Country Driving [40]
But it was also extremely short-lived. The Mongol rise had depended primarily on Genghis Khan’s vision, and they never again produced such a brilliant leader. Within a century, the Yuan was overthrown by the Chinese founders of the Ming, who drove the Mongols back to the north. Once they were gone, they didn’t leave much behind. Unlike other empires, the Mongols didn’t spread a dominant religion, or a form of writing, or a political system. They didn’t create technological innovations, and one of their few building specialties consisted of bridges, because they were always on the move. The sense of movement became their most lasting legacy—new trade and cultural exchanges that continued after the brief empire.
The Mongols wrote little, and we don’t know much about how they viewed themselves. Most contemporary accounts come from the people they defeated—a rare instance in which history was written primarily by the conquered. After the Mongol empire collapsed, its descendants were tracked most closely by the Ming, who had to deal with the periodic attacks of nomadic raiders. Some Chinese military officers wrote about these encounters, including a man named Yin Geng, who served in a Ministry of Defense department that dealt with border issues. The historian David Spindler has translated Yin Geng’s words, which are as vivid and detailed as if he were still standing on the Great Wall today. Like most Chinese of the mid-1500s, he refers to the northerners as simply “barbarians.” “Barbarian women have buxom figures,” Yin Geng writes. “Because they eat meat and cheese and wear skins, their flesh is tender and white. They like to fornicate, paying little attention to whether it’s day or night or whether there’s anyone watching.” Mongol males, according to Yin Geng, have similar interests. (“Young barbarian men like to abduct women, carry them away on horseback, and copulate with them.”) He describes Mongols as smelling shan—“muttonlike”—and they possess other animal qualities. (“Every barbarian family brews alcohol, and all of them like to drink; the barbarians drink like cattle, not even stopping to breathe in the process.”) Lest the reader get the impression that Mongols are only interested in sex and alcohol, Yin Geng describes other pastimes. (“Barbarians like to spear babies for sport.”)
By the time of Yin Geng, the Mongols had lost the unity of Genghis Khan’s reign, but they were still brilliant raiders. They traveled on horseback, usually in small groups, and they liked to come at night. They followed ridgelines, because they feared ambushes. They communicated through smoke signals. They developed a nomadic version of micro-credit—this system allowed a poor Mongol to borrow a horse from a wealthier person, embark on a raid, and pay the owner a percentage of spoils. Generally the Mongols did not linger in Chinese territory. They penetrated defenses, gathered booty, and returned home as quickly as possible. (The Great Wall around Beijing and other regions has crenellations and arrow holes on both sides because soldiers sometimes attacked Mongols heading back north after a successful raid.) In China, the Mongols liked to steal livestock, household goods, and even Chinese people. They carried the Chinese men and women back to the steppes, where they forced them to form families.