13. A Decisive Mongol Victory That Came About As a Result of Constant Practice and Drill
Another tactic practiced constantly by the Mongols, and that runs against the perception that they were mindless warriors, was the feigned retreat to lure the enemy into pursuing them. Once they brought the foe giving them chase to a favorable ground, the Mongols would turn at a signal, and surround or counterchange their pursuers. An illustrative example was the Battle of the Kalka River in 1223, which began with a severely outnumbered Mongols leading a numerically superior army of pursuing Rus and Cumans on a nine-day chase across the Steppe.
When the Mongols reached the favorable ground at the Kalka River in today’s Ukraine, they turned on their foes. The result was a decisive Mongol victory that broke the Rus, and set the stage for their subjugation under what came to be known as The Mongol Yoke for centuries. It was a victory that owed everything to constant training and drill. Through such continual practice, Genghis Khan revolutionized warfare on the Eurasian Steppe. He transformed the nomads under his command from amateur warrior bands into a disciplined professional army, with an established structure and hierarchical chain of command.