Mongolian Invasions

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Mongolian Invasions NAMUN2015 Specilalized Agency MONGOLIAN INVASIONS Background Guide DEAR DELEGATES: Welcome to the 30th North American Model United Nations in Toronto! As delegates for the Mongolian Invasion, you will spend the next four days assuming the perspective of an ancient personality for a debate that promises to be instructive, innovative, entertaining, and challenging. Before your topics are detailed, allow me to introduce you to the other staff of this committee. My name is Korto Zambeli-Tardif and I will serve as your Chair for the Mongolian Invasions Committee. I am a second-year student at the University of Toronto, where I am studying for majors in History and French Language and Literature. As my areas of interest suggest, I spend my free time scouring databases for historical trivia, which makes me thrilled to be participating in university-level Model United Nations for the first time. My esteemed and equally enthusiastic fellow staff members include the Vice-Director Eitan Morris, Moderator Aizhan Zakai, and Crisis Officers Benson Cheung and Ana Gonzalez. This committee involves a historical role-play in which you will assume the identity and perspective of actual historical figures. The following pages will outline the history of the Mongols, as well as significant topics that arose after their unification. As delegates, you will have to confront and address issues of loyalty, governorship, conquest, strategy, and, most of all, historical responsibility. This committee will operate within a defined framework of adherence to Mongolian history. The best delegate is one who can propose effective solutions to problems faced by the Mongols, while respecting the range of cultural practices and likely actions that the historical actors would plausibly take. The following background guide will therefore define the parameters of your actions as delegates in the coming days, as you address and resolve the proposed topics. It is important to note that while this background guide will provide you with basic information and a starting point for your research, it is by no means comprehensive – individual research on these vastly complex topics is expected. 1 I welcome you all once again to NAMUN 2015. I have every confidence that together we can create a realistic, exciting, and fun committee. For any further information on the conference, including rules of procedure, the NAMUN website at www.namun.org is available. If you would like specific information on this committee, feel free to e-mail me at kortozambelitardif@ mail.utoronto.ca. Happy debating! Sincerely, Hrayr Tumasyan Aizhan Zakai Chair, Mongol Invasions Moderator, Mongol Invasions Ana Gonzalez Bensong Cheng Crisis Officer, Mongol Invasions Crisis Officer, Mongol Invasions Eitan Morris Vice Director, SA 2 History of the Committee The steppe of central Asia was home to a variety of nomadic tribes in the decades preceding the birth of Genghis Khan and the unexpected, overwhelming rise of the Mongols as a dominant Asian and European power. Despite sharing a Mongolian language and pursuing the same general lifestyle, the various tribes were hardly united under a common identity.1 The Mongols shared the steppe with several other ethnic groups living a nomadic existence and maintained contentious trade relationships with sedentary and merchant powers. The two basic units of Mongolian society were the clan and tribe. A clan was known either as the oboq or the uruq. While the latter was a patrilineal kin group descending from a defined, legitimate ancestor, the oboq descended from an ancestor who was mostly, if not entirely, mythical.2 Images of these ancestors were revered and worshipped as part of the constantly developing Mongol religion.3 Membership to a clan was usually determined by blood; anyone born into a clan automatically belonged to it until the eventuality of marriage to someone in another clan. However, direct familial ties were not the only way to enter a clan. An important part of Mongolian society was the institution of anda, or sworn brotherhood. Anda allowed an entire clan to form an alliance with another with a common political goal, thereby tying the clans together as though they were actually related by blood. A similar provision existed for an individual to pledge his services to the leader of his choice. In such a case, the man’s blood loyalty to his own clan would have to be abandoned before he could be welcomed to another. This system was known as nökör.4 Tribes, meanwhile, were conglomerations of clans. The Mongols were ruled by chiefs who were chosen from among the noble families of the tribe. The position of chief did not necessarily remain in a family line, nor did the choice of leader adhere to the wishes of the preceding chief. Instead, chiefs were chosen from among the pool of available noble candidates by the quriltai, a council also composed of nobles. Although all the power for choosing a leader lay in the hands of elites, this system did not easily lend itself to 1 Jack Weatherford, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens (New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2010), 13. 2 Paul D. Buell, Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World Empire (Oxford: Scarecrow Press Inc., 2003), 5. 3 David Morgan, The Mongols (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 38. 4 Ibid, 34. 3 widespread oppression at the hands of an autocrat. The chief’s powers were mostly invested in his role as a war-wager. Interference in daily life and basic failure to lead effectively resulted in a removal from supremacy.5 As nomads, the Mongols moved with the seasons, spending summers on the plain while seeking shelter in mountain valleys during the winter.6 All members of the society rode horses, although oxen, yaks, and the occasional camel also served as beasts of burden. The people resided in portable tents called yurts, insulated with fabric and sheep’s wool. Every yurt had several doorways, which were tied into an intricate courtesy system demanding that men and women enter from different portals. Courtesy codes also resulted in strangers receiving a hospitable welcome to another clan’s yurts, although this kindness could be hazardous, especially for women. Mongols and the other steppe peoples practiced exogamy, or marriage outside of one’s clan. Therefore, women were often kidnapped to serve as their captor’s wives elsewhere on the steppe. The Mongols were significant trade partners for more centralized, sedentary societies, but opinions on them tended to emphasize the negative. The insults levelled by neighbouring civilizations ranged from complaints about the bad smell of the horse riders to outright comparisons with demons.7 The Mongolian relationship with China was particularly fraught, given that China was very used to dealing with attacks by marauding “barbarians” from the north. Nevertheless, they regularly traded with the Mongols, whose resources were mainly limited to animal products. They therefore depended on trade with sedentary societies for more manufactured products such as metal.8 China, as a dominant regional power, held sway over parts of the steppe. The ability to repel frequent nomadic assaults was honed by centuries of allying with a tribe that bore a rivalry or enmity with the attackers. This alliance would be manipulated to bring about the downfall of the would-be invaders.9 The oldest clans of the steppe claimed their right to the land based on the actions of their worshipped ancestors.10 The claim to primacy was not mutually exclusive with the reality of servitude. The noble Borijin clan, for example, was a mercenary group by the late eleventh century, having lost its independence.11 Often, the line between Mongolian and Turkic tribes was rather unclear, due to the lack of native documentation on the intricacies of 5 Ibid, 35-6. 6 Ibid, 30. 7 Ibid, 11. 8 Morgan, The Mongols, 31. 9 Ibid, 33. 10 Weatherford, Mongol Queens, 10. 11 Ibid, 11. 4 steppe society.12 The tribes sharing the steppe with the Mongols included the Tatars, Keraits, Naimans, Merkits, and Önggüds. The Tatars were especially hostile towards the Mongols.13 The nations surrounding the steppe historically took advantage of the propensity for intertribal warfare to manipulate the tribes to suit their own interests. However, by the twelfth century, the attention of several of the most powerful nations bordering the Mongolian plains was consumed by internal matters. China in particular was compromised in its ability to dominate vagrant nomads to the west due to the lengthy war between the northern Jin Dynasty and the southern Song.14 The early life of Temüjin, the birth name of Genghis Khan, exemplified many pertinent aspects of Mongolian society at the end of the twelfth century. Born in the late 1150s or early 1160s, Temüjin was named after the Tatar Temüjin Uge, slain by his father, Yesugei.15 Temüjin’s identity was shaped by inter- tribal violence, which would only worsen during the formative years of his life: Yesugei was killed by Tatars when Temüjin was very young. Temujin was promptly enslaved by the Tayichiud clan and made to carry out grueling tasks. He soon escaped, rejoining his mother Hoelun and siblings in the empty desert of the steppe.16 More hardships followed, including Temüjin’s murder of his half-brother Bekter at the age of twelve. This act of violence was a precursor to the bloody campaigns that would follow as Temüjin emerged onto the political landscape of the steppe. 12 Morgan, The Mongols, 50. 13 Thomas J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China (Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc., 1989), 183. 14 Urgunge Onon, The Secret History of the Mongols: The Life and Times of Chinggis Khan (Abingdon: RoutledgeCurzon Press, 2001), 3. 15 Francis Woodman Cleaves, The Secret History of the Mongols, For the First Time Done into English out of the Original Tongue and Provided with an Exegetical Commentary (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 14.
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