- [I] I'm keeping this list in case I ever need evidence to explain why I don't generally trust historians who try to give firm numbers for things. Also valuable if someone tries to come at me for my fiction army numbers being "wrong" or something. > [!quote] u/Kochevnik81 (flaired user) answering [[how were the Mongols so effective at genocide via AskHistorians]] > > Personally his Iranian estimates just feel really iffy, with a _lot_ of suppositions involved. In a footnote he even mentions that he's lowballing the 1200 population estimates, because if he used a higher estimate and stuck with his 250,000 post-conquest figure then it would mean the Mongols eliminated 99% of the population. So personally I feel like he's kind of fixated on his 250,000 figure as being absolutely accurate and then trying to adjust his other estimates to make it look more plausible. > [!quote] u /[JSTORRobinhood](https://www.reddit.com/user/JSTORRobinhood/) (flaired user) answering [[how were the Mongols so effective at genocide via AskHistorians]] > An extreme example for why relying on census data may not be sufficient comes from the discussion surrounding An Shi rebellion casualty figures. Late Tang census figures suggest something like 35 million people died but given that such a figure accounts for about 1/6th of the total world population in the mid-8th century, it probably isn't accurate and instead arises from the complete breakdown in Tang governmental capabilities following the rebellion. > > Furthermore, as you allude to, there are general issues with Chinese censuses from the imperial era in general due to how households and families were counted. This only complicates matters and can also further skew numbers if census data do in fact form the bulk of sources used to formulate the claimed casualty figures. True population figures from the early Ming dynasty are still up for debate, so these sorts of claims definitely should be taken with a grain of salt.