For a long time, the Mongols were a shepherd people, poor, barely known and living nearby tribes. It consisted of only 30-40 families and paid tribute to China. But under the rule of the brilliant shepherd king Temuchin (who called himself Genghis Khan) for several decades he became a warlike people, strong and terrible for the neighbors. The Mongols not only overthrew the Chinese yoke, but also subdued their former overlords. Under the next rulers, they subjugated almost all of Asia and part of Europe to their dominion, their conquests in the XII-XIV centuries terrified all modern peoples.
The Mongols started the war by invading enemy land from different sides. If they did not meet resistance, then they penetrated into the earth, ruining everything in their path and completely exterminating its inhabitants. Before the siege of a strong fortress, they devastated the surroundings so that no one could come to the aid of the besieged garrison. The art of taking fortresses was perfected with them.
In 1259, the great Khan Mongke died. Khubilai neglected the Yasa rule, according to which the great khan should be elected at a kurultai with the obligatory participation of all members of the reigning house. In June 1260, he gathered his warriors closest to Kaiping and, with their consent, proclaimed himself a great khan. This was a direct violation of the Yasa law, for which the death penalty was imposed.
As soon as the news of Khubilai's unauthorized deed reached Karakorum, another part of the Mongol nobility gathered there in the autumn of the same year, which chose Arik-Bugu, Khubilai's younger brother, as the great khan.
So in Mongolia there were two great khans, between whom enmity immediately began. Four years later, this enmity ended in the defeat of the Arik Bugi, but the Mongol power had already become different by that time. Great Khan Khubilai came to terms with the fact that the western uluses fell away from her and did not even try to return them under his rule again.
It was Khubilai who turned his attention to the final conquest of China. In 1271, he moved his capital from Mongolia to Beijing, from where it was much closer to Japan. The Mongol conquerors more than once sent their ambassadors to the Japanese shoguns with the demand to submit to the supreme power of the great Kublai Khan. The Japanese did not give any answer to these messages, but they themselves began to intensively prepare for the defense. In 1271, one of these embassies was sent to the Land of the Rising Sun, but the ruler Tokimun Hojo ordered to expel him from the state.
The Mongols attacked Japan for the first time in November 1274. They rather easily dealt with the Japanese troops defending the islands of Iki and Tsushima. The rulers of these islands were killed, and the territories themselves were devastated. A fleet of nine hundred ships with an army of forty thousand approached the Hakata Bay on the island of Kyushu. After a successful day's battle, the invaders retreated to their ships for the night. For a long time it was believed that that evening a storm threatened to disrupt the ships from anchor, and the helmsmen were forced to go to sea. The storm allegedly scattered almost the entire fleet, two hundred ships sank, only 13,500 people survived from the army. However, meteorological analysis of this event made it possible to establish that the battle took place on November 26-27, when there are no typhoons and storms in the area. Moreover, the historical chronicles mention that the troops of the conquerors made a tactical maneuver,and did not die in the storm. The Mongol army was forced to leave the island of Kyushu, as their commanders feared that they would be cut off from the mainland.
In any case, the failure at the island of Kyushu did not stop Khubilai: he did not leave thoughts of conquering Japan. And the great khan decided to gather larger forces to conquer the rebellious island country.
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In 1275 he sent a new embassy to Japan with the same requirements - to recognize himself as a vassal. However, members of the embassy were taken to Kamakura City and executed. The Japanese felt more confident, because this time they did not sit idly by. They managed to enclose the Khakata Bay with a wall, which was a huge structure about two and a half meters high and about twenty kilometers long. The wall deprived the Mongolian cavalry of the space necessary for maneuvers.
In 1281, two fleets of more than 4,000 ships and an army of more than one hundred thousand strong, consisting of Mongolian, Chinese and Korean soldiers, were moved against Japan at once. The backbone of the Mongolian fleet was the junks - ships with a highly raised bow and stern and strong wooden hulls sheathed with iron sheet. The Jonkas were given an auxiliary landing ship with twenty warriors - the bator, which in Mongolian means "brave". These brave men were a formidable force, because in all previous battles they had won great fame. Each warrior was armed with a wide saber, mace, lasso, and a throwing spear with a hook to pull the enemy off the horse. But the most terrible weapon in the hands of the bator was the bow. There were legends about the ability of the soldiers to handle him and their accuracy in shooting. Historical information has been preserved thatthat the Mongols also used "long snakes that smite the enemy" - incendiary arrows.
It was with such forces that the Mongols opposed samurai Japan. One fleet was sent from Korea, the other from South China, and they were to join up near the island of Kyushu. However, the southern fleet was late to the meeting place, and the Japanese were able to repel the attack of the weaker eastern fleet. With a battle cry, hordes of Mongol warriors jumped off the ships and jumped into battle. However, the Japanese quickly recovered from the surprise of the onslaught and held back the first attack of the enemy. The bloody clashes did not bring victory to either side. But the "mosquito raiders" - small oared vessels of samurai - inflicted lightning strikes on the clumsy Mongolian fleet and forced the enemy to retreat back to the small island of Hiradojima.
During this time, religious ceremonies were performed in all Shinto temples in Japan. Emperor Kemeyama and his dignitaries prayed to the gods for the help of the defending army. The emperor, appealing to the god of war, inscribed with his own hand on a prayer tablet a petition for victory. And his words were heard by heaven. As if in answer to their prayers, a "divine wind" flew into the island in August, destroying everything that was possible. And when the main armada approached, a terrible typhoon that swept over Japan sank most of the Mongolian fleet. With incredible force, he overturned junks, tore chains, broke masts, and turned sails into rags. The remaining ships were scattered by the typhoon that raged for two days. Those who were not swallowed by the depths of the sea, on the shore were waiting for death from the swords of the samurai. In the face of the superior forces of the Japanese were the remnants of the Mongol army, which they all defeated. The disaster took place near the small island of Takashima, located in the western part of Japan.
The Japanese called this typhoon, in which they saw the intervention of the sky that saved them, "kamikaze". The emperor offered up many prayers in the temples to the King of heaven for such obvious protection and mercy. The festivities and refreshments lasted several days in a row.
The losses of the Mongols are estimated in different ways, but most historians believe that they amounted to 4,000 ships. Losses in manpower probably exceeded one hundred thousand people, including soldiers who drowned in the sea and were killed at Takashima.
For a long time, until the death of Kublai Khan in 1294, the Japanese expected a new Mongol invasion and prepared for it. But it did not follow, and in general, since then, the Mongols have never seriously threatened Japan again.
During World War II, in the Pacific Ocean, Japanese suicide pilots were called "kamikaze", who with their planes dived on American warships and sank them.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev