The Mongol Empire

1206 O.S. – 1368 O.S.63 items

empiresmedieval
A lord travelling, with a rider carrying a paiza, from a copy of Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles, Tabriz, early fourteenth century. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Diez A fol. 71. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
A lord travelling, with a rider carrying a paiza, from a copy of Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles, Tabriz, early fourteenth century. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Diez A fol. 71. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

From the Onon to the Danube and the Yellow Sea, 1206–1368

In 1206 the tribes of the Mongolian steppe raised Temüjin as Genghis Khan. In fifty years his sons and grandsons took northern China, Central Asia, Iran, the Rus’ lands and Baghdad, and at its height the empire covered some 24 million square kilometres, the largest land empire there has been. It split into four khanates after 1260, and in 1368 the last of Kublai’s line in China rode north out of Khanbaliq ahead of the Ming.

How it is laid out

  • The Great Khans as bands (tag great khans), with the widows who ruled as regents between them.

  • The four khanates as overlapping bands (tag khanates), each with its extent around its height drawn on the map: the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate, the Ilkhanate and the Yuan.

  • The great campaigns as routes: Khwarazm, Jebe and Subutai’s ride round the Caspian, Batu’s march to Legnica and Mohi, Hülegü to Baghdad, and the two fleets sent to Japan.

  • Threads to filter by: war, sieges, trade, religion, diplomacy and women.

Two calendars

Dates are in the Julian calendar, the way historians give every date before 1582, whether a Rus’ chronicle, a Chinese annal or a Persian history first recorded it. Two events are entered as the Persian chroniclers Juvaini and Rashid al-Din dated them, in the Hijri calendar, and the app converts them. The Mongols themselves counted years by the twelve animals: the Secret History puts the great assembly of 1206 in the Year of the Tiger.

On the numbers

The death tolls of Merv, Nishapur and Baghdad come from chroniclers writing to convey horror, and historians regard them as inflated. They are given here as the chroniclers’ figures, never as counts.

But as God gives us the different fingers of the hand, so has He given to men divers ways. — the Great Khan Möngke to William of Rubruck, Karakorum, 1254

Items

  1. Reign of Genghis Khan

    ≈ 21 years

  2. Temüjin is proclaimed Genghis Khan

    Headwaters of the Onon, Khentii Mountains

  3. Western Xia submits

    Zhongxing (Yinchuan), the Western Xia capital

  4. Zhongdu surrenders

    Zhongdu, the Jin capital (south-west Beijing)

  5. The Otrar incident

    Otrar

  6. The Khwarazmian campaign

    ≈ 2 years, 5 months · Mongol lines of march through Khwarazm, 1219–1221 (schematic)

  7. Jebe and Subutai’s great raid

    4 years · Jebe and Subutai round the Caspian, 1220–1223 (schematic)

  8. Genghis Khan at Bukhara

    Bukhara

  9. Merv falls

    Merv (Sultan Kala)

  10. Nishapur falls

    Nishapur

  11. Gurganj is flooded

    Gurganj (Kunya-Urgench)

  12. Battle of the Indus

    On the Indus (the crossing point is argued)

  13. Battle of the Kalka River

    On the Kalka river (the field is lost)

  14. The Chagatai Khanate

    ≈ 141 years · Chagatai Khanate at its height, c. 1300 (schematic)

  15. Genghis Khan dies

    Near the Liupan Mountains (the place is argued)

  16. Reign of Ögedei

    ≈ 12 years, 5 months

  17. The Jin dynasty falls at Caizhou

    Caizhou (Runan)

  18. Karakorum gets its walls

    Karakorum, by Erdene Zuu

  19. The western campaign

    6 years · Batu and Subutai’s western campaign, 1236–1242 (schematic)

  20. Pax Mongolica

    100 years

  21. Kiev falls

    Church of the Tithes, Kiev

  22. Battle of Legnica

    Legnickie Pole, near Legnica

  23. Battle of Mohi

    Mohi, on the Sajó

  24. Töregene’s regency

    ≈ 4 years, 8 months

  25. Ögedei dies

  26. The Golden Horde

    126 years · Ulus of Jochi (the Golden Horde) at its height, c. 1340 (schematic)

  27. The Mongols leave Hungary

  28. Reign of Güyük

    ≈ 1 year, 10 months

  29. Carpini watches Güyük enthroned

    Sira Ordo, near Karakorum (site unknown)

  30. Oghul Qaimish’s regency

    ≈ 3 years, 13 days

  31. Reign of Möngke

    ≈ 8 years, 1 month

  32. Sorghaghtani Beki dies

  33. Hülegü’s campaign in the west

    ≈ 7 years · Hülegü’s march west, 1253–1260 (schematic)

  34. Rubruck’s debate at Karakorum

    Karakorum, by Erdene Zuu

  35. The Ilkhanate

    ≈ 79 years · Ilkhanate at its height, c. 1300 (schematic)

  36. Khurshah surrenders to Hülegü

    Alamut valley (Maymun-Diz, site argued)

  37. Hülegü’s army sacks Baghdad

    Baghdad

  38. Möngke dies at Diaoyu Fortress

    Diaoyu Fortress, Hechuan

  39. Kublai and Ariq Böke fight for the throne

    4 years

  40. Reign of Kublai

    ≈ 33 years, 9 months

  41. Kublai issues paper money

  42. Battle of Ain Jalut

    Ain Jalut (ʿEin Harod)

  43. Berke and Hülegü go to war

  44. The siege of Xiangyang

    ≈ 5 years · Xiangyang and Fancheng, on the Han

  45. The Talas kurultai

    Talas valley

  46. The Yuan dynasty

    ≈ 96 years · Yuan realm at its height, c. 1300, with Tibet (schematic)

  47. Kublai proclaims the Yuan dynasty

    Khanbaliq (Dadu), Beijing

  48. The first invasion of Japan

    Happo to Tsushima, Iki and Hakata Bay, 1274 (schematic)

  49. Marco Polo reaches Kublai’s court

    Shangdu (Xanadu)

  50. Lin’an surrenders

    Lin’an (Hangzhou)

  51. Battle of Yamen

    Off Yamen, Pearl River delta

  52. The second invasion of Japan

    ≈ 2 months, 1 day · The Eastern Route and Jiangnan fleets, 1281 (schematic)

  53. A typhoon wrecks the fleet

    Takashima, Imari Bay

  54. Rabban Bar Sauma’s embassy to the West

    ≈ 1 year · Rabban Bar Sauma’s embassy, Maragha to Paris and Gascony (schematic)

  55. Kublai dies

    Khanbaliq (Dadu), Beijing

  56. Paper money fails in Tabriz

    Tabriz

  57. Ghazan converts to Islam

  58. The khanates make peace

  59. Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles

  60. Plague at the siege of Caffa

    Caffa (Feodosia)

  61. The Red Turban Rebellion

    ≈ 17 years

  62. Zhu Yuanzhang proclaims the Ming

    Yingtian (Nanjing)

  63. Toghon Temür abandons Khanbaliq

    Khanbaliq (Dadu), Beijing