When East Met West

[fernando]

Originally Posted by ariel

Well before Batu’s invasion of Central Europe with its castles ( purportedly impregnable stone-walled “ area deniers”) Mongols easily captured half of China and Central Asia their with stone-walled major cities. Siege engines could have been easily built on the spot in any heavily wooded area ...

And in case they were not familiar with siege engines techniques, they could always search for those who were, a strategy adopted by armies since early times.
This could be passive of correction, but we can read that, during the invasion of what today is comprehended as China, the Mongol army only succeeded in assaulting those fortified cities with the help of Chinese engineers, who gave a hand at building siege machinery. In fact it is registered that catapults were already employed by the armies of Ancient China as early as by the 8th - 7th centuries.

Interesting, this 13th Century illustration of Mongols laying siege to a Middle-Eastern city using a trebuchet.

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