>>5336115Well, I do supose that living in the gobi desert would be even harder without pastoralism like the real nomads.
Also this implies we are dealing with only the desert ones, and not the steppe or tundra ones, so no confederations to deal with.
Actually let's make sure we aren't going to have to deal with huns, turks, mongols and siberians together.
>I've been told that this army has not only natives from mongolia, with a massive white bear speaking a very different language. Is there only desert north of china, and other peoples that they could have recruited?>And these settled ones, could we try to ally with them? Cities imply agriculture, trade and larger populations, so it could be easier to make long term relations by supplying them what they need or want.In real life, China sometimes banked had protectorates, vassals and subordinates kingdoms on the silk road.
There was also the Qara Khitai, but that one were the remant of the sinized khitan Liao, that had northern china after han dynasty Tang fell, and fled westward when the sinized manchurian jurchen formed the Jin. And also there was the sinized tangut and uyghur Xi Xia in the middle of that nomad empire battle royale, until Genghis Khan formed a khanate in the north and conquered all of them.
Meanwhile the chinese han Song was trying to reform China and their tributary the Dali Lingdom in the south was just vibing.
Have this map I found on wikipedia, it's in chinese even though I got it from the english page, but it should work as a visual aid for the clusterfuck. 