Jim Dunnigan should need no introduction to the military historians and wargamers in this SIG. But in case you've only just returned from another planet, Jim is a legend is in these fields. The founder of SPI, original (and return) editor of Strategy & Tactics, he has written several dozen books, alone, and with Al Nofi, Austin Bay and others ranging from How to Make War to the ever popular Dirty Little Secrets series. This piece is an outtake from his latest work, Way of the Warrior written in collaboration with Dan Masterson. Ghengis Kahn (or Temujin) was known as a great conqueror. But he and his ruthless minions set records in the mass murder department that still stand. Ghengis' conquests were carried out at great cost to the peoples he visited. Examine Table 1 for the population changes in areas where Mongol armies campaigned. Table 1. Population (in millions) for various regions at the beginning of 13th & 14th centuries Region 1200 AD 1300AD % Change China 115 86 -25.2% Korea 4 3 -25.0% Manchuria 4.5 4.8 +1.1% East Turkestan 2.2 2.3 +4.5% Iran 5 3.5 -30.0% Afghanistan 2.5 1.75 -30.0% Iraq 1.5 1 -33.3% Europe 58 79 +36.2% India 86 91 +5.8% World 360 360 — Many areas were very thinly populated. China, for example, now has ten times as many people as it did in 700 years ago. Japan's islands were un-crowded with only 7.5 million people, versus over 15 times as many today. All of south east Asia had only seven million people. Manchuria, until a few centuries ago a buffer zone between the nomads and China proper, contained tribal peoples, both nomads and farmers. In the Middle East, Iran had a highly civilized and well armed people, Afghanistan had a population of fierce tribesmen and the Caucasus had a million tough mountaineers. Iraq's population was largely centered around Baghdad. Turkey (Anatolia) had six million (largely Turkish) people. Russia, east of the Urals, contained nine million people spread over a vast area. China was hit the hardest by the Mongol conquests. Temujin knew that serious attempts to conquer China would always rally the Central Asian tribes behind him, but the Chinese could also be expected to put up a fierce, bloody and prolonged resistance. Korea, although populated by people more ethnically similar to Mongols than Chinese, was a Chinese satellite and resisted Mongol conquest. There was less resistance, and less bloodshed, in Manchuria (Northern China) and East (Chinese) Turkestan (now western China.) These areas were populated largely by people similar to the Mongols and were won over to the Mongol cause with a minimum of fuss. While the Mongols carried out mass slaughters, the historical record is a bit vague on how many of their victims died from Mongol swords and arrows and how many perished from the after effects of Mongol terror and destruction. Disease and starvation always followed in the wake of Mongol armies. Houses and farm equipment was destroyed on a vast scale. Medieval farmers lived on the edge of survival. One or two bad harvests and there was massive starvation and death from disease. The Mongols knew this and saw such destruction of agricultural resources as a means to prevent their victims from recovering and fighting back. Parts of Iran and the Middle East took centuries for their elaborate irrigation infrastructure to recover from Mongol destruction. But the wide ranging campaigns of the Mongols brought an even more deadly weapon into play. Epidemic diseases that had long stayed in one region, were now carried by Mongol armies to places where the locals had no resistance to these alien plagues. The Black Death in Europe is the best known of these afflictions carried vast distances by the Mongols. Epidemic diseases were most devastating in densely populated China. It is known that these epidemics occurred in China in the wake of the Mongol campaigns and contributed to the severe population declines there. On the positive side, the Mongol campaigns in China united the nation once more. China, until then, had gone through periods of unity followed by breakdown into several smaller kingdoms. The Mongol conquest brought a unification that lasted until the present. The Mongol dynasty itself did not last long, with Chinese rebellions in the 14th century re-establishing local control by 1364. In the 1380s Mongolia itself was invaded, although Chinese control did not last. Elsewhere, the Mongol effect on local politics was less useful. Iran was shattered as a regional power by the Mongols and one could say that the Iranians never really recovered. The same thing happened to Iraq, whose principal city, Baghdad, had long been a center of Moslem Arab power. The destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols was a blow from which the city, and the region around it, never really recovered. Then again, many of the Mongols converted to Islam during the course of the 13th century, firmly establishing Islam among the Turkish peoples of Central Asia. Back in Mongolia, Buddhism eventually became the new religion, and remains the principal faith of Mongolia to this day. Russia was also permanently changed by the Mongol invasions. The centuries of Mongol rule turned Russia away from the West, a condition that Russians still feel exists to this day. Yet the Mongols saw nothing wrong with all this death and destruction. Their goal was conquest and loot. That they stayed to rule their conquered kingdoms was simply the Mongol way of keeping the loot coming. The Mongols were a very practical people, and Temujin knew how to best exploit that practicality. The Mongols were a prime example of how being good at something does not always result in doing much good for all concerned. Back to Cry Havoc #23 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com