How far would the Mongolian empire have reached?

They would never have gotten past the shitty walls.
 
Interesting posts, europe1.

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Gotta use my history education for something I suppose. :icon_chee
 
What's it called?

No idea, was just going to do a random search of his name. Can probably find something on youtube, also.

While youtube searching, I found the Mongolian T-Pain:

[YT]p_5yt5IX38I[/YT]
 
I agree, thanks for the info. I didn't know that it came down to grassland shortage, but it seems logical.

No idea, was just going to do a random search of his name. Can probably find something on youtube, also.

While youtube searching, I found the Mongolian T-Pain:

[YT]p_5yt5IX38I[/YT]

Shiiet, mfw I listen to it all and thought it was strangely beautiful.

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They would never have gotten past the shitty walls.

If they did, they would probably stop by the shitty Wok anyway.
 
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Everyone hit all the major points with unfavorable terrain, and the inability to hold onto any conquests. But it would be interesting seeing how England, and Scandinavia would of turned out considering i don't think the Mongols could have eve launched an invasion of those areas and they would have been in great position after the Mongols inevitable lost control after a few decades.
 
That's very likely just another legend. Great men tend to have great legends spun around them post-mortem.

It's possible. The documentary was based on the writings of one of his sons. It probably wouldn't be out of the ordinary to embellish about your already larger than life father.
 
Everyone hit all the major points with unfavorable terrain, and the inability to hold onto any conquests. But it would be interesting seeing how England, and Scandinavia would of turned out considering i don't think the Mongols could have eve launched an invasion of those areas and they would have been in great position after the Mongols inevitable lost control after a few decades.

Well the Mongols did try twice to launch an invasion of Japan - using the native Chineses to construct their armada. Both times they failed becuse of turbulent storms that sank the fleets.

But Japan is next to their heartlands. Generally, the farther away from their heartlands the Mongols came, the more indirect their rule became. Take Russia for example. The mongols decided to administrate this area by basically handing over the administration to their local vassal -- Muscow. This by the way, is how Muscow became the "heartland" of Russia. By being the Mongols vassal, the power centralized around Muscow, where it previously had been centered around Novgorod/Kiev. This power-balance persisted even after the Mongol power fell in the area.

Had the Mongols conquered mainland Europe, they most certainly would have set up a similar system of governance. And this system of indirect control makes it unlikely that they would have decided to construct an armada in this part of the world to conquer poor and little-known islands. So England and Scandinavia would most likely have been left unmolested by them.
 
It's possible. The documentary was based on the writings of one of his sons. It probably wouldn't be out of the ordinary to embellish about your already larger than life father.

Shit man, that's half the stuff ancient monarch did on their job! The other half is lying about troop numbers.:)
 
Sooner or later it would probably fall to pieces due to infighting like Alexander The great's empire - and it actually did. Their expansion was too great and fast to really hold the lands in their weak moments.

Their population was too small I think to really hold on to Euroasia. The mongol population wasn't that big and they did integrate turkic and other elements into their state but the question is how loyal they would be long term.
The mixing long term, both as in the army and the actual population, would make the mongols lose sense of their actual identity and eventually their would be too big differences between different regions of the mongol empire.

The possible division would come if, and this did happen, if elements of the mongol horde converted to islam or christianity.

Long term the mongol empire would fail but only after having left a huge demograpic and political mark on the world. However their expansion went to fast and was too connected to a small number of persons and their personal ambitions. Steppe people have never really been good at governing, with the possible excepions of the parthians etc. In Rome expansion was a slow steady proven process that was a central part of the roman state and identity.

Short term they probably could cause alot of harm to Europe but I don't think they would steamroll medieval Europe. The losses would stagger up from attrition and they would have a hard problem to fill up the ranks with competent loyal recruits. Sooner or later Europe would rally around their christianity and work together out of desperation. The Pope did try to organize a crusade but failed. However if Poland and Hungary did completely fell I think the Holy Roman Empire, the Italian states and France etc. would be able to come together and probably due to the work of the pope.
 
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.

They definitely set them back. To what degree is a matter of debate.

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").

That's an interesting point, but what about the battle of Tours and the Umayyad Caliphate?

The delay in scientific progress in the middle east laid the ground work for later European colonization/conquest. It made it more difficult to resist the invaders in general, as Europeans showed up with better technology, gunpowder, ships, etc. Or at least it looks that way. Yes, the European states that experienced a technological boom-period would have achieved that progress anyway, but they might have found more powerful regional rivals in the middle east during their period of global conquest, if not for the Mongols. That's the central point. Do you really think the Muslims would have continued to regress for centuries? There was regression in Europe after the classical era, but that was followed by a Renaissance period.

Also, in the 13th and 14th centuries the Italian city states could have made for some rich Mongol plunder, and Rome still had a reputation at the time, so there would have been some prestige in sacking it.
 
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").

That is fallacious reasoning. No one knows the time and tide of history as it would have happened. The pendulum could or would have likely swung the other way, which is the case for most major, long lasting civilizations and cultures. For all we know, prevailing thought could have shifted and they were due for a Renaissance or an Enlightenment.

If the Mongols conquered Europe in the 13th century, we'd all be talking about the how the only bright period in Europe was the era of the Romans and how they'd been in decline ever since. Instead, the Renaissance happened shortly thereafter.

What IS certain is that whether or not the the Islamic Golden Age was in decline or just in a valley, the Mongols utterly, completely and definitively brought it to a grinding halt.
 
The delay in scientific progress in the middle east laid the ground work for later European colonization/conquest. It made it more difficult to resist the invaders in general, as Europeans showed up with better technology, gunpowder, ships, etc. Or at least it looks that way. Yes, the European states that experienced a technological boom-period would have achieved that progress anyway, but they might have found more powerful regional rivals in the middle east during their period of global conquest, if not for the Mongols. That's the central point. Do you really think the Muslims would have continued to regress for centuries? There was regression in Europe after the classical era, but that was followed by a Renaissance period.

Also, in the 13th and 14th centuries the Italian city states could have made for some rich Mongol plunder, and Rome still had a reputation at the time, so there would have been some prestige in sacking it.

Haha, didn't read this before I replied.
 
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.

Everyone hit all the major points with unfavorable terrain, and the inability to hold onto any conquests. But it would be interesting seeing how England, and Scandinavia would of turned out considering i don't think the Mongols could have eve launched an invasion of those areas and they would have been in great position after the Mongols inevitable lost control after a few decades.

You guys understand that China alone is larger and more geographically varied than the continental US. Higher mountains, larger deserts, more jungles and rainforests.

The Mongols conquered their way through the middle eastern deserts. They overran what is now Russia in the winter. Crushed mountain kingdom and empires. Fought in the tropics of Southern China. They twice prepared the largest amphibious invasion forces until then known to man until caught in freak storms.

Warfare of on such a scale and of such logistical, strategic, tactical and technical proficiency would not be seen again for another seven centuries.

And people say, "oh, the forests of Europe would have stopped them." GTFO. That's just wishful thinking. Europe would have been crushed, just like everybody else.
 
Watch Marco Polo and thank me later.
 
You guys understand that China alone is larger and more geographically varied than the continental US. Higher mountains, larger deserts, more jungles and rainforests.

The Mongols conquered their way through the middle eastern deserts. They overran what is now Russia in the winter. Crushed mountain kingdom and empires. Fought in the tropics of Southern China. They twice prepared the largest amphibious invasion forces until then known to man until caught in freak storms.

Warfare of on such a scale and of such logistical, strategic, tactical and technical proficiency would not be seen again for another seven centuries.

And people say, "oh, the forests of Europe would have stopped them." GTFO. That's just wishful thinking. Europe would have been crushed, just like everybody else.
Why did the Huns fail to conquer Italy? The same reason the Mongols failed to conquer India: It involved fighting in highly mountainous terrain. There is a big difference between defeating some weak Tibetan regions and defeating a political force that knows how to use terrain to their advantage.

Could the Mongols have conquered Europe? If they invested a ton of resources in it over a long period of time with the understanding that they would get next to nothing in return(Europe was poor and insignificant at the time) then ya, eventually they probably would have. They didnt do that because their empire would have collapsed even faster than it did.
 
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