The Mongol Empire

Riders From the Grasslands

Picture a vast sea of grass stretching to the horizon under a huge sky. This is the steppe of Central Asia, a land of rolling grasslands too dry for farming but perfect for grazing animals. Here lived the Mongols, a people who spent their lives on horseback, herding animals and living in round felt tents called gers (also known as yurts) that could be packed up and moved.

For a long time, the Mongols were divided into many quarrelling tribes who fought one another, and few outsiders paid them much attention. Then, around 800 years ago, one man united them — and they burst out of the grasslands to build the largest land empire the world has ever seen. In barely a single lifetime, this small group of nomads conquered an area stretching from the Pacific Ocean almost to the gates of Europe.

This is the story of the Mongol Empire: of the man who created it, the fearsome warriors who fought for it, and the surprising ways it changed the world.

Genghis Khan

The man who united the Mongols was born around 1162 with the name Temujin. His early life was hard and dangerous. According to the histories, his father was poisoned by enemies when Temujin was young, and his family was left poor and abandoned on the steppe. He had to fight, scheme and survive through years of hardship.

But Temujin was a brilliant and determined leader. One by one, he won over or defeated the rival tribes, often rewarding loyalty and skill rather than just noble birth — which made talented people want to follow him. Around the year 1206, the Mongol tribes gathered and proclaimed him their supreme leader, giving him a new title: Genghis Khan, meaning something like "universal ruler."

Genghis Khan was far more than a warrior. He organised the Mongols into a disciplined army and a working state. He set up a system of laws, encouraged trade, used a fast network of messengers to send news across huge distances, and allowed people to follow different religions. He could be ruthless and terrifying to those who resisted him, and Mongol conquests brought death and destruction to many cities. Yet he also built something remarkable: a unified people and the beginnings of a world-spanning empire.

Warriors on Horseback

How could a small group of nomads conquer so much? The answer lay above all in their horses and their incredible skill in the saddle. Mongol children learned to ride almost as soon as they could walk, and grew up as some of the finest riders and archers in the world.

A Mongol warrior could gallop at full speed and still shoot arrows with deadly accuracy, even turning to fire backwards over his shoulder. Each rider often brought several spare horses, swapping to a fresh mount so the army could travel astonishing distances at great speed, appearing where enemies least expected them. They were lightly armed and incredibly mobile, able to outrun and outmanoeuvre slower, heavier armies.

The Mongols were also brilliant at tactics. They used clever tricks, such as pretending to flee in order to lure enemies into a trap, then turning to surround them. They learned from the peoples they conquered, adopting new weapons and even siege machines for attacking walled cities. Discipline was strict, and signals using flags and sounds let commanders control huge forces. Few armies in history have been so fast, so coordinated or so feared.

The Largest Empire on Earth

After Genghis Khan died in 1227, his sons and grandsons carried on conquering. The empire grew and grew, sweeping across China, Central Asia, Persia and Russia, and reaching the edges of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

At its greatest extent, the Mongol Empire was the largest connected land empire in all of history. It stretched for thousands of kilometres, from the Pacific coast of Asia in the east all the way to Eastern Europe in the west. It was so enormous that it was eventually divided into several large parts called khanates, each ruled by a member of Genghis Khan's family, though they were all part of the wider Mongol world.

Ruling such a vast empire was a huge challenge. The Mongols allowed many local customs, religions and rulers to continue, as long as people obeyed and paid taxes. They prized useful skills, employing scholars, craftworkers, doctors and officials from many different peoples to help run their lands.

Kublai Khan and China

One of the most famous of Genghis Khan's grandsons was Kublai Khan. He completed the conquest of China and founded a new ruling family there, the Yuan dynasty, becoming emperor of China himself in the 1270s. He built a magnificent capital city on the site of present-day Beijing.

Kublai Khan ruled over one of the richest and most advanced lands on Earth, and his court dazzled visitors. The most famous of these visitors was an Italian traveller named Marco Polo, who claimed to have journeyed all the way from Venice to China and spent years there. The book of his travels filled Europeans with wonder at the wealth, cities and inventions of the East, and helped inspire later explorers.

Under Kublai Khan, the Mongols tried to expand even further, including attempts to invade Japan by sea. These sea invasions failed, partly because great storms — which the Japanese called kamikaze, or "divine winds" — wrecked the Mongol fleets. The Mongols were unbeatable on the grasslands but found the oceans a far harder enemy.

Connecting the World

For all the destruction the Mongol conquests caused, the empire also had a surprising effect: it helped connect the world. Because so much of Asia was now under one rule, the great trade routes known as the Silk Road became safer than ever before. The Mongols protected merchants and travellers, so goods and people could journey huge distances across the continent.

This time of relatively safe travel is sometimes called the Pax Mongolica, or "Mongol Peace." Along the Silk Road flowed silk, spices, gold, paper and countless other goods, but also something even more valuable: ideas. Inventions, knowledge and technologies travelled between East and West. Important Chinese inventions and discoveries spread westward, and travellers like Marco Polo carried tales and knowledge back to Europe.

So the Mongols, often remembered only as conquerors, also acted as a bridge between distant civilisations. For a while, East and West were linked as never before, and the exchange of goods and ideas across Asia helped shape the world that came after.

What We Learned

We have ridden across the astonishing story of the Mongol Empire.

We met the Mongols, nomadic herders of the Central Asian grasslands, and Genghis Khan, who united their quarrelling tribes and built an empire and a state. We saw why Mongol horse archers were so fast, skilled and feared, and how their tactics let them conquer an empire that became the largest connected land empire in history. We met Kublai Khan, who ruled China and welcomed travellers like Marco Polo, and we learned how the empire, for all its violence, connected East and West along a safer Silk Road, spreading goods and ideas across the world.

The Mongols remind us that history can be changed dramatically by a single determined people — and that even great conquests can leave behind unexpected bridges between distant lands.

Want to keep exploring great empires and travellers? Discover another world-spanning culture in The Ancient Chinese, or set sail with daring adventurers in Great Explorers.