Decline of Mongol Empire

Reasons For Decline of Mongol Empire

The map below displays the four descendant khanates of the Mongol Empire in 1335, just a handful of years before the Black Death swept through Eurasia (more on that later). Following the death of Genghis Khan, the four primary partitions of the Mongol Empire became known as:

• The Golden Horde

• The Ilkhanate

• The Chagatai Khanate

• The Yuan Dynasty

At its greatest territorial extent, the Mongol Empire stretched from the shores of China to Indonesia, to Eastern Europe and the Black Sea. The Mongol Empire was huge; naturally, this would play an inevitable role in the empire's decline.

Fig 1: Map representing the territorial extent of the Mongol Empire in 1335.

While historians are still hard at work studying the Mongol Empire and the somewhat mysterious nature of its decline, they have a pretty good idea as to how the empire fell. Large contributing factors to the decline of the Mongol Empire include the halt of Mongol expansion, infighting, assimilation, and the Black Death. While many Mongolian political entities persisted into the Early Modern Era (a Golden Horde khanate even lasted until 1783, when it was annexed by Catherine the Great), the second half of the 13th century and 14th century tell the story that is the fall of the Mongol Empire.

The Half of Mongol Expansion

The lifeblood of the Mongol Empire was in its successful conquering. Genghis Khan recognized this, and thusly almost continually found new enemies for his empire to fight. From China to the Middle East, the Mongols invaded, won great victories, and looted the newly conquered lands. From then on, their subjects would pay tribute to their Mongol leaders, in exchange for religious tolerance, protection, and their lives. But without conquest, the Mongols grew stagnant. Worse than a lack of conquest, Mongolian defeats during the second half of the 13th century revealed to the world that even the infamous Mongol warriors could be defeated in battle.

Fig 2: Two Japanese Samurai stand victorious over fallen Mongol Warriors, while the Mongol fleet is ravaged by the "Kamikaze" in the background.

Starting with Genghis Khan and ending with the fall of the Mongol Empire, the Mongols never successfully invaded India. Even at its height in the 13th century, the focused might of the Chagatai Khanate could not conquer India. The hot and humid weather of India was a large factor, causing Mongol warriors to fall ill and their bows to become less effective. In 1274 and 1281, Kublai Khan of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty ordered two full scale amphibious invasions of Japan, but mighty storms, now call the "Kamikaze" or "Divine Wind", ravaged both Mongol fleets. Without successful expansion, the Mongols were forced to turn inwards.

Infighting within the Mongol Empire

Ever since the death of Genghis Khan, power struggles existed between his sons and grandsons for ultimate power over the Mongol Empire. The first debate for succession peacefully resulted in the ascension of Ogedei Khan, Genghis's third son with Borte, as Khagan Emperor. Ogedei was a drunkard and indulged in the full wealth of the empire, creating a wonderful but extremely expensive capital called Karakorum. After his death, the succession was even more tense. Political infighting, championed by Tolui Khan's wife Sorghaghtani Beki, led to the ascension of Mongke Khan as emperor until his death in 1260.

Mongke Khan would be the last true Khagan Emperor of a unified Mongol Empire. Immediately after his death, his brothers Kublai Khan and Ariq Böke began fighting for the throne. Kublai Khan won the contest, but his brother Hulegu and Berke Khan barely recognized him as the true ruler of the Mongol Empire. In fact, Hulagu Khan of the Ilkhanate and Berke Khan of the Golden Horde were too busy fighting each other in the west. Mongol infighting, division, and political tension lasted until the fall of the last minor khanates centuries later.

Mongol Empire Assimilation and Decline

Other than infighting, the inwards-focused Mongols searched for new ways to solidify their reigns during tumultuous times. In many cases, this meant intermarriage and the adoption of local religions and customs, if only at face value. Three of the four major khanates (Golden Horde, Ilkhanate, and Chagatai Khanate) officially converted to Islam to satisfy their dominantly Islamic populations.

With time, historians believe this increased trend of Mongol Assimilation led to the widespread abandonment of what made the Mongols initially successful. No longer focused on horse archery and nomadic steppe culture, but rather the administration of settled peoples, the Mongols became less effective in battle. New military forces soon became triumphant over the Mongols, further leading to the halt of Mongolian expansionism and the decline of the Mongol Empire.

The Black Death and the Decline of the Mongol Empire

During the mid-14th century, a highly contagious and fatal plague spread all throughout Eurasia. Historians posit that the deadly plague killed anywhere from 100 million to 200 million people between China and England, devastating every state, kingdom, and empire in its path. The Mongol Empire has a dark connection with the plague called the Black Death.

Fig 3: Art depicting the burial of victims of the Black Plague from Medieval France.

Historians believe that the Mongol Empire's globalized qualities (the revitalized Silk Road, vast sea trade routes, interconnectedness, and open borders) contributed to the spread of the disease. Indeed, before the fall of the Mongol Empire, it had connections with just about every corner of Eurasia. Despite settling and assimilating in new territories rather than fighting, the Mongols matured to spreading their influence through peaceful alliances and trade. The increased interconnectedness as a result of this trend ravaged the population of the Mongol Empire, destabilizing Mongol power in every khanate.

Mamluks

Another significant example of the halt of Mongol expansionism can be found in the Islamic Middle East. After Hulagu Khan destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate's capital during the 1258 Siege of Baghdad, he continued to press into the Middle East under Mongke Khan's orders. On the shores of the Levant, the Mongols faced their greatest foes yet: the Mamluks.

Fig 4: Art depicting a horseback Mamluk warrior.

Ironically, the Mongols had been partially responsible for the creation of the Mamluks. When conquering the Caucuses decades before, Mongol warlords sold captured Caucasian peoples as slaves to state of the Islamic world, who in turn established the slave-warrior caste of Mamluks. The Mamluks therefore already had experience with the Mongols, and they knew what to expect. In the fateful Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, the gathered Mamluks of the Mamluk Sultanate defeated the Mongols in battle.

Decline of the Mongols in China

The Yuan Dynasty of Mongolian China was at one point the strongest of the khanates, a true empire in its own right. Kublai Khan managed to overthrow the Song Dynasty in the region and succeeded in the difficult task of convincing the Chinese people to accept Mongol rulers. Chinese culture, economy, and society flourished, for a time. After Kublai's death, his successors forsake his social reforms and political ideals, instead turning against the Chinese people and towards lives of debauchery. After decades of strife and the destruction of the Black Plague, even the mightiest of the Mongol khanates declined into relative obscurity.