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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 4319578" data-attributes="member: 35909">First off, thank you, tonguez, for saving me from a lot of typing.  Completely in agreement with everything you said, and it was very well stated.Yes they never existed independent again.  Of course, many people, especially the Chinese, hail the Mongol's conquerings with the re-unification of China, so whether this was a bad thing is debatable.  As for salying of the highest rulers...read Machiavelli, The Prince was written after Genghis's time, but such actions were just in following with what would later become standard procedure for conquering forces (slay anyroyalty that could later lay claim as rightful heir and start a rebellion, but otherwise leave the existing governmental structure unchanged, and let the people live as they had.).  There's a certain high profile war going on right now where the invading army neglected to follow this basic principle...First off, you mean hypothesis.  A theory is something that's been tested many times and is generally accepted as true.  Sorry if I sound pedantic, but I really can't stand the common cry of "x is just a theory!" for alot of scientific assertions.  As for this hypothesis, it has major hurdles to overcome to be plausible, since trading would have been very beneficial for the Mongols, and because the Mongols were at the time still fighting in China, and it's not a  stretch to say Genghis Khan was tactically smart enough to know waging wars on two opposite fronts simultaneously, with both enemies singularly larger than you, was tantamount to suicide.  Even if the whole thing was staged, Genghis couldn't have ordered the rulers to kill his ambassadors and merchants.  Maybe they could have acted extremely disrespectfully to entice their own demise, but the leaders of Khoresmia still were the ones who chose to murder, and had to know such acts were going to bring consequences.  Though, I've seen some sources say they didn't consider the Mongols a threat at all, and were merely doing this as an intimidation tactic.  If this is true, it's even worse than the former statement, and they really did bring it on themselves.  Finally, it should be noted, that even after such terrible acts, Genghis STILL allowed towns that surrendered peacefully to remain unharmed.While the Silk Road wasn't fully peaceful till after his death, his son Ogedei was largely following the blueprints Genghis had laid out for the immediate future, and I have no doubt that the Silk Road would have also been made the legendarily safe route it was if Genghis Khan had lived long enough.</blockquote>

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