Though the Mongols are usually credited and remembered for their amazing military abilities (and rightly so), I feel that they are often overlooked when it comes to their government administration. Now, I’m not saying that people don’t realize that some very impressive people headed the empire. A lot of people are aware of the capabilities of Genghis Khan, Ogedei, Mongke (notice I skipped Guyuk), and Batu, and Kublai and so on and so forth. Let’s not forget the powerful women of the empire as well, such as Toregene. What I’m talking about is the way they were able to manage their conquered territories with little to no rebellion at all, while seemingly always being away from these territories as they were always warring. As Mongol expert Timothy May puts it, to run the Mongol Empire you needed

“a sophisticated system of administration, ideology and control was necessary to ensure that the Yeke Mongol Ulus was not simply a house of cards precariously built at the 1206 kurultai”

The kurultai being the big Mongol get together…I tend to compare it to a military court. So, how did they do it then?

Military

After the Great Mongol Kurultai of 1206, Genghis Khan had 95 units of 1,000 warriors each. These 1,000 warrior squadrons were known as minghan and were led by a single commander. So, if we do some basic math, we can say that Genghis Khan had an army of 95,000, which is what the Secret History of the Mongols tells us; however, it is known that although Genghis Khan promoted via a merit based system he did have some commanders that he viewed as more loyal and thus preferred them and gave them more troops, so the 95,000 number is debated a bit, but it is a good estimate. These minghan were part of the larger tumen which were units of 10,000. Genghis Khan would normally hand pick the leaders of his tumen, we know this because early on he had appointed 2 of his most loyal generals, Muktali and Borchu.

What’s all this talk about the basic set-up of the Mongol military? You asked a question on how the empire was managed, not the army. Well, remember…I said the Kurultai was something I liked to compare to a military court; and for a reason, the empire was essentially run through the services of the army. Though it seems the Mongols simply used the ancient decimal system of the Xiongnu, it was expanded on a bit especially once they conquered sedentary peoples. Absorbing other pastoral people was easier as all they would have to do is change their hair to the traditional Mongol style, add these men into one of these military units I spoke about to receive training and you essentially had yourself a full-fledged ‘Mongol’ warrior. Not every man was recruited however, though the women could handle a lot of the work such as taking care of the herds for example the men were expected to help and men were also recruited for other jobs such as making quivers and continue running the towns/villages, thus it is said that 1,000 homes provided 1,000 warriors.

The keshiq was the bodyguard unit, and their job was not only to act as bodyguards to the Great Khan, they also had other tasks such as taking care of the camp and pouring drinks for the Great Khan as well. One of the more important aspects of this bodyguard unit is who was recruited for it….it was usually the sons of the commanders. This is an interesting approach and proves yet again what a brilliant person Genghis Khan was, as this could be beneficial in many ways. Perhaps a commander who is loyal would be honored to have his son at the service of the Great Khan, perhaps a commander that thought about going renegade would think twice if his son is at the service of the Great Khan.

And finally, one of the most important pieces here is the tamma. The tamma was a sort of special military unit mostly placed on the frontiers. Their job was a simple one, and it was to help the Mongols maintain control of recently conquered areas and their favorite tool to accomplish this was fear and intimidation. The Mongols were not great administrators early on and as time passes on and the empire expanded, we see how much they relied on their subjects, particularly the Khitans of the Great Liao Empire, the Uighurs and even the Chinese.

The tamma was also useful from a military perspective as the Mongols didn’t need garrison cities once they took them over, the locals or sometimes relocated subjects would continue defending the city under the fear of this special unit that just roamed the nearby plains.

Administration

Though Genghis Khan was a fan of extorting tribute out of his subjects using his special military unit that I mentioned, once his son Ogedei took to the throne he understood that this wasn’t a good long-term plan and that the sedentary peoples could not be ruled through the yasa law. While the tamma was important for more than one reason, organization was required to run societies and the administration of the empire. The Khitans are some of the most important people in the story of the Mongols, I could spend an entire post just on how they in one way or another influence or assist the Mongols in their quest for world domination, but I’ll leave that for later. Civil servants, secretaries and local administrators were set-up to report to direct Mongol governors. During the reign of Ogedei some of his favorite regional supervisors were from his Kara Khitai subjects, a father and son combo that assisted him in ruling Turkestan and norther China effectively and implementing tax systems – apparently both of these gents were math wiz’s if we are to believe the sources.

The duties of these regional supervisors would continue to gradually change especially under the reign of Mongke (4th Khagan), who for all intense and purposes creates a viceroy-like system. In this time, the Mongol Empire’s administration became distinctly different and separate from their army. Up until this point it seemed as if these supervisory roles were reporting to a local warlord placed from the Mongols, but now these warlords came to serve the loyal subjects of the Mongol Khans.

As you can see the Mongols continued to adapt not only militarily, but also from an administrative perspective. Under the reign of Mongke Khan, the government underwent many reforms, and according to author Thomas Allsen who wrote about the reign of Mongke, the Mongol government was becoming more centralized and bureaucratic comparable to empires in the 17th century. Mongke was looking to put less of a burden on the settled peoples and also benefit from the Silk Road.

Taxation

I will briefly break down the taxation for you as I can actually do so in a couple of parts and explain it simply.

Early on there as no formal tax system. In Mongol society, tribute was paid in the form of services and goods, this was a form of subjugation done between the tribes. If you conquered my tribe with your tribe, I paid in the form of answering your call to war, and when war was done, I would pay you some of the goods I gained in this battle/raid. As for sedentary society, well the ‘tax’ was simply plunder.

Under the reign of the Great Khgan Ogedei taxation was implemented mainly through the help of some of his best advisers, the Khitan statesman Yelu Chuchai, as well as Mahmud Yalavach that pushed for a census-based system in northern China and central Asia respectively. To put it simply, the tax system was a combination of the local tax plus a poll tax. We know this because writers from the Muslim world lament of paying their typical Muslim tax and on top of that pay a “Mongol tax” as well.

And finally by the reign of Mongke, via his reforms we see the end of this combination tax and see the introduction of a more refined tax system – a set tax on the people of the vast lands such as the Rus principalities, north China, and Khorosan, as well as taxes based on occupations such as an agricultural tax, taxes on commerce or tax ‘breaks’ for military servants. Mongke’s system will remain the basis for the Mongol states post-civil war.

In Short

Well, in short, we can see that the Mongol government tried to emulate what it did with its army, and that is evolve. We see the constant evolution throughout the time of the empire and the Mongols were humble in the sense that they knew they needed help and a better understanding of how to run sedentary populations and often trusted their advisors and local governments (with a bit of fear sprinkled in of course). One of the notions that the Mongols would allow you to peacefully surrender comes from this very mentality. If a local official was willing to submit peacefully, it saved Mongols lives, time, equipment and most importantly, the town could be run by someone that was already experienced in doing so.

Sources:

The Mongols, 2nd edition David Morgan

The Mongol Empire Timothy May

Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Grand Khan Mongke Thomas T. Allsen