Biggest Empires

I don' t mean to insult you, but your quote is the most laughable one on this page.  The Russians and the rest of the Europeans that the mongols encountered made the SHORTEST stand of all. The Mongol European campaign was one of its fastest and most successful of all, requiring only a couple of years in total. Taking place simultaneously as the China campaign, the European theater of war was where the Mongols practically invented the "Blitzkrieg" as it is known in modern times. In CONTRAST, the mongol invasion of China was one of its most sluggish campaigns, spanning over 4 decades!! In the end, it was NOT the mongol military machine that conquered much of China, but the mongols did it through shrewd politics implemented by the cunning Kublai Khan. (Addendum: There was no unified "China" at this time, but a fractured land of several empires and dynasties) If you want to know more, I highly recommend a great book that is also a New York Times bestseller:

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World --- by Jack Weatherford. c. 2004

It's perhaps the most highly acclaimed book on Mongol history to date. You should check it out on Amazon.com. I'm surprised that you haven't read it, it's been published for more than a year! Much of the information that I wrote above were not just from this book (though this book covers the subject more beautifully and comprehensively than many others before it),  but well known in most other source of Asian history as well.  I'm equally surprised that a lot of people who apparently don' t know much about WORLD history outside of their little corner of interest choose to make such bold and sweeping statements as "So and so was the biggest empire, owned the best lands...blah, blah, blah!! If you don't know much beyond your own little sphere of awareness, please don't make grandiosely foolish statements or rankings.

The "upper states" of Russia that you mentioned were very insignificant principalities at that time and were thus not part of the Mongol objective at all. So it's pointless to say that they "made a longer stand" (against what?). However, what the Mongols wanted and successfully conquered were the most important Russian kingdoms and principalities, including Kiev, which was considered the political and religious center of the Slavic world. This was consistent with the pattern of Mongol conquests, whereby they were always aimed at the most powerful, important, wealthy civilizations of their time in whichever region of the world they invaded. For all practical purposes, the minor "upper states" that you mentioned didn't matter at all in the larger realm of Russia. As a case in point, a year after the fall of Kiev, the entry for 1242 in the Novgorod Chronicle referred to Batu Khan of the Mongols as Tsar Batu, literally meaning Caesar Batu and signifying his united rule over all of Russia. The fact that the Mongols didn't burn down Novgorod and a few other minor peripheral territories hardly mattered and was of no consequence to their rule over Russia for the next 3 centuries. In a similar vein, the Mongols also never conquered "all" of China, either. This applied to the areas of southern China in the tropical zone. Yet, in talking about their legacy in China, you never hear anyone bringing up those minor details that mattered little in the larger scheme of things.

From Sunday Times Magazine of 24/4/2005.

"Listomania"

The Men Who Conquered The Most Miles

Genghis Khan (c1162-1227): 4,860,000 sq miles, including northern China, Mongolia, southern Siberia and central Asia.

Alexander the Great (356-323BC): 2,180,000 sq miles, including southern Balkan peninsula, Asia Minor, Egypt and the entire Middle East.

Tamerlane (c1336-1405): 2,145,000 sq miles, including most of the Near East.

Cyrus the Great (c600-529BC): 2,090,000 sq miles, including the Median Empire, Babylonia, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, the Indus Valley and southern Turkistan.

Attila (c406-453), King of the Huns: 1,450,000 sq miles, encompassing most of central and eastern Europe and the western Russian plain, but not Gaul.

You can find it also here:

http://www.ehistory.com/world/ListPreviewOnly.cfm?LID=43& ;PreviewOnly=yes&public=yes&track=front