Nomadic Empires — Class 11 History

This theme studies the Mongols of Central Asia, who under Genghis Khan built the largest transcontinental empire the world had seen, straddling Europe and Asia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Because the steppe dwellers produced little literature, knowledge of them comes mainly from city-based chroniclers, travelogues and documents in many languages (Chinese, Mongolian, Persian, Arabic), often biased; Russian and Soviet scholars such as Vladimirtsov and Bartold later studied them. Born around 1162 as Temujin near the Onon river, Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes after years of hardship, was proclaimed "Universal Ruler" at the quriltai of 1206, and campaigned across north China, Transoxiana, Khwarazm and Iran, devastating cities like Bukhara, Samarqand, Nishapur and Herat. He reorganised society into decimal military units (10s to 10,000-strong tuman), deliberately breaking old tribal identities, and created the swift yam courier system funded by the qubcur tax. After his death in 1227 the empire split among the lineages of his sons — the Yuan in China, the Il-Khanids in Iran, the Golden Horde in Russia and the Chaghatai khanate. The chapter examines the yasa law-code, Pax Mongolica trade along the Silk Route, and how the Mongols ran a multi-ethnic, multi-religious regime that inspired later rulers like the Mughals.