The Mongol conquests. Golden Horde. The Mongol invasion of Russia

In the XIII century, the Mongols built an empire with the largest adjacent territory in the history of mankind. It stretched from Russia to Southeast Asia and from Korea to the Middle East. Hordes of nomads destroyed hundreds of cities, destroyed dozens of states. The very name of the founder of the Mongolian empire of Genghis Khan became a symbol of the whole Medieval era.

Jin

The first Mongol conquests affected China. The Celestial Empire did not immediately submit to the nomads. In the Mongol-Chinese wars, it is customary to distinguish three stages. The first was the invasion of the state of Jin (1211-1234). That campaign was led by Genghis Khan himself. His army numbered a hundred thousand people. The neighboring tribes of Uighurs and Karluks joined the Mongols.

The first to capture the city of Fuzhou in the north of Jin. Not far from it in the spring of 1211 there was a large battle at the ridge of Ekhulin. In this battle, the large professional professional army of Jin was destroyed. Having won the first major victory, the Mongol army overcame the Great Wall - an ancient barrier, built up against the Huns. Once in China, it began to plunder Chinese cities. For the winter, the nomads retired to their steppe, but have since returned every spring for new attacks.

Under the blows of the steppe people, the state of Jin began to fall apart. Against the Jurchen, who ruled this country, ethnic Chinese and Khitan began to rebel. Many of them supported the Mongols, hoping with their help to achieve independence. These calculations were frivolous. Destroying the state of some nations, the great Genghis Khan was not at all going to create states for others. For example, the breakaway from Jin Eastern Liao lasted only twenty years. The Mongols skillfully started temporary allies. Dealing with them with their opponents, they got rid of these "friends."

In 1215, the Mongols captured and burned Beijing (then bearing the name Zhundu). A few more years the steppe people acted according to the tactics of raids. After Genghis Khan's death, Khagan (his great khan) became his son Ogadei. He went on to the tactics of conquest. Under Ugadei, the Mongols finally annexed Jin to their empire. In 1234, the last ruler of this state Ai-zuong committed suicide. The invasion of the Mongols ruined North China, but the destruction of Jin was only the beginning of the triumphant march of nomads in Eurasia.

Xi Xia

The Tangut state of Xi Xia (Western Xia) became the next country that the Mongols conquered. Genghis Khan conquered this kingdom in 1227. Xi Xia occupied territory to the west of Jin. It controlled part of the Great Silk Road, which promised the nomads a rich booty. Stepniaks besieged and ravaged the capital of the Tanguts Zhongxing. Genghis Khan died, returning to his homeland from this campaign. Now his heirs were to finish the work of the founder of the empire.

South Soong

The first Mongol conquests concerned states created by non-Chinese peoples on the territory of China. Both Jin and Xi Xia were not the Heavenly Empire in the full sense of the word. Ethnic Chinese in the XIII century controlled only the southern half of China, where the South Song Empire existed. The war with her began in 1235.

For several years the Mongols attacked China, exhausting the country with incessant raids. In 1238, Song pledged to pay tribute, after which the punitive raids ceased. The fragile truce was established for 13 years. The history of the Mongol conquests knows more than one such case. Nomads "reconciled" with one country in order to concentrate on conquering other neighbors.

In 1251, the new great khan became Munke. He initiated a second war with Sun. At the head of the campaign was the brother of Khan Khubilai. The war lasted many years. The Sun Court surrendered in 1276, although the struggle of individual groups for Chinese independence continued until 1279. Only after this, the Mongol yoke was established over the whole of the Celestial Empire. As early as 1271, Khubilai founded the Yuan dynasty. It ruled China until the middle of the fourteenth century, when it was overthrown as a result of the uprising of the red armbands.

Korea and Burma

On its eastern borders, the state, created during the Mongol conquests, began to coexist with Korea. The military campaign against it began in 1231. In total, six invasions followed. As a result of the devastating raids, Korea began to pay tribute to the state of Yuan. The Mongol yoke on the peninsula ended in 1350.

At the opposite end of Asia, the nomads reached the limits of the Pagan kingdom in Burma. The first Mongolian campaigns in this country date back to the 1270s. Khubilai postponed the decisive campaign against Pagan over and over again because of his own failures in neighboring Vietnam. In Southeast Asia, the Mongols had to contend not only with local peoples, but also with an unusual tropical climate. The troops suffered from malaria, because of which they regularly retreated to their native lands. Nevertheless, by 1287 the conquest of Burma was still achieved.

Invasion of Japan and India

Not all wars of conquest, which the descendants of Genghis Khan began, ended successfully. Twice (the first attempt was in 1274, the second one - in 1281), Khabilai tried to start an invasion of Japan. For this purpose, China built huge flotillas, which had no analogues in the Middle Ages. The Mongols had no experience in navigating. Their armadas suffered defeat from Japanese ships. In the second expedition, 100,000 people took part in the Kyushu Island, but they failed to win.

Another country not conquered by the Mongols became India. The descendants of Genghis Khan heard about the riches of this mysterious land and dreamed of conquering it. The north of India at that time belonged to the Delhi Sultanate. For the first time the Mongols invaded its territory in 1221. Nomads devastated some provinces (Lahore, Multan, Peshawar), but before the conquest it did not come. In 1235, they annexed to their power Kashmir. At the end of the 13th century, the Mongols invaded the Punjab and even reached Delhi. Despite the devastation of the campaigns, the nomads were not able to gain a foothold in India.

The Caracathian Khanate

In 1218, the hordes of Mongols, who had fought only in China, first turned their horses to the west. On their way was Central Asia. Here, in the territory of modern Kazakhstan, there was the Karakitaian Khanate, founded by the Karakitais (ethnically close to the Mongols and Khitan).

This country's rules were ruled by the old rival of Genghis Khan Kuchluk. Preparing for the struggle against it, the Mongols attracted some other Turkic peoples of the Semirechie to their side. The nomads found support from the Karluk khan Arslan and the ruler of Almalyk Buzar. In addition, they were assisted by sedentary Muslims, whom the Mongols allowed to conduct public worship services (which Kuchluk did not allow them to do).

The campaign against the Karakitean Khanate was led by one of the main tempers of Genghis Khan Jaba. He conquered all of East Turkestan and Semirechye. Defeated, Kuchluk fled to the Pamir mountains. There he was caught and executed.

Khorezm

The next Mongolian conquest, in short, was only the first stage of conquering all of Central Asia. Another large state, apart from the Karakitay Khanate, was the Islamic kingdom of Khorezmshahs, inhabited by Iranians and Turks. In this case, to know it was Polovtsian (Kypchak). In other words, Khorezm was a complex ethnic conglomerate. Conquering it, the Mongols skillfully used the internal contradictions of this great power.

Even Genghis Khan established good-neighborly relations with Khorezm. In 1215 he sent his merchants to this country. The world with Khorezm was needed by the Mongols to facilitate the conquest of the neighboring Karakite Khanate. When this state was subdued, it was the turn of his neighbor.

The Mongol conquests were already known throughout the world, and in Khorezm they were apprehensive about their imaginary friendship with the nomads. The pretext for the rupture of peaceful relations between the steppe people was discovered by chance. The governor of the city of Otrar suspected the Mongolian merchants of espionage and executed them. After this thoughtless massacre, the war became inevitable.

Genghis Khan campaigned against Khorezm in 1219. Stressing the importance of the expedition, he took with him all his sons. Ogadei and Chagatai went to besiege Otrar. Juchi led the second army, moving in the direction of Jend and Sygnak. The third army aimed at Khojent. Genghis Khan himself along with his son Toluy followed the richest megalopolis of the Middle Ages to Samarkand. All these cities were captured and looted.

In Samarkand, where there lived 400 thousand people, only one in eight remained alive. Otrar, Jend, Sygnak and many other cities of Central Asia were completely destroyed (today only archaeological ruins have been preserved in their place). By 1223 Khorezm was conquered. The Mongol conquests covered a vast territory from the Caspian Sea to the Indus.

Having conquered Khorezm, the nomads discovered a further way to the west - on the one hand to Russia, and on the other - to the Middle East. When the united Mongolian empire disintegrated, a state of the Hulaguids emerged in Central Asia, in which the descendants of the grandson of Genghis Khan Khulagu ruled. This kingdom lasted until 1335.

Anatolia

After the conquest of Khorezm, the western neighbors of the Mongols became the Seljuk Turks. Their state, the Koni Sultanate, was on the territory of modern Turkey on the peninsula of Asia Minor. This region had another historical name - Anatolia. In addition to the Seljuk state, there were Greek kingdoms there - fragments that arose after the capture of the Constantinople by the Crusaders and the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1204.

Anatolia was conquered by the Mongolian tempest Baigiu, who was the governor in Iran. He called upon Seljuk Sultan Kay-Khosrov II to recognize himself as a tributary of the nomads. The humiliating offer was rejected. In 1241, in response to the demarche Bayzhu invaded Anatolia and with the army approached Erzurum. After a two-month siege, the city fell. Its walls were destroyed by firing from a catapult, and many residents were killed or robbed.

Kay-Khosrov II, however, was not going to surrender. He enlisted the support of the Greek states (Trebizond and Nicaean empires), as well as Georgian and Armenian princes. In 1243, the army of the anti-Mongolian coalition met with interventionists in the mountain pass Kese-dag. The nomads used their favorite tactics. The Mongols, pretending to retreat, made a false maneuver and suddenly counterattacked the opponents. The army of Seljuks and their allies was defeated. After this victory, the Mongols conquered Anatolia. According to the peace treaty, one half of the Koni Sultanate was annexed to their empire, and the other began paying tribute.

Near East

In 1256, the grandson of Genghis Khan Khulagu led the march to the Middle East. The campaign lasted 4 years. This was one of the most massive campaigns of the Mongol army. The first under the blow of the steppe was the state of the Nizarites in Iran. Hulagu crossed the Amu Darya and captured Muslim cities in Kukhistan.

Having defeated the Khizarites, the Mongolian khan turned his gaze to Baghdad, where the Caliph Al-Mustatim ruled. The last monarch of the Abbasid dynasty did not have enough strength to resist the horde, but he self-confidently refused to submit to the strangers peacefully. In 1258, the Mongols besieged Baghdad. The invaders used siege weapons, and then began the assault. The city was completely surrounded and deprived of outside support. Two weeks later, Baghdad fell.

The capital of the Abbasid caliphate, the pearl of the Islamic world, was destroyed to the ground. The Mongols did not spare the unique monuments of architecture, destroyed the academy, threw the most valuable books into the Tigris. The looted Baghdad turned into a pile of smoking ruins. Its fall symbolized the end of the medieval Golden Age of Islam.

After the Baghdad events, a Mongolian campaign began in Palestine. In 1260, the battle of Ain Jalut was held. Egyptian Mamluks defeated strangers. The reason for the defeat of the Mongols was that on the eve of Hulagu, having learned of the death of the khangun Mongke, retreated to the Caucasus. In Palestine, he left the commander Kitbugu with a small army, which was naturally defeated by the Arabs. Further down the Muslim Middle East, the Mongols could not advance. The border of their empire was fixed on the Mesopotamia of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

The Battle of Kalka

The first march of the Mongols to Europe began when the nomads, pursuing the fleeing ruler of Khorezm, reached the Polovtsian steppes. At the same time Genghis Khan himself spoke about the need to conquer the Kipchaks. In 1220 the army of nomads came to Transcaucasia, from where it moved to the Old World. They devastated the lands of the Lezghian peoples in the territory of modern Dagestan. Then the Mongols first encountered the Polovtsi and the Alans.

Kipchaki, realizing the danger of uninvited guests, sent the embassy to the Russian lands, asking the Eastern Slavonic rulers for help. Mstislav the Old (Grand Duke of Kiev), Mstislav Udatny (Prince of Galich), Daniel Romanovich (Prince of Volynsky), Mstislav Svyatoslavich (prince of Chernigov) and some other feudal lords responded to the call.

It was 1223 year. The princes agreed to stop the Mongols in the Polovtsian steppe even before they could have attacked Russia. During the gatherings of the united squad to the Rurikovich the Mongolian embassy arrived. The nomads offered the Russians not to intercede for the Polovtsians. The princes ordered to kill the ambassadors and moved to the steppe.

Soon on the territory of the modern Donetsk region there was a tragic battle on Kalka. 1223 was a year of grief for the entire Russian land. The coalition of princes and Polovtsians suffered a crushing defeat. The superior forces of the Mongols defeated the united squad. Polovtsy, trembling under the onslaught, fled, leaving the Russian army without support.

In the battle, at least 8 princes were killed, including Mstislav of Kiev and Mstislav of Chernigov. Together with them many noble boyars lost their lives. Black battle became the battle of Kalka. 1223 could be a full-fledged invasion of the Mongols, but after a bloody victory, they judged that it is better to return to their native uluses. Several years in the Russian principalities of the new formidable horde did not hear anything else.

The Volga Bulgaria

Shortly before his death, Genghis Khan divided his empire into zones of responsibility, each headed by one of the sons of the conqueror. Ulus in the Polovtsian steppes went to Juchi. He died prematurely, and in 1235, on the decision of the kurultai, his son Baty started organizing an expedition to Europe. The grandson of Genghis Khan collected a gigantic army and went to conquer the countries far away for the Mongols.

The first victim of a new invasion of nomads was the Volga Bulgaria. This state in the territory of modern Tatarstan for several years was engaged in border wars with the Mongols. However, until now, the steppe has been confined to small outings. Now Batu had an army of about 120 thousand people. This colossal army easily captured the main Bulgarian cities: Bulgar, Bilyar, Dzhuketau and Suvar.

Invasion of Russia

Having conquered the Volga Bulgaria and defeated its allies Polovtsy, the aggressors moved further west. Thus began the Mongol conquest of Russia. In December 1237 the nomads found themselves in the territory of the Ryazan principality. His capital was taken and ruthlessly destroyed. Modern Ryazan is built several dozen kilometers from Old Ryazan, where only a medieval settlement still stands.

The advanced army of the Vladimir-Suzdal principality fought with the Mongols in the Battle of Kolomna. In that battle, one of the sons of Genghis Khan , Kulkhan, died. Soon the horde was attacked by a detachment of the Ryazan hero Yevpatia Kolovrat, who became a real national hero. Despite stubborn resistance, the Mongols broke every army and took all the new cities.

In early 1238, Moscow, Vladimir, Tver, Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, and Torzhok fell. The small town of Kozelsk defended itself for so long that Baty, razed it with the ground, called the fortress "an evil city". In the Battle of the River City, a separate building, commanded by the Burundai tempter, destroyed the united Russian squad led by Vladimir Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich, who was cut off his head.

More other Russian cities are lucky Novgorod. Taking Torzhok, the Horde did not dare go too far to the cold north and turned south. Thus, the Mongol invasion of Russia happily bypassed the key trade and cultural center of the country. After moving to the southern steppes, Batyi took a short break. He gave fattening to his horses and regrouped the army. The army was divided into several detachments, which solved episodic tasks in the struggle against the Polovtsi and Alans.

Already in 1239 the Mongols attacked Southern Russia. In October, Chernigov fell. Ruins were ruined Glukhov, Putivl, Rylsk. In 1240 the nomads besieged and took Kiev. Soon Galich was waiting for the same fate. After plundering the key Russian cities, Batu made Rurikovich his tributaries. Thus began the period of the Golden Horde, which lasted until the XV century. The oldest estate was recognized as the Vladimir principality. His rulers received permission from the Mongols. This humiliating order was interrupted only with the rise of Moscow.

The European campaign

The devastating Mongol invasion of Rus did not become the last for the European campaign. Continuing their journey west, the nomads reached the borders of Hungary and Poland. Some Russian princes (like Mikhail Chernigov) fled to these kingdoms, asking for help from Catholic monarchs.

In 1241, the Mongols took and plundered the Polish cities of Zaviost, Lublin, Sandomierz. Krakow was the last to fall. Polish feudal lords were able to enlist the help of the Germans and the Catholic military orders. The coalition force of these forces was defeated in the Battle of Legnica. In the battle, Krakow prince Henry II died.

Hungary was the last country to suffer from the Mongols. Passing the Carpathians and Transylvania, the nomads ravaged Oradea, Temesvar and Bistritsa. Another Mongolian detachment walked through the Wallachian fire and sword. The third army reached the banks of the Danube and captured the fortress of Arad.

All this time the Hungarian King Bela IV was in Pest, where he was building an army. An army led by Batu himself went to meet him. In April 1241, two armies clashed in a battle on the Shaino River. Bela IV was defeated. The king fled to neighboring Austria, and the Mongols continued to plunder the Hungarian lands. Batu even made attempts to cross the Danube and attack the Holy Roman Empire, but eventually abandoned this plan.

Moving west, the Mongols invaded Croatia (also belonging to Hungary) and ravaged Zagreb. Their advanced detachments reached the shores of the Adriatic Sea. This was the limit of Mongolian expansion. Nomads did not join Central Europe to their power, satisfied with prolonged robbery. The boundaries of the Golden Horde began to pass along the Dniester.