PC: Reverse Mongol conquest

What is the plausibility of one of the various nomadic people kicking around the Pontic Steppe at some point in the Middle Ages subjugating the other nomadic peoples going on a conquering spree across the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe and expanding Eastward and taking part or all of China at their height i.e. pulling off the sort of conquests the Mongol did but going from the West to the East.

Would the Cuman-Kipchaks be a likely candidate for this given their size and geopolitical position?
 
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What is the plausibility of one of the various nomadic people kicking around the Pontic Steppe at some point in the Middle Ages subjugating the other nomadic peoples going on a conquering spree across the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe and expanding Eastward and taking part or all of China at their height i.e. pulling off the sort of conquests the Mongol did but going from the West to the East.

Would the Cuman-Kipchaks be a likely candidate for this given their size and geopolitical position?
Probably. All they need is a unifying ruler like Genghis Khan and you have your steppe Empire.

Are you planning to make a TL on this? That would be awesome. :)
 
Just curious.
A few more thoughts on the subject:

Polovtsia actually converted to Catholicism in 1227. Presumably you could have an important chief assume control of the tribes with Catholicism as his unifying glue. Then what he has to do is obliterate the Rus knyaznates and there's not much to stop his Khaganate from taking over all of the Eurasian steppe in Mongol-fashion and proceeding from there.
 
A few more thoughts on the subject:

Polovtsia actually converted to Catholicism in 1227. Presumably you could have an important chief assume control of the tribes with Catholicism as his unifying glue. Then what he has to do is obliterate the Rus knyaznates and there's not much to stop his Khaganate from taking over all of the Eurasian steppe in Mongol-fashion and proceeding from there.

In this scenario “Prester John” would actually be Christian (as opposed to OTL where the Europeans didn’t really understand the Mongols). A Cuman Christian Genghis could have a massive religious effect on Eurasia. I’d expect heavy syncretism, especially if the Cuman Empire collapses as quickly as the Mongols’ did and you end up with semi-Catholics in Khwarezm or Siberia.

The other religious issue, of course, is if the horde descends on the Middle East. The big question is how such an empire would fare in a Caliphate invasion without the resources and technologies of China behind them as the Mongols had OTL. If the Cumans did seize Baghdad or otherwise defeat the Caliphate the Crusader states would be happy to bend the knee. It’s a good shot at a surviving Kingdom of Jerusalem from then on.
 
I don't see why this couldn't happen with the right PoD. After all, the Huns are believed to have come from that area and they did a pretty good job conquering large portions of Europe. No reason the Cumans couldn't have a population boom or a great man figure and do the same thing. The only issue is the middle east. Getting there from the pontic steppe requires going through the Caucasus, which isn't exactly an easy area from which to mount a cavalry based invasion. If they get big enough they could probably just loop around and go through Persia though.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
Huns is probably xiong-nu, so they come from Eastern Steppe.

Eastern Steppe (East of Caspian Sea) has several advantage over Western Steppe (west of Caspian Sea) 1) There are larger, stretching from Northern Kazakhstan to Manchuria 2) Gobi Desert and Chinese Empire force Eastern Steppe to be more "united", only very competent leader supported by excellent organization could organize crossing Gobi Desert (which have no forage) and attack China (which experienced in divide et impera on steppe politics, have excellent cavalry in Yellow River, and have walls guarded by massive army. 3) Eastern Steppe has more interactions with 'civilized people' : trade town with China, city-states in Silk Road and Fergana Valley, and interactions with Persia. technology flows more advanced and philosophy and religions travel around. While Western Steppe interactions is mostly with forest Slavic people in Russia-Lithuania-Poland and Balkans.
 
Yeah, a Western steppe empire is not going to have the same kind of success that the Mongols did historically. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that China was a key factor in the Mongols’ success historically; a Cuman Empire wouldn’t have Chinese tech or manpower.

That being said, if Cumania got a great leader figure they could still pull off some cool tricks. If the Eastern steppe were disunited they could definitely conquer it, for instance, and they’d probably be able to assert dominance over the Rus like the Mongols did. It’s more of a coin toss whether they make any headway in the Mideast; they could probably take Khwarezm and maybe threaten Iran proper, but without fancy siege equipment they can’t really conquer it let alone Baghdad.
 
A few more thoughts on the subject:

Polovtsia actually converted to Catholicism in 1227. Presumably you could have an important chief assume control of the tribes with Catholicism as his unifying glue. Then what he has to do is obliterate the Rus knyaznates and there's not much to stop his Khaganate from taking over all of the Eurasian steppe in Mongol-fashion and proceeding from there.

Okay so this is me jumping in with you usual AH.com "this is highly unlikely!" yell, but I feel like this needs some clarification.

"Polovtsy" weren't a single state as much as an alliance of groupings under a nominal Khan of Khans. Some of them converted in 1227 as the price for being refugees into Hungary, so "Catholicism" is highly contingent on the 1220s playing out the same way they did OTL, but overall the assessment is correct. The western Cumans were very intimately involved in diplomacy and marriages with Europeans, primarily the Rus, but also Georgians, Hungarians and Bulgars. Many of their 12th/13th c. leaders have Christian names, though presumably, as these were Russian allies, they were Orthodox.

As for obliterating Rus principalities, that's somewhat hard to very hard :p

Russians were more numerous, pretty used to dealing with the Cumans successfully, and the diplomatic links went both ways. I think the best opportunity to get Rus off the steppes in a major way is right in the beginning of the Cuman push west, so the 11th, not the 13th c.
 
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Huns is probably xiong-nu, so they come from Eastern Steppe.

Eastern Steppe (East of Caspian Sea) has several advantage over Western Steppe (west of Caspian Sea) 1) There are larger, stretching from Northern Kazakhstan to Manchuria 2) Gobi Desert and Chinese Empire force Eastern Steppe to be more "united", only very competent leader supported by excellent organization could organize crossing Gobi Desert (which have no forage) and attack China (which experienced in divide et impera on steppe politics, have excellent cavalry in Yellow River, and have walls guarded by massive army. 3) Eastern Steppe has more interactions with 'civilized people' : trade town with China, city-states in Silk Road and Fergana Valley, and interactions with Persia. technology flows more advanced and philosophy and religions travel around. While Western Steppe interactions is mostly with forest Slavic people in Russia-Lithuania-Poland and Balkans.
Let's not get into the origins of the huns, or anything related to that, since really nobody knows. In all fairness, the Russian Empire that emerged from this area could be called the final steppe empire. After all, it started out as a bunch forest tribes, the difference being that it absorbed Byzantine and German influences allowed it to become a permanent state.
Yeah, a Western steppe empire is not going to have the same kind of success that the Mongols did historically. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that China was a key factor in the Mongols’ success historically; a Cuman Empire wouldn’t have Chinese tech or manpower.

That being said, if Cumania got a great leader figure they could still pull off some cool tricks. If the Eastern steppe were disunited they could definitely conquer it, for instance, and they’d probably be able to assert dominance over the Rus like the Mongols did. It’s more of a coin toss whether they make any headway in the Mideast; they could probably take Khwarezm and maybe threaten Iran proper, but without fancy siege equipment they can’t really conquer it let alone Baghdad.
On the other, nothing is actually preventing them from making it to China themselves, so they might very well adopt siege weapons before their empire collapses.
Okay so this is me jumping in with you usual AH.com "this is highly unlikely!" yell, but I feel like this needs some clarification.

"Polovtsy" weren't a single state as much as an alliance of groupings under a nominal Khan of Khans. Some of them converted in 1227 as the price for being refugees into Hungary, so "Catholicism" is highly contingent on the 1220s playing out the same way they did OTL, but overall the assessment is correct. The western Cumans were very intimately involved in diplomacy and marriages with Europeans, primarily the Rus, but also Georgians, Hungarians and Bulgars. Many of their 12th/13th c. leaders have Christian names, though presumably, as these were Russian allies, they were Orthodox.

As for obliterating Rus principalities, that's somewhat hard to very hard :p

Russians were more numerous, pretty used to dealing with the Cumans successfully, and the diplomatic links went both ways. I think the best opportunity to get Rus off the steppes in a major way is right in the beginning of the Cuman push west, so the 11th, not the 13th c.
That seems much more realistic. Perhaps a strong Polovtsian leader emerges to gather the tribes and subjugate the Rus, then converts to Orthodoxy, or possibly Islam (although that would make them the target of a hell of a lot of crusading, which might be detrimental).
 
That seems much more realistic. Perhaps a strong Polovtsian leader emerges to gather the tribes and subjugate the Rus, then converts to Orthodoxy, or possibly Islam (although that would make them the target of a hell of a lot of crusading, which might be detrimental).

There were a few prominent Khans among the Western Cumans during the initial invasion of the 1070-90s: Tugorkhan, Boniak khan (Maniakes in Byzantine sources), Sharukhan. None of them were explicitly superior over all the others. But they managed to pick fights not only with the Russians but also the Pechenegs (whom they defeated) and against the Hungarians (against whom the fights went inconclusively).

A different series of decisions early on (really focus on the upper stppe/forest steppe) could maaaaaybe change that.
 
POD before 600 AD means no prophet named Mohammed. With a strong Mongol Christian Empire to the north of Arabia, Mohammed makes little progress.
Mongols spread Christianity across the steppes and south into Persia and eventually India. Persians manage to civilize Mongols and teach them many of the finer points of governing an empire.
How many years before a schism divides Mongolian Christianity from Eastern Orthodox Christianity?
 
POD before 600 AD means no prophet named Mohammed. With a strong Mongol Christian Empire to the north of Arabia, Mohammed makes little progress.
Mongols spread Christianity across the steppes and south into Persia and eventually India. Persians manage to civilize Mongols and teach them many of the finer points of governing an empire.
How many years before a schism divides Mongolian Christianity from Eastern Orthodox Christianity?

If the POD is after the Council of Ephesus then there already was a schism between Mongolian Christianity (Nestorianism) and Eastern Orthodoxy.
 
Mongols spread Christianity across the steppes and south into Persia and eventually India. Persians manage to civilize Mongols and teach them many of the finer points of governing an empire.

Given how long they were able to keep their gargantuan empire and its successor states going for as long as they did I don't think they needed Christianity to teach them how to govern an Empire.
 
I'll be honest, my brain ran away with this when I saw the title in a hilariously ASB way.

A super literal reverse mongol conquest would be all of the peoples that the mongols conquered OTL somehow through ASB decide they just have to invade Mongolia RIGHT NOW! So random princes of the Rus suddenly find themselves with Chinese generals whilst the Mongolians are like "Wtf did we do?!?"
 
What is the plausibility of one of the various nomadic people kicking around the Pontic Steppe at some point in the Middle Ages subjugating the other nomadic peoples going on a conquering spree across the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe and expanding Eastward and taking part or all of China at their height i.e. pulling off the sort of conquests the Mongol did but going from the West to the East.

Would the Cuman-Kipchaks be a likely candidate for this given their size and geopolitical position?

What is the plausibility?
Well, if some nomadic people in the East had been given the 'Great Man' like Chengizz Khan, they might have achieved something spectacular, I guess.

But anyway I am afraid that plausibility is close to zero.

It doesn't look like a coincidence that since somewhere 300-200 B.C. to 1800 A.D. (roughly) the direction of the nomadic peoples' movement in the Great Eurasian Steppe was from the East to the West mostly.
That makes two millennia(!).
You cannot explain that long period of time by saying that it just happened, it cannot be just a game of chance.

The initial movement of the nomadic tribes was from the West to the East, but that's easy to explain, as the nomadic way of life was born in the West of the Great Eurasian Steppe. This and the war chariots gave an enormous edge to the Aryans - the so called Indo-European migrations.

But why moving from the East?

One of the explanations mentioned in this thread is China. That seems like a sound explanation.
The Great Eurasian Steppe is truly great in size, but the only part of this steppe which suffered periodic serious genocidal invasions of huge armies is the steppe bordering China. Army after an army, hundreds of thousands Chinese warriors invade steppe butchering everybody on their way; it didn't happen every year or every century but it did happen.

All other (Non-Chinese) parts of the 'Great Steppe' had empires on their borders, but the Roman Empire(s) happened to have a very short (comparatively) steppe border, and that part was decently protected by nature, so the Romans had huge resources to invade steppe, but they didn't have a reason to.
'Iranian/Mesopotamian' empires had bigger border with steppe, and they had the reason for deep genocidal invasions into the steppe, meaning "kill them all" invasions; but they lacked the resources.

This is 'billiard ball theory' - China generated pushes in the steppe and the human waves moved from the East to the West.
But that cannot be the only explanation, as China had long periods of weakness when it paid the nomads annual subsidies and suffered itself from the nomadic invasions. And when I say long periods I mean centuries.

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So the other "pushing" factor from the East to West in 'Great Steppe' is climate.
If you never read about five types of the Mongolian zud it's highly recommended to click here.
The zuds were regular, as opposed to the Chinese invasions.
To make a long story short, the climate in the "Great Eurasian Steppe" was worst in the East and best in the West; and in between the trend was the same more or less - the climate got better gradually from the East to West, and it got worse bit by bit from the West to East.
If some nomad tribes were starving, dying out, they generally moved to the West, that's natural.

Moving in most cases meant 'pushing' other tribes, conquering them, robbing them, enslaving them, annihilating them. To do that it was crucially important to be able to unite (at least for a period of time). That meant the Eastern nomads had better abilities of empire building.
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So, if you want to conquer the 'Great Eurasian Steppe' from the West to the East you're swimming against the current, which is hard, sometimes impossible.
 
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