Tell about Mongol Empire ?

The economy of the conquered areas was not properly organized during the period of conquest

The abolition of highly organized governments gave an opportunity for the exploitation of local production by the Mongol appanage-holders who relied to a great extent on non-Mongol tax-farmers.

There was no single financial system for the whole empire or even for large parts of it. The absence of civil organization at the top, the great independence of the various appanages, and the high priority accorded to military affairs had a strongly disintegrating effect and were, at least in the early phases of Mongol rule, detrimental to economic progress and prosperity.

The Mongol empire was, under Genghis and his successors, not yet a state in the normal sense of the word but a vast agglomeration of widely different territories held together by military domination.

As the empire grew through new conquests after Genghis’s death, the same pattern repeated itself: a period of military, and at the same time decentralized, rule marked the first stage of Mongol domination.

The result was a noticeable variation of practice within the empire. Newly conquered areas were still subject to direct exploitation bearing the imprint of a nomadic and military mentality, but, in those areas which had been subjugated earlier, attempts were made to build up a state machinery and bureaucracy in order to consolidate Mongol rule.

This general tendency, together with the absence of an original Mongol concept for ruling a settled population, accounts for the entirely different development that occurred in various countries.

This resulted in an empire that may not have been “Mongol” but was a Chinese, Persian, or central Asian empire with a Mongol dynasty.

This trend was expressed more in some locations than others because the absorptive power of the various civilizations differed in intensity.

China, for instance, the Mongols could maintain their rule better than elsewhere because the strong Chinese tradition of centralized state power supplied a stable framework of governmental organization.

The original absence of a state concept on the part of the Mongols is reflected in the ruling clan’s attitude to the empire.

The empire was considered to be not the khan’s personal property but the heirloom of the imperial clan as a whole. Already in Genghis’s lifetime the empire was divided among his four favourite sons into ulus, a Mongol word which denotes the supremacy over a certain number of tribes rather than a clearly defined territory.

Tolui, the youngest, received the eastern part—the original homeland of the Mongols together with the adjacent parts of north China. Ögödei became ruler of the western part of the steppes (modern northern Xinjiang and western Mongolia).

Chagatai received the lands of Khara-Khitai (modern northern Iran and southern Xinjiang). The eldest son, Jöchi, followed by his son Batu, ruled over southwest Siberia and west Turkistan (an area later known as the territory of the Golden Horde).

To these four Mongol empires a fifth was added when Hülegü, a son of Tolui, completed the conquest of Iran, Iraq, and Syria and became the founder of the Il-Khanid dynasty in Iran.

The unity of the Mongol empire was therefore from the beginning undermined by disintegrating factors, and the history of the empire after Genghis’s death may consequently be subdivided into two periods, the first being characterized by relative unity in the empire ruled by a great khan who was recognized by all branches of the royal clan, the second showing a more or less complete independence of the separate empires, which thereafter had no common history.

After the death of Genghis Khan, a kuriltai (“general assembly”) of Mongol nobles was convoked in order to elect the new great khan according to traditional custom.

Jöchi, the eldest of Genghis’s heirs, had predeceased his father by six months, and the law of primogeniture was usually observed by the Mongols.

Chagatai, the oldest surviving son, was passed over, however, and Ögödei was eventually appointed great khan (1229–41). His residence was Karakorum, on the Orhon River in central Mongolia, whence he directed his campaigns.

Yelü Chucai continued to act as his chief adviser, and Chinkai, a Kereit Nestorian Christian, served as head of chancery. Ögödei himself is described in contemporary sources as a man of stern temper, energetic but given to pleasure, and a heavy drinker.

His campaigns, like those of his father, were carried out simultaneously under generals acting independently in the field but always directed by orders emanating from the khan himself and transmitted by a messenger system covering practically the whole of Asia.

In east Asia a war was launched against the remnant of the Juchen Jin state in north China. The Jin emperor found himself in a hopeless position because he was attacked from both sides

During the preceding century, the Jin had taken north China from the Song, but the Song subsequently allied themselves with the Mongols. In 1234 the Jin capital of Kaifeng fell through a combined attack by Mongols and Chinese; Aizong, the last Jin emperor, committed suicide.

In 1236 new campaigns were launched against the west, apparently with the intention of subjugating Russia and even eastern Europe and adding them to the ulus allotted to Batu Khan

The empire of the Volga Bulgars was annihilated in 1237/38, a victory which opened the way to Russia proper. Central and northern Russia at this time consisted of city-states and independent princedoms which fell one by one to the fierce attacks of the Mongol armies.