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.

Mongols were also exposed to Zoroastrianism ( Qormusta Tengri is still worshipped ), Manicheism, Nestorianism, Islam and Catholicism from the west.

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 Jurchen-founded Jin Dynasty was defeated by the Mongols, who then proceeded to defeat the Southern Song in a long and bloody war, the first war in which firearms played an important role.

In 1237 – 1238 the Mongols burnt down the city of Vladimir ( 4 February 1238 ) and other major cities of northeast Russia, routed the Russians at the Sit ' River, and then moved west into Poland and Hungary.

Ibn Battuta joined the royal caravan for a while, then turned north on the Silk Road to Tabriz, the first major city in the region to open its gates to the Mongols and by then an important trading centre as most of its nearby rivals had been razed by the Mongol invaders.

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.

* 1215 – Zhongdu ( now Beijing ), then under the control of the Jurchen ruler Emperor Xuanzong of Jin, is captured by the Mongols under Genghis Khan, ending the Battle of Zhongdu.

In the Middle Ages, the Mongol Empire's campaign against China ( then comprising the Western Xia Dynasty, Jin Dynasty, and Southern Song Dynasty ) by Genghis Khan until Kublai Khan, who eventually established the Yuan Dynasty in 1271, with their armies was extremely effective, allowing the Mongols to sweep through large areas.

Much of this success in defense lay in the world's first use of gunpowder ( i. e. with early flamethrowers, grenades, firearms, cannons, and land mines ) to fight back against the Khitans, the Tanguts, the Jurchens, and then the Mongols.

The Idiquts ( title of the Karakhoja rulers ) ruled independently until the 1120s, when they submitted to the Qara Khitai, then continued as vassal rulers under the Mongols from 1209.

In the early thirteenth century, that state was then invaded by Mongols, led by Genghis Khan, under whose successors saw the displacement of Iranian-speaking communities from some parts of Central Asia.

The Mongols then resolved to " reach the ultimate sea ", where they could proceed no further, and invaded Hungary and Poland.

In the 7th century, after a brief rule under the Turkish Khaganats, it was conquered by the Arabs and then the Mongols and much later, by the Russians.

Thus from then on until 1635, Inner Mongolia was the political and cultural center of the Mongols during the Northern Yuan Dynasty.

Despite a considerable movement among Inner Mongolia's Mongols ( who comprised then around 15 % of Inner Mongolia's population, while Han Chinese around 83 %) for unification with Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia remained part of China.

The Mongols then started to block Xiangyang off from the rest of Song.

The Mongols had ruled over Beijing, or Dadu, as it was then called, under the Yuan Dynasty from 1271 to 1368 but had been expelled from the city by Zhu Di's father, Zhu Yuangzhang with the help of General Xu Da.

The princess watches anxiously as first the glowering Prince of the Indies ( Noble Johnson ), then the obese Prince of Persia ( an uncredited Mathilde Comont ), and finally the Prince of the Mongols ( Sojin ) pass by the rose-tree.

The Mongols were then countered decisively at their weak points, which were battles in swampy areas such as Chương Dương, Hàm Tử, Vạn Kiếp and on rivers such as Vân Đồn and Bạch Đằng.

The Mongols had acquired the technique of distilling arak ( aragh ) from the Persians ( Iran ) during their invasion of Central Asia / Middle East around 1256, then it was subsequently introduced to Koreans and distilleries were set up around the city of Kaesong.

After the Silesians were repelled, the cavalry of Greater Poland, led by Sulisław, and the cavalry of Opole then attacked the Mongols.

The Mongols never again seriously looked westward for conquest, only raiding for loot, and even then they were not able to commit the bulk of their forces, which had to guard against other Mongols.

In early October 1274, the Battle of Bun ' ei began with a combined force of Mongols and Koreans seizing Tsushima, and then attacking Kyūshū, landing at Hakata Bay.