How far would the Mongolian empire have reached?

I'm reading this book about the world's most notorious men and in one chapter, it talks about the Mongolian Empire and it makes the argument of how the only reason why they didn't conquer the world was because Genghis Khan died in a hunting accident and the Mongols lost the desire to pursue the west and because of in-fighting between the royalty. There are some various accounts of what exactly happened and even to Genghis Khan's death, but this is some interesting shit.

 

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Genghis Khan unified tribes that had been warring forever and then absolutely bitch slapped a bunch of civilizations that were technologically superior

 

Since we are talking medieval times. An empire that big is almost impossible to maintain and there's a reason for it's "flash in the pan" life span.

I don't think it would have gotten much bigger than it was. A few more countries and cities. But it was a given that it would only hold under millitary leadership that was Djinghis - motherfucking - Khan.


And since we're doing this.

 

Listen to Dan Carlin's Hardcore history podcast about the Mongols
It's truly fascinating.

http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-43-wrath-of-the-khans-i/

The people's of the steep and the Altai Mountain where always very strong warriors, pretty much having the best Calvary archers, almost no logistics and superior battlefield tactics.
But they are very tough to unite as they fight constantly among themselves.
Throughout history, surrounding areas feared that these people would eventually unite.
In China this happened around 200bc. The Xiongnu untied and initially defeated the Han and made them a vassal for several years before the Han where able to defeat the Xiongnu and make them the vassal this time.
Please remember at this time China was very huge. The Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire are somewhat comparable in terms of population and size.
This also later happened when the Huns united various people and wrecked havoc in Europe. The Huns collapsed very shortly too because of their inability to stay united after they suffered a defeat from the Romans.
So China and the other powers played the Nomads/Steppe people against each other. They were hard to unite so it was rather easy for the main powers to get them to fight each other.
The great wall of china was built specifically to stop these people.

So everything was good for awhile...
there are no huge-successful nomad confederation for quite some time.
At least not the likes what they are about to experience.
The Mongols were extremely adaptive and were constantly adding new tactics they learned from the people they conquered.
The mongols were the world's worst nightmare come true. And it is truly fascinating on how they were able to conquer, govern, and strike fear in much of the world.

 

^^ Yes there are so many cruel but awesome stories. The initial westward invasion that smashed the Khwarezmian empire. Human carpets, forced drinking of gold.

The sacking of Baghdad is probably the most brutal one. Absolutely horrific.

 

Ulan Bator is a seriously untapped resource of some fine bitches.

 

Was watching and will re-watch...NatGeo mankind the story of us....The mongols invented the pony express and first passports/ambassador "passes"...Ghengis and his heirs were horrible murderous humans though....

 

You also have to ask yourself -- why on earth would the Mongols want to own Europe?

Europe was a poor, decentralized, feudal society. There where few riches to be found. Breadcrumbs by Mongol standards, whom had looted the FAR wealtier Chinese and Islamic societies.

On the geography scale, Europe was heavily forested. The vast grass plains that the Mongols needed to feed their horses did not exist in Central/Western Europe. It's not a coincidence that the Mongols invaded Hungary first, that's the only steppe area in Europe where they could establish a feeding-zone for their horses. And it's from there where they launched all their invasions.

Also, becuse of this geographical factor, the Mongols themselves where at risk of falling to gurilla tactics. Take Croatia for instance, although the Mongols did conquer it, they experienced far more casualties than normal, simply becuse the geography enabled the locals to mount hit-and-run tactics against them. Which the Mongols where unfamiliar with.

So... could the Mongols have conquered Europe? Yes! If they truly wanted to. However, the Net Gain would have been catastrophic for them. They would have lost an immense amount of resources in relation to what they recieved. It would not be a profitable venture, basically. Nor would it affect their prestige. Europe was a dot at the map in those times - not worth anything at all.

Maybe, the Mongols would have worked through vassalage. ie: conquer some ruler, make him your vassal, and then sponsor him expanding their domains. That way they would have gone past these geographical disadvantages.

 

Genghis Khan's sons and grandsons continued his conquests. The Mongol's main issue was they relied on their horses, which meant they would do poorly when their horses didnt have sufficient grazing range, when the terrain was too mountainous for horses, or when they had to cross water.

 

Well, it took them 70 years to conquer China, piece by piece. Trying to imagine the differences in war with Western Europe in its Feudal castles and pitting Chinese siege weapons vs Feudal castles and fortifications is fascinating. Would they have been able to find enough grassland to support their steeds?

But in the end, the Black Death would still have fucked them over in the mid 1300's

 

There's a thread on this in another forum and someone made the argument that the Mongols helped Europe by absolutely destroying the Muslim empire and set it back a thousand years. The Muslims of that time were the most technologically advanced civilization in the world with their mathematics and science. That all came to a screeching halt when the Mongols came, practically killed everyone and even destroyed the "House of Wisdom," which was the library of Baghdad. The most comprehensive collection of books and documents at the time.

 

They definitely set back a lot of Muslim countries/kingdoms.

Then some of them became Muslims.
I think Timur (Muslim) had almost as a big effect on a lot of the Muslim powers, including smashing the Mamluks and the early ottomans.

 

The muslims of the Middle East where never really in direct contact with Western Christiandom (Spain, England, France, Germany, etc), ie: the countries whom performed the technological explosion that lead to the European states taking over the world. So I'm not sure how the destruction of the Abbasids/Khwarezmian Empires would have facilitated such an development in far-off Europe. It's not like the Western European states where at this time exerting big efforts in fighting them or anything.

Also, the technological development of the muslim world was grinding to a halt even before the Mongols arrived, thanks to the heavily anti-science theology of Al-Ghazali and others like him. The Mongols basically had the same effect on the muslim scientific-world that the Meteor had on the Dinosaurs. The meteor may have obliterate the Dinosaurs, but they where heading towards a slow death anyways. The meteor just speed things up. (This conclusion is actually based on fairly new resarch. So it's a little discussed factoid. It's from Fredrich Starr's "Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age From the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane").

 

The Ottomans recovered at a rapid speed though. They weren't very affected by Timur despite losing to him. Mainly becuse Timur never devastated their power-base (Anatolia).

Timurs big consequences where twofold.

1: Keeping the "Mongol Way" alive for another generation.

2: Heavily reducing the Christian population in the Middle East due to his massacres, from which they never really recovered.

Other than that, Timur's contributions where rather short-lived. His powerbase (centered around Samarkand) quickly diminished in importance following his death. Also, you have to remember that Strong States tend to also just be replaced by another Strong State. A hundread years after Timur the Islamic world had found its balance-of-power again, with the Ottoman/Saffavid/Mogul Empires keeping the status quo in tact for several hundread years. Until they where supplanted by European powers.

 

Just watched a documentary about Genghis Khan just the other night.

Apparently, when he was born, some priest or shaman foretold that he would become a great warrior and leader someday. It was likely bullshit because his father was the leader of their tribe, so naturally, he would succeed him. However, his father died when Khan was still a kid and his father's old enemies came looking for him.

After his father died, he was captured and ended up a slave. One night he escaped and his in some water nearby. Some guy that was actually part of the search party found him but let him go because he believed the prophecy that the priest had foretold when he was born.

That's pretty cool stuff. Had that guy not let him go, we likely would not even know of the Mongols as they were just one of many nomadic people in Asia.

 

That's very likely just another legend. Great men tend to have great legends spun around them post-mortem.

 

Imma check Netflix for a documentary on him. Fascinating stuff, like a real life Conan.

 

They had their chance