XIII Century Mongols

[alexander]

Kind of getting tired of looking at this section and seeing more and more discussion about religion, as if there is nothing else to discuss in the history of humanity, seriously...

So, what better topic to put up then the mongol empire of the XIII century? There have been numerous ride outs from the planes throughout history, one of the most well-known ones belongs to Mr. Khan who in 1206 decided to unite various nomadic mongolian tribes into a single empire and then go and kick some ass

About that time europe was struggling between localism and centralization these riders from the planes managed to take over lands stretching from eastern europe to the pacific ocean. By 1300 their lands stretched from china and korea to moscow and ukraine establishing vast trading area to accomodate large monetary needs of an empire. They burned coal (infact chinese burn coal way before anyone else, from about 100 a.d.), and almost assisted the first travelers such as Marco Polo, fueling their books with trading stories in the exotic countries, which in tern fueld imaginations of other explorers sparking off the great age of exploration. Mongols established the Yuan dynasty in China. Infact the Black Plaigue first errupted in china spread through mongol population and then later reached europe. Mongols defined pre-Peter (and even post for the longest time) Russian international policy, brought to the collapse the byzantine empire, took over constantinople and went into greece. I mean there was lots of bad from the invasions, but also they created mass communication channels with trading, sharing ideas, promoting technological progress. Their life style was that of nomadic warriors, and it still somewhat is, i mean they still wressle for fun...

Were they really as bad as history myths seem to make them or is it one of thos Ivan the Terrible things where history says one thing, and when you think about it, a totally different picture comes into play?

[Freddy]

The Mongols or more correctly, the Tartars/Tatars, ruled much of the known world. Batu Khan, Ghengis Khan's grandson, was the main conqueror of Hungary and Russia. Europe would likely have been conquered if Ghengis' son, Ogeide, had not died in 1241 which effectively stopped the invasion of Europe. They also controlled China, Persia and Turkey.

They allowed conquered peoples to retain their cultures as long as they paid tribute. However, they could be brutal. The usual method of conquering a city-state was to lay seige to the city and convince the people to send out the ruling family and nobles to be killed. Then the people could set up a tribute arrangement with the conquerors. If the people refused this deal and forced the Mongols to actually conquer the city by starvation, attacks, or burning the city every person; men, women, and children would be put to the sword, sometimes up to 50,000 would be killed. After word spread of the brutal Mongol method many city-states took the deal.

See James Chambers' The Devil's Horsemen,The Mongol Invasion of Europe

[alexander]

No, it is not more correctly tatars, they are different people, but both mongols, tatars and a mix of the two were present in the invasion, mongol-tatars or tatar-mongols as Russian historians call them is the real term i beleive applicable here

[Freddy]

Originally Posted by alexander

No, it is not more correctly tatars, they are different people, but both mongols, tatars and a mix of the two were present in the invasion, mongol-tatars or tatar-mongols as Russian historians call them is the real term i beleive applicable here

The two names are used interchangeably.
http://www.geographia.com/russia/rushis03.htm

[alexander]

that translation blows :P
reason, in russian history, by russians, the invading clans are referred to as [basurmani] (i doubt that has a literal transaltion) but neither referring to mondols, tatars, and there were also some chinese and other asian nationalities mixed in with mongols and tatars...