Questions tagged [mongol-empire]
For questions about the 13th-14th century empire that originated in modern-day Mongolia and was founded by Genghis Khan.
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Why was the northern boundary of the Mongol empire set where it was?
The Question
By the latter part of the 13th century, the Mongols' frantic territorial expansion was losing momentum. In the east, their empire reached the Pacific, and their efforts to conquer Japan ...
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Was Goryeo part of the Mongol empire?
So I came to America from Korea a while ago and I decided to study a bit of history (because who doesn't like history?).
While doing so, it kind of confused me that the extent of the Mongol empire ...
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Why did the Mughals call themselves "Gurkani" when Babur himself was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan?
According to the Wikipedia article on the Timurid dynasty:
The Timurid dynasty called themselves "Gurkani". The word "Gurkani" derives from "Gurkan", a Persianized form ...
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Isn't there any positive legacy of the Mongolian occupation in Russia? [closed]
In the BBC radio 4 series The Wild East, the history of Russia after the Mongolian occupation is described as if all the bad things happened subsequently had been caused by the legacy of that era. Isn'...
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What was the context of this famous Genghis Khan quote?
It is often quoted that Genghis Khan said:
The greatest happiness is to scatter your enemy, to drive him before you, to see his cities reduced to ashes, to see those who love him shrouded in tears, ...
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Why and how were the Mongols able to invade Russia successfully?
From Wikipedia:
The campaign was heralded by the Battle of the Kalka River in 1223, which resulted in a Mongol victory over the forces of several Rus' principalities. The Mongols nevertheless ...
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Why were nomadic tribes (like the Mongols) from the Eurasian steppes a much reduced threat from the 15th century onwards?
Tribesmen from the Eurasian steppes found significant success in their conquests between the 13th and 15th centuries. Beginning with the Mongol invasions between the 13th and 14th centuries, nomadic ...
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Did the Hungarian Army ever use crescent banners?
I was reading about Battle of Mohi between the Mongol Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary.
Wikipedia contains this artistic depiction of the battle:
The cavalry on left hand looks like Mongols while ...
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Why was the standoff on the Ugra river the end of the Tatar-Mongol yoke in Russia?
This is a very layman question, since my only source of knowledge is Wikipedia. I'm sure there are works that cover this subject in more details, please mention them in your answer.
Wikipedia says:
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What effect did the duration of Mongol presence in Galicia-Volhynia versus Vladimir-Suzdal have on the development of modern day Ukraine and Russia?
In Serhii Plokhy's book "The Gates of Europe - a History of Ukraine" the author states that the arrival of the Mongols ended the rule of Kyivan-Rus and effectively split the Kyivan realm ...
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Are there any books with history short/summarised stories?
I was recently reading Atrocities by Matthew white, which has stories about the 100 greatest atrocities in world history. It is the first history book I have managed to complete. I prefer to read a ...
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Did medieval Mongol horse archers have deformed arms like English bowmen?
Did medieval Mongol horse archers have deformed arms like English bowmen? And were there other archer inside or outside of Europe in ancient times who suffered the same deformity like English archers?
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Are Chinese and Iranian "blocky" writing styles related?
Both China and Iran have character styles that are characterized by being (at least approximately) based on a square raster and by "filling up the plane" in the sense that if you take any ...
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What does this source "IAA iii" mean? Which book?
I've been reading a book about Genghis Khan by Frank McLynn and, going through its notes, I saw sources where I couldn't find anything about it, i.e. what publication was referred to.
I want to find ...
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How many soldiers fought in the Mongol conquest of Song
Wikipedia says the Mongols invaded the Song with an initial force of 90 tumens, or 900,000 soldiers at full strength. Considering the war lasted 44 years and the Mongols must have provided continuous ...
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What prevented the Mongolian Empire from expanding into Europe?
The Mongolian Empire reached quite a vast extent according to the map below and leaders such as Genghis Khan seemed to defeat all their enemies consistently. Yet, the empire never extended into Europe,...
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What are the primary sources for the Mongol sack of Baghdad?
It is generally accepted as fact that when the Mongols under Hulagu sacked Baghdad, capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, they destroyed all (36 libraries) including the famed House of Wisdom, and either ...
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Why did the Mongols destroy the library during the siege of Baghdad in 1258?
For all what we know the Mongolian Empire was not simply a collection of brainless brutes, but they had intense knowledge of their opponents: descriptions, maps, information about the technology, ...
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Were the mongol army boots of 13th century lined with fur?
I want to know about 13th century Mongolian army boots.
I know they used leather for their boots. The leather and the source of the leather is irrelevant to my research for now.
My question is that ...
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Did the Golden Horde shoe their horses?
Did Genghis Khan's people generally shoe their mounts?
If so, did it begin before they began their expansion, or did they acquire the practise along the way?
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Which texts/works were lost due to the Mongol invasions of Baghdad?
Which texts/works were lost due to the Mongol invasions of Baghdad?
Baghdad was a center for learning and there seems to be an immense literature loss during the sack of that city, just like the ...
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Were the Islamic Caliphates (Umayyad and Abbasid) and the Mongol Empires truly as benevolent as they are portrayed?
My history textbooks insist on the same idea: these empires were religiously tolerant, allowed trade to flourish, and improved the quality of life for the subjects.
On the other hand, all the ...
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Were Christians prohibited to pass Golden Horde - Rus border immediately before Black Death?
Note: this question is similar to earlier Were there any travel restrictions during the Black Death pandemic?, but asks about travel restrictions existing before the epidemic.
Wikipedia article on ...
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Why did Ong Khan offer Temujin (young Gengis Khan) a position?
Why did Ong Khan offer Temujin (young Gengis kKan) a position? (after Temujin recognized him as his father) I mean it seems that after the death of Temujin's father, Ong Khan did nothing to help and ...
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Did Kublai Khan's army consist largely of Mongol warriors or native Chinese?
Kublai's army is always referred to as a 'Mongol' army but I suspect that after the initial conquest of China, his army consisted largely of native Chinese. Is this correct? Did the Japanese and ...
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Were Mongol or Chinese cavalry charges among the largest in history?
In 1683 at the Battle of Vienna, 20,000 Polish, German and Austrian cavalry charged the Ottoman lines in what Wikipedia says is the largest cavalry charge in history. Other references are more ...
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Have Moscow and Beijing ever been cities under the same rule?
Have Moscow and Beijing ever been cities under the rule of the same empire? It should have been Mongol Empire, I suppose.
How long has it lasted?
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How did the conquering Mongols and Manchus of China end up becoming part of China?
The Mongols conquered China and established the Yuan dynasty. The Manchus conquered China and established the Qing dynasty. Why is it in both cases, the conquering countries became part of China at ...
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Who was the English Knight Templar holding command in the Mongol Army?
Excerpt from Great Captains Unveiled (1927), by B. H. Liddell Hart:
After this holocaust, Hungary was occupied without further fighting.
An organised administration was set up, and the land ...
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Why were people from the Asian Steppes able to militarily dominate Europeans on a repeated basis?
From the Huns through the Mongolians, why were nomadic people from the east able to create such havoc in Europe? Was it an endless 'first mover' advantage with horse domestication? Was it a higher ...
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Were the Huns and Mongols at one point rivals?
I recently read an article that suggests that perhaps the Huns invading Rome had once been a foe and eventually conquered and forced to migrate by the Mongol empire,this interesting idea completely ...
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How did Japanese small boats win against Mongolian ships?
During the first attempted Mongolian invasion of Japan, fighting mostly occurred on land, just after Mongolian landings. Only local landlords were there to fight, and they did not manage well. In this ...
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How Did the Mongol Empire Get So Big?
Undoubtedly, the largest empire in the existence of human history was the Mongol Empire, once a hodgepodge of warring nomadic tribes from Central Asia before banding together under the banner of ...
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Why were the Mongols so victorious? [duplicate]
I read that the Mongol Empire conquered and unified China. My question is... how were the Mongols able to conquer so much when China's population almost certainly was larger during that time period? ...
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What forces/incentives drove the Mongols to conquer a much larger territory than they could comfortably settle or rule?
Internet resources on the Mongol Empire usually dwell on the Mongol conquests of a huge mass of territory. Unfortunately, seldom are the reasons behind the conquests explained. One gets the impression ...
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How did Mongol nomads acquire metal weapons?
Metal-working requires a furnace, heavy tools and of-course metal ore and yet nomadic Mongols were able to obtain metal weapons, so either they worked metal or traded it. But if they worked metal how ...
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How effective were the Mongol siege equipment?
From what I understand, the mongols had engineers from China and Persia to handle the siege machinery. I'm mostly curious as if the machinery made by the Chinese engineers was unique and/or superior ...
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How many soldiers did Ghengis Khan field?
I'm looking for the number of soldiers the Mongol Empire had at the time of Genghis Khan. What percentage of them were ethnically Mongolians?
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What are Kublai Khan's contributions to culture?
I was under the impression that Genghis Khan was an invader while Kublai was more of a patron of fine arts; but reading Wikipedia it mainly mentions his campaigns for the Mongol throne and the ...
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How devoted to Tengrism was Genghis Khan?
We first hear about Tengrism around the 6th Century as forming amongst the Turkic people of the central Asian steppe, spreading west for a bit with Attila and his crew, then getting mostly overrun by ...
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Why were fragments of the Mongol empire named after colors?
Why were the successor fragments of the Mongol empire named after colors after the death of Genghis Khan?
For example, blue horde, golden horde and white horde.
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How were the invasions of Korea by the Mongols and the Manchus similar?
The first Mongol invasions of 1231 forced the Koreans to capitulate and reconsider their defensive posture.
In an attempt to overthrow the newly imposed tributes of the Mongols, the Koreans (at the ...
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Why did the Mongols outlaw intermarriage between the Mongols and the Chinese and forbid the Chinese from learning the Mongolian language?
When the Mongols invaded China and established the Yuan dynasty, why did they outlaw intermarriage and forbid the Chinese from learning the Mongolian language?
I am reading this from a textbook for ...
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Why did Russians have guns towards the end of the Mongol Yoke, but not the Mongols?
Russian soldiers first used firearms in 1382, against the Mongols (it is not mentioned in the article whether the Mongols also had guns). This would prove to be an insufficient advantage at the time, ...
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How were Mongols defeated on the field?
The question is not about the collapse of the Mongol states, but of how the Mongol war machine was outmatched.
The factors that led to the military successes of the Mongols, like lack of dependence ...
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Are there any primary sources on the letter Hulagu wrote to Qutuz?
I was wondering if there are any primary sources on the letter that the Mongol Khan Hulagu wrote to the Mamluk Sultan Qutuz (from Wikipedia: "Hulagu intended to continue southward through Palestine ...
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Turko-Mongol horse tactics and Western European response
Did not seem that Western European armies stood up to Turco-Mongol military tactics such as the horse archer. Did these European armies ever learn to counter those tactics? The Slavs (Polish) had a ...
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How accurate is the quip: "Mongols, having already conquered half of Europe, decided the other half wasn't worth it"?
Erik Flint, writing in the voice of a heroine who is a professional historian, quipped:
Mongols, having already conquered half of Europe, decided the other half wasn't worth it
(emphasis added)
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Was the Korean King Chungnyeol instrumental in persuading Kublai Khan to invade Japan?
The Mongol invasions of Japan were costly failures. According to Wikipedia, the Korean King Chungnyeol (by this time a vassal of the Mongols) was
...known as the fixer who instigated Mongol ...
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What did Golden Horde get out of the alliance with Mamluks?
Berke Khan, the Khan of the Golden Horde was not very fond of his cousin, Helagu Khan, Khan of Ilkhanate primarily because of the latter's actions against the Abbasid Caliphate.
He wrote this to ...