Mongol Empire is considered as the biggest land empire in the entire history of the world. The territory of the said country is extended from the Yellow Sea in the eastern part of Asia up to the borders of the eastern part of Europe. (IBM 1999 World Book 2000).
The Mongols are originally consisted of freely structured nomadic tribes in Mongolia, Manchuria as well as Siberia. They lived in a felt tent that they called as yurts. They raised ponies, sheep, camels, oxen as well as goats as their primary source of living. As part of their security activities, every male member of the said tribe are considered as their soldiers that are being trained in order to learned to ride as well use a bow and arrow expertly (IBM 1999 World Book 2000).
The history of the empire is divided into two: the early empire and the late empire. The early empire started under the leadership of Temujin, or Genghis Khan in late 1100’s. He is considered as the lord of all the people dwelling in felt tents because he had been able to organize and unite the scattered Mongol as well as other nomadic tribes in order to create a superior fighting force (IBM 1999 World Book 2000).
As a preparation for a spectacular conquest, the Mongols had trained to become the best-disciplined as well as effective army during that time. The primary advantage of the Mongols is their ability to used military tactics. They used storming ladders and sandbags in order to seal in moats. In addition to that, Besiegers approach and siege training that is made of special arms and equipment are also applied.
The first goal of the empire was to invade China. Genghis Khan had been able to attack and control Xi Xia, a state that is beside the northwestern border of China. In 1218, Genghis Khan had turned to the west to the central Asia and Eastern Europe to conquer Russia and the Muslim lands, including Persia or Turkey that enables them to destroy many of Islamic-Arabic civilization. In 1227, Genghis Khan died and the empire was lead by his son, Ogotai. Unfortunately, Ogotai died in the middle of their campaign against Hungary and Poland (JRL World Enterprises 1998).
The later empire had begun under the leadership of Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan. He had been able to help the Mongols to completely conquer China in 1279 by attacking the Song dynasty in the South part of China. Under Kublai Khan’s leadership, he had been able to establish Cambaluc, or Beijing, as the winter capital of the empire. He also permitted the existence of different religions such as Muslim, Christians, Buddhists, Taoists and Confucianism (JRL World Enterprises 1998).
Unfortunately, the Mongols were not that successful to their campaign against the Japanese people. The decline of the empire had started because of the lack of maintenance due huge size and separation of cultures and religion of the empire, during 1200s. The primary strength and primary reasons of Mongols’ success is the ability of their leader to deploy and invent different military strategies such as: sending small force close to an enemy city and run away as soon as the enemy was spotted, the enemy would then chase to the small Mongol force, but there is a large troop of Mongols that is waiting for them. The enemy will be then trap, and Mongol will start to fire so that there will be no room for the enemy to retreat (JRL World Enterprises 1998). The Mongols are confident fighters, but they don’t have enough knowledge in management. The empire leaders rely on other people to look over their affairs by bringing foreigners to China, to keep away from the total reliance on Chinese.
The empire had break-up after the death of Kublai Khan.
References
IBM 1999 World Book. 2000. Mongol Empire (1279-1368). http://wwwlib.murdoch.ed u.au/find/citation/chicago.html#paraphrase (accessed April 1, 2008).
JRL World Enterprises. 1998. The Mongol Empire: A Historical Website. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/forum/2532/ (accessed April 1, 2008)
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