Theme 1: Interactions Between Humans and the Environment

Mongols and Nomadic Invaders

Theme 1: Interactions Between Humans and the Environment

·  The Mongols were quick to adopt technologies and military techniques of their more advanced neighbors

·  The Mongols perfected weapon technology in their Northern China campaign, that they would then use during sieges on fortified cities

·  Most of the Mongols technology came from the people they conquered

·  The Mongols gained vast pastureland when they conquered the Tangut people

·  New war techniques and technologies were spread from the Mongols to the western nations

·  The conquests of the Mongols are believed by some historians to have contributed to the transmission of the fleas that caused the bubonic plague

·  This disease was a major drawback to the empire as it disseminated the population of it

Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures

·  The Mongols often borrowed cultural ideas from the civilizations neighboring them and the ones they conquered

·  Genghis Khan took time after subduing the people he conquered to learn about their culture and adopt the pieces of it that he liked

·  Genghis Khan did not impose an official religion and because of this there was religious diversity in the Mongol Empire

·  Genghis Khan, himself, believed in shamanistic ways (nature spirits)

·  The Mongol language was then transformed into a script and was used for recordkeeping

·  The Mongols showed the same brutality to the Christians as they did to people of other religions, this confirmed the Russian speculation that Genghis Khan was not Prester John

·  The Mongol Empire was divided into 30 different tribes

·  The large empire allowed for diversity in culture, such as language, religion, and other cultural aspects

·  There was no movement by the Mongols to change the diversity into a unified and official culture

·  The majority of the people in the Mongol Empire were either Hindu or Muslim

·  Diffused the various cultures of Asia and Eastern Europe throughout the Eastern Hemisphere through its empire

Theme 3: State Building, Expansion and Conflict

·  The Mongol invasions of Northern China led to the creation of The Great Wall

·  The Mongols started their conquest with the invasion of Northern China

·  During Genghis Khan’s reign, the Mongols controlled Present-Day Mongolia, Central Asia, Northern China and Western China

·  In many nomadic tribes, large numbers accounted for military success

·  Ogedei Khan built a new capital in Karakorum during his reign

·  From 1237 to 1240, the Mongols had conquered most of Russia and Ukraine

·  In an attempt to extend into Western Europe, the Mongols lost control of their empire

·  In the Mongol Empire there was a single political authority system

·  Leaders were elected by all free men and held office as long as they could keep it

·  Nomadic invaders often had trouble controlling their empire due to their nomadic nature

·  Political and administrative framework was based on that of the Muslims and the Chinese

·  Genghis Khan did not act kindly on criticism, and often attacked any civilization that criticized his methods

·  After Genghis Khan’s death, his four heirs divided the empire into four distinct regions

·  Russia was an easy conquer by these nomads, because of the Russian princes refusal to unify their efforts

·  After the death of Ogedei, the Mongols never resumed their attempted conquest of Western Europe

·  The Mongol Empire affected all of Asia except India, which remained isolated from the Mongol interactions

·  Unification among tribes prevented world domination in prior years

·  Many civilizations gave into the Mongols, for this was the only chance of survival with the military aggression of the Mongols

·  One of the best examples of a conquering nation

·  The empire stretched from the edge of Europe all the way to Japan

·  Unified the world politically, as it demonstrated how nomads were able to build complex political systems

Theme 4: Creation, Expansion and Interaction of Economic Systems

·  Genghis Khan encouraged trading/economic exchange within the empire

·  The Silk Road was a major trading system that the Mongols used

·  The Mongols captured many economic nodes including, Samarkand

·  Trade routes were secured and used to prosper the nomadic invaders, such as the Mongols

·  The Mongols often attacked economic nodes, as a way to make the Mongol Empire a large part of the world economy

·  Trade was a very interesting topic to the Mongols as they participated in many different trading networks

·  If it were not for the world trade initiated by Genghis Khan, the economy of Asia would not have reached the caliber that it did

Theme 5: Development and Transformation of Social Structures

·  Like other nomadic peoples, the Mongols did not have a sophisticated society

·  The Mongol’s society became more complex as their empire started to grow

·  In China, the Mongols outlawed the examination system in order to prevent the scholar-gentry from gaining too much power

·  As rulers, the Mongols were very tolerant of the people they conquered

·  The Mongols attempted to keep the people they conquered socially separate from the actual Mongol descendants

·  Mongol women refused to accept the Chinese practice of foot-binding

·  Women also were allowed to own property and control the household

·  The Mongol women were just as physically tough as the male warriors

·  The role in society of women was not changed as far as the rest of the world, despite they advancements they made in their individual society

·  Confucian scholars were prevented from gaining political power by the outlawing of the scholar-gentry examination system

·  The Mongols lifted social classes that Confucian scholars in China did not; this was due to the Mongol view on culture and economics

·  The basic unit of most nomadic peoples was the tribe, as it was in Arab nomad peoples and the Mongol nomads