Viewpoints 12.1: Chinese and European Accounts About the Mongol Army

• The Mongols received little attention from historians until they were united under Chinggis and began their military conquests. The following documents offer different perspectives on the Mongol army. The first, one of the earliest surviving accounts, was written about 1220 by a Chinese historian, Li Xinchuan, living in south China under the Song Dynasty. He would have learned of the Mongols secondhand, as the Song had diplomatic relations with Jin, which was then under attack by the Mongols. He reported how the Tartars — referring to the Mongols — gained control of north China in 1213–1214. The second excerpt refers to the time that the state of Song in south China sustained its first major attack by the Mongols in 1236, when Mongol armies entered the western province of Sichuan and destroyed major cities like Chengdu. A man who survived the slaughter, Zhu Sisun, later reported what he went through. Marco Polo, encountering the Mongols a half century later, after most of their conquests through Eurasia were complete, had a different view of the warriors.

Li Xinchuan

“In the spring of 1213 [the Tartars] attacked Yanjing [modern Beijing] and that fall Yunji [the Jin emperor] was killed. Chinggis left Samohe in charge of Yanjing and incorporated the 46 divisions of the surrendered [Jin] armies of Yang Boyu and Liu Bolin into the great Tartar armies, which were divided into three divisions to conquer the prefectural cities of [the circuits of] River North, River East, and Mountains East. . . . At this time the troops of the various circuits of north China pulled back to defend the region west of the mountains, but there were not enough troops, so commoners were drafted as soldiers and put on the tops of the city walls to defend them. The Tartars drove their family members to attack them, and fathers and sons or brothers often got close enough to recognize and call out to each other. Because of this, [the drafted soldiers] were not firmly resolved, and all of the cities surrendered as soon as the fighting began. From the twelfth month of 1213 to the first month of 1214, more than ninety prefectures fell. Every place the armies passed through was devastated. For several thousand li, throughout River East, River North, and Mountains East, the people were slaughtered. Gold and silk, boys and girls, oxen and sheep, horses and other animals were all “rolled up” and taken away. Houses were burnt down and defensive walls smashed.”

Zhu Sisun

“Here is how the people of Sichuan went to their deaths: groups of fifty people were clustered together, and the Mongols impaled them all with swords and piled up the corpses. At sunset, those who did not appear dead were again stabbed. Sisun lay at the bottom of a pile of corpses, and by chance the evening stabbing did not reach him. The blood of the corpses above him dripped steadily into his mouth. Halfway through the night Sisun began to revive, and crawling into the woods he made his escape.”

Marco Polo

“They are brave in battle, almost to desperation, setting little value upon their lives, and exposing themselves without hesitation to all manner of danger. Their disposition is cruel. They are capable of supporting every kind of privation, and when there is a necessity for it, can live for a month on the milk of their mares, and upon such wild animals as they may chance to catch. The men are habituated to remain on horseback during two days and two nights, without dismounting, sleeping in that situation whilst their horses graze. No people on earth can surpass them in fortitude under difficulties, nor show greater patience under wants of every kind.”

Sources: Li Xinchuan, Jianyan yilai chaoye zaji (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), pp. 847–851, trans. Patricia Ebrey; Paul J. Smith, “Family, Landsmann, and Status-Group Affinity in Refugee Mobility Strategies: The Mongol Invasions and the Diaspora of Sichuanese Elites, 1230–1330,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 52.2 (1992): 671–672, slightly modified; The Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian, ed. Manuel Komroff (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926), p. 93.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS

  1. How would you explain the differences in what these writers chose to mention?
  2. If you were writing a history of the Mongols, would you consider these sources as equally valid evidence, or do you find some more reliable than others? Does anything in the accounts seem exaggerated? How can you judge?