Important Questions: Nomadic Empires | History Class 11 - Humanities/Arts PDF Download

Very Short Answer Type Questions

Q1: What are the sources that tell about the Nomadic Empire?
Ans: These are chronicles, travelogues, and documents produced by city-based literati. These authors have often produced extremely ignorant and biased reports of nomadic life.

Q2: Whether you think that they had compiled time records about the administration of nomadic Empires?
Ans: No, they had exaggerated the events in order to ensure better Patronship from the rulers/great Khans. People from various religions were not familiar with Mongol customs hence, many of them produced sympathetic records like eulogies.

Q3: What kind of change/transition of production brought in the Administration?
Ans: A relatively classless society myriad and scattered look turn to become a complex society, the largest in which lord, owners of land and the peasants were of wide difference among them.

Q4: What is “Mongol-un Niuea Lobea an”?
Ans: It was a secret history book of the Mongols. It was the Mongolian and Chinese version (language) that got mixed randomly.

Q5: What the books difficult to read?
Ans: “Secret History of the Mongols” by Igor de Rachewiltz. Mongol and Turkic terminology by Gerhard Doer for.

Q6: What achievements the campaign of 1236-41 did attain?
Ans: The campaigner Batu, grandson of Genghis Khan devastated land up to Moscow, seized Poland and Hungary, and camped outside Vienna.

Q7: What had Genghis Khan done at the festival ground?
Ans: He addressed the rich people, accusing them of the sinner and introducing himself as magistrate appointed by God’s especially to punish them. It was his shrewd and conceit tendency. He grabbed all wealth of the merchants forcibly there.

Q8: What is the contradistinction between a chronicle report of I gory killings by Genghis Khan and an eyewitness report on the same?
Ans: The II Khanid chronicle reported the killing of 30,000 soldiers while an eyewitness report states that only 400 soldiers had defended the citadel of Bukhara viz only 400 were killed.

Q9: What attempts Genghis Khan made for reinforcement of his confederacy?
Ans:

• Made old tribal identities non-valid.
• Divided old tribal groupings and distributed their members into new military limits.
• The largest unit of soldiers (10,000 soldiers) included fragmented groups of people from a variety of different tribes and clans.

Short Answer Type Questions

Q10: Do you understand why Genghis Khan did have an identity as a conqueror and brutal murderer of the people in spite of his being the greatest leader of all time?
Ans: Generally, the predominant virtue or vice imprints the image of the ruler in the head and heart of the common populace. Genghis Khan had ordered massacres in cities like Nishapur, Herat, Baghdad, and smaller towns like Baihaq and Tun (Kurdistan). This predominant vice has dusted on his virtues like the greatest leader of all time, convener of scattered tribal society Lo unite, ruler of a grand transcontinental empire, and keeper of trade routes well restored. Actually, the contrasting images are not simply a case of dissimilar perspectives, they should make us pause and reflect on how one perspective can completely erase all others.

Q11: Discuss the implication of the term barbarian.
Ans: This term has been derived from the greek Barbaros i.e. non-Greek, It was the name of the person on the basis of his language sounded i.e. Barbar. Analogous to children unable to speak or reason properly, cowardly, effeminate, luxurious, cruel, slothful, greedy, and politically unable to govern themselves; were depicted as barbarians in Greek texts. This word was used in the sense of stereotype by Romans for the German tribes, the Gauls, and the Huns. Steppe barbarians were addressed with different terms but none of them carried a positive meaning.

Q12: How can you say Yasa, an extremely empowering ideology?
Ans: It is because of the following significance added to it:

• It addressed the Mongol’s ruling over urban societies with their respective histories, cultures, and laws.
• Mongols could protect their identity and distinctiveness through their ancestral Yasa.
• It was although a compilation of the traditions of the Mongol tribes yet referred to a GenghisKhan’s Code of Law.
• Yasa sewed Mongol people around a body of shared beliefs and acknowledged their affirming to Genghis Khan and his descendants.
• It gave them, the confidence to return their ethnic identity and impose their law upon their defeated subjects.

Q13: What developments took place during the period 1236 to 1260?
Ans: Batu, the grandson of Genghis Khan launched a campaign in Russia, Poland, and Austria along 1236-42. Mongke launched fresh campaigns in Iran and China during 1253-55 and events like the capture of Baghdad, the end of the Abbasid caliphate, the establishment of the II- Khanid state of Iran under Hulegn, and conflict took place between the Jochids and the II Khans.

Q14: What developments did take place in Nomadic Empires by the middle of the thirteenth century?
Ans: We can sum-up these alterations as under:

• Pressure on the peasantry was witnessed greater in areas distant from the original steppe habitat of the nomads.
• Common patrimony, shared by all sons of Genghis Khan; was gradually replaced by Individual dynasties.
• The term Ulus was earlier used for territories not fixed but it carried meaning which declared it as territorial domination.

Q15: What do you understand by the term years? Explain.
Ans: It was actually Yasaq when this code of law was promulgated by Genghis Khan at the Quriltan of 1206. Yasaq means law, decree, or order in its literary meaning. The detail on the organization of the hunt, the army, and the postal system, the David Ayalon, a researcher found as ingredients of that code of Law. By the middle of the thirteenth century, the Mongols named it as Yasa in a more general sense to mean the legal code of Genghis Khan. It was a compilation of the customary traditions of the Mongol tribes but in referring to it as Genghis Khan’s Code Of Law, the Mongols people also laid a claim to a law-giver like Soloman, whose authoritative Code could be imposed on their subjects.

Long Answer Type Questions

Q16:  “It is the phenomenon of circumstances which reformed Temujin into Genghis Khan i.e. The King of the universe. Coincide essence of revenge against exploitation of steppe tribes by Chinese at the south duly planned.” Describe the circumstances formed since the beginning and their impact on Genghis Khan.
Ans: As per the requirement of things to be brought nearer and give birth to cause and effect, the action and its results for every phenomenon, we would have to understand the meaning of circumstances in broader view in which topography, Landforms, Climate, Soil, Terrian and moreover, the training of instincts, etc. under the following sub-heads:-

1. Location and conditions of a terrain: The map of the entire Mongol Empire exhibits is surrounded by a number of seas and oceans and particularly, we will discuss here, Central Asia’s Steppes where Temujin was born. It was the modem state of Mongolia where during the lifetime of Genghis Khan; a majestic landscape with wide horizons, rolling plains, surrounded by snowcapped Altai mountains in the west, the arid Gobi desert in the South were existed and drained by the Qnon and Selenga rivers was topography and landforms. Moreover, there were numerous springs from the melting snow of the hills in the north and the west. There was, therefore, no dearth of the game, however, in small quantum, available in a good season.
2. Society: As the topography determines all physical traits and pursuits, here were the hunter-gatherers and pastoralists i.e. two kinds of survival-based societies. At the north of Siberian forests, the hunter-gatherer and at the south, there were pastoralists.
Owing to the similarity of language, tribes like Tatars, Kotan, and Manchus were jointly called the Mongols. There was a Turkish tribe also in the west of the Steppe. Thus, there was a multi-cultural and multi¬social assembly of people under the Nomadic Empire.

3. Childhood and its percussions: Child Temujin were born near the Onon River in the north of present-day Mongolia. His clan was Borjigid and a group of family was known as Kiryat. He saw his father i.e. chieftain of Kiryat murdered at his tender age. He also witnessed his mother’s problems in course of rearing his brothers and step-brothers. He suffered all ills prevailing in the tribe and he was once captured, enslaved and his wife was kidnapped soon after his, marriage.
These shocks became a source of his intelligence as these made him more aware of society than his physical age expected. We t can see the percussions in the form of ghost massacre, he committed ‘ through the army on conquests of Nishapur, Herat, Baghdad, etc. cities and smaller towns like Nasa, Baihaq, and Tun (Kuhistan Province). The instinct of cruelty thus had born and nurtured since the tender age of Genghis Khan.
Temujin had to fight in order to get back his wife. Some friends ( like Jamuqa were turned hostile, his father’s murderers (Tatars) were thrust into his mental faculty, and the spirit of revenge cooked therein. He soon developed a strategy, however, unfair and defeated all his rivals r and murdered them. Thus, emotions backed motivation, became the highway to move in plunder, loot, arson, and massacre, he committed fearlessly but in a facade of his being a deputy of God, the almighty.
His tricky mind had its manifestation in the form of the warning to Louis IX by Mongke, his grandson, his own declaration, decree before the populace of rich at the festival ground, etc. In the festival ground, how in a shrewd manner, he says-‘O people know that you have committed great sins and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these vices, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.

4: Skill of uniting people: Genghis Khan created a vague impression that he had born as a magistrate of God to punish the sinners. He first met the people of diverse tribes, applied the statement of suppression of ally and explained to them how could they fight against exploitation made by Chinese rulers at that time. The similarity of language helped him the most. He expressed this rubbish to rule the world, made them bold by saying that he had a mandate from God. The extract of his grandson’s warning to Louis IX makes it face-“In Heaven, there is truly one Eternal sky, on the earth, there is only one lord. Thus, they constituted a confederacy of Mongols and conducted war campaigns. He attained the title of Genghis Khan (Universal Ruler) under a proclamation.

5: Pseudo-Polity: The polity exercised or practiced by Mongols or the Great Khan’s was actually a pseudo one as in the name of Eternal Heaven. He bagged the support of the diverse society in central Asia steppes. His title proclaimed was also a mirage as he was only a Chieftain to the confederacy, not a universal king at the time that proclamation was made.
Mongol rulers were shrewd ones, as we can reproduce the difference between the speech made by Genghis Khan and mentioned by Hafiz-i-Tanish, a chronicler about the same place. That place was festival ground where Genghis Khan declared all rich as sinners and himself as to punish them by Eternal Heaven. He further says that they can compensate for sins by parting with their hidden wealth.
Thus he very shrewd way, compelled the populace to give him all their hidden wealth in a mixture of emotional exploitation and physical coercion (terror). At the same place, the chronicler writes that his distant descendant Abdullah Khan had gone to offer holiday prayer there. It exhibits that the entire race of great Khans was shrewd enough in misrepresentation of facts and strong affinity and reverence for its founder.
The same type of misrepresentation we see, in the matter of Yasaq initially accepted as law, decree or order and confined merely to the affairs like the organization of the hunt, the army, and postal system. The late Mongol’s redefined it as Yasa i.e. sacred law given to them by their ancestor. They made overt amendments matching with the size of the empire and the trends of the populace and thus, the entire contents of that code overhauled. However, all successors of Genghis Khan 1 maintained it thoroughly attached to the creation of their ancestors.
They also laid a claim, Genghis Khan’s being not less than other law¬givers like Moses and the king Soloman. A blend of all tribal people was recruited as soldiers and officers were deployed at the places/ territories which were not their native-lands.
Eg. Chinese secretaries deployed in Iran and Persians in China. Genghis Khan divided the empire into Uluses and made each son governor in each such division.
On the basis of aspects of great Khans ruling procedure and mechanism, it can be. stated that circumstances themselves had knitted the web of a nomadic empire which was trans-continental in its expansion.

Q17: In what ways do you see the manifestation of speeches so provoking in the period of Nomadic empires?
Ans: Mongols were in minority and that too of multilingual, multi-cultural and multi-customary, practices. They were first master-mind Great Khans at whom by virtue of literature and pre-cooked pronunciations, threats, warnings, challenges, and tricks adding populace to their own avowed aim, established a transcontinental empire and suppressed to neglect even of Alexander, who dreamt of being Shahenshah of the world.
Their actions in course of attainment of aims were condemnable and cognizable heinous crimes to society as murder, massacre, plunder, loot, extortion, etc. They massacred as per available records, 1, 74,7000 people in Nishapur, a toll of 1, 600,000 people at Herat, and 1258,800,000 people at Baghdad. Smaller towns that also had been made blood-reservoir were Nasa-70,000, Baihq district-70,000, and Tun (Kuhistan)-12,000 individuals.

Q18: Reproduce the warning that was given by Monglke, the grandson of Genghis Khan to the French ruler Louis IX and enunciate the hidden intention thereupon.
Ans: We can reproduce said warning as under-“In heaven, there is only the Eternal sky, on Earth, there is only one lord, Genghis Khan, the son of Heaven when by the power of the eternal Heaven, the whole world from the rising of the sun to its setting shall be at one in joy and peace, then it will be made clear what we are going to do if when you have understood that the degree of the Eternal Heaven, you are unwilling to pay attention and believe it, saying, “Our country is far away, our mountains are mighty, our sea is vast,” and in this confidence, you bring an army against us, we know what we can do. He who made easy what was difficult and near, what was far off, the Eternal Heaven Knows.”

Review on the essential components of warning:

• Genghis Khan’s empire had covered and going to cover the limit of rising and setting sun throughout the world.
• It has been stated that Genghis Khan’s rule over the earth is predetermined by the Eternal Heaven.
• It reveals a strong determination to bring peace and joy to the entire world and its inhabitants.
• It threatens Louis IX that it is worth no use considering that the distance and inaccessible territories would defend France.
• The last line lays emphasis on an assumption that nowhere is far or near and easy or difficult under the grace of the Eternal Heaven.

The above five important points have been aptly soaked in the creation of psychological terror, a eulogy of the Mongol power and demonstration through speech a strong determination and invincible courage’. His strong faith in the Almighty has also been reflected through this warning.

Q19: Speeches activate motors in the human mind so far as the audience set-on on the action immediately. Why does it happen? Reproduce the extract of the warning given by Mongke, the grandson of Genghis Khan to the French Ruler.
Ans: Perhaps it takes place owing to the skill of oration. A speech could be made effective when observation, experiments are done, generalizations made and the conclusion arrived at; with the determination of action thereupon. These stages naturally make the m^n bold enough and he renders both touchy and catchy speech. That speech with its echoes activates motor nerves immediately into; the conscience of the audience and with the same pace, the action is decided. Sometimes, the speeches are fumed into crusades which result in undue troubles to the populace and the nation simultaneously.
Reproduction of vital part of the speech cum warning-“In heaven, there is only the eternal sky, On Earth, there is only one lord, Genghis Khan, the son of Heaven-When by the power of the Eternal Heaven the whole world from the rising of the sun to its setting shall be at one in joy and peace, then it will be made clear what we are going to do.”
Vital Elements:

• The Heaven is touched beautifully while the mission is that of wielding on worldwide earth.
• In order to intimidate each individual not only Louis IX, but it is also sufficient here to give a glimpse of one’s sound aim or mission and that too keeping the entire world with joy and peace under a single umbrella.

The tone of provocation, the fine blending of material with that of meta-physical, presentation of Genghis Khan as deputy of God himself to rule over the world are really amazing and heart-touching.

Q20: Discuss the rise of new political trends in Mongols after Genghis Khan?
Ans: In the period after Genghis Khan and particularly after the 1260s, the original impetus of campaigns could not be sustained in the west. Western Europe and Egypt were within the grasp of Mongol forces yet their retreat from the Hungarian Steppes and defect at the hands of the Egyptian forces exhibited a major change in their attitude. In the first two generations, descendants of Jochi and Ogodei jointly controlled the office of Genghis Khan.
They were marginalized by the Toluyid branch of Genghis Khanid descendants. The later rulers took more interest in the conquest of China. Hence, westward expansion was ceased. Jochen and Toluyid descendants began to develop rivalry along the Russian-Iranian frontier. It also had diverted the Jochids away from further European Campaigns.