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| Destruction under the Mongol Empire | |
|---|---|
| Part of theMongol conquests | |
 Depiction of theSiege of Baghdad in February 1258, when theMongol army killed up to 2,000,000 people throughout the city and devastated theAbbasid Caliphate withinMesopotamia | |
| Location | Eurasia |
| Date | 1206–1368 |
Attack type | Massacre,famine,genocide,androcide[1][2][3][4] |
| Deaths | Debated, see§ Demographic changes |
| Perpetrator | Mongol Empire |
TheMongol conquests resulted in widespread and well-documented death and destruction throughoutEurasia, as theMongol army invaded hundreds of cities and killed millions of people. As such, theMongol Empire, which remains thelargest contiguous polity to ever have existed, is regarded as having perpetrated some of the deadliest acts of mass killing in human history.
More recently, the Mongol Empire's conquests have been classified asgenocidal.[5] For example, British historianJohn Joseph Saunders described Mongol troops as "the most notorious practitioners of genocide".[6]
Genghis Khan and his generals preferred to offer their enemies a chance to surrender without resistance. These enemies would then becomevassals by sending tribute, accepting Mongol residents, and/or contributing troops. In return, theKhan would guarantee their protection, but only if those who submitted to Mongol rule were obedient. Those who agreed to pay the Mongols tribute were spared invasion and left relatively independent. While populations resisting were usually annihilated and so did not pay a regular tribute, exceptions to the rule included theGoryeo dynasty of Korea, which finally agreed to pay regular tributes in exchange forvassaldom and some measure of autonomy as well as the retention of the ruling dynasty, further emphasizing the Mongol preference for tribute and vassals, which would serve as a somewhat regular and continuous source of income, as opposed to outright conquest and destruction. Different tributes were taken from different cultures. For instance,Goryeo was assessed at 10,000otter skins, 20,000 horses, 10,000bolts ofsilk, clothing for soldiers, and large numbers of children and artisans as slaves.[7]
If the enemy offered any resistance, what followed was massive destruction, terror and death. David Nicolle notes inThe Mongol Warlords that "terror and mass extermination of anyone opposing them was a well-tested Mongol tactic".[8] If an enemy refused to submit, the Mongols would employ a strategy oftotal war; with Mongol leaders ordering the collective slaughter of populations and the destruction of property. The success of Mongol tactics hinged on fear to induce capitulation by the enemy. From the perspective of modern theories ofinternational relations, Quester suggested, "Perhaps terrorism produced a fear that immobilised and incapacitated the forces that would have resisted."[9]
As Mongol conquests spread, that form ofpsychological warfare proved effective at suppressing resistance to Mongol rule. It was widely known that a single act of resistance would bring the entire Mongol army onto a town to obliterate its occupants. Thus, they ensured obedience through fear. Peasants frequently appear to have joined Mongol troops or to have readily accepted their demands.[10] In the year 1202, after he andOng Khan allied to conquer theTatars, he ordered the execution of every Tatar man and boy taller than alinchpin, and enslaved Tatar women for raping.[citation needed] This order was given as collective punishment for the fatal poisoning of Genghis Khan's father,Yesugei, for which the Mongols blamed the Tatars according toThe Secret History of the Mongols.[4]
Ancient sources described Genghis Khan's conquests as wholesale destruction on an unprecedented scale in certain geographical regions, causing greatdemographic changes in Asia.
Ibn Al-Athir wrote that Mongol invaders massacred and killed about 700,000 people inMerv.[11] Mustawfi, likewise, wrote thatMerv was still in ruins in the middle of the 14th century.[11] Persian philosopherNajm al-din Razi, who was contemporary ofGenghis Khan andSubutai, wrote thatMongol invaders killed 700,000 people in his hometownRay.[12]Hamdallah Mustawfi, who completed Tarikh-i Guzida in 1330, states that 800,000 people were killed and massacred duringHulagu's siege of Baghdad in 1258.[13] While Smith concedes much of what Middle Eastern "chroniclers produced [were] exaggarated estimates", he then goes on to ennumarate the total population ofPersia as reduced from 2,500,000 to 250,000 as a result of mass extermination and famine.[14] Population exchanges also sometimes occurred.[14]
TheWestern Xia Tangut Empire had a population of 3,000,000,[15][16][17] but most of theTanguts including children and women were massacred and killed by the army of Mongol invaders underGenghis Khan.[18] According toJohn Man theTangut Empire is little known to anyone other than experts in the field due to Genghis Khan's policy calling for their complete destruction. He states that "There is a case to be made that this was the first ever recorded example of attemptedgenocide. It was certainly very successfulethnocide."[18]
The death toll for the Mongol conquests is commonly cited as 40-60 million, a claim originating from the 1978 book "Atlas of World Population History" by Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones.[19] The book has since been criticized for lacking a solid basis for many of its population estimates.[20] In addition, the source used by McEvedy and Jones to support their claim of 35 million deaths in China during the Mongol conquests, "The population statistics of China, A.D. 2–1953" by John Durand, casts doubt on their conclusions. Durand points out that the Mongol censuses were likely very incomplete, leading to an exaggeration of the population decrease.[21]
According to Diana Lary, the Mongol invasions induced population displacement "on a scale never seen before" in Eurasia, but especially in China, where the massive southward migration of Northern Chinese refugees actually managed to merge the southern and northern parts of China, an unexpected historical consequence.[22] China suffered a drastic decline in population in the 13th and 14th centuries. Before theMongol invasion, Chinese dynasties reportedly had approximately 120 million subjects; after the conquest had been completed in 1279, the 1300 census reported roughly 60 million people.[citation needed] While it is tempting to attribute the major decline solely to Mongol ferocity, scholars now have mixed sentiments on the subject. The South Chinese might account for 40 million unregistered persons who, without passports, would not have appeared in the census.[citation needed] Entire peasant populations joining or enlisted for labor could result in a large population reduction because of food shortages.[citation needed] Scholars such as Frederick W. Mote argue that the wide drop in numbers reflects an administrative failure of records, rather than ade facto decrease, but others, such as Timothy Brook, argue that the Mongols created a system of enserfment of a huge portion of the Chinese populace, causing many to disappear from the census altogether.[citation needed] Other historians, like William McNeill and David Morgan, argue that theBlack Death, partially spread by the Mongols, was the main factor behind the demographic decline in that period.[citation needed]
The plague also spread into areas of Western Europe and Africa that the Mongols never reached. The Mongols practiced biological warfare by catapulting diseased cadavers into the cities they besieged. It is believed that fleas remaining on the bodies of the cadavers may have acted as vectors to spread the Black Death.[23][24][25][26] Colin McEvedy estimates the population ofEuropean Russia dropped from 7.5 million prior to the invasion to 7 million after it.[27]
Mongol campaigns inNorthern China,Central Asia,Eastern Europe and theMiddle East caused extensive destruction, but there are no exact figures available for that time. The cities ofBalkh,Bamyan,Herat,Kiev,Baghdad,Nishapur,Merv,Konye-Urgench,Lahore,Ryazan,Chernigov,Vladimir andSamarkand suffered serious devastation by the Mongol armies.[28][29] For example, there is a noticeable lack of Chinese literature from the Jin dynasty, predating the Mongol conquest, and in theSiege of Baghdad (1258), libraries, books, literature, and hospitals were burned: further, "in one week, libraries and their treasures that had been accumulated over hundreds of years were burned or otherwise destroyed.[30][31][32][33]
Genghis Khan was largely tolerant of multiple religions, but there are many cases of him and other Mongols engaging inreligious war even if the populations were obedient.[citation needed] He passed a decree charging allTaoist followers to pay more taxes.[citation needed]
The Mongols' destruction of theirrigation systems of Iran and Iraq turned back millennia of effort in building irrigation and drainage infrastructure in these regions.[citation needed] The loss of available food as a result may have led to the death of more people from starvation in this area than the actual battle did.[citation needed] The Islamic civilization of the Persian Gulf region did not recover until after the Middle Ages.[34][full citation needed][pages needed]
According to a study by theCarnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Energy, the annihilation of so many human beings and cities under Genghis Khan may have scrubbed as much as 700 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere by allowing forests to regrow on previously populated and cultivated land.[35][36]