China stops the Mongals.

How would the world look if China was able to stop the Mongols and later the Manchu from conquering China (I know this unlikely consider how powerful the Mongols where)? I believe it was the Manchu who banned firearms from china.

Would they have discovered the new world and become a trading dynamo or would Confucianism inherent distaste for traders leave them as backwards as they where in the 1850s?

Would the industrial revolution have happened in China as well as England and Germany?
 
Well even if China won, they would still be pretty messed up. What this does do though is it probably keeps the Golden Age of Islam going longer rather than just abuptly ending. Heck we might still have an Islam based on unity and learning rather than shiite/sunni splits and fundamentalism, that sure isn't bad.

Eastern Europe and Russia might not be as messed up in the long run and Russia's historic xenophobia might be lessened greatly. What we know as "Western Europe" might actually extend to the Volga!

Thats just a broad guess though, details i'm sure will unravel what I say:p
 
Mongols learned how to take cities and gained their siege weapons from the Chinese. Most of their later conquests would not happen without taking china.


For this thread, let’s say China permanently defeated the Mongols at start of their expansion (killed Genghis, other major leaders, ect).
 
Well even if China won, they would still be pretty messed up. What this does do though is it probably keeps the Golden Age of Islam going longer rather than just abuptly ending. Heck we might still have an Islam based on unity and learning rather than shiite/sunni splits and fundamentalism, that sure isn't bad.

Eastern Europe and Russia might not be as messed up in the long run and Russia's historic xenophobia might be lessened greatly. What we know as "Western Europe" might actually extend to the Volga!

Thats just a broad guess though, details i'm sure will unravel what I say:p

I doubt Islam would have continued with its golden age for much longer either way. Most of the fire/high tech seemed to lessen as everyone within the caliphate converted to Islam.


Russia is an interesting question. The 20th century would be a very different place with a westernized Russia. But I am more interested in is how China develops.
 
Major contact with the West began again under the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty, didn't it? Without the Yuan, such contact could be far more limited, leaving a far more isolated China vulnerable to Western influence and control centuries later.
 
Major contact with the West began again under the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty, didn't it? Without the Yuan, such contact could be far more limited, leaving a far more isolated China vulnerable to Western influence and control centuries later.

It´s not as if the contact with the West influenced China a lot in those days.

Did Marco Polo bring any tech with him?:cool:

China could hardly be more stagnant than OTL at 18th century.
 
Major contact with the West began again under the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty, didn't it? Without the Yuan, such contact could be far more limited, leaving a far more isolated China vulnerable to Western influence and control centuries later.

That depends on your definition of 'West'. China had plenty of contact with Central Asia, India and the Islamic world during the Tang and Song dynasties. It was only with the increased opportunity for diplomatic exchanges and travel that Western Europeans also came to China in larger numbers during the Yuan dynasty. At this point (and several centuries on) there was nothing in Western Europe the Chinese could not get from the Islamic world. Contact or no contact at this point is purely a matter of European desire.
 
Well even if China won, they would still be pretty messed up. What this does do though is it probably keeps the Golden Age of Islam going longer rather than just abuptly ending. Heck we might still have an Islam based on unity and learning rather than shiite/sunni splits and fundamentalism, that sure isn't bad.

Two points: alltough classic Islamic civilisation was brought to a definite end by the Mongol invasion, one should keep in mind that Islamic civilisation had already been in a slow but steady decline since the 11th century.

That decline was the result of the decline and/or collapse of the three great Caliphates, and the fact that they were replaced by smaller, less stable, and relatively short-lived Muslim states.

Political instability weakened the Muslim world, and even without the Mongol invasion, the Muslim world would definitely be past its prime.

And the second point; even if the Chinese (and with this, I assume wolfstar means the Song) manage to repel the Mongol invasions, then that won't change much for the Middle East.

The first actual Mongol conquest of territories in the Middle East took place under Chormagan during the mid-1230's, and Chormagan's campaign was started in 1230. Ögedei's invasion of Song China, the first Mongol campaign againest the Song, was started when Chormagan already had much of Persia and the Caucasus under his control.

And Hulegu's invasion of the Middle East, which was aimed at conquering the Caliphate of Baghdad (Chormagan had avoided any confrontations with the Caliphate because he didn't have the manpower for that), was started long before the Mongols gained the upper hand in their war with the Song.

So in other words; the Mongol conquest of the Middle East would still happen, even if the Song manage to defeat the Mongols.

Eastern Europe and Russia might not be as messed up in the long run and Russia's historic xenophobia might be lessened greatly. What we know as "Western Europe" might actually extend to the Volga!

I agree with this; Russia suffered tremendously from the Mongol invasions, and even though I'm not an expert on (pre-Mongol) Russian history, I do know that Russia was as least as (if not more) developed as Western Europe prior to the coming of the Mongols.
 
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