How did the mongol military conquer?

Answer 1

The mongols was (and is) a steppe people and just like other steppe people they rode horses from a very young age. The answer isn't a short one so hope you enjoy reading.

They relied on deception, tricks, fear, Propaganda and most of all they were superb horsemen. Chinggis (Genghis) Khan did something, not new, but something others had forgotten, he surrounded himself with men of intelligence, skillfull in war and great leaders, and he divided his army into Tumens (10.000 soldiers) within the Tumen there was 1.000 Minghan, within those 1.000 there was 100 Zuut and within those 100 was 10 Arav, and then the General. It's like modern military, pyramid of command, with generals that exelled in warfare. The Mongols started with something like 70,000, 7 tumens against China's several hundreds of thousands. But as explained with the Tumens, all this meant that when the Mongols came to fight, it was not 1 army, it was 7 armies who came at you from every direction, killing the leader had no effect since another would take his place with the same skill.

Their tactic in battle relied on their horses, bows and sometimes (depending on who the enemy was) the enemy saw them as ragged tribesmen, animals at best, the mongols were granted the chance to trick them, it was considered a great honour to fool your enemy to defeat rather then by strenght of numbers and force. When facing enemies who thought they were simple tribesmen, they acted like tribesmen, riding intentionally bad then making a weak charge, they broke off riding back screaming like the tribesman would do, and time after time different armies from different nations fell for it, chasing them, only to see them form a line, cover them with arrows and riding them down.

The common tactic was basically encircle, pound them with arrows, confuse them, once they're trapped inside their circle and morale starts wavering, charge from all sides.

Apart from the actuall fighting, after they had defeated every Chinese army, nearly destroyed every Chinese city, forcing the Xia Xia dynasty to be their vassals, the mongols was feared, so they used every trick in the book to feed to it. In China they started with the "Tent tactic", a sort of psychic tactic. As they beseiged a city, the first day they would put a white tent close to the city for them to see, the white tent meant that surrender and you will be spared. Second day a red tent, meaning that all men will die, but women and children can leave. Third day a black tent, which meant no one would be spared. This tactic was very effiecent as the rumour started to spread, people surrendered instead of fighting. Other things they did was to light twice as many bonfires to seem larger, make the horses drag tree chunks at dusty places making it look like a much larger force, at one battle they had tied some sort of "scarecrows" to several hundred horses just for deception.

Their skill with bows on horseback is probably the biggest factor in the early time (1220-1260~) and it is how they conquered, to draw a mongol bow fully back is the same as lifting a normal sized teenager with one arm, doing that in full gallop simply sliced the enemy ranks down. In the battle at Badgers mouth outside of Bejing, China, the mongols was forced to walk through a narrow mountain pass (Badgers mouth) where the Chin was waiting behind fortified walls, towers, ballistas and many other machines. Numbers always differ in distant history, but according to the secret history of mongols (written in this time) the mongols send around 10.000 men on foot to climb over the mountain, which ofc the Chin thought was impossible, and once on the other side, the Chin cavalry according to the book was around 15-20.000 men, all lined up to charge the mongols. As they charged, the mongols vomited arrows onto them and their horses, by the time their arrows was out, the cavalry was broken.

Should be noted that due to their conquest of China, they obtained the first types of canons and it was they who introduced them in Europe later.