The History of China - Bonus - Mongol 5: The Shaman

Episode Date: May 28, 2023

We're releasing one from the paid vaults to share with everyone! (Don't worry, there's still plenty more exclusive Mongol content)... consider heading on over to Patreon.com/thehistoryofchina to support the show and catch up with all things steppe-rider! Genghis Khan rules the steppe. Yet before he'll be able to expand beyond its vast, rolling expanse, he'll have to deal with several in-house issues, particularly the ambitions of a powerful shaman named Teb Tengri, who may have designed on Genghis' power and position...   Time Period Covered: 1206-1209CE  Major Historical Figures:  Borjigin: Genghis Khan (Temujin) Börte, Temujin's First Wife Ho'elun, Temujin's Mother Khasar, Temujin's Second Brother Temuge Otchigin, Prince of the Hearth, Temujin's Youngest Brother Chaga, Temujin's 11th Wife  Mongol: Kokhchu Teb Tengri, Shaman Monglik  Jurchen Jin: Emperor Zhangzong of Jin Wanyan Yongji, Prince Shao of Wei 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. Hey everyone and welcome to the very first bonus episode of The History of China. If you're listening to this, you are among the few, the proud, the monetary supporters of the show. And I'm so very, very thankful for each and every one of you. I'm very excited to be able to continue the adventures of Genghis Khan and the Mongols with you, and also excited to see how this new chapter of THOC will pan out. Hopefully it'll work well enough that once this mini-series is concluded, I'll be able to put out more bonus series in the future. You should expect one of these episodes about once per month, as I said in the first announcement, in addition to what you'll get on the regular feed, which should be about twice a month, as usual. Anyways, thanks once again, and I hope you enjoy this bonus feature.

And now, on with the show. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Bonus Episode 1. Mongol No. 5. The Shaman. With the future of eternal prosperity, the wolf-totemed Mongols have the blessings of heaven. Born with undeniable fate to gather nations, the Lord Chinggis declares his name on earth. Would come back. Will come back. O Black Banner, be awakened, be awakened.

O Khanate, rise and rise forever. From Yue Yue Yu by The Who Band. With the great Herald High of 1206 concluded, and the festivities drawn to a close, the ascension of Temujin as Genghis Khan served to lay the foundation of what he and his newly formed and unified Mongol nation would do next. He'd been named the ruler of all who lived in felt walls, but unless he could act on such a presumption, it was nothing more than words. Moreover, he had made certain promises to his followers, that in return for their unquestioning loyalty, they would receive riches, wealth, women, and power. And there was little enough of that left on the steppe. Soon they would need to look outwards, to the untold riches of the south and even to the far west, to keep his end of the deal and sate his general's hunger for loot and glory. Without some new foe to set

themselves to common purpose against and to conquer, the glue of his nation would soon come unstuck, and the tribes would fly to pieces once more. First, though, there was some housekeeping left to accomplish. There were still several tribes that had yet to submit to the will of the Great Khan, and that would not do. There were still remnants of the Naimans and Merkits to briefly occupy as military, but foremost on Genghis's docket was to secure the submission of those tribes of the Taiga forests in southern Siberia, the small bands of hunters and trappers that lived so much like Temujin once had as a boy. To these tribes, Temujin would dispatch his own eldest son, Jochi, and his personal Tumen force, bearing a message that would, in substance, if not precise wording,

become the calling card of the Mongol Empire for the next two centuries. Essentially, Hello, nice to meet you. We are the Mongols, and our Khan, Genghis, holds you now in his thrall. Submit to his will at once and live, or rebel and be exterminated. The reindeer herders and huntsmen, it seemed, were smart enough to know that defiance wasn't

in their best interest. It seemed likely that word would have arrived prior to Jochi showing up about this powerful new order on the steppe, and what had become of every sizable force that had been fool enough to stand against it. Instead, they sent gifts of tribute and soldiers for the Mongol cause. More than a thousand Northmen would ride back with Jochi, carrying with them rare fur pelts, such as the coveted black sable, hunting falcons and hawks, as well as rare feathers, antlers, and other treasures from the great white wastes. In return, Jochi would take one of the tribal chieftain's daughters as his own wife. The next three or four years would see the burgeoning Mongol nation grow relatively quiet from the outside, without much in the way of

further expansion. This, however, was not due to any rest on the great Khan's part, but rather him needing to come to terms with, and then deal with, a growing internal threat to his regime. Shamans, particularly male shamans, occupied a very strange position within Mongol society. As with many practitioners of the magical and occult arts across the world, they occupied a liminal space between the sacred and the profane, at once necessary and revered, and yet also reviled and feared, and thought of as something less than full men.

Weatherford writes, Male shamans were treated with cautious respect, but they evoked suspicion and even disgust. full men. Weatherford writes, quote, The word bo'o, Mongolian for shaman, is part of a cluster of words with loathsome connotations. Foul, abominable, to vomit, to castrate, an opportunistic person without scruples. It's also the general term for lice, fleas, and bedbugs, end quote. The figure known as Kokchu Tebtangri, or simply Tebtangri, had served as Tamajin's shaman, per se, since at least the time of his first korotai in 1189. Though the secret history never actually refers to him by such a title, his religious and ceremonial significance to the Khan is made abundantly clear. It seems that Kokchu may have been his given name,

and Tabtangri, with its reverence to divinity and the blue sky, Onon translates it as meaning the all-heavenly, would have been his title. Though the Mongol chronicles themselves do not specifically label him as such, there's no shortage of foreign accounts of Genghis Khan's life that label him as a spiritually powerful man. Chinese histories call him a magician, and the Persian compendium of chronicles calls him a prophet. The middle of seven sons of Monglik, the warrior who had once served Temüjin's father Yesugei and fetched the boy to his deathbed, Tatangri, though the middle son, was undoubtedly his brother's ringleader. He had risen to prominence within Genghis Khan's new world order by time and again reading the signs in his scapulimency, beating his high drums, and proclaiming that the heavens

had favored Temujin and would make him the ruler of the world. He interpreted his and the Khan's dreams in the Khan's favor, and brought even greater spiritual clout to the Lord Borjigin's claims of hegemony. In return, Genghis had bestowed on Teb-Tangri great honors and riches, appointing him to oversee the estates of both his mother, Hoilun, as well as his youngest brother, the heir to his mother's hearth and property, Temug-Ojigin. Not very surprisingly, his favored status within the Great Khan's inner circle seemed to have quickly gone to Tebtengri's head. The Persian historian Juzjaini writes, for instance, The imposter Tebtengri was so puffed up with his own importance after the success of his pretended revelation that he began to entertain ambitious views for himself.

Though Juzjaini is rather vehemently anti-Mongol in all of his accounts, he holds particular disdain for Tabtangri. This is likely because in creating such a renown for himself and his supposed spiritual powers, he'd begun to amass a following that nearly rivaled the great Khan's own, and then he sought to use it. Having served alongside the Khan for decades, Tabtangri understood much about Genghis and how he viewed the world and those around him, those he trusted, and those he held in suspicion. He knew probably better than most that the Khan, markedly unlike most of his ilk, held an innate distrust for his close kin. Tamajin had, after all, been betrayed time and again by his blood relatives, and had instead forged lasting bonds

with those relations of his own choosing. It was with this in mind that Tatangri began to needle at the oldest and closest of the Great Khan's kinship ties, that to his second brother, Khasar. Khasar, you'll remember, had accompanied Tamajin back in their childhood, when they had struck down their mutual elder half-brother, Bekhtur, on the open steppe. Even back then, Tamajin had known that when it came to questions of size, strength, and battlefield prowess with the bow, he was no match for Khasar. Back then, it had meant that Khasar had been the one to take their brother from the front, while Tamajin had moved in from behind. But even now, Tamajin had a unique emotional vulnerability to the idea that his younger

brother might someday pose a threat to him. From Weatherford, quote, Genghis Khan had never completely trusted Khasar. He seemed to be afraid of him. Jamukha had once described Khasar in supernatural terms of a sort that he never used for Tamajin. He was born a coiling dragon snake and had the power to shoot enemies who were beyond the mountain and beyond the steppe.

His magical fork-tipped arrows could kill 10 or 20 men with a single shot. He also had the power to swallow men and make them disappear complete with quiver." While, of course, fanciful, such descriptions serve to underline the particular importance and potential threat that one such as Khasar, bigger, stronger, and more imposing than his brother the Great Khan, might one day pose to Genghis's order. Tabtangri had perceived this latent tension between the two eldest sons of Hoelun, and sometime around 1208, at the height of his personal power and influence,

he sought to drive a fatal wedge between the two. With his six brothers in tow, Tabtangri sought out and surrounded Khasar on one occasion, beating him brutally. Afterward, Khasar limped to Genghis's gir and knelt before his brother, reporting what had transpired and begging for his brother's help. Apparently, however, Genghis was already in a bad mood from another report and cut his brother off angrily, saying, according to the Secret History, quote, you used to say that none could defeat you. How is it that you have been defeated now? End quote.

In shame, Khasar is said to have burst into tears before his brother and left the Gur in anger, fear, and humiliation. For three days and nights thereafter, the two brothers did not speak to one another, apparently a first in their life. Tebtengri sensed that his plan had worked and that he'd found the crack between Genghis Khan and Khasar, a crack that he planned to wedge open into a fissure. Playing, as ever, the part of the loyal shaman and holy man, Tad Tangri reported to his Khan that he had been receiving numerous prophetic

dreams, but strangely they had been conflicting in nature. He said, quote, By the decree of eternal heaven, one augur concerning the Khan foretold that Temujin should hold the nation, but another foretold that Khasar should do so. If you do not launch Though it does seem like pretty thin soup, it was all the evidence that Genghis Khan needed to ride out that very night against his brother. Taking Genghis Khan completely by surprise, Genghis ordered him arrested and bound awaiting trial, and to be stripped of his contingent of followers and warriors. A day's ride away from Genghis's main camp, his mother, Hoelun, now in her fifties, lived in relative solitude in her personal gur,

with only her servants, a small honor guard, and her youngest son, Temug, to keep her company. This, of course, apart from when her elder sons came to pay their respects, or visitors or travelers happened to ask for nourishment or company, as the custom of the steppe expected all to provide. Thus, when word reached her of the falling out between her two eldest sons, she harnessed up her white camel on the black wooden-framed covered cart that very night, and traveled after them through the night, arriving at sunrise, the following morning, at her son, the great Khan Genghis's tent. Probably unlike everyone else in his life at this point,

Huilun held no fear of her son Temujin, nor of any man for that matter. She had, after all, raised ten of them, and knew each of their proclivities and demeanors better than they themselves. She, as mother of the great Khan, held a revered status among all, and that of near saint to her sons, whom she so labored to keep alive in her youth. Neither Temujin nor any of her sons had ever forgotten her labors of love, nor her wisdom or counsel in the years and decades to follow. And so it's not surprising that when she strode into the Great Khan's gur, it was not Hoelun who felt surprise and shame, but Genghis himself. As she entered the tent, she noted that Khasar had been stripped of both his hat and his sash, the two symbols of his power and manhood, and that

his sleeves had been tied behind his back. He was in the process of being interrogated by his brother about his allegedly treasonous plots. Striding over to him, Huilun unbound her second son and gave him back his ornamentations, before turning to her eldest, first sitting cross-legged before Temujin, and then opening her robe to reveal her two aged, sagging breasts. Angrily, she said, Have you seen these? These are the two breasts you sucked. Those who make growling noises have eaten their own afterbirth and cut out their own birth cords. What has Khasar done? Temujin could finish the milk of this one breast of mine. Hakshun and Temug could not finish one breast between them.

As for Khasar, he could finish my two full breasts until my bosom sagged. He made my bosom comfortable and loose. So, my knowledgeable Temujin is skillful of mind, and my Khasar is powerful and good at shooting. Because of this, he shot at those who but be bigger and stronger than Temujin. Temujin was the brains and Hasar had been the brawn of the operation, and both had worked together up until now. Yet now that it seemed that victory was in hand, Temujin seemed willing to throw his own brother under the bus the first chance he got. Temujin got the message loud and clear. After calming his mother down and having her put her robe back on,

he replied to her chastisement, quote, Mother, I made you angry. Being afraid, I acted in fear. Now you've shamed me, and I am ashamed. We will free Khasar and withdraw. End quote. And withdraw he did, though he hadn't cleared his mind of suspicion against Khasar just yet.

Thus, once Hoelun had mounted her cart and returned to her gur, Temujin released his brother and some of his followers, but only a fractional token force of some 1,400 rather than his full tumen of 10,000. The Secret History says that it was when she learned of this continued distrust between her sons that Hoelun died from the thought of it. Whatever the specific reason, she completed her age shortly thereafter this incident, likely in her late 50s or early 60s, a venerable old age indeed by Mongol standards of the time. Yet with her death came yet another opportunity for the shaman, Tabtangri, to whittle away at the foundation of Genghis Khan's power base and support,

and to turn him against further members of his own family. Temüjin's youngest brother, Temü, as the Ochigin, meaning the Prince of the Hearthfire, was legally entitled to inherit all of his mother's property and her followers. This would have given him command of a force larger than any other in the Mongol nation. By this point, Teptengri had amassed an enormous number of followers, collectively referred to in the secret histories as the People of the Nine Tongues, whose numbers were far greater than those of Temujin could count loyal to himself. Though the Khan was almost certainly as of yet unawares of this troubling fact,

and still held his shaman in highest regard. Through whatever promises, guile, or simple charisma, however, Tabtengri was able to convince the majority of Tamug's followers to join him and abandon the Prince of the Hearthfire. Tamug first sent an emissary to demand the return of his warriors, but he was beaten and stripped of his mount, left to return to his lord on foot and carrying his saddle, a grievous insult. Tamug then proceeded to Tabtangri's encampment himself to seek amends and again the return of his people.

He said to the shaman, When I sent my emissary Sokor, you beat him and sent him back on foot. Now I have come to request the return of my people. In reply, Teb-Tangri's six brothers surrounded Temug and forced him to his knees. Mocking him, they forced him to beg for his life to Teb-Tangri's backside, the most humiliating thing a person could beg to as a vassal subject, before ejecting him from their camp alone and thoroughly shamed. Temug made his way the next morning to his brother's gur, shaken and afraid, and presented himself before the Great Khan, seeking justice for this crime committed against him. Tears flowing down his cheeks,

Temug begged, The people of the Nine Tongues have gathered around Tabtangri, and I sent an emissary to request he return my own subject people to me. They beat and robbed my emissary, sending him back on foot, carrying his saddle on his back. When I myself went to repeat this request, I was surrounded on all sides by Tabtangri and his brothers. They made me plead and kneel down behind the shaman. End quote. For a long moment, there was silence in the Gur.

This should have been more than sufficient cause for any red-blooded Mongol to rouse arms and defend his brethren's honor. But such was Temujin that it seems that the Khan might yet have sided with his overly ambitious shaman above his own brother. If not, that is, for his wife, Bort, who lay naked in bed within Temüjin's gir, wrapped in their furs and blankets. Sitting up and covering her breasts, Bort, as she had time and again done over the course of her husband's life thus far, and would do many times to come, acted as Temüjin's guiding light and wisdom when he himself appeared at a loss. Before he could utter a sound in reply, Bort sat up, tears in her eyes in sympathy with Temug's emotional pleas, and replied, What is Tebtengri and his Konkatan clan doing? Recently they joined forces to beat Hasar.

What have they done now to make Temud Ochigin kneel down behind them? What is the reason for their action? They will secretly harm your younger brothers, who are like cypresses in pines. If you do nothing, later, when your body, like an old and withered tree, comes falling down, who will they let govern your people, who are as a tangled hemp? Do you think they would allow our four sons to govern as they grow? They have done this to your brothers while you still draw breath. What will they do to your sons when you are gone? At this, the tears already flowing down her face gave way to outright sobs. His wife's impassioned pleas for their children and her tears instantly melted the blockage in Temujin's mind regarding the imminent danger posed by Tabtangri's growing power. He turned to his youngest brother and replied,

Prince of the Hearth, Tabtangri is now on his way here. He will arrive in several days. Do whatever you are able to avail yourself with my leave. The course of action is yours to decide. With that, Temu grows, wiped the tears from his eyes, and nodded thankfully to his elder brother. He had preparations to make before the shaman and his cadre arrived before Genghis Khan. When Teb-Tangri, his brothers, and their father Monglik arrived at the Great Khan's Ord, they seated themselves in customary fashion around Temujin's hearthfire. Scarce had they done so, however, when Temug entered and approached Teb-Tangri. In a playful fashion, he grabbed the shaman's deal, his shirt collar, in a manner known to mean that he challenged the other to a bout of wrestling, a common and customary pastime between folk of the steppe. At our last meeting, you made me beg, he intoned.

Now let me test our strength, man to man. At this, Tamujin declared that all such horseplay should be taken outside of the gur, again, as was customary, and the two proceeded outside. Yet Temug was seeking no friendly sporting match, and perhaps, had Tebtengri better recalled Temujin's victory over the Jirkids, or the fate of the undefeated wrestler who had once gravely insulted the Khan's brother, Belgate, he might have been more wary of a friendly wrestling match before the eyes of Genghis. Temug had arranged for three strong men to wait outside the tent, and the moment the shaman stepped outside, they seized him by the throat and snapped his spine, just as had been the fate of Buri the jerkid. Genghis ordered that the dying man be dragged to the edge of the camp and that a small tent be constructed over him.

In a later proclamation, he would declare that, quote, because Taptangri slandered and beat my brothers, heaven no longer loved him and took his life away, end quote. Well, that and the backbreaking, but way to be passive-aggressive about it, Temujin. Doubtless, Monglik and Tebtengri's six other brothers were more than a little put off by this whole cold-blooded murder bit. Genghis addressed them far more directly than his later proclamation, however, and made no doubt as to what the actual cause of the shaman's death had been.

Addressing Monglik, the father, Genghis Khan stated, quote, Since you failed to curb your son's natures, they came to think of themselves as my equal. As a result, you have killed your own son, Tabtangri. I only wish that I had realized your nature earlier, so that I might have dealt with you as I had the likes of Jamukha and the rest. Teb Tangri took three days to die, or as the secret history puts it, three days before he, quote, Once his departure was confirmed, or as the secret history puts it, three days before he, quote, opened the smoke hole atop the Gur and left through it, end quote. Once his departure was confirmed, the camp broke and made for greener pastures, leaving his body to rot on the steppe.

With the shaman's death, not only was the morale of his direct followers broken, but so too any who might have thought to challenge the authority of the Great Khan. Tatangir would prove to be the last of Genghis's rivals on the steppe. As Weatherford puts it, quote, what he could not control he had destroyed. He had neutralized the power of his own relatives, killed the lineages of aristocrats and all rival khans, abolished the old tribes, redistributed the people, and finally allowed the most powerful shaman on the steppe to be killed, end quote. A new shaman would take Tabtangri's place as Tamujin's reader of dreams and fortunes, but it would be an older, less ambitious man.

The Khan had learned his lesson at last. So too had his followers. In daring to strike down an emissary of the blue sky, and gaining power as a result, Genghis Khan had proved himself to be a shaman of equal or even greater power. Moreover, it was at a bloody precedent that the Mongol Khan could and would strike down any purported holy man, prophet, monk, priest, or imam who dared to claim a higher authority than the Khan himself, as the great religious centers in China, Arabia, and even Europe would come to find.

The year was 1208. Genghis Khan was about 46 years old. In victory, however, a kind of torpor settled over the Mongol nation. What would be next for them? Had not heaven promised them dominion over all of the felt walls? Had not Genghis promised them glory and treasure? The northmen of the Sibir tundras had already submitted without a fight, and besides, there was little of interest in the north. No, south was where riches and treasures undreamed lay, just waiting for the trading and the taking. Treasurer Genghis had only seen rarely, and most of his followers might not have even heard of, forged metals, fine textiles, silks, gadgets, and endless food, women, and slaves. 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. Genghis's Mongol nation received its first major influx of such southern delights from the Uyghur tradesmen that made their way from the borders of the Taklamakan Desert far to the southwest. The Uyghurs had, since the 1130s, been a vassal people of the Harakhetan, a remnant of the old Khitan Liao dynasty founded by Yelo Dashir, who had fled to the west evading the Jurchen conquest of Manchuria in the 1120s.

The name Haraketan is most commonly understood as meaning the Black Khitans, which both fits with their dynastic color as well as their favored classical element, metal. Fittingly, Haraketan is known in Chinese sources as the Western Liao Dynasty. Persian and Arab tradesmen and ambassadors came to call this easternmost known entity by the term khitei, which would in turn be transmitted further westward to Venetian and European traders and writers as kathay, eventually coming to refer to the far east and China altogether. In any event, this first interaction would be peaceable and prosperous for all involved, accepting their caravans of southern goods as, and potentially as they'd been intended, a tribute of submission to the Great

Khan, Genghis reached out and sought to make an alliance in the only way his people ever had or could, by bringing the Uyghurs into his own great family. He thereby offered his daughter as a bride to the Uyghur Khan, thus making him Genghis's son-in-law, an offer the Uyghur lord readily accepted. Again from Weatherford, quote, Genghis was not merely making alliances between his family and their ruling families. He was accepting the entire tribe or nation into his empire as familial members, since, in the political idiom of the tribes, granting kinship to a Khan was tantamount to recognizing family ties with the whole nation. In this way, the idiom of kinship had expanded into a type of citizenship." And I'm pretty sure it's an unrelated occurrence, but it does strike me as similar that in Chinese, there's a similar common idiom that means everyone, dajia, meaning literally big family.

As his empire would continue to expand beyond the steppe, this idea of fictive kinship would come to be used to define which groups of people were in the inner circle of the so-called Mongol white bones, that is, those who had submitted early and willingly, and among whom intermarriage was permitted, and those who were blackbone, lesser subjects, those who had submitted later or by force, and among whom intermarriage was prohibited. The wedding between Genghis's daughter and the Uyghur Khan would be held the following year on the steppe. The Uyghur Khan arrived at the Mongol encampment, quote, laden with a camel caravan of lavish gifts, including gold, silver, and pearls of many sizes, shapes, and colors. In addition, they brought

woven fabrics like silk, brocade, damask, and satin, incredible rarities to the threadless Mongols who had only leather hides, furs, and pounded woolen felt. The material difference between the Mongols and their southern neighbors had never been made more plain to all who saw such extraordinary luxuries. And in not just his people, but Genghis himself, it stirred the unquenchable desire to correct that imbalance of goods. Why should the indolent southerners bask in material wealth, while the hardy, strong, and superior Mongol nations subsist on the harsh edges of the world? If the Silk Road and its limitless wealth could flow east to west and back again all across Asia,

could it not be made to come north as well? Well, surely not on its own. The Mongols understood that their paltry trade items would scarcely attract traders to their remote and difficult corner of the world. No, they would have to bring that endlessly rich life stream of wealth to them, by force if necessary. Until this point, virtually no one outside of the steppes had taken any note of the goings-on therein, of this Mongol band that had stitched the region together so suddenly, or of its charismatic, if aging, leader known as Genghis.

No one but the Jurchen Jin Empire cared what nomadic barbarian killed another and crowned himself king of the wastes. And even then, the Jin only cared just far enough to ensure that they would ultimately tip the balance in their favor. Real civilizations had their own real problems. Things like domestic, foreign, taxation, rebellion, you know, real problems. Not just petty struggles between tribes of savage horse thieves. Those border town raiders would do as they'd always done. And if they got out of hand, then, well, that's what their border armies were for. That's why they paid good coin to those slightly less barbaric barbarians. And that's not changing anytime soon, right? Right? Wrong.

Late 1208 would mark the death of the Jin Emperor, Zhang Zong, after a reign of two decades, and at the age of only 40. Given that Zhang Zong had left no male issue, a tense period of negotiation between the ruling households followed, resulting in the eventual selection of his uncle, named Wanyan Yongji, as a new emperor early the following year. Though he would rule as emperor for some five years, Yongji has no regal title, but is instead referred to as Prince Xiao of Wei, which some among you might already have guessed, or remembered,

what something like that usually implies. The period of uncertainty had opened within the Jin a brief but dangerous power vacuum, in which no one was effectively heading the Jurchen realm. Such instability resulted in four Jin court officials fleeing the Supreme Capital to Mongol territory and urging Genghis to make an attack on the tottering Jurchen regime. Though sorely tempted, Genghis suspected a trap and refused for now. And when the new emperor

was enthroned, the window of opportunity closed, at least for the moment. Nevertheless, this instability would prove an opportunity to the West. For the time being, the Mongol Khan's intermarriage with the Uyghur nobility meant that there was a new foe to seek out. As I mentioned before, the Uyghurs were considered vassals by the Tangut rulers of western Xia, and this dual claim on loyalty, as well as other claims of disloyalty such as harboring Mongol enemies, acted as a pretext to launch a major invasion of the western state in 1209. Typically, the only conceivable route of invasion against the Tanguts would have been to ride south of the Yellow River through the Ordos Loop before turning westward and up through the narrow Gansu Corridor. A straight shot from the heart of Mongolia was considered almost an impossibility for any army, even a cavalry force, as it would take them through the barren heart of the great Gobi Desert for hundreds of miles.

Not only would the force have to survive the journey, but they'd have to arrive on the other side of it prepped for immediate battle. No sane commander would risk his force in such a suicidal gambit, the Tanguts must have surely thought when they left that northern desert border only lightly guarded. As we already know, though, and unfortunately for the Xia armies, Genghis Khan's specialty was dealing in insane impossibilities. The Mongol tumens rode down through the Gobi without pause or rest in the autumn, emerging from the shifting sands and advancing on the stunned defenders of Wulahai Fortress, sitting on the northwestern edge of the Yellow River's Great Bend. Taken completely by surprise by this force that had appeared, it seemed, out of thin sand and dust,

the garrisons surrendered without a fight, and the Mongols took the lieutenant commander prisoner. They rode on, following the river south to the Kayiman garrison, which guarded the Tangut capital itself. The Shah king had desperately sent a missive to the Jain court at this point, hoping that their friendly relations and trading partnership would convince the Jurchen monarch to aid the western kingdom's defense against this surprise attack. To his dismay, however, the Jain emperor scoffed this missive, reportedly saying, quote, it is to our advantage when our enemies attack one another. Wherein lies the danger to us? End quote. He couldn't yet know it, but soon enough he would eat those words. The Shah armies by now had been alerted to the enemy advance and mustered their forces to ride

out against the invaders, resulting in the first pitched battle between the Mongol horde and the enemies beyond the steppe. That Tangut garrison was of fairly standard size by Chinese or Jurchen perspectives, but an absolutely massive force from the viewpoint of the Mongols. Whereas Genghis Khan could call upon a total fighting force at this point of perhaps 80 or 90,000 as the totality of the strength, Khayyaman garrison alone housed some 70,000 regular troops along with an additional 50,000 reinforcements, and stocked with enough provisions to wait out months of siege. It's here in this first southward campaign that the Mongols would learn their first two lessons about the

settled societies that they would be fighting against from here on out. The first is that they absolutely loved their fortified cities and garrisons, and that the Mongols had pretty much no way of breaking through them. After two months of ineffectively besieging the garrison's impenetrable walls, the Great Khan, or perhaps one of his commanders, proposed a solution, and it would become the Horde's second great lesson about confronting their sedentary foes. Like a dog after a stick, they never, but never, could refuse a good chase. Enter the battle tactic that will prove the undoing of every army from China to Baghdad to

Poland, the Feigned Retreat. Now, this isn't quite the battlefield tactical-fiend flight that I'll get into more later on, but more like the strategic version of that. By pulling back from the siege, they lured the Tangut defenders outside of their fortifications in an attempt to pursue and destroy this quote-unquote fleeing foe, only for the Mongols, in perfect discipline and unison, to wheel around and hammer their now totally exposed enemy into oblivion. Thus, they moved against the capital itself, Yin City, once again settling in for a prolonged siege before its massive walls.

Genghis had realized by now that simply waiting their enemy out was not likely to be a viable option. For one thing, there was a lot more of them than of his Mongols. If the Kayi-Mung garrison had seemed huge with its 70,000 warriors, then the capital defense force was titanic, roughly double that, meaning that it was nearly double the Mongol army in its entirety. For another, their enemy was well-stocked and prepared for an extended wait, whereas the Mongol force, while patient enough, had the needs of both its men and its horses to consider. Horses need to have grazing land, and staying in any place for too long tends to eat all of that up.

And so it would be to plan B. From Ruth Dunnell, quote, Employing an ancient stratagem, the Mongols diverted water from the Yellow River canals to flood the city, end quote. The Chinese had been doing it for centuries after all, and those dams didn't look so tough to build. Well, it turned out that they actually are pretty tough to build. In short order, the Mongols' own dikes burst and flooded their own camp in chest-deep river water,

forcing them to lift their ill-conceived siege of Yin City and retreat, spirits, no doubt, thoroughly dampened. Before withdrawing, however, they sent forth the garrison commander they'd taken captive at Wulahai as a negotiator for peace, and the Tangut king saw his point. Yes, the Mongols had near drowned themselves trying to take the city this time, but that had been after they'd captured two fully complemented imperial garrisons and beaten outright an army larger than theirs. They might be leaving, but they would undoubtedly be back, and they'd probably have figured out that whole besieging problem before too long. The writing was on the wall, and this was an out, one that the king took. The Tangut ruler agreed

to nominal tributary status with the Mongol Khan, pledging to serve him and defend him when called upon, and paying his tribute with gifts of camels, falcons, and textiles. In a typical fashion for Genghis, the arrangement was sealed with the unification of their families. The Tangut king's daughter, Chaga, was given to Genghis as his wife. Back within the Jin Empire, things had finally settled down with the transition between the old emperor and the new. And with a new emperor, of course, came the prerequisite renewal of oaths of fealty and submission to the Golden Empire, as all vassal peoples were expected to perform. For nigh on a century, their claim of Caesarean tea over Manchuria, northern China, and the Steppelands had proceeded pretty much without fail. Such it was that an emissary in his retinue was dispatched from Zhongdu, the supreme capital, to Mongolia to secure the submission of this Khan who had replaced Ong,

Tengis or Genghis or Zengis or whatever he was calling himself. Genghis Khan was faced with two options ahead of the arrival of this Jin emissary. He could either do as Ong had done, offer up his subservience to the southerners and thereby receive some portion of their goods and wealth for distribution among his people, or he could pursue the far more risky, but potentially far more profitable, gambit. He could strike out and attempt to take it all. The show of submission was, of course, the kowtow, from the Chinese kowtow, meaning literally, to knock one's head upon the ground. Weatherford cited an 1878 edition of the Peking Gazette, in which a far-removed descendant of the 13th century Mongols

arrived at the court of the Manchu Qing Emperor to perform such an obeisance. Quote, The young Mongol knelt reverently upon the ground, and with the deepest gratitude, acknowledged himself to be a Mongol slave of inferior ability, perfectly unable to repay in the slightest degree the imperial favors of which his family had been the recipients for generations past. He declares his intentions of performing his duties to the best of his feeble powers. Then he turned his head towards the palace and beat his head upon the ground in grateful acknowledgement of the imperial bounty."

Genghis Khan was perfectly aware of this exact ceremony, its expectations, and its significance. He'd likely done it at some point during his time with Ong Khan, when they had ridden alongside the Jurchun to annihilate the Tatars, and first received an imperial commission. He'd likewise performed such an obeisance frequently, perhaps daily, as he'd promised since first climbing atop holy Barkhan Khaldun and prostrating himself before the eternal blue sky to seek help in recovering his beloved wife. He would continue to bow before heaven, but it had been Temujin the boy who had deigned to do so to another man. Now Nihon fifty years old, Genghis, Khan of the Mongols, would do so again

to none but the Almighty. He'd been made a slave once before, and he would never voluntarily slip a kang around his neck again, not even a golden one. The Jain ambassador was received at Genghis's encampment, or somewhere outside of it, by the Khan on horseback. The two dismounted and approached each other, respective retinues in tow. The Jain emissary, almost certainly a minor prince or royal clansman, either read or recited the stock order of submission, bow down before your rightful lord and be confirmed in your office by the emperor, yadda yadda yadda. When he'd finished, however, the Mongol lord did not take to his knees as expected. Instead, he turned due south, directly towards the Jain capital city, and spat. Quote, then he proceeded to unleash a line of vindictive insults to the

Golden Khan, mounted his horse, and rode toward the north, leaving the stunned envoy choking in his dust. Following his snubbing of the Jain Emperor's envoy, Genghis returned to his home base along the Haraloon River and called another Carltai. This would not be to confer some new set of titles or honors upon him, but instead to bring his plan of attack to what amounted, in essence, to a vote. As before, the tribes under his dominion could show their assent by attending, or their dissent by keeping away from the conclave, and if no quorum was met, then he'd be unable to proceed with his plan.

There can be little doubt, however, that he knew how the vote would turn out before he even called the meeting. His people desired wealth and treasure, and all those lay south. His daughter's wedding to the Uyghur Khan had made sure that all well understood that truth. And so, in our next episode, Genghis Khan will unleash his full fury against the empire of black and gold, the Jin Dynasty. Thanks for listening. 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.