The Rest Is History - 166. Genghis Khan: Lord of the Mongols

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

The second of two episodes on Genghis Khan, listen to yesterday's pod (165. The Rise of Genghis Khan) before listening to this one! 'An almost sacral figure' in the words of Tom Holland, Genghis Khan has become the paramount leader of the Mongols.  Can we call his kingdom a 'Mongol Empire'? What was his aim? And why are some now calling him an 'eco-warrior'?! Join The Rest Is History Club for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. We will make you Khan. You shall ride at our head against our foes. We will throw ourselves like lightning on your enemies. We will bring you their finest women and girls, their rich tents like palaces. Those were the chieftains of the Mongols speaking to...

What was that? Is that a mongolian accent yeah have you not been to mongolia tom i haven't no i had no idea that's what they said so you're not familiar uh with the mongolian accent as i am i mean i haven't been to mong but you know i've done it um okay very impressive yeah so so ali as you recognise, that was a really quite sensitive and very appropriate rendition. I wasn't in any way orientalising. I was convinced. Yeah, of the Mongol chieftains speaking to Genghis Khan or Chinggis Khan. Chinggis. Yeah, when he becomes...

It's like when he becomes Ulaanbaatar. It is. When he becomes their paramount leader. So welcome back to our second episode on Genghis Khan. We are, of course, joined again by Ali Ansari. So, Ali, to kick off, a question from Mark Woodhouse. What on earth was Genghis Khan trying to achieve? What on earth was Genghis Khan trying to achieve? I think basically his destiny was really to, I mean, this is the interesting thing. So if you consider his title to be Lord of all those who dwelt and felt tense, his ambition really was to bring all the nomads under his control. And then China, which was normally their number one target, was the place you plunder to keep everyone happy and bring the, it's not really a question of immediately of conquest, although what you do see with Genghis Khan is this desire for ultimately to take over these areas.

But the standard, you know, the standard nomad warlord modus operandi is, you know, you bring all these tribal groups together and then you go and plunder the Chinese. I mean, that's basically that's that's what you do and um i think i mean were his ambitions obviously you know in retrospect and with the benefit of hindsight it was to be ruler of the world um i think at the time it's basically this notion if you accept that title that he would be ruler of all those on the plains on the steps and then obviously china is the place you go and sort of have a bit of fun so essentially he's become paramount leader and he needs to keep his men happy. Yes.

And you keep them happy by providing them with plunder. So initially his aim is just to get plunder, but he finds he's so good at the whole conquering thing that his horizon start to expand. I think there's definitely an element of that. Yeah. There's definitely an element of that where, you know,

you sort of feel goodness, this is actually turning out rather well. And, you know, let's keep going. So, I mean, initially, you know, what he does is he attacks those parts of the Chinese Imperium that are basically closest to the nomadic, you know, the northern Chinese kingdoms. And then he moves to the, if I've got the name right, I think the Qin dynasty in the north where you have where modern Peking and other places are. And that's his focus. So he's he's basically declared Genghis Khan in 1206. And, you know, for the next 14 years or so, his focus is on China. I mean, that's what he's up to. So there are two great kingdoms, aren't there? There's the Tanguts, the Western Zhizhi. Zhizhi, yeah. Basically, he kind of reduces them to a tributary status. Yeah, yeah. And then the Qin, who basically he's going after.

But as I said, the interesting thing is he has less success initially in reducing the cities because it's quite difficult. You know, they're not as competent at dealing with, you know. But the Qin, the Qin, the Qin, the Qin Emperor. So chin the chin the chin emperor so the tanglets are being attacked by the mongols by gingis khan yeah and they send a messenger to the chin saying please would you come and help us yeah um and they reply it works to our benefit where our enemies attack each other how does it endanger us yeah exactly which as a kind of geopolitical judgment is not the best well this, this is the thing. Of course, in previous times, it would have worked.

I mean, the idea is we'll support whichever, we'll create dissension. What they miscalculate, of course, in this case, is that Genghis Khan is of a different caliber of leader. So, yes, that's a miscalculation, I think, on their part on this occasion. But the question then is so as tom tom said you know he needs to deliver plunder and loot for his yeah for his men basically it's a way of

keeping them together it's a way of keeping his own popularity but do you think there's a at this stage there's anything you know you said it was 14 years is there any any moment where he has thought you know what actually i could go i could go further i could become an empire builder rather than just an empire looter or do you think he was i think he does no i think he does i think as he finds success in northern china i mean i think he does become you know his idea of being an empire builder certainly that now one one of the things you know one of the debates that you have and it's in the secret history and it's in the persian histories is this idea of jengis khan as a law giver you know yeah this idea of the great Yasa of Genghis Khan.

Of course, there's huge debate among historians about whether this existed. I mean, nobody knows whether Genghis Khan had a Yasa. But it's this idea that certainly in retrospect, they apply this to him. He's a great lawgiver. And it's part of the way in which his image has slightly been softened. But there's no actual evidence, actually, that this great law code existed during his lifetime. So, again, it's this sort of idea of whether he had a plan or whether it was, oh, this is going rather well. So I will now have a plan, you know.

But so you say, is this about the script as well? Because he devises a script, doesn't he? Well, again, it's a matter of, you know, the secret history is written in a sort of Uyghur script. Much I have to say to the absolute contempt of Persian historians who think this is the utmost act of vulgarity, I'm sorry to say.

But, I mean, this script, so it derives ultimately via the Uyghurs from the Sogdians from Aramaic,, ultimately back to Hebrew. I mean, it's kind of an amazing, amazing thought that this script in Mongolia comes all the way from, you know, has this incredibly kind of lengthy genealogy. But are you saying that the stories that Genghis Khan recognising that he needs lords and that lords will require a script, that this is not true? This is not actually true. It's a matter of some... I mean, people say there's no evidence

of it actually existing at the time. I mean, this is the problem. It's part of the, I suppose, the rehabilitation of the wrong term. But, you know, you're trying to... You're almost trying to turn Genghis Khan into some sort of enlightened despot. Yeah.

He's a lawgiver. So I reviewed this book called fake history last year right in which they referred to him throughout as khan and oh dear and uh in that it basically said it said that genghis we'd all got completely the wrong idea about khan because he was um he was very enlightened he was a liberal i'd used the words i said it was very inclusive and diverse and all that kind of thing so basically madden made him sound like i don't know um sir ed davy the leader of the liberal democrats i mean you know a lot of these we've had these discussions before you know a lot of this is sort of transplanting our modern notions

of of what it means to be a political leader back into them you know and who is doing that who's doing who's doing this is it the chinese is it the mongolians is it well i think the mongolian academics i mean ever since the mongolian you know ever since you know uh that was quite interesting i mean i when i studied this back at university of course it was it was um i hesitate to say this now to reveal all sorts of but you know before the fall of the iron curtain so you know it was before mongolia really sort of came out into the light and of course then you know what the mongolians did is they wanted to sort of like emphasize just what a wonderful character chengis khan was he's the father of the nation you see so you know you get this sort of came out into the light and of course then you know what the mongolians did is they wanted to sort of like emphasize just what a wonderful character chengis khan was he's the father of the nation you see so you know you get this sort of reinvention of him really and um a lot of protests obviously from people saying you know how dare you you know criticize him for being

um you know somewhat more brutal or perhaps you know uh he's you know he was actually a very very sort of decent chap well i mean the problem with that is it's completely ahistorical. That's just not how he would have basically seen it. He clearly was a much more sophisticated political operator than many of his rivals. Otherwise, he wouldn't have succeeded the way he did. But I don't think he had any qualms about... He'd boil you if he had to. Well, or massacre you.

Well, we know this, don't we? Because I think that this is authentic that he i mean he's reduced the tangos to submission yeah and he does end up taking beijing yeah after kind of a lengthy process and ambassadors come from the persian world yeah and they visit what had been beijing and they say that the soil is greasy with human fat. That's right. And that some of their train fall sick because there are so many rotting bodies. And that sense of great piles of the dead littering what had originally been a city.

I mean, presumably not invented from nothing. There must be some basis of fact for this. I mean, that not invented from nothing. There must be some basis of fact for this. I mean, that's the interesting thing. If you look at it, it is largely, you take it from many of the Persian historians that are writing at the time. I mean, it's a great, you know, from a historical point of view, going back to our previous encounter, this is the great flourishing of Persian historians, actually. I mean, it's sort of like a great crisis and they all have to write something and say, how the hell did this happen? But it's quite clear from the accounts that they're truly shocked at the scale of the violence. I mean, they are shocked. Now, obviously, they exaggerate, you know, they're talking about millions and millions of people being massacred and this sort of thing. And obviously, that's, you know, people will dismiss that in terms of, you know, how realistic is that for Central Asian cities and others and Khorasan. But I think it's a good evocation of how distressed they were about the scale of the violence. And, you know, of course, the other thing is, it is quite true that Mongol violence was not indiscriminate in the sense that if you submitted, it was fine.

You know, but if you didn't submit, it was pretty indiscriminate. I mean, that's the thing. So and and and you know there was no compromise on this so the fact that these medieval historians if i can put it that way are themselves horrified at the scale and you know tom's quote is absolutely right i actually read i think it was one of the central asian i mean actually in horasan where they talk about you know sludging through what they thought was well actually what they thought was something else you know and then it's actually the sort of molding you know the bones that have been sort of basically uh uh effectively going into mulch effect you know it's it's really quite grotesque the way they describe it what they've encountered um it's uh you know it it clearly expresses a um something that even for their time they found

quite shocking the The Qin retreat. So they've come from Manchuria, which is why their capital is Beijing. They go down to Kaifeng. That's where it becomes their capital. The Song Dynasty in the south of China, they're as yet untouched. Yeah, that's for the next generation. And at this point, Genghis sends ambassadors westwards. He does.

Does he not? To try and kind of negotiate trading agreements. Well, he sends merchants first. And the merchants are basically roughly treated. So talk us through that. Tell us a bit about the – because there's a big state, isn't there? Yeah, the Khwarazm Shahs are basically a successor, essentially, to the – if I'm not mistaken, the Seljuks. It's basically an Iranian dynasty, if I can put it that way. And it's an Iranian dynasty, but not a very good one, it has to be said. Now, there are two characters in this. There's Mohammad Shah, who's actually the king. There's his son, who's very interesting, Jalal ad-Din. And Jalal ad-Din is actually portrayed quite heroically in the in the accounts and apparently Genghis Khan quite respects him because he fights I mean he he fights when his father his father basically runs I mean he runs almost immediately but

essentially what happens these merchants come in I think a local governor says you know you lot are all spies you know and basically I think executes quite a few of them anyway this is obviously a no-no I, it's very possible they were spies. I mean, this is the other thing. I mean, it's a matter of debate. Was Genghis Khan simply going to investigate trade routes? Possibly, but, you know, his modus operandi was somewhat different. The Liz Truss.

I mean, you know, again, I don't want to be cynical about it, but at the end of the day, you know, he probably was also going to use information. But obviously, the reaction of the Khuras and shahs was and their governors was extremely reckless they then sent ambassadors one two uh mongol ambassadors and a muslim um i think it's the muslim one who's actually executed because they say you know what the hell are you doing you know at the mongol embassy and they're sent back again and this now this is where you get the concept of the storm from the east by the way because what jengenghis Khan then does around 1219, I think it is. He then organizes the largest army he'd ever had actually under his control.

It's about 100,000. So 10, two months, 100,000, including obviously heavy cavalry, the light cavalry, the whole works. I mean, we have this image of the Mongolongol army being all archers and but they're not quite a lot of them are heavily armored you know the warriors on horseback so they're bringing all the siege engines too that they've got now they're bringing stuff in yeah and these people are presumably not all mongols no not at all no i mean it's obviously picked up all sorts of other you know all the the basic tribal confederacy the the imperial expansion brings in so i think actually mongols proper are probably a minority so chinese um not so much i'm not sure about there would be some siege he has a chinese advisor doesn't he he does he has the famous chinese advisor who he does have i mean they do have siege you know i can't remember his name

he's long beard i think he's called they all have these great names, actually. So this invasion of Central Asia and then Khorasan is probably the most devastating. I mean, it does an enormous amount of damage. And it is, in effect, a punitive raid on a grand scale. I mean, there's a wonderful account when he takes Bukhara, he initially going into center. So actually, let me rein back a bit there. So the Khwarizm Shah, having insulted Genghis Khan to this sort of extent, then decides that it's not worth fighting him in battle, because it's a bit worrying. So he retreats into his cities and his castles and so on and so forth. Bad idea. I mean, very bad idea. He's stuck in his and basically flees. His son actually does a bit of fighting, but eventually is defeated and flees to India, actually. But it's and also in a very dramatic way. But what Genghis Khan does when he takes Bukhara, there's a famous account of him in Juvaini in particular, where he goes up to the minaret in Bukhara, having taken it. And he has this account where he says, you know, you basically it's, it's the Muslim justification says you have sinned,

you know, your people have sinned. How do I know you've sinned? Because I'm here basically. And I'm your punishment. And if you hadn't sinned, I wouldn't be here basically. So he's sort of retrospective justification of what's going on.

And the significant thing about that anecdote about Bukhara is that he's actually gone into the city. Yes. Which implies that normally he doesn't normally go into cities. I mean, again, it's a slightly apocryphal story in the sense that some people say, the idea that he would have gone up and made that statement seems to be really an embellishment of later basically Persian historians saying, how do we explain this complete catastrophe that has befallen us? It must be because we've all sin all sinned well another thing that i want to ask about is if it's apocryphal so it is said that when he takes some of these places otra for example yeah he kills all the civilians yeah um or a lot of them the rest of them are sold into slavery um people are executed

by having silver melted silver poured into their ears and eyes and things like that. So are these stories exaggerated or do you think there's some truth in them? Well, I think some of them are. I mean, some of them are embellished to make them sound more dramatic, but some of them are. So the two cities, I think, that really suffer, I mean, suffer very badly, are actually, it's Khorasan that basically gets the brunt of this. And what Gengis han does he sends his son i think his younger son tolui to deal with horasan uh and you know arguably that the children of the conqueror are even less you know he didn't have a troubled upbringing really

so uh he's he's less compassionate um marav is one of the cities which i understand i mean again it depends how big you think these cities were in sort of 1220 or 1221. But assuming, for instance, that a lot of people from the hinterland would have gone into the city for protection, you can imagine the population of these cities had been sort of basically ballooned up. Mariv was basically flattened. I mean, that, in one of the interesting, I mean, even archaeologists today going there, they'd realize that Mariv never recovers. I mean, it never recovers from it. Not only do they flatten it, they execute everyone.

And normally what they do, and this is also quite, again, a shocking thing in a sense, is after the defeat of the city, there and Nishapur was the other one, they basically allocate to every Mongol warrior gets 400 people to execute. I mean, that's basically what they do. So like sheep? Yeah. They bring them out and they say and they say right you know you're all going to get 400 they keep i think in one case they kept you know 400 artisans that they were going to keep for various and actors obviously and and other things for their for their enjoyment and and benefit but everyone else is basically obliterated and they shall fall is that true i mean the evidence is

yeah i mean the archaeological evidence also tends to so are we are we talking millions because that's how that's what people talk about well people talk millions are killed i don't think i don't think you can realistically say that you know a million people are killed in a single city i mean i don't know that china the population of china is obviously vaster than what you're going to find here these are very big cities though aren't they i mean this is the thing so a lot of our listeners sort of anglo-american listeners yeah we'll I mean, this is the thing. So a lot of our listeners, sort of Anglo-American listeners, will be like, well, this is the back of beyond. But this is Central Asia.

These are what are now the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and so on. And they are incredibly sophisticated, rich, successful places. I mean, I would certainly put the population at several hundred thousand. I mean, in some of these cases. So particularly if you think of the hinterland certainly put the population at several hundred thousand. I mean, in some of these cases. So particularly if you think of the hinterland and all the people rushing into the city.

So if you're saying that they kill everybody apart from 400 artisans, I mean, they're literally killing, I don't know, 400,000 people. It seems to me, I mean, again,

you know, let's say certainly, and i mean we're only talking about two cities here by the way because most of the other cities then submit surrender and also ali the other famous thing is the pyramids of skulls yeah well they again they say that that they separate the women the female and the male skulls and they build them up and the children be honest the pyramid of skulls is more something attributed to tamerlane yeah it's and that's when tamerlane if for a separate podcast over tamerlane was basically trying to emulate jengis han yeah yeah right he was oasis to

you know so he was trying to go one better i mean one of our listeners uh gavin griffith said uh if he killed as many people as the history books say where are all the skeletons and i think some historians have said this, haven't they? They expect more mass graves. They would expect some sort of archaeological evidence of a slaughter on this scale. And it may have been embellished, you know, to... But it's in everyone's interest to embellish this in a way. It's an opposing...

I think the sort of millions and millions is... The millions, you know, when people talk... I mean, I've heard something as a 40 million or something. I mean, I think that's excessive. I think it the millions, you know, when people talk, I mean, I've heard something as a 40 million or something. I mean, I think that's excessive. I think it's entirely, you know, possible during the duration, certainly of the Mongol Empire that, you know, four to five million people would have been slaughtered in various campaigns. I mean, it's not impossible. If you're talking about these cities, let's say a conservative estimate for Marav would be 200,000, 250,000. Neshapur was a major city at the time. It has

never recovered. I mean, it's never recovered. And of course, people say, well, you know, where are the mascots? I mean, I'm not saying there's been a huge amount of archaeological work done on Neshapur or Marv, there's been more, but not enough really to see what's going on. And obviously, but Neshapur, you know, the story with Neshapur is that I think Genghis Khan's son-in-law is accidentally killed. Someone on the battle think Genghis Khan's son-in-law is accidentally killed. Someone on the battlements fires an arrow and the son-in-law of Genghis Khan is killed. And therefore they say to his widow, you know, what is your retribution? She says, I want the place, everyone dead.

And it's not just everyone, it's dogs, cats, everything is slaughtered. As the Romans did. So that, you know, so again, I wouldn't want to, you know, I think people, there's an attempt to, I suppose, you know, revise the scale of the Mongol devastation. I wouldn't. I mean, I think certainly even people at the time were shocked. But figures of one or two million are obviously an exaggeration. I don't think these cities were one or two million. I mean, that's too much. OK, let's take a quick break there and we will see you back it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. So, Ali, I mean, the whole thing is that when insults are

done, then retribution is swift so at Merv isn't it right that they actually capture some of the Mongols and parade them through the streets yeah yeah yeah no it's terribly bad yeah and so the lesson which then starts to kind of yeah starts to ripple southwards to um to the Islamic empire to uh to the Abbasid empire and westwards towards Rus and then ultimately Latin Europe, is that you surrender. Yeah. Or everything.

Well, that's what the city of Herat does. So the city of Herat hears what happens to the Nisropor and immediately submits. And it's fine. But, you know, the other thing that they have, and this goes to Tom's point, of course, is that there's a sort of, you know, they sort of think it's a wave of tribal

marauders they come in they wreak havoc and they'll bugger off and once we bugger off we can sort of get back to normal that what the what on occasion happens and again it's in the historical record is that what they do is they send parties back just to check that they got everyone yeah i mean this is you know and and there are some horrendous cases of you know people coming out of their sort of caves and stuff say oh it's all all right now where they can sod off. And then suddenly a party of, you know, Mongol reconnaissance force comes out and say, ah, you know, and basically, you know, finish off what's left. But it's interesting at this early stage, it is a massive punitive raid, but it's so destructive, actually, that nothing really replaces it. So that when ultimately successors of Genghis Khan come in to establish government,

you know, they, they, they basically able to move in a lot more, more easily. There's nothing that really replaces the, you know, the,

the dynasty that was, was defeated. And at this stage. So to, I know we said we wouldn't talk about him, but let's bring back the parallel with Alexander. Okay. So,

so Alexander keeps going and going and going, and he's obviously addicted to some extent to the thrill of conquest and, you know, the expectation of capturing cities and all that. Why does Temujin, why does Genghis Khan keep going? Why doesn't, I mean, there's no, there's no, at no point does he think, okay, this is my empire now, you know, running it is going to be really interesting, building waterworks and organising tariffs and taxes. I mean, obviously, he doesn't think that and he just keeps going. Do you think there was ever a possibility that he might have stopped? Well, the interesting thing here is that he doesn't, I mean, he's actually quite keen to get back to China. I mean, that's what he really wants to target. But one of the things that

happens here, which is, for me, one the most astonishing uh bits of military history that you'll ever that you'll ever see is the he has this lieutenant the lieutenant being the wrong word really but anyway his deputy let's say called sobriety one of my favorite names ever i have to say uh sobriety is one of his sort of chief lieutenants who he sends off who he basically, let me do a reconnaissance in force and see what the hell is out there further west. Yeah. And he lets him go. They take 30,000 warriors. They go, basically, the argument is to find out

where this Khwarezm Shah is hiding. So they go through the Caspian and whatever. But he then takes essentially, and interestingly enough, we were talking about this earlier, Gibbon is the one who basically says it's one of the most extraordinary bits of military achievement in history. Sobhidai takes 30,000 men, goes careering around the southern Caspian, up through the Caucasus, basically beats everything

that he sees, straight up into Kievan Rus, defeats them there. Although it's not entirely, you know, it's not entirely one side. He does ultimately end up defeating them, but he does it through guile, because with 30,000 men, you're not going to do a huge amount but basically does this entire tour after three years and then joins the main mongol force returning back to mongolia and china almost on cue i mean it's and it's an extraordinary reconnaissance and force and if i may say so it's probably the you know the mongols are the only peoples to have successfully invaded russia in winter and they do that because they use the rivers the frozen rivers as roads and ali is that when they they capture the various princes of muscovy and uh not you know at this time they

haven't i mean that's later that's under ogadai and and so it's under ogadai when they have the feast and they crush them to death yeah yeah that that's a yeah that and sobadai does that too i mean sobadai so this is basically his let's see what's out here you know because that's enough because that story that they uh listeners to the uh the 10 worst parties in history may remember that uh the abbasids treated the emmaids like this yeah and just like genghis khan treated um jemuka that you're not allowed to spill the blood of yeah someone of royal blood yeah so they they Abbasids treated the Umayyads like this. And just like Genghis Khan treated Jamukha, that you're not allowed to spill the blood of someone of royal blood. So they capture these princes, lay them out as a foundation,

and then build a huge, great structure and have a feast on top of them. And they kind of get crushed to death. So fun times. Mstislav the Thleird of Kiev. That's how he meets his end, isn't it? He's crushed under the dining table. But they've got to Samara in Russia. They've got to Crimea on this expedition.

I mean, for a sort of scouting expedition. It's extraordinary. It is absolutely extraordinary. I mean, for me, it's astonishing. They capture the Genoese trading post, don't they? I think they get in there. I mean, obviously, it's a reconnaissance he doesn't stay but but the point is is that it for me what's remarkable about it i mean let's think about we're talking about the 1220s he's still able somehow to do

this and to rejoin the main mongol force almost on cue i mean this is what's remarkable about it it's not he gets lost and you know he goes back joins the mongol army and then they go back obviously to finish off to do what they're going to do in China. And that's when, obviously, some of the significant conquests are taking place. But Sopadai is an extraordinary figure. And of course, later on, under Ogedei, is the leader of the assault on Europe. episode perhaps but as you said they go back to china basically jingis's focus is on china but but particularly on um on the poor old tanguts well they who have what have they done if they had a rebellion the tango they've had a rebellion and it's such a stupid thing to do so john man who wrote a very good book on on jingis khan said of of the way that that uh jingis khan treated the tango so basically he he sweeps in i mean he annihilates them all the emperor goes to to beg for forgiveness he gets killed everybody gets killed that and he says that there is a case to be made that this was the first ever recorded example of attempted

genocide it was certainly very successful ethnocide ali i don't know what you make of that um i mean i it there are certainly cases and there have been arguments that have been a number of uh peoples who they they sought, you know, eliminate. I'm not as keen as applying some of these modern terms anyway to this period. But on the other hand, I'm also not going to soften, I think, what was going on. I mean, this was, you know. Because the Tanguts do vanish, don't they? Yeah, I mean, there's all places that do essentially vanish.

And, you know, one of the arguments about the cities and their attitude to cities is as nomads, they had no particular sentimentality about cities and actually thought them, as I said, as dens of iniquity. So, you know, in that they were sort of cleaning up. And, you know, similarly in terms of people who might have betrayed them or whatever. By this stage, of course, Tom, I mean, you know,

the view of themselves as destined to rule the world would have been fairly well established. So anyone rebelling, you know. Well, that raises a really interesting question, Tom, I mean, you know, the view of themselves as destined to rule the world would have been fairly well established. So anyone rebelling, you know. Well, that raises a really interesting question, Ali, because if we just sort of step back and think about the map, they've taken most of China or lots of China. Northern, yeah. They've got a dominion that goes all the way through Afghanistan, through Central Asia. They've been to Crimea. They've been to Crimea. They've been to Kiev.

They've been up into Russia on the Volga. But is that an empire? I mean, are there any governing structures? Are there any systems of tribute and taxation? Are there the communications links and all that that we would regard as marking an empire? Or have they just been and gone? Well, Dominic, actually, that very question

has been asked by Eric the Red Wang. What a wise person he is. Great name. And he says Genghis Khan rapidly conquered a huge swathe of Eurasia. Can we properly call his holdings an empire? I think at this stage, it's a tribal confederacy. And there are large parts of it that remain that

really throughout, even when you get to, you know, Kublai Khan and the others. It does develop, I mean, they do bring in administrators to run the thing for them, basically Persian and Chinese. I mean, that's, that's basically where the administrators come. But it is, it is a quintessential example of small government in practice, it has to be said, I mean, that you do not have a bureaucracy in the sense that we would understand it, except out know out certainly outside uh the chinese and persian sort of um uh conquests uh but it is it is essentially run through the family and the extended family and the blood brothers and others and and that's how it's run in particularly you know your favorite on the golden horde and obviously the yeah i was like i like if i have a horde i'd have a golden hoard. It's basically, you know, those are tribal confederacies. But it is, I think you can describe it as an empire. So in other words. I think at this stage, it's in the process of formation, I think is the way to look at it.

But if you're living in the empire. So in other words, when I go to any website or open any book about Genghis Khan, there was always a map. This is the Mongol Empire at the time of his death in 1227. And it's sort of all shaded. Is that an accurate, you think that's a fairly accurate reflection. So the people living in a given town in that place sort of said that the overlords now, I mean, they may never have seen them, but they will know the overlords now are these fellows from Mongolia. Well well it depends on you know

what the mongols did obviously is they that so the death of jengis khan in 1227 it's basically the area we're talking about is still essentially the eurasian step right so that's the key thing isn't it i mean so they're not you know they're not actually into persia proper they're not into southern china um obviously if you're a peasant or whatever i mean perhaps the relationship you have is no different because you're still paying your taxes to your local lord. The fact is your local lord is then going upwards and eventually who's getting the benefit of that labor is obviously a Mongol warlord of some sort. Yeah. So there's a Mongol warlord on the ladder at the top. I think, you know, by the time that the histories are being written. So when Giovanni writes his history, and I think he

finishes it in 1260, he spent a decade writing it. And the fact that he goes to Karakorum to investigate the secret history and to write the history of the Mongols, the fact that he can go from Persia to Mongolia without being hassled, without being harassed, shows that this is a... So, I mean, Ali, you've put this in the broadest historical sweep. Essentially, the whole history of Eurasia, you could say, has been about the tension between settled empires and nomads beyond the limits of those empires. Those are the two ways in which humans, you know,

since the Iron Age have been able to live, since the domestication of the horse, so that people in the steppes can go vast distances. And when Genghis Khan dies, he's conquered northern China. That's right. But southern China, Song China, remains proof against him. India remains proof. Persia, the Abbasid Empire, and Latin Europe,

and the Orthodox world. Yeah. The question that the Mongols face when Genghis Khan dies is, can they go beyond just being a steppe empire? Yeah. And actually absorb these very, very ancient, settled cities? And that, of course, is a question that we'll'll leave for another episode but not to give too much away yeah they do and what it is i mean you know what it is actually is a testament to jengis khan's charisma i mean it's it because you know what dominic was saying earlier are there sort of imperial structures government there aren't really you know i mean there isn't i mean there's a sort

of a a network uh but what it is is a testament to the charisma of this individual that his his successors, his sons and others will pursue it. You know, particularly in Iran or Persia, you know, the shattering of the Khwarezm shahs. Yes, it doesn't mean that there's a that the Mongols are in control of it, but it's a vacuum. It's a political vacuum, in a sense, for several decades until the Mongols then do come and take over in a more systematic way. But you're right. I mean, I think for me, it's the Mongol Empire is is is extraordinary case study. I mean, obviously viewed from afar, you know, a case study that is shows the power, the, you know, the extraordinary power of nomadic peoples, well-organized, with a charismatic leader, politically able, obviously, but with a charismatic leader

and how they can sort of basically express that power. It's a real sort of rebuttal, in a sense, to our standard notions of civilization, if I may put it that way, and, you know, urban centers and this sort of thing. You know, it's the largest contiguous land empire in history. I mean, it's almost beyond comprehension in some ways.

It doesn't last very long. I mean, the fact that it doesn't last very long ultimately is a sign that its institutional basis is obviously quite as much weaker. Let's go back to Genghis Khan, just finish him off. Sure. So there are different versions of his death. I'm just trying to work out how old he was. So he is... Quite old, isn't he?

Yeah, he's late 60s, probably. I thought he was 70s or so. Yeah, early 70s. Some people say he falls off his horse while hunting. Some people say he's been hit by an arrow, an affected wound. And there's even a story that he's been stabbed by one of his wives or concubines or something, a princess that he's castrated.

To castrate him. Yes. It's one of the stories. Great favourite of yours, of of yours of course tom yeah turns him into a eunuch um so so ali i mean basically we just don't know is that we don't know we we don't know we know i mean the arguments obviously about his and this is one of the great you know for the um indiana joneses of the world you know to try and find where the hell his tomb is um where his burial site is. He wants no sign. I mean, basically his request is, I don't want to, nobody should know where I am.

And of course, you know, and I think it's in the, I don't know which film it's in, I think it's in the Omar Sharif film, actually, rather than the John Wayne film. You know,

the scene of the sort of the funeral cortege going and anything that crosses the path of the funeral cortege is slaughtered, you know. So that they won't give away the location. Beast, animal you know animal human whatever so that nobody can bear witness to where that must be that can't be true well i mean the truth the only the only the only thing is it is true is we don't know where he's buried it'd be demented to have people chasing after a stoat or something to try and kill it i mean you sort of think i mean this is the thing with archaeology

that with aerial record you know sort of the area you I mean, you sort of think, I mean, this is the thing with archaeology that with aerial, you know, sort of the area you might sort of see where the land has been disturbed or whatever. But it is interesting that there's just absolutely, we don't really know. I mean, we just- I was reading about this. I don't know whether this is true,

that there's a kind of holy mountain. Really? That's very associated with Genghis Khan's life and death. And it is widely thought that he was buried on the sunny side the sunny slope of this mountain and that um expeditions keep not digging there and the implication is is that quite a lot of these expeditions that are kind of sent by Chinese or Japanese companies are actually prospecting you know they're kind of they're looking for minerals or whatever and

that there's a kind of agreement with the mongolian authorities that they won't desecrate um the likeliest place where he's he's uh he's lying because of course uh jinkis khan now in mongolia is i mean he's almost dare i say a sacral figure yes absolutely i mean he's he's the father of the nation well but more than that i mean he's he's a religious figure he's he's seen as someone who is a kind of interface between the divine and the mortal. So he has this incredible kind of resonance. I mean, there's a wonderful, from Matt Yuki, who said, in Ulaanbaatar, I sat in the Genghis Khan pub on Genghis Khan street,

eating a Genghis Khan burger and drinking Genghis Khan vodka. Of course, I mean, the thing is, he was a teetotaler. I mean, he didn't drink. The Mongols drank heavily. I mean, they drank this, you know, was it fermented mare's milk? Fermented mare's milk, which is called Arak, which every sort of like vodka that we have in Central Asia is called Arak. But they, Kumis, I mean, but interestingly, Genghis Khan himself was a teetotaler kublai khan and the others on the other hand drank heavily i mean every day was a massive drunk i mean they know i mean all the ilkhan it interestingly in iran basically were alcoholics i mean it was that bad uh but i i think the the mongol mongolian

government brought out a vodka you know called you know Genghis Khan vodka. And someone pointed out that actually, I mean, since he never drank, that's wholly inappropriate. But, you know, they want to make the most, obviously, of the legacy. And there've been some other films that have been made and whatever that obviously look at his rise

and slightly, you know. And how should we remember him, Ali? Should we, I mean, how should we remember him? I mean, is he a figure of fable? Is he a historical figure? I mean, he obviously is a historical figure, but so much of what we think we know about him is on uncertain foundations.

But also, we in the 21st century are much more, I mean, by and large, we're much slower to embrace great men of history who have piled up pyramids of skulls than our predecessors would have been. So do you think, I mean, is it right that we remember him as this dreadful monster? Or do you think actually that's orientalizing and we're projecting a sort of, you know, this sort of idea of the Easter savage and all that?

Yeah, no, I mean, I think you have to just see him as a figure of his time, you know, in the sense of, but without, without you know sanitizing the whole thing and sort of trying to say that somehow he was a you know uh eco warrior of some sort or or you know it wasn't quite so bad and this sort of thing i mean it it's certainly true that i think some of the tropes about the mongols the horde being one of them by the way uh and also the sort of indiscriminate violence it wasn't actually indiscriminate violence, but it was violent. Yeah, it was targeted, but it was violent. I mean, you know, if you rebelled, that was it.

And they struck terror. I mean, their use of terror was extremely sophisticated, if I can put it that way. So I think the whole experience, and I teach the Mongol Empire and stuff, you know, I always use the Mongol Empire as an excellent case study of, you know, what nomadic peoples can do. I mean, with charisma, with limited institutions, with, you know, it's almost antithetical to our understanding what an empire should be. And yet, it was, you know, the most extensive empire that in territorial terms certainly that the contiguous land empire certainly that we've seen um but it's also i mean it's interesting because of the whole discussion on empire of course people are much more uh comfortable in talking about the mongol empire if i can put it that way than they may be of other empires but the mongol empire is it you know the

mongol empire is really what everyone reacts against. Just to end this with three fields. Three fields. Three mighty fields. Three fields of science. And I can see Dominic's happy face light up. But obviously there's so much that we don't know about the early years of Genghis Khan and about the growth of the Mongol Empire and all that kind of thing. But that scientists have kind of shed light on

three distinct areas and one of them is a question that millions of people on the discord and on twitter asked so Oliver Mason is representative is it true that an enormous proportion of people currently alive share his DNA about one in ten I don't know that's interesting I've heard that I've heard that okay well so i asked uh adam rutherford very distinguished scientist uh knows all about this stuff uh and he and and uh how so i said you know how many of us are related to dingus khan he said not properly accounted for but the answer is in the millions he's long enough ago and had so many children that he acts as a near iso point like charlemagne yeah uh so um and then he's he's talking about the

iso point for europe being around at 1000 ad which means anyone who has living descendants from that time or earlier is the ancestor of all europeans and this always kind of makes my head explode anyone who lives in the number of 1000 ad is your ancestor i calculate that the chances that edward iii is not the ancestor of anyone today with British ancestry is 10 to the power of minus 21. So basically, yes, everyone in Eurasia

is descended from Genghis Khan, as I understand, Adam. But I mean, that doesn't mean anything. It just means that we're descended from everybody who lived then. Dominic...

Sorry, Tom, I don't want to... I don't know. I don't know. And then, Ali, this was the other one that you pointed out to me, which is,

and you mentioned it just briefly back then. Dinkes Khan as eco warrior. Yeah. Well, there's been this again. You know, the question is, is was he a conscious eco warrior or not? I mean, there are some people that say, well, you know, his his demolition of cities and stuff was great for CO2 output. I mean, it's a robust policy yeah i mean you know uh in you know returning to nomadic ways of life is is rather good um extinction rebellion yes i mean it's it's uh again i i think this is yeah holy far-fetched and quite unreal i mean it's it's not something that would have crossed his mind um and uh but it's interesting that people try and you know well i don't know why you know they're

determined to you know obviously to find something positive to say um but you know i think there's huge amounts there's huge amounts of interesting things to say about jingis khan the mongols i mean i i think they're fascinating but eco warrior environmentalism isn't one of them so just to be fair and i'm reading the study that you sent me. It's from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Energy. It came out in 2011. And it concluded that Genghis Khan single-handedly scrubbed 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere. I know, exactly. I mean, it's brilliant. I mean, I can see he was calculating that as he was doing it. So just to put that in perspective, that's about the quantity of carbon dioxide generated in a year through petrol. Wow. Through petrol consumption.

Okay. And then there's the third one, which I think is really interesting. Which is probably the most interesting in some ways. Yeah. Which is this idea that the Mongols played a key role in what became the Black Death in Europe. Through the marmot, as you said. Through the marmot. So attentive listeners may remember that we mentioned how timogen when

he was on his uppers was um eating mark reduced to eating marmots and marmots are a kind of rodent aren't they that's right inhabits the step um and they're a kind of snack and they and and and and they use the skins so the mongols use the skins so they would have carried these unfortunate little rodents as snacks or as furs or whatever with them as they spread. And it's turned out that there are four distinct strains of bubonic plague, all of which follow their growth, follows the track lines of four different directions. Yeah, it's fascinating armies so that's that's the thesis presented by um argued by monica green who's a professor of history i think at and basically because of the speed at which they expanded into different areas you know they carried this sort of the the virus with them i mean the only question i have on that uh hypothesis in a sense is is to

what extent the mongols themselves were vulnerable to this sort of, to this virus, you know, to the, to the plague themselves. And again, I don't know, I don't know actually the answer to that really,

in a sense, but it seems to be that where they, where they immune themselves and simply, you know, carrying these, these, these. That seems implausible to me.

Yeah. Marmot skins, you know, with them across, across the world. I mean, it is, it is a kind of interesting answer to the puzzle of why the bionic plague seems not to have affected um

india india yeah the mongols never attacked india so i mean it's a it's it's a great thesis and suggests that perhaps there are um you know i mean it opens up a whole avenue i mean the main the main eco argument really is uh that has gained traction is this idea that you know what was it that encouraged the mongols to go out you know to basically expand and one of those as we discussed is obviously jengis khan's um you know his political motivations but the other was that basically there was a sort of a warming of the climate which allowed uh for the mongols to breed much more horses to sustain many more horses on the plane on the steps but that what that meant also was they needed to basically expand outwards.

They had a lot more capacity for warfare, in a sense, in that sense. Because each Mongol warrior goes, the argument was they had five horses. So they traveled with five horses. So when some of the figures for Mongol hordes are so vast, and some people say that reflects the fact that they're counting every horse. So if you think that Genghis Khan invaded Khorasan with a hundred thousand men I mean you're talking about then five hundred thousand oh it's huge actually when you think about it in terms of logistics right we should return shouldn't we to the issue of the later

Mongols and the creation of the Mongol empire yeah the empire and the attack on Europe I mean because that is an absolutely fascinating subject. And it's the great, I mean, we've talked so much about what-ifs in history. And of course, that is one of the great what-ifs, isn't it? What if the Mongols had kept going or maybe they couldn't have kept going? Well, we can discuss that another time, Ali.

Don't answer that question. Because we'll be here for hours. And Tom will just try to drag science back into it in some way and I'll fall asleep again. Right. Oh, come on, Dominic. That's really interesting. Yeah, fascinating.

It doesn't get more interesting than that. You know I love a scientific chat, Tom. I do, I do. Right. Ali, thank you so much. That was brilliant. Thank you. Really enjoyed it.

A stiff drink of fermented bear's milk. Yeah, I wanted to shout out to my students in St. Andrews, Dom. Oh, well, we're always happy. I'm a former St. Andrew's student myself, Ali. So we're always happy to have St. Andrew's students listening. They join the students of King Edward's Birmingham, JRR Stockings, Alma Mater. If you have a school that you would like to have mentioned

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