Talk:Genghis Khan

• Archive
• Archive2
• Archive3
• Acrhive4
• Acrhive5

Accusations of poor written article

I saw some people are making accusations that this article is written by a fourth greater. If they are such great at this, why don't they write the article themselves. Accusing people of doing poor work, and they not doing anything is childish. The main important thing is that the readers understand, and copyediting and grammatical errors and mistakes are far secondary.

This article is great!!! Keep up the good work. Add more new content!!! This is one of the best articles on Wikipedia, especially in terms of NPOV, detail and understandability. I think there are a number of well-balanced editors and watchers dedicated to looking after this article, which is great!!!. We don't need any POV in this article, especially antagonistic viewpoint, which would only degrade the article and make it appear like childish rambling. 72.244.34.50 19:36, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Some of the above discussions are more than a year old, and may not refer to the current version of the article. I think I'm going to archive this talk page soon, so that old debates won't confuse people anymore. I'm not aware of any open issues and it has become very long anyway. --Latebird 21:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I think balance (npov) is critical for this article and we need to look at pov statements closely whenever there is edit. 67.41.157.5 04:27, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Why does the text state that Ghengis was born between 1150 and 1160 when the text under his picture states that he was born in 1162? This lacks consistency.

Manipulation and unbalance to the original documents

In this article, some original documents have been manipulated and the different views about this issue is terribly unbalanced. It also contains too many mistakes. Although the view of the author is consistent with some “modern historians/politicians” in Mongol, Turkey and some Western countries who are trying to change the traditional conclusions that last hundreds of years/, the author simply ignored abundant original documents which he referred to as “exaggeration”

As one of the most terrible mistake, for the statement “Genghis Khan generally preferred to offer opponents the chance to submit to his rule.”, It is so terrible opposite to the truth that it would not be more mistaken to say Hilter. I believe the article would irritated most people with some history knowledge , especially historians, in Iran, Arabia, KoreaRussia, Ukraine and some other east European countries, if they have chance to read it from Wikimpedia. The anger would not be less strong than the Jewish people who found someone praise the "positive contribution to the world" from Hilter. In the history education in Russia and Ukrane, the invasion of the Mongols have been mentioned together with Hitler's invasion since WWII. There were museem in Russia and South Korea in memory of the millions of victims under the massacre.

According to hundreds authors from at least ten different countries during the period of Mongol Empire, including words from his own senior officers and Temujen himself, Genghis Khan generally preferred to kill at least all the male who would not become slaves of the Mongols, even they did not resisted not at all. Those who became his slaves was not any better because they were driven to dead by hard labor very soon, or they were simple used as human shield. He accepted surrender only if the opponents help him to kill more people. They raped all the women they captured and very often killed them after that, except a small part of them were kidnapped to Mongol as their slaves. As one of resource of their food supply, they often eated the meat of the victims they killed. They also use the dead body of victims as weapon, either for making fire or for bacterial infections. It was reported that the corruptive dead body was thrown into the city of their opponents. As a consequence, bubonic plague from their biological weapon caused death of more than 20 millions people in Europe. Although the result was not exactly they planned, but it was indeed what they try to archive all the time.

In his own words for educating his sons, Genghis Khan said “it is the greatest fun of men’s life who kill all the opponents and their family members, take over all the properties in order see how their women cries, than take their wives and dauthers to the bed and have sex with them.” Apparently his purpose of life is t making pains of other people. Genghis Khan and his men ripper opened people stomach looking for jewellery and zippered open womb of pregnant women and kill the unburned baby for fun. Although some “modern historian” praised Genghis Khan were generous to give valuable jewelers to his staff, however they “forgot” to mentions all the jewelers was plundered from other at expense of death for tens of millions people.

The article in Wikimedia avoid to quote tons of original documents from different countries so that evidence Gengish Khan engaged in larger scales of holocaust the Hilter was hided.

There are also many other inconsistency between original document and the citation. The Iranian historian (also a senior officer in the Mongol government) Rashid al-Din stated in his book that the Mongols systematically killed more than 1.3millions civilians in the Merv city, however, the author changed into a much smaller number into “killing more than 70,000”, without explanation. The article ignored many documents from different countries that records Gengiskhan and his army systematically murdered more than one millions civilians in a single city, including a report from a Italy ambassador which provided concrete description about how the Mongols systematically murdered every civilians including women and children; neither it failed to present the literature from the Mongols themselves, “secret history of mongol” in witch the authors present their proud for their success in murdering and plundering others. Instead, the article stated that whether the disappearing of 60 millions population after such systematic holocaust is due to the massacre is “unclear and speculative.”

Genghis Khan was regarded as hero and sometimes as a god in Mongolia and Turkey, due to their glory and proud in the past had been highly related to the conquers of Genghis Khan. Such warship was also supported by some historians in western countries, especially in America, probably as an effect to tense up relations between former Soviet Unions and it neighbors with nomad histories. While the author pointed out some “modern historians” believed the victims exaggerated the casualties, he failed to mention those “modern historians” forgot to present solid evidence to prove why those original documents from many different countries are unreliable and exaggerated.

The current article not only neglects the arguments from “worthless and untrustable bias of victims of” the poor Russians, Arabians, Chinese, Koreans and Russian, but also neglects negative conclusions about the impact of the Mongols. For example. In his book of “The history of the mongol conquests”, British historian Prof J.J. Saunders wrote: “As exponents of genocide, the Mongols was most notorious since the ancient Assyrians, who exterminated or deported whole nations, and their loathsome record in killings was unsurpassed till the NAZI massacres in our own day . Christian and Muslim chroniclers agree in this bloody tale of savagery.”

It is also not mentioned that the expense of the victims has never been considered by the “modern historians” when they were counting so-called “positive contribution” of Gengiskhan (such as bridging the silk road). It is comparable that some historians in former Soviet Union praise the positive contribution of Stalin without mentioning his victims. Similarly, the pro-Nazi historians the would not consider the victims of Hitler’s victims as any valuable thing so that they did not hesitate to count the “positive contribution of Hitler”. That type of historians should be considered as siding with the person they comments especially, after they tried to manipulate the original records as the author of this article did.

Based on more than above argument, It should be tagged that the neutrality of this article is disputed. If necessary I can present the original sources of all the above argument, and much more ancient documents which records the holocaust of the Mongols. As a neutral and balanced article, I think a major revision is needed in which the new materials should be included in the article without ruling out the existing ones. Georgezh2007 22:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

This page is semiprotected; any username more than a few days old can edit it. There is no need for administrator assistance to edit this page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

However, given the highly emotional nature of the above complaint, there is a need to discuss any individual changes first, in detail and with specific citations to reliable published sources. If all you remember from Saunders' book is the nazi comparison, then you first need to demonstrate your willingness to actually follow NPOV. --Latebird 09:07, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Take it easy, I won't edit the article if I am not welcome. Actually I am not sure that I plan to edit the article. but just a question, "If all you remember from Saunders' book is the nazi comparison, then you first need to demonstrate your willingness to actually follow NPOV", does this statement represent the official opinion of Wikepedia, i.e. anyone who cite the nazi comparison from Saunders' book might only remember that comparason and would be suspected as someone who do not follow NPOV? Could you kindly tell me whether you are an official administrator of Wikipedia?

I can certainly cite the reliable published source, many of them was written in the 13 century from different counties. but I am not sure if I am allowed to do it here. It would waste my time if I post here but will be deleted soon just because someone don't like to see those documents.

Let me test, the following texts were written by an arabiac author Ibn al-athir (1160 - 1233) and translated by Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902), Vol. II, pp. 427-431. Does it meet the standard of Wikipedia or the Mr. Latebird for "reliable published sources"?"For even Antichrist will spare such as follow him, though he destroy those who oppose him, but these Tatars spared none, slaying women and men and children, ripping open pregnant women and killing unborn babes.

If the above document is reliable enough, the current article is certainly inconsistent to the original record. However, Wikipedia or Mr. Latebird perhaps consider the such record is highly emotional therefore unreliable and should not be present to the public?Georgezh2007 11:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)"

Wikipedia doesn't have an "official opinion", so the answer to your first question is necessarily: no. Note also that being an administrator (which I'm not) is only a technical function, and does not give the opinion of an individual any more weight.

Sorry if my first comment came across as overly harsh, it's just that in most cases, someone starting a discussion with repeated hitler comparison tends to have other things in mind than NPOV. If that turns out not to be the case with you, so much the better!

As a third point: 13th century literature is regarded as primary sources, and needs to be treated very carefully. Those authors didn't follow the same scientific standards as historians do nowadays, so we can't just accept what they wrote as undisputed historic fact. To interpret their writings correctly, we need the help of secondary sources such as Saunders (preferrably several). The difference between those types of sources is explained in more detail in WP:NOR.

Last but not least, though, I can follow some parts of your criticism. Especially the introduction to the article is very "nice" to Genghis. But the rest of the text doesn't hesitate to mention the deaths he caused. I'm not familiar enough with the issue to say much about the 70,000 figure. The article Merv states that the city had about 200,000 inhabitants. But some historians seem to think that the killings there included fugitives from elsewhere. Does Saunders explain this in more detail? --Latebird 12:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Well I think the original poster of this information could be correct, but there are still many sources in the web about Genghis Khan that 1) He and his armies were brutal when they fought 2) there is also abundant statement and impression that he held the motto of "surrender or die." I can also agree that he might not have abided by his surrender or die manifesto, particularly against the Chinese where I think he may have had personal reasons to massacre them even if they didn't resist, because of their long troubled history between Mongols and the Chinese. I agree that they Genghis' army was brutal, but to say that he killed anyone he saw is just a little extreme I think. There also seem to be an evidence that he destroyed resistance ruthlessly in the case of invasion of Khwarezmid Empire. He didn't attack the empire, but the Khwarezmian leader killed his messengers and caravans. I think extreme views are not really helpful in this article and say something like he killed on sight anyone is just little irrational to me. Also if Genghis killed anyone on sight, how did he made alliances with other people such as the Turks, Uighurs, etc.71.208.83.204 03:55, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Carpini

I have not read Saunders' book and the Mongol empire is not my core area of interest, but I also think there is a general problem with relying too much on primary sources since they are often the most biased ones. IMO it would be useful to at least inform the reader what source you are quoting from if it is a primary source. Something like "The arab author Ibn al-athir (1160-1233) wrote ...". Re. Carpini, he seems most focused on europe, he reports a lot of hearsay, some of it completely nonsensical (men like dogs), and in the version I have seen (here) he only seems to mention that the Mongols will destroy those that resist them (beginning of chapter 18, "How to resist them") Yaan 12:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

If you read a version of Carpini's report with note of professional historians, you probably would find that part is not nonsense but how the Mongols proceed “information battle”. I read a version that translated into Chinese, in which a Chinese expert present notes on the original atrile. Concerning “men-like-dog”, he presents about 5 to 7 Chinese primary source, in which the author tell the same story as Carpini's did. And all the story directly came from the Mongols as retail It was suggested that this is an effort that the Mongols released false information to their foreigners.

In the same book, Carpini reported the Mongol heat the human dead body to obtain a sort of oil from the lipid and throw into the city siege for making fire that is very hard to put out. This was confirmed in many independent primary source in China how they make the fire oil. According to the note, Carpini was very wrong that it is Greece fire, because the Greek fire was made in a completely other way. He was also very wrong to say the fire from the oil can be put out by alcohol, it is opposite, the fire would become much stronger if alcohol was poured into it. The Mongols was very good to release this kind of false information as a tactic to puzzle others, to increase their chance of successful conquest.

In this two cases Carpini fell into their trap, however, there were also other ambassadors who was fooled with much more things. In the primary source “notandum for Mongol-tartart”(蒙鞑备录), which was written by a ambassador of Song dynasty (a southern Chinese state). The book serves as a propaganda for the Mongol Empire with much more false information comparing to Carpini’s book. Today people the information is false because they can check other primary source, for example, the Chinese ambassador claimed Gengiskhan was captured by the Jin Dynasty (a northern Chinese state) as a slave for more than ten years. However, people from plenty primary source prove Gengiskhan has never been slaves but a senor officer. So today people understand the Chinese ambassador transfer the false information because he was fooled. The Mongols told him they kill the civilians in Northern China because it is a justified revenge. They told him they would never raid Song Dynasty, because they have warm friendship with the Song state. In fact, after several years that book was written, when Gengiskhan exterminate Tangut (a western state in China), he send a part of his army to plunder inside Song territory. In the first town, they slaughtered 300 thousand civilians. Therefore, we know the false information in the primary source was released by the Mongols as a tactic in order to let opponenent be less alerted. The Chinese ambassador was apparently fooled and write his report for them.

In contrast, Carpini was much smarter and intelligent, however, the report from the poor Chinese ambassador is also highly valuable as Carpini. He wrote his observation that the Mongols systematically genocide the civilians after their conquest, but with a note that this is a justified revenge. He also written down that he was accompanied with beautiful concubines of the Mongols all the time during his mission with warm feelings, which confirmed that Maco Polo did not lie when he said he received similar entertainment. It also somehow explained why he was fooled so easily. After ten years, an other ambassador from the Song state did not receive the same entertainment. His report (a book called “Brief description for the black tartar”) is as alerted as Carpini. However, among these ambassadors , Carpini is the only one who noticed the Mongol deliberately release false information. Therefore I would regard him as a highly intelligent person

All the above primary sources, together as many others, such as “secret history of Mongols” as an education book written by the nobles, “compendium History” as official history book in the Mongol government in Persia, “Gengiskhan, history of the world conquer ” by Juvaini who was a Persian office in the Mongol government, book of Ibn al-alther’s (name forgotten) who was a famous school and historians in the area Gengiskhan fail to conquer (he wrote Arabic history with a lot of parts about crusader was quoted by modern historians) from are thought highly valuable and were used widely among the experts of Mongol Empire.

Carpini indeed retailed the false information in his report, however, it did not mean all the other information is false. Today people can check so many other primary source and compare each other and I am one of those who read most of the primary source. In fact I read more primary sources than many professional historians in western countries because I can read the ancient Chinese documents that have never been translated into other languages. Further more, there are translated version of many other primary source such as Persian, and Mongol source are only available in one of western language, such as French, Russian, but all of them are translated into Chinese from Western languages.

It is true that those primary sources are far from error-free and sometimes primary source lie about certain things. However, it is unlikely highly that authors from different ages and different countries cooperated to lie together in the exactly same way.. When their records are consistent, the primary source give reliable information. In the man-like-dog case, the reliable information is the Mongols release false information as tactic.

Comparing to different documents by different authors in different ages and different countries, it is not so difficult to know which one is reliable and which is not, even sometimes, which is wrong and why it is wrong. By comparing the documents, it is also not so difficult to know which authors for secondary source is more reliable and respectable and which is not. What kind of bias they have and why they have that kind. For me respectable historians’ means they did not make up false information deliberately.

By the same way, one can find that there are almost no historians are error free, however, respectable historians make error are due to lack of or misjudge the information. I found most historians both in western counties and in Russia, Arabia, Iran and China in the past are highly respectable. However, the author of the famous book “"Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World"”, deliberately release the false information. (He is not alone because there are some modern historians in China cooperate with him for some unknown reasons). However, I won’t sell my conclusion to any one, instead, I would only present the necessary information and leave the public to judge themselves.

BTW, you should re-read carpini’s book, in which he said those who submit themselves to Mongols did not have good chance to survive anyway. That is why he urge the Christian countries to resist. This was terrible true in China. In the area the resist was weak or zero, the population was sweept out by more at least than 90%. The Tangut was completely exterminated. In southern China where resistance was the strongest in the world, the Chinese population only disappeared 20%. If there is no resistance at all, Chinese population would have been completely disappear as what happened in Tangut, and there would be no China today. In fact, it is also very questionable if a lot of other nations can exist today if Chinese did not resist the Mongols for 70 years which the Mongols spend most of its resource on the richest country in the world at that time. The current article is really contradictive to the real history when it said Gengiskhan prefer to give mercy to those who would like to surrenders. Based on the various sources, it is simply not true, the truth is very close to what Carpani has written.Georgezh2007 23:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

According to the secret history, the Tangut did offer resistance after they had first tried to get behind Genghis' back (IIRC). Do you remember where exactly Carpini wrote that those who surrender would not survive long anyway, maybe offer a quote? I admit that the version of Carpini's text I linked to is rather old (late 16th, early 17th century), and it may be they just translated it from an inferior source. I don't think they had their latin wrong, though.

Is Jack Weatherford really a historian? I thought he just read a bit too much of Abbe Huc's Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, where he quotes (IIRC) Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat on all the blessings of the Mongol empire. Yaan 07:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Clean-up

I've cleaned up the intro. It now contains much less unnecessary trivia, and focuses on the core points to describe Ghengis and his career. Any POV issues should now also be removed from that section. --Latebird 16:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. The current introduction part is very fair for me. But my compliant is still on the statements such as “Genghis Khan generally preferred to offer opponents the chance to submit to his rule without a fight” because I have read so many sources, both primary and secondary, that is contradictive to them. However, I know I have to present some solid evidence before requesting changes.

To answer your question:” The article Merv states that the city had about 200,000 inhabitants. But some historians seem to think that the killings there included fugitives from elsewhere. Does Saunders explain this in more detail?” No, Saunders did not because it is quite clearly described in the original book how they count. And your question is not difficult to answer at all for any one who read the primary source. In the case of Merv, according to the Juvani’s retailed some other distinguished muslim, the several thousand survivors spent 13 days to process (burn or bury) the dead body and they obtained the number. Juvaini also said this is only the dead body inside the city without including the dead body countryside.

For about 1700 years in history, those agricultural state neighboring to the nomad clans of Turkish or Mongol, sometimes Tungus speaking, and such as China, Korea and Persia, it is quite often that the nomad army come and kill a lager number of people in the whole city. And all of them knew very well that, if they did not burn or bury the dead body as soon as possible, some kind plague would be spread out very quickly and no one can survive. So there are many ancient Chinese literature which record they proceed the dead body and it is same in China that they only do it inside city but not in the countryside, presumably because the dead body is less dense so they are not so dangerous. It is not only in part of these literatures in which they count and record the numbers. In China, most such records are only kept in the local log book because Yuan and Qing dynasty have no interest to collect them.

It is even easier to answer the question how Merv, which only have 200,000 inhabitants, can give 1.3 million dead body. If you read Carpini’s book, you would find the Mongol’s killed almost every one they met. For those who live around the city, the only way to survive is to hide behide the strong wall of the city which the Mongols can not access on their horses. There are too many literature from different countries which records how Mongols drove the civilians in front of the wall and torture them to death. In the case of Kyiv, the Mongols run their horse with their victims drawing on ground to make them wail, so that people garding the city could not tolerance so they came out for surrender, but all in Kiev were killed. (My memory told me the number is more than 100,000 perhaps 300,000 but I have to check ). I saw more than 10 documents that records the Mongols drove the surrendered people in one city to attack next city, to let their opponents to consume their arrows. If the surrendered people did not die because of this, the Mongols will kill them and throw the dead body into the trench that protecting the city. In China the trench were quite deep and wide which implies that a large number of dead body are required to fill it. Carpini report the Mongols eat human meat if they do not find food. There are Chinese, Persian document also records the Mongols eat human body. This is also confirmed in “secret history of Mogol” by the authors who love Gengiskhan so much. In the case of Beijing, they have eaten all the people around the city so that Gengiskhan order them to eat their own soldier. Under such situtation people knew in hell that they would have no chance to survive other than hiding inside the city. Any historians who have read those documents would not ask questions how can a city with 200,000 inhabits gave 1.3 millions dead boby. But it is true that those supporters of Mongol empire who love Gengiskhan ask such questions in order to disqualify the documents. Instead of saying they are more scientific, I would say they are more political.

Concerning you statement “To interpret their writings correctly, we need the help of secondary sources such as Saunders (preferrably several).”. I have to say I do not agree at all. How did you know NPOV of Saunders have no problem? It is him but not me to compare Nazi and the Mongol Empire. I can present a lot more than several “secondary sources” to agree with Saunders, however, this is not definitely the reason I trust Sunders and the others. It also can not prove I am right, simply because Suanders and the others may have bias themselves. I trusted them because I read the primary sources myself and I did not find they are honest to the primary sources.

Suanders and the others live in 20 century and they have no way to know more than those who wrote primary sources in 13 century. How can anyone more scientific and get more accurate number of victims than those who count the number when they burn the dead bodies? I am afraid the recent scientific development such as DNA technology does not make people more intelligent about the murder case in 13 century, unless they can collect the finger print or DNA in the scene.

After all, how can one know secondary sources is more reliable than primary sources any way? When Josof Stalin (if Hitler is not allowed to mention) is loved by some academic historian in former Soviet Union and disliked by western historians, how can one judge who wrote correct information about the number of people Stalin executed. Any one can say those who escaped from Stalin’s execution may have bias. Their primary document are not reliable because they hate Stalin. However, the secondary source written by those historian loving Stalin in former Soviet Union is more reliable? Isn’t it the same for those “modern historians” who love Gengiskhan and ignoring the large amount of primary source from different countries and secondary sources against them? Georgezh2007 01:01, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Can we please try to focus on the actual questions at hand? This talk page is meant as a tool for improving the article. Filling it with lengthy essays about only marginally related topics doesn't really serve that goal. Expecting us to search for the two or three relevant statements in all that text seems rather impolite. Most of it looks like Original Research anyway.

The Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines are not negotiable (at least not on article talk pages), so there is no point in arguing about source requirements here. Either accept, try to understand, and work with those requirements - or your efforts will likely be wasted. --Latebird 08:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be advocating blanket acceptance of primary sources at face value. Not only is this not acceptable on purely logical grounds, it's also rather contrary to the nature of wikipedia. Secondary sources are preferred-- this is not a scholarly journal of history, but an encyclopedia, and per NPOV we need to represent the research of others rather than our own original research. siafu 16:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

more violent deaths than any other individual before the 20th century

Is there a source for this? Ogodei, Hulagu, Khubilai and Timur probably were responsible for the death of tens of milions (each?) as well, and what about the guys who started/subdued the Taiping rebellion? I know it's a bit nit-picky, but IMHO WP should be as precise as possible. Yaan 10:21, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The main reference would be J.J. Saunders. I'm relying on the citations above by Georgezh2007, but I've found similar statements elswhere. I don't know if Saunders also makes him responsible for what happened after his death, though. --Latebird 11:50, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

There's a footnote/reference right after the statement in the article. siafu 16:14, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that reference only documents that some people don't like him, as far as I can tell. But an interesting data collection can be found among the external links: [1]. Several historians have commented on those figures, one of them is explicitly quoted further up on this talk page. --Latebird 16:50, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

For some reason, the user reverting that part seems to entirely ignore talk pages (including his own), unless the article happens to be locked... --Latebird 08:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)