Geography provides a partial explanation for why the Mongols would explode into adjoining lands. The population of Mongolia lived at one end of the Eurasian steppes, practicing nomadic pastoralism as had their predecessors for many centuries (see Chapter 6). The Mongols, like their neighbors the Turks, depended on Chinese trade for many manufactured goods as well as grain. When China refused this trade, the Mongols resorted to plundering raids.
In the late twelfth century, Mongolia was divided into numerous patriarchal clans, each headed by a chieftain who gained his position usually, though not necessarily, through heredity. Mongol males in the clan spent most of their time hunting, tending their herds, and fighting. Raids on other clans were frequent, spurred in part by the need to acquire wives from outside the clan. Some clans united with others to form tribes of varying size, but these groupings were rarely very stable. The most common impetus to unity was the need to raid in China for plunder, and a tribal chieftain could maintain his position only through success in these endeavors.
Through most of his life, Temujin, who would become Chingiz Khan (or Great Khan), was bound by these rules and customs. Yet, when he eventually succeeded in uniting the various tribes into one confederation, he effected a great change in traditional Mongol society, allowing him to create a fierce instrument of conquest. His success in molding a lasting military institution can be seen in the continuation of his system after he died, for his successors led his armies to even greater conquests.
Chingiz Khan
About age 60, near the end of his life of war and conquest
Temujin arose at a time when Mongolia was much divided. He came from an illustrious line of earlier Mongol leaders, but his father had a relatively small lineage and was leader of a relatively small clan. This was a problem for Temujin since Mongols did not simply join putative chieftains due to their ancestry; these leaders had to demonstrate their capabilities. As Temujin would learn, Mongols would flock to a successful leader and desert one who failed.
Temujin’s unification of the Mongols was strewn with failures, but these failures actually served him well in the long run, as he learned that he could not trust the traditional Mongol social system based on family, clan, and tribe. He had to constantly fight to gain and maintain his position, and so the system that he eventually organized was one based on commanders whose loyalty was to him and him alone, not to their tribes or clans. In effect, he created a new supratribe, one loyal to him and his successors. However, in doing this, he depended on military victories to keep the loyalty of his commanders. This meant that he had to take risks, and take them often.
This organization along personal lines was very different from the traditional organization of the steppe nomadic armies. Such armies typically had been coalitions or confederations of several tribes that based their organization on kinship. What Temujin offered was a system that ultimately provided for a much better and more efficient military force; but, until it had become firmly established, it constantly threatened to fly apart.
Temujin was born in 1167. Within a few years, his father had been killed, and he was left alone, as most of his clan members left to find other protection. Through military prowess on the field and great gifts of leadership, by 1190 he had become one of the three or four most powerful leaders in Mongolia, commanding about 30,000 warriors. On the verge of being named Great Khan, he was suddenly attacked and defeated, and many of his followers deserted him. By 1196, however, firm alliances and new victories in the field had restored him to a position of leadership. Once again, in 1198 in a major battle against the Naiman, a related tribe, he was deserted by many of his allies (they had arranged this with one of Temujin’s rivals prior to the battle). Despite this desertion, he won the battle and retained his position, but he was weakened. In 1203, he was further weakened when a rival was able to convince many of the allied tribes to desert Temujin. At that low point, he commanded no more than 5000 men.
Nevertheless, within a year, he claimed a masterful victory by attacking his main enemies while they were celebrating—nearly all of them were drunk. This victory earned him the mastery of Mongolia, though it was not officially proclaimed until the famous Quriltai of 1206, a meeting of all the Mongol tribes.
Temujin, now Chingiz Khan, had learned an important lesson from all his struggles: Never give any power to others unless he could limit it and make them somehow dependent on him. He had seen men who swore loyalty desert him the next day; even several of his uncles and two brothers had deserted him when times were hard. He had found that the only men he could trust were those who had been appointed his personal bodyguards. This was not surprising—in Mongolia, bodyguards took a personal oath of loyalty that was considered almost sacred. Chingiz Khan enforced this loyalty by decreeing that any who violated this oath, even the bodyguards of others, were to be harshly punished. Those who remained loyal were rewarded. When he became master of Mongolia and reorganized the military, he placed these personal bodyguards in the highest positions of authority in the army. Chingiz Khan proved to be a good judge of ability. Not all of his bodyguards were given high military positions, but those who were proved to be very able military commanders. Yet his suspicions always remained. Though he would eventually appoint his sons to high military positions, he never fully trusted them, and several members of his family were killed when he thought they were challenging him, including all but one of his father’s brothers.
An important aspect of Chingiz Khan’s efforts to convert the Mongols from a confederation of tribes to one supratribe was his institution of a supreme law code, called the Yasa (Mongolian, “code”). The traditional story has it that Chingiz Khan promulgated this code at the great Quriltai of 1206, but scholars have cast doubt on this, claiming that the earliest it could have reached final form was 1225. Still, there is little doubt that some forms of the Yasa were known soon after Temujin was named Great Khan, for he ordered scribes to write down his orders and concerns regarding management of the new Mongol supratribe. Numerous sources refer to the Yasa, but only fragments have survived, and we are not even clear as to the order of the various ordinances in the Yasa.
What remains of the Yasa makes clear that it was considered a code for all Mongols. The Yasa covered such things as military duties, international relations, taxation, inheritance, and the division of spoils, but there is little concerning everyday customs on matters such as marriage and death rituals. All Mongols were considered to have a duty to the Great Khan, and so murder of another Mongol, for example, was considered a crime against the state and was punishable by death. Murder of a Chinese or Muslim (the only others specifically mentioned) was to be punished by payment of a fine. Other crimes for which a Mongol could be punished by execution included adultery, theft (from another Mongol), homosexuality, and failure to share a meal with another Mongol. Regarding plunder, the code stated that all Mongols were to get a share or keep what they had taken after payment of a portion to the khan. All beautiful women taken captive, however, had to be presented to the khan and his top officers for first selection.
The military regulations in the Yasa also pointed to Chingiz Kahn’s desire to organize the Mongols as one people rather than as a confederation. The Mongols were given a uniform military organization (see below), and once a Mongol soldier had been placed in a unit, he could not shift to another unit without approval from the khan. Absolute obedience to officers was commanded, and officers were held strictly responsible for their units. The khan’s orders were to be carried out without hesitation by all officers, no matter what their rank. Finally, all Mongols not on active campaign were to take part in the Great Hunts, which Chingiz Khan considered the best training for organized combat.