How Violent Were The Mongols, Really?
How they chose who and when to kill
We remember the Mongols as a force of pure violence, but beneath their bloodthirsty exterior lay military genius. They knew how to terrorize a region enough to prevent rebellion but still have something worth ruling over. But how much terror was enough? Were the Mongols actually far more peaceful than we imagine them to be?
Not really.
That’s it, right? The Mongols were every bit as violent as we think they were. You can’t conquer most of Asia without killing a lot of people.
Well, not quite. Although they were violent, they were controlled. Their greatest massacres always had a reason behind them, one which we see again and again.
The Mongols killed people who resisted. The greater the resistance, the greater the retribution. Cities that forced a long siege, or worse, killed a Mongol commander, would see their houses looted and citizens enslaved. Those who surrendered quickly would, for the most part, be spared.
This seems obvious, but it goes a long way towards understanding some of their most brutal campaigns. It is easy to assume that they were only out to kill, or that they did not care at all about the people they conquered. The latter is true to some degree, but even it fails to explain…
