how to defeat the mongols?

[Watchman]

Well, aside from the very start they could tap the considerable Chinese expertise in siege warfare - given that this tended to be a field nomads were generally somewhat lacking in, that must have been a pretty useful boost.

By what I've read that's also what Khwarimzam fell to - the Khwarimzamshah apparently wasn't aware of the now quite considerable Mongol siege prowess, so by the point he realized sticking around in fortified places was not as good a plan as he'd thought the Mongols had already dealt with much of his forces piecemeal. Had he taken to the field against them from the start he might've come out the winner - AFAIK the Khwarimzam army was very good at fighting, quite large and well equipped and being at least seminomadic themselves no doubt familiar with the tactical chemes the Mongols also liked to use.

'Course, the Mongols had some seriously high-caliber warlords around but then that'd have been the old question of who knows his stuff better.

In any case he did not, so the point is moot.

In principle defeating the Mongol army in war would not require more than a military system familiar with the nomad way of warfare and capable of mustering and supplying enough troops to take them on, or alternatively a sophisticated enough system of fortifications to simply bog the buggers down in endless sieges. So you'd need basic familiarity with the military principles involved, sophisticated enough military structure to mobilize and maintain sufficient numbers of men, and ultimately enough ability in the leaderhip level to out-general the opposition which when you think about it tends to be something of a basic prequisite anyway.

Alas, most of the folks the Mongols ran into lacked at least one of the above.

[Grey_Fox]

Well the Vietnamese did beat off two Mongol Invasions...

[Spino]

I'm going to have to retract my earlier assertion that it was the Khwarazmian Empire that handed the Mongols one of their more significant losses. I am certain that someone other than the Mamluks beat the Mongols initially only to be decisively defeated in a subsequent battle. The recents posts in this thread rattled my memory sufficiently enough to withdraw Khwarazmia from the list. I'm feeling particularly lazy today so i'll leave it up to the more knowledgable here to shed some light on this topic. It's true that Khwarazmia was certainly one of the larger nations whose military had the potential to beat the Mongols but inexcusable arrogance combined with poor leadership via their squandered opportunities ultimately cost them their entire civilization.

...Counter attacks would have been extremely unwise, because their enemies always tried that. And the Mongols always were just pretending to retreat, and the enemies almost always died.

Well in the case of Ain'Jalut it was the Mamluks who feigned a retreat, thus luring the Mongols into a hasty and ill advised pursuit. Clearly counter attacking when your enemy is overzealous and overextended is generally considered a wise decision.

[Watchman]

Feigned retreat seems to have worked on nomads as well as most others.

Both the Vietnamese and the Japanese saw off excessive Mongol (well, more like Yuan China but anyway) ambitions in their directions, but let's be honest - they were getting some serious flank support from General Geography. The terrain in Vietnam alone must have robbed the invaders from most of their usual strong points, and in Japan... well, the Yuan weren't exactly amphibious assault specialists, or terribly good seafarers for that matter.

[orangat]

I remembered a battle of Alexander where he faced Scythians who employ similar steppe tactics and manpower.
Alexanders objective was to fix a mobile enemy in place. To do this a small advanced cavalry in front was used as bait to entice the Scythians to swarm around. Then followup infantry and cav cut off the Scythians.

[Kagemusha]

I think that the geography would have assisted how to beat the Mongols.I have no doubt that the gathered mongol force under the Khans was the best Army in the open areas of Asia and Eastern Europe.But if the mongols would have been forced to fight on Forests or cold and humid areas they would have been in trouble.The most important key to Mongol succes was their edge on weapon technology.The mongol composite bow.
Problem with glued composite bow is that it doesnt work on wet conditions the gluing fails.So i have serious doupts that the mongol army would have fared well fighting in large forest areas.The campaigns in Vietnam show proof of that.The use of cavalry tactics would have been hampered in forest and also the more wet and cold/hot conditions would have taken away their main edge on weapon technology.Their exellent bow.