The Great Wall as Perilous Frontier for the Mongols in 16th Century: Reconsidering Nomadic-Sedentary Relations in Premodern Inner Asia

• Main Author: Temur Temule
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korea University, Center for Korean History 2016-02-01
• Series: International Journal of Korean History
• Subjects: Retainers; Ming-Mongol Relations; Nomadic-Sedentary Relations; Retaliative Raid
• Online Access: http://ijkh.khistory.org/upload/pdf/ijkh-21-1-121.pdf

The existing scholarship in nomadic-sedentary relations has focused on the raids and invasions by nomads against agricultural society, and has attempted to seek internal reasons for this within the nomadic society. Interactive Ming- Mongol history along the Great Wall in the sixteenth century indicates that the agricultural society was also capable of offense. Many raids conducted by nomads were actually revenge for the provocation and raids by the agricultural society, hence they were retaliatory raids. Nomadic-sedentary groups interacted along the Great Wall area; therefore, scholars should turn their attention to this area rather than exclusively search for reasons from internal factors of nomadic society. The razzias upon the Mongols beyond the Great Wall by Ming generals and their retainers have shown that sedentary society were in need of horses, cattle, meat, wool, hides, etc. Ming China’s big market for the nomadic goods drove Ming generals and their retainers to do the profitable, risky, but provocative forays against the Mongols in 16th century.