Mongol Manpower and Persian Population

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Mongol Manpower and Persian Population Author(s): John Masson Smith, Jr. Source: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Oct., 1975), pp.

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Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. XVIII, Part III

MONGOL MANPOWER AND PERSIAN POPULATION

BY

JOHN MASSON SMITH, Jr. (University of California, Berkeley)

During the space of twenty eight years, as I have mentioned, the Scyths con- tinued lords of the whole of Upper Asia. They entered Asia in pursuit of the Cimmerians, and overthrew the empire of the Medes, who till they came possessed the sovereignty. On their return to their homes after the long absence of twenty-eight years, a task awaited them little less troublesome than their struggle with the Medes. They found an army of no small size prepared to oppose their entrance. For the Scythian women, when they saw that time went on, and their husbands did not come back, had intermarried with their slaves.

Herodotus, Persian Wars, IV: i

What army in the whole world can equal the Mongol army? In time of action, when attacking and assaulting, they are like trained wild beasts out after game, and in the days of peace and security they are like sheep, yielding milk, and wool, and many other useful things. In misfortune and adversity they are free from dissention and opposition. It is an army after the fashion of a peasantry, being liable to all manner of contributions .... It is also a peasantry in the guise of an army, all of them, great and small, noble and base, in time of battle becoming swordsmen, archers and lancers and advancing in whatever manner the occasion requires.

Juwaini (Boyle trans.), I, p. 30 I

Modern scholars consider the Mongol conquests as triumphs of quality rather than quantity. They attribute the Mongols' extraordinary military achievements, the winning of an unequalled empire almost without the loss of a battle, much less a war, to their remarkable strategic and tactical skills, and to their good organization, great discipline and matchless leadership. These interpretations are correct, as far as they go; the Mongols had these qualities, but some further qualification is needed. Most of the methods employed by the Mongols in war were not new. The mounted archer, able to loose the "Parthian shot" (and a variety of others), had been riding all across the Inner


272 J. M. SMITH

Asian steppe and in parts of the Middle East for almost two millenia (since before the Parthians, in fact) and the styles of fighting and campaigning appropriate to him had long been worked out. The essential methods of evasion and encirclement had been used strategically by the Scythians against Darius, and tactically by the Parthians at Carrhae and the Turks at Manzikert, to cite only a few examples. And nomads before the Mongols had enjoyed the advantage over sedentary peoples of cheaper horses and socially common cavalrymen. Mongol warfare was distinguished not so much by its skill and aptitudes as by its scale and persistence.

The size of the Mongol armies has not been appreciated. The sources of Mongol history know the quality of Mongol troops, but they remark as well the great size of their forces. Marco Polo claimed that the Mongol army numbered between six hundred and six hundred and fifty thousand men in Russia and the Middle East together 1) and Rashiduddin 2) and Haython 3) reported six hundred thousands in Russia alone. Modern scholars have disregarded these figures. Some make perfunctory efforts, without reaching agreement or attempting precision, to estimate the numbers of Mongol and non-Mongol troops in the imperial army, but most agree implicitly with Barthold that the sources give "fantastic figures" that "deserve no credence what- soever" 4). They are too skeptical. The sources give us manpower data that the Mongols themselves compiled and relied upon in conducting their masterful warfare, and these data show that the Mongol armies were very large indeed. The Mongol conquests were the product of the irresistible combination of skill and numbers.

The story of the Mongol conquests may seem, and is often made, one of Davids facing Goliaths, a handful of nomads taking on China

I) Marco Polo, The Travels (Penguin, 1958), PP. 310-311. 2) Rashiduddin, The Successors of Genghis Khan, J. A. Boyle trans. (N.Y. and

London, I97I), p. I28. 3) Haython, Flos Historiarum Terre Orientis, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades,

Documents Arminiens, II (Paris, I906), p. 215. 4) W. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (London: 2nd revised

edition, 1958), p. 404.


MONGOL MANPOWER 273

and Russia, "a hundred thousand conquering a hundred million" 5). There is some truth in this. The population of China may have been one hundred millions in the twelfth century 6), and the Mongols even today are only some three millions 7). But the Mongols had reinforce- ments who tend to be overlooked, and, as we shall see later, resources that have not been correctly assessed. The Mongol empire expanded rapidly, and by the I240's included the whole Inner Asian steppe and all of its nomads and mounted archers. The "Mongols", owing to the elasticity, comprehensiveness, and linguistic and ethnic unconcern of tribalism, were not only Mongolians, but Turks and Tunguses and Tibetans. To some extent they were even Georgians, Russians and Chinese, to name only a few of the non-nomad peoples who partici- pated in the Mongol conquests, although the differentiation between nomad and non-nomad meant more to the Mongols. The Mongol forces were thus larger and more heterogeneous than first impressions and many studies might suggest 8).

The figures usually cited for the size of the Mongol forces derive from the Secret History of the Mongols, or from sources, such as Rashiduddin, indirectly dependent on it. The Secret History gives several enumerations of units from which, owing to their decimal organization, troops totals can be derived. In i 20o6, following Chingis' unification of the Mongols, 95 or 96 Thousands are listed, plus a timen (Ten Thousand) of guards, for an implied total of Io1 to Io6,ooo men 9). To these are added, following Jdchi's conquest of various

5) N. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia (N.Y., 1963), p. 75. 6) C. P. Fitzgerald, China: A Short Cultural History (N.Y.: 3rd edition, 1961),

P- 387. 7) D. Sinor, Inner Asia: A Syllabus (The Hague, 1969), pp. 37, 49. 8) Some historians have understood this, but they have not reached agreement

or precision in their estimates of this larger force. Barthold (loc. cit.) estimates 150-200,000 men. H. D. Martin (in The Rise of Chingis Khan [Baltimore, 1950], p. 13) gives one million. B. Spuler (in Iran Mogollar:, C. K6priilti trans. [Ankara, 1957], p. 439) has 1.4 millions. Most historians concentrate on Rashiduddin's figure of I29,000 men.

9) Section zoz. For the text of the Secret History of the Mongols, see P. Pelliot, Histoire secrete des Mongols (Paris, 1949). For a translation, see E, Haenisch, Die Geheime Geschichte der Mongolen (Leipzig, 1948).


274 J. M. SMITH

"forest peoples" in 1207, two tiimens of Oyirad and Kirghiz, and other forces from other tribes 10). Subsequently, but before the beginning of the North China campaigns in i z i i, judging by the placement of the report in the Secret History, there is an apportionment of peoples and troops among the leading members of Chingis' family. Some 16 of the commanders of Thousands named in the zo6 list, presumably along with their troops, are assigned to members of the Family, along with 28,500 other tents (probably with the implication of one soldier per tent), for a total of 44,500 men 11). This would have left about 80 of the regular Thousands enumerated in the 1206 list, and the Guards Tiimen. The Regular, Guard and Family forces together thus would have totalled 134,500 men. Rashiduddin, using similar information, says that Chingis commanded 129,000 men at the time of his death in I22712).

But these figures apply only to Outer Mongolia, as we shall see, and to the period before the beginning of imperial expansion. These are the "original" Mongols 13), perhaps, but the Mongol enterprise soon involved many other peoples who are not counted in the Secret History. Enumerations of these exist; figures from Polo, Rashiduddin and Haython have been cited above, and Jiizjdni estimates a total force of from six to seven hundred thousand men 14). But because of their inconsistencies and especially because of the very large numbers involved, they are not much used. Can they be reconciled and credited?

One way of appraising the greater Mongol army is provided by data from the Middle East. Hiilegii was assigned "two persons out of every ten in the Eastern and Western armies" with whom to conquer the

io) Section 239. i i) The apportionment is in Section 242. The relation of the North China cam-

paign of 211 begins with Section 247. i2) Martin, op. cit., pp. 13-14 and p. 14, n. 6, citing Rashiduddin via M.D'Ohsson,

Histoire des Mongols, II (Amsterdam, 1835), pp. 3-5. 13) These "Mongols" already include some Turks, as for instance the Kirghiz. 14) Cited by Barthold, loc. cit., from Jaizjini, Tabaqit-i Nisiri, partial edition by

W. N. Lees, et al. (Calcutta, 1864), pp. 273, 968,


MONGOL MANPOWER 275

Middle East 15). If we can establish the size of Hiilegii's army, we can then also calculate the numbers of the whole Mongol force, and of its regional subdivisions as well, since Mdngke Qaan, who gave not only Hiilegii but also Qubilai a fifth of the Mongol troops 16), was effecting a reorganization of the Mongol territories and a redistribution of Mongol forces. He was revising the old, four-way division of the empire that had followed Chingis' death, adjusting for the elimination of most of the descendants of Ogedei by reassignment of their assets; and equalizing (by reducing) the assets (and power) of the houses of J6chi and Chaghatai that had been disproportionately enlarged by the western conquests after 1227; and creating new portions for his brothers, Qubilai and Hiilegii. Mdngke, Qubilai, Hiilegii, the heirs of Chaghatai, and the descendants of Jdchi were each to hold an equally valuable part of the Mongol empire and an equal share of the Mongol nomad forces.

The description of Hiilegti's forces in Juwaini 17) shows that the "Eastern and Western armies" providing these portions for Hiilegii and Qubilai were the nomad, largely Mongolian and Turkish forces that constituted the main armies of the empire, and that the non- nomad auxiliary forces of Iranians, Georgians, Russians, Chinese (and so on) were not also being reapportioned. Sedentary manpower, when present in Hiilegii's army, was separately identified, and there were only one thousand households of Chinese artillerists -far from a fifth share of the non-nomad manpower available to the Mongols by the I25 o's.

Several sources give figures for the size of the Mongol force in the Middle East, and the figures are, again, large, round and perhaps questionable, although they are consistent. Marco Polo claimed that Hiilegii had three hundred thousand troops with which to withstand the attack of the Golden Horde in I26i 18). Rashiduddin has Ketbuqa,

15) Juwaini, The History of the World-Conqueror, J. A. Boyle trans. (Cambridge [Mass.], 1958), II, p. 607; Ta'rikh-i Jahdn-Gushi, Mirzi Muhammad Qazwini ed. (3 vols.: Leyden and London, 1912 6, 1937), III, p. 90.

i6) Ibid. 17) Ibid., trans., II, pp. 607-608; text, III, pp. 91-93. i8) Polo, op. cit., p. 3Io.


276 J. M. SMITH

after his defeat in I26o, taunt his Mamluk captors, saying (in effect), 'you've got me, but there are three hundred thousand more like me' 19). Haython, later, also counted three hundred thousand men in the army of Oljeitii 20).

The number of Mongol troops is also reflected in their "order of battle". Occasionally, as in the Georgian Cbronicle's account of Ghiz~n's Syrian campaign of I299-1300, the number of tiimens will be given in the sources--thirteen in this case 21). More commonly, the number of units is omitted, but the principal commanders are listed. I believe that these named commanders, except as otherwise specified in the sources, were commanders of tiimens. Rashiduddin lists thirteen commanders for the 1299-1300 campaign: Ghazan, Chiiban, Sultan, Tagharilja, Ilbasmish, Chichek, Qurumshi and Qurbagha in the Center; and Mulay, Satilmish, Qutlughshah, Yemin and Murtad in the Right Wing 22). In describing the Right Wing, Rashiduddin even specifies that each commander led a ti'men, and we would not expect the commanders of the Center to be of lesser rank. The correspondence of the information from the two sources is exact.

To assess Hiilegii's forces in similar manner, let us look at his order of battle for the campaign of I257-58 against 'Irdq-i 'Arab, Baghdad and the Caliph, as given by Rashiduddin. The extensive strategy of the campaign itself suggests a very large force. The Center, marching direct on Baghdad from Hamadin via Kermanshah and Hulwun, included Hiilegii, Kuka Ilka, Arqatu and Arghun Aqa, as well as Suntai, who came in from some detached operation en route. In the Left Wing, advancing from Luristan via Khiizistdn, were Ketbuqa, Qadsun and Nerk Ilka. In the Right Wing, proceeding from Azerbdyjdn via Irbil, were the J6chid princes, Bulgha, Tutar and Quli, and the generals Buqa Timur and Sunchaq. Chormaghun and Baiju led a

19) Rashiddudin, Histoire des Mongols de la Perse, E. Quatrem"re ed. and trans. (Paris, I836), p. 352.

zo) Haython, loc. cit. 21) M. F. Brosset, Histoire de la Giorgie, I (St. Petersburg, 1849), pp. 63o-632. 22) Rashiddudin, History of GhdZLdn Khan, K. Jahn ed., I (London, 1940), p. 127.


MONGOL MANPOWER 277

separate corps into Mesopotamia from Rim 23). Thus fifteen commanders are named, and since Chormaghun had formerly led three or four tlimens, his force may have included more than two. Thus Hiilegii would seem to have commanded from fifteen to seventeen tiimens.

Other sources bear this out. The Georgian Chronicle has four tfmens in the force under Chormaghun that originally occupied Azerbdyjin, ca. 1230, and that was later made subordinate to Hiilegii (and moved by him to Rilm, since he wanted Azerbdyjin for himself), and has six tfimens in Hiilegii's personal forces, stationed in Azerbdyjan 24). It goes on to mention the seconding to Hiilegii's command of other troops from the realms, and led by princes, of the Jachids and Chaghataids; it lists, however, only three of these princes 25). The number of seconded princes-and with them, probably, tiimens-appears larger in other sources. Juwaini gives six 26), and Bar Hebraeus, seven 27). If we take the figures of the Georgian Chronicle for nearby Aaerbdyjdn, and those of Juwaini and Bar Hebraeus for the princely forces (which may have been stationed in regions remote from Georgia and its chronicler) we have again, from different sources, the convergent reckoning of sixteen to seventeen tllmens in Hiilegii's command.

How is this figure to be reconciled with the other total of three hundred thousand men commonly given for Hiilegii's forces? This larger number can also be reached by counting not only the "Mongol" or Inner Asian nomad troops, but the "Tdjik" or local Iranian, Georgian, Armenian, and perhaps Middle Eastern Turkish forces under Hiilegii's command as well. These troops do not appear as clearly in the sources. The Mongols were probably disdainful of their capacities, and Muslims like Rashiduddin probably found them a

23) Rashiduddin, Jamic al-tawarikh, B. Karimi ed., II (Tehran, 1957), p. 707. 24) Brosset, op. cit., pp. 5II, 539. 25) Ibid., p. 541. 26) Juwaini, op. cit., trans., II, pp. 607-60o8; text, III, pp. 91-92. Grigor of Akanc',

History of the Nation of the Archers, R. P. Blake and R. N. Frye ed. and trans. (Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, i2 [i949], PP. 269-399), p. 327, also has six princes, although Grigor is not an altogether reliable source: he has, for instance, the tiimen as a unit of thirty thousand men.

27) Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, E. Budge trans. (London, I932), I, p. 419.


278 J. M. SMITH

distasteful subject, since many-perhaps most-of them were Christians. But they were there, if only noticed summarily, as by Rashiduddin when describing Hiilegii's Baghdad campaign, under the command of "the sul.tdns, mdliks and kdtibs of Iran" 28); these included, among others, the Georgian king and the "great men" of Georgia 29).

These troops were also counted by the Mongols and organized in decimal units. The Georgian Chronicle tells us that Hiilegii sent Arghun Aqa to conduct a census in Georgia, and that he established nine Georgian tfimens 30). Elsewhere in Iran, Mongol administrators had been at work on similar censuses from the time of the conquest of Khurdsdn after the Khwdirezmian campaigns, and the occupation of Azerbayjan by Chormaghun. Their results are given in passing by Juwaini, who speaks of tiimens of Nishipuir-Tiis (Khurdsin), of Qumm, Kdshin and Isfahin ('Irdq-i 'Ajem), and of Tabriz-Azerbiyjdn-of five tiimens in all 31). These tfimens are not likely to have been units of Mongols, since they are located by cities, which would not have been a convenient way of specifying the mobile Mongol camps, and which would not have applied in particular to Qumm, Kdshin and Isfahdn, which were not in regions occupied by Mongols. Juwaini has in mind, surely, troops raised by local, non-Mongol commanders, vassal rulers and administrators ("sul.tdns, mdliks and kdtibs") in these cities from among the local, non-Mongol (although perhaps nomadic) population. The Georgians, of course, were neither Mongols nor nomads. Taken together, these Georgians and others give us fourteen tfimens, or perhaps only thirteen, since the Georgian chronicler and Juwaini may both have been including the Azerbdyjin tiimen in their counts. Counted together with the fifteen to seventeen Mongol tiimens they help to make up a force approximating the customary large total of three hundred thousand men.

28) Rashiduddin / Quatremere, p. 264. 29) Brosset, op. cit., pp. 548-549. 30) Ibid., p. 55T1. 31) Juwaini, op. cit., trans., II, pp. SI I, ~ i8; text, II, 248, 255.


MONGOL MANPOWER 279

II From the preceding discussion can be seen, I believe, the numbers

and kind of units the Mongol armies of Outer Mongolia, and later, of the Middle East, contained. But it is not clear how reliably a count of army units indicates actual manpower. The Mongol units were decimally organized, and named as Tens, Hundred, Thousands and Ten Thousands, but were these numbers realistic, or only conventions?

Ordinarily and rightly, estimates of numbers of troops, or indeed large quantitative statements of all sorts in pre-modern sources are treated with suspicion. The artistic tendency to exaggerate numbers of warriors so as to enhance the importance of the story, or of the protagonists, is well-known, and is not absent from Mongol story- telling. The Secret History has the Ong Khan and Jamuqa lead forty thousand men against the Merkits in retaliation for their raid on Temtijin's camp and rape of Temiijin's wife, Bdrte 32). Implicitly, the Merkits have forces of comparable size, so that the episode as reported involves almost as many men as Chingis was later to mobilize from the whole of Outer Mongolia-an implausible suggestion, but one that follows the same artistic impulses as the Homeric story of the Trojan War.

There are other reasons for distortion of estimates even by careful reporters. The pay and provisioning of armies is very generally subject to peculation, and one of the commonest devices for the diversion of funds is the padding of muster-rolls, which inflates the number of troops reported, enlarges the payroll, and enables the commander to pocket the surplus pay. As one of the Mongols' administrators put it:

When they draw their pay and allowances the soldiers' numbers increase by hundreds and thousands, but on the day of combat their ranks are everywhere vague and uncertain, and none presents himself on the battlefield. A shepherd was once called to render an account of his office. Said the accountant: 'How many sheep remain?' 'Where?' asked the shepherd. 'In the register'. 'That', replied the shepherd, 'is why I asked: there are none in the flock.' This is a parable to be applied to their armies; wherein each commander, in order to

32) Sections 106-107.


z80 J. M. SMITH

increase the appropriation for his men's pay, declares, 'I have so and so many men', and at the time of inspection they impersonate one another in order to make up their full strength 33).

But Juwaini was not describing Mongol armies. He was citing these common corrupt and ineffectual practices to contrast them with Mongol honesty and efficiency.

There are reasons why we may trust the estimates of the size of Mongol forces more than we do others, and ways in which the dis- crepancies in these estimates may be explained. The Mongols were notably effective campaigners, and the extent of their conquests and the regularity of their victories argue for their efficiency in military management as well. Moreover, their style of campaigning demanded efficiency. The Mongol field armies were cavalry forces, and cavalry with unusually large numbers of horses attached, since the condition of the pastured animals could only be kept up to the high standards required by Mongol strategy and tactics by alternating the burden of each warrior and his gear among a number of horses during the campaign. Each Mongol trooper thus took a string of horses to war; for Ghizdn's Syrian campaign of I299-13oo00, each soldier was to report with five mounts 34). These horses were normally supported by grazing 35), so the Mongols had to be careful and precise about the numbers of men in their armies and on their campaigns because of this high ratio of horses to men, which made it difficult to find enough pasture for a powerful army. Also, on some campaigns the Mongol troops brough along not only their horses, but their families and subsistence animals as well. The Mongol military units were considered to include both soldiers and their supporting establishment: timens, according to the Georgian Chronicle, are "myriads, with their women, baggage and animals" 36). Overestimating the size of a force would

33) Juwaini, op. cit., trans., I, p. 32; text, I, pp. 23-24. 34) D'Ohsson, op. cit., IV, p. zz8; and J. von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte der

Ilchane, II (Darmstadt, 1843), pp. 85-86. The inadequate citations in these works make the source of this information uncertain; it is probably Wassif.

35) Polo, op. cit., p. 69. 36) Brosset, op. cit., p. 539.


MONGOL MANPOWER 28

cause it better to fit the pasture available, but might provide too few troops for the task at hand; underestimating could put too many horses and sheep on too little pasture. The fact that the Mongols so seldom got themselves into military or logistical difficulties--not even when campaigning in Russia in winter-suggests that they were usually well informed about the logistic potential of target regions, and able effectively to relate this information to the consumptive needs of their forces. To manage this they must have had a good idea of the size of these forces.

Furthermore, the Mongol practice of re-equipping their troops by occasional (later, annual) qupchur levies upon the animals and goods of the adequately-stocked soldiers for the benefit of those who had suffered losses during campaigns or from other hazards, assured that a close scrutiny of the numbers and equipment of the forces would be maintained 37). Some commanders might hope to gain extra benefits from qupchur by over-counting their men, and some soldiers might over-represent their losses, but other commanders and other soldiers -the ones who would have to pay-would do their best to ascertain that this payment was justified.

Finally, the Mongols had less cause than most to be troubled with padding of muster-rolls to enable embezzlement of pay. The Mongol soldiers were not paid 38). All in all, the Mongols had important reasons for trying to obtain accurate information about the size of their forces, and fewer causes than most for attempting to miscount them.

The Mongol enumerations have not only to be supported against general skepticism, but helped out of particular difficulties. Many scholars accept Rashiduddin's figure of i29,ooo men for the Mongol army of I227, but then have difficulty relating this force to a credible Mongol population. They have taken as the Mongols' general conscription method their well-attested practice of levying as tax "one-

37) Rashiduddin/Jahn, p. 300. For a discussion of qupchur, see my "Mongol and Nomadic Taxation", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (1970).

38) Juwaini, op. cit., trans., I, pp. 29-31; text, I, pp. 21-22. 18


282z J. M. SMITH

tenth of everything", and have reconstructed from this a Mongol population of about one million as the base for the force of 129,000 39).

There are several problems with this method. To begin with, when the Mongols applied the tithe as a conscription rate, they applied it not to the general population, but to that segment of it that was properly liable to conscription--the adult males 40). Had such a method been applied in Mongolia, the male population by itself would have had to be over one million to provide 129,000 men, and the total population would have had to be between five and six millions. Such a figure is out of the question: the modern Mongols only amount to some three millions at most 41).

Secondly, although a Mongolian population of one million in the early thirteenth century is easily conceivable, a population of one million is Outer Mongolia alone is not. And it was Outer Mongolia that produced 129,000 men, or even somewhat more. The lists of forces in the Secret History display a Mongol strength of some 134,500 men prior to 1211 and the beginning of the North China campaigns. Most of these troops came from Outer Mongolia, as is seen from the fact that the list of Thousands of 1206 includes only five thousand men of the Inner Mongolian Onggiits, and no Tangquts at all 42). No additions to these were made in the 1207 list, although a dynastic marriage with the Onggiits is mentioned 43). Clearly the population and manpower of Inner Mongolia, which probably equalled or sur- passed that of Outer Mongolia, then as now, was not accessible to Chingis Khan at the time of his mobilization of 134,500 men.

This places a large burden on Outer Mongolia. In recent times the population of Outer (the Peoples Republic of) Mongolia-minus, to be sure, the Buryats, Tannu Tuva and some other regions from which Chingis derived his early recruits-has only just passed one million,

39) G. Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia (New Haven and London, 1953), pp. 126-I27, 2I5-z26. Martin, op. cit., p. 14.

40) Brosset, op. cit., p. 55 . 41) Sinor, loc. cit. 42) Section o202. 43) Section 239-


MONGOL MANPOWER 283

and almost a quarter of these live in Ulan Bator. This population is probably double what it was in 1921 4"), and is surely rather larger also than that of the disturbed period leading up to 1207. How, then, did Chingis raise 134,500 men from perhaps half a million people?

The difficulty appears again in even more exaggerated form when such calculations are applied to the data from Mongol Georgia reported in the Georgian Chronicle. Hiilegfi's census enumerated nine timens, and the conscription applied in Georgia took one man in ten 45). Nine tiimens-90o,ooo men-levied at a rate of one in ten would require an adult male population of 900,000, and a total population of perhaps (multiplying by five) 4,500,000 persons. But, as the translator of the Georgian Chronicle noted, in the early nineteenth century the Georgian population was probably only around 225,000 46). In 1897 it was only some 1.3 millions 47). Just after the Mongol conquest it would scarcely have been so large. Obviously, something is wrong, either with the force figures (which I would like not to believe), or with the under- standing of the conscription technique through which the troops are related to the general population.

The troops counted in the sources can be fitted to plausible populations, however, on the assumption that the Mongols conscripted all adult males into the army48). Working with this assumption, 134,500 troops, taken as one-fifth of the people of Outer Mongolia, would imply a total population of some 650,000, only slightly more than the estimated population of 1921, and thus a believable figure. The results for Georgia would also be credible. The nine tiimens of adult males (of whom one-tenth were taken for service) would require a total population of about 450,000.

This interpretation of the Mongols' census and conscription prac-

44) C. R. Bawden, The Modern History of Mongolia (N.Y. and Washington, 1968), pp. 404-405, 408.

45) Brosset, loc. cit. 46) Ibid., n. 2. 47) R. Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union (Cambridge [Mass.], 1954), p. 289. 48) For the Mongols, "adult males" were from 15 to 60 years of age: see Grigor of

Akanc', op. cit., p. 325.


284 J. M. SMITH

tices makes sense in other ways as well. Adult male labor is not heavily involved in the subsistence routines of nomadism, as we can see from the accounts of both medieval and modern observers. Vreeland's analysis of the division of labor in an early twentieth century Mongol community has the women generally assigned to milking, collecting fuel, building fires, preparing and cooking food, and caring for the small children and for the sheep at night. The men carry on trading and caravan operations, cope with shearing, slaughtering, butchering and tanning, engage in carpentry, ropemaking, metal-working and agriculture. Both sexes are involved in herding sheep; only men normally tend horses and camels. Vreeland notes that women often assist in loading animals and in coping with the ger, that children begin acting as shepherds from age six or seven, and that boys begin shearing sheep as soon as they are strong enough to do so 49).

Things have not changed much in Mongol camps in the past seven centuries. As William of Rubruck described it:

It is the duty of the women to drive the carts, to load the houses on to them and to unload them, to milk the cows, to make the butter and grut [dried curd], to dress the skins and to sew them .... They also sew shoes and socks and other garments.... The women also make the felt and cover the houses. The men make bows and arrows, manufacture stirrups and bits and make saddles; they build the houses and carts, they look after the horses and milk the mares, churn the [kumis] that is the mares' milk, and make the skins in which it is kept, and they also look after the camels and load them. Both sexes look after the sheep and goats, and sometimes the men, sometimes the women, milk them50).

And things do not differ much among the various pastoral peoples. Among Barth's Persian Basseri, for instance, the women and girls usually perform most of the domestic chores, though men repair equipment and tents and make rope; all cooperate in making and breaking camp; and herding is usually (though not invariably) done by males, especially by unmarried men and boys down to age six, while milking is done by both sexes, but mostly by women. Barth

49) H. H. Vreeland, Mongol Community and Kinship Structure (New Haven: 3rd edition, 1962), pp. 48-5 1.

5 o) William of Rubruck, Journey, in C. Dawson, The Mongol Mission (London and N.Y., I95 5), P. 103.


MONGOL MANPOWER 285

remarks that the division of labor between the sexes is "highly elastic" and mostly determined by pragmatic consideration 51).

Thus women are usually responsible for the regular subsistence labor of nomadism, while men generally attend to the more specialized and more occasional tasks, and even in these are often helped or replaced by women. The regular chore of herding normally involves male labor as well as female, but often in special forms and ways: using male children as much as adults, and with the men concentrating on the care of the great military and logistic animals. Considering this, and remembering the pragmatic "elasticity" of this division of labor by sexes, it is easy to understand and believe in the situation that Marco Polo reports:

And I assure you that the womenfolk [in Mongol society] buy and sell and do all that is needful for their husbands and households. For the men do not bother themselves about anything but hunting and warfare and falconry .... The wives are true and loyal to their husbands and very good at their household tasks52).

Marco Polo was observing the Mongols in peacetime. But the implication of his description is that, if the protection of the camps and herds could be provided for in some way not requiring the presence of the men-by the Pax Mongolica, for instance-then all the adult male Mongols could serve in the armies of Chingis Khan and his house.

It would appear, furthermore, that the whole Mongol manpower was not only available for, but was used in war:

What army in the whole world can equal the Mongol army? In time of action, when attacking and assaulting, they are like trained wild beasts out after game, and in days of peace and security they are like sheep, yielding milk, and wool, and many other useful things ... It is also a peasantry in the guise of an army, all of them, great and small, noble and base, in time of battle becoming swordsmen, archers and lancers and advancing in whatever manner the occasion requires ....

The reviewing and mustering of the army has been so arranged that they have abolished the registry of inspection and dismissed the officials and clerks. For they have divided all the people into companies of ten, appointing one of the

5 1) F. Barth, Nomads of South Persia (London, 1961), pp. 14-6. Sz) Polo, op. cit., p. 67.


286 J. M. SMITH

ten to be the commander of the nine others; while from among each ten commanders one has been given the title of 'commander of the hundred', all the hundred having been placed under his command. And so it is with each thousand men and so also with each ten thousand... 53) [emphases added]

Here we see the Mongols as a people in arms, a regimented nomadic society, with all of their men counted, organized and used for war.

Although the Mongols best exemplify this capacity of nomadic society for total mobilization, there are illustrations of it available from other periods as well, even going back'to the very beginnings of Inner Asian history. Herodotus begins his description of the Scythians with an anecdote concerning a legendary Scythian campaign into the Middle East 54). The Scythian men went away to war, leaving their wives behind, and stayed away in their conquests for twenty- eight years. Meanwhile their wives interbred with their slaves, which made for trouble when the Scythian husbands finally returned. The story is fabulous, but it had its roots in the real capacity of nomads to send all of their men to war. The story would not have survived the skepticism of either Herodotus or his audience except for this essential truth. But it survived not only among the Greeks, with their curiosity about, and knowledge of Scythian affairs, but remained persistently in circulation in the region as a valid illustration of the peculiarities of nomadic life: the same story appears in the fifteenth century Ottoman Siltfiqndme, told about the Golden Horde 55).

The Mongols also counted and organized their sedentary subjects in the same way as they did the nomads in their empire, and for the same reason: they planned to use all the adult males in war, if necessary. Ordinarily, because the sedentary peoples produced fewer cavalrymen, and thus a poorer sort of army, the Mongols only drew upon a fraction of this manpower, normally a tenth, and even that perhaps only when a campaign was undertaken. But on occasion, and in particular during the period of the conquests, the entire sedentary manpower was used:

53) Juwaini, op. cit., trans., I, pp. 30-31; text, I, pp. 22-23. 54) Herodotus, Persian Wars, IV: 1-4. 5 5) Ms. in the Topkapi Library, Istanbul, Hazine No. 1612, fols. 133-IS 2.


MONGOL MANPOWER 287

The Mongols then advanced on Khojend. When they arrived before the town, the citizens took refuge in the citadel .... When the Mongol army arrived they found it impossible to capture the place immediately since it could be reached neither by bowshot nor by mangonel. They therefore drove the young men of Khojend thither in a forced levy (hashar) and also fetched reinforce- ments from Otrar, Bokhara, Samarqand and the other towns and villages, so that fifty thousand levies and twenty thousand Mongols were assembled in that place. These were all formed into detachments of tens and hundreds. Over every ten detachments of ten of the Taziks there was set a Mongol officer.. .56)

And also: When the town [of Bukhdri] and the citadel had been purged of rebels

and the walls and outworks levelled with the dust, all the inhabitants of the town, men and women, ugly and beautiful, were driven out on to the field of the musalla. Chingiz-Khan spared their lives; but the youths and full-grown men that were fit for such service were pressed into a levy (hashar) for the attack on Samarqand and Dabusiya .... 7)

The Mongol enumerations of troops raised from the sedentary peoples are thus also censuses of adult males, so that the lists of Mongol tiimens of whatever sort, nomad or sedentary, are at once counts of soldiers, estimates of manpower and military potential, and indicators of the size of the general population.

III The Mongol population of the Middle East around I26o would have

been about 85b,000 persons, if there were seventeen tlmens in Hiilegii's command (a figure that I prefer for reasons that will appear below). And since Hiilegti led one-fifth of the Mongol forces (and people), then the nomadic population of Inner Asia, all of it included in the Mongol empire by this time, would have been about 4,250,000. Two fifths of these would have been located in Mdngke's Outer and Qubilai's Inner Mongolia, 8 50,000 people in each region, 1.7 million in Mongolia as a whole. One fifth, 8 5o,ooo people, would have been found in the Chaghataid realm of Transoxiana, Semirechiye and parts of Jungaria and the Tarim Basin. One fifth was in the J6chids' domains in northern

56) Juwaini, op. cit., trans., I, p. 92; text, I, p. 71. 57) Ibid., trans., I, p. io7; text, I, p. 83.


288 J. M. SMITH

Central Asia and the North Caucasian and South Russian steppe, and the remaining fifth was in the Middle East with Htilegii. These numbers are within plausible population limits for these regions, and well within their capacities for the support of nomadism 58).

The sedentary populations of the western regions of the Mongol empire can also be estimated from data of this sort. For Russia, Ver- nadsky 59) has reconstructed a list of forty-three tfimens located between Nizhni-Novgorod in the east and Galicia in the west, and north of the steppe zone occupied by the Mongols (Tatars) and the tiimens of the "regular" Mongol-Turkish nomad forces. The Grand Duchy of Vladimir comprised fifteen to seventeen tlimens, according (respectively) to the Rogozhsky Chronicle and the Chronograph of 15 I2. The Grand Duchy of Nizhni-Novgorod counted as five tlmens, and Tver, says Vernadsky, could have been no smaller. The other tiimens are listed in a Crimean yarliq and a Polish letter. Although these documents are of the sixteenth century, they refer (explicitly in the yarliq) to, and in- corporate information from the early fifteenth century, and thus they probably still record the arrangements of the late period of the Golden Horde, under Toqtamish. The list includes Kiev, Vladimir-in-Volynia, Lutsk, Sokal, Podolia, Kamenets, Braslav, Chernigov, Kursk, "Egol- day", Liubitsk, Smolensk, Polotsk, Riazan, and Pronsk-fifteen more ftimens. To these Vernadsky would add three more in Galicia (Galich,

58) The Kazakhs in the Steppe Kray of Tsarist Russia's empire were some 1.8 to i . 9 millions in 1897, and most of them were nomads. This region, which was the equivalent of only the easternmost part of the Jdchids' domain, could thus have harbored the whole J6chid Mongol force of 850,000 people. See L. Krader, Peoples of Central Asia (Bloomington and The Hague, 1963), pp. I8o, 199.

The Chaghataid realm was the approximate equivalent of the Tsarist Turkestan Kray, including Semirechiye, which had perhaps i.5 million nomads in 1897, together with Chinese Turkestan, which had about half a million largely nomadic Kazakhs and Kirghiz in the early 195o's (it contained some Mongols too, whom I have not been able to count). See Krader, op. cit., p. 199; E. Allworth (ed.), Central Asia: A Century of Russian Rule (N.Y. and London, 1967), p. Io4; G. Moseley, A Sino-Soviet Cultural Frontier: The Ili KaZakh Autonomous Chou (Cambridge [Mass.], 1966), pp. 17, z i; and Chang Chih-i, The Party and the National Question in China, G. Moseley trans. (Cambridge [Mass.], and London, 1966), p. i61.

59) Vernadsky, op. cit., pp. 217-219.


MONGOL MANPOWER 289

Lvov and Sanok), which had been held by the Mongols until 1349. These forty-three Russian timens enrolled the adult male population

of Russia: some 430,000 men. Of them, the Mongols probably ordinarily employed about one-tenth in the armed forces; they may well have been those Russians in China who were consolidated into a taimen in 1330 60). Ten thousand Russians would have been close to one-fifth of the Russian force normally maintained (hypothetically) by the Mongols, 43,000 men; they were perhaps sent to Qubilai as part of the fifth portion under M6ngke's redistribution, although as mentioned, I have seen no mention of Russian contingents in the other regions of the empire, nor of substantial Chinese forces outside of the East. These forty-three Russian timens would also imply a general population in Mongol Russia of 2,1 5o,ooo persons.

There is a pleasing coincidence between this information and that of certain other sources that deal with Russia under the Golden Horde. For the Jdchids' realm as for the Ilkhans' there is a conventional large, round figure for military strength: 6oo,ooo men. The figure is found in Rashiduddin (although in an unconvincing story) 61), and in the authoritative work of the Armenian Haython 62). Marco Polo has another figure, or figures: three hundred to three hundred and fifty thousands 63); he was uncertain of the exact strength of the Golden Horde, but wanted to indicate that it was about equal to that of the Mongol in the Middle East. The figure of six hundred thousands accords very well with Vernadsky's forty-three Russian tiimens when these are taken in conjunction with the Mongol forces implied in the observations of the fourteenth century traveller Ibn Bataita. Ibn Batpita visited the royal camp of the Golden Horde during the reign of Ozbek, ca. 1332, and was told that there were seventeen commanders of timens then present at the camp for the festival at the end of Ramadan, and that the army of the Horde was even larger than the 170,000 men

60o) Ibid., pp. 87-88. 6I) Rashiduddin/Boyle, p. 128. 62) Haython, op. cit., p. 215. 63) Polo, op. cit., pp. 310-31.


290 J. M. SMITH

that they led 64). These seventeen commanders would be the seventeen Muslim Mongol generals of the seventeen "regular" Mongol-Turkish nomad tinens assigned to the Golden Horde in accordance with the reapportionment of forces by Mdngke Qaan. This force, by the terms of the reapportionment, would have matched that of the Ilkhans in the Middle East (and those of the other three regions), so we may believe that Htilegii's army numbered seventeen tifmens also. Marco Polo was right, although imprecise, about the approximately equal strength of the two powers-in Mongol "regulars". The other forces alluded to in Ibn Batdita's account in addition to the seventeen tfimens whose commanders were present, would have been the Russian troops, non-nomadic and probably only occasionally mustered, and commanded by Christian princes; one would not expect them to be on hand in the steppe for an Islamic holiday. The 170,000 nomad troops and the 430,000 Russians make up ,the required six hundred thousand men.

The conventional count of the forces of Chaghataid Central Asia (which excluded most of Kazakhstan, but included parts of Jungaria and the Tarim Basin) was four hundred thousand troops, implying a total population of two millions. This number is given by Haython 65). 170,000 men, or seventeen tiimens, as elsewhere, would have been "Mongols", leaving 230,000 men and I, 50,000 persons in the non- "Mongol", probably largely sedentary population. We do not have a detailed enumeration of the sedentary units such as we have for Russia (and, as we shall see, for the Middle East), although Ibn 'Arabshdh, in Timiir's time, mentions seven tiimens of Samarqand and environs, and nine tfimens of Andekan/Feraghdn and its districts 66).

The non-Mongol population of Iran in the Mongol period is more clearly and fully exhibited. In the time of Hiilegti, the Mongols directly

64) Ibn Batata, Travels, H. A. R. Gibb trans., II (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 492-493. 65) Haython, op. cit., p. 214. 66) Ibn cArabshah, Tamerlane, J. H. Sanders trans. (London, 1936), p. 17. Emel

Esin, in "Resimli bir Han Silsilenamesi", Islim Tetkikleri Enstittisi Dergisi, V (i973), p. 176, quotes the Tdrikh-i Rashidi of Mirza Haydar Dughlat as saying that the Chaghataid Tughluk Timur (1347-1363) converted to Islam along with his Mongol army of 6o,ooo men.


MONGOL MANPOWER 291

controlled Azerbdyjdn, 'Irdq-i 'Ajem and Khurdsin in Iran. These regions, or their modern equivalents, contained about half the population of Iran in 1956 67). If this proportion obtained in earlier times, the same regions might have been expected ordinarily to hold at least some two and a half to three million people; the population of Iran ca. i8oo, after two decades of Zand and Qajdr comings and going, is estimated at around five to six millions 68). Hiilegti's agents, however, could count only five tiimens in those regions: one in Azerblyjdn, three in 'Irdq-i 'Ajem (Qumm, Kdshan and Isfahdn), and one in Khurisdn (Nishipur-Tais). These five units, or 50,000 men, imply a population of only 250,000 people where, even by the undemanding early nineteenth century standard, there should have been two and a half millions.

This is a very small figure-not ridiculously, but pitifully small. It shows, not mistaken arithmetic nor an incompetent count, since Persian eagerness to evade enumeration was probably well balanced by Mongol willingness to use drastic methods and plenty of manpower in taking the census, but rather the impact of the Mongols' total conscription and total warfare upon a sedentary society. The conse- quences of the Mongol invasions, always known to have been cata- strophic, are here quantified. Many Middle Eastern chroniclers produced exaggerated estimates of the death-toll of the onslaught 69); the Mongols actually counted the survivors, potential tax-payers and soldiers, and found only about one-tenth of what we might consider the normal minimum population. The Mongols had dispersed or destroyed the rest, some two millions and more.

These losses are immense, but not disproportionate. Convergent evidence is supplied by a comparison of late Sassanian (early seventh century A.D.) and Mongol revenues obtained from the regions held by the Mongols. The Sassanians had gathered the equivalent of 139

67) National and Province Statistics of the First Census of Iran: November 1956, I (Tehran, 1961).

68) C. Issawi, The Economic History of Iran, 18oo-z914 (Chicago, 1971), p. 20, has the population of Iran ca. 18oo as around five or six millions.

69) Summarized by I. P. Petrushevsky in the Cambridge History of Iran, V (Cam- bridge, 1968), pp. 484-488.


292 J. M. SMITH

million of the Mongols' silver "dinars", whereas the Mongols themselves, ca. I295, received only 17 millions, or only 12 % /oof the Sas- sanians' income. Thus both revenue and population figures suggest a decline from "normal" of about 90 % 70).

The recovery of the population, at least in Azerbdyjdn and 'Iraq-i 'Ajem, is as phenomenal as its earlier losses. Around 1335, Qazwini enumerated twenty-five tiimens in Iran that were not part of the Mongol regular forces. Qazwini made special mention of districts that supported Mongols with iqtd' (five Mongol tlimens in the Pishkin district of Azerbayjdn) and did not include these tiimens in the twenty-five 71). Nine of the twenty-five were in Azerbayjan, nine in 'Irdq-i 'Ajem, and seven in Mdzandarin 72). Unfortunately, the military establishment of Khurdsan, which was administratively autonomous, was not counted by Qazwini. But the manpower and population of 'Iraq-i 'Ajem, which had been 30,000 men,and 150,000 people in ca. i26o, had tripled in about two generations, to 90,000 men and 450,000 people. That of

70) The revenue data are given by .Hamdullah

Mustawfi Qazwini in The Geographi- cal Part of the Nuzhat al-Qulfb, G. Le Strange ed. and trans., I, text (Leyden and London, 1915), P. 27; and II, trans. (Leyden and London, 1919), pp. 33 and n. i.

The Sassanians obtained 420 million mithqils of silver, and the Mongols, 17 million dindr-i rd'ij, or silver dinars. The mithqil used to count the Sassanians' revenue by Ibn KhurdHdbih, Qazwini's source, was 4-25 grams; see G. C. Miles, "On the Vatieties and Accuracy of Eighth Century Arab Coin Weights", Eretz-Israel, VII (1963). The Mongols' silver dinar weighed I2.96 grams; see J. M. Smith, Jr., "The Silver Currency of Mongol Iran", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, XII (I969). Thus the Sassanians obtained 1,785 million grams of silver, and the Mongols only 220 millions.

The population data are not as firm as those of the revenue. I have used the low estimates of the Iranian population of ca. 800oo to guess at the population of Iran in the period just before the Mongols' arrival. The estimate may be too low, since the period was one of a certain efflorescence in Seljuq Rum, Caliphal Mesopotamia, Khwarezmian Central Asia, and in Georgia and Armenia. For the late Sassanian period the estimate may be much too low. R. M. Adams, in "Agriculture and Urban Life in Early Southwestern Iran", Science, 136 # 3511 (13 April 1962) and The Land Behind Baghdad (Chicago, 1965), p. I 15, argues that the population of 'Iraq-i 'Arab (in part) and Khaizistdn in Sassanian times was a great as, or greater than it is now. If the population of Sassanian Iran was similarly large, then its decline by Mongol times would have been on the order, not of 90 %, but 99 %.

71) Qazwini, op. cit., text, pp. 82-83; trans., p. 85. 72) Ibid., text, pp. 47, 75, 159; trans., pp. 54, 78, 156.


MONGOL MANPOWER 293

Azerbdyjin, rising from Io,ooo men and 50,000 people to 90,000 and 450,000, had grown nine-fold! Population growth was paralleled, and is to a degree confirmed by the growth in the revenues of the Persian Mongol government. Qazwini recorded 17 million silver dinars in the revenue of ca. 1295, rising to 21 million in 1304 73). By 1312 the revenue had reached 30 million dinars, having nearly doubled in only two decades 74).

Such a growth rate is hard to march in ordinary experience. Iran's population perhaps doubled between 18oo and 1914, and perhaps nearly doubled again by 1956 75). Egypt, with the most rapid growth of population in the modern Middle East, approximately trebled its numbers in the 73 years between 1883 and 195676). It may seem difficult to believe that medieval 'Iraq-i 'Ajem could rival modern Egypt, to say nothing of Azerbdyjdn growing three times faster still.

Nevertheless, such growth can be explained. The Mongols under Hiilegii established a huge nomadic presence in Azerbdyjdn, with six tiimens or 300,000 persons, and 'Iraq-i 'Ajem was chronically exposed to the adjacent Kurd and Lur nomads. These may well have replenished the populations of these districts. Barth's study of the Basseri suggests that a very high rate of population growth can be found among nomads:

The figures on present fertility seem consistent with those of the previous generation; and in the period 1908-38 in which that generation was born, none of the effects of modern medicine could yet have been felt, even indirectly, in the nomad camps of Fars. One is forced to assume that a consistently high rate of growth has been a characteristic of the tribal population in previous times as well as today. The evidence from the living generations in the Basseri camps today-4.25 children per tent, and 7.2 persons per adult sibling group- suggest a net growth factor of at least 3 per generation, i.e. a trebling of the nomad population every 30-40 years. This general picture is, furthermore, not unique for the Basseri; superficial acquaintance with neighboring Arab and Qashqai suggest comparable natural growth rates"7).

73) Qazwini, op. cit., text, p. 27; trans., p. 33. 74) D'Ohsson, op. cit., IV, p. 543- 75) Issawi, op. cit., p. 20 and n. 2. 76) Ibid. and C. Issawi, The Economic History of the Middle East, 1800oo-14 (Chicago

and London, 1966), p. 373. 77) Barth, op. cit., pp. ii-16.


294 J. M. SMITH

Other cases show similar results. Joseph Birdsell, investigating Australian population questions, has provided evidence from studies of isolated Tristan da Cunha, Pitcairn and Bass Strait islander populations, showing that, after implantation in these uninhabited territories, they have approximately doubled in each generation, despite their very simple economic and social circumstances, until the limit of the local resources has been reached. He presents also the case of an Australian aborigine family of one man and two women, who multiplied to 28 in thirty years, almost tripling their numbers in each of two generations, while "wandering from place to place in search of food, and living principally upon black scrub kangaroos, which they sneak upon and spear", and obtaining water entirely from the roots of local plants 78).

By comparison with growth rates of this sort, the suggested increase in the Mongol population looks rather modest. In two generations of 35 years each, the original 30o,000 Mongols could easily have produced a surplus of 400,000 persons that would make up the numbers in

Azerbayj~ n from 5o,ooo to 450,000. Since the Mongols had doubtless calculated the nomadic capacity of

Azerbdyjdn fairly closely before assigning the six timens to it, increases in the nomadic population beyond the original 300,000 would have begun to produce imbalances in the pastoral ecology, and would have had to be removed from the pastoral sector, probably by a process of sedentarization akin to that described for the Basseri so clearly by Barth. We can probably see parts of it. The five tf#mens of Mongols mentioned by Qazwini as being supported by iqta' might be some of these over-numerous nomads, now maintained by the sedentary sector. Others were probably unable to avoid sedentarization, and were heard from when the government attempted to collect the taxes (qaldn) levied upon the non-Mongol sedentary population:

Repeatedly, he (i.e., Ghizin) reprimanded the amirs, the judges (yarghzchis), and the

wazirs (saying) that every time people come with complaints against

the hdkims, and the mutasarrifs, they accept their words with haste; he indicated

78) J. B. Birdsell, "Some Population Problems Involving Pleistocene Man", Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, XXII, Population Studies: Animal Ecology and Demography (1957), pp. 47-69.


MONGOL MANPOWER 295

that it was possible that those people had not given qaldn before then and had placed their burden on others, that the hdkim brought them into the qaldn, and that such people naturally complained 79).

Because the Mongols had demolished the previous population of Azerbdyjin, there would have been few obstacles to this sedentarization, and even advantages in it. Sedentarizing Mongols would not have found themselves in the straits common to most failed nomads, who enter an established and often alien society and economy at the bottom, as agricultural laborers, without land or other assets, and who suffer there an unusually high rate of attrition. The Mongols could avail themselves of the lands emptied by their earlier campaigning, and from the time of Ghdzin could do so with the encouragement of the Mongol government, which was trying to redevelop agriculture. In Azerbdyjin, moreover, they would have benefitted both from the sponsorship of Nature, which enables much of the region to be dry- farmed, and from the clement climate of the nearby Mongol government, which, as seen from the taxpayers' complaints and the grants of iqtd', tried to support its constituents. Conditions thus favored a rapid replenishment of the sedentary population.

The bulk of this new, ex-nomad population would have been Turkish. The Mongol regular forces in the Middle East and Russia contained substantial numbers of Turks, so that the lingua franca, and soon the language itself in these forces was Turkish. The Mongol court in Iran used Turkish by the time of Oljeitii. The evidence that shows the ruin of an older population and its replacement from among the conquerors thus also helps explain the transformation of Azer- bayjdn's population from Iranian to Turkish. This process is usually represented as starting in the eleventh century, with the Seljuk invasion. But the conditions that would have favored Turkification, almost ideal in the Mongol period, do not seem so ripe in Seljuk times. The numbers of Turks coming into the Middle East with the Seljuks do not seem very large, perhaps tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thou-

79) Rashiduddin/Jahn, p. I8o. Translation by F. Schurmann in "Mongolian Tributary Practices of the Thirteenth Century", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 19 (1956), P. 333 and n. 61.


296 J. M. SMITH

sands so) (as in the Mongol period), and not all of them went to Amer- biyjin. Those who did go there probably could not establish themselves as comfortably and productively as did the Mongols later, and probably could not clear the way for advantageous sedentarization in the drastic Mongol manner. The sedentary society of Azerbdyjdn and the adjacent regions of Eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasia survived the arrival of the Turks, making arrangements with the Seljuks 81) and paying taxes (and very substantial sums by Mongol standards!) 82), or fighting persistently for independence 8s). Because of this the pastoral potential of the Mughin steppe and the Aras and Kura valley lowlands, and the Qaribigh, Aldtdgh and Savildn highlands probably could not be fully realized, and the Turkish nomads had to rely more on predation in Ruim than on pastoralism in Iran. Their population surplus was probably too small, and their sedentary opportunities too limited for them to effect much Turkification in Azerbdyj5n.

80) C. Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey (London, 1968), p. 33; and A. K. S. Lambton in "Iran", Encyclopaedia of Islam, znd ed.

81) For details of the relations of the local dynasties of Azerbdyjin, Rawwidids of Tabriz, Shaddddids of Ganja, and Shirwdnshdhs, with the Seljuks, see C. Bosworth in the Cambridge History of Iran, V, pp. 44, 62, 94-95 and passim.

82) Qazwini, op. cit., text, p. 75; trans., p. 78, claims that the revenue of Azet- bayjdn in the Seljuk period was the equivalent of nearly 20o million of the Mongol silver dinars. Since he calculated that one Seljuk gold dinar (which he doubtless equated with the current mithq l of 4-32 gm.) was worth 2-1/3 Mongol silver dinars (ibid., text p. 27; trans., p. 34), he seems to be reporting a Seljuk revenue figure of about 8.5 million Seljuk gold dinars. Ca. 133 5 the Mongols derived some 10.9 million silver dinars from Azerbdyjdn; of these, some 8.7 million came from the Tdbriz tamghbd, and z.z millions from land taxes, etc.: ibid., section 3, passim.

83) The Turkomans made headway into Armenia and Georgia only slowly and only with Seljuk support before 1071. During the reign of Malikshah they finally seem to have had full access to the pastures of these regions. Subsequently, the Georgians made a graduate reconquest, which, by the late twelfth century, had been extended beyond the frontiers of Georgia to Lake Van, Kars, and even Ardabil, thus threatening and perhaps controlling the summer pastures of the Azerbayjin region. See S. Vryonis, Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of IslamiZation from the Eleventh Through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles, I971), pp. 283-285; and Bosworth, op. cit., p. 179.

C. Cahen, in "L'Iran du Nord-Ouest face a l'expansion Seldjukide", Milanges Henri Massi (Tehran, 1963), pp. 68-69, gives information on resistance to the Seljuks by the Muslims of Khoy.


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IV In conclusion, let us note some further implications of the results

arrived at above. We have been observing, first of all, the operation of a very simple and effective Mongol administrative method in this system of counting and organizing troops. The decimal organization of the army enabled Mongol commanders to calculate their military potential and logistic requirements closely, since they knew the number of their men and could assume that each soldier had a certain number of mounts and a supporting family and herds of a certain average size. The rules of thumb here were probably ten horses, a five-person family, and ioo animals (in "sheep-equivalent" units) for each soldier. ioo sheep was the basic herd establishing tax liability, and this, or its equivalent in other animals, was probably required to maintain the desired level of military effectiveness 84). A tiimen commander would thus know not only that he had ten thousand men to fight with, but that he had to administer fifty thousand people and find pasture for the equivalent of one million sheep. The system was also convenient because the exhaustive enumerations of adult males, and their organization into decimal units, taken together with these conventional assumptions about their supporting families and herds, meant that the Mongol rulers knew the numbers, not just of their armies, but of their people, and could estimate their needs and assign them pastures and other assets accordingly. Counting the troops in effect accounted for everyone, and taking care of the troops resulted in caring for the whole people.

And the calculations were simple. The Mongols clearly thought very highly of their system of decimal organization of the army, since they impressed upon nearly every observer their sense of its importance, and caused it to be specially noted in most of our sources 85). At first glance it seems only a sensible, scarcely remarkable way of organizing troops. But now we can see what else it accomplished,

84) J. M. Smith, Jr., "Taxation", pp. 68-69. Secret History, section 279. 85) Juwaini, op. cit., trans., I, p. 31 ; text, I, p. 23. Bar Hebraeus, op. cit., p. 354. Polo, op. cit., p. 69. Plano Carpini, in Dawson, op. cit., pp. 32-33.

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298 J. M. SMITH

how easily it worked, and why the Mongols were so pleased with it. The whole manpower, and implicitly the whole population, human and animal, was comprehended in these tens (or at worst, fives) and their multiples, and the Mongols could manage anything from a squadron to a nation without needing accountants to do their figuring -without even needing to be literate 86).

We see here also an index of the attachment of the Mongols to Chingis Khan and his enterprise. The Mongols could all be counted as soldiers because they could be counted upon to devote themselves wholly to Chingis' wars. This dedication, which is seen also in the Mongols' willingness to bear an exigent and incessant taxation, con- trasts sharply with the normal nomadic (not to say human) reservations about conscription. Most governments have only been able to use fractions of the nomads' manpower. The Japanese tried to recruit one-sixth of the Inner Mongols' men during World War II, but the Mongols held out for a mere one-tenth 87). Even the Ottomans, with an attractive enterprise of their own, seem only to have obtained one- sixth to one-fifth of the men in their nomads' camps 88). Full, or even heavy conscription, can only be applied appropriately in nomadic societies under special conditions. Ordinarily, nomadic peoples live in a state of great insecurity, of chronic inter-tribal rivalry, and, perhaps more important, of suspicion and fear even between camps of the same tribe and clan. Under such circumstances, most of the manpower of the camps, clans and tribes is immobilized by the requirements of local defense. This manpower can only be drawn upon effectively

86) Mongol organization was prefigured by, and perhaps derived by continuing tradition from that of the Hsiung-nu, described by Ssu-ma Ch'ien in Records of the Grand Historian of China, B. Watson trans., II (N.Y., 1961), pp.I 5 5-I192. The Hsiung- nu has 3oo00,000 troops arrayed in units of ten, a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand (pp. 163-164). A Chinese renegade, Chung-hsing Shuo, taught them "how to make an itemized accounting of the number of persons and domestic animals in the country" (p. 170). And in peacetime their men "had nothing to do" (p. 171)!

87) Personal communication from Sechin Jagchid of National Chengchi Uni- versity, Taipei, and Brigham Young University.

88) H. A. R. Gibb and H. Bowen, Islamic Society and the West I:1 (London, 1950), P. 5

5.


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when unity of leadership and purpose enables the suspension of these doubts and defenses. When it does, it gives the united community a great advantage over its disunited neighbors. But unification has been achieved only rarely, and on a large scale only once-by Chingis Khan.

Mongol successes were founded upon the military differential that favored nomadic societies over sedentary, not only in the raising and riding of horses, but in the capacity to bear conscription and pay taxes. Chingis Khan had only to discern these capacities, learn how to administer the hordes they provided-and interest the nomads, all the nomads of Inner Asia, in exercising them. He had only to transmute conscription, like taxation, from liability to opportunity.


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Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient / Journal de l'histoire economique et sociale de l'Orient, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Oct., 1975), pp. 233-344Aperu sur les impts du sol en Syrie au Moyen ge [pp. 233-244]"Hazzal-Quf": A New Source for the Study of the Falln of Egypt in the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries [pp. 245-270]Mongol Manpower and Persian Population [pp. 271-299]An Analysis of Three Epithets Applied to the dras in Aitareya Brhmaa VII. 29. 4 [pp. 300-317]Khmer Commercial Development and Foreign Contacts under Sryavarman I [pp. 318-336]MiscellaneaGujarat Harappan Connection with West Asia: A Reconsideration of the Evidence [pp. 337-342]

ReviewReview: untitled [pp. 343-344]

Mongol Manpower and Persian Population

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