Why steppe powers expand west?

they were nomadic tribes. and nomadic tribes tend to move around. but eventually they all settled down. some in the east, some in the west.

Edited by prsn41ife

Earlier IE tribes may have walked ratehr the opposite direction: from the Western steppes into the East (but also into Europe and South Asia), like would be the case with the Tocharians, for instance, but they are older and we have much less documentation. 

The Xiong Nu and Karakhitai expanded west because they were driven out by the Chinese and the Jurchen.

The Mongols and Turks expanded west because there was no more land toward the east to expand to.

dont forget seljuks

Because they didn't.

Seriously, these steppe peoples expanded both west and east, look at the Huns, Mongols, Manchus. Of course, once you've conquered China, expansion east is curtailed by the ocean, and unless you want to get it on with Japan like the Mongols, west is the only alternative.

you guys are making it sound like they had empires or something to expand.

the fact is that they were nomadic peoples, and when driven off their land or forced to move because of natural reasons, the moved either west or east.

it wasnt like they had "empire" to expand, they were nomads, they settled down after they conquerd other lands, like china, persia, etc...

the only exception are the mongolians, who were expanding their empire.

Originally posted by prsn41ife you guys are making it sound like they had empires or something to expand. the fact is that they were nomadic peoples, and when driven off their land or forced to move because of natural reasons, the moved either west or east. it wasnt like they had "empire" to expand, they were nomads, they settled down after they conquerd other lands, like china, persia, etc... the only exception are the mongolians, who were expanding their empire.

You seemed to be too obcessed with your "7000 years of History" to learn something about the steppe history. If you really want to comment something here, at least take your a little time to review history texts on the steppe people, or stop blaing and contribute your knowledge to the treads on Iranic history.

 

Huns, Gokturks, Jurjan, Uyghurs ....... built and expanded their empires, as they just wanted to gain the glory due to the historical oppotunity and the power they possessed with the flourished social structure.

The movements were mainly happended after the collapse of the empires owing to the long battles, internal unstabilities, natural causes etc.

 

There are two explanations, according with two books about central asia and steppe peoples: the old "The empire of the Steppes" by Ren� Grousset and "Central Asia" by Cavin Hambly:

1. The steppes can be divided in two sides, with the Altai mountains in the middle; the eastern side have a more unregular weather with a more continental climate, the western side have a better clime and better natural conditions specially in Ukrania, where all the steppe peoples had a mixed economy of agriculture and cattle brand. The unregular conditions of the eastern side obligated to those people to be more agressive because their economy was always in danger.

2. China: under the influence and the contact between the chinese empire and the steppe peoples, specially because the economic relations, the nomads had a tendency to make more complicated and large alliances and "kingdoms", is not an accident that the more powerful confederations of nomads grew with the rise of the great chinese empires and their economy: Hun-Qin/Han, Turks-Sui/Tang, Mongols-Song. Was not a question of pure copy, the chinese influence and the nomad changes must be understood like the response of the nomads to new conditions.


These explain why the nomads made great empires in the eastern side, more powerful than the western, and why they tended to go to the west, where the natural conditions was better, the nomad rival peoples less agressive.

bye

To be specific,

After Han-Wudi's military campaigns against the XiongNu, its power centre retreated further northwards.

Its during the Eastern-Han era, with the split of northern & southern XiongNu, that Southern XiongNu with sponsorship(military/political/economic) of Han-court, had northern XiongNu pressured to move further to west.

The XiongNu during the time of��five barbarians invasion of China��are not exactly the same with XiongNu confederacy of Western-Han era, as the chieftains had  became more or less sinicized, their kingdoms ruled by mimicing the Chinese. This is reflected by the fact, when XiongNu faction attacked the Western-Jin dynasty, they propagandized that they were trying to restore Han dynasty, as leader of them LiuYuan named himself after that of Han emperor's family name, and named his Kingdom ��Han��which  is after former Han dynasty.

Karakitai moved westwards was due to rise of the Jurchens. But its only the faction under Yeludashi moved westward. Many Khitans rather stayed and became subjects of the Jin dynasty.

Mongol under Gengis eventually did expand to much of western territories. But originally, and foremostly Genghis wanted to conquer Jin dynasty, without clear and necessary plan of invasion of west. But the unexpected development of Kharazm incident evoked a major Mongol invasion. The direction of further Mongol military after genghis had already destroyed much of Kharazm eventually headed Russia was somewhat unprecedented&unexpected. Since the Kharazm had some substantial relation with QinCha nobilities, its reasonable as its subsequent for Genghis to chase after QinCha nobility, the able prince of Kharazm Jalandin was yet to be captured by the Mongols whom continued to harass. Any possible resurgence of former Kharazm ruling class is intolerable. general subutai by order of Genghis continued campaign further west in pursuit of the QinCha noblilities which ��accidentally�� took him to principality of Kiev. Later , the ��golden horde khanate��founded by Batu was also referred as ��QinCha khanate����Which its self-consistent.

Genghis didnt personally lead Mongols to west that far, instead he pursued after Jalandin, which he defeated Jalandin's retreating army at bank of Indus,Jalandin with only 4000 men left retreated to India. Ck returned to Mongolia to launch a ��punitive�� campaign against Tangut Xia dynasty��and planed elimination of Jin, as really resume of early Mongol campaigns against Jin, which with sack of ZhongDu(Beijing) in 1214 ever weakened the Jurchens and forced its court to relocate itself to Bianjing(Kaifeng in HeNan province), but he died before execution of completion of those conquest. 

The first wave of Mongol western campaign(subutai's ukrainian incursion) was more of completion of subjugation of Kharazm.

After the conquest of Kharazm, Genghis granted his sons khanates (made of newly conquered land) to rule, elder prince Shuchi got land to west of Erqisi river, and north of Caspian&Aral sea, ��Chagatai khanate��to second,��Ogodei Khanate��to the third prince,and youngest prince Tuolei was assigned to Mongolia.

During Ogodei's reign, after meeting of the Mongol nobilities, Shuchi's son Batu was ordered to complete conquest of QinCha&Russian state which Subutai invaded during Genghis era but hasnt been really subjugated. And led to establishment of the ��QinCha/Golden horde khanate��.150,000 Men this time compared to Subutai's merely 10,000. Which somewhat explains the incentive of Subutai was not same to that of Batu's in Russian territory. The second wave of Mongol western campains.

After kuyuk's short reign, Tuolei's descendant Mengge took the leadership instead of Kuyuk's, thus of Ogodei's faction. In order to consolidate military power of Tuolei faction. Mengge assigned two of his brothers Helagu and Kubilai more military authority, Helagu was ordered to conquer west Asia, which resulted in third wave of Mongol western campaigns.

While Kubilai was assigned to the affair of China. During the reign of Kubilai as Great Khan, grandson of Ogodei, Kaidu thought he should be legitemate ruler of the Mongols as hes direct descendant of Ogodei. Kaidu believed Tuolei faction have ��robed��authority from Ogodei faction, made him revolt against the Yuan. Which was what Mengge prepared for.

Overall, it should be more specific than general(like ��all the way to the east, there would be curtain of ocean, so heading west is logical��, is rather not accurate.) regarding that part of history. for one, Genghis lectured his men of how to treat Tangut Xia and conquer Jin, than any plan of further action in West Asia or Eastern Europe before his death. He cared more about ��south��rather than��west��.

Edited by The Charioteer

Originally posted by wefone90 Originally posted by The Charioteer He cared more�about �south�rather than�west? You seem to forgot that the mongol didn't originally plan to invade southern song, for reason that they were not be interested in region south of yangtze river, although they did reached canton and vietnam.

Im referring to Western Xia and especially Jin dynasty. They are ��south�� of Mongol domain. 

The first wave of Mongol campaign to the ��west��, didnt originally include West Asia and Eastern Europe either.

Edited by The Charioteer