Best commander in CK

[Waffen9999]

A couple of reasons, but let me say that Chinggis was a fine commander indeed.

1. Unimpressive campaigns in Northern China. Hsi Hsia wasnt a powerful dynasty and Chinggis secured submission from them by plundering civilian populations, not through a successful military campaign.

2. Consolidation of Mongolia. He did it, but with a lot of help and some luck. He was defeated by Wang Khan in 1203 and was able to recover due to an assasination of Wang Khan by someone elses hand. Luck is a major factor in being a great commander, but this luck was provided at someone eleses hand, not his own he was on the run.

3. inability to change tactics for seige warfare. He didnt even try, which is fine but time and again he failed in seige warfare, a good commander would have been able to learn from his mistakes, chinggis simply revereted back to terror tactics of killnig civilians, hardly imaginative or creative as a commander.


Those are just some examples, here is a great site on the Khan, read the last part about his invasion of china.

http://www.houseofice.com/history/khan_longVersion.shtml

Uhmm I know this is old but I just had to say. I must strongly disagree with your claims.

1. The Tangut kingdom of Hsi-Hsia didn't need to be conquered. The Mongols quickly overran them and gained them as vassals, although they set out to destroy them it later proved to be no point. And you speak of it when they first invaded. You do realize that when Genghis Khan died he was conducting the campaign against Hsi-Hsia himself, revenge for it failing to accomodate the campaigns against the Jin and Kwarazm empires. And the later campaigns in North China weren't conducted by Genghis Khan anyways, they were left in the command of Muqali who was probably just as good a general Subudei and Jebe >who was Subudei's superior in most campaigns<.

2. Genghis Khan didn't have help in subjugating Mongolia. After his break from Togoril Khan >Wang Khan to the Chinese< he fought the confederation of the western tribes of Mongolia under Jamuga >who was no small tactician himself and who given that command by Togoril< with only his tribe and the few others he had managed to bring under him. It was through quick regrouping and skillful tactics that enabled them to survive. Togoril's death by Kutchluk was only an added bonus.

3. Your description of the Mongol inability to adapt to siege tactics is appalling. Have you read any of the books on the Mongol empire? All of them will talk about how at first in China the Mongols had trouble but under Genghis Khan they adapted, they'd build ramps up the wall and run Chinese peasants before them, in the cities they than conquered they'd bring the engineers with them to operate the siege artillery that they captured. When in Kwarazm they used Chinese siege engineers to help batter down the walls of Samarkand >one of the most fortified cities of Islam< in a meer 10 days. AAnd the terror tactics of killing civilians wasn't just to secure loyalty. It was a defensive tactic for the Mongols and just a habit of their not knowing what to do with sedentary people. They killed civilians by the millions simply becuase they weren't very numerous themselves. They didn't leave behind garrisons in alot of the cities they captured they didn't have enough people. So they thinned out their enemies to help ensure their own safety.