Development of military affairs in the Mongol Empire. Mongols. Medieval armies. Warfare Age of Empires II

Two Genghis Khans Stalin and Hitler had the same main goal, which they set for themselves once and for all - the conquest of world domination. With manic persistence they walked towards her, regardless of anything. This ultimately killed them both. Hitler

Descendants of Genghis Khan Historians have noticed that ancient manuscripts in Europe are kept in fragments. It’s as if someone deliberately tore out the pages, and with them – Time. Or he filled the texts with paint so that they were unreadable. The ancient era left much more documents than

Descendants of Genghis Khan Historians have long noticed that ancient manuscripts in Europe are kept in fragments. It’s as if someone deliberately tore out the pages of Time. Or filled them with paint so they were unreadable. The ancient era left much more documents than

What did contemporaries write about the customs and morals of those Mongols who created the huge Eurasian empire? Here is one of the descriptions left by the learned Archdeacon Thomas of Split. It is valuable due to the fact that Thomas was an eyewitness to the events. “Those people are small, but their chests are wide. Their appearance is terrible: their face is beardless and flat, their nose is blunt, and their small eyes are far apart from each other.

Their clothing, impenetrable to cold and moisture, is made of two skins folded together (with the wool facing out), so that it looks like scales; helmets made of leather or iron. Their weapons are a curved saber, quivers, a bow and an arrow, with a sharp tip made of iron or bone, which is four fingers longer than ours. On their black or white banners they have tufts of horsehair. Their horses, which they ride without a saddle, are small but strong, accustomed to intense marches and hunger; the horses, although not shod, climb and gallop through the caves like wild goats, and after three days of intensive racing they are content with a short rest and little food. And people do not care much about their food, as if they live from the very severity of their upbringing: they do not eat bread, their food - meat and drink - mare's milk (kumis) and blood.

They take many prisoners with them, especially many armed Cumans (Polovtsians), drive them ahead of them into battle and kill them as soon as they see that they are not going blindly into battle. The Mongols themselves are reluctant to go into battle. If one of them is killed, he is immediately buried without a coffin. There is almost no river that they would not cross on their horses. They still have to swim across large rivers on their fur skins (inflated with air) in boats (reed rafts). Their tents are made of linen or leather. Although there is a huge horde of them, there is no grumbling or discord in their camp; they endure suffering steadfastly and fight stubbornly.”
Of course, the descriptions of the Mongols compiled by modern historians and researchers based on the study of primary sources are worthy of attention.
This is how historian S. M. Solovyov describes the Mongols, based on travel notes G. Plano Carpini and V. Rubruk: “/.../ In appearance, the new conquerors did not at all resemble other people: greater distance between the eyes and cheeks than other tribes, prominent cheekbones, flattened nose, small eyes, short stature, rare beard hair - here distinctive features their appearance. A Tatar has as many wives as he can support, they marry without distinguishing kinship, they do not marry only a mother, a daughter and a sister from the same mother; wives are bought at a high price from the parents of the latter. They live in round yurts made of brushwood and thin poles covered with felt; at the top there is a hole for lighting and smoke escape, because they always have a fire in the middle of the yurt. Some of these yurts can be easily disassembled and folded up again, but some cannot be disassembled and are carried around on carts as they are, and wherever the Tatars go, to war or somewhere else, they carry them with them everywhere. Their main wealth consists of livestock: camels , bulls, sheep, goats and horses; they have more livestock than the rest of the world. They believe in one God, the creator of everything visible and invisible, the creator of happiness and disaster. But they do not pray to this god and do not honor him, but offer sacrifices to idols made from various materials like people and placed opposite the doors of the yurt; An image of breasts is placed under these idols, considering them to be guardians of flocks. They also idolize their deceased khans, to whose images they make sacrifices, and bow down, looking to the south; They adore the sun, moon, water and earth. They adhere to various superstitious legends, for example, they consider it a sin to touch fire with a knife, touch arrows with a whip, catch or beat young birds, break a bone with another bone, spill milk or some other drink on the ground, etc.
Lightning is considered a fiery dragon that falls from the sky and has the ability to impregnate women. They believe in a future life, but they think that even after death they will lead the same life as here on earth. They strongly believe in fortune telling and charms; They think, for example, that fire purifies everything, and therefore foreign ambassadors and princes with gifts are first led between two fires, so that they cannot bring any harm to the khan. There is not a single people in the world that would be distinguished by such obedience and respect for their superiors as the Tatars.

They rarely quarrel with each other and never fight; they have no thieves, and therefore their yurts and tents are not locked; are sociable with each other, help in need; abstemious and patient: there will be a day or two without eating - nothing: they sing and play as if they had a hearty lunch, they also easily tolerate cold and heat; Their wives are chaste in practice, but some do not refrain from speaking indecently. They love to drink, but even when drunk they do not swear or fight. Having described the good qualities of the Tatars, the Western traveler Minorite John of Plano-Carpini moves on to the bad ones; First of all, he was struck by their exorbitant pride, contempt for all other peoples: we saw, he says, at the court of the Khan the Grand Duke of Russia Yaroslav, the son of the Georgian Tsar and many other ruling persons - and not one of them was given due honor: those assigned to them the Tatars, insignificant people, always took first place before them. The Tatars, as courteous as they are with each other, are just as irritable, angry with strangers, deceitful, insidious, terribly greedy and stingy, ferocious: it costs them nothing to kill a person; finally, very unkempt.
And here is what A.V. Venkov and S.V. Derkach write: “All Mongolian men from 14 to 60 years old went to serve in the army. /…/ The troops were organized according to the decimal system. 10 warriors made up an arban under the command of a bogatur, ten dozen were reduced into a hundred - yagun, ten hundred - into a thousand, mingan, ten thousand made up a tumen. The transition from unit to unit was prohibited; each soldier clearly knew his place and his role in the ranks and in battle.
The defensive and offensive weapons of the Mongols changed as the empire's borders expanded and new territories were captured. A significant part of the warriors did not have special protective equipment, but wore ordinary clothes, adapted for nomadic life in winter and summer and for war. The Mongols for the most part wore a conical hat with turned-up forked brims, which could be used as headphones in cold weather; the hat was lined with the fur of a wolf, fox, lynx, etc. The body was worn with long, robe-like clothing, open in the front, wrapped on the left to the right and fastened with a button under the right collarbone or belted with a sash. The sleeves were wide, reaching to the elbow. Under the robe, underwear with long sleeves was worn. The Mongols wore wide trousers, leather boots without heels, and fur coats with the fur on the inside or outside. In winter they could wear a fur coat over a fur coat.
The entire Mongol army was mounted. The cavalry was divided into light and heavy.

Mongols in Chinese paintings

The Tatar-Mongols were depicted exclusively as a crowd of nomads in skins, flying to the sound of whistles and hooting. It was believed that the main advantage of their army was only discipline, and everything else was the weakness of their enemies. Upon serious analysis, all this looks more than doubtful. In Central Asia, nomadic tribes have long had a set of heavy weapons, when the horse and rider were reliably covered with laminar or lamellar armor. Findings of graffiti in the Mongolian Altai, dating back to the 7th-8th centuries, break another established stereotype that the Mongols had Chinese armor, which they adopted from the conquered peoples.
The offensive weapons used were a bow, an axe, a lasso, and a club. The main weapon was a bow, quite long-range. Some warriors had two bows, large and small. There was a supply of arrows in several quivers. Arrows were divided into light ones with a small sharp tip for shooting at long distances and heavy ones with a wide flat tip for shooting at a close target. The arrows had eagle feathers.
From bladed weapons, rich warriors used “swords” (as Carpini calls them), “slightly curved, cutting only on one side and sharp at the end.” Essentially, Carpini is describing a saber.
The Mongols used both regular spears and spears with hooks to pull the enemy from the saddle. In the miniatures, Mongol warriors hold a spear with both hands, sitting sideways in the saddle. /…/
The Mongols actively used various types of military vehicles. For example, “po” and “shivaigou”, who threw pots with Greek fire. /…/ The warriors themselves were distinguished by good training and great endurance. From the age of 4-5, a Mongol boy learned to use a bow. Most of the nomad’s life was spent in the saddle. Mongol warriors could sleep while marching in the saddle. Their marches inspire involuntary respect. They walked 600 miles in 9 days, 120 miles in 2 days without stopping for food, 180 miles in 3 days in deep snow, etc. Known cases when warriors went without food for 10 days, eating only the blood of their horses and camels and kumiss on the march. Some sources attributed cannibalism to them. /…/
The Mongols had an excellent intelligence service, propaganda and disinformation of the enemy. Any war began with the collection of information: the weaknesses of the enemy, climate conditions, and the nature of the future theater of military operations were studied. At the same time, the enemy was decomposing, rumors were spread, various interested groups of the population were sought out, to whom generous promises were made.
Before going on a campaign, a general check of the soldiers’ equipment took place; if the weapons were not kept in proper order, the culprit was severely punished.
With the start of the campaign, it was the turn of military reconnaissance to act. The advanced troops were thrown 70 versts ahead of the main forces, and the area was illuminated at the same distance by side guards. Mongol scouts, according to legend, at a distance of 18 miles could distinguish a person from an animal with a simple eye. The ubiquitous forward patrols revealed the enemy's location and covered the deployment of friendly troops. The enemy often had the impression that he was surrounded, that the Mongols were everywhere.
The main detachments adhered to the rule, later formulated as “move apart, fight together.” The cavalry columns marched separately, but maintained constant communication through messengers and smoke signals. The enemy was kept in the dark about the real forces of the army and their position. There were cases when the entire army retreated for several days, luring the enemy and without revealing its real strength.
When it came to battle, the usual formation was a spread out formation of hundreds with intervals between them.
The first two rows consisted of hundreds of heavy cavalry, followed by hundreds of light cavalry in three rows.
Special detachments constantly harassed the enemy's flanks. The bulk started a fight. Hundreds of light cavalry moved forward at intervals between hundreds of heavy cavalry and began shelling the enemy. In the event of an enemy attack, the riflemen, without stopping fire, retreated at intervals behind hundreds of heavy cavalry, which met the enemy with spears and swords. Similar formations were repeated several times until the enemy was sufficiently exhausted. Then, according to a signal given by raising a black or white flag, lanterns (at night), etc., a general offensive began. In the presence of the highest military commander, the general offensive began at the sound of a large drum.
The attack of the heavy cavalry and the light hundreds following it crushed the frustrated, exhausted enemy. The Mongols never completely surrounded the enemy, but gave him a “golden bridge.” Having the opportunity to escape, the enemy stopped resisting and fled. And then the Mongols began the pursuit and pursued while there was such an opportunity. /…/
The retreat was carried out only by order of the highest authorities. Iron discipline kept the soldiers from leaving without permission. Mutual responsibility implied cruel punishment for the entire ten for the retreat of one warrior.”
It is necessary to say a few words about the unique Mongolian horse. Historian J. Boldbaatar writes: “The harmonious combination of the Mongol and the Mongolian horse in everyday life and in battle /.../ became one of the indisputable sources of unprecedented victories. The mobility of the Mongol army was a consequence of the ideal monolithicity of horse and warrior, inseparable and indivisible. The Mongol of that time literally grew up on a horse and spent his whole life on a horse.”
He is echoed by the Buryat researcher Y. Khalbai: “A nomad sat on a horse from early childhood until old age. A Mongol and his horse were single organisms.”
“In winter, temperatures in Mongolia drop to −50°C, and in summer they rise to +40°C. Accordingly, horses of this breed were formed with a rough head, short neck, short stature, wide-bodied, with an elongated body, short limbs, strong hooves, a deflated muscular croup, a strongly grown mane and tail, and good winter hair. This horse can eat pasture all year round. The height at the withers of the Mongolian horse ranges from 122 to 130 cm. This is an ideal horse for long campaigns and conquests.”
Probably no one will dispute the fact that if the Mongols had not had a unique horse that swims in the water like a fish, is fast like the wind, does not know fatigue, thirst and hunger, and is completely insensitive to cold and heat, they would not have conquered half the world , but they would not even be able to conquer the neighboring country.
Based on the above, we can conclude that the Mongols of the 13th century. were born warriors and conquerors, called to fight and win victories.(jcomments on)

The Mongol army of the era of Genghis Khan and his successors is a completely exceptional phenomenon in world history. Strictly speaking, this applies not only to the army itself: in general, the entire organization of military affairs in the Mongolian state is truly unique. Emerging from the depths of clan society and ordered by the genius of Genghis Khan, this army in its fighting qualities far surpassed the troops of countries with a thousand-year history. And many elements of organization, strategy, and military discipline were centuries ahead of their time and only in the 19th – 20th centuries entered into the practice of the art of war. So what was the army of the Mongol Empire like in the 13th century?
Writing about this is both easy and difficult. It’s easy because of the entire complex of our knowledge about the Chingizid power, the lion’s share consists of information about its military achievements. Dozens, if not hundreds of authors, eyewitnesses of the Mongol conquests, have left us thousands of pages of texts. But this is where the difficulties begin. Firstly, almost all of these texts were written opponents Mongols, or, in any case, people extremely far from the Mongol mentality. Hence the bias, mistakes, and sometimes deliberate lies. Perhaps no army in history is surrounded by so many myths, and most often hostile myths, as the Mongol army. And, unfortunately, these fictions about the Mongols turned out to be extremely tenacious, and a hundred times repeated lies began to be perceived as the true truth. It was included in history textbooks, from which you and I have studied and are still studying. We can give two examples that probably everyone is familiar with.

Palace of the Bogdo Khan in Ulaanbaatar

With the light hand of Russian historians of the 19th century, the assertion was established that discipline in the Mongol army was maintained by measures of incredible cruelty: if two or three people out of a dozen retreated in battle, the whole ten would be executed. No army really knew such methods of intimidation (decimation in ancient Rome- only the execution of every tenth coward fled from the battlefield). But... the Mongol army did not know them either. This whole myth is based on a misunderstanding, or more precisely, on an incorrect reading of the passage from Plano Carpini to which Russian historians referred. Apparently knowledge Latin language then it was still not at the height that we are used to assuming. What In fact writes Plano Carpini? “If out of ten people one, or two, or three, or even more, flee, then they are all killed, and if all ten flee, and the other hundred do not flee, then all are killed; and, to put it briefly, if they do not retreat together, then everyone running(my italics - author's) are killed." (Travels to the eastern countries of Plano Carpini and Rubruk. M., 1957. P.49.) In other words, Carpini directly says: it was the cowards who fled from the battlefield who were subject to execution, but not their fellow brave men. Of course, this measure was very cruel, at least in comparison with the same decimation, but it is absolutely logically and morally justified. But the execution of the brave men who held the line, and even in an obviously very difficult combat situation, is not going to go anywhere! Nevertheless, the legend spread - and now we see that, it turns out, the Mongols were engaged in senseless (and from a military point of view, absurd, beyond common sense) murders.
Another myth: supposedly the Mongols, capturing the so-called civilized countries, destroyed everything in their path: a kind of elemental force that destroys out of love for the very process of destruction. This point of view is based on the information given to us by Persian and Arab authors of that era. And it is also true only to a small extent. For example, it is reported that after the capture of Merv its entire population was killed or taken into slavery. A year later, Merv rebelled against the invaders, and the Mongols came again and killed everyone again. Whom? Stories about hundreds of thousands and millions of Mongol victims during the capture of Iranian cities also fall into this category. Yes, the Mongols were by no means angels; yes, their cruelty probably exceeded the norms of the time. But it cannot be called meaningless. Moreover, the system of repression was carefully thought out and it was directed against those who offered the greatest resistance to the Mongol army. Terror was one of the components of the Mongol military strategy, which significantly facilitated their conquests. Those who actively resisted were destroyed, those who surrendered to the will of the winner were only taxed with tithes and - live as you lived. And this tactic was a huge success: dozens and hundreds of cities that could seriously delay or severely fragment the Mongol forces surrendered without a fight, which made it possible to maintain the pace of the offensive and, note, saved the lives of thousands of Mongol soldiers.
These are just two examples of myths about the Mongol army - myths that have become established in the mass consciousness right up to the present day. And the list of absurdities and outright lies is far from exhausted. Meanwhile, this false information leads to a very serious distortion of our understanding of the Mongols as a people, showing them in a completely wrong light, and in general about the character of the era of the Mongol conquests. But only an objective look at what is happening allows us to understand how such a phenomenon as the world empire of the Mongols could arise and confidently develop.
The second difficulty in the story of the Mongol army is that in the power created by the genius of Genghis Khan, the army and wars were not just an important element; no, they constituted the very essence of the Genghisid empire. The entire power was built on military principles, all men were warriors, the entire structure of the empire worked only for war. In a certain sense, the power of Genghis Khan itself and the army of the Mongol Empire formed a single whole, and it is not always possible to separate one from the other - this applies to the army, and then to the state itself. Let's try to understand these difficult issues. And the first of them will be the question of the size of the Mongol army in different periods and in different directions of expansion of the Genghisid empire.
This topic, like many others concerning the military structure of the Mongolian state, also did not escape deformations in the mass consciousness, and in the information provided by the authors of primary sources, and in the works of Mongolian historians. There is, for example, an established opinion about the huge number of Mongol armies, about their significant quantitative superiority over their opponents. And from here the conclusion often follows that it was precisely due to this numerical superiority that the Mongols achieved their constant victories. Meanwhile, this is an opinion absolutely false. On the contrary, the troops of the states that were hit by the Mongol invasion, as a rule, outnumbered, and sometimes quite significantly, the advancing Mongol armies. Jin China on the eve of Genghis Khan's invasion had an army of almost a million; from four hundred to five hundred thousand people could be put on the battlefield by the huge power of the Khorezmshahs. Medieval Rus' had mobilization capabilities of two hundred to two hundred and fifty thousand armed soldiers. While the entire population of the eastern part of the Great Steppe, which since 1206 constituted the Mongol power itself (in any case, the famous military deployment of Genghis Khan included only this part) hardly exceeded a million people. This means that even the maximum possible mobilization could yield a little more than two hundred thousand soldiers. In practice, even with the highest level of militarization of society that existed under Genghis Khan and his successors, the armies were much smaller, since there was also a mobilization reserve of eldest sons.

The appearance of the version about the enormous quantitative superiority of the Mongols, of course, lies on the conscience of numerous authors of that time, representing the opponents of the Mongols. Chinese, Arab, Persian, Russian, Western European chronicles and annals are replete with reports of countless Mongol hordes, that the Mongols were “like stars in the sky” (by the way, only three thousand stars can be seen in the sky with the naked eye - did such a thing arise? aberration also among those describing the Mongol armies?). Such evidence from the opponents of the Mongols is quite understandable from a psychological point of view. After all, they needed to explain how their wonderful, civilized and powerful powers could collapse under the blows of wild, uneducated barbarians, which they considered the Mongols to be. The numerical superiority of the enemy gave such an explanation, pouring like a balm on the souls of the losers: “Our warriors fought like heroes, but there were five (ten, twenty) times more Mongols, and we lost.” There is no need to say how much such propaganda, well known from thousands of other examples from different eras and countries, corresponds to reality. Probably, if the power of Darius had not been fully conquered by Alexander the Great, then the Persian authors of that time would have been happy to write about the million-strong Macedonian armies. Meanwhile, the army of Alexander the Great never exceeded fifty thousand people, and was quantitatively significantly inferior to the Persian, surpassing it to the same extent qualitatively. With good reason, this conclusion can also be applied to the Mongol army. In the end, no matter how offensive it may sound to our ears, the eighty-thousand-strong Russian-Polovtsian army was completely defeated on Kalka by the twenty-thousand-strong (!) corps of Subedei and Jebe. (The dispute is about whether there was a third, additional tumen in the corps of Subedei and Jebe, Historians still do this, but this does not fundamentally change anything - the Mongol army on Kalka was several times (!) numerically inferior to the Russian-Polovtsian army.)
The exaggerated data on the size of the Mongol armies given by our sources may also be explained by other reasons. They are connected both with the specifics of the Mongol army itself, and with the peculiarities of the military strategy of the Mongols. So, it is known that on a hike everyone a Mongol warrior had from one to four spare horses: two spare horses were considered the usual norm); in addition, numerous herds of the “central reserve” went with the army. Therefore, the Mongol army is always seemed much larger than she actually was. Fear has big eyes, and an army of fifty thousand with two hundred thousand horses turned into an army of two hundred thousand. Often, the Mongols, in order to intimidate the enemy before battle, used military stratagem. At night on the march, in the face of the enemy, they lit several times more fires than required, and thereby created the illusion of the countlessness of their hordes. This method of disinformation and intimidation of the enemy was widespread among the Mongols and was used quite often: for example, it played a huge role in the Naiman campaign already described. For the sake of objectivity, it should be said that, if necessary, when it was necessary, on the contrary, to reassure the enemy, to make him believe in his apparent superiority (so that there was no need for additional military preparations), the Mongol commanders, and especially Genghis Khan, sought in every possible way to downplay their strength. This significantly demobilized the enemy even before the start of the war, and had an even more terrible effect on him when he was faced with the real power of the Mongol armies. The most famous example of this kind of disinformation is information about the Mongol army reported by the famous Mongol spy and diplomat (in that era these concepts were almost equivalent) Mahmud Yalavach to Khorezmshah Muhammad ibn Tekesh. Mahmud Yalavach, speaking about the size of the Mongol army in comparison with the army of the Khorezmshah, likened the Mongol army to a stream of smoke in the night. Khorezmshah believed in his complete superiority over a possible enemy, and... the result is known.
Along with the exaggeration of the size of the Mongol armies and the dominance of this view for many centuries, already in the 20th century the opposite tendency appeared - to minimize the strength of the Mongols in every possible way. Mongolian historians of the so-called “Eurasian school” were especially keen on this and also sometimes brought the situation to the point of absurdity. With their light hand, for example, a version began to circulate that the entire army of Batu, who went on the Great Western Campaign, supposedly numbered no more than thirty thousand people, and among them there were actually only four thousand Mongols (!). But the argument of the “Eurasians” is completely incomprehensible and essentially serves one purpose: to show what tough, great and unsurpassed warriors the Mongols of Genghis Khan were. However, neither the genius of Genghis Khan nor the truly outstanding fighting qualities of the Mongol armies require such dubious justifications.
Let us now proceed, taking into account the above, to the assessment real the number of Mongol troops in the era of Genghis Khan and his successors. (A fairly qualitative analysis of this problem was carried out by the Russian researcher R.P. Khrapachevsky in the book “The Military Power of Genghis Khan.” Most of his conclusions are quite objective, but it is difficult to agree with some assessments.) It has already been said that that even the maximum possible mobilization of all the forces of Yeke Mongol Ulus could give only two hundred, in the most extreme case - two hundred and fifty thousand warriors. However, such a super-total mobilization would completely undermine the entire economic system of the nomads of the Great Steppe and was never put into practice. Genghis Khan, of course, built his “national state” primarily as a military power, but his plans did not include unbridled expansion at the cost of the death of the nomadic way of life and the destruction of the basic foundations of existence of the Mongol people. The Mongol ruler, without forgetting, of course, about himself and his “altan urug,” still wanted to make his nomads rich, contented and happy. But expanding the “mongolosphere” to the maximum possible limits was also part of his plans. Some contradiction that existed between these two goals forced him to look for a middle ground that would allow the nomadic life not to be destroyed, and to have an army capable of carrying out any combat missions. This golden mean was the division of the entire nomadic population of the empire into “thousands”, which were divided into hundreds and tens, and themselves, in turn, were united into tumens.

As far as one can judge, it was the “thousand” that constituted the main structural unit of the Mongol Empire. In civilian life it was a thousand tents as a large nomadic formation under general management chief appointed by the khan. In the military - simply a thousand (arithmetic) soldiers, which this thousand tents were obliged to supply in the event of war. For the first time such a clear division of the Mongol people and troops was made already at the time of the creation of the Mongol Empire, in 1206. At the great kurultai, Genghis Khan deployed his entire army into thousands and appointed ninety-five thousand-strong noyons to command them. Eighty-six thousand were actually Mongol, and their commanders were appointed from among the khan’s associates; in two relatively small divisions - three thousand Ikires and six thousand Onguts - some autonomy and a generic principle of organization were still preserved. In addition, outside these ninety-five thousand there was a separate corps of Keshikten, recruited from the sons of the Noyons, Bagatur warriors and people of free fortune. This corps was then expanded to a full-fledged tumen, that is, ten thousand people, and thus, the entire Mongol army before the start of Genghis Khan’s aggressive campaigns numbered one hundred and five thousand mounted warriors.
Later, with the inclusion of several more peoples of the steppe into the orbit of the empire, Genghis Khan carried out the second and final deployment of the Mongol people and army, which now included tribes of forest nomads, Yenisei Kyrgyz and some others. Final quantitative composition The Mongol army was determined to be one hundred and twenty-nine thousand warriors (and accordingly, the entire population was divided into one hundred and twenty-nine thousand tents) and was never revised again, since the decisions of Genghis Khan were irrevocable throughout the history of the Mongol Empire. Add to this the ten thousand Keshikten who stood outside this fundamental structure, and we get an army of approximately one hundred and forty thousand. And this is already an objective fact - actually Mongolian the army under Genghis Khan and his heirs and until the split of the state did not exceed one hundred and forty thousand soldiers.
But the words “properly Mongolian” are highlighted here for a reason. After the gigantic conquests in the east and west, the army included detachments of Uyghurs, Karluks, Jurchens, Chinese, and so on as auxiliary forces (but not among the mentioned one hundred and twenty-nine thousand). Our sources number forty-six such auxiliary units. Their numbers, unfortunately, are unknown, but it is far from a secret that they never formed the fighting basis of the Mongol army, and only under Ogedei, with the accession of the extremely numerous Kipchak people (Polovtsians) to Yeka Mongol Ulus, the number of non-Mongol warriors was at least equal with the number of Mongolians. The Kipchaks themselves, by the way, were not dispersed into thousands, but became part of the thousands created by Genghis Khan. Why, by the way, some formal “thousands,” especially in the Jochi ulus after Batu’s campaign, could number three, five, or even ten thousand tents. However, the army they fielded still numbered a thousand and, although in the later period of the Empire probably greatly exceeded this number, remained in name the notorious "thousand".
In this situation, it is quite difficult to estimate the total strength of the armies of the Mongol Empire during its peak period. We can only say with certainty that these additional contingents, outside those established by Genghis Khan, numbered no less than sixty thousand and hardly more than the same one hundred and forty thousand people. Thus, the total number of all Mongol armies by the middle of the 13th century ranged from two hundred to two hundred eighty thousand warriors, of which one hundred and forty thousand people were considered “registered” Mongols, and the actual Mongols, or Nirun Mongols, numbered barely a quarter, that is, fifty -sixty thousand.
This is the estimate of the number everyone Mongol armies in different periods of the empire. But no less interesting is what forces the Mongols had in their famous campaigns of conquest under Genghis Khan and his successors. It is clear that, with the exception of the campaign against Jin China in 1211, the Mongols never again had the opportunity to throw their entire army at the enemy: after that the war was always fought on several fronts. And the more the Mongol expansion expanded, the correspondingly smaller contingents they could deploy in new directions of their permanent offensive. And indeed, although somewhat mitigated by the constant inclusion of people from conquered peoples in the army, this trend is quite visible.
Perhaps the largest in terms of the number of soldiers involved in it was the campaign against the state of the Khorezmshahs in 1219. By this time, the conquest of Jin China - the main enemy of the Mongols - was far from over, and therefore Genghis Khan was forced to fragment his forces. He left a very significant military contingent in China, under the overall command of Mukhali. Historians estimate that this army numbered between sixty and one hundred thousand soldiers; however, in assessing how many warriors belonged to the Mongols themselves, opinions differ sharply. R.P. Khrapachevsky, for example, believes that the overwhelming majority in Mukhali’s army were auxiliary troops from among former opponents who went over to Genghis Khan’s side. Actually, there were only thirteen thousand Mongols, and five thousand of them were used only to guard the native yurt - that is, they did not take part in the war as such. It is impossible to agree with such an assessment, at least from military-strategic considerations.
In fact, in this situation, it turns out that Mukhali actually had only eight thousand Mongol cavalry and almost ten times the army of yesterday’s opponents who were handed over to the Mongols. And this in a hostile country, far from being conquered and at that time possessing superior forces, although demoralized by previous defeats. What could prevent these newly minted allies from betraying their new masters and easily destroying such a small army (essentially a detachment) of Mukhali? History knows many similar examples. It is impossible to believe in such obvious strategic shortsightedness of Genghis Khan. The Mongol Khan, both before and after, more than once showed his capabilities as a master strategic planning. But it turns out that in this case he took an unjustified risk, which threatened with extremely dangerous consequences. And this is the cunning and cautious commander who, in his instructions, specifically emphasized how necessary caution and prudence are in military affairs. Therefore, in such a situation there is clearly an error.
In his analysis of the number of troops that Genghis Khan left to Mukhali to fight the war in China, R.P. Khrapachevsky relies on the testimony of Rashid ad-Din. Let's consider it too. Rashid ad-Din writes: “He (Genghis Khan) gave him (Mukhali) one tumen of troops from the Ongut tribe, one thousand national troops, four thousand from the Ikiras tribe, ... one thousand Manguts, ... three thousand from the Kungirats, .. .two thousand jalairs.” (Rashid ad-Din. Collection of Chronicles. Vol. I. Book 2. P. 179.) And further: “He also entrusted to him what was conquered from the regions of Khitai and the possessions of Jurje so that so that he would protect them and conquer, as far as possible, what did not submit.” (Ibid.)
First, we note that nowhere in this passage does it say that five thousand warriors from the indicated number were intended to guard the indigenous Mongol yurt. On the contrary, it is stated with complete clarity that all these troops were supposed to fight in China and that no other tasks were assigned to them. Thus, these half-tumens can be safely added to the military group of the Mongols in China. Further. For unknown reasons, the Russian researcher excludes from the number of Mongolian warriors the whole tumen (that is, ten thousand fighters) of the Onguts, longtime and loyal allies of Genghis Khan, who supported him even before the fateful war with the Naiman. Meanwhile, since 1206, the Onguts were among the ninety-five thousand registered all-Mongol army, although they had some internal autonomy. In this sense, they were no different from the same ikires, also transferred to Mukhali. But for some reason our author confidently classifies the Ikires as Mongols, but for some reason the equally Mongol-speaking Ongut people, who are also connected with the Borjigins and family ties, do not. So we add another ten thousand first-class warriors to the Mukhali Mongols.
But that's not all. Rashid ad-Din says that Genghis Khan "gave" Mukhali Mongol warriors for the war in China. But let’s not forget that Mukhali himself was a thousand-man from 1206, and later a temnik-noyon, and he didn’t need to “give” his own thousand (and maybe a whole tumen), he already had it, and Mukhali’s thousand was selected, the first in the army of the left wing of Genghis Khan’s army. Finally, let us pay attention to the mistakes and contradictions inherent in Rashid ad-Din: in another place he says that the entire left wing of the Mongol army remained in China with Mukhali (Rashid ad-Din. Collection of chronicles. Vol. I. Book 2. C 256.) that is, sixty-two thousand people, which, of course, is not true. In addition, according to another register given in the Chinese manuscript “Sheng-wu qin-zheng lu” (“Description of the personal campaigns of the sacred warrior”), Mukhali was left not one, but four thousand manguts, that is, the same number as their old friends and military rivals (in a good way) of the Uruts. This information is more credible: after all, who better than the Chinese would know how many troops were operating on the Chinese front (especially since, according to some sources, the original author of the book was the prominent Mongol commander Chagan).
So, if we summarize this analysis, it turns out that in reality Mukhali had in China from twenty-four to thirty-six thousand soldiers from the Mongolian army itself, plus a distant reserve of five thousand stationed in native Mongolia. Even fifty to sixty thousand new allies would hardly have dared to oppose such a Mongol army, bearing in mind the highest combat capabilities of the Mongols.
And from these calculations it is not difficult to find out the number of the Mongol army that went on a campaign against the state of the Khorezmshahs. Of the one hundred and twenty-nine thousand registered, from twenty-nine to forty-one thousand remained in China and Mongolia, the rest, no doubt, were sent to Central Asia. Let's add to them the full tumen of Genghis Khan's Keshikten, since the khan himself participated in this campaign. The total is one hundred to one hundred and ten thousand of the Mongols themselves. It is more difficult to estimate the number of auxiliary troops, but it is known that one tumen of Uighurs, six thousand Karluks, one combined tumen of East Turkestan warriors, a special technical corps (siege engines) of the Chinese and Jurchens and, apparently, a number of smaller detachments took part in this campaign . These forces can be approximately estimated at forty to fifty thousand people, and thus the entire army of Genghis Khan, which set out on the Central Asian campaign, numbered about one hundred and fifty thousand warriors. And the mobilization capabilities of the Khorezmshahs, according to the most minimal estimates, amounted to four hundred thousand soldiers of the regular army alone. Here you have the “countless Mongol hordes”, which allegedly gained the upper hand due to quantitative superiority!
A similar calculation, based on a thorough analysis of sources, can be made for perhaps the most famous military campaign of the Mongols - the Great Western Campaign of 1236 - 1242. Here, too, there were some overly emotional and, to put it mildly, dubious assessments. The Russian chronicle tells of the countless strength of Batu’s troops, brought to Rus', so that under them “the earth trembled and groaned.” But this obvious poetic exaggeration led some Russian historians to estimate the number of the Batu Tumens at a mind-boggling figure of six hundred thousand people. Even the entire Great Steppe together could not provide such a number of warriors. And what to feed almost two million (!) horses? This assessment clearly lacks basic common sense, and can only be compared with the indications of ancient Greek historians about the five and a half million Persian soldiers sent by Xerxes to conquer Hellas. From a military point of view, both are complete nonsense. But we cannot agree with the opposite, already mentioned, opinion of some Eurasian historians, who claim that Batu’s regular army consisted of only thirty thousand fighters. The data from our sources does not allow us to reconcile ourselves with such an assessment.
So, the opinions of Mongolian experts, as we see, differ by as much as twenty times, and the truth, as always, should be sought in the middle. Moreover, the primary sources make it possible to give a more fair assessment. We know that eleven (or twelve) Chingizid princes took part in the campaign, each of whom had his own tumen. Tumen formally equaled ten thousand soldiers, but, even despite the desire of Genghis Khan himself to streamline the structure of the army as much as possible, tumens remained the vaguest army units in quantitative terms. Ten thousand soldiers was an ideal tumen, but more often the tumens were smaller, especially when the registered Mongol thousands were mechanically joined by allies from among other nomads. And this is exactly what happened in the Great Western Campaign. According to the register, these Mongol princes owned approximately forty thousand Mongol warriors assigned to Genghis Khan’s thousands. Probably, despite the fact that some of the Mongol soldiers remained to guard the own yurts of the Genghisid princes. So the figure of thirty to thirty-five thousand Mongols who participated in the campaign seems to be the most reliable. And according to the testimony of the Hungarian monk Julian (1236), the Mongols made up approximately one third of the entire Genghisid army. That is, the entire army before the start of the campaign is estimated at one hundred thousand regular mounted soldiers. Undoubtedly, auxiliary units, for example, engineering units, also took part in the campaign; All sorts of adventurers and lovers of plunder joined the campaign. But it’s difficult to evaluate them as real military force. And, apparently, the most accurate estimate of the size of the Mongol army in the Great Western Campaign, possible with the current level of study of the issue, would be a number of one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand warriors. Let us note here that the mobilization capabilities of Rus' alone exceeded these figures at least twice. So here, too, there is no need to talk about colossal numerical superiority, although in many individual cases the Mongol troops outnumbered the enemy in numbers.

This is our estimate of the size of the Mongol armies during the imperial period. Now let's move on to issues related to the structure, management, discipline and other elements of the military organization of the Mongols. And here it seems important to say once again that all the foundations of military affairs in the Mongol Empire were laid and developed by Genghis Khan, who cannot at all be called a great commander (on the battlefield), but we can confidently speak of him as a true military genius.
Already starting from the great kurultai of 1206, at which Temujin was proclaimed Genghis Khan of the Mongol Empire he created, a strict decimal system was used as the basis for the organization of the army. In the very principle of dividing an army into tens, hundreds and thousands, there was nothing new for the nomads. Even one and a half millennia before Genghis Khan, in the Hunnic state of Mode, this rule became fundamental. However, Genghis Khan made this principle truly comprehensive, deploying not only the army, but also the entire Mongolian society into similar structural units. Following the system was extremely strict: not a single warrior had the right under any circumstances to leave his ten, and not a single foreman could accept anyone into the ten. The only exception to this rule could be an order from the khan himself; in rare cases caused by military necessity - an order of an autonomously acting commander or a decision of the great kurultai of noyons. This scheme made a dozen or a hundred a truly cohesive fighting unit: soldiers acted as a unit for years and even decades, knowing full well the abilities, pros and cons of their comrades. In addition, this principle made it extremely difficult for enemy spies and just random people to penetrate into the Mongol army itself.
Genghis Khan also abandoned the generic principle of building an army - more precisely, from the fact that this principle remained basic, as it was under Mode or in the Eternal El of the Turks. The tribal method of organizing troops was not completely abolished, as some Mongol scholars believe, but now had a clearly dependent character. In some units - Uruts, Manguts, Ikires, Onguts - it was still preserved, but in the main combat units it was used only occasionally. The norm became the composition of a dozen or hundreds of warriors from different clans and tribes, and at the head of each such unit, as a rule, there was a proven veteran from among Temujin’s old associates - the Baljunakhs, the well-served Keshikten or the Khan’s nukers. And in the army the principle of tribal subordination was completely abolished: the instructions of the tribal leaders had no force for the soldiers; the orders of the military commander - foreman, centurion, thousander - had to be carried out unquestioningly, under the threat of immediate execution for non-compliance.
Initially, the main military unit of the Mongol army was a thousand - this is also evidenced by the “Secret Legend”, according to which in 1206 Genghis Khan appointed ninety-five thousand men from among the most trusted and devoted people. Among these thousands of people there were also very famous names: Munlik, Boorchu, Mukhali, Jelme, Subedey, Jebe, Sorganshira; There are also those about whom we know nothing. Soon after the great kurultai, based on military expediency, Genghis Khan made his best thousand commanders temniks, and two old comrades - Boorchu and Mukhali - led, respectively, the right and left wings of the Mongol army.
The macrostructure of the Mongol army, which included troops of the right and left hands, as well as the center, was approved in the same 1206. A similar division also came from the depths of centuries: this is how the Mode army was built. However, later in the 1220s, strategic necessity caused by the increase in the number of theaters of war forced Genghis Khan to effectively abandon this principle. The old type of organization is most clearly recorded on the eve of the campaign against the state of the Khorezmshahs. Of the total number of one hundred and thirty-nine thousand warriors, sixty-two thousand formed the left wing, thirty-eight thousand made up the right, the Keshikten corps and the troops of Genghis Khan’s brothers, sons and nephews - a total of thirty-eight thousand people - formed the center. The missing thousand was, apparently, that special thousand Uriankhians who guarded sacred mountain Mongols Burkhan-Khaldun. After the death of Genghis Khan, these Uriankhians became the guardians of the grave of their great leader and never took part in hostilities.
After the Central Asian campaign and the emergence of several fronts, this structure was changed. Genghis Khan was forced to abandon the principle of a single army. Formally, the tumen remained the largest military unit, but to carry out the most important strategic tasks, large army groups were created, as a rule, of two or three, less often of four tumens, and operating as autonomous combat units. The overall command of such a group - today we would call it an expeditionary force - was given to the most prepared temnik, who in this situation became, as it were, the deputy of the khan himself. Such autonomous armies were the Mukhali corps in China, as well as the Chormagan and Jebe corps. The military leaders of such isolated groups - and they could be an individual tumen, or even a thousand - had a very wide range of powers and enjoyed great freedom of action, so as not to fetter the initiative of the commander in the unpredictable conditions of a military campaign. In general, such a situation would seem to be very uncharacteristic of the Mongol army with its iron discipline, to which both temniks and thousand officers were fully subordinated. But this only proves that for Genghis Khan the principle of military-strategic expediency stood above the principle of formal subordination. But at the same time, the demand from the military leader for completing combat missions was great. Even his favorite Shigi-Khutukha, after he suffered an unexpected defeat from Jalal ad-Din at Perwan, Genghis Khan forever removed from the highest military command, retaining only his personal thousand.
In general, the principles for forming army command personnel established by Genghis Khan are extremely interesting. Giving unconditional preference to his trusted comrades, Genghis Khan, however, made it clear that a career was open for any of his warriors, right up to the highest positions. He speaks unambiguously about this in his instructions (bilik), which actually made such a practice the law of the state: “Whoever can lead his house faithfully can lead his possession; “Whoever can arrange ten people according to the condition, give him a thousand and a thousand, and he can arrange it well.” And vice versa, any commander who failed to cope with his duties faced demotion or even the death penalty; a person from the same military unit who was most suitable for this command position was appointed as the new chief. And this system operated not only among the lower command staff: the same rule was established for the thousanders and temniks. Note that Genghis Khan also introduced another important principle of command - a principle that is fundamental in the modern army, but was fully included in the regulations of European armies only by the 19th century. Namely, in the event of the absence of a commander for any reason, even the most insignificant, a temporary commander was immediately appointed in his place. This rule applied even if the boss was absent for only a few hours. Such a system clearly worked to constantly maintain combat readiness and was very effective in unpredictable conditions of military operations.
Completely unique to the Middle Ages, with its unrestrained praise of the individual fighting qualities of a warrior, is another principle for selecting command personnel. This rule is so surprising and so clearly proves the military-organizational talent of Genghis Khan that it is worth citing here in full. Genghis Khan said: “There is no bahadur like Yesunbay, and there is no person similar to him in talents. But since he does not suffer from the hardships of the campaign and does not know hunger and thirst, he considers all other people, nukers and warriors, to be similar to himself in enduring hardships, but they are not able to [endure them]. For this reason he is not fit to be a boss(my italics – author). The person who deserves to be such is the one who himself knows what hunger and thirst are, and judges the condition of others by this, the one who travels on the road with calculation and does not allow the army to go hungry and thirsty, or the cattle to become emaciated.”( Rashid ad-Din. Collection of chronicles. Vol. I. Book 2. pp. 261 – 262.) And these are the words of an uneducated wild barbarian?! Readers who served in the army, take off your hat to the military genius!
Thus, the responsibility imposed on army commanders was very high. Among other things, each junior and mid-level commander was responsible for the functional readiness of his soldiers: he checked all the equipment of each soldier before the campaign - from a set of weapons to a needle and thread. An understaffed soldier was punished by the commander, but if the inspection was carried out superficially, then not only the ordinary soldier, but also the commander himself was subject to punishment. One of the articles of the Great Yasa, albeit somewhat vaguely, states that for the misdeeds of his soldiers - laxity, poor readiness, especially military crime - the commander was punished with the same measure as them: that is, if a soldier was subject to the death penalty, then he could also be executed commander. Every representative of the commanding staff knew about this, and one can imagine what an unprecedented level of order reigned in the Mongol army - from its lowest unit to the army as a whole.
The demand from the commander was great, but no less great was the power that he enjoyed in his unit. The order of any boss had to be carried out unquestioningly. Not every offense, of course, was punishable by death, as historians who are unfamiliar with the real principles of discipline in the Mongol army sometimes claim. But punishment followed for any, even the most innocent, offense: the soldiers were beaten with bamboo sticks, and for a more serious or repeated violation - with batogs. Constant violators of military discipline and those who committed military crimes in the context of a military campaign were actually executed. By the way, it was considered a serious war crime to begin plundering an enemy, even one already defeated, without the permission of the military commander. These amazing orders extremely surprised many authors who witnessed the Mongol conquests. Compared to their own “civilized” warriors, whom no commander could restrain from unbridled robbery, such discipline in the Mongol army made a stunning impression on Persian and Western European chroniclers. By the way, we note that when the robbery of the vanquished was allowed, none of the Mongol warriors received the initial advantage; Only personal abilities mattered: the one who first occupied the house automatically received everything contained in it, and the latecomer - even if he was a thousand-man - no longer had any rights to this property (only a special khan's share was allocated - tithe).
There was strict discipline special meaning in a combat situation. But it also implied clear command and control of troops. Unquestioning execution of orders made the army invincible only when military leaders were able to convey these orders to every subordinate. This became especially important in combat conditions, when the constantly changing situation sometimes required unexpected, not previously agreed upon decisions. And in the Mongolian army, the system of control and transmission of orders to higher commanders was also raised to the proper height. Operational control in combat conditions was carried out in different ways: a verbal order from the commander or on his behalf through a messenger, signaling with horsetails and the ever-memorable whistling arrows, a clearly developed system of sound signals transmitted by pipes and war drums - “nakars”. And we note that there was not a single case when the Mongol army left the battlefield with the standard (bunchuk) of the commander raised. The Mongols, although rarely, suffered defeats - in particular, at Perwan or Ain Jalud - but even in defeat there was no panic, and military discipline was paramount. Genghis Khan himself noted as perhaps his most important achievement the principles of management and order he established: “I owe the order and discipline I introduced to the fact that my power, like the young moon, is growing from day to day and that I have earned the blessing of the Eternal Heaven, respect and submission of the earth."
And yet, it was not only (and not even so much) order and discipline that made the Mongol army of Genghis Khan a unique phenomenon in world history. We know many examples when the strictest discipline, even combined with high fighting spirit, did not at all lead to automatic victory. Cut off such an army from its sources of supply, cut off communications, capture convoys - and defeat, despite any discipline, becomes almost inevitable. Let us remember the Russian army of Peter I in the sad memory of the Prut campaign of 1711 or the Egyptian campaign of the brilliant Napoleon. Brilliant commanders, magnificent armies, but the result is complete defeat. This was a serious difference between the Mongol army and the armies of both the past and the future: it did not need either communications or convoys; in fact, during a military campaign it did not require external supplies at all. And with good reason, any Mongol warrior could express this in the words of the famous Latin proverb (if he knew it): “Omnia mea mecum porto” - “I carry everything I have with me.”
On a campaign, the Mongol army could move for months and even years (the four-year, multi-thousand-kilometer raid of the army of Subedei and Jebe is the best confirmation of this) without carrying food and fodder supplies. The Mongolian horse was completely grazing: it did not need either a stable or a bag of oats for the night. Even from under the snow he could get food for himself, and the Mongols never knew the principle to which almost all armies of the Middle Ages obeyed: “they don’t fight in winter.” Special detachments of the Mongols were sent one or two days ahead, but their task was not only military guarding and tactical reconnaissance; At the same time, “economic” reconnaissance was carried out - the best pastures were selected and places for watering places were determined.
The endurance and unpretentiousness of the Mongol warrior was also amazing. During the campaign, he was content with what he managed to obtain by hunting or robbery; if necessary, he could feed for weeks on his stone-hard khurut, stored in his saddle bags. But even the complete destruction of all reserves - after all, even the khurut may someday end - did not at all put the army on the brink of death from hunger. When there was absolutely nothing left to eat, the Mongol warrior could feed... on the blood of his own horses. Up to half a liter of blood could be taken from a Mongolian horse without much harm to its health. Since there were always a lot of spare horses - in general, the usual norm on a campaign was three horses per person - this method could well ensure survival. Finally, fallen or injured horses could also be eaten. Even under favorable conditions in a large army, the death rate of horses, based on the simple theory of probability, amounted to several dozen daily. And this already made it possible, albeit meagerly, to feed the army. Well, at the first opportunity, the horse herds were replenished again with captured cattle.
It was precisely these features that made the Mongol army the most resilient, the most mobile, the most independent from external conditions of all the armies that have ever existed in human history. And this was superimposed by strict order and strict discipline, well-organized management, combat and tactical training. And we can say without mincing words: such an army was truly capable of conquering the whole world: her combat capabilities fully allowed this. And only accidents of history (such as the death of Ogedei Khan in December 1241) prevented the transformation of the world into a Mongol ulus. Never - neither before nor after the Mongol campaigns - has such a chance been given to either the most brilliant commanders or the greatest powers (except perhaps the unused chance of Stalin, but that too seems very doubtful). The Mongol army had such potential, and this makes it the greatest military phenomenon of all time.

* * *

Such exceptional shooting density required a very significant number of arrows. And indeed, according to Plano Carpini, each Mongol warrior, before setting off on a military campaign, had to present to his superior “three large quivers full of arrows.” From other sources we know that the quiver's capacity was sixty arrows. The Mongol went into battle with one, and, if necessary, two full quivers - thus, in a major battle, the warrior’s ammunition was one hundred and twenty arrows. It’s amazing, but true: a modern Russian soldier in a combat situation has four loaded magazines with cartridges - that is, he can fire one hundred and twenty shots! A bullet, of course, is not an arrow, but if you think about it, the combat capabilities of a Mongolian warrior were only slightly inferior to those possessed by a soldier of the twenty-first century.
Mongolian arrows themselves are something special. The variety of their combat characteristics is amazing. There were special armor-piercing tips, and also different ones - for chain mail, for plate and for leather armor. There were arrows with very wide and sharp tips (the so-called “cut”), capable of cutting off a hand or even a head. The commanders always had several whistling signal arrows. There were other types that were used depending on the nature of the battle. (The author can personally attest to the amazing versatility of Mongolian arrows: during excavations in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin in 2001–2002, in which I took part, archaeologists found more than fifteen different types of arrowheads Almost all of them were of Mongolian (Tatar) origin and dated back to the 13th – 14th centuries.) Such specialization significantly increased the efficiency of shooting in battle and became one of the main guarantees of victory.
Another important weapon of the light-horse warrior was the saber. Saber blades were very light, slightly curved and cut on one side. The saber, almost without exception, was a weapon in combat against a retreating enemy, that is, a fleeing enemy was cut from behind, not expecting to encounter serious resistance. In such conditions, a light saber was the optimal weapon: it did not bother the hand and, by the way, while incapacitating the enemy, it usually did not take his life - but the vanquished then became prisoners. For serious offensive or counter combat, sabers were ineffective, and in such conditions the main role was played by heavy cavalry with massive broadswords and swords, usually also slightly curved. In general, the weapons of the Bagaturs and Keshikten were much more diverse than those of the light cavalry. There is also a fairly powerful spear - the pike, the Uruts and Manguts were masters in using it, and in a desperate spear attack they almost destroyed an army of Keraits that was many times larger (see Chapter 7). Often such a spear was equipped with a hook designed to pull an enemy off a horse; but the most common weapon of this kind was, of course, the famous Mongolian horsehair lasso - light, strong and long. The nomads, accustomed to catching horses from herds with it, used the lasso with amazing dexterity; ten meters from the enemy was not a serious obstacle. And every Mongol horseman had a lasso with him, and often even several. This terrible Mongol weapon terrified the enemy - probably no less than his arrows. It was for protection against the Mongolian lasso that an ingenious device was invented that has survived centuries. The famous “wings behind the back” from Bulat Okudzhava’s song were among the Russian lancers back in the 18th century. Their special configuration made using the lasso very difficult: when trying to tighten the loop, the lasso would slip.

Although main force The Mongol army had horse archers; we have a lot of information about the use of a wide variety of weapons. Small throwing spears - darts - were especially widely used, in handling which the Mongols were real specialists. The owners of the armor - noyons, bagaturs, keshikten - actively used heavy hand weapons, which gave an advantage in contact combat: battle axes and clubs, spears with a long and wide blade (similar to streltsy berdysh), which could be used both as a piercing and chopping weapon. By the middle of the 13th century, the Mongol army and its auxiliary contingents were already armed with almost all types of cutting, piercing and throwing weapons. However, for a long time the main weapon of the Mongols (with the exception of specific siege warfare) remained the bow and arrow, saber and lasso.
But here we cannot help but say about what is probably the main weapon of any Mongol warrior. This is the famous Mongolian horse. We have already discussed the enormous importance of horses in the nomadic life of steppe peoples. Now let us turn to the specifics of the combat use of horses during the period of the great aggressive campaigns of Genghis Khan and his successors.
The Mongolian horse is surprisingly small in size. Her height at the withers usually did not exceed one meter and thirty-five centimeters, and her weight ranged from two hundred to three hundred kilograms. Compare it with the almost two-meter, eight-hundred-kilogram knightly monsters - the difference is striking. In fact, a steppe horse is a cross between a pony and an ordinary horse. But her fighting qualities were truly amazing. And even more surprising is the competent use real benefits Mongolian horses, which allows us to evaluate the Mongolian cavalry as the most powerful and effective cavalry army of all time. The characteristics of the Mongolian horse determined, to a large extent, all the combat tactics practiced by the Mongols.
A light Mongolian horse, of course, could not compare in the power of a ramming blow with the same knight's horse. Therefore, the norm for the Mongol cavalry became a constant alternation of frontal and flank attacks, deep detours of large cavalry masses to the flank and rear of the enemy. Here one thing helped the Mongols a lot important quality, inherent in their steppe horses: significantly inferior in speed to the enemy’s horses, they had almost exceptional endurance. The Mongolian horse withstood both hours-long battles and extremely long hikes with unprecedented ease. Examples of this amazing endurance can be given. Thus, during the Hungarian campaign of 1241 cavalry army Subedea once covered a distance of almost four hundred and fifty kilometers in three days—that is, one hundred and fifty kilometers a day. No army in the world was capable of such feats. In this regard, we can recall that, for example, the army of the crusaders in the First Crusade during the six-month march from Konya to Antioch (which is about a thousand kilometers) lost from ninety to ninety-five percent of all their horses, while only sixty real knightly horses remained . The Mongol army could, without much strain and, of course, without massive deaths of horses, cover this route in ten days. We can speak about this quite confidently - after all, Genghis Khan himself carried out similar campaigns (let us at least remember his lightning raid on Buyuruk Khan in 1201), and his commanders - Subedei, Jebe, Jochi.
The highest level of training of Mongolian horses was also important. The Mongol warrior and his horse acted as one creature in battle. The horse obeyed the slightest instructions from its owner and was capable of the most unexpected feints and maneuvers. This allowed the Mongols, even during retreat, to maintain both order and fighting qualities: quickly retreating, the Mongol army could instantly stop and immediately launch a counterattack or release a shower of arrows at the enemy. It is no coincidence that our sources more than once say that Mongolian horses were trained “like dogs.” And indeed, the training of horses began already in the second, or even the first year of life (Zhao Hong writes about this) and, apparently, was never interrupted.
The high discipline, endurance of the Mongolian horse, its ability to survive in almost any conditions made it extremely similar... to its own owner. In fact, the Mongol from Genghis Khan’s army and his horse are surprisingly similar, and one gets the impression that they were connected by something much more than a simple relationship between man and animal. A man could completely trust his horse, but a horse could also trust a man. An amazing fact: Mongolian horses were never tied or hobbled. Although, it would seem, here it is - freedom and a free life, but the Mongolian horses never did not leave their, in general, rather harsh owners. This is mutual trust, some kind of higher relationship, coming from those times when man was simply a part of nature - they made the Mongol and his horse, probably, the only military partnership of its kind that history knows.
But let's return to the Mongol army; more precisely, from the Mongol army itself we will move on to other components of the Genghisid army. We are talking about auxiliary units recruited from various conquered peoples and performing a wide variety of functions. The appearance of the first military formations of this kind was noted from the very beginning of Genghis Khan’s aggressive campaigns, but their use became truly widespread starting with the Chinese campaign. It has already been said that such non-Mongol units made up more than half of the Mukhali army left by Genghis Khan to continue the war in China in 1219. Initially, the main part of these auxiliary forces was the same cavalry, since it included warriors from among the nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples. Such units were called “tanma” or “tanmachi”; The detachment commanders at first represented their own tribal nobility, but gradually, as a rule, they were replaced by Mongols. Their fighting skills and tactics became more and more “Mongolized” over time, and by the end of Genghis Khan’s life, this foreign cavalry actually became indistinguishable from the Mongol cavalry. Since the 1220s, such auxiliary cavalry armies of various tribes simply disappear, and all conquered nomads begin to be deployed into Mongol “thousands”. As a separate species, they are only preserved in some places as non-combat, occupation units and, strictly speaking, have nothing to do with the army itself.
Auxiliary units, gradually increasing in importance as the Mongol Empire grew and became more complex, were those that performed functions that were not characteristic of the Mongols themselves - horsemen to the core. Beginning with the Chinese campaign, infantry units appeared in the army, which, however, played a purely auxiliary role: they usually carried out garrison service or were city guards, and were used directly in combat during sieges and only in rare cases - as, for example, in Afghanistan in 1222 – they also took part in a military campaign. Moreover, these infantry units were not part of the Mongolian army itself, having only the status of a militia.
However, these infantry units can still be called privileged in comparison with another, very specific group, which played a rather significant role in the military strategy of the Mongols. This group is the “siege crowd”, widely known in history, or, in Mongolian, “khashar.” (“Hashar” in Mongolian actually means “crowd.”) Khashar was by no means a combat unit. This is simply the large civilian population of the conquered country gathered in one place. Such masses of people were used mainly during the Mongol sieges of fortresses and cities. The use of the siege crowd was twofold: people were used as work force– for excavation work, construction and transportation of siege machines and structures; Khashar was also sent to storm the fortress as the first wave. Sometimes the assaults were carried out by the forces of the Khashar alone: ​​the Mongols, without a twinge of conscience, drove people under the arrows fired by their own brothers and fathers. It was impossible to refuse; those retreating were immediately cut down by the Mongol cavalry standing behind. The method, needless to say, is inhumane, reminiscent of the famous penal battalions of the Stalin era. However, it was not the Mongols who were the inventors of this ferocious means of warfare: they learned it from the so-called “civilized” peoples - the same Chinese or Arabs. True, the Mongols turned out to be really “good” students and brought this method to true perfection. (More details about the methods of using hashar will be discussed later.) With no less brilliance, these steppe nomads adopted another “achievement” of sedentary peoples - the art of besieging and taking cities . It was this ability to quickly learn from their enemies that made a terrifying impression on the peoples of Central Asia during Genghis Khan’s campaign against the state of the Khorezmshahs. From time immemorial, all surrounding peoples knew that nomads were practically powerless against well-defended fortresses. This was confirmed by the history of the great nomadic powers of antiquity: the Huns, for example, during the four hundred years of the existence of their empire, never achieved any success in siege warfare. The defensive strategy of the Khorezmshah Muhammad was largely built on this well-known helplessness of the mounted steppe inhabitants in the face of fortified cities. (Other reasons also played a large role in the choice of strategy by the Khorezmshah Muhammad. More about them in Chapter 11.) The siege successes of the Mongols turned out to be for him a complete surprise, which largely predetermined the rapid defeat of the Khorezmshah power.
Before the start of their external campaigns of conquest, the Mongol tribes really did not possess siege technology. There were, in fact, only two combat techniques: firstly, luring the enemy out of the fortress in order to defeat him in the field and then take the already defenseless city; secondly, the blockade of the fortress by masses of cavalry troops, which was rarely effective, since the besiegers usually ran out of food supplies for people and horses earlier than those of the besieged. Already the very first, purely reconnaissance campaign in 1205 against the Tangut power (that is, even before the proclamation of the empire) showed Genghis Khan the importance of the art of siege. And in 1207, he undertook a new campaign against Tangut, according to Chinese military historians, almost exclusively for the purpose of studying ways to take fortified cities. The Mongol ruler understood perfectly well that the largest military campaign he had long planned against the Jin had little chance of success without knowledge of siege art. The Tangut campaigns gave him such an initial base - through captured specialists and training of the Mongols themselves. Later, the Mongols adopted more effective Chinese technology, and achievements in this area of ​​Muslims. Undoubted and the main merit in this rapid development of siege warfare among the Mongols belongs to Genghis Khan. The Mongol ruler paid great attention to this until the end of his life. Therefore, when a number of historians claim that, if not for the Chinese, Tangut, and Central Asian siege engines, the Mongols would have been powerless against the sedentary peoples, then there is an obvious logical distortion. After all, the siege art of China itself has reached very high level back in the period of the Warring Kingdoms (V – III centuries BC). But over the past one and a half millennia, not a single nomadic people has used these technologies. Genghis Khan, the great military organizer, was the first here too.

Already during the Chinese campaign of Genghis Khan, large military engineering detachments of the so-called “stone throwers” ​​appeared in the Mongol army. They consisted mainly of Jurchens and Chinese who had sided with the Mongols, but the first leader of the stone-throwing corps was the native Mongol Anmuhai. We do not know where and when this steppe man from the Bargut family learned siege warfare, but already in the first campaigns against Jin he was a recognized expert in this matter and received a golden paizu (in fact, he was elevated to the rank of temnik). Let us note that after the death of Anmuhai, he was succeeded in the rank of head of the corps of stone throwers (the same corps, by the way, included very few sailors at that time) by his son Temuter, who also received the golden paizu of the temnik.
The siege technology of the Mongols, especially since the Central Asian campaign, was very diverse. Let us note here various throwing devices: vortex stone throwers, catapults, arrow throwers (arcballists), powerful stone throwing machines based on the principle of counterweight (analogues of the European “trebuche”, although somewhat less powerful), etc. There were other siege devices of various kinds available: assault ladders and assault towers, battering rams and “assault domes” (apparently special shelters for warriors using rams), as well as “Greek fire” (most likely a Chinese mixture of various flammable oils ) and even powder charges. The technology of siege itself also developed, in which the aforementioned hashar played a special role.
Another important structural unit of the Mongol army were fairly large groups of light-horse warriors, who, in the absence of more appropriate term, can be called "reconnaissance detachments." Their functions, however, were much broader than just tactical reconnaissance. Sent far ahead - a day or two on horseback - large military detachments (the existence of a whole tumen of mounted scouts is known) became the combat vanguard of the army. Divided into relatively small groups, these guards carried out patrol duty - to warn the main army about the approach of the enemy. Their tasks also included mass “cleansing” of the population along the army’s route so that no one could warn the enemy about the Mongol campaign. They also explored possible routes of advance, determined camp sites for the army, and found suitable pastures and watering holes for horses. The idea of ​​such multifunctional guards was not new for the steppe peoples - the “Secret Legend” more than once mentions such special detachments: the Keraits, Naimans, and other steppe people had them. However, under Genghis Khan, the intelligence organization system rises to new heights. Guards became an obligatory element during a campaign - the absence of such a guard in any autonomous detachment was equated to a serious military crime, and the military commander was sentenced to death for this neglect, regardless of the severity of its consequences. In addition, these mobile detachments now surrounded the army on the march from all sides, performing the functions of combat security. The duties of the rear guards may have included the capture of deserters. In general, the role of tactical reconnaissance in the Mongol army was exceptionally high - significantly greater than in any other army of that time.
In this regard, it is very interesting to consider what could be defined as strategic intelligence, although this has no direct relation to the Mongolian army. However, as already mentioned, in the power of Genghis Khan it is very difficult to distinguish between the military component itself and such non-military forms of activity, such as, for example, diplomacy and trade. All ambassadors were also intelligence officers, and diplomacy itself can hardly be called their main task. The ambassadors collected as much information as possible about the enemy and the situation in the country; Disinformation and propaganda occupied not the least place in their activities. Particularly famous in this spy-diplomatic path were the merchant from Khorezm Mahmud Yalavach (“yalavach”, in fact, means “ambassador”) and the former Uighur merchant, and later a prominent Mongolian military leader, Jafar Khoja. Mahmud Yalavach played a huge role in the strategic preparation of the Central Asian campaign, and it is no coincidence that Genghis Khan later made him his governor in Central Asia. Jafar Khoja, who soon became the main Darugachi of all of Northern China, also performed no less service in the preparation and conduct of the first stage of the Chinese campaign. Such high awards in themselves emphasize how much importance Genghis Khan attached to this type of activity.
The most important assistants to spy diplomats and the most powerful intelligence and sabotage service in Mongol Empire became traders. Their role especially increased after 1209, when the Uyghur state, on an absolutely voluntary basis, became part of the power of Genghis Khan. Transit trade has long been in the hands of Uyghur (to a lesser extent, Central Asian) merchants; now they received significant privileges from the Mongol ruler and began to serve him not out of fear, but out of conscience. Later, this army of spies was replenished with Muslim traders from Central Asia, numerous defectors and simply double agents. In peacetime, their main function was preliminary reconnaissance of a possible future theater of military operations; In the context of the Mongol military campaigns, the responsibilities assigned to them by the khan became much more diverse. Sending anonymous letters to military leaders and major officials of the enemy, spreading panic rumors among the population in order to intimidate them and force them to give up resistance to the Mongols, even direct acts of sabotage - this is not a complete list of what these “merchants” were doing. And their activities can be called extremely successful. The propaganda of Mongol spies, coupled with a carefully thought-out system of brutal but selective terror practiced by the Mongols, bore fruit. Dozens, or even hundreds of well-fortified cities in China and Central Asia (later we see such cases in Rus') surrendered to the mercy of the winner as soon as they saw the advanced Mongol guards.
Thus, the entire concept of military affairs among the Mongols under Genghis Khan was built into a strict, carefully thought-out system. The successors of the great Mongol introduced some more minor improvements to it, also dictated by the experience of previous hostilities. This ability to learn both from their own combat experience and from the achievements of their opponents, to take into account so many factors that determine the success of military operations as a whole, among a people who are usually perceived as a bunch of wild, illiterate barbarians, is simply amazing. There is no doubt that the role of Genghis Khan himself in establishing this state of affairs is quite large. Military training, including the training of officers and military leaders, is directly spelled out in the Yas of Genghis Khan. All noyons, in particular, were directly charged with teaching their sons combat techniques and the basics of military strategy and tactics. This is how continuity was formed officer corps, which largely cemented the army, and new elements were introduced based on their own combat experience. Another article by Yasa is completely unique: it strictly obliges the heads of tumens, thousands and hundreds, to visit Genghis Khan’s headquarters twice a year, where they were supposed to “listen to our (that is, Genghis Khan’s) thoughts.” A kind of General Staff Academy. Later, in the absence of new military geniuses equal to Genghis Khan, such gatherings became, of course, less effective, but remained important as an opportunity for command staff to exchange experiences and discuss opinions on certain military issues.
It must be admitted that such a system has borne fruit. In the Chingizid army we see a superbly trained officer corps and a whole galaxy of brilliant commanders. Among the undeniably outstanding military leaders of the Mongol army are Mukhali, Jebe, Kublai (not to be confused with the grandson of Genghis Khan, who, however, was also a good military leader). The sons of Genghis Khan, Jochi and, in particular, Tului, also possessed undoubted military leadership talent. But in first place, of course, we should put the conqueror of countless countries and peoples, one of the greatest commanders in world history - Subedei-Bagatura. This faithful dog of Genghis Khan glorified himself in dozens of battles, but two of his deeds stand out: the military campaign of 1220 - 1224, unprecedented in the history of mankind, the glory of which he shares with his younger comrade Jebe, and the Great Western Campaign of 1236 - 1242, the grandiose success of which became possible largely thanks to the brilliant leadership of Subedei. It is interesting that the genius of Subedei-bagatur was recognized during his lifetime, and by one of his most talented military opponents. “Yuan shi” writes about this: when the prominent Jin commander Wanyan Heda was captured and awaiting execution, he asked for a meeting with Subedei. Intrigued, Subedei did not refuse him and asked: “You only have a moment left to live, what do you want to know from me?” Heda replied: “You surpass all generals in courage. The sky gave birth to a hero whom I accidentally met. I saw you and can close my eyelids with a light heart.” Note that Heda could in no way count on pardon: he knew perfectly well that this was not in the power of Subedei. And in the face of death, he recognizes the greatness of his enemy, and this is worth a lot! But this happened in 1232, that is, even before the Great Western Campaign, in which Subedei covered himself with truly unfading (albeit a little creepy) glory. And only our Eurocentrism still does not make it possible to adequately assess Subedei’s military genius. Hannibal and Caesar, Alexander the Great and Charlemagne, Frederick the Great and Napoleon are names known to everyone. Subedei enjoys real fame, perhaps, only in narrow circle military historians. Meanwhile, of the names listed, only Napoleon can really be put on a par with Subedei - a truly great executor of the will of his no less great kaan.
A story about the principles of strategy and military training among the Mongols would be incomplete without mentioning a very peculiar phenomenon that actually played the role of full-scale military exercises. This phenomenon has already been mentioned in another context: we are talking about the famous round-ups. At the behest of Genghis Khan, such hunts were carried out once or twice a year, by the entire army. Obligatory round-up hunting was used during a military campaign and performed two tasks: replenishing the army's food supplies and improving the combat and tactical training of Mongol warriors. In essence, round-up hunting was a war, with similar fighting techniques and principles - only it was fought against animals, not people. But, by the way, the punishments for mistakes or cowardice during a hunt were the same as for similar actions in combat conditions. And the army was maintained in constant combat tone.
To conclude the topic of Mongolian military art, it is necessary to say a few words about this specific subject, as equipment (not combat) of a Mongol warrior. In a certain sense, such equipment was a consequence of the nomad’s lifestyle itself: certain of its features were dictated by nature, climate or the immediate responsibilities of specific people. But in many ways it was this ammunition that made the Mongol army what it was - “invincible and legendary.”
Let's start with the "uniform". The clothing of the Mongol warrior was simple and purely functional. In the summer - sheep wool trousers and the famous Mongolian robe: Mongolian men wrapped it from right to left; among Europeans, on the contrary, it is a “female” way. Shoes all year round were boots, the bottom of which was leather and the top was made of felt. These boots are a little reminiscent of Russian felt boots, but they are much more comfortable, as they are not afraid of dampness. Winter boots could be made of thicker felt and could withstand any frost. In addition, in winter, the Mongolian’s outfit included a fur hat with earmuffs and a long, below-knee, fur coat made of fur folded in half - with wool both inside and outside. By the way, this is where the legend arose in Europe that the Mongols of the Great Western Campaign dressed in animal skins. Like many other myths about the Mongols, it has nothing to do with reality.
It is curious that after the conquest of China, many Mongol warriors began to wear silk underwear. But not at all in order to amaze his ladies with extravagance. The reason for this Mongolian “haute couture” (The art of high fashion (French).) also had a direct connection to the war. The fact is that silk has the property of not being penetrated by the arrow, but being drawn into the wound along with the tip. Of course, it is much easier to remove such an arrow from a wound: you just need to pull the edges of this silk underwear. This is such an original surgery. Another interesting piece of equipment, mandatory for every Mongol warrior, was... needles and thread. The absence of such a simple household item was equivalent to the lack of, say, a spare quiver of arrows, and the punishment for such an offense was quite severe.
In general, the required items of equipment included a full set of harness (preferably two), a special file or sharpener for sharpening arrows, an awl, flint, clay pot for cooking food, a two-liter leather container with kumis (during the campaign it was also used as a container for water). An emergency supply was kept in two saddlebags food products: in one there are strips of meat dried in the sun, in the other there is the khurut already known to us. As a rule, the Mongols also had an additional set of clothing, but it was not mandatory. In addition, the set of equipment also included a large wineskin, usually made of cowhide. Its use was multifunctional: on a hike it could serve both as an ordinary blanket and as a kind of mattress; when crossing deserts, it was used as a container for large supplies of water. And finally, when inflated with air, it became an excellent means of crossing rivers; According to our sources, the Mongols overcame even such serious water obstacles as the Volga or Yellow River with the help of this simple device. And such instant Mongol crossings often also came as a shock to the defending side.
Such well-thought-out equipment made the Mongol warrior ready for any vicissitudes of military fate. He could act completely autonomously and in the most difficult conditions - for example, in severe frost or in the complete absence of food in the deserted steppe. And coupled with the high discipline, mobility and endurance of a nomad, it made the Mongol army the most advanced military instrument of its time, capable of solving military problems of any degree of complexity.

Mongols in a miniature from the early 14th century, Mongolian Iran. Illustrations for “Jami at-tawarikh” by Rashid ad-Din.

Since the late 90s. From the light mind of the science fiction writer A. Bushkov, an attack on Russian history began under the title “There was no Mongol invasion.” Then the initiative was taken up by two mathematicians who imagined themselves as historians and writers, Fomenko and Nosovsky and, after them, various smaller adherents of “alternative history” (more precisely, an alternative fantasy on a historical theme). If you look at the arguments of the alternative public, there are only three of them: 1) “I don’t believe in the fairy tales of the “official historians,” 2) “This could not have happened,” 3) “They could not have done this.” The alternative public invents as evidence delusional versions, take them to the point of absurdity and attribute their nonsense to historians, after which, with mockery and buffoonery towards historical science, they begin to refute their own fantasies. This is an alternative method: he himself invented the nonsense, and he himself refuted it.

One of the favorite arguments of the alternative public is the size of the Mongol army, which allegedly could not reach Rus'. This is what Bushkova sounds like:

“Russian pre-revolutionary sources mention a “half-million-strong Mongol army.”

Sorry for the harshness, but both the first and second numbers are bullshit. Since they were invented by townspeople, armchair figures who saw the horse only from afar and had absolutely no idea what kind of care is required to maintain a fighting, as well as a pack and marching horse in working condition...

A primitive calculation shows: for an army of half a million or four hundred thousand soldiers, about one and a half million horses are needed, in extreme cases - a million. Such a herd will be able to advance at most fifty kilometers, but will not be able to go further - the front ones will instantly destroy the grass over a huge area, so that the rear ones will die from lack of food very quickly. Store as much oats for them in toroks (and how much can you store?) ...

It turns out to be an enchanted cool: a huge army of “Mongol-Tatars”, for purely physical reasons, would not be able to maintain combat effectiveness, move quickly, or deliver those same notorious “indestructible blows.” A small army could never have established control over most of the territory of Rus'."

A. Bushkov “Russia that never existed”, M., 1997

Here, in fact, is the entire “alternative version” in all its glory: “Historians are lying to us, I don’t believe them, the Mongols couldn’t.” For this version, each alternative adherent composes his own details of why he does not believe and why the Mongols could not. Although Bushkov’s version is already striking in its wretchedness. Well, if there were not half a million, but let’s say there were 100 thousand Mongols, wouldn’t that be enough to conquer Rus'? And why did Bushkov send the Mongols on a campaign in one column, what is called single file, and not on a wide front of tens of kilometers?? Or does the alternative public think that there was only one road from Mongolia to Rus'? And why did Bushkov imagine that horses, like locusts, eat grass as they run? The reference to the writer V. Yan looks rather strange - if only he started referring to cartoons. And which historian wrote about Batu’s half-million-strong army? But these are typical complaints about historians among the alternative public.

Let's first look at the opinions of historians:

N. M. Karamzin “History of the Russian State” (1818): “. ..the new Khan gave 300,000 soldiers to Batu, his nephew, and ordered him to conquer the northern shores of the Caspian Sea with further countries".

S. M. Solovyov "History of Russia..." (1853): " In 1236, 300,000 Tatars under the command of Batu entered the Bulgarian land...".

D. I. Ilovaisky "History of Russia", vol. II (1880): " From the upper reaches of the Irtysh, the horde moved westward, along the nomadic camps of various Turkish hordes, gradually annexing significant parts of them; so it crossed the Yaik River in the amount of at least half a million warriors".

E. Khara-Davan "Genghis Khan as a commander and his legacy" (1929): " It would be more accurate to assume that the Batu army that set out to conquer Russia in 1236 included from 122 to 150 thousand combat elements, which should have already provided him with sufficient superiority in the fight against the scattered forces of the Russian princes".

G.V. Vernadsky "Mongols and Rus'" (1953): " The Mongol core of Batu's armies probably amounted to fifty thousand warriors. With the newly raised Turkic formations and various auxiliaries the total might have been 120,000 or even more, but owing to the vast territories to be controlled and garrisoned during the invasion, the strength of Batu's field army in his main campaign was hardly more than fifty thousand in each phase operations".

E. A. Razin "History of Military Art" (1957): " Over the course of two decades, the Mongols enslaved 720 different peoples. The Mongol army had up to 120 thousand people".

L. N. Gumilev "From Rus' to Russia" (1992): " However, the total number of troops that went to the west hardly exceeded 30-40 thousand people".

V.V. Kargalov "Rus and nomads" (2004): " The number of the Mongol-Tatar army that marched under the banner of Batu reached 150 thousand people (usually each of the Genghisid princes commanded a tumen, that is, a 10 thousand-strong detachment of troops, on a campaign)".

R. P. Khrapachevsky “The Military Power of Genghis Khan” (2005): "... and that kaan Ogedei had free and available forces planned by the kurultai of 1235 for campaigns of about 230-250 thousand people only in the regular army, not counting the reserve in the form of his eldest sons." ... then it was quite possible to allocate 120-140 thousand people for the Great Western Campaign from this total number of armed forces of the Mongol Empire".

Of the pre-revolutionary historians, only D.I. Ilovaisky wrote about Batu’s half-million-strong army. It remains only to find out why the alternative public mentions Ilovaisky in the plural?

Where did historians get these numbers? The alternative public assures us that they allegedly took it and made it up (they judge by themselves). Why did you make it up? In order to receive salaries and for some reason hide the “truth” about the Russian Khan Batu from the Russian-Aryan Trans-Volga Horde. One can understand alternative writers: they need to somehow force gullible and narcissistic readers to buy their books. If people read real scientific works of real historians, then the alternative crooks will be left without caviar sandwiches.

In fact, historians make such conclusions based on written sources. Alas, the Mongols did not leave us exact numbers because they did not consider it important. For them, the army formation and the mobilization resource for these formations in the form of the number of families (or wagons) were considered an important combat unit, that is, a certain number of families were assigned to regiments (thousands) and divisions (tumens) and, upon conscription, they were obliged to field a certain number of soldiers in these formations. So the figures given by historians of 230-250 thousand people are not the size of the army. This is the mobilization resource of the Mongol Empire, including the Mongols themselves and the militias of the subordinate peoples. Yes, the Mongol khans could put 250 thousand people under the banners, but this does not mean that they did it. The Mongols did not have a regular army. Only the Great Khan's guard and garrison troops can be called a regular army among the Mongols. The rest of the army was sent home in peacetime and convened as needed. Maintaining an army has always been expensive, and for the medieval economy it was simply unaffordable. The Mongols won victories because each nomad was also a warrior, which gave them a numerical superiority over their sedentary neighbors with their professional feudal armies, after whose defeat the fall of the state was a matter of time, because crowds of armed peasants or townspeople usually did not represent a serious force (for with the exception of cities that had a permanent militia). Only the internecine wars of the nomads among themselves prevented them from conducting a successful aggressive policy. But when a strong ruler united the nomads under the supreme power, they became a force that few could resist.

Although we do not know the exact size of the Mongol army, we do have a fairly detailed schedule of the formations of the Mongol army left by Rashid ad-Din (d. 1318) in the “Collection of Chronicles”. Historians compare and clarify this schedule with data from other sources, obtaining the approximate size of the Mongol army. So historians do not allow any fantasies. Anyone who wants to get acquainted with the calculations of historians of the size of the Mongol army based on historical sources, I recommend the book by R. P. Khrapachevsky “The Military Power of Genghis Khan”, where everyone can familiarize themselves with the work of the historian in order to understand that these calculations did not appear out of nowhere. In the 19th century Rashid ad-Din's work was not known until the release of Cartmer's French translation of part of Rashid ad-Din's work entitled "The History of Hulagu Khan" in 1836 and in 1858-1888. translation by N.I. Berezin, so historians only had to guess the size of the Mongol army based on the rather fantastic data of European contemporaries like Plano Carpini and Master Rogerius, who wrote about an army of half a million people. After the works of Rashid ad-Din and other eastern historians became available, the figures for the size of the Mongol army became more objective, because they began to be based on factual data. Therefore, the size of the Mongolian army is almost the same among different historians - 120-150 thousand people. L. N. Gumilyov stands out separately, who had rather unique views on history.

The alternative audience especially laughs at the size of the Mongolian army of 130 thousand people. They are confident and assure others that Mongolia in the 13th century. could not field such a number of warriors. For some reason they believe that Mongolia is a barren steppe and the Gobi Desert. It is useless to explain to the alternative public that the natural landscapes of Mongolia are rich and varied, from taiga to desert, just as it is useless to tell them that mountainous areas are a familiar habitat for the Mongols. The alternative public does not believe in the geography of Mongolia - and that’s all.

But let's see how things stood in the 19th century. We open the "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron" (1890-1907), article " ":

“The Manchus did not violate the clan principles of governance and hereditary rights to own princely destinies developed by the Mongols, but, leaving the existing fragmentation of M. into destinies intact, they attached the military system they practiced to it. The former “aimags”, representing groups of destinies, now received meaning “military corps.” Individual principalities or fiefs also turned into a military unit called “khoshun.” Khoshuns were divided into squadrons called “sumuns” (150 families in each), and in those khoshuns that contained over 6 sumuns, more regiments were established - “tsalans”, in 6 sumuns...

The Mongols must maintain a total of 1325 squadrons, i.e., field about 198,750 horsemen, armed in 1/3 of their part with firearms, 1/3 with spears and pikes, 1/3 with bows and arrows. In reality they do not have even 1/10 of this number. The last time widespread procurement of weapons was carried out was in 1857, and it was ordered that weapons be stored and checked annually; but over time, the formality was forgotten, and at the present time M. seems, one might say, completely unarmed: more than half of the bows and pikes were lost, and of those that survived, a lot of them were broken and unusable.”

Have you noticed the size of the Mongol militia at 198,750 soldiers? This is no longer the “fiction” of historians, but the harsh truth of the Chinese bureaucracy. True, this number most likely dates back to the middle of the 19th century, because another reference book, “Encyclopedia of Military and Naval Sciences” (1885-1893), in the article “Mongolia,” gives slightly different data - 117,823 Mongolian horsemen:

“The entire male population, excluding lamas, constitutes the military class and is obliged to field cavalry units at the request of the emperor. The organization of the Mongolian militia is closely connected with the division of the people into khoshuns... Each of the latter is obliged to provide the number of militiamen necessary to form the scheduled number hundreds or sumuns. In khoshuns, which field a significant number of hundreds, the last 6 each are united into regiments or tsalans. Each aimak forms a separate corps or chugulgun. Hundreds, regimentals and corps are appointed by the Chinese government from the khoshun princes of those clans from which the corresponding part is fielded ...Staff strength of the Mongolian militia and banner chahars:

In peacetime, only a very small number of hundreds are invited to serve to guard borders, post roads and stations, and therefore, in case of war, it is expected that the required number of hundreds will be deployed in the field.”

"Encyclopedia of Military and Naval Sciences", vol. IV, p. 204.

As we see, the Manchus did not change anything in the mobilization of the Mongols since the time of Genghis Khan, maintaining the traditional nomadic division of the population into groups. One sumun squadron of 150 horsemen should be fielded by 150 families. That is, one warrior from one family. The same "Encyclopedia of Military and Naval Sciences" gives the number of Mongols in the 90s. XIX century: " With such a grouping, the total number of the Mongol tribe is reduced to 4-5 million people, including 3 million in Mongolia, 1 million Kalmyks, 250 thousand Buryats and approximately the same number of Hezareans"(ibid., p. 204). The difference in the number of Mongolians can be assumed that the Manchus wrote off a third of the Mongolian militia as unnecessary by the end of the 19th century, probably archers, as an obsolete type of troops, or reduced the number of families liable for military service due to military unsuitability.

R.P. Khrapachevsky calculates the number of Mongols in the 13th century. one million people. We can agree with this assessment. The number of Mongols in Mongolia (Northern - Khalkha, modern Mongolian people's republic, and South - modern autonomous region PRC Inner Mongolia) was higher than that of the Kalmyks due to their conquest by the Manchus and the end of internecine wars. As we see at the end of the 19th century. 3 million Mongols fielded from 198 thousand to 112 thousand horsemen, while fielding only one person from one family. That is, based on the data of the 19th century, 1 million Mongols would be able to field from 70 thousand to 40 thousand soldiers without much effort, simply by selecting one person from each family. In the 13th century All members of the clan capable of holding weapons were mobilized for combat operations, so the figure of 120-140 thousand Mongol soldiers in Genghis Khan’s army should not come as a surprise. 120-140 thousand soldiers is the limit of the mobilization capabilities of the Mongols of the 13th century. with a population of 1 million people.

A legitimate question arises here: “If 130 thousand adult Mongolian men went to war, then who remained in the shop, that is, herded the cattle?” Let us remember that in Mongolia in the 13th century. approximately 870 thousand people remained (if we subtract 130 thousand warriors), and the war did not occupy the nomad’s entire time. And most importantly, pasture farming does not require many workers. " Each herd is looked after by one shepherd, who owns two or three horses. This rule is mandatory. One of the modern farmers, Zunda Akayev, has a herd of 23 horses, 500 sheep and 70 cows in the south of Kalmykia. This is a medium-sized farm. Let's compare the average household of a modern Mongolian nomad: one family - a shepherd, his wife and son graze a flock of 1,800 sheep"(Andrianov B.V. "Non-sedentary population of the world", M. 1985, p. 177, cit.)

Let's see how things stand in modern Mongolia (3 million people as of 2015):

"According to statistical data, arat herders were the largest social group in 2004 – 389.8 thousand people. A slight decrease in their number was recorded in 2009 – 360.3 thousand people. Generally, specific gravity rural population to the total remained within 40%. Based on the results of the 2012 annual pastoral census in Mongolia, a further decrease in the number of pastoralists can be observed. In total, there were 207.8 thousand families with livestock. Of these, 70.3%, or 146.1 thousand families, are engaged in cattle breeding all four seasons of the year, i.e. it is the main occupation...

In 2012, there were 3,630 cattle-breeding families that owned 1,000 animals or more. livestock On average, there were 244 animals per cattle-breeding family in 2012. livestock, of which horses – 14 heads, cattle (including yaks) – 14 heads, camels – 2 heads, sheep – 109 heads, goats – 105 heads.

By gender and age, the pastoral population is distributed as follows: 40.7% are people aged 16–34 years; 49.7% are pastoralists aged 35-60 years; 9.6% are persons over 60 years old."

B. Ekhntuvshin, L. V. Kuras, B. D. Tsybenov "Traditional cattle breeding of Mongolian nomads in the context of globalization", "Vestni Buryatsky scientific center Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2013, No. 4 (12), pp. 210-211.

As of December 2012, the total livestock population in Mongolia was 40.9 million.

Ibid., p. 216

So, in 2012 in Mongolia, 390-360 thousand adult Mongols, or 208.9 thousand families (in the Middle Ages they would say “kibitok”) are engaged in breeding 40.9 million heads of livestock, and 146.1 thousand families are engaged in nomadic cattle breeding. As we can see, little has changed among the Mongols since the time of Genghis Khan. That is, if the Mongols decided to mobilize the army the old fashioned way, then by allocating one person from 146 thousand families, they would get 146 thousand soldiers. If we take the number of adult men (from 16 to 60 years old) to be a quarter of the Mongols’ population, then in the 13th century. under the rule of Genghis Khan there were approximately 250 thousand adult men liable for military service. And if Genghis Khan deployed 120-140 thousand soldiers, then 130-110 thousand adult Mongolian men remained at home in the steppes.

As you can see, the data from the 19th century. and XXI century only confirmed by historical sources of the 13th-14th centuries. and the conclusions of historians made on the basis of these sources are reliable. The army of the first Genghisids of 120-140 thousand Mongol warriors is not an invention or fantasy. This is the real military combined strength of all Mongolian tribes, united by Genghis Khan under the rule of one khan. This was the maximum number that the Mongols could field without disrupting the nomadic economy. All objections to this size of the Mongol army are based on complete ignorance of the realities of life of nomads and Mongols, as well as the ignorant fantasies of alternative historians. The Mongols, united into a single state, could field an army of 120-140 thousand people. They fielded such an army and created a grandiose empire.

Number. The question of the size of the Mongol army during the campaign in Eastern Europe is one of the least clear in the history of the invasion. Sources speak sparingly and vaguely about this. Slavic chroniclers noted that the Mongols advanced in “heavy strength,” “countless multitudes, like pruzi eating grass.” The records of Europeans contemporaneous with the invasion contain impressive figures. Thus, Plano Carpini, for example, determines the number of Batu’s troops, who besieged Kiev, at 600 thousand people; the Hungarian chronicler Simon claims that “500 thousand armed people” invaded Hungary. The Hungarian traveler Dominican monk Julian in his letter to the Pope reports: “... the Mongols say that in their army they have 240 thousand slaves not of their law and 135 thousand of the most chosen warriors of their law in the ranks.” The Persian historian Rashid al-Din notes that the Mongol army was distributed among "sons, brothers and nephews" and amounted to "one hundred and twenty-nine thousand people." 14 Genghisid princes took part in the campaign against the East Slavic lands. Armenian historians and Chinese researcher Yuan Shi write that each of them was allocated a tumen (10 thousand horsemen), which means a total of 140 thousand warriors.

After capture of Eastern Europe, where the Mongols suffered significant losses, Batu invaded Poland and Hungary, dividing his troops into four armies that acted independently. One of them in Poland, in the battle near the city of Legnica on April 9, 1241, defeated the 30,000-strong army of the Silesian Duke Henry the Pious, which included Teutonic knights and Templars. Another army (just two days later), on April 11, 1241, defeated a 60,000-strong combined Hungarian and Croatian army led by the Hungarian king Béla IV and the Croatian Duke Coloman near the Chajo River.

Having analyzed the sources, it can be assumed that Batu’s army had approximately 120-140 thousand horsemen, among whom the Mongols made up about 40 thousand. It was huge for the 13th century. army, since at that time an army of several thousand was considered significant. For example, about 80 thousand soldiers took part in the fourth crusade (1202-1204) - this was considered a huge army by European standards.

Tactics. Before an invasion of any country, a kurultai met to discuss and make decisions on specific military issues. At first, intelligence officers were sent to the country (sometimes more than once), who collected various military information, exacerbated internal contradictions, and promised the population a calm, stable life, religious tolerance, if they surrendered without a fight. All information received was collected from yurtji(intelligence officers) and was carefully checked. Then main yurtji reported intelligence data (direction of movement of troops and location of camps) to the Great Khan or Emperor. Whenever possible, a hidden concentration of the army was carried out near the country's borders. The invasion was carried out in different directions by several military columns, which united at a certain place and at an agreed time.

The main goal of the tactics was to encircle and destroy the main enemy forces. They achieved this using a hunting technique - a ring (the so-called “Mongol roundup”), that is, they surrounded a large territory and then compressed the ring. The Mongols distributed their forces very precisely. They wore down the enemies with constant and sudden attacks, then feigned retreat, showering the enemy with arrows. The opponents mistook the retreat for flight and gave chase, then the Mongols turned back, tightened the ring and destroyed the enemy.

The Mongols sent detachments against strategically important enemy cities and fortresses, which devastated the surrounding area and prepared everything for a siege, even before large military formations arrived. During the assault, the city was surrounded by a wooden palisade (in order to cut it off from the outside world), the ditch was filled in, siege weapons (“vices”) were brought into readiness, and battering rams were pulled to the gates.

Organization. The army had decimal system organization, that is, divided into tens, hundreds, thousands; 10 thousand soldiers made up the largest military unit - tumen. At the head of each unit was a commander, and at the head of the tumen was a prince (noyon) or Genghisid. Under the emperor, a guard was formed, which made up the tumen. It was created on a clan basis, that is, each village (ail) fielded a certain number of horsemen. A unit of a thousand or ten thousand consisted of different clans or tribes.

Mongolian warriors learned archery from childhood, owned other weapons, and were excellent horsemen (they hit a moving target while riding a horse). They handled weapons well thanks to hunting (the main occupation in peacetime). The warriors were very hardy and unpretentious (they ate dried meat, cheese, and mare's milk).

The army was divided into three parts - the center, the right and left hand. During the invasion of any country, each army column consisted of five parts - the center, the right and left arms, the rear guard and the vanguard.

The Mongol army was distinguished by iron discipline, to which both commanders and soldiers obeyed. Discipline and constant training kept the army in constant readiness for war.

Armament. The armament of the Mongol warriors was light, adapted for long marches, rapid attacks and effective protection. The Pope's legate, the French monk Plano Carpini, reported: “All Mongol warriors must have at least this kind of weapon - two or three bows, or at least one good one and three large quivers full of arrows, one ax and ropes to pull battering guns. The rich have swords that are sharp at the end, cut on one side and are somewhat crooked... The helmet on top is iron or copper, and what covers the neck and neck is made of leather. Some of them have spears, and on the neck of the spear they have a hook, with which, if they can, they pull a person from the saddle. The iron arrowheads are very sharp and cut on both sides like a double-edged sword. Their shield is made of willow or other twigs.”

The Mongols used all the modern siege equipment of that time (rams, catapults, ballistas, throwing machines, “Greek fire”), exported from China and maintained by Chinese engineers. As D'Osson reported in “The History of the Mongols...”, during the siege of the city of Nishabur in Central Asia, the Mongols used three thousand ballistas, three hundred catapults, seven hundred machines for throwing pots of burning oil (“Greek fire”). Others were also used tactical techniques. Thus, Plano Carpini notes that the Mongols “do not stop fighting for a single day or night, so those on the fortifications do not have rest, since they divide the troops and one replaces the other in battle, so they do not get very tired.” .

Speaking about the weapons of the Mongols, one cannot help but pay attention to the cavalry. Mongolian horses were short, strong, could cover long distances with short breaks (up to 80 km per day), and ate pasture, grass and leaves found along the way. With strong hooves, they easily obtained food from under the snow in winter. Each rider had from two to four horses, which he changed during the campaign.

3. Campaigns of Khan Batu to North-Eastern and South-Western Russia

The actual leader of the invasion of the Slavic lands was Subedey, as he had extensive combat experience and knew his opponents (the Battle of Kalka). “The Secret History of the Mongols” directly states that Batu, Buri, Munke and other princes were sent “to help Subedey, since he encountered strong resistance from those peoples and cities whose conquest he was entrusted with under Genghis Khan.” Khan Batu (Batu) was considered the official head of the campaign, but he did not have sufficient experience in conducting large-scale combat operations. Only the political weight of the ruler of the Jochi ulus allowed him to lead the united Mongol army heading to the conquest of Eastern Europe.

The Mongol invasion of Slavic lands, which lasted three years (1237-1240) , can be divided into two stages:

Stage I (December 1237 – spring 1238)-invasion of North-Eastern Rus'

Stage II (1239-1240) - invasion of Southwestern Rus'.

IN historical literature opinions are expressed about the surprise of the Mongols' attack on the Slavic principalities, but sources indicate something else: some princes, at least the Vladimir and Ryazan princes, were well aware of the impending invasion. Information conveyed by numerous refugees reported on the preparation of the attack and the time of its start. According to the Dominican monk Julian, who was at the borders of Rus' in the fall of 1237, “the Tatars, as the Russians, Hungarians and Bulgars themselves told us, are waiting for the lands, rivers and swamps to freeze with the onset of the coming winter, after which the whole multitude of Tatars will easily will plunder all of Rus'..."

The location of the concentration of Mongol troops was the lower reaches of the Voronezh River. From here Batu sent an embassy to Prince Yuri of Ryazan, demanding submission and tribute. The response embassy led by Prince Fedor (son of Yuri) asked “with great gifts and prayers so that the Ryazan lands would not fight” (“The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu”). At the same time, ambassadors were sent with a request for help to Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich to Vladimir, as well as to Chernigov. Probably, the Ryazan squads tried to stop the Mongol troops on the outskirts of the city and gave battle, but received no help.

Having defeated Pronsk, Belgorod and other cities, the Mongols December 16, 1237 Ryazan was besieged. After a continuous six-day assault 21 December the city was captured and destroyed, most of the population died. The evidence from written sources is fully confirmed by archaeological data.

Next, Batu's troops headed up the Oka to the city of Kolomna - the place where the Vladimir regiments were gathering to repel Batu. The city was surrounded by swamps and dense forest, which made it difficult for the Mongol cavalry to pass through. However, the troops passed through the ice of the Moscow River, and a battle took place in the Kolomna area. The Mongols, who had a significant superiority in forces, defeated the Vladimir regiments.

Having captured and plundered Kolomna, the Mongol army went deep into the Vladimir lands. January 20, 1238 Moscow was captured and put up stubborn resistance. Rashid ad-Din notes that only “working together in five days” did the Mongols take Moscow.

Mongol troops approached Vladimir - the capital of North-Eastern Rus' - in early February (2-4 February 1238). The Laurentian Chronicle most fully describes the siege of the city.

The assault on Vladimir began after the siege engines made holes in the city walls. The defenders put up desperate resistance. Rashid ad-Din noted that “they fought fiercely. Khan Mengu personally performed heroic feats until he defeated them.” Some of the residents, the family of the Grand Duke and “many boyars” took refuge in the cathedral church, which the Mongols tried to set on fire. The church did not catch fire, but the people gathered there died from the heat and smoke. Rashid ad-Din reports that the Mongols “having besieged the city of Yuri the Great (city of Vladimir) took it in 8 days.” (Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich left the city before the Mongols approached and went to gather troops on the Sit River. He did not expect such a quick fall of the city.)

After the capture of Vladimir, the Mongols went in several directions to capture other cities and lands - to Rostov, Tver, Torzhok, Gorodets, etc. Part of Batu's troops, led by Khan Burundai, headed to defeat Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich. Rashid ad-Din describes Burundai's campaign as a pursuit of a prince who had fled into the “forest,” who was then “caught and killed.” The Battle of the City River took place March 4, 1238 and ended with the defeat of Prince Yuri's troops and his death.

A large military force led by Batu besieged Torzhok, a fortress town on the border Novgorod Republic. It was captured only after a two-week siege March 5, 1238

After the defeat of Torzhok, the road to Novgorod opened before Batu. The First Novgorod Chronicle reports that the Mongols tolled Novgorod along the Seliger route to the Ignach Cross, killing people “cutting like grass” and did not reach it a hundred miles. IN mid-March 1238 they turned back.

The main reason that forced Batu to abandon the campaign against Novgorod was probably that his troops were divided into several large detachments and scattered over a considerable distance. Batu did not have time to gather enough forces near Torzhok to storm Novgorod.

The Mongol troops began to retreat to the steppes, heading in separate detachments to Kozelsk, where the entire army was probably scheduled to gather. The defense of the city began, according to various sources, at the end of March or beginning of April. 1238 First, the city was besieged by a detachment of Khan Batu himself, but the month-and-a-half siege was unsuccessful, since there were not enough soldiers for a decisive assault on the heavily fortified city. Kozelsk was located on a steep mountain in the Zhizdra bend, and it was convenient to storm it from only one side. The city had about 5 thousand inhabitants and several hundred warriors of the young Prince Vasily (i.e., about one and a half thousand combat-ready population).

The troops of other Genghisids were able to come to the aid of Batu only in mid-May. Rashid ad-Din reports: “...then Kadan and Buri arrived and took it (Kozelsk) in three days.” The city was captured only when “almost all its defenders died in the breaches of the city walls” (Laurentian Chronicle), it was completely destroyed, and all the inhabitants were killed.

From Kozelsk the Mongol army headed south and by mid-summer reached the Polovtsian steppes.

For several months 1237-1238. (December - April) the principalities of North-Eastern Russia, part of the Novgorod and some areas of the Smolensk and Chernigov principalities were defeated by Batu's troops.

The stay of the Mongols in the Polovtsian steppes from the summer of 1238 until the spring of 1239 was accompanied by continuous wars with the Polovtsians, Ossetians and Circassians. The war with the Polovtsians was especially protracted and bloody. Plano Carpini, passing through in the 40s. XIII century on the Polovtsian steppes, he wrote: “In Comania we found numerous heads and bones of dead people lying on the ground like dung.” Subsequently, the Polovtsians were driven out to Hungary, and from there, after the death of Khan Kotyan, they went to Bulgaria.

In the spring of 1239, the second stage of the invasion began. One of the Mongol detachments stormed Pereyaslavl. The chronicler reports that in March 1239 after a short siege, “the city of Pereyaslavl was taken with a spear, and the inhabitants were killed”

The next campaign was against Chernigov and the entire Chernigov-Seversk land, since this principality could threaten the right flank of the Mongol army preparing for a campaign to the west. Chernigov was surrounded and besieged. During the siege, the Mongols used giant catapults to throw stones that could barely be lifted by four people. strong men. The Chernigov prince withdrew his troops from the city, met the Mongol army in open battle and was defeated. The chronicle reports the exact date of the fall of Chernigov - October 18, 1239

After the capture of Chernigov, the main forces of the Mongol army retreated to the Polovtsian steppes to regroup, and a detachment under the command of Khan Mengu went to Kyiv. The Ipatiev Chronicle notes that Khan Mengu was surprised by the beauty of the city and sent ambassadors with an offer to surrender it. However, the Kyiv veche rejected such a proposal, and he left for the steppes. This campaign can be assessed as a reconnaissance campaign, since the siege of a well-fortified city required large military forces.

In the autumn of 1240, Batu approached Kyiv. At that time, the city, which passed from one prince to another, was ruled by Daniil Romanovich Galitsky, or rather, his governor, Dmitry of the Thousand. The Ipatiev Chronicle notes that “no human voice was heard from the neighing of the Mongol horses.” The Mongols struck the main blow at the Lyadskie Gate. “Batu placed the vices at the gates of Lyadskie” and “the vices constantly beat the walls day and night and broke through the walls.” After fierce fighting near the city walls, Kyiv was captured (November 19 or December 6, 1240). Rashid ad-Din reports that the fighting for the city lasted nine days. The last stronghold of the defenders was the Tithe Church. Based on excavation materials, it is known that the defense of the church lasted several days. The besieged began to dig an underground passage, hoping in this way to get to the banks of the Dnieper. However, the Mongols used siege equipment, and the church, overcrowded with people, collapsed. The city was almost completely destroyed and lost its significance as a major urban center for a long time. Plano Carpini, passing through Kiev in 1245, wrote: “The Tatars carried out a great massacre in the country of Russia, destroyed cities and fortresses and killed people, besieged Kiev, which was the capital of Russia, and after a long siege they took it and killed the inhabitants of the city. .. This city was very large and very populous, but now it has been reduced to almost nothing: there are barely two hundred houses there, and they keep those people in the most severe slavery.”

Having defeated Kyiv, the Mongol troops went further to the west - to Vladimir-Volynsky. The main forces led by Batu were sent to Vladimir-Volynsky through the cities of Kolodyazhin and Danilov, while other detachments devastated Southern Rus'. This was a common offensive for the Mongols on a broad front, i.e., a “Mongol raid.”

After stubborn resistance, Kolodyazhin, Kamenets, Izyaslavl were taken, but Danilov, Kholm and Kremenets held out. The reason that Batu was unable to capture these small towns was other than the bravery of the defenders and reliable fortifications (for example, Kremenets was located on high mountain with steep and rocky slopes), there was also the fact that they were besieged by a few small Mongol detachments, while the main forces were rapidly moving towards the main strategic goal - Vladimir-Volynsky.

Mongol troops took Vladimir-Volynsky by storm after a short siege. The Ipatiev Chronicle reports that Batu “came to Vladimir, took him with a spear, and mercilessly killed the inhabitants.” These chronicles are confirmed by archaeological finds that indicate a bloody battle. Residents of the city were brutally executed. This explains the findings of skulls with iron nails driven into them.

There is information about Batu’s attempt to capture the city of Berestye (modern Brest). According to the same Ipatiev Chronicle, “Daniil and his brother (Vasilko) came to Berest and could not walk across the field because of the smell (of corpses) from the many dead.” During excavations in Berestye in layers of the mid-13th century. no traces of fire or mass death were found. It can be assumed that the city was not taken, but a battle with the Mongols took place in its vicinity.

After the capture and destruction of Vladimir-Volynsky, the main forces of the Mongol army headed to the city of Galich, where all the detachments that completed the “raid” were to gather. As Rashid ad-Din writes, the Mongols approached Galich with united forces and “took it in three days.”

After the defeat of the Galician and Volyn principalities, Batu in 1241 went on a campaign against Hungary and Poland. The conquest of these principalities took about three months. With the departure of Batu’s troops abroad, military operations took place on the territory of South-Western Rus'

are over.

Consequences of the Mongol invasion for the Slavic principalities:

1) the population decreased sharply, as many people were killed and many were taken captive;

2) many cities were destroyed, some of them became desolate after the defeat and lost their former significance for a long time (according to archaeologists, of the 74 cities of Kievan Rus known from excavations in the 16th-13th centuries, 49 were destroyed by Batu’s troops, of which 14 did not resume, but 15 turned into villages);

3) after the invasion of Batu, the Pereyaslav principality and, in fact, the Kiev and Chernigov principalities ceased to exist;

4) interrupted international relationships, political alliances were not concluded, trade sharply weakened, crafts did not develop, cultural ties were disrupted, and chronicle writing almost ceased. Many valuable books and chronicles perished in the fire.