Page | 20Chapter 2: History
Introduction
For most contemporary Westerners, Mongolia is
one of the lesser known countries of Eastern Asia.
Its two large neighbors, China and Russia, have
dominated Mongolia’s history for the last several
centuries. The situation, however, was
dramatically different 800 years or so ago when
the Mongolian steppes hosted the center of the
largest empire the world had ever seen. This was
the time of Genghis Khan, whose name is found
with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and
Napoleon on the list of the world’s greatest conquerors. His army of nomad warriors
swept the grassy plains of Mongolia and did not stop until they were at the doorstep of
some of the great cities of Europe.93,^94
Pre-Mongol History
Much of what we know about the nomadic
tribespeople who inhabited the Mongolian steppes
prior to the 13th century comes from Chinese
sources. During the late third century B.C.E., the
Xiong-nu tribal confederation emerged. Their
mounted warriors waged nearly constant wars
with the Chinese Han Dynasty for more than 150
years.^95 As with succeeding tribal confederations
in Mongolia, the pastoral nomadic life of the
steppes made it difficult for the Xiong-nu leaders
to control their scattered clans and tribes.^96 In the mid-first century C.E., civil war broke
out among factions in the Xiong-nu confederation that resulted in a split between
southern and northern Xiong-nu groups.^97
(^93) Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State, “Background Note on Mongolia,” 8
March 2011,
Eastern nomadic tribes and the Chinese
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2779.htm#history
(^94) Robert L. Worden and Andrea Matles Savada, eds., Mongolia: A Country Study, 2nd ed., Federal
Research Division, Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991),
http://www.marines.mil/news/publications/Documents/Mongolia%20Study_1.pdf
(^95) Valerie Hansen and Kenneth R. Curtis, “Chapter 4: Blueprint for Empire: China, 1200 B.C.E.–220 C.E.,”
in Voyages in World History, vol. 1 (Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010), 109.
(^96) Larry Moses and Stephen A. Halkovic, Jr., “Chapter 2: Mongolia Before the Mongols,” in Introduction
to Mongolian History and Culture (Bloomington, IN: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, Indiana
University, 1985), 19.
(^97) Rafe de Crespigny, “The Division and Destruction of the Xiongnu Confederacy in the First and Second
Centuries, AD,” Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University, 2004,
http://www.anu.edu.au/asianstudies/decrespigny/han_xiongnu.html