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

Mongol Warfare and the Creation of the Mongol Empire m 147 n The Mongol light cavalrymen, in the early years, carried only a simple weapon for close-contact combat, which, as mentioned, they wanted to avoid. They all have to possess the following arms at least: two or three bows, or at least one good one, three large quivers full of arrows, an axe and ropes for hauling [shooting] engines of war [traction catapults] 1 . [emphasis added] And, When they have shot away all their arrows, They lay hold of sword or club and deal mighty blows 2 . [emphasis added] This would not have been the invariable result of a stand-off in archery combat: alternatives included retreat, or facing down a damaged enemy also chary of close combat 3 . But the Mongols prepared for it. All could make clubs, and probably had a hatchet for wood-cutting 4 . The wealthy Mongols, as with armor, could afford other shock weapons: maces (essentially a club with a metal head), lances, and swords 5 . Apart from Plano Carpini’s men- tion, clubs do not appear in the written or pictorial sources; maces do, in the Rashid 1309 illustrations 6 , and in the Baburnama , along with axes, as part of an encomium of the sword: Conquest of Europe”, Mongolica 10 (31) 2000, 491–499, that the population of Russia was too small to provide the arrow-fodder and infantry the Mongols needed to undertake the conquest of Europe. 1 Plano Carpini, 33, 38. 2 Polo, 314. Polo speaks of Qaidu’s troops, but this would apply generally. Another very close combat method was wrestling, taught to Mongol youths, according to a saying of Chinggis: RaD, II, 297. This skill would, for instance, enable a dismounted, weaponless Mongol to unhorse (unpony?) an enemy: the arm of a standing man is about at waist level of a pony rider. 3 E.g. SH, § 171. 4 None illustrated, but mentioned in Plano Carpini 1966: 33 and in the encomium to the sword in the Baburnama , Beveridge trans., 160–61, fol. 103 5 Plano Carpini 1966: 33; see A.P. Martinez, “Some Notes on the ^l - X§ nid Army”, Ar- chivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, VI (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986 [1988], 163 for Vassaf’s weapons list, including lance, sword, arrow, bow, mace, and unlikely exotica: lariat and jav- elin. I do not know what word is translated by “javelin”, but have only encountered javelins in a Mongol context in the Siyah Kalem painting, “Nomad Camp”, that shows a neat stack of a warrior’s weapons — bow, quiver, sword and two encased maces — on a tripod of three javelins: see Ipş Ì roğlu, 83, pl. 43. 6 Especially in the 1306 RaD, passim .