![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
"When - for example - Alexander the Great, used the tactic of close combat, heavy cavalry and not very much weight on archery, Genghis men were the total opposite" -- aside from being nearly incomprehensible at an English level, this sentence pretty much describes what's wrong with this article. Bias, random insults, childish slander, etc. The whole thing needs to be scrapped, locked, and rewritten by someone competent rather than read like a five year old attempting to regurgitate a communist-era Mongolian history textbook.
While I agree this article is very POV, it is largely factually correct. It could use a re-write to present the information in more encyclopedic terms.
Also, I deleted the "Mongol warrior versus European opponent" section, as the most important detail of the paragraph centered around the ability of arrows to penetrate European plate metal armor (and how silk made for a superior garment in combat). No arrow ever penetrated plate iron or steel (although an arrow could have penetrated mail armor, the paragraph seemed to mean plate armor), not even one fired from a 'famous' Mongol bow. 04:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
"He used Chinese technicians that were very advanced for the time. The siege engines were disassembled and were carried on horses to be rebuilt at the site of the battle."
I don't agree that chinese siege tech was advanced for his time. In fact, european siege machines were way better, capable of launching bigger ordinance more far.
Also, i think the author of this articles forgives that if Europe had something for that time, it was castles. Mongols would have to conquer Europe castle by castle, meaning not taking profit of his movility and then being vulnerable to some short of Crusade (in that same time, the Teutonic Order has a crusade in Poland.
Lets just say that it used to be. Orngjce223 Orngjce223 14:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree. But please note that the article was written primarily by Chinese people, so it is unsurprising to see that they talk about the "very advanced" technology that the Chinese people possessed. The question is, if the Chinese had such very advanced technology, how did the Mongol conquer China so easily? The Chinese had city walls. The Chinese had vast armies. The Chinese had very advanced technology. What happened?
There is a large error here compound bows were invented in the 1960 and have pulies on them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_bows Composite bows are made with 2 or more materials. Longbows were effectivly composite as they were made with diffrent parts of tree possesing diffrent caracteristics.
No The Mongols did not conquer china "easily" it took much longer to take the southern Sung than to take any other country. In addition, China was divided into three kingdoms when the Mongols began raiding. I think you should learn something about history.
And yes, Chinese technology was superior to the rest of the world. The Wu Jing Zong Yao of 1044 illustrates hand thrown bombs and lances that spew flames. Turnbull gives a range of over 1000 yards for Chinese siege crossbows in his book "siege weapons of the far east"
What allowed the Mongols to take China was their reliance on native Chinese infantry, as the Mongolian style of cavalry warfare was unsuitable for the hilly terrain of southern China. Infact, Chris Peers "Medieval Chinese armies" states that more Chinese were fighting for the Mongols than Mongols themselves!
Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity - An Illustrated History http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jieming/chinesesiegewarfare
A strange sentence: "It may be, however, that these intimidation tactics saved many lives by persuading opposing forces to surrender rather than fight." Seems to me you could argue equally that the lack of resistance caused others to get killed instead. A resistance might have slowed the advance and saved towns further on.
In any case, I doubt it belongs in an encyclopedia article.
I am taking a course on East Asia studies, my professor who had done her thesis in Yuan Dynasty told me that the prmiary reson that Mongol was able to conqueror China was because Kubli Khan had many Chinese generals who defected from Northern China. In fact, if you look at record closer, most of generals mentioned in the conquest of Southern Sung Dynasty was Chinese names, not Mongols. Even with help of Chinese, it took over 50 years to complete the conquet of whole China, this demonstrated China's strength even at its weakest period in its history (comparing to merely few years of conquering of East Europe and else where). Sung Dynasty was the most technological advanced nation at that time, and Europeans did not surpass Chinese technology until the industrial revolution.
"But please note that the article was written primarily by Chinese people, so it is unsurprising to see that they talk about the "very advanced" technology that the Chinese people possessed"
Watch you languague! There are many articles that were written by white-Westeners on superiority of Western civilization, and do you think it is right to accuse them of providing wrong info. based on their racial and cultural background? If you do not know anything about Asian history, please do not use any bias view here. Ignorance and racism are not welcome!!!!
I second that. I'm also chinese-american. ~
user:orngjce223
how am I typing?
17:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Seen on television. An Japanese architect uncovered the remains of the Mongol fleet on the seabed. One of the things he found was a round object. It turned out to be some sort of grenade. Don't know if it contained any scrapel. This was certainly an innovation in warfare and it should be mentioned in this article. Saw the documentary on National Geographic or Discovery Channel. I don't know any other source. That is why I don't edit the main article.
Wereldburger758
...Mostly came from the fact that European armies of the time consisted mostly of light infantry and conscripts, and a very small core of armoured knights. Sure, yes, the knight cannot chase down the mongol, yada yada. Knights in Russia were well-armoured AND used their bows well, after all they've practiced the horse archery thing for centuries on end, living and fighting in the Steppes. So had the Kwarazmians, the Qipchaks, the Alans and so on. Russian, Arab, German, Polish and Hungarian armies also had horses with more stamina and strength. One on one, a wealthy Mongol warrior and a "knight" from Eastern Europe/Central Asia are probably evenly matched. What everyone forgets when they rave about the mongol raid of 1241 is that when the Mongols routed the 100,000 or so at Mohi, of those 100,000 about 80,000 would have been peasants. Same with any Islamic or European opponent. The average quality of the fighting man was much better among the Mongols; European armies consisted of small elites and a mass of bodies, while the Mongols could bring several tens of thousands of PROFESSIONAL warriors to the field, a thing no other country on Earth bar China could at the time.
Combine that with strict hierachical command, greater mobility of the entire force, and the fact that European feudal armies were a nightmare and a half to raise, maintain and command, and you can see that the victories of the Mongols in Europe and elsewhere in the west were not at all dependent on the arrow penetrating the armour. Which it could, by the way, but not reliably.
The Defeat of the Mongols section seems like it was pulled straight from a history textbook; needs to be changed to be more appropriate for an encyclopedia article.
Europe had one of the lowest population on earth at that time so it's not surprising that the Mongols after conquering vast areas of Persia and China could summon more "professional soldiers". You've also got to understand that the Mongols were the aggressive people, not the Europeans so obviously they were more prepared. Both the Muslims and the Europeans proved they could produce "professional" soldiers en masse during the Crusades, even through no army at the time was "professional" and many of the Mongols were still farmers. Instead of conquering all of Europe as has been suggested, had the Mongols advanced further, they would have come up against the more centralized states Like France and England, with better and more co-ordinated armies than those of Eastern Europe and who would have put up a lot more resistance.
"China was divided into three kingdoms when the Mongols began raiding." Perhaps you should learn some history because Europe was much worse and either way it's not really an excuse, militarily speaking.
By the way, Western technology was not superior to China's only by the time of the industrial revolution, in fact that's one of the most uneducated things I've ever heard. At any rate, the Mongol armies were almost always smaller than their opponents in numbers.
Don't break my argument down because then it's completely pointless as the points are linked. The fact was that the Eastern European armies that faced the Mongols were made up of people not trained to fight, mainly miners as has been said. This was not the case all over Europe and, as has been implied on this website numerous times, the Mongol Horde was not a standing army. England was more centralized than any other nation in Europe. That gave it a good army compared to its small population, forged in wars against Scotland, Wales and France in the 12th and 13th Century, while a large proportion of English infantry was to some extents professional (a relic of Anglo-Saxon times) and had developed sophisticated longbow tactics. France too was a lot more centralized than anywhere that lay east of it and so garnered numerous benefits from that. But yes, by being the invaders the Mongols would have better quality men and of course Europe can be treated as a group but compared to the Middle East and Asia its overall population was lower.
As for technology, I suggest you do a lot more research because you're wrong. Yes gunpowder was developed in China. Did they recognize it's full military potential? No and by the 13th century it had arrived in Europe and developed into a much better fire-arm than a rock-shooting piece of bamboo by the middle of the end of the 14th Century. At that time, indeed for some time, Western conventional siege operations etc. had been just as good and sophisticated than those in the east. The compass had been developed in Europe in the 12th century and Zheng He's fleet was not an invention, in fact Western ships were generally just as good during the Middle Ages and as for the water clock... By the way "your honest opinion" has no relevance.
Simply because it's the world's oldest today doesn't mean it was the first to exist. "Being raised in China does not make someone stupid or a liar, nor does it render their work unreliable. Indeed, in discussing Mongol history, Chinese scholars would intuitively be better informed than westerners as many of the primary sources are in Chinese." I never said it did make them liars. But because most of the pages on this infernal website are edited not by educated historians but by amateurs I assume that those from China are invariably informed by a politically skewed history education or by history books censored by the Chinese Government and at least use this information as a basis for arguments and pages, and as you said "opinions are all we have".
You don't think any other country had primitive grenades? "Landmines" weren't invented until the 14th century and were hardly practical, and the first metal Chinese cannon weren't manufactured until 30 years after those produced in Europe, while metal handgonnes are first documented in the late 13th Century in Italy. As for ships, do you know when the late Renaissance was? By the 1500s shipbuilding was well in advance of anything in the Far or Central Asia, which began to overtake the East in the 1400s. Don't get me wrong, it wouldn't have done so without the adoption of rudders etc., but that occured in the twelth century.
Everyone is aware of what education is like under dictators.
What is the difference between an aggressive oligarchy and a dictator when it comes to education. I can't speak out on the quality of education in China but censorship is extremely widespread and no doubt for the public history education conforms in some way to how Hu Jintao wants China to be seen by his people, just like in any other education system under a dictator in history.
(News just in: Japanese education officials are checking the historical accuracy of Chinese text books - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1584238,00.html. Suprise fucking suprise.)
Oh, and another thing I wanted to add that I have just discovered. Early European rudders were developed independently in Europe and operated using a different, more sophisticated technique. In fact early Chinese rudders had no significant perfomance superiority over quater rudders, perhaps with the exception of on those mounted on larger ships uncommon in European waters, especially the rougher Atlantic.
I think I've proved my point.
- - - - -
What?
I do not know why we have this prolonged and almost unnecessary argument here taking place. National sentiments can indeed be a dangerous thing.
Let us put 'technological advancement' aside and look at the facts here. In regards to organization, China was ahead of Europe in many aspects during the middle ages, and would falter only around the 17th ~ 18th century. This is a fact most 'Western' scholars recognize.
In terms of population & centralization, China was without saying, many times ahead. In regards to the armed forces, the mobilization of armies in the hundred thousands, and stretching them across a very extended national boundary while providing the necessary logistics to maintain their presence was commonly practiced by many successive Chinese dynasties, but not practiced in Europe since Roman times.
And lets not think otherwise, the Chinese army in the 13th century, in terms of manpower, territory, logistical support, was far more advanced and better prepared for warfare than their European counterpart. The Chinese also had a navy, which played a pivotal role in supplying Chinese cities in their continued resistance against what was then the world's largest empire. In contrast, Europe at the time lacked the governance, economic and organization capacities to create a nationalized army capable of meeting the challenges the Mongol/Far Eastern concept of (total) warfare demanded. There is a reason why knights were given prominent political status, and in turn, their existence were romanticized many times over, because Europe simply could not afford a large professional army except for a handful of sometimes over-equipped men. The proud and the few. Except if they were lost during some tactical accident, that was it. Take the Battle of Agincourt for example, the French managed to muster approximately 5,000+ knights, which were nominally the best they had. Yet, they were of various qualities, mixed with less trained men and mercenaries of even greater unevenness. When the battle was over, and with most of their knights gone, the French found themselves lacking an effective army to resist the English invasion until years later. It took just one battle to severely cripple the French.
You don't see this ever happening during the height of the Roman Empire, where individuals are scarcely named except for capable commanders and extremely incapable nobles. If we take the Second Punic War into consideration, it is not difficult to note that the Romans had won through a series of attrition, which was an advantage Hannibal never had. Although Hannibal was a capable commander, and had defeated a series of Roman armies, he lacked the logistical support to continue his expedition, and was eventually defeated in Northern Italy. Unfortunately for 13th century Europe, they simply lacked the logistics and armies capable of withstanding any type of prolonged attrition, which the Mongols would definitely bring against the rest of Europe had the Mongol expedition into the West became serious.
Moreover, I do not understand where the notion that England and France were centralized states came from. While the Mongols were busy consolidating their Chinese gains, England was warring with the Scots, the Irish and the French. In about 50 years after the occupation of China, the Hundred-Year War in Europe would erupt. If the early phases of the Hundred-Year War is of any indication, it shows that France is anything but a centralized state, where a patchwork of lords sought to muster power for themselves.
And I also wonder where the idea indicating that "Western Army would be better prepared to meet the Mongol onslaught" originated. Traditional bias against Eastern Europe aside, it was countries like Hungary, Poland and Romania that formed a bulwark against foreign onslaughts and absorb the damages for many centuries so that devastation rarely reached Western Europe. Eastern Europe would have had far more experience dealing with nomads and other invaders than the majority of nations in Western Europe. While it is true that the Western Europeans, particularly the Franks, had an excellent standing army during the Crusades, but the keyword here is 'Crusades'. Obviously, they were stationed in the Middle East, and had no ways of making back home on time during an emergency.
Yet, when the Mongols invaded Syria after the fall of Baghdad, the first thing they did was to destroy a Frankish stronghold with a smaller force. So yes, to answer some doubts, they did engage against a so-called "more experienced & professional" Western European army, and prevailed.
So, there you have it.
- Tak
I have a doubt.In the case of irregular resistence against them(in other words guerrilla warfare), what mongols made against this form of resistence??.I say that in Vietnam they had problems with guerrillas and partisans.
After all truth is Mongolians beat them all. Not because China was divided into three kingdoms and Russia were not united nation. Simple truth is Mongols brought new era of warfare. Chinese were, yes, technologically advanced. But in a battle field they were no match with Mongols. Mongols were militarily much more advanced then others. It was like every mongolian possesed some sort of talent of warfare. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.131.3.139 ( talk) 04:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
"When - for example - Alexander the Great, used the tactic of close combat, heavy cavalry and not very much weight on archery, Genghis men were the total opposite" -- aside from being nearly incomprehensible at an English level, this sentence pretty much describes what's wrong with this article. Bias, random insults, childish slander, etc. The whole thing needs to be scrapped, locked, and rewritten by someone competent rather than read like a five year old attempting to regurgitate a communist-era Mongolian history textbook.
While I agree this article is very POV, it is largely factually correct. It could use a re-write to present the information in more encyclopedic terms.
Also, I deleted the "Mongol warrior versus European opponent" section, as the most important detail of the paragraph centered around the ability of arrows to penetrate European plate metal armor (and how silk made for a superior garment in combat). No arrow ever penetrated plate iron or steel (although an arrow could have penetrated mail armor, the paragraph seemed to mean plate armor), not even one fired from a 'famous' Mongol bow. 04:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
"He used Chinese technicians that were very advanced for the time. The siege engines were disassembled and were carried on horses to be rebuilt at the site of the battle."
I don't agree that chinese siege tech was advanced for his time. In fact, european siege machines were way better, capable of launching bigger ordinance more far.
Also, i think the author of this articles forgives that if Europe had something for that time, it was castles. Mongols would have to conquer Europe castle by castle, meaning not taking profit of his movility and then being vulnerable to some short of Crusade (in that same time, the Teutonic Order has a crusade in Poland.
Lets just say that it used to be. Orngjce223 Orngjce223 14:15, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree. But please note that the article was written primarily by Chinese people, so it is unsurprising to see that they talk about the "very advanced" technology that the Chinese people possessed. The question is, if the Chinese had such very advanced technology, how did the Mongol conquer China so easily? The Chinese had city walls. The Chinese had vast armies. The Chinese had very advanced technology. What happened?
There is a large error here compound bows were invented in the 1960 and have pulies on them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_bows Composite bows are made with 2 or more materials. Longbows were effectivly composite as they were made with diffrent parts of tree possesing diffrent caracteristics.
No The Mongols did not conquer china "easily" it took much longer to take the southern Sung than to take any other country. In addition, China was divided into three kingdoms when the Mongols began raiding. I think you should learn something about history.
And yes, Chinese technology was superior to the rest of the world. The Wu Jing Zong Yao of 1044 illustrates hand thrown bombs and lances that spew flames. Turnbull gives a range of over 1000 yards for Chinese siege crossbows in his book "siege weapons of the far east"
What allowed the Mongols to take China was their reliance on native Chinese infantry, as the Mongolian style of cavalry warfare was unsuitable for the hilly terrain of southern China. Infact, Chris Peers "Medieval Chinese armies" states that more Chinese were fighting for the Mongols than Mongols themselves!
Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity - An Illustrated History http://authors.history-forum.com/liang_jieming/chinesesiegewarfare
A strange sentence: "It may be, however, that these intimidation tactics saved many lives by persuading opposing forces to surrender rather than fight." Seems to me you could argue equally that the lack of resistance caused others to get killed instead. A resistance might have slowed the advance and saved towns further on.
In any case, I doubt it belongs in an encyclopedia article.
I am taking a course on East Asia studies, my professor who had done her thesis in Yuan Dynasty told me that the prmiary reson that Mongol was able to conqueror China was because Kubli Khan had many Chinese generals who defected from Northern China. In fact, if you look at record closer, most of generals mentioned in the conquest of Southern Sung Dynasty was Chinese names, not Mongols. Even with help of Chinese, it took over 50 years to complete the conquet of whole China, this demonstrated China's strength even at its weakest period in its history (comparing to merely few years of conquering of East Europe and else where). Sung Dynasty was the most technological advanced nation at that time, and Europeans did not surpass Chinese technology until the industrial revolution.
"But please note that the article was written primarily by Chinese people, so it is unsurprising to see that they talk about the "very advanced" technology that the Chinese people possessed"
Watch you languague! There are many articles that were written by white-Westeners on superiority of Western civilization, and do you think it is right to accuse them of providing wrong info. based on their racial and cultural background? If you do not know anything about Asian history, please do not use any bias view here. Ignorance and racism are not welcome!!!!
I second that. I'm also chinese-american. ~
user:orngjce223
how am I typing?
17:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Seen on television. An Japanese architect uncovered the remains of the Mongol fleet on the seabed. One of the things he found was a round object. It turned out to be some sort of grenade. Don't know if it contained any scrapel. This was certainly an innovation in warfare and it should be mentioned in this article. Saw the documentary on National Geographic or Discovery Channel. I don't know any other source. That is why I don't edit the main article.
Wereldburger758
...Mostly came from the fact that European armies of the time consisted mostly of light infantry and conscripts, and a very small core of armoured knights. Sure, yes, the knight cannot chase down the mongol, yada yada. Knights in Russia were well-armoured AND used their bows well, after all they've practiced the horse archery thing for centuries on end, living and fighting in the Steppes. So had the Kwarazmians, the Qipchaks, the Alans and so on. Russian, Arab, German, Polish and Hungarian armies also had horses with more stamina and strength. One on one, a wealthy Mongol warrior and a "knight" from Eastern Europe/Central Asia are probably evenly matched. What everyone forgets when they rave about the mongol raid of 1241 is that when the Mongols routed the 100,000 or so at Mohi, of those 100,000 about 80,000 would have been peasants. Same with any Islamic or European opponent. The average quality of the fighting man was much better among the Mongols; European armies consisted of small elites and a mass of bodies, while the Mongols could bring several tens of thousands of PROFESSIONAL warriors to the field, a thing no other country on Earth bar China could at the time.
Combine that with strict hierachical command, greater mobility of the entire force, and the fact that European feudal armies were a nightmare and a half to raise, maintain and command, and you can see that the victories of the Mongols in Europe and elsewhere in the west were not at all dependent on the arrow penetrating the armour. Which it could, by the way, but not reliably.
The Defeat of the Mongols section seems like it was pulled straight from a history textbook; needs to be changed to be more appropriate for an encyclopedia article.
Europe had one of the lowest population on earth at that time so it's not surprising that the Mongols after conquering vast areas of Persia and China could summon more "professional soldiers". You've also got to understand that the Mongols were the aggressive people, not the Europeans so obviously they were more prepared. Both the Muslims and the Europeans proved they could produce "professional" soldiers en masse during the Crusades, even through no army at the time was "professional" and many of the Mongols were still farmers. Instead of conquering all of Europe as has been suggested, had the Mongols advanced further, they would have come up against the more centralized states Like France and England, with better and more co-ordinated armies than those of Eastern Europe and who would have put up a lot more resistance.
"China was divided into three kingdoms when the Mongols began raiding." Perhaps you should learn some history because Europe was much worse and either way it's not really an excuse, militarily speaking.
By the way, Western technology was not superior to China's only by the time of the industrial revolution, in fact that's one of the most uneducated things I've ever heard. At any rate, the Mongol armies were almost always smaller than their opponents in numbers.
Don't break my argument down because then it's completely pointless as the points are linked. The fact was that the Eastern European armies that faced the Mongols were made up of people not trained to fight, mainly miners as has been said. This was not the case all over Europe and, as has been implied on this website numerous times, the Mongol Horde was not a standing army. England was more centralized than any other nation in Europe. That gave it a good army compared to its small population, forged in wars against Scotland, Wales and France in the 12th and 13th Century, while a large proportion of English infantry was to some extents professional (a relic of Anglo-Saxon times) and had developed sophisticated longbow tactics. France too was a lot more centralized than anywhere that lay east of it and so garnered numerous benefits from that. But yes, by being the invaders the Mongols would have better quality men and of course Europe can be treated as a group but compared to the Middle East and Asia its overall population was lower.
As for technology, I suggest you do a lot more research because you're wrong. Yes gunpowder was developed in China. Did they recognize it's full military potential? No and by the 13th century it had arrived in Europe and developed into a much better fire-arm than a rock-shooting piece of bamboo by the middle of the end of the 14th Century. At that time, indeed for some time, Western conventional siege operations etc. had been just as good and sophisticated than those in the east. The compass had been developed in Europe in the 12th century and Zheng He's fleet was not an invention, in fact Western ships were generally just as good during the Middle Ages and as for the water clock... By the way "your honest opinion" has no relevance.
Simply because it's the world's oldest today doesn't mean it was the first to exist. "Being raised in China does not make someone stupid or a liar, nor does it render their work unreliable. Indeed, in discussing Mongol history, Chinese scholars would intuitively be better informed than westerners as many of the primary sources are in Chinese." I never said it did make them liars. But because most of the pages on this infernal website are edited not by educated historians but by amateurs I assume that those from China are invariably informed by a politically skewed history education or by history books censored by the Chinese Government and at least use this information as a basis for arguments and pages, and as you said "opinions are all we have".
You don't think any other country had primitive grenades? "Landmines" weren't invented until the 14th century and were hardly practical, and the first metal Chinese cannon weren't manufactured until 30 years after those produced in Europe, while metal handgonnes are first documented in the late 13th Century in Italy. As for ships, do you know when the late Renaissance was? By the 1500s shipbuilding was well in advance of anything in the Far or Central Asia, which began to overtake the East in the 1400s. Don't get me wrong, it wouldn't have done so without the adoption of rudders etc., but that occured in the twelth century.
Everyone is aware of what education is like under dictators.
What is the difference between an aggressive oligarchy and a dictator when it comes to education. I can't speak out on the quality of education in China but censorship is extremely widespread and no doubt for the public history education conforms in some way to how Hu Jintao wants China to be seen by his people, just like in any other education system under a dictator in history.
(News just in: Japanese education officials are checking the historical accuracy of Chinese text books - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1584238,00.html. Suprise fucking suprise.)
Oh, and another thing I wanted to add that I have just discovered. Early European rudders were developed independently in Europe and operated using a different, more sophisticated technique. In fact early Chinese rudders had no significant perfomance superiority over quater rudders, perhaps with the exception of on those mounted on larger ships uncommon in European waters, especially the rougher Atlantic.
I think I've proved my point.
- - - - -
What?
I do not know why we have this prolonged and almost unnecessary argument here taking place. National sentiments can indeed be a dangerous thing.
Let us put 'technological advancement' aside and look at the facts here. In regards to organization, China was ahead of Europe in many aspects during the middle ages, and would falter only around the 17th ~ 18th century. This is a fact most 'Western' scholars recognize.
In terms of population & centralization, China was without saying, many times ahead. In regards to the armed forces, the mobilization of armies in the hundred thousands, and stretching them across a very extended national boundary while providing the necessary logistics to maintain their presence was commonly practiced by many successive Chinese dynasties, but not practiced in Europe since Roman times.
And lets not think otherwise, the Chinese army in the 13th century, in terms of manpower, territory, logistical support, was far more advanced and better prepared for warfare than their European counterpart. The Chinese also had a navy, which played a pivotal role in supplying Chinese cities in their continued resistance against what was then the world's largest empire. In contrast, Europe at the time lacked the governance, economic and organization capacities to create a nationalized army capable of meeting the challenges the Mongol/Far Eastern concept of (total) warfare demanded. There is a reason why knights were given prominent political status, and in turn, their existence were romanticized many times over, because Europe simply could not afford a large professional army except for a handful of sometimes over-equipped men. The proud and the few. Except if they were lost during some tactical accident, that was it. Take the Battle of Agincourt for example, the French managed to muster approximately 5,000+ knights, which were nominally the best they had. Yet, they were of various qualities, mixed with less trained men and mercenaries of even greater unevenness. When the battle was over, and with most of their knights gone, the French found themselves lacking an effective army to resist the English invasion until years later. It took just one battle to severely cripple the French.
You don't see this ever happening during the height of the Roman Empire, where individuals are scarcely named except for capable commanders and extremely incapable nobles. If we take the Second Punic War into consideration, it is not difficult to note that the Romans had won through a series of attrition, which was an advantage Hannibal never had. Although Hannibal was a capable commander, and had defeated a series of Roman armies, he lacked the logistical support to continue his expedition, and was eventually defeated in Northern Italy. Unfortunately for 13th century Europe, they simply lacked the logistics and armies capable of withstanding any type of prolonged attrition, which the Mongols would definitely bring against the rest of Europe had the Mongol expedition into the West became serious.
Moreover, I do not understand where the notion that England and France were centralized states came from. While the Mongols were busy consolidating their Chinese gains, England was warring with the Scots, the Irish and the French. In about 50 years after the occupation of China, the Hundred-Year War in Europe would erupt. If the early phases of the Hundred-Year War is of any indication, it shows that France is anything but a centralized state, where a patchwork of lords sought to muster power for themselves.
And I also wonder where the idea indicating that "Western Army would be better prepared to meet the Mongol onslaught" originated. Traditional bias against Eastern Europe aside, it was countries like Hungary, Poland and Romania that formed a bulwark against foreign onslaughts and absorb the damages for many centuries so that devastation rarely reached Western Europe. Eastern Europe would have had far more experience dealing with nomads and other invaders than the majority of nations in Western Europe. While it is true that the Western Europeans, particularly the Franks, had an excellent standing army during the Crusades, but the keyword here is 'Crusades'. Obviously, they were stationed in the Middle East, and had no ways of making back home on time during an emergency.
Yet, when the Mongols invaded Syria after the fall of Baghdad, the first thing they did was to destroy a Frankish stronghold with a smaller force. So yes, to answer some doubts, they did engage against a so-called "more experienced & professional" Western European army, and prevailed.
So, there you have it.
- Tak
I have a doubt.In the case of irregular resistence against them(in other words guerrilla warfare), what mongols made against this form of resistence??.I say that in Vietnam they had problems with guerrillas and partisans.
After all truth is Mongolians beat them all. Not because China was divided into three kingdoms and Russia were not united nation. Simple truth is Mongols brought new era of warfare. Chinese were, yes, technologically advanced. But in a battle field they were no match with Mongols. Mongols were militarily much more advanced then others. It was like every mongolian possesed some sort of talent of warfare. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.131.3.139 ( talk) 04:57, 1 September 2007 (UTC)