Greatest Conqueror Ever

[monkspider]

It's true, the Mongols never existed. I thank Drake for bringing that excellent piece of scholarly detective work to the board's attention.

[Drake Tungsten]

I aim to please (and educate).

[Alexander's Horse]

The Northern nomadic tribes, of which the Mongols were but one, provided light cavalry, horse archers, to kingdoms throughout Asia and all the way to Europe. Quite a handy unit to have in your order of battle.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by monkspider
It's true, the Mongols never existed. I thank Drake for bringing that excellent piece of scholarly detective work to the board's attention.

Mongols you say? Again I ask of you, What Mongols? I'm so tired of hearing of this imaginary Mongol boogeyman.

The Mongol Empire did not exist. There were no cities found, no roads, no nothing. There is no evidence that the Mongols ever existed. The Mongol Empire could not exist. The amount of forage and organization required to move the described mass (at least 100,000 men, meaning what, 200,000 horses?) was beyond the logistics of those times. Think Napoleon in 1812: the whole October-December campaign was full of logistical failures of both Russian and French forces, with up to 80% of casualties on both sides accounting to starvation and other non-combat issues. And Mongols are 600 years before that. They attacked Northern Russia in the winter of 1236 - can you imagine the attrition rates?

It is an utter fallacy of complete madmen to believe in this pie in the sky "Mongol Empire". Any kind of conflict that happened in the 13th century that is attibuted to these "Phantom Mongols" was probably just some sort of localized uprisings. They happened all the time in those days.


So rather than dream about Mongols, Martians, and fluffy pink dinosaurs, let's talk bring the discussion a little closer to reality. There may be an international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids...

The mongols were from an area whose winter climate was even more severe than what is found in European Russia. They certainly can be expected to function better in a russian winter than the other invaders of russia from temperate climates could.

As to the unrealistic numbers I think this is simply an artifact of the illiteracy of the mongols resulting in the history of their actions being written by their defeated enemies who no doubt would be prone to exagerating the number of horsemen who had humiliated them.

When disputing the existance of a historical entity or group of people I think it is necessary to explain away nearly all evidence of it's existance in addition to raising objections to certain details of their historical record.

[Drake Tungsten]

You offer no evidence. You offer NOTHING! Yet, you want to claim that the Mongols exist. You criminal...

[Alexander's Horse]

Mongols weren't much more than barbarian raiders who were assimilated just like former waves of migrants out of Northern and Central Asia.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
You offer no evidence. You offer NOTHING! Yet, you want to claim that the Mongols exist. You criminal...

On the contrary there exists an enormous collection of data and coroborating historical records from several contemporary civilizations which document the existance of Mongol empires that in some ways might be regarded as even more exhaustive than evidence for the existance of even the Holy Roman Empire (for example). Essentially the strongest evidence is as follows. Look at the historical documents of contemporary civilizations of the mongol empire and you will find no 'holes' in their knowledge of the existance of the mongols after the dates in which the traditional historical record would have them encountering the mongols.

In addition to this amazing transeurasian agreement on the existance of the mongols we also have plenty of physical evidence and are even discovering new evidence to this day such as the recent identification of a y chromosome originating in the steppes and with a distribution consistent with the expected distribution of offspring of the great khan. We also have the physical evidence from the various successor khanates which while in every case were soon experiencing rapid assimilation with the local population still leave plenty of distinctively mongol linguistic and cultural curiosities to demonstrate their heritage. Everything from names and titles to horse breeds and weaponry.

In summery it is difficult to point to any evidence of the traditional historical record which we would expect to find but do not.

[Drake Tungsten]

On the contrary there exists an enormous collection of data and coroborating historical records from several contemporary civilizations which document the existance of Mongol empires that in some ways might be regarded as even more exhaustive than evidence for the existance of even the Holy Roman Empire (for example).

Link?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

On the contrary there exists an enormous collection of data and coroborating historical records from several contemporary civilizations which document the existance of Mongol empires that in some ways might be regarded as even more exhaustive than evidence for the existance of even the Holy Roman Empire (for example).

Link?

sure! Here's a few I googled quickly for you.



marco polos travels

interesting site on role of mongol empire in spreading plague

japanese contact with the mongols

Mongols and Iranian history

Mongols repulsed by egyptian mamluks

Basically every region that was literate and would traditionally have been expected to have contact with the huge mongol empire offers historically doccumentation of the mongol empires.

[SlowwHand]

Once again bucking the majorities, I go with Julius Caesar.
The Roman's implementation of roads is enough to get my vote.
Never mind they controlled most they had access to.

[Drake Tungsten]

sure! Here's a few I googled quickly for you.

Can't you find some reputable sites? All of those are well-known for their bias...

[monkspider]

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Once again bucking the majorities, I go with Julius Caesar.
The Roman's implementation of roads is enough to get my vote.
Never mind they controlled most they had access to.

Huh? that wasn't Julius Caesar's idea.

[joncha]

Ah, Geronimo. You play the straight-man role wonderfully.

[Impaler[WrG]]

Alexander as a single individual is definatly superior in his Conquests. Alxanders life was brief in contrast to Gengis, literaly the candle that burns hotest here.

Gengis Khan is remembered today because of the DYNASTY he founded, Gengis himself spent most of his life uniting the Mongol into the fighting force that made them so great. It was under Kuble Khan that China was concoured and under subsequent grandsons and greatgrandsons that most of Asia was concoured under. By that point though the "mongol empire" was breaking up and assimilating into what ever it had concoured (you might actualy consider this a great vurture as the Mongols were so open minded to other cultures). No single individual can take direct credit for the whole of the Mongol empire.