Age of Conquest: A Kings and Generals Podcast

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2.51. History of the Mongols: Ilkhanate #1 Jun 28, 2021

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Now that we have gone through the Yuan Dynasty, Ogedeid Khanate and Chagatai Khanate, our attention comes to the other Mongol Khanate ruled by the descendants of Tolui; the Ilkhanate. Ruling Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus and the Anatolian peninsula to the borders of the Byzantine Empire, the Ilkhanate was among the most powerful, and also perhaps the best understood of the Khanates, due to a wonderful surviving library of historical works, best exemplified by the mammoth universal history the Ilkhanate's vizier, Rashid al-Din. For our first episode on the Ilkhanate, we look at its establishment by Hulegu and his son Abaqa, the first twenty years of the Ilkhanate's history which did much to define the final fifty years. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. As a brief aside, you can revisit a two part discussion between our series historian, Jack Wilson, with professor Michael Hope, a specialist on the Ilkhanate, which we have uploaded on all sites that host our podcast. We last left off with the Ilkhanate in episode 33 of our main series, on the Berke-Hulegu war, where Hulegu fought with his cousin Berke of the Golden Horde over the Caucasus in the early 1260s. Hulegu was the younger brother of Great Khan Mongke and of Khubilai. The third son of Tolui, they were grandsons of Chinggis Khan and thus of prestigious lineage. As we saw in episodes 28 and 29, Hulegu had been ordered by his brother Mongke in the 1250s to complete the conquest of southwestern Asia. Despite the claims of some Ilkhanid writers, or of modern historians who write of Khubilai and Hulegu being made viceroys of China and western Asia, respectively, it is highly unlikely Mongke had commissioned Hulegu to found a new Khanate. Rather, his role was almost certainly just a limited military one, assigned by his brother to complete the conquest so that the Middle East could be properly incorporated into the Central Governmental structure, or even territory that belonged directly to the Khan. Given Mongke's crackdown on the independence of the Ogedeids, Chagatayids and to a lesser extent, the Jochids, it seems unlikely he was setting up a vast area to become personal fief to another member of the family, even if it was his younger brother. Certainly, we can also ignore statements that this was land Chinggis Khan had granted specifically to the Toluids, or that the Ilkhanate emerged from a division of the empire following Chinggis' death in 1227. The conquest of Iran proper did not begin until after Chinggis' death, and it took until Hulegu in the 1250s for the Middle East to become territory of the house of Tolui. Infact, it seems much of this territory was considered, up until 1260 or so, as belonging to the house of Jochi. At least, the Jochids considered this to be the case. Whatever Mongke's intentions, as with so much, his plans were upset by his death on campaign in 1259. Hulegu was an important commander during Mongke's lifetime, but not necessarily one about to be appointed a long term governor. Though he had greatly expanded the Mongol Empire westwards and taken Baghdad, the territory that later became the Ilkhanate was divided between Jochids in the north, especially in the Caucasus and northern Iran but also scattered throughout the region; some Chagatayid territory in the east, namely in parts of Khurasan; and territory that belonged directly to the Great Khan, for whom it seemed Hulegu's conquests would all go to. Following Mongke's death, Hulegu essentially seized all these lands. Whether Hulegu had done this in order to declare his independence, or to take advantage of a primary lapse in imperial authority and then force Mongke's successor to recognize his gains, over 1260 Hulegu seized control of territory claimed by the Jochids and other branches of the family. The Jochid Khan, Berke, was particularly angered at the loss of the pastures and trade cities of the Caucasus, which Mongke had only shortly before re-confirmed for him. Hulegu did not return east to take part in the election of Mongke's successor or observe matters there, but thought of himself first, using the lull to enrich himself. It was this which precipitated war between the Jochids under Berke in 1262 over the Caucasus. As we addressed briefly in episode 30, it seems that following the sack of Baghdad in 1258, Hulegu began using the title of il-khan. While popularly translated as viceroy or subject khan, more recent scholarship has demonstrated that the title bore no such connotations of submission or subservience. Rather, it simply designated a sovereign in his own right. Most of the uses of the term il-khan reflect this usage in the historical sources, with rulers from Chinggis Khan himself to the Khans of the Golden Horde referred to as il-khan. By the start of the 1260s we can speak in earnest of Hulegu and his successors as the Ilkhans. We should expect that to contemporaries, Hulegu was understood as his own monarch in truth, whatever nominal allegiance he and his successors paid to Khubilai Khan and his heirs. From 1262 until his death of epilepsy in 1265, Hulegu was largely concerned with battling Berke Khan in Azerbaijan and Georgia in three years of on and off warfare. He made excuses to avoid traveling east to confirm Khubilai's enthronement as Great Khan after Ariq Boke's death. Between fighting the Jochids, Hulegu also had to clamp down on revolts and build a new administration. A number of local leaders in northern Iraq and western Iran who had already submitted to the Mongols revolted after the sack of Baghdad or the defeat at Ayn Jalut. All those who revolted were subjected to horrific punishments. The ruler of Mosul, Badruddin Lu'lu, died in 1261 aged 96, and his son Malik Shah revolted. Hulegu sent an army which brought the city to slaughter and rape the following year, and Maik Shah was tied to a post and covered in sheep's fat, which soon attracted flies. The resulting maggots born from their eggs then ate the poor man alive while he died of exposure in the Iraqi sun. Malik Shah's three year old son was cut in half and left hanging as a warning. Another revolting ruler in Mayyafariqan, upon being caught by the Mongols had pieces of his flesh cut off and stuffed into his mouth until he died. In Fars, the Salghurid Atabeg's actions brought the response of a Mongol army: it took until 1264 for the Atabeg to be caught and killed, and a cousin of his married to one of Hulegu's sons. Hulegu also began the building of his own imperial government. He did not merely co opt the existing Mongol bureaucracy. Much of Hulegu's territory had been previously overseen by the Mongol bureaucrat Arghun Aqa, the head of the Secretariat for Iran and Western Asia since the 1240s, first appointed to the post by Torogene Khatun. While most of Arghun Aqa's territorial jurisdiction was brought into Hulegu's new state, and Arghun Aqa continued to serve the Ilkhans until his death in 1275, Hulegu had to incorporate territory he himself had only recently conquered. He was strongly influenced by traditional Persian forms of government, due in part to the advice of prominent Persians in his retinue, Nasir al-Din Tusi and the Juvaini brothers. The older, Shams al-Din Juvaini, was made Hulegu's vizier, a position he would hold for the next twenty or so years. The younger Juvaini brother we have met often over the course of this series. 'Ala al-Din 'Ata-Malik Juvaini served in Hulegu's court during his campaigns against the Nizari Ismailis and Baghdad, and in turn 'Ala al-Din was appointed to oversee Baghdad's reconstruction. We of course know him best as the author of the History of the World Conqueror, one of the single most important surviving historical sources on the Mongol Empire, and used as a source by other medieval authors like Rashid al-Din. Both Juvaini brothers were tasked with much of the rebuilding of the Iranian, Iraqi, Caucasian and Anatolian cities and their economies, which they approached diligently. It was not without Mongol custom though, for Hulegu's various sons, wives and lords were allotted territories to oversee in order to support themselves, the appanage system which so often stymied efforts by the central government to exert its powers. In addition, Hulegu established Maragha in northwestern Iran as his capital, and under the supervision of the brilliant scholar Nasir al-Din Tusi, began to make it a centre of learning and science. On Hulegu's order, Tusi built a great observatory there, and Hulegu provided pensions to artists and scholars in order to enhance his reputation; though Hulegu tended to show greater interest in alchemists who sought to turn things into gold for him. Additionally, Hulegu ordered the construction of palaces and temples and a number of other public works projects, for according to Rashid al-Din, Hulegu loved to build. In Rashid's time some forty years later, a number of Hulegu's projects still stood. Hulegu did not abandon nomadism, and instead, in a model followed by his successors, established a primary capital to house his treasury and governmental apparatus, a place on occasion visited by Hulegu, while Hulegu would spend most of his time with his herds and families in his pastures: generally in the rich, cooler pastures of Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran in the summer, and then to eastern Anatolia, northern Iraq or even Baghdad itself during the winters. Of course, there is also the matter of the Mamluks. The Mamluk Sultanate famously defeated a Mongol army under Ketbuqa Noyan at Ayn Jalut in September 1260. Hulegu did not see the matter as finished; before even the end of 1260, another small Mongol army invaded Syria, though it too was quickly defeated. This proved to be the final Mongol incursion into Syria for the 1260s. The borders with the Golden Horde in the Caucasus, the Qara'una and the Chagatai Khanate in Khurasan proved of greater concern. Only once other matters were settled would the Ilkhans be able to bring their attention to Syria and the Mamluks, but that long war we will cover in a following episode. Hulegu died in February 1265, a complication from the epilepsy he seemed to suffer from. He was buried on an island in the Caspian Sea with considerable treasure and apparently, human sacrifices. He was followed to the grave soon after by his chief wife, Dokuz Khatun. Aside from an aborted attempt by one son, Yoshmut, to throw his name in for the throne, apparently it was unanimously agreed by the notables of the Ilkhanate to elect Hulegu's oldest son, Abaqa. Abaqa may not have been born of Hulegu's chief wives, but he was the most senior of Hulegu's children in the Ilkhanate, since most of Hulegu's sons and wives were still in Mongolia at the time of his death. Abaqa had risen as his father's right hand, and had overseen the Ilkhanate's eastern Iranian and Khurasani territory. During the initial rounds of fighting against Berke Khan in the Caucasus, Abaqa had a key command role, though led his own forces into a humiliating defeat. For the nearly 17 years that Abaqa ruled over the Ilkhanate, he proved to be a steady and stabilizing, if unimaginative, monarch. Like his father, he was a capable enough manager though often had little care for the details of running the state. He shared his father's personal affection for Buddhism, but also continued his policy of general religious tolerance. While Buddhists temples were constructed, Abaqa showed himself a friend to all religions. To Chrisitans, Abaqa courted alliances with Catholic Europe and Eastern Christian, that is Nestorian, churches and representatives such as Rabban bar Sauma and Mar Yahballaha were patronized. One of Abaqa's wives was a daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII, named Maria but called Despina Khatun by the Mongols. The Christian kingdom of Cilician Armenia was a favoured ally, and the churches in Greater Armenia, Georgia and the few Crusader holdouts on the coast were treated respectfully enough. The Armenians and Georgian sources treated Hulegu's wife, the Christian Dokuz Khatun, as a saintly figure who protected and patronized their churches, a second coming of Constantine I and his mother Helene. To Mongols, he ensured the respect of the yassa of Chinggis Khan and still favoured the Mongol elite and military. For Muslims, Abaqa relied on traditional Persian governmental institutions and his top members of the bureaucracy, especially the Juvaini brothers, were Muslims. Dokuz Khatun, despite her Christianity, had also showed patronage to Buddhist and Muslim public sites and places of worship. The prominence of the minority Christians and Buddhists in the Ilkhanate's administration and privileges were, however, a matter of contention for an empire with a Muslim-majority population, already unhappy to be ruled over by infidels. Abaqa's initial steps on his enthronement were to reconfirm the laws passed by his father and to keep most of his appointees in their offices. Shams al-Din Juvaini was maintained as vizier and sahib-diwan, while his brother 'Ala al-Din 'Ata-Malik was retained in Baghdad. Perhaps the greatest change in Abaqa's early days was moving the capital from Maragha to Tabriz, and appointing his brothers to the frontiers. Abaqa's early reign was caught up with the matter of dealing with his Mongolian kinsmen. Only weeks after his enthronement, Berke Khan and his commander Nogai unleashed another invasion on the Caucasus. You can revisit that war in more detail in episode 33, but after some inconclusive fighting Berke Khan died of illness en route to Tbilisi in 1266. The forces of the Jochids withdrew to select Berke's successor, and Abaqa in turn built a wall and deep ditch along the Kura River, the frontier between them in the Ilkhanate. Manned by Mongols and Muslims, we are told it allowed merchants to travel between the Ilkhanate and Golden Horde, but stood strong enough to dissuade any serious Jochid re-offensives for many years. At the end of the 1260s Abaqa then had to deal with the Chagatais. As looked at in episode 47 on the Chagatai Khanate, a peace agreement was reached around 1268 between the Chagatai Khan Baraq, the Ogedeid prince Qaidu, and the new Khan of the Golden Horde, Mongke-Temur. They agreed to a joint invasion of the Ilkhanate. Baraq encouraged the revolt of a Chagatai prince in the Ilkhanate, then followed up with an invasion in 1270. As we covered in detail in episode 47, Abaqa successfully had the revolting Chagatai prince captured and defeated Baraq at the battle of Herat in July 1270. Baraq was broken and fled back to the Chagatai Khanate, where he died in 1271, which precipitated Qaidu's rise to prominence over the Chagatais. Two years later, in 1273, Abaqa sent a large army to devastate one of the Chagatai Khanate's chief cities, Bukhara, a rather clear message. Qaidu recognized the display of Abaqa's power, and despite occasional border raids, the Chagatais would not threaten serious invasion of the Ilkhanate until the early fourteenth century during the reign of Esen Buqa Khan, seen in our second episode on the Chagatai Khanate. So clear was Abaqa's victory over Baraq that shortly afterwards, Mongke-Temur Khan of the Golden Horde sent gifts and peace offerings to Abaqa. Despite raids by the Neguderis, or Qara'unas, Mongol troops stationed in Afghanistan who had gone renegade, Abaqa for the rest of his reign had relatively calm relations with the Golden Horde and Chagatais. Following the battle of Herat, envoys came from Khubilai Khan bearing a yarligh, a decree which confirmed Abaqa as Khan. With this confirmation, Abaqa was enthroned a second time, and according to Rashid al-Din on…

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2.50. History of the Mongols: Invasions of India Jun 21, 2021

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Back in our 15th episode of this series, we looked at Khwarezmian prince Jalal al-Din Mingburnu's exploits in India in the early 1220s. Having fled there after Chinggis Khan's devastating invasion of the Khwarezmian Empire, Jalal al-Din's flight brought India to the attention of the Mongols. While Chinggis Khan did not invade the subcontinent, this was not the last that India would see of the Mongols. In today's episode, we return to northern India, dominated by the Sultanate of Delhi, and look at its interactions with the Mongols who repeatedly raided its borders. Why the Delhi Sultans, from Iltutmish, Balban to Alauddin Khalji were able to largely successfully resist the Mongols will be examined, over nearly the century of Mongol-Delhi interactions. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. The Delhi Sultanate arose from the ruins of the Ghurid Empire which had stretched from Afghanistan to Bengal. The Ghurids, or Shansabanids, had been a regional power in central Afghanistan emerging in the ninth century but were subdued by the Ghaznavids, also known as the Yamanids, a persianised Turkic dynasty which dominated much of the Iranian world up to the borders of India from the tenth to the twelfth centuries. The Ghaznavids under their great expander, the mighty Mahmud of Ghazna, reduced the Ghurids to a subject state early in the eleventh century, though in turn the Ghaznavids were pushed from Iran by the Seljuqs with the famous battle of Dandanaqan in 1040, and became tributary to the Seljuqs under their Sultan Sanjar at the start of the twelfth century. In this time, the Ghurid elite converted from Buddhism to Islam, and could be said to have bided their time. The Seljuqs weakened over the twelfth century with the arrival of the Qara-Khitai, the Ghuzz Turk invasions and independence of the Khwarezmian Empire in the north. In turn, the weakness of the Seljuqs advanced the weakness of the Ghaznavids, which provided an opportunity for the Ghurids to rise in the second half of the twelfth century. Under the brilliant leadership of Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad Ghuri, better known simply as Muhammad of Ghor, and his brother Ghiyath al-Din, the Ghurids conquered the remnants of the Ghaznavids. Repulsing invasions by the Ghuzz Turks and proving a staunch foe to the Qara-Khitai and Khwarezm-Shahs, Muhammad of Ghor received backing from the Caliph and expanded across the region. By the end of his life, he had forged an empire stretching from eastern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan across Northern India to Bengal. Muhammad of Ghor's military might rested in large part on his loyal ghulams, Turkic slave soldiers, though over the thirteenth century the term gave way to mamluk. A similar institution existed in the form of the Ottoman janissaries. While it was common for any good regional warlord to employ nomadic Turkic tribes due to their military prowess, they often proved unreliable and self-interested. For the conquest-minded Muhammad of Ghor, he could not put much stock on nomad chiefs who may value their own advancement over Muhammad's glory. Instead, Muhammad looked to the classic islamic institution of slave soldiers. Ghulams and Mamluks were young boys, generally sold by enemy Turkic tribes, that were brought into the Islamic world and raised from birth to be elite soldiers. Generally having already some horse and archery skills from their youth, these boys were converted to Islam and given the finest training in military matters, with top of the line equipment, weapons and horses, in addition to receiving education and even salaries. The result was a core of fierce warriors loyal not to any tribal or family ties, but to their fellow ghulams and their master, who sheltered and provided for them. No shortage of Islamic princes lamented on how their ghulams tended to be more loyal than their own sons; the sons awaited only the death of the father, while the ghulams wanted only his glory. Famously, the child-less Muhammad of Ghor is supposed to have remarked that, while other monarchs could have a few sons, he had thousands in the form of his ghulams. The source of many of Muhammad of Ghor's ghulams were various Qipchap Turkic tribes from the great steppe. As in late Ayyubid and early Mamluk Egypt, and indeed much of the islamic world, the Cuman-Qipchaqs were prized as warriors. His ghulams proved themselves in combat repeatedly. Though supported by local tribes, both Turkic and Pashtun, Muhammad of Ghor over his life increasingly relied on his ghulams, and in time they commanded his armies and acted as his governors. Attacking the Hindu kingdoms of northern India at the close of the twelfth century, Muhammad of Ghor had to return to Afghanistan to face the Khwarezm-Shah Tekish, and Tekish's son Muhammad. Muhammad bin Tekish, of course, we know best as the gentleman who antagonized Chinggis Khan some two decades later. In Muhammad of Ghor's absence fighting the Khwarezmians, his ghulams like Qutb ad-Din Aybeg were left to command his troops and govern his territories in India. And these same loyal ghulams, upon the childless Muhammad of Ghor's assassination in 1206, then quite loyally tore the Ghurid empire to pieces, each one declaring himself master of his own domain. Qutb ad-Din Aybeg claimed Delhi, and though he tried to establish a dynasty, his early death in 1210 in a polo accident resulted in his young son pushed out by one of his own ghulams, his son-in-law Shams-ud-Din Iltutmish. Iltutmish, a Qipchaq like Aybeg, consolidated the Delhi Sultanate as one of the chief powers of northern India. So began the first of five separate Turko-Afghan dynasties that would rule the Delhi Sultanate over the next three centuries. Because of the ghulam, or mamluk origin of the first dynasty, the first dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate is sometimes known as the Mamluk Sultanate of Delhi, sometimes to mirror the contemporary Qipchaq founded Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. For the next two hundred years, their foreign policy on their northern border was defined by the Mongol Empire and its successor states. Relations between the Delhi Sultanate and Mongols began in the 1220s, in the middle of Iltutmish's reign, when Chinggis Khan himself rode to their borders chasing the Khwarezmian Prince Jalal al-Din Mingburnu, son of the late Khwarezm-Shah Muhammad II. Chinggis did not invade India, though he sent some forces to pursue Jalal al-Din in India. According to the Persian writer Juvaini, Chinggis actually did advance some days into the Punjab, having hoped to find a route that would allow him to march around the Himalayas and attack the Jin Dynasty from the south, but could not find such a road. Other medieval sources and modern historians offer alternative explanations for Chinggis' refusal to spend more time in India, with reasons ranging from respect for Delhi's neutrality, the heat of northern India, bad omens, Delhi's diplomacy appeasing the Khan through token submission, to the simple fact that Chinggis may not have had interest expanding into a new, unknown territory while already dealing with much of Iran, Central Asia and China, with Chinggis intending all along to return to China and deal with the Jin and Tangut. We discussed the matter more in episodes 9 and 15. As it was, Chinggis returned to the east, and died while on campaign against the Tangut in 1227. As we saw in episode 15, Jalal al-Din spent a few years in India making a mess of things, nearly attacking Delhi before withdrawing to Iran after a massive coalition of the post-Ghurid and Hindu forces threatened him. The great consequences of Mingburnu's time in India was that he and the Mongols sent to pursue him greatly undermined Iltutmish of Delhi's other Ghurid rivals in the northwest and the Punjab. Thanks to wars between the Khwarezmian and Mongol forces, Iltutmish over the late 1220s and 1230s gradually absorbed the other post-Ghurid powers up to the Indus River. In addition, he became overlord of a number of regional Hindu kingdoms; some have for this region compared the Delhi Sultanate to a collection of subkingdoms. By Iltutmish's death in 1236, the Delhi Sultanate was the great power of northern India and the Gangetic plain, from the Indus to Bengal, with recognition from the Caliph as the only Muslim sovereign in India, and indeed, one of the mightiest Muslim rulers in the world. However, in Iltutmish's final years the Mongol presence on his border increased. When Chormaqun Noyan and his army entered Iran at the start of the 1230s to complete the conquest of the region and finish off Jalal al-Din -something we discussed in detail in episode 15- a portion of his force was sent into southeastern Iran and Khurasan, which included modern Afghanistan. The remnants of the empire Jalal al-Din Mingburnu had left in Afghanistan and India submitted to the Mongols, and the Mongol Empire now directly bordered the Delhi Sultanate. A tamma force under Dayir was stationed in Afghanistan, and part of the duty of the tamma was to disrupt the states along the borders of the Mongol Empire. As such, Mongol raids into the Punjab and Sind began with increasing regularity in the late 1230 and 40s, which proved difficult for Iltutmish's troubled successors. Iltutmish's eldest son and heir had been groomed for the throne, but his premature death in Bengal was a severe blow to the Sultan. A younger son, Rukn ud-Din Firoz Shah, ultimately succeeded Iltutmish, but the youth enjoyed alcohol and good times more than the complicated court machinations and governance. The boy's mother acted as the true governor, using her power to take out her grievances. It was not a winning combination. Within months a rebellion removed Firoz Shah and his mother from the scene, which placed Iltutmish's daughter Raziyya on the throne. Famous as the only female Muslim monarchs in India's history, and popularly known as Raziyya Sultana, her ascension owed much to the strong Turkic force in the government, many of whom were only recent converts to Islam. Some are known to have been denizens of the former Qara-Khitai empire, which had influential women empresses, and therefore the prospect of a woman ruling in her own name was not as dreadful to them. Apparently Raziyya had been expected to act as a figurehead, though proved herself, in the vein of all good Qipchap women, to be very assertive and insisted on a prominent, public role. Enjoying horseback archery and riding elephants in public, she supposedly even dressed as a man. Seeking to expand her powerbase, she sought to create additional sources of support in competition to the Turkic ghulams. Her appointees to power included Ghuris, Tajiks, Hindus and even Africans. The ghulams did not appreciate it, and by 1240 Raziyya was deposed and, after a brief attempt to restore her to the throne, killed in favour of her brother, Bahram Shah. So ended the brief reign of perhaps the most well known female Muslim monarch. Her brother and successor Bahram Shah did not long enjoy the throne. A brave and often blood thirsty individual, his effort to totally remove the powerful Turkic aristocracy, increasingly showing itself a rival to power to the Sultan, resulted in his commanders storming Delhi and killing him only two years into his reign. Bahram Shah's most notable act was appointing Juzjani, a refugee from Khwarezm, as grand qadi of Delhi. Minhaj-i-SIraj Juzjani is one of the most important sources for the period, writing a mammoth history in the 1250s. We've visited it often in the course of this series to generally remark on his well known hatred of the Mongols but it is a key for the early history of the Delhi Sultanate. His great history, the Tabaqat-i-nasiri, was translated into English in the late nineteenth century by Major Raverty, and can be found in two volumes free to download by archive.org. After Sultan Bahram Shah's death, he was succeeded by Rukn ud-Din Firoz's son, 'Ala al-Din Mas'ud Shah. Despite having gained the throne with the support of the Turkic aristocracy, like his predecessors Mas'ud shah sought to weaken them. His four year reign ended with his death at the hands of the youngest surviving son of Iltutmish, Mahmud Shah. From 1246 until 1266, Mahmud proved the longest reigning of Iltutmish' sons. He was though, the most ineffective, and gradually found himself reduced to puppet by his na'ib, Balban, who we will return to shortly. While these political upheavals rocked the capital, the Mongols pressed on the northwestern border. In 1241 a Mongol force under Bahadur Tair took Lahore, and Multan was captured in 1245, and by the 1250s, Sind and the Punjab were largely under Mongol control and Mongol raids were a nearly annual occurrence. By the reign of Mahmud Shah, the authority of the Delhi monarch, both within his court and northern India, had declined dramatically. Fortunately for the Delhi Sultan, no full Mongol invasion yet threatened, but the stream of refugees from Iran and Central Asia must have brought constant news of the Mongol terror. Juzjani certainly reported seemingly every rumour he heard, and was certainly under the impression that at least some of the Mongol leadership, particularly Chagatai, favoured the extermination of Islam. The learned and informed in Delhi must have feared greatly what would happen if the Mongols pushed the advantage while Delhi was in the midst of another coup. Sultan Mahmud Shah bin Iltutmish was overshadowed by his wazir and eventual successor Balban, who changed Delhi policy to the Mongols. An Ölberli Qipchaq and ghulam, Balban had risen in influence over the 1240s, and finally between 1246 and 1249 was raised to the viceroyalty, his might beneath only the Sultan himself. Often, you will see him referred to as a member of the "Forty," or the "Forty Chiefs." These were, if you believe some modern writers, forty ghulams of Sultan Iltutmish who acted as kingmakers in Delhi since Iltutmish's death. However, as pointed out by historians like Peter Jackson, the "Forty" are only mentioned by Ziya' al-Din Barani, an official writing in Persian in the Delhi Sultanate in the mid-fourteenth century. No other source on Delhi from the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, especially the more contemporary Juzjani, mention such a distinct coalition. It seems likely that "Forty" refers to the fact that these men commanded corps of forty elite men; such groups are mentioned in other contemporary sources, and the same organization was present in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt at the same time. The "Forty" was not some provisional governmental body composed of forty men who tried to exert their power over the Sultans, but rather Barani's way to refer to the influential members of the aristocracy and elite- many of whom were Qipchaq Turks, but including Ghuris, Tajiks and even Hindus- who were associated with the military elite and had a vested interest in remaining influential, and were no monolithic body. Balban was a part of this elite, a man experienced with command and the court. From 1249 through to 1266, with only a brief break, Balban was the #2 man in the Delhi Sultanate, the na'ib, who handled government himself, styled himself Ulugh Khan and married his daughter to the Sultan. Sultan Mahmud Shah turned into a shadowy figure behind Balban's power. In 1266, Mahmud Shah and his children died in unclear, but almost certainly not natural, circumstances, and Balban took the throne himself. So ended the line of Iltutmish. After many years in the viceroyalty, Balban had moved his allies and friends into prominent positions of power, and thus held the throne securely. He was therefore able to finally act more aggressively towards the Mongols. In…

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2.49. History of the Mongols: Chagatai Khanate #3 Jun 14, 2021

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Our previous two episodes have taken you through an overview of the history of the Chagatai Khanate, the middle ulus of the Mongol Empire. From its establishment following Chinggis Khan's western campaign in the 1220s, through rebuilding efforts by Mahmud Yalavach and Mas'ud Beg, to the turmoil of the 1260s and 70s with the Mongol civil wars and then consoldiation under Qaidu and Du'a, then the many successions of Du'a's sons to the throne in the first three decades of the fourteenth century. At the end of the last episode, the sixth and last of Du'a's sons to rule the Chagatais, Tarmashirin Khan, was murdered in the early 1330s, killed in a rebellion led by his nephew Buzan, supported by emirs from the eastern half of the Chagatayids. Over the period we saw the slow spread of Islam among the Mongols and their khans, as well as a widening gap between the western half of the Khanate, in Transoxania, and the Eastern half, Moghulistan. Today, both of trends continue as the Chagatai Khanate descends into anarchy following Tarmashirin's murder, finally culminating in Emir Temur seizing control of the western half of the ulus Chagatay in 1370, and forever changing the face of western Asia. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. Tarmashirin Khan's murder in 1334 had a significant impact on the Chagatai Khanate. The last in the long lateral succession of Du'a Khan's sons, his death essentially opened up the throne to any willing claimant. His antagonizing of the Mongols of the eastern half of the khanate, particularly through his Islamic policies, supposedly abandoning of the laws of Chinggis Khan and leaving them out of government, ensured his reign ended bloodily. The Mongol chiefs of the eastern half of the Khanate rose up behind Buzan, Tarmashirin's nephew, who had allied with other grandsons of Du'a. They invaded Transoxania hunting down and killing Tarmashirin and causing a flight of pro-Tarmshirin, Islamic Mongol chiefs to the Ilkhanate and Delhi Sultanate in India. Buzan, according to most sources, was not a Muslim, though ibn Battuta wrote of him as a 'tainted Muslim.' Most sources accuse him of being anti-Muslim and strongly pro-Christian, though it seems more likely he was just religiously tolerant, simply allowing Jews and Christians to rebuild their religious structures. It seems he wanted to rule in a more traditional, steppe based fashion, a strong counter reaction to Tarmashirin's rule.. At least he would have, if Buzan wasn't murdered only a few months into his reign by a cousin, Changshi, another grandson of Du'a. If we believe ibn Battuta, Buzan was strangled by a bowstring. The thing about violently overthrowing your predecessor, is that it does not leave a lot of the legitimacy that is needed to prevent you being overthrown in turn by the next power-hungry individual. What we start to see in this period is princes refusing to recognize the legitimacy of these new Khans, and deciding to remedy this by replacing these new Khans with themselves. So begins an exceptionally chaotic period in the Chagatai realm. The new Khan of the Chagatais, Changshi, did not take the throne because he was a supporter of Tarmashirin. Like Buzan, Changshi sought to bring the center of power back to the steppe and Almaliq, the traditional capital of the Chagatais, rather than having it based in the more sedentarized, Islamic Transoxania as Tarmashirin had sought to do. He was apparently a devout Buddhist, ordering the construction of many Buddhist and temples and supposedly, ordering sculptures of the Buddha painted in mosques throughout the Khanate. Yet he also showed great favour to Christians, especially Catholic Franciscans. He was apparently cured of a cancer through the prayers of one Franciscan, and in response heaped rewards on them. Changshi had at least one of his sons baptized, taking the name of Johannes, and placed the Franciscan in charge of their education. A bishopric was established at Almaliq in the 1320s and flourished under Changshi. At Almaliq, Changshi also met with Nicholas, the newly appointed Archbishop of Khanbaliq, who was on his way to China. Changshi gave Archbishop Nicholas authorization to preach freely throughout the Chagatai lands, to repair and build churches and provided him lands on which to build a friary. News of Changshi's friendship to the Christians reached Pope Benedict XII, who sent a letter to Changshi in 1338. This was not the first letter between the popes and the Khans of Central Asia. In 1289 Pope Nicholas IV sent letters to Qaidu Khan; in 1329 Pope John XXII sent a letter to Eljigidei Khan in response to a message of friendship Eiljigidei had sent prior; and Benedict XII's letter in 1338 urged Khan Changshi to build stronger relations with Christianity and sponser the growth of the faith in his kingdom. Changshi never received the letter, for in 1337 he and his four sons were killed by his brother, Yesun-Temur. Many islamic sources portray Yesun-Temur Khan as fanatically anti-Muslim and an absolute madman. Not just murdering his own brother, he was accused of cutting the breasts off his mother, among other unsavoury actions. Whether any of this is warranted is difficult to tell, as he may have been so strongly pro-Buddhist and continued Changshi's policy of sponsoring Christian missionaries that it left Islamic chronclers little good to say about him. There is circumstantial evidence of a somewhat capable administrator, demonstrated by survival of government documents from his reign from Turfan and an apparent increase in money circulation under him as well. He was challenged though by rounds of epidemics, particularly in the Issyk Kul region. Things took another shift again when Yesun-Temur was deposed in 1339 by 'Ali Sultan bin Uruk Temur. 'Ali Sultan differed from his predecessors in two important ways: he was a fanatic Muslim, and was not a Chagatayid, but a descendant of Ogedai. The fact that an Ogedeid was even able to take the throne of the Chagatayids demonstrates the extent to which access to the succession had been opened up. 'Ali Sultan's reign was brief, less than a year. In that time, the most notable action he did, other than usurp the throne, was unleash violent programs against the Christians in his empire. Those who refused to convert to Islam, be they Nestorian or Catholic, were to be killed. The Nestorian Christian community in the Issyk Kul region was almost totally exterminated by 'Ali Sultan's effort, either by forced conversion or by the sword. The bishopric of Almaliq was destroyed, its clergy put to death on 'Ali Sultan's order. The martyred Bishop, Richard of Burgundy, had only taken the post a year prior. The brief introduction of Cathololicism died out in the region by the end of the fourteenth century. 'Ali Sultan Khan's Ogedeid usurpation greatly undermined the integrity of the Khanate. In 1340 the Khan of the Golden Horde, Ozbeg, invaded the Chagatai Khanate, an invasion which only halted due to Ozbeg's death in 1341 but did nothing to unite the conflicting tension within the Khanate. Even before 'Ali Sultan's death in 1340, it seems in the southern part of the western half of the Chagatai Khanate a great-grandson, or great-great-grandson of Du'a Khan, Muhammad bin Bolad, or Muhammad Bolad, declared himself Khan. Around 1342 Muhammad Bolad Khan briefly reigned in Almaliq, while in the western half of Chagatai power was taken by Khalil Sultan bin Yasawur, who may be the same figure as Qazan Khan, who may have also been Khalil Sultan's brother and co-ruled with him. By1343-1344, Qazan was the sole ruler of the Chagatai khanate, though whether he exerted much power in the eastern half of the realm is uncertain. Qazan Khan, if you don't mind a minor spoiler, often appears as a "bad last ruler," in sources of the Timurids, a despot who preempted a final period of anarchy. Whatever the truth, he did usher in some stablization, and increased the power of the Chagatais over Khurasan, taking advantage of the collapse of the Ilkhanate into rival powers. He likely did little less in his reign except fight off rivals, with a particularly tough opponent in the form of Qazaghan, the chief of the Qara'unas. The Qara'unas were descendents of Mongols stationed in Afghanistan or who had fled there following the outbreak of war between Berke and Hulegu in 1262. They had remained a largely independent, rebellious force resisting efforts by the Ilkhanate and the Chagatai Khanate to bring them under control. Not until the 1290s did the Chagatais succeed in doing so, and the Qara'unas became a useful arm of the Chagatayid miltiary. Often, prominent heirs or brothers, especially under the reigns of Du'a and his sons, were placed in command over the Qara'unas. They were a major military element in the western half of the Chagatai Khanate, and once their chief, the ambitious Qazaghan, began challenging Qazan Khan, it was no easy task for the precariously perched Qazan. After some considerable effort, in 1347 Qazaghan finally killed Qazan, the final effective Khan in the Western Chagatai Khanate. The Emir Qazaghan then became the true power in Transoxania, though as he was not a descendant of Chinggis Khan, he could not rule in his own right. Wisely, he continued to appoint puppet Khans who ruled in name only. These Khans were total figureheads, some not even of the line of Chagatai, but of Ogedai. Doing so was absolutely necessary. While there could be argument over the legitimacy of a particular Khan, if he was a good candidate or from the right lineage, among the Turko-Mongolian military elite it was still undebatable that the only legitimate ruler had to be descended from Chinggis Khan; it was to the house of Chinggis that the right to rule the world had been given, and no Qara'unas chief, no matter how powerful, could claim that throne if he had not even a drop of Chinggisid blood in him. While Qazaghan seized power in Transoxania and ushered in a brief period of stability, an important event happened concurrently in the eastern half of the Khanate. In 1347, as Qazaghan killed Qazan Khan, a descendant of Chagatai and grandson of Du'a named Tughluq Temur was also declared Khan. With now two major rival claimants for power, 1347 becomes the usual date in scholarship for the division of the Chagatai Khanate into two realms: Transoxania in the west, sometime still called the Chagatai Khanate, and Moghulistan east of the Syr Darya River. Tughluq Temur was raised to the throne by a coalition of the powerful Mongol chiefs of the eastern half of the Khanate. Mentioned briefly in the last episode, these were the chiefs who felt out of power by the Khans more interested in sedentarized and Islamic culture, while at the same time finding themselves under less and less direct influence of the Khan. The result was the chiefs who became more powerful and more dissatisfied with the ruler in the west. The usurption of power by the non-Chinggisid Qazaghan and his appointment of puppet Khans was the final straw for these chiefs. Of the tribes in the eastern Chagatai realm, the mightiest were the Dughlats. A proud Mongol tribe, the Dughlat leaders made themselves rich through control of the altı shahr, the six cities in Turkish. These were the rich trade cities along the silk routes through the western Tarim Basin and eastern Turkestan; Kashgar, Yangi Hisar, Yarkand, Khotan, Ush-Turfan, Aksu. The heads of these tribes, including the Dughlats, were qarachu, 'blackboned,' or commoners. That is, they were not of the altan urag, not descendants of Chinggis Khan and like Qazaghan of the Qara'unas they could not claim the throne themselves. The head of the Dughlats, called the ulusbegi or beylerbey as the most powerful of the eastern chiefs, acted as a sort of spokesperson for them. The Dughlat, while the single most powerful tribe, were not strong enough to totally overpower the others and had to act in concert with them. Thus, in 1347 in cooperation with the other tribal heads, the ulusbegi Bulaji Dughlat, enthroned the 18 year old Tughluq Temur as Chagatai Khan, a blatant refusal to recognize Qazaghan or his puppet khans. Both halves of the Chagatai khanate considered themselves the true heirs of Chagatai, and referred to the other with disparaging terms. To the easterners in Moghulistan, the westerners were qara'unas, a term which had connotations to the Mongols of half-breed, according to Marco Polo when he learned of them. They saw the westerners as corrupted by sedentary culture ruled by a petty non-Chinggisid. To the western half in Transoxania, the easterners were jatah, a term at its kindest reffering to ne'er-do-wells and rascals, and at its worst robbers and thieves. The westerners saw the east as little more than raiders, for such was their interaction with them. Tughluq Temur Khan is often considered the first Khan of Moghulistan. Moghul, being the Persian word for Mongol, is generally what the scholarship uses to refer to Moghulistan's nomadic inhabitants to distinguish them from true Mongols, a reflection of the primary source usage where the eastern Chagatayids and their lands are the Moghuls of Moghulistan. While there is evidence for use of the Mongolian language in the chancellery of Moghulistan until the end of the 1360s, various forms of Turkic had replaced Mongolian in day-to-day life. Largely still nomadic, many still adhering to the old religion and seeing themselves as true Mongols, Islam had begun to spread among them. Thus it was not surprising that in 1354, Tughluq Temur converted to Islam. Islam was a source of legitimacy for him; there is some indication that Tughluq Temur was of some uncertain paternity, due to conflicting reports on the identity of his father, so converting to Islam was an additional means to shore up his position. Unlike 'Ali Sultan, Tughluq Temur was no fanatic; he is still recorded asking for Buddhist Lamas from Tibet as teachers for him and his sons. He did promote Islam though and his conversion was an important stage for the spread of Islam east of the Syr Darya. Statements that everyone in the area became Muslim under him are overplayed, as it took many decades still for Islam to drive out the local religious beliefs, be they Nestorian Christianity, Buddhism or Mongolian shamanism. Tughluq Temur's 16 year reign saw the most consolidation of power under a Chagatai Khan in years. He was aided in part by the death of the ulusbegi Bulaji soon after Tughluq's enthronement. Had Bulaji lived longer, he may have played more of a kingmaker role and controlled more of Tughluq Temur's actions. But Bulaji's death, and tensions within the Dughlat tribe, led to Bulaji's 7 year old son Khudaidad becoming the ulusbegi. Bulaji's brother, Qamar al-Din Dughlat, petitioned Tughluq Temur for the position as he had no support from other members of the Dughlats. Qamar al-Din was a man of violent temperament, and many of the emirs of the Dughlat seem to have desired greater freedom than they had been allowed under Bulaji. Tughluq Temur was of similar opinion; why place an ambitious man like Qamar al-Din as ulusbegi, who would certainly prove a hindrance to Tughluq Temur's power, when Tughluq Temur could instead have a malleable child in the position? And so Tughluq Temur ignored Qamar al-Din's petition and confirmed the enthronement of young Khudaidad, a matter which Tughluq Temur's heirs would rue dearly. Khan Tughluq Temur continued to strengthen his position in Moghulistan, weakening the hegemony of the Dughlats and bringing other tribal heads to heel. He apparently killed a number of them, bot…

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2.48. History of the Mongols: Chagatai Khanate #2 May 31, 2021

Show notes

While the Chagatai Khanate, the division of the Mongol Empire encompassing much of Central Asia and Northwestern China, has a reputation as the Mongol Khannate to fragment into infighting first, this would not have been the view for an observer on the ground in the early fourteenth century. Following the death of Qaidu, the Ogedeid master of Central Asia in the last decades of the thirteenth century, his former ally Du'a, Khan of the Chagatais, stood dominant, particularly with the Great Peace he achieved between the Khanates in 1304. Picking up from our previous episode, we take you through the history of the Chagatai Khanate in the early fourteenth century, from Du'a's singular rule in 1301 through the reigns of the six of his sons who became Khan, ending with Tarmashirin in 1334. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. At the close of the previous episode, Qaidu Khan was dead. Qaidu was a descendant of Great Khan Ogedai, and as we covered thoroughly in episode 41, had from 1271 until 1300 been the most influential figure in Central Asia. Over the 1270s he came to dominate the Chagatai Khanate, finally consolidating his hold over them in 1282 when he appointed Du'a, a grandson of Chagatai, as their Khan. Du'a and Qaidu worked well together, ushering in a period of rebuilding for the Chagatai Khanate after the tumultuous 1260s and 70s. Qaidu was definitely the senior partner in the relationship, and led their wars against Khan Khubilai in northwestern China and western Mongolia. But with Qaidu's death in 1301, Du'a had had enough of the fighting. Du'a had been injured and forced to retreat before the Yuan armies. Only the year before, his eldest son Qutlugh Khwaja was killed fighting in India, and the Khan of the Blue Horde, the eastern wing of the Golden Horde, was attempting to rally the other Khanates into making a joint attack on the Ogedeids and Chagatayids. For the Central Asian Khanates, such a coalition would be absolutely disastrous. A combined Golden Horde, Ilkhanate and Yuan assault from all directions would be unstoppable. Du'a wanted to rest, recoup his strength and throw Mongol energies away from each other, and against unconquered lands like India. Interfering with the Ogedeid succession after Qaidu's death, Du'a ensured Qaidu's less compentent son Chapar was on the throne, then sent an embassy to the Great Khan Temur Oljeitu offering to recognize his authority. Temur Oljeitu was delighted, immediately accepted and over 1304 and 1305 messengers were sent across the Mongol Empire, inviting the Golden Horde and Ilkhanate to once more recognize the Great Khan. The Great Rapproachment saw the resumption of tribute and revenues back and forth across the empire, reconstruction and expansion of postal stations, the travelling of envoys and merchants, and the true start of a pax Mongolica. Against the Delhi Sultanate of India Du'a sent more armies, though no joint-Mongol campaign against India ever materialized. Du'a made good use of the partnership with the Yuan, for he was soon skirmishing, and then at war with, the Ogedeids. Many of the Ogedeid princes had not taken kindly to Du'a efforts to divide them, and had begun to oppose him. In 1306 Du'a, in conjunction with a Yuan army under the future Khaghan Qaishan, defeated a Ogedeid army under Qaidu's sons Chapar and Orus. Chapar surrendered, and the Ogedeis were left splintered. Chagatai horsemen were unleashed to hunt down those princes who still resisted; it is in these raids that Qaidu's famous daughter Qutulun was likely killed. Du'a would have wiped out the last of the Ogedeids, had he not died the next year in 1307. So ended the life of the longest reigning Chagatai Khan, who had overseen a recovery of the weakened ulus. Realigning their diplomatic position with their Mongol kinsmen, the Chagatais seemed poised to enter a new period of strength. Du'a was succeeded by his son Konchek, who continued his father's policies until his sudden death in 1308. Power was then seized by a distant cousin, Naliqo'a. Naliqo'a was the brother of a man who had briefly been Khan in the 1270s before Du'a took the throne, and was a great-grandson of Chagatai via his son Buri. Naliqo'a's reign as Khan was a shock to the Khanate. Firstly was the fact that he was not of the line of Du'a Khan. Du'a had been Khan for many years, and had many sons desiring the throne. Many within the Chagatai Khanate, especially those same sons, felt the throne belonged to the line of Du'a, and that Naliqo'a was thus a usurper despite his Chagatai heritage. Additionally, he was a Muslim, and sought to impose islamisizing policies upon the Chagatais. While the Chagatai Khanate is often dismissed as one of the Khanates which immediately converted to Islam, the conversion of the Chagatai realm was a slower and more difficult process than in either the Golden Horde or Ilkhanate. Mubarak Shah, during the few months he had been Khan in the previous episode, may have been a Muslim, but had not reigned long enough for that to matter. Baraq Khan allegedly converted to Islam just before his death in 1271, but this had no impact on his reign. No Chagatai Khan since had been a Muslim, and for many in the Khanate, particularly in the eastern half where there was little contact with Muslims, the strong pro-Islam stanch of Naliqo'a Khan was seen as inherently conflicting to the yassa of Chinggis Khan. Khan Naliqo'a thus received stiff resistance. By 1309 he was murdered at banquet in a coup led by one of Du'a's son, Kebek. Kebek was a clever man but did not want to be Khan, inviting his brother Esen-Buqa to take the throne. This upheaval in the Chagatai Khanate prompted a last ditch attempt by the Ogedeid princes to rebel against the Chagatais, which Kebek and Esen-Buqa, with difficulty, crushed by 1310. With the last of the Ogedeid princes fleeing to the Yuan Dynasty, the Khanate of the house of Ogedei was finally dissolved, its territory split between the Chagatai and the Yuan. The popular image of the Mongol Empire dividing into four Khanates -the Golden Horde, the Ilkhanate, Yuan Dynasty, and Chagatai Khanate- only truly existed from 1310 onwards with the dissolution of the Ogedeids, domination of the Blue Horde by the Golden Horde, and the Qara'unas in Afghanistan largely coming under Chagatai control. Later authors, both medieval and modern, would anachronistically throw this back to the time of Mongke's death, or even Chinggis' division of the empire amongst his sons, but it was a gradual evolution in no-way planned. The "four successor khanates" of the Mongol Empire did not exist in their popularly imagined way until the first decade of the fourteenth century. Without the Ogedeis as a common enemy, the Chagatai and Yuan were soon squabbling over the border. In the process of dividing up the Ogedeid territory, in which the Yuan took the land east of the Altai mountains and the Chagatai the west, some of the Chagatayid pasture lands came under Yuan control. Khan Esen-Buqa sought to get the Yuan border garrisons to redraw the border, but they would not budge. The Yuan garrison commander refused to recognize the legitimacy of Esen-Buqa's status as a Khan. Esen-Buqa began to fear that the Yuan and the Ilkhanate were planning a joint attack on the Chagatayids, and began to make his own plots. He tried to ally with the new Khan of the Golden Horde, Ozbeg, and in 1312 sent his nephew to attack Ilkhanid Khurasan, where he was repusled. Tensions mounted, and in 1313 Esen-Buqa detained Yuan envoys to the Ilkhanate, and finally in 1314 he assaulted the Yuan border outposts. The garrison commander was a veteran though, who had warnings of the plot. Moving the families of his men back, Esen-Buqa's forces were met only by a crack tumen of troops who forced the Chagatais back. Esen-Buqa tried to offset his losses in the northeast by launching an attack on the Ilkhanate with his brother Kebek in 1315. The campaign was cut short when they learned that the Great Khan Ayurburwada, furious at Esen-Buqa's provacations, had ordered an all out invasion of the Chagatai Khanate. Esen-Buqa had, in his fear, created the situation he had so dreaded. The armies of the Yuan advanced as far as Lake Issyk Kul and Talas before withdrawing, and strengthened their border positions. The situation remained strained; after the invasion one of the Chagatai princes in Transoxania, a Muslim named Yasawur, defected with 30-40,000 troops to the Ilkhanate, while the Yuan prince Qoshila, son of Qaishan, fled to the Chagatais. Sporadic border fighting continued, and threat of an open resumption of hostilities remained until both Esen-Buqa and Great Khan Ayurburwada were dead by 1320. Their successors, Esen-Buqa's brother Kebek and Ayurburwada's son Shidebala, proved more amenable to peace, and by 1323, after being convinced that there was no plot to overrun inner Asia, Kebek Khan recognized the supremacy of Great Khan Shidebala, though as you'll recall from episode 44, Shidebala did not have long to remark on the triumph. Sending two princesses for Kebek Khan to marry and resuming trade and tribute, the Yuan and Chagatai relationship remained amicable for the remainder of Yuan rule in China. Kebek Khan was a competent and able ruler. Almost immediately after becoming Khan, the new Ilkhan Abu Sa'id invited Kebek Khan to attack the rebel Chagatai prince Yasawur, who had since revolted against the Ilkhans. The campaign was successful and Yasawur was killed, but Kebek was then assured of his military strength and the weakness of the Ilkhans. In 1321 he ordered attacks on the Delhi Sultanate in India, and in 1322 invaded the Ilkhanate in a joint effort with the Golden Horde Khan Ozbeg, who was in the midst of repeated rounds of conflict with the young Ilkhan Abu Sa'id. The campaigns were failures. Both Ozbeg and Kebek found themselves hampered by weather and a skillful defence by the teenage Abu Sa'id and his amir, Choban. When Kebek moved his brother Tarmashirin into Ghazna in Afghanistan in 1326, the Ilkhan's suspected another attack, and Choban's son was sent to deliver a crushing defeat onto Tarmashirin and occupied Ghazna. Despite the fact Tarmashirin recaptured Ghazna later that year, it did little to offset the frustration at the setbacks. While Kebek's military ventures were never really successful, in internal matters he proved himself a capable administrator. Unlike the previous Chagatai Khans who ruled from the steppes and based themselves around Almaliq, Kebek moved himself into Transoxania, or Mawarannahr. At Qarshi he built a new capital, and oversaw efforts to revitalize and improve agriculture and trade. Minting new denominations of coins, he also consistently minted these coins in his name unlike previous Chagatai Khans. The coins were, due to this, known as kebeks, and became a widely used currency in Central Asia. Arguments have been made that these are the origin of the Russian word for a certain denomination of the ruble, the kopek. Khan Kebek sought to limit the power of regional princes, dividing the realm into new administrative units, tumens. Essentially, districts which could support the raising of 10,000 men for war. His reforms and control of power garnered him a reputation and legacy as a just, respectable ruler, even among Muslims. The famous Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, who passed through the Chagatai Khanate in the early 1330s, recorded anecdotes of Kebek's just nature and friendliness to Islam. The reign of Kebek had other, unforeseen consequences for the Chagatai Khanate though. Kebek spent his reign in the western half of the Khanate, Transoxania. This was the more densely populated half of the Chagatai Khanate between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, the heart of the former Khwarezmian Empire. The great cities of Bukhara and Samarkand sat here, and the influence of both Islam and Persian culture were great. There were nomads living here of course, but in close proximity to the sedentary population. The nomads here also owned mills, gardens, villages and benefitted from agriculture. Many of the Mongol noyans and princes who settled here converted to Islam first. Culturally, this was a region very distinct from the eastern half of the Khanate. This was a diverse range of territory, stretching east of the Syr Darya and Ferghana Valley, the Chagatais controlled up to the Tarim Basin and at times, the Uighur lands in Turfan. Some of this was rugged mountain, the northern stretches of the Pamirs and the Tienshan mountains; some was inhospitable desert, as in the Tarim Basin and the frightful Taklamakan desert. The region north of the Tienshan was home to open steppe, the lakes Balkhash and Issyk Kul and lower reaches of the Irtysh River, rolling hills, and low mountains that lay west and south of the Altai Mountains, bordering on the western edge of Mongolia. Today it forms parts of northern Xinjiang, eastern Kazakhstan and western Mongolia. Often, it is called Dzungaria or the Dzungar Basin, after the Oirat kingdom based in the region in the 17th century famous for their wars against the Qing Dynasty. Before the Mongol conquests, this was the realm of the Qara-Khitai. From the 14th century until the Dzungar conquests though, this broad expanse of land was Moghulistan; land of the Mongols. In these steppe lands, a great many Mongols had migrated during the conquest period. The existing agricultural settlements in the steppe here had largely been destroyed and turned over to pasture for Mongol imperial usage in the mid-thirteenth century. Settlements were few and far between; even in the Tarim Basin, famed trade cities like Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan hugged the borders of the fearsome Taklamakan, and were under the thumb of Mongol chiefs. The sedentary world held no mastery over the Mongols here, who remained true to their ways. Islam only slowly came to the region. To be the ruler here, a man needed to be a mighty steppe warlord. If not living there, the Chagatai Khan had to make yearly trips to hold council with the local Mongol chiefs to make sure they felt included. Kebek's decision to move his government into the heart of Transoxania began a rift between the Khan and the Mongols in Moghulistan. Feeling left out of power by Khans more interested in sedentarized and Islamic culture, while also under less and less direct influence of the Khan, the chiefs of the eastern half of the Khanate became more powerful. Of these, the mightiest would be the Dughlats. A proud Mongol tribe that made themselves wealthy by controlling many of the trade cities of the Tarim Basin, the Dughlats were to become a dominant player in Chagatai politics after the end of Du'a's sons, The might of the Dughlats will be something we will return to next episode, though they were observers to the events we describe today. Kebek's reign saw the division into Transoxania and Moghulistan begin, but it took decades to widen. He died in 1327, succeeded by his brother Eljigidei, a more typical steppe Khan who returned the court to the traditional capital around Almaliq. A devout Buddhist, he was a proponent of religious toleration and was friendly to Christian missionaries in his lands. The most notable action of his reign was his support for the Yuan prince Qoshila. As you may recall from episode 44 when Eljigidei had his brief cameo, whe the Yuan Emperor Yesun-Temur died, a coup by the Qipchaq officer El Temur resulted in the disappearance of Yesun-Temur's young son and successor. El Temur and Qoshila's brother, Tuq Temur, invited Qoshila to return and take the throne, and the Chagatai Khan Eljigidei accompani…

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2.47. History of the Mongols: Chagatai Khanate #1 May 24, 2021

Show notes

Having now taken you to the end of Mongol rule in China, we move westwards in our histories of the Mongol Khanates. Our next stop is the middle Khanate: the ulus of Chagatai. Encompassing much of Central Asia, the Khanate ruled by the descendants of Chinggis Khan's second son Chagatai is perhaps the most poorly known. In our first episode on the Chagatais, we'll take you through their history in the 13th century, touched on often in previous episodes but now recieving its own focus. From efforts at reconstruction by Mahmud Yalavach and his son Mas'ud Beg, to stability under the regeny of the widow Orghina Khatun, to disasters in battle at Herat to domination under Qaidu and the rise of Du'a Khan. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. The territory which became the Ulus of Chagatai was conquered by the Mongols in two stages. The eastern half of the ulus, in what is now southeastern Kazakhstan and northwest Xinjiang, was taken largely peacefully when Jebe Noyan overran the empire of Qara-Khitai in 1218-1219. As covered back in episode 8, the fleeing Naiman prince Kuchlug had fled to Qara-Khitai and usurped power there. When Jebe invaded, Kuchlug ran for his life, leaving the cities of his new empire defenseless. The lack of defense was ironically beneficial, as they largely submitted peacefully, and the former Qara-Khitai troops joined their new Mongol overlords. The more densely populated western half of the empire was not so lucky. This region, including Transoxania and the Ferghana valley in modern southern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan down to Turkmenistan, was controlled by the Khwarezmian Empire, and was violently crushed by Chinggis Khan in the first years of the 1220s, as we saw in episode 9. Each site that put up resistance fell victim to the Khan's wrath. The destruction not just of cities, but of agriculture and irrigation canals. The toll on the population was horrific. Perhaps millions were killed in the course of the conquest. Perhaps as many died from the ensuing starvation, spread of disease and banditry. Thousands upon thousands were displaced from their homes, or transported elsewhere on Mongol order. The initial governors set over the region and cities did little to help, simply bringing more taxation and material demands onto the population. Chinggis Khan's second son, Chagatai, stayed in the region after the conquest. Contrary to popular belief, Chinggis did not divide his empire among his sons in order for them to become distinct states. Rather, they were each allotted territory within the empire in order to support themselves. Chagatai was granted much of the former Khwarezmian and Qara-Khitai realms, becoming the basis of the ulus of Chagatai. Stern and demanding, Chagatai had little care for city life or the cultures of the people he ruled over. He was a man of the steppe, and his reign was spent in the steppe. Though he maintained a quasi-capital at Almaliq, near modern Kulja, northwestern Xinjiang on the Ili River, Chagatai resided in his summer and winter pastures. Almaliq served to collect tribute and house his treasures, his officials and received messengers from the court. Reconstruction of the conquered territories was not his concern. His engineers were used to build large pools for water fowl to flock to for Chagatai to hunt. This is not to say Chagatai had no interaction with his subjects. Chagatai was a strict upholder of the yassa and the yosun, the laws and customs of his father Chinggis Khan. We have mentioned in previous episodes that there was conflict on who these laws should apply to; that is, just nomads, or to the sedentarized populations of the empire as well. Well, Chagatai was of the opinion that everyone was subject to the laws, which were to be enforced as strictly as possible. Laws against theft were violently enforced. The Persian historian Juvaini, writing in the mid 1250s, who worked for the Mongols and spent quite some time in the Chagatai realm, wrote this famous passage you may have heard variations of: "For fear of his yasa and punishment his followers were so well disciplined that during his reign no traveller, so long as he was near his army, had need of guard or patrol on any stretch of road; and, as is said by way of hyperbole, a woman with a golden vessel on her head might walk alone without fear or dread." The presence of Chagatai was enough to discourage thievery, although the quote has often been taken out of context to suggest a woman could walk across all of Asia under Mongol rule and not face any danger. While a strict enforcer of the yassa's promulgations against theft, Chagatai was more infamous in the Muslim world for the anti-Islamic aspects of the yassa. Though the Mongols have a popular image as a beacon of religious liberty, this has been overstated. Though often tolerant in the most literal sense, as in they just tolerated certain religions seen as useful, the Mongols were less accommodating when they found that a religion conflicted with their own customs. The yassa, for instance, mandated the method in which an animal must be slaughtered: crushing the heart, and not letting any blood spill. Needlessly spilling blood on the ground was a great offense to the spirits. The halal method of slaughter perscribed by Islam though, requires cutting the throat and draining the blood. The two methods were inherently contradictory, and conflicts often arose from Mongols attempting to ban halal slaughter. Immediately after describing how Chagatai's army dissuaded theft, Juvaini wrote the following: "And he enacted minute yasa that were an intolerable imposition upon such as the Taziks, [so] that none might slaughter meat in the Moslem fashion nor sit by day in running water, and so on. The yasa forbidding the slaughter of sheep in the lawful manner he sent to every land; and for a time no man slaughtered sheep openly in Khorasan, and Moslems were forced to eat carrion." Chagatai may not have specifically hated Muslims or been a man of constantly boling rage, as he is often portrayed by modern authors. He certainly employed Muslims in the top ranks of his bureacracy. We should probably imagine him better as an uncomprosiming figure seeking to stringently enforce his father's laws; it just so happened that this enforcement was quite harmful to Muslims caught in the crosshairs. From the Mongol point of view, you could still be a Muslim as long as you did not practice these certain customs the Mongols disliked, such as spilling blood or washing dirty things in running water. The nuance made little difference to the Muslims of Central Asia, to whom Chagatai consistently appears as a tormenter in the sources. Juzjani, a Khwarezmian refugee to the Delhi Sultanate in India, wrote in the 1250s and describes Chagatai as a demonic figure who wanted to exterminate the Muslims. Often, Chagatai is used in these sources as a contrast to Ogedai, usually depicted as generous and a friend to Islam. Ogedai's enthronement as Khan of Khans in 1229 certainly was a benefit to the Muslims of the empire. At the start of his reign Ogedai created another governmental layer, the Secretariat system- check out episode 13 for more on this. While the North China Branch Secretariat has received greater attention in our series, at the same time a Branch Secretariat for Turkestan, or Central Asia, was established to oversee the populations under Chagatai's rule, and strengthen the Great Khan's authority there. The man chosen to head the department was a good choice, a native of Khwarezm called Mahmud Yalavach. Mahmud Yalavach, and his son Mas'ud Beg, were perhaps the two longest serving ministers of the Mongols, and the two have often weaved their way in and out of our series. Mahmud Yalavach's early life is unknown, other than that he hailed from Khwarezm. The great Russian orientalist Vasili Bartold suggested that Mahmud Yalavach is identical to Mahmud Bey, the vizier of the final Gur-Khan of the Qara-Khitai. Yalavach first reliably appears as a part of Chinggis Khan's 1218 embassy to the Khwarezmian Empire, where he is identified as Mahmud Khwarezmi. Taken aside by the Khwarezm-Shah Muhammad II, Mahmud deftly handled their interaction, and for the mission he earned the title of Yalavach, Turkic for messenger or ambassador. Staying in Mongol service, in 1229 Ogedai appointed him manager of the Branch Secretariat for Central Asia. Yalavach, assisted by his son Mas'ud Beg, proved a very capable man, and under him the first genuine reconstruction efforts after the Mongol conquest were implemented. At his direction with the backing of Great Khan Ogedai, cities and irrigation systems were rebuilt, agriculture encouraged and revitalized, a new tax system implemented and efforts to clamp down on extra-ordinary levies on the part of Chagatai and his sons were enacted. His efforts were successful. Several contemporary sources agree to the restoration of prosperity to the region, corroborated by numismatic evidence. Yalavach's first decade in charge of the Central Asian Branch Secretariat was a much needed salve for the region, though he faced competition from Chagatai, who did not take kindly to his brother's officer's interference. At the first opportunity he would get, Chagatai would undermine Yalavach. In 1238, an unexpected crisis emerged from one of the chief cities of Transoxania, Bukhara. There, a sieve-maker named Mahmud Tarabi became a popular figure on account of his supposed magical capabilities and ability to communicate with djinn. Juvaini says that, according to reputable individuals with whom he spoke with in Bukhara, one of Tarabi's spells included making a medicine from dog feces and blowing it into the eyes of the blind, which restored their sight. Juvaini did not have a high opinion of him, also remarking that in regards to his stupidity and ignorance Tarabi had no equal. Tarabi developed quite a reputation for magic and miracles, encouraged by a local notable named Shams-ad-Din Mahbubi, who through his personal vendetta against Bukhara's leadership and the Mongols, encouraged Tarabi's pretensions. How the very planets were aligning in his favour! Mahbubi told him, even going as far, Juvaini says, speaking of a prophecy that a man from Tarabi's home village of Tarab would conquer the world. Unfortunately for Tarabi, there was some very stiff competition for such a claim. Mahmud Yalavach was alerted to the bubbling unrest in Bukhara gathering around Tarabi, and sought to lure the man out and kill him. Tarabi saw through the trap and evaded it, which escalated his troublemaking. His inflammatory speeches to the people of Bukhara riled them up, and his claims of support from the invisible hosts of heaven seemed to have been given some merit when a merchant with a shipment of swords had his wares fall into Tarabi's hands. With his followers now armed, Tarabi, as all good prophets do, collected around himself riches and women. Convinced of their power, they killed or drove out the Bukharan government and Mongolian representatives. A response force was rallied- likely local militia under the command of regional darughachi. Mahbubi and Tarabi marched out of Bukhara at the head of their army, convinced of their divine protection. Neither wore armour or weapon, and spread rumours that whoever rose a hand against them would be struck down parrarlyed. The response force was worried, and only set off a volley of arrows when the wind picked up a dust storm. Frightened that this was some trick of Tarabi, the response force fled, and Tarabi's army doggedly pursued. They caught up to the response force and killed a great many. Upon returning to Bukhara, they were unable to find either Tarabi or Mahbubi. Juvaini asserts that both were struck by arrows in the volley set off by the government forces and killed, though it went unnoticed by both the Bukharan and the government forces. Regardless, under new local leadership, Tarabi's army turned to looting and pillaging the countryside. So they remained occupied for a week until a proper Mongol army arrived, either imperial troops or sent by Chagatai. The Bukharan forces went up confident towards them, believing defeating local militia was the same as defeating the horsemen of the Great Khan. The first volley of arrows killed the leadership of the Bukharan forces, and within hours 20,000 of the late-Tarabi's followers had joined them. The following day, the Mongols were leading the citizens of Bukhara onto the plain before the city, preparing to unleash a horrific massacre as punishment. Only at the intervention of Mahmud Yalavach, with approval of Great Khan Ogedai, was this averted, and the population spared, probably to the displeasure of Chagatai. The Tarabi revolt however had undermined Yalavach's credibility. Later in 1239 when Chagatai sought to transfer territory under Yalavach's supervision to another official -something which under the secretariat system, Chagatai lacked the power to do- Yalavach complained to Ogedai. Ogedai agreed with Yalavach's complaint, but to smooth things over with his brother, removed Yalavach from his office. But to demonstrate that he was not doing this to allow imperial perogative to slip, Ogedai immediaely appointed Yalavach's son Mas'ud Beg to his father's position at head of the Central Asian Secretariat, while Yalavach would, in the final months of Ogedai's life in 1241, be appointed to head the Secretariat in North China after Yelu Chucai's [choots-eye's] demotion. Mas'ud Beg was just as capable as his father, and dedicated himself to the reconstruction of Central Asia, but with little progress over the 1240s. Ogedai had little energy for governance in his final years, and when he died in December 1241, Chagatai was the chief figure of the empire, the senior Chinggisid. Chagatai's support for the regency of Ogedai's widow Torogene helped ensure her position, but the last son of Chinggis Khan soon died of illness in 1242. Chagatai's favourite son, Motugen, had died during the Khwarezmian campaign. He moved his choice of heir to another young son, but he too died early. Finally, Chagatai decided on a son of Motugen, Qara-Hulegu to be his heir. Qara-Hulegu was quickly confirmed into his father's position in 1242, and largely cooperated in both financial policy and personnel with the regent Torogene Khatun. Therefore, Mas'ud Beg had to flee to Batu, chief of the Jochids, as Torogene threatened both him and his father Yalavach, men she saw as her enemies. This period we covered back in episode 20. Torogene's son Guyuk became Great Khan in 1246, welcoming Mas'ud Beg and Mahmud Yalavach back to their positions, but deposing Qara-Hulegu. Instead, Guyuk Khan appointed his friend, a son of Chagatai named Yesu-Mongke, as the new Khan of the Chagatais. Yesu-Mongke was good at exactly one thing, the sources agree: drinking. After Guyuk's death in 1248, the former Khan Qara-Hulegu and his clever wife Orghina wisely backed the new contender for the throne, Tolui's son Mongke. When Mongke became the Khan of Khans in 1251, he undertook a massacre of princes of the line of Ogedai and Chagatai who had opposed him and plotted against him. As we saw in episode 21, Mongke essentially dissolved the ulus of Ogedai, and while the territory of the Chagatais remained intact, their ranks were thinned. Guyuk's appointed Chagatai Khan Yesu-Mongke was deposed and eventually killed on Mongke's order, and Qara-Hulegu was rewarded for his loyalty with the khanate again. Mas'ud beg and Mahmud Yalavach were reconfirmed in their positions in Central Asia and China. Everyone set out from Karakorum to return to their…

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History of the Mongols SPECIAL: Gunpowder May 17, 2021

Show notes

The rapid expansion of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century cannot be attributed to a single new military invention providing technological supremacy over their enemies. The weaponry and equipment of the Mongols differed little from those of their enemies or from previous nomadic empires. Still, the Mongols were adept in employing the tools of their foes. As historian Timothy May wrote, "the Mongols rarely met a weapon they did not like." Therefore, many questions have been raised regarding the usage, or lack thereof, of gunpowder weapons in Mongolian expansion, particularly outside of China. Today, we give a brief introduction to gunpowder weapons, both their history of use, their use by the Mongols, and the possible role of the Mongol Empire in the dissemination of these weapons. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. For some historians, like J.J. Saunders or Kate Raphael, the Mongols as both users of gunpowder and transmitters of its knowledge to the west is a total negative or extremely unlikely. They see no clear indication of it's usage in the western historical sources, seeing possible mentions as too equivocal to be relied upon. But the great British sinologist Joseph Needham and his associates, after a thorough study of well over a millennium of Chinese written sources and archaeology, has demonstrated thoroughly that not only were a number of a gunpowder weapons a common feature of Chinese warfare by the thirteenth century, but that the Mongols also used these during their wars in China. More recent historians such as Iqtidar Alam Khan, Thomas T. Allsen and Stephen G. Haw, have advanced Needham's arguments, arguing that the Mongols carried gunpowder weapons, such as bombs, fire-lances and rockets, west in their conquests over the rest of Eurasia. Stephen Haw in particular has suggested that the infamous smoke-screen employed by the Mongols in Poland at the battle of Liegnitz in 1241 was a gunpowder-based weapon. To demonstrate this, we must very briefly give an introduction to Chinese usage of gunpowder. Chinese alchemists and engineers had been mixing various chemicals for medicinal and experimental purposes for centuries, including some of those which constitute gunpowder. Gunpowder itself was not the result of any single individual's experiments, in the style of the old European fable of Berthold Schwarz, but rather a long series of trials combining materials -often, rather ironically, in search of elixirs to eternal life- which ultimately resulted in discovering a rather flammable substance. The first recipe for gunpowder finally appears during the Tang Dynasty in the 8th century CE, in a Taoist work urging alchemists not to mix saltpetre (potassium nitrate), sulphur and carbon-rich materials like coal, and to especially not add arsenic to the mixture, as the result would light aflame. The Chinese quickly found the energy produced by these materials quite mesmerizing when used in fireworks display, and found use for it in civil engineering and mining, but contrary to some popular sentiments that the Chinese only used it for peaceful purposes, it appears they rather quickly applied this new material for warfare. From the 10th century to the 13th, the Chinese created a great number of weapons to violently disseminate knowledge of gunpowder. By 1044, possibly in reaction to military defeats against the newly established Tangut ruled Xi Xia Dynasty, the Song Dynasty was presented a collection of nine kinds of gunpowder weapons and three distinct gunpowder recipes in the Wujing Zongyao. This technology advanced under the Song Dynasty, which faced a collection of ever-more fearsome foes on its northern borders. From the 10th century onwards, these weapons took a number of forms. Bombs thrown from catapults (huopao), enclosed in pottery or fragmenting metal shells. Arrows (huojian) with incendiary packages strapped to them, launched from bows or massive mounted crossbows, developing into early rockets over the twelfth century. Most infamous was the fire-lance (huojiang): a bamboo or metal tube capable of shooting a jet of flame three metres in length, sometimes with shrapnel and toxic materials packed into the tube to form a terrifying, flame-spouting shotgun. The proportions of consitutent chemicals were refined to increase power, with other additives such as lime to even human faeces to produce a number of horrific bombs; some to explode and throw armour piercing shrapnel, some to spread flame and destroy buildings, with others to have a choking, blinding gas dispersed by the explosion to envelop and confuse the enemy. The Song Dynasty government was so reliant on these weapons -and so terrified of their foes acquiring them- that it prohibited the sale of any of the materials composing gunpowder to the Khitan Liao Dynasty or Tangut Xi Xia in the 11th century. Both lacked access to natural reserves of saltpetre producing lands. But with the Jurchen conquest of the Liao and Northern Song in the early 12th century, the newly formed Jin Dynasty seized not only stores of these weapons, but the knowledge and resources to produce their own. Now facing a powerful, gunpowder armed foe, this spurred a new stage of gunpowder experimentation by the Song Dynasty. The first textual references to fire-lances, rockets, and new kinds of bombs appear as Song forces desperately resisted Jin invasions. The Song were imaginative when it came to employing these against the Jurchen. The narrow crossing over the rivers into south China became the main lines of defence, and the Song quickly took to arming their ships with rockets and huopao, catapults capable of lobbing bombs against Jin troops, to destroy ships or cast poisonous clouds against men and horses. As early as 1127, Song officials were recommending that all warships be equipped with such weapons to repel the Jin. Other uses speak of the desperation of defenders, coupled with considerable access to gunpowder. The 1207 siege of Te-an is a well known example: the Song defenders filled tea sacks with rice straw, used matting and gunpowder to hurl against the Jin troops assaulting the walls. The Jin were quick to pick up such weapons too, a cause for no shortage of alarm amongst the Song court, among other things. While perhaps effective in slowing the Jin invasions of southern China, gunpowder weapons were neither key in the initial Jurchen conquests of the north, or in actually repelling them. Skilled leadership and political will, in addition to general miltiary resources and logistics, were by far the determining factors. Gunpowder weapons were another tool in an arsenal, rather than the defining strategic component as they often appear in popular imagination. When Chinggis Khan invaded the Jin Dynasty in 1211, whole companies of Chinese siege engineers entered into his service, either willingly deserted to him or forced into service, bringign with them knowledge to construct various siege machines from catapults to rams. There is not, however, clear indication of the usage of gunpowder weapons against the Jin in these very first years of the conflict. One such Chinese siege specialist who willingly deserted, Guo Baoyu, accompanied Chinggis Khan west on his camapign against the Khwarezmian Empire. According to his biography in the Yuanshi, when the Mongols attempted to force a crossing of the Amu Darya, a number of Khwarezmian ships blocked their path. Guo Baoyu ordered a volley of huojian to be launched against the fleet. The ships were all set aflame, allowing the Mongols passage. While huojian originally and literally meant fire arrows, according to Joseph Needham, Jixing Pan, and Thomas Allsen, over the twelfth century the term came to signify rockets, when powdered gunpowder mixtures with higher percentages of saltpetre, charcoal and less sulphur made for effective rocket propellants. In addition, the Persian historian Juvaini often makes a distinction between "fire, naphtha and stones," being thrown into cities during Chinggis Khan's Khwarezmian campaign, as if there were distinct incendiary weapons being used in addition to the naptha (i.e, petroleum) derived weapons more familiar in the Islamic world. According to Needham, naptha has been utilized for military purposes since the 4thc entury BCE, and remained a feature of armies in the Middle East up until the Mongol conquest. Juvaini's flowery language makes it difficult at times to know if he was simply being poetic, or literal in terms of the weapons being used, even when he was an eyewitness to the events he describes. While Chinggis Khan certainly brought Chinese siege engineers westwards with him, it does not seem that gunpowder weapons made up a key component of his tactics. Likely, Chinggis lacked the resources to manufacture gunpowder and gunpowder weapons, and if he was making use of them, it was in limited quantities- his tactics for taking cities relied on skillful use of Chinese siege machines in great numbers alongside local forced labour and his powerful Mongol warriors. As mentioned earlier, gunpowder weapons were a tool in the arsenal, rather than a defining component. They lacked the ability to destroy walls by themselves: this was still the job of stones thrown from catapults, which the Mongols are expressly described using throughout the Khwarezmian campaign. After Chinggis Khan's death in 1227, his son and successor Ogedai completed the war with the Jin Dynasty, in the process cquiring greater experience with gunpowder weapons, and the natural and manpower resources to produce them. In the early 1230s there are a number of references in Chinese sources to the use of these weapons in the last years of the Mongol-Jin war. In 1231, for instance, the Jin utilized a new development in bomb technology, the heaven-shaking thunder-bomb (zhen tien lei), to sink Mongol ships in a naval engagement. These were bombs with high nitrate content in their gunpowder mixture encased in a cast-iron shell. When set off, they created a monstrous noise like thunder, while also splintering the iron shell into a wave of armour and flesh tearing shrapnel, an early fragmentation grenade. The most famous gunpowder engagement came the next year well recorded in a detailed description in the dynasty history of the Jin, the Jinshi, compiled under Mongol auspices in the fourteenth century. In 1232, the great Mongol general Subedei besieged the Jin capital of Kaifeng, in a year-long siege in which sides utilized gunpowder weapons. Subedei had catapults launched gunpowder bombs into the city, while the Jin defenders had a variety of gunpowder tools in their defensive arsenal. Mobile shelters pushed up to the walls of Kaifeng were annhilated by thunder-crash bombs dropped onto them via an iron chain. Additionally, great number of 'flying-fire-spears' (feihuojiang) were employed. Depending on the interpretation of the historian, these were either fire-lances packed with wads of shrapnel and arrows which when fired acted as a sort of flaming shot gun, while others like Jixing Pan suggets these were infact rockets. Either way, they were used to great effect and in great numbers. At one point in the siege, a Jin commander took 450 men armed with fire-lances into the Mongol encampment, a surprise attack resulting in hundreds of Mongol troops killed or drowned then they tried to flee. The Jinshi remarked that the thunder-clap bombs and flying-fire-spears were the only two weapons of the Jin the Mongols feared. Yet, these devices could not arrest the fate of the dynasty. A scovered back in episode 14 of this series, the Emperor abandoned Kaifeng before the siege was complete, and the city fell in 1233, and the Jin Dynasty itself finally extinguished the next year. We must emphasize again, that while terrifying, these gunpowder weapons were not themselves the key determining factors in these wars. The modern concept of all powerful, destructive guns, bombs and cannon must be ignored. The reliability of these early medieval weapons was questionable. Different proportions of the necessary chemicals, or in the design of a given weapon, might result in a device going off early, too late, or not at all. The range of these weapons was often short, and they were best utilized in the defense, in situations where their effect on enemy morale could be maximized. These bombs were not yet the secret to destroying city walls, though they could set fire to wooden structures, towers or gates along the battlements. Regardless, they were a frightful weapon when used properly. Thus it seems unusual that Subedei, the commander of the final campaigns against the Jin who faced these gunpowder weapons, made little use of them in the great western campaign begun only a few years later. Though specialized Chinese artillery was employed against the Alans of the north Caucasus, Rus' principalities and Hungarian, there is little direct indication of the use of gunpowder weaponry in the west. Many of the mostly wooden cities of the Rus' principalities were burned, it is true, but the Rus' sources generally offer no description of how this occurred, only that it did. Usually they imply the fire was started after the city already fell. In the case of the siege of Vladimir, the Nikonian Chronicle specifies that a great volume of stones were shot into the city, and that the church at Vladimir was burnt only after the Mongols stacked a great pile of wood next to it and set that on fire. A possible indication of gunpowder usage is supplied by the Franciscan friar John de Plano Carpini, who travelled through the Rus' principalities late in the 1240s bearing messages from the Pope to the Great Khan. In his report of his travels, Carpini offers a very accurate description of Mongol battle and siege tactics, with the intention that his observations be used to help prepare Christendom against further attacks. Carpini's short description is worth quoting: They reduce fortresses in the following manner. If the position of the fortress allows it, they surround it, sometimes even fencing it round so that no one can enter or leave. They make a strong attack with engines and arrows and they do not leave off fighting by day or night, so that those inside the fortress get no sleep; the Tartars however have some rest, for they divide up their forces and they take it in turns to fight so that they do not get too tired. If they cannot capture it in this way they throw Greek fire; sometimes they even take the fat of the people they kill and, melting it, throw it on to the houses, and wherever the fire falls on this fat is almost inextinguishable. It can however be put out, so they say, if wine or ale is poured on it. If it falls on flesh, it can be put out by being rubbed with the palm of the hand. As the Mongols, as far as is known, did not have access to Greek Fire, it seems that Carpini is attempting to describe an incendiary of unusual properties using cultural terms he was familiar with. And as Carpini's knowledge of Mongol siege tactics largely came from his discussions with survivors in the Rus' territories, it seems to imply that a special type of fire-causing weapon was used against the Rus': quite possibly gunpowder weapons Subedei had brought from China. The famous smoke screen employed by Mongol forces at the battle of Liegnitz in Poland in April 1241 may also have been a type of gunpowder weapon, as suggested by Stephen Haw. Firstly, for those of you unaware of the context, here is the relevant quote from the description of the battle of Liegnitz, recorded in the fifteenth century Polish chroncile by Jan Długosz. "Among the Tatar standards is a huge one with a giant X painted on it. It is topped with an ugly black head with a chin covered with hair. As the Tatars withdraw some hundred paces, the beare…

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2.46. History of the Mongols: Rise of Ming May 10, 2021

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With the Yuan Dynasty reduced to an ever shrinking area of land around Dadu in north China, to tell the story of the expulsion of the Mongol rulers in 1368 is to tell the story of Zhu Yuanzhang, a peasant turned monk turned warlord turned emperor. Today, we give you the rise to power of Ming Taizu, the Hongwu Emperor, his great victory at Lake Poyang and the Rise of the Ming Dynasty, and the final Yuan efforts to hold onto their dynasty. I'm you host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. Our last two episodes took us through the period of Mongol rule in China from Khubilai Khan's death in 1294, through his many successors until the reign of Toghon Temur Khan, who took the throne in 1333. Toghon Temur was largely a puppet to his chancellors; first Bayan of the Merkit, and most notably Bayan's nephew, Toghto. Though faced with a colossal economic and environmental crisis which spawned a series of uprisings in 1351, the Red Turbans, by the end of 1354 Toghto had nearly crushed the movement and restored order. But Toghon Temur Khan made the foolish decision to banish Toghto in January 1355, a decision which signalled the death blow to the Yuan Dynasty. Toghto was the last actor who could have arrested the fate of the Yuan or controled the dynasty's resources. Within months of Toghto's dismissal, the rebellion picked up with new energy, and the power of the Yuan court became restricted to the very north. The rest of the empire became subject to various warlords, some with nominal allegiance to the Yuan, and some seeking nothing but its utter destruction. A few points should be emphasized. The lack of interest Toghon Temur had in governing ensured that there was no individual in the Yuan court who could step into the role of Toghto. The strengthening of the regional rulers during the chancellorship of Berke Bukha, followed by mass mobilization in Toghto's last years left provincial, regional and local rulers newly empowered and at the heads of much stronger military forces. The famed Mongol army was one of conquest, not garrison duty: there were simply not enough Mongols to garrison all of China, leaving a light Mongol presence past even the Yellow River. Most actual Mongolian and Turkic cavalry were kept in a few strategic areas, largely centrered around the capital and the steppes. Southern China had been poorly integrated into the Yuan, where Song dynasty structures had often been hastily co-opted. With most of the Yuan government and armed forces in the north, in the south's countryside banditry became a real problem, as years of flood, famine, locust plagues and other environmental catastrophy annihilated farmland, the local economies and regular support networks. Unable to rely on the Yuan army for protection, regional and local leaders organized local defense forces for protection against bandits, the Red Turbans or even the undisciplined newly mobilized Yuan troops, which militarized and armed the population. It must have seemed apparent that the Yuan had lost the Mandate of Heaven, the right to rule China. In the years immediately after Toghto's dismissal, three warlords emerged within the Red Turban movement as the most powerful, all along the Yangzi River: Zhang Shicheng, the former salt-worker who became a warlord, declared himself emperor and was nearly crushed by Toghto during the chancellor's final campaign; Chen Youliang a former fisherman, then office clerk who became leader of the southern Red Turbans and declared his own Han Dynasty with himself as emperor; and a peasant, turned monk, turned warlord, Zhu Yuanzhang. Born into a destitute family of tenant-farmers in 1328, Zhu Yuanzhang grew up surrounded by famine and uncertainty in central Anhwei. His grandfather had fought against the Mongols for the Song Dynasty in its final years, and Zhu grew up listening to his exploits. In summer 1344, he lost most of his family to famine within three weeks. Unable to feed him, his surviving family gave him away to a Buddhist monastery for labour. With the monastery also unable to feed him, he spent a few years wandering before the twenty year old Zhu returned to the monastery, where he learned to read and write. There he may have happily stayed, until a local battle between Yuan forces and Red Turbans in 1352 resulted in some of the Chinese troops in the Yuan army sacking and looting Zhu's temple. Once again having lost everything, Zhu went to the only place he could: he joined a nearby Red Turban group. For a starving peasant turned monk, Zhu showed a surprising aptitude for war and gained the attention of the local Red Turban leader, Kuo Tzu-Hsing. Under Kuo's tutelage, Zhu rose in the ranks, and within a year was given his own command and married Kuo's adopted daughter, the future Empress Ma. By the start of 1355 Zhu was leading an army of about 30,000 men and building his own staff of educated men around him, most notably the scholar Li Shanchang, who encouraged Zhu's ambitions, urging him to take the city of Nanjing on the Yangzi River. His first attempt in summer 1355 was a failure, but it resulted in the deaths of Kuo Tzu-Hsing's sons and heirs, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in sole command of the local Red Turbans. Gathering his strength, in April 1356 Zhu finally took Nanjing, making it his capital. This brought him to the attention of the figureheads of the Red Turbans in the north, Liu Futong and his puppet "Song Emperor," Han Lin-erh. The young Han Lin-erh acted as a sort of symbol for the movement, a Manichean-Buddhist saviour in addition to apparently being a descendant of the Song Emperors. Together, they had redeclared the Song Dynasty, and soon after Zhu Yuanzhang took Nanjing he was appointed governor of Jiangxi province by Han Lin-erh. This placed Zhu at the forefront of the northern Red Turbans on the Yangzi, but Zhu was careful to maintain official subordinance to this 'Song Emperor,' who Zhu became the most powerful defender of. In this time Zhu began developing his administrative apparatus, and under the supervision of the scholar Li Shanchang, began cultivating a reputation as a refined, dignified ruler concerned for the safety of the common people. Always he sought to have his armies minimize the destruction they caused, in contrast to the Yuan government forces and the often wild damage caused by other Red Turbans. He gained valuable administrative experience as the governor of Jiangxi, and it is not hard to imagine he was drawing his eye already to the loftiest of aspirations. All the while, Zhu was eyeing his two powerful neighbours: Zhang Shicheng to the east, who, after a nominal submission to the Yuan government was now happily expanding along the Yangzi River, and to Zhu's west, the warlord Chen Youliang, the major figure of the southern Red Turbans. Zhu, Zhang and Chen had before even the end of the 1350s were among the most powerful men in China, the three Yangzi lords having wealth and resources beyond any of the minor warlords or Yuan loyalists south of the Yangzi river. To the north it was a slightly different story, where the major powers after the fall of Toghto were the Yuan aligned warlords Chaghan Temur and his nephew, Koko Temur. Chaghan Temur was a fourth-generation Naiman commander based in eastern Honan, a region his great-grandfather had helped conquer in the early thirteenth century. Both Mongolized and sinicized, having sat for civil service examinations, since the late 1340s Chaghan Temur had been fighting rebel forces with his own army. His victories over them in the early 1350s brought him rewards and titles from the Yuan court, and his power began to expand. Within a few years he was the most powerful force serving the Yuan, doing his best to stay out of the court intrigues and defeat the rebels. In the latter, Chaghan Temur had more successes. In 1358 when Liu Futong and his Song Emperor Han Lin-erh rode triumphant into Kaifeng, once the capital of the Song Dynasty, it was Chaghan Temur who drove them and their armies back, bringing the city once more under Yuan control. By 1362, Chaghan Temur and his allies had managed to restore Yuan Rule from Shanxi to Shandong, and even former enemies like Zhang Shicheng and the pirate Fang Guozhen were sending a token yearly tribute of grain to the capital of Dadu. Of course, it is difficult to amass such power without making enemies, and Chaghan Temur's tendency to ignore court orders, make his own appointments and strengthen himself did him no favours. Chaghan Temur was challenged by a rival, Bolod Temur, another powerful commander and father of Toghon Temur Khan's empress. The court intrigues between the two hamstrung the ability of the Yuan to resist the rebels, and Toghon Temur Khan, in typical fashion, was totally unable to control them. In 1362 officers claiming to be serving the dynasty assassinated Chaghan Temur while he besieged a rebel city, apparently doubting his commitment to the dynasty- and promptly fled to the same rebels they had been campaigning against. The court then confirmed Chaghan Temur's will, granting his military and civilian positions to his adopted son, Koko Temur. While Koko Temur's name means 'blue iron,' in Mongolian, it may surprise you to learn that the final effective figure of the Yuan Dynasty was not a Mongol, but a Chinese. Born to a Chinese father and Koko Temur's sister, his birth name was Wang Baobao, but he had been officially adopted by Chaghan Temur and in 1361 awarded his Mongolian name by the Great Khan. Recognized as a true and loyal servant of the dynasty, Koko Temur seems to have preferred the ideals of steppe life more than his Confucian education, and carried himself in the image of a Mongol ba'atar, and had fought valiantly beside his stepfather. Immediately assuming his late stepfather's command post, Koko Temur completed the siege, caught the men who had assassinated Chaghan Temur, and in a decidedly un-Chinese ceremony, cut the assassins' hearts out and sacrificed them to the spirit of Chaghan Temur. Under the efforts of Chaghan Temur and Koko Temur, most of China north of the Yangzi was secured by the 1363, the Yuan having managed to survive a few serious scares. Rebel forces sent by Liu Futong and Han Lin-erh had raided as far as Liaodong and Shangdu, burning it in 1358, but since then the situation had somewhat stabilized. Bolod Temur continued to denounce Koko Temur, and the court intrigues did not stop. Toghon Temur Khan's son and heir, Ayushiridara, seems to have wanted his father to abdicate the throne, as the Khan had shown utter incompetence and no leadership throughout the crisis. In alliance with his mother, Toghon Temur's Korean empress Ki, and the chancellor, they sought to undermine Toghon Temur by convincing him to dismiss one of his chief ministers. The minister fled to Bolod Temur, who was then declared a rebel for housing the minister. Tension raised, Bolod Temur attacked Koko Temur, was defeated and fled to Dadu. At Dadu, Bolod took control of the capital in 1364, putting the chancellor to death and nearly got his hands on Ayushiridara, who fled to Koko Temur. Ayushiridara stayed there under Koko Temur's protection until Bolod Temur's cruel treatment of the court resulted in his assassination in August 1365, and Koko Temur marched Ayushiridara back to Dadu. Koko Temur was rewarded with royal titles, and ignored Ayushirirdara's efforts to have him remove Toghon Temur. Koko Temur was by then by far the most powerful man in the north, but had no love for court politics and wanted to continue the war against the rebels. Given overall command and a large army, Koko Temur finally set out in 1366 to clear the rebels off the Yangzi, only to find that some of the Chinese commanders and former allies of Bolod Temur in his service resented this upstart and attacked him. Forced to waste time in a pointless civil war, the final chance for the Yuan to even retain the north was lost as Zhu Yuanzhang unified the south. China's future was decided with the opening of hostilities between Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang. While Chaghan Temur rose and fell, the Yangzi warlords quickly moved past any pretenses of 'peasant uprising to expel the Mongols.' By the end of the 1350s, it was a battle for imperial power between the three most likely claimants to succeed the Yuan, or at least establish a regional kingdom: Chen Youliang, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhang Shicheng. By 1357, Chen Youliang had taken control of the Red Turbans south of the Yangzi, Zhu Yuanzhang was the preeminent member of the northern Red Turbans and the protector of the puppet Song Emperor Han Lin-Erh, and Zhang Shicheng nominally recognized Yuna overlordship, though he was clearly building his own kingdom along the coast. Chen Youliang's state had expanded dramatically, but his eastern expansion down the Yangzi was blocked by Zhu Yuanzhang, and to the north by the effective armies of Chaghan Temur and Koko Temur. Needing more strength before he faced then, and not trusting his Yangzi rivals, Chen decided to deal with the Yangzi foes first. In summer 1360, Chen Youliang sailed down the Yangzi with 100,000 men aboard a great navy. Armies of the early 1360s were built upon peasant troops, but since the 1350s had become operationally much more sophisticated and experienced, with river warfare a key component. Since the early years of the uprisings city walls had been repaired, forcing combatants to resort to lengthy blockades or costly assaults. There is little evidence to suggest Mongol military techniques of the thirteenth century were adopted by the Chinese, cavalry taking only a minor role in these battles. Chen Youliang's 1360 attack utilized ships with high sterns which allowed his men to climb onto city walls. This brought him some initial success, and made him so overconfident he had a puppet emperor he had been controlling beaten to death, and had himself proclaimed Emperor of a new Han Dynasty. Chen urged Zhang Shicheng to open another front against Zhu, then sailed for Nanjing. Tricking Chen into disembarking much of his fleet north of Nanjing, Zhu Yuanzhang ambushed Chen's army and captured much of his navy, forcing Chen to retreat. Due to conflict with Zhang Shicheng, Zhu struggled to immediately exploit this victory. The next year, 1361, Zhu Yuanzhang finally led a naval assault on Chen Youliang's territory, but was only marginally successful, as rebellion forced him to return to his territory in early 1362. Before he departed, Zhu's forces took Nanchang near Lake Poyang. While Zhu struggled with treason and rebellion in his territory, Chen Youliang built another armada. The sources indicate this was a massive effort, totalling 300,000-600,000 men, with large, red painted ships with iron covered turrets for archers and high sterns to once again climb over city walls- the same tactic which had worked so well for him in 1360. In June 1363 his fleet was outside the walls of Nanchang, and Chen believed its fall would lead to the submission of other nearby cities. Unfortunately for Chen, the walls of Nanchang had been reinforced, and his boarding tactic was unsuccessful. Chen was forced into a siege, ruining his plans and taking away his element of surprise. His forces suffered heavy losses, and as the siege dragged into summer the water levels began to lower, risking the large ships which made up the core of his fleet. Zhu Yuanzhang did not appear to learn of this until August 1363, during which time much of his forces were occupied near the border with Zhang Shicheng. Rapidly reassembling his forces at Nanjing, he sent an army overland to relieve Nanchang, while he prepared a fleet to confront Chen Youliang. Zhu was outnumbered, with perhaps 100,000 to 200,000…

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2.45. History of the Mongols: Fall of the Yuan May 03, 2021

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In the almost 40 years from the death of Khubilai Khan in February 1294, to the ascension of Toghon Temur Khan in July 1333, nine Khans of the Yuan Dynasty had been enthroned, with only Temur Oljeitu Khan reigning over a decade. It was a period of treachery, political infighting, civil wars, fraticide, economic mismanagement and inflation and environmental crises upon environmental crises. It was for Toghon Temur, the final Yuan ruler in China, to have the longest reign, sitting for 35 years in the two capitals of Dadu and Shangdu. His long, passive reign saw the disintegration of Mongol rule in China and the expulsion of the Yuan court in 1368- despite some energetic efforts to save the dynasty. Today, we present to you the final years of the Yuan Dynasty, and the last, but doomed, efforts to save it from total ruin by a series of energetic chancellors, none more famous than Toghto of the Merkit. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. Toghon Temur was only 13 years old when he became Khan of Khans in July of 1333. A great-great-grandson of Khubilai Khan, Toghon Temur was a son of Qoshila, who had briefly reigned as Khan in 1329 before being murdered by his brother, Tuq Temur. The young Toghon Temur had been exiled from the Yuan court by Tuq Temur Khan and his chancellor, El-Temur, first to Korea, then to Guangxi province in China's far south. It was unlikely he'd ever see the throne, and aside from some time with a Buddhist teacher in his exile, he received no training for governance. But when Tuq Temur Khan's designated heir died in 1331, the reigning Khan had a crisis of conscience, evidently from his guilt in the murder of his brother Qoshila. On his deathbed, Tuq Temur indicated he wanted the throne to go to the line of Qoshila; not to Toghon Temur, but his younger half brother, the six year old Irinjibal. There was a major obstacle to this, in the form of El-Temur, the real power in the Yuan Dynasty. It was El-Temur who had engineered the coup which placed Tuq Temur on the throne in 1328, and Tuq Temur Khan had been a puppet for El-Temur throughout his reign. Of Qipchaq descent, El-Temur was from the fourth generation of a celebrated family of Qipchap servants to the Khans. His great-grandfather and grandfather had both served Khubilai Khan in his campaign against the Dali Kingdom in the early 1250s, and since then the family had been among the most prominent in the Yuan realm, controlling one of the empire's key military units, the Qipchaq Guard. El-Temur and his father had loyally served Qaishan Khan, but after his death in 1311 had lost wealth and prestige. The coup El-Temur orchestrated in 1328 was not just to restore the line of Qaishan and place Tuq Temur on the throne, but restore his family's power. Alongside another non-Chinggisid powerbroker named Bayan of the Merkit, El-Temur controlled the Yuan court and married into the imperial family. Before his death, Tuq Temur Khan had entrusted his youngest son El-Tegus into Chancellor El-Temur's care, and El-Temur wanted the young boy to succeed his father. But Tuq Temur's widow Budashiri rallied the court into supporting her husband's final wish, and the aging and ill El-Temur reluctantly agreed to make Qoshila's six year old son Irinjibal Khan… until Irinjibal died of illness not even two months later. Once again El-Temur wanted El-Tegus to become Khan of Khans, but resistance from the court was too great; they wanted the throne to go to Qoshila's 13 year old son Toghon Temur. Even El-Temur's number 2, Bayan, was convinced of it by Empress Budashiri, and after several months of argument over early 1333, a declining El-Temur acquiesced, in part due to agreement to marry his daughter Danashirin, to Toghon Temur. With that, El-Temur died soon after. In July 1333, a little over a century since the death of Chinggis Khan, Toghon Temur was enthroned as the Khan of Khans. The boy was, as to be expected, a puppet. This time, for Bayan of the Merkit, who after serving as second fiddle to El-Temur, wanted to implement his own designs. Part of this was by securing power. In 1335 he unleashed a bloody coup which killed the members of El-Temur's family and loyalists still in government. Even the daughter married to Khan Toghon Temur was killed. That year, Bayan made himself the sole chancellor of the Yuan Dynasty, the maximum power and authority he could ever hope to attain. Bayan was not in the office simply for the sake of authority and killing his former coworkers. He actually had a dream. A rejuvenation of the Yuan Dynasty, desiring a restoration to the way things had been in Khubilai's time; the good old days, when Mongols and Chinese were separated, the racial hierarchy and ensuing privileges clearly enforced. Bayan changed Toghon Temur's reign title to Chih-yuan, which Khubilai had used from 1264 until his death, a clear symbolism, but there were much more overt and practical methods to Bayan's plan. Chinese were banned from a great number of government offices, forbidden from learning Mongolian and other west Asian languages, and the Chinese population was to be disarmed and their horses confiscated. The examination system to choose officials reinstated by Ayurburwada 20 years prior was to be again cancelled. Yet Bayan also wanted to make government more efficient by cutting court expenditures, and reduce stress on the empire's population by decreasing the high fees on the salt monopoly, encouraging agriculture, and improving and speeding up the government relief system. The environmental crisis we spent so much of the last episode discussing had not abated by any means, and Bayan saw it as governmental duty to provide for the people hurt by it. Of course, that couldn't mean he wasn't allowed to enrich himself with wealth, honorifics, titles and positions along the way. A man who had cut his teeth in the wars of the steppes against Qaidu, Bayan had a tendency to overreact to threats violently. Toghon Temur was said to have complained how he spent his first years as Khan in fear for his life due to Bayan. His political enemies were violently persecuted, as seen when he eradicated the allies and family of his former partner El-Temur, and whenever plots were discovered against him. Bayan even had the gall to execute a Chinggisid prince outside the gates of Dadu. News of uprisings, and even the revolt of a city in 1339, led to Bayan believing in a wide conspiracy against him, seeing assassination plots around every corner. He responded with rounds of investigations, charges and violent purges to anyone he suspected involved. His enemies were convinced of the need to bring him down, and in spring 1340 a coup was launched against Bayan, with the support of Khan Toghon Temur and led by Bayan's own nephew, the rising star Toghto. While Bayan was out hunting, the court stripped him of titles and positions and banished him. Returning from the hunt to find himself jobless and exiled, Bayan died less than a month later. With him died the last of those who tried to bring the court back to the 'old ways,' succeeded by those who recognized, and even celebrated, the sinicization of the Mongol dynasty. The new generation of court leadership was symbolized by Toghto. Only 26 years old at the time of Bayan's ouster, Toghto had been well educated and raised to prominence by his uncle. Unlike Bayan, Toghto had no misconceptions about restoring things to the time of Khubilai Khan. Raised in China, Chinese culture and Confucianism was something to be appreciated. Believing all government problems could be solved with a steady hand and powerful government, Toghto wanted to centralize and strengthen the Dynasty, with a variety of reforms to tackle the empire's problems. His first period as Chancellor saw removal of the last of Bayan's allies, the restoration of the civil service examinations, greater incorporation of Confucian scholars into government than ever before, and actual visibility to Toghon Temur Khan. The Khan finally was able to give a decree denouncing his uncle Tuq Temur for murdering Qoshila, and banished many of the handlers Bayan had placed on him. His cousin El Tegus was almost certainly put to death on his order, removing this claimant to the throne. Toghon Temur's own son Ayushiridara was entrusted to Toghto's household to be raised, fed and educated, the boy's welfare being some Toghto took very seriously. Luckily for the historians among us, one of Toghto's most important tasks for posterity was providing the funding to finally complete the official histories of the Liao, Jin and Song Dynasties by 1344. On his encouragement, the Liao and Jin Dynasties were recognized as legitimate, a debate which had in part slowed the completion of these histories in the first place: the Confucian-Chinese editors had rather thoroughly argued against recognizing the Khitan ruled Liao or the Jurchen ruled Jin as proper dynasties, but Toghto, with an eye for the future representation of the Mongol ruled Yuan, pushed for it. So the Liaoshi, Jinshi and Songshi were finally completed and presented to the court, though the quality of the Liao Dynastic history in particular has been lamented by later scholars. As you can imagine, Toghto has always earned a warm reception from historians for this effort, though it does not mean all his efforts in his first Chancellorship were successful. His expensive proposal to cut a new waterway to transport grain to Dadu was a spectacular failure, though it was a problem he would not stop in his efforts to resolve. Toghto's bright plans were cut short in the emerging crisises of the 1340s. This was a decade of almost annual earthquakes, unseasonal snowstorms in Mongolia eradicating entire herds, severe flooding in central China, accompanied by widespread famine, drought and epidemic. There has been suggestion that bubonic plague began spreading in China in the 1340s, moving west with Mongol armies to reach Europe in 1347. However, from the beginning of the most severe phase of epidemic in 1344 to having reached the armies of the Golden Horde two years later is a rather tight schedule to cross all of Asia. There has not been enough evidence to identify the epidemics in China as the Black Death, and a great number of other viral epidemics remain likely culprits. After years and years of these environmental issues, the field of frustration finally began to bloom into violent uprisings in the 1340s. In 1341, there were more than 300 bandit uprisings across central China. And among these revolts was the emerging Red Turban Movement. To quote Frederick Mote's chapter "the Rise of the Ming Dynasty," in part 1, Vol. 7 of the Cambridge History of China: The Ming Dynasty, page 18, the Red Turbans were "loosely Manichean within folk Buddhist religion and were millenarian in their impulses. They defied the normal sources of authority and displayed capacities for conspiratorial cohesiveness and for uncompromising relations with the government, thus making their behaviour more extreme than that of conventional rebels. All the important movements of this kind in this period have been loosely grouped under the designation of the Red Turban (Hung-chin) rebellions." The Red Turbans, so called for their red headbands, were a large and loosely connected group which espoused a sectarian, millenarian Confucianism, calling for radical change of society through military means, returning to an older, 'purer' China. Having began in the late 1330s as a respeonse to the environmental and financial crisis blamed on the foreign barbarians ruling China, the movement steadily picked up steam with each year and with each successive trouble and crisis. The Yuan had greatly overlooked this social aspect of their rule and constant attempts to restrict Confucianism and Chinese rights. The Red Turbans were going to provide a framework for many looking for an excuse to fight back, or just to fight. We'll return to them soon enough. Toghto's reaction to the country wide problems in 1344 was to resign his post. For the next five years, the chancellorship was largely dominated by a man named Berke Bukha. He was also genuinely reform minded, but in the other direction from Toghto. Having experienced firsthand the slowness of government relief, Berke sought to decentralize the government, and make each region more able to effectively respond to local problems, be they environmental or banditry. Corresponding and getting permissions with the Central Government in Dadu took too long, especially for the most distant provinces. By the time aid or relief arrived, it could have been much too late to do any good. Essentially, Berke Bukha wanted to cut government red tape, to use a modern parlance. It was a good idea, and one about two decades too late to avert the oncoming catastrophes. The problem of uprisings, economy and environment piled ever higher regardless of Berke Bukha's efforts, and in 1349 Toghon Temur Khan recalled Toghto to the court to resume his post. Toghto got back into the saddle with great energy. He was said to have wanted to dazzle his contemporaries and make his name immortal in the historical record, and immediately set about trying to do just that. One problem Toghto had been stumped by in his first chancellorship was how to pay for his great schemes, and in 1350 finally stumbled on an absolutely fool-proof idea: why not just print more money? The fact it was entirely unbacked by the depleted silver reserves in no way would be a problem. With a firm central guiding hand, Toghto got to work on his grandest scheme yet: forcing the Yellow River back into its former course, in order to once more enter the sea south of the Shandong peninsula. This was not a mere vanity project. The annual flooding of the Yellow River had become disastrous, and in 1344, 20 days of nonstop rain had caused the River to rise to 6.7 metres, break its banks and flood 18 districts and 17 cities, cutting of the Grand Canal, and draining into the Huai River, which in turn caused it to rise and threaten the salt fields in Shandong and Hebei provinces, before entering the ocean south of the Shandong peninsula, whereas before it had come out to the north. The threat to the salt fields was a particular concern for the court: as the salt trade and its associated taxes was worth six-tenths of Yuan yearly revenue, it was vitally important to ensure its protection. This was also necessary in order to restore the flow to the Grand Canal, the north-south canal which carried the rice and grain of south China northwards to feed the capital of Dadu every year. This had already been in trouble due to a pirate, Fang Guozhen, having taken control of a portion of the canal and blocking shipments of supplies to Dadu, refusing peace offers, titles and resisting a military operation by Toghto in 1350. There was intense opposition to the project to reroute the Yellow River, but Toghto had firmly taken control of government and forced the plan through. Printing 2 million ingots worth of the new currency to pay for it, from May to December 1351, 150,000 labourers, and 20,000 soldiers dug a 140 kilometre long channel to reroute the river; and it worked! Once more the Grand Canal was fed, the salt fields were protected and the Yellow River exited into the ocean north of the Shandong peninsula. Toghto's genius engineering project was designed to protect the producers and economy of the Yuan Dynasty, but it accidentally became one of the events which sparked off the dynasty's ultimate collapse. The large gathering of workers, hungry and weak from years of famine, being punished by cruel overseers trying to meet a strict timetable, and paid in a currency that was only a li…

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2.44. History of the Mongols: Yuan - From Crisis to Crisis Apr 19, 2021

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After Khuiblai Khan's death in 1294, his successors ruled over the most powerful kingdom on earth, the Yuan Dynasty, controlling all of China and Mongolia. Yet not even one hundred years after the declaration of the Yuan in 1271, the Dynasty was pushed from China, their rulers a shadow of the men Chinggis Khan and Khubilai had been. In our first episode on the Yuan Dynasty, we take you through the first 40 years of their rule after Khubilai, and introduce you to ten Khans, from Temur Oljeitu to Toghon Temur, and the manner in which they lurched from crisis to crisis in the fourteenth century. It was an age of political chaos and bloodthirsty brothers, scheming bureacrats, overbearing mothers and misplaced Khans, and a century where every other person was seemingly named a variation of Temur. It was a period to have strangled even the greatest of rulers and most robust of dynasties; and these were not the greatest of rulers. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. Our first of ten Khans for today is Temur Oljeitu, Khubilai's grandson and first successor. Khubilai, as we demonstrated rather thoroughly, had outlived his chosen heir, Jinggim, as well as a plethora of other sons and grandsons. After Jinggim's death, Khubilai had vacillated on who should succeed him. It was much more traditional Chinese custom for chosen heirs and the like, as opposed to the Mongolian method of 'to the strongest,' and declarations of quriltais. Seemingly reluctantly, only in the very twilight years of his life almost a decade after Jinggim's death, did Khubilai move to make Temur Oljeitu, one of the late Jinggim's younger sons, his heir. In 1293 Khubilai gave Temur Oljeitu the jade seal of the heir apparent, but had not provided him the full titles and honorifics that Jinggim had held. Thus, when the old Khubilai finally did die in February 1294, Temur Oljeitu was the favourite candidate, but not the only one. He was challenged by his older brother, another son of Jinggim named Kammala. It came to the quriltai in April 1294, where both made their speeches, each demonstrating their knowledge of the maxims of Chinggis Khan, aiming to convince the elite and each other of their fitness for the Grand Khanate. Of course, it wasn't really just a matter of speeches which determined the outcome. Being the selected heir of Great Khan Khubilai was obviously a powerful boost, but Temur Oljeitu had a number of powerful allies backing him. His mother, Kokejin, was well respected and beloved by Khubilai; military leaders, especially Bayan of the Baarin, the great conqueror of the Song Dynasty, backed Temur Oljeitu; and prominent members of the bureaucracy, such as the Chancellor of the Right, Oljei. This was to be a heralding of the future of the succession Yuan Khans, where the bureaucracy and military elite became the decision makers. Kammala was convinced to accept Temur Oljeitu, who on April 15th, 1295, was duly enthroned as Khan of Khans and Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty. Temur Oljeitu was a respectable choice. Conservative minded, both he and Chancellor Oljei, as well as Oljei's successor Harghasun, aimed to consoldiate and stabilize the Yuan Dynasty after the struggles of Khubilai's final years. Open minded regarding Chinese culture, respecting Confucianism but not enmeshed in it, while also having connections to the military elite in the Mongolian steppe, Temur Oljeitu was very much a Khan in the mold of his grandfather Khubilai, though lacking his physical and intellectual vigour, while also keeping one of Khubilai's worst vices, a penchant for alcoholism. In order to stabilize the government and economy, reconciliation of various branches of the family was favoured and great invasions abandoned. Lavish gifts to princes on his accession helped affirm their loyalty and quiet some of the Mongols in Manchuria who had been so problematic in Khubilai's last years. Plans to invade Annam and Japan were cancelled; the only foreign ventures were to be brief excursions into Burma and northern Thailand which, though largely failures, were not on the scales of any of Khubilai's efforts. Tax debts from Khubilai's reign were cancelled, and Temur Oljeitu sought to reduce the tax burden on the people, forbidding the collection of anything beyond established quotas. Diplomatically, Temur enjoyed a significant triumph over his father. In 1301 his armies under his nephew Qaishan finally defeated Qaidu Khan, the master of central Asia. When Qaidu died of his wounds in September 1301, Qaidu's puppet Chagatai Khan Du'a decided he had enough of fighting the Yuan. With Qaidu's son Chapar, Du'a contacted Temur Oljeitu indicating his willingness to recognize Temur Oljeitu's overlordship. Temur Oljeitu was delighted and immediately accepted. Their representatives were sent to the Khan of the Ilkhanate, also called Oljeitu, and the Khan of the Golden Horde, Toqta. By 1304, peace had reached between the Khanates. For the first time since 1259, there was a recognized Great Khan, something Khubilai had never achieved. Though Temur Oljeitu wielded no authority over them, he sent patents to affirm each Khan, and in turn received gifts and tribute from them, a process largely carried out by his successors. And in 1306, when Du'a went to war with the heirs of Qaidu, Temur Oljeitu provided him with an army. For a few years at the start of the fourteenth century, we can finally speak of a proper pax Mongolica, when there was peace between all of the Khanates across Eurasia. It would not last very long. In internal matters, Temur Oljeitu did not quite have the same success. For one thing, the Yuan Dynasty permanently hemorrhaged money. In 1295, less than a year after his enthronment, the imperial treasury was reporting to him that nearly all of the wealth Khubilai had accumulated over his reign had been spent in gifts to the princes. The financial policies of Temur Oljeitu and the Chancellors Oljei and Harghasun had brought stability after the "Three Bad ministers," but was not bringing in new revenue. Temur Oljeitu had to cover government costs by paying out from the silver reserve. This was the silver needed to back the paper currency, and with less silver reserve, inflation would rise and rise, a problem we will keep coming back to. Government corruption was intense. The set quota for the number of court and capital officials was set at 2,600 persons. In the first year of Temur Oljeitu's reign, it was found to be over 10,000. In 1303, a corruption trial revealed bribery going to the very highest levels of Temur Oljeitu's government. A furious Khan pushed for further investigation, resulting in over 18,000 convictions of officials and clerks on bribery and other corruption charges. Rather typical of Temur Oljeitu though, was that he lacked the energy to carry out these charges and sweeping changes implied by such convictions. Most officials were let off with hardly as much as a warning, and many simply returned to their posts within the following years. While it has been common to attest the Yuan Dynasty's economic failings to corruption and lavish gift giving- which to be sure, there was no shortage of- recent research has highlighted a significant problem overlooked in such a presentation. The fourteenth century was the start of the Little Ice Age, a global climatic shift towards generally cooler and wetter temperatures, not counting for regional variations. Some variations in temperature and weather of the thirteenth century can be attributed to the massive eruption of the Indonesian volcano of Samalas in the late 1250s, with the Little Ice Age entailing more long term shifts. Cooler temperatures in general strongly affect the Asian monsoon season, which in the 14th century manifested into a general trend of intense colds and snowfall in Mongolia and the steppe, droughts in North China and unending rains and typhoons in southern China. These began to be felt in the very first years of Temur Oljeitu's reign. In 1295, the year after he became Khan of Khans, typhoons struck the Yangzi River delta, his empire's most densely populated region; the Yellow River broke its banks in multiple places and caused repeated flooding, and a dry spell from the previous years resulted in plagues of locusts that eradicated crops. Flooding, typhoons and locust plagues were annual problems for most of the 1290s. In Mongolia and the steppes, the winters turned harsh, and unexpected and high volumes of snow fell even in spring and summer, starving entire herds and forcing many to flee south to seek support for the Khan. So intense were these problems that in 1297 Temur Oljeitu changed his reign title from Yuanzhen, "Primary allegiance" to Dade, "great virtue." Usually reign titles were held for decades, so to change it after two years was a last-ditch attempt to appease the heavens. It was not just an ecological problem though. Khubilai Khan had continued the policy of huang zheng from the Song Dynasty. This was government-provided disaster relief, in the form of cash, food, normally grain or rice, farm tools, animals and other supplies to help the given stricken population through this period. It was a duty of the ruler of China, and fit well into Khubilai's policy of reconstruction after the Mongol conquest and relieving the burdens of the lower classes. None of Khubilai's heirs dared repeal such a law, for it became a basis of Yuan legitimacy. However, in a century that was to prove one of unprecedented, and worsening, climatic terrors over a vast geographic area, from the forests of Siberia, mountains of Tibet, Korea, Manchuria across all of China and its southern coast, this was to prove an impossible burden to meet. The detailed Chinese records reveal a dynasty facing a crisis every year. From 1272 until 1357, there was a major famine somewhere in China on average once every two years; over 56 earthquakes were recorded; super typhoons on the southern coast coincided with supersnowstorms in the steppe. Exceptionally cold winters and unexpected frosts meant certain crops could no longer be reliably grown in the north. The densely populated Yangzi River Delta, home to one of the most economically and agriculturally vital areas of the empire, was almost yearly suffering droughts, flooding, epidemics, starvation and typhoons which wiped away entire towns. For more than a third of the Yuan era, the empire experienced at least seven distinct natural calamanities within the same year! People died in the disasters by the thousands, and survivors died in the hundreds of thousands in the ensuing famines and destruction of farmland. Survivors needed to be brought onto government relief. Grain and rice shortages caused the Yuan to try and cover costs only with cash, and to provide more cash, more had to be printed, to the point it outstripped government revenues. Inflation was the result, and Yuan paper money became ever more worthless over the 1300s. Further, waves of natural calamanities always appear to symbolize the given dynasty had lost the support of heaven, and that the time was come for them to be overthrown. Temur Oljeitu's reign saw the beginning of these problems. In 1301, a spring drought in the Yangzi Delta was followed by a massive typhoon; arable farmland was destroyed for 50 kilometres along the coast line, and a 30-40 metre high wave pushed 280 kilometres inland! 17,000 were killed by storm by the storm itself, and 100,000 by the ensuing starvation. Only a month later, there was flooding displacing people in Manchuria, a freak August snowstorm in Mongolia, flooding around the imperial capital of Dadu, and a locust plague in Hebei province. From this year onwards, flooding somewhere in the Empire became an almost annual problem: in 1302, 50 days of torrential rain caused flooding in 14 prefectures in southern China, and in 1303 and 1305 severe earthquakes rocked the Central regions. And these problems would only become worse over the rest of the dynasty's history. The Khan was simply not equipped to handle this. The conservative-minded Temur Oljeitu and his chief ministers, Oljei and Harghasun, could not invigorate the dynasty for such an immense task as this. After the death of chief and favourite wife in 1299 and mother in 1300, and onset of illnesses from his years of heavy drinking, Temur Oljeitu lost much of his energy for governance, allowing another wife, the empress Buluqan, to overpower him. She sought to ensure the succession of their son, Deshou, a process in which she made many enemies, though even her hostile biography in the Yuan Shi recognized her as a just and able minister. Exiling and removing possible challengers to Deshou's accession, she was able to have Temur Oljeitu confirm him as heir in 1305… only for Deshou to die unexpectedly early in 1306. When Temur Oljeitu died in February 1307, he had no heirs and no surviving children, and was given the posthumous temple name of Chengzong. One Khan down, nine to go. Temur Oljeitu's death saw factions form immediately. Empress Buluqan had her allies, and sought to make Temur Oljeitu's cousin, Ananda, the next Great Khan. A Muslim and prince ruling over the former Tangut territories, Ananda had a powerful army and seemed a likely candidate.. Until Ayurburwada, a son of Temur Oljeitu's older brother Darmabala, led a coup in Dadu, arresting Ananda and Empress Buluqan and their allies. They died in prison soon after. Ayurburwada wanted to be Khan, but faced a challenge from his older brother Qaishan and his powerful and experienced army. A veteran of wars against Qaidu and their enemeis in the steppe, Qaishan was a fearsome foe, and war was only averted with the intervention of their mother, Targi. Agreement was reached, making Qaishan the Khan of Khans, and Ayurburwada his heir. So we have our second Khan of the episode, Qaishan, known also as Külüg Khan and by his posthumous temple name, Wuzong. Unlike Khubilai and Temur Oljeitu, Qaishan was a man of the steppe with no love or understanding for Chinese culture. He immediately changed course with Temur Oljeitu. Where his predecessor sought continuation of Khubilai's policies and maintained ministers, Qaishan removed most of Temur Oljeitu's adherents. Instead of seeking to rule through the Secretariats, Qaishan wanted to rule like a steppe nomad in the vein of Chinggis Khan, via his personal retainers and keshig. Lavish gifts were spent on his friends and allies, even building a palace for them. Princely titles were handed out like candy. And for this, only four months into his reign, Qaishan found he effectively spent well over a year's worth of government revenue: he found himself able to pay less than half of what he had promised in gifts to the aristocracy. In a panic, he spent the rest of the reign trying to address this. The price on salt licenses, one of the most important industries in the Yuan realm, was raised by 35%; prohibition on liquor production was lifted in order to collect taxes there. The tax debts that Temur Oljeitu had cancelled were now to be collected again. Most famously was Qaishan and his allies' currency program. New copper coins were minted, golder and silver were demonetarized and new paper bills put into circulation. The new currency was based on an exchange of 1:5 with the old, and the volume of currency printed in 1310 was 7 times higher than the three previous years! Qaishan's efforts did little good other than expand the bureaucracy needlessly and grow inflation. His sudden death in April 1311 after only a 4 year reign brings us to our third Khan, Qaishan's younger brother Ayurburwada Buyantu, posthumous temple name Renzong. This was the first fully peaceful transition…

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History of the Mongols SPECIAL: Dr. John Latham-Sprinkle on the Alans Apr 12, 2021

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The history of the Mongol Empire is not just a history of the Mongols, but the people they interacted with. In today's interview, our series historian, Jack Wilson, talks with Dr. John Latham-Sprinkle on one of those peoples affected by the Mongol Conquests, the Alans of the North Caucasus. Dr. John Latham-Sprinkle is a historian based at Ghent University in Belgium, whose work focuses on the history of the North Caucasus region, which today is part of the Russian Federation. He researches the Medieval kingdom of Alania, the formation of political power in imperial borderlands, and the history of slavery

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