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hi everyone welcome back to the history and 20 podcast thanks for tuning in so again today we've got another request from James and Jimmy specifically to different people that is promise honestly so we're talking about Genghis Khan today so I'll give you a little bit of information about who he was so that wasn't his actual name his name was actually and first of all actually before I start I'm gonna apologize about any pronunciations in this because I have no idea how to pronounce any of these names properly so if you'll just bear with me if anyone does know let me know so his birth name was Temujin borge again and he was born circa 1162 so roundabout 1162 in the kent ER kentang mountains in kamagra mongol in mongolia so he was actually and then he died in on the 18th of august 1227 loser drowned about 64 to 65 in Yinchuan in the western jia province in china so he had a number of titles in his life he was the first cagin and emperor of the mongol empire the supreme khan of all the mongols and the king of kings as well as the Jin Emperor and he reigned from roundabout spring 1206 up until his death like we said on the 18th of August 12:27 now he had approximately 11 marriages in his life and children is a funny one because he had 22 acknowledged children but the estimates are up to mm yeah mm illegitimate children until its estimate today I think something along the lines of one in six people who live in Asia are direct descendants from Genghis Khan's so yeah he got around a fair bit so first of all we'll start off with excuse me with his early life so like I said before for simplicity I'll just I'll refer to him as Genghis Khan rather than Temujin Borge again because I don't even know how to pronounce that but I know how to pronounce Genghis Khan so if you'll forgive me we'll refer him refer to as Genghis Khan throughout this so like I said he was born into a small clan in the kenty Mountains in northeastern roundabouts 1162 and if you can see the picture them up which should be on the screen about now the Kenton Mountains lie just north of Allen butter which is the capital of Mongolia sort of borders Russia almost there are the high high northern Mongolia so although we do actually know little of his early life there's still sufficient evidence to piece together his early years so Genghis his father was poisoned and killed when genghis was only eight years old and his father was head of the clan so the clan who were at this point lacking any sort of effective leader because the were the rest of the senior members of the clan banished genghis his mother his brothers his half-brothers and Genghis himself and there's reports from one early record written about two or three decades after Genghis his death reported as a child and adolescent Genghis and his immediate family up to forage for food and they lived primarily on carrion mice and plants in order to survive so in other words this great leader this epic military leader had been at the very bottom of the societal pecking order and still managed to rise to the top so we could say it's slightly romanticized this event which it probably is but the point is he was still banished from his clan and he still managed to work his way back up to the top and he didn't do it immediately like he was 8 when he was banished from the tribe and it took him until he was in his 40s still he managed to achieve the title of Genghis Khan which if a nun's interested literally translates as great ruler so genghis khan means great ruler and he was so how did he do this so I've sort of piece together the years from roundabout 1180 so when genghis is about 18 up to 12 or 6 so between from when he's about 18 to the start of his reign so from 20 to 40 sort of if you like so like I said although that largely romanticized account suggested that he had been at the very bottom of the societal pecking order which he had in truth it didn't mean that his family had also come from the bottom so Genghis his grandfather who was called Kabul Khan defeated the Jin dynasty in China on numerous occasions and he was actually a successful Mongol warrior successful enough that he was able to lead his clan in Genghis his father was and so on so in a roundel in 80 there was actually a sudden decrease in temperature on the step from the Mongolian steppe which sought the flatlands and desert plains around Mongolia and China there was a sudden decrease in temperature and it obviously brought about a climatic crisis so it was too cold for the grass to grow and thus there was insufficient grass for the tribes animals to graze so this situation was eventually rectified by none other than genghis himself so unified the war in tribes and led them self to the agriculturally rich chinese lund now historian Bamberger skynews an excellent sort of historian for this period he argued that genghis United the various Mongol tribes and clans through a combination of trust and terror so while he was building up his following Genghis rewarded courage and loyalty so basically anyone who'd fought well against him but had been defeated was offered a promotion in Genghis his army now this is different to him we see the European history and the Plantagenet so if you remember if you cast your minds back a couple of months when I was doing those podcasts so someone who'd fought well against them what had been defeated let's say the example would be john ii in france when he fought against Edward the thirds armies what happened to him was he offered a promotion Edwards ranks no he wasn't he was thrown in prison or David ii against Edwards army was he offered a promotion no he was kept as a prisoner a while so it's quite interesting now the sort of Asian and European British style differs with regard to that so anyway in obviously only in Ganga system only cowardice and treachery were actually punished so in later years though when he was expanded into alien lands into foreign lands the conditions were actually reversed so towns which had put up a brave resistance were rounded up and brutally massacred in public so one source actually reported that Mongol troops were given battle axes and told to set to work with them on the citizens of the towns which were unfortunate enough to be in Genghis his path and one Chronicle reports that on one occasion a tally of ears was required as proof that the Mongol soldiers had dispatched their allotted quota which is pretty pretty bad really and obviously fear ultimately played its part in the expansion of Genghis his empire so spies infiltrated city walls and spread the word the immediate surrender might be rewarded with mercy so obviously citizens rarely needed any persuading to surrender quickly when they knew that Genghis and his Mongol armies were on the on the walther but obviously aside from the psychological aspect of empire building genghis also physically strengthened his empire and this was ryr1 firmest medium and it was the horsemen so the mongolian horsemen were absolutely notorious wherever they went now they were specially trained from a young age and they were able to stand up in the stirrups while the horses were charging in battle and able to fire their heavy balls and incredible accuracy to devastating effect now the horsemen were also able to communicate news at a rapid speed across the empire by galloping in relay day and night across the steppes and deserts of Central Asia so obviously the London sort of place there at Vantage gets kind of flat and barren so they can charge across there whatever speed the like really fast as the like and then also obviously with as well as kind of fighting across and also transfer news which is again how news was spread so quickly across Genghis his empire so the next section I've put in is sort of the major conquests in the later years so from circa 1206 when Genghis becomes genghis khan up to 1227 up to his death so we have a lot going on in this period so to start off with the first image many of us conjure up when we think the term mongols is one of bloodthirsty unreliable chaotic tribal warriors so in fact under Genghis Khan the rise of the Mongols was the complete opposite it was actually the result of ruthless planning streamlined organization and a clear set of strategic objectives one of the most devastating of which was a decision to defeat the Western ji in China in 1209 so in the immediate years preceding this inversion genghis had defeated his rival tribes north of the walls on the mongolian side and the wall i'm referring to there is of course the Great Wall of China so he did this from approximately 12 or 6 to 12 or 9 and after some careful planning he set out to northern China in 1212 so the Mongol armies swept across China between 12 12 and 12 13 learn worse to over 90 cities 9-0 cities and by 12:15 that actually taken the gin capital of yang Jing which is today modern-day Beijing which forced the gin emperor zhongzong to flee South to kaifeng now this led the Mongols to occupy the northern half of his kingdom the faggiest can to proclaim himself jian emperor or emperor of the one dynasty now all that remained of the Lao dynasty was an area referred to as the Western Lao and Genghis conquered this in the foreign year so hopefully you'll be able to see all this on the maps and visualize it on the maps on your screens at the minute so we'll fast forward a few years and in twelve eighteen to nineteen genghis sent out of 500 men strong caravan to the Silk Road which was the major trading route connecting Europe to China after he saw the benefits walking up trade links with the Korres Mian Empire which covers territory in modern-day Iran and Persia however his Caravan was attacked by the governor of the kasnian city of atre which is now a ghost town an archaeological site ins suddent modern-day southern Kazakhstan obviously this news in fury in Genghis so to add insult to injury and the envy sent out were beheaded which forced Genghis into action so in twelve nineteen to twenty a huge Mongol force set out from the empire and defeated the shah's are so genghis followed up by taking Samarkand and Bukhara which are both modern cities in modern day it was Becca Stan and he tore everything down from royal palaces to towns and innocent civilians and everything to tore it all to the ground so by late 1220 the karez Mian Empire had been completely destroyed by Genghis his forces so after the destruction of the kasnian Empire in 1220 the Mongols then split into two forces so Genghis returned to Mongolia with half his army and he rarely through Afghanistan and India on the way back while two of his most trusted generals GN sub tie tsumetai rode through the carcass and into Russia and they spent the winter by the Black Sea before returning back to Mongolia now thanks to their conquests north and Genghis his conquests to the east the area known as transaction which is the part of Central Asia that covers modern-day oz Becca Stan Tajikistan southern Kyrgyzstan and south Kazakhstan and Persia was now all part of the Mongol Empire so during the mid 1220 system it's a rally from summer 1224 to spring 1225 the tan boots of the westerns year and the defeated Jin dynasty joined forces in an attempt to subdue what they believed to be an exhausted Mongol island so in 1226 genghis khan attacked and quickly took Heisei gong zu zu zu Angie Lee yong-soo by the autumn so in early 1227 he destroyed the tang got couple of Ning hai and continued onwards with his advance so by summer 1227 had already taken the imperial family as prisoners and he had them executed now the most widely reported incidents of genghis is death comes from this area it was reported that he was castrated by tank princess in a revenge for in revenge for his treatment of her people to prevent him from rare finger now he said to have died a result of his wounds and the skin the end of genghis khan so what legacy does genghis of well we've all heard of him obviously we all northern him but what happened to him after his death so his legacy didn't end roll in on the marbled floor of a 10-watt castle so as was customary at the time his empire was divided up between his four sons these are is for major son's not those other eighteen acknowledged runs and Kotla dances and stuff so it created four great Mongol kingdoms which are known as Carnot some of you have to Khan great great ruler Genghis Khan so-called Carnot so there's the one dynasty in the East which contained China and Mongolia hopefully you'll be able to see this on the map on your screen the chun-tae in Central Asia around transics iana the area described earlier the Golden Horde to the northwest which stretched from Siberia to Eastern Europe and the ilkhanate which trickled down to Persia and Arabia now Genghis Khan's descendants had successfully created the largest land Empire in history and the British Empire was the largest empire in history but it stretched across sea whereas the the Mongol Empire stretched right across land right from Korea in the Far East of to sort of Poland in the West the largest land empire in history stretching light sent from the East China Sea to Poland at its peak in the mid 13th century United millions of people under one rule now this rule was tolerant in some respect but we have to remember that unfortunately it was largely founded on the principles of total and complete warfare so like I said before on fear and trust it was found on the Mongol Empire now some readers and listeners may remember my last blog post and podcast about the Black Death and how I referred that to the Mongols is referred to as Tatars now this name was a reference to Tartarus from ancient Greek mythology which was the abyss of torment and that's how many Europeans saw these massive hoards of Mongol warriors and in fact largely how they remembered today so reports of their advance actually reached as far as Scotland in the 13th century and according to one source herring like the fish went unsold in ports on the eastern coast of Britain because the merchants who usually came to buy it from the Black Sea didn't dare to leave home for fear of the Mongols run suck in their towns and villages which shows the sort of the fear that they sort of created the Mongols and by 1241 the Mongols had reached Europe successfully and again split in foot into two hoards one headed for Poland and the other headed for Hungary now their philosophy was simple among rules they had a worldview which stopped at nothing short of global domination and conquering Europe was their next logical step in imperial expansion so for a medieval Empire to reach this far was not only an incredible achievement but synonymous with the supreme ability and legacy of the great ruler himself Genghis Khan so thanks for listening today everyone if you'd like to subscribe like comment let me know what you think about the video please do if you want to invite your friends or share it with your friends who might not have seen this video again please do a very grateful for any shares on social media channels you can obviously find me on Facebook at history and 20 or you can email me your history and 20 at gmail.com and if you'd like any books to read on this I put a little bit on Rafi together on the blog so I'll quickly run through those now so the four best books are kind of found on this readily accessible via websites like Amazon and Eva if you'd like to buy them there's a the Silk Roads a new history of the world which is by Peter Frank upon and that was published in 2015 excellent read bamboo Gus coins a brief history of the dynasties of China three thousand five hundred years of Chinese civilization that's really worth or eats about 180 180 200 pages so it's not too long there's a lot of good information on the Mongols in one of my favorite authors Dan Jones the Templars the rising spectacular fall of God's holy warriors that was published in 2017 and God incurs a short history of China from ancient dynasties to economic powerhouse which is published in 2013 so if you'd like to find out any more about those please do check those books out excellent reads so thanks for listening everyone and I will catch you next time Cheers see you later