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Mongolian Empire destroyed more than 40 countries, ruled more than 270 ethnic groups, and reached more than 30 million square kilometers. It is known as the second largest empire in human history, second only to the British Empire. Its cavalry in the west fought to the Danube basin in Europe, and was at the city of Vienna.
Among them, the most talked about is naturally the Battle of Saiyo River in 1241. The 60,000 Mongolian army faced 100,000 Western European coalition forces, defeating the more with few, which is one of the famous battles in world history where the more with fewer wins.
. If you look closely, there are several interesting tricks for the countries that Mongolia conquered before and after.
routine one: condescending
This part of the country can only sigh one sentence: God wants to destroy me, it is not a crime of war. Their position happens to be in the position where Mongolian can be condescending and making a concerted effort.
The birthplace of the Mongolian people - Mongolian Plateau , its average altitude is 1,580 meters. Although this height cannot be compared with the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is already very high compared to the surrounding Northeast Plain, , North China Plain, Siberian , Eastern European Plain, Eastern European Plain, , etc.
Unfortunate Jinchao just happened to be in the position of the Mongols.
▲Submerged from the high Mongolian Plateau to the plain
The territory of the Jin Dynasty included the three major plains of Mongolia, Northeast China, and North China. In other words, Mongolia fought from high to low. As long as it rushed down the Mongolian Plateau, the opponent had no danger to defend and could not be stopped at all.
It seems that the Mongolians themselves know this advantage, so you might as well take a look at the road map of the three Western Expeditions in Mongolia's history.
▲The route map of the Mongols’ three expeditions
The route of the western expedition, especially the first Genghis Khan’s western expeditions . does not directly pass through the Siberian plain , but after detouring through Central Asia, then from Central Asia, Asia Minor (Türkiye) all the way to the Eastern European plain, went around a long circle.
If compared with the world topographic map, Genghis Khan's first Western Expedition road map is fully in line with the so-called "circumcised and straight" concept of military strategists.
▲Central Asia Europe topographic map
The first western expedition was along the Mongolian Plateau, Iranian Plateau , Hindu Kush Mountains , Gros Mountains, Asia Minor's high-altitude areas, and then crossing the Greater Caucasus Mountains, submerged in a high position on the Eastern European plains Kiev Rus (the ancestor of the Eastern Slavs).
▲The territory of Kiev Rus
1 On May 31, 223, the Mongolian army defeated the 100,000 coalition forces of Kiev Rus with less than 30,000 troops on the banks of the Calega River (now in Ukraine), and directly destroyed the Eastern Slav countries.
Routine 2: Taishan egg-pressing type
During the conquest of the Mongolian Empire, a list of small countries appeared. The problem these small countries faced was that the land area of was too small and there was no strategic depth to resist. Facing the Mongolian army, it was completely one-sided and powerless. The characteristic of
is extremely obvious in the process of destroying Xixia .
▲The location of Xixia
The entire Xixia was at its peak. The total territory of reached about 770,000 square kilometers, which seemed to be very large. However,
is from a terrain perspective. Most of the territory is desert, and the population is mainly concentrated in the Hetao area, and the area is too narrow.
▲The Xixia is mostly desert areas
From 1226 Genghis Khan led his army into the Xixia. By July 1227, the late emperor of the Xixia, Li Xun was killed after surrendering, and it took only one year for Mongolia to destroy Xixia.
This is pretty good, after all, Xixia has resisted for a year.When we arrived at Bulgaria, Bulgaria destroyed the country in 1241. In the same year, the Mongols destroyed the Principality of Poland, the Grand Principality of Hungary, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Armenia, the Kingdom of Georgia, and other countries.
The Mongols basically did not encounter any resistance and destroyed Bulgaria. The total area of Bulgaria during this period was only 110,000 square kilometers (sized and small and small) of Jiangsu Province.
▲The Mongolians' attack diagram on Europe, the arrow points to Bulgaria
Routine three: gradually getting better
This part of the country is a complete paper tiger, strong on the outside and hard on the middle. It looks vast and has a large area, with abundant area to deal with the Mongolians, and its national strength is strong. No matter how you look at it, it is not a country where Mongolia can easily perish.
But in fact, the real core area of these countries is suitable for farming, and the areas that can provide necessary military supplies for war are extremely limited, and the war mobilization ability is extremely poor. As long as a few battles are defeated, the whole game will be lost.
is like Xiliao . Western Liao is mainly located in Xinjiang, with a terrain of "three mountains and two basins" and a large area. When the Xinjiang domain was the largest, it was as high as 3.51 million square kilometers.
▲The location of Western Liao is roughly equivalent to today's Xinjiang
Such a large area can fully utilize its amazing strategic depth to deal with the Mongolian cavalry.
However, The Mongolian army entered the Western Liao in 1217, and destroyed the Western Liao in 1218, which was only one year. In other words, the time it took the Mongols to conquer the 770,000 square kilometers of land in Western Xia was the same as the time it took to conquer the 3.51 million square kilometers of Western Liao.
▲ Xinjiang topographic map
The area of Western Liao is large, but if you look closely, the plain areas where can truly develop are only in a small number of areas in the Turpan Basin and Urumqi.
This means that has the ability to mobilize war logistical support and has very scarce land resources. For the Mongolian army, it was possible to capture the Western Liao by just destroying a few key cities.
If the Western Liao Dynasty is mostly desert on the terrain, it is the dominant site of Mongolian cavalry. Then Khwarezm , no matter what, it should not have destroyed the country in the second year of Genghis Khan's Western Expedition in 1219 to 1220.
▲The main territory of Khwarezm is today's Iranian Plateau, Türkiye's area
Just from the map, this area is mountainous and plateau, which has a strong restrictive effect on the Mongolian cavalry.
However, the altitude of the Iranian Plateau is only 1000 to 1500 meters, which is not much different from the Mongolian Plateau, and it has little ups and downs. What’s more important is that the most important farming area here, that is, the area that ensures logistics support, is only the narrow plains along the Persian Gulf .
▲Iran Plateau topography map
Routine 4: Fight to the death type
Southern Song perfectly avoided all the routines mentioned before: the terrain is complex, there are all kinds of mountains and rivers in the territory, there are huge strategic buffer zones, and large agricultural areas to ensure logistics...
Even in the countries conquered by the entire Mongol Empire, the special nature of the Southern Song Dynasty is unique.
The Southern Song Dynasty can definitely be said to be the most difficult country conquered by Mongolia. Xiangyang alone took six years to fight, and Mengge Khan died in battle against Diaoyucheng.
The southern Song Dynasty has dense water networks, and the rivers are crisscrossing, dividing the territory into pieces like spider webs.
▲In addition to river network division, the terrain is also very divided. For the Mongolian cavalry, it is simply hell
Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Guangdong-Guangxi Hills, Zhejiang-Guangxi Hills, Jiangnan Hills, Qinling ... Many times the Jin people suffered. In those days, even the Qing Dynasty later fell in these places.
The difficulty of conquering the Southern Song Dynasty can also be seen from the time it took. It took Mongolia 45 years to conquer the Southern Song Dynasty.
Where the Whip of God cannot be wielded
Europeans called the Mongolian Empire "the Whip of God", as if the Mongolian Empire had completely conquered Europe.
is not exactly like this. Although the Mongolian Empire did conquer a large area of land in Europe, what they really conquered were the vast Eastern and Central Europe, which were the prairie areas that have always been called the hinterland of Eurasian continent.
As the most core Western European part of Europe, the Mongolian army has basically not entered.
People often say that Western Europe is the part that is blessed by God, and it can be said that it has been blessed since the beginning of Genesis.
Blessing 1: From
Judging from the three western expeditions of Mongolia, when the army crossed the entire Eurasian continent and arrived in Western Europe, it was too far away from the rear of the local area to support it to continue its battle.
As the saying goes, the wind is weak, the feathers cannot be raised; the strength cannot be penetrated into the silken silk of Lu, which is what this is said.
Blessing 2: The geographical environment similar to the Southern Song Dynasty
Mongolian cavalry did not actually enter Western European plains . At most, they went to the middle Danube plain, the front line of the Pod Plain, and were directly blocked by the Alps, Bavarian Plateau , and the Sudet Mountains.
At the same time, the river network of the Rhine River basin and the Danube basin have also successfully blocked the Mongolian cavalry.
plus the continuous logistics supply on the Western European plains. Of course, Europe is not a unified country and can uniformly allocate war resources. However, it is still possible to organize a coalition force from the Western European plain to go to the front line to resist Mongolia. The Mongolian Western Expedition Army was defeated in Bohemia because it was defeated by the Western European Union.
▲Western Europe topographic map
Blessing three: Belief
Although Western Europe does not have a unified centralized country, all countries have unified beliefs. Under the banner of God, can definitely respond to one call. Just calling for the reclaim of the holy lands that were thousands of years ago can carry out four Crusades .
▲Knights during the Crusades
Facing the pagans-Mongols, Western European countries no longer consider the survival of individual countries, but consider fighting for the sake of faith and God.
At this time, even if it is not a centralized country, it guarantees the unified dispatch of war mobilization to the greatest extent. It is no wonder that the Mongolian cavalry could only return in a defeat.
However, the Mongolian Iron Cavalry returned in a defeat, not only in Western Europe, but also in Vietnam. At that time, Vietnam was called Annan . relied on the steep terrain and the advantage of climate. Mongolia failed to conquer after three expeditions.
Comparing the topographic map of Central Asia with the territory of the four major Khanates of Mongolia in . The border of the Ir Khanate happens to be in the Mesopotamian plain, that is, the Mongolian cavalry has just rushed down from the Iranian plateau.
▲Central Asia topographic map
After passing the Mesopotamian plain, facing the Arab Plateau, the Mongols could only look up to the mountains and stopped their pace of conquering the world.
▲In the four major Khanates of Asia and Mongolia in 1335, the border of the Ili Khanate happened to be on the Mesopotamian plains, and it can no longer move forward
Author: Paganini 1984 Editor: Thomas (Tang)
Welcome to follow the "Global Intelligence Agency". More interesting global geography, history and humanities knowledge will be discovered by you
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