Mongol Conquest of China
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A number of factors made it possible for the Mongols to conquer China when such conquest had eluded earlier nomadic groups. Some of the same qualities which led to the Mongol conquest also led to the Mongol reign over China for nearly a century. Unlike earlier nomads, the Mongols were not only brutal, they were tenacious. Beginning with Genghis Khan and moving down through two generations of offspring and successors, the Mongols were incredibly patient and persistent. The image of "Mongol hordes" sweeping through towns and plundering and pillaging and moving onto the next town, drunken on horseback, could not be further from the truth, at least on the strategic level. While the Mongols did engage in brutality, as mentioned, the Mongol leaders, from Genghis Khan on, showed a proclivity for meticulous and long-range planning for the conquest. Once they had achieved that victory, they did all the right things in prolonging their rule, especially in terms of preserving as much as possible of the structure of Chinese society as it existed before the conquest. In other words, they ruled, as much as they could, as Chinese rulers rather than as Mongol rulers. Fitzgerald writes of the nomadic Nuchens and their leader Akuta, their victories in northern China, and their failure to conquer the entire country: "Had [Akuta's] generals shown more persistence, and had he himself lived, the whole of China would have been conquered with as little resistance as was shown in the north" (Fitzg
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history. In 1206, little more than eighty years after the Kin conquest of north China, Temujin became Great Khan of the Mongols, under the title Genghiz Khan. Four years later he attacked the Kin Empire, and began a war which only ended with the ruin of that state (Fitzgerald, 1966, p. 431).
Fitzgerald is harsh in his judgment of the Mongols and their impact on China, at least in the conquering stage. He grants that the victory of the Mongols under Genghis was an "achievement, truly astonishing for the obscure chief of an obscure tribe," but goes on to say that
The Mongol conquests were in every respect an unmitigated curse. They destroyed everything worth preserving in the civilizations of western Asia and north-western China, and saved only the elements in those civilizations which the world could well spare, cruelty, brutality, and poverty (Fitzgerald, 1966, p. 431).
Fitzgerald's account of their polygamy, their drunkenness, their uncleanliness, and other excesses and vices leaves the impression that the Mongols could hardly have conquered a village, much less a vast nation. If they were so utterly destructive, however, what was left for them to rule over for a century? Fitzgerald credits Yelu Ch'u-ts'ai, a Genghis couns
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Approximate Word count = 1583
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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