Changes And Continuities In The Mongol Empire

One major change during the Mongol Empire was when the death of the single ruler, Chinggis Khan, brought upon the division into four khanates, three of his sons and a grandson. Dividing up the empire among sons and heirs was an original tribal accordance. His son, Ogadei, was the successor of the title “Great Khan”. Each khanate ruled and continued to conquer their own sections of the Mongol Empire. One distinct change was the ultimate defeat of the Southern Song dynasty by Chinggis’ grandson Kublai Khan in 1279, which Kublai ended up forming the Yuan Dynasty. Kublai adopted many ways of Chinese life including veneration of ancestors and the capital at Beijing. However, Kublai did decide to keep many of the Mongol culture. There would be no intermarriage between Chinese and Mongols and the exam system was abolished to alienate the scholar-gentry. Although Mongol women refused to subject to footbinding among other things, there did seem to be a decline in the independence they received.
Their homes, yurts, were easily movable and represented their dedication to their religion. Everything a Mongol did was cavalry based. The Mongols even trained babies and toddlers on goats to get them ready for their warrior life ahead. The Mongols were extremely brutal – they would use any tactic they could to win. They used two different types of cavalries, a light for the battles and a heavy for the wars. If a town did not submit, it would result in complete destruction. One very apparent change was in fact the geography of the Mongol Empire. The Mongols began as herders that lived in clans that lived in a relatively small portion of present-day Mongolia to by 1290 ruling All of Asia and Europe, sparing India and Western Europe. Anybody would agree that saying the Mongols geographically changed is a bit of an