The Scourge of God

Image: The Fair Death of Prester John in a Mounting Battle Against Chinggis Khan 

http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=46452

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.

The Squall from the East

Image: The Mongol Mounted Archer 

Courtesy: http://www.aeroartinc.com/mongol-warrior-firing-bow-from-saddle.html

After many weeks of hard labor, I'm happy to announce that I have finished writing the first chapter of Unit III.

As you already know, the chapter is titled "The Squall from the East" and it focuses on the Mongol advance of Central Europe in 1241-42 as part of the extensive western campaign. As a result, Prince Batu managed to extend his appanage and in due time cut out his own empire, the Golden Horde, from the Mongol unified state.

I paid special attention to such unsolved issues as the withdrawal of the Tartar army and the outcome of the power struggle between the descendants of Chinggis Khan.

This is the first page of the long chapter:

If Latin Europe hadn't been filled to the brim with its own woes, it wouldn’t have disregarded the latest developments in the Far East.

There, on the far side of the inhabited world, the emerging superpower, which had managed to unite diverse groups of pastoral nomads, launched a sequence of military campaigns, swallowing neighbor states one by one.

All of a sudden, the “devil’s horsemen” broke into Eastern Europe. The Russian chronicler found it difficult to identify unfamiliar assailants who had scared the Rus’ traditional rivals, the Cumans, out of their wits, coercing them into a strained alliance with their adversaries in a futile effort to halt the incomprehensible fit of the wrath of the third party. The learned cleric was not aware of the intruders’ origin, religion, or vernacular: “unknown tribe came, which no one exactly knows, who they are, nor whence they came out, nor what their language is, nor of what race they are, nor what their faith is.” (1)

However, their name would run ahead of their galloping steeds. The well-versed people dubbed them Tartars-in tune with the legendary denizens of hell.

Fifteen years later, while the same invaders were making their second incursion and the mortal threat was already hanging upon the entire population of the Rus' principalities, the same writer added two macabre features to their group portrait: their overwhelming quantities: “came in countless numbers like locusts” (2) and their ruthlessness: “cutting down everybody like grass.” (3)  

The monastic author reviewed the outcome of a thoroughly-planned Mongol campaign carried out by a well-greased military machine. The winners exercised the mass slaughter of the civilian population without distinction of age, rank, or sex. Those who stayed alive were subjected to heinous humiliation, like raping girls in the presence of their mothers.  Being unable to comprehend this outburst of rage against innocent people, the monk explains the event in terms of an ecological disaster (the invasion of insects) or as an apocalyptic incident (the retribution for sins).

The same year the bell tolled for the Latin Christendom. The head of the terrible Assassins and the Crusaders’ bitter enemy, nicknamed “the old man of the mountain”, sent ambassadors to the French and English kings, urging them to weld an alliance to suppress “the fury of the Tartars.” The Saracen envoys elaborated that the leader of these rascals claimed to have received the divine mandate to conquer any race that opposed his will. He was the self-proclaimed God’s messenger “sent to subdue the nations who rebelled against him.”

To lay it on thick, the Muslim representatives described the Mongol s as the "monstrous and inhuman race of men" that built up a reputation of “incomparable archers” but stained it by eating raw meat, sucking blood, and practicing cannibalism. They broke through the Caspian Mountains and spread like a pandemic: “sent as a plague on mankind.” (4)