History LONG ANSWER QUESTIONS(8 Mark)

Rules and regulations of the Yasa:

1. People should believe in one God, because He gives us life and death, riches and poverty.
2. All religions are equal. They must be respected. The priests should be exempted from all kinds of taxes, transcending all religious barriers.
3. Any person, who proclaimed himself to be a Khan without the recognition of Quriltai, should be awarded death penalty.
4. Do not indulge into adultery. People doing so will be given death penalty.
5. Do not tell a lie.
6. Always respect the aged and the poor and not deceive anyone.
7. It was mandatory for all able-bodied persons to serve in the army.
8. On the opening of hostilities, the soldiers on leave, were asked to resume their duties immediately.
9. Passion involved in spying, giving the false information/ evidence/ witness should be punished with death penalty.
10. No one in his empire can employ a Mongol as his slave or servant.
11. If a soldier indulges into loot and plunder without the prior permission of the commander, he should be awarded death penalty.
12. All the Mongol princesses should preserve this Yasa, and at the time of need, they should take help from it.
13. The armed forces are to be organized into units numbering 10,000 and 1000 . This makes it easier for the army commander to control over military.

Yasa played a remarkable role in unifying the Mongols and kept their tribal identity intact. Without any hesitation, we can say that Yasa played a remarkable role in making of global Mongol empire.

Ogodei was declared as the new Mongol Khan by Quriltai in 1229. He ruled from 1229 to 1241. After becoming the new Mongol Khan, he paid his attention towards Mughal empire. At the time of accession to power the position of Mongols in the Northern China was not much stable. In order to establish his control over Northern China, he entered into an alliance with the Sung ruler of Southern China.

• In 1234, he occupied regions of Northern China.
• In 1231, he had also inflicted a crushing defeat to the ruler of Iran Jalal-ud-din, who had escaped to India, during the time of Genghis Khan.
• Ogedei not only helped the Mongol empire to expand, rather than he also played an important role in consolidating it with an objective of strengthening the economic condition. He also regularised taxes and encouraged trade.
• He established a chain of courts in empire to give justice to all his citizens.
• To encourage education he also opened schools.
• He also did a number of civil reforms and further expanded the Yam system.

1. The Khan (Empire) occupied the highest rank in the administration.
2. He was vested with the unlimited powers and had the authority to formulate both internal and external policies of the state.
3. He was the chief commander of the army. All the armed forces of the state used to act as per his sole discretion.
4. He was the sole authority to appoint all higher and civil authorities.
5. He was authorised to levy any kind of new taxes.

Religious beliefs of Mongols:

1. Mongols had deep faith in religion.
2. They worshipped the main deity, Tengzi, i.e. the Sun God and believed him to be omnipotent.
3. In order to please their deity they used to perform animal sacrifices.
4. They (Mongolian, people of Mongol) used to show special respect for holy religious man called 'Shamans'.
5. Genghis Khan believed that destiny has ordained royalty for mongers. Therefore, it is a religious obligation for the Mongol to bring more and more regions under their direct suzerainty.
6. Mongols were secular in nature and followed the policy of religious tolerance. They allowed the people to respect their religion with full liberty.
7. The recruitments under the Mongols were made only on merit basis and religion had no role to play in it.

1. Prior to any expedition, the Mongol Khan convened the meeting of the Quriltai.
2. An elaborate discussion pertaining to the arms and planning for war were taken here. All the military leaders/ commanders took part in it and used to receive special direction.
3. The Mongol spies spread rumours in the enemy's country, with the aim to demoralise its soldiers.
4. The enemy was given the option to surrender or to face annihilation.
5. After these initial preparations, when the actual war was to begin, the Mongol soldiers used to encircle the area that was to be attacked from all the sides.
6. The Mongol soldiers faced the enemy's army face to face, the tactic adopted bythem was to show that they were deserting the war field. The enemy soldiers thought that the Mongol army had deserted the field. But no sooner had they reached at a particular place, the Mongol soldiers used to attack soldiers and gave them a crushing defeat.

No doubt, Genghis Khan had established a vast empire. The newly vanquished people had no inclination towards their new ruler. Several causes were responsible for this.The main causes were:

1. The Mongols during the course of their expedition destroyed several beautiful cities and towns. Most of these cities lost their glory after his attack.
2. Their invasion also badly affected the agriculture, because when the huge forces passed away they destroyed standing crops.
3. During war year or the time of invasion trade and commerce was badly affected.
4. A large number of people lost their lives due to their invasion. Many became handicapped and helpless.
5. A number of people were slaves.
6. As a result of their invasion, the timely repair to the underground rivers in the arid region was not carried out.
7. All his invasions resulted in rapid desertification of newly conquered areas.
8. People from all walks of life had to face hardships.

• The yasa (the code of law) was promulgated at the quriltai of 1206 by Genghis Khan.
• The law codes dealt with customary traditions of the Mongol tribes, their administrative rules on the hunt, the army and the pastaI system.
• However, by the middle of the thirteenth century, the Mongols had started treating the yasa as the 'legal code of Genghis Khan'.
• They used these laws to hide their uneasy relationship with the memory of Genghis Khan's cruel killings in the past.
• They also laid claim to a 'lawgiver' (Genghis Khan) like Moses and Solomon. They imposed these rules on their subjects.

Following favourable conditions encouraged, Genghis Khan to launch an expedition against.The Shah of Khwarazm:

1. Shah had established a vast empire, but nothing had been done to consolidate it.
2. Shah also refused to recognise the Khalifa of Baghdad. This mistake resulted in the hostility of Muslim community against him.
3. By annexation of a number of regions to his vast empire, Shah antagonised a large number of people.
4. The mutual relations between Turkish and Iranian officers were not cordial. They never missed a chance to let down each other.
5. He had also imposed many taxes on the farmers and general public but did care a little about their grievances. So the people wanted to get rid of such tyrannical regime.
6. There was also a fear of loot and plunders. So there was restlessness among the traders as well as the common people.
7. There was lack of discipline in his army.
8. The continued intrigues of his mother further eroded his position. She wanted him to overthrow.

Prior to his death, Genghis Khan had established a vast empire within a short span of 20 years.Some of the main causes of his success are listed below:

1. He was a born commander and distinctively fortunate to get success, wherever he went. He became a real terror of his opponents.
2. He also established a large disciplined army. It was not easy to face such a huge army.
3. His spies used to collect every bit of information about the opponent's army and gave it to him.
4. He knew the importance of psychological warfare and used to unleash the region of terror. In this effort, people could not face his army.
5. He used to make people dread his forces, so that the people could surrender without waging a war against him.
6. The Mongol soldiers were experts in horse riding and archery.
7. Genghis Khan usually launched his expedition during the winter season. Because during this season rivers used to freeze and make it easier to cross them.
8. The use of Naphtha Bombardment destroyed enemy forts and had dreadly results in the course of the war.

The steep dwellers themselves usually produced no literature, so our knowledge of nomadic societies under Mongol are quite different and the Italian and Latin version of Marco Polo’s travels to the Mongol court do not match. Since the Mongol produce little literature of their own and were instead ‘Written about’ by literati from foreign cultural milieus, historians have to often double as philologist to pick out the meanings of phrases for their closest approximation to Mongol usage. The work of scholars like Igor de Rachewiltz on 'The secret of History' of the Mongol and Gerhard Doerfer on Mongol and Turki terminologies that infiltrated into the Persian language brings out the difficulties involved in studying the history of the central Asian nomads. As we will notice through the remainder of this chapter, despite their incredible achievement there is much about Genghis khan and the Mongol world empire still awaiting the diligent scholar’s scrutiny.

Genghis Khan, the great ruler of believed in the expansion and consolidation of the Mongols. His motives led to several conquests between 1203 AD and 1227 AD. As a result, many annexed and defeated tribes got incorporated into the Mongolian society. The tribes ranged from willingly submitted Turkic Uighurs to defeated hostile Kereyits. This assimilation affected the existing homogeneous composition of Genghis Khan’s army. The Mongol army was no longer a simple body that could be maintained along the old decimal system division principles. To manage this large heterogeneous body, Genghis Khan created a new division system that revoked all rights of the old ones and divided the army into groups consisting of people from different tribes. Migration from one group to another was restricted. Thus, it can be said that the main reason to fragment the Mongol tribes into new social and military groups was to maintain the huge heterogeneous army and prevent internal conflicts within the groups.