#jebe

|| 𝓟𝓞𝓟𝓤𝓛𝓐𝓡 ||

this is The Thing btw (my whole personality)

tagging people who's opinions i care about :3

“As you injured my dun horse's neck with an arrow, when I was riding it, I'll give you name Jebe instead of yours. Will be my arrow, which will defend me on days and nights!“

© Temujin

BATTLE OF HUIHEBU, SEPTEMBER 1211

Huihebu 會河堡 was one of the first battles of the Mongol-Jin war, fought after Chinggis Khan's army forced its way through the Yehuling pass. South at Yehuling, at Huihebu, Chinggis fought a large Jin army under Qusa. The battle began on September 26th, and continued for three days of inconclusive fighting. Both the Mongol and Jin armies consisted of lightly armoured horse archers, and heavy cavalry. And it was this heavy cavalry that determined the outcome of the battle.

On the the third day of battle, Chinggis Khan's star general Jebe Noyan (pictured here) led a charge of an elite heavy cavalry unit (numbering 3,000 men, we are told). The charge was skillfully led, and well-timed, as it led to the rout of the (likely larger) Jin army.

Despite being famed for their light archers, many of the decisive moments in Mongol battles are attributed in the sources to a precisely timed heavy cavalry charge. Soon after Huihebu, it was Muqali who led the charge to break the Jin army at Huaner'zui/Badger's Mouth Pass. The idea seems to have been, that the Mongol horse archers wore down the enemy, both physically and morally, with arrows and skirmishing, seeking to pull the foe into feigned retreats, all the while probing to gauge enemy moral and strength. Once the Mongol general deemed the foe sufficiently weakened, a select cavalry force would be unleashed against the more vulnerable portion of the enemy line, hoping for a break-through and prompting a chain-rout. If this failed (which it did on occasion) they were pulled back to cycle through the process again. And judging from the long list of Mongol victories, this worked pretty well.

You can watch my new video on the uses of Mongol heavy cavalry and its role against the Jin Dynasty here: