Was any significant percentage of Mongol army infantry?

Question

Mongols of Khan's time are generally considered to be a cavalry army, which makes sense logistically, given the width and speed of their military maneuvers.

But is there historical evidence of Khan's Mongol armies ever using infantry in any significant degree (e.g. >5% of a given fighting force)?

I'm mostly interested in timlines around Gengis (1206-1227) but pretty much anything till the time of Kublai Khan (1294) is fair game.

Please note that I'm using a narrow definition of infantry: soldiers trained and equipped to fight primarily on foot (they may have horses for movement but always/primarily fight dismounted, using infantry tactics).

I'm only including front line soldiers - e.g. auxiliary engineering, logistics, and whatever equivalent of military police/garrison troops inside the empire the Mongols had do not count, even if they were not cavalry.

Non-horsed-archers are probably in-scope, but again, only if they were explicitly meant to fight on foot as opposed to simply regular cavalry archers that were dismounted for accuracy at a specific part of the battle. Depends on details.

_{Inspired by this Q&A.}

Answer 1

There are two things that the Mongols had to their advantage when they waged war, significant numbers and superior training and discipline. These two factors almost always ensured that they would have the upper hand in any engagement.

I found one source that suggested that a typical military unit for the Mongols would consist of three major units. One unit would consist of 10,000 infantry and the other two would consist of 10,000 cavalry. Each of these units was made up of a number of smaller units, each with its own role.

One unit of cavalry would attack at many different points along the enemy's lines, and then quickly retreat and regroup, preventing the enemy from being able to follow or sometimes even find them. The other unit of cavalry would ride around the enemy, encircling them on all sides so that they could not escape.

The infantry consisted of a combination of foot soldiers and archers. The archers would help harrass the enemy by continuously pelting them with arrows. Then once the enemy started to wear down, the foot soldiers would charge in to finish them off in close combat.

(This same site has a pretty impressive list of sources on their bibliography page.)

Answer 2

I've found some evidence during the Mongol invasion of Japan (it is wikipedia, but it's cited to a reasonable, but not fantastic degree):

"in 1274, the Yuan fleet set out, with an estimated 15,000 Mongol and Chinese soldiers and 8,000 Korean soldiers, in 300 large vessels and 400-500 smaller craft, although figures vary considerably depending on the source"

And in the following battle of Bun'ei (battle before the Kamikaze typhoon business) we find that the mongols used phalanx infantry tactics against the Japanese.

This book chronicles these events.

Answer 3

0%. Mongols often had allied infantry (mostly Chinese), mongols occasionally fought dismounted. But mongol troops were always primarily cavalry.