Answer:
The Mongol Empire expanded through brutal raids and invasions, but also established routes of trade and technology between East and West.
The Mongol warriors faced other nomads, European knights, troops behind massive stone walls, Korean guerillas, Burmese war elephants and even the famed Japanese Samurai. Ultimately, the Mongols' mastery of the battlefield allowed them to rule over the largest contiguous land empire in the history of the known world.
The Mongols conquered, by battle or voluntary surrender, the areas of present-day Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus, and parts of Syria and Turkey, with further Mongol raids reaching southwards into Palestine as far as Gaza in 1260 and 1300.
