A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

110 A history of Inner Asia
members of the Ögedeyid family.In the succession struggle, the
Toluyids joined forces with the Juchids (or more accurately Batuids, since
this line’s effective founder was Juchi’s second son Batu), and by 1251
managed to have Toluy’s son Möngke acclaimed as qaghan.As in the
case of Juchi, Chaghatay, and Ögedey, the empire was saved by a coincidence
of luck and unity between the most effective partners, the
cousins Batu and Möngke.One of the results was the third and final
wave of grandiose conquests.
The final phase of Mongol expansion thus occurred under the third
generation Genghisids – Genghis Khan’s grandsons and Toluy’s sons
Möngke, Qubilay, and Hülegü.Sung China and Korea on the one hand,
and southern Iran and Iraq on the other, were the countries brought
under Mongol rule by these three brothers.In both cases the conquest
had been started by Genghis Khan himself, but only the northern
regions of these areas were overrun; the greater part had to wait until
the Mongols could launch the campaigns whose success must again be
sought in their characteristically methodical and grandiose preparation
– this time by Möngke, the Great Khan (1251–59).
The conquest of Iran and Iraq was delegated to Hülegü, and its two
highlights were the destruction of the Assassins ensconced in central
Iran (1256), and of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad (1258).It was followed
by the conquest of Syria and might have included that of Egypt,
but in 1259 fate intervened once more and in a manner reminiscent of
1241: the Great Khan Möngke died, and Hülegü, wary of the imminent
succession contest in the Mongol empire, refrained with the greater part
of his troops from participating in the march through Syria toward
Egypt.Thus it happened that a smaller contingent under General Ket-
Buqa was defeated in 1260 by the Mamluk General Baybars at the
Syrian site of Ayn Jalut (“Goliath’s Spring”), and the civil war that broke
out between Hülegü’s brothers Qubilay and Arigh Böke prevented the
Mongols from doing what they routinely did after any setback – trying
harder and succeeding the next time.The outside world, especially the
Islamic one, of course knew little of this background, and the Mamluk
victory had an immense psychological effect, for it broke the myth of
Mongol invincibility.The conquest of Iran and Iraq, however, had been
accomplished, and Hülegü, the head of the new Mongol domain,
assumed the title of ilkhan – a khan subordinate (il) to the qaghan at the
empire’s center.
The conquest of China was launched in 1258, and was not completed
until 1279 – a testimony to the vastness and difficulty of the terrain (even