Human Shields — The Mongol Tactic of KharashWhile the Mongol hordes were certainly a force

Human Shields — The Mongol Tactic of KharashWhile the Mongol hordes were certainly a force to be reckoned with, they were by no means invincible, and were often limited by terrain, natural foliage, and smart tactics from savvy enemies.  For example the Vietnamese were able to defeat the Mongols by taking to the hills and jungles where Mongol horsemen were not as effective.  The Mamluks of Egypt defeated them by using their own tactics against them.One limitation of early Mongol armies was their lack of proficiency in siege warfare.  While the Mongols could defeat any army in the open battlefield, there was little they could do when opposed by substantial fortifications.  This deficiency became readily apparent in 1211 when Mongols under Genghis Khan invaded Northern China, where they faced heavily armed opponents who manned large fortresses, walls, trenches, moats, and other fortifications. The Mongols had no siege engines such as catapults, ballistae, or trebuchets, they had no siege towers, and no battering rams.  At best all they had were scaling ladders.  Thus, in some of the Mongols earliest campaigns against the Xia Dynasty, they took heavy casualties and it was questionable whether the Mongols could actually win.To counter the Chinese fortifications, the Mongols created a new tactic they called “kharash”, which translates as “living boards”. It was a diabolically simple, but brutally effective tactic.  When besieging a fortress, the Mongols would take residents of captured towns, sometimes captured soldiers but often civilians, and force them to serve as the front ranks of the assault. Thus they would absorb the worst the defenders had to offer; arrows, crossbow bolts, primitive bombs, boiling oil, rocks, and other weapons.  On the flip side, the defenders would be forced to fire upon their own civilians, including women or children, the only other option being to offer no resistance at all.After the Mongols conquered the states of Northern China, they included Chinese technology and engineering into their military, later even adopting early gunpowder warfare.  However, the tactic of kharash continued due to its effectiveness, and the Mongols had few ethical concerns when it came to making war. -- source link
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