Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
counter with a captured Parisian goldsmith whom the Mongols commissioned to
build a silver tree fountain in Karakorum.
After the Mongol decline, commercial development, including mining, was for-
bidden until the end of the 19th century when mining engineer (and future US pres-
ident) Herbert Hoover arrived on horseback to meet the Bogd Khan and open
Mongolia to the world. Despite an American trading-post compound at American
Denj, the European firm Mongol Ore secured the main mining concessions. Follow-
ing heavy investment in German equipment transported via railroad and ox cart,
the company failed to persuade Mongolians to work as miners and had to rely on
thousands of coolies from China. In WWI and the ensuing financial chaos, Mongol
Ore disappeared into the Mongolian dust like the Lost Legion of Saxon Miners.
The Decline
After Chinggis Khaan's death, his second son Ögedei ruled from 1229 to 1241, followed
by Ögedei's widow Töregene Khatun and the brief 18-month reign of Ögedei's son Guy-
uk from 1246 through 1248. Tensions began to develop among the branches of his des-
cendants, and broke into open civil war in 1259 when Arik Boke and Kublai each
claimed the office of great khan after the death of their brother Möngke. Arik Boke con-
trolled all of Mongolia, including the capital Karakorum, and enjoyed widespread sup-
port from the ruling Borijin clan. Yet Kublai controlled the vast riches of northern China,
and these proved far more powerful. Kublai defeated his brother, who then perished un-
der suspicious circumstances in captivity.
Kublai had won the civil war and solidified his hold over China, but it had cost him his
empire. Although still claiming to be a single empire, the nation of Chinggis Khaan had
been reduced to a set of oft-warring sub-empires. The Mongols of Russia became in ef-
fect independent, known later as the Golden Horde, under the lineage of Chinggis
Khaan's eldest son Jochi. Persia and Mesopotamia drifted off to become the Ilkhanate,
under descendants of Kublai's only surviving brother Hulegu, the conqueror of Baghdad.
Kublai went on to create a Chinese dynasty named Yuan, took Chinese titles and,
while still claiming to be the great khan of the Mongols, looked southward to the lands of
the Sung dynasty, which he soon conquered.
Much of Central Asia, including Mongolia, pursued an independent course and ac-
knowledged the Yuan dynasty only when forced to by military invasion or when enticed
with extravagant bribes of silk, silver and other luxuries. By 1368, the subjects had
mostly overthrown their Mongol overlords, and the empire withdrew back to the Mongo-
lian steppe where it began. Although most Mongols melted into the societies that they
