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The book that heydenberk mentions above is remarkable in that it presents a very different picture of the 'ruthless Mongol hordes' as a well disciplined and ve
by mbubb 12y ago
The book that heydenberk mentions above is remarkable in that it presents a very different picture of the 'ruthless Mongol hordes' as a well disciplined and very flexible moving force.
The thing to consider if they were so brutish as presented in books and media then they would have collapsed from within.
And if they were simply brutal eventually there would have been revolt.
The book presents them as able to learn quickly from each place they conquered. One of the first groups in Asia they came across were excellent accountants. The non-literate Mongolians brought them along to inventory further conquests.
That is remarkable.
They built a network of roads ( a memorable sentence from the book - paraphrase: "The only structures the Mongolians knew how to build were bridges - so that they would always have a way back home"
They had no religion that they wanted to impose. No particular ideology.
They came up with innovative answers to problems that included prototypes for paper currency; law between states; religious tolerance.
They could be brutal - but to the noble/clerical ruling classes, supposedly not so much to the peasant and trade classes. And compared to what? Life for peasants was pretty much 'nasty, brutish and short' as it was. It seems possible that the Mongols could have offered them a better bargain they they were getting from King and Church. And that is why there was not sustained revolts.
There is an oft quoted cliche "History is writ by the victors..."
In this case not true. They were non-literate in Ghengis' generation. The history of the Mongol invasions were written by the vanquished upper classes.
- encoderer 12y agoI agree that they were certainly a disciplined and flexible moving force. But I also think they were every bit as brutal as presented in books. I'm not the most studied person on Mongol history but the impression I'm left with is that you can piece together accounts of the Mongol invasion in the texts of ancient russia, europe, china and the middle east. In russia they call them the huns, in europe there's a legend of "prestor john". All accounts share the same ruthlessness.
- skaevola 12y agoYou're mixing up your history. The Huns were an entirely different nomadic people (separated from the Mongol Empire by about a thousand years). Prestor John was a mythical Christian king who lived beyond the Islamic lands and whose land was full of wealth and treasures.
- encoderer 12y agoNo I'm not. The russians of the time called the mongols by the ancient name "huns." Or at least, those that wrote the history did. Prestor John was the mythical christian king who was purportedly laying waste to Islam from the east as Europe was attacking in the crusades from the west. Of course, at that time, it was Genghis Khan that was attacking the Islamic states from the west.
- aminok 12y ago"And if they were simply brutal eventually there would have been revolt." They were extremely brutal so that conquered peoples would not revolt. They were very pragmatic in some sense. After Herat revolted and killed the Mongol governor Genghis had appointed, he reportedly asked why the slaughters his forces had carried out had not succeeded in terrorizing Herat's population into submission.