CostinMoroianu said:
The value of an Empire rests not on the continuation of it's culture but on it's overall legacy. Today we use paper currency in no small part because at the time when it first appeared the Mongols heavily promoted it, furthermore they reunified China and unified Russia.
No, paper currency was being used in China long before the mongols and the mongols did not propagate it. I know for a fact that paper currency was never used in Mongol controlled lands such as Iran and the Middle East. Europeans got to know about them through their own explorers, not the mongols, who did not even have a centralized and organized economy for them to standardize any currency.
China has been divided and reunited a dozen times, they would have done it eventually without needing the mongols, whose impact on China is rather minimal.
AS for Russia. No. The process started before them, which they impeded, and the gradual unification of the country happened in spite of them, not thanks to them.
So yes, a foot note when compared to other, much greater, empires.
They had a number of admirable domestic policies though.
Nor did I argue that it is everything, in fact as I pointed out is that the Mongols used the carrot as well the stick, but there is no denying they were brutal conquerors.
And as far as I am concerned, they failed. They didn't build anything that could last. Because nothing can last on a pile of skulls and corpses. Nothing can last, when they were ready to destroy that which more advanced civilizations created, only to have nothing to replace it with.
The reason they did become hated rather then feared is because they lost the wars. Sure they gained Cintra, but they lost so fear turned into hatred.
And so you are telling me that the Cintrans don't hate the empire. I find it hard to believe.
Fear didn't turn into hatred. Hatred was always there, but at the first sign of weakness, it emerged. That's why relying a lot on fear is a mistake.
Had Rome tried to rely on it, Hannibal would have fucked them up so badly it would have been a joke.
Because for Rome's allies to stick with it after Trebia, lake trasimene and then Cannae, shows that Rome earned respect and loyalty and not just fear.