Genghis Khan And The Civilized Mongolian Empire
A man, orphaned at the mere age of 10 began the colonization of his Mongolian Empire in the year 1206. As of today, that man, Genghis Khan had by far the largest empire in history with an area of 24,000,000 square kilometers. The Mongolian Empire began towards East-Central Asia as a small grouping that grew to numbers of people large enough to take out China. Aside from the laws under Genghis Khan, Mongols were able to do what they pleased with no consequence. With this information, I believe that the Mongols are not barbaric, but civilized because of their economic, judicial, and military structures.
Though Mongols are seen as barbaric in most eyes, this is not the case. Due to the Mongolians economic stability, they were more than capable of having traded goods from all around their global trade routes. As stated in document 6, Mongolians made “significant contributions to economic development and cultural diversity of many lands”. Genghis Khan and his people were dominating more land each day. Mongols had more than enough resourceful people to guide them to do the same. Genghis Khan would raid villages and keep the useful including engineers, artisans, merchants, and sometimes even farmers. On the other hand, agriculturally, “Mongols gave strong support to the peasants and peasant economy of China”. By giving peasants a stronger, supporting system, it gave peasants an opportunity to work for more resources, thus leading to more trade for better valuables. Though peasants ultimately give Genghis Khan a better tax revenue that benefits them all. Now, as of transportation, “neighboring cities keep three to four ferry boats continually in readiness for this purpose”. Neighboring cities had to keep some sort of transportation with them in case of a dispatch traveling to Genghis Khan.
Thus, transportation brings another strong reason why Mongols are civilized, military structure. Mongolians are best known for their military tactics and can be recognized as civilized for the impact they have made in history. Although, this topic can also lead people to believe Mongols were barbaric due to their brutality. I personally believe whether their brutality was too absurd for the eye, Mongols were intelligent people that had a structure and knew exactly what they were doing.“Sometimes when they are few in number… they are surrounded with dummy figures”. Mongolians, when their numbers were few, had dummy figures created and propped up on horses to create an illusion of a larger army. These tactics were used to intimidate who they went to war with into submission. If surrender was possible and the village was put into submission as planned, Genghis Khan would have women and children segregated from men and everyone would be slaughtered “with the exception of those they wish to have as slaves, they kill with the axe…”. Genghis Khan before a battle had a saying that claimed“. If one man left his group of ten in war, all ten would die. If ten men grouped into a segment of 100, all 100 would die. Though brutal, it kept his people at war in line and unable to run away out of fear or else one’s group of “innocent” men would be put at jeopardy as well.
Furthermore, my final point includes Mongolians judicial stability. First off, Genghis Khan ratted out all adultery and theft including “war, strife, bodily harm, and murder. It does not exist”. If someone was potentially caught stealing, there were multiple punishable outcomes depending on the severity of the situation. If anything was stolen though, no matter the situation, a finger would be cut off for each time they stole to show merchants and people in general who stole. Judicially, the Mongols judicial system included a “Supreme Court, /The court of cassation or review/, aimag or and capital city courts /The court of appeals/, soum or intersoum and district courts /courts of first instance/”. Clearly, Mongolians showed barbaric acts but are not overall savages, to have any kind of structure in a grouping of people creates a stable, civilized society that knows what they are doing.
In conclusion, the Mongols judicial system is similar to modern day society by showing enforced laws and supreme courts beginning all the way back to the year 1206. Genghis Khan was sure to rid of all adultery and theft in his empire. Their military structure was brilliant to have fake figures to add to war, intimidating their opponent, and forcing men to stay at war or one’s whole group gets punished. Economically, Mongols played a significant role in agriculture by developing work for peasants, better tax revenues, and traded goods. I believe the the Mongols are not barbaric, but civilized because of economic, judicial, and military structures.
References
- http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols/china/china3_a.htm
- http://www.supremecourt.mn/english/content/11
