i believe Aguda can offer a much better fight against Yue Fei since i think aguda was much more capable general than wushu. who do you think would've won assuming Aguda was the invader?

I'm not entirely sure on this conclusion, but Aguda's performance on the battlefield certainly seems more impressive than Wanyan Wushu's battles with the Song. But looking at it at an individual basis and then drawing a conclusion that Wanyan Aguda would've given Yue Fei a far more tougher fight may not necessarily hold true because when Wanyan Wushu was fighting against the Song, most of the battles were conducted in central China below Kaifeng, while the majority of Wanyan Aguda's battles were conducted in the eastern realms of the Liao empire which stretched to parts of Manchuria. I'm not entirely sure how much better Wanyan Aguda would've responded to the problems that the steppe-style Jin cavalry faced in central China than did Wushu. Having been exposed to and learning steppe warfare from the Liao Khitans certainly gave the Jurchids an initial advantage when Aguda first rose up in rebellion in 1114 CE and were fighting against the Khitans as they were very familiar with who they were dealing with and how the type of warfare was conducted. The Jurchid cavalry apparently could utilize their advantages to the full potential when fighting in the steppe and in general in the north but their advantages were limited when attempting to take control of southern China. What struck Wanyan Aguda as a great leader was primarily his ability to rally his troops to great extremes, as can be seen when he scarred his forehead until blood mixed with tears and giving an inspiring speech before facing the 100,000 or 700,000 Liao army personally led by the Liao emperor himself at his first major encounter with Liao forces in 1114-1115 CE. I'm also not entirely sure that this ability of Wanyan Aguda alone was sufficient enough to null the advantages the disciplined and primarily infantry-oriented Yue Jia Jun enjoyed over the Jurchid cavalry in central and southern China, where infantry played a major importance, and in which area good-quality infantry the Jin severely lacked in their initial invasion of the Song in the central-south China regions.

you're right. terrain is a huge variable in battles but i think generalship can sometimes overcome.

A question: how exactly do you think Wanyan Aguda's superb generalship would overcome the variable of terrain, which was a huge impedement to the Jin cavalry move against the Song?

If mongols could take song why jin couldnt?

Because the Jin didn't? The Mongols had access to the resources and manpower of the Jin, Khwarazmian empire, the Caliphate of Baghdad, most of the Russian principalities, Kipchaks, Volga-Kama Bulgars, Seljuq atabegs, etc. when they were confronting the isolated Song; primary example being the Mongols' employment of Muslim counterweight trebuchets at the siege of Xiangyang and also the Song surrendering their naval fleet to the Mongols didn't help the Song either. Most of the enemies the Mongols confronted weren't exactly in their greatest condition so it can probably be said that the Mongols rise to power was more opportunistic than many others.

Tell me about the surrender of the navy

Sorry, I'm not entirely an expert on the Mongol-Song wars. I bet warhead or Yun will be able to give you loads of information.....

It wasn't a wholesale surrender. Throughout the war several Song commanders transferred to the Yuan and brought naval units with them. Other ships were capturedby the Yuan and added to the fleets produced by ex Jin yards.

Many Chinese saw the wars as a struggle between two dinastys rather than forign invasion. As Khubilai took a much more enlightened approach to his subjects (and crucially, was willing to take those who 'transferred' and use them, and their troops immediately) this paid off. Interestingly, almost all of those who changed sides remained as Yuan supporters.

It is worth noting that the Mongols themselves (of assorted origins) rapidly took to naval warfare and were rather good at it.

These other territories were really unimportant and played no role in the conquest of the South, literally. Mongke which controlled these areas, failed his invasion, while Kublai, losing these areas suceeded in turn.
In fact Northern China was the only vastly populous agricultural zone under the Mongol dominion, with about 30 million people after the destructions. The Khwarezmian empire and the Caliphates of Iran and Iraq were never resourceful areas. The catastrophic Mongol invasions had annihilated the settled population of Persia with a total population, reducing both Iraq and Iran to populations of around 2,500,000 each. While the population of he nomads of the Inner Asian Steppe, including Mongolia, Transoxiana, Semirecheiye, Jungaria, and the Tarim Basin was certainly no more than 5 million.

The population of Mongol Russia after the Mongol invasion may actually have been as low as 3,000,000, counting 2,150,000 people between Nizhni-Novgorod in the east to Galicia in the west, and 850,000 nomads in the steppe zone farther south. (J. M. Smith, Jr., in "Mongol Manpower and Persian Population", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 18 (1975), 271-299.)


It would therefore seem that the whole of the Mongol territory outside of China is only around 14 million people of which only Mesopotamia contain any rich agricultural areas. The rest of the population, been either nomads or sparsely agricultured zone such as Persia and Russia after the devastation of Mongol raids were hardly any economic powerhouses to provide the Mongols manpower or material resources. Not to mention even during Mengge's time, the Khanates are hardly centralized. The Mongol empire similar to the other steppe empires once it gets too large is politically loose like a fuedal kingdom and becomes ineffective in drawing troops from one Khanate to another, rebellions are frequent and the empires are usually short lasted, as in the case of Tujue which broke in two just a few decade after its formation. Similar thing happened to Mongols.

Oops. I somehow confused the Yuan Dynasty with the Mongol empire.

Well Kubilai was technically ruler of the empire, but that had split into four independant states (using later names).

Yuan, controling North China, Mongolia and Manchuria with Tibet and Korea as subject states.
IlKhan, controlling Iraq, Iran, South Central Asia, Syria
Golden Horde, Russia, Ukraine, Volga steppe, Khazacstan.
Chatagay khanate, Central Asia, Afghanistan, North Punjab

here is a map (after the Song conquest but shows the states)
http://www.lacma.org/khan/map.htm

There was significant trade and transfer of individuals, skills etc between Yuan and the IlKhans, though both were at war with the central chatagayid state.

To say the rest of the Mongol empire was not used for the Song war is not entirely accurate. Khublai requested a touman from the khanate of the golden horde and requested siege engineers from the Il-Khan of Persia, who was his nephew. Both fullfilled the request.

Chris

"Well Kubilai was technically ruler of the empire, but that had split into four independant states (using later names)."

I'm afraid that Kai Du and the Chagatai would have to disagree,(they consider Kublai to be a ursurper) Yes, Kublai was one time the nominal suzerain over MOSt of the mongol empire, but that was also before he conquered Song or declared the Yuan dynasty, Kai Du, chagatai, and Golden Horde were alerady against him after that date.




"here is a map (after the Song conquest but shows the states)
http://www.lacma.org/khan/map.htm"

Its wrong, because the war with Laidu and Chagatai was under way as early as 1266.




its ridiculous to consider all four khanate as a single empire




providing tools is hardly much help. When Tang was attacking the Tujue, the XueYang Tuo also helped, but they are still not part of the Tang empire although they were nominal vassals.
When Sui attacked Khitan, the Tujue also answered to Yang Di's request.

The map is the best I could find without drawing my own. For some peverse reason Temuljins campaigns are vaguely indicated on a map of the major Mongol states circa 1300.

I agree about "the" Mongol Empire being a romantic fiction by this stage, though the Golden Horde and Blue Horde were always technically subordinate to Khubilai (even when their representatives were at Quaidu's election) and the Eastern Chagatayids formally submitted after Quaidus death.

Though this has drifted from the thread. Khubilai conquered the Song because..

#1 he wanted to do it - The Jin never really wanted to do this.
#2 he had a well organised state with large resources.
#3 other Mongol states saw the conquest of the Song as part of the 'Mongol destiny'.
#4 the Song themselves didnt put their full resorces into the defences (many senior figures clearly fely that the Yuan were a better choice.