Posted on 07/20/2012 6:55:45 PM PDT by rjbemsha
Consistent rain and warm temperatures may have given the Mongols the energy source they needed to conquer Eurasia: grass for their horses (huge amount of grass needed to feed the 10 horses for each Mongol warrior).
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“Uzbeks - They are the weak link in the great chain of socialism”
According to Wikipedia, the Qing were descendants of Ghengis Khan through marriage. Some Manchus marrried Yuan princesses. Then again, it’s Wikipedia.
The Qing were Manchus. Their emperors frequently intermarried with Mongol princesses, descended from Genghis, for political reasons.
Here’s one example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Dowager_Xiaozhuang
Since she was early in the dynasty, all succeeding emperors were descended from her, and through her from Genghis.
Benevolent?? Total horse poop!! He decimated the area of Iran among other areas in the West, and at one point decided to massacre 30,000,000 Chinese to return the land to pasture. I guess he was worried about global warming.
The area that is now Iraq was densely populated and among the most prosperous and politically important areas in the world continuously for something like four or five thousand years. Under Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Parthians, Persians (again), intermittently Romans and Byzantines, and Arab and Turkish Moslems.
Hundreds of wars were fought back and forth across this land over this period. Canals were destroyed, but always rebuilt by the peasantry, reviving the prosperity.
700 years ago the Mongols rolled thru and not only destroyed the canals but killed the peasants. Nobody left to rebuild. The area has never recovered its former prosperity.
Forgot the Greeks in there, though there were also many others over the millenia.
Doubtful. More like three or four.
Ten each for a 25,000 man army would be 250,000 horses. I suspect even heavy rainfall can't produce that much grass.
Tamerlaine’s statue is in Samarkand near his tomb (read how Stalin profaining T’s remains in 1941 nearly cost him the war). T’s image is on their coins & the 500 soum note (near to a US dollar in value). The girls there told me that in Uzbekistan the national heroes are either poets or conquerors.
“Uzbeks - They are the weak link in the great chain of socialism”
That sounds like either Lenin or Stalin. Years ago I wrote my master’s thesis about ethnicity in the Russian & Soviet military. In 1916 the Russian army ran so short of conscripts that they began drafting Central Asians. This resulted in the Karshi Draft Riots of 1916 where thousands of Uzbeks were killed resisting conscription.
The U.S. base in Uzbekistan was the old Soviet airbase Karshi-Khanabad, near where these riots took place nearly a century before.
And speaking of the weak link, one of the KBR secretaries boasted to me that she admired Stalin & wished that UZ was still part of the Soviet Union! In fact, most of the Uzbek young people had some nostalgia for communism. I think it was the wannabe factor - acting Russian was their way of appearing modern & connected with the world.
You realize of course you’re wasting your breath — the only other advocacy group for a former bloodthirsty mass-murdering despot that comes close to the devotion of the fans of GK are those who prefer the (benevolent, peaceful) Persians over the Greeks. Asking for tokens of submission? That was just symbolic. Moving a couple of hundred thousand troops across a pontoon bridge was just a peace parade.
No. Qing from Manchuria are a different race than Mongolians. They are two different hords. Both invaded China at different time periods when she’s divided by internal strife.
I'll try to find it. I know I read it in "Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford.
Unfortunately, this is like saying the English are a different nation than the Germans, therefore English royalty has no German blood. In actual fact, of course, they are pretty much of pure German blood, with Di’s kids being the first infusion of actual English blood in several centuries.
The Empresses of the Qing Emperors, the mothers of the next Emperor, were almost all, for political reasons, Mongol princesses. This meant that the second emperor was half Mongol by blood, the third emperor 3/4 Mongol, the fourth one 7/8 Mongol, etc.
So culturally and by legal descent the Qing Emperors were Manchu, but Pu Yi, the Last Emperor, was probably upwards of 90% Mongol by blood. You could go back and look at the whole line of descent and figure out the actual percentage.
Won’t have to worry about the Mongols invading my neighborhood this month.
"Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford.
Mongolians were absorbed into Han, both population-wise and culturally. Those who stayed in China, that is.
I haven’t studied Qing royal blood lines and not sure of the Mongolian princesses claim.
I am sure I would have been taught at school and remembered it. (I am Chinese.)
He lived in a brutal era as his own youth demonstrates. He was, indeed, benevolent by the standards of his time, and he and his decedents did a lot to open up trade routes from east to west...and kept them safe for travel which was a situation never experienced up until then. Unfortunately it was these trade routes that allowed the black plague to find it’s way to Europe. I think it was more Kublai that had the dealings with the Chinese.
Mea culpa.
That’s what I get for taking the word of Wiki without digging deeper. Wiki said the Empresses were mostly Mongol.
So I looked up the actual mothers of each emperor, to extent I could find them. It looks like every one was Manchu.
Secondary wives were no doubt often Mongol, but it looks like the mothers were all Manchu. Assuming the data I found is correct.
You are of course quite correct about the assimilation bit. Various steppe tribes had been raiding and conquering into China for three or four thousand years, sharing their genes with great enthusiasm.
It is my undertanding the the Black Death came into Europe from Middle East Ports by ship rats debarking in places like Italy. The rats might have gotten to the ports via the trade routes, but the final step was by sea. An interesting book is Rats, Lice and History by Zinzer (sp?).
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