99 Fun Facts About The Mongol Empire

What record does the Mongol Empire hold in world history?

Largest contiguous land realm ever: it ran unbroken from the Sea of Japan to Eastern Europe, while the larger British Empire was scattered across oceans.

What was Genghis Khan's birth name?

Temüjin was still a boy when Tatars poisoned his father Yesugei; the clan then abandoned the family, who survived by hunting and foraging on the steppe.

How did Genghis Khan come to rule the Mongols?

Uniting the tribes came first: he was proclaimed ruler of all the Mongols in 1206, and his great conquests abroad came only after that.

What is a kurultai?

A Mongol assembly that elected khans, it needed the princes of Genghis's line in attendance, so one prince who stayed away could stall the choice of a great khan for years.

Genghis Khan organised his army on what numerical system?

Decimal units of tens, hundreds and thousands were led on merit: command went to proven followers, some of them low-born, rather than to the seniors of each clan.

What was the Mongol law code credited to Genghis Khan called?

The Yassa outlived him: generations later, his descendants ruling Iran still applied it side by side with sharia law.

Which people's writing system did Genghis Khan adopt for Mongolian?

The Uyghurs' alphabet was pressed into service because Mongolian had only ever been spoken; the script that grew from it is written vertically, in columns running left to right.

Which group did Genghis Khan exempt from taxes across his empire?

Religious leaders of every faith paid no tax. He had decreed freedom of worship to avoid strife, and contented subjects were less likely to rebel.

Which state did Genghis Khan invade after its ruler killed a Mongol envoy?

The Khwarazmian shahdom's governor at Otrar had seized a Mongol trade caravan and killed its merchants; the envoy who died had come to demand that governor's punishment.

What happened to Genghis Khan's body after his death in 1227?

He was buried in a secret location, probably near the sacred mountain Burkhan Khaldun; legend has it that the funeral escort killed everyone it met on the way.

From what did the Mongols make kumis, their mildly alcoholic everyday drink?

Mare's milk was poured into a big hide bag and churned with a stick until it soured, fizzed and turned mildly alcoholic.

Why was the paternity of Genghis Khan's eldest son Jochi in doubt?

His mother had been a Merkit captive, and the doubt never left him: Genghis raised Jochi as his own, but rivals within the family disputed his legitimacy all his life.

Which city did the Mongols establish as their capital in 1235?

Karakorum never matched the empire it ruled: a friar who visited in 1254 rated it below the village of Saint-Denis outside Paris.

What did the Parisian goldsmith Guillaume Boucher build at the Mongol great khan's palace?

A silver tree that dispensed drinks, it had a trumpeting angel on top. A visiting friar wrote that a man hidden in a vault beneath blew the trumpet, because bellows had proved too weak.

Which dynasty ruling northern China did the Mongols destroy in 1234?

The Jin were caught between the Mongols to the north and the Song to the south, who had allied with the invaders; the Song then became the next target and fell in 1279.

Which city, long the capital of the Rus', did the Mongols storm in December 1240?

Kyiv was stormed and most of its people killed, while Novgorod, far to the north, was never sacked, though it too had to accept Mongol overlordship.

Which grandson of Genghis Khan led the invasion of Rus' and Europe?

Batu was later offered the great khan's throne and turned it down, preferring to rule his own western lands and play kingmaker.

How did the Mongols kill the Rus' princes captured at the Kalka River in 1223?

Crushed under the victors' feast platform, the princes paid for killing the Mongol envoys sent before the battle; the victors dined on the boards above them.

Which kingdom did the Mongols lay waste in 1241 after routing King Béla IV at Mohi?

Hungary lay open after Mohi: King Béla fled all the way to the Adriatic coast with Mongol riders on his heels, and his kingdom was ravaged for a year before the invaders pulled out.

What news halted the Mongol advance into central Europe in 1242?

The death of Ögedei Khan is the traditional reason, calling the princes home to choose a successor; yet the army's own commander never made the journey.

What was Töregene, who ruled the Mongol Empire as regent for five years, to the late great khan?

His widow held the throne just long enough to win the election for her own son Güyük, setting aside the grandson her husband had named as heir.

Which Christian princess was the mother of the great khans Möngke and Kublai?

Sorghaghtani Beki, though a Christian herself, gave alms to Muslims as well, and all four of her sons became known for their religious tolerance.

Möngke's 1251 election shifted power from Ögedei's line to descendants of which son of Genghis?

Tolui was Genghis's youngest son, and the switch to his line was sealed in blood: once elected, Möngke purged the house of Ögedei.

Which great Muslim city did the Mongols sack in 1258, ending the Abbasid Caliphate?

Baghdad fell after a brief siege and a week of slaughter followed; the caliphate that had reigned since 750 ended with the execution of its last caliph.

How did the Mongols execute al-Musta'sim, the last Abbasid caliph?

Most accounts have him rolled in a carpet and trampled, so that no royal blood touched the earth, a Mongol taboo; another tale has him locked away to starve among his treasure.

Which sect's Persian mountain stronghold of Alamut fell to the Mongols in 1256?

The Assassins had long picked off rulers and generals from their hilltop castles; their name, from an Arabic slur meaning 'hashish-eater', gave English the word assassin.

Who defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut?

The Mamluks of Egypt had answered a Mongol demand to submit by executing the embassy, then won at a spring whose name is taken to mean Goliath's Spring.

Which two brothers fought a civil war from 1260 to 1264 after each was proclaimed great khan?

Kublai and Ariq Böke fought for four years; Kublai won because he could draw on the wealth and grain of China, but the empire never truly reunited.

Which supreme deity did the Mongols believe had granted them the right to rule the whole world?

The Eternal Blue Sky, called Tengri, stood above all other powers, and the khans opened their edicts and their letters to foreign kings by invoking it.

Kublai Khan built his new capital, known as Khanbaliq or Dadu, on the site of which modern city?

Beijing had been a frontier stronghold and a regional capital before him; under Kublai the whole of China was ruled from it for the first time.

What was Kublai's summer capital, immortalised in Coleridge's poem?

Xanadu, Shangdu or 'Upper Capital' in Chinese, had a marble palace and a walled hunting park; thanks to the poem its name became a byword for far-off luxury.

What kind of money did Marco Polo marvel at in Kublai Khan's China?

Paper notes, each authenticated with official seals, were unknown in Europe; the accuracy of his account is one reason historians believe he really reached China.

What scattered and sank the fleets Kublai Khan sent to invade Japan in 1274 and 1281?

Typhoons struck both times, and the Japanese called them kamikaze, 'divine wind', the name later given to the suicide pilots of the Second World War.

Which Southeast Asian kingdom beat back three Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century?

Đại Việt, in northern Vietnam, ended the last invasion with a trap: iron-tipped stakes hidden in a river bed wrecked Kublai Khan's fleet.

What was the Yam, which kept fresh horses waiting at stations?

The mounted postal relay carried the khan's orders well over 100 miles in a day, and it doubled as his eyes and ears, speeding intelligence back to him.

What did a paiza, a tablet issued by the Mongol khans, serve as?

A passport in effect: its bearer could demand fresh horses, food and lodging along the imperial roads, and the Polo family carried one from Kublai Khan.

What is the oldest surviving literary work in the Mongolian language?

The Secret History of the Mongols tells the life of Genghis Khan, yet it survives complete only in a Chinese transcription, its Mongolian sounds spelled out in Chinese characters.

The Jami' al-tawarikh, written at the Mongol court of Persia, tells the history of what?

The history of the world, from China to Europe: its author, a Persian vizier, even drew on a chronicle of the popes and emperors for the Latin West.

Which of the four Mongol khanates, the one ruling Persia, was the first to fall apart, from 1335?

The Ilkhanate broke up after its ruler died in 1335 without a clear successor; rival claimants fought over the throne and Persia split into smaller states.

Which city's grand prince, Ivan III, faced down the khan's army in 1480, the traditional end of Mongol rule over Russia?

Moscow had risen as the khans' own tribute collector: an earlier prince, known as Ivan 'Moneybag', gathered the Mongols' taxes across his lands.

Which Chinese dynasty drove the Yuan out of Dadu in 1368?

The Ming were founded by Zhu Yuanzhang, a peasant's son turned rebel leader; the last Yuan emperor fled north, where his line ruled on in Mongolia as the Northern Yuan.

Which battlefield trick did Mongol armies use again and again?

A feigned retreat could last for days: at the Kalka River the Mongols fell back before the Rus' princes, then turned on their strung-out pursuers.

At the siege of Caffa in the 1340s, what did the Mongol army reportedly hurl over the walls?

Plague-infected corpses, wrote an Italian notary of the day: the besiegers' own army was dying of the disease, and the tale is often called one of the first acts of biological warfare.

What did Möngke Khan stage in 1254, with friar William of Rubruck taking part?

An interfaith debate: Christians, Muslims and Buddhists argued before three judges, one from each religion, because the khan wanted to know whose belief was best.

A 2003 genetic study suggested what share of all living men descend in the male line from Genghis Khan?

About 1 in 200, or some 16 million men: the study put it down to power, not chance, since his sons and grandsons ruled much of Asia for generations and fathered many children.

What did Jamukha, Genghis Khan's boyhood friend, become to him?

His rival: hostile chiefs elected Jamukha supreme khan against his old friend, who went on to defeat their coalition.

Which conqueror, ruling from Samarkand, cast himself as restorer of the Mongol Empire from about 1370?

Tamerlane, or Timur, tied himself to Genghis Khan's line by marriage, taking a princess descended from the great khan as a wife to bolster his claim to rule.

Which religion had Berke, khan of the Golden Horde, adopted before he went to war with his cousin Hulagu in 1262?

Islam: Berke's conversion set him against Hulagu, who had destroyed the caliphate, and he sided with a Muslim sultan against his own cousin, Mongol fighting Mongol.

The monk Rabban Bar Sauma, a Christian from Mongol-ruled China, set out on a pilgrimage to which city?

Jerusalem was never reached: war closed the roads, and he ended up touring Europe as a Mongol ambassador instead, meeting the pope and the kings of France and England.

Which dynasty that ruled most of India took its name from the Persian form of the word Mongol?

The Mughals took power in 1526 under Babur, who was descended from Genghis Khan on his mother's side. Their name is simply how Persian speakers in India said Mongol.

Which star of Hollywood Westerns played Genghis Khan in the 1956 epic The Conqueror?

John Wayne lobbied for the part after reading the script. It had been written for Marlon Brando, who accepted and then backed out.

What do Mongolians call the round felt tent that the Turkic languages, and English, know as a yurt?

Ger is the Mongolic word for it. The wooden frame is covered with felt made from the wool of the herders' own sheep.

The Pax Mongolica, the peace Mongol rule imposed across Eurasia, revived trade along which famous overland route?

The Silk Road came under the sole rule of one empire, so caravans carried Chinese silk, pepper, ginger and nutmeg west along it in safety.

Which weapon, built from horn, sinew and animal glue on a bamboo core, armed the Mongol Empire's mounted warriors?

The composite bow had one weakness: its animal glue dissolves in water, so rain or damp could ruin it unless a birch-bark wrapper kept it dry.

What does the 40-metre stainless steel monument at Tsonjin Boldog, east of Ulaanbaatar, show Genghis Khan doing?

Riding a horse, he faces east toward his birthplace. The statue stands where legend says he found a golden whip.

Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler who conquered the whole of China, was what relation to Genghis Khan?

Grandson: Kublai was about nine when Genghis Khan, on his way home from his western conquests in 1224, held a ceremony for him and his brother.

Each word of the traditional Mongolian script, born in Genghis Khan's time, is written in which direction on the page?

Top to bottom: the words run down the page in columns that follow one another from left to right, so the script can look like Arabic turned on its side.

Which Chinese waterway did Kublai Khan's engineers shorten in the 1280s so southern grain could sail to his capital?

The Grand Canal gained a new summit section across the Shandong hills that cut about 700 km off the journey and linked Hangzhou to the north by a direct waterway.

Goryeo, whose kings married Mongol princesses for about 80 years as vassals of the Yuan, was a kingdom in which land?

Korea takes its English name from Goryeo. Its kings ranked as imperial sons-in-law of the Mongol emperors, and the last Yuan empress was born there.

Whom did the young future Genghis Khan kill to secure his position within his outcast, impoverished family?

His half-brother Behter was about two years older and had his own claim to be their dead father's heir.

Which rival steppe people recognised Yesügei, the father of Genghis Khan, at a meal and slipped poison into his food?

The Tatars knew Yesügei as the man who had killed one of their kinsmen in battle years before. After he died, his own tribe abandoned his family.

Which woman of the Olkhonud became Genghis Khan's first wife and the Grand Empress of his new empire?

Börte bore four sons and five daughters, and only her sons were considered as candidates to succeed him.

Which Mongol general, said to be a blacksmith's son, directed more than 20 campaigns and planned the attack on Europe?

Subutai was a commoner by birth, and is credited with conquering more territory than any other commander in history.

Which Mongol general was renamed with a word for 'arrow' after he admitted wounding Genghis Khan's horse in battle?

Jebe, born Jirqo'adai, confessed of his own accord and said the khan could kill him or have his loyal service. He has since been described as the greatest cavalry general in history.

Which dynasty of southern China did Kublai Khan's forces finally destroy at the naval Battle of Yamen in 1279?

The Song held out through two decades of sporadic warfare. Their fall reunited China, north and south, under the Yuan.

Which people's kingdom, known as Western Xia, was Genghis Khan subduing when he died in 1227?

The Tanguts had ruled north-west China since 1038. The Mongols destroyed most of their records, and their language and its unique script are now extinct.

A Central Asian khanate and a Turkic literary language both took the name of which prince of Genghis Khan's house?

Chagatai, the second son, was famed for his masterful knowledge of Mongol custom and law, and for a harsh temper to match.

Which Chinese military invention are the Mongol conquests credited with introducing to Persia and to Europe?

Gunpowder bombs from Kublai Khan's 1281 invasion fleet have been recovered from a shipwreck off the coast of Japan.

Which legendary Christian king of the East did hopeful Crusade-era Europeans at first confuse with Genghis Khan?

Prester John's supposed heir, 'King David', was reported in 1221 to be crushing the Saracens in Persia. The conqueror turned out to be Genghis Khan.

What was the Golden Horde's capital near the lower Volga called, a name that means 'mansion' or 'court'?

Sarai may in fact have been two cities in turn: a 'New Sarai' is said to have been founded further up the Volga in the 14th century.

Which prince of Novgorod, victor over Swedish invaders and German crusaders, agreed to pay tribute to the Golden Horde?

Alexander Nevsky's submission let him preserve the Orthodox Church, which made him a saint in 1547. Critics say it also helped entrench the khans' hold on Russia.

At which battle near the Don River in 1380 did Grand Prince Dmitry defeat the Golden Horde commander Mamai?

Kulikovo earned Dmitry the name Donskoy, meaning 'of the Don'. It did not end the khans' domination, but it is traditionally seen as the turning point.

At which 1241 battle in Silesia did a Mongol army defeat Duke Henry II the Pious and his Polish knights?

Legnica was won by a mere diversionary force of perhaps 8,000 to 10,000 riders, sent to keep northern armies away from the main invasion further south.

In which Polish city does a trumpet call break off mid-tune, by legend for a sentry shot by a Mongol arrow?

Kraków hears the call every hour from the tower of St Mary's Church. The arrow tale was first written down in a 1928 American children's book.

Which sea did Mongol riders reach in 1242 while hunting the fugitive King Béla IV through Dalmatia?

The Adriatic coast was as far as the chase went. The riders attacked Klis Fortress, learned the king was not inside, and left Dalmatia without ever catching him.

Which great body of water did 20,000 Mongol riders circle in a daring reconnaissance raid between 1220 and 1223?

The Caspian Sea raid crossed the Caucasus to fall on the steppe peoples from behind. Edward Gibbon wrote that nothing like it had been attempted before or repeated since.

Which crusading French king, later made a saint, sent the friar William of Rubruck to the Mongols in 1253?

Louis IX got a full written report back, the Itinerarium, setting out everything the friar had seen and done on the journey.

John of Plano Carpini, who led the first formal papal mission to the Mongols in 1245, belonged to which religious order?

The Franciscans sent a man from their founding generation: he had been a companion and disciple of Saint Francis of Assisi, and set out aged about sixty-three.

The khans of which land, claiming to be the Golden Horde's heirs, ruled until Russia annexed them in 1783?

Crimea's khans styled themselves rulers of 'the Great Horde', and only France openly protested when Russia broke a 1774 treaty to annex them.

Which religion's Sakya school won Kublai Khan's patronage, its leader Phagpa becoming the first Yuan imperial preceptor?

Buddhism brought Kublai a script as well as a faith: he had Phagpa design a new writing system for his multilingual realm, finished in 1269.

Marco Polo, who reached Kublai Khan's court with his father and uncle, was born in which Italian city?

Venice saw him come home in 1295 after 24 years away. He later dictated his travels to a cellmate, Rustichello da Pisa, while imprisoned.

Which desert was the only protection on the northern border of Western Xia when Genghis Khan's army attacked?

The Gobi had seemed defence enough, so most Xia troops were posted on the southern and eastern borders, facing the Chinese dynasties instead.

Which ancient city did a Mongol army under the Christian general Kitbuqa take on 1 March 1260, weeks after Aleppo?

Damascus fell to an army that included Georgians, Armenians and the Franks of Antioch, which is why some historians have dubbed the campaign a 'yellow crusade'.

Which style of Chinese porcelain, developed at Jingdezhen, became the great ceramic innovation of the Yuan era?

Blue and white owes its staying power to chemistry: cobalt is one of the very few pigments that can survive the fierce heat needed to fire porcelain.

What did Genghis Khan ask the Taoist master Qiu Chuji for, after summoning the old monk across Asia to the Hindu Kush?

A way to live forever did not exist, the monk told him: there were ways of nourishing life but no elixir. The khan thanked him for his frankness.

Which island did Kublai Khan's fleet invade in 1293 after its king branded the face of a Mongol envoy?

Java's Raden Wijaya first sided with the invaders against a rival kingdom, then betrayed them. The expedition failed, and his new state, Majapahit, was born.

Which title of imperial rank, usually rendered in English as 'Great Khan', did the supreme Mongol rulers bear?

Khagan ranks with emperor. In modern Mongolian the g has gone almost silent, which gives the spelling Khaan.

Into which river did the fugitive Jalal al-Din Mangburni ride his horse off a cliff to escape Genghis Khan in 1221?

The Indus carried him to safety because Genghis Khan, as a mark of respect for his enemy's bravery, ordered his archers not to shoot.

In which captured Central Asian city is Genghis Khan recorded as telling the people he was the punishment of God?

Bukhara's citadel held out for twelve days against siege experts brought from China. The speech, given at the Friday mosque, blamed the city's own great sins.

Which Mongol princess, daughter of Kublai Khan's cousin Kaidu, was a champion wrestler said to have inspired Turandot?

Khutulun was trained from childhood in shooting, wrestling and riding, and was rumoured to have died with 10,000 horses to her name.

What role did the kheshig, an elite corps kept out of ordinary battles, play for Genghis Khan and his heirs?

Royal bodyguard was a round-the-clock job: the corps was split into a day guard, the Torguud, and a night guard, the Khebtuul.

What was the nerge, in which Mongol riders formed a ring many kilometres wide and slowly closed it?

A great hunt doubled as a drill for encircling an enemy, and the same contracting ring was sometimes used to stamp out guerrilla resistance.

Which Turkish state in Anatolia became a Mongol vassal after its crushing defeat at Köse Dağ in 1243?

The Seljuks of Rum fielded some 80,000 men, but the force lacked the discipline and cohesion of the Mongols and was decisively beaten.

Which kingdom of the Irrawaddy valley, builder of a vast plain of temples, was toppled by Mongol invasions in 1287?

Pagan's rulers had built more than 10,000 temples around their capital in four centuries of rule, and over 2,000 of them still stand.

Which rebels of 1351 to 1368, named for their headgear, brought about the collapse of the Yuan dynasty in China?

The Red Turbans first appeared in the 1330s and trace back to a monk's uprising in 1338. They later merged into two broad movements, northern and southern.

Rather than slaughter conquered peoples, what did the Khitan adviser Yelü Chucai urge the Mongols to do instead?

Tax them, he argued, and put their talents to use. In 1229 he was put in charge of taxation reform across north China.

Which fortress city on the Han River fell to Kublai Khan in 1273 once counterweight trebuchets were brought against it?

Xiangyang guarded the waterways of south China and had held out since 1267. The dynasty it protected collapsed within a few years of its fall.

Which Rus' city, capital of its own principality, was the first to be besieged in the Mongol invasion of December 1237?

Ryazan's prince begged a neighbouring prince for help and got none. The ruined site, now called Old Ryazan, lies some 50 km from the modern city.

Which Persian astronomer became Hulagu's scientific adviser and director of the observatory built at Maragheh?

Al-Tusi's observatory later served as a model for others, including Ulugh Beg's in Samarkand and the Jantar Mantar in Jaipur.