Yes, IIRC both the Song had been busy technologically innovating during their entire rivalry with the Mongols, but the Mongols matched or stole the tech with seeming effortlessness. This even included naval tech which you wouldn't expect steppe nomads to have much background in.
The Song is sometimes called the Chinese Renaissance and sometimes the world's first modern society. It's alien, but seems more sympathetic and recognisable to me, with its merchants, metropolises, and tech, than the stretch from around 1500-1850. Maybe that just means I should read more.
I did not know that the kamikaze (divine wind) ruined the first Mongol invasion fleet of Japan, and that the second was sunk by bad weather. There were huge numbers in the fleet too; 100,000 soldiers or so in the second invasion attempt. Hard to argue they were a steppe nomadic political organisation by that stage.
'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.
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