In Our Time - Genghis Khan

Episode Date: February 1, 2007

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Genghis Khan. Born Temujin in the 12th Century, he was cast out by his tribe when just a child and left to struggle for survival on the harsh Steppes of what is now Mongolia. From these beginnings he went on to become Genghis Khan, leader of the greatest continuous land-based empire the world has ever seen. His conquered territories stretched from the Caspian Sea to the borders of Manchuria, from the Siberian forest to what is now Afghanistan.He was a charismatic commander and a shrewd military tactician. He was swift to promote those who served him well, ignoring race or creed, but vengeful to those who crossed him, killing every inhabitant of resistant towns, even the cats and dogs. Generally regarded as barbarians by their enemies, the Mongol armies were in fact disciplined and effective.So how did Genghis create such an impressive fighting force? How did he draw together such diverse peoples to create a wealthy and successful Empire? And what was his legacy for the territories he conquered?With Peter Jackson, Professor of Medieval History at Keele University; Naomi Standen, Lecturer in Chinese History at Newcastle University;George Lane, Lecturer in History at the School of Oriental and African Studies

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello, today we're talking about Genghis Khan. Born Temu Jin around 1162, he was cast out by his tribe when he was just a child

and left a struggle for survival on the harsh steps of what is now, Mongolia. From these testing beginnings, he went on to become Genghis Khan, leader of the greatest continuous land-based empire the world has ever seen. His conquered territories stretched from the Caspian Sea to the borders of Manchuria, from the Siberian forest, or what is now Afghanistan. He was a charismatic commander and a magnificent military tactician. He was swift to promote those who served him well, ignoring race or creed, but vengeful to those who crossed him,

killing every inhabit of one resistant town, for example, even the cats and dogs. General regarded as barbarians by their enemies, the Mongol armies were in fact disciplined and very effective. So how did Genghis create such an impressive fighting force? How did he draw together such diverse peoples to create a wealthy and successful empire? And what was his legacy for the territories he conquered? Joining me to discuss Genghis, or as now it is pronounced by scholars, Jinjush Khan, his name is Stanton, lecturer in Chinese history at Newcastle University, George Lane, lecturer in history at the School of Oriental and African Studies,

Peter Jackson, Professor of Medieval History at Keel University. Peter Jackson, what do we know about his early life and upbringing? Can you give us some picture of his life as a boy as a nomad on the steps? We're not actually told a great deal about his early life in the sources. The sources agree that he was born holding a clot of blood in his hand, which is an old folkloristic motif told of earlier great men, and it'll be told again of Tamerlane 150 years later. It simply signifies that he's destined to be a ruthless conqueror.

We know that as a child he would have been taught to ride and to shoot arrows from the age of about three. And we also know that he formed a close friendship with another child, Jamuka, who would later be a rival and whom Chinghis Khan would eventually kill. They became blood brothers. And that relationship was regarded as if anything more,

binding than the relationship between blood relations. When he was about eight or nine, his father was killed by members of a rival tribe, the Tatars, and the young Temujin and his mother and siblings and a few devoted followers were left to fend for themselves in the step, grubbing up what they could from the earth, living off berries, hunting, steprats, marmots and birds. What are the main sources we have for his life? There are three main sources. The secret history of the Mongols, which is our only Mongolian source that survives. And two Persian sources, Giovanni and Rashid Adin.

The secret history is the earliest. It's written down in its original form in 1228, soon after Chinghis Khan's death. The secret history is probably the most vivid and the most valuable source we have, but not necessarily the most reliable. It contains anachronisms. Sometimes different episodes are lumped together as if they were the same one. But it does have the value that it's not an uncritical eulogy

of the conqueror himself. It's prepared to mention things that are to his disadvantage. Hey, Mr. Lennan, what Peter Jackson was saying about the experience of being an out, let's call him an outcast as a boy, does that tally with your view of the way he led his later life, his life as a worry and the conqueror and so on. It's a tricky one to answer. I mean, I think his motivation seemed to be much less personal than arising out of the kind of political situation that existed on the step,

generally, where a charismatic leader could acquire a following. And then if that following was successful in battle and gain booty, more followers accumulated. And accordingly, the tribe would grow, the followers would grow. And eventually a confederation might be formed if sufficient. other tribes were taken over. And it seems in many ways that Chingis kind of got onto a role and things grew from there. The shift to an ideology of conquest comes relatively late on

and in Chingis' life it's not there from the very beginning. But from the very beginning he's seeking the first alliance, isn't he? He's trying to get back into the system at the level which he thinks he deserves to be in. At the very beginning he's trying to get some animals to live off. Because, as Peter says, at the beginning, as a child, he was grubbing around a hunting, which for a nomad is considered to be a very shameful thing. It's not how they choose to live. It's considered to be a life of poverty.

Well, it clearly was a life of poverty. And so the first thing he had to do was get some animals, and that chiefly means horses and sheep for the step peoples. We're talking George Lane about the steps. We're talking about nomads. These are grazing, pasteurising people. You have to have huge areas to bring their cattle and, well, their beasts on. and he was trying to get back into that, as has been explained.

One way was to marry into tribe, and he makes what could be called a strategic marriage. Could you tell us about that? He was promised to his wife quite early on, and in fact this was a very important part of his life because his father, after the agreement was made, this was when his father was poisoned. This was by the Tatar tribe.

So this whole episode with his wife, Borta, had a huge impact in various ways. When he finally claimed his wife, she was kidnapped. And this incident is important for two main reasons. It shows his character, how he reacted to this, and also it had repercussions right through Mongol history. Realising that he had been ambushed, he had a decision whether to fight, defend his wife, or to flee. They were one horse short, and what it meant was that he would have to abandon

his wife if he hoped to escape. He made the decision to abandon his new wife and she was left with the murkid kidnappers. Again, this I think shows Chingers' character. It was a cold and very calculated move. He realised

that if he stayed and fought, there was a good chance he would be killed. He then decided, of course, that he would get her back. When he finally achieved this, it was about some month later, but they found out that she was pregnant. Now, whether she was pregnant by Chinggis just after this,

or whether the father was one of the Merkir tribe, we will never know. But Chingis decided that his firstborn, Joki, was to be his son. But there was always a question mark over paternity. There's a lot of things. One of the things is his first big military engagement where he goes and takes his wife back from this tribe, and he proves himself in some way. And from then on, he begins a series of raids and so on,

which build up his reputation as a leader in battle. What is it that attracts people to him as a leader? Because by the beginning of the 13th century, he's got a sizable group of followers. He does. I think one of the important things is that often he was a winner. People gave their loyalty when they thought their leader reciprocated when they won. So to keep his following, and this, of course, was throughout his life.

He had to pay them in a sense. He had to win. He wasn't always successful. He had bad times. and those people who remain with him remain loyal were rewarded later. Peter Jackson, in 1206 he gets the name that we now know him by. Can you explain how that came about and what it signifies? He's proclaimed ruler of all those who dwell within walls of felt,

i.e. within tents, nomads, in other words. The title seems to mean hard or fierce ruler. At one time it was believed that it meant world ruler, universal monarch. That is now challenged. A significant number of scholars still hold to that view, but there is also a strong feeling that it probably means something like hard or fierce, ruthless perhaps. Can you just give us, I don't think I've allowed you, any one of you to explain it enough, the sort of nomadic set up on the steps, how big it was, how spread out they were,

how difficult there it was to get them all to come to one, central point and follow one central person, and how bigger deal that was for him even at this early stage? At this stage in 1206 we're talking presumably about the nomadic peoples of Mongolia and maybe one or two regions

on the fringe. We're not talking about the whole step as far west of course as what is now the Ukraine, which is inhabited by Turkish nomads of one sort or another divide into tribes. The nomads are traditionally very fragmented, they

seem to be split up into clans of one sort or another with fictive genealogies linking them. The secret history, of course, the early chapters of the secret history are full of genealogical data, which is simply designed to illustrate how the tribes are connected with one another, but does it in terms of blood rather than political links. Chingis Khan is still not master of the entire step at the point when he's proclaimed by that title. So George, Land, he begins to build up his own particular armies. How does he create out of this huge area and these different tribes, often speaking different languages,

how does he create a coherent fighting force? Can you give us briefly the two or three main things he imposes? Yes, he realised that one of the problems he was going to have, apart from, of course, getting booty to pay them, was tribal loyalty. And he undermined this by recreating the structure of the army. He used basically decimalisation. He mixed up the tribes, and he put them in various new groupings,

all arranged from 10,000s to thousands, right down to tens. And it was a very strict structure. People were placed in these various, these new groupings, and on pain of death, they were not allowed to move. So he broke up the tribal system by that way. He broke up. He made a sort of pyramidal system of the way the army is organised, and he was at the top of it and his relatives,

and most loyal people were controlling the bigger sections of this. Those people who had stuck by him, those few who had been with him, even during the bad times, hard times, they were given command. It was also on merit, merit and loyalty. It was not to do with nobility. So the lowliest person could find themselves as commanders. He rewarded skills and he rewarded loyalty. Naomi Stanton, let's begin to talk about it as an empire or embryonic empire.

How coherent was it? how was it organised for taxes, for trade and so on? Can you give us some idea of the beginnings of the empire? I think in the early stages the answer is not very. It's about exploitation as far as the nomads are concerned. It's about booty and getting what you can out of the people that you attack. And there's the beginnings of some kind of systematisation under Ching is, but it's quite loose.

So the nomads themselves are taxed probably at a rate of one in ten, one animal in ten. over a certain minimum. And it seems that something like that was also imposed on the sedentary populations who were conquered the agricultural populations of the neighbouring areas in North China and further west. And also commercial taxes were imposed. Ching and his family had strong connections with merchants from a very early stage, Muslim merchants, Uyghur merchants and Chinese merchants, and they provided them with capital to go off and trade and make a very early stage. profit and then that profit was shared with the family member who had given them the money in the first place. But chiefly it's about booty. How did he keep information flowing to the centre

to himself in such a large area at that time? The postal system, which is a very famous thing that the Mongols did, was not again systemised properly until later on, but there seemed to be the beginnings of it under Chingis, the Yam system as it was known later and this involves probably a better organisation of a system that already existed where a horseman would be sent to take a message to another tribe and would gallop along probably known routes to groups that were known to be likely to be in a particular area and that group had an obligation to rehorse, feed

and send on his way that messenger. So it's a pony express in a way, that? It is kind of a pony express. It's very informal before Chingis and probably in Chingis' time and then permanent post-stations begin to be set up during Chingis's reign and subsequently. George Lane, there's a great diversity of peoples in the empire at this point, ethnically and by religion. How tolerant in one sense of society was it? In the laws and the Yasser of the Mongols, it said that all religions must be treated equally.

And tolerance was certainly one of the hallmarks of Mongol rule. There were all sky gods in his view. weren't that? Well, amongst the nomads, there were Nestorian Christians, for example. There were Buddhists, many were shamanists, and they believed in Tengri, the sky god.

But they were very tolerant of other religions. This they used for their own advantage, this reputation for tolerance, but when it suited them, they would suggest that possibly they were Christian or possibly they were Muslim. But I think that the tolerance was a tool a lot of the time. I mean, can I come back to the sedentary people?

When he had to bring them in, if you wanted to expand his empire, because they were there for one thing, they were also wealthy, they had taxes, they had systems. Did he take that on? What did they add to him to his strength? What did he take from them? Oh, wealth. They were, China particularly was regarded as the jewel in economic terms of the empire.

China's the richest country in the world in the 13th century. Absolutely, yes. And so obviously it was going to be a target. Nomads can get rich on the step, but getting rich on the step is quite difficult because you need a lot of animals and it doesn't last. You can't store an animal. It dies. You have to sell it or eat it.

Whereas China and the other sedentary societies that the towns, which Ching is sought to conquer, had storerooms full of grain. They had silk. China had obviously a great deal of silk. manufactured goods, all things which nomads desired because they were beautiful or tasted good or could be sold for beautiful objects, turned into beautiful objects. And those were obviously very attractive to nomadic, I suppose, predators we could call them.

George and Ollie, we've been talking in terms almost as if this is a series of administrative manoeuvres. Can we get down to the warfare, George Land? Can you tell us what his tactics were in warfare briefly, what he did, why he was so extraordinarily successful? Well, first of all, he learnt, he learned a lot when he invaded North China. He had his first experience of besieging war cities. So I think one important thing is that he would learn from each encounter. He was a technician and he planned his move very carefully,

but also discipline was very important in his. his army. And this, they learnt these skills from the hunt, which was a very important part of the society and of the military training, or the NERGE, as it's sometimes called. This was hunting on a vast scale. The army would be spread across

maybe hundreds, hundreds of miles in a huge circle. And then very slowly this circle would move inwards. At the same time as moving inwards, they would drive. any animals, any wild animals they encountered in as well. This involved, first of all, communication.

All the troops had to communicate with each other, and again, on point of death, often, no animal was allowed to escape the ring, and no animal was allowed to be killed. So very slowly, this whole huge ring of soldiers would move inwards, driving the animals before them. And when they were all in the centre, the Khan, the chief, would have first pick or first killing.

This would supply the tribe with food, of course, for the months to come, but also it provided training, military training and communications, and as I say the discipline, which was one of the hallmarks of the Mongols. And they employed that in war. They employed other methods as well, as I understand it. One of the tactics they used was a subterfuge, and surprisingly it worked again and again and again. And people, for other reasons, they were...

famous for this, but it always worked. They would fain retreat. They'd be chased and they'd draw their enemy into an ambush. Sometimes, most famously in the Caucasus, they had been raiding the Armenian fortunes, actually, they had a vast amount of booty, and they were having the greatest difficulty carrying this. So they thought of a novel way of transporting their booty. They confronted the Kipchak Turks from the north, and again, they abandoned their booty and fled. the Turks captured the booty, very pleased with themselves, and off they went. Later on, the Mongols ambushed them, took back their booty, said thank you,

and on they went. But these techniques of feign retreat, they would also tie branches or old trees to their horses, their spare horses. And Gallup, this would give the impression that their armies were much, much bigger than they actually were in reality. Ami. Notoriously, of course, was the exemplary massacre, if you resisted the Mongols, you were likely to be exterminated.

And that applied to the tribes in the early days and also applied to certain cities that resisted him when he began to conquer sedentary populations as well. And the message spread in certain cases and people realised that perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to resist the Mongols. So the idea of this brutal force coming out of the East is not without foundation.

It's not without foundation, but it shouldn't be overemphasized. warfare everywhere at this time was brutal and the Mongols may possibly have organized it but they were not alone. George Land, can we talk about moving through Central Asia? In any attacks Western Asia, the empire of Kwarazum, what's now Afghanistan, northern Iran and Uzbekistan, and that turned out very bloody indeed. Can we go into a little detail about that?

What happened there? Why did he attack it? How did you get to be as bloody as it was? This was not a war of his own choosing. He hadn't intended to, well, it's claimed that he hadn't intended to confront militarily the Khazm Shahr. He thought of the Khazm Shahr as to, maybe possibly too powerful. On paper, if you like, the Khazam Shar's empire spread from the Aral Sea right down to the Persian Gulf. It encompassed all of what is now Afghanistan, Iran, Central Asia. So, Jink is by this stand, realized the importance of trade.

and this was another source of money, and he sent envoys requesting peace and what have you. However, his envoys were murdered, and this is a definite no-no with the Mongols. You do not kill their ambassadors. It's considered an unforgivable crime. The Huasim Shah, unfortunately, believed his own propaganda, and he considered himself the most powerful force on earth.

When Jenghis demanded that the governor actually responsible for, this murder, be sent to him, the Khazmshah refused. Of course, this first massacre would not have happened without the Khazem Shah's endorsement, and he refused to send Inal Khan, who was a cousin of his mother, to Jenghis Khan. Jenghis Khan sent another envoy demanding this, and the Khazmsha himself murdered the second envoy. Jingis apparently spent three days appealing to Tengri, the god, what he should do, and said, this is not of my doing. I have to now avenge this. So he is forced into this war.

In fact, the Khazim Shah was not as powerful and his empire essentially crumbled. It wasn't united. It was split between the Persian part and the Turkish part. The Khazm Shah himself was not loved by his people, and it fell. But the reputation for bloodthirstiness in many ways came from this campaign.

Famously, when Jenghis came to Bukhara, He called the notables of the city before him, and in the mosque told them, I am the punishment of God. If you hadn't been bad, I wouldn't be here. So essentially he was saying it was their own fault. Can you tell us how Europe was receiving information, if at all, and at what level from what was going on in Asia,

across what we now know as Russia and the Middle East? Well, Western Europe first heard of the Mongols in 2012. 1221, when the news of this attack on the Khorazmin Empire, in garbled form, reached the army of the Fifth Crusade in the Nile Delta. And the Crusaders assumed that this was the army of the great mythical Christian potentate Presta John, of whom there had been rumours for the past 80 years or so. Naturally, they thought that any power attacking Muslims, their Muslim enemies, must be Christian. They had no conception that there were other religions like Buddhism or shamanism. further east. And it was in this form that the West first heard of Chingiz Khan's conquests.

Of course, the Mongol invasion of Europe itself in 1241 to 2 effectively puts pay to that sort of fantasy. George Lane, he dies in 1227 during the campaign attacking northwest China. What state was the empire in then at that time, time of his death? And how did it? Do we know how he died? He had a fall from a horse, which I don't think help matters. but he was old. He'd recently returned from what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan,

to deal with the revolt by the D'Hishia, the Tanguts. But when he, after he died, no, the empire was developing and growing. He left it in a strong position, and his sons were in a position to continue his good work. And which they did, as I understand it, Peter Jackson. What happened to the empire? It continues to expand right down into the late 1250s. In fits and starts, the campaigns tend to come in in short bursts.

They're halted by the death of a great Khan and the interregnum that follows while the Mongols choose a new one, a successor. But certainly the conquest of North China, the Jin Empire, continues under Chinghis Khan's third son and successor, Ogidei, and is completed in 1234. Then the Mongols embark on the conquest of South China, the native Tsung Empire, which takes them longer. And that's not completed until 1279 in the era of Chingis Khan's grandson Kublai Khan. And after his death, following his, as it were, pattern, they move much more firmly towards Europe.

They get into, take over much of what we know as Turkey and they're going into Hungary. Does Europe feel very threatened by this? Yes. There is panic with the invasion of Hungary and Poland by these strange people. who appear to have come from nowhere, the West doesn't have any real idea of their antecedents. It tries to find biblical explanations and identifies them with peoples mentioned in the Old Testament, like Gog and Magog, who of course also appear in the very final book of the New Testament as harbingers of the last things.

So panic, yes, and no preparedness. Western Europe is in no state to resist the Mongols. It's fortunate for the West that the Mongols did not push further beyond Hungary and Poland in 1242, but retreated. Quite unexpectedly. And have you any reason, explanation for why they retreated George Lane? Yes, the death of the Great Khan, which always entailed the princes of the realm had to return. So I think the momentum had been lost.

I wonder also if it isn't a matter of dearth of posturage, that the territories to the west of Hungary are not ideally suited to nomads. Hungary itself is extensive grassland at the time, but it can't sustain perhaps an army of the same. size that was pushing into... How big was his army? Do we have any idea of numbers? Possibly 100 to 150,000 invading Eastern Europe in 1241. Too many for the Hungarian plane.

Can you give us some idea of what your view of him is, Naomi Stanton? How do you place him in history? An enormous question. Well, I think he obviously has a great hold on people's imaginations. There are very obvious things. He conquered an enormous area and his sons and grandsons' extent. that across most of the known world, embracing, again, an enormous range of cultures, Buddhist, Muslim, Chinese confusions, Christians of various kinds.

He brought together a notoriously fractious set of people in the steps, the tribal populations of the steps, who are extremely difficult to bring into any kind of unity, certainly a unity that lasts, and this lasted 150 years, which is extraordinary. he clearly had the capacity to pull all that together, to start to pull it together, and to set up at least the beginnings of institutions that would enable it to continue for his successor because usually things fall apart after one charismatic leader dies.

And that charisma that propelled him and continued to his successors is also reflected down to us, I think, and we respond to that charisma as well in a certain way. Power is always attractive. It's kind of a boy's thing. I think conquest has a certain kind of appeal, It'll provide you're, of course, not at the wrong end of the sword at the time. I think the other thing is that sedentary empires tend to dominate the historical record

because they're the people that have they're literate, they write things down, and so we know about them. We only get to find out about nomads when they come in contact with sedentary empires and the sedentary empires write down that we were attacked by some nasty barbarians. But here we have a nomad that we can't ignore. There's no way that we can say Jingis didn't have an impact on the centrist societies that he met. He took control of much of North China and of Persia, probably the two greatest empires of the day.

He threatened Europe. The empire got even bigger after Chingis died, stretching from Poland to Korea, from the Pacific to the eastern Mediterranean. And all that makes him somebody that leaves a legacy for all of us to think about. Well, thank you all very much. Thank you, Peter Jackson, Nairmi Stanton and George Lane. And next week we'll be talking about Karl Popper.

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