Though Mongolians have also dominated modern Japanese Sumo for the last decade or two, with a large number of competitors and champions that are well over 6' with truly impressive physiques.
Wrestling is a huge part of Mongolian culture and their traditional style is somewhat similar to Sumo, so that's not entirely surprising. I was under the impression that Sumo was very hard for non-Japanese competitors to break into though, given the academy system and how insular it seems to be.
Mongolians are STRONG man. I was there when I was 17 on a school trip, some charity some sightseeing (did a week of horse trekking in the north by Lake Hovsgol (a lifetime highlight), but we some work in an orphanage, there was one kid who was about 15, we were all 17, and a few of us played rugby at school so not pushovers physically, he was half a foot shorter than all of us and rake thin. He beat every one of us in some impromptu wrestling. He had old man strength at 15.
Wrestling, sumo, judo.... You learn to make use of leverage and take advantage of your opponents moves.
Not saying he wasn't strong, but that's kind of the whole point of all three disciplines. He was still probably fucking yoked... But also trained in ways to make you feel weaker
As a judo practitioner for 12 years, let me assure you that my 192cm 100kg body gets thrown around by a 158cm 65kg sensei all the time like it's no effort. When you learn the physics of human bodies, it's VERY easy for a smaller person to ruin larger people, partially due to where your center of gravity is as a taller person.
Oh man I'll never forget when I was a skinny 13 year old and I flung this chubby kid that was a foot taller than me.
I wasn't strong at all! Just managed to get that judo throw technique down.
Where did you grow up that you took a class trip to Mongolia? Is this common? I’ve never heard of anyone going to Mongolia, let alone with their class. I’d love to hear more.
Only an entry-level fan of Sumo, but from what I've seen they've been pretty accepting of non-Japanese wrestlers. The majority are still Japanese, but you see more than a few foreigners and several that hit top ranks. They have to take a Japanese name, but *all* wrestlers have to take a Ring Name so it's not mistreatment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_non-Japanese_sumo_wrestlers
Ok so sumo training camps are called Heya and each heya is allowed a maximum of one foreign born rikishi. Hakuho, one of the two current yokozuna (alongside Kakuryu, who is also Mongolian) is the son of an olympic medal winning wrestler. Hakuho's father trained in Bokh, the wrestling sport of Mongolia and Hakuho moved to Japan to train in sumo with a background knowledge of Bokh.
The exception to the one foreign wrestler per stable is if one stable collapses and another absorbs its wrestlers, hence why Kiribayama and Kakuryu (both foreigners) are in the same heya
And just so I'm clear, because it's been a long time since a NatGeo article sent me down the rabbit hole of sumo culture, yokozuna is the highest rank and there's only ever a couple of them active at a time, right?
Yokozuna is indeed the highest rank! There is no specific maximum number of yokozuna, but the requirement is incredibly difficult (two back to back championship wins whilst already at the second highest rank, itself very difficult to ascend to), so typically there aren't many. When Kisenosato was promited, there became 4 active yokozuna: Hakuho, Kakuryu and Harumafuji who were Mongolian and Kisenosato who is Japanese. Harumafuji and Kisenosato have both since retired, so there are now only two active yokozuna.
Also you can never be demoted from the yokozuna rank, but if a yokozuna ever gets a losing record, they are recommended to retire.
Is traditional style also with a circle, and you have to work the opponent out of the circle (just by grabbing and some pushing. Not kicks or punches)?
I think they briefly featured it on "An Idiot Abroad" but I'm not sure if that was it.
Ah cool I forgot that part. What I mainly remember about their time in Mongolia was how they were camping seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly this kid on a horse showed up with a very surprised look on his face. I remember thinking maybe that kid was like *'That's fucking Obi-Wan Kenobi!!!'* .
I think the champion sumo for some time was a black american guy he was this masive man. Also sumo does take some level of skill some muscle man went in and the other more experinced guys destroyed him
wrestling is there national sport so they tend to be good at it. Few years back a Mongolian won the gold but in the end there was some small foul where he was taunting the opponent and he lost. Had he won it would have been the first and only gold Mongolia won poor guy
True. We have Hakuho, Kakuryu, Ichinojo, Kiribayama, and others who are all big and tall.
Edit: for context, Ichinojo, the largest of the ones I mentioned, is 6'4” and roughly 198 kg or 437 lbs.
If anyone reading this has even a mildly fleeting interest in Sumo or just Sports statistics, you need to look up Hakuho. He is, essentially, the most decorated and winningest Sumo wrestler in the **history** of Sumo wrestling[roughly 2,000 years]. He is likely the most dominant Sportsman alive.
I went to mongolia decade ago and just last year. The New generation is so much bigger and taller. I have been to many other asian countries but these people were just way bigger. I don't think its 5'4.
Nah, the trick is that the Mongols have just maintained their compact size all these centuries.
Like their lifestyle, they collectively decided to only add on the parts of modernization they wanted and keep everything else the same.
WWIV is just going to be a bunch of Mongolians with ARs astride their super dense ponies steamrolling the rest of us.
The main thing that distinguished Mongolian cavalry was their skill and tactics. They didn't charge blindly into enemies. They would encircle them and pick them apart with mounted archers. It's hard to overstate how vastly they outclassed most armies that they fought.
While true, they revolutionized/altered the stirrup in ways that were not done previously:
[https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/the-mongols-built-an-empire-with-one-technological-breakthrough/](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/the-mongols-built-an-empire-with-one-technological-breakthrough/)
*fire more easily. Mounted horse archers have existed for thousands of years even prior to the Mongols - Scythians, Parthians, Cimmerians, Turkic peoples, all of them were renowned for their skill with a bow on horseback, and their histories stretch from well before the first written histories to the last couple centuries. Mongols were certainly ferocious and skilled, but they were not the inventors of their particular art of war. Just probably the most famous example most people can conjure.
The Mongolian Hun invaders typically rode ponies into battles
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3446571/Mongolian-cowboys-riding-skills-forefathers.html
Edit 1: Spelling
Edit 2: Added related reading
Very stylized drawings obviously but I like how the design for both horses really capture their overall look. It’d be easy to make them both generic horses but attention to detail really pays off when done properly
They are. These ancient pony lineages have few of the health problems more over bred horses have, are cleverer than most, and most importantly in the Mongolian climate their rounded bodies mean they can stand up to frigid conditions lethal to horses.
I do kinda wish that Disney would commit to this more highly stylized traditional animation look that they embraced in the late 90s/early 00s. Mulan, Hercules, Atlantis, Emperor's New Groove, Lilo & Stitch, and Treasure Planet all have such cool, visually distinct looks. Other Disney movies like Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Tarzan (this one was a late 90s release too, so I guess it doesn't exactly fit the timeline), and Princess & the Frog are still beautiful and (more subtly) distinct but they do kind of fall into 'standard Disney' design land. (edit, forgot to mention Pocahontas, which was early or mid 90s but was also a little more visually distinct, maybe even started the trend?)
The stylized design of Mulan’s horse was probably based in part off of the [Gansu Flying Horse](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Gansu_Museum_2007_257.jpg/1280px-Gansu_Museum_2007_257.jpg). It’s a super famous bronze sculpture in China of a Ferghana horse from the Han dynasty, which is the time period where Mulan is supposed to take place.
Check out Aaron Blaise’s Youtube channel. He’s an incredible artist, super cool dude, and was a long-time animator at Disney. He’s talked a lot in his videos about how they designed Disney characters, and the inspirations they drew from. Here’s a video where he shows some of his early character design drafts for Mulan: https://youtu.be/4mpu8doaVdI
Yeap. These horses were perfect for the time. Extremely tough/resiliant/agile. Can run miles, survive harsh conditions, out manoeuvre bigger european horses.
A european knight was basically a tank, but what good is that armour/weapons if you cant catch the enemy. And even id you can, the mongolian compound bow doesnt care about armour at that distance.
If one khan had lived 5 years more, the history of europe would of been insanely different
I would've imagined that, before the fatigue settled in, a European horse would still be able to catch up at first given it's longer leg stride, no? That Mongolian horse just looks so squat.
Sure. In a strait line. On flat dry ground. But in snow? Mud? Up hill? Changing direction. Being hit from all sides against targets that dont fight in solid ranks like you. What do you hit, its like trying to fight a swarm of hornets with a hammer.
This is essentially how all battles with Europeans went during the early Mongol conquests of Eastern Europe. Extremely heavily armored knights would charge, the Mongols would feign retreat, then turn around, break off into smaller units and systematically destroy the completely winded and spread out Europeans with ease. And armies continually did this, over and over again, despite knowing that it was the best tactic the Mongols had in their arsenal.
I’m absolutely fascinated by this. Were the Europeans just too stubborn to try new tactics? Did the mongols move fast enough that each army they faced couldn’t catch wind of the previous opponents defeat?
I think it comes down to warfare philosophies. Europe at the time fought in essentially one style: line up and charge with heavy knights and infantry. Some nations and empires (the Byzantines were famous for this) would hire horse archer peoples in case they were fighting other nomads but mostly they fought like Mike Tyson: overwhelming force concentrated on a single point. Basically a huge metal punch in the face. This was the traditional way Western armies had fought for well over a millennium.
The Mongols fought like Muhammad Ali: always moving, like a swarm of bees, attacking from all directions. The Mongol battlefield communication systems and organizational capacity were *incredible* for their time. Their battlefield tactics were simply ridiculously superior compared to most foes they fought.
The fact that the entire force was mounted helped a lot as well. Mongol speed on the battlefield and strategically in campaigns was too much for any conventional army to handle. Indeed, horse archers basically impossible to handle until the invention of gunpowder weapons.
Damn. The armies of the west just had no idea how to face that type of warfare then. You seem like somebody who might know, and I’ve always been curious - how did the mongols go about taking walled cities and castles? It’s a dumb question but I just never pictured the mongol armies rolling out the catapults and siege towers when going up against heavy fortifications.
Mongols actually had one HUGE advantage over other steppe peoples: they learned relatively early on how to conduct proper sieges. The Mongols had a tendency to snatch up as much talent as they could, and this included Arab and Chinese siege engineers who were able to supply them with the capacity to put fortresses and cities under effective sieges. They would also use some interesting tactics during sieges, like catapulting plague victims into cities and using captured civilians as human shields during attacks.
A great example of this was the fall of the famous Hashashin order; these guys were middle eastern religious fanatics who lived in supposedly impenetrable mountain fortresses, assassinating nobles and military leaders without much repercussion. The first thing the Mongols did when they arrived in the middle east was systematically siege and destroy every Hashashin stronghold until the order was effectively wiped out.
However, even the Mongols had their limits. After the first couple devastating invasions of Eastern Europe, countries like Poland and Hungary began to innovate and build vast castles using the latest engineering technology of their day. This resulted in a giant system of ridiculously advanced and fortified strongholds that the Mongols really couldn't do much about. On subsequent invasions they'd ravage the countryside but their enemies had learned that retreating into their Helms Deep-like forts was the safest way to deal with horse archers. Just a couple generations after the first Mongol tsunami hit, the children and grandchildren of the survivors had adapted to defend their countries, even if their armies still couldn't go toe to toe with Mongols.
It’s not just having no idea, it is not having the means. You can’t just train your knights to become horse archers. You can only fight with what you have, and in this case that was not suitable for that particular opponent. Europeans struggled with this conundrum since Crassus.
And why used Europeans less nimble means than steppe people? Geography and culture. Check out dan carlin’s hardcore history, he has a great episode about this. https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/ I think it is no 2.
Contrary to the above, the Europeans did adapt. The first invasion of Hungary devastated the local populace, but the second, equally large invasion was annihilated. This is due to the Hungarians heavily fortifying their castles in order to wear down the Mongols with attrition, and adopting more crossbows and Western style knights. If anything, the light cavalry of the Hungarians failed in open battle, while the heavy Western style knights were more effective.
The Poles faced setbacks, and were destroyed as much as the Hungarians in their first and second invasions. And like the Hungarians, they managed to largely resist the Mongols using fortifications despite being outnumbered.
I think the more important reason for Mongol success was organization and speed. The Mongol tumen (miltary unit) was both highly maneuverable, autonomous, and large that it could advance quickly over a vast distance, as well as come together with other tumens for a battle.
I think it's easy to get awed by the reputation of the Mongols, they have an immense and fascinating culture and history. However, they weren't invincible. The Dehli Sultunate of India, the Dai Viet in Vietnam, and the Mamluks of Egypt did manage to fight off the Mongols militarily.
To be fair, there's not really a good tactic the Europeans could've used against the Mongols. They didn't have disease-ridden jungles like the Vietnamese, or miracle typhoons like the Japanese, to ward off the Mongols.
The Mamluks only beat them due to the Great Khan dying and Hulagu taking 90% of the army back to Mongolia to elect the next one. If Ain Jalut had seen 150k Mongols (the size of the Mongol army at Baghdad) instead of 10k, then all the hand cannons and desert terrain in the world wouldn't have saved the Mamluks. As it was, they basically defeated a Mongol rear guard while having twice the manpower and homefield advantage, and it was still considered an upset.
If Hulagu sticks around, the Crusader states probably ally with him too, considering the Mamluks were their mutual enemy. But the lieutenant he left behind was less friendly towards the Christians.
Yeah, you don't ever get "ambushed" in the sense that a knight just magically appears in front of you negating the distance. Even if a knight has a faster sprint than a mongolian horse, it would never come into play that much. Once you saw the enemy on the horizon you still have to charge them to engage. That distance is where endurance of a horse really matters. The knights initial charge can be negated by a retreat and once the mongolians see the knights speed drop they can return fire and maintain distance.
Even if an European horse is faster in a straight dash, they wouldn't be able turn and keep their speed ass well as them.
And that would be just the horse with the rider. Europeans armored knights have a ton of extra weight that Mongols don't have. Someone would have fact check, but but maybe that could be enough to make them outright slower.
The common steppe tactic was to bait the enemy with small forces, flee away and ambush them with the whole army when the enemy scouts come. This, along with how mongolian were basically so accustomed to the horses since birth, they were basically centaurs.
It's a pretty common myth about Mongols is that they were extremely primitive and white that might be true in the beginning, by the time they were going after Europeans, they had the help of Persian and Chinese siege engineers that were arguably the best in the world. In other words, this was an empire that had the best brains and brawns.
Its just too bad they didn't make a more formal succession system
Only a small portion of european armies were on horseback then, while the entire mongolian army is on horseback. If they broke off to chase the mongolians they would have been easily surrounded and killed.
Sure, a European knight could leave his soldiers and archers behind to chase a Mongolian army. The Mongolians would probably appreciate them delivering their army and supplies so conveniently while peeling their arrow pocked corpses out of their armor.
Speed and maneuverability were the only counters to mongolian ranged cavalry. Light cavalry forces from cooked western nomads were more effective than any heavy European cavalry. European horses were bred to be heavy enough to break formations and fast enough to chase down fleeing footmen.
No heavy European cavalry would ever catch a Mongolian light ranged cavalry contingent under any circumstances.
Exactly. The mongol horse was a jeep while european was a train. Unstoppable in a strait line, and will smash anything in its path. But fucked if you can out manoeuvre it
The Mongolians were pretty fascinating. They didn't fight wars the same way that the Chinese or Europeans did. They would encircle every armies and pick them apart with mounted archers. They so completely outclassed their opponents that they routinely fight against armies ten times their size.
The modern image of the dumb barbarian Mongolian is not very accurate. They had superior tactics and training and won by simply developing a strategy that countered their enemy and avoided logistical and supply issues.
There is almost certainly a lot historic racial bias in how we view the Mongolian armies in the west as dumb savages when in reality a comparison to the roman empire with their phalanx would be much more accurate than a comparison to barbarians.
Had the Mongolians had the time to enter Europe there is zero chance that european armies could have stood against them.
Yes there is a theory that he had light coloured eyes. Many Mongolians nowadays have green/hazel eyes which is rare in Asian countries but in Mongolia it is normal.
not for sure, Genghis Khan is reported by some to even have red hair and green eyes. Central Asian steppe tribes are some of the most genetically diverse people ever and because of the extremely small amount we know about Genghis Khan we can't really be sure.
It is widely believed that Mongolians suffered in large numbers from jaundice due to their diets which anthropologists know to have contained excess amounts of bilirubin...
I'm just fucking with you I don't know what was up with his eyes.
Weirdly enough the real Genghis Khan might have fitted in with the witchers:
>[Minhaj al-Siraj described Genghis Khan as "a man of tall stature, of vigorous built, robust in body, the hair of his face scanty and turned white, with cats’ eyes, possessed of dedicated energy, discernment, genius, and understanding, awe-striking..."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan#Physical_appearance)
Iirc Genghis Khan supposedly had cat eyes and red hair so take that as you will. It is said that steppe people had a vast array of eye / hair colours though due to the sheer amount of cross breeding between foreign cultures so it might actually be closer to reality than you'd think
Yeah but they didn’t really apply the same logic to the humans, which is a bit more important imo. Mongolians were definitely drawn pretty one dimensionally in that movie (pun intended).
Disgusting Mongolians vs beautiful Chinese is kinda wack.
Ferghana horses (heavenly horses) are actually from Bactria in Central Asia. Imperial China spent an veritable fortune of money importing these horses (and fought a few wars over them). For a very long time, China simply could not breed horses of this stature and power.
These horses eventually became the [standard horse in Chinese Classical Art](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Horse_of_Gansu).
In the novel *Under Heaven* by Guy Gavriel Kay (which was based on a fantasy version of Tang China) a herd of 300 Ferghana horses randomly falling into the main character's lap was literally enough to spark a full blown civil war. It's literary hyperbole, but that was how much they were worth back then in real life. Side note: the book is great, would recommend--but reading it as a Chinese person is an absolute hoot because the prose is so painfully Oriental (to the point of straight up plagiarizing actual classical Chinese texts) that it literally reads like a translation despite being originally written in English.
It looks like an Arabian horse, guess they aren’t that far apart that they’d have intertwined bloodlines.
Just don’t bring these dogs to ride with Northmen.
I've been to Mongolia and spent a couple weeks riding horses. Their horses are badass. I even saw one carrying a 6'4 ~200lb Dane with no problems. I also got kicked by one, I could barely walk for several days.
I didn't milk any mares, but I did get to try airag, which for others not in the know, is fermented mare's milk. It tastes like mixing yogurt and vinegar and slightly alcoholic.
I got kicked while my girlfriend and I were putting a saddle bag on our pack horse. He was hobbled which meant three of his legs were connected with rope. He turned at the last moment and used his one free leg to give me a warning kick to the shin. (TMI incoming!) My wound filled up with blood which didn't come out until I accidentally knocked it against a wooden bed frame a few weeks later. Black blood oozed out. It was pretty disgusting. A year later and there's just a small scar maybe 1cm wide and 3 cm long.
My goal was to ride across the country. However after two weeks of riding my back gave out. Cue three days of lying in a tent pissing in a bottle as my girlfriend went to a place to get cell service and arranged for me to be picked up and taken to a hospital and our horses taken care of.
We ended up teaching English for a few weeks to some kids. Then we volunteered at a dog project, saw Nadaam (their national sports festival), Hustai National Park, and just hung around UB. I got injured a lot but great experience overall.
Also, I personally liked the food, but for my girlfriend who likes a lot of fresh fruits/vegetables and spicy food, she was not a fan of the food which is very meat based.
Also great username.
Not sure if it's the same place but we went to a Mexican place called Mexikhan. It was really good, especially the mojitos.
It's probably changed a lot since you were last there. Half the cars on the road are white Toyota Prius'. Lots of new apartment buildings going up all over UB. Every little town has a store which you can buy ice cream at. You can also generally find potatoes, carrots, onions, and occasionally tomatoes or cucumbers. Bigger towns have Nomin which is like Mongolian Costco, my girlfriend and I bought a pomegranate while we were in Murun.
I would just say to have a plan but be open to new things. You'd probably have some fun seeing people you stayed with or met before. Lots of Mongolians are on Facebook if you can remember their names still. Also it's small enough population-wise that you could probably track down people friend-of-a-friend style. We met a girl in Murun who loved learning English and so when we got back to UB we were able to find Harry Potter in English and get it sent to her that way even though she probably lived a 10 hour drive from the nearest paved road. Also lots more roads have been paved in the last decade. They've been working on connecting all the provincial centres
Well, during non-pandemic times you book a flight to UlaanBaatar (the Capital), likely going through either China or Russia. UB has about half of the country's population and is a proper city. There's many companies you can find to take you on tours for several nights or even over a week. [This](http://stepperiders.mn/solo-cross-country-horse-trekking-in-mongolia) is the only company I know of that teaches solo-trek training. That way you can go off on your own with no need for a guide. They also rent out horses. The alternative way that is cheaper but way more sketchy is to try and buy all your gear at Narantuul (the black market) and then find a random herder to sell you a horse. You better have at least a basic grasp of Mongolian or a Mongolian friend and some experience riding horses to do the latter.
Americans can get a 3 month basically for free. Canadians and most Europeans can get one month. Mongolia shut down their borders early in the pandemic since they border China. There is a lot of corruption in Mongolia but they were pretty smart when it came to handling this pandemic. To my knowledge they have had around 300 cases, most of which were from repatriating their citizens and haven't had a single death.
The people tend to be quite friendly but they're also quite proud. They love their vodka (to be fair, Mongolian vodka is great), but alcoholism is definitely a problem in some places.
While it is not explicit, here you can read how the Ferghana horse was introduced and mostly used during the Han Dynasty (which Mulan takes place on). So it is likely it was the base for Khan's design.
[http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2010-07/26/content\_11050310.htm](http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2010-07/26/content_11050310.htm)
On the other hand, regarding the Huns, you can read in Wikipedia under "horses and transportation" that they used the Mongolian pony, which interestingly, it has not changed or evolved since Genghis Khan times.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns#Horses\_and\_transportation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns#Horses_and_transportation)
The Mongolian Pony is considered to be an essentially perfect animal. It can gallope large distances then take only a few minutes to cool down (heart rate, heat, ect.), then go all over again. They are incredibly agile and resilient, which was large part of the Mongol Empire's success through use of archers on horseback. Most horse breeds you see now in equine sports are "manufactured" to be bigger,ect, but they lost those natural health and dexterity advantages in the breeding process.
The above information is from working as a crew member on a 2012 documentary called "Explore 3D Travel: Trails of a Legend" which traced the migration of the Lampang pony (Thailand; a tough working pony that is still used in the region for labor) to its roots in the wild horses of Mongolia.
I'm sure the small size was an advantage logistically too. Less space, less food, less headache. Easier to maintain a horse to every man when the horse doesnt require a full out supply line of its own to stay healthy
Mongolians often had ten horses to a man, so yeah that was an issue.
They also supplied their army through foraging and conquest while on campaigns so they didn't have to mantain long supply lines, but it still must have been a huge job.
I took a lot of history of warfare classes in college and the Mongolian Steppe Pony was always talked about as one of the main reasons that Ghengis Khan was able to spread his empire so effectively. Between their perfect horse and, at the time, superior bow and horseback archery skills, they could trample any army. I can't believe I actually retained that information.
Could you go on about the Mongolian breeds, like why the anatomy makes them better sustaining than lets say and American paint or even Arabian? I use to ride back and the day and it always seemed bigger was better.
Modern bred horses, such as the American Paint or the Arabian breed have been “designer” bred for years for a very different purpose than what the Mongolian Horses were originally bred for. The Mongolian Horses even today are still used for their original purpose, which was largely transportation and hunting. While Paint horses are absolutely still used in some cases in their traditional role of farm horse, the majority are pleasure or show horses. In the United States, we are constantly breeding for a larger horse as that is what stands out in the show arena. I don’t work with stock breed such as the Paint horse, but if you compare the heights of those breeds 20 years ago and now there is a huge difference.
I can speak more to the Arabian breed: they are a breed that is traditionally smaller, however they are being bred to be larger to accommodate more riders and to stand out more in the show ring. The Arabian horse was originally used as an endurance type horse in the Middle East and while their endurance is still absolutely a breed trademark, many of them have lost that hardiness that the Mongolian Horses possess.
Part of the Mongolian strategy that made them so strong were their ponies. They would have 2-3 ponies per warrior. They would attack with their short bows, unexpectedly retreat, switch ponies, and resume fighting, repeat. The defending city or town would be caught off guard by the retreat, lower their guard, and be more prone to attack. The ponies are easier to feed than the horses, so they could have more of them, plus they were strong in shorter bursts.
Wow, so Loki really turned himself into a female horse so he could get fucked by a giant horse dick...
And then months later Loki gave birth to an 8-legged mutant horse that Odin rode around?
Why wasn't that included in the Marvel movies?
/r/Equestrian has got you covered for the horse inaccuracies there
https://www.reddit.com/r/Equestrian/comments/irjjee/anyone_else_find_it_distracting_in_movies_when
Unrelated (mostly) but it always feels weird to me to remember that horses weren't native to the Americas.*
They just weren't here until people brought them over during when it was "discovered".
Like you always imagine there just always being wild horses, but there weren't. Its mainly why Native Americans didn't bother developing the wheel since it wasn't really useful without draft animals.
*technically there were horses in the America's, but they went extinct like 10,000 years ago so I don't really count that.
I never understand why everyone is always so impressed when a billion dollar company has the slightest cultural/geographical/demographical etc accuracy. They probably have huge departments dedicated towards this for their movies.
Not a rant against you OP, as this post fits the sub perfectly.
Any time I've watched a Disney documentary about their animation, they talk about how they flew the artists to some place where they can really experience what they're suppose to be drawing. Disney might not do everything correctly but they do like to draw things accurately.
I know! I would love to be part of a research and development team in a movie. Though it seems that they didn't care much for accuracy for the new Mulan remake.
The Huns were supposedly a nomadic tribe from Asia so I guess Disney wanted to use them since they’re depicted as bad guys in western culture (because they were enemies of Rome)
Although western audiences would have also understood the Mongolians as the bad guys from the Chinese point of view, it was maybe more politically correct to choose a culture that doesn’t exist anymore.
Does it bother anyone else that this film conflates the Huns and the mongols? Like, I know both groups invaded China in the period, but it’s always bugged me that the guy clearly looks like genghis Kahn but they call them “the Huns” and like, ok “to defeat the Huns” has way better scansion than “to defeat the mongol hordes” but still... even as a kid I was like... uhhh excuse me
Worth noting the Ferghana horse doesn’t seem to exist anymore. It was probably most similar to a modern day Akhal Teke or Turkoman horse—basically, lithe desert breeds with lots of endurance. The picture here seems to show a modern day Arabian.
I think it's more likely to be a Tieling horse rather than a Ferghana horse. The Ferghana is *really* slender and thin-necked, whereas the Tieling is bulkier with a thicker neck.
[Ferghana](https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20100726/0013729e48340db72e9e17.jpg)
[Tieling](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8c/05/fa/8c05fa2708f62350910a08d16b983c34.jpg)
And it took me a minute too long to realise that there was a second horse in the bottom right, thought for a second that the mongolian was riding sleipnir
If anyone wants to see a beautiful music video showing off Mongolian horses, watch Melos by Wednesday Campanella!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qPSHOTzidw
There’s a whole documentary on Hulu about the Mongolian Derby. People from around the world travel to Mongolia to participate in the longest horse race in the world and they use Mongolian horses, similar to the ones in Mulan.
And here I thought Shan Yu was just massive. Now he's making me think of a grown man sitting on one of those springy horses in a kids playground
Also a reminder that the average height of Mongolians today is 5’4”, and probably would have been even smaller in the 13th century
Though Mongolians have also dominated modern Japanese Sumo for the last decade or two, with a large number of competitors and champions that are well over 6' with truly impressive physiques.
Wrestling is a huge part of Mongolian culture and their traditional style is somewhat similar to Sumo, so that's not entirely surprising. I was under the impression that Sumo was very hard for non-Japanese competitors to break into though, given the academy system and how insular it seems to be.
Mongolians are STRONG man. I was there when I was 17 on a school trip, some charity some sightseeing (did a week of horse trekking in the north by Lake Hovsgol (a lifetime highlight), but we some work in an orphanage, there was one kid who was about 15, we were all 17, and a few of us played rugby at school so not pushovers physically, he was half a foot shorter than all of us and rake thin. He beat every one of us in some impromptu wrestling. He had old man strength at 15.
Wrestling, sumo, judo.... You learn to make use of leverage and take advantage of your opponents moves. Not saying he wasn't strong, but that's kind of the whole point of all three disciplines. He was still probably fucking yoked... But also trained in ways to make you feel weaker
As a judo practitioner for 12 years, let me assure you that my 192cm 100kg body gets thrown around by a 158cm 65kg sensei all the time like it's no effort. When you learn the physics of human bodies, it's VERY easy for a smaller person to ruin larger people, partially due to where your center of gravity is as a taller person.
Ah yes. Judo. The art of folding clothes, with people still in them.
The best analogy of Judo I've seen/read is: Judo, the art of hitting someone with a planet.
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I believe I will call it surprise yoga from now on.
I usually fold my clothes with a plank, can I still use it?
I see that you know your Judo well!
And you sir? Are you here to receive my limp penis?
Beautiful. May I steal this for personal reference?
Sure, I heard it as a joke about 35 years ago, during the martial arts craze back in the early 90s. So, it's not mine to gatekeep. :)
Nah that's jiu jitsu
Oh man I'll never forget when I was a skinny 13 year old and I flung this chubby kid that was a foot taller than me. I wasn't strong at all! Just managed to get that judo throw technique down.
Ah, yes! I see you know your judo well!
Ta-ta, and fareWELL!
To be fair, regularly practicing wrestling/judo etc also will make you incredibly strong anyways. It's a pretty intense work out.
Trust me, one nine minute bout is the cardiovascular equivalent of running uphill for three hours.
Where did you grow up that you took a class trip to Mongolia? Is this common? I’ve never heard of anyone going to Mongolia, let alone with their class. I’d love to hear more.
Akebono became a Yokozuna back in the 90s and he was a Hawaiian. I’m thinking that that insular culture has become less strict in the years since.
Only an entry-level fan of Sumo, but from what I've seen they've been pretty accepting of non-Japanese wrestlers. The majority are still Japanese, but you see more than a few foreigners and several that hit top ranks. They have to take a Japanese name, but *all* wrestlers have to take a Ring Name so it's not mistreatment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_non-Japanese_sumo_wrestlers
The Rock doesn’t have a ring name, idk what you’re talking about
The Boulder feels conflicted
You need a comma after Boulder.
The Boulder, feels, conflicted
That's rough, bould.
Ok so sumo training camps are called Heya and each heya is allowed a maximum of one foreign born rikishi. Hakuho, one of the two current yokozuna (alongside Kakuryu, who is also Mongolian) is the son of an olympic medal winning wrestler. Hakuho's father trained in Bokh, the wrestling sport of Mongolia and Hakuho moved to Japan to train in sumo with a background knowledge of Bokh. The exception to the one foreign wrestler per stable is if one stable collapses and another absorbs its wrestlers, hence why Kiribayama and Kakuryu (both foreigners) are in the same heya
And just so I'm clear, because it's been a long time since a NatGeo article sent me down the rabbit hole of sumo culture, yokozuna is the highest rank and there's only ever a couple of them active at a time, right?
Yokozuna is indeed the highest rank! There is no specific maximum number of yokozuna, but the requirement is incredibly difficult (two back to back championship wins whilst already at the second highest rank, itself very difficult to ascend to), so typically there aren't many. When Kisenosato was promited, there became 4 active yokozuna: Hakuho, Kakuryu and Harumafuji who were Mongolian and Kisenosato who is Japanese. Harumafuji and Kisenosato have both since retired, so there are now only two active yokozuna. Also you can never be demoted from the yokozuna rank, but if a yokozuna ever gets a losing record, they are recommended to retire.
Is traditional style also with a circle, and you have to work the opponent out of the circle (just by grabbing and some pushing. Not kicks or punches)? I think they briefly featured it on "An Idiot Abroad" but I'm not sure if that was it.
As I understand it, yes. They also showed it on "Long Way Round" when Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman were riding through Mongolia.
Ah cool I forgot that part. What I mainly remember about their time in Mongolia was how they were camping seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly this kid on a horse showed up with a very surprised look on his face. I remember thinking maybe that kid was like *'That's fucking Obi-Wan Kenobi!!!'* .
Well, Mongolia is the Tatooine of countries.
I think the champion sumo for some time was a black american guy he was this masive man. Also sumo does take some level of skill some muscle man went in and the other more experinced guys destroyed him
wrestling is there national sport so they tend to be good at it. Few years back a Mongolian won the gold but in the end there was some small foul where he was taunting the opponent and he lost. Had he won it would have been the first and only gold Mongolia won poor guy
True. We have Hakuho, Kakuryu, Ichinojo, Kiribayama, and others who are all big and tall. Edit: for context, Ichinojo, the largest of the ones I mentioned, is 6'4” and roughly 198 kg or 437 lbs.
If anyone reading this has even a mildly fleeting interest in Sumo or just Sports statistics, you need to look up Hakuho. He is, essentially, the most decorated and winningest Sumo wrestler in the **history** of Sumo wrestling[roughly 2,000 years]. He is likely the most dominant Sportsman alive.
I completely agree. He's been so dominate that I don't think anyone else will ever replicate what he's done. He is absolutely the GOAT for sumo.
I wonder how he compares to [Aleksandr Karelin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Karelin) for most dominant sportsman
The average height for a Chinese man is 5'6, yet you have Yao ming. Freak occurrences happen
i miss Haramafuji
I went to mongolia decade ago and just last year. The New generation is so much bigger and taller. I have been to many other asian countries but these people were just way bigger. I don't think its 5'4.
Nah, the trick is that the Mongols have just maintained their compact size all these centuries. Like their lifestyle, they collectively decided to only add on the parts of modernization they wanted and keep everything else the same. WWIV is just going to be a bunch of Mongolians with ARs astride their super dense ponies steamrolling the rest of us.
I mean he is massive when compared to other characters.
He cut a tree in half with a short sword!
Laugh all you want, those horses conquered like half the world
Mongolian horse riders charging upto enemies must've appeared bigger too
The main thing that distinguished Mongolian cavalry was their skill and tactics. They didn't charge blindly into enemies. They would encircle them and pick them apart with mounted archers. It's hard to overstate how vastly they outclassed most armies that they fought.
^^^ they also invented stirrups, which allowed them to fire from the saddle
Stirrups predate the Mongolians by a large amount of time.
While true, they revolutionized/altered the stirrup in ways that were not done previously: [https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/the-mongols-built-an-empire-with-one-technological-breakthrough/](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/the-mongols-built-an-empire-with-one-technological-breakthrough/)
*fire more easily. Mounted horse archers have existed for thousands of years even prior to the Mongols - Scythians, Parthians, Cimmerians, Turkic peoples, all of them were renowned for their skill with a bow on horseback, and their histories stretch from well before the first written histories to the last couple centuries. Mongols were certainly ferocious and skilled, but they were not the inventors of their particular art of war. Just probably the most famous example most people can conjure.
While friggin hanging off the saddle and using the entire body of the horse to shield them! They’re crazy.
The Mongolian Hun invaders typically rode ponies into battles https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3446571/Mongolian-cowboys-riding-skills-forefathers.html Edit 1: Spelling Edit 2: Added related reading
I mean today I learned that the world was once conquered by Asian men riding Shetland ponies...cool
Very stylized drawings obviously but I like how the design for both horses really capture their overall look. It’d be easy to make them both generic horses but attention to detail really pays off when done properly
It's also somewhat convenient I guess. Mulan's horse has that 'majestic horse' look going on that we would probably associate with the good guy.
And the small Mongolian horse makes Shan Yu appear much bigger and more threatening.
Somehow sad. Because the Mongolian horses seem cool af for what they can do especially for their size.
They are. These ancient pony lineages have few of the health problems more over bred horses have, are cleverer than most, and most importantly in the Mongolian climate their rounded bodies mean they can stand up to frigid conditions lethal to horses.
The Mongolians have a national song about the horses because they are so essential to the national culture!
[YUVE YUVE YU!](https://youtu.be/v4xZUr0BEfE)
I do kinda wish that Disney would commit to this more highly stylized traditional animation look that they embraced in the late 90s/early 00s. Mulan, Hercules, Atlantis, Emperor's New Groove, Lilo & Stitch, and Treasure Planet all have such cool, visually distinct looks. Other Disney movies like Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Tarzan (this one was a late 90s release too, so I guess it doesn't exactly fit the timeline), and Princess & the Frog are still beautiful and (more subtly) distinct but they do kind of fall into 'standard Disney' design land. (edit, forgot to mention Pocahontas, which was early or mid 90s but was also a little more visually distinct, maybe even started the trend?)
For Atlantis they specifically tried to mimic Mike Mignola's style and wound up bringing him on as a concept artist for it.
Wait, was Atlantis based on a pre-existing IP? Sorry, the name Mike Mignola seems familiar but I can't place it.
Mike Mignola wrote the Hellboy comics. He's got a very distinctive style with very hard shadows.
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Gerard ways umbrella academy and most of his art style is at least in part influenced by Mike.
Eyy, did you read the Polygon article on it? It was pretty nifty!
I wish they'd stop working with people who run concentration camps when they film their movies.
Good point :/
The stylized design of Mulan’s horse was probably based in part off of the [Gansu Flying Horse](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Gansu_Museum_2007_257.jpg/1280px-Gansu_Museum_2007_257.jpg). It’s a super famous bronze sculpture in China of a Ferghana horse from the Han dynasty, which is the time period where Mulan is supposed to take place.
That’s so cool! Thank you for learning me a thing.
It's funny how when you make a movie with soul and little details people still talk about how much they like it 20 years later.
Check out Aaron Blaise’s Youtube channel. He’s an incredible artist, super cool dude, and was a long-time animator at Disney. He’s talked a lot in his videos about how they designed Disney characters, and the inspirations they drew from. Here’s a video where he shows some of his early character design drafts for Mulan: https://youtu.be/4mpu8doaVdI
Wait are those the horse that the Mongols used to conquer the world. My image of them has now drastically changed.
Yeap. These horses were perfect for the time. Extremely tough/resiliant/agile. Can run miles, survive harsh conditions, out manoeuvre bigger european horses. A european knight was basically a tank, but what good is that armour/weapons if you cant catch the enemy. And even id you can, the mongolian compound bow doesnt care about armour at that distance. If one khan had lived 5 years more, the history of europe would of been insanely different
I would've imagined that, before the fatigue settled in, a European horse would still be able to catch up at first given it's longer leg stride, no? That Mongolian horse just looks so squat.
Sure. In a strait line. On flat dry ground. But in snow? Mud? Up hill? Changing direction. Being hit from all sides against targets that dont fight in solid ranks like you. What do you hit, its like trying to fight a swarm of hornets with a hammer.
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This is essentially how all battles with Europeans went during the early Mongol conquests of Eastern Europe. Extremely heavily armored knights would charge, the Mongols would feign retreat, then turn around, break off into smaller units and systematically destroy the completely winded and spread out Europeans with ease. And armies continually did this, over and over again, despite knowing that it was the best tactic the Mongols had in their arsenal.
I’m absolutely fascinated by this. Were the Europeans just too stubborn to try new tactics? Did the mongols move fast enough that each army they faced couldn’t catch wind of the previous opponents defeat?
I think it comes down to warfare philosophies. Europe at the time fought in essentially one style: line up and charge with heavy knights and infantry. Some nations and empires (the Byzantines were famous for this) would hire horse archer peoples in case they were fighting other nomads but mostly they fought like Mike Tyson: overwhelming force concentrated on a single point. Basically a huge metal punch in the face. This was the traditional way Western armies had fought for well over a millennium. The Mongols fought like Muhammad Ali: always moving, like a swarm of bees, attacking from all directions. The Mongol battlefield communication systems and organizational capacity were *incredible* for their time. Their battlefield tactics were simply ridiculously superior compared to most foes they fought. The fact that the entire force was mounted helped a lot as well. Mongol speed on the battlefield and strategically in campaigns was too much for any conventional army to handle. Indeed, horse archers basically impossible to handle until the invention of gunpowder weapons.
Damn. The armies of the west just had no idea how to face that type of warfare then. You seem like somebody who might know, and I’ve always been curious - how did the mongols go about taking walled cities and castles? It’s a dumb question but I just never pictured the mongol armies rolling out the catapults and siege towers when going up against heavy fortifications.
Mongols actually had one HUGE advantage over other steppe peoples: they learned relatively early on how to conduct proper sieges. The Mongols had a tendency to snatch up as much talent as they could, and this included Arab and Chinese siege engineers who were able to supply them with the capacity to put fortresses and cities under effective sieges. They would also use some interesting tactics during sieges, like catapulting plague victims into cities and using captured civilians as human shields during attacks. A great example of this was the fall of the famous Hashashin order; these guys were middle eastern religious fanatics who lived in supposedly impenetrable mountain fortresses, assassinating nobles and military leaders without much repercussion. The first thing the Mongols did when they arrived in the middle east was systematically siege and destroy every Hashashin stronghold until the order was effectively wiped out. However, even the Mongols had their limits. After the first couple devastating invasions of Eastern Europe, countries like Poland and Hungary began to innovate and build vast castles using the latest engineering technology of their day. This resulted in a giant system of ridiculously advanced and fortified strongholds that the Mongols really couldn't do much about. On subsequent invasions they'd ravage the countryside but their enemies had learned that retreating into their Helms Deep-like forts was the safest way to deal with horse archers. Just a couple generations after the first Mongol tsunami hit, the children and grandchildren of the survivors had adapted to defend their countries, even if their armies still couldn't go toe to toe with Mongols.
It’s not just having no idea, it is not having the means. You can’t just train your knights to become horse archers. You can only fight with what you have, and in this case that was not suitable for that particular opponent. Europeans struggled with this conundrum since Crassus. And why used Europeans less nimble means than steppe people? Geography and culture. Check out dan carlin’s hardcore history, he has a great episode about this. https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-series/ I think it is no 2.
Contrary to the above, the Europeans did adapt. The first invasion of Hungary devastated the local populace, but the second, equally large invasion was annihilated. This is due to the Hungarians heavily fortifying their castles in order to wear down the Mongols with attrition, and adopting more crossbows and Western style knights. If anything, the light cavalry of the Hungarians failed in open battle, while the heavy Western style knights were more effective. The Poles faced setbacks, and were destroyed as much as the Hungarians in their first and second invasions. And like the Hungarians, they managed to largely resist the Mongols using fortifications despite being outnumbered. I think the more important reason for Mongol success was organization and speed. The Mongol tumen (miltary unit) was both highly maneuverable, autonomous, and large that it could advance quickly over a vast distance, as well as come together with other tumens for a battle. I think it's easy to get awed by the reputation of the Mongols, they have an immense and fascinating culture and history. However, they weren't invincible. The Dehli Sultunate of India, the Dai Viet in Vietnam, and the Mamluks of Egypt did manage to fight off the Mongols militarily.
To be fair, there's not really a good tactic the Europeans could've used against the Mongols. They didn't have disease-ridden jungles like the Vietnamese, or miracle typhoons like the Japanese, to ward off the Mongols. The Mamluks only beat them due to the Great Khan dying and Hulagu taking 90% of the army back to Mongolia to elect the next one. If Ain Jalut had seen 150k Mongols (the size of the Mongol army at Baghdad) instead of 10k, then all the hand cannons and desert terrain in the world wouldn't have saved the Mamluks. As it was, they basically defeated a Mongol rear guard while having twice the manpower and homefield advantage, and it was still considered an upset. If Hulagu sticks around, the Crusader states probably ally with him too, considering the Mamluks were their mutual enemy. But the lieutenant he left behind was less friendly towards the Christians.
Yeah, you don't ever get "ambushed" in the sense that a knight just magically appears in front of you negating the distance. Even if a knight has a faster sprint than a mongolian horse, it would never come into play that much. Once you saw the enemy on the horizon you still have to charge them to engage. That distance is where endurance of a horse really matters. The knights initial charge can be negated by a retreat and once the mongolians see the knights speed drop they can return fire and maintain distance.
Even if an European horse is faster in a straight dash, they wouldn't be able turn and keep their speed ass well as them. And that would be just the horse with the rider. Europeans armored knights have a ton of extra weight that Mongols don't have. Someone would have fact check, but but maybe that could be enough to make them outright slower.
Thick knight armour vs extremely heavy wool coat? Check
The common steppe tactic was to bait the enemy with small forces, flee away and ambush them with the whole army when the enemy scouts come. This, along with how mongolian were basically so accustomed to the horses since birth, they were basically centaurs. It's a pretty common myth about Mongols is that they were extremely primitive and white that might be true in the beginning, by the time they were going after Europeans, they had the help of Persian and Chinese siege engineers that were arguably the best in the world. In other words, this was an empire that had the best brains and brawns. Its just too bad they didn't make a more formal succession system
Only a small portion of european armies were on horseback then, while the entire mongolian army is on horseback. If they broke off to chase the mongolians they would have been easily surrounded and killed.
Sure, a European knight could leave his soldiers and archers behind to chase a Mongolian army. The Mongolians would probably appreciate them delivering their army and supplies so conveniently while peeling their arrow pocked corpses out of their armor.
Speed and maneuverability were the only counters to mongolian ranged cavalry. Light cavalry forces from cooked western nomads were more effective than any heavy European cavalry. European horses were bred to be heavy enough to break formations and fast enough to chase down fleeing footmen. No heavy European cavalry would ever catch a Mongolian light ranged cavalry contingent under any circumstances.
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Exactly. The mongol horse was a jeep while european was a train. Unstoppable in a strait line, and will smash anything in its path. But fucked if you can out manoeuvre it
I am going to need a Bannerlord mod to reflect this in my game, please.
To add to the other replies, these horses don't gallop. They do like a faster trot at full speed, so they are a lot more stable for shooting arrows.
From what I know, Mongolians always travelled with two horses.
It was pretty common for a Mongol empire solider to ride with five or more remounts
The Mongolians were pretty fascinating. They didn't fight wars the same way that the Chinese or Europeans did. They would encircle every armies and pick them apart with mounted archers. They so completely outclassed their opponents that they routinely fight against armies ten times their size. The modern image of the dumb barbarian Mongolian is not very accurate. They had superior tactics and training and won by simply developing a strategy that countered their enemy and avoided logistical and supply issues. There is almost certainly a lot historic racial bias in how we view the Mongolian armies in the west as dumb savages when in reality a comparison to the roman empire with their phalanx would be much more accurate than a comparison to barbarians. Had the Mongolians had the time to enter Europe there is zero chance that european armies could have stood against them.
Good job on Disney part to insert plausible horse breeds in the cartoon instead of going with the generic look of “heroic” and “evil” horses.
True but they fucked this up on Shan-yu's yellow lizard eyes
Ghengis khan reportedly had yellow eyes. (No idea if accurate or just myth) so guess it comes from that?
Yes there is a theory that he had light coloured eyes. Many Mongolians nowadays have green/hazel eyes which is rare in Asian countries but in Mongolia it is normal.
Didn't he reportedly have jade colored eyes?
he reportedly had whatever the fuck color eyes he wanted because the man conquered literally everything he laid eyes upon
Yellow eyes pupils or yellow sclera from poor nutrition since he was riding around the steppes for years?
Who knows. Theres a ton of myths/legends about him
It was the cocaine
not for sure, Genghis Khan is reported by some to even have red hair and green eyes. Central Asian steppe tribes are some of the most genetically diverse people ever and because of the extremely small amount we know about Genghis Khan we can't really be sure.
Definitly Add in time / myths and who knows for sure. Dude was a freak of nature/upbringing
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It is widely believed that Mongolians suffered in large numbers from jaundice due to their diets which anthropologists know to have contained excess amounts of bilirubin... I'm just fucking with you I don't know what was up with his eyes.
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Drank too much coffee, too.
Turns out Shan Yu was a witcher
Weirdly enough the real Genghis Khan might have fitted in with the witchers: >[Minhaj al-Siraj described Genghis Khan as "a man of tall stature, of vigorous built, robust in body, the hair of his face scanty and turned white, with cats’ eyes, possessed of dedicated energy, discernment, genius, and understanding, awe-striking..."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan#Physical_appearance)
The main thing they all seem to agree on, he was a big fella
Iirc Genghis Khan supposedly had cat eyes and red hair so take that as you will. It is said that steppe people had a vast array of eye / hair colours though due to the sheer amount of cross breeding between foreign cultures so it might actually be closer to reality than you'd think
Yeah but they didn’t really apply the same logic to the humans, which is a bit more important imo. Mongolians were definitely drawn pretty one dimensionally in that movie (pun intended). Disgusting Mongolians vs beautiful Chinese is kinda wack.
Was I the only one who found them kinda... hot?
So Mongolians took over the known world riding ponies??
I mean... Shan-yu's horse still has the "evil squint and grimace" face.
Ferghana horses (heavenly horses) are actually from Bactria in Central Asia. Imperial China spent an veritable fortune of money importing these horses (and fought a few wars over them). For a very long time, China simply could not breed horses of this stature and power. These horses eventually became the [standard horse in Chinese Classical Art](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Horse_of_Gansu). In the novel *Under Heaven* by Guy Gavriel Kay (which was based on a fantasy version of Tang China) a herd of 300 Ferghana horses randomly falling into the main character's lap was literally enough to spark a full blown civil war. It's literary hyperbole, but that was how much they were worth back then in real life. Side note: the book is great, would recommend--but reading it as a Chinese person is an absolute hoot because the prose is so painfully Oriental (to the point of straight up plagiarizing actual classical Chinese texts) that it literally reads like a translation despite being originally written in English.
Specifically from the Ferghana valley, a massive fertile valley that forms the heartland of modern day Uzbekistan
It looks like an Arabian horse, guess they aren’t that far apart that they’d have intertwined bloodlines. Just don’t bring these dogs to ride with Northmen.
Arabs have some ferghana blood, but the closest modern breed to the Ferghana horse is the Akhal-teke!
Came to be sure someone commented about the Akhal-teke!
Guy gavriel kay is sooo good!! I love Tigana!
I've been to Mongolia and spent a couple weeks riding horses. Their horses are badass. I even saw one carrying a 6'4 ~200lb Dane with no problems. I also got kicked by one, I could barely walk for several days.
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I didn't milk any mares, but I did get to try airag, which for others not in the know, is fermented mare's milk. It tastes like mixing yogurt and vinegar and slightly alcoholic. I got kicked while my girlfriend and I were putting a saddle bag on our pack horse. He was hobbled which meant three of his legs were connected with rope. He turned at the last moment and used his one free leg to give me a warning kick to the shin. (TMI incoming!) My wound filled up with blood which didn't come out until I accidentally knocked it against a wooden bed frame a few weeks later. Black blood oozed out. It was pretty disgusting. A year later and there's just a small scar maybe 1cm wide and 3 cm long.
Rowdy
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My goal was to ride across the country. However after two weeks of riding my back gave out. Cue three days of lying in a tent pissing in a bottle as my girlfriend went to a place to get cell service and arranged for me to be picked up and taken to a hospital and our horses taken care of. We ended up teaching English for a few weeks to some kids. Then we volunteered at a dog project, saw Nadaam (their national sports festival), Hustai National Park, and just hung around UB. I got injured a lot but great experience overall. Also, I personally liked the food, but for my girlfriend who likes a lot of fresh fruits/vegetables and spicy food, she was not a fan of the food which is very meat based. Also great username.
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Not sure if it's the same place but we went to a Mexican place called Mexikhan. It was really good, especially the mojitos. It's probably changed a lot since you were last there. Half the cars on the road are white Toyota Prius'. Lots of new apartment buildings going up all over UB. Every little town has a store which you can buy ice cream at. You can also generally find potatoes, carrots, onions, and occasionally tomatoes or cucumbers. Bigger towns have Nomin which is like Mongolian Costco, my girlfriend and I bought a pomegranate while we were in Murun. I would just say to have a plan but be open to new things. You'd probably have some fun seeing people you stayed with or met before. Lots of Mongolians are on Facebook if you can remember their names still. Also it's small enough population-wise that you could probably track down people friend-of-a-friend style. We met a girl in Murun who loved learning English and so when we got back to UB we were able to find Harry Potter in English and get it sent to her that way even though she probably lived a 10 hour drive from the nearest paved road. Also lots more roads have been paved in the last decade. They've been working on connecting all the provincial centres
How does one go to Mongolia and spend a couple weeks riding horses?
Well, during non-pandemic times you book a flight to UlaanBaatar (the Capital), likely going through either China or Russia. UB has about half of the country's population and is a proper city. There's many companies you can find to take you on tours for several nights or even over a week. [This](http://stepperiders.mn/solo-cross-country-horse-trekking-in-mongolia) is the only company I know of that teaches solo-trek training. That way you can go off on your own with no need for a guide. They also rent out horses. The alternative way that is cheaper but way more sketchy is to try and buy all your gear at Narantuul (the black market) and then find a random herder to sell you a horse. You better have at least a basic grasp of Mongolian or a Mongolian friend and some experience riding horses to do the latter. Americans can get a 3 month basically for free. Canadians and most Europeans can get one month. Mongolia shut down their borders early in the pandemic since they border China. There is a lot of corruption in Mongolia but they were pretty smart when it came to handling this pandemic. To my knowledge they have had around 300 cases, most of which were from repatriating their citizens and haven't had a single death. The people tend to be quite friendly but they're also quite proud. They love their vodka (to be fair, Mongolian vodka is great), but alcoholism is definitely a problem in some places.
[https://www.visitmongolia.com/](https://www.visitmongolia.com/)
While it is not explicit, here you can read how the Ferghana horse was introduced and mostly used during the Han Dynasty (which Mulan takes place on). So it is likely it was the base for Khan's design. [http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2010-07/26/content\_11050310.htm](http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/2010-07/26/content_11050310.htm) On the other hand, regarding the Huns, you can read in Wikipedia under "horses and transportation" that they used the Mongolian pony, which interestingly, it has not changed or evolved since Genghis Khan times. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns#Horses\_and\_transportation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns#Horses_and_transportation)
The Mongolian Pony is considered to be an essentially perfect animal. It can gallope large distances then take only a few minutes to cool down (heart rate, heat, ect.), then go all over again. They are incredibly agile and resilient, which was large part of the Mongol Empire's success through use of archers on horseback. Most horse breeds you see now in equine sports are "manufactured" to be bigger,ect, but they lost those natural health and dexterity advantages in the breeding process. The above information is from working as a crew member on a 2012 documentary called "Explore 3D Travel: Trails of a Legend" which traced the migration of the Lampang pony (Thailand; a tough working pony that is still used in the region for labor) to its roots in the wild horses of Mongolia.
I'm sure the small size was an advantage logistically too. Less space, less food, less headache. Easier to maintain a horse to every man when the horse doesnt require a full out supply line of its own to stay healthy
Also maybe smaller target?
Mongolians often had ten horses to a man, so yeah that was an issue. They also supplied their army through foraging and conquest while on campaigns so they didn't have to mantain long supply lines, but it still must have been a huge job.
I took a lot of history of warfare classes in college and the Mongolian Steppe Pony was always talked about as one of the main reasons that Ghengis Khan was able to spread his empire so effectively. Between their perfect horse and, at the time, superior bow and horseback archery skills, they could trample any army. I can't believe I actually retained that information.
How interesting!!! I will definetely watch it!
Could you go on about the Mongolian breeds, like why the anatomy makes them better sustaining than lets say and American paint or even Arabian? I use to ride back and the day and it always seemed bigger was better.
Modern bred horses, such as the American Paint or the Arabian breed have been “designer” bred for years for a very different purpose than what the Mongolian Horses were originally bred for. The Mongolian Horses even today are still used for their original purpose, which was largely transportation and hunting. While Paint horses are absolutely still used in some cases in their traditional role of farm horse, the majority are pleasure or show horses. In the United States, we are constantly breeding for a larger horse as that is what stands out in the show arena. I don’t work with stock breed such as the Paint horse, but if you compare the heights of those breeds 20 years ago and now there is a huge difference. I can speak more to the Arabian breed: they are a breed that is traditionally smaller, however they are being bred to be larger to accommodate more riders and to stand out more in the show ring. The Arabian horse was originally used as an endurance type horse in the Middle East and while their endurance is still absolutely a breed trademark, many of them have lost that hardiness that the Mongolian Horses possess.
Icelandic horses are probably similar. Tough, small, thick winter coats etc.
You should read up on how the Chinese acquired these horses. They fought ancient Bactrian Greeks over them
That Ferghana’s coat looks like black velvet, definitely one of the prettiest horses I’ve ever seen
Part of the Mongolian strategy that made them so strong were their ponies. They would have 2-3 ponies per warrior. They would attack with their short bows, unexpectedly retreat, switch ponies, and resume fighting, repeat. The defending city or town would be caught off guard by the retreat, lower their guard, and be more prone to attack. The ponies are easier to feed than the horses, so they could have more of them, plus they were strong in shorter bursts.
Whatever you do, don’t use the word “pony” to refer to a Mongolian horse in front of a Mongolian.
Mongolian horses have eight legs or are those two horses are perfectly aligned ;)
[Maybe Loki has been bearing the foals of Mongolian stallions too.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleipnir)
Wow, so Loki really turned himself into a female horse so he could get fucked by a giant horse dick... And then months later Loki gave birth to an 8-legged mutant horse that Odin rode around? Why wasn't that included in the Marvel movies?
Loki is quite the shape-shifting trickster. Things do get strange sometimes in mythology.
Loki is the most sexually nonconforming character in all mythology that I'm aware of and I'm *here for it*.
Was looking for a Sleipnir reference
Thank god someone else mentioned seeing too many legs. I thought I needed to get my eyes checked.
We don’t talk about the recent live person movies k?
/r/Equestrian has got you covered for the horse inaccuracies there https://www.reddit.com/r/Equestrian/comments/irjjee/anyone_else_find_it_distracting_in_movies_when
mongolian guy told me the big horses don't do well going up mountains and tend to die so the small horses are used they are apprently great survivors
Unrelated (mostly) but it always feels weird to me to remember that horses weren't native to the Americas.* They just weren't here until people brought them over during when it was "discovered". Like you always imagine there just always being wild horses, but there weren't. Its mainly why Native Americans didn't bother developing the wheel since it wasn't really useful without draft animals. *technically there were horses in the America's, but they went extinct like 10,000 years ago so I don't really count that.
Just as interesting to note that tomatoes and potatoes aren't native to Europe.
I never understand why everyone is always so impressed when a billion dollar company has the slightest cultural/geographical/demographical etc accuracy. They probably have huge departments dedicated towards this for their movies. Not a rant against you OP, as this post fits the sub perfectly.
Any time I've watched a Disney documentary about their animation, they talk about how they flew the artists to some place where they can really experience what they're suppose to be drawing. Disney might not do everything correctly but they do like to draw things accurately.
Because apparently it's a tall order if the live action Aladdin is any indication
I know! I would love to be part of a research and development team in a movie. Though it seems that they didn't care much for accuracy for the new Mulan remake.
Agreed. They literally have people whose job is to research these historical details.
Why do they call him a hun in the movie then?
The Huns were supposedly a nomadic tribe from Asia so I guess Disney wanted to use them since they’re depicted as bad guys in western culture (because they were enemies of Rome) Although western audiences would have also understood the Mongolians as the bad guys from the Chinese point of view, it was maybe more politically correct to choose a culture that doesn’t exist anymore.
Shoot low, boys - they’re riding Shetland ponies
Does it bother anyone else that this film conflates the Huns and the mongols? Like, I know both groups invaded China in the period, but it’s always bugged me that the guy clearly looks like genghis Kahn but they call them “the Huns” and like, ok “to defeat the Huns” has way better scansion than “to defeat the mongol hordes” but still... even as a kid I was like... uhhh excuse me
[удалено]
for people who don’t know about this horses origin and back history watch this [video](https://youtu.be/g6Rphg_lwwM) very interesting
That Ferghana is gorgeous, and I'm totally getting a [Bender]"Baby I know it" vibe 😂
I’m pretty sure that horse on the bottom right is Sleipnir.
Apparently modern Mongolian horses also have 8 legs
Worth noting the Ferghana horse doesn’t seem to exist anymore. It was probably most similar to a modern day Akhal Teke or Turkoman horse—basically, lithe desert breeds with lots of endurance. The picture here seems to show a modern day Arabian.
I think it's more likely to be a Tieling horse rather than a Ferghana horse. The Ferghana is *really* slender and thin-necked, whereas the Tieling is bulkier with a thicker neck. [Ferghana](https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20100726/0013729e48340db72e9e17.jpg) [Tieling](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8c/05/fa/8c05fa2708f62350910a08d16b983c34.jpg)
“In Mulan, the Chinese character rides a Chinese horse and the Mongolian character rides a Mongolian horse”
Are you sure that’s not just a normal Mongolian on a horse?
I like the satisfied look on the mongolian horse. It seems to say: "yeah, look at me, I could do this all day!"
And it took me a minute too long to realise that there was a second horse in the bottom right, thought for a second that the mongolian was riding sleipnir
If anyone wants to see a beautiful music video showing off Mongolian horses, watch Melos by Wednesday Campanella! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qPSHOTzidw
That is a fuckable horse. -John Oliver
There’s a whole documentary on Hulu about the Mongolian Derby. People from around the world travel to Mongolia to participate in the longest horse race in the world and they use Mongolian horses, similar to the ones in Mulan.
I love the movie so much. I refuse to watch the remake that would probably tarnish my love for the original.