Great Wall in 50 Objects

by William Lindesay

  Even when I don’t ask the question, his name often appears anyway. I’ve frequently been up on the ‘tourist’ Wall at Badaling or Mutianyu and have heard first-time visitors, overwhelmed by the scene, musing: ‘It’s incredible, but it didn’t stop Genghis Khan . . .’

  Of course it didn’t – the Ming Wall (1368–1644) was built after the time of Genghis Khan (1162–1227). Rather, it aimed to prevent history from repeating: to stop the Mongols, once they had been ousted from China, from invading again. And even if some of the tourists are speaking more knowledgably, referring to ‘it’ as the earlier Great Walls that were operating at the time of Genghis Khan – built by the Western Xia and the Jin – those border defences didn’t stop him either.

  The Mongols, as nomads, built little of permanence, yet the world’s largest construction – the Ming Great Wall – was in some sense built for them, if posthumously. Like it or not, Genghis Khan’s name is irrevocably linked to the Ming Wall.

  On the Mongols’ continent-wide conquest of Asia, they became seasoned victors in surprise attacks, open battles and in siege warfare. According to some researchers, they conquered so many fortified cities that they made defensive walls obsolete. I disagree. The legacy of the Mongols’ brutal success forewarned the Ming restorers of Han rule that the longevity of their dynasty depended on their success in keeping the Mongols out. They prompted the Ming to ‘reinvent’ the border defence system – and thus to build the greatest of China’s many Great Walls. In 2005 the president of Mongolia, Nambaryn Enkhbayer, during a state visit, said: ‘Yes, it is a “great” Wall, but I must add that it takes a great people to have a Wall like this built for them.’

  Our next four objects tell us how ‘the Mongols’ transformed themselves from a family clan to that ‘great people’, a nation. Formidable firepower, armour and transportation all played vital roles, yet they were resources that could only be effectively pointed at larger enemies if combined sizably in scale and organised reliably and adeptly, an extraordinary process of unification. Without this, arrows, armour and horses might only be used in the usual way, by tribe fighting against tribe.

  The leader of our group of four objects is a fork-like metal object called a sulde, or ‘spirit banner’. Its symbolism shows us how nature and spirituality inspired a sense of destiny in the mind of a warrior, empowering him to rule his own, to become stronger by conquering others, and to unify them into his larger own.

  When a steppe warrior died, the Mongols did not build any visible structure as a memorial, not even for their Great Khan. Graves were never marked: they were of no real importance, for they contained only a body. The soul of the person was believed to live on, forever entwined spiritually in the horsehair of the spirit banner.

  We don’t know which warrior, clan or tribe owned this spirit banner but there’s no better object with which to study the spirituality of the Mongols and the journey they took under Genghis Khan’s leadership to conquer the Western Xia, the Jin and the Southern Song.

  DESCRIPTION: A gold-tipped trident, the upper part of a Mongol sulde, or spirit banner

  SIGNIFICANCE: A symbol of unity on which Mongol military success depended

  ORIGIN: Mongolia, circa late twelfth century

  LOCATION: Museum of the Great Hunnu Empire, Erdene, east of Ulaanbaatar

  Like many historical artefacts, it is incomplete. What remains looks like a large trident. The frame, made of iron, is now severely rusted. In glorious contrast, the three untarnished golden tips flare up symmetrically. Each one has been worked into the shape of a flame. The central tip achieves almost perfect symmetry, while its surface and edges bear many more small curled flame designs. The two flanking spear tips, near mirror images of one another, flare outwards, balancing the trident.

  Following the rusty stem downward, we see that it becomes hollow: the pole to which it was once attached is now missing. Also absent is a large round disc that served as a frame to which strands of long horsehair were attached. All artists’ impressions of Mongols at war show a large spirit banner like this one, its thick horsehair swirling in the wind as it is held high during a charge, inspiring the nomadic warriors to victory.

  Professor Jack Weatherford explains the mysterious significance of the spirit banner in his book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World:

  Through the centuries on the rolling, grassy steppes of inner Asia, a warrior-herder carried a Spirit Banner, called a ‘sulde’, made by tying strands of hair from his best horses to the shaft of a spear, just below its blade. Whenever he set up camp, the warrior planted the Spirit Banner outside the entrance to his ‘ger’ to proclaim his identity and to stand as his perpetual guardian. The Spirit Banner always remained in the open air beneath the Eternal Blue Sky that the Mongols worshiped. As the strands of hair blew and tossed in the nearly constant breeze of the steppe, they absorbed the power of the wind, the sky, and the sun, and transferred them to the warrior. The wind in the horsehair inspired the warrior’s dreams and encouraged him to pursue his own destiny. The streaming and twisting of the horsehair in the wind beckoned the owner ever onward, luring him away from this spot to seek another . . . to create his own fate in his life in this world.

  The nomads’ greatest weakness was disunity. They lived in small, clustered encampments of cramped gers, and fierce family arguments easily erupted, often becoming hostile. Everything was in short supply, including people, and especially women. Inheritance customs saw widows become wives to their husband’s oldest surviving brother: the practice meant a clan did not have to offer gifts to outside clans in order to win a wife. Female fertility was a resource not to be wasted. More children increased a family’s chances of survival in this harsh environment, but the levirate custom led to mistrust and killings as siblings and half-brothers contested for dominance.

  Mongoliin Nuuts Tovchoo, or ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’, written circa 1230, narrates the life and times of the boy Temüjin who became Genghis Khan. It contains ‘The Parable of the Five Arrows’, in which Alanqu’o, a mother of five sons, heard the oldest two wondering who fathered their three younger brothers:

  One spring day, after boiling mutton, Alanqu’o sat down her five sons in a row. She gave each of them an arrow, asking each to break it. They broke them easily, and threw them aside. Next, she took five arrow shafts and bound them together. She gave the bundle to the first son, saying, ‘Break them!’ All tried in turn, but none of them succeeded. ‘All of you were born of this same belly, alone you can be broken by anyone; together, and of one mind, like bound arrow shafts, nobody can vanquish you.’

  Temüjin would have known this parable, and thus been acutely aware of the danger of internecine warring. His own life was full of conflict and retaliation with surrounding clans. He was born of an abducted Merkid woman. His father was poisoned by Tartars. He killed his half-brother. He was captured by Taiitchi’uts. He escaped. His wife Borte was kidnapped by Merkids. He rescued her; she was already pregnant. In 1189 he became Temujin Khan, chieftain of his own tiny Mongol tribe. Over the next twenty-five years, he slowly subjugated other steppe tribes one by one, making his Mongols the largest, and finally the only one: a powerful nation.

  Temüjin Khan’s strategy for winning the allegiance of hostile tribes that he defeated was unprecedented. He abandoned nepotism, instead rewarding outsiders with rank and rewards if they pledged loyalty to him. According to Professor Ugunge Onon, translator of ‘The Secret History’, he entrenched this practice by promoting three types of prestigious inter-tribal relationship: marriage, sworn brotherhood and deep friendship. Eventually, his core command group consisted of men from nine tribes, among them Shamans, Buddhists, Muslim and Nestorians.

  ‘After Genghis Khan had unified the people of the felt-walled tents,’ ‘The Secret History’ says, ‘they assembled at the Onon River in the Year of the Tiger [1206]. After hoisting a white banner with nine pennants, the title of Great Khan was bestowed upon him . . .’

 
At this khuriltai, or ‘council’, Genghis Khan announced the names of ninety-five men, each of whom was placed in command of 1000 households (tumens), a reward for their loyalty in establishing the Mongol nation. The spoils of war would provide the material reward for their continued loyalty.

  Even before Genghis Khan set out on his campaign of expansion, the creation of the Mongol state in 1206 put all neighbouring lands and their peoples in peril. States to its south could no longer bank on safety brought about by enemies fighting each other. A new spirit banner was made, from the hair of black stallions, especially for war. It would be carried by Genghis Khan’s army in their battles against the Jin, won in 1220, and during the twenty-year campaign against the Western Xia, during which he died near Liupanshan, in today’s Ningxia.

  According to Jack Weatherford:

  The union between the man and his Spirit Banner grew so intertwined that when he died, the warrior’s spirit was said to reside forever in those tufts of horsehair. While the warrior lived, the horsehair banner carried his destiny; in death, it became his soul. The physical body was quickly abandoned to nature, but the soul lived on forever in those tufts of horsehair to inspire future generations.

  In this way, the spirit banner came to represent the past and present of its holder, and the future of its inheritors.

  A solemn procession, led by the spirit banner, guided Genghis Khan’s body back on a forty-day journey across the Gobi Desert and steppe to the place of his birth, in view of the sacred Mount Burkhan Khaldan, in today’s Henti Aimag, between the Onon and Kherlen rivers. There he was buried secretly.

  Genghis Khan’s spirit banners became revered icons. Like other national treasures – such as the seals of the Khans, and ‘The Secret History’ – they remained in Mongolia for safekeeping. The white banner went missing early, but the black one was kept by the Lama Zanabazar, who built a monastery for its veneration, near Genghis Khan’s birthplace at the sacred mountain.

  Centuries later, during the 1930s, the monks of the monastery were murdered by Stalin’s troops; it was a fate that befell some 30 000 Mongolian monks. The black spirit banner disappeared. The Soviets became so paranoid at preventing a nationalist revival that they cordoned off much of Henti, designating it a ‘highly restricted area’.

  In 1990, with the impending collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states, including Mongolia, a democratic revolution erupted which saw the return of Mongolia proper. New spirit banners were made. Embodying the soul of the Mongol nation founded by Genghis Khan, and Mongolia’s past, present and future, they are now displayed as solemn symbols of state inside the Presidential Palace in Ulaanbaatar.

  24.

  Sharpshooters

  Mongol arrowheads

  Most national armed forces have an elite regiment, a crack division. The French have the Foreign Legion, the British the SAS, the Americans the Navy Seals. The ancient Mongol army was different. They had no ordinary, standard forces. They only had one regiment, and it was a crack regiment: their cavalry. It was one of history’s smallest armies, but it was entirely elite, with every warrior physically equipped and mentally prepared only for victory. The army had just 95 000 men, each of whom carried around sixty arrows. If fully deployed in battle, this Mongolian cavalry force was capable of unleashing some 5.7 million arrows at the enemy.

  Our next object – a collection of arrowheads from the National Museum of Mongolia, in Ulaanbaatar – focuses our attention on the Mongols’ awesome firepower. The collection contains specialised arrowheads for various purposes, and analysing them illustrates how the Mongols became such feared killers with their composite bows (see Object 8).

  The largest arrowheads, each about the size of one’s palm, with a flat, diamond-shaped surface, were designed for hunting game. They weigh between 200 and 300 grams apiece. Fixed to a shaft the length of a tall adult’s arm – from fingertips to armpit – they were shot from heavy draw-weight bows by very strong archers.

  Practising archery by aiming at stationary targets makes one good at hitting a stationary target. But in battle, targets move, so the Mongols considered hunting experience the optimum preparation. Children began on foot, playing with the bow and arrow by waiting silently and motionless near rabbit and marmot burrows. Youths graduated to riding horseback, stalking and chasing fast-running game, including the fleet-footed gazelle, which made the transition from the hunt to the battlefield a natural one. Their practice ground, the steppe, was hostile and vast, a test of endurance; China’s plains, although alien, were comparatively easier.

  The Mongols observed how predators in the natural world hunted their prey, particularly how wolves hunted gazelle (see Object 28). They copied these survival-of-the-fittest skills: they pursued slowly, with stealth and patience; they utilised the terrain to their advantage, causing panic; and they timed their attacks for when the enemy was least ready. By adulthood, Mongolian archers, having spent years in the saddle hunting and herding, were truly an elite force.

  The armies of native Han Chinese dynasties, because of their sedentary way of life, did not experience such paramilitary hunting apprenticeships. Most had only a modicum of combat experience. Conquest dynasties established by the Qidans, Jurchens, Mongols and Manchus, however, once they became more sedentary, paid strict attention to maintaining their soldiers’ hunting skills, in order to retain their martial supremacy. The emperors of the Qing were great advocates of the hunt. ‘If the officers and soldiers of provincial garrisons are not made to go out and hunt every year to practise their martial skills, they will eventually become lazy,’ professed Emperor Kangxi, while Emperor Qianlong stressed the need to cultivate what he termed wei jiaoyang manzhou zhidao, or ‘the Manchu Way’, by maintaining the tradition of the hunt, a retreat into the wild.

  The other arrowheads in our collection were used in combat. During Genghis Khan’s campaigns in North China, he offered his enemies a choice: surrender and be spared, or resist and be annihilated. In this we see the mind war which the Mongols waged. They touted their confidence in victory, taunting their enemies, setting free those who had seen their brutality so they might convince the next targets to surrender. Fear was a vital weapon in their arsenal.

  Within the zone of an engagement, ‘whistling arrows’ were unleashed primarily for signalling, but they also induced fear in those under attack, draining their nervous energy. Via a small hole in the arrowhead, a high-pitched fizzing sound was emitted when the arrow was unleashed, warning of the onslaught to come, and giving the enemy a final chance to surrender.

  Finally, in our collection are arrowheads designed to kill. These are distinguished by their smaller, thinner, more pointed forms, although there were several kinds. The larger types were for use from a distance; with their slightly heavier weight and their slower velocity, they were designed to penetrate armour. At closer quarters the Mongols used smaller, lighter arrowheads that were specifically designed for deep piercing.

  The type of arrowhead a soldier used depended not only on the distance of the engagement, but also on a number of other variables, including the battlefield’s features, the cohesiveness of the enemy and their fortifications. The Mongol army was divided into ninety-five units of 1000 soldiers each. As The Secret History records, these were not individuals but household units of men, women and children. While men formed the frontline cavalry force, women brought up the flank and were responsible for resupplying the cavalry with fresh horses and arrows.

  For many years I was confounded by my inability to find arrow-heads during my Wall and Wall-side explorations. Their absence seemed conspicuous. Why were there none to be found? The answer is simple. Arrowheads took much time to produce, and demanded expensive resources in great quantities. If it was at all possible – that is, when victory was won – the Mongols collected and recycled them. Women picked up arrows in the wake of a battle for the Mongol cavalry. Each warrior carried a file for refurbishing used arrows, and then they were stored in quivers, ready for re
use.

  DESCRIPTION: Arrowheads from the Mongol period

  SIGNIFICANCE: Firepower of Mongol military success

  ORIGIN: Mongolia, twelfth century

  LOCATION: National Museum of Mongolian History, Ulaanbaatar

  Arrows were made from three principal materials: iron for the head, birch for the shaft, and eagle or vulture feathers for the flights. Deer sinew and fish glue were used for binding the arrowhead to the shaft. The natural materials were easily produced and readied for arrow manufacture by the Mongols, but the iron arrowheads required manufacturing. Metallurgical techniques – the casting of new arrows, and perhaps smelting for repair of badly damaged ones – were virtually non-existent within the native population, so the Mongols relied on captured artisans from enemy populations who were capable of metalworking to set up their own production. Once an arrowhead had been cast, it had to be honed for combat by filing, sharpening and pinching.

  The Mongols’ need for arrowheads would have been particularly acute immediately after Genghis Khan’s unification of the steppe tribes in 1206, as they readied themselves to attack the Jin and the Western Xia. Once the Mongol war machine gained momentum, capturing people and resources as it went, the pressure of arrowhead production would have eased considerably.

  It’s estimated that each Mongol warrior, during the long campaigns across Asia in the first half of the thirteenth century, killed between 100 and 400 people. This unprecedentedly efficient and brutal killing machine, many generations in the making, rode tens of thousands of kilometres, fought hundreds of battles and unleashed untold millions of arrows against their enemies.

  25.

  Cavalry Wear

  Mongol armour

  Go into any supermarket in Ulaanbaatar – in fact, any general supplies store, anywhere in Mongolia – and you’ll find much shelf space, sometimes entire aisles, occupied by vodka. Dozens of brands are offered, and virtually each one associates itself in name or image with Genghis Khan. The impressive frosted bottle that caught my attention was Chinnghis Silver, Pride of Mongolia. Its embossed metal label depicts a silhouetted Genghis Khan, heavily clad in plate armour, mounted on a spirited horse, with bows and quivers full of arrows behind him.