve of the Mongol   invasion, many of these lands had diminished so  much that for gokenin in Kyushu like Takezaki   Suenaga, they were only able to raise 5 troops to  accompany them; average for the gokenin of Kyushu,   but more than what the common gokenin  of Honshu, Japan’s largest island,   could muster. Many of the gokenin struggled to  handle the costs of outfitting themselves and   their mounts in the necessary arms and armour, let  alone their retainers and still yet cover the cost   of travelling to Kyushu. To remedy this, in the  years leading up to the first Mongol invasion,   the Kamakura Bakufu passed laws forbidding  the transfer or sale of gokenin lands to   non-relatives; land already sold had to be  returned for the original price, and in 1271 this   was changed so that these lands had to be returned  for free. By doing so, Hojo Tokimune hoped to   improve the ability of the gokenin to meet the  costs of the upcoming confrontation. At the same   time, he consolidated positions of power around  himself and his family, an effort to centralize   command in the face of the many powerful lords  across Japan whose egos could impede his strategy.  In late 1274, the fleet of Khubilai Khan’s  newly established Yuan Dynasty set out from   Korea to Japan. The islands of Tsushima and  Iki were swiftly overrun within a few days.   While the islanders put up a spirited defence,  they were simply too few to delay the advance.   A few refugees from the islands brought word to  Honshu and the Bakufu. Hojo Tokimune was ready;   upon learning of the Yuan’s approach, he  is recorded stating, “Finally! This is the   most momentous event of my life!” When a  priest asked how he planned to respond,   Tokimune shrieked, “Katsu!” - victory. Tokimune’s preparations had been underway   for years. Most of the defending troops along  Hakata Bay were local gokenin raised in Kyushu,   but additional troops from Honshu were sent in the  final months before the attack. He had prepared   well, and the Mongols landed precisely where he  had anticipated. When the boots of Yuan troops   disembarked on the soft sands of Hakata Bay on  November 19th, 1274, the shogunate’s warriors were   there to meet them. As the Yuan ships had neared  the bay, word was sent to rally the garrisons,   and even as the first clashes began, more gokenin  and their retainers were rushing from across   Kyushu to join them. The fighting that ensued was  fierce. The Yuan had brought the larger force,   many of its men of greater experience than that  of the Japanese. Over the course of the day,   the Yuan troops broke through several sections  of the Japanese line and burned down neighbouring   towns. Still, the level of Japanese resistance  and preparedness was greater than the Yuan had   anticipated. The archery of the samurai was  better than expected, as they picked off one   of the top Yuan commanders and stole his horse. The Yuan realized this expected “puny island”   was putting up greater defence than they had  come prepared for, and that their overconfident   force was not large enough to fight their way  through the defenders of Kyushu or possibly   occupy all of Japan. A withdrawal was undertaken  in good order: eyewitness accounts like that of   the gokenin Takezaki Suenaga indicate a carefully  managed withdrawal on the part of the Yuan forces,   returning to their ships and sailing back  to Korea. While rough weather made the   return journey more difficult, stories of great  typhoons sinking the first Yuan fleet are later   exaggerations not present in contemporary sources. For Hojo Tokimune, the divine support had not been   in the form of waves but through ensuring of  the Japanese victory with their own means.   But Hojo Tokimune was under no impression  that he had broken Mongol power in any way,   and knew another attack was forthcoming. Khubilai  Khan would want revenge as certainly as the sun   would rise again over Japan— especially  once the envoys Khubilai sent in 1275 were   executed by the Japanese. Hojo Tokimune did  not sit on his laurels but immediately began   to prepare for the next invasion. He had  seen what had worked well and importantly,   he also understood where his preparations  had not been enough— and with the next   assault likely to be much greater, he needed to  double his efforts if he wished to withstand it.  To do this required more samurai to be in Kyushu,  and this required greater control over samurai   regardless of whether they were gokenin or not. To  aid in this Tokimune replaced many of the shugo,   military governors of Japan’s provinces, with  Hojo clan loyalists and family members to   carry out his orders. In an expansion of his  powers, both gokenin and non-gokenin troops,   troops not normally under his jurisdiction,  could now be levied for Japan’s defence. The   power of the shugo was also increased locally  in order to facilitate this, for many of the   warriors now being called up for duty may  have chafed at falling under Bakufu control.  Traditionally, the Bakufu and Japanese  governments had rewarded samurai for   their valour in combat against the enemy, with  riches and lands taken from defeated factions.   In a war in Japan, there were many lands to  redistribute; but no such riches could be gained   from a foreign foe who left little behind. Many  of the gokenin had not only put their livelihoods   and lives at stake to travel across Japan to  Kyushu; many would do so again travelling to   Kamakura city for their reward. The rambunctious  Takezaki Suenaga, for instance, sold his horse   and saddle to pay for his journey to Kamakura from  Kyushu. Though he succeeded in getting rewarded,   the Bakufu was reluctant to pay the expense for  rewarding all these samurai, did not wish them to   leave their posts in Kyushu, and did not want  them to beggar themselves, and sell all their   horses and equipment before the Mongols returned.  The Bakufu thus forbade samurai to leave Kyushu,   citing military necessity. Of the estimated 6,000  Japanese who fought in the first invasion, only   120 received rewards, mostly those of the higher  class. While useful at the moment, in decades to   come, this had severe consequences for the Bakufu,  as many samurai found themselves impoverished by   paying all of their own expenses for the campaign. Tokimune prepared in other ways; further divine   help was sought, as shrines and temples across  the islands were ordered to pray for Japan’s   victory. To better defend Hakata Bay and prevent  the breakouts of the first invasion, the order   was given to expand the sea wall. It appears  a minimal set of fortifications had existed   at certain points around Hakata Bay, remnants  from fears of Chinese invasions in centuries   past. Now they would be expanded well beyond  any previous system. Built 50 metres inland,   20 kilometres east and west of Hakata Bay, an  approximately 3 metre high to 3.5 metre wide wall   was quickly raised. It was a simple but effective  concept; a defensive structure for the Japanese to   hide behind and fight from, which would obstruct  any movements of landing parties which may seek   to flank the defenders of Hakata Bay. Landing  assaults by sea were hard in the best of times,   and this would not be the best of times. For the wall’s construction, whoever’s   land had the wall pass through it, was responsible  for the cost and construction of that section.   While it was another cost-saving measure for the  Bakufu, it angered many and hampered construction;   it was supposed to be complete before the end of  1276, but construction continued through 1277.  At the end of 1275, Hojo Tokimune and his advisers  even discussed taking the fight to the enemy and   launching some sort of invasion of Korea. While  it never materialized, orders were made to prepare   some ships and gokenin. Undertaking such a task,  though was eventually recognized to be beyond   their abilities while at the same time planning  the defence of Kyushu; even though already   the Bakufu was dealing with reports of conflict  between officials and gokenin with the increasing   demands being levied on them, all the while  forbidding samurai to leave Kyushu. The ships   and men raised for the scrapped invasion of Korea  were instead sent to defenders at Hakata Bay.  When the larger Yuan fleets of the  second invasion set out in summer 1281,   Hojo Tokimune’s preparations showed their  success. He benefited from struggles on the   part of the Yuan, with one of their fleets delayed  in its launch. The sea-wall worked exceptionally:   instead of landing and beginning their assault,  the Yuan fleet skirmished along the shore,   trying to seek some unguarded section. With the  Yuan staying offshore, the Japanese took their own   ships to bring the fight to them. In the night,  the samurai rowed up beside the Yuan warships,   scaling them and battling on the decks. A  few islands off Kyushu’s coast were taken,   but by the time a storm surge at the end of August  1281 scattered the Yuan ships, their will to fight   had been sapped and had been unable to force  their landing. Thus, Tokimune’s ploy worked well.  Even after this victory, Tokimune did not let  his guard down. A furious Khubilai continued to   send envoys with demands for submission, and made  plans for a third invasion. Tokimune continued to   maintain garrisons and patrols on Kyushu, with the  gokenin who lived there forbidden from leaving the   island without permission of the Bakufu. Kyushu  island itself came under greater control of the   Hojo clan, with more Hojo shugo appointed there to  keep a close eye on this strategically vital area.   The sea wall continued to be maintained, stores  of weapons and other war materials were gathered,   and any official or landowner who complained  was swiftly replaced by someone more pliable.   Another plan for a Japanese invasion of Korea was  even discussed, though once more went nowhere as   the threat of a third Yuan attack remained too  high. This third invasion never materialized,   and Mongol interest in a third attack quickly  dissipated with the death of Khubilai Khan   in 1294. But Hojo Tokimune never knew that  relief; he died in 1284, only 32 years old.   He was succeeded by his young son. With the boy  too young to rule, power fell into the hands of   another regent. Thus from 1285 until 1293,  Japan was ruled by the regent of the regent   acting for the shogun acting for the emperor,  who was in turn sidelined in his own court even   more by his father, the previous emperor,  who had retired yet still ran things there!  Without Tokimune’s presence, the careful system he  had balanced began to fall apart, as rival lords   began conspiring against each other for power  in the vacuum. Thousands of gokenin who had   impoverished themselves to fight for the Bakufu  never received rewards, for even after the second   invasion, these had mostly been given to important  Bakufu and Hojo clan supporters and allies. In   this way, the Bakufu inadvertently created a  class of very dissatisfied and very well-armed   men. While the threat of a third potential  Mongol invasion kept everyone playing nice   for a few years, by the 1330s, the once mighty  Kamakura Bakufu had collapsed into civil war. #7 Vietnam However the interests of   Kublai stretched to the south, too. The Kingdom of  Đại Việt, or Annam as it was known to the Chinese,   had dominated the northern part of Vietnam since  the start of the eleventh century, centered around   the Hong River with their capital at Thăng  Long, modern day Hanoi. Predominantly Buddhist   and wealthy through a rich agricultural base, in  the 1220s, the ruling Lý Dynasty of Đại Việt was   succeeded by the Kings of the Trần family. The new  Trần Dynasty reformed the kingdom, centralizing   power and expanding their agricultural base,  strengthening the kingdom. Chinese was the   official language of the court, and Trần made good  relations with its neighbours: the Song Dynasty   to the northeast, to which Đại Việt paid tribute  and nominal allegiance in exchange for gifts and   lucrative trade; to the northwest, trade flowed  with the Dali Kings in Yunnan; to the south,   a cordial period began with the Chams. The Chams are a part of the far-flung   Austronesian people, inhabiting central  and southern Vietnam for millennia.   For most of their history, they were a  collection of small, competing Hindu and   Muslim kingdoms. However, in the twelfth century,  they entered a new period of unity in the face of   an invasion by the Khmer Empire of Cambodia, the  builders of Angkor Wat. United under a ‘king of   kings,’ the Chams repulsed both the Khmer  and Đại Việt when they invaded Cham lands.   Though not as centralized as Đại Việt, from the  mid-twelfth century onwards, the King of Kings   based out of the city of Vijaya wielded more  influence over the other Cham kings and princes—   this was the nature of the kingdom of Champa. This  was the political situation in Vietnam when Mongol   armies arrived in the mid-thirteenth century. Đại Việt was the first to encounter Mongol   armies. In 1253, on his brother's orders,  the Grand Khan Möngke, prince Khubilai,   marched into Yunnan and conquered the Dali  Kingdom. Though Khubilai returned north,   his general Uriyangqadai stayed in the region  and continued to subdue the local peoples.   Uriyangqadai, the son of the famous Sübe’edei, led  a series of wide-ranging campaigns across Yunnan,   the edges of Tibet, to the small kingdoms on the  southwestern edge of the Song Dynasty. In this   process, Uriyangqadai came to the northern border  of Đại Việt. The Mongols expected the submission   of Đại Việt, but given that the entire aim  of the campaign was to open a new front in   the Song War, Đại Việt was not a primary target.  The immediate strategic concern was to prevent   the Trần kings from offering any support to the  Song Dynasty. Möngke Khan was planning a massive,   three-pronged assault upon the Song for 1258  and needed Uriyangqadai’s forces to meet their   schedule. With Đại Việt’s considerable trade  and tribute contacts with the Song, the Mongols   wanted to know if the kingdom would not harass  Uriyangqadai’s army. He sent envoys to the Trần   court at Thăng Long asking for free passage for  the army but received no response. Cautiously,   in the winter of 1257, Uriyangqadai and his son,  Aju, entered Đại Việt with 10-30,000 men, Mongols   supported by locally raised troops from Yunnan. Splitting his forces into two, Uriyangqdai ordered   the vanguard to cross the Thao River, north  of Thăng Long, but not engage the Việt forces;   Uriyangqadai knew of the river fleets used by Đại  Việt, and desired to draw them into an ambush and   thus neutralize their mobility. The vanguard  commander did not listen and attacked the Việt,   and a frustrated Uriyangqadai then advanced to  support him. Despite the insubordination and the   Việt war elephants, the Mongols had the better  of the battle, with Mongol archers focusing on   the elephants’ eyes. However, a defiant rearguard  allowed the Trần leadership to escape the battle   via ship, and the always-strict Uriyangqadai  ordered the execution of that vanguard commander.  The Trần forces' effort to stop the Mongols  from crossing the Phù Lỗ river was foiled when   the Mongols found a ford to cross and then rout  the Trần army. Uriyangqadai then marched onto   the capital city, Thăng Long, only to find  it abandoned. The Trần King, the government   and most of its population had evacuated the  city, taking most of the foodstuffs with them.  Vietnamese and Chinese sources differ on  precisely what followed. Uriyangqadai, at least,   withdrew and was harassed by local forces as they  went. The Trần King then offered tribute to keep   the Mongols at bay. While ambushes, heat, humidity  and tropical disease can be blamed, Uriyangqadai   simply did not have time to stay in Đại Việt  any longer due to Möngke Khan’s timetable.   After the withdrawal, Uriyangqadai was crossed  into the Song Dynasty’s southwestern border in   a failed effort to link up with Möngke Khan. The Trần Kings anticipated a continuation of   their relationship with the Song, giving tribute  every few years to keep the peace and enrich both   parties, and Champa followed suit. The Mongols  were willing to accept this for a few years,   but Möngke’s brother and successor Khubilai Khan  began demanding the Trần and Cham kings confirm   their allegiance in person to him. With the  fall of Song in 1279 to Khubilai’s Yuan Empire,   there was no buffer between them. Khubilai grew  impatient as Đại Việt and Champa sheltered many   refugee Song officials. By 1280 Khubilai demanded  that if the Trần king could not come in person,   he must send a massive golden statue  of himself and increased tribute to   the kingdom’s most skilled doctors, artisans,  scholars and most beautiful women. They refused.  This was perceived as insubordination, and  once the Chams imprisoned Yuan envoys in 1282,   Khubilai had his pretext for war. Striking at  Champa first could place Đại Việt in a vice grip   between Yuan China and an occupied Champa. The  politically fragmented Champa must have seemed   an easy target, Khubilai’s officials telling him  less than 3,000 men would be needed to overrun the   Chams. After the failure of the second invasion  of Japan in 1281, Khubilai was also hungry for   victory. Worn out by the intensive 1270s, by the  1280s, Khubilai was no longer a patient man and   had outlived his wisest advisers and most veteran  commanders. Having come to expect total victory,   Khubilai now demanded it immediately. In December 1282, Sogetu, the governor   of Fujian, departed with 5,000 men from  former Song lands aboard a hundred ships,   arriving near the Cham capital of Vijaya in  February 1283. Though the city fell after a   short fight, the Cham leadership, King Indravarman  V and Prince Harijit, escaped into the mountains.   Sogetu tried to pursue, but in the jungle, his  men were ambushed and driven back, and Sogetu   retreated to the coast to dig in and ask for aid. The Yuan court’s response was slow, still planning   for a third invasion of Japan. Only in March  1284, once the third Japanese invasion was finally   abandoned, was an army of 20,000 dispatched by  sea to aid Sogetu. Delayed by a brief mutiny,   they arrived the next month to link up with  a Sogetu, who had begun sacking Cham cities   along the coast. The Cham King Indravarman sent  word he was willing to submit but would be unable   to offer tribute due to the plundering. Such  concerns did not really bother the Mongols.  By August 1284, Khubilai’s eleventh son Toghon  was ordered to march through Đại Việt to assist   Sogetu. The Yuan ordered the Trần King to supply  this army, but they refused, expecting a trap.   At that time, the reigning King was Trần Khâm.  His father, the previous king Trần Thánh Tông,   was still alive but ‘retired,’ abdicating the  throne to act as ‘emperor-emeritus’ for his   successor while avoiding that strict  court protocol. According to a later   chronicle, the ‘emperor-emeritus’ Trần Thánh  Tông, summoned elders and advisers from   across Đại Việt to discuss the best course of  action. Supposedly, they all shouted in unison,   “Fight!” And so, the Trầns began to prepare  for the assault, readying officers and men.  Of these, one man is the most famous: Trần  Quốc Tuấn, known better by his later title,   Prince Hưng Đạo. The nephew of the first  Trần King and son of a traitorous father,   Hưng Đạo was a shining beacon of loyalty  and filial piety. Alongside his charisma,   his natural talent and skill made him a favourite  for chroniclers to fawn over. One notable blemish   marked his character: as a young man, Hưng  Đạo had an affair with an imperial princess   engaged to another man. With the oncoming Mongol  threat in 1284, Hưng Đạo marked himself out by his   preparations, training men and officers before  taking a leading role in the strategy himself.  In January 1285, Khubilai Khaan’s son  Toghon and an Uyghur general, Ariq Khaya,   led some eight tumens from Yunnan into Đại Việt.  Accompanying them was an ousted member of the   Trần royal family, Trần Ích Tầc, who the Yuan  had declared the new King of Đại Việt and were   going to place onto the throne. Another column  came from the northwest under Nasir ad-Din,   who had previously fought in Burma and was a son  of the Central Asian Muslim who governed Yunnan.   Việt border troops were quickly overcome, and the  Yuan advanced south while Sogetu headed n orth,   a great pincer movement on Đại Việt. Prince  Hưng Đạo tried to delay Sogetu but was repulsed,   with Sogetu capturing 400 renegade Song officials  from Hưng Đạo’s army. By the time Sogetu linked   up with Toghon, the Yuan had an entire river  fleet under the command of Nasir al-Din’s son,   Omar. Omar chased the Trần King to sea while  Toghon and Sogetu captured Thăng Long. Armies   sent against them were annihilated, and many  Trần generals defected to the Yuan forces.  But this was the final success of this campaign.  Again, Thăng Long had been evacuated to deny the   Mongols. Yuan forces and supply lines were  overextended, running low on food while heat   and disease took their toll. The Việt troops also  employed psychological warfare on the Yuan. In   June, one of the Yuan generals was killed, and  ambushes ravaged his army. A former Song Dynasty   officer and his entourage, fighting alongside  Việt troops, donned their old armour to panic   some Yuan detachments, many of whom were former  Song subjects. The fallen Vietnamese had tattooed   “kill the Tatars!” on their bodies, angering,  frustrating and frightening Yuan forces. Toghon,   deeming the position untenable, ordered a  poorly-organized retreat, which left Sogetu   and his army behind. Sogetu attempted to fight  his way north, only to be captured and killed,   his army surrounded and destroyed. The Việt campaign was a fiasco,   one of Khubilai’s own sons failing to deliver  victory. Khubilai was so furious he refused to   allow Toghon in the capital and ordered a third  attack. The Trần pretender Ích Tầc once more   joined them, and great effort was taken to prevent  a repeat of logistical issues. A fleet of supply   ships was assembled on the southern Chinese coast  to ferry troops and provide the food necessary   for an army assembled from across the Yuan  realm, perhaps 100,000 men, in addition to 500   warships and transports. Toghon was given a final  chance to redeem himself before his aging father.  It should not be imagined that Việt and  Champa were unscathed. The Mongols had   meted out savage reprisal on any city that  fell. Crops and rice fields were destroyed,   starvation and horrors greeting the population  caught in the middle. Thousands fled into the   wilderness to escape the Yuan armies: their  suffering from disease, and lack of water   and resources goes unmentioned in the sources. The  capital of Thăng Long had been looted and occupied   for the second time in thirty years. In Champa,  the evidence is less clear, but it seems Sogetu   burned his way through many of the most prominent  cities along the coast in his march north.  The third invasion began in October 1287.  Two armies marched overland, the main led by   Toghon. On the sea, Omar and Fan Yi led warships  hunting for the Việt navy. The large transport   fleet followed some days behind Omar’s armada.  Toghon’s troops defeated several Đại Việt armies,   marching to Vạn Kiếp on the Bạch Đằng  River to await the arrival of Omar’s fleet,   who arrived after their own victories. Despite  early success, neither force had enough supplies,   relying on the transport fleet. But that  fleet was dispersed by a storm and then   destroyed by the Việt navy, which under  Trần Khánh Dư had avoided Omar’s warships.  With this maneuver, the Yuan plan was broken.  Food supplies ran low, and Toghon again   took Thăng Long in February 1288, only to find  it stripped bare again. Once Toghon learned of   the loss of the supply fleets, he withdrew to  the stockades they had constructed at Vạn Kiếp,   and by the end of March, with his men on the verge  of starvation, he ordered a general retreat. Now,   the Việt forces sprung their trap. The Yuan army’s  route was harried by ambushes and the destruction   of roads and bridges to hamper their movements.  Tropical diseases spread among malnourished men   and beasts, humidity warped their bows, and the  trees howled with the sounds of alien creatures   ensuring sleepless nights. Toghon, great-grandson  of Chinggis Khan, showed his pedigree by hiding in   a copper tube on the march, then abandoning  the troops to board a warship to sail home.  On April 9th, 1288, Omar’s fleet was sailing past  the mouth of the Bạch Đằng river when Việt ships   led by Prince Hưng Đạo sailed out to meet him  at high tide. Omar took the bait. Hưng Đạo fled   back up the river, Omar in pursuit. Hưng Đạo  smaller and lighter craft cruised by in safety,   but wooden stakes placed along the river bottom  impaled the larger Yuan vessels, holding them   in place as the tide receded. With the Yuan  ships immobilized, Hưng Đạo attacked: helpless,   many Yuan soldiers drowned in the river or fell to  the arrows of Đại Việt, and Omar was captured. The   other fleet commander, Fan Yi, attempted to rescue  Omar, but his vessels were boarded, Fan Yi himself   killed in the fighting. Some 400 Yuan ships were  captured, capping off a campaign which saw most   of its land forces destroyed in the wilderness. 1288 proved a total fiasco. Only a few years after   the destruction of the great armada off the shores  of Kyushu, another fleet and army were destroyed   with little to show for it. Toghon was sent into  political exile after both disastrous campaigns,   his son another disgrace to add to  Khubilai’s troubles of the 1280s.  The Mongol failure cannot simply be reduced to  the jungle. It was a factor, as the tropical heat,   humidity, and disease wore down troops unused  to the environment, but we can identify more   immediate causes. The destruction of the cities  was an insufficient threat, and unable to capture   the Việt or Cham Kings, the Mongols were denied  their tools to disable the enemy defense. The   Mongols struggled to supply themselves due  to ambushes or vulnerable supply fleets.   Most importantly, Yuan leadership totally  underestimated Vietnamese resilience,   hampered by the inept and inexperienced Toghon and  a demanding, unrealistic Khubilai. In contrast,   the military leaders of Đại Việt, skilled men  like Prince Hưng Đạo, learned from their mistakes,   maximized their strengths and struck the Yuan when  they were most vulnerable. While often victorious   in the initial field engagements, the Yuan  could not turn these into strategic successes.  Still, both Đại Việt and Champa had  suffered terribly over both campaigns,   and Khubilai threatened another attack  until his death in 1294. After that,   relations eased between Yuan, Đại Việt and  Champa. The kingdoms in Vietnam paid tribute   to the Yuan Khans for trade access, gave a nominal  submission and were spared another Mongol assault. #9 Java In the thirteenth century,   Eastern Java and parts of the neighbouring islands  of Sumatra and Borneo came under the influence of   the Kingdom of Tumapel, named for the city of the  same name on the island of Java; it was also known   as the Kingdom of Singhasari, thanks to its King  Jaya Wisnuhardhana, who changed it to. The Tumapel   kings were not absolute rulers, as much of their  kingdom was made up of loosely controlled vassal   kings and chiefs. But they controlled a lucrative  position along the maritime trade routes through   Indonesia and across the southern coastline of  the Eurasian landmass. By the twelfth century,   Java was a leading exporter of goods from China to  India, especially rice, pepper and safflower dye,   while In turn, importing gold, silver,  lacquerware, iron goods and ceramics from China.   The southeast Asian sea trade was a valuable  market which had been expanding considerably   since the ninth century, and one which attracted  the attention of a man hungry for world conquest.  By the 1280s, the Mongol Great Khan Khubilai had  successfully conquered China, but other victories   were frustratingly eluding him in Central Asia,  Japan, Vietnam and Burma. As he advanced in years,   the knowledge that he was failing to bring the  rest of the world under Mongol authority weighed   heavily on him. Now in his seventies, with his  poor health, depression, deaths of his friends   and family, increasing removal from affairs  of state and awareness of his own impending   mortality, Khubilai became desperate for  victories to console his aching spirit.  Economic aspects too, were not to be  overlooked, and were simply a factor in the   inevitable universal domination. Khubilai’s Yuan  dynasty, while influenced by China’s Confucian   norms and traditions, maintained the Mongolian  practicality regarding merchants. Rather than   treat them as inherently lower class, they were  invited and rewarded, and trade encouraged. The   Yuan government partook in this with the conquest  of the southern Chinese coastline, establishing   a Bureau of Maritime Trade at the major port of  Quanzhou. The Bureau not only oversaw and taxed   the trade in and out of Quanzhou, but sought  to actively encourage it while settling foreign   traders there. Contacts were made across the  region, from the Southeast Asian coast through   the Philippines, Indonesia including Java and  Sumatra, to India and the Iranian coastline.   There is evidence for south Indian-style Hindu  temples with Tamil transcriptions in Quanzhou   from this period, a significant Muslim population  and resettled Persians who called the city Zayton,   by which Marco Polo recorded the name. Speaking  of Polo, there is also evidence for an Italian   trading community in Quanzhou. It  was an entry point for the world;   it was the port that Ibn Battuta, during his  journeys in the 1340s arrived at. The Yuan   Dynasty had a keen interest in trade, and sought  to extend their control over it throughout the   region— at the same time extending the Mongols’  heavenly Mandate to rule the whole of the world.  With these considerations, Khubilai Khan increased  diplomatic missions across the seas of southern   Asia, from Malabar to Sri Lanka, ordering the  monarchs and peoples across the sea to submit   to the Great Khan. As it was an old tradition  to send a yearly tribute for the privilege of   trading with China, most regional states already  undertook a nominal submission in order to have   greater access to Chinese ports. While traditional  Chinese dynasties were generally content to accept   the trade and maintain the image of themselves  as the centre of the world even if they did not   exercise actual authority in these states, the  Mongols were often not quite as lenient. To be   a vassal to the Great Khan meant the potential  of making all resources and peoples available   to the Khan’s desires, measured through census  and Mongol-appointed overseers. When Khubilai   sent his diplomatic missions over the seas,  they often were sent to not just reaffirm or   increase the tribute, but to increase the extent  to which these overseas monarchs needed to comply   with the will of the house of Chinggis Khan. One such mission led by an envoy named Meng Qi,   arrived in the court of Kertanagara, the king  of Tumapel, sometime in the 1280s. Kertanagara   had been the King since the 1260s, and had shown  himself a haughty individual and firm adherent to   Tantric Buddhism. Since his ascension he had  expanded his kingdom over eastern Sumatra and   most of Java. By all accounts, Kertanagara was  quite keen to solidify his control of trade and   spice routes, and much less keen on sharing it  with the distant Khan. In the various sources,   after feeling offended by the envoy Meng Qi and  his demands, Kertanagara’s either insulted him,   branded his face with a hot iron, cut his nose  off or outright killed him. In either case,   he had committed a grievous insult on  an envoy of the Great Khan, which as you   may have heard, was not something taken lightly. Kertanagara’s calculation was likely a simple one.   He did not want to increase the share of tribute  sent to China for the privilege of trading,   but still wanted that Chinese trade. It was a  reasonable assumption that the island of Java   was well outside the range of an actual  attack from China, leaving him physically   secure from any repercussions. Once tensions  had cooled, Kertanagara could hypothetically   send an apology mission and resume trade. These were reasonable assumptions, but Khubilai   Khaan was not feeling reasonable. By the later  1280s, the deaths of Khubilai’s closest confidant,   his wife Chabi, chosen heir Jingim and his most  important advisers, as well as alcoholism and   depression had clouded his judgement. Khubilai’s  earliest campaigns against the Dali Kingdom and   Song Dynasty were marked by thorough preparation  and intelligence gathering, taking advantage of   weaknesses within the enemy to bring the final  victory. Decades later, isolated and depressed,   surrendered by yes-men who lacked the ability  to stand up to him and desperate for victory,   Khubilai had come to rely on throwing manpower  at a problem, hoping tactical successes would   lead automatically to strategic victories.  Khubilai’s knowledge of Java was minimal,   but he did not care. The ruler of some island in  the sea had no right to insult the Master of the   World. Thus, Khubilai ordered an attack upon the  Kingdom of Tumapel and bring Kertanagara to heel.  At least, this is the understanding from the  Chinese language sources of the Yuan and Ming   Dynasties. In the medieval Javanese and Balinese  sources, the incident with Meng Qi the envoy is   unmentioned. Instead, Khubilai was a friend of the  minister Madura Wiraraja, who requested Khubilai   provide military assistance to the royal family of  Tumapel. In this version, Kertanagara was usurped   by a man named Jayakatwang, and Khubilai’s forces  quite respectfully came, defeated the usurper,   placed the rightful heir, Kertanagara’s  son-in-law Raden Vijaya, on the throne and   took in exchange only a beautiful princess  for Khubilai to marry. Generally speaking,   most reconstructions rely on the Chinese account,  though the Javanese sources are interesting for   how they justify and depict the Yuan presence. Regardless, an invasion fleet and army were   prepared in 1292. 20,000 men, mainly from southern  China, were mobilized aboard 1,000 vessels. The   army was led by the former Song commander  Gao Xing, the navy by an Uighur named Yiqmis,   and all were under the overall command of a Mongol  called Shibi. The commanders prepared carefully,   having learned from the disastrous naval assaults  on Japan and Đại Việt. They had onboard a year’s   supply of grain and 40,000 ounces of silver  to purchase more supplies. The commanders met   with Khubilai himself before their departure: the  Khan of Khans told Shibi to leave naval matters   to Yiqmis’ expertise, and that they must proclaim  on their arrival they were not an invasion force,   but merely there to punish Kertanagara  for harming a Yuan envoy. If true,   it may reflect an understanding that facing battle  in unknown lands, against a foe they did not know,   was not ideal; the strategy it seems was to  simply overawe the Javanese, the mere threat of   their presence anticipated to be enough to earn  a victory. The fleet set out in winter 1292-93,   making a short stopover in Champa, now paying  tribute and at peace with the Mongols. There,   officers were dispatched on diplomatic missions  to Lamuri, Samudra, Perlak and Mulayu in Sumatra,   seeking tribute and submission. By March  1293 the fleet was off the coast of Java,   and preparing to make landfall. It was decided to  send a diplomatic force ahead of the main fleet,   to convince Kertanagara to submit and avoid having  to make landfall at all. If there was no progress   on the diplomatic front in a week, then the  fleet was to follow up as a show of force.  The diplomatic mission found no success, for  matters had changed considerably in Java by   the time of their arrival. The haughty king of  Tumapel, Kertanagara, was dead, slain by his   vassal, Jayakatong of Gelang, based in the city  of Kediri. Kertanagara’s son-in-law, Raden Vijaya,   based in Majapahit, was resisting him, and the  Yuan had arrived in the midst of a civil war. A   week after the envoys were sent, the armada landed  at Tuban, where part of the army under Gao Xing   and Yiqmis disembarked and marched to Pachekan.  The rest of the army was to follow aboard the   ships under the command of Tuqudege, sailing  through the Straits of Madura and rendezvous   with the land force. At Pachekan, Jayakatong’s  navy blocked the Brantas River, but made no move   against the Yuan. The Yuan commanders landed and  set up a banquet, inviting the Javanese to come   over and discuss terms. No response was made by  the Javanese, and after a while the Yuan fleet and   army advanced. Jayakatong’s navy retreated before  them and after garrisoning Pachekan, the Yuan   forces made their way inland along the Brantas. As they moved inland, they were greeted by   envoys of Raden Vijaya, begging Yuan help:  the young prince had only a small force,   and Jayakatong of Gelang’s army was on its way to  attack Vijaya’s base at Majapahit. In exchange,   Vijaya would submit to the Great Khan. Seeing  supporting Vijaya as the key to gaining the   submission of Java, Yiqmis ordered Gao Xing to  take a part of the army and intercept Jayakatong,   while Yiqmis took the rest of the force to  reinforce Majapahit. Jayakatong managed to   evade Gao Xing and reached Majapahit, only to  find Yiqmis had already assembled his forces to   meet Jayakatong's tired troops. After a night of  stand, the next day Gao Xing arrived with the rest   of the Yuan troops, and altogether they drove  off Jayakatong’s army. Raden Vijaya once again   promised his total submission to the Great Khan if  the Yuan forces helped him defeat Jayakatong for   good, and after providing them maps, a week later  they set off for Jayakatong’s capital at Kediri.  The Yuan moved in three columns: the fleet on  the Brantas River under Tuqudege, with Gao Xing   and Yiqmis taking their forces up either bank,  while behind them traveled a large force from   Majapahit under Raden Vijaya. The army made good  time and reached Kediri within a few days, finding   Jayakatong prepared with a large force. The next  day, from the morning until early afternoon,   Jayakatong’s force advanced three times, and  three times they were repulsed with heavy losses   by the arms of the Yuan Dynasty and Majapahit.  By the end of the day, Jayakatong’s army broke,   fleeing across the river or into Kediri with  Jayakatong. An assault on the city followed,   and by nightfall Jayakatong surrendered. For the next week, the Yuan were the masters   of Java. Raden Vijaya’s promised submission now  had to come: for this, he desired to return to   Majapahit with a small, unarmed Yuan escort to  properly witness his formal submission. While   that force departed for Majapahit, Shibi sent  most of the army back to Pachekan, while he   stayed in Kediri with a small force, thinking  he had handily conquered Java for the Khan.  Once Raden Vijaya saw that the Yuan  troops had let their guard down,   at the end of the day he killed the Yuan escorts  who followed him back to Majapahit, rallied his   armies and urged the people of Java to repel the  foreign invaders. Only narrowly did Shibi escape   the trap for him at Kediri. He fought his way back  to Pachekan, losing up to 3,000 men. Back aboard   the ships the commanders argued over whether  to counter attack or to retreat, ultimately   choosing the latter. Not knowing the country,  outnumbered and unlikely to find local support,   they understood further combat would likely  only have one disastrous outcome. With that,   Shibi ordered a withdrawal back to homeport. While they did bring back some trophies,   maps of Java, population registers, spices,  gold, silver, rhino horn and prisoners, this   did not offset the costs of the campaign. Not as  disastrous as the invasions of Japan or Vietnam,   even this tactically well-executed campaign  could not be turned into a strategic victory,   and resulted in a humiliating retreat. Khubilai  was furious, punishing the commanders, stripping   them of a third of their property and rewarding  them with 50 blows from the rod. Once Khubilai   Khan died in early 1294, there was no stomach  to avenge that defeat, or those others suffered   in Southeast Asia. By contrast, Raden Vijaya  established a powerful empire based in Majapahit   that came to rule most of modern Indonesia and  Malaysia, founded in part with Mongol assistance.   By the end of the 1290s, after Khubilai’s  death, Vijaya sent missions to the Yuan Dynasty   to resume valuable trade contacts. Despite their  reputation for destruction across much of Eurasia,   in the Javanese chronicle there is but a single  reference to the Mongols destroying towns and   sending people running in flight: reflective  of the hope for a less-destructive campaign,   perhaps helping with the memory of the  invasion becoming that of Khubilai coming to   assist his friends in exchange for a beautiful  princess. It was a rather different view than   their forces earned in many other places. In the end, Java successfully defended the   Mongols with perhaps the most minimal amount of  destruction to their own lands; through guile,   they took advantage of a well-prepared, but  hesitant, Yuan army, and were thereby able to   not only use Mongol troops to their advantage,  but inflict upon them a defeat with relatively   little bloodshed. In many ways, it was the  most effective, least cost-intensive and most   beneficial resistance put up by any of the  states we have looked at over in this video. #10 Mongols Although the Mongols fought countless enemies,   none of the conflicts were as fierce as the ones  against other Mongol polities. Let us begin with   the Toluid Civil War, the first and most important  of the Mongol civil wars. Ariq Böke and Khubilai   were younger brothers of Möngke, the last  recognized Great Khan of the united empire who   died in 1259, and both wished to succeed him. Ariq  was based in the old Mongol capital of Qaraqorum,   located in the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia,  while Khubilai was based in Kaiping, a city   he had constructed in today’s Inner Mongolia.  From this position, Khubilai controlled access   to Mongol-ruled Northern China. While Ariq had  more support from other members of the imperial   family for his claim as Great Khan, Khubilai had  more immediate, practical advantages. Ariq did   not have access to large armies, while Khubilai  controlled many of the armies which had just been   used in the war against the Song Dynasty, leaving  Khubilai to start the war off with a tremendous   advantage in manpower. Furthermore, Qaraqorum  was reliant on a constant flow of grains and   other food supplies to supplement its largely  non-nomadic population. When war broke out,   Khubilai cut off Ariq’s access to food supplies  from North China and invaded Mongolia, defeating   Ariq in battle in autumn 1260, and forcing Ariq  to abandon the untenable position at Qaraqorum   in the face of Khubilai’s advance. For a conflict  over who had the right to rule the Mongol Empire,   making it clear Ariq could not hold the imperial  capital was a powerful symbolic move. Khubilai’s   armies forced Ariq to withdraw to the Yenisei  River Valley. While the Yenisei is a comparatively   rich agricultural region, with the cultivation  of wheat, millet and barley going back millennia,   it was insufficient against Ariq’s enemy. Ariq  was reduced to border raids and infighting with   his own allies, before a harsh winter eradicated  his herd animals and forced his surrender by 1264.  From the outset, Khubilai was more willing to  commit to all-out war against his brother; Ariq   appears, until quite late, to have been under the  impression Khubilai would recognize Ariq’s claim,   giving Khubilai a head start in preparing for  war. Khubilai’s ability to bring the resources   of Mongol-ruled China to bear against Ariq, and  thereby cut Qaraqorum off from supply, was the   ultimate card in Khubilai’s favour. While the  details of the battles between Ariq and Khubilai   are sparse, Khubilai’s armies consistently  had the better of the engagements, and Ariq   had far fewer troops to call upon. Khubilai’s  advantages were beyond what Ariq could muster.  The defeat of Ariq Böke was not the end  of Khubilai’s troubles with his family   members. With Qaraqorum rather exposed, Khubilai  permanently moved his capital to two cities;   Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, renamed to Shangdu, and  Dadu, also called Khanbaliq, on the site of modern   Beiing. The result, though, was that Khubilai’s  control over much of Mongolia was tenuous,   and subject to raids from princes who continued  to resist. Qaidu, of the Ögedeyid Khanate, and his   ally Du’a of the Chagatai Khanate, dominated  Central Asia and raided Khubilai’s frontiers   from the Tarim Basin to western Mongolia. A  host of independent princes, largely sons of   the previous Great Khans Möngke, Ariq Böke  and Güyük, held minor courts from Dzungaria,   the Altai Mountains to the Yenisei River valley,  switching from fighting each other, to allying   with Qaidu, to at times joining Khubilai. In the  fast eastern part of Mongolia and in Manchuria,   the descendants of Chinggis Khan’s brothers also  proved rebellious. Thus throughout his efforts   to complete his conquests in China and abroad,  Khubilai Khan had to send troops to deal with his   cousins in Mongolia continuously. While none had  the power to overthrow Khubilai Khan, they could   threaten his hold over Mongolia and other border  regions. Khubilai had to find ways to deal with   almost annual attacks along a vast frontier. Around 1271, Khubilai dispatched his sons   Nomoqan and Kököchu with a large army into  Mongolia, pushing onto Almaliq to drive back   Qaidu while another army pushed across the  Silk Road cities of the Tarim Basin. By 1275,   these gains had been reversed. Hoqu, a son of  Güyük, succeeded in driving Khubilai’s armies from   the Tarim Basin. The next year, a mutiny by the  princes Shiregi and Tuq-Temür in Mongolia resulted   in Khubilai’s sons being captured and sent to the  Golden Horde, where they spent the next decade.   Then, Shiregi and Tuq-Temür attacked Qaraqorum.  However, the princes’ fragile alliance soon   frayed, and Shiregi and some of the other princes  abandoned Tuq-Temür to join Khubilai. At the same   time, Khubilai sent a large response force  under his star general, Bayan of the Ba’arin,   and Tuqtuqa of the Baya’ut Qipchaq. Both were  experienced commanders, with Bayan the mastermind   of the final conquest of the Song Dynasty.  Leading an army of horse archers, including   a thousand Qipchaq warriors, they defeated  Tuq-Temür near Qaraqorum. Shiregi was forced   to execute his former ally Tuq-Temür, before being  sent off to exile on an island off China’s coast.  Khubilai was pleased with the performance of his  generals, particularly Tuqtuqa, whose warriors   became one of the key arms of his anti-Mongol  defense. Parallel to the Mamluk Sultanates in   Egypt and India, Khubilai felt the best way to  deal with steppe horse archers in battle was   better-equipped horse archers. Tuqtuqa’s family  had been Qipchaq lords before the Mongol conquest,   and the Mongols recognized their military  potential and dispersed them around the empire as   frontline troops. Tuqtuqa’s father Banduchaq was  assigned to Khubilai’s armies during his conquest   of the Dali Kingdom in Yunnan in the 1250s,  and had proved their mettle again during the   war against Ariq Böke. The Mongols always sought  to reward those who showed hereditary ability,   and following the defeat of Shiregi, Tuqtuqa and  his men were given promotions and vast tracts   of land around Khubilai’s capital at Khanbaliq.  Further, Qipchaq slaves and soldiers in Khubilai’s   realm were assigned to Tuqtuqa’s command. In  1286, they were formed into a regiment called   the Qipchaq Guard [Qincha wei 欽察衛 ], consisting of  a core of various Turkic steppe warriors fighting   from horseback, supplemented by Alans, Mongols  and thousands of former Song Dynasty infantry and   archers. The command of the Qipchaq Guard was held  by Tuqtuqa’s descendants until the end of Mongol   rule in China. Though one of several such guard  units, the Qipchaq Guard was by far the largest,   richest and most prestigious and held  tremendous influence in the Yuan realm.  The Qipchaq Guard was soon put to the test. In  1287, a revolt broke out in eastern Mongolia, led   by Prince Nayan, a descendant of Chinggis Khan’s  youngest brother Temüge, with another revolt in   Manchuria by Prince Qadan. Nayan overcame  Khubilai’s commander Bayan of the Ba’arin,   and it was feared the Nayan would coordinate with  Qaidu and seize Mongolia. Khubilai Khaan, by this   point in his early seventies, depressed, obese,  gout-ridden, and nearing the end of his life,   roused himself for one more march. According to  the Yuan Shi, Khubilai was frustrated that his   own Mongol troops showed hesitation to fight other  Mongols— their tendency was to dismount and chat   in Mongolian, rather than fight. Khubilai called  upon the Qipchaq Guard, who had no such issues   and would be merciless. From a command post on the  back of four elephants, Khubilai Khan went on his   final campaign, backed by the Qipchaq Guard, while  other Yuan armies blocked the advances of Qaidu   and Qadan, preventing them from linking up with  Nayan. Against the full might of Khubilai Khan,   Nayan was overcome. Amongst Khubilai’s units were  top-of-the-line weaponry; a brigade of Koreans in   his service apparently brought with them handheld  gunpowder weapons, leading night assaults on   some of Nayan’s encampments. Nayan himself was  defeated, captured and executed, though some of   his allies continued to resist for several years.  Tuqtuqa was put to the task of reducing them, too.  After Khubilai Khan’s death in 1294, his grandson  Temür succeeded him as Great Khan, ruling under   the name Öljeitü Khan. Among the first things he  did was richly reward Tuqtuqa and his son Junqur,   and then send him to the frontiers to continue  battling Qaidu and his allies. This consisted of   repelling annual raids or launching their  own expeditions into enemy territory west   of the Altai. Tuqtuqa spent the  rest of his life in Mongolia,   dying there in 1297. His son Junqur inherited  his position as commander of the Qipchaq Guard.  Under Temür Öljeitü Khan, a more structured  defense system was set up across the   frontier. In a vast arc stretching from the  original homeland of Chinggis Khan along the   Onon-Kherlen Rivers to the northern foothills  of Tibet, a series of commanders were stationed   with thousands of troops to respond to incursions.  Temür Öljeitü Khan put overall command under his   brother, Kammala, in Qaraqorum. He also expanded a  policy of his grandfather Khubilai of sending vast   numbers of Chinese labourers into the regions  and Qaraqorum, to establish self-sufficient   communities, expanding agriculture and  crafts production to support these large   frontier garrisons and reduce some of the  state burden in equipping and feeding them.  Temür Öljeitü Khan switched to an offensive stance  after his son-in-law, Körgüz, King of the Önggüt,   was captured and killed by Du’a in 1298. A  furious Temür Öljeitü called upon the resources   of his empire. While Khubilai had continued  to send invasion forces over the seas and   into southeastern Asia until his final days, Temür  Öljeitü halted almost all other military activity   and directed the might of the Yuan Dynasty against  Qaidu and Du’a. He appointed his nephew Qayishan   as overall commander of the Yuan forces in  Mongolia, and provided him with a vast army   backed by the Qipchaq Guard under Jungqur and  his son, El-Temür. In early 1301, a series of   battles were fought around Mount Tiejiangu  south of the Altai Mountains over several   days. Despite the fierce clashes, the outcome was  inconclusive, and Qayishan fell back to Qaraqorum,   Qaidu’s troops harassing him the entire way  and burning the pasture behind him. However,   both Qaidu and Du’a were injured in the battles,  and Qaidu succumbed to his wounds soon after.  Du’a lost his interest in fighting against  the great power of the Yuan Dynasty;   when rumour came a few years later of a threatened  coordinated attack against the Chagatai Khanate by   the other Khanates, Du’a submitted to Temür  Öljeitü and invited the other khanates to do   the same. Over the course of 1304, the various  Mongol Khanates all once again recognized the   overlordship of the Great Khan, a recognition  Temür’s grandfather Khubilai never achieved. As   a part of this, Du’a and the Yuan divided the  territories of the late Qaidu between them.  Despite similar quality of troops and tactics, the  Yuan Dynasty was continually victorious in these   wars. It was able to continually use its vast  resources against its rivals, setting up numerous   garrisons to respond to incursions and showing  greater unity of command, allowing it to bounce   back from defeats when they occurred and bring  its elite troops into play. Meanwhile, its enemies   were reduced to hit-and-run tactics and plagued  by infighting. While Yuan advances were halted in   Southeastern Asia and Japan, against other Mongol  troops the Yuan were able to perform much better.  Other strategies can be observed in the wars  between the Ilkhanate in its conflicts with   the Golden Horde and Chagatai Khanate. The  Ilkhanate and Golden Horde first went to   war almost concurrently with the Toluid Civil  War. These battles were largely fought over the   Caucasus Mountains, which the Golden Horde invaded  repeatedly from the 1260s to the 1380s, hoping to   seize them from the Ilkhanate and its successor  states. Many of these battles were inconclusive,   and the frontline rarely shifted. The opinion of  the written sources from the Ilkhanate and later,   is that while the Khans of the Golden Horde  could field immense armies, the Ilkhanid troops   were better equipped. In the narrower, uneven  terrain of the Caucasus mountains, the better   supply lines and equipment of the Ilkhanid troops  could be maximized, though rarely do we have any   precise details on the course of these battles.  The Ilkhans often responded to these incursions   personally, taking with them their keshig and most  elite units to prevent the Golden Horde’s horsemen   from advancing too deeply. The Ilkhanid soldiers  largely fought defensively, rarely pursuing their   foes back into the steppes. In late 1262, Hülegü’s  son Abaqa did just that, only to be lured into a   trap by Berke Khan and routed. While fleeing,  Abaqa crossed over the frozen Terek River,   only to lose even more of his army when the ice  broke beneath them. The shocking defeat soured the   Ilkhanate on any further expeditions into Golden  Horde territory. Following the end of the initial   conflict, Hülegü’s successor Abaqa, constructed  a wall and ditch along the Kura River and left   a garrison there to defend it, ensuring it would  slow down any Golden Horde advances long enough   for the Ilkhan to respond in force. For its part,  the Golden Horde left a large, permanent garrison   in the steppes north of the Caucasus, to prevent  the Ilkhans from ever attempting to make that   journey north again. The result was an effective  stalemate; both states were far too powerful to   overcome the other or its defensive preparations. To the east, with the Chagatai Khanate,   the Ilkhanate’s frontier was more open and  harder to defend with such static works. The   Ilkhans left garrisons in that region, and often  put their designated heirs in charge of Khurasan,   tasked with responding to attacks by the Chagatais  or the Negüdari raiders from Afghanistan. Here,   the Ilkhanid responses were somewhat  less effective, and many of the Chagatai   or Negüdari raiding parties escaped before the  Ilkhan’s troops could arrive. On rare occasions   where larger-scale invasions did occur, as by  the Chagatai Khan Baraq in 1270, the Ilkhans   responded personally in great force. Abaqa Ilkhan  caught Baraq Khan near Herat in 1270, successfully   outmaneuvering Baraq and inflicting a crushing  defeat upon him. The Ilkhanid army appears not   only to have been much larger, better equipped  and better supplied, but it was better led,   too, compared to the Chagatayid army, which even  seems to have had trouble feeding and supplying   horses for its men in the dry conditions around  Herat in July 1270. After Baraq Khan’s death,   Abaqa then invaded the Chagatai Khanate, a rare  occurrence for him, and thoroughly sacked Bukhara,   one of the chief cities of Transoxiana and  the Chagatai lands. The message was clear;   major attacks on the Ilkhanate would result in  major retaliations. It was not until the 1300s   that the Chagatai undertook larger-scale attacks  on the Ilkhanate again. The success of these too,   were generally halted by effective Ilkhanid  responses or Chagatai infighting. At times the   Chagatais tried to coordinate these attacks  on the Ilkhanate with the Golden Horde,   but the timing never quite succeeded and the  Ilkhans always managed, with some difficulty,   to respond to them one-by-one. An attack by the  Chagatai Khan Esen-Buqa on the Ilkhanate in 1315,   was halted due to an invasion of the eastern  Chagatai Khanate by Yuan Dynasty troops; border   forces under Junqur and the Qipchaq Guard drove  deep into the Chagatai lands, seizing pastures,   animals, families and cities. Fear of coordinated  assaults between the Ilkhanate and Yuan Dynasty   against the Chagatai Khanate, and the increasing  instability in the Chagatai Khanate from the late   1320s onwards, put an end to such efforts again. These khanates could unleash devastating warfare   on each other, but each one was too powerful  to be conquered; the resources necessary for   the task would require each khanate to leave its  lengthy borders exposed. Even for the states that   had the relative advantages, the Ilkhanate and  Yuan Dynasty, victories were still costly, bloody   affairs and the campaigns expensive occurrences. We have many more exciting videos on the Mongols   and their wars coming up, so make sure you are  subscribed and press the bell button. Please,   consider liking, commenting, and sharing - it  helps immensely. Our videos would be impossible   without our kind patrons and YouTube channel  members, whose ranks you can join via the links   in the description to know our schedule, get  early access to our videos, access our discord,   and much more. This is the Kings and Generals  channel, and we will catch you on the next one.

Channel: Kings and Generals

Views: 92,417

Keywords: india, ukrainians, chinese, mamluks, mongols, how, the, fought, europeans, mongol, empire, asia, iran, yuan, why, did, lost, china, dynasty, theory, genghis, khan, armies, tactics, chinggis, Europe, army, mongol army, documentary, kings and generals, kings, generals, history, animated, animated documentary, historical documentary, animated historical documentary, mongol history, full documentary, mongol invasions, mongol empire, tartaria, defended, against, medieval, vietnam, japan, japanese, shogunate, java, indonesia

Id: ZLVQTpiWGVI

Length: 153min 9sec (9189 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 07 2024