The Mongol Empire did not collapse in a single year. The decline of the empire was a long, drawn-out process that took almost two centuries to complete, from the first signs of fragmentation in the mid-thirteenth century to the final disappearance of the last successor khanate in the seventeenth century. The question of when the empire “collapsed” therefore has no single answer; it depends on what part of the empire we are talking about and what we mean by “collapse.”
If we are talking about the unified Mongol Empire, the collapse came in 1260-1264, with the Toluid Civil War between Kublai Khan and Ariq Böke. The civil war was the central political crisis of the mid-thirteenth century, and it marked the end of the unified Mongol state and the beginning of the era of the four khanates. Before the civil war, the empire was a single political entity with a single great khan; after the civil war, the empire was a loose federation of four semi-independent khanates, each with its own political and cultural trajectory.
If we are talking about the khanates, the collapse came in stages. The Yuan Dynasty collapsed in 1368, when the Ming Dynasty captured Khanbaliq and expelled the last Yuan emperor. The Ilkhanate collapsed in 1335, when the last Ilkhan, Abu Sa’id, died without a clear heir. The Golden Horde survived until 1502, when it was finally broken by the rise of the Crimean Khanate and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The Chagatai Khanate was absorbed by the Timurid Empire in 1370, and the eastern part of the khanate (the Moghulistan) survived until the seventeenth century.
The Collapse of the Yuan Dynasty (1368)
The collapse of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368 was the most dramatic of the khanate collapses. The Yuan had ruled China for nearly a century, and its fall marked the end of Mongol rule in the most populous and economically developed part of the Mongol world. The collapse was caused by a combination of internal unrest, natural disasters (including the Yellow River floods of the 1340s and the Black Death of the 1330s and 1340s), and the rise of the Red Turban Rebellion, which eventually brought the Ming Dynasty to power.
The collapse of the Yuan Dynasty did not, however, mark the end of Mongol rule in the steppe. The last Yuan emperor, Toghon Temür, fled to Mongolia and continued to rule the northern territories as the Northern Yuan. The Northern Yuan survived until the seventeenth century, when it was finally incorporated into the Manchu Qing Empire. The Northern Yuan was a major military power, and the Ming court had to maintain a substantial military presence on its northern frontier throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The Collapse of the Ilkhanate (1335)
The collapse of the Ilkhanate in 1335 was the first of the major khanate collapses, and it marked the end of Mongol rule in Persia. The Ilkhanate had been the most culturally sophisticated of the four khanates, and its collapse was a major loss to the Mongol world. The collapse was caused by a long succession crisis that followed the death of the last effective Ilkhan, Abu Sa’id. The Ilkhanate broke up into a number of successor states, including the Jalairid, the Chobanid, and the Muzaffarid dynasties.
The collapse of the Ilkhanate was followed by the rise of the Timurid Empire, which eventually absorbed most of the Ilkhanate territories. The Timurid Empire was a major patron of Islamic culture, and the Timurid court at Samarkand and Herat was one of the major cultural centers of the medieval world. The Timurid Empire gradually declined in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the eastern part of the former Ilkhanate was eventually absorbed by the Safavid Empire in Persia and the Uzbek Khanate in Central Asia.
The Collapse of the Golden Horde (1502)
The collapse of the Golden Horde in 1502 was the last of the major khanate collapses. The Golden Horde had survived longer than the other khanates, but it was increasingly weakened by internal divisions and external pressure. The Golden Horde split into a number of smaller khanates in the mid-fifteenth century, including the Crimean Khanate, the Khanate of Kazan, the Khanate of Astrakhan, and the Khanate of Sibir. The Crimean Khanate and the Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually emerged as the major powers in the southern and northern steppes, and the Golden Horde was finally broken in 1502.
The collapse of the Golden Horde did not, however, mark the end of Mongol rule in the Russian steppe. The successor khanates of the Golden Horde — particularly the Crimean Khanate, the Khanate of Kazan, and the Khanate of Astrakhan — continued to rule substantial parts of the Russian steppe until the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The Khanate of Kazan was conquered by the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1552, the Khanate of Astrakhan was conquered in 1556, and the Crimean Khanate was finally absorbed by the Russian Empire in 1783.
The End of the Mongol World (1600s-1700s)
The last remnants of the Mongol world disappeared in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Northern Yuan was incorporated into the Manchu Qing Empire in 1634, when the last khan, Ligdan Khan, was defeated by the Manchus. The Moghulistan, the eastern remnant of the Chagatai Khanate, was absorbed by the Dzungar Khanate in the seventeenth century, and the Dzungar Khanate was itself absorbed by the Qing in the eighteenth century. The Crimean Khanate, the last major successor state of the Golden Horde, was absorbed by the Russian Empire in 1783.
By the end of the eighteenth century, all of the major successor states of the Mongol Empire had been absorbed by new regional powers: the Qing in East Asia, the Russian Empire in the north, the Safavid and Qajar Empires in Persia, and the Uzbek Khanate in Central Asia. The Mongol world, which had once stretched from the Pacific to the Carpathians, had been reduced to a small set of territories on the steppe, and the political unity of the Mongol world had been definitively broken.
Sources
- David Morgan, The Mongols (2nd ed., Oxford, 2007).
- Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 (London, 2005).
- Timothy May, The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, 2012).