17:34 26.05.2016
(updated: 19:59 26.05.2016 )
6674 6 18
MOSCOW, May 26 – RIA Novosti. tree rings from the logs of one of the churches in the Carpathian region have helped scientists uncover the secret of why the Mongols conquered Europe, suddenly stopping in Italy and Hungary in 1242, according to an article published in Scientific Reports magazine.
History of the Mongol invasions, originating in 1211, when Genghis Khan invaded Qin China, ending in 1242 year. Then his grandson Batu, who won the Kievan Rus, suddenly gave up trying to win, “the country’s decline”, Western Europe, and returned to the steppes of Russia’s future.
Most historians believe that the unexpected turn of Mongolian horses to the East was associated with death Hagan Ogedei, the son of Genghis Khan, and the election of a new ruler of the empire, which resulted in many years of “cold war” between Batu and official heir Giiyuk Khan.
Ulf Byuntgen (Ulf Buentgen) of the Swiss Federal research Institute in Birmensdorf and his colleague Nicola di Cosmo (Nicola di Cosmo) from Princeton University (USA) believe that in fact, in the retreat of the Mongols was “guilty” is not a policy, and the climate.
Byuntgen and di Cosmo questioned that kagan elections demanded a full retreat of all the armies of Batu – a crushing victory of the Mongols over the Poles and the Hungarians in the battles of Liegnitz and Sayo had to convince Khan to continue the offensive in the West, given that Batu did not return to the Karakoram due to a conflict with Giiyuk -hanom.
According to climate scientists, they found an unexpected answer to this historic riddle logs in one of the churches built in the Romanian part of the Carpathian Mountains in the distant past of the trunks of trees that grew in Eastern Europe at the beginning and mid-13th century.
Trees and other vegetation are very sensitive to the slightest changes in climatic conditions – increase or decrease in temperature, solar radiation and other factors. All these events are reflected in the shape and thickness of the annual rings – layers of wood in the trunk, which is formed at the growing season. It is believed that the dark rings correspond to adverse environmental conditions, and light -. Favorable
Having studied the structure of the rings in the logs Carpathian churches, as well as the trunks of trees in the same period from Scandinavia, the Urals and from the Iberian Peninsula, the researchers found that with 1238 for 1241 in Eastern Europe prevailed extremely warm summer weather, and in 1242 the climate suddenly became colder and rainy.
This is how the authors believe, it has led to two important to Mongolians consequences. Firstly, the steppes of Hungary, located in the lowlands turned into swamps, which dramatically complicates movement of the Mongol armies, for whom mobility was a major trump card in the war. Because of this, according to Byuntgena, the Mongols had difficulty taking Hungarian fortresses of the Danube, through which the invaders crossed the winter 1242.
Second, the rain and the cold prevented the growth of grasses that feed the horse Mongolian nokors and their allies. This further restricted their movement and led to mass starvation and lack of food among the Hungarian people, whose chronicles mentions “a great famine in 1242″.
This is supported by the fact that the army was retreating to the East Batu southern route along the spurs of the Carpathians, which at that time was quite dry and which had to grow grass in an amount sufficient to feed the horses.
both of these factors and related instability of the climate, according to Byuntgen and di Cosmo, prompted Batu and his temnikov on the idea that these regions’ countries sunset “were not suitable for the permanent residence of the Mongols, which forced the Mongols to abandon their conquest. Therefore, we can say that the climate, rather than political or military factors that caused the retreat of the Mongols
“Of course, climate change can affect the story, but look at the Mongol Empire -. Genghis Khan and his descendants created the state whose borders stretched from southern China to Kiev. it is unlikely that one hundred thousand army, which had previously held tens of thousands of kilometers across a variety of climatic zones, could fold before such weather shifts. In such conflicts, won concrete politico-military system, not the climate “- he commented on the research analyst Rostislav Ishchenko, president of the Center of system analysis and forecasting
.
No comments:
Post a Comment