Guo Kan

Guo Kan
Governor of Baghdad
In office 1258–1259
Succeeded by	Ata-Malik Juvayni
Personal details
Born	1217
Died	1277
Nationality	Han chinese
Military service
Allegiance	Mongol Empire, Ilkhanate, Yuan dynasty
Rank	General
Battles/wars	Mongol–Jin War, Siege of Baghdad (1258), Battle of Xiangyang

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Guo.

Guo Kan or Kuo K'an (Chinese: 郭侃; pinyin: Guō Kǎn), (1217–1277) was a famous general of Han Chinese descent who served the Mongol Khans in their Western conquests and the conquest of China itself. He was descended from a lineage of Chinese generals. Both his father and grandfather had served the Khan, while his ancestor was Guo Ziyi, a famed general of the Tang Dynasty. He was not a senior Mongol commander but was in charge of Chinese artillery units under the Mongol Empire. He was one of the foreign legions that served the Mongol Empire, and some of the later conquests of the Mongols were done by armies under his command. The biography of this Han Chinese commander in the Yuan Shi ("History of Yuan") said that Guo Kan's presence struck so much fear in his foes that they called him the "Divine Man".

Birth and lineage

Guo Kan was raised in the household of Prime Minister Shi Tianzhe (who was also a Han Chinese, and whose father and two brothers all served the Yuan).

Military legacy

He took part in the final drive in the conquest of the Jin Dynasty, including the capture of Kaifeng, and may have served in the European campaign with Subutai a few years following the fall of the Jin Dynasty. He then served in Hulagu's invasion of the Middle East, playing a major role in the capture and Battle of Baghdad, reportedly devising the strategy of using the dikes to drown the Caliph's army, and supervising the reduction of Baghdad's walls. He was then appointed Governor of Baghdad by Hulagu. and at some point after Khubilai Khan's accession as Khan, Guo Kan went to serve him, instead of his brother, and assisted Khubilai Khan in the conquest of the Southern Song, and ultimately the unification of China proper under the Yuan Dynasty.

Conquest of Song China

After he returned to Mongolia with Hulagu Khan after Möngke Khan's death, Guo Kan was taken from Hulagu's command, and assigned by Kublai Khan to aid him in the difficult conquest of Southern Song Dynasty of China. Khubilai's accession as Khan left him able to select the best of the Mongol Generals to serve him. Subutai and Jebe were both dead of old age, and Guo Kan was the last of the dreaded Dogs of War, and the new Great Khan Khubilai assigned Guo Kan to commander the final conquest of China. Guo Kan reportedly urged him to adopt a Chinese-style dynastic title, establish a capital and central government, and build schools. He reportedly was the general who proposed capturing Xiangyang as a strategy for invading the Southern Song. He defeated Song forces in a battle at Xuzhou in 1262, and in 1266 urged Khubilai to establish military farms in Huaibei to provide supplies for an invasion of the Southern Song. In 1268 and 1270 he suppressed local rebellions, and then he was sent to participate in the siege of Xiangyang. In 1276, the Song dynasty fell (except for the loyalist movement that lasted until 1279), and Guo served as a prefect for one more year before dying.

As example of Mongol meritocracy

More than any army in history until the 20th Century, and more so than many even in the Modern Era, the Mongols promoted strictly on the basis of military skill and ability. Like his brother "dogs of war", Jebe, son of an ordinary warrior in a tribe which had opposed Genghis Khan in his unification of the nomads, and Subutai, son of a blacksmith, Guo Kan, ethnically Han Chinese, represented the revolutionary concept of promoting the sons of the most humble, or foreign born, to command any of the Mongol nobility - including relatives of the Great Khan. Though Batu was nominally in charge of the invasion of Europe, it was Subutai who truly commanded. Equally, Guo Kan devised the strategy which reduced the powerful walls of Bagdad in mere days, after destroying her small, but brave and disciplined army in mere hours by drowning them. Promotion by merit, not birth, was one of Genghis Khan's most important innovations, and Guo Kan, from an ethnic group of the Mongols' strongest rivals, was one of his prized generals, loyal to five generations of Great Khans.

H. H. Howorth argues that Guo Kan is the corruption of the name of Mongolian commander Koke Ilge (ancestor of Chupan and descendent of Cila'un who saved Temujin when he was young) of the Jalayir. Nasir al-Din Tusi, Rashid and Bar Heabreus mention a certain Ali/Asutu bahadur as Hulagu's governor in Baghdad. Peter Jackson and John Boyle also supported Howorth's hypothesis.

References

• Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1998
• Chambers, James, The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe. Atheneum. New York. 1979. ISBN 0-689-10942-3
• Hildinger, Erik, Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1700
• Morgan, David, The Mongols, ISBN 0-631-17563-6
• Nicolle, David, The Mongol Warlords Brockhampton Press, 1998
• Prawdin, Michael. The Mongol Empire
• Reagan, Geoffry, The Guinness Book of Decisive Battles , Canopy Books, New York (1992)
• Saunders, J.J., The History of the Mongol Conquests, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1971, ISBN 0-8122-1766-7
• Sicker, Martin, The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna, Praeger Publishers, 2000
• Soucek, Svatopluk, A History of Inner Asia, Cambridge, 2000

• Prawdin, Michael. "The Mongol Empire".
• Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War
• Original from the University of Michigan
• (Original from the University of Michigan)
• Hildinger, Erik. "Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1700"
• Saunders, J.J. The History of the Mongol Conquests
• Nicolle, David. The Mongol Warlords
• H. H. Howorth History of the Mongols from 9th to 19th century vol 1 Mongol proper and Kalmuks, p.160
• John Andrew Boyle, "The death of the last 'Abbasid caliph: a contemporary Muslim account", J Semitic Studies (1961) 6(2): 145-161