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In reality, when the enemy finally did cross the wall (multiple times), they just killed the elites, moved into their palaces, and then took over the ever-so-bu

by retrac 6y ago

In reality, when the enemy finally did cross the wall (multiple times), they just killed the elites, moved into their palaces, and then took over the ever-so-burdensome task of administering the canals... and collecting the taxes.

jonny_eh 6y ago
More: http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/was-the-great-wall-china-effective-did-it-work http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/was-the-great-wall-china-ef...
ardit33 6y ago
you also fail to mention that the mongols did mass slaughtering of the entire population of cities that resisted. It was genocide at mass, even children and women were not spared. Also, their raids will conflict massive damage to local populations (pillaging, plundering and rape). So, yeah..... you make it like it was some kind of 'chivalrous' game between nobles/elites, while it was not at all.
- retrac 6y ago
  Nothing that didn't happen during Chinese civil wars. My intended point was quite the opposite. The nobles were playing a game, a brutal one -- and the peasants were the pawns.
  - mr_toad 6y ago
    True, but that didn’t make them any less dead. Some estimates put casualties from Mongol invasions as as high as 60 million people. They certainly did kill millions, not just the elites.
coldtea 6y ago
>they just killed the elites, moved into their palaces, and then took over the ever-so-burdensome task of administering the canals... and collecting the taxes. Locals didn't see it as merely "replacing some elite with another" any more than the Nazi Germany winning the war and establishing someone as the "President of the US" would be seen as that. Sure, in the end life goes on, but there are many aspects that change, and domestic versus invading elites are seldom the same... That's if we exclude the mass slaughters at the time, or the treatment of local ethnicities as second class citizens...

by retrac 6y ago

jonny_eh 6y ago

More: http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/was-the-great-wall-china-effective-did-it-work http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/was-the-great-wall-china-ef...

ardit33 6y ago

you also fail to mention that the mongols did mass slaughtering of the entire population of cities that resisted. It was genocide at mass, even children and women were not spared. Also, their raids will conflict massive damage to local populations (pillaging, plundering and rape). So, yeah..... you make it like it was some kind of 'chivalrous' game between nobles/elites, while it was not at all.

retrac 6y ago
Nothing that didn't happen during Chinese civil wars. My intended point was quite the opposite. The nobles were playing a game, a brutal one -- and the peasants were the pawns.
- mr_toad 6y ago
  True, but that didn’t make them any less dead. Some estimates put casualties from Mongol invasions as as high as 60 million people. They certainly did kill millions, not just the elites.

coldtea 6y ago

>they just killed the elites, moved into their palaces, and then took over the ever-so-burdensome task of administering the canals... and collecting the taxes. Locals didn't see it as merely "replacing some elite with another" any more than the Nazi Germany winning the war and establishing someone as the "President of the US" would be seen as that. Sure, in the end life goes on, but there are many aspects that change, and domestic versus invading elites are seldom the same... That's if we exclude the mass slaughters at the time, or the treatment of local ethnicities as second class citizens...