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Reconquest of xinjiang by zuo zhongtang(左宗棠) was fascinating history involving numerous forces including Russian. The tactics used in the battle were absolute genius. You might be interested to make series of zuo zhongtang from Taiping rebellion to conquest of xinjiang. He deliberately borrowed money from English banks which sway Britain to support his campaign to make sure he could win and pay back the loans.
Qing dynasty success of controlling mongols also depended on Tibetan buddhism which absorbed large number of single men, the troublemakers. Famous qianlong emperor quote: One tibetan temple worths 100 thousands soldiers. 乾隆：一座喇嘛庙胜过十万兵。
Siege of Diaoyu Castle was one of the most epic sieges of all time, lasting decades and filled with very desperate actions by both sides. Strategically positioned at where the Mongols have to pass during an invasion, it guards the fate of the entire Song dynasty. The Diaoyu castle was more like a massive series of fortifications built on mountainous cliffs that divides a city into multiple layers of defense in depth positions, with highway system connecting every sector for quick reinforcements. The defense has different levels - walls were built by the cliff, leaving very little ground to hold for enemy charging up to the walls, while the other side of the wall was flat ground so the defenders can quickly reinforce an area without needing to mount the walls. The entrances were artificially built onto sides of cliffs that can be removed during a siege and the entire complex was supported by a very well guarded military harbor that can hold hundreds of warships and supply ships.
The show paints Jia Sidao as some notable Song general but so many Song generals outshine him. For example: 1. Meng Gong who threw back the Mongol invasion attempt of 1235 by destroying 24 Mongol camps along the Yangtze river, with his counteroffensives retaking XianFang, Xinyang, and Kuizhou 2. Dugao who defeated the Mongols in Luzhou 3. Wang Jian, Yu Jie, Cao Shixiong who improved the Mountain Fortresses built by Meng Gong and Yu Jie and together repelled the second Mongol invasion attempt of 1258 4. Xiang Shibi, who also managed to defeat the Mongols on multiple occasions. And then you get Jia Sidao, who was more of a politician, known for persecuting capable generals like Cao Shixiong and Xiang Shibi as well as losing the battle of Dingjia despite having more men and ships.
also saved europe from certain destruction (when hungary has not rebuilt their castles and the european armies were anhilated) because the death of mongke mean it is necessary for all mongolian armies to gather to mongolia and reelect the leader, thus forcing batu khan and subutais army to retreat from hungary
Frankly speaking, there weren't many capable Jin and Song generals to speak of during the Mongol invasion; I only recall Wanyan Chenheshang, Meng Gong, Du Gao, and Lu Wenhuan, even the Mongol side had more defected and very capable China generals like Shi Tianze and Zhang Hongfan. I think that was the fate for every declining dynasty, during the declining stage of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, they only had about two capable generals: Wang Baobao and Chen Youding, whereas the Ming side had numerous capable officers like Fu Youde, Xu Da, Chang Yuchun, Lan Yu, Wang Bi, and so on.
"You men! You must visit each of the outlying tribes. You must convince as many as you can to join our glorious army! But beware the Kara Khitai, they are without honor." - Genghis Khan
Ya know what I will become a channel member, I've been here since wayyy back in the beginning and seeing you guys grow, evolve, and improve over the years has shown to me a level of passion and dedication I rarely see in youtube channels and you have more than earned the support so you don't need to rely on sponsorships
100% not true video! In the fact Jin people are not 🇹🇼🇨🇳Chinese they are Manjur people and also Mongols are not today’s 🇲🇳Halha people they are Mangel ( forever nation) in Turkek Kazakh’s🇰🇿 people because the Naimans, Jalaiers, Kerrys and yaks,konerats, are not Halha 🇲🇳people they are 🇰🇿Kazakh tribes!
@@kz-vl6bg The Jin people are the ancestors of the Jurchens (Manchus). They are not Han people, but Chinese. Currently, there is no difference between the Manchus in China and the Han people. They can only be marked as Manchus in the ethnic column on their ID cards. In fact, the Han people are not a pure-blood nation. They are the fusion of countless ethnic groups over tens of thousands of years, such as the Xianbei, Jurchens, etc.
Another beautiful documentary, as I can happily say is what is now expected from Kings and Generals. It is your channel that is the reason I have furthered my own knowledge on various history topics over the past years. Putting history into a format with voice and images really helps to make a complex topic more interesting, and this has definitely led to my own knowledge on various time periods in history. For this, you have my utmost respect and gratitude.
The reason why the Han dynasty was able to defeat the Xiognu was because they fought the way nomads fight, on horseback. But as the Song Dynasty had lost access to north China Plains due to the Jurchens, they could not respond in the same way against the Mongols. But even so they managed to resist the Mongols for decades and even managed to kill Mongke Khan leading to the fragmentation of the Mongol empire.
True. the real reason is that Song dynasty has lost control of the great wall and the mountains on which the walls are built. Song hence lacks the habitant for war horses.
@@saton1990 Song never controlled Border zone of China and Steppe or that mountain area where the Great Wall was later built. Liao Dynasty was established first and controlled that. Song only controlled southern parts of Great Plain, (not even as far as Beijing) which was some horse producing lands, that were all lost when the Jurchen came. Song also used to import horses from Tangut Xi Xia which became harder after the Jurchen invasion
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory The Great Wall is impressive but it’s kinda stupid. Anyone can mine a tunnel a wall or take it down with tools and towers
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Hello Jackmeister. I have a rather unrelated question but still hope that you'll answer. Were the Bohai (Balhae) people more related to the Tungusic peoples (Jurchen) or Koreans?
Same that with the Romans and the Germanic barbarians. People don't remember the centuries of them standing against multiple invasion attempts. They remember that traumatic moment in which the conquerors finally succeeded.
@@danhobart4009 Why? The Romans employed similar tactics against the Germanic tribesmen. They divided and conquered or kept them squabbling while establishing a frontier system with Legionary forts quickly responding to any big attempts to cross Roman borders. The Empire unraveled when the tribes almost simultaneously penetrated the entire Rhine and Danube frontier after being pushed by the Huns- the ancestors of the Mongols. The Romans did mount significant resistance and even defeated the Hun leader Attila in open battle- the first to ever do so- but were ultimately destroyed by the court intrigue and severe corruption. It is to be noted that the Eastern half of the Empire stood strong, however, and saw a period of immense economic growth becoming the wealthiest realm in the world for the next two centuries. As rich and strong as the Chinese in the far east.
@@danhobart4009 lmfao ok o great knowledgeable one. Pls enlighten all of us instead of acting all haughty. If you actually do have a point which I highly doubt.
"When Germany sends its people, they're not sending their best." - Maginot, probably. "I'm gonna build a great wall and make the Americans pay for it." - Stalin, before ordering the construction of the Berlin wall. Probably.
The significance of the great wall in forming many smaller tribes into bigger and formattable armies cannot be understated. The wall was not against the people, it is against the horses, the main advantages of the nomad raiders. Its much more difficult getting the horses pass the wall, even if they do that by creating a hole in the wall, they will have to return through the same path with all their looted plunder, which by then the armies can form a blockade to prevent them from escaping. the great wall literally created or played a key role in the formation of the Mongol and other nomad empires, as it was simply too cost effective against the smaller raider tribes.
The Tang Dynasty was a powerful military empire that ruled many ethnic groups, but after a large-scale military rebellion, the central government gradually lost control of the localities, and the whole country was ruled by many warlords. The rulers of Xixia and Liao, as ethnic minorities, were the first warlords to break away from the Tang Empire and establish their own state. Later, Han warlords also established their own countries one after another, and these countries were called "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms". But the newly established dynasty still faced the threat of military rebellion, which changed five times in fifty years. After the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty launched a military coup to seize power, the most important issue he considered was how to prevent himself from becoming a victim of the next military coup, and he carried out reforms to achieve absolute control over the army. But the reforms severely weakened the combat effectiveness of the army . After 25 years of war, the richer Song Dynasty failed to eliminate the Liao Dynasty , and even lost the war against the Liao , so the two countries signed an alliance to achieve a century-long peace. The Liao was thus able to devote its main energy to the control of the Mongol and Jurchen tribes. The Jurchens took the opportunity to rise to establish the Jin Dynasty during the Liao civil strife, and formed an alliance with the Song to destroy the Liao . The Jin was busy with the war in the south and the continuous civil strife in the country, which created a power vacuum in the grasslands and led to the rise of the Mongolian.
Tanxiang(Xixia) never break away from Tang since they don't exist until the Song Dynasty. Liao only broke away when Tang collapse. Tactically speaking , Lao was not part of Tan, more like a Vassel. Also Liao IS THE Mongol. The Golden family of Mongol was one of the Great Nobles of the Liao. That why Mongol took over Western Lao easily because they are the same clan and why Jurchen and Mongol hated each other.
Because the Song dynasty focused on central government power by abolishing regional Jiedushi(governors or generals) and placing 600,000 troops in the capitals. Military generals can threaten an emperor or cause rebellions by using their troops. In a Neo-Confucianism regime, whole military forces were dominated by Scholar-official(士大夫) and separated authority to block treason.
Central Asia and Mongolia by extension are areas I would like to learn more about. Thank you for this video! I look forward to more in the future! Merry Christmas out there everybody! ✝️🎄
Several jarring mistakes: at 11:16, the portrait of the two Jin emperors are actually portraits well-known Ming emperors. At 14:20 Chancellor Jia Sidao is a famous corrupt official known to undermine Song's military efforts against the Mongols. Many truly heroic Song generals can be cited as examples of effective Chinese resistance against Mongols, just not Jia Sidao.
The Song dynasty focused mainly on arts and the economy, they did not put the military as a high priority. Considering this the Song dynasty did really well by defending against the mongols for 60 years.
What are you talking about? The Song put the military industry on high priority when it came to spending. The dynasty was just bad at managing their military industry.
The Song dynasty fought fiercely and held the line for decades, so long that part of Mongol army turned to conquer East Europe, at the end, tens of thousand of Chinese jump off the cliff into the sea together with their baby emperor, it was recorded as the end of civilization
While the emperor himself chose to go out that way, most of what was left of the dynasty either fell in the same battle, or actually escaped only to die in a typhoon (and even then there were survivors).
I chose to support my favourite channel anywhere today. I am very greatful to your team för creating such High quality content and wish the best for you all ❤
Emperor Yongle's father obtained a large number of Mongolian horses when he started his army. The famous "Three Thousand Battalion" (three thousand cavalry) was the earliest cavalry unit of the Ming Army, all of which were composed of Mongols. More and more Han Chinese also began to join the cavalry. Later, the cavalry of the Ming army reached about 100,000. The ridiculous thing is that the "Three Thousand Battalion" has tens of thousands of scale. Everyone still calls this cavalry. The troops are "Three Thousand Battalions". From Zhu Yuanzhang to Yongle, the two fathers and sons launched the Northern Expedition. From North China to the next-door desert and then to the Mongolian plateau, more than a dozen battles broke out between the Ming army and the Mongolian and Yuan sides. Basically, it was cavalry against cavalry. Yongle The reason why Yongle was able to go deep into the Mongolian Plateau to fight and win was because Yongle had a powerful cavalry force
Because the Yuan Dynasty turned a large amount of arable land into pastures, coupled with the overwhelming advantage of the Ming Dynasty's steel production, the Ming Army at that time actually had a powerful heavy cavalry unit
@@rayray6490 After all, the Mongols could not defeat Yongle emperor head-on and were defeated many times by Yongle emperor. The Mongols had no choice but to avoid battle.
I think the biggest reason Song lost wars against Jin and Mongols was its military organization. Deployment, provisions, organization of generals and officers were all managed by different ministries led by bureaucrats and generals often don't have a say in how and when the soldiers are being used. The soldiers too often were recruits from convicts and poor unmotivated conscripts. It is a policy and doctrinal issue that plagued Song since its founding, rather than a lack of technology or funding.
The Song wasn't military inept without reason. The preceding dynasty, the Tang, famously imploded by being overly militarised, which led to endless wars and local warlords who disobeyed the Emperor. When the first Emperor of Song became the only Emperor in Chinese history to be installed (against his own will) by his loyal generals, rather than forcing his way into becoming Emperor through military force like all the other great founders, he set about making his dynasty decidedly pacifist and restrained the miltary as much as he could. If the Tang were a lesson of what happens if you overly militarise, then the Song are the lesson of what happens if you swing the pendulum too much the other way. Being overly pacifist and purposely neglecting/weakning the military has consequences as much as overly militaristic and prioritising the military.
Song ended up signing the Shaoxing treaty with the Jin because of treacherous chinese traitors like Qin hui who had our great hero Yue Fei killed. not because we were losing against the jurchens.
The Jin were Jurchens. They weren't nomads but were still considered beneath the Han. After the Mongol yuan dynasty was pushed north, sometime around 1580s Nurachi started to unify the Jurchens. He reformed the Later Jin dynasty from the Jurchen to Manchu people. His grandson renamed the Later Jin to the Qing.
considered beneath the Han? by who? by Han people? Han Chinese people considered everyone (all other people outside China) except themselves beneath themselves until they got humiliated and finally learned the lesson in 19th and 20th centuries.
The Manchus are now pretty patriotic to the PROC though, same with the mogonlian-Chinese in Inner Mongolia. Meanwhile in Taiwan, the Han people there wanna be independent. 😂
@@boomboomboom9297 Back then, the people in Taiwan wanted to take back mainland China from the communist party, but then they realized that was impossible, because the mainland was still too strong, and the US wouldn't want them to be united, really no hope. So those who were pro-independent/pro-separatism found a chance to took control of Taiwan with their promise of independence from communist party.
@@JL-ui6gx Not only by the Han Chinese, but those tribes were considered barbaric and beneath everyone by everyone in the region like the Koreans, Japanese, and Vietnamese...as shown in their many ancient texts and records about those tribes...It's understandable because they were actually either nomad tribes or somewhat more barbaric tribes (without civilized lifestyles, without civl rules and civil laws)
props to you for pronouncing the Khans name correctly. i don't mind when ppl say "Genghis" cuz that for some reason is just how foreigners say it, but a historian such as yourself, i respect that you say his name correctly greetings from a mongolian
ligden khan's death only made southern mongols (inner) submit to manchu rule, but conquest of central mongols (khalkha) took almost a 50 years. later on, the conquest of western mongols (dzungar-left hand khanate) took more than a 100 years when finally in 1759 remnants of dzungar mongols were conquered and slain in genocide. very few survivors mad it to central mongolia and kalmikya (in russia). main reason why mongols were defeated is that due to initial conflict between all 3 mongol states, some high ranked southern mongolian nobles were killed in khalkha which caused a huge crack between south and central mongols who were already in troublseome condition with western dzungar too. its just 3 stupid kids could not share their toy and in the end neighbors fat boy took whole thing
This is story of our mongol history. Throughout time, bunch of stupid children who are too power hungry and whom have no vision fighting each other during the golden horde and ilkhanate wars, and stuff brought down the mongol empire. It was genghis khan's grandson's children's fault the mongol empire fell. Bunch of morons
Same could be said for contemporary China (900-1200 AD) Song Dynasty wanted all of China, but the Liao Dynasty (based in Manchuria) had the 8 prefectures that contained the Great Wall, making defending the Song's northern border almost impossible. Then the Liao Dynasty got overrun by the Jin Dynasty, while the Western Xia Dynasty carved out their own dominion in the northwest. All 3 were constantly vying for control before the "neighbour" in the north, the united Mongols, appeared and basically played on the Divide and Conquer strategy and overran all of them. The history of empires is that their fall is always a combination of instability from within and pressure from without. No empire was an exception.
Long time fan, I'm personally cool with you guys having sponsors since you deserve the most money you can get. Thanks for always making amazing videos.
Hi there. Thanks to your videos. I'm a fan and subscriber. By the way, the images that you used for Jin Emperor is actually the images of Ming Emperor (the dynasty after the Yuan and before the Qing). Love from Viet Nam.
I must say this is a great video using Chinese sources and even using Chinese terms in subtitles. It presented a fair view of the Chinese defense against the nomads throughout history w/o any Western bias - this video could have been made in Chinese. Given the amount of English language video which uses biased and inaccurate Western sources, this channel is like a breath of fresh air.
The supposed Western bias comes from popular culture, not from Western academia. Western academic articles often use Chinese sources and provide a much more nuanced view of these historical events.
Also, this channel sometimes use poor sources to create bad videos too. Look at their terribly low quality and inaccurate video about "earliest Chinese armies."
其实在中国民间惯例眼中其实金朝不算中国正统王朝之一，算外国占领。他们认为只有宋朝才是正统王朝。 Jin dynasty (1115-1234) is not considered as China among most of the Chinese. They think the dynasty is a foreign invader and consider that Sony Dynasty is the real China.
@@hdw117 With all due respect to Chinese, I thought the concept of Zhonghua Minzu covers not only the Han, but all 56 peoples. So aren't northern semi-nomad dynasties such as Liao and Jin considered part of Chinese history? History of Liao and Jin are among the Twenty-Four Histories.
@@younggyunchoi361 Zhonghua Minzu was invented in 20th Century by Liang Qichao. In the ancient China, the word did not exist. Meanwhile, most of the Chinese do not know the Twenty-Four Histories. These books are official history books in different dynasties, and most the Chinese only know Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing. Even many Chinese are not aware of Jin Dynasties. Besides, I remember that there were many TV Dramas and movies about Qing Dynasties in China twenty years ago. However it is difficult to see these TV dramas and movies now because many Chinese audiences do not like them. They consider that Qing Dynasty really belongs to China because it conquer the whole China. But Han Chinese were conquered and massacred by Manchu people in this dynasty, like Yangzhou massacre. Since Liao and Jin did not conquer the whole China, many Chinese people do not think they are real China. Also, Tencent video broadcasted a TV drama whose name is The Legend of Xiao Chuo in 2020. The drama is about Liao Dynasty. But the drama is not popular and a TV drama that is called A Dream of Splendor about Song Dynasty in Tencent Video is very very popular in 2022. It is likely that you will consider that a lot of Chinese are very narrow-minded(I think they are narrow-minded.). But it is that's the truth for now.
Some of the sources I used here. There's more I used but they're spread out across a few different sheets of notes, and I don't feel like battling through my organization strategy right now: PRIMARY SOURCES Minhāj-ud-Din [Juzjani]. Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāṣirï: A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, Including Hindustan; from A.H. 194 (810 A.D.) to A.H. 658 (1260 A.D) and the Irruption of the Infidel Mughals Into Islam. Translated by Major H.G. Raverty. Volume II. New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1970 (1881). Pow, Stephen and Jingjing Liao. “Subutai: Sorting Fact from Fiction Surrounding the Mongol Empire’s Greatest General (With Translations of Subutai’s Two Biographies in the Yuan Shi).” Journal of Chinese Military History 7 (2018): 37-76. The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century. Translated by Igor de Rachewiltz. Vol 1. Brill, 2004. Zhao-Gong. “A Memorandum on the Mong-Tatars.” in The Rise of the Mongols: Five Chinese Sources. Translated and Edited by Christopher P. Atwood, 71-92. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2021. SECONDARY LITERATURE Allsen, Thomas T. “The Rise of the Mongolian Empire and Mongolian Rule in North China.” In The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 6, Alien States and Border Regimes, 907-1368. Edited by Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank, 321-413. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Atwood, Christopher. “Pu’a’s Boast and Doqolqu’s Death: Historiography of a Hidden Scandal in the Mongol Conquest of the Jin.” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, 45 (2015): 239-278. Brook, Timothy. The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Belknap Press, Cambridge: 2010. Davis, Richard L. “The Reigns of Kuang-tsung (1189-1194) and Ning-tsung (1194-1224),” in The Cambridge History of China, vol 5, Part One: The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907-1279, edited by Denis Twitchett and Paul Jakov Smith, 756-838. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Davis, Richard L. “The Reign of Li-tsung (1224-1264),” in The Cambridge History of China, vol 5, Part One: The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907-1279, edited by Denis Twitchett and Paul Jakov Smith, 839-921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Desmond, Martin H. The Rise of Chingis Khan and His Conquest of North China. Edited by Eleanor Lattimore. (Baltimore, 1950; repr. New York, 1971) Franke, Herbert. “The Chin Dynasty,” in The Cambridge History of China vol 6., Alien States and Border Regimes. Edited by Herbet Franke and Denis Twitchett, 215-320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Haw, Stephen G. “The Mongol Empire- the first ‘gunpowder empire’?” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Series 3, 23 no 3 (2013): 441-469. Wang Tseng-yü, “A history of the Sung Military,” in the Cambridge History of China vol.5, Part Two: Sung China, 969-1279, edited by Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank, 214-249. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Wright, David Curtis. “Navies in the Mongol Yuan Conquest of Southern Song China, 1274-1279,” Mongolian Studies 29 (2007): 207-216.
I read it a few years ago and don't remember it well. But James Waterson's Defending Heaven: China’s Mongols Wars, 1209-1370. Frontline Books, Barnsley: 2013. provides a serviceable and accessible overview of this topic, and should be easy to find a copy of.
Wow these are great! Are these just your personal sources or did you research or write this video for Kings and Generals and these are the sources you used?
"There were so many female warriors in Mongolia, who were taking care of the homeland while the Khans were away fighting. Please tell their stories in your next videos. Thanks." Yes, please do consider at least. For instance, Khutulun: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khutulun
I'd been wondering how did medieval China held that long, thanks K@G. I would like to hear more about Liao Dynasty and Khitans, can you make a deep dive about these fascinating people? And their last western kingdom?
Primariy four reasons 1. Song possessed the richest part of China which was mostly unravaged by wars fought with Jurchen Jin. Except for the ability to produce horses, other productions were mostly unhampered compared to the days when Song controlled Northern China. 2. Song had a well-equiped veteran army with combat experience gained from campaigns fighting Jin Dynasty. This was also a time during which the most incidents of armored clashes were seen. Both large proportionals of Jin and Song soilders were equipped with battleaxes to smash their armored opponents. (A longer, heavier and more destructive version of the Medieval European maces) 3. Kublai had to go back to Mongolia to compete for Khan after Mongke's death. A ten year truce was signed and allowed the Song to build fortifications along the frontline 4.The Song administration over-exaggerated Mongol atrocities and demonized the Mongols. Together with Chinese Nationalism many Song generals were more determined to resist than surrendering when being cornered And don't forget before all of this happened, the Jurchen Jin, a unwilling buffer regime for the Song, fought the Mongols and the Song on two fronts for decades.
Khitans' descendants established the Qing Dynasty.🤣🤣🤣 Some of the Khitans' become Mongol and Han nationality, some of them go back to northeast, and become Manchu late after.
@@deidresable U are mistaken, Tang Dynasty emperors shared Proto Mongolic Ancestors from Xianbei. Also, Term Turkish does not apply to Central and East Asia, only Turkic which is a language family not an ethnic race.
This was awesome, keep up the China content please! Thanks for explaining Liao/Jin/Song relations, I always found that a bit confusing. Fantastic work guys :)
@@tyranitararmaldo I don't know if they corrected it, but a bug you can exploit is to set the tribes to Neutral and convert them with Monks. Always work
Song China is my favourite China. It's basically the one you see in medieval pop culture depictions of China. Oh, and also those 'traditional Chinese Shan Shui paintings' come from that era.
It depends. You see a lot of Tang, Song and Ming motifs in modern day pop culture. Tang for clothing, Song for technology, Ming for military might (and authoritarian despotism, if the depiction is trying to go political). Not so much Han (too ancient), Yuan (mixed into Ming) and Qing (too recent).
In fact, the level of warfare technology in Mongolia was higher than that of the Song Dynasty. The Mongols had a large number of siege techniques from the northern Han people and western Central Asians to break through the fortified cities of the Song Dynasty. Although the attack lasted for more than 40 years.
Please make videos about the Dzungar Khanate (Oirat Mongols) who fought against the Kazakh Khanate, Qing empire, and Eastern Mongols. Also please include the part about the captured Swede who taught the Dzungar Mongols how to make matchlock guns. Thanks
@@migelangeldejesusquinterog4584 Too bad except him no other leaders are as Chad as him so the entire Dzungars are exterminated by Qing. The Khanate or least Dzungars people should have survive to modern days.
I remember K&G's older video about the final naval battle between Song and Mongols (Battle of Yamen 1279). The last Song child emperor and the old general jumped into the river suicide is so sad. The truly shocking part is "Mongolian Navy" defeated the Chinese.
The Yuan Navy was composed almost entirely of Southern Han Chinese defectors, thats why they were able to deliver such a decisive defeat to the Song navy, the technological field was balanced and they had experience with naval warfare
Mongolian were nomad horse riders, they didn't have Navy combat experience. "Mongolian Navy" was basically the Han Chinese army that betrayed and helped the Mogol army to conquer their own people.
some information the video did not mention. The Jin empire, also known as the golden empire, was founded by Jurchens, a group of Tungusic speakers who lived in the basin of the Sungari river, a tributary of the Amur River. Jin was a Chinese translation. It was called Anchu Gurun, the golden empire in the Jurchen language and it covered today's North China, Manchuria, and part of Siberia in its heyday. The golden empire did not conquer the steppe, it put most of its attention on the conquer of North China. Such a strategy made the golden empire very vulnerable to the invasion of Mongols. In 1213, Mongols conquered Zhongdu, today's Peking, and Wanggiyan Udabu, the emperor of the golden empire, fled to the south. The loss of Zhongdu cut off the connection between the rulers of the golden empire and their homeland. And the golden empire became to look like 11:34, which means the rulers of the golden empire had to rely heavily on the resources they could extract from the Chinese in North China. And one of the reasons that Jurchens could finally defeat Mongols in 1634 17:53 is that Jurchens had become very Mongolized at this time. The Jurchen aristocrats in the early 17th century were a group of Jurchens who were highly Mongolized. Most of these Jurchen aristocrats could speak the Mongol language, and they adopted the Mongol religion and married Mongol wives. Hongtaiji, one of the founders of the Qing empire, got his name from the Mongols. Hongtaiji was actually a very typical Mongol name that meant prince and there were many Mongol tribe leaders also named Hongtaiji.
@@rareneedle the jurchens in the 17th century adopted Mongol's religion which helped them to united various Mongol tribes who opposed Ligdan Khan because of sectism. And jurchens also consolidated the loyalty of many mongol tribes through marriage. Most Manchu princesses married mongol princes During the Qing era 1644-1911.
As a Manchu, this is the comment I was scrolling and looking for. I got so confused by the video on how my ancestors fighting the Mongols became a war of Chinese and Mongols.
Congratulations on an excellent show, do you have any plans to do any episodes on the first Chinese civilizations, or cultures during the Bronze Age or even during the Neolithic period? Also do you have any plans to do any episodes on Egyptian revolts against the Roman Empire or the revolts of the Red Banner Batenis and the centuries long Islamic Kharijite rebellions against the Abbasid Caliphate, and also the revolts of Shayban al-Khariji, Behafarid who started a religious peasant revolt with neo-Mazdakism elements from Zoroastrianism and Islam? Or the revolts of Firuzan, commonly known as Emāmādeh Abu-lolo, Shabīb ibn Yazīd ibn Nuʿaym al-Shaybānī, Ustadh Sis,, Ishaq al-Turk, and Al-Muqanna?
The Mongols went westward because they were having difficulty conquering all of China. Outside of the steppe nomads, the Chinese were the first and last conquered. So I would rephrase question as how did the Mongols conquer so much of Eurasia when most of their attention was focused towards China? China was much closer and most of the Mongol court and top leaders where stationed nearby.
If wasn't for internal dynastic decline of Song, China could have defended against the Mongols forever and then get on the offense, the same way China defeated the XiongNu and force it to migrate to Europe to become the Huns. It didn't matter tho, China overthrew Yuan in less than 100 years. Also many other nomadic and agrarian cultures surrounded all over china (Xinjiang, Tibet, Manchuria etc) and gradually they were all assimilated into china after centuries of repeated incursions into china.
If anyone wants a good book series to read on the mongols, the Ghengis Khan series by Conn Igulden is amazing. Takes historical fiction to a whole new level of entertainment
Tumu crisis which 20,000 mongols defeated 500,000 chinese soldiers and captured king of the Ming dynasty is interesting subject but often ignored. Can you cover it seperately in one of your videos please.
"This figure [500,000] probably comes from P'i-t'ai'lu [Pitailu 否泰錄] ... The figures in Chinese battle accounts are a notoriously difficult problem as are most of the specifically military details of any engagement. A general's farewell poems to wife or friend on leaving for battle are usually preserved, but no satisfactory word about his route, the size and armament of his forces, or those of the enemy, and so on is likely to be available. When a figure like this one is found, it may then have been included for other reasons than to offer precise military information to the reader. In this case, of course, it helps to discredit the hated Wang Chen [Wang Zhen 王振] by describing the T'u-mu defeat in terms that allow him no excuses for failure." Kierman, Frank A. et al. (eds.) Chinese Ways in Warfare (1974), p.36
I think that's a translation error: the translated source I read says 50,000 soldiers, which is much more likely, given the non-functional logistical system being used, which necessitated relying on local food sources, and that 500,000 would be over half the soldiers listed in the entire country. We also know many soldiers deserted even before the attack, so the real number is likely even lower.
@@bubbasbigblast8563 Yeah I've heard of this battle but 500k is ridiculous even for China at the time. A large army by most of the world's standards by then would be several tens of thousands, 500k would be impossible to feed and transport for a pre-modern army. Even 50k would be tough logistically.
the funny thing is that, the khitans, jurchens, and the manchus were considered by the han chinese as barbarians north of the great wall, just like the mongols, and in the end, and in the end westeners call them chinese against mongols, and "khitan" even becomes the word for "china" or "chinese" in many central asian and eastern european languages.
@@Demmindi i wont say it is fabricating and distorting, i would say it is interperting Asian history by the standard of western nation states. by the asian standard, back then, th manchu emperor said they had more in common with the mongols, just like the han chinese had more in common with the koreans, but this doesnt work with modern nation states
@@wmhld This video distinguishes between Khitan, Jurchen, Chinese and Mongol several times. But we must caution against overemphasizing similarity betweens the non-Han peoples, for then you are also looking at history from the Han Chinese POV. To these groups, the differences between them will always be great (for example: the distinctions between Scottish, Irish, Welsh, English can be seem minimal to someone from China, even though these groups insist upon their internal distinctions). The Mongols likely would not take too kindly to the comparison with the Qing Emperors, many of whom barely spoke Manchu, only spoke Chinese and were thoroughly sinicized. The Qing emperors after Nurhaci really had little in common even with other Manchus, let alone Mongols in the steppes. The Mongols certainly felt little kinship to the non-nomadic, non-steppe dwelling, Tungusic speaking Jurchen ancestors of the Manchu, and in the Yuan Dynasty "ethnic hierarchy" the Khitan and Jurchen were categorized as hanren, with the northern Chinese population; while the Tangut were grouped in the higher category, the semuren, for Central/west Asians.
@@KingsandGenerals not much issue. just that people outside of china usually uses steorotypes of central and southen chinese to represent whole china and chinese culture, and underesitimate the impact of northern peoples on northern china. I really like your previous video on chinggis's likely service under the jurchin jin, which is a perfect example of the mixing of the steppe nomad mongols, hunter-gatherers jurchens, and sedentary han prople. Though the service of chinggis under jin is lacking record, the similar rise of nurhaci and manchus is obviously the result of the mixing of three cultures, and many in china questioned the chineseness of the manchus well into 20th centry, as shown in Xinhai Revolution
the mongolian weaponry and armour inherited the Jin Dynasty in northern China, and Jin Dynasty weapons and armour are originally chinese. because the Jin Dynasty's failure in governing and the corrupted rules, the soldiers lost their will to fight and got destroyed by the Mongolian very quickly. then the Mongols captured all the chinese craftsman and experts in making war machines, thus , the mongolian transformed from the nomad into an advanced army with siege weapons, (the mongols cannot build these weapons) . the central asian and middle east regions thought the mongolian were still a bunch of backward nomad with horses and bows. until they saw the mongolian came with chinese firepowders and siege weapons that broke their walls. it was all too late.
Mongols (or Chinese Mongols), as nomad tribes, were not civilised. They spent day to day raising sheep and horses and nothing more. They had no written language until 13th century when they started to use an Uyghur language to do government recording. Mongols throughout all history were not able to make metals (even if being taught so), growing crops, making bricks and textiles etc any thing that requires developed thinking and knowledge. They only acquired those goods through two ways with Chinese Han: trading using horse and sheep, or chronical robbing the loosely guarded border towns. Their thirst in fighting had had been brewed by harsh living, great horseman skills, coupled with desperate desires to survive as seasons changing and grasslands changing, and the ultimate tantalisation of modern civilisation from its neighbouring Chinese Han region. Chinese Mongols took the chance of in-fights and corruption of the Han court throughout 12 and 13th centuries, took over and ruled entire China for 93 years in the 14th century before they were driven back by the Han to grasslands raising sheep again and since never were able to grow.
One big reason for Song's weakness on military is they are afraid of warlord. The warlord become a bige problem and almost autonomous after An Lushan's rebellion in Mid Tang, and they never managed to fix it till the wardlord end the Tang Dynasty. So Government of Song control military force strictly.
The Ming, and the Qing used tactics very similar to what the US Army would do in the 1870s against it's own problems with nomadic horsemen. They initially could not face the steppe cavalry in open battle without being defeated so they targeted the nomads' herds and hunted their livestock to near extinction. Come winter, the nomads' primary source of meat, milk, and clothing are destroyed, and they have no choice but to surrender at the nearest Chinese frontier fort so they don't starve and freeze to death. Excellent tactic and the US general Phillip Sheridan would do the same during the final years of the Indian Wars on the Great Plains. In the US during the 1870s, the proliferation of railroads and barbed wire also further eliminated the nomads' grazing lands.
when other regimes like the great jin、tangut and dali were defeated and finished by the mongols in the 13th century, the southern song who represented china at the time still resisted fiercely against the mongol empire for another tens of years until 1279, even killed a mongolian emperor in one of the battles.
Chinggis's generals were so elite that a single one of them, Mukhulai, assumed control over the entire Chinese campaign while Chinggis invaded Khwarezmia with his other great commanders
Nah, if that is so why would he not just take over and not leave his back exposed? It was too difficult and the Mongols had to employ siege tech and soldiers from conquest two generations later to finally take out Song. By then the Mongol armies consists of Chinese and Middle-Eastern siege engineers, Chinese blacksmiths, advisors and soldiers. The Mongols were already using Chinese and Jin siege on Khwarezmia.
@@SilverDragonZZL it's because Majority of the Ghenghis his forces were deployed against kwarezm, while Mukhulai was only left with 1/4 or something, but he did make small gains and kept the Jin pinned down until Ghenghis his massive force returned after destroying Kwarezm, and then after crushing the Tanguts for disobedience, the mongol Conquest of the Jin regained it's momentum again / the Chinese were indeed the toughest opponents of the Mongols but Mukulai did well with what he had
If you read Secret History of the Mongols, combined it with Islamic and Chinese sources, you notice that Mongol vs Chinese was akin to Major League vs Major League, then when the Mongol turned around westwards it like vs college football all the way. By the time of the Gorden Hordes the Mongol became fat and sedentary and was subpar college teams themselves.
I heard that Manchu rulers of Qing Dynasty give their Manchu princesses as wives Mongol Princes since in Mongol culture wives given families are more powerful than wives taking families they can easily control The Mongols through this diplomatic marriages which explained why Manchu rulers of Qing dynasty had a lot of Mongols son-in-laws during theirs early days of Qing Dynasty.
Cette chaîne m'a interressé à l'Histoire mongole. Vous avez fait des séries géniales sur les conquêtes musulmanes, celles d'Alexandre , celles de Gengis. Je vous suis en activant la traduction des sous-titres. Merci beaucoup !
Weird glitch at about 30 sec in. There is a "media offline" message that appears for 1 frame. I think it happens acouple times in the beginning of the video
Good video, but you guys need to do a QA check with your editing team. The constant flashes of "missing images" are very distracting for such a high quality channel.
Han's Heqin policy was a method to buy time, as Emperor Gaozu, upon re-unifying the disintegrated Qin Dynasty, realized that the war-torn central plains was in no position to compete against a nomadic empire in its golden age. After 100 years of developing the economy, centralizing power, and strengthening the imperial position, Han Wudi felt it was time to strike back against Xiongnu, and thus began the Han-Xiongnu Wars.
You should makes a video How Han Dynasty defeat and destroying Xiongnu Empire (the ancestor of Mongol and Turk) And video of How Tang Dynasty defeat Gokturk and makes them as vassal (the ancestor of Turk live in modern day Mongolia)
I have a picture taken on the southern border of the Gobi of what I was told was part of the Great Wall complex (actually many walls over a long period). This wall was made of mud bricks interspersed with reeds. I wonder if it was the work of the first emperor.
He basically became a scapegoat for the conquest. While he certainly had his problems that can't be denied, he was far from wholly unskilled. The alternative to Jia Sidao's domination would likely have been just deep court infighting and inactivity that probably would have only facilitated a faster Mongol conquest
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory The way many Chinese view history was very contradictory. While the Jin dynasty was depicted in the worst way one could imagine. Emperor Aizong's reign were viewed in a much favorable light.
How the Chinese fought the Mongols under Genghis Khan is a curious case study in how to fight the Mongols and how not too at the same time. Nice video.
Yeah then The Mongolians made a racial hierarchy where Southern Chinese were at the lowest of most bottom ring, rung, stat, or ender and of course Mongols at the high strung yeah.
The hierarchy was based on who was the most threat to mongols. Chinese held out the longest against mongols and were the most threat so mongols made them lowest on the rung. Other turkic/mongols were little threat and submitted to mongols easily so they gave them higher status. The first to submit was deemed cowards and not a threat therefore they can have higher status. In actual truth it took Mongols the same amount of time to capture a fractured China then they could hold on despite making chinese the lowest class. In a short amount of time the mongols got kicked out. Kind of pointless it took 3 generations of mongols to capture a china in civil war but they couldn't even hold for 72 years
I think we also need to be careful with the distinction of the ethnic group each of these hierarchy and how they are defined - Southern Chinese in that sense was in particular in reference to Han ethnicity. Jin are of Jurchen/Manchu ethnicity, etc.
Today I read the research of many experts and they said that they did not find the hierarchical system in the ancient historical materials, and the hierarchical system has been promoted by the revolutionary party in the late Qing Dynasty. The rulers of the Qing Dynasty have always married Mongolia. The purpose of the revolutionary party is To incite hatred to make a revolution. In fact, during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, the Mongols brought a large number of Arabs, Persians, Turks, and even Europeans from West Asia to join their army. There is an ethnic group called Semu people in ancient documents, and Semu means that the eyes have various colors. The Mongols don't trust the Chinese at all, so they let these Semu people who are far away from home serve as the main officials in the government. The father of the famous admiral Zheng He was a Persian, and his father's official position is equivalent to today's provincial and ministerial level. Even today's Chinese hierarchy is quite strict, rich and powerful class > ordinary officials > entrepreneurs > ordinary people
It is said that on September 1, 1449, Esen Taish Khan had 15,000 soldiers, but Ming Dynasty King Zhentung won a battle with 500,000 soldiers. In the battle of Tumu, only two soldiers, the majors of the Mongolian army, participated in a great victory that is rare in history. The battle was the biggest defeat in the 300-year history of the Ming Dynasty.
You missed the part that Ming under Ming Taizu/Yongle conquered Manchuria from Mongol Yuan in 14th century. Dongbei(Manchuria) has plenty of Ming reminants even today.
As a matter of fact, the Northern Song Dynasty reunified most of China (中國) in 979, with the exception of only 18 prefectures in the very northeastern part of the Huabei Plain (宋史·地理志). The Northern Song Dynasty ruled almost all of the China Proper from 960 to 1127, including most of Northern China.
Excellent video 📹 17:34 New history explained 👌 250 years after Genghis Khan, there was a second revival of the Mongol Empire which forced the Ming Dynasty to create the present ' Great Wall of China '. Most history books say, the Mongols went into oblivion with the fall of the Yuan Dynasty.
The history books are right. The Mongols didn't really rise to prominence, although they crippled the Chinese army and captured the Ming emperor in AD1449, and besieged Beijing a few years later. But the siege of Beijing City ended in failure. Then Mongolia fell into division again. Before this war, the Ming Dynasty had been maintaining its offensive against Mongolia, sending large armies deep into Mongolia many times to attack various Mongolian tribes. After this war, the Ming Dynasty's strategy against Mongolia turned to defense, but this does not mean that Mongolia has become stronger, but the Ming Dynasty lost its elite cavalry unit and could no longer attack Mongolia as before.
During the Ming Dynasty, Mongolia was already very weak. In the end, Mongolia was completely destroyed because of its marriage with the Jurchen. The Jurchen (Later Jin Kingdom/the Qing Dynasty) in Northeast China married the Khorchin Mongols in order to fight against the Ming Dynasty. And Khorchin Mongol is a descendant of Genghis Khan's brothers, so this marriage gave the Jurchen king (the emperor of the Qing Dynasty) the legitimacy to seize the Mongolian Khan throne. Later, in 1632, Ligdan Khan, the last Mongolian Khan, was defeated by the Jurchen. All Mongolian tribes regarded the Qing Emperor as their Khan, and followed the Qing Emperor to the south to eliminate the Ming Dynasty. But after the Ming dynasty was wiped out, the Qing emperor considered himself emperors of China and Manchurians first, and Mongol khans second, so he imposed strict restrictions on Mongolian tribes, which eventually led to the relocation of most Mongolian tribes to Inner Mongolia (now part of the China), including the Khorchin Mongols, these tribes eventually became fully Chinese. Only the weakest tribes were left on the Mongolian.
Well, the Song dynasty was indeed weak compared to the other Chinese dynasties, such as the Han, Tang, Ming, etc. However, they still did a much much better job than the Russians and Europeans.
Song did have a booming economy, and after losing northern China to Jin, the Song dynasty's most important city to defend is all along the river, which make blockade and siege very hard for the early Mongol army. At last, Mongols managed to build a strong navy to counter Song, the fate of China was sealed.
The Russians were divided between city-states, so not an amazing for a unified Mongol Empire to conquer them. Moreover, the Mongols never got pass Poland and Hungary. The Europeans did better in the fact that they were not conquer.
did a much better what? The weak as* mongols failed to capture a single stone castle in both poland and hungary with chinese siege equipment (guess what? Asians in general never were that good at siege warfare) And then they invaded again and gain (second and third invasion) and yet failed all of them 😂 They couldnt even face the european powerhouses like HRE and France. Go away mongol fanboy.
Hello man. Thank you for your amazing content. Could you make an episode about Philaretos Brachamios - distinguished Byzantine general and warlotd of Armenian heritage, and for a time was a usurper against emperor.
It is hard not to be nostalgic for Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, who was born in the 7th century. Because of his fame, every emperor of the Tang Dynasty also served as the heaven Khan. During the 300 years of the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese people did not have to worry about the Mongolian steppes or build any wall, which is unique in Chinese history.
@@papercat2599 they certainly exist and serve tang army. Back then they are part of Khitan army which served Tang. There is no mongol people tbh. Mongol is minorities among many nomadic people living in steppe, mongol happens to be the one group who unit them and their leadership is a Mongolian.
@@erlingqiericyice1977 good point the name Mongol come after the genghis. Before that yes they do exist, but exist as other tribes and names not Mongol.
Didn't mention the key point. It's all about archery and horsing skills. Arrows go parabolically, so it takes lots of time to practice your shooting skills, especially when you need to shoot a moving target on a moving horse back, but you even can't maneuver a horse yet.
