Expansion after Genghis Khan and the successor khanates

Detail

The two phases of expansion after 1227

Genghis Khan died in 1227. His empire did not stop growing. It grew in two big pushes.

• Phase 1 — 1236 to 1242: the western push into Europe.
• Targets were the Russian steppes, Bulghar, Kiev, Poland and Hungary.
• The leader was Batu, son of Jochi (Genghis Khan's eldest son).
• Batu destroyed Russian lands up to Moscow.
• He then seized Poland and Hungary, and his army camped just outside Vienna.
• Batu was chosen in 1235 as commander-in-chief of the western part of the empire [2].
• The plan was made by the general Subutai: three armies of about 80,000 men (under Batu, Shiban and Subutai) went into Hungary, while a fourth force of about 20,000 under princes Kadan and Baidar went into Poland first [2].
• 9 April 1241 — Battle of Legnica (in Poland). Mongol raiders beat a European army that included the Teutonic Knights, the Hospitallers and the Templars; around 30,000 European fighters died [2].
• 10 April 1241 — Battle of Mohi (in Hungary). Batu and Subutai crushed the army of King Béla IV, whose cavalry was rated the best in Europe. Pest was burnt and its people killed. The Mongols then wrecked the Hungarian countryside for ten more months [2].

• Hungary lost about half its population — up to 60 per cent in some areas, 20 per cent in others [2].

• Phase 2 — 1255 to 1300: the push south and east.

• Iran, Iraq and Syria were conquered.
• All of China was taken by 1279.

The Great Khans after Genghis Khan

• Ogodei — ruled 1227–41. Genghis Khan's chosen successor.
• Guyuk — ruled 1246–49.
• Mongke — ruled 1251–60.
• Mongke sent a warning letter to Louis IX of France. It began: "On Earth there is only one Lord, Genghis Khan…" This was the Mongol claim that the whole world was theirs by right.

Note: Britannica adds that the European advance stopped partly because Ogodei died on 11 December 1241, and Batu and his generals had to leave Europe to attend the quriltai that would elect the next Great Khan [2]. This sits alongside, and does not replace, the NCERT reasons given below.

1258 — the fall of Baghdad and the birth of Il-Khanid Iran

• In 1258 the Mongols captured Baghdad. This ended the Abbasid caliphate.
• The commander was Hulegu, the younger brother of Great Khan Mongke.
• Hulegu then set up the Il-Khanid state of Iran.
• Baghdad fell on 10 February 1258; the last Abbasid caliph, al-Musta'sim, was executed soon after, leaving Islam without a caliph for the first time in its history [3][4].
• Hulegu ruled 1256–65 and took the title "Il-Khan", meaning lesser Khan — that is, a khan under the Great Khan ruling in China. His state covered Iraq, Iran, Khurasan, the Caucasus and parts of Asia Minor, with its power base in north-west Iran [5].
• The Ilkhanid dynasty is dated 1256–1353 [5].
• From this point conflict began between the Jochids (Batu's line in the Russian steppes) and the Il-Khans (Hulegu's line in Iran). Two Mongol branches were now fighting each other.

Why the westward drive stopped after the 1260s

Three reasons, working together:

• (a) Military defeat.
• Mongol forces were beaten by Egyptian forces.

• They also pulled back from the Hungarian steppes.

• (b) Succession politics inside the family.

• First, the Jochi–Ogodei alliance held the office of Great Khan for two generations.
• Then the Toluyid branch (under Mongke) pushed both of them aside.
• Mongke poured the army into Iran in the 1250s, then into China in the 1260s.

• So only a small, understaffed force was left to face Egypt. The main strength had gone elsewhere.

• (c) Mongol fighting Mongol.

• The Jochid–Toluyid conflict ran along the Russian–Iranian frontier.
• This pulled the Golden Horde away from Europe. It had a closer enemy to watch.

The four ulus — shared patrimony, not fixed maps

• An ulus was not a fixed piece of land at first. It meant the people and the following given to a son.
• Jochi's ulus in the Russian steppes was described as stretching "as far west as his horses could roam" — a boundary that moved with the herds, not a drawn border.
• Genghis Khan wanted his sons to rule together, not separately:
• Princely contingents called tama were stationed in each ulus — so every brother had troops sitting in every brother's zone.

• The quriltai (the big assembly of Mongol chiefs) decided campaigns, plunder, pasture rights and succession — all collectively.

• By the middle of the 13th century this broke down. Fights over succession turned a shared family property into separate dynasties, and turned ulus from "my people" into "my territory".

Lineage	Dominion
Jochi (eldest son)	Russian steppes — the Golden Horde
Chaghatai	Transoxanian steppe and lands north of the Pamirs — later called 'Turkistan'
Ogodei (designated successor)	Great Khan; capital Karakorum
Toluy (youngest)	ancestral Mongolia; his descendants ruled Yuan China and Il-Khanid Iran

1260 — Qubilai and the final break-up

• In 1260, Qubilai (a Toluyid) became Grand Khan at Peking.
• The empire now split into independent lineages. It was one family in name only.
• Ogodei's line was defeated and absorbed by the Toluyids — one of the four branches simply vanished as a ruling house.
• Nomadic ways lasted longest among the Chaghatai steppe-dwellers and the Golden Horde. The branches that moved into China and Iran settled into city-based rule much faster.

Conversions to Islam — religion follows politics

• Berke (Golden Horde, 1257–67) turned the Horde away from Nestorian Christianity towards Islam.
• But the Horde's definitive conversion came only in the 1350s — nearly a century later.

• Berke allied with Egypt against the Il-Khans. Religion and rivalry moved together: the Muslim Horde backed Muslim Egypt against its Mongol cousins in Iran.

• Ghazan Khan (1295–1304) was the first Il-Khanid ruler to convert — he left Buddhism for Islam. Other chieftains followed slowly.

• Ghazan had been raised as a Buddhist by his grandfather Abagha, Hulegu's successor (r. 1265–82) [4].
• His minister Rashid al-Din (died 1318) carried out centralising reforms [4].

Note: Britannica records that despite these reforms, state (divan) revenues in Arabian Iraq had fallen to about one-tenth of their pre-Mongol level by 1335–40 [4]. NCERT does not discuss this; it is extra context on the cost of conquest.

Afterlives — the Genghis Khanid name outlives the empire

• 1368 — the Yuan dynasty ends in China.
• Timur (1370–1405) — a Barlas Turk. He claimed descent from Genghis Khan through Chaghatai's line. The name still carried authority even when the empire had gone.
• 1500 — Shaybani Khan, a descendant of Shiban (a son of Jochi), took Transoxiana. His people, the Shaybanids or Uzbegs, give Uzbekistan its name.
• 1526 — Babur, descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, seized Delhi and Agra and founded the Mughal empire. This is the direct link from the Mongol steppe to Indian history.
• 1759 — the Manchu conquest of Mongolia.
• 1921 — the Republic of Mongolia is founded.

Prelims Hooks

• The 1236–42 campaign under Batu (son of Jochi) reached up to Moscow, took Poland and Hungary, and camped outside Vienna.
• Order of Great Khans after Genghis Khan: Ogodei (1227–41) → Guyuk (1246–49) → Mongke (1251–60).
• Mongke wrote the warning letter to Louis IX of France — "On Earth there is only one Lord, Genghis Khan…".
• Baghdad fell in 1258 to Hulegu, younger brother of Mongke, ending the Abbasid caliphate; the city fell on 10 February 1258 and caliph al-Musta'sim was executed [3][4].
• "Il-Khan" means lesser khan, subordinate to the Great Khan in China; the Ilkhanid dynasty ran 1256–1353 [5].
• Battle of Legnica — 9 April 1241 (Poland); Battle of Mohi — 10 April 1241 (Hungary, against King Béla IV) [2].
• All of China was conquered by 1279; Qubilai became Grand Khan at Peking in 1260.
• Berke (1257–67) was the Golden Horde ruler who turned to Islam; the Horde's definitive conversion came only in the 1350s.
• Ghazan Khan (1295–1304) was the first Il-Khanid to convert to Islam, from Buddhism; his minister was Rashid al-Din (d. 1318) [4].
• The four ulus: Jochi (Golden Horde) · Chaghatai (Transoxiana/Turkistan) · Ogodei (Great Khan, Karakorum) · Toluy (Mongolia → Yuan China and Il-Khanid Iran).
• 1368 end of Yuan · 1500 Shaybani Khan takes Transoxiana · 1526 Babur founds the Mughal empire · 1921 Republic of Mongolia.

Mains Points

• An empire can be stopped by its own family, not only by its enemies. The Mongol drive west ended for three reasons at once: defeat by Egyptian forces, the Toluyid takeover of the Great Khan's office that sent armies to Iran (1250s) and China (1260s) instead of Egypt, and the Jochid–Toluyid war on the Russian–Iranian frontier. Useful for any GS-I question on why large land empires reach a limit.
• From ulus to territory — the key structural shift. Genghis Khan designed collective rule: tama* contingents in each brother's zone and a quriltai deciding campaigns, plunder, pasture and succession. Within one generation, succession fights converted shared patrimony into *four separate dynasties with fixed borders. This is a strong example of how nomadic political forms change when they take over settled wealth.
• Conquerors absorbed by the conquered. The Il-Khans became Muslim under Ghazan (1295–1304); the Golden Horde under Berke (1257–67) moved from Nestorian Christianity towards Islam, completing only in the 1350s; the Toluyids in China became the Yuan. Note the pattern: nomadic custom survived longest where the steppe survived — among the Chaghatai and the Golden Horde.
• The Mongol connection to Indian history is direct. 1526 — Babur, descended from Timur and Genghis Khan, founded the Mughal empire. The Genghis Khanid name stayed a source of legitimacy for three centuries after the empire itself broke up — useful for linking the Delhi Sultanate/Mughal chapters to this one.