Battle of Yehuling (1211): Genghis Khan Crushes the Jin Army

The Battle of Yehuling was fought in the autumn of 1211 at a mountain pass north-west of modern Beijing, where the Mongol army of Genghis Khan routed the main field army of the Jurchen Jin dynasty. Also known as the Battle of Badger Mouth, it was the first great victory of the Mongols in China. It destroyed the Jin ability to meet them in open battle and opened the way to the siege of Zhongdu, the Jin capital.

Background

The Jin dynasty, founded by the Jurchen people of Manchuria in 1115, ruled northern China from its capital Zhongdu. For decades it had kept the Mongolian steppe divided by supporting one tribe against another and demanding tribute. After Genghis Khan’s rise and the unification of the steppe in 1206, this policy collapsed.

Genghis Khan first secured his flank by forcing the Tangut kingdom of Western Xia to submit in 1210. When a new Jin emperor, Wanyan Yongji, came to the throne in 1208, the Mongol ruler refused to acknowledge him as overlord. Later Chinese accounts say he openly scorned the new emperor as unworthy. In the spring of 1211 he held an assembly on the Kherlen River and led his army south across the Gobi Desert.

The armies

The Mongol army consisted almost entirely of mounted archers, each rider leading spare horses, organised in units of tens, hundreds and thousands. Estimates of its size range from about 65,000 to about 100,000 men. The Jin forces included Jurchen cavalry, Chinese infantry and Khitan and other frontier troops. Chinese histories credit the Jin with several hundred thousand men in the area, figures that modern historians treat as exaggerated, although the Jin certainly outnumbered the invaders.

The Jin commanders, led by Wanyan Chengyu and Wanyan Jiujin, with Heshilie Zhizhong (better known as Hushahu) holding the western sector around Xijing (Datong), chose to defend the passes leading from the Mongolian plateau down into the North China plain. Some officers reportedly urged an attack on the Mongols while they were still dispersed and grazing their horses, but the advice was rejected.

The battle

The Jin envoy Shimo Ming’an, a Khitan officer sent to the Mongol camp, defected to Genghis Khan and is said to have revealed the Jin dispositions. The Mongols advanced on the Jin positions at Yehuling, the Wild Fox Ridge. According to Chinese and Mongol accounts, Genghis Khan’s general Muqali led a charge that broke the Jin line, and the main Mongol force followed.

The Jin army fell back in disorder towards Huan’erzui, the Badger Mouth, where much of it was destroyed. The Mongols then pursued the survivors to the fortress of Huihebao and annihilated them there. Later Chinese writers described the battlefield as covered with bodies for many miles, a literary image rather than a measured count, but the destruction of the Jin field army is not in doubt.

Aftermath

With the Jin army gone, Mongol columns spread across northern China. Genghis Khan’s general Jebe took the strongly defended Juyong Pass by feigning retreat and drawing out its garrison, and Mongol forces reached the outskirts of Zhongdu. They lacked siege equipment and did not yet try to take the capital, but they raided widely, seized the imperial horse herds and captured many towns in 1211 and 1212. Khitan subjects of the Jin in Manchuria rebelled and joined the Mongols.

The defeat shook the Jin state. In 1213 Hushahu, one of the defeated commanders, murdered Wanyan Yongji in a palace coup and placed Emperor Xuanzong on the throne, before being killed himself by a rival general. Mongol pressure continued, Zhongdu fell in 1215, and the Jin court moved south to Kaifeng. The dynasty finally ended in 1234.

Key people

• Genghis Khan (c. 1162–1227): founder of the Mongol Empire, who led the invasion in person.
• Muqali (1170–1223): one of Genghis Khan’s oldest companions; he later commanded the Mongol war in northern China from 1217 with the title of prince (guowang).
• Wanyan Chengyu: the senior Jin commander at Yehuling, a member of the Jurchen imperial clan.
• Heshilie Zhizhong (Hushahu): Jin general who abandoned Xijing during the 1211 campaign and later seized power in a coup in 1213.
• Shimo Ming’an: Khitan officer in Jin service who went over to the Mongols and later served them as a commander in the war against Jin.

Sources and uncertainties

The battle is known mainly from the official histories of the Jin and Yuan dynasties, compiled in the 14th century, and from the Persian historian Rashid al-Din, who wrote around 1300 using Mongol information. The Secret History of the Mongols mentions the campaign only briefly. These sources agree on the outcome but differ on details, including the order of events, the names of places and the size of the armies. Even the exact location of Huan’erzui is discussed by historians, so descriptions of the battle should be read as a reconstruction rather than an exact record.

Timeline

• 1208: Wanyan Yongji becomes emperor of Jin.
• 1210: Western Xia submits to Genghis Khan.
• 1211, spring: Genghis Khan leads the Mongol army south across the Gobi.
• 1211, autumn: Battle of Yehuling and the rout at Huan’erzui and Huihebao.
• 1211–1212: Mongols take the Juyong Pass and raid northern China.
• 1213: Hushahu murders Wanyan Yongji.
• 1215: Fall of Zhongdu.

Why it matters

Yehuling showed that a Mongol army could destroy the field forces of a great agricultural empire. It began a war of more than twenty years that brought northern China under Mongol rule, gave the Mongols Chinese engineers and administrators, and set the stage for their later conquest of all China under Kublai Khan.