** Empires Come and Go **
So much of history relies on a modern nation remaining to tell its story, so while most know of the Mongols, fewer know the stories of the Scythians, Xiongnu, or even Tamerlane. For my own reference, heres the roughly chronological list of empires from the steppe:
- Indo-Aryans: Responsible for the Indo-European language family.
- Scythians
- The Huns, Attila: If Attila had not died, Attila and Menoria could have presided over a Western Roman Empire not too different from that of the contemporary Northern Wei emperors.
- Xiongnu: To fight them, China tried to use 200,000 soldiers and found 5000 horses, but the fodder in horses in China lacked the selenium necessary to build strong bones and muscles, so this effort failed.
- Mongols, Genghis Khan: 129,000 horsemen out of a population of 715,000.
- Tamerlane
- Turks
The author makes some dubious claims, such as: ‘Without the unification of the Mongols, China would have remained under warring powers and would not be the world power that it is today. ‘ Not a deep read but an appreciated overview that is not told from the perspective of the romans.