Image: The Fair Death of Prester John in a Mounting
Battle Against Chinggis Khan
The following chapter ushers in a new metamorphose of Prester John's character. A powerful potentate functions as an underdog in his fight against the Mongols. The new episode is connected to the all-out war in the eastern steppes, in the course of which Chinggis Khan managed to unite 'felt-walled' nomads into an invincible army. Here goes an extract:
“A clever fighter is one who not only wins but excels in
winning with ease.” (-Sun Tzu)
The
steppe is a swath of grasslands extending east and west for thousands of
unbroken miles between Manchuria and Hungary. The poor soil unable to sustain
peasants toiling in their allotments suffers from the scorching sun in
mid-summer and freezing cold in mid-winter.
The
Mongols were a mixed blend of pastoral groups and individuals of diverse ethnic
origin. From times immemorial they had followed their flocks and herds in a
constant quest for tasty grass and sweet water, moving across the prairies at a
pace of swapping seasons. Not as organized as professional soldiers and not as
drilled as reserve units, they maintained their own merits like amazing
endurance to hardships and expertise at horseback shooting.
Intrepid
hunters, they often merged into para-military factions to plunder the people of
the sown. Nomadic assaults against settled quarters had always brought grave
damage. However, both the ability of the ground troops to repel these
incursions and the willingness of cautious leaders to buy the obedience of
mounted archers kept the vandalism at the tolerable level.
The
vagaries of the nomadic lifestyle dispersed these hunters and herders
throughout the length and breadth of the boundless steppe. It took the genius
of the leader in the making to consolidate them into the well-oiled military
machine braced for carrying out his legacy: to incorporate the fearless
warriors into the ruling elite of the largest intact land empire on earth. He
strove to switch the military strategy from episodic mounting raids in time of
need to the full-time occupation of the controlled territories.
The world
still remembers Chinggis Khan by his resounding title which means the ‘ruler of
the universe’. It might have been copied
from the Son of Heaven, the Chinese royal designation which denotes a
semi-divine sovereign possessing a cosmic mandate of absolute power.
The realm into which the
infant called Temujin was born shaped him as the unchallenged leader of the
people residing in felt-walled tents. The third son of his father, Temujin
endured a tempestuous childhood. At the age of nine, he was bereft of his
father while his immediate family-two widows with seven kids on their hands-
were abandoned by their clan. With nothing to fall back on hard times, they
lived on the edge, sustaining on fishing, hunting, and scrounging to meet the
needs of basic existence.
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