Deathlands 50 pandoras.., p.7
Storm from the East, page 7
Perhaps the most chilling statistic that illustrates this stunning disregard for their sedentary neighbours comes from their own records. A census taken by the Chin empire in 1195 showed a population in northern China of fewer than 50 million people, yet when the Mongols took their first census of their newly won domain in 1235–6 they counted fewer than 9,000,000. Even assuming that enormous numbers of people may not have been counted because of the general state of chaos in northern China, this kind of discrepancy in the numbers suggests that Mongol policies of terrorism were akin to genocide. As was pointed out earlier, although the population of western Asia was far lower than that of China, the effects of the Great Raid were, if anything, proportionally much worse.
China’s recovery from these disasters took longer than necessary because of the Mongols’ unwillingness to assume responsibility for their conquests. They continued to be more than satisfied with the regular payment of tribute: silk, grain and precious metals, as well as sophisticated war machinery built by captured artisans. Though they had acquired rights over vast areas of land in China and Persia, both with long traditions of complex and sophisticated self-administration, the Mongols saw no immediate need to rely upon these traditions in the running of their new domains. Indeed, for some time they saw no need for an official government structure at all; and when pressed to deal with a crisis they would respond in a somewhat ad hoc fashion, usually delegating responsibility to a foreign official who carried out his job under distant Mongol supervision.
So, although at the end of Genghis Khan’s life it cannot quite be claimed that he had forged an empire, nor is it accurate to suggest that, having withdrawn their armies, the Mongols took no further interest in the conquered lands. Quite the opposite; and it is in this particular respect that the legacy of Genghis Khan differs dramatically from, say, that of Alexander, Attila, Tamerlane and Napoleon. It is clear that Genghis believed he had established a dynasty that had won the submission of most of western and central Asia and northern China – and that he expected it to endure long after his death. But it was also clear that no steppe nation had ever conquered this much territory before and that the Mongols would have to employ new policies with regard to it. Quite what those policies would be was not yet certain, but the Mongols were above all things practical and were never too proud to learn from others.
THE GOLDEN CLAN
As the empire expanded, eventually to encompass all of the Middle East and China, the Mongols became much more sophisticated in their methods of government, though initially they were not seduced by the obvious sophistication of either the Chinese or Persian administrations. They preferred to employ the administrative experience of people who had an acceptable nomadic pedigree, such as the Uighurs, who occupied the lands to the east of the Tien Shan Mountains, and the Khitans, who had been the rulers of northern China before the Jurchen Chin. From the Uighurs, of course, the Mongols had adopted an alphabet and their traditions of commercial law, while from the Khitans they borrowed such intangibles as concepts, vocabulary and institutions.
The most significant institution they took from the Khitans was the darughachi, a sort of all-purpose Mongol official who was stationed in conquered territory and became, in effect, a kind of provincial military governor. It was his responsibility to ensure that the local communities did not renege on the submissions they had made to the Mongols. These officials had a swift and reliable line of communication with the Great Khan, and any hint of revolt was dealt with immediately. However, the darughachi’s most vital responsibility was to ensure that the appropriate taxes were collected and forwarded to the central chancellery in Mongolia. Darughachi had been recruited from the ranks of the keshig, the imperial guard, whose allegiance was to the life and wellbeing of the Great Khan. All lines of communication led to him – or the aristocracy that had been created around him. This aristocracy, or the Golden Clan as it was known, was the families that could trace their lineage to Genghis Khan himself. The most important of these were Genghis’s four sons born of his first wife, Borte. It was only they and their descendants who had the right to rule.
These four – Jochi, Chaghadai, Ogedei and Tolui – formed the bedrock of the dynasty. To ensure the Golden Clan’s endurance, Genghis had devised a system of appanages, or ulus, that were distributed among the members of his clan and honoured commanders who had distinguished themselves in warfare. These tracts of territory extended only over lands where nomadic peoples tended to dwell and provided the holder with a source of wealth, for along with the land came a contingent of army units plus animals, artisans and artists. The holders of these ulus also shared in the tax revenues from other parts of the empire. The ulus varied in size, depending upon the age of the recipient and the esteem in which he was held, and his subsequent wealth reflected his status within the Clan. The majority of ulus were of the order of many hundreds of square kilometres; however, those distributed to Genghis’s sons were much larger.
Before he set out on the campaign into western Asia, Genghis had already settled the question of succession, and before he died he had also set out the geographical shape of the future empire through the ulus he designated to his four sons. It was Mongol tradition to pass to the eldest son the lands furthest from home. Jochi, the eldest, had died some months before his father, and so all the lands ‘to the west as far as the hoof of a Mongol horse trodden’, were divided among his sons. The eldest, Orda, was given possession of the land from the northeast shores of the Aral Sea and the districts around the Sari Su River. This was later called the White Horde, and precious little is known about it. His younger brother, the able but youthful Batu, received land to the north-west, stretching from the northern shores of the Caspian as far west as the Volga and east as far as the Irgiz River. This became known as the Golden Horde, and would in time prove extraordinarily extensive. Chaghadai, a kind of Lord Chancellor, was given the lands in Central Asia that had previously been the land of the Qara Khitai, to which was later added Transoxiana. Ogedei received the lands northeast of Chaghadai’s – the Ala Kul, the Tarbagatai Mountains, the Kara Irtish River and the region extending from the Altai Mountains to Lake Baikal. Tolui, the youngest son, received the Mongol ‘heartland’, the traditional inheritance of the youngest-born.
Although Genghis had already decided upon Ogedei as his successor, it was two years before he actually assumed the title of Great Khan. Some suggest it was because Ogedei himself was reluctant, feeling that Tolui might perhaps have been better suited, while other sources suggest it was Tolui who was unhappy about being passed over. At any rate, a quriltai was called in 1229 at which the issue was finally settled.
THE GREAT KHAN OGEDEI
Ogedei was, by all accounts, the most intelligent and certainly the most generous and tolerant of the four brothers. Judging from the number of stories that have survived about him, it would seem that he spent a great deal of his time devising expedients by which those who had fallen foul of Chaghadai’s stern judgements might escape the death penalty. Ogedei was also a great bon viveur, having a well-developed taste for wine. After being admonished by his elder brother for his excessive drunkenness, Ogedei is supposed to have meekly forsworn his past behaviour and promised to restrict himself to a specific number of cups of wine a day – though not before taking the precaution of obtaining the most enormous wine goblet!
But these accounts of Ogedei do not paint his full character. Under his control the proto-empire established by his father expanded into a commonwealth of the most prodigious size. The first and most important action undertaken was the long-overdue conquest of the Chin. This campaign, begun by Genghis in 1211, had been continuing for more than twenty-five years. Ogedei was determined to bring matters to a swift conclusion, but first he had to make up lost ground. After the death of Muqali, the general whom Genghis had left in charge of the campaign, the Chin had reconquered a large tract of territory around the Wei valley and in Shensi. Genghis had always known that defeating the Chin would not be easy and he had advised his sons that they would probably need the aid of the Sung empire, to the south in the traditional heartland of China.
In 1230 a new Mongol offensive began, but it was soon repulsed. In 1231 they returned under the command of Subedei and, although they made some ground, they were again repulsed from the Wei valley. Ogedei finally decided to take his father’s advice and make a supreme effort to court the Sung. The Mongols’ aim was to try to approach K’ai-feng, the current Chin capital, through Sung territory. If they could also exploit a hundred-year-old hatred between the two dynasties and actually recruit the Sung armies to their cause, then that would be a bonus. Ogedei took command of the bulk of the Mongol army and marched it in an easterly direction along the banks of the Yellow River. Tolui took a contingent of 30,000 in a large sweeping movement down into Sung territory, taking the city of Hang-chung, then moved south towards Szechwan. There he turned and moved north-west again, crossing the Han River and suddenly appearing inside Chin territory. By early 1232, his forces depleted from disease and malnutrition, he had joined up with Ogedei Khan’s army again. Almost immediately the Mongols were confronted by a Chin army led by one of their most able generals, Wan-yen Yi.
The battle was hard fought, with the outcome turning many times, but eventually the Chin were defeated. Wan-yen Yi was captured and the Mongols, impressed by his ability, tried to persuade him to join their side. He refused, preferring death to dishonour. The Chin, in the meantime, had withdrawn their forces to K’ai-feng, abandoning the rest of their territory. The subsequent siege of K’ai-feng was undertaken first by Ogedei; but, when the Chin emperor refused to submit to Mongol rule, the inevitable long-drawn-out campaign against one of the largest and best-fortified cities in China was left to Subedei. It turned out to be a far more difficult exercise than any other that the Mongols had faced. According to a Chinese account, it seems that the Chin were employing a new weapon that was having a devastating effect on Subedei’s forces ‘…great mortars that roared like thunder in the heaven’. The Mongols were confronted by what is thought to have been their first experience of gunpowder and their forces were in danger of being destroyed at the very gates of the city.
While Subedei was left to get on with the investment of K’ai-feng, Ogedei and his brother Tolui returned to the mountain passes to spend the summer. While they were together, both Ogedei and his brother became seriously ill and news reached Subedei that the Great Khan was not expected to survive. There are many different stories about the events at the mysterious summer retreat. One legend has it that Ogedei’s illness caused so much concern that the great Lord Tengri, the Mongol God, was called upon to come to his aid. The Lord God in heaven agreed to take the life of another in place of Ogedei’s, and Tolui volunteered. This particular legend was developed among the later rulers of the empire, who were to be descendants of Tolui. It is far more likely that the story was invented to enhance the circumstances of Tolui’s death, which was probably caused by nothing more mysterious than alcoholic poisoning. The two of them had perhaps partaken of a less than wholesome brew, and only Ogedei recovered.
In the meantime, Subedei’s own situation was becoming desperate. As he was losing men at an alarming rate, he had to find a quick way of bringing the military stand-off to an end. He took the initiative and approached the Sung for help. The Sung emperor agreed, in return for a couple of Chin provinces – Honan and K’ai-feng. Soon 20,000 fresh Sung troops arrived at the gates of K’ai-feng, and the city collapsed shortly afterwards.
The destruction and plundering of K’ai-feng in 1234 was followed by the execution of all the male members of the Chin Dynasty, while the women were deported to the Mongol court. These scenes were witnessed by the Sung generals and would haunt them in the years to come. Subedei was about to set upon the rest of the population when one of Ogedei’s advisers, Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai, intervened.
LIBERAL INFLUENCES: YEH-LU CH’U-TS’AI
Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai already had a reputation at the Chin court at Chung-tu even before he entered Mongol employment, where he later shone as a great statesman. A Khitan by birth, he was related to the old Liao dynasty, though his father and grandfather had been functionaries in the Chin court. Educated as an astronomer/astrologer, he was brought up with Buddhist ideals though his future lay as a typical Confucian administrator. After the fall of Chung-tu, Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai was among the prisoners brought before Genghis Khan. When Genghis asked if he was not glad that his forefathers had been avenged now that the Chin were defeated, Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai reminded Genghis that both his father and grandfather had served in the Chin court. ‘How can I, as a subject and a son, be so insincere at heart as to consider my sovereign and my father as enemies?’ Genghis was impressed with the young man’s strong sense of loyalty and immediately recruited him into his budding administration. Before long Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai was recruiting others from the ranks of the Chin, Khitan and Chinese prisoners. He rescued libraries from the torch, gathering up documents and books wherever the Mongol armies travelled, and along with his growing staff fashioned a makeshift, mobile civil service. After Genghis’s death he was inherited by Ogedei and became one of his closest advisers.
It is Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai who is credited with having moderated the Mongols’ worst excesses, and in particular with radically altering their approach towards gathering revenue. But it was after the fall of K’ai-feng and the conquest of the Chin that he is said to have made his most important stand. It had been seriously proposed by Subedei and the other generals that, after the artisans, merchants and scholars had been rounded up and sent off to Mongolia, the rest of the population should be put to the sword – not the population of K’ai-feng, but the entire population of north China.
The millions of Chinese peasants had been a source of concern to the Mongols for some time, not just because their labour seemed incomprehensible, but because their sheer numbers were so disquieting. They made utterly useless soldiers; besides which, the vast amounts of good land they occupied might be better used as pasture for the Mongol herds. As mass extermination was being seriously debated, Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai energetically argued against it. He pointed out that if the peasants were left alone and allowed to prosper, and he was granted permission to introduce a fair and progressive system of taxing the product of their labours, the Mongols’ income from north China would be massively enhanced. Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai’s scheme was to try to introduce a proper budget for the running of the Mongol court and army. This meant raising a tax that would be uniform throughout the empire. A settled population would pay 10 per cent of its harvest, while nomadic people would provide one animal for every hundred owned. In particular he wanted to do away with the Mongols’ unproductive methods of gathering tax. Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai’s reforms came slowly, though once the increased revenue and produce started flowing, Ogedei became more sympathetic and talk of mass extermination ceased.
Although Genghis held Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai in high esteem, his influence within the Mongol court as a scribe, astrologer and principal minister was not really felt until the reign of Ogedei. The second Great Khan was more open to foreign ideas and prepared to practise foreign methods, although by comparison with his principal minister he was still a determined nomad. It had been Genghis’s great wish that the empire should remain largely steppe-based – that, however large it grew, the centre of power would not shift to any of the settled societies but remain firmly in the Mongol heartland. However, with the empire now expanding on all sides, a burgeoning administration struggling to keep pace, coupled with an ever-increasing traffic of supplicants and envoys arriving to pay tribute to the Great Khan, the traditional encampment of tents and gers was inadequate. The Mongols had to have a capital.
CAPITAL OF A NOMADIC PEOPLE
Rather in the manner in which cities like Washington, DC, Brasilia and Canberra were constructed out of nowhere, Qaraqorum emerged from the midst of a great grassy waste to be the notional focus for the greatest land-based empire in history. After the collapse of the empire it quickly fell into decay, and the majority of its permanent buildings were plundered for materials during the construction, in the sixteenth century, of a nearby Buddhist monastery. The location of Qaraqorum was subsequently lost to history until it was rediscovered in the nineteenth century, and excavated by the Russians during the first half of the present century. Evidence from these excavations suggests that the site had been used by a Buddhist community long before the Mongol empire, and that during the time of Genghis Khan it was a kind of tent city, being both a military camp and a trading centre for commerce and handicrafts.
In some respects, it was a curious location for the seat of government. It was not in original Mongol territory but in the border regions, roughly midway between Ogedei’s and Tolui’s ulus in the Orkhon valley – territory that had once been occupied by the Naimans. However, for the steppe peoples the location had great significance. It was close to the crossroads of a series of traditional highways that had been used by migrating nomads and merchants’ caravans for centuries. Forest-dwelling nomads passed through the area during their annual migrations to and from the south, while Islamic merchants journeying to and from China passed through the same valley in an east-west direction. These ancient highways were still being used, so it made great sense for the capital to be placed at this important point.
Work began on the city while Ogedei was still on campaign against the Chin, and the first walls went up in 1235. According to the archaeologists, it was constructed on an artificial hill composed of alternate layers of sand and clay. The city itself was surrounded by an earthen wall about 1 km (1,100 yards) across the northern face, 1.5 km (1,650 yards) down the western side and about 2 km (2,200 yards) down the opposite wall. These were only about 1 m (3 feet) high but some 15–18 m (50–60 feet) thick. To the west of these, in the south-western corner of the site, was Ogedei’s palace area, which was itself a walled compound. At the southern end of this compound there were two massive gates, set one in front of the other; an outer gate was some 30 m (100 feet) high. Inside the compound were two large halls used for audiences, banquets and the reception of guests. The larger was more than 80 m (250 feet) long and was described by Friar William of Rubruck, a French friar who went to the Mongol empire as an evangelist:
