Pros and Khans

The Mongols had a bad wrap

Pro: 

The Mongols created a vast trade network that was also utilized for sending messages. The Mongols promoted incoming trade by offering merchants markups on their goods as well as tax breaks. Additionally, merchants were afforded protection along the trade routes. This network encouraged trade between a greater area of Europe and Asia than had occurred previously, and arguably influenced the trade relations that we see today. 

Mongols left almost nothing in written word for historians. Nearly everything we know about Mongols is written from the perspective of the people they conquered, or based upon Archaeology. In the end, the Mongols were beaten back by the agrarian societies and, the victors wrote history. It is not difficult to understand how they may have been written in a harsher light. Look at how the impact of Russian rhetoric against one of their greatest leaders influenced how he was viewed in Mongolia until as late as the 90s. 

Mongols allowed conquered people to continue practicing their own religion, and speaking their own languages. They did not restrict proselytizing. This is much more than can be said for most conquering people. 

Women enjoyed greater equality in Mongol society than they did in most other societies of the time. Women participated equally in herding, farming and trade. They held positions as military and court advisors, and moved freely in society. Again, this is much more than can be said for women in other societies. 

The Mongols were incredible military tacticians and had a seemingly good grasp on psychology. Their prowess on horseback made them difficult to hold off. They also developed a small compound bow that could be fired from horseback. These people came to be known as the steppe light warriors. They integrated technologies from China and Persia, making use of catapults, gun-powder, artillery, and siege warfare. They developed effective tactics of overwhelming force, surrounding the enemy, and then falling back. Upon conquering people, they reduced the risk of an uprising by local people by separating them into different units. There was also a purpose to their harsh tactics. By showing complete brutality, it incited fear and hopelessness which are required to keep people down. They also endeared themselves to their troops by living in the same harsh conditions.  

Cons: 

The Mongols brutally murdered entire cities, in some areas numbering 200,000 individuals at a time. They would then take the prisoners onto the next battle and use them as human shields or as fill for moats. 

Their extensive trade network spread the plague from China to the rest of the world, decimating the population and subsequently contracting the very same trade network. 

Although the Mongols created an incredible trade network, they didn’t actually create anything for export, unless you count brutality. They were really like the mafia in that sense extorting people for protection. 

The Mongols offered little more than death or a defeated status for the people they conquered. 

The Mongols forced the greatest minds, artists, inventors to spread out throughout the empire against their will. Also, they threw plague bodies using catapults into cities to spread the plague.