Rise of the Hui - Timur's Dream

Territory by itself is irrelevant, otherwise Russia would rule the world. Population itself is a more credible marker of strength but is also no guarantee of victory otherwise the Liao, Mongols, and Manchus never would have gotten anywhere.

Operating out of a base in central Asia, Timur was able to smash enemies stretching from Sarai, Smyrna, Damascus, and Delhi. He is no stranger at fighting and beating high-quality opponents at extreme distances from his capital.
 
Territory by itself is irrelevant, otherwise Russia would rule the world. Population itself is a more credible marker of strength but is also no guarantee of victory otherwise the Liao, Mongols, and Manchus never would have gotten anywhere.

Operating out of a base in central Asia, Timur was able to smash enemies stretching from Sarai, Smyrna, Damascus, and Delhi. He is no stranger at fighting and beating high-quality opponents at extreme distances from his capital.
Attacking Sarai,Smyrna,Damascus and Delhi from the Timurid Empire isn't the same as going through Xiangjiang or Tibet and then attack Ming China.It's more than double the distance from the Timurid Empire to Sarai.What's more,he'd have to go through deserts,mountains etc.The terrain in western China does not favor attackers or cavalry at all.
 
Territory by itself is irrelevant, otherwise Russia would rule the world. Population itself is a more credible marker of strength but is also no guarantee of victory otherwise the Liao, Mongols, and Manchus never would have gotten anywhere.

Operating out of a base in central Asia, Timur was able to smash enemies stretching from Sarai, Smyrna, Damascus, and Delhi. He is no stranger at fighting and beating high-quality opponents at extreme distances from his capital.
How are population and territory not extremely important? The distances from Timur's empire to Ming China are huge, even greater than the distances he dealt with before. It's 2800 km from Samarkand to Damascus, but over 4000 km from Samarkand to Beijing or Guangzhou. Neither the Liao, Mongols, nor Manchus ever had to deal with that sort of distance. The Mongols and Manchus also conquered China when China was divided or in the middle of civil war and uprest, and that's not the case in 1405. Timur might be good at fighting across long distances, but anything involving China will literally involve distances longer than anything Timur has ever faced. Just because Timur had success against various smaller and weaker doesn't mean he'll have success this time. The opponents Timur faced might have been smart men, but they never had the sort of demographic and territorial resources that Yongle has in 1405. Even if Timur has initial success in battle, that doesn't mean he can just keep invading further in China. There's also the fact that he's old: if China follows the Song precedent, the Ming can trade land for time and just wait for Timur to die.
 
Territory by itself is irrelevant, otherwise Russia would rule the world. Population itself is a more credible marker of strength but is also no guarantee of victory otherwise the Liao, Mongols, and Manchus never would have gotten anywhere.

Operating out of a base in central Asia, Timur was able to smash enemies stretching from Sarai, Smyrna, Damascus, and Delhi. He is no stranger at fighting and beating high-quality opponents at extreme distances from his capital.

I have to state again Ming has the great walls and the northern territories, which means they can field cavalry.

Both factors are not present during the WHOLE Song dynasty.

And Song still manage to hold on the Mongols for decades, the best army in the world with its best generals, with maybe only half of the resources of a whole china and incompetent leadership.

While we should not underestimate the ability of Timur, the capacity of China should not be underestimated as well.

I would not say conquering China is impossible, but you always need a traitor within, which are the cases in both Song and Ming dynasty, and some very extraordinary situations.
 
Top