Originally Posted by
Ren Wo Xing
@pannonian, your argument that the population drop was due to the Black Death is factually incorrect; the Black Death was from 1348-1350. Tamerlane's campaigns began in around 1383, well after the Black Death had come and gone. So the 17 million people (5% of the entire world's population) that he massacred were just that: a product of massacres, not of disease. Similarly, the Mongolian invasions of China were from 1205-1279. The utter massacre of Khwarazm in Samarkand and Urgench (featured in LOCH) were from 1219-1221. The entirety of the Mongolian expansionary wars of conquests were from 1206-1337. So those casualty figures that I cited had nothing to do with the Black Death whatsoever.
And the Mongolian wars of conquest didn't go "further than most". It was further than all, up until the first World War in the 20th century, and the first World War was as bloody as it was because it was two superpower alliances going at it, and not because one side was steamrolling everyone else and massacring everything in their path. You point out specific examples of large scale killings, such as Rome and Caesar, but although Rome engaged in wars of conquest, it didn't first massacre the Gauls, then massacre the Egyptians, then massacre the Greeks, then massacre the Macedonians, then massacre the Persians, then massacre the Chinese, etc. If they did, I would be criticizing them as well and say the Roman Empire was also an unmitigated evil! But they did not.
Again, I recognize that you are picking at the weaknesses in TC's arguments, but let me ask you; wouldn't it be equally nonsensical to expect the 20th century Nazi's to follow 21st century standards? And would you make the argument that we can't apply 21st century principles to 17th century Europeans, and therefore that we cannot say that slavery was an evil institution? When does the moral and historical relativism end?
@426mak, although the Mongol Empire was (up until the British Empire came about) territorially the largest empire in the world, in terms of total percent of the world's population, several other empires rivaled it, including the Roman Empire, various Chinese dynasties, the Alexander the Great's Macedonian Empire, and of course the British Empire as well. As with all empires, these were built by war...but despite having conquered more people in a smaller space, not one of them committed atrocity after atrocity, massacre after massacre, on the scale and the pace that the Mongolians did. I think that says something.