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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 July 2013
The sudden Mongol withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 has been explained by historians in several ways and no consensus about the reason has ever been reached. Contrary to some previously expressed opinions, it was not an unparalleled event: a similar withdrawal from a successful invasion of the Song empire in southern China occurred in 1260. The parallels between the events of 1242 and 1260 are instructive, and strongly suggest that the deaths of the Khaghans Ögödei, in 1241, and Möngke, in 1259, were the basic reasons for breaking off the campaigns. The full explanation is more complex, however. The Mongol invasions of Dali and Annam in the 1250s are also briefly examined, and it is pointed out that a Mongol army led by Uriyangkhadai successfully invaded Song from Annam in 1259, a fact that has often been overlooked.
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18 Thomas of Spalato, Historia, 611–4; Thomas Spalatensis, Historia = History, 288–301.
19 Rogers, “Mongol withdrawal”, 17.
20 Rashid al-Din, Successors, 185; Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh, ii, 809.
21 YS, x, 2984; Yingqi, Xue 薛應旂, Song Yuan Tong Jian 宋元通鑑, facsimile of 1566 edition, Si Ku Quan Shu Cun Mu Cong Shu 四庫全書存目叢書, Shi Bu 史部, (Ji'nan 濟南: Qi Lu Shu She 齊鲁書社, 1996), x, 782Google Scholar.
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27 Bin Yang, “Military campaigns against Yunnan: a global analysis” (ARI Working Paper no. 30) Sep. 2004, 44–5. Available online: http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/article_view.asp?id=358 (accessed 15 June 2012).
28 Herman, J.E., Amid the Clouds and Mist: China's Colonization of Guizhou, 1200–1700 (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar, states that: “Uriyangqadai was inexplicably ordered to lead a military expedition south down the Red River Valley to attack the Tran dynasty in Annam”, but he says nothing of the outcome of the expedition, or of the subsequent invasion of the Song empire. There was nothing inexplicable about this expedition: it was part of a planned campaign against Song.
29 P.D. Buell, “Mongols in Vietnam: end of one era, beginning of another”, paper given at the First Congress of the Asian Association of World Historians, 29–31 May 2009, Osaka University Nakanoshima-Center, [7]. Available online: http://charite.academia.edu/PaulBuell/Papers/159903/Mongols_in_Vietnam_End_of_one_Era_Beginning_of_Another (accessed 13 June 2012).
30 YS, xv, 4634.
31 Ibid., x, 2981; Ze, Li 黎崱, Annan Zhi Lue 安南志略 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju 中華書局, 2000), 85Google Scholar.
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33 Ibid., i, 61–2.
34 Ibid., x, 2982.
35 YS, x, 2981, indicates that it included 3,000 Mongol cavalry and 10,000 soldiers from the peoples of the Dali region.
36 YS, i, 62–3; Rossabi, Khubilai Khan, 51.
37 Rossabi, Khubilai Khan, 53; YS, i, 65.
38 Rossabi, Khubilai Khan, 55–61.
39 Ibid., 56.
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41 Amitai-Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks, 27–8.
42 For discussions of all these reasons, see Amitai-Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks, 28–9; Smith, “Ayn Jalut”, 307, 328.
43 Amitai-Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks, 29; Smith, “Ayn Jalut”, 308–9, says that the Mongol army at Ayn Jalut was not outnumbered by the Mamluks.
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46 Rashid al-Din, Successors, 180; Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh, ii, 805.
47 Rashid al-Din, Successors, 120, 176–9: Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh, i, 734; ii, 799–803.
48 Rashid al-Din, Successors, 107, 120: Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh, i, 720, 734; on the succession disputes after the deaths of Ögödei and Güyük, see also Allsen, T.T., Mongol Imperialism: The Policies of the Grand Qan Möngke in China, Russia, and the Islamic Lands, 1251–1259 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1987), 19–23Google Scholar.
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50 YS, i, 44–5.
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61 See Rogers, “Mongol withdrawal”, 13; I have been unable to trace the passage that Rogers quotes here as being from Sinor's “Horse and pasture”. It seems likely that it is in fact from a different source.
62 Rashid al-Din, Successors, 178 (Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-tavārīkh, ii, 802), notes that “no quriltai was held as the princes did not appear and meet together”.
63 Juvaini, World-Conqueror, ii, 573–89; Juwaynī, Tārīkh-i-Jahān Gushā, iii, 38–59; Rossabi, Khubilai Khan, 19–20.
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70 Buell, Historical Dictionary, 62–3.
71 Ibid., 92–5.
72 Ibid., 74–6.
