Talk:Ariq Böke

message: The other khans were NOT "so slow to attend Kurultai", but ALL REFUSED to attend the new Kurultai. This included Hulagu of the Ilkhanate, who was fighting with Berke of the Golden Horde.--216.254.167.189 (talk) 19:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wasn't that pretexts? Yes, the war between Hulagu and Berke was an important reason for them to be absent, but not the only reason. You were basically saying that if the war did not occur, then they certainly would attend. But it was not necessarily the case (especially for Berke, who was sided with Ariq Boke). The same applied to Alghu, who was an opportunist during the succession war (he was originally an ally of Ariq Boke; seeing that Ariq Boke was about to lose, he decided to change side; then he actively sought opportunity to expand his territories in Central Asia by invading Kaidu's land, which resulted in a series of wars between him and Kaidu, who got both resource and army assistance from Berke). None of them really wanted to attend due to their own interests (which were not necessarily the same as the pretexts they used) and certainly not just "so slow to attend". Kurultai was never held after all.--216.254.167.189 (talk) 03:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

text: Yes, they did reply politely. Yet all of them declined to come at the moment by deferring it (and eventually never came). This is likely because Berke and Halegu were fighting with each other and didn't want Kublai to be involved by sending an army to help their opponent, and thus they decided to politely declined to come at the moment, and tried to comfort the inviter by saying they would come eventually (but perhaps never planed to do so). And yes, it's true that we don't know exactly what they were thinking, and that's why I used the phrase "it was not necessarily the case" above (i.e. meaning "it may be the case and may be not"). We also cannot tell whether their own interests were really the same as the pretexts they used, and that was why I said "which were not necessarily the same as the pretexts they used" (i.e. it means they may be the same and may be different, so we should not give these pretexts as conclusive reasons for their unwillingness to attend the Kurultai in the article. Instead, providing some background (e.g. the wars between them) as done now in the article should be fine). "Golden Horde was too far away" can of course be a factor to account for Berke's side, but whether this factor played a major role is not well known to us. But as an aside, if he really hoped to attend it, this should not be a major problem at all (as Kurultai had been held for many times before this one). Yet, for Alghu, his pretext obviously did not cover all of his concerns, e.g. the war between him and Kaidu, which should be mentioned in the article as a background (already done).--216.254.167.189 (talk) 06:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: This article needs to be rewritten into standard English. I'd do it myself except parts are so ill-expressed I can't tell what they're supposed to say, and I have next to no knowledge of the subject matter. Orcoteuthis (talk) 12:33, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Language