Well after all those Mongolians were known as great sailors and shipbuilders.
Ah, must be where John Wayne got his inspiration for all of his multifaceted character portrayals.
Reminds me of something I saw on the History Channel once. It might have been baloney, but, if I remember correctly, the contention was that they had evidence that the Chinese/Mongolian Armada basically fell apart due to shoddy workmanship. Basically, instead of 8 nails per unit plank length, they only used 2. And instead of using good water sealant material, they went with water soluble stuff (probably melamine ... they seem to have an abundance of that crap in China). So once they hit rough waters - end of the fleet.
Again, I don't know if this tale was fictitious, or not, but it had the ring of truth about it. The Chinese are smart, hard working, and they can produce excellent product. But once you try to make it in mass production - some cost cutting gene kicks into place, and you better be very careful on your quality controls - or you won't be getting the product that you thought you were getting. And I suspect Khan found this out the hard way. Or at least his sailors did.