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Mongol Conquest of China

A number of factors made it possible for the Mongols to conquer China when such conquest had eluded earlier nomadic groups. Some of the same qualities which led to the Mongol conquest also led to the Mongol reign over China for nearly a century. Unlike earlier nomads, the Mongols were not only brutal, they were tenacious. Beginning with Genghis Khan and moving down through two generations of offspring and successors, the Mongols were incredibly patient and persistent. The image of "Mongol hordes" sweeping through towns and plundering and pillaging and moving onto the next town, drunken on horseback, could not be further from the truth, at least on the strategic level. While the Mongols did engage in brutality, as mentioned, the Mongol leaders, from Genghis Khan on, showed a proclivity for meticulous and long-range planning for the conquest. Once they had achieved that victory, they did all the right things in prolonging their rule, especially in terms of preserving as much as possible of the structure of Chinese society as it existed before the conquest. In other words, they ruled, as much as they could, as Chinese rulers rather than as Mongol rulers.

Fitzgerald writes of the nomadic Nuchens and their leader Akuta, their victories in northern China, and their failure to conquer the entire country: "Had [Akuta's] generals shown more persistence, and had he himself lived, the whole of China would have been conquered with as little resistance as was shown in the north" (Fitzgerald, 1966, p. 429).

Comparing that failure with the Mongols' success, we find the difference is the Mongols' persistence, as well as the meticulous planning and study invested in the campaign by Genghis Khan and his military heirs. Still, Genghis died himself in 1227, many years before the final conquest in either 1263 or 1279, depending on what historical interpretation one selects (Fitzgerald, 1966, p. 435). The difference between Genghis's campaign and t...

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Mongol Conquest of China. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 05:13, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702072.html