We, by the power
of Eternal Blue Heaven, universal Khan of the Great Mongol Ulus— our command. If this reaches
peoples who have made their submission, let them respect and stand in awe of it.
So reads the imperial seals of the Mongol Great Khans, which marked letters demanding the utter
submission of rulers across Eurasia for decades. It is no mean feat to seek the conquest of the
world, and few states have ever come as close to the task as the Chinggisid Mongol Empire.
In today’s episode, we will explore the Mongols’ imperial ideology and how they
justified and pursued their conquest of the world.
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Before delving into the Mongol Empire, we’ll briefly compare it to earlier nomadic states
and their ideologies, of which the Mongols were the ultimate students.
The Mongols’ founding ideology was not one specific to the mind of its founder,
Chinggis Khan. The earlier nomadic empires based in Mongolia, from the Xiongnu, the Xianbi,
the Rouran, and the great Türkic Khaganates, all had a similar view of their empires. One
of the core tenets was the belief that the ruler and his dynasty were backed by Heaven,
generally known as Tengri. This made the monarch, be they the Chanyu or the Khagan, a sacred figure;
this concept is called qut in Turkic. Titles of these rulers often reflected this. During
the days of Uighur Khaganate, the Uighur ruler was called tengri qaghan, the heavenly emperor.
The idea of sacral kingship reached an apogee in the Khazar Khaganate, where the Khazar Khagan was
a purely ceremonial role, with actual government conducted by his nominal deputy, the Qaghan Beğ.
In the words of Professor Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene, the Khazar Khagan reigned but did not rule.
This sacred kingship justified the rulership of the Khaghan, and prohibited the spilling
of his blood; but it did not make the Khaghan invulnerable. Similar to, and likely influenced
by, the Chinese concept of the Mandate of Heaven, just as Heaven could give its backing
to the ruler, so could it rescind it. Tengri’s support manifested through military victories,
good health, and fortune, while his displeasure resulted in defeats, untimely deaths, disease,
and environmental catastrophes. Along with his shamans, the ruler and his people could seek to
placate Tengri and the spirits that inhabited the world, but they could not control them.
Once the Khan lost Tengri’s backing, other members of the dynasty could seize the rulership
themselves. These nomadic states were not seen as the sole property of the Khaghan, but as jointly
owned by the entire royal clan. All members of the family were entitled to grazing lands and peoples
within the state to support themselves, and all male members could, in theory, be entitled to
the position of Khaghan, though in practice this tended to be restricted to the sons or brothers
of the ruling monarch. Thus, a relative with a promising military career who desired to overthrow
an inept ruler, could be seen as more favoured by heaven than the current Khaghan. If he usurped
the Khaghan and was rewarded with more victories, then Tengri’s will was confirmed, as was the case
with the great Xiongnu ruler, Modun Chanyu when he killed his own father, or in the Mongol Empire
when Möngke overthrew the line of his uncle Ögedei. By extension, any given prince, with
enough charisma and military backing, could then be a rival to the power and a possible claimant;
thus after the fall of the Mongol and Timurid empires, it was possible for every petty prince,
such as Babur, the future founder of the Mughal Empire in India, to lead their own retinues and
claim they had the inherent right to sovereignty, accounting for the infamous fragmentation
many of these nomadic polities suffered from. What we have highlighted here is the importance of
the notion of Heavenly support, and how rulership was not based around institutions but on personal
charisma; the ability to lead men and convince them Heaven supported the given prince. These
were just as applicable to the Türkic Khaghanates as they were to the Mongol Empire. With that said,
we now may focus properly on the state founded by Chinggis Khan in 1206. One of the most well-known
aspects of the Mongol Empire was its oft-stated belief in the eventuality of its conquest of
the world; that Eternal Blue Heaven had granted everything to be overseen by Chinggis Khan and his
progeny. But where did this belief come from? It doesn’t seem to be present in the earliest days of
the Mongolian Empire. Despite it often being said in many a documentary or shoddy Youtube video,
there is no evidence that world-conquest was on the ticket when the Empire was established
in 1206. As we will demonstrate here, this was a belief that developed over the early conquests.
Like previous Khans and Khaghans, Chinggis' enthronement and rule were
based on his personal charisma: his ability to convince his followers that he had qut,
the support of heaven, which was manifested in his character and military victories.
For this, he presented himself as a sort of shaman, an intermediary with Tengri who on
important occasions would travel on his own to the top of holy mountains like Burkhan Khaldun
to convene and seek Tengri's blessing to ensure successful campaigns. Sacrifices were overseen,
proper methods of slaughter, and the appeasement of nature spirits helped consolidate and maintain
this good fortune. Publicly engaging in these ceremonial acts ensured that his subjects saw
him as a pious monarch taking part in all the necessary acts of khan-ship. Chinggis
knew not just how to be the Khan, but to look the part too. Codifying Mongol laws through the
yassa helped build his image as a law-giver and almost fatherly figure, who oversaw, guided, and
protected his people, seeking vengeance on their behalf, bringing order and booty in equal measure.
Initially, Chinggis' enthronement was overseen by a powerful and charismatic
shaman, his step-brother Kokochu, known better by his title of Teb Tenggeri.
But when Kokochu's influence grew too great and he began to sow seeds of intrigue between
Chinggis and his brothers, Chinggis allowed his youngest brother Temüge to break Kokochu's back.
While shamans would continue to be necessary to predict good fortune and successful campaigns,
they would never again rival the Khan for power. In a sense, it also served to demonstrate that the
Khan was more powerful than any shaman, no matter how much that shaman claimed Heaven’s backing.
Importantly, Chinggis was also graced with genuine luck in his timing. A well-known
paper published in 2014 by Neil Pederson et al. showed how after a dry and harsh late
twelve century which acerbated warfare in the steppes, paleoclimatic data indicates that the
first quarter of the thirteenth century was a period of warm and wet weather;
a long period which remains unique in the last thousand years of Mongolian history.
The result was more productive grasslands, a boom in animal population supporting an accompanying
baby boom among the Mongols themselves, all coinciding with Chinggis’ reign from 1206 to 1227.
While this obviously logistically supported the Mongol expansion once this generation grew to
fighting age, it had an important legitimizing effect, making it appear Heaven’s favour of
Chinggis Khan was manifesting even in a more beneficial climate. Chinggis Khan effectively
embodied every necessary attribute associated with a great leader in the steppes. A strong
foundation in Heaven's backing for Chinggisid rule supported by a genuinely more stable period within
Mongolia itself was a key component for the early Mongol campaigns. The peoples of his homeland fell
in line under his rule and from then on, followed him and his descendants to the ends of the earth.
Chinggis Khan never faced rebellion or desertion from these generals.
Despite all this, it appears that Chinggis Khan did not envision himself a world-emperor,
even in the making. His initial title upon his coronation was not the lofty khaghan,
or Khan of khans, but rather Chinggis Khan, which likely has no connotations of universal rule,
but of a strong, fierce ruler. Though possibly taking the title of Khaghan later in life,
he never appears to have imagined himself as heir to the earlier Türkic or Uighur Khaganates.
Furthermore, Chinggis Khan did not conduct his campaigns in the manner of his successors.
Unlike his sons and grandsons, all of Chinggis' campaigns were only launched after lengthy
justifications. Attacks on the Jin Dynasty, Qara-Khitai and Tangut Kingdoms were conducted
only after explaining the causes of war. Jin interference in Mongolia and their murder of one
of Chinggis' relations was justification there; the harbouring of steppe rivals were excuses for
Qara-Khitai and the Tangut campaigns, and the assault on the Khwarezmian Empire was of course
based on the famous massacre at Otrar, followed by Khwarezm-Shah Muhammad's murder of Chinggis'
envoys and other actions the Mongols perceived as aggressive. Even if these justifications at
times were simply pretexts for war, they served an essential diplomatic function. Chinggis Khan
imagined himself as a part of the political order, not its master; in such an environment, the Mongol
state had to justify its conquests, and maintain friendly ties with those he wished to trade with.
Initial contacts between the Mongols and Khwarezm had sought to establish economic and trade ties, a
mutually beneficial relationship rather difficult to imagine happening under Chinggis’ heirs. Only
from the reign of his son Ögedei onwards, did the Mongols begin to abandon such lengthy rationals,
in favour of conquest for the sake of conquest. There was no need for justifications, when the
Mongols were inherently masters of the world. So what caused this switch from being members of
political order, to becoming the international political order? Much of this can likely be
attributed to the very military success the Mongols enjoyed. As Chinggis campaigned across
North China up to the borders of India he was met with victory after victory. The rapid expansion
of the Mongol Empire seemed to signal that Heaven had not just decreed Chinggis to be
master of Mongolia, but of the world too; for how else could such great victories be explained?
By the end of his life, Chinggis Khan may have well appeared as a demigod to his people.
How much Chinggis personally believed in his destiny to rule the world cannot be known. He
certainly did nothing to discourage this belief. It’s possible that in the aftermath of the victory
over Khwarezm, he adopted the title of Khaghan, as indicated by his coins dating to this time. But it
was his son and successor Ögedei who, as with so much of the Mongol Empire, solidified this.
Ögedei and his advisors paid close attention to crafting an imperial ideology. We know
unequivocally that from the start of his reign, Ögedei held the title of Khaghan, Khan of Khans.
Though Chinggis may have suggested it, it was Ögedei who built the imperial capital of Qaraqorum
in Mongolia’s Orkhon Valley. The Orkhon Valley had been the site of the capitals of the Türkic
and Uighur Khaghanates, and was seen as a place of holy and imperial power. Qaraqorum itself was
situated only a few kilometers away from the ruins of the former capitals, and undoubtedly this was
a deliberate effort to associate the Mongols as the heirs to those days of great imperial glory.
But whereas Chinggis Khan had needed detailed justifications to present his conquests as
revenge as per a proper steppe leader, Ögedei had no qualms over this. It is in his reign that the
famous letters of submission began to be sent to rulers around the world. One of the first recorded
came in 1231 against the Koreans, where their total submission was demanded after the likely
murder of a Mongol representative. They quickly became standard features of Mongol diplomacy.
Whereas Chinggis Khan’s initial contacts with the Khwarezm-shahs sought to establish
trade relations, no such relationship could exist under Ögedei. Increasingly,
the Mongols divided the world into two groups; those who had submitted, and those who had not.
In Mongolian, this was expressed as il, indicating peace, harmony and submission,
three concepts to the Mongols that were intertwined; and bulgha, meaning rebellion.
Within this framework, there was no longer a need to justify military campaigns, for now,
all military actions were essentially punitive expeditions to bring rebel forces to heel.
Ögedei simply advanced notions ongoing during his father’s lifetime, and in order to prove
his worth as heir, stressed his place as an unassailable master of the world.
As this was Tengri’s will, anyone who was not already a subject of the Khan was essentially a
blasphemer in open rebellion. As historian Timothy May wrote, the Khan had no allies, only vassals.
There was simply no other legitimate power on earth other than the Mongol state. As Great Khan
Möngke expressed in a letter to King Louis IX of France in the early 1250s, just as there was one
God in heaven, so too was there only one ruler on earth, and that was the Chinggisid monarch.
Ögedei’s destruction of the Jin Dynasty in 1234 marked the totality of this transition,
for following this victory over the Mongols’ hated, long-time enemy, he could signal his
accomplishment over his father, and the usurpation of Jin’s Mandate of Heaven.
Following this, he convened a quriltai which sent armies in all directions to spread Mongol rule as
far as possible. Ögedei must have imagined the road was now open to the conquest of as much
of the world as possible; it was on the basis of this quriltai that Mongol armies drove into Europe
by the 1240s. This notion of singular legitimacy was continually reinforced as more and more states
either submitted or were destroyed by Mongol armies, each victory further proof of their claim.
This worldview provoked awkward diplomatic interactions. A 1249 embassy sent by the
King of France, Louis IX, brought gifts and sought to congratulate the Khan,
Ögedei’s son Güyük, on his rumoured conversion to Christianity.
Instead, they found Güyük dead, the regency held by his widow Oghul-Qaimish, who declared
the embassy’s gifts indicated that the King of France had just submitted to the Mongols.
This effectively became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Mongols recognized no other state
other than their own, and that Tengri wanted the Chinggisids to rule all other peoples. Continued
victories reinforced this; as long as people continued to submit or fall to the Mongols,
then Tengri’s backing was confirmed. And this confirmation fueled their continued
expansion to subdue more and more people. Even the civil wars the Mongol Empire suffered in the
1260s did nothing to assuage this. Mongol rules maintained their usual haughtiness in diplomacy,
each Khan proudly referring to his lineage and himself as the King of the World.
In the far east, Chinggis Khan’s grandson Khubilai completed the conquest of China and sent armies on
fleets over the horizon to bring ever more distant people under Mongol rule. In the west, on the
basis of their right to universal sovereignty, the Il-Khans maintained their desire to crush
the Mamluks, a belief which continued right until the fall of the Ilkhanate in the 1330s.
The Great Mongol Peace in 1304 saw the Chagatai Khan Du’a express that India was the only region
the Mongols had left to conquer, a task he hoped all the khanates would contribute forces to.
Until the eighteenth century, and in some areas even later, descent from Chinggis Khan or families
associated with his dynasty remained the preeminent legitimizer in Central Asia.
Dynasties like the Timurids had to justify their ascension based on the Chinggisid worldview,
presenting themselves as protectors and inheritors of Chinggisid claims. Even when Chinggisids were
no longer in power, such as in early Tsarist Russia or Qing China, the Chinggisid lineage
continued to be treated with respect, especially for dealing with local peoples, for whom the
heavenly backing of the Chinggisids had not faded. We are planning more videos on the history of
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