Mongols Dbq Essay

Many people associate the word “mongols” with “barbarians” but that was not the case back in the classical era. Ancient Greeks used to call Mongols “barbados” which simply meant “foreigner”. But by the 1200s, “barbarian” received a much more negative atmosphere, referring to people who lived beyond the hands of civilization; people who were savage, cruel, brutal. Another reason that could factor into Mongols receiving such a bad reputation is that they were illiterate, meaning that most of the evidence came from neighbors or conquered places who were upset and furious that “barbarians” took over their land. However, according to some of the documents presented, Mongols were simply strategic and thorough rather than brutal seeing as they had

With that many soldiers, it can be complicated keeping them together, and organized when it comes to battle. Nevertheless, the Mongols figured out a way to have an organized military. According to Document C, Genghis Khan ordained that the army should be organized in a way so that one man looks over ten, which are called captain of tens, another man looks over ten captains of ten, which is named captain of hundreds, while another man looks over ten captains of hundreds, and the pattern keeps making its way until there are two to three chiefs in command, but ultimately, one is holding the complete power over the army. The information from this source, History of the Mongols, by John of Plano Carpini, implies that not only the Mongols, or Genghis Khan, had to be organized but also thorough. Which could be an indication of just how prepared the Mongols were. However, when it comes to attacking lands or peoples, there is bound to be injuries, despite the fact of how grand and numerous the military was. According to Document B, the soldiers prepared themselves in order to avoid injuries in the first place. Nonetheless, when injuries occurred, the soldiers had a silk undershirt, a novelty learned from the Chinese.

According to Document D, they were very exhaustive when it came to it. Some battle tactics that were used was to have the soldiers’ family surrounding the land of battle to make it seem like an audience as a way to weaken the opposing army (intimidate them or catch them off guard). As the chiefs would wait in the back with the women and children, there would be figures of men on horses, making it seem there is even a larger crowd of men waiting to fight. They would take shifts when fighting as to not tire out the entire military at the same time. Another important strategy they would utilize constantly was to spread out, while being hidden, before the battle began, so when it did, the Mongolian Army would have surrounded the opposing army making them surrender almost immediately. With these battle tactics, it is not surprising how much land they conquered in such a short amount of time. According to Document A, which was written by various sources, Genghis Khan conquered more than the United States’ area. To be specific, Genghis Khan conquered 4,860,000 square miles in a span of 40 years. That’s more what Alexander the Great and Tamerlane, two famous rulers/conquerors, conquered