Mongols, Flawless or Not (By Neelesh Manandhar)

The Mongols at The Battle of Kiev

I-Marco Polo- am about to embark on a journey across the world to China with my uncle and my father. My father is a merchant from Venice, we are traveling to the very root of the Mongols, a barbaric, bloodthirsty, cowardly and ruthless people whose culture is only that of methods of war and destruction. An example of their barbaric ways is when the Mongolians, or at least a branch of them attacked the city of Kiev and Moscow. It is said that the raid was so swift and so destructive that none were spared- even women and children. This type of bloodthirsty attack is typical of the Mongols and they breed their children as soon as possible to ride a horse and the games of war, one can see the blood thirst of the Mongolians when coming to Kiev five years after the battle a Catholic Bishop said, “When we passed through that land, we found lying in the field countless heads and bones of dead people.”. If this is not bad enough, the reasons why the Mongols did this are even worse, the Mongols attack and slaughter cities and towns in a type of psychological warfare, they slaughter everyone in order to instill fear into the next town and the next city and eventually the next continent. Using this tactic they have been able to build up so much fear and cruelty that I have heard an Islamic historian say, “In the countries that have not yet been overrun by them, everyone spends the night afraid that they may appear there too”, using this fear they build up a reputation so that when they go to the next town it surrenders without a fight. These are ruthless tactics because even though they work it means that all the men that have died in all their attacks died for just the Mongols reputation of fear. Besides their leader, Genghis Kahn, used ruthless and cowardly tactics to defeat his enemy, for example one of his main cowardly tactic that all the soldiers used was never actually facing the enemy. To clarify, what they would do is engage the enemy on horseback with strong bows and attack them then with their superior horses then ride of and continue that again and again, when their horses got tired they would get new horses. Using this tactic the enemy horses would get tired and the enemy men either would not think of remounting or did not have the means to remount, then the Mongolians would actually engage and many of the enemy would be tired from chasing and a lot of them would be dead from the arrows. This is a perfect example of why the Mongolians are cowardly- unlike our battle tactics where every man faces each other honestly they refuse to actually face any of their enemy, instead they use this cowardly tactic to defeat the enemy in a deceitful way. Another ruthless tactic is of them sending a small force to attack a large enemy at the base of a hill, even with their cowardly tactics the large force defeats them and then chases after them but, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, at the other base of the hill a large force is waiting and when the unsuspecting enemy soldiers comes over the hill the rest of the Mongolian troops slaughters the unsuspecting enemy. This tactic is ruthless because it gives the enemy a sense of false victory only to be slaughtered down to the last horse. My theory why the Mongolian soldiers are barbaric is because of the conditions that they are forced to live with, everything that they have for food is what they carry- even though they have a horse the amount is not enough for a 6 month campaign, I have heard rumors that for nourishment the soldiers open a small wound on their horse and drink the blood, another rumor is that cannibalism of the enemy is rampant among the soldiers. This is barbaric and the Mongol leaders purposely do this to their soldiers so that when they arrive at the next town they will not be hesitant in looting and killing if whatever they loot is theirs. This is barbaric on their leaders and therefore the Mongols part- how can they make the conditions for the soldiers this barbaric only to achieve more land? Because of their morals, battle style, and soldier conditions, I believe that the Mongols are ruthless, barbaric, blood thirsty, and cowardly.     

The Mongol Empire

I was recently reading my previous entry from before I had started out on this journey and I am amazed by my ignorance of my previous self. I have grown in the seventeen years that I have stayed at Kublai Khan’s court, the descendant of Genghis Kahn, and have learned the qualities of good leadership and how different cultures interact with each other. Before I began this trip I thought I knew everything there is to know about the Mongols, namely that they were slaughterers and barbarians, now I am astonished by everything there is to know about their culture and way of life. One of the reasons why I believe they are not barbaric is how Kublai Kahn improved China, he did this by opening up China to trade in Europe, I have even heard of  Chinese trade with France on the other side of the world. This is an obvious benefit to the Chinese with all the trade and money going to them, and the Europeans could benefit quite a bit more from the Chinese, for example China has so many inventions that the Europeans could use that they have only heard of because of poor trade, for example the black stones, even though the Chinese have wood, they use a small black stone that can heat their fires for longer periods of time and is more efficient. Imagine the amount of wood we use back at home, using this black stone we could be so much more efficient than cutting down trees for firewood. Another rather scary invention of the Chinese is their use of a black powder that they use in fireworks. From my observations I have seen this black powder explodes when lit and shoots a fire into the sky. How can the Mongols be such bad people if they are allowing and increasing the quality of trade of this invention and much more to Europe and more so opening China up to Europe and the civilization in the west? I have even heard of this powder back at home but know I realize that word of it has spread to Europe because of Pax Mongolica. The first time I heard of Pax Mongolica, or Mongolian peace, I thought it could never work, how could a civilization that brutalized hundreds of towns somehow become peaceful and allow Pax Mongolica? From what I have gathered from my time in Kublai Kahn’s court, Pax Mongolica is not necessarily something that the Mongols invented but rather allowed and helped. Mongolian Peace basically allows merchants to travel the entire length of the Mongolian Empire safely, this seems unenforceable because of the brutal and violence stricken upbringing of the Mongolians, but instead the Mongolians seem to help Mongolian Peace. For example Kublai Kahn, the ruler of China and more, has helped the travel of trade within China by improving and building canals throughout China that help goods move faster by water rather than land. He has improved roads so that when there is no canal, merchants can still get through rocky areas, even more so Kublai Kahn has proven to me that the Mongols are decent people because of their promotion of trade in Pax Mongolica. Because of Kublai Kahn’s actions in trading with Europe he has convinced me that Mongolians, for he represents his race, are not in fact barbarians, but rather openers of the east to the west. Yet even when I learned that I was still skeptical of the goodness of the Mongols, then later on in my visit I saw how the Mongols embraced other religions, I decided then that if the Mongols have embraced other religions then they must be peaceful and good people, in other words the exact opposite of what I thought before my journey. An example of how the Mongols have adopted others religions is Kublai Kahn’s palace, he has adopted the Chinese culture and his palace is decorated with the Chinese dragon. Not only that but he has adopted all of China’s religions, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism- he has truly embraced all of China’s religions.  The people, by my standard, also live peacefully and with justice, in his capitol city there is a guard and a curfew, after the curfew only those who are sick or who are about to give birth may go out. If someone is caught out and is not sick or about to give birth they are reprimanded, this lowers the crime rate and keeps the people happy that there are no robberies. This treatment of the Chinese shows that the Mongols are not in fact destroyers and killers if they are embracing religions and keeping their people safe. Because of the Mongolians upholding of Pax Mongolica, tolerance and embracement of religions, and the treatment of the people I conclude that unlike what I said before, the Mongolians are peaceful and good people that are openers of the east to the west.  

            As a 21^st century historian I look back on the Mongol Empire and see death and destruction, but also a brilliant period marked by brilliant people who brought the east closer to the west. The period is known for its wealth and trade that peacefully went from China to Europe but also for the bloody story of how the Mongols came to power. I think that history has such different outlooks on the Mongols because different people experienced the Mongols in different ways, for example the people who heard or saw the fall of Kiev probably have a very negative outlook on the Mongols. Where as the people who were born in China, when Kublai Kahn was in power, and new ideas were being brought to China because of Mongolian peace would have a better look on the Mongols. Because of the vast differences of the Mongol Empire, slaughtering entire towns while getting to power, and embracing and reinforcing Pax Mongolica, people who saw only one would have a very firm opinion of the Mongols while some who saw both may favor one side or just be very confused. One of the empires that I think the Mongolians are most like is the Roman empire, they are alike because they both overextended themselves, had the same policy for who they conquered, and  had the same policy when it came to religion and culture of the people they conquered.  The easiest comparison is that both the Roman and Mongolian Empire over extended themselves, in other words they got too big for their government. In Rome they eventually conquered almost all the land bordering on the Mediterranean, even though they had a strong government their capital was in Italy which was too far for some of the lands that the Romans had. These regions that Rome had captured did not consider themselves Roman and rebelled against Rome because they wanted to be self governing, this started the crumbling of the empire. Likewise the Mongolian Empire overextended itself, at one point it stretched from Poland to China, to deal with this problem they divided the empire into khanates, or multiple regions but there was a lot of resentment against the Mongols because the people did not know their culture or liked their governing method. These people, such as in China, eventually rebelled against the Mongols because the Mongols demanded payment and taxes from them when they did not consider themselves part of the empire. Roman policy for those they conquered was simple, for those in nearby areas they would grant them citizenship, for those farther out they would grant them full citizenship but not the right to vote, and for those farther out they would become allies of Rome. The allies of Rome were regions that were essentially self governing except Rome could ask whenever and they would have to give troops. This was essentially a tax or a tithe of men which was basically what the Mongols had, for every town they conquered, any who survived must pay a yearly tithe or tax, there were no other requirements. One can see the similarity of the Roman policy and the Mongolian policy but also another similarity that goes along with policy is their tolerance of religion and culture. In the Roman Empire the people who they conquered were not forced to change their religion or their culture, instead what happened was that the Roman Empire would adopt the religion and therefore the culture of that area. Likewise the Mongolian Empire would adopt the culture of that area, for example when the Mongols attacked and defeated the Islamic Empire they adopted the culture and religion there, Muslim, another example is that of when the Mongols conquered China. Under Kublai Khan the culture of China was preserved and the Mongols adopted Confucianism and Buddhism, two of the main religions there. Through this we can see that the Mongolians and the Romans were very similar civilizations because of the way they over extended themselves, their treatment of the lands they conquered, and the treatment of the religion and culture of those they conquered.                                         

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