how the mongols breached the great wall?
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: East Asia
Forum Discription: The Far East: China, Korea, Japan and other nearby civilizations
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=15018
Printed Date: 25-Apr-2024 at 16:00
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.56a - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: how the mongols breached the great wall?
Posted By: white knight
Subject: how the mongols breached the great wall?
Date Posted: 26-Sep-2006 at 08:14
| hey guys i need information about how the mongols breached the great wall of china. thanks. |
Replies:
Posted By: Gun Powder Ma
Date Posted: 26-Sep-2006 at 10:25
|
At the time of the Mongol invasions (13th century), there was no Great Wall of China. The wall you may have in mind was only later constructed during the Ming era, between c. 1550 and 1640. However, there have been a defensive systems at China's northern border since the Warring States period (5th to 3rd century BC), but these were mostly rammed earth affairs with perishable maaterials like reeds and wood. A dry stone wall from Han times though still exists, but other than that archaeologists have today a hard time to establish the exact whereabouts of the various walls erected in the course of 2000 years. The upshot is that there was probably no really efficient border wall which could have helpt the Chinese against the Mongol onslaught. |
Posted By: LilLou
Date Posted: 26-Sep-2006 at 17:08
| Actually at the time of the mongol invasion of china there was a a great wall ghengis khan had to send three armies in order to find a sucessful way of breaching it, the wall you mention during the ming era was just an extension of what was already built. |
Posted By: Preobrazhenskoe
Date Posted: 27-Sep-2006 at 00:48
Besides the rammed earth fortifications of the Qin Dynasty (221 - 207 BC) and the dry stone wall of the Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) that Gun Powder Ma mentioned, how extensive was the Song Dynasty era Great Wall, and was it all made of stone like during the Ming period?
Eric ------------- |
Posted By: BigL
Date Posted: 27-Sep-2006 at 06:10
|
Many Chinese Empires Built Various Walls to protect their borders.Qin dynasty just unified the Existing walls already in place.Although they are built of Rammed earth i think its likely they were covered with Stone as Rammed earth walls are usually. Parts of the Qin Wall were made from just stone ,perhaps there was abundunt stone rescources nearby or it was quiker to build than rammed earth ,but other parts of the wall were built with Reeds and flaxes as it was the desert and the only available material.Also some parts of the Qin wall are not wall but a giant dry moat in the dry Desert
But the Song Dynasty was in South of China in the Mountainous regions so instead of building Walls they built Watchtowers ,forts and Planted Forests to hamper Cavalry movements and artifical lakes.
 |
Posted By: Siege Tower
Date Posted: 28-Sep-2006 at 14:58
| actually, chinese repaire great wall every year before Jin dynasty, so for a hundred years without repairing, the great wall was extremely damaged, and by the time mongols came, the wall pretty much lost it's effect. |
Posted By: Turk Nomad
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 09:22
| Well,Turks entered and raided china hundreds time.Great Wall couldn'T stopped simple raiders...Don't forget army was mainly Turkic and most of them were raiders. |
Posted By: poirot
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 10:29
|
The concept of the Great Wall is NOT, I repeat NOT what we nowdays think it is. In a sense, it was the LAST LINE of Defense, not a stationary wall that simply blocks nomads. There were usually encampments outside of the wall, and the wall is simply somewhere to fall back to.
The Great Wall was mostly relevant to three dynasties: Qin, Han, and Ming, all of which spent some time building their own version of the Great Wall.
Other dynasties relied lesser on the Great Wall and more on key frontier districts and forts. For example, during the Tang Dynasty, Turkic empires were crushed by Emperor Taizong, and many Turkic warriors became loyal Tang generals. The Tang Empire extended beyond the traditional limits of the Great Wall and posted many generals of foreign blood - such as Turks and Koreans - in key military districts in the frontier, often in areas such as Central Asia and the steppe.
Here, I would like to dispel the idea that Turks and other nomadic groups were only raiders who breached the wall. In many times, the same Turks and other nomadic groups served on THE OTHER SIDE of the wall. The Chinese dynasties also employed many foreigners, often nomads, in their armies. The Tang Dynasty's employment of Turks in key commanding posts is one example; another example is the Ming Dynasty, where cavalry officers were often Mongols. In the later stages of the Ming Dynasty, desertion from the army often enabled Mongols and other nomadic groups to join the ranks as mercenaries. ------------- AAAAAAAAAA "The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow.� ~ HG Wells |
Posted By: Siege Tower
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 15:30
| turks???????!!!!!??? |
Posted By: Siege Tower
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 15:37
| the Qin great wall actually extend to south Korea |
Posted By: Omnipotence
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 17:48
|
turks???????!!!!!???
Not the Middle Eastern turks. He means the nomadic turks of centra asia I believe.
|
Posted By: poirot
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 17:50
|
Correct, Turkic generals such as Feng Changqing and An Lushan were of the Northern/Central Asian stock. ------------- AAAAAAAAAA "The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow.� ~ HG Wells |
Posted By: Vivek Sharma
Date Posted: 30-Sep-2006 at 01:20
As are so many other turks. You can't expect a country as huge as China to have just one language. ------------- PATTON NAGAR, Brains win over Brawn |
Posted By: King Kang of Mu
Date Posted: 30-Sep-2006 at 05:17
------------- http://www.allempires.net/forum/forums.html |
Posted By: BigL
Date Posted: 02-Oct-2006 at 01:20
What you want us to go to North Korea and find the Wall
 |
Posted By: Byzantine Emperor
Date Posted: 02-Oct-2006 at 01:47
Let me preface my reply by deferring to you guys since you are the Asian history experts. It is my understanding that it was a combination of the very things that poirot mentioned--Turkic warriors and people in encampments near/outside the Wall--which led to the Wall's eventual "breach." The emperors established (enfeoffed?) guards and their families along the wall to live there and watch over it. They had daily contact (economic, social) with the barbarian peoples outside and grew used to them. So the Turkic generals, some of whose loyalty was questionable, worked with the apathetic guards and eventually allowed raiders to sneak inside. Forgive my lack of chronological detail, for I can't remember exactly when this occured.
------------- http://www.allempires.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=12713 - Late Byzantine Military http://www.allempires.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=17337 - Ottoman perceptions of the Americas |
Posted By: BigL
Date Posted: 02-Oct-2006 at 23:24
|
This according to an old History channel documentry which is innacuratte.Ming dynasty the 17th centrury Manchu people are Juzhen mongolian semi nomadic people were let through the gate by a chinese governor who was paid off.
The mongols never had to face a great wall as it was only a historical ruin by then
|
Posted By: Siege Tower
Date Posted: 03-Oct-2006 at 08:34
pre qin qin great wall     han great wall han's invision against xiong-nu    ming great wall   |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 03-Oct-2006 at 10:44
The Jin Dynasty<金> defenced and controled the great wall area at that time.
Jin Dynasty chief general Wang. GU-bu defected to the MONGOLS, then MONGOLS controled the great wall in AD 1203, therefore Mongols never breached the great wall.
|
Posted By: Turk Nomad
Date Posted: 03-Oct-2006 at 11:09
Nearly %85 of army was Asian Turkic tribesman friend =)
|
Posted By: dick
Date Posted: 03-Oct-2006 at 13:54
The Jin dynasty built the great wall too. There are only 3 dynasties which haven't. The Tang, the Yuan and the Qing.
|
Posted By: dick
Date Posted: 03-Oct-2006 at 13:57
No it wasn't, where did you get this information from? The Jin dynasty actually taken lots of building projects along the frontier. Wan Yan WuShu had much of the great wall built to prevent the mongol intrusion.
|
Posted By: shurite7
Date Posted: 03-Oct-2006 at 20:14
|
In Jan of 07 Osprey Publishing will offer a book on the Great Wall by Stephen Turnbull.
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=T0048 - http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=T0048 ------------- Cheers Chris |
Posted By: tadamson
Date Posted: 05-Oct-2006 at 09:56
Well we can hope........ but I don't expect too much from translations of Japaese works...  ------------- rgds. Tom.. |
Posted By: tadamson
Date Posted: 05-Oct-2006 at 09:59
Presuming you mean 85% of the 'Mongol' army, this only applies to armies of the Golden Horde, Blue Hord and later Timurid dynasties. ------------- rgds. Tom.. |
Posted By: tadamson
Date Posted: 05-Oct-2006 at 10:06
To answer the original question, The Mongol attack on the Jin Empire was launched on several fronts, the line of the walls (there were several) was breached at different places in different ways, by storming fortifications in passes, by defeating garrison troops in open battle and by forced marces through terrain supposidly impassible to large numbers of troops. ------------- rgds. Tom.. |
Posted By: Turk Nomad
Date Posted: 06-Oct-2006 at 10:41
All of the empires you are talking about are Turkic empires.I mean Ghengis Empire.Army was mostly Kereyit,nayman,mergit,noghai,kipchak,kryguz and Uighur Turks.İf you search,you will se army was mainly Turkic my friend =)
|
Posted By: XueKaiYuan
Date Posted: 07-Oct-2006 at 03:28
|
did the jins care to even use the great wall? I know the songs did but there wasn't much effect and they were driven south by the jins.
------------- LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOOLLLLLLOOOLLL!!! |
Posted By: Gun Powder Ma
Date Posted: 08-Oct-2006 at 20:43
|
The Mongols encountered no Great Wall when they conquered China. They were briefly held up at Chu-yung-kuan by the Chin, who had strengthened their bastion impressively. The gates were "sealed with iron and the surrounding country (approximately 30 miles) strewn with caltrops."...One can agree with the modern geographer Pai Mei-ch'u BE, who stated that most of the early walls have long since disappeared, and that what survive today are Ming works. Arthur N. Waldron: The Problem of The Great Wall of China, in: Havard Journal ofAsiatic Studies, Vol. 43, No. 2. (Dec., 1983), pp. 643-663 (656) |
Posted By: Omnipotence
Date Posted: 09-Oct-2006 at 02:28
|
^Many sections of preMing walls(including Jin built ones like Mingchang wall). Of course, these walls are in very bad disrepair and many sections only have pretty much just the foundations left.
The Jin surely did build their Great Walls, but whether it was used by the time of the Mongol invasion led by Genghis I am not sure.
|
Posted By: shurite7
Date Posted: 10-Oct-2006 at 01:20
|
In Jan of 07 Osprey Publishing will offer a book on the Great Wall by Stephen Turnbull.
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=T0048 - http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=T0048 Well we can hope........ but I don't expect too much from translations of Japaese works... I'm sure you notice but I didn't add "there is a good book coming out in.....
I wouldn't put to much hope in it.
Over the next couple of years more and more translated material will be published about the wall, even it's origins.
------------- Cheers Chris |
Posted By: Praetorian
Date Posted: 27-Oct-2006 at 03:26
Well simple, using siege weapons, and they also went around it… Dang Mongols They kill thats all they do!------------- “Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris” “--If Caesar were alive, you'd be chained to an oar.” "game over!! man game over!!" |
Posted By: Khashayarshah
Date Posted: 06-Nov-2006 at 19:09
|
The chinese workers who worked day and knight by force let them in. the
government in china at the time was very mean to low class farmers, and
the low class let the mongolians in hoping that they would give them
more freedom.
------------- Who is the real fool? the man who says what to do, or the man that follows him? |
Posted By: Omar al Hashim
Date Posted: 06-Nov-2006 at 19:42
|
A very long wall isn't really an effective barrier against an organised army. It would successfully stop raiding parties, but anyone suffciently determined can get through a wall.
------------- |
Posted By: BigL
Date Posted: 07-Nov-2006 at 23:31
try reading other peoples posts before assuming you are correct
|
Posted By: The Charioteer
Date Posted: 01-Jan-2007 at 01:39
|
here's detailed description(for those who can read Chinese)
http://www.chinagreatwall.org/detail/news_detail.jsp?info_id=1100052737&cust_id=greatwall - http://www.chinagreatwall.org/detail/news_detail.jsp?info_id=1100052737&cust_id=greatwall ------------- |
Posted By: Imperator Invictus
Date Posted: 01-Jan-2007 at 18:36
|
The great wall built by the Qin and Han were not used by the Jin. Those walls had long fallen out of repair when the Mongols arrived. The Jin, however, had their own fortifications similar to the great wall, but as others have mentioned, a long fortification like the great wall is not a very formidable defense. To put things into perspective, the great wall, even in its Ming Dynasty form, was not more fortified than city walls. On the other hand, the "great wall" was longer, which meant that it was more vulnerable and more difficult to defend. If an army can storm a city wall, then it is obviously strong enough to break through a fortification on the open. However, the misconception that there was a wall formidable enough to resist the Mongol invasion led some early western historians to propose that the Mongols outflanked the wall by attacking from the west through the Gansu region. |
Posted By: poirot
Date Posted: 01-Jan-2007 at 19:52
|
The Great Wall concept itself is a gross violation of Sun Tzu's Art of War.
------------- AAAAAAAAAA "The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow.� ~ HG Wells |
Posted By: poirot
Date Posted: 01-Jan-2007 at 20:08
|
During the Song Dynasty Period, the defenses were two fold: 1. a northern defense centered around key PASSES south and southwest of Peking against the Liao Khitans 2. a western defense centered around the Wei River basin and Chang'an (or what was left of it) against the Xi Xia Tanguts. On top of the two defenses, a professional, burgeoning central imperial guard army patrolled the Yellow River Basin around Kaifeng, the capital. The imperial guard army was known to expand to as much as 800,000, the largest imperial guard army in Chinese history. The Song never controlled the entirety of northern and western China, and so never controlled the northern and western parts that a traditional great wall would run through. Key Passes along the northern and western frontiers were much more efficient and economical. For the Jin Jurchens, the southern frontier against the Song was a much more formidable challenge - up to the time of Genghis Khan. The later Southern Song defenses were threefold: 1. a western defense line along Hanzhong and northern Sichuan 2. supported by a defense line along Xiangyang (this key defense line was only broken after 2 years of seige by Mongols in 1272) 3. a heavily patrolled eastern defense line along the Huai River, which gathered the most elite Southern Song troops, because this defense line protected the capital, Linan. After the Mongols gobbled the Jurchen Jin, Mongke Khan wisely developed a strategy of invasion against the Southern Song: attacking weaker south and southwestern defense lines first, before turning to the heavier eastern defense lines. Thus began the Mongol incursions into Sichuan - led by Mongke Khan himself - and the subsequent surrendering of Dali forced by Subetai's son. The incursions into Sichuan were carried out in conjunction with Khubelai's against the Xiangyang defense line. The biggest turning point in the Southern Song-Mongol war was the Mongols' eventual success in the seige of Xiangyang, essentially eliminating the entire western defense lines of the Southern Song, and laying Linan vulnerable to a final, concentrated southern march led by Bayan. What happened afterwards - Zhang Shijie's defeat on the Yantze River and the surrender of Linan - was inevitable. ------------- AAAAAAAAAA "The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow.� ~ HG Wells |
Posted By: The Charioteer
Date Posted: 02-Jan-2007 at 00:44
This "very long wall" had more significance than just a barrier against raiding nomadic armies.
PBS documentary series, "history's turning point" has construction of the great wall nominated as one of history's greatest turning point. It defined the boundary of "civilized" and "uncivilized" world(to quote from the documentary).
Discovery Channel's documentary made more comprehensive introduction on the building technique of the wall during different dynasties, its strategical function and defensive effectiveness. How human factor may affect its defense. etc
At the end of program, it mentioned a notion like "if the great wall had any significance, it showed the Chinese's will to survive, no matter the cost."
Not coincidentally, a lyric from our national anthem is " Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves! With our flesh and blood, let us build our new Great Wall! ..." The great wall symbolizes the Chinese national spirit. As the song was composed during the period of Japanese invasion, and was originally accompanied to a film describing a Chinese poet who went to the frontline bravely fighting the Japanese invaders. This fact may well reflect the notion of discovery's.
P.S for more comprehensive and objective assessment on the historical function and significance of the great wall.
see "The great wall during ancient warfare"
http://www.chinagreatwall.org/detail/news_detail.jsp?info_id=1100052940&cust_id=greatwall - http://www.chinagreatwall.org/detail/news_detail.jsp?info_id=1100052940&cust_id=greatwall
------------- |
Posted By: Siege Tower
Date Posted: 02-Jan-2007 at 11:13
Posted By: poirot
Date Posted: 02-Jan-2007 at 17:13
|
The wall is the last line of defense, not the first.
------------- AAAAAAAAAA "The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow.� ~ HG Wells |
Posted By: Qin Dynasty
Date Posted: 03-Jan-2007 at 10:25
| Song China's lose again proved the importance of strategical territory. Song's army was much more advanced in weapons and armors. Their training were good, too. But this most wealthy and advanced country at its time in the world could not stop Mongol's advancing. Not because Song's generals did not well enough, it was just beyond their ability. When the northern vast land occupied by nomads, even the great Yangtze river could not bar the enemy, let alone a simple wall. When the Song soldiers sheltered in the heavily fortified castles shooting the enemy with their half auto firearms, they were doomed to final failure. They gave their initiatives to the Mongols and could never take it back. Mongols had much more men to employ, much more horses to ride, much more natural resources to smith into weapons. Though the mongols suffered more casualties, they won at last. Song's defeat arised from the lose of nothern territory, and uncontrol of the West Reign, Manchuria etc. |
Posted By: Batu
Date Posted: 18-Jan-2007 at 11:58
|
the mongols breached the great wall as the others( Blue Turks etc.) did.i dont think that its hard to breach it becouse i dont think that Turks(pagan CA turks) were advanced in pre-mongol times. ------------- A wizard is never late,nor he is early he arrives exactly when he means to :) ( Gandalf the White in the Third Age of History Empire Of Istari ) |
Posted By: pekau
Date Posted: 18-Jan-2007 at 20:54
|
Ok, honestly. Just because Mongolian armies depended on horses does not mean that they can't get over the wall? It's like saying if we pave a river in front of our defense, the enemy tanks can't come in. I must say that Mongols must had a bit more difficulties... but come on. They could easily shower the wall defenders with arrows, cannons (After Mongolians got this technology from the Chinese) and just about anything else that they could think of. I heard that when Mongolians encounter a heavily fortified defense, they catapulted the dead boddies around or in the defense and allow the diseases from the dead bodies to infect and weaken the defense… but who knows. If you watched how Mongolians breached Kim’s great wall in South Park, it doesn’t seem that hard to breach the walls… ------------- http://swagbucks.com/refer/Malachi"> 
Join us. |
Posted By: jiangweibaoye
Date Posted: 19-Jan-2007 at 12:29
|
Pekau,
I think Genghis Khan said that a wall is only as good as the defenders who defend the wall. Something like that. A wall is very prohibitive when properly and adqueately garrisoned. See how the Manchu's broke through the Great Wall when toppling the Ming. They did not.
Mongols utilized Arab or Persian engineers during seiges of Song fortifications. I do not believe that cannons were used. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Yes, Mongols can shower defenders with arrows, but so can the defenders. Also the defenders can utilize the crossbow (meaning greater range). Something the Mongols cannot.
Jiangwei
|
Posted By: jiangweibaoye
Date Posted: 19-Jan-2007 at 12:33
|
Pekau, Also throwing dead bodies only work when laying seige to a city. If you are referring to the Great Wall, it probably will not work. Jiangwei |
Posted By: Siege Tower
Date Posted: 19-Jan-2007 at 20:48
|
Like i said, great wall was not build for defence purpose or very little of it, the geography of the surrounding area does not support siege on either side.
------------- |
Posted By: Praetor
Date Posted: 22-Jan-2007 at 11:29
I have heard that the Mongols simply bypassed the Great wall by sending
Subedei with 30000 men to fiegn an attack on the great wall. Tricking
the Jin into sending many of thier reinforcements there. While Genghis
Khan and the main army of the Mongols went around the great wall and
attacked from the west, catching the Jin completely by surprise .I have also been to an exhibition recently about the great wall and would like to say how incredibly ingenius the technology and engineering was  .
Particularly during the Ming dynasty, at this time the soldiers
stationed on "the great wall" (I know that there were in fact multiple
seperate walls) slept on internally heated benches, and used explosive
Rockets disguised as crows!!!------------- |
Posted By: xi_tujue
Date Posted: 23-Jan-2007 at 11:15
|
Mabey a more important quest how was the greatwall built this is how  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Zwwrf-bP0 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Zwwrf-bP0 ------------- I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage |
Posted By: Top Gun
Date Posted: 23-Jan-2007 at 11:20
|
but I have a magazine that always was accurate that tells that the Mongols just ride around it ------------- |
Posted By: pekau
Date Posted: 26-Jan-2007 at 07:22
Ha, that's an interesting way of putting it. The wall, if used effectively, would not be a bad option though... ------------- http://swagbucks.com/refer/Malachi">
Join us. |