The political transformation which accompanied the world’s first experience of globalisation is often laid at the feet of one man: Temujin, the Great Khan Chinggis. His seizure of the leadership of the Turco-Mongol tribes of Eurasia, followed by his exploitation of the weaknesses of the neighbouring empires, allowed him to ignite a revolution which engulfed the semi-nomadic societies of the Turks; the sophisticated but vulnerable cities of China; the warring communities of the Islamic world; and the virtually undefended marchlands of Europe.
The Chinggisid propaganda of the thirteenth century painted a picture of relentless destruction and inevitable defeat which has endured to the present day, embellished by their friends and allies as well as their enemies and victims, producing a portrait of the Chinggisid Empire with little basis in reality. The inspirational and multicultural khanates ruled the Asian heartlands from Eastern Europe to Eastern Siberia, from the Sea of Japan to the Aegean Sea, from Syria to Kashmir and from Vietnam to the western shores of the Black Sea. From Tabriz, the capital of the Iranian Ilkhanate, to Khanbaliq, the Yuan dynasty capital of a united China under the world’s most magnificent emperor – Qubilai Khan – the Mongol Chinggisids dazzled the world with the sophistication and wealth of their cities and caravans. Climate change, short-sighted political infighting, tired and corrupt empires, and stale ideologies with a dearth of aspirations were cleverly worked by an inspired adventurer and opportunist who managed to change the world and provide his family with the wealth and security denied him when he was young.
Fig. 1: Chinggis Khan, Marble Arch, London, by the shaman and Buryat Mongol, Dashi Namdakov
Temujin was a dispossessed young man whose outlook on life had been shaped by his brutal childhood. Cast out from the clan with his siblings and mother following the duplicitous murder of his father, the young Temujin internalised dubiety, decisiveness and cold ruthlessness in order to survive. Early on his determination was recognised as a threat by those outside his closed family circle, and it was only his youth that held back the blade of a sword upon his neck and instead allowed the wooden edge of the cangue. Temujin had to fight to save his family, and he had to persevere against mounting calamities to avenge the injustices visited upon his father, his mother and his immediate family. When he finally achieved the pinnacle of power in his closed world of the steppe, he understood only too well that weakness dwelt not only in men’s hearts but in their society and social network, and he did not hesitate to act and enforce his vision on those who surrounded him and any who might be tempted to resist his plans.
Temujin gathered around him those whose loyalty was proven and unquestionable without reference to family, social status or clan. He understood human weakness, ambition and drive from bitter experience, and having been plunged to the depths of despair and torment, he was not swayed by fear and doubts. In 1206 Temujin had defeated, co-opted or subdued the majority of the Turco-Mongol tribes of the Eurasian steppe and the united tribes had declared him their leader and they had pledged their loyalty and immoveable faith in his leadership. In recognition of this, he was named Chinggis Khan, the mighty Khan of all khans.1 He rewarded those whose faith in his destiny had matched his own when he apportioned positions of power and prestige, but Temujin also made it clear that he was establishing a new steppe order, a meritocracy where ability brought rewards, prowess was recognised, skills were utilised and competence nurtured status.
The hard core of his empire had been forged when Temujin was at his lowest ebb. Defeated, cheated and skulking in the hills, Temujin gathered his faithful around him to ponder his options. This was where the famous covenant of Baljuna was struck and where his most faithful followers pledged their undying loyalty. However, these loyalists were not representatives of the ruling Turco-Mongol elite but a motley and diverse gathering. Among them were three Christian Kereits, a Merkit, two Buddhist Khitans and three Muslims, probably merchant traders. Whether Baljuna was a river, a lake, a pond, a wadi, or a valley is not known; however, it was ‘a place where there were a few small springs, insufficient for them and their animals too. Therefore, they squeezed water from the mud to drink.’2 A short account of this famous incident at Wadi Baljuna is provided in a Persian chronicle recording the early Ilkhanate of Iran. The anecdote is recorded in almost biblical terms and serves as an appropriate introduction for the revolution to come.
Early accounts of Temujin also record events at Wadi Baljuna, which is close to the lands of the Chinese. His followers had gone without food for a few days when one among them succeeded in shooting down a desert sparrow. The bird was cooked and then presented to their leader. Temujin ordered that the bird be divided equally into 70 portions, and from them he took his own share that was no larger than any of the other portions. It was a result of his willingness to share the tribulations of his men and of his righteousness that people became his devotees and his followers and were prepared to surrender their souls to him.3
Many have interpreted Temujin’s early hardships and traumatic childhood as harbingers of his later brutality and mercilessness. The murder of his father and the disregard and abandonment of his mother and her children is seen to be the seed which like a cancer infected his blood and spread through his soul and into the spirit of his people. The picture which emerged was of a faceless enemy materialising from the dark, inflicting crimes onto a helpless population and disappearing, leaving the screams of devastated victims in their wake.
Unknown tribes came, whom no one exactly knows, who they are, nor whence they came out, nor what their language is, nor of what race they are, nor what their faith is.4
A later Persian source summarised their visit, ‘They came, they sapped, they burnt, they slew, they plundered, they departed.’5 While the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir (1160–1233) lamented his very birth:
For some years I continued averse from mentioning this event, deeming it so horrible that I shrank from recording it and ever withdrawing one foot as I advanced the other. To whom, indeed, can it be easy to write the announcement of the death-blow of Islam and the Muslims, or who is he on whom the remembrance thereof can weigh lightly? O would that my mother had not born me or that I had died and become a forgotten thing ere this befell!6
Strong words, though uttered by a man who had in fact never personally encountered the Mongols nor witnessed any of their devastation.
However, this barbaric picture was an image Chinggis Khan encouraged and nurtured. It became a powerful tool in his armoury and one he deemed necessary if he hoped to pursue his campaigns of conquest and still retain a functioning army of his fellow Turco-Mongols. As long as people believed in the invincible barbarity and insatiable blood-lust of his soldiery and fellow Mongols, he would encounter steadily dwindling armies of adversaries. Few would be willing to face such hellish hordes who were universally believed to have escaped from Hell or Tartarus and had become the incarnations of Gog and Magog themselves.
Fig. 2: Mongol archers. The mere mention of the presence of Mongol horsemen spread terror among the population
In fact, Chinggis Khan sought and found allies throughout his career. He was a politician and a negotiator, and he struck political deals and alliances sealed in wine and ink as well as in blood. He led a very successful army, and his victories served as the ultimate recruiting sergeant. Chinggis Khan adhered to the yasa, the strict ancestral law of the steppe, and enforced its limitations and strictures on himself, his followers and those over whom he ruled; though admittedly that unwritten code soon proved to be reasonably elastic and adaptable in practice. The further the Chinggisids travelled from the steppe, the looser the constraints and interpretations of the Great Yasa became. As the ranks of his armies swelled and the rudiments of an administration appeared, so too did the tactics and ambitions of empire develop and expand.
After us, our offspring will wear gold-brocaded robes and eat sweet and fatty tidbits. They will ride beautiful horses and embrace lovely ladies. They will not say, ‘These things were assembled by our fathers and elders.’ On that day of greatness, they will forget us.7
Chinggis Khan was not overly enamoured with the steppe and the customs of his people, which had certainly not served him well. In 1206, upon accepting the mantle of Great Khan Chinggis, Temujin initiated a revolution, and then just as his fellow tribesmen and steppe nomads willingly signed up and proclaimed their faith in his leadership and guidance so too did his neighbours and defeated or intimidated enemies. The revolution gained momentum and force, and as success followed triumph so word spread. Each victory proved the righteousness and invincibility of the Great Khan and, also for so many, it proved that the hand of God was upon him and that continued triumph was inevitable.
When Chinggis swept out of the steppe and descended on the towns and cities of northern China he did so with the help of the Khitans, the exiled sedentarised Turco-Mongols who welcomed his assault on the hated Jurchens occupying their former lands. When he first entered the Dar al-Islam his armies were welcomed by local Muslims who knew that Chinggisid help was needed to end their oppression by the hated Naiman prince Kuchluq and that cooperation would provide their merchants access to the lands of the east and backing for advancing trade in the west. When he launched his raid on the would-be champion of Islam, the delusional Khwarazmshah Muhammad (d.1222), the raids were launched from the most recent states to have pledged loyalty to the Chinggisid Empire, the Muslim-dominated lands of east Turkestan. When his grandson Hulegu led the vast imperial army into the Iranian heartlands, the Chinggisid military ranks were swelled with local Persian units eager to assist in the expulsion of the heretic Ismaʿilis, in the toppling of an Arab caliphate still lording over their Iranian neighbours and in the resurgence of a Persian polity not seen since the destruction of the Sassanian Empire by the despised Arabs in the seventh century. As Chinggis Khan’s ranks swelled and his Tatars’ hooves trod across more lands, there were always those who welcomed their advance and many who saw advantage in joining these triumphant armies.
Though the destruction and devastation should not be trivialised, it should be judged in context and viewed also as a product of a political, social, cultural and possibly even spiritual revolution, a vast global upheaval. Chinggis Khan initiated the world’s first experience of globalisation. Population exchange and movement, at first compulsory and forced though later voluntary and welcomed, forged contacts and alliances which transformed the world and revitalised the global economy. French silversmiths fashioned elaborate drinking fountains in the Mongolian steppe’s first urban centre, Persian poets inscribed tombstones in port cities on the Sea of China, German soldiers marched with Mongol armies across the steppe lands of the east and European clerics debated with Armenian priests, Tibetan Buddhists, Muslim Arabs and Turkish Shamans for the edification and intellectual nourishment of Mongol warlords.
Marco Polo travelled to the capital of the world and revelled in the splendour and sophistication he encountered there, and on his eventual return his compatriots marvelled at his tales but doubted the veracity of the wonders which he had reported so outlandish and awesome did they appear. Within a couple of decades of his return to Venice, guide books and merchants’ manuals appeared with advice for adventurers, opportunists and traders on the practicalities of travelling east and dealing with the complexities of medieval international travel.
If Chinggis Khan’s rise from rags to riches can be explained with this mixture of circumstance and psychology, the wider picture and the global stage upon which he was able to strut does not lend itself to such ready explanation. Throughout the history of the symbiotic relationship between the steppe and the sown there have been periods when the uneasy calm was disrupted and mounted hordes have descended on the rural communities and walled cities of their settled neighbours. Such intrusions were generally short-lived and terminated when the sources of booty and riches dried up, fled or mounted effective resistance. The Chinggisid irruptions were different, and the Great Khan’s mounted followers did not turn back sated with their plunder. Though much of this will be explained through the study of Chinggis Khan, other elements should also be considered for their contribution.
For example, a climate analyst, Gareth Jenkins, presented data in 1974 demonstrating that between 1175 and 1260 there had been ‘a steady and steep decline in the mean temperature in Mongolia’. Jenkins argues that so profound and environmentally transformative were these climatic changes that they would have played a decisive role in the decision of the tribes to unite and their subsequent large-scale and prolonged incursion into the lands of the sown. He claims that ‘a major climatic overturn did much to encourage the end to the infighting and vendettas among the Mongol clans and make possible their reorganization under Chinggis’s military authority’ and that ‘their enthusiasm for the task of conquest may well have been fueled by a climatic defeat at their backs’.8 Certainly, great loss of livestock, loss of grazing land, the widespread displacement of people and the resulting violent competition for power and leadership provided the ideal circumstances for the rise of a charismatic leader with a vision and the energy to realise his dream.
After two decades of very dry weather from 1180, the first decades of the thirteenth century saw the weather improve, especially during the period of Chinggis’s campaigns against the Jurchen of northern China and the Khwarazmshah of Greater Iran. Certainly, wetter conditions would have produced healthier grasslands with the resultant increased production of energy supplies, perfect for an expanding army marching on its stomach. One Mongol soldier moved with five horses each, and a wetter climate would have had a dramatic effect on morale and efficiency and in food production.
For centuries, the Turco-Mongol tribes had been battling each other in a predictable and seemingly inevitable cycle, and they had allowed themselves to be manipulated by their arrogant neighbours. Juwayni reports that ‘[The Mongol tribes] were not united with one another, and there was constant fighting and hostility between them. […] The Khan of Khitai used to demand and seize goods from them.’9 The Khitan lords pitted one tribe against another as did their successors, the Jin dynasty of the Jurchens, and even the mighty Song dynasty in the south. Ancestors of Chinggis Khan such as Qaidu (c.1040–1100) and Kabul (c.1100–48) were among the litany of petty rulers who rose and fell at the whim of their masters and the chaos of steppe militant politics. The Turco-Mongols of the Eurasian steppe were ready for someone and something to break the cycle, and the dramatic changes in the climate could well have acted as the catalyst that coincided with the rise of Temujin and the fervent political environment in disunited China.
Chinggis Khan was a clever military strategist and a keen reader of men. He was adept at strutting and fretting on the political stage, but he remained the right man at the right time, and it was the political circumstances enhanced by the dramatic climatic changes which allowed his unprecedented success.