While I was looking through this forum, I just found out an old topic about the movie 'Alexander' and the fact that there should be a movie a Gengiz-Khan. This topic become a topic about the mongols and their crualty. Some people (Rosacrux Redux) were saying that mongols were just a bunch of stupid barbarians and butchers, while some other (The Wizard, me) were having a less extrimistic (sp?) point of view.
I read a lot of books (modern research, fiction books, primary sources) on the matter, and I can now affirm that the occidental point of view about the mongols is rather silly.
Here are a few facts to prove my point :
- Genghis built Karakorum, which quickly became one of the most developped and wealthiest city of Eurasia. This city was built from scrach in the middle of nowhere. However, Gengis Khan brought irrigation, with the help of chineses technicians. He created a street for each known religion or culture (christians, muslim merchants, chineses).
- Genghis created a very effective administration, that allowed him to rule over the largest empire known. Unlike what happened almost everywhere else in the world, corruption was not plaguing the whole empire.
- Genghis created the Waza (that's the french spelling). This law code (based on a model similar to the anglo-saxon common law) was used long after the mongols disappeared in many eurasian regions.
- The Mongols created an alphabet, which was also still used in some regions of asia minor as well as some region of China at the beginning of the last century.
- Trade known a major boost under the mongols rule. The silk road, which was less and less efficient before the mongol invasion, became a major trade road once again. The mongol rule brought security to the trade roads between europe and asia.
- A large part of the Mongol crualty is just fairy tales. The skull towers, cannibalism and all that are mostly propaganda written by people who were afraid by the Mongols.
- Mongols (Ogodai) created an effective mail service, which would be unequaled for centuries. About 200.000 horses were available for this mail service. It would take only between 7 and 11 days for a letter to go through the empire.
- China was a closed country. Christians and Muslims were barely tolered. Once Kubilay setted his capital to Pekin, he developped trade accross the country, and opened China to the rest of the world.
Once mongols were kicked out of China, the country closed his frontiers once more. Christians and muslims were either deported or killed, and when the europeans 'invaded' China centuries later, the country had barely evolved since the middle-age.
Too late to write anything else. I'll post the rest tomorrow, if anyone is interested.
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