WI: No Mongolian fragmentation

Parrots88

Banned
What if the Mongolian Empire never fragmented? Maybe if they made clearer succession laws? What would have happened to Europe Asia and Middle East for decades to come?
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
What if the Mongolian Empire never fragmented? Maybe if they made clearer succession laws? What would have happened to Europe Asia and Middle East for decades to come?
Their succession laws were pretty clear, actually. The Empire started unraveling the moment Chingis died, and the establishment of the Ilkhanate pretty much ended what little chance the Empire had of surviving.
 
The thing is the Empire was so large and so diverse and existed at a time where it took months to communicate from one end of it to the other that it really could'nt last in full.

Now it's certainly possible for some of it to continue on, and even for the successor states to retain some sort of relationship with each other, but as a whole it's pretty much close to impossible.
 
I think it would require an absolute legal and administrative genius to seize control. At the end of the day Mongolian culture was not suitable for ruling an empire it had risen to fast and not had the chance to develop nenecessary customs of rule. They would have to be adopted in one generation which would require a huge change. I have actually considered a timeline when it happens but what the butterflies would be I have no idea but in my timeline itwould unite christendom (what remains of it) against the threat and result. in America discovered early in an attempt by the Europeans to contact japan in order to ally with it. The mongolian Empire itself becomes an extremely stable but rather stagnant collossus.
 
Their succession laws were pretty clear, actually. QUOTE]

?

Can you clarify this?

The record is that:

(i) Genghis picked one of his sons (Ogodai, the third-eldest) to succeed; (ii) Ogodei picked a grandson, a choice which was subsequently overruled by his widow; overall it took the Kurultai five years to pick Ogodei's son, Kuyuk, as the next Khan;
(iii) there was another interregnum for two years after Kuyuk died, with the Kurultai eventually picking Mongke, Kuyuk's cousin, over closer relatives;
(iv) after Mongke, there were two simultaneous Kurultais, each of which picked a successor (Kublai vs. Arik Buka), followed by a civil war.

[Kurultai = some sort of gathering of the Mongol clans; not sure what the rules were for voting].
 
The succession laws were pretty clear, actually. When the khan died, the tribes had to assemble in Karakorum and vote on the new khan. :)
The problem was, of course, that they were designed for a relatively small polity, and the process did indeed take about two years until the new khan was chosen (and even then some of the more peripheral armies ended up arriving too late to participate, or indeed not arriving at all). ;)
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
The succession laws were pretty clear, actually. When the khan died, the tribes had to assemble in Karakorum and vote on the new khan. :)
The problem was, of course, that they were designed for a relatively small polity, and the process did indeed take about two years until the new khan was chosen (and even then some of the more peripheral armies ended up arriving too late to participate, or indeed not arriving at all). ;)
This..............
 
It's sort of like the Carolingian Empire- at that time, those people had neither custom nor ability to control all that territory.
 
Life just isn't like a computer game, you can't rule big empires from one central location so easily, you need to delegate power- and once that is done if they're far enough away why should they care about the centre at all?
One of the more famous examples of a man ruling too much was Charles V with just the Habsburg empire.
 
Life just isn't like a computer game, you can't rule big empires from one central location so easily, you need to delegate power- and once that is done if they're far enough away why should they care about the centre at all?
One of the more famous examples of a man ruling too much was Charles V with just the Habsburg empire.

And this was a puny, puny empire.. *Heavy's voice*
 
Top