> This has the scent of sensationalism. You can dig into any empire and find glowing accounts of their tolerance. Dig into it. Given the stereotype of the mong

> This has the scent of sensationalism. You can dig into any empire and find glowing accounts of their tolerance. Dig into it. Given the stereotype of the mongols as bloodthirsty genocidal maniacs, it's surprising that they committed no genocide. Not a single one. And they were rather benevolent and beneficial. Everywhere from the islamic world to the rus to the chinese to the persians to central asia actually benefited from mongol rule. Everywhere the locals got wealthier and were better off. I'm more than happy to be corrected. And please, nothing about baghdad and the fall of the islamic empire. The mongol conquest eventually led to the greater, wealthier and more important islamic ottoman empire. > The vikings were the Rus, and they continued to rule as vassals under the Mongols in Moscow. Yes. But by 'the rus' I'm talking about the slavic peoples ( the eventual 'rus'sians, bela'rus'ians, ukrainians, etc ) that the vikings conquered. In other words, the viking ship is on the ukrainian emblem, not because the vikings protected the ukrainians from the mongols, but because the vikings conquered the ukrainians. The ship would have been on the emblem regardless of whether the mongols invaded or not as it is ukrainian legacy of viking conquest. It's difficult to talk about that era since the conquered took on the name of the conquerors and eventually displaced the conquerors. It would be as if the native americans started calling themselves english or anglos. Which would have caused more confusion than calling them indians.