Why mongols invaded

Hisson Ogodei conquered all of North China by and ruled it from to Genghis Khan's grandson, Kublai Khan, defeated the Chinese Southern Song in , and for the first time all of China was under foreign rule. In Kublai Khan named his dynasty Yuan which means "origin of the universe.

Kublai Khan followed a tentative policy of Sinicization, that is, he adapted to the Chinese way of governing and when you look at his portrait, he looks very much like other Chinese rulers. On the other hand, although he used some Chinese in low positions in the government, he abolished the civil service exams, preferred to use Chinese in his bureaucracy and established separate rules for the Mongols and for the Chinese. His capital, present-day Beijing, became a cosmopolitan and wealthy city.

Kublai Khan made a census of the population, dividing the people intofour categories: Mongols; Miscellaneous aliens which included West Asian Muslims who performed important services for the Mongols ; North Chinese called Han people, those who had been under the Chin state and their descendants, including Chinese, Jurchen, Khitans and Loreans; and finally Southern Chinese, subjects of the Southern Sung, whom the Mongols considered the least trustworthy.

The Mongols could not have ruled China without the help of some of the Chinese elite and yet they were reluctant to use the Chinese, particular the Southern Song, in their government. Although Genghis Khan used some Chinese in lower positions in his government, he abolished the civil service exams, kept separate laws for Mongols and for the Chinese, and preferred to employ foreigners rather than Chinese in his bureaucracy as he thought they would be more trustworthy than the Chinese.

Kublai Khan wanted to support agriculture and he created an Office for Stimulation of Agriculture. Although many of his people wanted to establish the herding way of life inside the wall, in he passed an edict prohibiting the nomads' animals from roaming on farm land.

He filled grain storage areas in case of future famines, especially in the north where lands had been damaged by constant fighting. Marco Polo said he fed 30, poor people every day in the capital. He organized the farmers into groups called she. Each she was composed of 50 families. They were encourage to do self-help projects like planting trees, working on irrigation and flood control, stocking rivers andlakes with fish, and promoting silk production. They were to monitortheir own members and reward those who worked well and punish those whowere lazy.

The she also helped the censor watch over the people. It promoted education in better agricultural techniques and basicliteracy. Kublai Khan organized a fixed, regular tax system. The people did no tpay their taxes to the local collectors but made just one payment to the central government. The government then paid the nobles. He demanded a great deal of corvee, especially to work on the extensions of the Grand Canal, to link the Yangtze River with his capital in order to get enough grain to the capital, on the postal system, and on construction of palaces and temples.

He not only demanded people provide labor but also horses and supplies. At the same time he issued edicts demanding overseers not to be oppressive. He did not use corvee to get farmers off their land so it could become grazing land. Both overland and maritime trade flourished. Marco Polo was only one of many traders to receive a warm welcome and to work for the Khan. Mongols themselves were not involved in the caravan trade; they encouraged others.

Kublai Khan used caravan merchants to gather intelligence, and he protected and encouraged them. Merchants felt secure and they had relatively high status in Yuan China. Kublai Khan was the first to put in country-wide use of paper currency.

Merchants had to convert foreign metals into paper money when they crossed into China. Artisans got grants of food and did not have to do corvee.

Marco Polo was very impressed with trade on the Yangtze. Despite the fact that the established Tatar rule was relatively peaceful, demanding taxation and the devastation from years of invasion left many major cities in disrepair for decades. It took years to rebuild Kiev and Pskov. However, Novgorod continued to flourish and the relatively new city centers of the Moscow and Tver began to prosper. Another downside to the Tatar presence was the continued threat of invasion and destruction, which happened sporadically during their presence.

Each new military invasion meant heavy tolls on the local population and years of reconstruction. Culturally, the Mongol rule brought about major shifts during the first century of their presence. Extensive postal road systems, military organization, and powerful dynasties were established by Tatar alliances.

Capital punishment and torture also became more widespread during the years of Tatar rule. Some noblemen also changed their names and adopted the Tatar language, bringing about a shift in the aesthetic, linguistic, and cultural ties of Russia life.

The Mongols had fought everywhere from the steppes of Mongolia to the snowy forests of Russia, from the mountains in Khubilai sent Nasir al-Din, son of his trusted retainer Saiyid Ajall into Burma with the objective of taking the Found inside — Page 64The most important historical event that set things in motion for the Thai migrations was the Mongol invasion of Pagan. With the advance of the Mongols , the sphere of power was shaken all around them. The Thai lords of Mangrai Found inside — Page The forests and mountains made it intimidating even for a modern army to occupy Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand from South China.

The Mongol campaign dragged on far into the sweltering heat of Summer and their troops grew exhausted, partly from the climate and partly from the efforts of the Vietnamese to make their lives awful. The invasions ushered in a period of political fragmentation, and the rise of Tai-Shan states throughout mainland Southeast Asia.

At the same time another army led by Dai Viet made continuous attacks and defeated Toghan's army on its route of [24] , At Pagan, Narathihapate deliberated with his court for an appropriate response but ultimately refused to submit.

On numerous occasions, Khubilai had sent ambassadors and messengers to urge the two monarchs, Tran Thanh-Tong of Dai Viet, and Jaya Indravarman VI of Champa, to come and personally attend him at Dadu, yet neither ever made the trip.

The stories of these and many other amazing feats of this 'barbarian' people are here brought vividly to life by Stephen Turnbull, from the birth of Genghis Khan in the wind-swept steppes of Mongolia, through the conquest of China and Hitting the stakes, their boats were halted and many were sunk. This technique was used The expedition first met the foe along the Yunnan-Burmese border, and the Mongol forces came very close to disastrous destruction then and there. Many people don't actually ask "Why did the Mongols invade China?

Found inside — Page And how did their Tai dialect develop into modern Thai language? These are two separate questions to answer. The most accepted theory is that in early times, the Tai people lived in south China, but the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth The battle took place either at the Vochang valley in present-day Baoshan Prefecture or km southwest at Kanngai present-day Yingjiang, Dehong Prefecture , which the Burmese called Ngasaunggyan.

The Empire fell most times after two hundred after being built. If Temujin was destined for greatness, there were few signs during his early years. At the age of eight or nine, his father was poisoned by a rival tribe, the Tatars, and he and his mother were rejected by their clan and forced out onto the grasslands of Mongolia, where they survived by foraging for berries, rats and birds. It was a humiliating, pitiful existence. Being friendless in the cut-throat world of 13th-century Mongolia was not a good place to be.

The young Temujin came to the realisation that his best chance of reversing his fortunes — and creating a powerbase for himself — lay in establishing alliances. Yet on the violent, febrile Mongolian steppe, even getting married could spell trouble. So he sought to secure another alliance, this time with a formidable leader named Toghrul.

Temujin won over Toghrul by reminding him that he had fought alongside his father, and sugar-coated the offer with a lavish sable coat. The gambit worked. Someone, however, stood in his way, and it was one of his greatest friends. Temujin had been blood brothers with a fellow warrior named Jamukha, also the son of a Mongolian tribal leader, for a number of years. In fact, Jamukha had played an instrumental role in the defeat of the Merkit. Yet, as the two had grown older, cracks began to appear in their friendship.

Soon, his distrust morphed into outright war. When Jamukha struck, it was with bloodthirsty ferocity. He was good to his word, and when his revenge came, it was total. Then a few months later, Jamukha was captured. Rather than dish out a fate similar to what befell his generals, though, Temujin showed him mercy… up to a point. Jamukha asked for a noble death, which meant without the shedding of blood.

His former friend granted him that, so had his back broken. Among the first people to feel the force of the newly united Mongol nation was the Western Xia of northwest China, who succumbed to a sustained Mongol invasion. In , Genghis followed that by attacking the Jin, gobbling up land, cities and loot in a spectacular campaign that culminated in the fall of Beijing. The Mongolians were highly adept at communicating over large distances, something they had honed over centuries of rounding up animals on the steppe.

This enabled them to slowly tighten the noose around the enemy. Guile was another key weapon in the Mongol armoury. Genghis Khan relied heavily on spies and was certainly not above using fake news as a tactic.

Genghis Khan was also a master of the feigned retreat, luring opponents out of defensive positions before delivering a lethal strike. Combine all this with his ability to quickly assimilate new technologies into his own army — such as Chinese siege weapons, mortars, gunpowder, not to mention thousands of captured troops — and you had a truly formidable foe. And then, of course, there was terror. Cities that put up a fight were routinely subjected to an orgy of destruction: their men butchered, women raped and buildings razed.

Yet in terms of sheer barbarity, the worst was yet to come.