

Subjects of the Mongol Empire were free to practice their religions as they pleased. One aspect of Mongol rule was the policy of tolerating the beliefs of others. The Mongols were also highly-efficient at gathering intelligence and carefully planning their military engagements.Įffective governance also helped the Mongol Empire expand and maintain itself. Engineers employed by Mongol forces, for example, could build siege machines on the spot using nearby trees. Mongol soldiers were particularly skilled at the art of the siege. They were also more lightly armored than the soldiers of other armies, allowing them to move faster. One reason for this was that they were not dependent on supply lines and instead were equipped for long campaigns. The Mongol military machine had the ability to move much quicker than its enemies' military forces, even in harsh weather conditions. The key to the Mongol Empire's expansion was its military, which was highly mobile and highly efficient. km at its height in the early 20th century. In fact, the Mongol Empire remained the largest empire in history until it was eclipsed by the British Empire, which controlled 35.5 million sq. This territory stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south and from Anatolia and Eastern Europe in the west to Asia's Pacific coast in the east. km of territory, making it the largest contiguous empire in human history. The Mongol Empire peaked its power under Kublai Khan, who ruled from 1260 to 1294. At the time of his passing, the Mongol Empire spanned territory from the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea in the west to the northeastern shores of China in the east, and from the forest belt of Siberia in the north to the Pamir Mountains and Tibet in the south. Four years later, Genghis Khan died while leading his army in the Mongol Empire's second war with the aforementioned state of Xi Xia. By 1223, the Mongols advanced as far west as southern Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, though the limits of their territorial expansion did not extend beyond the Caspian Sea. Thus, the Mongols advanced westward, sacking several important cities along the way. This expansion was largely Genghis Khan's response to the assassination of some of his Muslim subjects by Khwārezmians, which triggered a war between the Mongols and the sultanate of Khwarezm. The year 1218 marked the beginning of Mongol expansion into Central Asia. Eventually, the territory of the Jin Dynasty became a buffer state separating the Mongols in the north from the Chinese territory ruled by the Sung Dynasty in the south. With the capture of Beijing in 1215, the Chinese had lost all of their territories north of the Yellow River.

The Mongol emperor then turned his attention to the Jin Dynasty, which controlled northeastern China. Three years later, the ruler of Xi Xia submitted to Genghis Khan's rule. Genghis Khan's first move to expand his empire came in 1207 when the Mongols began attacking the Tangut kingdom of Xi Xia, which controlled much of northwestern China and parts of Tibet.
