En garde touche!
En garde touche!
Most of the nomad tribes are not very well seen at the eyes of sedentary societies, most for the small knoledge of each other. Western society as considered sedentarizacion as a sign of progress, in spite the greatest Empire ever was from a nomad tribe. The Mongols.
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire (Mongolian:About this sound listen Mongol-yn Ezent Güren; Cyrillic: Монголын эзэнт гүрэн) was a large empire that existed during the 13th and 14th centuries. Beginning in the Central Asian steppes, it eventually stretched from Eastern Europe to the Sea of Japan, covering large parts of Siberia in the north and extending southward into Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. It is commonly referred to as the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world. At its greatest extent it spanned 9,700 km (6,000 mi), covered an area of 24,000,000 km2 (9,300,000 sq mi), 16% of the Earth's total land area, and held sway over a population of 100 million.
The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of Mongol and Turkic tribes in the region of modern-day Mongolia under the leadership of Genghis Khan, who was proclaimed ruler of all Mongols in 1206. Initially named the Great Mongol State (Mongolian: Ikh Mongol Uls), the empire grew rapidly under his leadership and then that of his descendants, who sent invasions in every direction. The vast transcontinental empire which connected the east with the west would eventually function as a cultural "clearing house" for the Old World. Under the Mongols, new technologies, various commodities and ideologies were disseminated and exchanged across Eurasia; the exchanges ranged from cartography to printing, from agriculture to astronomy.
The empire began to split as a result of wars over succession, as the grandchildren of Genghis Khan disputed whether the royal line should follow from Genghis's son and initial heir Ögedei, or one of his other sons such as Tolui, Chagatai, or Jochi. The Toluids prevailed after a bloody purge of Ogedeid and Chagataid factions, but disputes continued even among the descendants of Tolui. Rival councils would simultaneously elect different Great Khans, such as when brothers Ariq Böke and Kublai were both elected and then not only had to defy each other, but also deal with challenges from descendants of other of Genghis's sons. Genghis's descendants would either challenge the decision of Great Khan, or assert independence in their own section of the empire.
Kublai successfully took power, but civil war ensued, as Kublai sought, unsuccessfully, to regain control of the Chagatayid and Ogedeid families. By the time of Kublai's death, the Mongol Empire had fractured into four separate khanates or empires, each pursuing its own separate interests and objectives: the Golden Horde khanate in the northwest, the Chagatai Khanate in the west, the Ilkhanate in the southwest, and the Yuan Dynasty based in modern-day Beijing.
It was not until the early 14th century, when the three western khanates accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Yuan Dynasty, that the Mongol world again acknowledged a single paramount suzerain for the first time since 1259 - even though the supremacy of the Yuan emperors over the western khanates was by and large symbolic. When the Yuan Dynasty was overthrown by the Han Chinese Ming Dynasty under the Hongwu Emperor in 1368, the Mongol Empire finally dissolved.
What is referred to in English as the Mongol Empire is described in the modern Mongolian language as "Mongolyn Ezent Guren" (Монголын эзэнт гүрэн, lit. Mongols' Imperial Power) and as "Ikh Mongol Uls", meaning "Great Mongol State". Genghis Khan used the latter when he was proclaimed Emperor. In the 1240s, Genghis's descendant Güyük Khan wrote a letter to Pope Innocent IV which used the preamble, "Dalai Khagan of the great Mongol state (ulus)".
After the succession war between Kublai Khan and his brother Ariq Böke which limited his real power to the east, Kublai Khan officially issued an imperial edict on December 18, 1271 to name the country "Great Yuan" (Dai Yuan, or Dai On Ulus) to establish the Yuan Dynasty, though some sources state that the full Mongolian name was "Dai Ön Yehe Monggul Ulus".
Genghis Khan innovated many ways of organizing his army, dividing it into decimal subsections of arbans (10 people), zuuns (100), myangans (1000) and tumens (10,000). The Kheshig or the Imperial Guard was founded and divided into day (khorchin, torghuds) and night guards (khevtuul). He rewarded those who had been loyal to him and placed them in high positions, placing them as heads of army units and households, even though many of his allies had been from very low-rank clans. Compared to the units he gave to his loyal companions, those assigned to his own family members were quite few. He proclaimed a new law of the empire, Ikh Zasag or Yassa, and codified everything related to the everyday life and political affairs of the nomads at the time. He forbade the selling of women, theft of other's properties, fighting between the Mongols, and the hunting of animals during the breeding season.
He appointed his adopted brother Shigi-Khuthugh supreme judge (jarughachi), ordering him to keep records of the empire. In addition to laws regarding family, food and army, Genghis also decreed religious freedom and supported domestic and international trade. He exempted the poor and the clergy from taxation. Thus, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians from Manchuria, North China, India and Persia joined Genghis Khan long before his foreign conquests. The Khan also encouraged literacy, adopting the Uyghur script which would form the Uyghur-Mongolian script of the empire, and he ordered the Uyghur Tatatunga, who had previously served the khan of Naimans, to instruct his sons.
Genghis quickly came into conflict with the Jin Dynasty of the Jurchens and the Western Xia of the Tanguts in northern China. Towards the West, under the provocation of the Muslim Khwarezmid Empire, he moved into Central Asia as well, devastating Transoxiana and the eastern Persia, then raiding into Kievan Rus' (a predecessor state of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine) and the Caucasus.
Before his death, Genghis Khan divided his empire among his sons and immediate family. But as custom made clear, the Mongol Empire remained the joint property of the entire imperial family who, along with the Mongol aristocracy, constituted the ruling class.
Genghis Khan
I have urgent things to do and will be out for a week.
Duke
Good luck and I hope everything goes well! And may your dishwasher be hot, clean, and prompt...Originally Posted by Duke of Buckingham
No problems only work. Thanks Maxwell.
Duke
Hope all is well. We'll be here when you get back.
+1 And we'll keep the light on for you.Hope all is well. We'll be here when you get back.
Duke the menace is a milionaire. 1000 posts. I am happy.
Haha! Congrats on #1000! That's awfully gabby of you...
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