Travel and Transport in the Early Mongol Empire

From the empire’s founding in 1206 through the succession struggles after 1260, Mongol routes connected seasonal camps, towns and trade ports. William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar traveling in 1253–55, describes households moving with pasture and his own choice of ox-carts. John of Plano Carpini, a papal envoy who traveled in 1245–47, records how officials supplied guides and fresh horses. Their accounts follow journeys across Crimea, the Cuman grasslands and the Mongol courtlands in present-day Mongolia, showing how transport and provisions changed between regions.

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Choosing carts or riding animals

Soldaia, a port on Crimea’s southern coast beside the Black Sea, drew merchants from Constantinople, now Istanbul, Rus’ lands, the eastern Slavic principalities, and northern regions. In May 1253, Rubruck met merchants there before traveling overland toward Sartaq, son of Batu, the Mongol ruler of the western domains. They advised him to take covered ox-carts for the belongings that he did not want to unload at every stop. Packhorses would carry those things faster only if the party unloaded them at each stage and transferred them to fresh animals. Cart travel let the friars ride at the oxen’s slower pace, but Rubruck estimated that his trip to Sartaq took two months by cart rather than one by horse.

His party used four covered carts, plus two lent carts for bedding, and five riding horses for five people. Two drivers handled the oxen and horses. The arrangement separated the people’s riding animals from the larger load of food, bedding and gifts. Rubruck placed fruit, muscatel wine and biscuits for local captains in a cart. Port merchants helped him weigh convenience against speed before departure.

Moving households with the seasons

Rubruck described pastoral movement as a planned rotation. A captain knew the boundaries of the pasture used by the people under him and where they grazed in winter, spring, summer and autumn. In winter they moved south toward warmer regions, then north in summer; on grazing land without open water, snow served as a source of water for animals. The route of a camp therefore followed pasture and water rather than a permanent road.

The dwelling itself could travel on a large ox-cart. Rubruck counted twenty-two oxen drawing one house, eleven across the front and eleven behind; one driver stood at the doorway. He also saw a girl leading a linked train of twenty or thirty carts across flat ground. When the train reached a bad stretch, the carts were unhitched and taken over one by one. Household baggage used a different rig: woven chests holding bedding and valuables were tied high on camel carts, which could cross rivers and remained loaded when the camp stopped. These arrangements let a mobile household move shelter, equipment and stored goods together.

Escorts, guides and fresh mounts

Carpini’s party left Kyiv, in present-day Ukraine, in February 1246, heading toward Batu’s camp on the Volga River and then the assembly in Mongolia where Güyük was elected Great Khan that year. Local nobles advised them not to take their own horses into deep snow: the animals could not dig up grass as Mongol horses did, and there was no hay or straw. The envoys left their horses with two servants and gave the millenarius, a local commander, presents in return for packhorses and an escort.

At a town under Mongol rule, its prefect supplied horses and an escort to the next town. There an Alan prefect demanded additional gifts before helping them onward. At the first Mongol camp, chiefs asked the envoys’ purpose, then assigned packhorses and a guide to the next leader. Each handoff depended on the authorities and communities along that section of the route.

On the February 26–April 4 ride from Corenza’s camp to Batu, Carpini says the party changed horses three or four times on nearly every day. Looking back over the Comanian journey from the beginning of Lent through April 16, Carpini says they changed horses five or seven times a day. The Cuman plain, north of the Black Sea, stretched along major rivers including the Dnieper, Don, Volga and Jaec; Batu’s camp lay on the lower Volga. The relay system explains the imperial service’s stages and supplies.

Carpini’s party then continued east toward the Great Khan’s election assembly. On the final three-week ride through Mongolia, the escorts were ordered to hurry them to Güyük’s camp, which they reached on July 22, 1246. They traveled from dawn until night, often reaching camp too late for supper and eating in the morning; fresh horses were usually available during the day.

Letters, gifts and reception

Travelers also needed their identity and purpose understood at each new authority. At Soldaia, merchants had told the town’s captains that Rubruck was an envoy, although he had publicly said he was not carrying an official mission. He explained that he wished to visit Sartaq and carried letters from the French king. The captains received him favorably and lodged the party at the episcopal church. The gifts he carried were part of the introduction: he reported that a visitor arriving empty-handed was not properly received.

At the camp of Corenza, the Kyiv interpreter could not translate Pope Innocent IV’s letters, so the audience ended without their contents being read. At Batu’s camp, interpreters translated the papal letters into Ruthenian, Saracen and Mongol languages on Good Friday, April 6, 1246; Batu received and read the Mongol version. Months later, at Güyük’s court, after his election as Great Khan, secretaries translated the Khan’s reply word by word while Carpini rendered it into Latin. They compared both versions phrase by phrase, then prepared a further copy in Saracen characters for possible reading to the Pope.

Winter shelter and provisions

In late December 1253 and early January 1254, Rubruck’s party stayed near Möngke’s mobile court; Möngke was Great Khan from 1251 to 1259. The party later reached Karakorum, the Mongol capital in present-day Mongolia. One day their lodging was cold and they had eaten nothing; they cooked meat and millet in the meat broth. On January 4, they were called before Möngke. Rubruck describes his toes freezing after he walked barefoot and says the court supplied fur clothing and shoes. At the audience, the central fire burned briars, wormwood roots and cattle dung.

Rubruck’s return route crossed the Volga in seven separate boat crossings where the river divided into branches. Elsewhere, camps could be isolated: he describes periods when they could find no people, their food was running short and their horses were worn out. Along a mountain river where grass grew only near the water, the party spent two or three days with no other nourishment than fermented mare’s milk. River crossings, fodder and access to provisions could set the pace as decisively as the distance between camps.