What Up, Nerds?
Mongols. Mongols are up.
China was in disarray. The native Song dynasty had been forced out of north China by barbarians advancing past the border. The Manchurian Jin Dynasty seized the central north while the western north was ruled by the non-Chinese Xia. And then from out of the empty wilderness came the Mongols.
Genghis Khan led the Mongol tide of death and destruction as it engulfed northern China. The Great Khan's personal ethos brought war to everything that lay before him.
At first the Mongols only devastated the countryside, because they could not get into China's great walled cities. But before long they captured local siege engineers and forced them to build siege machines to take the cities with. With this weaponry the Mongols conquered the north-central Jin dynasty. After beating the Jin, Genghis Khan turned west and conquered the Xia in a series of several military campaigns. This included one where Genghis tried to divert the flow of a river straight through the Xia capital, buthe accidentally flooded his own camp instead. In the end he persevered with his conquest and he still conquered Xia.
After seizing the whole north, the decision about what to do with all these conquered Chinese people faced him. At first Genghis considered butchering them. After some dissuasion he heeded the advice of some of his more recently acquired foreign advisers. He did not butcher the people, destroy their homes, and graze his horses on the grass where cities had once stood. He just taxed them heavily instead.
By the end of his life the Khan had exacted a vast human toll that made him seem something like a Medieval Mongolian Hitler.
At first the Song dynasty, which still held power in the south, cooperated with the Mongols. They had been forced out of the north by the expansionist Jin, and were eager to retake their former northern Capitals at Luoyang, Chang'an, and Kaifeng. Once the Jin had been defeated, the Song attacked and captured their old capital city. Unfortunately when they took it they killed a Mongol diplomat. The Mongols treated this as a grave insult and for that insult they declared war on the Song. They attacked and conquered everything north of the Yangtze river in what was nearly a medieval Blitzkrieg. But once they hit the River things got a little more complicated.
The Song dynasty started to use every technological invention they could come across that might help. This included gunpowder, guns, and paddle-boats. These cutting edge technologies shut down the Mongol advance. But they weren't enough to overcome the Mongols either. The Mongols weren't about to give up on attacking, and the war got bogged down into a stalemate.
After they started to grow tired of this ineffective and expensive slug-fest, the Mongols started to think about other ways they might speed up the war. So the successor to Genghis Khan, Mongke, sent out one of Genghis' grandsons to conquer the kingdom at Dali to the west of Song, outflanking the dynasty.
The grandson had been raised fully knowing he was the descendant of the most powerful man in the world. Young Kublai had been given ten thousand Chinese households to rule over when he was sixteen. At first he had ruled as badly as you'd expect a sixteen year old to do. But he improved with experience, and he learned who he could and who he could not trust.
Back when the Mongols had first conquered all of north China Kublai had got himself named as Mongke's vice-Khan for China, and he ruled the country. He pushed Mongol expansion to the south while he mediated and settled religious disputes within his kingdom. Where his grandfather Genghis had held contempt for Chinese civilization, Kublai actually liked China. Grandpa might have criticized the boy for living too soft and Chinese, but for Kublai, softness was just a more comfortable lifestyle.
Kublai moved at lightning speed and conquered the westerners at Dali, but this did not bring the war any closer to an end. In response, the Great Khan Mongke decided to lead the Mongol army to attack the Song himself. He left on the expedition, but he quickly died of Cholera, and for the time being the Mongol war with the Song was back on the fritz.
Mongols. Mongols are up.
China was in disarray. The native Song dynasty had been forced out of north China by barbarians advancing past the border. The Manchurian Jin Dynasty seized the central north while the western north was ruled by the non-Chinese Xia. And then from out of the empty wilderness came the Mongols.
Genghis Khan led the Mongol tide of death and destruction as it engulfed northern China. The Great Khan's personal ethos brought war to everything that lay before him.
At first the Mongols only devastated the countryside, because they could not get into China's great walled cities. But before long they captured local siege engineers and forced them to build siege machines to take the cities with. With this weaponry the Mongols conquered the north-central Jin dynasty. After beating the Jin, Genghis Khan turned west and conquered the Xia in a series of several military campaigns. This included one where Genghis tried to divert the flow of a river straight through the Xia capital, buthe accidentally flooded his own camp instead. In the end he persevered with his conquest and he still conquered Xia.
After seizing the whole north, the decision about what to do with all these conquered Chinese people faced him. At first Genghis considered butchering them. After some dissuasion he heeded the advice of some of his more recently acquired foreign advisers. He did not butcher the people, destroy their homes, and graze his horses on the grass where cities had once stood. He just taxed them heavily instead.
By the end of his life the Khan had exacted a vast human toll that made him seem something like a Medieval Mongolian Hitler.
At first the Song dynasty, which still held power in the south, cooperated with the Mongols. They had been forced out of the north by the expansionist Jin, and were eager to retake their former northern Capitals at Luoyang, Chang'an, and Kaifeng. Once the Jin had been defeated, the Song attacked and captured their old capital city. Unfortunately when they took it they killed a Mongol diplomat. The Mongols treated this as a grave insult and for that insult they declared war on the Song. They attacked and conquered everything north of the Yangtze river in what was nearly a medieval Blitzkrieg. But once they hit the River things got a little more complicated.
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| The Yangtze is the big river through the middle of the Song. In case you didn't know. (Pic from Wiki) |
The Song dynasty started to use every technological invention they could come across that might help. This included gunpowder, guns, and paddle-boats. These cutting edge technologies shut down the Mongol advance. But they weren't enough to overcome the Mongols either. The Mongols weren't about to give up on attacking, and the war got bogged down into a stalemate.
After they started to grow tired of this ineffective and expensive slug-fest, the Mongols started to think about other ways they might speed up the war. So the successor to Genghis Khan, Mongke, sent out one of Genghis' grandsons to conquer the kingdom at Dali to the west of Song, outflanking the dynasty.
The grandson had been raised fully knowing he was the descendant of the most powerful man in the world. Young Kublai had been given ten thousand Chinese households to rule over when he was sixteen. At first he had ruled as badly as you'd expect a sixteen year old to do. But he improved with experience, and he learned who he could and who he could not trust.
Back when the Mongols had first conquered all of north China Kublai had got himself named as Mongke's vice-Khan for China, and he ruled the country. He pushed Mongol expansion to the south while he mediated and settled religious disputes within his kingdom. Where his grandfather Genghis had held contempt for Chinese civilization, Kublai actually liked China. Grandpa might have criticized the boy for living too soft and Chinese, but for Kublai, softness was just a more comfortable lifestyle.
Kublai moved at lightning speed and conquered the westerners at Dali, but this did not bring the war any closer to an end. In response, the Great Khan Mongke decided to lead the Mongol army to attack the Song himself. He left on the expedition, but he quickly died of Cholera, and for the time being the Mongol war with the Song was back on the fritz.
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