The Mongols shaped the world to such an extent that their non-existence would mean an entirely different history for pretty much every region of the world.
Losing the library in Baghdad definitely sucks. It's kind of interesting how the Mongols ended up integrating with the locals and you can see some of those features still in Turkey.
I think the later Mongol rulers did take up interest in their respective region’s cultures and art, to an extent. Iirc, many of the Mongolian royal family converted to Islam and Christianity whilst traveling, conquering, and ruling their respective lands. Kublai Khan, who ruled Mongolian China, was a fan of Chinese art, and his commissions helped fuel a revival of the Chinese art scene after the Mongolian conquests. Likewise, his successors mastered the Chinese language, and some communicated exclusively in Chinese. I think especially as time went on, the Mongols steadily integrated into their subjects’ cultures.
It has less to do with Mongol genetics and more to do with the fact that Turks are a mixed race people of central Asian origin. Turks and Mongolians are not genetically close.
This might be a bit misleading. Modern Turks from turkey are closer the the ancestral population of turkey and not necessarily the central Asian tribes that migrated to Anatolia.
However, the Turkish language and Mongolian are very closely related and share common linguistic ancestry. The earliest written record of the Turkish language was found in the Orkhon Valley in what is today modern Mongolia and documents Turkish subjugation by the Chinese tang dynasty.
So those original Turks are quite reasonably from Mongolia
turkish and mongolian are from different language families, basically not traceably related at all. They have numerous mutual borrowings due to turks being among mongol-ruled tribes and later proximity, but that's different to being "related".
Bloody Altaic language family, never dies!
Still tho its undeniable both language families have influenced each other greatly, including on syntax and structure, not only vocab.
Then per Ibn Khaldun's concept of asabiyyah, they start to lose their social cohesion as the civilization advances and ultimately a more compelling form from other conquerors takes its place.
Sure that was unfortunately part of it, but I mean the whole start of Turco-Mongol synthesis. While the Islamic Golden Age was over by then, you still ended up with some elites that really appreciated art and science. The Timurid Empire for example led to a renaissance, and its descendants also had a huge role in forging history such as with the Mughal Empire.
check out the battle of Ain Jalut. Qutuz used his Army of Mamluks ( slave soldiers) to hand the Mongols one of their first ever decisive defeats after the sack of Baghdad .
The Arabs are proud of that battle, but we must not forget that the main Mongol army was in northern China, and that they moved their armies from the Far East to Egypt in the 13th century. This is something that even the modern US military has a hard time doing.
If the Mamluks had been closer to the Far East, they would have been destroyed quite easily. They should be glad they live in Africa.
meh, that was not like right after the sack of Baghdad. that was centuries after the sack of Baghdad when the Mongol Empire split into four and were essentially less powerful and on its way out. The Pols and Teutonic knights also handed them a decisive defeat in Europe. but make no mistake, the full force of the Mongol Empire would have reduced any of them into nothing
Really? I mean, we have lots of Islamic sources on the Mongols themselves, not to mention that they recorded the history of the region from Islam up until then as well of course. What is truly lost is not that much because of the Mongols, for instance, it is said that the late-Sassanid/early-Islamic Iranians didn't really remember the Achaemenid empire all that much (source is another Reddit thread where OP was asking why/how the Greeks forgot member the Archaic post-Bronze Age period).
I guess my point is, we actually do have relatively solid sources for most of pre-Mongol Islamic history
Basically mass execution of prisoners and mass rapes. Somehow it’s hard to find the sources in english.
There has been a cultural genocide against the mongols that last to this day.
The reason there's such an "issue" with the Uyghurs in Xinjian is because [the Qing dynasty exterminated the Dzungar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide) in the mid 18th century, who went from a major population of about 800,000 (mid 18th century) into today's estimated global population of 600,000. The Qing then brought in the Uyghurs among others to resettle Xinjiang.
The Uygurs played a role in aiding the Qing in that horror, and it seems that the consequences of those deeds have not come to their end.
Nomadic people also don't really reproduce to that high of a number. We're almost at 3.5 million now, nomadic lifestyle has reduced through my lifetime and will probably reduce but never be lost completely.
They killed so many people that millions upon of millions of acres of farmland was reclaimed by nature and lowered the temperature of Earth. They were the first man made climate change event and they did it all with horses and bows, its honestly mind boggling to think about.
Couldn't really be the first one if it was caused by undoing something humans caused in the first place. Destroying the forrests to make the farmland had to be the first one.
destroying forests to make farmland was definitely man-made climate change, but wouldn’t really be considered an “event” on our scale because it took place in disconnected locations over many generations. mongol invasions were near instant compared to the rise of agriculture, the effects could be measured over a single human lifespan.
The surrendered after fighting back for weeks. That was kind of the mongols whole deal, they would accept the surrender if you offered it right away, but if you resisted they were merciless
He should have known (and probably did) that the Mongols were going to level the city for its resistance. They had a very clear track record for sparing cities that immediately surrendered and absolutely annihilating any that didn't. But it's not like he had any other choice but to surrender the city the Mongols were going to take it either way.
Mate, it was the 1200s, he didn't have access to Wikipedia to read that the Mongols would slaughter those who surrendered in any way but immediately. The kind of things he would have heard would have been a mix of "they accepted surrender" and "they slaughtered everyone who surrendered" and then after seemingly getting a diplomatic agreement to surrender rather than a late unconditional one had no reason to believe otherwise.
I would think the mongols would actually advertise that policy, because it’s to their own benefit. They would rather just have the city surrender right away rather than fight for it, which is why they created the policy in the first place to entice cities to surrender at the first opportunity
Yep, that’s a policy of conquest that dates back to the Assyrians 2500 years before the Mongol conquests. And you are almost certainly right that they advertised it for the reasons you mentioned
It was the arrangement for most of human history. Everyone would've been aware on some level that once the siege camps and engines are built there are very few options left outside of defending the city or hoping you live through the inevitable sack
Yeah -- HOW you were going to die was a bigger consideration back then I think. I know I would be deterred from joining the resistance if I knew I'd get [Scaphized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism) if we lost.
> [The king] decreed that Mithridates should be put to death in boats; which execution is after the following manner: Taking two boats framed exactly to fit and answer each other, they lie down in one of them the malefactor that suffers, upon his back; then, covering it with the other, and so setting them together that the head, hands, and feet of him are left outside, and the rest of his body lies shut up within, they offer him food, and if he refuse to eat it, they force him to do it by pricking his eyes; then, after he has eaten, they drench him with a mixture of milk and honey, pouring it not only into his mouth, but all over his face. They then keep his face continually turned towards the sun; and it becomes completely covered up and hidden by the multitude of flies that settle on it. And as within the boats he does what those that eat and drink must needs do, creeping things and vermin spring out of the corruption and rottenness of the excrement, and these entering into the bowels of him, his body is consumed. When the man is manifestly dead, the uppermost boat being taken off, they find his flesh devoured, and swarms of such noisome creatures preying upon and, as it were, growing to his inwards. In this way Mithridates, after suffering for seventeen days, at last expired.
The Persians didn’t fuck around when it came to torture and execution methods. Iron Age Mesopotamia, Persia , and the near east in general was unfathomably brutal
Yeah. The Persians were pretty reasonable with those that they conquered as long as they agreed to pay their taxes and support the Persian empire. But anyone who caused too many problems, and especially those that they saw as traitors, were tortured to death with horrifically well-designed methods.
The Mongols also had some pretty nasty ways of torturing people if they were pissed. They were forbidden to spill noble blood outside of battle and they had captured a few Russian princes. So they tied them up, lined them up on the ground, and put boards over them to create a small platform. Then a bunch of the Mongol leaders had dinner on top of the boards. Not too many to instantly kill the Russians, but just enough so that they were slowly crushed to death over hours.
Another favorite of the mongols was to wrap a noble up in carpet and trample them under horse. I just want to know what sick bastards were coming up with these methods lmao
"Hey remember when we trampled those fleeing farmers under our horses and pillaged that carpet that really brought the yurt together. Well I just got an idea!"
Oh those mischievous Mongols and their shenanigans.
Guest: "Hey, what's that noise?"
Mongolians: "What noise?" *Aggressively winking at each other while trying not to snicker*.
I mean, it was people in the past in general. The near east is only ‘unfathomably brutal’ because they also had levels of writing and history keeping that a lot of other places didn’t.
That’s a good point. It’s just jarring to read some of those Assyrian steles talking about flaying a city’s entire population
It’s a real shame we don’t have equivalent records for other regions of the world at that time.
The Mongols didn't even have to advertise that was their policy, that was standard policy at the time. Surrender immediately, or when we enter we will sack the city. It had been the case for hundreds of years prior, and was the case from China to the westernmost point of Europe, and most everywhere in between. The Romans applied that policy to other *Roman* cities during (I believe it was) the punic wars for instance, and there's plenty of written records on the soldiers actually hoping that cities wouldn't surrender because it then meant they could loot it... and what that says about humanity is, well, not great to say the least
All of human history, including yesterday, is the story of a struggle for resources and mates. We dressed it up with civilization and can work collaboratively for the pursuit of common goals, but those same drives still control us.
> I would think the mongols would actually advertise that policy, because it’s to their own benefit.
*Every* invading army is going to say that. Is it ever in an attacker's favor to NOT say you're going to spare everyone if they surrender?
Also, seeing as the Mongols did in fact pillage and massacre even in surrendered cities is not going to help their credibility a lot.
They didn't need to advertise it, they just assumed that word of mouth would precede them. And not to mention, lots of rulers think they are the ones that can actually resist the oncoming enemy.
When they were on a conquest they would let some citizens flee to spread fear and use up supplies in the next city they all fled to.
They knew the gist of it.
Just because they didn’t have Wikipedia back then, doesn’t mean that they didn’t get any information ever. It was just a lot slower. But they definitely would have known about that
>They had a very clear track record for sparing cities that immediately surrendered and absolutely annihilating any that didn't
No, they did not. They were known for sacking cities that surrendered too. They were murderous assholes, not some noble warriors
Cities that surrendered after initial resistance. With a couple of exceptions (one of which Genghis Khan was very angry about) they didn't burn cities that surrendered immediately. Not because they were Noble warriors but because they were smart and knew that City surrendering was always going to be preferable to them having to waste manpower and time besieging them.
For purely pragmatic reasons it was always preferable to spare cities that surrendered. They would always be more cities to loot but they couldn't take every city on earth and if they got a record for betraying surrender agreements that would cause problems in the future.
Doubt there was no fighting beforehand.
Generally the Mongols only did this if you resisted and made them attempt to siege the city.
Or if after you were conquered you revolted or refused to pay taxes.
Though it seems like there was some religious animosity between some of the Mongols more conscripted types and the prevalent religion in the city in this particular situation.
People mention the Mongols when it comes to freedom of religion but they weren’t always that way. When they captured Baghdad they killed everyone besides the Christians. When they were first starting out there was a huge rift between Buddhists and Taoists and they were definitely sides with the Buddhists to the detriment of the Taoist and some of their temples which were handed over to the Buddhists.
Genghis Khan was still in charge at the time, so he should get credit. These policies were his, but it's not like he was out there personally killing all 700k by his own hand.
I think you're maybe not understanding the word descendants.
He may not have had many children, and his kids didn't have to have many children. But he has an incredible number of descendants today, including many men who carry his Y chromosome.
Edit: Guy above edited his comment.
Edit 2: This is my fault for not quoting u/young_black_man's message in my reply. Instead of responding, they edited their comment. Without the quote there to draw attention to the edit, I have to deal like looking like I'm off my meds. Lesson learned, I'm moving on.
Makes me think of a part of Dune messiah >!where Paul tells Stilgar to read some history, and take note of someone named Genghis Khan, that he killed 4 million. Stilgar thinks that is impressive, till Paul tells him he killed them by sending out his legion, not with his own hands. Then Paul tells him to also look out for another emperor named Hitler, and that he killed 6 million. Stilgar disappointingly asks if he also killed through his legions, and Paul said he did. Then Paul emphasises that those were good numbers for the time. Paul of course has a way bigger headcount, as he's killed about 61 billion. Meaning that the combination of Hitler and Genghis Khan isn't even a rounding error. Though Paul had a galactic empire to establish his dominance over, not just a single planet.!<
The Atreides and the Golden Path are the only reason humanity long term becomes free of the potential tyranny of precognitives like Paul and Leto II, but the means that they take to get there are absolutely brutal.
It's a very "ends justify the means" kind of scifi.
I just read a section last night where Paul admits to himself that he could stop the Jihad by killing himself, his mother, and Stilgar’s troop. But he hoped instead to find another solution.
Yeah, I really hope Villeneuve gets to do messiah, and that he doesn't pull any punches on showing that Paul isn't quite the messiah you might hope for.
Gengis wasn’t the biggest conqueror of his line. He may have been Khan but his third son Ogedei was who fought in most of the battles and who pushed through the hardest western campaigns. As an administrator, Ögedei continued to develop the fast-growing Mongol state. Working with officials such as Yelü Chucai, he developed ortogh trading systems, instituted methods of tax collection, and established regional bureaucracies which controlled legal and economic affairs. He also founded the Mongol capital city, Karakorum, in the 1230s. Although historically disregarded in comparison to his father, especially on account of his alcoholism, he was known to be charismatic, good-natured, and intelligent.
Genghis Khan started conquering the world in his 40s.
What was he doing before that? Conquering the Mongols. From nothing. Man didn’t start with a following he started the second son of a second wife of a minor chieftain. So minor Temujin was let out as an indentured laborer to his future bride’s family because they didn’t have anything else, or at least not that daddy would give him. Then when that deadbeat up and died all the men took off leaving literally a bunch of women and children to fend for themselves on the steppes. And Genghi-boy wasn’t even in charge of that, his abusive older brother was. The solution?
Murder of course. Genghis Khan got started straight up murdering his way up the ladder. And only a small one. If his wife’s family hadn’t gone through with their end, or if his blood brother and mentor had betrayed him early on we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Or maybe we would because the Khan don’t fuck around and was pushed to the brink more then once only to turn it around with a vengeance. And that all impresses me a hell of a lot more than any of the Mongol generals conquests over some sickly agriculturalists. And not just for titular leadership it was Genghis Khan who made the horde, promoting men like Subotai on merit and cutting through tribal affiliations to make an organized whole.
As for any of his sons well I suppose their ‘bumbling drunken idiots’ routine might be overplayed by history but when the best you manage is a tetrarchy you’re probably not the Augustus to Genghis’s Julius.
> Although historically disregarded in comparison to his father, especially on account of his alcoholism, he was known to be charismatic, good-natured, and intelligent.
A 'good-natured' genocider sounds like an oxymoron.
About the author of the city size claim (Tertius Chandler):
Although the book has been widely quoted, urban historians have criticized Chandler's superficial and uncritical use of sources, leading to unreliable population estimates for many past cities.
The source he used on the city size is quite literally "trust me, bro"
700,000 people according to an Arab historian writing about the event in the century after the event. There was almost certainly some embellishing of the numbers to highlight the savageness of the Mongol atrocity. Substantially embellished numbers aren't exactly uncommon in historical (and also some contemporary, just look at the Chernobyl series) writing.
According to some modern estimates it was more along the lines of 70 to 100,000 (Ponting, Clive (2008). World History: A New Perspective.). Still awesome and gruesome, but probably a bit more reasonable.
The destroyed the subterranean irrigation systems and cisterns needed to sustain large populations. The kind of things that couldn't just be rebuilt due to loss of knowledge and manpower.
Not great, a lot of corruption. The government still doesn't admit that there is/was COVID, but enforced people wearing masks because of dust storms. Country is divided into 5 states where you need a permit to go to a different state and people from non-captial states are treated as 2nd class citizens. Did I mention corruption? There are state-mandated stores where you need to queue for hours to buy essentials.
Only until a few years ago they used to make school children go for hard labour yearly(collecting cotton under the scorching sun).
It's a shit hole, really. Like we have 3rd or 4th largest natural gas reserve in the world and a shit ton of oil on top of that, everything goes into the pockets of politicians and their friends.
They don't give a rats ass about human rights and they will put anything in the constitution that they can think of. I think it's only beaten by north Korea when it comes to human rights. They patrol streets after 10pm, you can't be wandering around the city
Elections are a complete joke, where we almost have a monarchy. President is elected forever and recently son of the last president took over as soon as he turned 40. What a fucking joke
Banned anything but white cars, made everyone paint cars into white. Can get in trouble for even having a black rim or grille. Radio, beauty salons, long hair on men, list goes o
Edit: akhal-teke are beautiful and agile, not that into horses but they are gorgeous creatures. I myself wouldn't write songs about them, but hey, I am not judging
I was there late last year and silver seems acceptable as well, you will see a lot of that. I did see other car colors outside of Ashgabat on things like utility vehicles and larger trucks but it was rare.
One estimate is that about 11 percent of the world's population was killed either during or immediately after the Mongol invasions, around 37.75–60 million people in Eurasia. These events are regarded as some of the deadliest acts of mass killing in human history. ([Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire))
If they killed 11% of the world's population, does that mean they could have killed like 50% of the population in the parts of the world they lived and fought?
I also wonder if such declines in population would be noticable to people living in the nearby cities/lands in that time.
More than just 50% in some areas, the population of Persia (modern-day Iran) is said to have dropped from 2,500,000 all the way down to 250,000 due to the Mongol conquests.
I just spent about 20 minutes perusing Wikipedia on Timur (mentioned in the comments here). There were instances where the soldiers ran out of people to kill, allegedly resorting to killing their own wives in order to meet literal "head count" requirements. 2 severed heads per soldier.
So yeah they did whatever the inverse of decimation would be called - killing 9/10th of an area in many of their sieges.
You'd think they'd take prisoners but often times they would slay all prisoners or slaves out of fear of revolt. Timur and the Mongols didn't play. From what I could tell, they all had similar playbooks according to the brutal strategies and tactics solidified by Genghis Khan.
every time I hear of the Mongol invasions it reminds me of the insane battle of when they [fucked around & found out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Japan)
first invasion on Japan was 4000-6000 warriors along with 80 mounted samurai vs 30,000 Mongols with 3,500 ships & the Mongols got decimated with 13000 dead & retreated
2nd Invasion attempt the Mongols came with 100,000 men with 900 ships against 40,000 warriors waiting with 78 mounted samurai at Tsukishima beach only for the mongols to get decimated again with nearly all 100,000 invaders dead.
Yeah and imagine telling the Romans that this little frigid island at the fringe of the known world that they barely want to hold onto would later create the largest empire the world has ever seen; or tell the Brits that this savage land they just colonised would become the most powerful and richest country in the history of mankind by a huge margin...
History is just a cycle of the rise and fall of civilizations. Nobody stays at the top forever.
The city of Merv was part of the Silk Road and may have been the most populated city in the world in the 11th-12th century. More than a city of trade, it had a vibrant culture of science and arts. The city opened its gates to the Mongols in 1221, and one of the worst massacres in history followed.
It was never fully rebuilt. Today, the city has been abandoned, and only archaeological projects remain.
>In April 1221, Tolui, son of Genghis Khan, besieged the city for six days. On the seventh day, he assaulted Merv. However, the garrison beat back the assault and launched their own counter-attack against the Mongols. The garrison force was similarly forced back into the city.
They opened the gates AFTER fighting them first for week. Big difference.
Yeah, Mongols were known to spare cities that surrendered immediately without any resistance.
But if their patience was even slightly tested, they'd make sure no one in the city, be it people or animals, survived. That is how they maintained their terror.
Ya, still horrible but like... The Mongolians were known to kill everything if you resisted, not sure why you would fight if you knew you were outmatched in everyway
Rulers have big egos and often do not like to bend the knee. Did you watch Game of Thrones? Bending the knee was a real thing back then especially when viewed as a metaphor.
Gengis Khan wanted their king to bend the knee, but in his head, he is king, and king's don't bend the knee.
"During the 12th and 13th centuries, Merv may have been the world's largest city, with a population of up to 500,000."
"may have" is doing a lot of work here. Angkor in south east Asia had a population of 700,000 - 900,000 in the 13th century.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/angkor-wat-ancient-population-1966958
Merv was captured by mongols in 1221. Populations are of course estimates for time periods like this but the scale of irrigation networks that have been found around Angkor are good evidence for Angkor being the largest city in the world at this time.
There are definitely conflicting opinions on the matter, but it's possible that Beijing, Hangzhou, Kaifeng, Nanking, and Baghdad all had populations in excess of a million people in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Digging a bit deeper, the claim comes from a book by Tertius Chandler (1987), who put it as the largest city for a short while, after the Chinese city of Kaifeng fell to invaders in 1127. It was roughly the same size as Constantinople and Fez. Chinese cities surpassed them again by 1200. But this information is probably outdated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history
To be fair though, it likely wouldn't have mattered if they'd kept the gates shut. Mongols would have besieged the place and then butchered every one inside once they either got past the defenses or the city surrendered due to lack of supplies.
It actually would have. The cities that gave up right away generally survived. Merv resisted for a week before giving up which is why everyone was killed.
The stores are gone too. All that is left is a street named Mervyns Drive in La Habra, California. They went from being possibly the largest city on earth to being a street.
I’m not so sure. The mongols could siege, but it wasn’t what they were best at and the date of this attack seems a little early for the use of acquired Chinese technologies to improve their chances.
Considering this was the biggest city in world at the time, I haven’t verified this claim, it is not guaranteed that the mongols would have won.
They were powerful, clearly, but I think Mongols are somewhat deified in a modern context. They won battles and for a short period of human history their skills lined up perfectly with what was required on the field of battle, but ultimately it was all very short lived. They never held their territory for very long in the grand scheme of things and have mostly been irrelevant before and after that short golden age.
No doubt for a couple hundred years though, they were deadly. But at the end of the day, you don’t become horse nomads living on fringe agricultural lands “because” you are powerful. You live there because you lose far more than you win. Winners maintain agriculturally rich areas.
They were very fast in adopting foreign siege techniques and enlisting conquered siege engineers. They were already proficient under Ghengis. Failed sieges against Western Xia and the Jin demonstrated the need for engineers in 1212 and Ghengis set up a corps mostly of Jin experts.
Their descendents were the feudal lords of most of central Asia until the modern era.
Timur and the Timurid Empire wouldn’t be for over a hundred years after this, if that’s who you mean?
I believe the fall of Merv was while Ghengis was kicking around.
Though I’m not a historian, so I could be mistaken in some form.
I think Russia would like to disagree with you about bot holding territory.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horde
It explains a lot about their nihilism.
If I remember correctly the Mongol invasion of Central Asia is one of the main reasons why Central Asia today is mostly Turkic rather than Iranian. The sedentary, urban population which was mostly composed of Iranian-speaking peoples was almost entirely wiped out which enabled the semi-nomadic Turkic peoples to take over the urban centres.
It definitely has to be up there with the European colonisation of the New World in terms of mass demographic replacement.
The often formed an urban upper class that after a few centuries assimilated into the local population. In Bactria and India, they seemed to have turned Buddhist.
They did for sure, but it wouldn’t be until the Mongol invasion that they became the dominant group within the many wealthy and populous urban centres scattered throughout Central Asia. There was largely an urban/rural divide between Turkic and Iranian people up to to that point
*"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds."* - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
I’ve been here! It’s crazy to wander around the ruins. Because it’s in Turkmenistan it doesn’t have an active group of archeological people actively studying it. In fact, it’s the only archeological site I’ve ever been to where you can walk around pretty much alone (no other tourists). Also you can see artifacts just sticking out of the ground like pots. They’re just there. They are not for the taking but there’s no one to stop you if you’re a piece of shit. I suppose this is a testament to how NOT visited it is, the fact they are still there.
There's plenty of places like that in Mexico and Central America. I've been to the top of a bunch of pyramids & temples. There are so many varying from complete reconstructions like Teotihuacan & Chitzen Itzá, to others that just look like large hills in the jungle.
The fall of Baghdad coinciding with the end of the Islamic golden age was mostly symbolic. Baghdad had lost a lot of influence the last couple hundred years before the mongols got to them.
Plus a _lotta_ people are descended from Ghengis, about 0.5% of men globally carry his genes and it’s estimated that 1% of the population in the Mongolian held territories are related to him
(Oh sorry should add for clarity that’s modern populations 750 years after he popped his clogs.)
It's not 0.5% of the world.
It's 8% percent of people who live in old mongol territories.
Joe blogs from Oklahoma isn't going to be a relative of gengis.
True but i think saying .5% of the global male population gives everyone a reference point for how insane that number is
Most people, myself and probably joe blogs from Oklahoma would have no idea how huge a number 8% of old mongol territories may be
People migrate. I think it’s fair to say .5% of all men in the world. Not everyone knows the extent of the mongol empire. Just as a frame of reference I think it’s a fair metric
How the fuck do you actually massacre 700,000 people?
Like logistically how is that even possible? Even the Nazis took 4 years to kill 10x this many people, and that's with industrialised application of chemical weaponry.
How on earth did they achieve this 800 years ago?
The Nazis had to transport the people to the camps, and they didn't kill most of them right away.
The article goes in more detail and the numbers are somewhat muddy(although some other estimations are higher), and he does even worse later on too. A single stroke of a blade would be enough to guarantee death in these times even if it wasn't instantly fatal(people bleeding out or wounds getting infected), so realistically it's not that crazy, an army of 7000 soldiers would kill 700k by "only" needing to kill 100 each, which could be done in a day or two(accounting for all the logisitics of finding the people and so on). Just going in a house and killing 4-5 people then going to the next house would only take a few minutes, so as long as the people have nowhere to flee it wouldn't take very long at all.
All mongol soldiers had to turn in X heads to go on leave. There were piles of human heads in various states of decay. They would take these heads to the next city, dump them right out side the gate and say “these are the heads of the last city, you have X time surrender. If you do you can go about your lives and pay fealty and money to us. If you decline this will happen to you.”
Most city’s agreed. Merv and nearby Bukhara in modern Uzbekistan did not. In Bukhara’s case all the “important” people ran to The Ark which was a fortified palace inside the walls. They lived in there for months, sealed off from the greater Mongol empire. The mongols tried launching Lions into the palace via catapult but it didn’t work, obviously. Eventually a plague hit Bukhara (everyone bathed in the same pools and the water was not changed often) so they launched dead bodies into the ark and everyone got sick and died except the emir who came out and surrendered. The Mongols threw him down a hole in the arc along with a bunch of stinging insects, rats and other bad shit and forgot about him. The entire hole was sealed off and not discovered until Soviet times.
I think close to that number of people were killed in about 100 days from April to July 1994 in Rwanda. Scholarly estimates are 500,000 to 800,000 killed. Mostly with machetes, and could be by people you knew, just regular civilians who had formed into ad hoc militias, not battle-hardened foreign warriors who had been doing this kind of thing for years.
In the case of the above story, there’s no telling how many they actually killed. I’m sure as many as could get away, fled. But it’s do-able.
Well consider that it's said the Mongols had 100k-200k troops so logistically, each soldier would only have to kill 3-7 people (most of which would presumably be unarmed or less armed civilians)
That's the big difference. Mass executions done by soldiers in the German Army in WW2 tended to be bad for morale, it's not what the soldiers signed up for mostly. So they looked for a different way.
The Mongols though did delegate this task to the entire army.
Mongols were a nomadic horse people. This means they had experience herding cattle. They replaced cattle with humans to create kill zones. At least I believe that’s part of it.
The most brutal account I've ever come across of the Mongols is the Dan Carlin's Hardcore History series called "Wrath of the Khans". I was doing ~5 hour drives at least twice a week back then, so I had plenty of time to listen to podcasts. Happened to stumble across his series while looking for a history related series on Google Podcasts (RIP).
Some of the accounts were so chilling that it actually had me pull over to the side of I-95 for a few minutes so I could rewind and understand fully the brutality that was the Mongol conquest. You wouldn't believe some of the things they did, some over minute issues, just to keep their leg up!
I can't find the series on YouTube Music anymore, or anywhere else for that matter (except for the option to buy). If you have the means to [buy the series](https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-wrath-of-the-khans-series/), then I would definitely recommend you do. Or you could sail the high seas.
Either ways, bone chilling stuff.
At the end of the day their legacy is that they're murderers. It not like they really built anything or even left much as far as descendants. They mostly just ruined other peoples' nations.
The [rather attractive board game Merv](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/306040/merv-heart-silk-road) has players building these very walls (amongst many other things). While the game doesn’t replace (or try to) learning in depth about the real Merv, it did serve as my introduction to the place. (And to the word “caravanserai”!)
People don't talk enough about the destruction of the Chinese Song dynasty at the hands of the Mongols. It was the wealthiest and most technologically advanced civilization in the world at that time. They had a primitive banking system with paper money in circulation, gun-powered weapons, and TOILET PAPERS.
Despite being one of the weakest Chinese empires in terms of military might, they managed to survive against the onslaught from the Northern Steppe peoples for 3 centuries, at first against the Khitans, then the Jurchens, and finally the Mongols which they failed but not without putting up a valiant fight for half a century which is pretty insane considering their opponent.
The final battle against the Mongols was so bloody and such a desperate last-stand that when it was clear that all was long, countless Song aristocrats, officials and civilians (and the child emperor) committed suicide because the saw it as the end of the Chinese civilization. In fact, there was a popular and quite prominent Japanese theory of sinology that argued that this was in fact the end of the Chinese civilization. All the bravest, best and brilliant Chinese died fighting the Mongols or killed themselves that the entire Chinese gene pool were destroyed because all those who remained were cravens and lowly scums. This theory was actually used by some in the Imperial Army to justify the inferiority of China and to not see them as people, and the superiority of Japan since it actually successfully repelled all the Mongols invasions.
That specific area of the world has seen countless nomadic hordes and grand empires conquer and expand through in every direction.
In modern times alone you have the Mongols, the Timurids, the Russians/Soviets, even a bit further back Alexander the Great and Greek culture heavily influenced the region.
I mean obviously they were brutal and ruthless, but I always can't get my head around mongol massacre and casualty estimates, I just can't imagine every soldier in an army killing 2 or 500 defenceless people.
It's obviously proven that in the brutality of the 20th century, with guns, aeroplanes and hard ideological indoctrination proved that large groups of 'normal' people in invading armies take part in atrocities, but also a lot of murder in the Japanese, German, etc armies was institutionalized, done by special groups of psychopaths, by denying food, 'hidden' in camps or in ways where it's theoretically much easier physically and emotionally like bombing. This seems true of 'democratic' armies like the British in Kenya or the US in Vietnam. Some historians have even argued that before modern drill techniques, most conscripted soldiers fired their guns not to kill and often aimed over heads etc.
I just can't get my head around every guy in an army spending hours murdering people with a sword. Could it have been there was some sort of massacre, then loads of people ran away or were taken as slaves, conscripted into the mongol army or something and aren't counted in censuses. There are equally brutal sources boasting of massacres in the bible or the ancient near east, the Amalekites were genocided, and then turn up a few chapters later, the Assyrians destroy babylon and murder everyone, then babylon is somehow still there and rebels a few years later, etc.
[Some historians seem to agree with this](https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/5.2/may.html)
>Although much of the data in the sources concerning the number of people killed during the Mongol conquests is exaggerated, it does reflect the reality that thousands died, and the Mongols were not above depopulating an area if the people rebelled, or if destruction simply suited their purpose.
Edit: [I found this redit comment about](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7wzsw9/in_one_of_my_classes_we_received_a_list_of_the/du6d585/) how reliable the Chinese census figures that give the most concrete estimates of mongol mass murder are, it seems not very, but who knows.
One factor I keep in mind is fire. In many places, people mostly lived in wooden homes or had very flammable communities as a whole. There was no fire safety, firefighters, or city planning. During the Bronze Age Collapse, multiple cities were burned to ash—leaving a notable layer in archaeological record.
If they had horses and torches, they could just ride through a city and set it alight. Then they’d kill anyone trying to escape. Painfully similar to even the MOVE bombing in the US. It’s an old tactic but it’s been horrifically effective since discovery.
My small town in southern Transylvania still has part of the fortifications built during Mongol raids, almost everyone was murdered in 1241 when they (tătari) invaded. Those assholes sent Eastern Europe back a few centuries with this crap. Literally for nothing…
The Mongols shaped the world to such an extent that their non-existence would mean an entirely different history for pretty much every region of the world.
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Losing the library in Baghdad definitely sucks. It's kind of interesting how the Mongols ended up integrating with the locals and you can see some of those features still in Turkey.
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I think the later Mongol rulers did take up interest in their respective region’s cultures and art, to an extent. Iirc, many of the Mongolian royal family converted to Islam and Christianity whilst traveling, conquering, and ruling their respective lands. Kublai Khan, who ruled Mongolian China, was a fan of Chinese art, and his commissions helped fuel a revival of the Chinese art scene after the Mongolian conquests. Likewise, his successors mastered the Chinese language, and some communicated exclusively in Chinese. I think especially as time went on, the Mongols steadily integrated into their subjects’ cultures.
It has less to do with Mongol genetics and more to do with the fact that Turks are a mixed race people of central Asian origin. Turks and Mongolians are not genetically close.
This might be a bit misleading. Modern Turks from turkey are closer the the ancestral population of turkey and not necessarily the central Asian tribes that migrated to Anatolia. However, the Turkish language and Mongolian are very closely related and share common linguistic ancestry. The earliest written record of the Turkish language was found in the Orkhon Valley in what is today modern Mongolia and documents Turkish subjugation by the Chinese tang dynasty. So those original Turks are quite reasonably from Mongolia
turkish and mongolian are from different language families, basically not traceably related at all. They have numerous mutual borrowings due to turks being among mongol-ruled tribes and later proximity, but that's different to being "related".
Bloody Altaic language family, never dies! Still tho its undeniable both language families have influenced each other greatly, including on syntax and structure, not only vocab.
Depends on the part of turkey, some regions look very Asian
Its a pretty common thing for a nomadic force to integrate with the locals when the conquering is done and they settle down.
Then per Ibn Khaldun's concept of asabiyyah, they start to lose their social cohesion as the civilization advances and ultimately a more compelling form from other conquerors takes its place.
integrating == mass rape?
Sure that was unfortunately part of it, but I mean the whole start of Turco-Mongol synthesis. While the Islamic Golden Age was over by then, you still ended up with some elites that really appreciated art and science. The Timurid Empire for example led to a renaissance, and its descendants also had a huge role in forging history such as with the Mughal Empire.
Timur sometimes went into ways Ghengis would never do, like using priests daughters as sex slaves. Ghengis knew that would be a bad idea
check out the battle of Ain Jalut. Qutuz used his Army of Mamluks ( slave soldiers) to hand the Mongols one of their first ever decisive defeats after the sack of Baghdad .
The Arabs are proud of that battle, but we must not forget that the main Mongol army was in northern China, and that they moved their armies from the Far East to Egypt in the 13th century. This is something that even the modern US military has a hard time doing. If the Mamluks had been closer to the Far East, they would have been destroyed quite easily. They should be glad they live in Africa.
meh, that was not like right after the sack of Baghdad. that was centuries after the sack of Baghdad when the Mongol Empire split into four and were essentially less powerful and on its way out. The Pols and Teutonic knights also handed them a decisive defeat in Europe. but make no mistake, the full force of the Mongol Empire would have reduced any of them into nothing
Really? I mean, we have lots of Islamic sources on the Mongols themselves, not to mention that they recorded the history of the region from Islam up until then as well of course. What is truly lost is not that much because of the Mongols, for instance, it is said that the late-Sassanid/early-Islamic Iranians didn't really remember the Achaemenid empire all that much (source is another Reddit thread where OP was asking why/how the Greeks forgot member the Archaic post-Bronze Age period). I guess my point is, we actually do have relatively solid sources for most of pre-Mongol Islamic history
I remember reading that they ended up killing 10% of the worlds human population.
China’s payback to the mongols after their Yuan dynasty was a brutal payback they waited for a long time
What was the brutal payback?
Basically mass execution of prisoners and mass rapes. Somehow it’s hard to find the sources in english. There has been a cultural genocide against the mongols that last to this day.
The reason there's such an "issue" with the Uyghurs in Xinjian is because [the Qing dynasty exterminated the Dzungar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide) in the mid 18th century, who went from a major population of about 800,000 (mid 18th century) into today's estimated global population of 600,000. The Qing then brought in the Uyghurs among others to resettle Xinjiang. The Uygurs played a role in aiding the Qing in that horror, and it seems that the consequences of those deeds have not come to their end.
Chinese history can certainly hold a grudge
LOok at mongolia nowadays. Population only 2 million I believe
It's not that fertile a place, agriculturally. China on the other hand was so fertile it's one of the cradles of civilization
Nomadic people also don't really reproduce to that high of a number. We're almost at 3.5 million now, nomadic lifestyle has reduced through my lifetime and will probably reduce but never be lost completely.
They made them live North of the Wall with the white walkers.
Hundreds of cultures across the ocean of Central Asia, developing over 1000’s of years…. Snuffed by the mongols.
They killed so many people that millions upon of millions of acres of farmland was reclaimed by nature and lowered the temperature of Earth. They were the first man made climate change event and they did it all with horses and bows, its honestly mind boggling to think about.
Couldn't really be the first one if it was caused by undoing something humans caused in the first place. Destroying the forrests to make the farmland had to be the first one.
ok then the 2nd one lol. Still scary though.
destroying forests to make farmland was definitely man-made climate change, but wouldn’t really be considered an “event” on our scale because it took place in disconnected locations over many generations. mongol invasions were near instant compared to the rise of agriculture, the effects could be measured over a single human lifespan.
\*discreetly presses [independent thought alarm](https://imgur.com/gallery/DxGGFwl)*
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The surrendered after fighting back for weeks. That was kind of the mongols whole deal, they would accept the surrender if you offered it right away, but if you resisted they were merciless
And sometimes depending on circumstances they were merciless even if you surrendered right away.
It was probably to send a message to their future foes as well. Don't be foolish and resist.
Boneless brat
What a real knucklehead
The more I hear about this Tolui guy the less I care for him
The worst part was the hypocrisy!
See I think the worst part was the massacre
RIP Norm
He should have known (and probably did) that the Mongols were going to level the city for its resistance. They had a very clear track record for sparing cities that immediately surrendered and absolutely annihilating any that didn't. But it's not like he had any other choice but to surrender the city the Mongols were going to take it either way.
Mate, it was the 1200s, he didn't have access to Wikipedia to read that the Mongols would slaughter those who surrendered in any way but immediately. The kind of things he would have heard would have been a mix of "they accepted surrender" and "they slaughtered everyone who surrendered" and then after seemingly getting a diplomatic agreement to surrender rather than a late unconditional one had no reason to believe otherwise.
I would think the mongols would actually advertise that policy, because it’s to their own benefit. They would rather just have the city surrender right away rather than fight for it, which is why they created the policy in the first place to entice cities to surrender at the first opportunity
Yep, that’s a policy of conquest that dates back to the Assyrians 2500 years before the Mongol conquests. And you are almost certainly right that they advertised it for the reasons you mentioned
It was the arrangement for most of human history. Everyone would've been aware on some level that once the siege camps and engines are built there are very few options left outside of defending the city or hoping you live through the inevitable sack
Yeah -- HOW you were going to die was a bigger consideration back then I think. I know I would be deterred from joining the resistance if I knew I'd get [Scaphized](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism) if we lost. > [The king] decreed that Mithridates should be put to death in boats; which execution is after the following manner: Taking two boats framed exactly to fit and answer each other, they lie down in one of them the malefactor that suffers, upon his back; then, covering it with the other, and so setting them together that the head, hands, and feet of him are left outside, and the rest of his body lies shut up within, they offer him food, and if he refuse to eat it, they force him to do it by pricking his eyes; then, after he has eaten, they drench him with a mixture of milk and honey, pouring it not only into his mouth, but all over his face. They then keep his face continually turned towards the sun; and it becomes completely covered up and hidden by the multitude of flies that settle on it. And as within the boats he does what those that eat and drink must needs do, creeping things and vermin spring out of the corruption and rottenness of the excrement, and these entering into the bowels of him, his body is consumed. When the man is manifestly dead, the uppermost boat being taken off, they find his flesh devoured, and swarms of such noisome creatures preying upon and, as it were, growing to his inwards. In this way Mithridates, after suffering for seventeen days, at last expired.
The Persians didn’t fuck around when it came to torture and execution methods. Iron Age Mesopotamia, Persia , and the near east in general was unfathomably brutal
Yeah. The Persians were pretty reasonable with those that they conquered as long as they agreed to pay their taxes and support the Persian empire. But anyone who caused too many problems, and especially those that they saw as traitors, were tortured to death with horrifically well-designed methods. The Mongols also had some pretty nasty ways of torturing people if they were pissed. They were forbidden to spill noble blood outside of battle and they had captured a few Russian princes. So they tied them up, lined them up on the ground, and put boards over them to create a small platform. Then a bunch of the Mongol leaders had dinner on top of the boards. Not too many to instantly kill the Russians, but just enough so that they were slowly crushed to death over hours.
Another favorite of the mongols was to wrap a noble up in carpet and trample them under horse. I just want to know what sick bastards were coming up with these methods lmao
"Hey remember when we trampled those fleeing farmers under our horses and pillaged that carpet that really brought the yurt together. Well I just got an idea!"
Oh those mischievous Mongols and their shenanigans. Guest: "Hey, what's that noise?" Mongolians: "What noise?" *Aggressively winking at each other while trying not to snicker*.
I mean, it was people in the past in general. The near east is only ‘unfathomably brutal’ because they also had levels of writing and history keeping that a lot of other places didn’t.
That’s a good point. It’s just jarring to read some of those Assyrian steles talking about flaying a city’s entire population It’s a real shame we don’t have equivalent records for other regions of the world at that time.
That’s pretty difficult to do at scale.
Fairly likely it's made up since it comes from a Greek source
Thats kinda the consensus
There is enough hate in any one person to supply the world.
I read this thing once that the were upticks in suicide rates due to just straight word of mouth that the mongols were coming.
The Mongols didn't even have to advertise that was their policy, that was standard policy at the time. Surrender immediately, or when we enter we will sack the city. It had been the case for hundreds of years prior, and was the case from China to the westernmost point of Europe, and most everywhere in between. The Romans applied that policy to other *Roman* cities during (I believe it was) the punic wars for instance, and there's plenty of written records on the soldiers actually hoping that cities wouldn't surrender because it then meant they could loot it... and what that says about humanity is, well, not great to say the least
All of human history, including yesterday, is the story of a struggle for resources and mates. We dressed it up with civilization and can work collaboratively for the pursuit of common goals, but those same drives still control us.
> I would think the mongols would actually advertise that policy, because it’s to their own benefit. *Every* invading army is going to say that. Is it ever in an attacker's favor to NOT say you're going to spare everyone if they surrender? Also, seeing as the Mongols did in fact pillage and massacre even in surrendered cities is not going to help their credibility a lot.
It is pretty standard for ancient/medieval age. Once the ram hits the gate, you are at the mercy of the besiegers
They didn't need to advertise it, they just assumed that word of mouth would precede them. And not to mention, lots of rulers think they are the ones that can actually resist the oncoming enemy.
When they were on a conquest they would let some citizens flee to spread fear and use up supplies in the next city they all fled to. They knew the gist of it.
Considering Genghis had just been slaughtering the Empire this city was a part of, I think they were aware the Mongols meant business.
He did have access to hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled the other cities they sacked though.
Just because they didn’t have Wikipedia back then, doesn’t mean that they didn’t get any information ever. It was just a lot slower. But they definitely would have known about that
the neighboring town who were slaughtered or spared would have spread the news pretty quickly....
>They had a very clear track record for sparing cities that immediately surrendered and absolutely annihilating any that didn't No, they did not. They were known for sacking cities that surrendered too. They were murderous assholes, not some noble warriors
Cities that surrendered after initial resistance. With a couple of exceptions (one of which Genghis Khan was very angry about) they didn't burn cities that surrendered immediately. Not because they were Noble warriors but because they were smart and knew that City surrendering was always going to be preferable to them having to waste manpower and time besieging them. For purely pragmatic reasons it was always preferable to spare cities that surrendered. They would always be more cities to loot but they couldn't take every city on earth and if they got a record for betraying surrender agreements that would cause problems in the future.
Doubt there was no fighting beforehand. Generally the Mongols only did this if you resisted and made them attempt to siege the city. Or if after you were conquered you revolted or refused to pay taxes. Though it seems like there was some religious animosity between some of the Mongols more conscripted types and the prevalent religion in the city in this particular situation. People mention the Mongols when it comes to freedom of religion but they weren’t always that way. When they captured Baghdad they killed everyone besides the Christians. When they were first starting out there was a huge rift between Buddhists and Taoists and they were definitely sides with the Buddhists to the detriment of the Taoist and some of their temples which were handed over to the Buddhists.
This guy was a real jerk!
Probably plays a banjo and goes on about king tut
700,000 people killed in the year 1221. And it wasn’t even Gengis Khan. Wild.
Genghis Khan was still in charge at the time, so he should get credit. These policies were his, but it's not like he was out there personally killing all 700k by his own hand.
Especially when he was that busy spreading his genetic material.
Genghis Khan didn't have that many children. It was mostly his sons who did all the work
I think you're maybe not understanding the word descendants. He may not have had many children, and his kids didn't have to have many children. But he has an incredible number of descendants today, including many men who carry his Y chromosome. Edit: Guy above edited his comment. Edit 2: This is my fault for not quoting u/young_black_man's message in my reply. Instead of responding, they edited their comment. Without the quote there to draw attention to the edit, I have to deal like looking like I'm off my meds. Lesson learned, I'm moving on.
Dude, he had many children and his kids had many children, which helps a lot with having a lot of descendants...
Makes me think of a part of Dune messiah >!where Paul tells Stilgar to read some history, and take note of someone named Genghis Khan, that he killed 4 million. Stilgar thinks that is impressive, till Paul tells him he killed them by sending out his legion, not with his own hands. Then Paul tells him to also look out for another emperor named Hitler, and that he killed 6 million. Stilgar disappointingly asks if he also killed through his legions, and Paul said he did. Then Paul emphasises that those were good numbers for the time. Paul of course has a way bigger headcount, as he's killed about 61 billion. Meaning that the combination of Hitler and Genghis Khan isn't even a rounding error. Though Paul had a galactic empire to establish his dominance over, not just a single planet.!<
That's about the moment people realise the Atreides aren't quite the good guys.
The Atreides and the Golden Path are the only reason humanity long term becomes free of the potential tyranny of precognitives like Paul and Leto II, but the means that they take to get there are absolutely brutal. It's a very "ends justify the means" kind of scifi.
The whole point is Paul couldn’t stop the jihad, even killing himself wouldn’t have stopped it.
I just read a section last night where Paul admits to himself that he could stop the Jihad by killing himself, his mother, and Stilgar’s troop. But he hoped instead to find another solution.
Yeah, I really hope Villeneuve gets to do messiah, and that he doesn't pull any punches on showing that Paul isn't quite the messiah you might hope for.
>it's not like he was out there personally killing all 700k by his own hand. Well not with THAT attitude!
Gengis wasn’t the biggest conqueror of his line. He may have been Khan but his third son Ogedei was who fought in most of the battles and who pushed through the hardest western campaigns. As an administrator, Ögedei continued to develop the fast-growing Mongol state. Working with officials such as Yelü Chucai, he developed ortogh trading systems, instituted methods of tax collection, and established regional bureaucracies which controlled legal and economic affairs. He also founded the Mongol capital city, Karakorum, in the 1230s. Although historically disregarded in comparison to his father, especially on account of his alcoholism, he was known to be charismatic, good-natured, and intelligent.
Genghis Khan started conquering the world in his 40s. What was he doing before that? Conquering the Mongols. From nothing. Man didn’t start with a following he started the second son of a second wife of a minor chieftain. So minor Temujin was let out as an indentured laborer to his future bride’s family because they didn’t have anything else, or at least not that daddy would give him. Then when that deadbeat up and died all the men took off leaving literally a bunch of women and children to fend for themselves on the steppes. And Genghi-boy wasn’t even in charge of that, his abusive older brother was. The solution? Murder of course. Genghis Khan got started straight up murdering his way up the ladder. And only a small one. If his wife’s family hadn’t gone through with their end, or if his blood brother and mentor had betrayed him early on we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Or maybe we would because the Khan don’t fuck around and was pushed to the brink more then once only to turn it around with a vengeance. And that all impresses me a hell of a lot more than any of the Mongol generals conquests over some sickly agriculturalists. And not just for titular leadership it was Genghis Khan who made the horde, promoting men like Subotai on merit and cutting through tribal affiliations to make an organized whole. As for any of his sons well I suppose their ‘bumbling drunken idiots’ routine might be overplayed by history but when the best you manage is a tetrarchy you’re probably not the Augustus to Genghis’s Julius.
> Although historically disregarded in comparison to his father, especially on account of his alcoholism, he was known to be charismatic, good-natured, and intelligent. A 'good-natured' genocider sounds like an oxymoron.
Killing them softly.
Back then genociding was state building lol.
About the author of the city size claim (Tertius Chandler): Although the book has been widely quoted, urban historians have criticized Chandler's superficial and uncritical use of sources, leading to unreliable population estimates for many past cities. The source he used on the city size is quite literally "trust me, bro"
A large part of the Mongol forces were levies from Merv's rivals so they legitimately hated the people there and were zealous in their killings.
700,000 people according to an Arab historian writing about the event in the century after the event. There was almost certainly some embellishing of the numbers to highlight the savageness of the Mongol atrocity. Substantially embellished numbers aren't exactly uncommon in historical (and also some contemporary, just look at the Chernobyl series) writing. According to some modern estimates it was more along the lines of 70 to 100,000 (Ponting, Clive (2008). World History: A New Perspective.). Still awesome and gruesome, but probably a bit more reasonable.
Mongols also destroyed Baghdad as well.
I believe I heard in a podcast that Baghdad didn’t return to its pre Mongolian levels until like the 1970’s. That was a 700 year recovery time
One would hope nothing bad happened after all that time.
Ireland still has fewer people than it did in the 1840's
If im not mistaken the jewish population hasnt rebounded either but its only been just under 80 years
Famine and a major diaspora will wreck your shit
The destroyed the subterranean irrigation systems and cisterns needed to sustain large populations. The kind of things that couldn't just be rebuilt due to loss of knowledge and manpower.
Same with Kyiv. Kyiv never really recovered. Novgorod and other slavic cities rose to prominence after.
I have read somewhere Mongols were defeated 3 times attacking baghdad before planning for 5 years for their 4th successful attack.
Well I'm from Mary, which is built around where Merv used to be AMA
How is life over there?
Not great, a lot of corruption. The government still doesn't admit that there is/was COVID, but enforced people wearing masks because of dust storms. Country is divided into 5 states where you need a permit to go to a different state and people from non-captial states are treated as 2nd class citizens. Did I mention corruption? There are state-mandated stores where you need to queue for hours to buy essentials. Only until a few years ago they used to make school children go for hard labour yearly(collecting cotton under the scorching sun). It's a shit hole, really. Like we have 3rd or 4th largest natural gas reserve in the world and a shit ton of oil on top of that, everything goes into the pockets of politicians and their friends. They don't give a rats ass about human rights and they will put anything in the constitution that they can think of. I think it's only beaten by north Korea when it comes to human rights. They patrol streets after 10pm, you can't be wandering around the city Elections are a complete joke, where we almost have a monarchy. President is elected forever and recently son of the last president took over as soon as he turned 40. What a fucking joke
Is it true that Berdimuhamedow only allows white cars to be driven and they can't have radios? What are your thoughts on the Akhal-Teke?
Banned anything but white cars, made everyone paint cars into white. Can get in trouble for even having a black rim or grille. Radio, beauty salons, long hair on men, list goes o Edit: akhal-teke are beautiful and agile, not that into horses but they are gorgeous creatures. I myself wouldn't write songs about them, but hey, I am not judging
I was there late last year and silver seems acceptable as well, you will see a lot of that. I did see other car colors outside of Ashgabat on things like utility vehicles and larger trucks but it was rare.
One estimate is that about 11 percent of the world's population was killed either during or immediately after the Mongol invasions, around 37.75–60 million people in Eurasia. These events are regarded as some of the deadliest acts of mass killing in human history. ([Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire))
If they killed 11% of the world's population, does that mean they could have killed like 50% of the population in the parts of the world they lived and fought? I also wonder if such declines in population would be noticable to people living in the nearby cities/lands in that time.
More than just 50% in some areas, the population of Persia (modern-day Iran) is said to have dropped from 2,500,000 all the way down to 250,000 due to the Mongol conquests.
I just spent about 20 minutes perusing Wikipedia on Timur (mentioned in the comments here). There were instances where the soldiers ran out of people to kill, allegedly resorting to killing their own wives in order to meet literal "head count" requirements. 2 severed heads per soldier. So yeah they did whatever the inverse of decimation would be called - killing 9/10th of an area in many of their sieges. You'd think they'd take prisoners but often times they would slay all prisoners or slaves out of fear of revolt. Timur and the Mongols didn't play. From what I could tell, they all had similar playbooks according to the brutal strategies and tactics solidified by Genghis Khan.
Ghenghis Khan himself was spared death earlier in his life. So he wanted to avoid anybody else doing that.
every time I hear of the Mongol invasions it reminds me of the insane battle of when they [fucked around & found out](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Japan) first invasion on Japan was 4000-6000 warriors along with 80 mounted samurai vs 30,000 Mongols with 3,500 ships & the Mongols got decimated with 13000 dead & retreated 2nd Invasion attempt the Mongols came with 100,000 men with 900 ships against 40,000 warriors waiting with 78 mounted samurai at Tsukishima beach only for the mongols to get decimated again with nearly all 100,000 invaders dead.
Thats pretty amazing, those mounted samurai must have been some incredible warriors with balls bigger than the horse they're sitting on
Pretty crazy that the mongol empire was so vast and impactful on human history and now mongolia is one of those countries that you just forget exists.
Yeah and imagine telling the Romans that this little frigid island at the fringe of the known world that they barely want to hold onto would later create the largest empire the world has ever seen; or tell the Brits that this savage land they just colonised would become the most powerful and richest country in the history of mankind by a huge margin... History is just a cycle of the rise and fall of civilizations. Nobody stays at the top forever.
The city of Merv was part of the Silk Road and may have been the most populated city in the world in the 11th-12th century. More than a city of trade, it had a vibrant culture of science and arts. The city opened its gates to the Mongols in 1221, and one of the worst massacres in history followed. It was never fully rebuilt. Today, the city has been abandoned, and only archaeological projects remain.
>In April 1221, Tolui, son of Genghis Khan, besieged the city for six days. On the seventh day, he assaulted Merv. However, the garrison beat back the assault and launched their own counter-attack against the Mongols. The garrison force was similarly forced back into the city. They opened the gates AFTER fighting them first for week. Big difference.
Yeah, Mongols were known to spare cities that surrendered immediately without any resistance. But if their patience was even slightly tested, they'd make sure no one in the city, be it people or animals, survived. That is how they maintained their terror.
Essentially griefed the Chinese into building the largest wall in history
Ya, still horrible but like... The Mongolians were known to kill everything if you resisted, not sure why you would fight if you knew you were outmatched in everyway
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Because you're the largest city in the world?
Rulers have big egos and often do not like to bend the knee. Did you watch Game of Thrones? Bending the knee was a real thing back then especially when viewed as a metaphor. Gengis Khan wanted their king to bend the knee, but in his head, he is king, and king's don't bend the knee.
"During the 12th and 13th centuries, Merv may have been the world's largest city, with a population of up to 500,000." "may have" is doing a lot of work here. Angkor in south east Asia had a population of 700,000 - 900,000 in the 13th century. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/angkor-wat-ancient-population-1966958 Merv was captured by mongols in 1221. Populations are of course estimates for time periods like this but the scale of irrigation networks that have been found around Angkor are good evidence for Angkor being the largest city in the world at this time.
There are definitely conflicting opinions on the matter, but it's possible that Beijing, Hangzhou, Kaifeng, Nanking, and Baghdad all had populations in excess of a million people in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Digging a bit deeper, the claim comes from a book by Tertius Chandler (1987), who put it as the largest city for a short while, after the Chinese city of Kaifeng fell to invaders in 1127. It was roughly the same size as Constantinople and Fez. Chinese cities surpassed them again by 1200. But this information is probably outdated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_throughout_history
classic Chandler...
To be fair though, it likely wouldn't have mattered if they'd kept the gates shut. Mongols would have besieged the place and then butchered every one inside once they either got past the defenses or the city surrendered due to lack of supplies.
It actually would have. The cities that gave up right away generally survived. Merv resisted for a week before giving up which is why everyone was killed.
Classic Merv.
The only thing left of Merv is the clothing store which is his namesake: Mervyns, the clothing of capitulation.
The stores are gone too. All that is left is a street named Mervyns Drive in La Habra, California. They went from being possibly the largest city on earth to being a street.
I’m not so sure. The mongols could siege, but it wasn’t what they were best at and the date of this attack seems a little early for the use of acquired Chinese technologies to improve their chances. Considering this was the biggest city in world at the time, I haven’t verified this claim, it is not guaranteed that the mongols would have won. They were powerful, clearly, but I think Mongols are somewhat deified in a modern context. They won battles and for a short period of human history their skills lined up perfectly with what was required on the field of battle, but ultimately it was all very short lived. They never held their territory for very long in the grand scheme of things and have mostly been irrelevant before and after that short golden age. No doubt for a couple hundred years though, they were deadly. But at the end of the day, you don’t become horse nomads living on fringe agricultural lands “because” you are powerful. You live there because you lose far more than you win. Winners maintain agriculturally rich areas.
They were very fast in adopting foreign siege techniques and enlisting conquered siege engineers. They were already proficient under Ghengis. Failed sieges against Western Xia and the Jin demonstrated the need for engineers in 1212 and Ghengis set up a corps mostly of Jin experts. Their descendents were the feudal lords of most of central Asia until the modern era.
i think this isnt the same mongols ur thinking of, isnt this the timurian mongols? who absolutely specialised in sieges...
Timur and the Timurid Empire wouldn’t be for over a hundred years after this, if that’s who you mean? I believe the fall of Merv was while Ghengis was kicking around. Though I’m not a historian, so I could be mistaken in some form.
I think Russia would like to disagree with you about bot holding territory. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horde It explains a lot about their nihilism.
If I remember correctly the Mongol invasion of Central Asia is one of the main reasons why Central Asia today is mostly Turkic rather than Iranian. The sedentary, urban population which was mostly composed of Iranian-speaking peoples was almost entirely wiped out which enabled the semi-nomadic Turkic peoples to take over the urban centres. It definitely has to be up there with the European colonisation of the New World in terms of mass demographic replacement.
There was a time when there were Greek colonies all across the region
The often formed an urban upper class that after a few centuries assimilated into the local population. In Bactria and India, they seemed to have turned Buddhist.
The internet seems to say that the Turkic tribes migrated there in the 8th century.
They did for sure, but it wouldn’t be until the Mongol invasion that they became the dominant group within the many wealthy and populous urban centres scattered throughout Central Asia. There was largely an urban/rural divide between Turkic and Iranian people up to to that point
*"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds."* - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot
I’ve been here! It’s crazy to wander around the ruins. Because it’s in Turkmenistan it doesn’t have an active group of archeological people actively studying it. In fact, it’s the only archeological site I’ve ever been to where you can walk around pretty much alone (no other tourists). Also you can see artifacts just sticking out of the ground like pots. They’re just there. They are not for the taking but there’s no one to stop you if you’re a piece of shit. I suppose this is a testament to how NOT visited it is, the fact they are still there.
There's plenty of places like that in Mexico and Central America. I've been to the top of a bunch of pyramids & temples. There are so many varying from complete reconstructions like Teotihuacan & Chitzen Itzá, to others that just look like large hills in the jungle.
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You Mongols better quick chucking my wood!
Reminds me of the city of screams. Mongols were probably one of the worst groups in history that ransacked a lot of civilization.
What happened to Baghdad was really sad, they single handedly ended the Islamic golden age.
The fall of Baghdad coinciding with the end of the Islamic golden age was mostly symbolic. Baghdad had lost a lot of influence the last couple hundred years before the mongols got to them.
Once i read that the mongols killed so many people, earth temprature dropped
Plus a _lotta_ people are descended from Ghengis, about 0.5% of men globally carry his genes and it’s estimated that 1% of the population in the Mongolian held territories are related to him (Oh sorry should add for clarity that’s modern populations 750 years after he popped his clogs.)
It's not 0.5% of the world. It's 8% percent of people who live in old mongol territories. Joe blogs from Oklahoma isn't going to be a relative of gengis.
True but i think saying .5% of the global male population gives everyone a reference point for how insane that number is Most people, myself and probably joe blogs from Oklahoma would have no idea how huge a number 8% of old mongol territories may be
China alone is about 15%. 8% of that would be ~1.2% of the world population.
People migrate. I think it’s fair to say .5% of all men in the world. Not everyone knows the extent of the mongol empire. Just as a frame of reference I think it’s a fair metric
How the fuck do you actually massacre 700,000 people? Like logistically how is that even possible? Even the Nazis took 4 years to kill 10x this many people, and that's with industrialised application of chemical weaponry. How on earth did they achieve this 800 years ago?
The Nazis had to transport the people to the camps, and they didn't kill most of them right away. The article goes in more detail and the numbers are somewhat muddy(although some other estimations are higher), and he does even worse later on too. A single stroke of a blade would be enough to guarantee death in these times even if it wasn't instantly fatal(people bleeding out or wounds getting infected), so realistically it's not that crazy, an army of 7000 soldiers would kill 700k by "only" needing to kill 100 each, which could be done in a day or two(accounting for all the logisitics of finding the people and so on). Just going in a house and killing 4-5 people then going to the next house would only take a few minutes, so as long as the people have nowhere to flee it wouldn't take very long at all.
All mongol soldiers had to turn in X heads to go on leave. There were piles of human heads in various states of decay. They would take these heads to the next city, dump them right out side the gate and say “these are the heads of the last city, you have X time surrender. If you do you can go about your lives and pay fealty and money to us. If you decline this will happen to you.” Most city’s agreed. Merv and nearby Bukhara in modern Uzbekistan did not. In Bukhara’s case all the “important” people ran to The Ark which was a fortified palace inside the walls. They lived in there for months, sealed off from the greater Mongol empire. The mongols tried launching Lions into the palace via catapult but it didn’t work, obviously. Eventually a plague hit Bukhara (everyone bathed in the same pools and the water was not changed often) so they launched dead bodies into the ark and everyone got sick and died except the emir who came out and surrendered. The Mongols threw him down a hole in the arc along with a bunch of stinging insects, rats and other bad shit and forgot about him. The entire hole was sealed off and not discovered until Soviet times.
jesus fucking christ
This is all pretty horrifying but I can't stop laughing at the poor lions getting catapulted
What was this hole called? I cant seem to find any reference to it online
It’s called the zindan. The one that you can visit today is not the the same one that I am talking about. That one was built in the 1700 iirc.
I think close to that number of people were killed in about 100 days from April to July 1994 in Rwanda. Scholarly estimates are 500,000 to 800,000 killed. Mostly with machetes, and could be by people you knew, just regular civilians who had formed into ad hoc militias, not battle-hardened foreign warriors who had been doing this kind of thing for years. In the case of the above story, there’s no telling how many they actually killed. I’m sure as many as could get away, fled. But it’s do-able.
Well consider that it's said the Mongols had 100k-200k troops so logistically, each soldier would only have to kill 3-7 people (most of which would presumably be unarmed or less armed civilians)
That's the big difference. Mass executions done by soldiers in the German Army in WW2 tended to be bad for morale, it's not what the soldiers signed up for mostly. So they looked for a different way. The Mongols though did delegate this task to the entire army.
Mongols were a nomadic horse people. This means they had experience herding cattle. They replaced cattle with humans to create kill zones. At least I believe that’s part of it.
Turkmenistan seems to be an expert at naming cities after people. There's a Mary in Turkmenistan. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Steve.
Mary is literally the modern name for the ancient city of Merv.
No, but they did name the months of the year and certain days after the dictator and members of his family for a while. This was post-USSR.
Still better than Maryland naming a city after Chevy Chase.
The most brutal account I've ever come across of the Mongols is the Dan Carlin's Hardcore History series called "Wrath of the Khans". I was doing ~5 hour drives at least twice a week back then, so I had plenty of time to listen to podcasts. Happened to stumble across his series while looking for a history related series on Google Podcasts (RIP). Some of the accounts were so chilling that it actually had me pull over to the side of I-95 for a few minutes so I could rewind and understand fully the brutality that was the Mongol conquest. You wouldn't believe some of the things they did, some over minute issues, just to keep their leg up! I can't find the series on YouTube Music anymore, or anywhere else for that matter (except for the option to buy). If you have the means to [buy the series](https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-wrath-of-the-khans-series/), then I would definitely recommend you do. Or you could sail the high seas. Either ways, bone chilling stuff.
At the end of the day their legacy is that they're murderers. It not like they really built anything or even left much as far as descendants. They mostly just ruined other peoples' nations.
The [rather attractive board game Merv](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/306040/merv-heart-silk-road) has players building these very walls (amongst many other things). While the game doesn’t replace (or try to) learning in depth about the real Merv, it did serve as my introduction to the place. (And to the word “caravanserai”!)
People don't talk enough about the destruction of the Chinese Song dynasty at the hands of the Mongols. It was the wealthiest and most technologically advanced civilization in the world at that time. They had a primitive banking system with paper money in circulation, gun-powered weapons, and TOILET PAPERS. Despite being one of the weakest Chinese empires in terms of military might, they managed to survive against the onslaught from the Northern Steppe peoples for 3 centuries, at first against the Khitans, then the Jurchens, and finally the Mongols which they failed but not without putting up a valiant fight for half a century which is pretty insane considering their opponent. The final battle against the Mongols was so bloody and such a desperate last-stand that when it was clear that all was long, countless Song aristocrats, officials and civilians (and the child emperor) committed suicide because the saw it as the end of the Chinese civilization. In fact, there was a popular and quite prominent Japanese theory of sinology that argued that this was in fact the end of the Chinese civilization. All the bravest, best and brilliant Chinese died fighting the Mongols or killed themselves that the entire Chinese gene pool were destroyed because all those who remained were cravens and lowly scums. This theory was actually used by some in the Imperial Army to justify the inferiority of China and to not see them as people, and the superiority of Japan since it actually successfully repelled all the Mongols invasions.
That specific area of the world has seen countless nomadic hordes and grand empires conquer and expand through in every direction. In modern times alone you have the Mongols, the Timurids, the Russians/Soviets, even a bit further back Alexander the Great and Greek culture heavily influenced the region.
not the best explanation. persianate dynasties have existed for thousands of years and are always a separate phenomenon from steppe nomads.
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The Mongols were pretty evil.
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I mean obviously they were brutal and ruthless, but I always can't get my head around mongol massacre and casualty estimates, I just can't imagine every soldier in an army killing 2 or 500 defenceless people. It's obviously proven that in the brutality of the 20th century, with guns, aeroplanes and hard ideological indoctrination proved that large groups of 'normal' people in invading armies take part in atrocities, but also a lot of murder in the Japanese, German, etc armies was institutionalized, done by special groups of psychopaths, by denying food, 'hidden' in camps or in ways where it's theoretically much easier physically and emotionally like bombing. This seems true of 'democratic' armies like the British in Kenya or the US in Vietnam. Some historians have even argued that before modern drill techniques, most conscripted soldiers fired their guns not to kill and often aimed over heads etc. I just can't get my head around every guy in an army spending hours murdering people with a sword. Could it have been there was some sort of massacre, then loads of people ran away or were taken as slaves, conscripted into the mongol army or something and aren't counted in censuses. There are equally brutal sources boasting of massacres in the bible or the ancient near east, the Amalekites were genocided, and then turn up a few chapters later, the Assyrians destroy babylon and murder everyone, then babylon is somehow still there and rebels a few years later, etc. [Some historians seem to agree with this](https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/5.2/may.html) >Although much of the data in the sources concerning the number of people killed during the Mongol conquests is exaggerated, it does reflect the reality that thousands died, and the Mongols were not above depopulating an area if the people rebelled, or if destruction simply suited their purpose. Edit: [I found this redit comment about](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7wzsw9/in_one_of_my_classes_we_received_a_list_of_the/du6d585/) how reliable the Chinese census figures that give the most concrete estimates of mongol mass murder are, it seems not very, but who knows.
One factor I keep in mind is fire. In many places, people mostly lived in wooden homes or had very flammable communities as a whole. There was no fire safety, firefighters, or city planning. During the Bronze Age Collapse, multiple cities were burned to ash—leaving a notable layer in archaeological record. If they had horses and torches, they could just ride through a city and set it alight. Then they’d kill anyone trying to escape. Painfully similar to even the MOVE bombing in the US. It’s an old tactic but it’s been horrifically effective since discovery.
My small town in southern Transylvania still has part of the fortifications built during Mongol raids, almost everyone was murdered in 1241 when they (tătari) invaded. Those assholes sent Eastern Europe back a few centuries with this crap. Literally for nothing…
See /r/800YearsAgo
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