Genghis Khan Military

Genghis Khan Military

Genghis Khan's armies seemed to be incomparably superior in the 12th and 13th century because of their superior strategy and mobility.

Genghis organized the Mongol soldiers into groups based around the number ten (i.e. 10 (arban), 100 (jaghun), 1000(mingghan), 10,000(tumen), and each group of soldiers had a leader whom would report higher up in his rank, up to to the rank of tumen. This command structure proved to be highly flexible and allowed the Mongol army to attack en masse, divide into somewhat smaller groups to encircle and lead enemies into an ambush, or divide into small groups of 10 to mop up a fleeing and broken army. The Mongol army also was highly flexible due to the durability of its soldiers. Each Mongol soldier would have between 2 and 4 horses, allowing them to gallop for days without stopping or tiring. The Mongol soldier also could live for days off only his horse's blood and eating dried yak meat if times were hard.

When integrating new soldiers into the army, Genghis Khan divided the soldiers under different leaders to break up the social and tribal connections, so that there was no division based on heritage of tribal alliances. In all campaigns, the soldiers took their families along with them for the battle. Promotion was based only on merit. Each unit leader was responsible for the preparedness of his soldiers at any time and would be replaced if this was found lacking.

Mongol cavalry soldiers were extremely light troops compared to contemporary standards, allowing them to practice tactics and false retreats that would be impractical for a heavier enemy (such as European knights). Mongols under Genghis Khan and his descendants were the perfection of light cavalry/horse archer warfare. One of the commonly used techniques of Mongol soldiers was the feinted retreat. In the middle of battle, a Mongol unit or whole army would retreat suddenly, giving the opposition false confidence. After that, the opposition would find itself surrounded by Mongol soldiers that would eventually shower them with arrows. Mongols didn't favor close combat but rather preferred to fight from a distance with their bows and long-practiced marksmanship from horses.

In terms of battle detail, a Mongol army leader during battle might be anywhere in the formation and would use flags and horns to order his strategies during the battle. To the Mongols, victory seemed to matter most, and they couldn't afford to lose battles nor men because they were poor in logistics and had few spare troops (at best half as many soldiers in almost all major battles than their enemies, and travelling far away from their homeland). The main weapon of the Mongol soldiers was the Hun bow and curved sword, lighter and more efficient for slashing and parrying than the European long sword. The rules of engagement were clear under Genghis Khan. For a specific example, if two or more soldiers broke away from their group without their leader's approval, they would be put to death. The Mongol style of engaging in warfare seemed to be natural to their nomadic way of life, as they were very comfortable with travelling long distances. Genghis Khan added the one necessary ingredient, which was strict discipline, to his armies which were similar to many armies of the steppes during the time.

Genghis Khan's military philosophy in general was to defeat opponents with the least risk and cost to the Mongols, relying on his loyal and meritocratically chosen generals and his soldiers.

Genghis Khan employed psychological warfare successfully in his battles, especially in terms of spreading terror and fear to other towns and cities. For example if he found that there was an opposition, Genghis Khan would offer an opportunity for the enemy to surrender and pay tribute. If the offer was refused, he would invade the cities and towns and let a few civilians flee to spread words of their loss to other cities. When words got out that Genghis Khan's force destroyed any resistance, it became much harder for other leaders to persuade their people to resist Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan's stance against opponents was for them to surrender and pay tribute or have them die. When besieging, Genghis Khan usually left the town unharmed and guaranteed them protection as a resource for future campaigns and logistics; if they resisted, however, he would attack without mercy. It is said, however, that he saved many lives because of intimidation of opponents.

Technology was one of the important facets of his warfare. For instance siege machines were an important part of Genghis Khan's warfare especially in attacking fortified cities. He used Chinese technicians that were very advanced for the time. The siege engines were disassembled and were carried on horses to be rebuilt at the site of the battle.

Before invasion of an opposing area, Genghis Khan and his generals made extensive preparations in Kurultai to decide how the upcoming war would be conducted and as well which generals would participate; meanwhile they would thoroughly accumulate intelligence about their opponents, after which the course of hostilities would be calculated through. From this campaign planning, they decided how many units would be needed. Nevertheless, Mongol generals were armed with a high degree of independent decision-making privilege, as long as they abided by Genghis Khan's general directives and got the job done. Because of the light nature of Mongol armies, Genghis Khan built a sophisticated intelligence network through the Mongol army, trade networks and vassals. It is said that in preparation of warfare, the generals would send out 200 horsemen to four geographic directions to scout for possible enemy activity. Soldiers riding 300 km in one or two days was common on such occasions.

Even though Mongol strategy seemed to vary slightly in response to their enemies, their technique might have been the same. Mongols would engage in columns, usually three separate columns, so that the two side columns could diverge from the center when they figured out where they should split up. Once they had let their presence be known and had scouted for surrounding fields and cities, they would somewhere reunite with the center column and give one final push against the main army or city. The idea and the advantage of flanking forces was to spread terror, gather intelligence on their opponents and eliminate smaller opponent armies. In other words, it was a sort of divide and conquer approach. These flanking columns had messengers that quickly relayed intelligence to the mother column. Mongol armies were willing to engage field armies before seeking battle with the main opposition. Mongols were good at siege warfare and diverting rivers and food from cities; they also sent off refugees to other unconquered cities, in order to strain enemy resources. They were continuously expanding their fighting power with conquered land, resources, knowledge, technology and manpower.

Once the main battle and siege was over, the Mongol army would follow the enemy leader until he was killed in order to prevent him from being a rallying point for his army after war. Most times the enemy leaders would try to escape realizing that they would likely lose the war, but the Mongol forces followed until they made sure they died.