Episode 5  Chinggis Khan’s Early Conquests

The Mongol Empire

Dr Craig Benjamin (2020)

Film Review

In 1206, when Temujen was appointed Great Khan (Chinggis Khan), Mongolia’s southern neighbor China was divided into three regions: Xi Xia in the northwest (ruled by the Tenguts*), the Jin Dynasty in the northeast (ruled by the Jurchens**), and the Song Dynasty (ruled by Han Chinese elites driven south by the Jurchen takeover of northern China). Initially Chinggis Khan’s war on China was mainly driven by his desire to prevent the dissolution of his massive military alliance into quarreling factions.

His first assault on Xi Xia occurred in 1205, in pursuit of a rebel Karaite leader who had fled there. According to the Secret History of the Mongols (see The Rise of Chinggis Khan), his next major assault (in 1207) was against the Merkits and other nomadic forest people in southern Siberia. In 1209, he launched his first major attack on Xi Xia. When Tangut warriors retreated into the western Xi Xia capitol Yinchuan, Chinggis Kahan built a dyke to redirect the Yellow River and drawn many of them. Suing for peace, the Tangut agreed to pay tribute and offer up a princess as a new wife for Chinggis Khan.

With their first attack on China’s Jin dynasty, Chinggis Khan was more interested in booty rather than political control. It would be 1234 before his descendants consolidated their victory and put a Mongol on the throne of northern China. Using siege machines designed by Chinese engineers who defected from the Jin administration, the Mongols eventually conquered the Jin capitol Zhongdu in 1215. They were supported by a popular uprising driven driven by famine conditions precipitated by the war. The Jin emperor fled south to a new capital he established in Kaiphong.

In 1216 Chinggis Khan left General Bucoli in charge the war against the Jin Empire while he sent General Subedue to subdue a Merkit upprising in western Mongolia.

By 1218 the Mongol empire extended west to the Syr Darya River (the eastern boundary of modern day Uzbekistan), the  western border of the former Khwarazmian Empire.*** After Chinggis Khan sent a caravan of merchants to the Khwarazmian city of Garganj, their leader Mohammed Shah killed all but one of them. In response to the Mongol leader’s demand for compensation, Mohammed Shah killed one envoy and singed the beards (a profound insult) of the rest.

This led to the Mongol’s declaration of war against the Khwarazmian Empire.

*The Tanguts were a Sino-Tibetan people originating from the Tibetan Plateau.

**The Jurchen consisted of hunter-gatherers, pastoralist semi-nomads and sedentary agriculturists originating from Manchuria.

***The Kwarazmian Empire was the last remnant of the Persian empire before its conquest by Islamic Arabs in the 7th century.

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https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/12373094/12373104