The Mongols created the largest land-based empire in world history. Originally, the Mongols were pastoral nomads who migrated several times each year in order to provide sufficient grazing and water for their animals. Because of their reliance on the horse, they were a highly mobile people, and from an early age, a Mongol learned to ride and shoot a bow at the gallop. With such skills, they became a formidable cavalry force.

In their early days, the Mongols were organised into different tribes. As such, they were only able to exert their influence on a local or regional level. This changed in the early 13th century, when the tribes were united under a single leader known as Genghis Khan. During the first three decades of the 13th century, the Mongols, under Genghis Khan, occupied northwest China, raided northern China, and conquered much of Central Asia. While they were responsible for numerous episodes of mass destruction and massacre, the Mongols were also capable of some restraint. Rulers who chose not to resist them were often left in control of their own people, so long as they accepted Mongol suzerainty.

Aside from their cavalry skills, which were enhanced by the quality of their small, sturdy, and fast horses, the Mongols employed effective weapons such as the composite bow – a bow strengthened with horn and sinew which had a range of over 320 metres. The European longbow, by way of comparison, had a range of around 228 metres. Genghis Khan enforced strict discipline among the Mongols and displayed a clever tactical sense. Occasionally, the Mongols would pretend to retreat from an enemy force, which during the pursuit, would find itself lured into a trap and surrounded. The Mongols were also known to present the illusion of greater numbers by placing dummies on horses. They also were not above placing captive enemies at the head of their army as they advanced. The enemy would then be forced to think twice about attacking, for fear of hitting their own people placed in the Mongol vanguard.

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan died in 1227 and two years later his son Ogodei was proclaimed Great Khan. Under Ogodei, the Mongols conquered northern China in 1234, and by 1241 they had expanded as far west as Poland and Hungary. In fact, the Mongols expanded in virtually all directions, moving into Persia, Georgia, Armenia, and Korea. In ruling their vast possessions, the Mongols, since the time of Genghis Khan, often recruited foreigners into military and non-military administrative service. Censuses were taken, a taxation system developed, local governments erected, and an imperial capital established at Karakorum in Mongolia. But after the death of Ogodei in 1241, there were successional disputes and the Mongol empire split into a number of almost autonomous khanates: the Golden Horde in Russia; the Il-Khanate in Persia; the Chaghadai in Central Asia; and the Yuan Dynasty in China and the Mongol homeland.

But despite this fragmentation, Mongol expansion continued as before. By the 1250's, they moved into Tibet and the Chinese province of Yunnan. They also managed to defeat and destroy the Muslim Abbasid Dynasty; sacking Baghdad and beheading the Abbasid Caliph in the process. The Mongols were now poised for further thrusts into the Near East and the Mediterranean world. But in 1260, they met with a serious reversal when they were beaten by a Muslim Mamluk army from Egypt at the battle of Ayn Jalut in Syria. Although the Mongols would enjoy their greatest triumph when Kublai Khan finally managed to subdue southern Sung China in the 1270's, the defeat at Ayn Jalut marked the crest of Mongol power. Kublai Khan's forays against South-east Asia and Java met with eventual failure, and an attempt to invade Japan in 1281 was annihilated by a timely typhoon, which was termed Kamikaze ("divine wind") by the grateful Japanese.

	Kublai Khan
	Kamikaze

During the 14th century, the Mongol domains were racked by economic problems and succession struggles, particularly in Yuan China and the Il-Khanate of Persia. In addition, the Chaghadai Khanate had difficulty quelling nomads and oasis-dwellers, and the Golden Horde's grip on Russia was becoming tenuous at best. Furthermore, as the Mongols over time had become more settled, their military prowess began to fade; hence, they lost much of their power to intimidate. In the 1330s the Il-Khanate finally fragmented into a number of independent regions. In 1368 the Ming Dynasty overthrew Mongol rule in China, and by 1369 the Khan of the Chaghadai was a mere puppet of the conqueror Tamerlane. The Mongols managed to hold out longest in Russia, but after a long recession throughout the 14th century, the Golden Horde lost effective control in 1485. The Mongol groups based out of their homeland, though still fractious, managed to pose a periodic threat to Asian security. However, eventual conversion from their original shamanistic faith to Buddhism served to pacify their military instincts still further. The Mongols that remained in other parts of their former empire eventually assimilated into the populations over which they once held sway.

Tamerlane (Timur the Lame)

With the subjugation of such vast territories and multitudes of peoples, the Mongol Empire demolished barriers and facilitated cultural and material exchange between East and West on a scale never before seen. Mongol law, though strict in the extreme, was quite egalitarian, and upheld the equality of all peoples and all religious faiths. The law, when enforced by potent military power, also helped to ensure the relative safety of trade and travel throughout Central Asia. This finally allowed direct commercial and diplomatic exchange between Western Europe and the Far East. Ideas and aesthetics spread east and west. Persia, for example, developed a lasting interest in Far Eastern arts and sciences; and interest reflected in Chinese influence in Persian medicine and book illumination. Persian medical and astronomical sciences likewise found a ready market among Chinese scholars. For all their military and destructive power, the Mongols ultimately served to link the Old World more closely together.