Hulagu's military career in the Middle East is divided into two parts, which can be described as two people. During his western expedition, the Mongol army was a terrifying war beast, and the gods blocked the killing of the gods and Buddhas, and defeated the Murayi faction and the caliphs of Baghdad. In the second half of his life, the Ilkhanate's army could not take Egypt, and the Mamluk myth was fulfilled, so that the Delhi Sultanate, thousands of miles away, took the initiative to lean on the Mamluk dynasty as a younger brother. Hulagu was still the same Hulagu, and his abilities had not changed, and he had become only his troops, because compared with his heyday, the men and horses he could use against the Mamluks were less than one-tenth of the strength of the previous army.
Hulagu's western expedition and the army that created the Ilkhanate were not the same thing, and the difference in numbers between the two was very large. Before Hulagu's Western Expedition, the Mongol Empire sent three 10,000 troops into the Middle East in order to eliminate the remnants of Khwarazm. These three 10,000-strong teams were the 10,000th households personally commanded by the former Mongol first man in the Middle East, who was under the command of his son Baiyan after the death of Churmahan; the 20,000th household under the command of Shuer; and the 30,000th household composed of the natives of Central Asia and Xinjiang, such as the Wu'er, Turks, Kashgars, and Kucha people, and their commander was Que Lisha. Based on these three thousand households, the Mongol Empire constantly drew troops from various clan kings to attack the Middle East, and the number of people under Qormahan could reach 100,000 at most. After The death of Cholmahan, Hulagu took over the affairs of the Middle East, and his concubines became the Tanma Red Army guarding Kashgar and other places, and this mixed-race army had 20,000 people. After the start of the Third Western Expedition, Möngke mobilized the strength of the entire family to join him.
Hulagu's aunt Hua Zheng, no, pulled Gan Beji (Genghis Khan's younger daughter) to first send troops to join his right-wing troops. Hulagu's right wing also consisted of two parts, one part was the Chagatai Khanate army under the command of the Great Nephew of the Chagatai Khanate, Taigu Erlu, and part was the devout Christians who were cowardly and did not spend the command of the barbarians. In addition to the Tanma Red Army that he took over, his Chinese army part also had the "family legacy" of his precious son Abha personally commanding, and Hulagu's youngest brother Shebetsu also brought some of the family's men and horses into the war. Among the Mongol princes, the kings of the Jurchen system were the most "enthusiastic", and Batu's eldest brother Hu'erda sent his own son to assist in the battle with 10,000 cavalry, and Batu's fifth brother Shaban (Shaybani claimed to be his descendant, the Blue Horde) and the son of Balahan with tens of thousands of cavalry to assist in the battle. In addition, Meng Ge himself also sent Guo Kan and other elite Han troops to the expedition.
The Third Western Expedition of the Mongol Empire recruited 120,000 troops for Hulagu to use, and Hulagu left the 10,000-man team of the Chulmahan family and some of them to stay behind, with 130,000 troops (60,000 on the right wing, 40,000 in the middle, and 30,000 on the left wing) to the Middle East. Hulagu was naturally invincible with this army, but the problem was that after Möngke's death, the Western Expedition was over, and the Zongwang troops in this army returned to their respective fiefdoms. At this moment, hulagu took away nearly half of Hulagu's centaurs, and only the more than 20,000 troops of the Shuchi clan remained in the Middle East, and this part of the centaurs was already comparable to Hulagu's concubines, and Hulagu did not dare to be idle, so he had to take out the two great cities of Tabriz and Zaraha in the Azerbaijan region to provide for them. But the descendants of Shuchi were not satisfied, and Barahhan (his cousin), the son of Shaban, dared to do so, so he had the sorcerer curse Hulagu in the army and want to annex all of Azerbaijan. Hulagu was also not polite and directly killed the bear child, so the Golden Horde broke with Hulagu, and the two sides fought happily.
Hulagu's real force to PK Egypt was the 10,000-strong force that remained in Syria, and the commander-in-chief had to rely on the help of his Crusader allies to fight the Mamluks. In 1260, the Mamluk dynasty was in a firefight, the Panther Baibas was killed, hulagu sent another 6,000 Mongol troops to Egypt, according to the Middle Eastern historian Umar, the real Mongols were only 1800 people. Compared with the military strength of the heyday, Hulagu can use troops on the Syrian and Egyptian sides, but one-tenth of the western conquest, it is normal to be unable to defeat the Mamluks.