The benefits of the Mongols and their empire outweighs the harms.

I am not really sure where you are getting your information from, but most of the facts you have put forward are blatantly false. Therefore, instead of constraining my response to a rebuttal, I will first outline the facts, complete with citations for both you and the readers, and then whatever arguments remain that have not been negated by the real facts, I will then subsequently rebutt.The first thing I would like to address is that, "The Mongol empire conquered two great empires: the Abbasid Empire and the Song Dynasty". This is true, but these were not the only great empires conquered under Genghis Khan. Unfortunately, I do not have the space to list the every culture conquered, so I will confine myself to only the two you mentioned for now. Feel free in your response to include more, but please ensure they are researched and include citations.The Song DynastyReligious Tolerance: "Before the Mongols, there was little to no cross pollination of religion. There was Islam in the Middle East, Hinduism in India, Confucianism in China, and Christianity in Europe".You have used this term 'cross-pollination' an exhorbitant amount of times in this debate thus far, but judging by the context used here, I am going to assume you don't fully understand what it means, because it doesn't make any logical sense here. Thus, I will assume you mean 'peaceful mingling of religion'.As for the statement itself, it is horrendously false. In both the Northern and Southern regions of the Song dynasty, religious variety increased drastically. The reason for this increase, was because the Song dynasty made enormous advancedments in trade (something you claim they had no interest in--but I will address this shortly). People came from around the known world for the purposes of trading and this created a mosaic of religions; the native Eastern religions of Taoism, Buddhism, Shamanism, Hinduism and Paganism retained the majority slot, but Islam, Christianity and Judeism were all well accepted minorities (1).Trade brought a copia of new literature from across the globe, and it is under the early years of the Song dynasty that the general populace, as well as the leadership, began to take great interest in literature on spirituality of all different kinds (2).Feminism: "...the Abbasid Empire and the Song Dynasty. Under both, women rights were the terrible"Again, this is terribly false. While women did not enjoy equal standing among men, they did enjoy considerably better positions than most of the Western world. They enjoyed many legal rights and priveledges that were unheard of in the West. Women were allowed to run businesses, own property, initiate divorce, and even inherit land and portions of familial estates upon the death of relatives (3).The ideas of oppression on account of Neo-Confucianism are not unsubstantiated, however this had no impact on the law and remained a personal and spiritual choice among family groupings; much like a Muslim woman in North America today has full accessibility to all legal rights afforded to her, however because of her religious preferences and those of her family, she may choose to waive them. Furthermore, Confucianism was equally as prevolent in the Mongolian empire, so this weakens your own argument.Trade: "...the Song Dynasty did not value trade whatsoever..."This is probably the worst falsehood of them all, not only because of how catastrophically misguided it is, but also because the economic system of the Song Dynasty is considered to be one of the marvels of history. They revolutionized the way economies would work for the rest of eternity through innovation and invention (they invented paper money!). They possessed trading partners worldwide, and they did use the Silk Road for some occasions, but preferred the use of ships (which, if you've ever taken even a basic ancient economics course, you will know is infinitely more opportunity-cost efficient) (2).For those neighbours that they did not engage in naval trade with (such as their Northern neighbours), they instititued marketplaces all along their borders, supervised by the military, in order to promote trade on all fronts AND cut down on much of the wasted reasources involved in regular trade (time lost, fuel for yoke animals, banditry, etc) (4).The Abbasid 'Empire'Historians all agree that this empire was in its golden age of enlightenment ( by which it is accepted that they were at the very forefront of advancement in just about every subject of development: astonomy, math, science, philosophy, literature, etc.) at the time of the Mongol invasion, and after this invasion, this age ended completely. The Mongolian sacking of Baghdad I previously mentioned, which succeeded Athens, and then Alexandria as the scientific capital of the world, ended the golden age and contributed NOT to the Renaissance as you have stated, but actually, to what many informally refer to as the Dark Ages; the Renaissance was the allieviation of this age (5).Religious Tolerance: This state, unlike the Song dynasty, was predominantly Muslim. However, because the capital city of this Dynasty was the intellectual hub of the world, it was essentially a variegation of all religions across the known world. Not only were these religions tolerated, but they were encouraged, as scholars from around the world would come to Baghdad to discuss concepts of philosophy of religion and spirituality. This is where the famous transcriptions of all the most famous literary works including the Bible, Torah, Greek and Roman literature on Paganism, etc, were saved after the sacking of the Western world, and translated into Arabic; thus allowing the Renaissance to eventually occur. Unfortunately, the arrival of the Mongols put a quick and brutal end to this practice. The razing of the city destroyed many of the sole copies of ancient works that we will now never get the opportunity to see or read (6).Feminism: Yes, it was a State dominated by Islam. And yes, Islam took a turn for the worse under the Abbasid Dynasty in terms of women's rights. However, the Mongolians, as you have agreed, were very religiously tolerant. Thus, they allowed Islam to remain untouched, doing nothing to rectify this problem created under the Abbasid Dynasty. Further evidence of this is that sadly, in the areas where women once enjoyed many rights and liberties (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et al.) are still to this day the most repressive countries to women in the world. Trade: I am not even going to say much about trade here, because I have already stated that the capital city became the cultural and intellectual beacon of the world, which already essentially states that this region was one of the most active trading centers in the world. A fact, again, I will reiterate, that was brought to an abrupt halt by the conquest of the Mongolian empire (5).RebuttalsNow that I have given the facts about the two empires mentioned by my opponent, I would like to take this opportunity to rebutt the remaining standing arguments.Renaissance Rebuttal: Your argument that Mehmet II is descended from the Mongols is irrelevent, and I could find no evidence that it was even factually accurate (but please, upon your rebuttal, I would encourage you to include it as it would be interesting information to note, even though it is superfluous to this debate).Kublai Khan, the last leader of the Mongolian empire was the end of this dynasty, and the Mongolian state fell apart shortly after his death (6). Even if what you say about Mehmet II is true (which I really can't find any evidence of) he is so far removed from any associaton with the Mongols that it would be analogous to say King James VIII was instrumental the abolishment of slavery the United States; there is an enormous logical flaw in the cause-effect relationship.Furthermore, there was already trade happening with the East-West since well before the Mongols came in to play. They in no way contributed to the Renaissance through the Silk Road because again, the chronological gap is just too large (2). Furthermore, not only did they not contribute to the beginnings of the Renaissance, they actually heavilly contributed to the Dark Ages with the sacking of Bagdhad, the explicit antithesis of the Renaissance (7).The Black Death: My opponent has not rebutted the spread of the Black Death. This was a very severe and significantly crippling event for the entirety of Eurasia and the Mediterranean. To not address the average estimates of 150 MILLION deaths due to this is a very glaring error. The Mongols were the primary sources of the spread, so feel free to add this to the death toll (7).Massacres: I am running out of space, so sadly, I cannot repeat your argument here. Again, however, it is blatantly false. It was quite common for a city to surrender and Genghis Khan would execute the people and raze the city regardless. He tactics were considered ruthless by common standards, even by his own men (8).I would like to also make a comparison here because you state, "the reason why his numbers are so large is because he conquered more territory than any other general did before him" and I would like to show how this is false by offering the previous conquerer of Eurasia, Alexander the Great as a comparison. Alexander's conquests resulted in average estimates of 125,000 deaths (9). His empire was the exact same territory, but 5 times smaller (10). If we extrapolate this then, we arrive at a 625,000 death toll for Genghis Khan. However, Genghis Khan's death toll was 320 TIMES this, and that's using the conservative estimate of 40 million people killed under his massacres ALONE (11).Sources Cited 1. Gernet, Jacques (1962)2. Ebrey, et al. (2006)3. Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1999)4. columbia.edu5. Michael, Streeter (2006)6. wikipedia.org7. nationalgeographic.com8. japantimes.com (2005)9. Arrian, Plutarch10. van Wees, Hans (2004)11. necrometrics.com