WI: Someone Else’s Mongol Empire

[cmakk1012]

The historical Mongol Empire was a very impressive incidence of a meteoric trajectory: quickly conquering an absolutely gigantic swath of Eurasia, from China to Hungary, and then nearly as quickly losing it all.

So, what if some other nomadic group had “unified the tribes” and done the same? What would be the effects on the wider world of a different time period of the *Mongol conquests?

As many of these criteria should be met as possible:

-Conquers China, mostly if not completely
-Conquers at least one other major cultural region (India, Mideast)
-Raids much farther afield
-Quickly collapses

Who might accomplish this, and more importantly what would be the effects on the regions they conquer and beyond? Good candidates off the top of my head would be the Xiongnu or Göktürks.

 

[The Professor]

Steppe empires had been tried a fair few times before and since.
What sealed it for the Mongols was gaining China, that enabled trade and wealth across Asia.
And the success of the Mongols spurred defences that stopped/reduced later attempts.

 

[cmakk1012]

Steppe empires had been tried a fair few times before and since.
What sealed it for the Mongols was gaining China, that enabled trade and wealth across Asia.
And the success of the Mongols spurred defences that stopped/reduced later attempts.

So you’d need an earlier nomadic conquest of China first? And for it to happen quickly enough for them to not just become the next dynasty of China?

 

[The Professor]

So you’d need an earlier nomadic conquest of China first? And for it to happen quickly enough for them to not just become the next dynasty of China?

Possibly. You could do a reverse and have Western Steppe conquest seize Eastern Europe them head eastward before later retrying the west.

 

[Deleted member 114175]

Steppe empires had been tried a fair few times before and since.
What sealed it for the Mongols was gaining China, that enabled trade and wealth across Asia.
And the success of the Mongols spurred defences that stopped/reduced later attempts.

The resources of China weren't fully available to the Mongols until they had already basically won everywhere. The Mongols conquered Persia, Kievan Rus', and Baghdad before they finished conquering the Song Dynasty.

The success of the Mongols was probably a combination of the personal skill of its leaders, luck, and the fact that much of Eurasia had been pre-conquered over the preceding several centuries, ready to be usurped by the Mongols. Gokturks first paved the way 700 years earlier, conquering westward and establishing Central Asia as the source of most armies in the Middle East. By the time Genghis Khan appears on the historical stage, much of what would become the Mongol Empire is already ruled by steppe nomads or former nomads: the Jin Dynasty, the Khwarezmian Empire, Kara Khitai, and Cumania.

 

[Intransigent Southerner]

Contrary to our stereotypes about the primitive and unchanging steppe, steppe nomad states weren't constant. Di Cosmo identifies four stages in the development of eastern steppe empires: the tribute empire (the Xiongnu and their contemporaries), the trade-and-tribute empire (pioneered by the Gokturks), the dual administration empire (the Khitans and the Jurchens), and the direct taxation empires (the Mongols and Manchus). Mongol success built on two thousand years of steppe history. They didn't come ex nihilo, and we can't reasonably expect the Xiongnu or early Turks to replicate their empire any more than we can expect medieval England to replicate the British empire.

 

[cmakk1012]

Contrary to our stereotypes about the primitive and unchanging steppe, steppe nomad states weren't constant. Di Cosmo identifies four stages in the development of eastern steppe empires: the tribute empire (the Xiongnu and their contemporaries), the trade-and-tribute empire (pioneered by the Gokturks), the dual administration empire (the Khitans and the Jurchens), and the direct taxation empires (the Mongols and Manchus). Mongol success built on two thousand years of steppe history. They didn't come ex nihilo, and we can't reasonably expect the Xiongnu or early Turks to replicate their empire any more than we can expect medieval England to replicate the British empire.

Even in a solely military context? I’m not wanting any sort of lasting state, just a brief, sprawling empire. The Mongols did persist, even if not as a unified whole.

 

[taxidea]

Not sure if this is what the OP was looking for but what if tamerlane had lived longer, could he have taken significantly more territory I know he was a Mongol successor but he might have been able to make a very large empire.