Current Events > How is Genghis Khan viewed in Asia?

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In the US and Europe he's often seen as a cruel and violent conqueror who sweep through Asia and Europe in a storm on conquest.

In comparison Alexander the Great enjoys a positive reception. Some of the most optimistic views on him have him as an enlightened western king who triumphed over asiatic despotism and decadence and brought over 'western' knowledge to Asia. Others see his conquest and his adoption of Persian dress and customs as trying to create some sort of brotherhood of man and bridge the east and west. Of course not everyone saw this Macedonian king as a positive force. The Greek city states seem to have detested him and despite Alexander and Philip trying to frame their conquest of Persia as a 'hellenic crusade' many states saw it as merely rethorical rather than an actual thing and many of these states aided the Persians to the point that the Persians had more Greeks on their armies than Alexander did in his. Following his death many of these states revolted and started the so-called Lamian War, or the Hellenic War as contemporary Greek authors called it. In zoroastrianism texts Alexander is called a demon but later Persian traditions, such as the Alexander Romances, turn Alexander into a Achaemenid as in these stories Alexander is related to Darios, the Persian king. And some modern interpretation paint him as a violent drunk and psychopath who inherent his father's empire that included Thrace, Thessaly, Illyria and most of southern greece as well as an army who had years of experience. In his death his failure to govern caused the empire of kyros to fracture into years of struggle between the new hellenistic kingdoms.

I'm curious about the reception of the mongols in Asia. I remember reading that Mughal rulers honored the great khan.

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All of Asia

They build statues of him in Mongolia. Not sure if it's in reverence or just due to how significant he was.

I can't imagine anywhere else in Asia having a high opinion of him. His conquests were horrifically brutal no matter who he was attacking.

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Sort of like Alexander the Great in Europe, he did some awful things but highly recognized as a military mastermind

I think he was a pretty okay guy as far as tyrants go, rebuilt the silk road that directly leads into the enlightenment

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I mean Genghis Khan was basically genocidal, so I dont think the Alexander comparison is the most apt lol. They literally had factory lines for lopping off the heads of all the men they defeated.


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ZeroX91 posted...

I think he was a pretty okay guy as far as tyrants go, rebuilt the silk road that directly leads into the enlightenment

...lol?

Damn you're just spouting off hot take after hot take tonight aren't you

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Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast did a lengthy series about the Mongol Empire and touched on a bit of the historical revisionism surrounding both Genghis and Alexander.

When we take the historical long view of things it makes things all look like pieces of a puzzle. This lead to this, that to that, so on and so forth. What we forget is that at the time those were not the goals or intentions, they were byproducts that came later from what was, at the time, a thirst for power and conquest. We can look past the carnage because it's so distant that it has never affected us or anyone we know.

A few hundred years from now historians will look back on The Third Reich in much the same we way look at Alexander and Genghis, placing whatever good things may have come during or after it as products of it, forgetting the horrific human cost of it. Forgetting that these "good" byproducts were just that, byproducts, not the intended goals.

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ScazarMeltex posted...

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast did a lengthy series about the Mongol Empire and touched on a bit of the historical revisionism surrounding both Genghis and Alexander.

When we take the historical long view of things it makes things all look like pieces of a puzzle. This lead to this, that to that, so on and so forth. What we forget is that at the time those were not the goals or intentions, they were byproducts that came later from what was, at the time, a thirst for power and conquest. We can look past the carnage because it's so distant that it has never affected us or anyone we know.

A few hundred years from now historians will look back on The Third Reich in much the same we way look at Alexander and Genghis, placing whatever good things may have come during or after it as products of it, forgetting the horrific human cost of it. Forgetting that these "good" byproducts were just that, byproducts, not the intended goals.

I like the perspective on The Third Reich but I am thinking that brutal conquest is really a matter of holding on to the power you have and not seeking endless power and endless glory. You need a standing army and the only way to keep the army in line was conquest.

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Genghis Khan was a genocidal piece of shit and anyone who honors him is stupid as fuck.

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in Japan they named Lamb meat after him.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/10/world/asia/mongolia-sees-genghis-khans-good-side.html

really old article dating to 2005 not worth buy a subscription for

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hockeybub89 posted...

Genghis Khan was a genocidal piece of shit and anyone who honors him is stupid as fuck.

I dunno if we can call it genocide when he killed pretty much everyone regardless of their group, but yeah anyone who idolizes him is weird

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ShyOx posted...

I dunno if we can call it genocide when he killed pretty much everyone regardless of their group, but yeah anyone who idolizes him is weird

Omnicide.

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Some historians white wash KG but it may be that not all historians do and that informative articles exist. But the current article in wikipedia (they get revised) white washes. Article is all about KG's motives. It could be accurate by coincidence but what are the chances? Dude did not leave a diary behind.

It looks like KG started out conquering and acquired technology and bored officers. Some of the officers, given the culture of China, actually had a formal education in strategy. I like the notion better that some of the officers GK recruited via conquering saw the possibilities (but I am guessing and GK may have been the mastermind).

My reason for rejecting GK as the mastermind are #1 There is no evidence that GK trained subordinates before sending them out to conquer. My take is that studying the history of military campaigns is what makes a great commander and you need a history of military campaigns to do this which Chinese military class had. #2 If GK was the great mastermind there would be some coherency to his campaign in hindsight. I believe that even if he planned it all out and deliberately made his actions look chaotic for sheer terror that the coherency would still be there in hindsight. #3 If he was the great mastermind, one of his children or subordinates would have learned it and none did. #4 If GK wanted peaceful conquest and to restore the Silk Road, then razing Merv and Nishapur made no sense. He would have at least spared the essential workers. I find it more likely that the Silk Road was restored by the grunts who had to make sure that his tribute would arrive safely.


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In Asia? Being it is the most populous continent on Earth I assume you can find damn near any view. In Japan they learn a lot about the Mongol invasions of Japan. In China they learn he was actually Chinese (seriously, though the government claims all of Mongolia is China, not just the part they currently control). I can't speak to much beyond that, not something that comes up in conversation.

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ssjevot posted...

In Asia? Being it is the most populous continent on Earth I assume you can find damn near any view. In Japan they learn a lot about the Mongol invasions of Japan. In China they learn he was actually Chinese (seriously, though the government claims all of Mongolia is China, not just the part they currently control). I can't speak to much beyond that, not something that comes up in conversation.

That's interesting, the bit about Genghis Khan being Chinese. Historical figures are often appropriated for the purpose of nation building, I don't need to mention the conflict between *modern* Greeks and Macedonians over Alexander the Great for example.

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1 in 200 Men Are Direct Descendants of Genghis Khan

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan


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TrowaBarton7 posted...

1 in 200 Men Are Direct Descendants of Genghis Khan

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/1-in-200-men-direct-descendants-of-genghis-khan

No. 1 in 200 men are direct descendants of the man of whom Genghis Khan is a direct descendant. They dated that Y chromosome to approx 1000 ya not 750 ya.

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I dunno, in a museum?

Questionmarktarius posted...

I dunno, in a museum?

lol

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lazy wikipedia post go
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan#Perceptions

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Amusing that Bacon and Chaucer admired Genghis Khan.

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dr_strangelove posted...

history's biggest cuck, ngl

What

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I think one of Mongolia's paper bills has him on it but I think that's the only place where he's viewed in any kind of positive manner (outside of maybe Inner Mongolia unless the CCP crushed it there)?
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Bio1590 posted...

I think one of Mongolia's paper bills has him on it but I think that's the only place where he's viewed in any kind of positive manner (outside of maybe Inner Mongolia unless the CCP crushed it there)?

CCP is currently trying to rewrite him as Han Chinese instead of Mongolian...well technically all mongolians thats just the funniest one to think about.

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ZeroX91 posted...

CCP is currently trying to rewrite him as Han Chinese instead of Mongolian...well technically all mongolians thats just the funniest one to think about.

The only reason Outer Mongolia is still independent is because the Soviets kept them as a satellite state. Mao intended to annex them as well (the Soviets originally supported the nationalists over Mao, and eventually split off completely and were on the verge of war). They're in a very precarious spot now because the CCP is making it obvious from their moves in Inner Mongolia that Outer Mongolia is back on the menu.

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hockeybub89 posted...

Genghis Khan was a genocidal piece of shit and anyone who honors him is stupid as fuck.

I wanted to get back to this post, especially after reading Hans van Wees' Agesilaos Abandoned Babies: Humane Treatment of the Displaced?. It basically goes over the Spartan King Agesilaos treatment of slaves during his campaign against the Persians, what he framed as a just Greek cause to liberate the Ionian cities from Persian control but was really just a campaign to gather plunder including a large amount of slaves. While even slavers had 'morals' as to not separate children from their mothers, they would often be sold as one, sometimes slavers put profit over morals and sometimes babies and children were seperated from their mothers and left to die on their own or be eaten by wolves by the roadside. Agesialos apparently offered refuge for these children. However Hans van Wees shows that's not really the case from the text and this was added by translators. Essentially Agesialos left the children in the care of the elderly that were to be abandoned by slavers, and that's about it. For this Xenophon praises the humanity of Agesilaos and writes that even the slaves took a liking to him. This showcases just how brutal ancient warfare is.

In older scholarship it was thought that the Greeks practiced ritual warfare and generally tried not to be destructive towards one another. Josiah Ober wrote these supposed rules of warfare down, which I saw being parroted in a Kings and General video. But modern scholarship has shown how near genocidal this type of warfare was. It would be too long to break it down but Hans van Wees Genocide and Defeat and Destruction are good starting points, also talked about in the context of battle aims in Roel Konijnendijk Classical Greek Tactics: A Cultural History. There's also a book talking about it in depth for the Romans but I haven't read it yet.

So what's my point? I'm assuming Genghis Khan was following the norm of warfare of his day. That is the destruction of those that oppose you which isn't rare at all in warfare. In antiquity the neutral city of Melos was destroyed by the Athenians for not submitting to them, the men of the city were killed and the women and children were sold into slavery essentially destroying the community. And we're told of many other examples that suffered this fate, either by the Athenians or the Spartans. Xenophon puts these words in the mouth of Kyros the Great in the Cyropaedia:

And let not one of you think that in having these things he has what does not belong to him; for it is a law established for all time among all men that when a city is taken in war, the persons and the property of the inhabitants thereof belong to the captors.

Xen. Cyrop. 7.5.73

No doubt that many honored figures of antiquity had their fair share of genocidal tendencies. I thought it may have been fair to point that out as not to just view the brutality of conquest from the mongols but also on warfare as a whole.

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I found this paragraph of a wikipedia article of interest because it suggests that the Mongol leaders were able to plant rumors. It could be a coincidence.

"
Although the Mongol danger was real and imminent, Hungary was not prepared to deal with it; in the minds of a people who had lived free from nomadic invasions for the last few hundred years, an invasion seemed impossible, and Hungary was no longer a predominantly soldier population. Only rich nobles were trained as heavy-armored cavalry. The Hungarians had long since forgotten the light-cavalry strategy and tactics of their ancestors, which were similar to those now used by the Mongols. The Hungarian army (some 60,000 on the eve of the Battle of Mohi) was made up of individual knights with tactical knowledge, discipline, and talented commanders. Because his army was not experienced in nomadic warfare, King Bla welcomed the Cuman King Kuthen (also known as Kotony) and his fighters. However, the Cuman invitation proved detrimental to the Hungarians because Batu Khan considered this acceptance of a group he considered rebels as justifications for his invasion of Hungary. After rumors began to circulate in Hungary that the Cumans were agents of the Mongols, some hot-headed Hungarians attacked the Cuman camp and killed Kotony. This led the enraged Cumans to ride south, looting, ravaging the countryside, and slaughtering the unsuspecting Magyar population. The Austrian troops retreated to Austria shortly thereafter to gain more western aid. The Hungarians now stood alone in the defense of their country.
"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Europe

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