Why is the population of such a vast country so small? And counting the history of Mongolia, the nationalities in this land are very aggressive. Genghis Khan, a generation of tianjiao, fought in all directions and spanned Eurasia, making the territory of the Mongolian empire more than 30 million square kilometers.
Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, was not only the great Khan of Mongolia, but also the founding emperor of the Yuan Dynasty. He ended China's 300-year-old territory division and regime separation after the Tang Dynasty, and established a meta-empire that dominated the world, which made China's territory surpass the prosperity of Han and Tang Dynasties and laid the basic territory of China today.
Moreover, Kublai Khan did not suppress the Han culture, but highly praised Confucianism, which greatly promoted the cultural exchanges between ethnic groups and laid the foundation for China to become a multi-ethnic country.
So why does Mongolia have a vast land but go to war frequently? War often involves the struggle for interests, but in ancient times it was more about survival. Therefore, with the eyes of today's gods, observing the satellite map of Mongolia, we can find a serious problem, which is one of the reasons why Mongolia is bound to fight.
Mongolia is yellow on the satellite map. On the satellite map, blue represents the ocean, green represents the forest vegetation on the land, yellow is the Gobi Desert, and 80% of the land in Mongolia is the Gobi Desert.
Mongolia is located in the prevailing westerly region, which is affected by the warm and humid air flow at sea. Theoretically, the precipitation last year can reach 700~ 1000 mm, so the climate is humid and it is easy to form a temperate maritime climate.
Sadly, Mongolia is located on the east side of the mainland, which makes it impossible for the humid airflow in the western Atlantic to enter; Due to Mongolia's deep inland, the water vapor in the East Pacific can't reach, and Mongolia is dry and rainy, but it has formed a continental temperate grassland climate.
Not only that, Mongolia is still at a high latitude, which makes Mongolia not only dry, but also very cold in winter, with the lowest temperature reaching MINUS 40 degrees Celsius. However, cold is not all bad. Take the refrigerator as an example. The refrigerator will frost if it is used for a long time, and so will Mongolia.
Affected by the Arctic Ocean, Mount Hang 'ai and Mount Kent in northern Mongolia are frosted like refrigerators, which nourishes the Serenger River (Orhun River) and Heilongjiang, and is rich in water, making it a rare pasture.
Kusugur Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Mongolia, is located here. It can lead directly to the Great Salinger River, then enter the Yenisei River (one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world) from Lake Baikal in Russia, and then bypass the Pacific Ocean and all the way into the Arctic Ocean. Therefore, Kusugur Lake is an important freshwater reserve in Mongolia.
However, the only green space in Mongolia is not all beneficial. Once entering the global cold period, there may be famine in the Central Plains, but there will be extreme weather changes, such as strong cooling and strong winds. And it is often accompanied by heavy snowfall, which may eventually form a destructive snowstorm. It has had a serious impact on people, animal husbandry and architecture.
In this case, we can only find another suitable place to live, so the Mongols turned their attention to a fertile land-Hetao area, known as "Jiangnan". The Hetao area is at the top of the Yellow River, which is now Bameng, Baotou and Hohhot in Inner Mongolia.
Hetao area, which is called "desert land" by nomadic people, is the junction of Mongolian Plateau and Guanzhong, so it greatly threatens the security of Central Plains. Liu Bang, Emperor Gaozu, almost died because of the fall of Hetao area. Until the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, under the leadership of Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, the Han army launched a "decisive battle in Mobei" against the Xiongnu, and finally successfully recovered the desert south.
The Han dynasty also established the reputation of sealing the wolf from Xu and swallowing the stone. In fact, this kind of wolf lives in Xushan, which is the Kent Mountain mentioned above, and Yanran Mountain is Hang 'ai Mountain. It can be seen that the Han Dynasty pursued the Huns deeply, and it is no wonder that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty has the title of "Emperor through the ages".
In addition to Hetao area, nomadic people have two choices. One in the east, the Liaohe River Basin, which is now Chifeng and Tongliao in Inner Mongolia, is also a pasture rich in pasture. Western oasis, Qilian Mountain snowmelt glacier nourishment. This is the special economic zone of nomadic people and the "Hexi Corridor" of China.
As the saying goes, in order to completely solve the problem of nomadic people, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and later Emperor Taizong chose to open the Liaohe River Basin, and later they also chose to open the Hexi Corridor. At the same time, it strengthened its control over the western regions and avoided the recurrence of the crisis.
From Zhang Qian's mission to the Western Regions in the Western Han Dynasty to Ban Chao's resignation to the Western Regions in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and then to the establishment of the Western Regions' capital protection government in the Tang Dynasty. All kinds of measures to develop the western regions are aimed at completely cutting off the wings of the eagle born on the Serenger River, curbing its eastward expansion and westward advancement, and also at creating a "rooster model" of Chinese territory.
The reason why we want to curb the "eastward alliance and westward advancement" is because for Mongolia, not only the south is warm and humid, but also the western European continent.
If we make a distance measurement, we will find that the distance from Hang 'ai Mountain in northern Mongolia to Ural Mountain in Europe is much shorter than that from Guangzhou to Guangzhou, and the road to the west, Ma Pingchuan, is unobstructed. This is also the reason why the Huns and the Turkic khanate were able to fight all the way to East Rome.
The funniest thing is that nomads in the Han and Tang Dynasties were beaten and had to move westward. But in the Jin and Song Dynasties, the role changed, and Mongolia became the most combative nation. The Jin Dynasty destroyed the Northern Song Dynasty, which led to the shame of Jingkang and forced the remnants of the Song Dynasty to go south to establish the Southern Song Dynasty.
Then the Mongolian mantis finally came, first destroying the Jin Dynasty, and then all the way south, winning the south that Mobei failed to win in previous dynasties and destroying the Southern Song Dynasty. Without being stopped, nomadic people began to move westward smoothly, and all the way was unstoppable. Fortunately, they finally stopped when they hit Poland and Austria. After hearing about the Mongolian expedition, western European countries quickly joined forces to confront and finally avoided being conquered.
But there is an excellent port, Crimea, which is located in the eastern part of Europe, on the peninsula on the northern shore of the Black Sea. After being successfully occupied by Mongols, it was used as a pasture for grazing sheep. This can be described as killing a chicken with an ox knife. So the Italians next door saw it and put forward the idea of renting the Crimean Peninsula to Mongolia.
Mongolia agreed, but just after renting it out, it went back on its word and launched a war to get it back. At that time, there was a plague in Mongolian grassland, and the virus also spread with the war, which made many Italians infected with the plague (called the Black Death in Europe).
As soon as the Italians came back, naturally more people were infected with the Black Death. For Europe, this is an extremely tragic period, and the vigorous "Great Plague in Medieval Europe" broke out at this time. Although the Black Death promoted the Renaissance, the plague killed 25 million Europeans, which was 1/3 of the total population of Europe at that time. This is a world-class disaster.
Mongolia, the culprit, probably didn't expect such serious consequences, which directly affected the progress of the world. Until now, the mention of the Black Death still makes people feel worried. ...