«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

Mongol Warfare and the Creation of the Mongol Empire m 131 n more than 50 yards 1 , the closer the better. But not too close: after shooting, the galloping archers would come some 20 yards closer to the enemy while turning away (personal experiment 2 ) and needed more space as buffer against a counter- charge. Following the turn, they rode back to the rear line. The unit of a Hundred (M. Jaghun , P. Sada ) seems the most likely maneu- vering unit for rapid execution of successive attacks. In 1206, when Temüchin became Chinggis Qan, the Mongol army was reorganized into decimal units: Tens (Mongolian Arban , Persian Daha ), Hundreds ( Jaghun , Sada ), Thousands ( Mingghan , Hazāra ), and Ten Thousands ( Tümen s). This made the army easier to administer, train 3 and command, by replacing the groupings, qarin and kuri- 1 Vitruvius, De Architectura , I, ch. V, sect. 4, specified that wall-towers should be spaced a bow-shot part, presumably to enable armor-piercing archery; actual spacing on the walls of the Ankara citadel and the land walls of Constantinople is (respectively) about 35 and 55 yards. 2 On a large horse; ponies might turn faster. Polo, 101: “[The Mongols] have trained their horses so well that they wheel this way or that as quickly as a dog would do”. To illustrate equine nimbleness, and mental mastery of a trained program, search the Internet for the western-style riding event of “cutting” on. Horses may even take initiative in games: I re- member an article (but cannot cite it: Atlantic Monthly ? Harpers? ) on polo in British India in which one pony seized a competing rider by the seat of his breeches to hold him back. 3 Comments in SH § 170 on the Uru’ud and Mangqud suggest differences in military skills among Temüchin’s early followers. Standard-sized regimental units with permanent com- manders would have been easier to train than the politically-fluid and variably-sized qarin s and kuriyen s. Fig. 3. An outline of the Mongol cavalrymen from a miniature of Rashid al-Din’s World History (Or. Ms. 20, 1314 AD)