The History of China - #175 - Mongol 11.1: Ögedei Cometh

Episode Date: October 9, 2019

Genghis Khan is dead, and his 3rd son Ögedei has ben selected to lead the Mongol Empire into an uncertain future. Once he is confirmed on the throne, he'll strike on in every direction against every foe at once. On the way, there will be virgin sacrifices, talking wolves, free money, mass enslavement, Persian princes, Assassins, poison, angry water spirits, battle-mages, cannibalism... and that's just the tip of the iceberg! Note: This is part 1 of the 2-part conclusion to the life of Genghis Khan, with the conclusion available to subscribers via: www.patreon.com/thehistoryofchina  Time Period Covered: 1227-1234 CE Major Historical Figures: Ogedeids: Ogedei Khaghan Subotai the Valiant General Chormakhan Minister Yelu Chu Cai Toluids: Tolui Khan Sorkhakhtani Beki Khatun Chagatids: Chagatai Khan Khwarazmia: Jalal al-Din Kingdom of Georgia: Queen Rusudan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. And I'm Rich and we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history. Look for the Civil

War and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the History of China. Mongol XI. Ogedei cometh. In the year of the rat, Chagatai, Batu, and the other princes of the right hand, Ochagi Noyan, Yugu, Yusunge, and the other princes of the left hand, and Tolui, and the other princes of the center, together with the princesses, the sons-in-law, and the commanders of the ten thousand households, assembled in their entirety at Kodeu Arau on the Karaloon River. In accordance with the decree in which Genghis Kayan had named him,

they raised up Ogei as Great Khan. From the Secret History of the Mongols, as translated by Urgonga Onon. Genghis Khan, the mighty Temujin, Great Khan of the Steppe, uniter of the Mongols, conqueror of the earth entire, the punishment and the scourge of God himself was dead. He had been, in the language of the ever death-averse Mongolian writers and storytellers, carried off to heaven, as though he himself had ascended to godhood, in the Chinese year of the water snake, or mid-August of 1227, while on what would be his last campaign against the Tangut rebels of the Western Xia regime. And really, who can say that he had not ascended, in fact?

For surely his name and his legacy endured, and still endure, far beyond the limitations of his mortal coil. His name still lingers on our lips today, and can still invoke the passions, and light the heart fires and night terrors of many. As he had approached the end that he knew in his increasingly aching and weary bones was inevitably coming, Genghis had ruminated on the world that he would never live to see. The world that he had, through fire, blood, and steel, forged from his youth of hunger and poverty. A future in which his own family and people might no longer live as wild dogs on the edge of civilization, but as the all-powerful kings at its very nexus. And he had succeeded so wildly and completely that by the end of his life, even he seemed scarcely capable of truly understanding the change that he had wrought on the fundaments of the world.

Were we to erase the strictures of our inherited calendar system and build one anew, seeking to divide time once again into a distinct before and after, we might well do better than to choose a son of a Palestinian carpenter, and we could certainly do worse than to choose the lifespan of Genghis Khan as the changeover point. For whereas teachings of Jesus of Nazareth would take centuries to percolate and fulminate across the limited geography of the Roman Empire, and ultimately across the whole of Europe, it's only in distant retrospect that we can look back and see a distinct pre- and post-era by which we might define that time. Not so with Temujin of the Borjin. The world that he was born into was so radically different from the one that he left behind that the latter is scarcely recognizable as having even come from the former.

Change is wrought largely by his own hand. There was a distinct period of human history that is before Genghis, and a distinct period that is after Genghis. And so today, we enter the AG era. Toward the end of his life, Genghis had realized the predicament that his empire would likely find itself in upon his passing. He had four primary sons, each of whom held a strong potential claim to succeed him as Great Khan, and none of whom the Great Khan himself thought particularly well-suited to the task. His eldest son, Jochi, though intelligent and a decent commander, was moody, unpredictable, with a rebellious streak, and over his whole life had a dark cloud of questionable parentage hanging over his head. His second son, Chagatai, was stubborn, stupid, bullheaded, and guided more by his fists and his cock than his head or his heart. Moreover, Jochi and Chagatai hated one another, there was no two ways around it,

to the point that Genghis long ago understood that should either be chosen to rule, the other would surely rebel. One possible choice particular to Mongolian culture, and dear to Genghis' own heart, was his ojgin, Tolui, his youngest son. Tolui was most like his father in virtually every respect, a prodigious battlefield commander, well-respected by his peers, and even Genghis' own generations of generals and warriors. Tolui was said to be the bearer of near-supernatural good fortune, and even a degree of mystical precognition. Yet in his twilight years, Genghis had come to understand that Tolui, like himself, was a perfect choice of a Khan meant to burn down an old world order and conquer a new one. Yet his bone-deep streak of vengefulness, his brutal tactics, and harsh measures would win him no love as a ruler. He, like Genghis, had been made to conquer, but not to rule. In the end, then, it would be his third son, Ogedei, that Genghis, and by virtue of their

mutual private assent, his sons, found most acceptable as his successor when the time came. Ogedei was, in many regards, everything that his brothers were not. Affable, even jovial, and generous certainly far past the point of wastefulness. He had an undoubtedly sharp mind, though perhaps calling him intelligent might not be as accurate as calling him wise. He had a natural bent toward diplomacy, and in working things out in a mutually agreeable, peaceful fashion rather than employing brute force, at least until you pushed him. At least that is when he was sober. Because if Ogedei could be said to have only one

vice, it would certainly be his lifelong love of strong drink, and when he was in his cups, his darker, more murderous side could, and often did, emerge in full fury. He was certainly no perfect choice, and even said as much when his father and brothers agreed to elevate him as their heir. Yet he was the only choice. It was Ogedei or fracture and civil war. It was Ogedei or watch Genghis's life work disintegrate around them. And so, Ogedei it would be. Or at least, that had been what the brothers had agreed to while their father yet lived.

With their lord father now dead, or ascended, however, the answer to the question of succession had become something a bit more fungible. This is because, in spite of them all having worked it out in advance amongst themselves, according to the ancient traditions of the steppe and of Genghis's own Yasa Codex of Law, formal succession of a great Khan could only happen with the convocation and ascent of a Kurilthai, a great congress of the chieftains and headsmen of the whole empire, to affirm and swear their continued support for and loyalty to the new emperor of all. Such a gathering, of course, took time. Messages would need to be sent, preparations made, replies made, gifts procured,

and ambassadorial missions laboriously assembled and made ready for the arduous journey, to a place called Kodeu Aral, in the banks of the Karalun River in Mongolia, where the curl tide, by law, must take place. It was possible for a Mongol arrow messenger to make such a journey in the span of perhaps a week, but a royal caravan traveling from the furthest reaches of the empire could expect a journey of many months. Thus it was that for some two years following Genghis Khan's departure, the empire sat without an effective head of state, and though the natural slowness of messages and travel at the time account for some of that, the blame for the majority of that unconscionable amount of time between death and succession falls squarely on the foot-dragging and bickering amongst the three

surviving sons of the departed Khan. In the interim, it fell by custom and law to the hearth-keeper, the Ochkin, Tolui, to act as the regent of state affairs, and truly there were no objections to such an outcome. Whereas Genghis himself had come to understand the wisdom of a change in style of governance, from the back of a horse to the seat of a throne, most of his men did not have such vision. In the eyes of the Mongol nation, great and small alike,

worth was proved and maintained through might, and none could doubt the reputation or ferocity of Tolui as a great warrior, almost a mirror image of his lord-father. Who better, therefore, to lead them onward? Compared to them, how could Ogedei, convivial, overweight, drunkard Ogedei, hold a candle? From McLean, To the conflicting claims of primogeniture, ultimogeniture, the traditional Mongol way, and lateral succession to one of Genghis's own surviving brothers,

the choice of the Great Khan himself became an additional element in the turgid political broth of the Mongol nation that it would have to sup at its next kurultai to choose the new emperor. In theory, the kurultai was an assembly that merely ratified by public acclamation choices that had already been hammered out in the 13th century's equivalent of smoke-filled rooms. But it seems that the succession issue was fought all the way to the Great Assembly of 1229. End quote. Such an extended period of power vacuum was damaging to the Mongol Empire, both internally and externally.

On the major warfronts of the period, the mop-up job against the Jin Dynasty of northern China was effectively put on pause, allowing the beaten and bloodied Jurchen to capitalize on the inexplicable disappearance of their conquerors beyond the Gobi, and recover at least some of their holdings across the Hunan and Hebei regions. The extended shutdown of the Khanate would not ultimately spare the Jinn from final destruction, but it did drag it out unnecessarily. Internally as well, there would be widespread and lasting ramifications to a lingering question of just who was in charge now? It seems as though Tolui might have been lobbying hard to overturn his father's commandment of Ogedei's accession, yet for that, that outcome also seems impossible, or at the very least, highly unlikely. Of the four sons of Genghis, only really Ogedei and Tolui

shared anything close to what we'd call a brotherly affection, and for them, it seems to have gone even well beyond that, to a degree in which even Giovanni would later describe as, quote, beyond the degree of brotherhood, end quote. Tolui had sworn to obey and protect the life of Ogedei to his father unto the very end, a promise that he'd given undemanded and unprompted. Here, MacLynn posits that it might have been the nobles themselves who wished for the accession of Tolui over Ogedei, and it may have taken considerable persuasion to turn them to the paramount will of Genghis. Another possibility lays in Genghis' close advisor and personal court astrologer, Ye Lu Chuzhai,

who is said to have, quote, argued persuasively for a Chinese model of hierarchy, a Khan of Khans at the top, princes of the blood as second, a wider imperial family third, and a host of courtiers and nobles beneath it, end quote. This is typically dismissed, however, as myth or hearsay, since it dramatically overstates the level of influence one such as Yebu could have had, or even would have had the legal ability to speak out as such. The explanation that seems closest to the truth is the one put forward by Thomas Alson. He states that Tolui did indeed put forward a competing claim to the throne,

but with no actual expectation of winning, nor any hard backing to press it. Instead, it was done only to reaffirm the commitment already given by Ogedei himself at the private conclave that they'd hammered out with their father years prior, that Ogedei would receive the top job, as would his sons, but that Tolui and his family line were the designated backup should the line of Ogedei ever fail. What is clear is that, whatever the player's internal motivations, this first succession of the Mongol Empire would proceed peacefully and without any major breach in the agreement of etiquette. The notables would assemble and convene in the autumn of 1229.

Once they'd all gathered along the great rolling fields, among the tents and banners waving under the blue sky above, the ceremony began. The assembled nobles one and all offered the throne to Ogedei, who in equally ceremonial fashion declined it multiple times, citing that his other brothers had the same rights as he, and especially Tolui was a better choice than he, before he was at last persuaded to accept the will of his people. He thereby assumed the old Turkic title Kayan, or Emperor, as a means of distinguishing

himself from his brothers, who now bore the lesser title of Khan. To demonstrate the acceptance of his elevation, Ogedei was lifted onto the throne by his chief potential rivals for the crown, his brothers Tolui and Chagatai, and his uncle Tamug-Ochigin. Then, in the words of the secret history, the guards and the quiver-bearers were, quote, delivered unto Ogedei Kayan. That is, the reins of government were placed into his hands. End quote. Tolui then held up a cup and toasted the new emperor. May the realm be blessed by his being Khan!

The enthronement ceremonies at an end, a large celebratory feast was held over the course of three days, at which the new Kayan dispensed gifts and thanks to the assembled notables. It was during this period that events took a dark turn indeed. Jiveni writes that in order to appease and honor the spirit of his father, Ogedei ordered that, quote, and should choose forty beautiful girls of the race and seed of the emirs that had been in attendance on him, and having them decked out in precious garments embroidered with gold and jewels, dispatch them along with choice horses to join his spirit. End quote. And if that skated right by you, what that means is that they took forty Persian girls and horses up to Genghis Khan's burial site

and then sacrificed them all to give to his spirit. With that gruesome business attended to and the grand celebration coming to a close, Ogedei went about enacting his own first addition to the Yasa Codex. In accordance with his father's wishes, he granted a blanket amnesty for all crimes and misdemeanors that had been committed during the two-year interregnum before his own enthronement, but made it clear that the free pass was now over, and he intended to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice on any and all corrupt administrators, embezzling governors, and anyone else trying to worm their way out of paying their

full share to the imperial economy. Crucially, MacLynn writes, quote, he confirmed that the system of appanages and the division of the empire into spheres of influence, the sensitive balance of power between his sons that Genghis had aimed at. Ogedei and his family would retain their direct rule over the far north and west, the Targatani Ranges, the Karya-Ityr Valley, and stretching all the way westward from the Altai Mountains to the shore of the crystal clear and infinitely deep Lake Baikal. His favored younger brother was confirmed as the lord of the homeland, Mongolia itself,

as the inheritor of the bulk of his father's military forces and resources. Chagatai would retain his sole governance over the richest section of the empire, the territories of the former Kara-Ketan and Trans-Oxiana, though crucially neither Samarkand nor Burkara city were part of his domains, as they and their vast trading wealth had remained a part of the central imperial chancellery and were now thus under Ogedei's direct oversight. Finally, the family of the dearly departed Jochi retained all of their rights to the lands between the Urals and the Irtish, including the dead and dismembered corpse of the former Khwarazmian Empire. Upon Jyoti's own untimely death, that

realm, what would in time come to be known as the Ilkhanate, had been further subdivided between his three sons. The eldest, Orda, received Sirdaria. The second son, Batu, the land from the north coast of the Caspian as far as the Ural River, as well as a proviso that it would include all of the lands west of the Caspian as far as the hooves of Mongol horses could reach, and finally to the youngest, Shiban, the upper reaches of the Urals into the Irgiz rivers. Age 43 at the time of his coronation, Ogedei is described, rightly, as a massive man, both physically and in terms of personality. This is at times a positive descriptor, and at others positively vile,

mostly contingent, all sources agree, on how much he'd had to drink that day. We get an almost Jekyll and Hyde type of duality in this second con. MacLynn puts it, Ogedei in person was a mixture of the wholly admirable and the despicable. Intelligent, shrewd, conscientious, tolerant, open-minded, usually calm, laid-back, dignified, firm, reasonable, a master politician and conciliator, he could suddenly switch to a capricious mode of harsh and despotic cruelty, especially if he was in his cups, which happened nightly, end quote.

When roused into such an ire, he could become the very embodiment of the ancient stereotype of the Oriental Desmet, with the historian Juzjani, for instance, calling him a, quote, butcher and a tyrant, end quote. Though it must be noted that Juzjani held a personal hatred for Ogedei that bordered on the maniacal, so maybe we should take what he has to say with a grain of salt. Still, other accounts bear this vision of fickle brutality out. As we already discussed, he positively insisted on, even during his coronation, the ritual slaughter of 40 young, beautiful girls for his father, in spite of the fact that the whole of the empire had already

been in full mourning for more than two years by that point. He could decide to kill out of sheer jealousy or perceived slight, even one years or even decades in the past, as when he recalled a fellow Mongol, Belkohu, of his having been, as he saw it, elevated above him by Genghis in his affections. Yet by far his worst atrocity, and for which he is rightly most infamous and reviled,

would occur in 1237, when the Oirad tribe had entered into rebellion against his rule. They had not done so through force of arms, but in trying to subvert his bizarre ruling that all young and beautiful women of the empire were to be married to husbands of his own choosing. The Oirads had therefore tried to loophole their way out of this bizarre and cruel ruling by immediately marrying all of their young girls and unmarried women to members of their own tribe. It was for their own protection that they wouldn't be simply carted away, never to be seen again. When word reached him of this flouting of his imperial will, though, Ogedei was well and truly furious. He ordered the entirety of the Oirads

captured and rounded up, and then that all of their young women, save for those who could prove that they'd been married far before his ruling had been pronounced, were to be stripped nude and paraded in front of him and his men, as well as the entirety of the assembled men of their clan. Fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons were all marched out and forced to watch what was about to happen. And then Ogedei ordered that they all be gang-raped by his soldiers in front of their families. Any men who tried to resist or stop this brutality were slaughtered on the spot. Some of the girls, especially the younger or very much older ones, did not survive the pitiless attack on their bodies.

But even then, it was not over. After this horror show was finished, Ogedei ordered that the survivors be divided into three groups. The most beautiful were to be hauled off and kept for his own private imperial harem. Those ranked as average-looking would be sent to the diplomatic houses across the empire to service foreign emissaries and dignitaries. Finally, the homeliest of women of the tribe were to be given over to the lowlifes of the Mongol Empire, the imperial servants, falconers, and animal keepers,

making special mention of the leopard and cheetah keepers in the secret history for some reason. Napoleon Bonaparte rose from obscurity to become the most powerful and significant figure in modern history. Over 200 years after his death, people are still debating his legacy. He was a man of contradictions, a tyrant and a reformer, a liberator and an oppressor, a revolutionary and a reactionary. His biography reads like a novel, and his influence is almost beyond measure. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast, and every month I delve into the turbulent life and times of one of the greatest characters in history, and explore the world that shaped him in all its glory and tragedy. It's a story of great battles and campaigns,

political intrigue, and massive social and economic change, but it's also a story about people, populated with remarkable characters. I hope you'll join me as I examine this fascinating era of history. Find The Age of Napoleon wherever you get your podcasts. That was Ogedei at his worst. But if you can't handle Ogedei at his worst, then you don't deserve him at his best. On his good days, he was sentimental and generous to a fault. It would be hard to envision a better friend or more open-handed gift-giver than the great Khan. When an elderly man asked for a loan to start a business, the Khan would give the money

freely without any precondition or collateral demanded. And when his financers yanked their beard hairs out and asked, sire, but why? Ogedei would simply shrug and reply that the old-timer didn't have long to live anyways, so what was it with all the fuss? When someone else came begging and his advisors pointed out that the guy was already massively in debt and was making no moves to pay it off, Lacan simply shrugged, paid off his original debts, and then lent him the additional money he'd asked for. He was a less-than-forthright merchant's dream come true. Show him something, anything, get him remotely interested in it, and no matter what outrageous cost you might ask of him, he'd probably just shrug and agree to pay for it.

If he was walking down the street and saw the city's worst craftsman, who just no one would buy from, he'd often feel sorry for the guy and just buy out his entire stock. When he learned that his money men had tried to delay or at least reconfirm some of the many debt reliefs or payments that he'd promised, since they thought that he might have been insensibly drunk, which was a fair assessment, to be sure, and that he might not have meant it, he threatened to execute the lot of them because I am the con, damn it, do as I say, even if I have to slur it. Enemy country? Well, maybe they just need money. Let's give them a bunch, and then maybe they won't want to be our enemy anymore,

and we'll be our friends. The guy just did not care about money, to the point where his officials were at least figuratively, and quite possibly literally, tearing their own hair out as he time and again threatened to somehow drain the bottomless Scrooge McDuck-style pool of treasure his imperial treasury had amassed. In fact, when he was informed of the expenses involved in just making sure that the imperial treasury was kept sufficiently well

guarded, this information actually got him irritated. Why in the world are we spending money to guard our money? He ordered the treasury guard staff removed and issued a decree that, hey guys, if you just need some money, I mean, there it is, go get what you need, it's fine. If you're inclined to believe Juvaini, and generally I am, those are all actual incidents that actually happened. If this isn't all silly or foolish enough for you yet, it extended well beyond straight money matters. A famous tale is of the Khan presiding over the case of a rogue wolf that, after a long stint of terrorizing and stealing Mongol sheep, had at last been captured. Brought before the great Khan prior to its execution, the criminal wolf was unexpectedly

pardoned by the beneficent Ogedei, on the sole condition that he instructed the animal and it go on to relate to all the other wolves that they must move themselves away from this place into another area and to be good little doggos from here on out. After a long moment, he stated that the wolf had agreed to the deal, and it should be forthwith taken out of the city and released. His officials, no doubt utterly baffled by this Doctor Dolittle farce unfolding before them, took the wolf out, let it go, and then immediately set the imperial hunting dogs on it, ripping it to shreds. When the great Khan found out about this trickery, he was, of

course, enraged, and had all of the offending hunting dogs executed at once for treason. There are dozens of such stories of the great Khan Ogedei's munificence, both heartfelt and farcical. Yet for each of these, there's always that edge of blood, rape, and slaughter hiding beneath the laughter and praise. Ogedei was perhaps the most gentle and good-natured of the Borjgin men, but I'm still not sure whether that makes him any less of a monster for it. Perhaps just one wearing clown makeup and asking if you want a balloon that floats. Regardless, Ogedei was certainly an inspired choice by Genghis to be his successor in at least one respect, that he understood, like his father, that for the Mongol Empire to survive and thrive,

it would have to grow, and grow endlessly. Conquest empires are an inherently unstable enterprise. They're begun by a unified vision and sense of self, but also through a desire for more. The pillage of the exterior is what feeds the engine that drives success and wealth untold, and demands always more. Ogedei Khan began his reign with a burst of activity that the Khanate had been, well, waiting for literally for years now. Again, all major operations and decisions had been put pretty much on hold until the Curl Tie had been officially completed, which is to say,

there was a lot to get done. Now, Genghis had, across almost his entire life, ascribed to the philosophy of the great Ron Swanson, never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing. He'd spent a lifetime methodically moving from one campaign of utter destruction and terror to the next in turn. First Mongolia, then Xisha, then Jin China, then Karakhetan, then Khwarizmia, and perfectly willing to add a traitorous Xisha kingdom back onto his to-do list for appropriate attention when he got around to it, but unwilling to divide his attention across multiple targets. Destroy one kingdom, destroy it

well, and then move on. Ogedei was, as with so many other things, rather unlike his father in this regard. This isn't to say that the second great Khan had any intention of half-assing a bunch of projects. Instead, he resolved to whole-ass every single project almost all at once. This was not, in spite of what it sounds like, a crazy or critically unwise decision or assessment of his or his empire's capabilities. Ogedei had, after all, spent his life in the saddle as a commander of the Mongol armies on campaign, and knew very well of their efficacy and abilities against their myriad foes. Moreover, he knew that he had come into possession not of the little ragtag group of nomadic herdsmen wearing voleskin robes, and had been laughed at by their enemies because their horses were too skinny and their saddles didn't fit.

That had been the army of Genghis. No, the Mongol empire Ogedei now helmed was the richest kingdom in the world, or near enough, and militarily second to none. They could afford to launch operations across multiple theaters of war, and it would be arguably irresponsible not to, given the insatiable hunger of the empire's population for more plunder and further conquests. The first significant project Ogedei would undertake as the new Great Khan, as with most successors, would in fact be a holdover from his father's time, something the old man had meant to but never quite gotten around to finishing. Well, that wouldn't be entirely fair to Genghis, since he had delegated it years back to his

eldest son, Jochi. It had been Jochi who'd pouted and delayed, and shuffled his feet right up until he'd dropped dead with the task still undone. Genghis himself, of course, had had bigger and closer fish to fry, and so now it fell to Ogedei to carry on the task his father had left off. The campaign would be into the heart of Western Asia, in the region around the Russian principalities, and directed against the free tribes that yet roamed the Kipchak steppes in defiance of the great nation's rule. That was about to come to an end. In 1229, Ogedei Khan dispatched three fully staffed and battle-ready tumen to the lower

Volga region to clear it out and prepare for further operations between the Volga and Ural rivers in western Asia. In spite of this force of 30,000, which you may recall had been more than sufficient under the command of Jeb and Subutai to raise and pillage all the way from Azerbaijan to Volgograd and back again, as had been the case on the Great Raid, the Kipchak Turks put up an unexpectedly fearsome resistance to Mongolian incursions into their lands. This is hardly surprising. After all, they were almost one and the same in terms of fighting styles and battle tactics. The Mongols could offer up few cavalry-based surprises against the Kipchaks, who were in

just about every way their equal in the ways of horse and bow. Nor could the Mongols rely on their conscripted forces from their sedentary populations, which would, I mean just ask anyone from Wu of Han to Crassus to Bonaparte to Hitler, tend to get swallowed up and ripped apart when getting involved in an infantry-based land war in Asia. It was inconceivable. Forced therefore to rely on light cavalry against other light cavalry, rather than overwhelming numbers of infantry, the campaign against the Kipchoks would require significantly more time to conclude than Ogedei had initially planned or would have liked, and it further delayed his follow-up operations west of the Ural Mountain ranges. It wouldn't be, in fact, until Ogedei

dispatched his greatest weapon, the aged General Subutai the Valiant in 1235, then aged 60, that the troublesome Turks would be at last brought to heel, and the great attack on the west could begin in earnest. Round about the same time as the three Tumans were dispatched against the Kipchaks, Ogedei would likewise dispatch a force to deal with yet another old enemy of his father's, the one that had gotten away, the crown prince of Khwarazmia, Jalal al-Din, who had managed to hide out past the Hindu Kush and take refuge with the Sultan of Delhi, where even mighty Genghis and his armies could not reach. Once the major Mongol operations across Greater Persia had wrapped up, and Genghis himself

had returned his full attention to the Tangut kingdom of Xia, al-Din had determined that his time to reconstitute his father's lost empire had come at last, and returned to the region of the Caspian Sea. There, he had declared himself the champion of all Islam, steadfast against the infidel barbarians on all side, be they Mongol or Christian, and poised himself against the closest and easiest target, one already heavily maimed by the passing of Jeb and Subutai's great raid back in 1221-1222, the kingdoms of Georgia and Armenia. Well, in Georgia's case, it was kingdom in name, but a queendom in practice, since as we talked about the last time we discussed them, because

of the death of her brother, George the Brilliant, at the Mongols' arrow tips, Georgia's sister, Rusudan, had become the queen regent, and had been spending the intervening years moving heaven and earth to reconstitute her nation and its defenses, all the while assuring the pope in distant Rome that no, no, it's fine. It's just a flesh wound. It's just a scratch. We're fine up here. Don't worry about us. It was certainly noble, but it was no winning strategy, especially with the return of a galvanizing Muslim ruler like Jalal al-Din in 1224 and 1225. Though Rusadan and the Georgians would fight unresolutely, and almost constantly from 1225 onward, time and again they were soundly and devastatingly defeated.

Still, Georgia was not Jalal's only focus, and much of his concentration and energies remained focused on reconstituting his larger empire across former Khwarezmia and Azerbaijan. In this, Jalal al-Din, to quote MacLean, had a complex about the Mongols after his defeat by Genghis on the Indus, end quote. Thus, when his armies had been able to launch a counterattack against Mongol allied forces in eastern Iran in 1228 and managed to rout the army as well as capture some 400 soldiers, it was Jalal himself who served as the headsman for the executions until he physically exhausted himself. He went on to trumpet his victory all over Asia, of his triumph against the supposedly invincible Mongol armies.

To this claim, however, the as-yet-unenthroned Ogedei was not willing to give oxygen or allow such a propaganda victory, however minor. Ogedei had penned an open letter of reply to Aldin's crows of victory over his forces, saying in essence, nah. From the Richard's translation of the Chronicles of Ibn al-Atir, quote, these are not our followers, we had already banished them from our presence, end quote. Interestingly, many of those who had escaped capture and execution at the hands of Jalal al-Din would flee westward, and at least some of them found refuge with the infamous Nizari Ismailis, a.k.a. the Assassins, which had been operating out of the mountain holdfasts in northwestern Iran since 1080.

In any event, the minor victories scored here and there against the Khanate by Jalal al-Din proved short-lived. By the time he'd turned back towards Georgia, he'd found the indomitable Queen Brusadan had forged an alliance with the sultans of Rum and Damascus, effectively sealing off the way west for him and forming an anvil against which Ogedei's hammer could strike. Jalal al-Din's downfall would come in 1230, following a devastating defeat by the Seljuk forces of Rum and Damascus, that August at the Bay of Arzincan, costing him tens of thousands of troops in the span of three days of battle. Jalal would retreat only to find yet another massive force of Mongols, commanded by Ogedei's personal pick of general,

the imperial Kashyyyk companion, General Qorma Khan, whose deeds and exploits would rank him in time nearly alongside that of Jeb and Subutai in the Mongol Chronicles. The Great Khan had ordered his general in no uncertain terms that Qorma Khan was not to let up or accept anything less than the utter destruction of Aldin. Moreover, even the assassins themselves had made it known that they too intended on pursuing joint action in their common defense against this clear and present danger in Jalal al-Din. Quote, Korma Khan knew of Jalal's methods and his reliance on speed, so concluded that he could outsmart him by moving with even greater velocity. Once across Amu Darya, and with intelligence from

the assassins on Jalal's whereabouts, he acted decisively. End quote. In a series of forced marches that would have been all but impossible for any other army, but was little more than standard operating procedure for Mongol cavalry battalions, Khorma Khan drove through the Khorasan, to Ray, and then to the outskirts of Tabriz, with a swiftness that took the city's defenders completely by surprise. Not content with a single-headed serpent strike, as per the Mongol norm, as his main force thus moved, several other Mongol units moved in and captured Qom, Hamadan, Far, Kirman, and others in rapid succession. Realizing at last what danger he was in, Aldin desperately tried to make peace

with the Seljuks and Georgians to rally a defense against the Mongol invasion, only to find, to his horror, that, surprise, no one was willing to lift so much as a finger to assist or save him this time. Therefore, as had his father a decade prior, Jalal al-Din bravely turned and ran away. And Qorma Khan followed. The Muslim prince was nearly caught for the first time in the city of Re, having mistakenly concluded that the Mongols pursuing him, since they'd vanished from sight, must have given up the chase, Aldin ordered a three-day-long feast in celebration. But no, they'd actually just been off surveying the wider area, and later that night returned in full force to seal the city off. Jalal managed to escape only by convincing his top

general, Orhan, to conduct what amounted to a suicide mission of raising the prince's standard and then dashing off into the night, to be inevitably caught and executed by the Mongol army, while Jalal himself slipped away. He'd not prove so lucky a second time. While encamped near Amid in the region of Kurdistan, bandits caught sight of his nighttime fire and set upon him and his entourage. Either not recognizing him, or perhaps just not caring, the bandits slew the entire party and looted their treasure.

Though a number of false Jalal al-Din's would rise up in the intervening decades to attempt to take up the mantle against Mongol subjugation, this is, in the end, all sources agree, how he met his ignominious end, a fact that gave General Chormakan no small degree of delight. His foe had not gone out in a blaze of glory like a hero, but had had his throat cut in his sleep like a dog. Even Jalal's few defenders and admirers in the histories are forced to conclude, as from Nassawi, quote, it seems to have been preordained by fate that this bravest of lions should be slain by foxes.

Chormakan would stay on as the military governor of Greater Persia from 1231 to 1237, keeping himself busy by putting down the various rebellions and uprisings along the Caucasus, and otherwise basing himself among the fertile plains of Mughan that struck his fancy. Chormakan, though not nearly the rabid anti-Islamist as Ogedei's elder brother Chagatai, nevertheless seems to have pursued a governorship largely hostile to Islam, and more or less friendly towards Christian kingdoms, with the notable exceptions of Georgia and Armenia. The king of Cilicia, for instance, Hetham I, was able to submit early on to Mongol overlordship, and in so doing made a point to stress the convergent interests of the Great Khan and Christianity, as it applied to Islam. Nevertheless, the campaign that would prove to be the feather in his cap would not be against Muslim kingdoms, but rather

Georgia and Armenia in 1236, which had proved thus far resilient enough to have survived not only two concerted attacks by Jeb and Subutai, but a subsequent three more by Jalal al-Din. Neither would, however, prove capable of standing up to General Chormakan. He had waited, as per orders, until he had received confirmation that the army of Batu had reached the Bulgar steppes and was en route to conquer Russia. Chormakan's army thus moved in sync with Batu's force to effectively seal off any avenue of escape into the protection of the Caucasus for the Rus princes, or reinforcements from those kingdoms. Georgia, already thoroughly weakened by more than a decade of warfare, this time fell quickly enough, and Rusadan was at last forced to flee the country entirely.

Before her departure, she left orders with the governor of Tiflis, that is Tbilisi, that he should, before the city fell, set fire to the lower class and working quarters of the city, but to make sure to leave the wealthy districts and the castle itself intact. A little over-eager, or more likely just panicking, the castellan would instead have the entire city burnt to ash, leaving nothing for the Mongols to seize or for the Georgian queen to ever come back and reclaim. The Armenian campaign, which opened in 1239, would prove a far more ferocious and bloody conquest. The sieges of Ani and Kars cities were reportedly especially sanguinary affairs. Even so, by 1240, Chormakan was able to send a detailed report back to Ogedei Khan, informing him that all

Mongol objectives in the Caucasus had been secured, and that both Georgia and Armenia had been reduced to rubble and bone. Serendipitously, it was at this, his moment of crowning glory, that Chormakan's health utterly collapsed. He mysteriously lost the power of speech and resigned, dying the following year. His wife, Altan Khatun, would rule as governess regent in his stead until a new permanent appointee could arrive the following year. Bye. you you you Hi everyone, This is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms,

or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.