everything wrote:How did the Mongolian horse riders with bows/arrows defeat these armored spear users?
Well, like we said in the podcast, only the officers and generals had this armour - your average soldier had whatever he could get his hands on. Also Mongol bow technology meant that their arrows could pierce most armour:
But that wasn't how the Song fell.
We haven't got to this yet in our podcast, but long story short, the Mongols, (through their conquests of other nations and incorporation of their weaponry), became experts in seige warfare.
The fall of the Song was tied to the defence of their walled capital in Xiangyang. All the details are here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_co ... ng_dynasty
The last battle was actually a naval battle:
"when 1000 Chinese warships faced a fleet of 300 to 700 Yuan Mongol warships at Yamen. "