Why Were the Chinese Unable to Stop the Mongols?

[Romano-Dacis]

I'm honestly curious. To me the situation of the "barbarians at the gates" in China is different than with Rome. The Chinese (in my opinion) have always had a policy towards isolationism from the outside world. Rome's policy towards barbarians was to keep some out but to use others as federates. Those federated barbarians eventually adopted Roman technology and soon their armies were technologically on par with Rome. This is best shown by Alaric's Goths. However, when we look at China, it seems like there was such a huge technological and cultural gap between the Mongols and the Chinese that their victory seems almost unthinkable. After their conquest the Mongols rapidly adopted Chinese culture and technology, and that greatly assisted their conquest of the rest of Asia. But until the conquest of China, I do not see what advantages the Mongols had.

The question is simple: why did the Chinese not stop them?

[bushbush]

internal turmoil and external pressure. South Song was already ravaged for years by Liao and Jin (ethnic minority states who took over North) not long ago. The imperial court was corrupt; the army was weak; taxation was low. The same old story of the end of a chinese dynasty usually.

btw, they only conquered song after taking over much of central asia and came back from their invasions in Europe.

What they learned about firearms and etc was from their wars with Jin and Liao, who learned from the Chinese earlier on when fighting with Song.

ps: just one more thing romano, the mongols adopt some chinese cultures and institutions but not enough for them to earn the support of chinese land-owning exam-taking confucian ruling class. Thus Yuan lasted not even 100 years. The manchurians learned the lesson, conducted full scale assimilation and adoption, but lost their own identity after a few centuries. Thats the dilemma of trying to rule china i guess.

[Shadowcry]

internal turmoil and external pressure. South Song was already ravaged for years by Liao and Jin (ethnic minority states who took over North) not long ago. The imperial court was corrupt; the army was weak; taxation was low. The same old story of the end of a chinese dynasty usually.

btw, they only conquered song after taking over much of central asia and came back from their invasions in Europe.

What they learned about firearms and etc was from their wars with Jin and Liao, who learned from the Chinese earlier on when fighting with Song.

ps: just one more thing romano, the mongols adopt some chinese cultures and institutions but not enough for them to earn the support of chinese land-owning exam-taking confucian ruling class. Thus Yuan lasted not even 100 years. The manchurians learned the lesson, conducted full scale assimilation and adoption, but lost their own identity after a few centuries. Thats the dilemma of trying to rule china i guess.

Some errors, the Song were more than capable of a military defence and actually put up quite a few but had neither the military talent nor resources to go on the offensive. The Song were quite adept at defending as we have seen at Xiangyang but trying to attribute the damage to Jin and Liao depredation is false. The Song dynasty was more than capable economically to simply pay off its invaders and it worked well most of the time. What they lacked was horses which prevented a major victory against the Jin from becoming something more.

You do realize bushbush that the Mongols expanded with different groups. The same task force against Europe would most likely not be used against China as their was plenty of Chinese, Turk, Jin, Tangut etc willing to fight against the Song.

The reasons for why the Mongols failed are quite long, but in reality much of the Confucian class did go over to the Mongols and assisted in administration. But to briefly sum it up.
Yellow river burst
Black plague
Frequent assasinations/ Limited amount of time of leaders to consolidate rule.
The Mongol conquest system of entitling princes to land
Khubilai's invasion of Japan.

Additionally the Manchus did try to prevent assimilation but realized it was futile after a while. Essentially the problem of being immensely outnumbered, but the Mongols unfortunately had the "purely" nomadic state of Chaghatai to go up against culturally. Essentially they could never become as nomadic or traditional as them nor assimilate into Chinese culture is what really got them.

[bushbush]

Some errors, the Song were more than capable of a military defence and actually put up quite a few but had neither the military talent nor resources to go on the offensive. The Song were quite adept at defending as we have seen at Xiangyang but trying to attribute the damage to Jin and Liao depredation is false. The Song dynasty was more than capable economically to simply pay off its invaders and it worked well most of the time. What they lacked was horses which prevented a major victory against the Jin from becoming something more..

i would still argue that its inherent weakness in military organization crippled its efficiency. but you have a point of lack of horses, that's the price you pay for losing Northern china to the Jin and Liao states.

[AqD]

Chinese did assimilate surrounding peoples.... One example is the entire southern china, which didn't belong to "Han" 2,000 years ago. Such culture fusion is so complete that most people can no longer recognize the differences that existed before (or take a look at Koreans).

The Chinese cavalry, for instance, were modelled after the Xiongnu horse-archers, while the nomadic mercenaries were frequently employeed to deal with "outsiders". But things were very different in Song dynasty: the enemies were no longer small tribes as Goths to Romans, but strong and centralized kingdoms comparable to Song itself, more like Sassanid empire to Byzantines, though their culture and techniques are largely borrowed from chinese. And they are by no means inferior barbarians in terms of military strength.

Yet those "enemies" of Song dynasty were conquered by Mongols with ease - here you can see how terrible Mongolian army is. All Mongolians are born warriors, while most of Song citizens are cowards afraid of battle (as cowardy as modern people you can see everywhere), and soldiers in Song dynasty are treated no better than slaves, even though they're very well-equipped (in official records), and being full-time professionals (=> like prisoners). Desertion and low-morale are serious problems ever since the North Song dynasty, and South Song cout did little to improve those despite of facing an even more dangerous foe. Advanced techniques are just not enough to compensate the lack of real soldiers.

Also the Song ruling class seems to have demilitarized, as opposed to Tang or Han dynasty. I can't even think one emperor in Song capable of horse archery....

[bushbush]

Yet those "enemies" of Song dynasty were conquered by Mongols with ease - here you can see how terrible Mongolian army is. All Mongolians are born warriors, while most of Song citizens are cowards afraid of battle (as cowardy as modern people you can see everywhere), and soldiers in Song dynasty are treated no better than slaves, even though they're very well-equipped (in official records), and being full-time professionals (=> like prisoners). Desertion and low-morale are serious problems ever since the North Song dynasty, and South Song cout did little to improve those despite of facing an even more dangerous foe. Advanced techniques are just not enough to compensate the lack of real soldiers.

it has more to do with the organization of song army from the start. Song emperors were extremely worried about what happened to Tang --- local military leaders became war lords when the centre governemnt became weak. So military leaders were frequent rotated, were given little authority, and a number of paramilitary groups were created to counter balance military forces. The result was lack of resources in training and extreme waste of valuable budget. The low level of professioinalism and efficiency of Song army were well recorded in primary sources.

not to mention Song ruling class itself was never known for its military etho, but more for brilliant poets and drawings. Song was one of the greatest dynasties in terms of cultural and scientific achivements in chinese history, but their military record was pretty pathetic. I am guessing that life of comfort, pleasure and arts really corrupt peoples will to prepare for war.

[AqD]

it has more to do with the organization of song army from the start. Song emperors were extremely worried about what happened to Tang --- local military leaders became war lords when the centre governemnt became weak. So military leaders were frequent rotated, were given little authority, and a number of paramilitary groups were created to counter balance military forces. The result was lack of resources in training and extreme waste of valuable budget. The low level of professioinalism and efficiency of Song army were well recorded in primary sources.

It'd not be bad at all if they enforce an unified training method, instead of relying on individual generals to do everything in their own way.

Also, what happened to Tang is NOT by the original design. Initially the local governors had absolutely no military authority at all, and generals were only called when there is a battle and immediately dismissed after it (no fixed position). All soldiers are common citizens, and trained, controlled, and rotated under the central government - not generals or local governors.

The rise of military leaders only happened when the original system was broken - perhaps after the war against Koreans. The new troops were no longer citizen soldiers in rotation, but the local governors' own clients - effectively a semi-fedual system! Yet the later Tang emperors were somehow too blind or stupid to see the obvious danger...

[Shadowcry]

Well the reason China fell was simply because of the genius of Chinggis Khan and the defeat of Jin dynasty. The first expedition against Xi Xia was meant to drive apart the Jin and Tanguts traditional allies for a while. Then once the alliance was broken the Jin were essentially left to fend for themselves, and due to the genius fo Chinggis Khan lost their elite soldiers at the battlle of Huan erh tsui at around 1211. After that the Jin dynasty was less able to fightback and was essentially neutered from going on an offensive. The Mongols continued to conquer land from the Jin taking Manchuria and taking advantage of a more paranoid government which incited rebellions. Eventually Xixia fell, and so did Kaifeng. With the Mongols now in charge of North China the Song would inevitably fall.

[Babur]

Well the reason China fell was simply because of the genius of Chinggis Khan and the defeat of Jin dynasty. The first expedition against Xi Xia was meant to drive apart the Jin and Tanguts traditional allies for a while. Then once the alliance was broken the Jin were essentially left to fend for themselves, and due to the genius fo Chinggis Khan lost their elite soldiers at the battlle of Huan erh tsui at around 1211. After that the Jin dynasty was less able to fightback and was essentially neutered from going on an offensive. The Mongols continued to conquer land from the Jin taking Manchuria and taking advantage of a more paranoid government which incited rebellions. Eventually Xixia fell, and so did Kaifeng. With the Mongols now in charge of North China the Song would inevitably fall.

I am flattered

well the disunity of China helped the Mongols focus on one empire at a time.The Tanguts,Jin and Song respectively.

[frontier-auxilia]

Well the reason China fell was simply because of the genius of Chinggis Khan and the defeat of Jin dynasty. The first expedition against Xi Xia was meant to drive apart the Jin and Tanguts traditional allies for a while. Then once the alliance was broken the Jin were essentially left to fend for themselves, and due to the genius fo Chinggis Khan lost their elite soldiers at the battlle of Huan erh tsui at around 1211. After that the Jin dynasty was less able to fightback and was essentially neutered from going on an offensive. The Mongols continued to conquer land from the Jin taking Manchuria and taking advantage of a more paranoid government which incited rebellions. Eventually Xixia fell, and so did Kaifeng. With the Mongols now in charge of North China the Song would inevitably fall.

I haz to agree with that, on an average field day a jin army would have no problem with beating the hell out of a bunch of mongols. If the secret history of the mongols was to be believed, Genghis Khan's grandfather lose his life attacking Jin territory and have his corpse pinned to a wooden pony.

Other then the genius of Genghis and friend, i think the state themselves were caught off guard. The jin and xi xia were probably expecting them to be just another lousy gathering of filthy horse sons. The Xi xia would just sit there and lolz as they had a wall to keep them at bay while the Jin were more contend on pulling their resources in beefing with southern song. Also with Xi xia to serve as a buffer and a well known practise of bribing powerful steppe ruler and playing them against each other, they probably weren't expecting him to be that much of a threat till he steam roll them.

[Angrychris]

Chinese had a tough time maintaining any type of controlled dominance over its territory for most of its recorded history.

[bushbush]

Chinese had a tough time maintaining any type of controlled dominance over its territory for most of its recorded history.

are you sure?

[Angrychris]

key word is controlled

[bushbush]

key word is controlled

yes, the Chinese dynasties controlled their land very well, with actually one of pre-modern world's largest and most complex bureacracy...

[Londinium]

With the exception of Xinjiang/Tibet which was always slipping in and out of the Imperial orbit and never had heavy Imperial presence except during the Dzunghar wars.

[bushbush]

With the exception of Xinjiang/Tibet which was always slipping in and out of the Imperial orbit and never had heavy Imperial presence except during the Dzunghar wars.

well, those areas weren't really considered the core area of chinese civilization anyways... I would say the imperial Chinese dynaties had fairly long dominance of what they perceive as the homeland of their civilization --- south of the Great Wall to north of Vietnam.

[A pimp named Slickback]

The Mongols had lots of Horse Archers, the Chinese had lots of infantry. Basically they would keep circling the infantry units and shooting them up but the infantry would not be able to catch them (they made sure to have skirmish mode ON). Basically they'd try to thin their number till most units had like about 80 soldiers left per unit and then the Mongol heavy cavalry units (probably 2-5 units in the stack) would charge them afterwards and get them to rout. You just have to have proper control over the Horse Archers and use pause alot since its lots of micromanagement.

[D.B. Cooper]

The Mongols had lots of Horse Archers, the Chinese had lots of infantry. Basically they would keep circling the infantry units and shooting them up but the infantry would not be able to catch them (they made sure to have skirmish mode ON). Basically they'd try to thin their number till most units had like about 80 soldiers left per unit and then the Mongol heavy cavalry units (probably 2-5 units in the stack) would charge them afterwards and get them to rout. You just have to have proper control over the Horse Archers and use pause alot since its lots of micromanagement.

Is this a serious answer?

[A pimp named Slickback]

Is this a serious answer?

What's it to you? You wanna beef?

[Angrychris]

with more dynastys then i can count and a steady line of fighting.