Why were nomadic peoples even a threat when sedentary agriculture based civilizations could feed and field much larger armies?
>>295954
Mobility, hit-and-run tactics and the fact that they could come from anywhere. Take Ukraine, for example, it's got a huge border with steppes, and neither Ruthenian princes nor Lithuanian dukes could actually stop the influx of different nomads. Only after people started becoming cossacks and settling almost aggressively while taking the fight back to them had farmers prevailed.
>>296011
Perhaps a naive observation/question, but sedentary civilizations could surely support a larger mounted army and keep them just as well trained.
>>295954
In theory every male tribe member that was physically capable could fight to some degree and there were a lot of them. There is going to be a constant drive for steppe people to move out and plunder settled societies if the population grows.
>>296034
The cost of maintaining a war horse in say medieval Europe was enormous compared to what it took to keep a Mongolian pony alive, they practically took care of themselves.
I believe it was said every Mongolian warrior had nine horses, frankly I think it would already be quite impressive if each of them had 4 or 5.
>>295954
Every single able-bodied man in nomadic tribes have spent most of their life on horseback with a bow in their hand, so half their population are mounted warriors as opposed to agrarian societies who have usually relied on a small, professional military.
>>296057
Agricultural civilizations convert sunlight into food. In a way, nomads do the same thing but they live on land that can't support human crops so the energy of their land gets funneled into horses and other domesticated animals instead of supporting a large human population. Horses have more military value than serfs so in effect nomads were forced by the land they lived on to put a lot more energy into their military assets.
An interesting idea.
>>296062
Your post is misleading because that "small professional military" was probably larger than the entire adult male nomad populations they went up against.
>>296082
Depends on the horse though, not every horse is a warhorse by virtue of existing.
>>296034
>keep them just as well trained.
Nah. Steppe kids learned to ride by the time they were 3 years old. The Huns were said to have walked around bow-legged because they literally spent all their time in the saddle.
The steppe nomads could ride like trick riders and perform feats like riding without holding the reins so they could turn around in the saddle and shoot at whatever is behind them. It even has come down in history as the "Parthian Shot"
>>296088
I believe the combined army of the mongols in the northern song had close to half a million soldiers, in southern china around 150.000-200.000
>>296034
It's not a problem of _defeating_ them, it's a problem of defending yourself from raiding. You can't just force them to have a decisive battle, they're more mobile and they've got vast open plains to their advantage.
>>296057
>I believe it was said every Mongolian warrior had nine horses, frankly I think it would already be quite impressive if each of them had 4 or 5.
Actually it might be that each Mongol had around 9 horses on average in his flock, but his war horses numbered around 3-5.
>>296088
To clarify, they were small in comparison to the total population.
>>296098
>steppe kids learned to ride by the time they were 3 years old
Sedentary peoples could afford to do that too. They had more than enough food.
>>296034
Wrong for starters >>296057
Another one: China maintained a large cavalry force relative to, say, an average European Kingdom. However this force is tiny relative to the size of China' infantry arm. The Chinese wanted each and every available land for farming to support their population. Leaving little for grazing grounds for horses.
In fact: China gets most of their horses *from* the nomads themselves. There was even an Imperial Military Rank to do this: The Comissioner for Tea and Horse. Because Nomads liked Tea so fucking much they'd sell huge numbers of horses just for a steady supply of the stuff.
>>296088
They weren't complete savages. Herding obviously isn't as good at generating surplus as agriculture but you can still build up a decent population. The Mongols were by no means few in number.
>>296102
How could the Mongols support such a large population relative to the breadbasket that is China?
>>296111
They and all other nomads were few in number relative to the civilizations they threatened.
>>296108
yeah but you didn't need to, which is the point
nomads relied on horses for everything, so they did
>>296108
>Sedentary peoples could afford to do that too. They had more than enough food.
Sedentary people were busy tending the land. They had enough food because they spent their time working it. Steppe people herded their animals while riding their horses. The sheer amount of time spent in the saddle gave the steppe people skills beyond what "learning to ride a horse" offers. The Sioux were renowned horsemen because they spent a ton of time in the saddle for example.
>>296105
Yeah they ate quite a lot of them on campaign.
>>296108
>Sedentary peoples could afford to do that too. They had more than enough food.
You can learn how to juggle five daggers while balancing on a rope tied between two large skyscrapers or you can learn how to shoot a longbow, why aren't you doing any of those?
Oh yeah folks 99% of history had better things to do besides training how to fight.
>>296110
Was it Yuan or Ming that promoted agriculture above trade and commerce?
>>296116
See picture, and they got help.
>>296122
Not the armies they faced.
>>296110
>sell psychoactive caffeine to nomads of the steppes to make up trade deficit
>gets angry when Europe sells psychoactive drugs to them
Durn hypocritical Chinese.
>>296135
jej
>>296135
Actually China was quite divided on the whole Opium thing.
They were something worse than hypocrites man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide
>>296129
>Oh yeah folks 99% of history had better things to do besides training how to fight.
So nomads were forced to foster skills relevant to military success by the bitch of an environment they lived in whereas sedentary agriculturalists were too preoccupied with art, music, and science to respond to the rising threat.
>>296153
DUH
>>296153
well yes, basically.
>>296142
Ming, though i don't think they "promoted' agriculture, they just lessened the taxes on them in favor of them giving more of their harvest.
>>296142
>Hypocrites
>Dzungar Genocide
Wrong: its justified. Dzungars were Mongol Empire 3.0. Everyone: Kazakhs, Uzbeks were pissed off with them. Qing Dynasty did Asia a favor by ending them.
The genocide of the Dzungars signalled the end for Steppe Nomad supremacy 5ever in history.
>>296135
>Comparing tea leaves to opium poppies
Oh wow we got a real contextually-savvy Historian here.
>>296153
Well you got exceptions like Ancient Germanic and Sparta but they had a large group of slaves doing the agricultural work while they trained for war most of the time.
>>296169
>Ming, though i don't think they "promoted' agriculture, they just lessened the taxes on them in favor of them giving more of their harvest.
Yeah I always heard there was this one dynasty which was once again full blown Confucianism + agriculture as noble pursuit while trade was seen as bad.
>>296171
This counter argument would carry more weight if I wasn't currently sipping a cup of coffee, a ritual which I do every day and have done nearly every day for most of my adult life.
So, agricultural civilizations COULD have easily outmatched nomads, but all that excess food/power was hard to properly manage so it took a long time before sedentary civilizations built up the institutions and systems of organization necessary to outclass the nomads who were inherently ready for war.
>>295954
They usually don't, but as agricultural societies breakdown due to internal war and rebellion they become vulnerable.
>>296034
If your army is in the feild, it needs supply lines to function. Nomad armies didn't.
>>296181
That can't be Ming as they're pretty much Imperial China: Merchantile Version.
>The scholar-officials' dependence upon the economic activities of the merchants became more than a trend when it was semi-institutionalized by the state in the mid Ming era. Qiu Jun (1420–1495), a scholar-official from Hainan, argued that the state should only mitigate market affairs during times of pending crisis and that merchants were the best gauge in determining the strength of a nation's riches in resources.[74] The government followed this guideline by the mid Ming era when it allowed merchants to take over the state monopoly of salt production. This was a gradual process where the state supplied northern frontier armies with enough grain by granting merchants licenses to trade in salt in return for their shipping services.[75] The state realized that merchants could buy salt licenses with silver and in turn boost state revenues to the point where buying grain was not an issue
Confucians were literally working with Merchants.
>>296191
>So, agricultural civilizations COULD have easily outmatched nomads,
They did so in most regards, I mean economically and shit. Oh yeah and history was mostly written by sedentary societies.
As for excess food/power and managing it, what do you consider correct usage?
And finally you should realize that in the end most nomadic societies raided neighbors instead of conquering them. The Huns, Mongols etc etc. were usually powerful for a generation or two but seldom managed to create anything lasting. In fact it seems like most nomads that went to Europe stranded in Hungary.
>>296204
Horses can live off grass regardless of whether or not they are fielded by Chinese or Mongolians.
>>296218
Not if they are actual horse instead of ponies and being worked.
>>296217
>As for excess food/power and managing it, what do you consider correct usage?
Using the food/power available to you such that you aren't conquered by nomads for one.
>>296214
Oh I must be confusing it with another dynasty.
>>296220
What?
>>296223
>Using the food/power available to you such that you aren't conquered by nomads for one.
Looking at Easterm Europe it were only some poor bums that got semi-vassalized by the mongols. All other horse nomads in Europe got beaten in a relatively short span of time.
>>296227
Oats and such are more calorie dense than grass. You can't keep a warhorse fed on grass if you intend to use it.
>>296223
>Using the food/power available to you such that you aren't conquered by nomads for one.
How?
Mobilization is a bitch before the invention of modern transport and communication.
Say you're a regional governor sitting in your capital. You border an expansive steppe and you can only afford to defend so many miles of your border with garrisoned forts. Even those have only a handful of soldiers. So a raiding party of hundreds of nomads suddenly appears on the horizon. The garrison that could have outright missed them altogether if the nomads had been a little more careful with their march raises the alarm, but wouldn't dare charge hundreds with their mere dozen or two. And that's even assuming they could catch them if they're well equipped versus the very light nomad rider.
By the time the alarm reaches your capital and major garrisons able to meet such a force, it's been a few days, a day at the very best, and the nomads are already in. Where are they? Reports come in of fleeing peasants, of sightings that may or may not be bandits or caravans mistaken for the nomads, of attacks too late to stop as the nomads have already pillaged and moved on. In the meanwhile, unaware of even the size of this force - if the hundreds reported initially by the garrison were just a wing of a much larger invasion that the other garbled reports might allude to - you can only summon a muster of your forces for safety rather than risk hunting down a host many times the size of your personal force. That's another few days, especially if the muster is no longer your capital but someplace else.
You try and make more sense of the reports and have your own spies bring you information. Maybe the nomads are already gone, or maybe they're busy pillaging a village this very moment. What is even their goal? Is this a desultory raid, are they targeting a specific area? Will they be stealing heavy loot or is this all for the thrill of it? All you can do is march once you have a sufficient host yourself and hope to catch them someplace, maybe against a river, a cliff, or a town.
>>296237
>Oats and such are more calorie dense than grass. You can't keep a warhorse fed on grass if you intend to use it.
So train and field an identical but larger army as the nomads you faced.
>>296227
I just grabbed this from the internet but here it goes.
>The recommended feed ration for a horse was 14 lbs of hay and 12 lbs of grain.
>Horses want food very early in the morning and as late as possible at night… so put in the nosebags last thing at night 2 and 1/2lbs of chaff and make the line sentries put the nose bags on first thing in the morning, say 6am, and let them have a nibble of chaff.
>At 7a.m. water. They will not drink much, but some of them want it: feed with 4lbs of oats mixed with a handful of chaff. At 11.30a.m. water. At 12 (noon) feed with the same. At 4.30p.m. water. At 7pm give them the remainder of the hay in nets or in the racks. This is done by the line sentries.
>>295954
Cost of keeping a professional army is very high.
Nomads live their battle tactics 365 days of the year.
Nomads are tougher people who can last longer in campaigns
Mobility on the battlefield
When people live settled lives, they are just not tough, settled lifestyle makes men weak (Epic of Gilgamesh)
>>296257
>So train and field an identical but larger army as the nomads you faced.
And then you get in a war with your cousin over the inheritance of the French throne, now what are your horse archers going to do? Scale the walls of Paris with a ladder?
The whole steppe nomad way of warfare is not really that workable in western Europe which is why they never used it (duh).
>>296273
PS, Europe opted for pic-related and it worked rather well. Overall heavy cavalry was a way more expensive investment than a single horse archer but the price was well worth it if supported by good infantry.
>>296254
I was speaking in a general sense. I'm saying that it was theoretically possible for sedentary societies to outmatch nomads in every single respect but they failed to due to so. There were many aspects of civilization back then that could have beneeimproved using the knowledge we have now, knowledge of how to organize people and keep them working together as a cohesive nation-state. Of course it would take millenia of learning from the mistakes of past empires/nations so obviously one couldn't expect ancient human societies to simply organize themselves perfectly right off the bat. Sedentary societies had great potential but needed time to figure out how to best utilize that potential.
>>296293
>Sedentary societies had great potential but needed time to figure out how to best utilize that potential.
Sedentary societies were the better places to be for the majority of history though, ever wonder why the nomads wanted to get the fuck out of the steppes?
>>296273
So the greater potential of sedentary civilizations was hard to manage and properly utilize because nomads are always ready for war regardless of infighting but agriculturalists aren't always ready for nomads due to infighting.
>>296303
I never said otherwise.
>>296303
> ever wonder why the nomads wanted to get the fuck out of the steppes?
Not all of them
>Chaghatai's own capital was at Almaligh, in the valley of the Upper Ili, near the site of the present Kulja, and consequently in the extreme east of his dominion.[1] His reason for fixing it in that remote position, instead of at Bukhara or Samarkand, was probably one of necessity. His Mongol tribesmen and followers;the mainstay of his power—were passionately fond of the life of the steppes.[1] The dwellers in houses and towns were, in their eyes, a degenerate and effeminate race;the tillers of the soil, slaves who toiled like cattle, in order that their betters might pass their time in luxury. They would serve no Khan who did not pass a life worthy of free-born men and Chaghatai and his immediate successors probably saw, as his later descendants are described by Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat to have seen, that the one way of retaining the allegiance of his own people, was to humour their desires in this respect, and live, with them, a nomad's life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagatai_Khan
>>296328
Was agriculture a mistake?
>>296352
It worked out in the long run. I would much rather be a herder or hunter-gatherer than an early farmer though.
>>296352
It was definitely better for population growth.
>>296356
Did it though?
>>296312
No I don't think that. The OP started with the idea that nomads were a threat to agricultural societies but this does not always hold true. Most of the past 2000 years had nomads raiding border regions but rarely starting some kind of invasion.
>>296328
True but whatever luxuries those guys had were probably stolen weren't they?
Sounds a bit like Don Corleone holding honest Americans in disdain.
>>296368
I'll point out that you're asking this question with a (probably) full belly on an extremely sophisticated piece of machinery connected to the most advanced information network ever created. The amount of luxury we live in couldn't even be conceived by our primeval ancestors.
>>296371
They were rarely more than a nuisance because they were that outclassed by agricultural societies unless the agricultural societies were doing something really really wrong which led to a civil war.
![7001028[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/RSK4eHg.jpg "7001028[1].jpg")
>>296293
>outmatch nomads in every single respect.
Nope, certainly not in every single one.
Could sedentary people assemble an army that could march into hostile territory the lenght of the distance from karakorum to poland and defeat every enemy there in 4-5 years, without encountering logistical problems?
Probably never!
>>296394
Could they sail though?
>>296387
>full belly
Gluttony.
>an extremely sophisticated piece of machinery connected to the most advanced information network ever created
Built by a society speeding humanity to the brink of collapse.
>luxury
Decadence.
The only way I see agriculture and this global civilization of ours paying off is if we begin exploring, exploiting, and colonizing space, and peak oil seems to be approaching faster than a mission to Mars.
>>296400
You can't sail from Karakorum to Poland.
>>296394
>Could sedentary people assemble an army that could march into hostile territory the lenght of the distance from karakorum to poland and defeat every enemy there in 4-5 years, without encountering logistical problems?
Yes, theoretically they could. They had more than enough food surplus to do everything nomads could do and more. Theoretically speaking of course.
>>296409
Not with that attitude.
>>296409
How often are invasions/raids by nomads due to the settled peoples refusing them trade rights/promised land?
>>296423
I think they mostly just raided for income/shits n giggles without a reason.
>>296405
Agriculture definitely is unsustainable in the long run but in the VERY long run so is hunting/herding. With our agriculture based technologically advanced civilization we have a puncher's chance of escaping the eventual death of our planet. No such luck with picking berries and fishing.
If you don't like our modern lifestyle I guess it's a difference of opinion. Can always live rugged in the countryside or something. At least you have the choice.
>>296413
>Yes, theoretically they could. They had more than enough food surplus to do everything nomads could do and more.
You have no idea what you are talking about, i said an army that will march the same routes for 4-5 years and defeat enemy after enemy and that the lenght of possibly 8000 kilometers. Explain me how sedentary people in medieval europe will do that ! And don't try to use mongol ponies, they belonged to the nomads.
>>296422
>In medieval europe.
>>296462
The Eurasian steppes are mostly in Asia though, Poland is nearly as Asian as Finland.
Asia starts at the Elbe if you ask me.
>>296446
I very much like modernity. I'm just pointing out the obvious problems with it to scare people into doing what is necessary to avert total and utter catastrophe.
I want someone to see the last star go out and the sky seems awfully quiet at the moment.
>>296468
>Asia starts at the Elbe if you ask me.
Assuwa is in Anatolia you faggot.
>>296468
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural_Mountains
>>296454
Buy a few mongol ponies and breed more of them than the nomads ever had.
>>296468
>Poland, Finland
>Asian
Is it meme time again?
>>296480
You don't have as much grass in europe as in mongolia, good luck feeding 200k horses in europe.
>>296479
Stop it slant eyed Fin!
>>296495
Go back to /pol/ stormfag.
>>296494
Feed them oats until you take them on the warpath.
>>296501
>Go back to /pol/ stormfag.
You don't seriously think I go to /pol/ do you?
>>296507
And where do you take your 100k horse warriors that learned to ride before they even learned how to walk?
European needed alot of people tending the land just to survive, the nomads didn't have this problem and therefore could mobilize a much bigger ammount of warriors trained in horse disciplines.
>>296534
>European needed alot of people tending the land just to survive
Agriculture produces a greater food surplus than any group of nomads ever had access to.
>>296548
But unlike nomads you can't tap on that surplus on the move like on a fucking compaign.
What are you gonna do? Stockpile vegetables and meat? And then pull gigiantic carts full of that stuff behind you all the time?
Then you would need 10 x as much time to do what the mongols did.
>>296573
Once you are on the move you are exactly in the same situation nomads were in when they were on the move during war. Stockpiles of food would be no more necessary for them than they were for the Mongols.
>>296597
Except nomads knew how to live off the land because that was their entire lifestyle. Mongols had very few wagons with them. They hunted, drove flocks and drank mares milk for nourishment. Regular people had entire supply columns
>>296597
The Crusaders struggled to maintain less then 10k people in the levant, the mongols had no problem maintaining higher number of troops in hungary and poland. End of story
>>296610
The military forces of agricultural societies could have theoretically have employed the exact same techniques. Perhaps you have simply forgotten that I've always only been arguing that agriculturalists had the theoretical potential in every way.
>>296218
Yeah, but the men riding the horses need food you moron.
Steppe armies could function as long as their rides could. Even if one horse died, they could switch to a replacement.
Sedentary cavalrymen never had more than 1 mount per man, so not only was their mobility comparatively limited, but they had to stick to the main army.
>>296639
>Yeah, but the men riding the horses need food you moron.
In which case they can use the same food the nomads would have used you person who I am certain is actually nice and probably just having a bad day.
>>296627
Not the guy you are replying too but the Crusaders were in the levant continually harassed and supply routes cut off while the Mongols moved a few dozen miles every day completely unmolested. That's the difference between Napoleon marching into Italy and marching out of Russia right there
>>296392
>They were rarely more than a nuisance
More likely because it was basically waves of individual tribes that raided instead of a confederation like the Mongols
>>296468
>Elbe
More like the Rhine
>>296647
Because nomads are harder to manage than agriculturalists are. The thing that upset the balance in the case of the Mongols may have been the record rainfall in Mongolia at the time. Suddenly the equilibrium of the nomadic tribes was upset and one leader was able to use the food/power surplus to dominate the others.
>>296636
They didn't have the theoretical potential because they were busy tending crops. Farming is hugely time and labor intensive. Not every peasant can go fuck off and become a jaegar or some shit and learn to live off the land for months when they need to ensure they have crops for the king.
>>296776
Agriculturalists can support a larger mounted army off of oats than pastoralists could off of grass and meat.
>>295954
Because of higher mobility.
You have to understand that a horde of nomads is much more mobile than a traditional settled society.
>>296827
The argument is that anything nomads can do agriculturalists can do better because agriculturalists have the food surplus a dedicated military as big as their nomadic enemies.
>>296851
But agriculturalists have no mobility. Armies are tied to cities, there needs to be a complex supply chain, etc.
Nomads can just rove wherever they want, and rely on sacking cities for material.
>>296858
>But agriculturalists have no mobility.
They do if they are growing oats for an army of horses.
>>296874
You're being obtuse.
An army in an established realm is far more static. It's attached to a particular place to defend, etc. And most importantly, all the army cannot be at the same place, it needs to be divided.
Contrast this with hordes.
>>296874
which is tied to a settlement, that they have to defend or else they run dry on rations
>>296884
I'm not being obtuse. Agriculturalists utilize more sun power than pastoralists and have more excess power which they can dedicate to military.
>>296905
The warriors of agriculturalists is as much tied to the women and children of such societes as the warriors of pastoral societies. Agricultral mounted armies could rush in to the lands of nomads, hunt down their women and children, and rape and pillage with the best of them.
Again, this is only theoretical.
>>296908
a horde has like 100% of men ready for fight
contrast to a standing army, which is already spread out guarding settlements, the horde can pick a spot and ravage, unless theres a standing army of the same size of the horde at all the border settlements, horde will win
>>296922
the horde have no settlement, they have camps that they can ditch
whereas each border settlement needs to be garrisoned with enough troops to defend against a full horde invasion at all time
>>296956
>the horde have no settlement, they have camps that they can ditch
The fuck are you even talking about? Nomadic tribes got conquered all the time mounted forces all the time.
>>297021
>Nomadic tribes got conquered all the time mounted forces all the time.
This rather due to their politics really.
A Nomadic """State""" is basically a wandering protection scheme with a head tribe on top. Knockout that tribe and watch the humiliation spread among their ranks. Infighting ensues.
Hell not just infighting: the civilzation that pulls that off also gets offers of submission by ex-subject Nomad tribes. People tend to forget that Chinese Emperors - especially of the T'ang, Ming Dynasties, and Qing dynasties- were known as "Tengri Khan (Heavenly Khan)" by their nomadic subjects. The Shah of Persia was also Khan to his bunch of Turkmen, and the Tsar of Russia was this too, when Central Asians came under the famous "Iron Yoke," of the Romanovs.
Displays of power and political clout are *very* essential to a Nomadic "State." Whereas a kingdom can survive a single major defeat to fight another day, they can't
>>297072
What are you even arguing?
Why even bother making a thread asking that question when you just reply to every explanation with some theoretical bullshit.
Because agrarian societies have most of their population tied up producing food.
You tried to avoid using your serfs and peasants as soldiers. Unless you like starving because of lost labor to tend the fields.
Nomads on the other hand. Most of their male population could be mobilized for war. Since you had no fields to tend. No serfs and peasants to keep in the fields.
>>296153
>too preoccupied with art, music, and science
Hardly. Aristocracy aside, people in cities worked practical jobs. They just weren't jobs relevant to warfare.
>>297262
Practical jobs like making weapons? Apparently not.
>>296908
>Always replying with this "theoreticaly sedentary people could have more of X then nomads" shit
Well you know what? theoreticaly nomads could design and build tanks and planes if they focused on it.
>>299374
No they couldn't, because they don't have the food surplus necessary.
>>299868
You're wrong, scholars on horseback existed, and they stole materials from china. The first plane was a mongol horse with mechanical wings.
proove me wrong, asshat.
>>296223
>Using the food/power available to you such that you aren't conquered by nomads for one.
To be fair, sedentary societies usually only got conquered by the nomads in the wake of an internal crisis (like the Huns versus the Roman Empire) or exhaustion from their struggles with other sedentary agricultural states (like the Arabs versus Persia, the Turks versus the Byzantines, or the Mongols versus the Jin and Song Dynasties)
>>301295
And how about the Xia Xia? Genghis Khan completly annihilated them!
>>301306
How big were the xia? The Mongol threat escalated in the time leading up to Temujin united the tribes on account of record rainfall in Mongolia. Maybe they didn't adapt to the rising threat of a larger Mongolian population quick enough? IDK.
>>295954
Because civilized folks had shit the nomads wanted.
>>296922
The chinese constantly did punishment and preventive attacks against the nomads. We have less information about the persians, but they probably did that too.
But when the settled realm is fighting another war or simply living troubled times, it doesn't make those attacks. And a pre-modern state doesn't have the tools to control the places where the nomads live, that's why the nomads live there to begin with.
>>301306
Xi Xia was a pretty small state. Also, Genghis Khan only subjugated them first. They were destroyed when they rebeled.
>>302078
That makes a lot of sense.
Now I'm curious about the frequency of such preventative measures the Chinese took before the rise of the Mongol Empire.
>>302170
>Now I'm curious about the frequency of such preventative measures the Chinese took before the rise of the Mongol Empire.
Jin and Xi Xia used to hire steppe tribes to fight other steppe tribes so they'd always be warring/feuding to prevent a confederation. Genghis himself was paid to fight the Merkits. The Chinese also used to give them bullshit titles like Officer of Northern Justice to keep their egos inflated and happy.
>>296142
The Qing were a disaster and would never have come to power if there wasnt a mini ice age. You link to a "genocide" of 800,000 but look at the fucking Tai Ping rebellion where an estimated 20 - 30 million died.
>>304576
I wonder why it failed to keep Temujin from coming to power. Perhaps it had something to do with the change in the Mongolian Climate upsetting the balance of power?
