Ogotai Khan

Ogotai Khan

Ogotai Khan was the third son of Genghis Khan and spent most of his early life campaigning. Realizing the implacable enmity between his first and second sons, Juji and Chagatai Khan, Genghis decided in 1219 to bypass both for supreme leadership of the Mongols after his own death in favor of Ogotai.

He reconfirmed this decision before his death in 1227. Ogotai was confirmed as the Mongols’ second khaghan (grand khan) by the khuriltai of Mongol leaders in 1229 and established Karakorum on the upper reaches of the Orkhon River as his capital, surrounding it with a defensive wall.

True to his martial heritage Ogotai began his reign with massive campaigns to expand the Mongol empire, amassing four armies. One marched westward to conquer the steppelands of central Eurasia and the Russian principalities, across the Ural Mountains, and the Volga River.


Led by the old warrior Subotai and Batu (Juji’s son), its goal was to secure and enlarge the inheritance of the sons of Juji (who had predeceased Genghis Khan).

A second army’s goal was to complete the conquest of Khwarazm, which includes modern Iran, then onto the Middle East and Asia Minor. A third army took on Korea, which had been conquered earlier but had revolted against the unbearable conditions of Mongol rule.

Finally Ogotai and his younger brother Tului Khan led a force to finish the conquest of the Jin (Chin) dynasty in northern China. They took the Jin capital Kaifeng (K’ai-feng) in 1233; the last Jin emperor committed suicide in 1234 and all northern China came under Mongol rule.

Subotai’s army had the most spectacular success, conquering the Turkish tribes of the Russian steppes, all the Russian principalities except Novgorod, the Ukraine, Poland, Moravia, and Hungary. They were at the gates of Vienna before withdrawing in 1241 on the news of Ogotai’s death. The army sent to conquer the Middle East added western Persia and the Caucasus to Mongol control.

Coronation of Ogotai Khan

Korea submitted in 1259. Ogotai also made administrative reforms to centralize the administration to ensure his control over the Mongol lords and the efficient gathering of taxes and tribute from his sedentary subjects.

Thanks to a remarkable non-Mongol adviser Yelu Chucai (Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai) reforms were begun in northern China that ended the brutal looting and massacre of the population on the premise that working people paid more taxes than expeditions could gather.

After the campaign against Jin, Ogotai returned to Karakorum and abandoned himself to a life of pleasure, hunting and drinking so heavily that an official was appointed to count the amount of wine he drank daily.

Ogotai Statue

His second wife, Toregene, moved quickly to consolidate her authority even before he died while on a hunting trip; he was buried in Jungaria in his personal appanage (fief).

According to Mongol custom his widow, Toregene, became regent until the khuriltai elected a new ruler. Her goal was to ensure the election of her son Guyug as the next khaghan, despite much opposition by other branches of the Mongol royal house. After four and half years she succeeded.

Mongol Rule of Russia

Mongol invasion

The almost 250-year Mongol rule over Russia was precipitated by two separate invasions. Following a successful invasion of the Caucasus in 1221, the Mongols invaded a small part of Russia in 1222.

Although a small contingent of the Mongol army succeeded against the ruling princes, they did not establish control over Russia and instead disappeared into the steppe. It was not until 1237 that a sizable Mongol army commenced its invasion of Russia proper, to which all of Russia fell and came under the dominion of the Golden Horde.

Having conquered the Muslim empire of the shah of Khwarazm, Jalal-ad-Din Mengubirdi, otherwise known as Sultan Muhammad II, Genghis Khan charged his capable generals Jebe and Subotai to march through the hazardous Caucasus Mountains in the direction of Russia.


The Caucasian tribes, the Alans (Ossetians), the Circassians, and the Lezgians, together with the Polovsti, formed an alliance and put up a fierce resistance to the Mongol invaders on the southern Russian steppe in 1221. The first battle between the Mongols and Caucasian alliance proved indecisive, but Jebe and Subotai had no intentions of withdrawing from the engagement.

Instead the Mongol generals resorted to using the strategy of divide and conquer. Jebe and Subotai persuaded their nomadic brethren, the Polovsti, to remain neutral by reminding them of their common Turkic-Mongol fellowship and also by promising to share with them the spoils of victory over the Caucasian tribes.

With the success of the subtle diplomacy, the generals returned to battle the Caucasian tribes with greater ferocity and overwhelmingly crushed the stubborn resistance.

The Mongol generals then turned against the Polovsti, who, in defeat, fled in the direction of Galacia and Kiev and appealed to the Russian princes—Mstislav Staryi of Kiev, Mstislav Udaloi of Galacia, and Vladimir of Suzdal—for intervention.

Two sets of crucial factors persuaded the Russian princes to join forces to help the Polovsti. First Prince Mstislav Udaloi was obliged to help because Kotian, the khan of the Polovsti, was his father-in-law.

And second according to the Novgorodian First Chronicle, the Mongols were unknown to the Russians—they did not know where they came from, what religion they practiced, or what language they spoke.

Mongol vs Russia

Fearing that the Mongols would grow stronger if they did not intervene, the princes Mstislav and Vladimir I (Vladimir the Great), together with the Polovsti, forged the Russo-Polovsti alliance.

In early 1222 the Mongols received news of the Russo-Polovsti alliance and sent a 10-member diplomatic envoy to negotiate with Princes Mstislav and Vladimir. The Mongols claimed to have no desire to war with the princes and did not harbor any intentions to conquer their lands or cities.

In the manner similar to the way they isolated the Polovsti from the Caucasian tribes, the Mongol diplomats urged the princes to defeat the Polovsti and take the spoils of victory for themselves and offered to enter into a peace treaty with the Russians. The princes, suspecting a Mongol trick, executed the diplomatic envoy, an act that was considered by the Mongols to be unforgivable.

A strong Russian-Polovsti army of 30,000 soldiers amassed on the Dnieper. Outnumbered by more than 10,000, Jebe and Subotai ordered the Mongol army to retreat. They dispatched a second diplomatic envoy to meet with the Russians and reproached the Russians for the murder of the first delegation.

The second envoy returned unharmed and carried a message for the Mongol army—the Russians feared that, after conquering the Polovsti, the Mongol army would attack them. Hence, they would only be happy if the Mongol army returned to the steppe.

As the main Mongol army retreated from the forest, its rearguard kept a watchful eye on the Russian mobilization. War-hardened and accustomed to being outnumbered, Jebe and Subotai managed to evade the Russians for more than nine days.

This contrasted sharply with the attitudes of the Russian princes. The Russian army lacked strategic coordination because Mstislav of Galacia and Mstislav of Kiev disputed over the ways to engage the Mongol army.

In pursuit of the Mongol army, the Russians were led farther and farther into the steppe and away from their supply lines. Prince Mstislav of Galacia, accompanied by Daniil of Volhynia, commanded the first Russian battle with the Mongol army, defeating the Mongol rearguard at the east of the bend in the Dnieper.

Wanting to claim the glory all for himself, Prince Mstislav Udaloi decided to pursue the main Mongol army. Without informing the rest of the Russian army or waiting for reinforcements to arrive, the prince took his army, the Volynian and Polovsti soldiers, across the river Kalka.

Overconfident from his victory over the Mongol rearguard, Prince Mstislav failed to consolidate his defenses after crossing the Kalka and fell into a Mongol trap.

The Mongol retreat was a strategy aimed at isolating the army commanded by Prince Mstislav of Galacia from those commanded by Prince Mstislav Staryi of Kiev, which was concentrated some distance away from the river Kalka.

In mid-June 1222 Jebe and Subotai seized the advantage and ordered an all-out assault on the Russian front and flanks. Prince Mstislav of Kiev watched from the western banks of the Kalka as the Mongols launched a ferocious attack against the forces of Mstislav of Galacia.

As the Polovsti fled and confusion set in within the Russian ranks, the army of Prince Mstislav of Galacia, unable to maneuver effectively in the marshy terrain, was cut into pieces. The prince, along with the wounded Prince Daniil of Volhynia, a small remnant of his troops, and what remained of the Polovsti, managed to escape.

Realizing that a hasty retreat from a swift army is guaranteed to be fatal, Prince Mstislav of Kiev ordered his forces to fortify themselves on a commanding hilltop. But before the prince could securely establish his defenses, Jebe and Subotai attacked.

After three days of ferocious Mongol assault, Prince Mstislav of Kiev surrendered on the condition that he and his army would be permitted to return to Kiev unharmed. The Mongol army accepted, but, as soon as the Russian army disarmed, Prince Mstislav of Kiev was executed and his forces slaughtered.

Fearing that the Mongols would cross the Dnieper, Prince Mstislav of Galacia and his remaining forces destroyed all the ships. The forces of Jebe and Subotai never crossed the Dnieper and, instead, returned to join the main Mongolian army stationed in the steppes east of the Syr Darya River. Thus by the end of 1222 the first invasion of Russia ended as swiftly as it had begun.

In the winter of 1237, well after the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, the Mongol army returned. In the context of a greater invasion of Europe, the Mongol army, headed by the veteran Subotai, amassed some 150,000 to 200,000 warriors.

The large army crossed the frozen Volga and attacked the Russian eastern principality of Riazan because it was considered the weakest. As the Mongol army advanced, Prince Roman rushed to Suzdal to ask Prince Yuri for help, which was denied.

Instead Grand Prince Yuri suggested that the four princes of the vassal state, Princes Yuri, Oleg, Roman, and Yaroslav, end their squabbling and join forces against the Mongols. After defeating the Russian army at Riazan, the Mongol army constructed a wooden palisade that encircled the town capital of Riazan.

After five days of bitter fighting, Riazan was finally captured. The trapped princes and their families were executed, the young women and nuns were systematically raped, and the entire population was massacred.

In the winter of 1237–38 Batu Khan and his army sacking Suzdal

In the winter of 1237–38, under the command of Batu Khan, the Mongol army attacked Suzdal and its capital Vladimir. Although his territory and its city came under siege, Grand Prince Yuri did not intervene.

Batu Khan targeted Novgorod while Subotai attempted to draw Grand Prince Yuri into battle. Novgorod, particularly the fortress of Torzhok, fought and resisted the forces of Batu Khan.

The ensuing battle lasted two weeks, enough time for an early spring to arrive. The spring thaw flooded most of the southern terrain and made it impossible for Batu Khan to advance. Batu Khan was forced to abandon his siege on Novgorod and retreat to the southern steppe.

Batu Khan stabbed Prince Michael of Chernigov to death for his refusal
to do obeisance to Genghis Khan's shrine in the pagan ritual.

In March 1238 Grand Prince Yuri and the Suzdalian army perished at the decisive battle against Subotai on the river Sit. With the strongest section of Russia conquered within several months, the Mongolian army sacked the state of Chernigov.

Through the summer of 1239 and for one and a half years, the Mongol army rested and sought comfort in the lush steppeland of western Ukraine, in preparation for another campaign.

In summer 1240 the Mongol army resumed their offensive against Russia. The cities of Chernigov and Pereyaslav were captured. On December 6, 1240, Batu Khan arrived with his army at Kiev to reinforce the Mongol vanguard commanded by Mongke Khan.

After Dimitri, the governor of Kiev, had executed the Mongol ambassadors, the Mongol army stormed the city. Apart from the cathedral of Saint Sophia, the entire city was leveled and its population exterminated.

By 1242 the Mongol army had captured all of Russia. Batu Khan chose Old Sarai, in the lower Volga, to establish the headquarters of the Mongol dominion over Russia, which became known as the Golden Horde.

The Golden Horde, as a center for the Mongol administration of Russia, endured for almost 250 years. A daruga handled Russian political affairs and the collection of an annual tribute.

Invasion of Russia by the Golden Horde

To become eligible to take office, Russian princes had to journey to the Golden Horde to pay obeisance to Mongol overlords. Contented with being overlords, the Mongols never established a dynasty in Russia.

Occasionally, Russian military units had to serve alongside the Mongol army. Despite an attempt by Prince Dimitri of Moscow to wrestle Russia from Mongol control in 1330, they managed to rule and exact tribute for a further century.

Ivan III of Moscow finally broke Mongol rule over Russia in 1480. Failing to check the emergence and rise of the Muscovite state, the seed of modern Russia, the Mongols ceded control.

Mongol Invasions of Japan

Mongol Invasions of Japan

Kubilai Khan, Mongol ruler and founder of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) in China, twice attempted to invade Japan, in 1274 and 1281, with huge armadas launched from Korea and China. He failed both times mainly because of weather.

Japan thus never suffered under Mongol rule. The Japanese attributed their deliverance to the divine wind, kamikazi in Japanese. In 1260 Kubilai Khan seized leadership of the Mongol empire on the death of his elder brother, Mongke Khan, in a disputed succession.

Kubilai Khan established his capital in North China, at the site of the former Jin (Chin) dynasty capital, which he called Dadu (T’atu), meaning great capital in Chinese (present-day Beijing). He continued his brother’s unfinished work of destroying the Southern Song (Sung) dynasty and embarked on a new adventure even before that task was completed in 1279.


In 1268 he sent his first embassy to Japan demanding tribute. The Japanese emperor, by then a figurehead residing in Kyoto, was willing to acquiesce. But real power belonged to the shogun or military commander and his court at Kamakura, which rebuffed the repeated Mongol demands.

Thus Kubilai Khan decided to invade Japan to force compliance. His Korean subjects were ordered to build 400 large and 500 small ships, which set sail from Pusan in Korea in November 1274.

The invasion force had 15,000 Chinese and Mongol soldiers, 6,000–8,000 Korean troops, and 7,000 Korean sailors. The defending Japanese warriors (samurai) were far less numerous and suffered serious losses in the battle fought at Hataka on Kyushu Island. However they were saved by a fierce storm that blew in.

The Korean sailors persuaded the Mongol troops to board their ships and sail for safety in the open seas. The storm, however, damaged and sank many of the ships and 13,000 lives were lost; the survivors eventually limped home.

Kubilai Khan finished the destruction of the Southern Song in 1279. Then he focused on subjugating Japan. In 1281 he dispatched a huge force, reputedly of 140,000 men, in two armadas that sailed from China and Korea for Hataka.

The defending Japanese warriors (samurai) were far less numerous

Anticipating the Mongols’ return the Japanese had mobilized and built a wall to the interior of Hataka Bay. After about two months of desultory fighting, another fierce storm or typhoon blew in and destroyed most of the Mongol fleet.

Some survivors fled back to Korea; the rest were slaughtered or enslaved by the Japanese. Kubilai prepared for a third invasion, but the effort was abandoned after he died in 1294. However the shogunate continued a state of military alert until 1312. The cost of the defenses fell mainly to the people of Kyushu Island.

The discontent generated eroded the power of the Hojo clan of the Kamakura Shogunate. Japanese credited the kamikazi for their deliverance and tried to resurrect this idea during the last days of World War II for salvation from defeat by the Allies.

Mongke Khan - Mongol Leader

Mongke Khan - Mongol Leader

Mongke Khan was the eldest son of Tului Khan (fourth son of Genghis Khan) and Sorghaghtani Beki and fourth khaghan or grand khan of the Mongol empire. He was a famous warrior and commander and was also noted for his devotion to the Mongol way of life. He had served on the campaign in eastern Europe under his cousin Batu Khan’s leadership and gained the latter’s goodwill.

The good relations between Batu’s (leader of the Golden Horde) and Tului’s families were reinforced when Ogotai Khan’s son and successor Guyuk Khaghan (r. 1246–48) planned to ambush Batu, and Mongke’s mother secretly warned Batu of the plot, even though nothing came of it because Guyuk soon died.

In the struggle among the grandsons of Genghis Khan to be his successor, Batu successfully sabotaged regent Oghul Khaimish’s (Guyuk’s widow) attempt to have the Mongol council elect one of her sons the next khaghan.


Batu was not interested in being khaghan, but as the descendant of the eldest son of Genghis, he wanted the role of kingmaker and was successful in having Mongke elected the fourth khaghan in 1251.

Mongke immediately consolidated his position by ruthlessly purging and killing his cousins and other relatives from the Ogotai and Chagatai (Genghis’s second son) branches of the family and their supporters.

Anticipating his election, Mongke established a shadow government. Thus he was able to move quickly to fulfill his grandfather’s mandate to conquer the world. Ruling from Karakorum in Mongolia when not on the move, Mongke relied on Mongols in top positions in his government, assisted by people from the conquered ethnic groups.

He made important reforms needed to mobilize resources and manpower by unifying the tax collection system, stopping many abuses, and rebuilding the economies in some already conquered lands. Starting in 1252 he began a census of the peoples and resources of his lands from China to Iraq to assess taxes, control resources, and identify skilled craftsmen.

Mongol Empire during the reign of Mongke Khan

In 1252 Mongke began a three-pronged campaign. One brother, Hulagu Khan, commanded an army that headed west, successfully targeting Kashmir, the Assassins in the Caucasus, Iran, and the Abbasid Caliphate, and taking Baghdad in 1258.

A relative from the Golden Horde headed for Korea, subduing it in 1259. Another brother, Kubilai Khan, set out to conquer the Nanchao or Dali (T’a-li) kingdom located in modern Yunnan Province in southwestern China, securing its surrender in 1253.

His youngest brother, Arik Boke, remained in Mongolia. In 1256 Mongke announced his goal of conquering the Southern Song (Sung) in which he would take personal command with a threepronged attack from the north, west, and south.

In the midst of the campaign, Mongke died in August 1256, of either wounds or dysentery. Mongke’s death gave the Southern Song a 20-year reprieve because Kubilai immediately halted the campaign to secure his succession as khaghan.

The ensuing civil war between Kubilai and his brother Arik Boke involved his other brother, Hulagu, and various cousins. The Mongol empire reached its apogee under Mongke and would never recover from the succession crisis.

Kubilai Khan

Kubilai Khan

Kubilai or Khubilai was born in 1215, the second son of Tului Khan (youngest son of Genghis Khan) and Sorghaghtani Beki, who was a Kerait (a tribe that Genghis had conquered) and a Nestorian Christian (his principal wife, Chabi, was also a Kerait and Nestorian Christian).

His mother was very influential in all her four sons’ upbringing; she had them learn to read Mongol (but not Chinese) and to administer as well as ride, hunt, and fight. When Ogotai Khan (Tului’s elder brother) became khaghan (grand khan), Sorghaghtani Beki obtained appanages (fiefs) for both herself and Kubilai in north China.

While his elder brother Mongke Khan participated in the great Mongol campaign to conquer Europe that began in 1236, Kubilai remained behind, learning to administer his appanage and learning about Zen (Ch’an) Buddhism and Confucianism from prominent scholars in both fields.


These experiences marked him as a different kind of leader from most of his relatives. He also realized the harm that the wars and Mongol plundering armies had done to the Chinese economy and society, and how granting appanages to Mongol lords harmed the authority of the central government.

The election of Mongke as the fourth khaghan in 1251 became Kubilai’s stepping-stone to power. In his quest to expand the Mongol realm, Mongke appointed one brother, Hulagu Khan, to conquer the Middle East, and Kubilai to conquer a kingdom called Nanchao or Dali (T’a-li) in present day Yunnan province in China.

Kubilai completed his task in 1254, and Dali was put under Mongol control. In 1258 Mongke launched his main campaign against the Southern Song (Sung) dynasty in which he and Kubilai each led a wing of the invading army.

Mongke’s death in the next year precipitated a succession crisis. Traditionalist Mongols and supporters of Arik Boke, Tului’s youngest son, convened a khuriltai or council that had representatives from the other branches of Genghis Khan’s clan, which elected him khaghan.

Kublai Khan on a hunting expedition

Kubilai also convened a khuriltai, in his appanage, attended by his supporters that elected him to the same position. In the ensuing civil war Kubilai had the support of Hulagu and also the greater resources of China. Arik Boke surrendered in 1264 and died two years later under Kubilai’s supervision.

Kubilai’s ascension marked his transition from Mongol khaghan to emperor of China. In 1254 he had chosen a site in northern China located 200 miles north of present-day Beijing as his capital, arguing that it was logical to be located where he governed. It was called Shangtu meaning “supreme capital” in Chinese.

It became the secondary capital in 1264 when he moved the seat of his government to the former Liao and Jin (Chin) capital, which he rebuilt and renamed Datu, or Tatu (“great capital” in Chinese); its location is present day Beijing. As a result Karakorum, built by Ogotai Khan as capital of the whole Mongol Empire, was relegated to the backwaters.

From this time on Kubilai chose a Chinese reign name, proclaimed a calendar, adopted many Confucian rituals of state, and in outward form at least became a Chinese-style ruler. In 1271 he proclaimed himself the founder of the Great Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and claimed that it had received the Mandate of Heaven as the latest in the succession of Chinese dynasties. Between 1267 and 1279 his forces finished off the Southern Song, capturing its capital Hangzhou (Hangchou) in 1276.

Several campaigns occupied the remainder of Kubilai’s reign. One was to subjugate Korea, whose king had been subservient until a coup in 1269 brought in an independent leader. It ended in 1273 with Korea back in the Mongol fold. Kubilai also launched two expeditions to force Japan to accept tributary status.

The first one in 1274 landed at Hataka on the eastern coast of Kyushu island and met with resistance and disaster because of a gale-force storm. A huge second expedition, two armadas of 140,000 men, mostly Koreans and Chinese plus a Mongol cavalry, were devastated by a typhoon.

A naval expedition against Java in 1292–93 was also a fiasco. Land invasions of Burma and Vietnam were more fortunate and secured their vassalage. The wars against Kaidu Khan (1235–c.1301) were more difficult and reflected the division between the different branches and ideologies among Genghis Khan’s descendants.

Kaidu was Ogotai Khan’s grandson and his cause showed the resentment of that branch of the family on its eclipse. Kaidu’s allies were princes from the Chagatai and Tului families who objected to Kubilai’s identification with his sedentary Chinese subjects. Their causes failed but they continued to be troublesome.

Kubilai needed to be accepted as sovereign of China while remaining leader of the Mongols. Therefore he continued the shamanitic practices of his ancestors while turning to Tibetan Buddhism and ordered the creation of a new alphabet based on Tibetan for writing the Mongolian language (an earlier script was based on Uighur).

While favoring non-Chinese Central Asians in top posts in his government, he also honored Confucius and continued Chinese traditions such as authorizing historical writings and cultural activities. Kubilai Khan’s administration was by Mongols and for the benefit of Mongols.

The death of his wife Chabi in 1281 and son and heir Prince Zhenjin in 1285 was a personal and dynastic loss, because Zhenjin had been given a good Chinese education and had he lived there might have been improved relations between Mongols and Chinese. Kubilai increasingly took to feasting and heavy drinking in his last years and died in 1294.

Hulagu Khan

Hulagu Khan with his wife

In 1251 Mongke Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, became the grand khan of the Mongols and convened his three brothers and close relatives in a meeting to divide the vast territories that had been conquered. To his brother Kubilai Khan, who would eventually play host to Marco Polo, he gave southern China.

Mongke gave northern Persia to his brother Hulagu, with instructions that the area from Persia to Egypt should be subjugated to Mongol rule. Although Mongke was the supreme leader of the Mongols, he parceled out regional control to others, who would rule as lesser khans or il-khans with their states being known as il-khanates or lesser khanates.

Hulagu set off with an army of at least 100,000 troops in early January 1256, heading first for the mountain fortresses of Ismaili Shi’i Muslim sect that had terrorized other Muslim rulers for over a century.


After besieging the Assassins’ fortresses of Mazanderan, Meimundiz, and Alamut, the Mongols captured the sect’s leader, Rukn ad-Din Kurshah, who was later murdered. By late December the last Assassin fortress of Alamut surrendered to Hulagu. Hulagu then turned his attention to Iraq. He sent a message to the Abbasid caliph al-Mustasim that demanded his acceptance of Mongol supremacy.

Hulagu was enraged when the caliph, the symbolic head of Sunni Islam, refused. Mongol forces headed toward Iraq, receiving support from some of the Abbasid Caliphate’s Shi’i Muslim subjects, who had been angered by disrespect shown toward their community by al-Mustasim. Cities with substantial Shi’i populations, such as Mosul, Najaf, and Karbala, surrendered without a fight and were spared by the Mongols as a result.

By November, segments of Hulagu’s army had begun arriving outside the Abbasid capital city of Baghdad and on January 17, 1258, his entire army had arrived. That same day the small Abbasid army was destroyed in battle outside of the city and the siege of Baghdad commenced. Within two weeks the Mongols had overrun sections of the city’s defenses after battering down the walls with massive siege engines.

On February 10 after Hulagu had refused to negotiate a peaceful handover of the city al-Mustasim came out of Baghdad and surrendered. Ten days later, the caliph was executed by being rolled up in a carpet and trampled to death. The Mongols were superstitious and wary of shedding the blood of a monarch.

Baghdad, which had stood for six centuries, was sacked, with many of its architectural marvels, including the caliph’s palace and the grand congregational mosque, burned to the ground. The city’s libraries, which were filled with thousands of scholarly manuscripts on subjects ranging from the sciences to literature and philosophy, were also destroyed and their holdings were either burned or tossed into the Tigris River.

The majority of Baghdad’s citizens were massacred, with most sources placing the number of deaths between 90,000 and 250,000. Hulagu spared the city’s Christians and Shi’i Muslims. He reportedly was sympathetic to the former group, possibly because both his mother and his favorite wife were Nestorians, members of an eastern Christian sect considered heretical by the Roman and Byzantine churches.

As news of the fall of Baghdad and the slaughter that followed spread throughout the Middle East, many neighboring Muslim states surrendered without resistance to Hulagu, hoping to avoid the fate of al-Mustasim. The Mongols’ next target was Syria, which was ruled by the waning Ayyubid dynasty, which had been founded in the late 12th century by the Kurdish Iraqi Sultan Saladin (Salah ad Din, Yusuf).

Although the Ayyubid sultan An-Nasir Yusuf had submitted to Mongol authority, Hulagu still entered Syria with his army. He first defeated al-Kamil Muhammad, a young Ayyubid commander, whose city was captured and who was then tortured to death.

On August 11, 1259, Mongke died while campaigning against the Southern Song (Sung) in China. A succession crisis in the Mongol east pitted Kubilai against his brother Arik Boke, the ruler of Mongolia. Although Hulagu did not claim the position of grand khan for himself, he supported Kubilai. Thereupon he set out for China with the bulk of his troops, leaving a small garrison in the Middle East. In return Kubilai confirmed Hulagu as the il-khan, ruling over Persia and the Middle East.

A greater threat to Hulagu was his cousin Berke, the Khan Kipchak, who some sources claim converted to Islam or, at the very least, was heavily sympathetic to the religion and was angered at Hulagu’s destruction of Baghdad. Fearing an invasion by Berke, Hulagu withdrew back into Persia with the bulk of his army. In Syria, he left behind between 10,000 and 20,000 troops under the command of Naiman Kitbuqa, his best general and a Nestorian Christian.

After negotiating an alliance with the remaining European crusader states along Syria’s Mediterranean coast, Kitbuqa then proceeded to besiege or capture other Syrian cities, including Aleppo, which fell on February 25, 1260.

The northern Syrian cities of Hama and Homs surrendered to Hulagu soon thereafter, as did Damascus after Sultan an-Nasir had fled toward Egypt. By early April the last vestiges of Ayyubid resistance in Syria had been crushed and the Mongols proceeded to conquer much of Ayyubid Palestine in the following months.

The inexorable wave of Mongol expansion, however, began to wane soon after Kitbuqa’s conquests in Palestine. Later in 1260 his alliance with the crusader states ended after European nobles from the city of Sidon attacked a Mongol scouting party. Kitbuqa responded by besieging and then sacking that city.

When news of this rift reached Cairo, the capital city of the Mamluk Turks, their sultan, Qutuz, sent one of his generals, Baybars, to Palestine with a large army. On September 3, the Mamluk army, which was made up of professional and highly trained troops, unlike that of their adversaries, defeated Kitbuqa’s smaller force.

The Mongol general was captured and executed. The Mamluks recaptured Palestine and Syria and repulsed a Mongol invasion force in December. Hulagu’s dreams of a Middle Eastern empire that reached Egypt were dashed, though he was able to solidify his control over Persia before his death in February 1265.

The dynastic line he founded, the Il-Khanids, would remain in power over Persia and parts of Central Asia until 1335. Within a few generations after Hulagu’s death, his successors converted to Islam and became some of history’s greatest patrons of Islamic art, architecture, and literature.