Came to say that I partially blame Mulan for the confusion for clearly having Mongols in the cartoon but then confusingly referring to them as "The Huns". Despite the Huns being usually located in and around present day Romania where it would launch raids into the Eastern Roman Empire.
It gets more confusing because they were supposed to be the Xiongnu, not the Mongols
That doesn't explain why most of China speaks Chinese dialects and not Mongolian. You would think being closest to Mongolia would mean it would have a tighter grip on China, and yet here we are. The Yuan Dynasty fell like any other dynasty.
To be fair everyone that invaded China just ended up becoming Chinese.
Why would they idolise Mongol historical figures instead of Turkish ones?
Turkish nationalists have a weird obsession with the idea that the theorized linguistic link between Turkic people (i.e. not only people from Turkey but also Kazakhs, Tatars, Tuvans, Kyrgyz, Yakuts, Uyghurs, etc.) and Mongols means that the Mongols are Turkish heritage, even though Turkey itself is far removed from the Turkic steppe cultures it descended from. Basically modern Turks are closer to surrounding Islamic cultures, but some hold onto being the inheritors of the nomadic steppe horse-warrior Central Asian peoples that long, long ago migrated to Anatolia. Those ancient peoples shared certain cultural elements with Mongols. So Genghis Khan is a Turk. It's wild.
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