The Turkmen Beyliks were under the control of the Mongols, at least nominally, through declining Seljuk Sultans.

He found Christian prisoners from Germany in the heart of " Tartary " ( at Talas ), and was compelled to observe the ceremony of passing between two fires, as a bringer of gifts to a dead Khan, gifts which were of course treated by the Mongols as evidence of submission.

Many ethnic groups were involved, including ancestors of the Turks, Mongols, and Tibetans.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols were divided between those who wanted to remain based in the steppes and those who wished to adopt the customs of the Chinese.

This certainly was a successful device as water clocks of similar design were still being made in Baghdad when the Mongols captured the city in 1258 A. D. A variety of automatic devices have been used over the centuries to accomplish useful tasks or simply to just entertain.

Genghis Khan and the Mongols were well known for strongly insisting on the rights of diplomats, and they would often take terrifying vengeance against any state that violated these rights.

Khan claims that it was invading Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world and cites Mamluk antagonism towards early musketeers in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East.

Led by Ghengis Khan, the Mongols were a group of steppe nomads that established a decentralized empire that, at its height, extended from China in the east to Black and Baltic seas in Europe.

During the late 13th century and first half of the 14th century, Chinese under the Mongol-controlled Yuan Dynasty were not allowed to enter higher posts of government ( reserved for Mongols or other ethnic groups from Central Asia ), and the Imperial examination was ceased for the time being.

In 1380, at Kulikovo on the Don River, the Mongols were defeated, and although this hard-fought victory did not end Tatar rule of Russia, it did bring great fame to the Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy.

The Khwarazmians were nomadic Turks from central Asia, who had recently been displaced by the Mongols further to the east and were now residing in Mesopotamia.

He also made truces with the Ayyubids in Syria, and sent embassies to negotiate with the Mongols, who were beginning to threaten the Muslim world.

Some of the Mongols were Nestorian Christians, including Kitbuqa, one of the generals at the sieges of Baghdad and Damascus, but despite this, the nobles of Acre refused to submit.

As the kingdom was by now a relatively unimportant state, the Mongols paid little attention to it, but there were a few skirmishes in 1260: the forces of Julian of Sidon killed the nephew of Kitbuqa, who responded by sacking Sidon, and John II of Beirut was also captured by the Mongols during another raid.

The Mamluks of Egypt then sought, and were granted, permission to advance through Frankish territory, and defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in September 1260.

Modern Islamic libraries for the most part do not hold these antique books ; many were lost, destroyed by Mongols, or removed to European libraries and museums during the colonial period.

Explosive land mines were being used in 1277 AD by the Song Dynasty Chinese against an assault of the Mongols, who were besieging a city in southern China.

After the Khitans left Mongolia the Shiwei Mongols rose to prominence, when from the 1130s there were reciprocally hostile relations between the successive khans of the Khamag Mongol confederation ( Khaidu, Khabul Khan and Ambaghai Khan ) and the emperors of the Jin dynasty.

With the breakup of the Empire, the dispersed Mongols quickly adopted the mostly Turkic cultures surrounding them and were assimilated, forming parts of Tatars ( not confused with a tribe in ancient Mongolia ), Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Yugurs and Moghuls ; linguistic and cultural Persianization also began to be prominent in these territories.

Indigenous moral precepts of the Mongols were enshrined in oral wisdom sayings ( now collected in several volumes ), the anda ( blood-brother ) system and ancient texts such as the Chinggis-un Bilig ( Wisdom of Genghis ) and Oyun Tulkhuur ( Key of Intelligence ).

From the middle ages to early modern period the Khalkha, Uriankhai and Buryats were counted as eastern Mongols while the Oirats, living mainly in the Altay region, belonged to the western Mongols.

The Mongols also used adhesives to make their short bows, and the Native Americans of the eastern United States used a mixture of spruce gum and fat as adhesives to fashion waterproof seams in their birchbark canoes.

Xiongnu, Tujue, Avars, Kipchaks, Mongols, Don Cossacks and the various Turkic peoples are also examples of the horse-mounted groups that managed to gain substantial successes in military conflicts with settled agrarian and urban societies, due to their strategic and tactical mobility.

The Ming Chinese also mounted over 3, 000 cast bronze and iron cannon on the Great Wall of China, to defend against the Mongols.

After the Mongols conquered China and founded the Yuan Dynasty, they used the Chinese gunpowder-based weapons technology in their invasion of Japan ; they also used gunpowder to fuel rockets.

He also described traveling further north, through the Grand Canal to Beijing, but as he neared the capital an internal power struggle among the Yuan Mongols erupted, causing Ibn Battuta and his Hui guides to return to the south coast.

They also saw an elite convert to Judaism ( the Khazars ), only to disappear as the centers of power in the lands once occupied by that elite fell to the people of Rus and then the Mongols.

Owing to wars and migrations, Mongols are also found in some Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan.

In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia ( a smaller number of Mongols can also be found in Xinjiang in northwest China ).

The contiguous territories inhabited by ethnic Mongols is also known as Greater Mongolia.

After the fall of Liao Dynasty in 1125, the Mongols became a leading tribe on the steppe and also had power in Northern China.

Many Buryat Mongols also became Christians due to the Russian expansion.

Most notably the Vikings ( but also Arabs, Mongols and Magyars ) raided significantly.

Innocent IV would also send other missions to the Mongols in 1245: the mission of André de Longjumeau, the possibly aborted mission of Laurent de Portugal, and the mission of Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, which left on 16 April 1245 and would reach the Mongol capital Karakorum.

Russian Orientalist art was largely concerned with the areas of Central Asia that Russia was conquering during the century, and also in historical painting with the Mongols who had dominated Russia for much of the Middle Ages, who were rarely shown in a good light.

Mughal ( also Moghul or Mogul ), a word related to the Mongols, may refer to:

Variations of morganatic marriage were also practised by non-European dynasties, such as the Royal Family of Thailand, the polygamous Mongols as to their non-principal wives, and other families of Africa and Asia.

The 13th century also saw attempts at a Franco-Mongol alliance, with exchange of ambassadors and ( failed ) attempts at military collaboration in the Holy Land during the later Crusades, though eventually the Mongols in the Ilkhanate, after they had destroyed the Abbasid and Ayyubid dynasties, eventually themselves converted to Islam, and signed the 1323 Treaty of Aleppo with the surviving Muslim power, the Egyptian Mamluks.

There were also Koreans, Japanese, Mongols, White Russians and less numerous minorities.

The Mongols also invaded Korea, the Abbasid Caliphate of the Middle East, and Kievan Rus '.

Unlike the European armies, which placed enormous emphasis on personal valor, and thus exposed their leaders to death from anyone bold enough to kill them, the Mongols regarded their leaders as a vital asset.

Europe was exposed to several waves of invasions by horse people, from the Cimmerians in the 8th century BCE, down to the Migration period, and the Mongols and Seljuks in the High Middle Ages, and the Kalmuks and the Kyrgyz and later Kazakhs down into modern times.