The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan, his heirs and the founding of modern China

by John Man

  In China, Genghis is also a symbol, but of very different values, because he is the Progenitor of the Great Yuan, the dynasty declared to be Chinese by his grandson Kublai. He stands for Chinese unity, imperial grandeur, national pride. A guide once told me: ‘We are very proud of Genghis Khan, because he was the only Chinese to have conquered Europeans.’ No point telling her that Genghis was not Chinese, that China was his prime enemy, that he never got as far as Europe himself. It would be like denying Mary’s virginity to a Catholic.

  The Chinese are on firmer historical ground pointing out that Mongolia and China were all one under Kublai’s Yuan dynasty and again under the Manchus – the Qing dynasty – from 1691 until 1911. Both these dynasties were the creation of non-Han Chinese, so the conclusion drawn is rather less firm, namely that China and Mongolia should be one again, under Chinese rule. One of Mongolia’s leading independent politicians, Oyun, was once in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Beijing, and – as she told me – ‘one young journalist actually said to me, “We have very confused feelings about Mongolia, because Mongolia is part of China!”’

  Genghis’s conquests, which were given their universalist ideology by Ogedei and extended by Kublai, still govern China’s policies on its borderlands: Tibet sucked back into the fold, Mongol lands gradually absorbed – re-absorbed in Chinese eyes – making Inner Mongolia irrevocably part of China. Herders protest the loss of their lands to farmers and miners, and get abused, imprisoned and occasionally killed for their trouble.

  What of Mongolia itself? It broke away in 1911 when China was weak, and fell into the Russian sphere of interest. In 1945, a plebiscite overwhelmingly ‘confirmed’ its ‘independence’ – the quotes reflecting its dubious nature in Chinese eyes.fn1 The result was accepted only by the Nationalists, never by the Communists.

  Officially, no one talks of repudiating the status quo. Unofficially, though, there is a wrong to be righted. If this ever comes to pass, it will be done in the name, naturally, of Genghis Khan, because it was his heirs who gave China its present borders (minus Mongolia itself, and a bit of Manchuria, now Russian).

  Of course, no government accuses China of being a military threat, despite the occasional bit of scaremongering, like Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order: ‘Chinese expansion could also become military if China decided that it should attempt to reclaim Mongolia.’

  There’s no need for anything heavy-handed, because Chinese pressure is economic and social. For the last fifty years there has been one rail link between Mongolia and China, and one paved road which stops in mid-Gobi. But Oyu Tolgoi will change all that. Already there’s a paved road for the trucks, and a railway is planned. The several thousand workers in what already counts as a new town will swell, with many Chinese immigrants. In Ulaanbaatar and elsewhere, Chinese are already creating shell companies to buy up land, property and mining rights, and more of the same will follow. It is not inconceivable that one day cash and immigration will turn the border porous, as thousands then tens of thousands trickle and then pour northwards, allowing China to exert ever more pressure on Mongolia, until – in the direst scenario – Mongolia is bought, pressurized and cajoled back into the bosom of the Chinese family.

  That’s a vision that fills most Mongols with horror. They were part of Qing-dynasty China for 220 years, and achieved enough independence under the Soviets to make themselves fully independent when the Soviet Union collapsed. The very idea of turning the clock back is a nightmare.

  Officially, China and Mongolia get on fine. They have to – they’re neighbours, and they need each other. But it’s a marriage made in hell. Underneath, among ordinary people, there is a visceral distrust, as you would imagine, given that Mongols once ruled the Chinese and the Chinese once ruled the Mongols.

  Where will it all end? Growth is erratic. It slowed dramatically in early 2014 as the government and Oyu Tolgoi’s owners, Rio Tinto, haggled. It may all come to nothing. But the signs are that big changes are afoot, and Genghis and Kublai are the keys. If the Chinese take over Mongolia, they will do so in the names of Genghis and Kublai, who made Mongolia part of China. And if Mongols resist, they will do so in the name of Genghis and Kublai, who made China part of Mongolia.

  fn1 Actually they have a tiny point: the vote, organized by Mongolia’s Stalin-figure, Choibalsan, was not just overwhelming but unanimous, with precisely no one voting to remain part of China.

  BECOMING GENGHIS

  Blue Lake, one of Genghis’s family camp-sites, is widely accepted as the spot where Genghis received his title in 1189.

  A new plaque commemorates the occasion. Seen here with Black Heart mountain behind, it is flanked by totemic portraits of later khans.

  Blue Lake seen from Black Heart mountain.

  ‘All of them having agreed among themselves, they said to Temujin, “We shall make you khan . . . If we violate your counsel, cast us out into the wilderness!” In this way they swore and made Temujin khan, naming him Genghis Khan.’ – adapted from The Secret History.

  CONQUEST

  Today’s reminders of Genghis’s early conquests include the tombs of the Western Xia emperors outside Yinchuan; the ruins of Otrar in Kazakhstan, the entry point into the world of Islam; the sand-blasted remnants of old Merv; and a few pre-conquest buildings that survived the onslaught.

  The Western Xia imperial tombs once had exotic tiled roofs, until stripped by the Mongols in 1211.

  Today’s Otrar, though long abandoned, preserves its old shape – a mound that once stood clear of its surrounding flood plain. In Genghis’s day, it was a thriving city.

  Its steambaths had a sophisticated system of under-floor heating. Sources spoke of total destruction, but in fact Otrar kept on thriving for another 400 years.

  The Great Kyz Kala in Merv, once one of Islam’s greatest cities, was already centuries old when the Mongols destroyed it. Its name means Girls’ Castle, because (according to legend) 40 girls saw the destruction and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. The building’s organ-pipe structure is still unexplained.

  The mausoleum of the dynastic founder Ismail Samani, in Bukhara, is a 10th-century jewel of Islamic architecture. It is one of the few buildings that existed when Genghis invaded in 1219–20. Tradition claims it survived because it was buried in sand.

  In a Muslim illustration, Genghis delivers a famous speech to Bukhara’s leaders, proclaiming that they must be sinful, for otherwise Heaven would not have allowed him to defeat them.

  A SECRET DEATH, A SECRET BURIAL

  Genghis’s illness in August 1227 came just when he was on the verge of defeating Western Xia. It had to remain a secret. Possibly he was taken to a hidden valley in the Liupan mountains, where he died. His body was then carried to his homeland in the Khentii mountains and given a secret burial. It is widely believed, without evidence, that his grave is on the mountain known as Khentii Khan, which may or may not be the sacred mountain of Burkhan Khaldun, much mentioned in The Secret History.

  The valley in the Liupan, which is rich in medicinal plants, holds an abandoned village that is still used seasonally by locals. They gather plants that may have been used in an attempt to cure the ailing Genghis.

  In a Muslim painting, mourners gather round Genghis’s coffin.

  Khentii Khan, widely thought to be Burkhan Khaldun, is a bare summit that attracts many pilgrims.

  On top, scores of small shrines encircle a large one above which waves Genghis’s horse-tail standard. Pilgrims honour Genghis here, with observances that owe much to Buddhism and shamanism, but there is no firm evidence that he is buried on the mountain – at least, not yet.

  IN MEMORIAM

  Across Mongolian lands past and present, Genghis is recalled in folklore, religion, institutions, objects and memorials. In Mongolia, he is the nation’s founder. Chinese revere him as the First Progenitor of the Yuan Dynasty. Many worship his spirit, praying to him for protection and guidance.

>   The new front of Mongolia’s parliament has him as its enthroned guardian.

  In the Chinese town of Edsen Khoroo – the ‘Lord’s Enclosure’ – in Inner Mongolia, this 1950s temple, the so-called Mausoleum of Genghis Khan, is home to a cult that worships Genghis’s spirit with pseudo-Buddhist rituals.

  A modern statue of Genghis dominates the Mausoleum’s entrance, backed by a map of the empire.

  In a new tourist attraction near Holingol, in Inner Mongolia, now part of China, Genghis looms over a Mongol army. In China, he is not so much a conqueror as a Chinese emperor, and a symbol of Chinese unity.

  Near the Mongol capital, Ulaanbaatar, Genghis towers 40 metres over his home pastures in the form of the world’s biggest equestrian statue – further proof of his heroic stature.

  CONQUERING ISLAM

  In this Muslim view, Mongols gather to assault a moated city. Note the powerful recurved bows possessed by both sides. Well-dressed leaders seem to be making an escape across the moat. Mongols beat a war-drum (bottom right) and a counterweight trebuchet – a novelty taken over from Muslim armies – stands ready to bombard walls, its sling dangling.

  CLOUD TERRACE: IMPERIAL SCRIPTS SET IN STONENE

  In Juyongguan pass (near the Great Wall at Badaling) is Yun Tai – Cloud Terrace – built under the last Mongol emperor in 1342. In the arch’s roof are carvings which include the empire’s main scripts – Sanskrit, Tibetan, Uighur, Western Xia, Chinese – and the one devised by the Tibetan Phags-pa to replace all the others. It never did.

  Cloud Terrace was originally a base for three pagodas, destroyed when the Mongols fled from China in 1368. A replacement temple burned down in 1702.

  The paving stones still have the ruts made by wagons 700 years ago.

  The six scripts all record the same Buddhist incantation.

  XANADU

  Kublai’s first capital, which became Shang-du, his ‘Upper Capital’, or Xanadu in its common English spelling. At its centre stands the base of the royal palace. The low, grass-covered mounds are scattered with rubble, which included the marble pillar.

  Xanadu’s three square sections – outer, inner and royal – show it to be thoroughly Chinese in design. The section nearest the camera was a field for hunting.

  The base of the palace where Kublai received Marco Polo.

  Incised in marble, dragons and peonies symbolize both war and peace.

  A reconstruction of Kublai’s ‘cane palace’ in Xanadu suggests that it symbolized the union of his two worlds, China and Mongolia. Made of bamboo from southern China and decorated in the Chinese style, it was round and easily dismantled, like a Mongolian ger.

  In the only authentic portrait of him, an ageing, overweight Kublai is swathed in ermine, as befits the world’s most powerful monarch. Beside him is his favourite wife, Chabui.

  EMBRACING BUDDHISM

  Kublai was an adopted Buddhist; perhaps he believed; certainly he saw the political advantages. Buddhism offered three of them: it countered the influence of the two great rivals, Confucianism and Daoism; it strengthened his grandfather’s ideology with the concept of a ‘universal ruler’; and it summoned to his aid at least one powerful spiritual entity.

  The White Pagoda, Beijing’s only surviving 13th-century building, remains a base for worship, as it was when Kublai ordered its construction.

  The statue of the White Pagoda’s Nepalese architect, Aniga, recalls Kublai’s readiness to employ international talent.

  The terrifying, six-armed and multi-skulled Buddhist deity Mahakala. Better for Kublai to have him onside, especially during the invasion of southern China in the 1270s.

  Tiles in the White Pagoda proclaim the temple’s Buddhist roots.

  CATASTROPHE IN JAPAN

  Nothing revealed the limits of Kublai’s imperial reach more than his failures to take Japan. Two great armadas, in 1274 and 1281, were both destroyed by storms. Japanese rulers ascribed salvation to the gods, and called the typhoon the kamikaze, the divine wind. Probably they would have won anyway. Japanese fighting spirit would have made lasting conquest impossible.

  Kublai’s Chinese-Korean navy was a formidable force. The second invasion had 4,400 ships, mostly small landing craft, with a core of warships like this one. But Kublai’s demands forced short-cuts in construction. This produced ships unable to withstand the typhoon that, in 1281, sent the fleet to its doom.

  A portrait of the Japanese warrior Suenaga shows him almost killed by an exploding ceramic shell (inset) during the 1274 invasion.

  Later, he took some Mongolian heads, which he presented to his commander.

  After 1274, the Japanese built a defensive wall around Hakata Bay, which the Mongol-Chinese-Korean invaders could not take before the typhoon hit.

  Today the wall is partly rebuilt as a memorial to the event that preserved Japan’s independence.

  A beautifully decorated Mongol-Chinese war helmet.

  Kenzo Hayashida, marine archaeologist, shows the bronze seal of an army commander (as it says in Chinese in Phags-pa’s script), proof that Kublai’s navy lay on the ocean floor.

  HOW THE NEWS WENT WEST

  This 1459 map by Fra Mauro of Venice (with north at the bottom) was one of the first to take Marco Polo seriously, and bring the wealth of China to European attention. Cathay – a corruption of ‘Khitan’ – was a common term for north China. Here it is spelled ‘Chataio’. The great city in the middle is Beijing – labelled ‘chabalek’, which is Marco’s Khanbalik, the Khan’s City. The Lugou Bridge (now usually known as the Marco Polo Bridge) heads away top right (i.e. south-east). Xanadu (Shang-du in Chinese) – ‘Sandu’ – is near the bottom (i.e. north).

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Mongolists, like the Mongol empire itself, span a formidable range of cultures and languages: Mongolian, Chinese, Persian, Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Latin, Georgian, and several more. And those are just the primary sources. A full bibliography of the Mongol empire, including books and articles in all the different languages involved, would make a substantial volume. It does not exist. Two of the richest sources – the Chinese Yuan Shi and Rashid al-Din’s Collected Chronicles in Persian – are still not fully accessible to English readers. Very few historians read both languages, let alone the material in a dozen others. We all depend on translations. The only Mongol source, The Secret History, exists in several versions, all superseded by the astonishingly erudite two-volume edition by de Rachewiltz, though its size and price make it unsuitable for non-specialists. The best bibliographies for English readers are in Ratchnevsky’s Genghis Khan (in the English edition, superbly edited by Thomas Haining), Morgan’s The Mongols (invaluable for his expertise in Islamic history), and Rossabi’s Khubilai Khan (for Chinese sources). Mote is magnificent. So is Atwood.

  I used the following – a small fraction of the whole:

  Abu-Lughod, Janet L., Before European Hegemony: The World System AD 1250–1350, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

  Allsen, Thomas, Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

  Allsen, Thomas T., ‘The Rise of the Mongolian Empire’, see Franke and Twitchett.

  Allsen, Thomas, ‘Ever Closer Encounters: The Appropriation of Culture and the Apportionment of Peoples in the Mongol Empire’, Journal of Early Modern History, Vol. 1, No. 1, Feb. 1997.

  Amitai-Preiss, Reuven, and Morgan, David O. (eds), The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy, Leiden: Brill, 1999. Cf: Okada.