WI: Timur vs The Ming

1405 - Timur sets out from Samarkand for his greatest campaign yet, the conquest of China! But (unfortunately or fortunately, most likely the latter) he dies before the expedition is even over the mountains. His last orders are for the army to march on, but without his iron will behind them, they soon give up and march home.

What if?

Timur had not died, even though he was in his 80's... (who says Medieval people didn't live long) or what if the army had pushed on to the East. Would they have been able to beat the armies of the 40 year old Ming dynasty? How would the arms and tactics of the two arms match up. Would Timur's armored cavalry have any advantage over the Ming as they had against the Persians, Golden Horde, Mamlukes, and even the Ottomans?
 
I don't know. I think he would have had some serious issues just getting there in the first place, and the Chinese would have been more effective at stopping him. They did have plenty of experience having just forced out the Mongols after all.

The best hope for Timur to win is to hope that the Ming government begins to collapse - it had just begun to coalesce in the previous decade or so.

Overall I'd be inclined to say Timur won't be able to do that much. He might have a bit of temporary success in the north, and capture a decent tract of land, but that's about it.

An important question - how good was Timur's military at siegecraft? Because if it wasn't up to the old standards under Ghengis and his successors, then Timur wont be able to hold any ground.
 

Nikephoros

Banned
The Ming win hands down.

Timur's armies relied upon their cavalry. Try moving cavalry through Tibet. Attrition was THE number one killer of medieval Armies. Attrition would have full effect on Timur's army.
 
He'd be advancing thru Sinkiang, not Tibet. Timur had led improbable advances through similarly harsh terrain before. And he led many successful seiges.

Maybe Timur decides to attack China earlier, leaving the Caucasus and the Golden Horde region. I tinkered with a POD like that a couple of months ago, focusing on the effects on Russia (which turned out to be rather small and uninteresting, so I dropped it).

Meanwhile in China, the Ming would eventually win, probably. But Timur could make some serious gains, and could have been savvy enough to broker a peace in which he got a large chunk of western China-- the most Muslim parts, maybe.
 
My money's on the Ming.

At this point the Emperor was Zhu Di, aka the Yongle Emperor. And he was one tough sonavabitch. Smart, energetic, ruthless, and quite thoroughly competent, he\d spent much of his career in the saddle. He knew all about fighting steppe nomads -- he'd already led a number of campaigns against the Mongols -- and he had excellent intel on the surrounding kingdoms, so Timur probably wouldn't have either strategic or tactical surprise.

OTL, Zhu Di would be one of the greatest Emperors in China's history. He would win a bunch of wars, stabilize the currency, reform the bureaucracy, fix the Grand Canal, build the Forbidden City, and -- in his old age -- send Zheng He / Qeng Ho off with the famous "tribute fleets" to explore the world. His memory would be marred somewhat by a lost war in Vietnam and by a disquieting reputation for cruelty; even so, he'd set the Ming Dynasty in power so firmly that it would take generations of incompetent Emperors for them to lose it.

At the time of Timur's invasion, Zhu Di would have been in middle age and at the height of his powers. China was unified, wealthy, and able to field very large armies -- including both cavalry and specialized anti-cavalry units. By 1410 or so, there were probably more Mongols riding for the Yongle Emperor than against him. Oh, and the capital was still in highly defensible Nanjing rather than the more vulnerable Beijing -- Zhu Di moved it, but only in his final years.

I won't say it's a sure thing. Timur was a deadly opponent, and he'd manage to crush the Ottomans despite their having a very competent Sultan. Carlos Yu once described this ATL conflict as a "cage match", and that seems about right. But Ming China had several times the population and resources of the late 14th century Ottomans, and Zhu Di doesn't seem the sort to make major tactical mistakes.

Anyone's game, but the spread is Ming by a TD.


Doug M.
 
Tamerlane would have defeated the Chinese. He was very smart and used cruelty to his advantage. However, think he would just have tried to conquer part of Western China which follows the Silk route/ Afterall it seems he wanted to control the Silk route.

Timur's conquests were extraordinary not only for their extent and their success, but also for their ferocity and massacres.
People would think twice before going against him.

Also, they had firearms and canons. Read last quote below.

The following is describing how he was:

Arabshah describes him approaching seventy, a master politician and military strategist: steadfast in mind and robust in body, brave and fearless, firm as rock. He did not care for jesting or lying; wit and trifling pleased him not; truth, even were it painful, delighted him.....He loved bold and valiant soldiers, by whose aid he opend the locks of terror, tore men to pieces like lions, and overturned mountains. He was fautless in strategy, constant in fortune, firm of purpose and truthful in business.
his king Timur is one of the greatest and mightiest kings...he is hightly intelligent and very perspicacious, addicted to debate and argument about what he knows and also about what he does not know!" Known to be a chess player, he had invented a more elaborate form of the game, now called Tamerlane chess , with twice the number of pieces on a board of a hundred and ten squares.
He once said"
`He wanted there to be order because without order there won't be trade
What he constructed was both a political machine and an army, an army resting upon a political machine.
This on some weapons he used:
Flame throwers and rockets formed part of Tamerlane's military inheritance. He also took steps to acquire hand guns and cannon. Clavijo noted that, 'From Turkey he had brought their gun-smiths who made the arquebus . . . Again he had gathered here in Samarqand artillery men, both engineers and bombardiers, besides those who make the ropes by which these engines work.' While Clavijo does not give details and various translations are possible, the true arquebus is the Hackeniichse, the German hand gun with steadying rests, the immediate ancestor of the musket, while bombardiers and tow suggest some kind of cannon which the Ottomans had used at Kossovo in 1389. Hand guns and cannon were thus probably introduced to Central Asia from the west by Tamerlane. The Chinese already had cannon, but it was from Central Asia, most likely from the Moghul khanate of Turfan, that matchlock muskets were intro- duced to China, possibly in the time of Yung-lo, certainly by 1520. The Chinese account of the war with Turfan between 1505 and 1524 states that the Moghuls had learnt the use of firearms from Rum, i.e. the Ottoman empire. Tamerlane, therefore, by his commitment to a composite army, contributed to the diffusion of artillery technology as part of a single global arsenal. Subsequently, his descendants, the Mughals, were to make hand guns and cannon more widely used in India, just as his predecessors, the Chaghatai khans, had introduced rockets.
Got some quotes from this site which has more info.: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~fisher/hst373/readings/tamerlane.html
 
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Typo

Banned
Timur loses if he goes into China proper, China tends to only fall to nomads after a period of civil war, no matter how impressive the nomads seem.

Out on the frontier though, is another matter.
 
Tamerlane would have defeated the Chinese. He was very smart and used cruelty to his advantage.

Sorry, I have to agree with Doug. The Ming weren't pushovers, at least at this stage of the game. We'll miss out on the treasure fleets, alas; but Timur is going down!
 
The Timur Empire already controlled the Jagatai Khanate at this point. So Timur was invading China proper, not the frontiers.

The expedition was doomed to fail. First they would be fighting the most advanced and wealthy civilization in the world, with the most well equipped firearm supplied army of that age, led by a highly experienced warlike emperor who successfully defeated Mongol armies on multiple occasions often under his personal leadership.

Timur would be going up against China in its prime and one of China's most aggressive rulers in his prime, while Timur himself has one foot in the grave. The Chinese had local allies, who was going to ally with an 80 year old Timur?

Logistically this wouldn't be close. The battles would be fought in the heavily fortified Gansu corridor which the Chinese had stocked ample supplies. It would be ideal defensive terrain for a Chinese army with far shorter lines of communication.

Plus, isn't Zheng He's fleet ready to sail around then? I could imagine the fleet doing all sorts of mischief in the Persian Gulf, stirring up trouble with Timur's neighbours.
 
Plus, isn't Zheng He's fleet ready to sail around then? I could imagine the fleet doing all sorts of mischief in the Persian Gulf, stirring up trouble with Timur's neighbours.

Now THAT would be interesting. Zheng He commands the biggest amphibious operation in history prior to D-Day, landing an entire Chinese army in Persia or something.
 
Now THAT would be interesting. Zheng He commands the biggest amphibious operation in history prior to D-Day, landing an entire Chinese army in Persia or something.

That would be awesome. Perhaps China won't take as sharp a turn to isolationism as in OTL. Maybe Japan will be vassalized later to counter the pirates (Wokou).
 
Timur loses if he goes into China proper

Going into China proper wasn't Timur's plan.

His army was supposed to turn north after crossing Xinkiang and head for Mongolia, where a rump Yuan Dynasty was still rulling from Karakorum. In fact this entire campaign came into effect because the new Mongol Khan that gained the throne a pair of years before was a long time friend of Timur that had spent many years in his court in Samarkand. Once in Mongolia, Timur would join forces with the Yuan and attack China.

As you can figure, in the event of a successful campaign China would have not become part of Timur's empire but gone back to his ally, Yuan Mongolia.

A lot of the outcome of the campaign depends if the final army goes straight against the Great Wall (which the Ming were repairing and reinforcing at the time, precisely as a result of their war against the Mongols) or decides to follow Genghis steps avoiding the wall altogether and entering China by Manchuria. Then the question is free for speculation. The Ming had, effectively, learned to counter and defeat Mongolian armies in China proper... but they had not met yet any army leaded by Timur.

A possible outcome might be Timur dying just after taking Beijing and the army not being much more successful later. This would result in China divided again between a Mongol dynasty in the north and a Chinese dynasty in the south.

And of course, if Timur manages to capture any Chinese city, expect his nickname of "Prince of Destruction" to fall short...
 
His army was supposed to turn north after crossing Xinkiang and head for Mongolia, where a rump Yuan Dynasty was still rulling from Karakorum. In fact this entire campaign came into effect because the new Mongol Khan that gained the throne a pair of years before was a long time friend of Timur that had spent many years in his court in Samarkand. Once in Mongolia, Timur would join forces with the Yuan and attack China.

The problem here is that by 1405 the Mongols were pretty much a spent force. There was a nominal Yuan Emperor, Bunyashiri, but the Mongols were split three ways -- between him, a rival claimant (Guilichi) and between those groups that had made terms with the new order and were now pledged to the Ming.

Militarily, the Mongols were not a serious threat to the Ming. OTL Bunyashiri won a single battle against them in 1409, but this so annoyed Yongle that he marched north in force and crushed them decisively the following year. Bunyashiri had to flee with a handful of survivors and died in exile a few years later.

Now, on one hand, even weak and divided Mongols will be of some use to Timur; it's always good to have local allies who know the lay of the land. On the other hand, coming in through Mongolia means no possibility of strategic surprise. The region was of intense strategic interest to the early Ming, and so they had it wired for sound -- every minor khan's court was crawling with Ming spies and informers, and half the tribes were willing to switch sides if properly bribed or threatened.

So, while this could go either way, I do think the advantage lies with the Ming.


Doug M.
 
Sorry, I have to agree with Doug. The Ming weren't pushovers, at least at this stage of the game. We'll miss out on the treasure fleets, alas; but Timur is going down!

Metro isn't even comparioning Timur's army to the Ming army...he is bascially saying how awesome Timur is, which is not a relevant argument.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Well, Timur's empire did control Persia at this time,

so, have we finally found a scenario that gives major military utility to the Zheng He fleet?

Dramatic as any activities by the fleet might be in stirring up trouble in Persia (hmm, any way to cooperate with the Mamelukes), its still hard to see the Ming court as believing its effect is decisive. Timur would be moving with his army, and that's the core of his regime, rather than his territories, and the issue would be settled in Xinjiang or Mongolia or North China - wherever the land showdown with the Ming occurs
 
so, have we finally found a scenario that gives major military utility to the Zheng He fleet?

Dramatic as any activities by the fleet might be in stirring up trouble in Persia (hmm, any way to cooperate with the Mamelukes), its still hard to see the Ming court as believing its effect is decisive. Timur would be moving with his army, and that's the core of his regime, rather than his territories, and the issue would be settled in Xinjiang or Mongolia or North China - wherever the land showdown with the Ming occurs

Perhaps Zheng He asks to put the Treasure Fleet to military use in order to guarantee its continued existance after the reigning Emperor dies?

In OTL, a lot of members of the ruling elite (mostly the eunuchs) opposed it and after the sponsoring Emperor died, they persuaded his successor to destroy it.

Some gigantic military victory on the other side of India would prove the fleet was cost-effective and the fact that Zheng He was a Muslim could smooth over PR difficulties about infidel armies and all.

Hmm...part of the Treasure Fleet lands an enormous army in Persia while other part heads over to the Red Sea to meet up with the Mamelukes, who move into Timurid Syria and Iraq.

Could the Ottomans be drawn into this coalition? And what would the implications of a colossal cultural contact between early Ming China and the Middle East be?
 
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