A #thread about the brutal tactics the ancient Mongolians(Genghis Khan's tribe) used during war.

The Mongols used terror as a weapon of war.

If a city or fortress surrendered straight away then the people would just exchange one bunch of rulers for another, sometimes the original rulers would be allowed to carry on ruling as puppets to the Mongols.

But if the foe should decide to fight then no mercy was shown; every single man, woman and child would be put to the sword and the city razed to the ground; this happened in Beijing where, visitors days later, told of the ground being slippery with blood and human fat;

Baghdad, Kiev, Bokhara and other cities followed suit. 

Sometimes the Mongols would take prisoners to use them in taking a city; they would force these prisoners to push the siege towers up to the walls or to carry the scaling ladders without shields or any armour;

naturally most would die to the defenders missiles.

The photo above is a painting by Angus McBride of the Mongols taking ancient Kiev.

Once inside, the entire population was massacred. No one was spared, not the old, not the sick, not suckling babes. They were extremely brutal.

After a few examples had been made of some cities and word of their fate reached cities and towns in the path of the Mongols, many opened their gates as soon as the Mongol army appeared.

It was not unknown for a city’s or town’s population to raise up in revolt against rulers who showed that they were willing to resist the Mongols, these rulers were often killed by their own people or sometimes they were handed over to the Mongols.

Out in the open field the Mongols too could be utterly ruthless, once an opposing army had been surrounded the Mongols would kill everyone.

In some battles as many as a 100,000 were massacred.

It has been estimated by historians that the conquests and wars of the Mongols cost the lives of between 40,to 60 million people.

Strange though it would seem that following the blood bath that often came on the heels of a Mongol conquest those that remained alive or had chosen to surrender without any resistance found that the Mongols could be good rulers,

they allowed freedom of religion in their empire and the coming and going of peoples across their realms.

Those who were conquered by the Mongols often experienced a time of prosperity and wealth as trade from all over the empire flooded in but God help those who chose to resist,

...for only death awaited them and it was not always a quick end either, especially for the rulers of those communities.

After the Mongol victory at the Kalka River the enemy commanders were laid on the ground, a huge board was laid over them and on this the Mongols sat and eat slowly suffocating and crushing the men underneath to death.

Another method of execution favoured by the Mongols was to boil people alive.

All this cruelty was calculated and designed to bring about rapid capitulation and speedy conquests.

These tactics were evidently effective because at its peak, the Mongolian empire covered some 9 million square miles (23 million square km) of territory, making it the largest contiguous land empire in world history.

#curated