The Mongol horde.

Rebuttal "[Alexander's] enemies were numerous and but not skilled. These armies of Persia consisted of farmers forced into the army as a majority. Only some thousands were warriors for a profession. These Persians almost didn't have any heavy cavalry that could beat Alexander's Companion cavalry….. [The Mongols] did not pass the great wall because they simply walked around it when invading Xi Xia." The Persian had a skilled army, which gave trouble to earlier powerful civilizations such as the Greek States [2]. Had the Greeks not united, the Persians may have been able to destroy the Greeks. The Persians had one of the world's earliest great empires, with a strong centralized government and one of the first empires to have roads throughout their empire; they made efficient use of the military [1]. Statistically, Persia did have more farmers than warriors because they absorbed the conquered people into their empire. Persia was a powerful enemy and one of Alexander's priorities as to avenge the Greeks from what happened during the Persian wars. Alexander and Rome's empire had strong enemies, the Mongols where the ones who had to easy time due to declining empires in the classical era, which I will talk more about later. "…the sarissa was mainly used as an anti-infantry weapon, it could kill riders but not many commanders saw it as a good idea to rush horses into a pike wall." Philip of Macedon knew how to make affective use of this weapon, which is why he arranged, is army to use it strategically [4]. Con make point agents himself by pointing out that this would be an affective defense against cavalry, which was the bulk of the Mongol force. "Genghis khan united the many tribes of Mongolia and turned them in the direction of China Using hit and run tactics the Mongols could harass an army for days without taking heavy losses." Philip of Macedon united Macedon, because king, took over the Greek States, and then united them to create one state, which previously was in constant civil war. Philip was able to create a military machine, which was later used by Alexander to conquer and create an Empire stretching all the way to India, and possibly China, if his troops had been more willing [4]. Genghis just united a rag-tag group of nomadic people to conquer the wealthy, China [3]. Genghis' accomplishment in uniting the tribes of Mongolia was not as hard or impressive as conquering then uniting one of the world's greatest civilizations. "All Mongolians were trained as a child to ride and shoot, to pull the string of Mongolian bow was the same force used as pulling yourself up hanging in three fingers." I have addressed this last round; there were more powerful and efficient weapons then the Mongolian bow. "[Alexander's] army was about 30,000 warriors and 10,000 cavalry… Mongols had about 60,000 men and invaded china." I do not see Con's point here. Alexander made more efficient use of his army to conquers a larger amount of territory, while the Mongols where less efficient in conquering a smaller and weekend empire. "The Mongols invaded Jin they assaulted 93 cities within one year using catapults and ballista. Genghis was set out to destroy the world and secure peace for the Mongol people. The cities, and empire as a whole was already week, it didn't take much to destroy an already declining empire (I will expand on this point later). Genghis had the same problem as Rome; every time they expanded, they had new neighboring threats, which led them to overstretch themselves, and was a main reason for way the government was week (in-ability to have a centralized government, could not manage a decentralized government efficiently enough to keep it from collapsing). "The Mongolian horde was actually an empire under Ogedai khan. Gathering scripts and writing from all corners of Eurasia and held it in his white city of Karakorum.... Kublai khan actually reformed the Mongols into a civilized nation…." After the death of Genghis Khan, the Mongols returned to their homeland [3]. They built a capital, but had no way of administering or managing their conquered people. Other than the people within Mongolia, no one adopted Mongolian traditions, which shows that their presence was not meaningful and they had no true domination and control over their empire. In the Roman Empire, you see civilizations as far as parts of India adopt Roman tradition [5]; however there is none of this under the reign of the Mongolian Empire. "The Mongol empire lasted for 200 years more before being torn apart like the empire of Alexander." Chinese dynasties such as the Zhou and Han lasted for over 400 years. Empires such as Persia, Greece, Rome, and Byzantium lasted for much longer; 200 years is not a long time, even the United States has long surpassed the length of the Mongolian "Empire". Alexander the Great deliberately did not name an heir, so it was almost meant that after his death for his empire to dissolve. Alexander did not want anyone to inherit or build an empire as great as his. "If the Mongols were not superior and often outnumbered, how could they conquer the most advanced nations on earth at the time?" During the classical era, empires had relative stability and security, which lead to time such as the Pax Ramona, Roman Golden Age, and times of prosperity, which other interest could pressure. However, during this time there was inequality and problems between upper and lower classes, which lead to internal conflicts, which eventually contributed to the fall of great empires such as western Rome and China. Regardless, during this time the Silk Road, long distance trading between China (in the west) along to Constantinople (in the East). The stability of classical empires built roads and bridges, which facilitated trade along this route. The Silk Road contributed to cultural diffusion and the spread of many things, including goods, faiths, and technologies, but most importantly (bad), pathogens and dieses [6]. One of these pathogens, which turned into a large epidemic, was the Bubonic (black) plague. The Black plague killed many people, which lead to lots of death (obviously) and shortage of labor [7, 8]. Shortage of labor and the internal conflict of class differences seriously weakened these classical empires; rulers of these empires where barley managing to sustain control. The breaking point for the fall of these empires where the nomadic invasions of the Mongols (Huns). In China, the Mongols where a direct threat, and in the East, other nomadic tribes where pushed further East by the Mongols (Huns). Because these once great empires where now so week, they were unable to resist any invasion, which made it easy for the Mongols to take control. Conclusion: The Mongols where not the best in; military strategy, weaponry, empire maintenances, or abilities to conquer other empires, due to the fact that they did not have a challenging time or nearly any resistance from the people the conquered. Sources: [1]Achaemenid (Persian) Empire: http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] Persian Wars: http://en.wikipedia.org... [3]Mongols: http://depts.washington.edu... [4]Philip of Macedon: http://www.historyofmacedonia.org... [5]Indo-Roman Culture: http://en.wikipedia.org... [6]Silk Road Timeline: http://depts.washington.edu... [7]Bubonic Plague Timeline: http://www.twoop.com... [8]Bubonic Plague: http://en.wikipedia.org...