The Rise of Chinggis Khan and Mongol Unification

PAX MONGOLICA : THE STEPPE EMPIRE OF THE MONGOLS HIST 1301 | History The Rise of Chinggis Khan and Mongol Unification Even though more and more steppe people were living as nomads, many of them were still in stable groups. The fundamental unit of steppe culture was the clan, which was a small group of several families that lived in a common encampment and engaged in joint hunting and herding. To prevent inbreeding, each clan maintained a governing bloodline from which leaders were chosen. This lineage also intermarried with other lineages. As a result, the governing families established a kind of aristocracy. It was possible to go from being a commoner to an aristocracy since clans may split apart and form a governing lineage for a new clan, albeit starting and maintaining a clan required significant effort. The adoption of children and widows was popular among the steppe peoples due to their high mortality rate. Men who could afford to sustain several women and the children they would bear engaged in polygamy, and most families had several slaves. Raids on smaller, less prepared tribes were frequently used to collect cattle, children, women, and enslaved individuals. In order to better secure their herds and houses, work together on resource management and migration, and take part in coordinated activities like raids on neighbouring clans, clans came together to establish tribes under a single chief. Eurasian tribes were loosely structured, frequently bilingual and multiethnic, available to anybody willing to follow the leader, and not restricted to any particular familial network. Clans moved in and out of tribes in accordance with their desires and requirements. Occasionally, many tribes banded together under a single charismatic or able leader to form a bigger confederation. This unity was seldom maintained for more than a generation or two. In the late twelfth century, the Mongolian grasslands were home to several clans and tribes. The ongoing clan raids were exacerbated by the longstanding animosity between these nomadic clans, which was fostered by settled peoples such as the Jin and Song. A Tatar-led confederation was urged and supported by the Jin to battle the Mongol-led confederation in 1161 because the Jin were worried that a confederation led by Mongolian speakers was becoming too strong. Speaking Tatar was the language of many Turks living in the plains to the north of China. (It is challenging to characterise a group led by a speaker of one language as actually having a similar ethnic background or long-standing community relationship, such as a contemporary nation possesses, given the mobility of membership in clans, tribes, and confederations. However, researchers tend to refer to confederations of seminomads by the predominant language of their leader, maybe for simplicity's sake.) The Mongol confederation's clans were forced to create new tribes and look for opportunities to join other confederations as a result of the Tatar onslaught. at this setting, at their camp between the Onon and Herlen Rivers, Hoelun, the principal wife of one of the clan chiefs of the recently vanquished Mongol alliance, gave birth to a son. Originally named Temujin, the boy is now more well recognised by the title he went on to earn later in life and the name most people associate with him: Chinggis Khan, which translates to "universal ruler." He fundamentally altered the course of global history and drastically reshaped the relationships between the nomadic communities on the Eurasian Steppe. Prior to his transformation into Chinggis Khan, the formidable head of the biggest empire in the world at the time, Temujin is not mentioned in any historical accounts. The most possibly trustworthy source is a book titled The Secret History of the Mongols, which was probably published after Khan passed away. However, it is dubious since it is based only on oral history that non-Mongols have interpreted. Although Temujin's family's fight for survival is chronicled in great detail in The Secret History of the Mongols, the book presents a dismal image of their life on the steppe. The competing clan momentarily had Temujin as a slave until a kind family assisted him in escaping. Raiders from the Merkit Mongol tribe ambushed and abducted Temujin's bride, Borte, shortly after their marriage. Shortly after Temujin's request for assistance from Ong Khan, the head of the Kereit Mongol confederation, she gave birth to a son. Temujin acknowledged the kid as his own even though it was unknown at the time who the father was. Temujin split from his companion and clan chief Jamukha at some time in the early 1180s, forming a new clan in which he served as leader. When the Jin persuaded Ong Khan to invade the Tatar Confederation in 1187, Temujin was so powerful and well-known that Ong Khan resorted to him. After defeating the Tatars, Ong Khan and Temujin obtained opulent riches that were unheard of by Temujin's people. This made his clan even more popular. Jamukha developed his clan to keep up with Temujin as the allied clans flourished. Before long, those living in the steppe's Mongol-speaking region had to decide between joining Temujin or Jamukha or running the risk of being attacked by either group. Partly in response to his own upbringing's hardships, Temujin drastically altered traditional Mongol customs, setting the stage for his eventual establishment of a vast, multiethnic empire. He took class distinctions into consideration as he waged war against a more diverse range of opponents. He murdered the heads of competing clans and punished those who led any resistance, but he frequently spared the common people and incorporated the soldiers into his army. In order to reduce future retaliatory attacks by those who fled, he gave his soldiers orders to stop raping and plundering and to pursue any warriors who were escaping in order to either kill or capture them. Instead of selling the abducted adult males into slavery, he tried the members of noble lineages for whatever offence he had claimed to be the reason for the raid. They were executed if found guilty, which was the usual result. Then Temujin shared the raid's loot evenly among the participants and the homes of his comrades who were slain in the attack. He lessened the motivation for his men to defect by promising that their wives and orphans would not be left to the mercy of whoever took them in. Temujin also organised his troops into ten-man groups that were bonded to one another by loyalty pledges, as well as units of one hundred and one thousand that selected their own commanders and made corresponding oaths. He appointed commanders only at the highest level, ten units of one thousand warriors, and only based on merit and allegiance to him, not on bloodline or clan affiliation. The formations their leaders wanted in the heat of combat were identified by the units through simple melodic chants and precision motions practiced. This creative group not only created a lethal and effective fighting force, but it also gave all men a common, classless role in society and brought together a growingly diverse group of steppe people from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Temujin started referring to these people as the People of the Felt Walls, a reference to their cloth-covered homes. Temujin's reforms created a new class-based split in steppe culture that may be considered class conflict in modern times. Nobility started to dread Temujin and allied with Jamukha, but commoners wanted the benefits and safety of being part of the People of the Felt Walls. The elderly Ong Khan started to support Jamukha because he disagreed with Temujin's critique of custom and aristocratic privilege. Temujin escaped to a meeting with his senior leaders, who pledged fresh allegiance to one another in the Baljuna Covenant, after Ong Khan attempted to trick him into falling into a trap. For succeeding generations, the covenant served as a focal point and a representation of Mongol nationality. The individuals who made the covenant represented at least four distinct religions: Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, and the ancient Mongol worship of Tengri, the Eternal Blue Sky. They were drawn from nine different clans. The People of the Felt Walls were united not by blood, race, or religion, but rather by a strong sense of loyalty to the civic society Temujin had established. Baljuna sent word to the dispersed People of the Felt Walls to get together and locate Temujin and the others in a secluded area of the steppe. Ong Khan thought Temujin was holed up in the east, a week's ride distant. On the other hand, Temujin's adherents were considerably closer. Using the element of surprise, they surrounded Ong Khan's army and launched a three-day assault. Many of Ong Khan and Jamukha's supporters became demoralised and joined Temujin. As Ong Khan entered territory under the authority of the Naiman, the final confederation capable of resisting the Temujin, he was murdered. As Temujin continued to grow and the Naiman took in Jamukha and other Ong Khan refugees, war between the two tribes seemed unavoidable. Temujin's tactical skills and strict discipline paid off, and the Naiman crumbled in 1204, its leadership either dead or in flight. The People of the Felt Walls welcomed the survivors. Eventually, Jamukha's supporters turned him in, and he was killed along with others who had betrayed him because Temujin believed their master should have punished them for their betrayal.