Are castles the ulimate counter to mongols?

Stone walls didn't stop them in China.

>>1134423
No, internal politics and the natural flow of culture was. What was 'Russia' was almost fucked by a mongol scouting group, had it not been for the Khan's sudden death that withdrew them from the first of what would've been a series of landslide battles.

>>1134423
No, you just build a Siege Workshop and upgrade your battering rams to maximum.

But if there was a /his/torical magic the gathering game, the stone wall card would make a nice counter to the mongol card.

File: 15537721[1].jpg (103KB, 800x386px) Image search: [Google]

103KB, 800x386px

>>1134423
Look up the siege of Kaifeng. Constantinople tier fortification.
And in general all settlements in China and Korea had a "castle" thing in the middle, or a keep of some sort.
It was the most fortified part of the world. The mongols adapted quickly enough.

>>1134430
because russia didn't have castles
I dont think its a coincidience that mongols never advanced into the core land of Europe which is filled with castles.

>>1134436
>Kaifeng
That's a city, not a castle

>>1134438
Not sure if this is bait or not, but with the fluxes of homework help-seekers and /pol/lacks I can't assume

>>1134440
Are we playing that game now? The its a palace, its a fortification, its a keep, its a bailey, its a wall, its a chateau, its a doodle-fucking-doo game?

Kaifeng was more of a castle than any other man made construction in its day.
Argue reason, not semantics.

>>1134444
mongols relied on their mobility and the ability to strike quickly and retreat.
When inviding a country full of castles, they must either siege them, robbing their advantage of mobility, or ignore them, leaving their supply chains open to raids by warriors who hide in the castles.

>>1134440
For all intents and purposes it was castled

>>1134454
This isnt a video game. The mongols had a huge siege park. They had a large infantry force. They had engineers and architects on campaigns. They had a big navy at one point.

>>1134436
Kaifeng surrendered. It's defenses weren't breached. Look at the Mongols' performance in Hungary, where the cities were sacked, but the few stone-walled castles remained under Hungarian control, deep behind the Mongol lines.

>>1134448
Castle and and fortified city are entierly different.
A city has an economic worth on its own, the walls are the to protect that worth.
A castle, on the other hand, is just a tool for assymetric warfare. Its a place where your warriors can retreat after they raided enemy supplies. The enemy has to either split his troops to siege your castle, or leave his supplies vulnerable to attacks.

>>1134467
>dont look at your example, look at my example

Huh.

>>1134469
>its an "i have no argument, so i'll beat him with the dictionary" episode

>>1134465
>The mongols had a huge siege park. They had a large infantry force. They had engineers and architects on campaigns. They had a big navy at one point.
You can deal with all of that shit. What made them so terrible was their ability to strike fast and not leaving a opportunity for retaliation. Castles rob them of that ability

>>1134470
Well, yes. The city surrendered because it was running out of supplies, a castle with a military garrison could last far longer, if equipped with a well and adequately supplied. Hell, even Kaifeng would have lasted longer without the Emperor turning tail and escaping.

>>1134473
a castle is basically a bunker.
are you arguning cities and bunkers are the same?

>>1134465
The mongols did use their siege weaponry on stone castles and found them unable to breach the walls.

Mongoose weren't retarded. I think some of you are imagining them riding their horses in circles and shooting arrows at stone walls. But they took plenty of fortifications.

>>1134423
Nigga you never seen South Park? They'll get through it anyway.

>>1134423
>>1134430
Those were just one factor among many.

Sometimes the Mongols were experiencing political instability, sometimes their neighbors were. The "holy" "roman" "empire"'s schism with the church for example meant Hungary and Poland could not rely on support from most of its christian allies.

Despite their overwhelming advantage the Mongols still experienced some losses at the battle of Mohi, there were more natural obstacles like rivers and forests than in Russia and bottlenecks like Sajo bridge limited the Mongol advantage in maneuver giving an opportunity for crossbowmen and slower infantry and cavalry to engage. If Christendom had committed to sending wave after wave of crusaders it would have been very difficult for the Mongols to make much progress.

It took the Mongols decades to fully conquer China and by that point most of the world (outside the steppes) had adapted to their style of warfare.

>>1134423
How to combat Mongols?

You look at how previous settled civilisations dealt with nomadic horsemen/archers. The Assyrians were among the first in recorded history to do so, with varied success. They used combined archers and spearmen, and recruited nomadic horseman to fight against other nomads.

We can also look at how Alexander The Great inflicted defeat on the Scythians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jaxartes Again, combined arms (artillery, cavalry, spearmen, archers,) He used a feint maneuver to bait their cavalry into attacking a small contingent of his own cavalry, and once the nomads were engaged, he moved forward the rest of the forces.

Chine generally tried to keep up to date on steppe politics and tried to prevent the steppe nomads from uniting into a bigger confederation. That was the idea, anyway.

But generally, nomadic horsemen would be slowed down by heavily wooded, mountainous terrain.

>>1134486
but they did have a lot of horse archers, which used to shoot at enemy and retreat.
However, if they were to siege a castle, they couldn't just retreat if enemy force arrives, or else the castle gets resupplied

>>1134496
>but they did have a lot of horse archers

They aren't units in a video game. They adapted to however they needed to fight.

>>1134504
how would horse archers adapt to a castle?

>>1134509

How does anyone take a castle?

>>1134516
by sieging it long enough, until they run out of food and surrender

>>1134525
But where do the siegers get their food from? The besieged have all supplies in many kilometre radius inside their castle.

>>1134538
from the farmland around them.
or they get food from the supplies from their homeland

>>1134548
and that's exactly the way the mongols took castles.

File: 1408297340821.jpg (684KB, 1258x1876px) Image search: [Google]

684KB, 1258x1876px

>>1134548
>from the farmland around them.
Which as I said, is now empty of supplies since the besieged have taken it all with them inside the castle. There's very little to forage. Are you going to feed an army with roots and leaves?

>or they get food from the supplies from their homeland
Now how would you go about doing that? Feeding thousands of soldiers for months. That's a massive logistical train required and all of it's going to be done by horseback, or if you're lucky, by ships. How do you ensure that all of that transport works smoothly and you don't lose half your supplies to enemy raids on your convoys?

Nobody ever won a war by hiding in castles.

>>1134563
oh well, i guess castles were never besieged then
wait, they were, so you must be wrong

>>1134561
but by beeing forced to siege the castles mongols arent able to use their famous hit and run tacticts anymore. And it is not hard to beat horse archers if they dont run away

>>1134516
Scale the walls and kill the sentries, break down the walls or gates or surround it and starve out the defenders. There are some alternative methods as well such as digging tunnels, sapping the walls or colluding with defenders who aid the assault from within (possibly by opening a gate or starting a fight inside).

>>1134571
so i guess castles were useless and people build them just for fun

>>1134589
People didn't just hide in the castles though. They sallied forth, made raids on enemy troops and baggage trains and so forth.

File: 1406025899828.jpg (462KB, 1200x1614px) Image search: [Google]

462KB, 1200x1614px

>>1134516
>How does anyone take a castle?

>>1134594
yeah, thats the whole point of castles, to wage assymetric war on the invader

>>1134589
>so i guess castles were useless and people build them just for fun

No, they are a place to hide until your army shows up. But you still need an army that can defeat the enemy army.

Daily reminder that Vietnam guerrilla managed to get a kind of draw against the full force of Kublai Khan army.

>>1134642
so mongols have to either siege the castle or go on, and leave their supply vunreable to raids.
Thus, they lose their advantage of mobility

>>1134648

In real life the Mongols were never stopped by fortifications. What did happen > what some neckbeard 800 years later says "should" happen.

The problem in this thread is that a lot of people (both in favour and against the mongols) is talking totally or partially about the early mongols of Genghis Khan. Most of the qualities of the mongol horde that allowed it to be so powerful and gain a big first momentum did not exist or were not main features of the Empire in times of Ogedei. And even less after his death.

So we imagine a Mongol Empire that, somehow, didn't fall to massive decentralization and internal fight after the death of Ogadai. And we try to judge if these empire would be able to threaten and defeat (or not) the fortified lands of central and western europe. Well, this mongol empire we're talking about probably has little to do with the horde of Genghis Khan and more to do with other great polities that started as nomadic hordes but became big settled empires ruled by an elite with nomadic heritage. It would be better to suppose that these mongol empire would be similar to the great seljuks or the ottomans. This is, with a good supply of riders, but with totally different features from the early horde apart from that. Returning to the two examples I offer, we see that the Seljuks were never a significant threat for Europe (although they did take fortifications) while in the other hand the Ottomans attacked Viena two and a half times.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Xiangyang
Seige warfare made it easy to take fortified castles. Once the mongols got their hands on the superior seiges, this was the end of Song.

The mongol version of their seige weapon could throw 300 KG at range of 500 meters.

In comparison 13th century's largest trebuchet can throw 130 KG. Early seige weapons could throw much smaller weights. But these new heavier types could breach all types of walls. So it wouldn't be impossible for the mongols to destroy tiny european castles. In fact, they'd probably need maybe 1-2 to be really effective against European castles.

The Mongols used 20 of them in Xiangyang and it was very effective. It took them couple of years to breach the fort but they did. The fort was very well defended and the mongols had to use all kinds of asymetric warfare to breach it.

>>1134669
while I appreciate the in-depth explanation, I think you're strawmanning a little bit. I think only one person in this thread even mentioned Europe.

>>1134663
if your army is forced to siege a castle, it is the very definition of beeing stopped

>>1134669
but most of the conquering happend after the death of genhis khan

>>1134693
The thread starts with the picture of an European castle and clearly makes reference to the endless debates about the subjects I'm talking about!

File: feels_good_man.jpg (74KB, 285x314px) Image search: [Google]

74KB, 285x314px

>>1134563

>>1134423
Well after the first raid into Europe the King of Hungary responded by building a shit ton of stone castles. The second invasion was repulsed

I am going to take the policies and opinion over the medieval king of Hungary over whatever /pol/acks and /his/ autists have to say on the matter I think.

>>1134699
My argument was not in favour of the mongols or against them.

>>1134427
Then again, it took them some 40 years to conquer china when they were a lot closer to a source of reinforcements.

>>1134687
once again, they were sieging cities, not castles

>>1134709
I guess. Maybe I'm misreading this thread, but I wasn't aware that we were talking explicitly about Europe, especially considering a lot of the discussion on Mongol sieges of Southern Song fortified cities (I agree with one anon who said for all intents and purposes these are similar to castles).

There are plenty of ways to besiege an enemy and the Mongols learned these methods as they encountered new adversaries. They were quick to adapt new technologies and techniques and to employ foreign experts to help their army.

>>1134711
The Hungarians also had winter by their side. With supplies naturally on the low side and most everything hoarded by the Hungarians themselves, the Mongols faced a logistical catastrophy. The notably increased amount of knights in their forces also played a great part in defeating the Mongols. It wasn't just the castles and improved fortifications in their cities.

File: yeah, this is fine.jpg (13KB, 250x250px) Image search: [Google]

13KB, 250x250px

>>1134710

>>1134711
Correlations isn't causation.

>mongols didn't attack castles and retreated
>therefore castles must be the ultimate defense

>build more forts
>mongols got ambushed and got defeated
>therefore forts are the ultimate anti-mongol

The reason mongols didn't attack forts could very well be simple. They didn't need to. Forts have a weakeness. Their supply chain. Once cut, they're dead.

>>1134720
The Chinese "cities" are fortified by design. The example in particular is a natural fort combined with enough supply to feed the people inside for years. Thats hundreds of thousands of people inside.

The philosophy of medeval villages + fort and chinese city forts are completely different. The Chinese direction not only defends their regent but also its people and resources. Meanwhile, the castles of europe are only large enough to defend the regent and couple hundreds(? maybe thats being too generous) army for maybe few months to a year.

>>1134729
Personally I think there's nothing wrong with talking about the wars between Yuan and Song and taking them as an example of what could've been in Europe.

After all, Yuan is a perfect example of what I was talking about, a big settled empire with a ruling class with nomadic heritage. In case that the mongol empire had stayed unified enough to threaten Europe (for whatever reason) I believe that the europeans would face something more similar to Yuan than the Golden Horde.

>>1134483
When it comes to "do large stone walls and defenses defeat Mongols" then yes, they are the exact fucking same. Stop being so fucking pedantic

>>1134743
no way you can feed a populaion of thousands for years

>>1134743
>The example in particular is a natural fort combined with enough supply to feed the people inside for years. Thats hundreds of thousands of people inside.
That is a lot of fucking food for a pre-industrial nation. Got any evidence of that?

>>1134761
stone walls around cities are to keep the population and the ecnomy safe from the invaders.
castles are there to attack invaders supply chain and slow down his movement.
So no, castles and fotified cities are inheritly different in their purpose

>>1134747
I agree with that. I think the way the Mongols handled Song fortifications could be an indication of a hypothetical scenario where they might have dealt with European castles. I just wasn't really sure what you were responding to originally. You mentioned how other people were arguing in favor or against the ability of the Mongols to deal with the fortified lands of Western and Central Europe but aside from the OP picture and one post, nobody had even really broached the subject of Europe.

There were other issues with a Mongol invasion of Europe such as logistics and overextension. The Jurchen Jin and Southern Song were relatively close to the Mongol heartland while Europe was a long distance away. Even in the case of a unified Mongol Empire, I think a European invasion would have been difficult since time would have been needed to consolidate control over a large expanse of territory. I think castles would have been the least of the Mongols' problems.

File: QFRD9PD7KYN7B8IHJ2A6KG0MCLIODCRU.jpg (1MB, 3216x2136px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 3216x2136px

>>1134799
The problem with the fortified cities though, is that a city is by far less defendable than a fortified castle.
It has a far higher population, requiring far more supplies, meaning it cannot withstand prolonged sieges.
You cannot build a city on a small island, or on top of a cliff. Building effective, high walls for an entire city also requires massive amounts of resources and require a great amount of troops to man properly, whilst a castle garrison could be a few dozen men in size.

A castle can hold out on its own for years, whilst a besieged city needs to be relieved by military forces within months, or its populace will starve and be forced to surrender.

>>1134767
>>1134768
>http://deremilitari.org/2014/05/the-mongol-siege-of-xiangyang-and-fan-cheng-and-the-song-military/

Natural defense allowed the city to stay intact for years. They would've succeeded in their defense, had their internal Song politics not shit out on them.

Mongols had effectively blockaded the forts in the later years in all fronts.

File: Raseborg_Castle_(Raaseporin_linna)_in_Tammisaari_(Ekenäs)_Finland.jpg (3MB, 2592x1944px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 2592x1944px

>>1134820
Also, a city wall could relatively effectively be sapped and even the attempt at it has made cities surrender, but the same cannot be done to castles on cliffs or islands.

>>1134832
I should mention that, the mongols were dealing with two fortified cities. Both of them were blockaded for 4-5 years to stop communication/supplies from reaching them.

So this made it an extra hard thing for the mongols, but they still did it.

File: 1372726996114.png (33KB, 775x591px) Image search: [Google]

33KB, 775x591px

>>1134832
>10 years worth of supplies
So was this the Song dynasty's decisive defense against the mongols, or were their cities just that ridiculously well supplied?

>>1134890
The cities were naturally the key component in Song's defense and offense. For years, it was used as a launch pad to attack others. Their natural defense made it pretty good for defense too.

Once those fell, the rest of Song fell quick.

>>1134890
Maybe Chinese people can subsist on two grains of rice a day.

>>1134900
Do you know what their plans were in case of even further prolonged sieges? I read they attempted to relieve the city and break through, but failed quite miserably each time. Did they just expect the enemy to starve themselves outside the walls or break themselves on them?

Clearly they didn't expect the trebuchets that broke the walls.

>>1134563
>>1134710
>>1134740
most commoners were near constantly drunk and high on ergot, only nobles and clergy who ate a different diet were really aware of what was happening around them

>>1134448
He does have a point. A city has a much larger non combattant population than a castle, so a long siege is more likely to force a city to surrender as opposed to a castle, due to disease and starvation. Kaifeng surrendered, it wasn't breached.

>>1134427
Well, technically they did for a while, just not when the Mongols finally thought to recruit Chinese siege engineers.

>>1134910
Your Emperor gives you TWO grains of rice?

>>1135111
>>1134910
Its starting with 2 grains and doubling every day.

File: volgpepe.png (330KB, 1127x1283px) Image search: [Google]

330KB, 1127x1283px

>>1134423
Is "muh unstoppable Mongols" the biggest meme in current pop history?

>>1135162
Is it bigger than "muh unbreakable anti-mongol castle"?

>>1134427

> chink technology
> good

MONGols would get BTFO if they ever reached the HRE

>>1135181
Didn't the HRE got BTFO by the muslims? The same muslims the mongols rolled over easily?

File: h.jpg (23KB, 341x419px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 341x419px

>>1135207
>Didn't the HRE got BTFO by the muslims
u wot m8?

>>1134761
Holy shit, you are a fucking retard.

The average chink city had MEDIOCRE defenses.

Single outer wall, no overlapping coverage from defenses, shit wall construction, and they sure as shit didn't have crossbowmen sitting inside the walls shooting from loopholes with overlapping fields of fire.

Nor is the central keep so close to the defenses that penetrating the gate leading to it means you instantly come under fire from the walls, the men still in the gatehouse, who turn around and use the rear slits, and the keep, which is full of loopholes.


Castles are purpose built military fortifications\, usually sited on defensive terrain.


Chinese cities are far worse in virtually every way. They need far more food, far more water, have fare more wall to try and protect, usually have no concentric defenses, and generally ARE NOT designed for war.
The mongols brought Chinese siege engineers to Hungary. They didn't take a single stone castle, and not for lack of trying.

>>1134799
Mongols tried to take European castles in reality. It went badly.

>>1135162
Yes.

The Mongols never went past Western Hungary for a reason. Central and Western Europe's combination of dense forests and a much higher concentration of advanced fortifications, made the prospect of conquering these lands far too costly for the Mongols. Besides, they were very satisfied with what they already had.

>>1134743
Mongols did attack those castles and they got thoroughly BTFO.

>>1135234
Not to mention typical tactics weren't working on Europeans.

Mongols would, if possible, trick idiots into surrender and then kill them.

Europeans viewed mongols as pagan tricksters and refused to take any offer seriously.

The Hungarians also burned their wealth when they knew all was lost.

Estergzom had a wood and earth wall. Mongols siege engines breached it. Rather than surrender or panic, the populace burned or buried everything, fled into stone buildings, and fought to the death. They correctly assumed the mongols would kill them all anyway.

The citadel, being stone, held. Everyone else died. The mongols took an entire city and got nothing for it but bad memories.

>>1134743
>fort
>supply chain
You do realize castles have relatively small garrisons, and store large amounts of food, right?


There's a very real possibility that an attacker will starve first as they use up all the available forage in the area.

>>1135266
This.
Europeans have always been absolute madmen, that's why they conquered the world

>>1135277
Not to mention all the fodder they're going to need for the horses and any invasion of Western Europe is doomed to failure

>>1135277
>There's a very real possibility that an attacker will starve first as they use up all the available forage in the area.
Don't forget that the garrison will probably have foraged everything they could beforehand, so there won't be much for the invaders.

>>1135283
That's less certain. I personally don't believe the "no pasturage' theory.

I DO think they'd end up just like the Magyars, but on a larger scale.

Apparently whatever worked on the Chinks and their cardboard castles didn't do dick in Hungary.

>>1135300
And by that you mean settling and adopting Christianity?

>>1135222
You're wrong on the chinese cities not being built for war.

They were absolutely built for war. Just not the European war. Concept of total defense was what the Chinese practiced. In the Europe, the Castles are simply glorified forts. Tiny fraction compared to the Chinese city forts.

The ancient chinese capital was Xi'an and its fortification walls extended 14 kilometers in range. The walls were built 40 feet high, 40-50 feet width at top and 50-60 feet width at bottom. This protected nearly 40 km^2 area inside. Thats just one prime example of city forts. The regular city forts are much smaller but those still dwarf the castles of european by magnitudes.

Supposedly the largest Castle is Malbork Castle in Poland. That's about 0.14 km^2 in area.

I don't think a castle that size can hold out on mongol assault. Castles in europe are tiny. That protect very few people. The mongols can simply eradicate the entire population and they can do nothing about it if they hold up inside that fort.

Thats exactly what the mongols did to eastern europe. European nobles didnt care about the safety of their own people, only themselves. Thats what castles are for. To defend themselves. Not the people or the land.

File: 7704 Surrender of Dawachi Khan.jpg (578KB, 1732x1024px) Image search: [Google]

578KB, 1732x1024px

>>1134423
Nope. Standing armies and firearms do.

It's how Qing China and Tsarist Russia eventually ended Steppenigger shit forever.

>>1135331
Taking a city =/= taking a castle.
Castles were basically murder machines stuffed with professional soldiers only, and taking them would be incredibly costly and hard, especially since you have a whole army to feed

>>1135331
>I don't think a castle that size can hold out on mongol assault.
That's nice.

They did exactly that in history, and literally no historian has ever disputed this.

Would you like to continue being wrong, or are we done?

>European nobles didnt care about the safety of their own people, only themselves. Thats what castles are for. To defend themselves. Not the people or the land.

I guess we're not done.

Which is why the Hungarian king spared no expense in building many, many new castles, even giving land to the hospitallers and granting rights to lesser nobility to do so.

To not protect more people.

>>1135316
Different faction within Mongol. The western mongols and the eastern mongols began distancing themselves. The eastern mongols became Yuan, a Chinese dynasty. Factioning of mongols that stretched couple thousand miles apart. The eastern front were the ones that developed those huge trebuchets that can easily destroy the walls of any european castles. But those didnt make it to the western side because splintered mongols.

>>1135376
Except they specifically brought Chinese siege engineers on the first invasion,and used them.

Stop spewing shit.

File: Qianmen Gate Arrow Tower.jpg (3MB, 2592x1944px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 2592x1944px

>>1135222
>Single outer wall
Not really. Some have interior walls to protect the inner quarters of a city.

Not to mention militarily important fortified Chinese cities have Arrow "Towers." Which is a misnomer since its actually a fortified building which acts as a strongpoint within the city in case the walls are breached. Not to mention is the size of a fucking castle keep. From here, the defenders could either defend or arm and equip themselves to attack besiegers from a sector of the city that is breached.

>shit wall construction
Nope.jpg. A "Stone" Wall in China often meant "rammed earth wall dressed in stone battlements." The rammed earth core acted as a shock absorbant to missile weapons hurled at it. It was quite effective that when large cannons were a thing in Chinese warfare, they didn't have to seriously change the design.

>>1135402
And yet, those same walls failed miserably when faced with arab trebuchets that were standard fare in the west.
You're also misunderstanding how secondary walls work in europe.

A concentric castle will have ALL of its walls in range of each other. And central keep will also be in range of the defenses.

There's no respite, no time recover and reorganize, and no way to isolate individual areas and crush them in detail.

There's also no wasted men defending a place that isn't of any use until you're losing.

>>1135391
The eastern muslim mongol were the ones that came up with the large trebuchet that led to China's defeat. Chinese seige engineers before the muslim seige engineer and before the seige of China were utilizing smaller seige units.

Stop being retard. Seige units evolved over time. The first invasion took place just before the death of the khan. This was successful, but they had to retreat due to internal politics. The second time, Hungary built 100 new castles to hold off the mongols. That was nearly 50 years apart.

It was not the magic anti-mongol stone castles, but rather the number of castles that delayed the mongols + numerous more organized military resources + weakened mongols + bad weather

Literally so many factors contributed to this downfall. Only reason historians continue to say its the impenetrable stone castles is because of lack of critical thinking, investigation and finally historical narrative tradition. Why question where there is nothing to gain but everything to lose?

File: 1462734585846.jpg (16KB, 400x389px) Image search: [Google]

16KB, 400x389px

>None of the few Hungarian stone castles fell, even those deep behind the Mongol lines. When the Mongols tried to use their siege engines on the stone walls of the Croatian Fortress of Klis, they did absolutely no damage, and were repelled with heavy casualties.
>A similar thing happened when they attempted to capture the citadel of Esztergom, despite having overwhelming numerical superiority and 30 siege machines which they had just used to reduce the wooden towers of the city.

>the city of Mongols

>>1135421
It wasn't the arab trebuchet. Not all muslim are arabs. The trebuchet themselves could field 300 kb worth of payload at 500 meters away.

The standard european trebuchet of the time could do half that for their strongest variant and even greater fraction for their average variant.


For that matter, did the european trebuchet lack range? Why couldn't they simply spam rocks at the castles? They're tiny and can crumble under pressure.

>>1135431
trebuchet predates the mongol invasions, in fact during the invasion of China they used Persian engineers to help build trebuchets

>>1135421
Xiangyang had a fucking old style wall with a thinner stone battlement. Not to mention they relied on earthworks

Also the Hui Pao, as it is known in China, isn't new. Persians brought it to the Song Dynasty in 1100's. Yuan's Chinese commanders knew how to attack their own cities

>>1135431
>This was successful, but they had to retreat due to internal politics
Except that's flat out wrong. The mongols were preparing to leave before they could have possibly received word from the empire.

They left because they'd gained mostly farm animals for loot, and were taking high casualties. The castles did their job.

>>1135475
>For that matter, did the european trebuchet lack range? No.

>Why couldn't they simply spam rocks at the castles?
The shoot back
>They're tiny and can crumble under pressure.
Except they didn't, and being small doesn't make the walls thinner.

What it does is reduce the perimeter you need to defend.

Why are you speaking in poorly thought out hypotheticals?

Mongols, with siege machines, tried to take European castles. They failed.

>>1135500
Protip:
The treubchet evolved considerably overtime, both in terms of raw size, and the mechanism it used to launch projectiles.

>>1135505
you sound like an imbecile my friend

>>1135522
He's completely right and you're getting reamed in this debate.

File: Siege.Chateau.Gaillard.png (131KB, 359x600px) Image search: [Google]

131KB, 359x600px

>>1134436
>>1134470
>>1134448
>>1134473
>>1134761
How to put this in a better way... The siege of Kaifeng ended after tens months and it only took that long because the mongols sold food to the defenders. Yes, you are reading that right. It was a city of a few hundred thousand. Stocking food for that may people for a long period is just unfeasible. Most late medieval would at full garrison only have a few hundred people. The largest full garrison number for a European castle that I have seen is Château Gaillard at 3600. Keeping food stores for a smaller number of people is just easier. As a added bonus all of the granaries in the area could be placed into castles of there was a large number of them.

So just how many castles would be in a given area? Around the year 1320 the County of Anjou had 32 casltes inside it, of which 2 were in disrepair and 1 was abandoned. This was improved on by have concentric castles, which made it very hard to take even with a small garrison.

The Jin did not have anything like a Jin dynasty concentric castles. However the Song ended up building concentric castle along a river to keep the mongols out. It worked very well taking 36 years for the first of those to be taken and even then it took Persian engineers building Counterweight trebuchets. Chinese Traction trebuchets did not have the range for counter battery fire against them .

Concentric castles were very hard for mongols to take.

>>1135522
I accept your surrender. Next time you wish to debate, try doing more than reading osprey books and watching the history channel.

Even fucking Wikipedia covers some of these concepts well enough to counter your idiocy.

>>1135671
I didn't take part in this debate. But since you're so sure to be 100% true that you allow yourself to be despicable toward other people trying to contribute to a topic by discussing and providing sources, I didn't want to bother arguing with you

Have a good day

>>1134430
The Kievan Rus was a divided and squabbling amalgamation of poor city states. On multiple occasions they left their shitty fortifications to go fight in open ground. This is ignoring the fact that they had mostly poorly made wooden castles. And the Khans death allegedly caused the withdraw from Poland and Hungary, Russia was already beaten by then.

>>1134448
>Kaifeng was more of a castle than any other man made construction in its day.
How about an actual castle?

>>1135671
Osprey has an incredibly shit knowledge of Chink history friendo.

Or Asian topics in general.

>>1135693
>you allow yourself to be despicable toward other people
Welcome to 4chan. Now fuck off back to /reddit/

>other people trying to contribute to a topic by discussing and providing sources
Go ahead, point to the sources. Oh, shit. There aren't any.

>>1135714
That's the point. Most of this thread is retards with a pop culture understanding of mongols, and NO understanding of how fortifications work.

>>1135735
As I stated earlier, you're a shithead. I'm glad you don't discuss that point

>>1135213
Repeatedly beaten until a Polish king got tired of Ottoman incursion and defended Vienna from them. A really close thing too, that was the end of Ottoman expansion into Europe

File: 546.jpg (20KB, 350x438px) Image search: [Google]

20KB, 350x438px

>>1135759
Welcome to 4chan, now fuck off back to wherever you came from.

t. different

>>1135162
Yes and it really is hilarious

>>1135806
let me guess, you are from Poland, right?

>>1135331

check out this PRC nig

File: 1443997371968.gif (2MB, 230x175px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 230x175px

>>1135331
>Butthurt chink mad that Europe was better than China at killing horse people

File: Fun.png (125KB, 500x284px) Image search: [Google]

125KB, 500x284px

>>1135735
>>1135759
Shut up fag

>>1135522
if he's an imbecile it should be easy to disprove him

>>1135806
This happened in the 17th century - a completely different time period - not to mention that other parties than Poland were involved in it.

>>1134423
Yes.

Mongols got completely BTFO by Hungary when they prepared for future invasions. The methods to repel them were fortifications, crossbows and heavily armoured knights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Mongol_invasion_of_Hungary

File: esztergom.jpg (91KB, 660x460px) Image search: [Google]

91KB, 660x460px

Mongols couldnt take this

lol

>>1135181

>This eurocentrism

China was in the fucking space age compared to the HRE at time, stormfag.

It'd be awesome if the Mongols penetrated into Europe just to get BTFO'd against castle walls

it'd make known euro supremacy permanent through all known history

>>1138412
>eurocentrism
>space age
Not even him, but you're a literal retard

>>1138412
In terms of siege warfare, no, it wasn't.

File: The-Qing-Dynasty-in-1820.png (355KB, 910x675px) Image search: [Google]

355KB, 910x675px

>>1134423
>Hey guys what is the ultimate counter to mongols
>Ultimate as in "this kills the mongol" or "this ends the mongol"
>Defensive tactics. Defensive tactics everywhere.

Or you know, we can just look into history and see firearms, well organized armies, and INVASION OF THE FUCKING STEPPES being the ultimate answer to Mongol hijinks.

>>1138422
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Mongol_invasion_of_Hungary

>>1138464
and what are you gonna do if mongols invide you before firearms were invented, smart guy?

>>1138662
But they were already invented by the times of the mongols

>>1135759

Being a shithead doesn't make him wrong fucko. This isn't a statehouse or a courtroom, civility doesn't matter. Don't use it as a weak defense of 'I had great points and sources, but you're mean so I just won't post them!' That's the fucking 'my dad works at Nintendo' of Internet conversation.

>>1138726
but they were not yet sophisticated enough to be used in battle

>>1138790
Don't b stupid. The chinks were already using grenades by 11th century. By the 13th century they had very sophisticated firearms that was being used during the Mongol conquest of the china, on both sides.

>>1138967
>on both sides

exactly

see, the mongols would just start using guns.

The Mongols were not retarded. They were pretty competent at adapting, if necessary, to changing warfare situations.

>>1138967
>sophisticated firearms
literally handcannons at best

>>1135162
muh impregnable castles is jsut as big a meme.

>>1139283
No, it isn't. You're just butthurt

No they kicked the asses of the chinese and the persians who had great fortresses.
They didn't bother with europe to much because it was poor as fuck and far away
also the mongol empire was divided by a civil war by the time they came to europe for a second time

Maybe not France, since it's feudal holds were crazy strong. But Germany, Hungary, Poland and Bohemia, would get absolutely raped to death. The death of Genghis Khan was teh best thing to ever happen to Europe.

Castle fortifications don't mean shit if you can't defend the country side with organised armies. They would just get starved to death.

>>1139783
genghis khan died way earlier you retard

>>1139788

That's why I'm talking about the original Golden Horde and not the divided one in 1285 where the invasion was basically a military expedition by Noghai Khan.

If Genghis had lived longer and had organised an invasion to conquer central Europe, the results would be devestating for the Europeans.

>>1139792
If Ogedei Khan hadn't died, Europe would've been bofo'd

>>1139820
Objectives changed after the transition of the khan. Instead of focusing on west and its poor peasants, the main force was focused on the east and the riches of China. When the invasion of China was taking place after the establishment of Yuan, the mongols on the western end was effectively a weakened faction. The main mongol faction, yuan, was simply not interested in the west anymore and instead opted to become a Chinese dynasty.

>>1134477
You still bring up video game logic. What made the mongols terrible is that they were a metric fuckton of trained and well-equipped warriors on horseback that Europeans didn't really expect to show up.They weren't hit-and-run raiding rabble. They were a large army like any other large army. When they entered Hungary they ransacked half the country, when the Hungarians managed to gather their army they faced them head-on, decimated them (mostly due to retarded leadership) and went on to ransack the other half. And there were plenty of castles around.

The type of warfare you talk about was effective before the feudal world order was really solidified in Europe. Archetypical raiding militaries (pre- Stephanus Hungarians, Norse etc.) were no longer viable after the Xth century or so. Armies relying on hit-and-run could not hope to achieve anything of significance in mid-13th century Europe.

File: Taiqiang Muskets on Swivels.jpg (31KB, 550x303px) Image search: [Google]

31KB, 550x303px

>>1138662
Well OP didn't give a fucking time period and since Mongolian Steppeniggery was officially ended by both Romanovs and Qing in the 1700, I suppose what they did is the ultimate BTFO of the Mongols since they stopped being steppeniggers by then.
>>1138726
...yeah. Bombs either thrown or launched with catapults, fire lances and rockets that can go off everywhere.

I was talking about shit like small arms. Muskets that can outrange your Horse nomad bow and kill the horse underneath you.

Though really the triumph of Qing and Romanovs versus the Mongols was combined arms of well organized armies. As horse archers were the mainstay of battles still to catch up with very mobile Mong armies. Only difference is that a big, well armed, gun toting infantry army is following Chink/Ivan cavalries and if their cavalry gets the worse of the fight, they can fall back to the covering fire of their footmen.

>>1138464
> 1820
> “Southern Islands”

Jackie Chan, please.

>>1139769
>No they kicked the asses of the chinese and the persians who had great fortresses.
Chinese had flat out inferior siege weaponry, and walled cites are not castles.This has been covered.

>and the persians
Who died to treachery, or were lured out of their walls.

>>1139820
Except the mongols were preparing to leave months before they got word he was dead, you kool aid drinking retard.

>>1140567
Yeah it's a pretty dick map. But the Land Borders are accurate at least.

>>1134433
The bread and butter of the mongol army was sieging fortifications. They are the ones who supposedly flung plague-infected bodies over walls after all.

If anything, the mongol card would counter the stone wall card.

>>1139820
No.

It's true even if it's a meme. They weren't able to take most of the Hungarian castles and fortified cities.

Even in their most successful battles (Mohi, for example), they managed to sustain heavy casualties. Hungary alone would come close to stopping them, even if they poured more resources into it.

>>1139820
>this is what Chinks actually believe

>>1139351
>just as

Mongols weren't unstoppable
European castles weren't impregnable

File: 1327157934082.jpg (126KB, 1224x552px) Image search: [Google]

126KB, 1224x552px

Reminder that mongols brought no gain to civilization, all they did was ravage and destroy other cultures.

>>1141983
>Reminder that mongols brought no gain to civilization
Do you enjoy spaghetti?

If it wasn't for Kublai Khan you wouldn't have that shit.

>>1142022
I don't.

>>1135181
>
>
>

>>1141910
>just as big
In this context, castle discussion is limited to discussion about the mongols. Mongolaboos, such as yourself, are much, much more numerous and this "castle meme" is something you just synthesized to try and deny some pretty simple facts

>>1142022
>kublai khan invented spaghetti