Officer of Engineers

Winter

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Chimo

Blademaster

Right, because the cold and the snow preserved the food. Plus the communities have planned for winter because of the vast generational knowledge of farming and hoarding for the winter. Now tell me what happens during the summer when the farmers are tilling the fields and there's a bunch of raiders coming over the field and killing the farmers. Now guess what? No farmers, no tilling, no harvest, no stores, and there you have it. Starvation.

Officer of Engineers

The other part of this is that Mongol horses need forage and winter ain't the time for this. In other words, sooner or later in the year, the Mongols have to leave and thus lifting their own siege. In other words, winter is when they were the weakest while Roman armies are used to winter campaigns.

Blademaster

So were the Poles and the Teutonic Knights but they got their asses handed to them despite the winter advantage. The same goes for the Slavs.

Officer of Engineers

If you're talking about Mohi, you will note that the Poles were disorganized and fell right into Mongol trap.

Russians? If you read the history, they were paying tribute after some losses during summer campaigns.

zraver

The problem for the Mongols is that Rome divided its population from its food. The horsemen could do devastating damage in the interior of Europe until they are the countryside bear, they could even sack Rome itself but along the coast would not be able to effect a seige of the big coastal cities who could ship in troops and supplies from across the empire.

lwarmonger

Assuming that Rome wasn't split by civil war (or worse multi-cornered civil war) after a defeat or two. Given Rome's history, I'd say that would be the way to bet. They were always a worse enemy to themselves than outsiders ever were.

troung

Mohi was the Hungarians. And there the Mongols used siege equipment to bombard Hungarian positions and besiege their camp.

At that point Rome would simply do what other settled states did, pay protection money and enter into unequal treaties.

The ones who would have shown up with them. And nomads were not the only groups that joined their service - lots of Chinese, Uighurs, Tajiks, Armenians and Georgians.

The guys that ran it were descendant from GK.

The Timurid internal problems were the same as many states settled or nomadic - Timur was the state and knew the magic formula to keeping everything together.

It happens.

Their horses can graze in the winter, it ain't pretty but it is a lot better then peasants dislocated from the fighting over the summer who have access to even less food and are a threat inside some city to the city leaders.

Winter was actually a good raiding season, made crossing rivers easier and made other people less likely to be ready. Not the preferred season but nomads would campaign then.

The unified Mongol empire was more or less 5ish states. During the civil war the states went their own way or were absorbed into others. So judging the duration of Mongol states by the unified whole doesn't paint the whole picture, as the states were very large (and empires in their own right).

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To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

Gettoit

Look @ Roman accomplisment architecture,engineering enduring civil structures that to this day are still in use by the masses of present day. The horse warriors were roaming raiders plundering and as a ripple in time ... smooth as the plains they came from.Gone and little to no trace of their being,show me a statue,an aqueduct,a road,a building, I say they were compost,temporary soil ammendments that were swallowed up my the ground they pounded w/ their horses hoofs.

Officer of Engineers

The map of modern day China.

Gettoit

My post was aimed more @ the Hun and not the Chinese. I recognize the ancient culture of the chinese,their engineering feats,their contributions to humanity. Im new to this media and will scrutinize topic matter more closely.

troung

The Qing dynasty was founded by the Manchus who created the modern borders of China from 1644. It was they who took East Turkestan and Mongolia into "China".

As for making stuff outside of "only" the Yuan and Qing who set up shop in China - Uzbekistan (itself named after a tribal confederation who took power) is full of monuments set up by Steppe empires, and the Taj Mahal in India was set up by the Mughals (a Turko-Mongol conquest state). Then one has modern day Turkey, created by Turks who set up shop and created a powerful state.

Officer of Engineers

Sorry, Troung,

A bit of family prejudice here. The Soong (aka the Cantonese) was conquered under Kublai. Were it not for that conquest, China might as well have been two nations.

troung

So I just used because of the semi-continuity to today. The Yuan works fine for the point

As for two nations, the north during the Mongol invasions had a Jurchen/Khitan military elite but a majority Han population, outside of their historical heartlands and all then. Without the Manchu conquest, China might not have passed the great wall and barring Russia could have been a lot of countries - Manchuria, Mongolia, East Turkestan, Tibet and Han China. Just some idle speculation on my part with nothing special cited.

Regardless your point shoots down the steppe people never had any lasting impact comment.

Gettoit

Im not the authority on Chinese history by any means or Hun or Mongol ... I can see that I need to go to a place here that Im much stronger knowlege wise.Napoleon