[RFC-DoC] No Cities Left Behind (The Super Secret History of the Mongols)
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Tigranes
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Mongols don't use their LH anyway. In Relations screen you see the name Mongol Nation, not the faces. Only during the diplomacy leaders would still call you Genghis. Legacy remains, but the best fighting units is gone!
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Tigranes
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9. If in battle, during an attack or a retreat,
anyone let fall his pack, or bow, or any luggage,
the man behind him must alight and return the thing fallen to its owner;
if he does not so alight and return the thing fallen,
he is to be put to death.
The Great Yasa of Genghis Khan
anyone let fall his pack, or bow, or any luggage,
the man behind him must alight and return the thing fallen to its owner;
if he does not so alight and return the thing fallen,
he is to be put to death.
The Great Yasa of Genghis Khan
Treat your battle comrade's stuff like your own! That's the spirit. There should be unquestionable loyalty not only to the Great Khan and immediate commanders but also to your brothers-in-arms. How else our few Keshiks would be able to challenge these mighty Empires and bring them to dust? The spirit is greater than numbers!
During AD 1282, however, our spirits were very sad... The death of great Genghis left us with many questions. Who will be our new leader? What direction in our wars should we chose? How can we raise our spirits as well as numbers? How can we loot more gold in order to hire some Mercenaries? Mongolian forces at this critical moment were as follows: Our Russian Horde (army corp in Mongolian) was numbering 3 tumens only: Batu Khan, Jebe and Moskva. Our Middle East Horde under Tolui was of the same size (Tolui, Shiraz II, Makkah), but they also had Mercenary Elephants. Finally our Xian Keshiks were guarding Mongolian proper.
Very interestingly the events of the same AD 1282 gave answers to all that questions! Truly, when one door closes another one opens, if you maintain perseverance. Never give up, guys! Check this out:
- Money
Our Middle Eastern Horde, aka Ulus of Tolui, aka Ilkhanate became the chief money maker for our Nation. There was so much left to loot in Independent Arabia. Our first stop was Independent Al Qatif:
Qatif was one of the oldest settlements in the eastern side of the Arabian peninsula, its history going back to 3500 BC. This historic oasis area functioned for centuries as the main town and port in this region of the Persian Gulf. In fact, it was called Cateus by the Greeks, and some early European maps even labeled the entire present-day Persian Gulf as the Sea of El Catif or Katif. In 899 the Qarmatians conquered the region with the oases of Qatif and Al-Hasa. They declared themselves independent and reigned from al-Mu'miniya near modern Hofuf until 1071. The Buyids of western Persia raided Qatif in 988. From 1071 until 1253 the Uyunids ruled the region first from the city of "al-Hasa" (predecessor to modern Hofuf) and later from Qatif. In 1253 the Usfurids rose from Al-Hasa and ruled during the struggle of Qays with the Hormuz for control of the coast. Probably at about this time, Qatif became the main port for the mainland surpassing 'Uqair in importance for the trade and thus became the capital of the Usfurids. Ibn Battuta, visited Qatif and found it a large and prosperous city inhabited by Arab tribes whom he described as "extremist Shi`is". All this glorious history was terminated by our troops, who looted much needed 44 golds and put the city to fire.
- Leader
Our victories in Middle East gave birth to the new leader, the very same turn when Genghis died! Meet my new boss:
Our new Great Khan -- Möngke Khan -- was born on January 10 as the eldest son of Genghis Khan's teen-aged son Tolui and Sorghaghtani. Teb Tengri Khokhcuu, the powerful shaman, saw in the stars a great future for the child and bestowed on him the name Mongke, "eternal" in the Mongolian language. His uncle Ogedei's childless queen Angqui raised him at her ordo (nomadic palace). When he was still alive Ogedei instructed Persian scholar Idi-dan Muhammed to teach writing to Mongke. After his accession to the throne in Mongke announced that he would follow his ancestors but he do not imitate other countries' ways. Möngke's friendliness with Batu, who endorse his election on kurultai, ensured the unity of the empire.
- Numbers
Mongke Khan instituted the policy to regularly check for every available Mercenary and hire any useful unit which would agree to fight for us. One of the most valiant and long survived mercenaries hired by Mongke was Sakae Knight unit (seen bellow as the first in the hired list):
The Saka (Old Iranian Sakā, Latinized Sacae) were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes, who spoke an ancient Iranic language and representing the nomadic wing of pre-historic Iranians. As late as the closing decades of the 4th century B.C., the Iranian peoples were still the largest and the most widespread group within the great Indo-European family, the family that many of my future readers will belong to
At the very begining, it seems that both nomadic and sedentary Iranians referred to themselves as Aryan race; gradually, however, Aryan became a self-imposed designation for the settled Iranians only, who began to refer to their nomadic cousins in the East as the Saka. We know a great deal about their physical appearance; they were long-headed giants with blond hair and blue eyes; this well-known fact is attested by various classical sources, and by their skeletal and other remains in numerous archaeological excavations, which give a fairly detailed description of these ancient Iranians. They are believed to have been the first Indo-Europeans to use domesticated horses for riding (as opposed to eating). More recent excavations east of the Ural Mountains credit them also with the invention of the first two-wheeled chariot! We will see this glorious Knights in action many many times!
Finally,
- Wars
Around AD 1285 we got an unexpected ally in our wars with Orthodox powers of Russia and Byzantium:
Ottomans flipped Russian Kherson and didn't let Slavs to focus on Mongols. They diverted lots of Russian and Byzantine troops from us and allowed to pressure Russian lands, one city at a time. We would attack, kill and loot, gain experience and then retreat back to our mobile center Sarai at the banks of the Volga river. Lugansk, the birthplace of Alexandr Nevsky (see Part 8) was our first victory after the death of Genghis Khan:
The 13 century, OUR century, as many historians will call it, was coming to an end and we finished old war with France (we never finish a war with defeat):
Looks like Crusaders lost Iconium, old capital of Seljuks, which became new capital of Ottomans. But they replaced it with Jerusalem, which still goes under the Muslim name. I wonder if Eternal Blue Sky knows about this bug
As strange as it may sound we also started some new wars as well. China stopped paying as tribute
So this was the natural answer to our question of whom do we fight. We will fight both Russia and China, slowly but steadily, one city at a time, the war will provide as with troops and money to hire more troops. War is the answer!
hoplitejoe
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KILL THE CHINESE
christos200
Never tell me the odds
Great update.
MaxWar
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Tigranes
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China, China, China. When will you learn to give Genghis his tribute?
A minor question though, do you plan to... depopulate China and turn it into grazing land like the real Genghis Khan wanted to do?
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Tigranes
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10. Chingis Khan decided
that no taxes or duties should be imposed upon fakirs,
religious devotees, lawyers, physicians, scholars,
people who devote themselves to prayer and asceticism,
muezzins and those who wash the bodies of the dead.
The Great Yasa of Genghis Khan
that no taxes or duties should be imposed upon fakirs,
religious devotees, lawyers, physicians, scholars,
people who devote themselves to prayer and asceticism,
muezzins and those who wash the bodies of the dead.
The Great Yasa of Genghis Khan
Muezzin, by the way, is the chosen person at a mosque who leads the call to prayer (adhan) at Friday services and the five daily times for prayer. These tax cuts were not suppose to stimulate the economy or create jobs. We, mongols just don't like taxing doctors and lawyers. It's just a Mongol way of getting things done our way. I just surprised that usual "to be put to death" ending is missing from number 10
. So lets welcome the 14th century! Some strangely dressed dude came along at AD 1300:
Srivijaya was a powerful ancient thalassocratic Malay empire based on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, which influenced much of Southeast Asia. Men Shi, one of the ministers of our Great Khan, was sent there to ask for tribute, but was not well received there. Thalassocratic nudist king, was offended by his proposal and branded Men Shi in the face with a hot iron as was done to common thieves, cut his ears, and scornfully sent him on his way. Perhaps, our envoy did not know thalassocratic customs and did not appeared naked in front of the king. This misunderstanding led to yet another war! Too bad we cannot build any ships in Qara Qorum,
otherwise we would dress that king in the suit that never goes out of fashion -- wooden coffin
!The century was starting with some fireworks, that's for sure! The very next turn (3 years in Mongol) two more losers joined Mongol bashing club:
I think they declared on us for the sake of completeness: now every single Religion is at war with us. Muslims joined Christians, Hindus joined Buddhists and Confucians to wipe us out and send us back to Tartar(Hell). Those silly civilized people cannot keep their cool, can they. On the contrary we always have to keep our cool given the number of cities we set ablaze all around the world. Speaking about fires -- the last surviving son of great Genghis -- Tolui -- always played with matches when he was young. He used his skills to burn down Sana'a -- his next stop in the quest to pillage Independent states on Arabian peninsula:
Sana'a was one of the oldest populated places in the world. According to popular legend it was founded by Shem, the son of Noah. Its name likely derived from the South Arabian word for "well-fortified." -- well it wasn't well enough in our case. Rasulids were a Muslim dynasty that ruled Yemen and Hadhramaut from 1229, after the Egyptian Ayyubid left the southern provinces of the Arabian Peninsula. 76 gold is all that was salvaged from this size-4 city -- obviously no Keshiks. We really need those size-5 cities and up!
But no such luck. The next city that had to be burned was size-1 Saihut:
I have no interesting stories about the history of that place. I was looking all over the net, I mean historical archives, but could not find anything informative. I am not even sure who was ruling that place in AD 1315. It is sufficient to say that we are just happy with 42 gold we could fish out from such an unremarkable location!
While Tolui was all sweating in the hot environment of Arabian deserts Batu Khan was shivering in freezing Russian lands, fighting both Russians and General Winter. This UP is probably the coolest (pun intended) masterpiece of the Eternal Blue Skye, also known as Rhye in some circles. I mean to conceive it and implement it -- what a great and beautiful way to give us so much headache! Batu Khan and his Horde were carefully avoiding all the cities with Pikeman, focusing on the cities with Swordsmen, Axemen and Scouts, such as size-5 (finally!) Sarapul:
Sarapul is one of the oldest cities of the Kama region, it was founded by Novgorodians 7 years before they founded Vyatka. It is believed that the name of this city comes from the word "Sarapul" that in Chuvash language means "yellow fish” or sturgeon which was in abundance here. However the majority of the population here were not Slavs or Chuvash, but rather Udmurt. The Udmurts have often been described as an extremely red-haired and light-eyed people, and there have been claims that they are the "most red-headed" people in the world. During the Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria of 1237, the Mongols also conquered the land where most of the Udmurts lived. They had to pay annual taxes to the Khan of Kazan, who did not otherwise intervene in Udmurt tribal society. The Udmurts fought with the Tatars against the Muscovite Princes up to 1552. By this time, some Udmurt tribes mixed with Tatars, and these people, still using the Udmurt language, were called Besermaans, in Udmurt Busurmans:
The Udmurt language belongs to the Uralic (Finno-Ugric) family. Countries that are home to a significant number of speakers of Uralic languages include Estonia, Finland, and Hungary. One day we will visit all those countries on the horseback.
Finally in China, things looked very interesting. Chinese cities were formidable, they got walls, city guard promoted Longbowmen and it was hard for us to fight on 3 fronts and attack those defenses with the horses. We badly needed some siege train -- and that's what we were doing all these years -- scouting Chinese countryside and training some Trebuchets. This was painstakingly slow process. To our astonishment Chinese conducted one and only sortie against our capital! The troops attacking Qara Qorum had a very curious composition: one Elephant and 3 Catapults
. This was the first test for our Great Khan Mongke, who was promoted against Pikes, not against those Helliphants 
:
But everything turned out rather nice
You can see me there on that last drawing of mine! Too secret to show my face
MaxWar
King
MaxWar
King
Optical
The Fall of the Eleventh
Whoa, I missed two updates! Great work on both 
christos200
Never tell me the odds
Great update. Also why dont you keep one or two cities in china?
christos200
Never tell me the odds
You should realy keep 2 cities in china.
Tigranes
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Conventional history has this story: In response to the tough resistance the Mongol army faced while trying to conquer the Jurchen Jin's southern capital of Kaifeng, some Mongol officers in high command recommended the complete razing of Kaifeng and the deaths of all its occupants. But Yelü Chucai convinced Great Khan to rule and tax the people, and make use of their extraordinary talents instead of killing all of them in order to further their own riches.
Alas, Super Secret History does not support this heart warming tale of compassion and prudence.
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