Nomads throughout /his/tory

>>2209200
>How did they thrive like that?
Horses provide
>milk
>blood
>meat
Anywhere the horse can live, so too can the rider.

>>2209200
But they did eventually settle each and every time they invaded someplace worth settling, and in the past few centuries were practically wiped out by the advancing tide of gunpowder weaponry.

>>2209200
Pastoralists are specialized populations living in mutualistic or parasitic relationships with farmers or engage in farming as well.

But honestly a significant portion of their calories really did derive from pillaging or making villages pay tribute.

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>>2209247

Wrong, not always

>Chaghatai's own capital was at Almaligh, in the valley of the Upper Ili, near the site of the present Kulja, and consequently in the extreme east of his dominion.[1] His reason for fixing it in that remote position, instead of at Bukhara or Samarkand, was probably one of necessity. His Mongol tribesmen and followers;the mainstay of his power—were passionately fond of the life of the steppes.[1] The dwellers in houses and towns were, in their eyes, a degenerate and effeminate race;the tillers of the soil, slaves who toiled like cattle, in order that their betters might pass their time in luxury. They would serve no Khan who did not pass a life worthy of free-born men and Chaghatai and his immediate successors probably saw, as his later descendants are described by Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat to have seen, that the one way of retaining the allegiance of his own people, was to humour their desires in this respect, and live, with them, a nomad's life

They weren't completely nomadic, the Orkhon valley was a meeting place for religion, trade, diplomacy and a location for artisans for successive turco-mongol steppe peoples. If a tribe attacked a notable place they would basically become fair game for every other tribe which is not a good idea, thus order was maintained despite their vulnerability.

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>steppe feels