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Comment by fasteddie31003 | Hacker News Reader

IMO we should not look at Genghis Kahn's Empire fondly. After listening to Hardcore History's Wrath of the Khans, I think they have been the most evil group humanity has produced so far. Time seems to heal all wounds but Genghis Khan sure seemed to have made a lot of wounds.

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It's hard for me to see them as "more evil" than many other pre-modern groups. It's such an arbitrary framing.

Please substitute the term you typically use for practitioners of genocide.

It may surprise you but basically every empire did genocide at one point or another.

“Total war” wasn’t a thing in premodern history because every war was a total war.

AFAIK that isn't true. Political powers (e.g., feudal lords, kings, etc.) didn't have the resources to conduct warfare on that scale. As examples, centralized government and its resources didn't exist like today, troops had to go home to plant and harvest, and armies depended on local food production in order to survive.

Total war in particular usually involves civilians as targets, and most civilians were far from the battlefield. WWII changed that, when bombers could reach deep beyond the front lines. Without bombers (and missiles), London would have been untouched by the war, for example.

I agree that there's a particularly European tradition of non-total war where maybe you burn the crops and lay seige but let the peasants live because hopefully they'll eventually be your peasants, but the era was more than willing to utterly obliterate schismatics and heretics, and it's pretty obvious that various civilizations have fallen and been obliterated by conquerors of one sort or another throughout history, maybe not as a common norm, but not infrequently. Look at 1 Samuel 15:3 for example, not that I have a good sense of actual historicity of it.

> particularly European tradition of non-total war

What I described is tied to the resources and power of the person in charge. I don't see how that's only European?

This is essentially incorrect. While we can point to legendary incidents such as Carthage in the history of empires, the Mongols are notable in premodern history for systemically using this as a strategy to conquer large rivals by fear and hold a territory size that conventional pre-modern empire building would not allow. Regardless of morality, most empires were better positioned to preserve and exploit life and property than the Mongols. Archeological evidence supports this. This kind of conquest isn’t right either and we aren’t saying all non-Mongols aren’t evil (and I appreciate you were also trying to make this point.)

Total war is a separate concept from genocide. Though both can be practiced in the same war, targeting economic and political support for war does not necessarily mean systemically eliminating a population.

>that conventional pre-modern empire building would not allow I dunno if I'd say this is truly the case. The Mongol Empire was the largest pre-modern empire, yes, but there were other ones spanning millions of square kilometers (multiple pre-horde Chinese dynasties) and several continents (the various caliphates) with these 'conventional' methods.

Most territories back then consisted of people of similar race. An empire attempting to eliminate another could technically be seen as perpetrating genocide. Esp because the treatment of surrendering opponents could go either way.

I don't think pre-modern conflicts can be framed under the modern concept of genocide very well. In any case the Mongols did not set out to obliterate specific groups because of ethnicity, race, religion, etc., per se. Maybe wanting tribute or territory is a stupid reason to obliterate a city, but it's not motivated by ethnic or racial animus. Similarly, revenge on an empire for the death of ambassadors that leads to the utter destruction and death of said empire's populace is maybe technically genocide under the "destroying a nation" framing, but it doesn't fit into the modern cultural framing of nations in a nationalistic cultural sense, and would be considered a traditional casus belli. In any case I don't deny that they were rapacious, violent, expansive, or killed disproportionate numbers of people and reduced populated (for the time period) empires to grassland. But it was all very practical, not based on hate, and is totally in line with what other empires and civilizations would do in the time period if they had the means.

Good comment; thank you.

> It was all very practical, not based on hate

Lol, this seems a bit naive. It's hard to rape and pillage people you like.

Do you think we've lost the plot a little bit when you have to do these mental gymnastics to distinguish between murdering an entire nation out of some "approved" reason, vs say out of ethnic reasons.

Surely the real crime is murdering a nation.

"Empire" is a pretty solid 1:1 mapping.

> After listening to Hardcore History's Wrath of the Khans, I think they have been the most evil group humanity has produced so far.

Never forget that history is written by the victors. The Mongol Empire was replaced by the Russian Empire.

In China?

Obviously not.

The worst Empire in that case is USA with how they obliterated the North American populations and wiped out many tribes.

Weird comment. The USA didn't treat the Indians with white gloves but there are surely more egregious examples in history. Vlad the impaler? Ivan the terrible? Various African warlords?

How many Indians were there before Columbus? How many remains? Compare it with the numbers for the examples you provided.

You have to separate diseases from other things. The mongols weren't responsible for the black death, plagues in Europe killed a lot of people.

Diseases is the official excuse for the genocide. See how long it holds if you start asking questions and looking at the numbers.

This is so absurd and disrespectful to the Native American warriors. Only a person completely ignorant of basically anything to do with Native American history would say something like this in this context.

What is absurd or disrespectful about pointing out the genocide of Native Americans?

What the fuck are you talking about the original commentator stated how mongol should not be talked about because of the things they did. I just pointed out that Americans have done similar or worse. Are you aware native american population is estimated to be around 100 million year 1500 and only 5-6 million were left by 1650.

A lot of that reduction in population was from diseases that weren't in the new world before invasion by Europeans. Not many diseases went the other way, I think syphilis is the only major one I've head of that went from the Americas to Europe. Separate from that the Euros were sure following the path of murdering, genocide, and even after the wars were over the US was sending kids to schools to destroy their knowledge about their own cultures. More recently we started learning about the large graveyards at those schools, and the same thing was happening in Canada.

I think you’re confusing OPs post about the European colonization with the actual Native American victims.

I don't know if we can call them the most evil. There are plenty of contenders, even if the death rates don't match up.

If we go purely by deathrates then we should pick communist china or the soviet union.

If we go by barbarity the mongol empire, the timurids, and the japanese empire (talking the one from ww2) are all good contenders.

Imperial japan was so bad that the nazi ambassador to china in nanking did his best to save as many civilians as he could out of sheer disgust for their behavior.

imperial japanese soldiers used to bayonet babies and do beheading contests for fun.

literally, their newspapers had them even keeping score over who could do more beheadings.

they melted people, literally ate people on one occupied island, they did multiple genocides, they tested gasses.

Imperial japan is what I consider the worst by barbarity.

I mean Mongols depopulated entire large cities. E.g. the entire population of Merv, which was one of the world's largest cities at the time, was killed.

Or Baghdad which maybe was the largest city in the world at the time it was sacked.

yeah but I was talking about brutality vs numbers.

the commies killed far more than anyone by numbers and in barbaric ways, but their brutality was beaten by those who killed less in more gruesome ways.

the mongols excelled at both but I argued by brutality imperial japan was a bit worse.

Raw death toll and percentage of total world population slaughtered seem like the two most objective measures. The Horde win the dubious blue ribbon for the latter.

Mongol conquests were roughly comparable to the European conquest of the Americas. Both toppled great empires and may have killed ~10% of world population in a few generations. And both were more noteworthy due to their large-scale success than their brutality. While both waves of conquest were brutal even by contemporary standards, they were not extraordinary brutal. Being an absolute monster is a part of the job description of a conqueror.

I think the comparison works in terms of percentages, but falls apart because the Europeans were not unified. Something like 3 or four great powers colonized America vs a single ethnic group for the Mongols (even if they did fight with each other)

The Mongol Empire was not a single ethnic group. The top leaders were ethnic Mongols (much in the same way as Europe used to be a family business), but the troops were mostly from conquered peoples. I would assume that the field army was mostly Turkic, as Turkic peoples were more numerous than Mongolic peoples and their societies and styles of warfare were similar.

also they splintered into multiple khanates early on with the great khans only having some respect rather than the ability to stop the infighting.

The Europeans didn't topple any empire in the Americas. They collapsed by themselves due to the sickness brought over by the Europeans before they made contact. It would have been logistically impossible to topple an empire overseas.

This sounds the same to me as saying: "The gunshot didn't kill him. The infection did."

I think it's either an intent thing or a causality thing.

Imagine a hit man showing up to work one day, only to find his targets already dead along with their entire town... and only much later finds out that it's because he'd been an asymptomatic carrier for weird space germs when he was casing the joint the previous month.

Except in reality his targets weren't entirely dead, there were still millions left so he still went about killing the rest[0..2].

The intent in this case existed alongside unintended causes, but it was still there.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Aztec_...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Inca_E...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars

"Invaders led by the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés overthrew the Aztec Empire by force and captured Tenochtitlan in 1521, bringing an end to Mesoamerica's last great native civilization ... The Spaniards then murdered thousands of Aztec nobles during a ritual dance ceremony, and Montezuma died under uncertain circumstances while in custody... European diseases like smallpox, mumps and measles were also powerful weapons against the local population, who lacked immunity to them...By 1520, smallpox had reduced the population of Tenochtitlan by 40% in just one year." [1]

Maybe an oversimplification to assert "the Europeans didn't topple any empire in the Americas"?

[1] https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-americas/aztecs

Right. Europeans in the Americas and Mongols in Eurasia did what was rational: both had significant, incomparable advantage in military technology and both used it for their advantage according to the standards of their time.

I believe the accepted narrative insofar as the New World is concerned is that it was largely disease that eliminated the population. There's a theory that is posited in Charles Mann's book 1492 which indicates a probable explanation for extremely high mortality rates due to susceptibility to the pathogens the Europeans introduced. The gist: natives of the New World had immune systems conditioned and selected for parasites, which appears to be an either/or proposition, which may explain, in part, the relatively disproportionate fatality rates among the native populations. Relative to that I think the warfare conducted by Europeans pales in comparison.

The best explanation I’m aware of for the disproportionate death rates by Europeans vs Native Americans by disease is mainly population density of European cities was dramatically higher, leading to a lot of diseases that would permanently spread throughout the population until the combination of evolution and immune systems brought it to a symbiotic, fairly neutral relationship.

Which didn’t remain so neutral when applied to fresh populations.

Native Americans simply weren’t playing host to as many diseases, and persisting virulent ones

> If we go by barbarity the mongol empire, the timurids, and the japanese empire (talking the one from ww2) are all good contenders.

It's interesting that 2/3 are central asian steppe empires/civilizations. What is it with that area and producing psychopathic tribes, not to mention being the origin point of several plagues.

Adding to the list of steppe empires, not an Asian one though, the Commanche Indians are way up there in terms of barbarism as well. Not just against the encroaching westerners, but other tribes as well. They really did not mess around with the sadistic torture of their war prisoners. Proper nightmare fuel.

>It's interesting that 2/3 are central asian steppe empires/civilizations.

Google tells me the Timurids were Mongol descendents of Genghis Khan, so not really. 100% of that relevant data set is one extended family.

>What is it with that area and producing psychopathic tribes, not to mention being the origin point of several plagues.

The Mongols were little more "psychopathic" than many societies at the time, only distinctive in terms of their relative success, not their cruelty. Alexander the Great tortured and slaughtered people by the thousands, and Westerners don't consider him a barbarian or psychopath so much as a tactical genius and founder of the civilized world.

There might be some form of selection bias by the OP? Neither the colonization of the Americas by various European "tribes", nor the brutal colonial empires in Africa in the 19th century seem to make the cut, and for some reason not even Nazi Germany is listed.

When it comes to the number of genocides, it is probably difficult to beat out the British, but they were always quite jolly about it, so I guess it wasn't that bad.

In 21st century, is it the US on the lead?

You've got to be kidding

We did kill a million in Iraq and we must have done something similar in Afghanistan. Iraq was of course started based on lies.

no but you don't understand "muh freedomz" erases the destabalization of the middle east and large swaths of africa despite us doing it for zero reason.

it also erases our allies killing and starving the yemenis and the starvation in afghanistan post-war we caused by freezing all their funds.

clearly loosely defined ideals erase human suffering.

>Imperial japan is what I consider the worst by barbarity.

On the other hand, the United States committed genocide against an entire continent, was the only nation to drop atomic bombs in warfare (and did so against civilians) continued Nazi and Japanese human experimentation and bioweapons research going under MKULTRA and other secret programs (as well as recruited Nazi scientists for their space program,) raped, tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Vietnam and Korea (and used Agent Orange), and went on a 20 year temper tantrum of violence and war crimes across Iraq for no discernable reason other than Afghanistan not being enough to satisfy their post 9/11 bloodlust.

Not to excuse Imperial Japan or the Nazis or anyone else but ranking evil against evil is always a matter of perspective, and it's often less about which evil is greater than which evils you're willing to excuse and which not. A similar list of sins could be made about the Soviet Union, China, Britain, or just about any nation or empire in history. Humans are bastards everywhere.

Who looks at the Mongol empire fondly?

Whoever wrote this article? Obviously, are you asking a rhetorical question?

Not an rhetorical question at all.

I didn't see any wholistic judgment of the Mongol empire in the article.

The Mongols did tons of amazing, fascinating, and great things. They also did terrible and atrocious things.

The later should not preclude curiosity and appreciation of the former.

Do you really think whoever wrote this article fondly reminisces of the Mongol Empire? If I list some positives of Byzantium does that mean I am fond of whatever they did in aggregate?

some mongol people to this day.

People tend to ignore their ancestor's warcrimes. Even if they admit they were evil they can't bring themselves to hate them.

This applies to most old empires, many people can't bring themselves to hate the entire empire despite their barbarity.

People should absolutely cultivate a balanced and accurate understanding of the past. I don't think anyone should cultivate hate.

This seems to be an ongoing trend, and this article continues the trend by casting the Mongols as some kind of egalitarian society.

20 years ago-ish, a book came out about Chingis Khan that extolled the virtues of his multicultural, pantheistic regime and totally glossed over the many genocides the Mongols perpetrated. Not to mention the guy probably raped more women than anyone else in history.

Edit: To add to this, a lot of what is written about Mongols in Chingis Khan's time is conjecture. They were not a literate people, so there are almost no records. They were nomadic and buried their leaders in secret locations, leaving scant archeological evidence. Many conclusions that have been drawn about the Mongols are speculative. Fast forward to the Yuan dynasty where there are records in Chinese. That era and locality have better documentation.

People tend to have starry eyed views of successful empires that not only conquered a lot of territory, but were able to rule for some time. Because there is inherent difficulty in administering areas spanning many cultures, ethnicities, creeds.

Most of those things you said can apply to the Assyrians, the Romans, the British, or any other similar empire, and people still idealize those places today. If your empire holds together long enough to get a period of Pax named after you, it means you've made it in the eyes of history.

Mongolia today has Genghis Khan on their money, particularly the 20000 Tugrik banknote. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean Mongolians generally approve of what he did, just like Americans today don't agree with everything the guys on our money did.

These guys.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD1gDSao1eA

Netflix’s Marco Polo did - quite fondly.

Mongolia sees Genghis Khan as a George Washington type figure, which I think is relatively fair. It's not like Italy does of a lot of introspection of the "bad" sides of its Roman heritage.

The Mongols were a mix of modern and violent and ruthless before he (Chinggis Khan) died that you don't really see elsewhere.

currently CCP

Looking forward to the feel-good girl power articles about Nazi Germany.

Sounds interesting, I would read that.

There is a lot of fascinating literature about differences in gender roles between western and eastern Germany behind the iron curtain.

There were white supremacist women who were also pro-suffrage.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/01/05/suffra...

Intersectionality cuts both ways.

And Nazi Germany ironically led the world in animal rights.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_welfare_in_Nazi_Germa...

The world is a bizarre place and humans are unfathomably complex.

This should be cause for curiosity and investigation into history and The Human Condition

Interestingly, Neo-Nazi groups were some of the first to establish a relationship with the more right wing civil rights groupsm. George Lincoln Rockwell had a personal relationship with Malcom X, on the basis of shared views of anti-semitism and racial separatism. Which, of course, Malcom X would later change his opinions of and denounce.

"How Leni Riefenstahl Triumphed Over The Patriarchy"

The misery of the Mongols' wrath is made apparent by the decline of Iran and China, hitherto on par with if not ahead of the West, but some 800 years after the Empire we see the regions least affected (South India, Vietnam, Japan, Oman) still performing as regional standouts on a troubled continent. You could throw out Myanmar and Yemen as counterexamples but they've both seen nasty recent wars.

Often people forget that there isn't a dominant empire that existed for hundreds of years without insane brutality and cruelty against anyone considered to be an enemy. With the area Genghis Khan's Empire had under control, I don't doubt they pillaged every opposing enemy without mercy.

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