The Rise and Legacy of the Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan's Conquests and Innovations

for nearly 300 years they ruled the largest continuous land Empire in history twice the size of Caesar's Roman

Empire longer lasting than napoleons as world shaking as Alexander the greats they are the Mongols The Fury

that rolls like a storm out of the steps in the early 13th century the Mongols Pioneer a style of warfare unparalleled

in cunning and cruelty and so revolutionary it still inspires military strategists today sweeping East and West

destroying everything in their path they shatter the old world order and carve a new course of history

[Music] it is the end of the 12th century as Europe lies mired in the Dark Ages two

cultures set the standard for human civilization the Islamic States in Persia and Central

Asia and far away to the east a trio of fabulous Kingdoms in China between these stretch vast

inhospitable grasslands the Eurasian steps although the steps are formidable they are not empty nomadic tribes the

tatars Mongols and others eek out a grim life these are some of the coldest places on Earth in

Mongolia temperatures 90° below zero so for much of the year they're fighting nature it's a life with no no margin of

safety in it in 1175 the tatars renew an old Feud with

the Mongols these two tribes so similar in lifestyle and belief are bitterly divided by ancient rivalries a

NeverEnding cycle of Alliance treachery and revenge caught up in their own struggles

they ignored or their common enemy the rich and Powerful Jinn of northern China the Jinn Dynasty their policy

towards Mongolia was one really of divide and conquer and jyn would employ the tatars on raids against uh other

nomadic groups tribes kets that grew too large and too threatening the Jin wisely perceived

that as long as the people of the steps are focused on each other they won't trouble

them it is in this time of upheaval that great Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan arises in the 12th

century he does so not from a family of Kings or princes but as a fatherless boy facing death with his family on the

barren steps genas Khan's given name is timin Mongolian for iron worker it's fitting

his life will demand an iron will in 1175 when he is barely 9 years old his father leader of the clan is

poisoned by the tatars jenas Khan's father been a upand cominging tribal Chieftain uh perhaps if

he lived he might have become the next uh uh con of the Mongols but as soon as he was poisoned

the widows of the previous con led the the Mongols to Desert the widows of yig jus' father and the result was that

jengas Khan was left on the step alone with his mother abandoned with her children

timin's mother gives him a simple charge seek [Music]

revenge he had grown up we can presume with with this strong sense of mission he was the son of one of the leading

Chieftains one who had won victories in war when other Chiefs had been defeated and he had been abandoned and that

created a really strong sense of bitterness a strong sense that the world doesn't work the way it

should for 30 grueling years timin fights to unite his clan and gain the title of Khan great leader he learns to

trust those proven loyal in battle and he remains suspicious of all others by the age of 40 he has grown to be a

gifted Chieftain we're looking at a man like Alexander like Hitler I have to say with

immense Charisma who made people follow him by the strength of his

personality having United his tribe in 1196 timan turns to the second task Vengeance on the

tatars the tactics were pretty much entirely uh horse horse tactics and um they incorporate all the things that we

would we would normally expect techniques learned in the hunt for example uh would often be employed in in

tactically in in uh in battles the Fain Retreat drawing your enemy in and encircling your enemy enveloping enemy

there were there were elements there tactics that are sort reminiscence of the reminiscent of the blitz greed what

I do see new in the case of tamuin chisan is his reorganization of society that has to be reckoned among the most

important not only social uh Innovations but military innovations which in which he takes the old Central Asian Mongolian

tribal structure and refashion it in its in his own image in a way breaking the old tribal loyalties but maintaining uh

a kind the kind of power of this uh tribal Cavalry if as far as we can tell in

virtually every battle they fought in every battle they won the Mongols were substantially outnumbered by their

enemies um but they were much more mobile because they had so many horses and they were able to operate it seems

in small tactical teams no more than a few score at at most so the first thing you'd see if you were fighting the

Mongols is they would seem to be everywhere often times they would come at you in a single file and suddenly

they would just disperse and suddenly they'd be all around you that was really disturbing the Mongols combination of

finely honed horsemanship and tactical strategy overwhelms their enemies they are virtually wiped from

the face of the Earth in Just 2 years only their name will live on and they are but the first of many for timin is

molding his army into the finest light Cavalry the world has ever seen then he does take revenge on the

people who had inflicted so much hardship on on his family uh his larger family and on his immediate family

namely the tatars who when he finally defeats them he uh as The Story Goes he has everyone uh taller than the axle of

a wagon uh executed so he he decimates he destroys this particular tribe the ambitious Chieftain is a

religious man he reveres the natural hierarchy he sees around him the ground is sacred the rivers are sacred but

Above All Is Heaven the protector of the nomads for timen human Affairs should mirror this hierarchy and one man must

stand above all others timen has no doubts that fate has chosen him to lead so he believed on the one hand that

he was of a of a Heavenly destined lineage why because when you won VI Victory and battle it was something

decided by Heaven by God by this moer eternal heaven or Eternal God which the mo which jenas Khan firmly believed was

in charge of all sort of all victories in battle and all uh successes and failures uh uh in this

world in 126 a ruler's Council of steep tribes acclaims timin as universal leader or genas

Khan he now stands poised to conquer the rest of the world and seal his reputation as the bloodiest of all

[Music] barbarians driven to avenge his father's murder and empowered by a sense of his

own destiny in 1206 Genghis Khan rises from obscurity to the brink of world

domination he is the ultimate leader the con of all the Restless and nomadic tribes of the steps his people live a

difficult life in a brutal environment this is a society that is perpetually on the move so they're ready

to to bundle up shop in no time at all so what does that say about how these people live the tents they live in they

have a cane framework and Felts are tied or sewn onto these individual

cane panels and they can be set up inside 15 minutes and dismantled in the same sort of time so the inside of Ys

was incredibly dark and Smoky because they only had a hole at the top and a hole at the doorway and the doorway

always faced South because the Mongols were superstitious that that good news came from the south you had Felts on the

floor Felts on the walls so dark dark dark and then everything permeated with smoke what did they burn there's no wood

on the step so it's dung so it's smoke that's permeated with animal smell as well this Hard Scrabble existence shaped

genas Khan's character and his mother's words of Vengeance provided his mission points the the very important role that

Mongolian women uh played and still do play in uh in Mongolian society and and that's a very important sort of

formative uh um episode in his whole life um because he becomes very attached to to women to his wife uh to his mother

um they figure very prominently both figure very prominently later on when he distributes uh his territory and his

soldiers among these people both women receive shares so um that's that's quite an important thing she really holds the

family she's the cement of the family by the year 1206 genas Khan's power over the steps is

unchallenged now he directs his Vengeance on the wealthy and arrogant Jin of

China in 1211 the Mongols moveed to invade China the enormous ancient Nation sees them as scruffy upstarts out to

stir up a little trouble the Chinese have no idea what they are about to face down in South China the sun Dynasty

the ethnic Chinese in so in South China often looked on the Mongols as possible allies and they developed a very

interesting view of the Mongols that the Mongols were these very crude barbaric Savage people but they were uncorrupted

unspoiled within hours of their initial meeting the Mongol troops annihilate a much larger Chinese

Force the nomads learn fast they copy Chinese Siege technology to breach their City walls they become the embodiment of

Terror and then they start beating their drums and these drums are carried by four people on ropes and the mere sound

of them drove people mad with fear they brought with them the prisoners from the previous City that they

captured and pushed them into the moat so that they could go over them over the dead bodies at the city

walls and then they would Slaughter every living thing the very cats and the dogs in 1215 they lay waste to the

capital of Northern China Chung Tu present day Beijing but just as VI Victory seems Within Reach news arise

that trouble is brewing in the Mongolian [Music] Homeland the news reaches genas Khan

across a thousand miles of territory carried by a surprising system of communication that eventually will

connect the entire Mongol Empire they developed very early on a system known as the yam which was

basically the Pony Express and two Messengers would be sent out with special badges that they wore around

their waist showing that they were official emissaries of the government and horses would be provided at post

stations every 25 miles for these two to ride off carrying in their hands literally rolls with messages on

them in 1218 the yam riters bring genas Khan the news that klug the KH of the non Clan is fomenting a rebellion among

other disgruntled tribesmen genas Khan's hardw order is being threatened by disloyalty from his own people this

cannot be [Music] tolerated in search of the rebels

genghiskhan launches a crusade that takes him far from his business in [Music]

China as they pursue the rebels West into Muslim lands the Mongols Annex one Kingdom after another before Crossing

into each new territory genas Khan gives the local ruler the option to give up the conspirators and surrender

peacefully but if the ruler resists genas Khan warns he will show no mercy he writes one Chieftain the disaster

will reach you too genas Khan's campaign of Vengeance has swelled his Empire till it touches

the borders of the Ancient King om of quam in present day usbekistan [Music]

though quam is an attractive Target Genghis Khan goes no farther he has learned something

new I think that the key moment in the career of chenis Khan that lifted him from being a territorial chieftain in

outou of Mongolia and it's not accident that out of Mongolia means the boonies it means the back of beyond that moved

him from that to a player on the world stage was when he began to realize that his territories were on the Silk

Road and that he could change the fortunes of his people by trade and so he sent a series of embassies to his

nearest neighbor the sultan Muhammad who was the ruler of the Eastern Islamic world and those embassies were finally

followed by a caravan of 1,500 camels and I think that what happened there was that this

particular camel Caravan was so rich that it tickled the the greed of the Muslim governor of the frontier post

concerned at otrar and he simply seized it this governor of this town he saw

this m Embassy uh of of of merchants coming basically a trade Mission come you saw

all the kinds of things that were in there and he asked the uh Sultan Muhammad uh what should I do with them

he was told um he implied they're spies these PE these Mongol envoys are spies what should I do with them can I can I

Massacre them and Sultan Muhammad said yes and they were undeterred genghiskhan sends a second

Envoy only to have him seized his beard is shaved off in the street as an act of humiliation before he is sent

back the Caravan of gifts of course is not returned genas Khan's final dispatch to

Sultan Muhammad is simple and Grim you have chosen War he writes and it was that event that greed that

breaking of the laws of interchange of ambassadors of allowing Merchants free run across

Frontiers that caused the Mongol catastrophe the catastrophe which as one Russian Chronicle says left no eye open

to weep for the dead they came they sapped they plundered they burnt they slaughtered

they Departed now this is an utter disaster for the Civilized world and it had that curious small

trigger as his soldiers prepare for war in 1219 genas Khan is

unconcerned that will happen he says which will happen and what is to be we know not

only God knows in carrying out God's Heavenly plan the Khan will teach his enemies a

terrible lesson and continue a conquest that will destroy all that stands before him including the wealth and knowledge

of an entire [Music] civilization genas Khan has unified the

nomadic Mongols subdued the wealthy Chinese and now in in 1219 stands perch to take on

Sultan Mohammad the ruler of the quam Empire of Central Asia genas Khan is a man driven by

revenge in aluk the Sultan's Governor has flagrantly humiliated a Mongolian diplomatic Envoy an abuse that cannot

stand but the sultan stronghold Samaran is defended by an army much larger than genas Khan's own to even the

odds the KH turns to tools that have served him well in the past mobility and surprise much more interesting about

this particular campaign is the fact that jasan divided his army in the face of a superior opponent this is tactics

that we associate again with people like Roberty Lee or with with blitz cre in in uh during World War II uh the purp being

again uh to penetrate the uh the enemy's front and to create confusion and diversion and so on in the rear to be

able then to turn back and take these places so I find that to be a very significant part of of what he

does genas Khan's first blow comes at the Border Town of utar in [Music]

1219 after a 5mon Siege the Mongols burst through the defenses and lay waste to everyone and everything in their path

there is no limit to their cruelty why were the Mongols so cruel it's it's a difficult question and no

one really knows the explanation but the fact of it I think can't be

doubted that these were people who did not wage war in the ordinary way a special fate is assigned to the greedy

governor in aluk he discovers firsthand the meaning of the old Mongolian proverb return what people give to

you dragged from his hiding place in the Citadel he is held down while molten silver is poured into his ears and eyes

[Music] in February 1220 genghiskhan plots a three-pronged attack unrivaled in

cunning and Malice first two columns of Mongols strike quam from opposing directions

East and West their main goal to love Mohammad into thinking that these trifling attacks are the Mongols Best

Shot medieval armies in Europe and the Middle East had a very strong idea that retreating in the face of the enemy was

humiliating and so they really couldn't do it and the other reason they couldn't do it was because from the General's

point of view once you start retreating everybody would think you've lost and suddenly you would lose control of your

army everybody start running away oh we've lost we're running away the Mongols would Retreat then suddenly as

they're retreating they' suddenly break up start coming around again and start shooting at you again that was very

disorienting for um uh for many armies the constant hail of arrows that would be falling that was uh a disorienting

thing diverted by the Mongols faints and skirmishes Sultan Muhammad strings out his forces along hundreds of miles of

farmland and River Valley south of Samaran but far away to the north genas Khan prepares for the main

assault genas Khan carefully seeks out the Smugglers and bandits who know the secret water holes and camel rots in the

desert of kazum these will be his guides they will lead his army over 300

mil of punishing Desert Sands a back door to the Sultan's [Music]

Kingdom in March 1220 Genghis Khan and his army emerges from what the sultan believe was an impenetrable desert like

demons from his worst nightmare in one of the greatest strategic rear guard attacks in the history of warfare

proud samaron Falls in just 10 days Sultan Mohammad shows his true colors fleeing for his life from one city to

the next like Hunters pursuing a fox the great Mongol generals are given 20,000 men and told to crush any town that

shelters The Fugitive Sultan as they relentlessly track him down and kill him so it was not just a matter of

beating an Army in the field but eradicating the power of a country to ground zero so that there

could be no recovery so they sowed salt in the fields they destroyed the wells they flooded the cities they cut the

canals they chopped down the Orchards as if there were no tomorrow the Mongols monstrous Rampage

devastates magnificent Persian cities like buul and harat genas Khan is not

concerned they couldn't care less so the destruction that they visited on the Eastern Islamic

world has lasted to this [Music] day the ruins of once great cities still

lay scattered across Persia likee ghost towns with the annexation of quam genas Khan's Empire reaches from the Yellow

River all the way to the Caspian Sea the largest continuous land Empire in the history of the world the most remarkable

result of this Mongol conquest is that East is open to West for the first time in a thousand

years tax mongolica a Mongol peace allowed people for the first time to travel in absolute safety from Rome

to Beijing that was never possible before and it wasn't possible until the 20th

century afterwards it's not a small thing we had people from the Middle East traveling all over all the way even into

China uh famous traveler ibben batuta from Morocco eventually reached at least he says he reached uh China uh and

travel through much of the successor states of the Mongols uh Mongol States ruled by the descendants of jangus Khan

and that created a kind of knowledge of uh the know each civilization in Eurasia acquiring more knowledge about each

other ironically creating such an Empire is not genas Khan's goal the flame of Vengeance still Burns in his belly and

and he still has a score to settle with the Chinese to that end he now turns but it

is the one thing Beyond his reach in 1227 in his mid-60s genas Khan dies on the march to China according to

Legend the victim of a freak riding accident armed troops and slave girls escort his body back to the steps where

he is laid to rest in secrecy there are various stories about um 50 guards were detailed to bury him they

were killed by 50 others who were then killed in turn killed by by other people so that the grave would would would

remain secret for various reasons um but as for the precise location of this we don't

know the the way that the mongal chieftain were buried was in total secrecy they went off On A procession

the people who are going to bury them blaring horns beating drums making as much noise as possible and if anybody

met the procession on its route to its secret destination where the person was going to be buried they were they were

killed so the whole point was that nobody should know where the great ones of the Mongols were buried not a single

tomb of a Mongol Chieftain has ever been excavated theyve not been found so we have no idea what they they

contain genas Khan's Empire seems to be as lost as his Mountain grave for upon his death the state he sought to unify

breaks apart carved up into four kingdoms for his four Sons but the dream lives on it will turn into a nightmare

in the hands of another Mongol conqueror driven by visions of Glory he will unleash A Reign of Terror even bloodier

and more brutal than geneng SC in an eruption of violent Conquest the Mongolian Empire continues to expand

after genas Khan's death in 1227 in the west the golden horde descendants of genas Khan rules Southern

Russia and quasam in the Far East the Khan's grandson defeats and unites the Three Kingdoms of China and in Persia

the Mongols convert to Islam building fabulous mosques to glorify their new God still as successful as the Mongolian

Empire may be its huge size makes it difficult to maintain there weren't enough

Mongols this was not a gigantic Nation it wasn't like China for example perhaps there were as many as

100,000 people in the Mongol Army and that was about it so the wider the territories they controlled the thinner

the crust of Mongol Dominion on them by the mid 14th century genas Khan's Empire lies in shambles like the

old Mongol clans of the steps the rulers spend their time fighting each other instead of combining their

strength the actual power was slipping from the hands of the jusan is the son of jasan and falling into the hands of

these tribal Warlords people who were not themselves of the Imperial family but who were the real holders of

power in the middle of the 1300s in the Muslim lands of quam in modern day usbekistan a young Mongol boy named

timour prepares to steal his neighbor's sheep he is a clever and stealthy adversary to the shepherd but this time

time his luck will fail him it is said that he receives a wound that never fully heals making him lame

for life as he grows to power he is called timour the lame or taml in the west it

is a name that his enemies will come to dread by the year 1360 teamour is an important important

Amir or leader a master chess player a skilled strategist though he is a Mongol he cannot claim descent from genas Khan

so he creates an elaborate genealogy linking himself to the great leader he even takes two wives descended from

genas Khan to legitimize his claim T more certainly I think saw himself as a restoring a certain view a

certain version of jusan History it was his own version reflected very much the prism of his own Ambitions and

um he at a certain point saw himself as a man of Destiny not only as simply the agent of of the the righteousness of the

jisan and cause but saw himself as a person acting in his own right by

1375 the Mongol Empire is not timor's only restoration project a century and a half after gang as Khan puts Samaran to

the torch timour hopes to make his adopted Hometown The Jewel of the world he was born in that very area and

he was always attached to what is now usbekistan as his birthplace and in the course of his campaigns wherever he went

he would kill all the men in a city that he had captured but he would save all the Artisans from death and transport

them back to sarand so you must imagine sarand alive with Traditions from all over the Muslim World from China also

from India so sarand was something special suan was a Garden City and one of tor's um main construction activities

was to provide irrigation canals that opened up whole suburbs with these wonderful Gardens because teore was a

Muslim he also construed ConEd Muslim buildings and he used a lot of the booty that he acquired when he conquered India

to construct an absolutely enormous MTH one of the attributes of teor seems to have been his pride and his megalomania

we might say and you see this in this mosque it is colossal size was the big thing the the

entrance way is 50 ft tall and clearly the impression you're supposed to get is I the humble little worshipper have to

go through this 50ft Doorway to get in the magnificence of samand is a testament to the might of teore but it

is also a testament to his brutal means of keeping order outside the walls of saman his

merciless cruelty becomes Legend from 1385 on timour systematically sacks all all of Western

Persia as well as cities throughout aeran Georgia Armenia and the Caucasus tens of thousands of people are

slain along the way in 1398 timour follows in the footsteps of the Greeks leading an

audacious Expedition over the world's most notorious mountains the Hindu Kush he then lays waste to Northern India but

the farther more extends his reach the more difficult it is to control hostile [Music]

populations when the inhabitants of Delhi rebel against their new Mongol Masters timour takes a page out of genas

Khan's book of Terror and writes a new and even more horrific chapter the reports that he cut off the

heads of his victims and piled them into huge heaps occurs so often that one can't help wondering whether

this is not accurate and not just mere rhetoric but it wouldn't account for the numbers 70,000 880,000

I think we're talking about psychological warfare which is something that the Mongols had introduced it's one

thing to go to war it's quite another to use Terror as a weapon of war and this is what teamour

did teamour built upon the Legacy of chingas and used it effectively he was more terrible in that sense that he

slaughtered more brutally more quickly uh but always always sparing The Artisans when they say he destroyed the

city that's uh somewhat of a metaphor meaning he killed off enough people to look at bad to make it look bad and then

he brought back from every city he conquers the best workers the best Artisans uh the best engineers the best

products the vaated skyline of modern-day Istanbul Bears Testament to the one Dynasty that stood in the way of

timor's dream of a gengas sized Empire the ottoman Turks in 1402 timor's expanding lands

reached the immovable borders of Ottoman Sultan bazit proud to the point of arrogance

neither leader can tolerate the other timour even goes so far as to suggest beit's mother is of dubious birth

meaning she is a [Music] [ __ ] bazid can stand no more leading

one of the finest armies in the world the sultan rides out of his Fortress at anara to meet timur's far smaller Force

confident and imposing he knows little of the cunning genius of the Mongol timour in

1402 goated by slurs on his honor the ottoman Sultan bazit races to meet timur's Mongol forces but timour aware

of the Sultan's route does an end sweep around the Turks traveling off the Beaten Track he

catches the sultan off guard he lays Siege to the Turkish strong hold anara

itself it is a humiliating turn of events for bazid he is forced to beat a hasty Retreat to defend his

City when his weary troops finally arrive they are no match for the well-rested

Mongols even worse in the heat of battle an entire Turkish Battalion defects to the Mongol side when they see a beloved

Prince fighting for timour tricked betrayed and totally routed Sultan b as IGN nobly refuses to

leave the field of battle he is determined to fight to the last but he is captured and taken

[Music] prisoner the ottoman defeat May taste sweet to timour but it is even more

delicious to Christian Europe now if you look at this on the grand strategic map of uraia at the time the

ottoman Sultans were poised to scoop up Constantinople they had moved into Europe they had encircled it they were

ready to begin the siege that would have destroyed the principal city of Eastern Christendom and just then that was their

bad luck someone came knocking at their back door and and that was Teo the reaction uh in Europe to the defeat of

of bazid yerim was unrestrained [Music] Joy with the defeat of the Ottomans in

1402 timor's Empire nearly matches Genghis Khan in size and scope predictably it is not enough for

the voracious conqueror to secure his place in history he must do his hero one better and the only way

to accomplish this is to take what genas could not China but like genas Khan timour

mysteriously Falls ill and dies on the march to China in

1405 in samand he is laid to rest in a tomb as ornate as genas Khan's was simple there's a curious story that as

he Lay Dying he said do not disturb My Grave for if you do a fate worse than me will fall upon

you and his grave was kept absolutely untouched until the 22nd of June 1941 when Soviet archaeologists opened the

grave and found the skeleton of a tall man with a damaged hip and on the 22nd of June 1941 Hitler

launched his attack on Russia and that was the signal for some 20 million Russians to perish in the

following four years so you could say that he had a long arm and that that long arm

stretched right into to the 20th century without the force of timor's personality and Leadership his heirs are

unable to hold the empire together the Mongols begin to fade into history too small in number to rule their vast

Empire they become assimilated into the cultures they conquer adopting their religions and Customs as their own and

yet their impact remains immeasurable even today by opening China to the West the Mongols

created an insatiable thirst for Asian Goods the drive to quench it spurred the age of Discovery and the Voyages that

would lead Europe to America truly by shattering the old empires of China and Persia the Mongols

gave birth to the modern world an Empire that stretched from the Sea of Japan to the Baltic from uh Korea

to East Germany and took in most of Eur Asia apart from

India and Southeast Asia there's been nothing like it will the world ever see another

Empire like it in Mongolia some fervently hope so even today Genghis Khan is worshiped there as a

god his name is a source of national pride his tent a hallowed Shrine Small Wonder then that the Mongols wait

eagerly for the spirit to rise a new and for the Barbarian to return [Music]

[Music] [Music] l