Mongol Empire - Legacy

Legacy

The Mongol Empire had a lasting impact, unifying large regions, some of which (such as eastern and western Russia and the western parts of China) remain unified today, albeit under different rulership. The Mongols, except the main population, might have been assimilated into local populations after the fall of the empire, and some of these descendants adopted local religions — for example, the eastern khanates largely adopted Buddhism, and the western khanates adopted Islam, largely under Sufi influence.

According to some interpretations, Genghis Khan's conquests caused wholesale destruction on an unprecedented scale in certain geographical regions, and therefore led to some changes in the demographics of Asia, such as the mass migration of the Iranian tribes of Central Asia into modern-day Iran. The Islamic world was also subject to massive changes as a result of Mongol invasions. The population of the Iranian plateau suffered from widespread disease and famine, resulting in the deaths of up to three-quarters of its population, possibly 10 to 15 million people. Historian Steven Ward estimates that Iran's population did not again reach its pre-Mongol levels until the mid-20th century.

Non-military achievements of the Mongol Empire included the introduction of a writing system, a Mongol alphabet based on the Uighur characters, that is still used today in Inner Mongolia.

Some of the other long-term consequences of the Mongol Empire include:

• Moscow rose to prominence during the Mongol-Tatar yoke, some time after Russian rulers were accorded the status of tax collectors for the Mongols. The fact that the Russians collected tribute and taxes for the Mongols meant that the Mongols themselves would rarely visit the lands that they owned. The Russians eventually gained military power, and their ruler Ivan III overthrew the Mongols completely to form the Russian Tsardom. After the Great stand on the Ugra river proved the Mongols vulnerable, this led to the independence of the Grand Duke of Moscow.
• Europe's knowledge of the known world was immensely expanded by the information brought back by ambassadors and merchants. When Columbus sailed in 1492, his missions were to reach Cathay, the land of the Grand Khan in China, and give him a letter from the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.
• Some research studies indicate that the Black Death which devastated Europe in the late 1340s may have traveled from China to Europe along the trade routes of the Mongol Empire. In 1347, the Genoese possessor of Caffa, a great trade emporium on the Crimean peninsula, came under siege by an army of Mongol warriors under the command of Janibeg. After a protracted siege during which the Mongol army was reportedly withering from the disease, they decided to use the infected corpses as a biological weapon. The corpses were catapulted over the city walls, infecting the inhabitants. The Genoese traders fled, transferring the plague via their ships into the south of Europe, whence it rapidly spread. The total number of deaths worldwide from the pandemic is estimated at 75 million people, with an estimated 20 million deaths in Europe alone. There are claims of lesser casualties in the Mongol Empire due to superior hygiene and Oriental medicine.
• Western researcher R. J. Rummel estimated that 30 million people were killed under the rule of the Mongol Empire. The population of China fell by half in fifty years of Mongol rule. Before the Mongol invasion, the territories of the Chinese dynasties reportedly had approximately 120 million inhabitants; after the conquest was completed in 1279, the 1300 census reported roughly 60 million people. While it is tempting to attribute this major decline solely to Mongol ferocity, scholars today have mixed opinions regarding this subject. Scholars such as Frederick W. Mote argue that the wide drop in numbers reflects an administrative failure to record rather than a de facto decrease, whilst others such as Timothy Brook argue that the Mongols reduced much of the south Chinese population, and very debatably of the Han Chinese population to an invisible status through cancellation of right to passports and denial of right to direct land ownership. This meant that the Chinese had to depend and be cared for chiefly by Mongols and Tartars, which also involved recruitment into the Mongol army. When possibly resisted by Muslim women in the aftermath of the Tangut princess episode, this is reported to have led to close to an infraction in the trafficking in women. Forbidden in the Jasa/Zasaq, women were distributed freely after what has been alleged in footnotes to Igor de Rachewitz edition of the Niuca Mongqol-un Tovcha´an to have been ordered tantamount sexual abuse, with two casualties alleged out of four thousand. Other historians such as William McNeill and David Morgan argue that the Bubonic Plague was the main factor behind the demographic decline during this period.

All conditions in the Mongol empire for women were mitigated by women´s right to divorce, and their discouragement of foot-binding, however Chinese Nationalist women continued to bind their feet. They had the right to divorce, discouraged by Confucianism, but encouraged by the Mongols as the Jasa specially ordained commerce to be for women. Women warriors existed such as Chatulun, and as were reported by an abbot, and women were sometimes in commanding roles as well during the mass executions following the end of pages.

• David Nicole states in The Mongol Warlords, "terror and mass extermination of anyone opposing them was a well tested Mongol tactic." About half of the Russian population may have died during the invasion. However, Colin McEvedy (Atlas of World Population History, 1978) estimates the population of Russia-in-Europe dropped from 7.5 million prior to the invasion to 7 million afterwards. Historians estimate that up to half of Hungary's two million population at that time were victims of the Mongol invasion. Rogerius, a monk who survived the Mongol invasion of Hungary, pointed out not only the genocidal element of the occupation, but also that the Mongols especially "found pleasure" in humiliating women. The fact is that the Mongols initially at least were not given to violent sexual abuse of women but liked to engage in such acts while physically clasping them in a kind of embrace.
• One of the more successful tactics employed by the Mongols was to wipe out urban populations that refused to surrender. For example, after the conquest of Urgench, each Mongol warrior – in an army group that might have consisted of two tumens (units of 10,000) – was required to execute 24 people. In the Mongol invasion of Rus, almost all major cities were destroyed. If they chose to submit, the people were spared, war prisoners sometimes became part of the Mongol army to aid in future conquests. In addition to intimidation tactics, the rapid expansion of the empire was facilitated by military hardiness (especially during bitterly cold winters), military skill, meritocracy, and discipline.

The influence of the Mongol Empire may prove to be even more direct — Zerjal et al. identify a Y-chromosomal lineage present in about 8% of the men in a large region of Asia (or about 0.5% of the men in the world). The paper suggests that the pattern of variation within the lineage is consistent with a hypothesis that it originated in Mongolia about 1,000 years ago. Such a spread would be too rapid to have occurred by diffusion, and must therefore be the result of selection. The authors propose that the lineage is carried by likely male line descendants of Genghis Khan, and that it has spread through social selection.

In addition to the khanates and other descendants, the Mughal royal family of South Asia are also descended from Genghis Khan: Babur's mother was a descendant — whereas his father was directly descended from Timur (Tamerlane). The word "Mughol" is an Arabic word for Mongol.