What forces/incentives drove the Mongols to conquer a much larger territory than they could comfortably settle or rule?
score:26
Maybe someone more knowledgeable about the economics of a society like the medieval Mongols might expand on this, but to me it seems that such a civilization could generate much more income by conquering and looting new territory than what they could produce internally. This is also true to the nomadic people in the migration period some centuries earlier: Huns, Goths, etc.
Nomadic people had relatively little agriculture and industry, and a larger warrior to worker ratio than settled civilizations. Settled civilizations had more accumulated wealth which they accumulated over a relatively long period of time. So it is a lot quicker and easier to generate income by conquering their neighbors than by trading with them (what could they offer if they could not produce most of the luxury goods the richer civilizations needed?)
However, when conquering and looting new territory makes up most of your income, once you "exhausted" an area, you have to move on to find new places to conquer. This is why this system cannot be kept up for too long: once you stop, your income will drop and your economy will collapse. (similar effects contributed later, among other factors, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire)
It is like a vicious cycle: as you grow, the cost of maintaining your empire grows, and you need to conquer new territory to raise your income, and so on. Once you stop, the bubble will burst.
The one and only people of the migration period which managed to build a strong medieval kingdom and survived as a country to this day were the Hungarians, and only after adopting the way of living of other European kingdoms and giving up their nomadic lifestyle. All others vanished as quickly as they have risen.
Note: I know there are differences between the Mongol conquests and the migration period, I used them as yet another example when most of your income comes from conquering new territory.
Upvote:4
Taken directly from Asian Topics in World History: The Mongols in World History (emphasis mine):
The first question about the Mongol conquests is: Why did the Mongols erupt from Mongolia in the early 13th century to begin their conquests of the rest of the world, creating the largest contiguous land empire in world history? There has been considerable speculation about the reasons for the Mongol eruption from Mongolia, and though there is no scholarly consensus on specific reasons, many have pointed to the causes of ecology, trade disruptions, and the figure of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan.
Ecology. In the period from 1180-1220, Mongolia experienced a drop in the mean annual temperature, which meant that the growing season for grass was cut short. Less grass meant a real danger to the Mongols’ animals, and, since the animals were truly the basis of the Mongols’ pastoral-nomadic life, this ecological threat may have prompted them to move out of Mongolia.
Trade Disruptions. A second reason often mentioned is the attempt by Mongolia’s neighbors in north and northwest China to reduce the amount of trade with the Mongols. Since the Mongols depended on trade for goods that they desperately needed – such as grain, craft, and manufactured articles – cessation of trade, or at least the diminution of trade, could have been catastrophic for them. The attempts by the Jin dynasty, which controlled North China, and the Xia dynasty, which controlled Northwest China, to reduce the level of trade that the Mongols could expect, created a crisis for the Mongols. Unable to obtain goods that they so desperately needed, the Mongols’ response was to initiate raids, attacks, and finally invasions against these two dynasties.
Chinggis Khan’s Personal Mission. A third explanation has to do with Chinggis Khan himself, in particular his shamanic beliefs. It is said that Tenggeri, the sky god of the Mongols, gave Chinggis the mission of bringing the rest of the world under one sword – that is, bringing the rest of the world under the shamanic umbrella – a mission that may have motivated Chinggis to begin his conquests. Whatever the explanations, they all gravitate around the figure of Chinggis himself. Thus it is important to see what Genghis’ policies led to and to analyze his life and career.
Source: Asian Topics in World History: The Mongols in World History was produced by the Asia for Educators Program at Columbia University, with consulting faculty member Professor Morris Rossabi. The transcript is here.
Upvote:15
One reason that Genghis Khan's Mongols expanded so far as they did was because each success brought with it a new set of enemies.
Genghis Khan began by uniting the five core tribes: his own "Mongols," the Kereits, the Merkits, the Naiman, and the Tatars, accomplishing this by 1206. This earned him the emnity of several groups on the borders of the new "Mongolia," who had been allied with the other tribes. From east to west they were the Jin Dynasty (the Manchus), the Western Xia (including the Tanguts and Uighurs), and the Kara-Khitan (modern Kazakhstan). Genghis Khan had to defeat the first two and occupy the Kara-Khitan before his new country could be reasonably safe from invasion.
The last occupation caused him to want to restore the use of the so-called Silk Road, which extended through central Asia, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean. Genghis Khan sent a delegation to negotiate trade terms over this road with the Khwarezemid (greater Persian) Empire, but they interpreted his overtures as a demand for tribute, and executed his envoys, starting a war. Genghis Khan sacked several of their cities (Samarkand, Bokhara, and Urgench) before conquering this empire.
Some of his men elected to return home to Mongolia using the longer route around the western shore of the Caspian Sea. That brought them into further conflict with the Cumans (a Turkish people in South Russia), who were allied with the Khwarezemids. While fighting the Cumans near the Volga, the Mongols incurred the wrath of the Kievan Rus. (The Cuman king was the father-in-law of one of the Ukrainian princes.) So the Kievans began fighting the Mongols, who had offered them peace.
The process stopped when the Mongols ran out of enemies to fight or, to be more exact, when their remaining enemies became less threatening than the internal divisions that wracked the Mongolian empire after the death of Genghis Khan in 1227. But the pattern of Mongol conquest extended for several decades more before this happened.
Upvote:29
The Mongols were pastoralists. Livestock herders. As such, their culture naturally thrived on steppe (or grassland) territory. A pastoral nation is not tied to any one place, but rather moves around with its herds to find the best grazing. A militarily dominant pastoralist society will naturally attempt to take over all good grassland territory for itself.
Given that, I think a look at a map of the Eurasian steppe may prove enlightening. The green areas on the map below indicate good pasture land in Asia. Altaic pastoralists like the Mongols and Turks will naturally desire to take over all this territory possible.
Now let's look at a map of the Mongolian empire:
One thing becomes immediately obvious here: All Mongol-controlled territory was within easy reach of the Steppe. The largest incursions off of the steppe, into Persia and China, represented relatively rich settled societies. These places were wealthy enough that the Mongols could simply conquer them and place themselves into the top stratum of society to suck off the proceeds of existing empires.
More post
- 📝 Was a medical ship sunk during the evacuation from Dunkirk?
- 📝 What country has the shortest history of human habitation?
- 📝 Hitler's Death: Fact or Fiction
- 📝 How could a man be made a bishop of a place while not having received major orders?
- 📝 Has any country, other than Britain, given away its empire?
- 📝 What options were available to MacArthur to prepare for Chinese intervention in the Korean War?
- 📝 Plans to depose, disgrace, or assassinate Hitler
- 📝 What day of the week was the Battle of the Eclipse 585 BC?
- 📝 The nature of the Preliminary Articles of Peace of 1782
- 📝 Did Aurangzeb issue a farman promising 4 Rs for all males that convert and 2 Rs for females?
- 📝 Why didn't the United States occupy Baja California during the US-Mexican war?
- 📝 How rich were carpenters in Roman Galilee in the 1st century AD?
- 📝 What do historians infer about the world view of the ancient Egyptians based on the prophecy of Neferty?
- 📝 Why is it that the maiden name is traditionally dropped when a woman is getting married?
- 📝 Has Nursing Always Been Female Dominated Like Today (90+%)?
- 📝 Is there a term for the principle of preferring earlier statements over later statements made by historical eye witnesses?
- 📝 What is the etymology of the word "slave"?
- 📝 Has capital penalty ever been a municipal-level decision?
- 📝 What evidence is there for the severity of Roman scourging before crucifixion?
- 📝 When the king was away, did their queens sign Acts of Parliament on their behalf?
- 📝 Who standardized the Roman measurements?
- 📝 Were there any potential areas around Smolensk that Army Group Center might have found as defensible as the Rzhev line?
- 📝 Where can I find documents on the 1992 fight between French soldiers and Somalian fighters?
- 📝 Given their reputation for fighting to the last man in the Pacific, why did 700,000 Japanese troops surrender in Manchuria?
- 📝 Why did no one take Siberia over before the Russians, and how did they do it?
- 📝 Why wasn’t Japan colonized by the European empires?
- 📝 Was the British Empire financially capable of maintaining India as a colony after WW2?
- 📝 Why was Schuyler Colfax not present at the vote to reconsider the 13th amendment?
- 📝 Why didn't Nazi Germany destroy document archives while retreating from occupied territories?
- 📝 Did any Ethiopian leaders help the Italians?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What forces/incentives drove the Mongols to conquer a much larger territory than they could comfortably settle or rule?
- 📝 What factors contributed to the United States having a larger proportion of Jews than other British colonies?
- 📝 What incentives were there for Soviet and Chinese politicians to try climb to the top when there was so much history of deposing their own?
- 📝 What are the factors that caused the new world civilizations to be less technologically advanced than the old world?
- 📝 What is the reason for: "Risk taking must focus on winning rather than preventing defeat" in US Army Operations guides?
- 📝 What factors enabled Europe to conquer almost the whole world?
- 📝 How much faster were the printing presses than hand writing?
- 📝 What factors discouraged the Nazis from focusing all their forces on the Caucasus region during Operation Barbarossa?
- 📝 What weapons were manufactured in India by the British forces which were used during world wars?
- 📝 What was the attitude of Mongols to conquered peoples?
- 📝 What was the significance of the BEF moving into the gap between German forces in First Battle of the Marne?
- 📝 Why was the wording on war in Japan's postwar constitution so much stronger than in Germany's or Italy's?
- 📝 What was the maximum percent of the Soviet territory that was under Nazi control?
- 📝 What made India pull out troops and return the captured territory at the end of 1971 Indo-Pak war?
- 📝 What evidence is there of Asians and Africans in medieval Britain other than Moors in the 7th century?
- 📝 Why were the cities of the Eastern European Plain founded much later than those elsewhere in Europe?
- 📝 Were B-17s (rather than B-29s) ever used to bomb mainland Japanese territory during WW2 (at least before the capture of Okinawa)?
- 📝 Why did Frederick the Great do so much worse against the Russians than against his other enemies in the Seven Years' War?
- 📝 What were the incentives for joining the Roman army before the Marian reforms?
- 📝 What was the estimated malaria death toll for US Forces during World War II?
- 📝 During the defense of the home islands, what was Japan's plan for its forces off-island?
- 📝 What did Central America export in the early 20th century other than coffee and bananas?
- 📝 What was the Soviet reasoning for developing their Airborne Forces (VDV) into a powerful military branch?
- 📝 Was the Byzantine follis larger than the Roman (and why, if yes)?
- 📝 Was the death toll in the atomic bombing of Japanese territory greater than was expected by the US?
- 📝 Why did the price of eggs in Britain increase much more than for other basic foods during WWI?
- 📝 What were the rules of the migration to the Louisiana Territory in USA?
- 📝 What is the most historically prevalent reason of states dissolving, other than military activity?
- 📝 What were Aurangzeb Alamgir's motives for reversing much of the religious tolerance in the Mughal Empire?
- 📝 Other than coffee and tobacco what major product became Cuba's source of wealth in the 18th century?