This march, begun in 1219, opened the eyes of Asia, and partly of Europe too, to this new terror, this great roller which came on inexorably, crushing down cities and men by the million. The Empire of Khwarazm ceased to exist. The great city of Bokhara, full of palaces, and with over a million population, was reduced to ashes. Samarqand, the capital, was destroyed, and out of a million people that lived there, only 50,000 remained alive. Herat, Balkh and many other flourishing cities were all destroyed. Millions were killed. All the arts and crafts that had flourished in Central Asia for hundreds of years disappeared, civilized life seemed to cease in Persia and in Central Asia. There was desert where Chengiz had passed.
The son of the Shah of Khwarazm, Jalaluddin, fought bravely against this flood. He retreated right up to the Indus river and, pressed hard there, he is said to have jumped on horseback 30 feet down into the great river and swum across. He found shelter at the Delhi Court. Chengiz did not think it worthwhile to pursue him there.
Fortunately for the Seljuq Turks and Baghdad, Chengiz left them in peace and marched north into Russia. He defeated and took prisoner the Grand Duke of Kiev. He returned east to crush a rebellion of Hsias or Tanguts.
Chengiz died in 1227 at the age of seventy-two. His empire extended from the Black Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean, and it was still vigorous and growing. His capital was still the little town of Karakorum in Mongolia. Nomad as he was, he was an extremely able organizer, and he was wise enough to employ able ministers to help him. His empire, so rapidly conquered, did not break up at his death.
To Persian and Arab historians Chengiz is a monster—the “Scourge of God” as he is called. He is painted as a very cruel person. He was very cruel, no doubt, but he was not very different from many of the rulers of his day. In India the Afghan kings were much the same, on a smaller scale. When Ghazni was captured by the Afghans in 1150 they revenged themselves for an old blood-feud by sacking and burning the city. For seven days “plunder, devastation and slaughter were continuous. Every man that was found was slain, and all the women and children were made prisoners. All the palaces and edifices of the Mahmudi Kings (that is, descendants of Sultan Mahmud), which had no equals in the world, were destroyed.” This was the behaviour of Muslims towards brother-Muslims. There was nothing to choose in quality between this and what took place in India under the Afghan kings and Chengiz’s career of destruction in Central Asia and Persia. Chengiz was particularly angry with Khwarazm because his ambassador had been killed by the Shah. For him it was a kind of blood-feud. Elsewhere there was great destruction done by Chengiz. But perhaps it was not so great as in Central Asia.
There was another motive behind Chengiz’s destruction of towns. He had the spirit of a nomad, and he hated towns and cities. He liked living in the steppes or great plains. At one time Chengiz considered the desirability of destroying all the cities in China, but fortunately he desisted! His idea was to combine civilization with a nomadic life. But this was not, and is not, possible.
You might perhaps think from Chengiz Khan’s name that he was a Mohammedan. But this was not so. The name is a Mongol name. Chengiz was a very tolerant person in religion. His religion, such as it was, was Shamaism, a worship of the “Everlasting Blue Sky”. He used to have long talks with Chinese Taoist sages, but he stuck to Shamaism, and when in difficulty, consulted the sky.
You must have noticed, earlier in this letter, that Chengiz was “elected” Great Khan by an assembly of the Mongols. This assembly was really a feudal assembly, not a popular one, and Chengiz was thus the feudal head of the clan.
He was illiterate, and so also were all his followers. Probably he did not even know that there was such a thing as writing for a long time. Messages were sent by word of mouth, and were usually in verse in the form of allegories and proverbs. It is amazing how business could be carried on in a vast empire by means of oral messages. When Chengiz learnt that there was such a thing as writing, he felt immediately that this was very useful and valuable, and he ordered his sons and chief officers to learn it. He also ordered that the old customary law of the Mongols must be put down in writing, also his own sayings. The idea was that this customary law was the “unchangeable law” for ever and ever, and no one could disobey it. Even the Emperor was subject to it. But this “unchangeable law” is lost now, and even the present-day Mongols have no recollection or tradition of it.
Every country and every religion has its old customary law and written law, and often it imagines that this is the “unchangeable law” which will endure for ever. Sometimes it is considered as “revelation”—that is, something “revealed” by God—and what God is supposed to reveal cannot be considered as changing or transitory. But laws are meant to fit existing conditions, and they are meant to help us to better ourselves. If conditions change, how can the old laws fit in? They must change with changing conditions, or else they become iron chains keeping us back while the world marches on. No law can be an “unchangeable law” It must be based on knowledge, and as knowledge grows, it must grow with it.
I have given you more details and information about Chengiz Khan than was perhaps necessary. But the man fascinates me. Strange, is it not, that this fierce and cruel and violent feudal chief of a nomadic tribe should fascinate a peaceful and non-violent and mild person like me, who am a dweller of cities and a hater of everything feudal!
68
The Mongols Dominate the World
June 26, 1932
When Chengiz Khan died, his son, Oghotai, became the Great Khan. Compared to Chengiz and to the Mongols of his time, he was humane and peacefully inclined. He was fond of saying that: “Our Kagan Chengiz built up our imperial house with great labour. Now it is time to give the peoples peace and prosperity, and to alleviate their burdens.” Notice how he thinks as a feudal chief, in terms of his clan.
But the era of conquest was not over, and the Mongols were still overflowing with energy. There was a second invasion of Europe under the great general, Sabutai. The armies and generals of Europe were no match for Sabutai. Carefully preparing his ground by sending spies and advance agents to the enemy countries to bring information, he knew well what the political and military situation of these countries was before he advanced. On the field of battle he was the master of the art of war, and the European generals seemed to be just beginners at it in comparison with him. Sabutai marched straight to Russia, leaving Baghdad and the Seljuqs in peace on the south-west. For six years he marched on and on, plundering and destroying Moscow, Kiev, Poland, Hungary, Cracow. In 1241 a Polish and German army was annihilated at Liebnitz in Lower Silesia in Central Europe. The whole of Europe seemed to be doomed. There was nobody to stop the Mongols. Frederick II, wonder of the world though he was called, must have paled before this real wonder which had come out of Mongolia. The kings and rulers of Europe gasped, when suddenly unexpected relief came.
Oghotai had died, and there was some trouble about the succession. So the Mongol armies in Europe, undefeated though they were, turned back and marched east to their homelands in 1242. Europe breathed again.
Meanwhile the Mongols had spread in China, and finished off completely the Kins in the north and even the Sungs in South China. Mangu Khan became the Great Khan in 1252, and he appointed Kublai the Governor of China. To Mangu’s Court at Karakorum came a great concourse of people from Asia and Europe. Still the Great Khan lived in tents, after the way of the nomads. But the tents were rich and full of the plunder and wealth of continents. Merchants came, especially Muslim merchants, and found the Mongols generous buyers. Artisans and astrologers and mathematicians and men who dabbled in the science of the day, all gathered together in this city of tents which seemed to lord it over the world. There was a measure of peace and order over the vast Mongol Empire, and the great caravan routes across the continents were full of people going to and fro. Europe and Asia were brought into closer contact with each other.
And then there was a race between the men of religion
to Karakorum. They all wanted to convert these conquerors of the world to their own particular brand of religion. The religion that succeeded in getting these all-powerful people on its side would surely itself become all-powerful and would triumph over all others. The Pope sent envoys from Rome; the Nestorian Christians came; the Muslims were there; and so also were the Buddhists. The Mongols were in no great hurry to adopt any new religion. They were not an over-religious people. It appears that at one time the Great Khan flirted with the idea of adopting Christianity, but he could not tolerate the claims of the Pope. Ultimately the Mongols drifted into the religions of the areas where they settled down. In China and Mongolia most of them became Buddhists; in Central Asia they became Muslims; perhaps some in Russia and in Hungary became Christians.
There is still in existence in the Pope’s library at the Vatican in Rome an original letter of the Great Khan (Mangu) to the Pope. It is in Arabic. It appears that the Pope had sent an envoy warning the new Khan, after Oghotai’s death, not to invade Europe again. The Khan replied that he had invaded Europe because the Europeans did not behave properly towards him.
Yet another wave of conquest and destruction took place in Mangu’s time. His brother Hulagu was Governor in Persia. Annoyed with the Caliph at Baghdad about something, Hulagu sent a message to him chiding him for not keeping his promises, and telling him to behave better in future or else he would lose his empire. The Caliph was not a very wise man, nor could he profit by experience. He sent an offensive reply, and the Mongol envoys were insulted by a mob in Baghdad. Hulagu’s Mongol blood was up at this. In a rage he marched on Baghdad, and after forty days’ siege he took it. That was the end of the city of the Arabian Nights, and all the treasures that had accumulated there during 506 years of empire. The Caliph and his sons and near relatives were put to death. There was a general massacre for weeks, till the river Tigris was dyed red with blood for miles. It is said that a million and a half people perished. All the artistic and literary treasures and libraries were destroyed. Baghdad was utterly ruined. Even the ancient irrigation system of western Asia, thousands of years old, was destroyed by Hulagu.
Aleppo and Edessa and many another city shared the same fate, and the shadow of night fell over western Asia. A historian of the time says that this was a “period of famine for science and virtue”. A Mongol army sent to Palestine was defeated by Sultan Baibers of Egypt. This Sultan had an interesting surname—“Bandukdar”—because of a regiment of men armed with banduks or firearms. We now come to the era of the firearms. The Chinese had long known gunpowder. The Mongols probably learnt it from them and it may be that firearms helped them in their victories. It was through the Mongols that firearms were introduced into Europe.
The destruction of Baghdad in 1258 put an end finally to what remained of the Abbaside Empire. This was the end of the distinctive Arab civilization in western Asia. Far away in southern Spain, Granada still carried on the Arab tradition. It was to last for over 200 years more before it too collapsed. Arabia itself sank rapidly in importance, and its people have played no great part in history since. Later they became part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. During the Great War of 1914–18 there was an Arab rebellion against the Turks, engineered by the English, and since then Arabia has been more or less independent.
There was no Caliph for two years. Then Sultan Baibers of Egypt nominated a relative of the last Abbaside Caliph as Caliph. But he had no political power and was just a spiritual head. Three hundred years later the Turkish Sultan of Constantinople obtained this title of Caliph from the last holder. The Turkish Sultans continued to be Caliph till both Sultan and Caliph were ended a few years ago by Mustafa Kamal Pasha.
I have digressed from my story. Mangu, the Great Khan, died in 1239. He had conquered Tibet before his death. Kublai Khan, the Governor of China, now became the Great Khan. Kublai had long been in China, and this country interested him. He therefore moved his capital from Karakorum to Peking, changing the name of the city to Khanbalik, the “City of the Khan”. Kublai’s interest in Chinese affairs made him neglect his great empire, and gradually the great Mongol governors became independent.
Kublai completed the conquest of China, but his campaigns were very different from the old Mongol campaigns. There was much less cruelty and destruction. China had already toned down and civilized Kublai. The Chinese also took to him kindly and treated him almost as one of themselves. He actually founded an orthodox Chinese dynasty— the Yuan dynasty. Kublai added Tongking, Annam and Burma to his empire. He tried to conquer Japan and Malaysia, but failed because the Mongols were not used to the sea and did not know ship-building.
During the reign of Mangu Khan, an interesting embassy came to him from the King of France—Louis IX. Louis suggested an alliance between the Mongols and the Christian Powers of Europe against the Muslims. Poor Louis had had a bad time when he was taken prisoner during the Crusades. But the Mongols were not interested in such alliances; nor were they interested in attacking any religious people as such.
Why should they ally themselves with the petty kings and princes of Europe? And against whom? They had little to fear from the fighting qualities of the western European States or of the Islamic States. It was by sheer chance that western Europe escaped them. The Seljuq Turks bowed down to them and paid tribute. Only the Sultan of Egypt had defeated a Mongol army, but there is little doubt that they could have subdued him if they seriously attempted it. Right across Asia and Europe the mighty Mongol Empire sprawled. There had never been in history anything to compare with the Mongol conquests; there had never been such a vast empire. The Mongols must indeed have seemed at the time the lords of the world. India was free from them at the time simply because they had not gone that way. Western Europe, just about the size of India, was also outside the Empire. But all these places existed almost on sufferance, and only so long as the Mongols did not take it into their heads to swallow them up. So it must have seemed in the thirteenth century.
But the tremendous energy of the Mongol seemed to be lessening; the impulse to go on conquering waned. You must remember that in those days people moved slowly on foot or on horseback. There were no quicker methods of locomotion. For an army to go from its home in Mongolia to the western frontier of the Empire in Europe would itself take a year of journeying. They were not keen enough on conquest to take these mighty journeys through their own empire, when there was no chance of plunder. Besides, repeated success in war and plunder had made the Mongol troopers rich in booty. Many of them may have even had slaves. So they quietened down and began to take to sober and peaceful ways. The man who has got everything he wants is all in favour of peace and order.
The administration of the vast Mongol Empire must have been a very difficult task. It is not surprising therefore that it began to split up. Kublai Khan died in 1292. After him there was no Great Khan. The Empire divided up into five big areas:
(1) The Empire of China, including Mongolia and Manchuria and Tibet. This was the principal one, under Kublai’s descendants of the Yuan dynasty;
(2) To the far west in Russia, Poland and Hungary was the Empire of the Golden Horde (as the Mongols there were called);
(3) In Persia and Mesopotamia and part of Central Asia, there was the Ilkhan Empire—which had been founded by Hulagu, and to which the Seljuq Turks paid tribute;
(4) North of Tibet in Central Asia there was Great Turkey, as it was called, the Empire of Zagatai; and
(5) Between Mongolia and the Golden Horde, there was a Siberian Empire of the Mongols.
Although the great Mongol Empire was split up, each one of these five divisions of it was a mighty empire.
69
Marco Polo, the Great Traveller
June 27, 1932
I have told you of the Court of the Great Khan at Karakorum; how crowds of merchants and artisans and learned men and missionaries came there, attracted by the fame of the Mongols and the glamour of their victories. They came also because the Mongols encou
raged them to do so. They were a strange people, these Mongols; highly efficient in some ways, and almost childish in other matters. Even their ferocity and cruelty, shocking as it was, has a childish element in it. It is this childishness in them, I think, that makes these fierce warriors rather attractive. Some hundreds of years later a Mongol, or Moghal, as they were called in India, conquered this country. He was Babar, and his mother was a descendant of Chengiz Khan. Having conquered India, he sighed for the cool breezes and the flowers and gardens and water-melons of Kabul and the north. He was a delightful person, and the memoirs that he wrote make him still a very human and attractive figure.
So the Mongols encouraged visitors from abroad to their Courts. They had a desire for knowledge and wanted to learn from them. You will remember my telling you that as soon as Chengiz Khan learned that there was such a thing as writing, he immediately grasped the significance of it and ordered his officers to learn it. They had open and receptive minds and could learn from others. Kublai Khan, after settling down in Peking and becoming a respectable Chinese monarch, especially encouraged visitors from foreign countries. To him journeyed two merchants from Venice, the brothers Nicolo Polo and Maffeo Polo. They had gone right up to Bokhara in quest of business, and there they met some envoys sent by Kublai Khan to Hulagu in Persia. They were induced to join this caravan, and thus they journeyed to the Court of the Great Khan in Peking.
Nicolo and Maffeo were well received by Kublai Khan, and they told him about Europe and Christianity and the Pope. Kublai was greatly interested, and seems to have been attracted towards Christianity. He sent the Polos back to Europe in 1269 with a message for the Pope. He asked that 100 learned men, “intelligent men acquainted with the seven arts” and able to justify Christianity, should be sent to him. But the two Polos on their return found Europe and the Pope in a bad way. There were no such 100 learned men to be had. After two years’ delay they journeyed back with two Christian friars or monks. What was far more important, they took with them Nicolo’s son, a young man named Marco.
Glimpses of World History Page 33
