Therefore, Fang Qisheng is also able to fight with the world's haojie Mo; and its decline, dozens of people are trapped, and the country is destroyed, laughing for the world.
—— Ouyang Xiu's "Preface to the Biography of Lingguan"
Wokoutai and the second generation of Mongol ruling groups
In 1219, Genghis Khan, who had just unified the steppes, prepared a western expedition to Huarazm.
At this time, the Mongols did not know how much power they really had, and in order to ensure that nothing was lost, Genghis Khan ordered the requisition of almost all armed forces including the Mongols, Jurchens, and Khitans.
The empress sent off with tears in her eyes and asked, "If the Great Khan is in case, who should take over the reunification?" ”
Thinking of the hardships of this expedition, Genghis Khan immediately gathered the nobles and sons of the army and announced that he would agree on an heir.
It has been suggested that, according to the tradition of the Mongols' youngest son Shouzao, the heir should be the youngest son of the concubine, and the fourth son, Tuolei.
Tuo Lei was Genghis Khan's favorite son, wise and courageous, outstanding in battle, but Genghis Khan believed that the most important thing after his death should be to stabilize the domestic situation, and what was needed was a practical politician, not just a brave general.
He broke with Mongolian tradition and chose his third son, Wokoutai, as his heir.
At this time, Genghis Khan's prestige was in full swing, and the family could be said to be united in will, and even Torre chose to approve this decision.
Wokoutai and Tore set out at the same time as Genghis Khan, and the nascent Mongol Empire effortlessly crushed the enemy in front of it and marched as far as Ukraine.
Standing on the soil of Iran and the Caucasus, Genghis Khan allocated land to his descendants, and it seems that the unity of the Golden Family can still be continued.
Years later, when Genghis Khan was exhausted on his way to conquer Western Xia, he gathered all his sons and told them to follow his teachings and serve Wokoutai as Khan.
Soon after, Genghis Khan died, and some people's ambitions began to germinate.
According to Mongolian law, Genghis Khan's wishes could only be regarded as a decision within the Golden Family, and only the Kuriletai Assembly of all Mongols could truly determine the khan's position.
During this gap period, according to Mongolian tradition, the youngest son Tuolei guarded the stove and supervised the regency.
Wokoutai proved his father's vision with his political skills.
He first took over his brother Chagatai, and then used Genghis Khan's prestige to persuade the Mongol nobles who adhered to the tradition of their young sons.
Tore was completely isolated and soon after announced his support for Wokoutai as Khan.
Wokoutai stepped into the king's tent and took the throne as Khan in the praises of the lamas, and three years later, Tuolei was killed in the march to attack the Jin Kingdom, and his control of the entire grassland was no longer challenged.
Genealogy of Genghis Khan
At the beginning of his reign, he appointed the Khitan Yelü Chucai as a chancellor, retained the tradition of Han Confucianism as an official, reformed the official system, and made the original nomadic empire more formal and had a stronger material foundation.
Now that everything was ready in the steppes of the Great Khan, Wokoutai set his sights on the end of the expedition, which for a new generation of Mongols was only the beginning of the expedition, the distant sea of legends in the West, the tribal ambitions surging within, and he was determined to reunite the Mongols again through an unprecedented expedition.
In 1235, Wokoutai took advantage of the yuwei of the Jin Dynasty to convene the traditional Mongolian Kuritai Assembly and decided to launch an expedition led by the eldest son of Genghis Khan and in which all the eldest sons of the Mongol nobility were required.
History said, "The FirstBorn March to the West".
Composition and equipment of the expeditionary Mongolian army
Unlike the first expedition led by Genghis Khan, the new generation of Mongols had a population far beyond the time of Genghis Khan, and also had advanced technology and equipment from the Central Plains, at the same time, the prestige of the first western expedition was still shocking the central Asian peoples, and overall, the objective advantage of the second western expedition of the Mongols was more obvious than the first.
After Genghis Khan unified the steppe, he adopted the method of military and government integration, dividing the herders into thousands of households, hundreds of households, ten thousand households, etc., and the arbitrary movement of personnel was not allowed between various units.
In order to ensure the loyalty of tens of thousands of households, Genghis Khan gathered the heirs of various tribes and even the outstanding sons as the khan's personal guard, called "Timid Xue", which was the elite army directly under the Khan and the means of maintaining cultural ties between the Mongol tribes, and at the same time, the Timid Xue would also form the backbone of the military aristocracy of the future Mongol Empire.
Relative to the vast area of rule, the Mongols are still too thin, therefore, the "servant army" has become an important part of the Mongol army and even the form of Mongol rule, in the Mongol-Jin War, the Mongols conscripted hundreds of thousands of Han troops, in many battlefields, the servant army is the absolute main force, and the precious Mongols often try to avoid "unnecessary consumption".
The Mongols never hesitated to give great autonomy to the subordination of the people, even in the later most tightly ruled Central Plains, that is, the later Yuan Dynasty, the Han Chinese who were dispatched by the Mongols had both the right to organize local militias and collect taxes, and in the ascendant period of the Mongols, with strong force, the Mongols could still dispatch these half-hearted servants, but when the Mongol army lost its sharpness, the Han Haoqiang, who had once again mastered the force in the centuries-old melee, would soon destroy the Mongol Empire, up to the Yu'erhai where the royal court was located.
But it's too early to talk about this, the second generation of Mongols has not lost their blood, and genghis Khan's descendants have barely maintained a semblance of peace, they are more belligerent and more threatening than they were decades ago.
Mongol heavy cavalry
The first thing to emphasize is that even though Wokoutai had made drastic reforms to the entire khanate, the Mongol army still did not have relatively uniform weapons and armor, especially for the servant army that was regarded as a consumable.
Typical Mongolian soldiers wear armor with oriental style, that is, the "traditional Chinese" type of armor that we most often see on television today, this armor is made of layers of armor pieces stacked, until the Ming and Qing Wars also continued, in some extreme occasions, Mongolian warriors will take the form of double armor to fight, for low-scale bows and crossbows have excellent defense, even in the face of heavy crossbows like "god arm bows", there are excellent defense effects at a distance.
Although on the battlefield, the Mongol army had clear responsibilities, but in daily training, bows and arrows and knives and guns were compulsory courses for every Mongol soldier, and equestrianism was an instinct for survival, compared with Western European knights who often only held melee weapons, usually Mongol cavalry was more versatile and had better tactical literacy.
The most important weapons of the Mongol heavy cavalry are machetes, bones and guns, the light cavalry covering the division often uses the bow and arrow as the main weapon, the machete as a self-defense weapon, even if the Mongolian bow in the same period has a certain advantage over Western Europe, and various tactics are more complete, but only by bow and arrow and riding can not eliminate the organized troops, the Mongolian cavalry charge and the advance of the infantry front, in order to truly determine the victory or defeat of the battlefield.
At the same time, the Mongols absorbed the knowledge of East Asian gunpowder weapons and the physics of the Arab world, valued the use of craftsmen, and faced the lack of thickness of Western European castles and wooden structures of Slavic forts were extremely threatening. The Mongols also creatively used the biological weapon, the plague corpse, to throw at the defenders, hoping to destroy the will of the defenders through the plague.
The Mongol horse was the reason for the nightmarish marching ability of the Mongol army, and each Mongol cavalry had one or several spare horses. These horses followed closely behind the troops and could be used for replacement at any time during the march and even as the battle was in progress.
Even though the Mongol horses tended to be short and had poor strength, they were tolerant of rough feeding, could tolerate temperatures of minus forty degrees Celsius, and had good endurance, while the Mongols, who had conquered the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and half of the Arab world, did not lack good horses.
These equipment and organization features at a strategic level, namely nightmarish marching capabilities, little-to-no-brain logistics, and extremely flexible strategic options.
In a word, the enemy troops who were held by the Mongol army in the field could not escape, and the Mongol army could flexibly choose the timing of the engagement in the face of the superior enemy army, and in the pursuit, it could also rely on plunder and nomadism to solve the supply of grain and grass. And even if the Mongol army was forced to divide the army in hundreds of thousands of households, it could have a natural and unquestionable commander, and the soldiers could maintain discipline and organization.
Mongolian archer
The de facto commander of the Western Expedition was SuButai
Unlike traditional stereotypes, the Mongol army had not only tough soldiers, but also flexible tactics and talented strategists.
The Western Expedition army was headed by Batu (shuchi eldest son), but the actual commander of the army would be Subutai, who was one of the most distant generals in the medieval world, who fought with Genghis Khan since childhood, leading the army to the east to Goryeo and west to Hungary, spanning more than 8,000 kilometers, and was posthumously awarded the title of King of Henan, a well-known Mongol general.
Subutai was well aware that his enemies were not monolithic, and as a master of sowing fear and strategic maneuvering, he often used unexpected attacks to deprive enemies of the opportunity to unite, and even in the face of superior enemy forces, the general who had trained from hunting and corpses in the mountains of blood could flexibly use seduction and bluff to win opportunities for himself.
The Mongols attached great importance to the gathering of intelligence, and their intelligence network relied on Venetian and Persian merchants to cover almost all of Eurasia, while their enemies often knew nothing of the enemy, and in the rapid march of the fast march, the feudal lords of Europe often found that the messengers were slower than the Mongol army.
Conquest of Eastern Europe
After the end of the Curité Assembly, the kings returned to their places in preparation for the expedition, and did not depart from their territories until the following spring. The manpower invested in the Second Mongol Expedition is estimated to be about 150,000.
The Mongol army that served as the vanguard set out in the spring of 1236 AD, and he first set his sights on the Chincha steppe in southern Russia, which would be the resting place of the Mongol army and the "Golden Horde" planned by Genghis Khan for future generations.
The Chincha had been frightened by the Mongol army as early as the first western expedition, but Subutai was not satisfied with an ordinary victory.
He used bloody means to intimidate these tribes, and the obedient would become servants in the conquest of the Russian principalities.
At this time, Russia was already a small country that had been fragmented into dozens, which created the conditions for the defeat of Subutai separately.
Subutai decided to march in the Russian winter, and the future winter that would have caused Napoleon and Hitler to suffer did not affect the Mongol army, at the same latitude, the temperature of the Mongolian plateau was lower than in all regions of the earth, and the frozen river could become a fast track for the Mongols to march.
The Mongols drew a pursuit by the Rus' coalition through deception, and when the Rus' prepared to cross the river, they were defeated by cavalry.
West of Kiev, unable to effectively resist the Mongol forces, the Grand Duke of Kiev hurried to ask Hungary for help, but before reinforcements arrived, the walls of Kiev were shattered by the Mongol army.
The shattered Russians were unable to resist the Iron Hooves of the Mongols, the fleeing Rus' and Chincha poured into Hungary, and rumors of the Mongol invasion spread throughout Europe.
But at this time, there was a crisis within the Western Expeditionary Army.
At a banquet, Battu (the eldest son of Genghis Khan's eldest son) and Guiyu (the eldest son of Genghis Khan's second son) were at a banquet, and both sides believed that this was a dispute over the status of the family, and they wanted to fight each other.
The Great Khan's Nest Kuotai chose to support the older Battus, believing that status and abilities may differ, but the family must at least establish the custom of respecting the elders and loving the young through age.
Guiyu was reprimanded by the Great Khan in the snowstorm, but Wokoutai did not give more substantive punishment, allowing Guiyu to go to Europe again to meet the Western Expeditionary Army.
This time, Guiyu and Batu were at least superficially reconciled, but rifts within the family were inevitable.
The Mongol war machine was turned on again, this time targeting the Hungarians who had fought against the Mongols in the campaign to conquer Rus.
In order to unite against the Mongols, German infantry from Bohemia, cavalry from the Teutonic Knights and Poland, formed a coalition with Hungary.
Subutai was slightly inferior at this time, but he did not intend to miss this opportunity.
Subutai was once again defeated, and although the Allied forces did not pursue them with all their might, he keenly grasped one of the Achilles' heels: because of the poor communication caused by the language barrier, the Mongolian army stretched the front of the European coalition forces, and then unexpectedly attacked, and the Europeans who supported each other were chaotic.
The Mongols annihilated the besieging enemy forces with crossbows and oil tanks, the rest of the troops were almost completely annihilated, and the European general Henry was captured, but still beheaded by the Mongols.
The Mongol commanders drove straight into Moravia and Hungary, where they were burned and looted, and those who survived called them the "Whip of God."
Interestingly, the last person to be called the Whip of God was one of the ancestors of the Hungarians, the "Huns" from the East.
The end of the Western Expedition
The second western expedition began with the ambitions of WoKoutai and ended with the death of Wokoutai.
In his later years, Wo Kuotai indulged in wine, and after a stroke, Wo Kuotai died quickly, and his death also laid the final hammer for the eldest son Xi Zheng.
The commander Batu was determined to return, knowing that the entire Mongol Empire would be stirred up by the death of the Great Khan, and that every descendant of the Golden Family would have the obligation to return to the steppes to elect a new Khan and at the same time reap his own political interests.
Since the war had reached a stalemate and the Emperor and pope were already in a hurry, he turned to asking to return from Bulgaria to clear the way for the next western expedition.
The troops crossed the Carpathian Mountains again, and what he did not know was that this was the end of the conquest of the Mongol Empire.
Soon, Subutai died of illness, and Möngke, who had participated in the western expedition of his eldest son, became the new Great Khan.
After Möngke ascended the throne, he devoted himself to conquering the Southern Song Dynasty, and lacked interest in Europe, believing that a rich China was more valuable than a barren Europe.
The transfer of the Khan's throne between different lineages within the family also laid the groundwork for the division of the Mongol Empire.
This was the last peaceful handover before the division of the Great Mongol Empire, and the next time Kublai Khan would lead his loyal Han princes and Mongol princes to attack Hala and Lin, and the political center of Eurasia would be transferred to Dadu.
The newborn Dayuan Zunkong, who set up a hundred officials and opened the imperial examination, explained himself as the heir of the Han and Tang Dynasties according to Confucianism in the "Founding Commandment".
Other Mongol khanates also began the inevitable Islamization, Buddhism.
Everything ends in the midst of the hustle and bustle, just as the hustle and bustle begins.