<b>The Mongols (1206 to 1405)<b>

The Mongols were nomads from the steppes of Central Asia. They were fierce warri
ors who fought each other over pasturelands and raided developed civilizations t
o the east and south. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Mongol cla
ns united and began a campaign of foreign conquest. Following in the hoofprints
of the Huns, their predecessors by a thousand years, they carved out one of the
largest empires the world has yet seen.
The Mongols inhabited the plains south of Lake Baikal in modern Mongolia. At its
maximum, their empire stretched from Korea, across Asia, and into European Russ
ia to the Baltic Sea coast. They held most of Asia Minor, modern Iraq, modern Ir
an, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet, parts of India, parts of Burma, all of China,
and parts of Vietnam.
The Mongol clans were united by Temuchin, called Genghis Khan ("mighty ruler"),
in the early thirteenth century. His ambition was to rule all lands between the
oceans (Pacific and Atlantic) and he nearly did so. Beginning with only an estim
ated 25,000 warriors, he added strength by subjugating other nomads and attacked
northern China in 1211. He took Beijing in 1215 after a campaign that may have
cost 30 million Chinese lives. The Mongols then turned west, capturing the great
trading city Bukhara on the Silk Road in 1220. The city was burned to the groun
d and the inhabitants murdered.
Following Genghis Khan's death in 1227, his son Ogedei completed the conquest of
northern China and advanced into Europe. He destroyed Kiev in 1240 and advanced
into Hungary. When Ogedei died on campaign in 1241, the entire army fell back t
o settle the question of succession. Europe was spared as Mongol rulers concentr
ated their efforts against the Middle East and southern China. Hulagu, a grandso
n of Genghis, exterminated the Muslim "Assassins" and then took the Muslim capit
al of Baghdad in 1258. Most of the city's 100,000 inhabitants were murdered. In
1260 a Muslim army of Egyptian Mamelukes (warrior slaves of high status) defeate
d the Mongols in present-day Israel, ending the Mongol threat to Islam and its h
oly cities.
Kublai Khan, another grandson of Genghis, completed the conquest of China in 127
9, establishing the Yuan dynasty. Attempted invasions of Japan were thrown back
with heavy loss in 1274 and 1281. In 1294 Kublai Khan died in China, and Mongol
power began to decline in Asia and elsewhere. In 1368 the Yuan dynasty in China
was overthrown in favor of the Ming.
In the 1370's a Turkish-Mongol warrior claiming descent from Genghis Khan fought
his way to leadership of the Mongol states of Central Asia and set out to resto
re the Mongol Empire. His name was Timur Leng (Timur, "the Lame," or Tamerlane t
o Europeans and the Prince of Destruction to Asians). With another army of 100,0
00 or so horsemen, he swept into Russia and Persia, fighting mainly other Muslim
s. In 1398 he sacked Delhi, murdering 100,000 inhabitants. He rushed west defeat
ing an Egyptian Mameluke army in Syria. In 1402 he defeated a large Ottoman Turk
army near modern Ankara. On the verge of destroying the Ottoman Empire, he turn
ed again suddenly. He died in 1405 while marching for China. He preferred captur
ing wealth and engaged in wholesale slaughter, without pausing to install stable
governments in his wake. Because of this, the huge realm inherited by his sons
fell apart quickly after his death.