Morning in the felt world: rituals and duties
The sun had not yet had time to scorch the withered grass, and the camp-smoke was already buzzing like a disturbed beehive. The awakening of a nuker, an ordinary soldier from the retinue of the Genghisid prince, was subject not to whim, but to severe necessity. It began not with the cry of the herald, but with the very life around him: with the snorting of thousands of horses, guttural shouts of sentries, with the smell of smoke, sour koumiss and metal that had cooled down during the night. Sleep in the open air or in a cramped yurt, on a hard felt bed, was short and sensitive. Any rustle could mean not only a creeping enemy, but also a neighbor, who decided in the dark to appropriate your stock of dried meat.
First of all, having shaken off the remnants of sleep and road dust, the warrior went not to the cauldron, but to his horses. A horse for a nuker was more than transportation or weapon — it was his double, his salvation and his main asset. In Batu’s army each warrior had three or even five shaggy and amazingly hardy Mongolian horses. They had to be examined with the care that a jeweler shows to a precious stone. To check if their backs were broken under the heavy saddle with high bows, if they were lame, if they had caught a disease. To water them, to feed them, if they were lucky to get oats or barley in a plundered village. Most often horses, like their masters, contented themselves with fodder, searching for remnants of grass even under the snow. This morning ritual was sacred. To lose a horse through neglect was considered not just an oversight, but a crime bordering on treason. The speed of movement of the tumen, success in battle and, ultimately, the life of the rider depended on the condition of the horse.
Personal hygiene was a matter of secondary importance and was subject to the harsh laws of Yasa, Genghis Khan’s code of regulations. Washing in a river or lake, especially in summer, was strictly forbidden. It was believed that washing in running water offends spirits and can bring thunderstorms and storms on the army. Therefore, warriors did little, wiping their faces and hands with a wet cloth or dry wiping. Clothes — spacious pants, a robe of coarse cloth or leather, belted with a wide belt — were not washed for months, but only shaken out and cleaned of adhering dirt. The specific, pungent odor of the Mongol camp, a mixture of horse sweat, smoke, unwashed bodies and smoked meat, was an integral part of it and was said to spread for many kilometers, serving as a formidable warning to enemies.
Breakfast was a quick and caloric meal. The basis of the diet was cattle products. It could be a piece of hard-as-stone boron — dried and pounded into powdered meat, which was diluted in boiling water to produce a nutritious broth. Or just a few slices of dried mutton, which the nuker chewed on the move. The main drink and often the only food was koumiss — fermented mare’s milk. It perfectly quenched thirst, satiated and had a slight heady effect, keeping the warriors alert and aggressive state of mind. If the campaign passed through the lands of sedentary peoples, the ration was enriched with trophies: grain, from which a thick porridge was cooked, vegetables, and sometimes wine, for which the Mongols had a special passion.
The last stage of the morning routine was to check the equipment. Nuker pulled out of the leather nalucha his main instrument — a compound bow. A formidable weapon glued together from several layers of wood, horn, and sinew. He checked the bowstring, the flexibility of the shoulders, the integrity of the bone pads. Then he went through the arrows in his quiver: heavy ones with armor-piercing tips for defending the enemy, and light ones with wide blades for shooting at unprotected targets and horses. Every arrow counted. Then came the turn of bladed weapons — a curved saber, convenient for cutting from a horse, and, perhaps, a dagger or a battle axe, fixed at the saddle. Finally, armor. Not every ordinary nuker could boast of a full lamellar huyag armor, assembled from thousands of metal or leather plates. More often the defense was combined: a leather jacket reinforced with metal plaques and a simple helmet with a barmitsa. Everything had to fit tightly, not constricting movements and be in full combat readiness. A nuker’s morning ended when his horse was fed and his weapons were ready for battle. He was becoming part of a faceless but perfectly fine-tuned war machine.
The art of war as a craft: drill and discipline
A day in the Mongol army was rarely spent in idleness. Unless a tumen was on the march or conducting a siege, time was devoted to endless drills that brought combat skills to automaticity. War for the Mongols was not an outburst of rage, but a craft, and, as in any craft, accuracy, coherence and constant practice were valued here. The basis of everything was iron discipline, unthinkable for European chivalric armies. It was based on two pillars: the decimal system of organization and the immutable authority of Yasa.
Each nuker was part of a dozen — arban. Ten arbans constituted a hundred — zuun, ten hundred — a thousand — mingan, and ten thousand formed a tumen, the highest operational and tactical unit. The whole structure was permeated with the principle of collective responsibility. Plano Carpini, a Franciscan monk, who visited the Khan Guyuk’s headquarters, noted with undisguised amazement: “When they enter the battle, and if out of ten people retreat one, or two, or three, or even more, then all of them are killed; and if all ten run, and not retreat the other hundred, then all are killed. The same applied to captivity: if one of the ten was captured and his comrades did not try to rescue him, the whole arban was executed. This system drank the warriors to death, forcing each to fight not only for his own life, but also for the lives of his nine brothers. Fear of punishment from their commanders was often stronger than fear of the enemy.
The exercises were as close to combat conditions as possible. The main emphasis was on archery from horseback. Nukers spent hours on the steppe, shooting at full gallop at targets, practicing the so-called “Parthian shot” — turning around in the saddle and shooting backwards, towards the pursuing enemy. This technique allowed to cover the enemy with arrows, imitating retreat and luring him into a trap. Complex tactical maneuvers were also practiced. The most famous was “tulugma”, or encompassing maneuver. Light cavalry engaged in battle, showered the enemy with arrows and began a false retreat. When the enemy, carried away by the pursuit, broke formation, on his flanks and rear fell on the main forces, hiding until the time in an ambush. This technique required perfect coordination and coolness from each warrior.
A great school of warfare was round-up hunting — “nerge”. It was not just an amusement of the nobility, but a large-scale military exercise in which whole tumens could participate. A huge area of steppe or forest was surrounded by a chain of corralers, who for weeks, or even months, slowly squeezed the ring, driving all the beasts into the center. The Persian historian Rashid al-Din described this action as follows: “Then the great emir … enters the center of the circle and hunts; after him, the princes, noyons and other emirs enter the circle to hunt, and so on until there is little game left”. It was considered a serious offense to break the chain, to let a beast escape. During the nerga, warriors learned to interact over vast spaces, to transmit signals by means of flags and smoke, to act as a single organism. They honed the skills of encircling and destroying the enemy, which they then used with terrifying efficiency against human armies.
Discipline was evident in everything. Strict order reigned in the camp. Theft, depending on the value of the stolen goods, was punishable by caning or the death penalty. Adultery was punishable by death. Even such a small thing as urinating in the yurt or stepping on the threshold of the commander’s dwelling was considered a misdemeanor and punishable. The commanders, from tens to thousands-noon, had absolute power over the life and death of their subordinates. At the same time there was a kind of meritocracy: by showing courage and ingenuity, even a simple nuker could reach a command position. Genghis Khan and his descendants valued personal qualities rather than nobility of origin. Nuker lived in constant tension, because any mistake, any weakness could be the last for him. But the same system turned him into an ideal soldier — enduring, obedient and deadly.
In the Smoke of Battle: Prey, Survival and the Price of Victory
When drills were replaced by real combat, the nuker’s world was narrowed down to a few simple and frightening things: the neighing of his horse, the whistling of arrows, the shouts of his enemies, and the commands of the tenser. The psychological attack was the most important part of Mongolian tactics. The offensive began with a deafening roar, into which thousands of voices, the rattle of drums-tulumbas and the shrill sounds of horns merged. This inhuman howl, amplified by the sight of the rushing avalanche of horsemen raising clouds of dust, in itself paralyzed the will of the enemy even before the first encounter.
The private nuker most likely started the battle as part of the light cavalry. His task was to wear down the enemy, to disorganize his ranks. Hundreds and thousands of men like him circled in front of the enemy at the distance of an arrow, firing non-stop. They aimed at faces, at parts of the body unprotected by armor, at horses. The main goal was not so much to kill as to sow panic, to make the heavy enemy cavalry rush into an unprepared attack. If the enemy succumbed to the ruse and rushed in pursuit, the nukers instantly scattered, applying the very well-honed to automation “Parthian shot”, drawing the enemy under the impact of heavy armored regiments waiting for their time. If the enemy stood firm, the shelling could go on for hours, turning the battlefield into an inferno where the air was humming with arrows and the ground was strewn with wounded and dead.
After the enemy formation was sufficiently upset, the heavy cavalry — the elite of the army, clad in iron from head to toe — came into action. Nukers from poorer or less noble clans might not have been part of these shock troops. Their role might have been to cover the flanks, pursue fleeing troops, or finish off the wounded. Pursuit was a key element: the Mongols never let the defeated enemy to recollect and regroup. The chase could last for many kilometers, turning into a merciless slaughter. The Yasa forbade looting during battle. Any attempt to pick up a trophy before the order of the commander was punishable by death. First — a complete victory, and only then — the division of the booty.
The booty was the main incentive, the reward for all the hardship and mortal risk. After a battle or the capture of a city, organized looting began. Everything captured was brought to one place. A tenth part — “talan” — went to the great khan. One more part was intended for those who remained in the clan nomads — widows, orphans, old people. The rest was divided among the warriors according to their rank. Commanders, of course, received the lion’s share. The ordinary nuker got what was left: a few coins, a cut of cloth, simple utensils, weapons of the enemy. Craftsmen — blacksmiths, gunsmiths, jewelers, carpenters — were especially valued. They were not killed, but were taken into slavery to work for the needs of the empire. The most coveted and most dangerous prey were women. Their capture often led to bloody quarrels between the warriors themselves.
But war brought not only booty, but also wounds. Medicine in the army was rudimentary. A wounded nuker could count at best on a comrade to remove an arrowhead from the wound and a shaman to perform a ritual to exorcise evil spirits. Deep chopped wounds were covered with ash, poured with boiling oil, or simply tightened. Survival depended solely on the strength of the body. Many more warriors than from enemy weapons died from infections, gangrene and diseases that broke out in huge crowds of people and animals. Every nuker knew that even a slight scratch could turn into an agonizing death in a few days. Death in battle was considered honorable. To die of disease was humiliating. The bodies of the fallen, as a rule, were not buried, leaving them on the battlefield. That was the price of victory, and every warrior knew that he could pay it at any moment. He fought for the glory of the Khan, for the expansion of the ulus, but most of all — for the right to his share of the booty and for the very possibility to survive in this bloody cycle.
Lull on the bivouac: leisure, beliefs and longing for the steppe
When the rumble of battle subsided and the army stopped for a long rest, the life of the nuker took on a different course. The endless succession of drills and battles was replaced by periods of relative peace, filled with simple human concerns and amusements. In these moments, he was transformed from a faceless part of the war machine back into a man with his own passions, beliefs, and weaknesses. The camp, spread over many kilometers, came to life: between the yurts there were traders, who joined the army, the laughter of women, the crying of children born in the campaign.
The main entertainment, passion and way of finding out relations was the fight “bokh”. Mighty, half-naked warriors came together in a duel, trying to make the opponent touch the ground with any part of the body, except the feet. The winner received universal respect and, perhaps, a prize from the noyon — a ram or a jug of araka. Equally popular were endurance races, where the horse’s ability to cover huge distances was valued rather than its speed. Gambling, especially the game of “shagai” — ram’s ankles — could last all night. The wager could be anything from a trophy dagger to the last shirt.
Evenings were often held around campfires, where under the measured murmur of throat singing “khөөөmei” narrators-uligershas chanted the exploits of Genghis Khan and his heroes, about the glorious battles of the past. These epic tales were not just entertainment, but an essential element of ideology. They instilled in the Nukers a sense of belonging to a great mission, glorified military valor, loyalty to the Khan and contempt for death. Under these stories, mixed with the smoke of the fire, koumiss and stronger milk vodka — araka — poured down the river. Feasts organized by commanders after a successful battle were an obligatory part of camp life. It was a way of encouragement, demonstration of generosity and rallying of warriors. Refusal of an offered cup could be regarded as an insult.
Nuker’s spiritual life was simple and pragmatic. At the heart of his beliefs was Tengrianism — the worship of the Eternal Blue Sky, Tengri, the supreme, all-powerful, but impersonal deity. Nuker did not build temples and did not know complex dogmas. His communication with the higher powers took place directly or through shamans-bөө. The shaman was an important figure in the camp. He cured illnesses, predicted the outcome of the battle, divined on a ram’s shoulder blade, cast out evil spirits and sought the patronage of ancestral spirits. Each warrior wore amulets and amulets “ongons” around his neck, which were supposed to protect him from enemy arrows and evil intent. At the same time, the Mongols were characterized by remarkable religious tolerance. In their army one could meet Nestorian Christians, Muslims and Buddhists. As long as representatives of other confessions did not encroach on the authority of the Khan and observed the Yasa, they were allowed to freely practice their cults.
And yet, behind the external rudeness and harshness of life in the soul of a simple nuker often lived a longing. For years, being on a campaign thousands of kilometers away from his native nomads, he longed for familiar landscapes, for the family left in distant Mongolia. News from home, if it reached him, did so for months, passed by word of mouth through imperial yam messengers or casual travelers, and brought news that had long since become irrelevant. He had seen the wealth and wonders of the conquered lands-the luxurious cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, the fertile valleys of Russia, the rich pastures of Hungary. But it was all alien. The dream of many was to return home with booty, buy more cattle and live the quiet life of a nomad. However, the Great Western campaign, which began in 1236, for many stretched for a lifetime. Thousands of nukers, who went on it as young men, forever remained lying in the Russian, Polish or Hungarian land. Others who survived settled in the conquered territories, becoming the foundation of a new power, the Golden Horde. Their everyday life, which consisted of the smell of a horse, the ringing of steel, the taste of koumiss and the eternal wind in the face, became the foundation on which grew one of the greatest empires in the history of mankind.