Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 195 - Genghis Kahn

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

Genghis Kahn. Damn. I knew the dude was a renowned conqueror. Did NOT know he conquered like no other before or since. At the height of their army, perhaps no army in the world was more feared than the Mongol horde. Mongolian archers were second to none. They planned and prepared more than their adversaries. Their tactics were more ruthless. You'll learn a lot about what the Mongols accomplished during the reign of Genghis today, and also a lot about ancient Mongolia. A fascinating and unique land. Hail Nimrod! We've donated $5,800 this month to the Alzheimer's Association. The Alzheimer’s Association leads the way toward ending Alzheimer’s and all other dementia. To find out more, visit https://www.alz.org/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/C1XhExK-3HA Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Try out Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions: https://badmagicmerch.com/pages/contact Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 8500 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits

Genghis Khan, known as Mongolia as Chinghis Khan, pronouncemem times as Jenghis Khan, and his army of Mongols, the Mongolian Empire, associated with terrible tales of conquest, destruction, bloodshed throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. And rightfully so, in 25 years, 21 of those during the reign of Genghis, the Mongols conquered more territories than the Romans did in four centuries. They kicked a lot of ass to do so. This famed clan leader and his immediate successors created the largest single-bordered empire ever to exist,

spanning the entire Asian continent from the Pacific Ocean to modern day Hungary and Europe. Such an empire could not have been shaped without visionary leadership, superior organizational skills, the swiftest and most resilient cavalry ever known, an army of superb archers referred to as the devil's horseman in western sources, and of course a real gift for wreaking havoc and devastation in Mayhem.

To go along with record-setting mass murder and conquest, Ganges Khan was also a very prolific procreator. Today, more than 15 million men across the globe are his descendants. And there's more to this legendary man's history. He and his offspring reinvented the battlefield from unique strategies and tactics to the first recorded case of biological warfare in early canons. He opened up the Silk Road trade routes and united many of the peoples in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. This is a huge topic to try and fit in roughly two hours, like a massively huge. But we're going to cover a lot of it.

He and his army were basically at war continuously until he died and his army kept on going for another 140 plus years. So many battles. The tale of Genghis Khan is an epic one. And I'm excited to share today on a very rapy and pillagy edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening to Time Suck, your mistake to time suck. Happy Monday in fuck 2020. Holy shit and hail, Nimrod. A pandemic riots, plague of locusts, not even joking. My locusts, they've shown up in the greatest numbers in the past 25 years in parts of East Africa. The UN estimates up to 25 million East Africans

will suffer from food shortages later this year. Who knows how much starvation? What's going on, Lucid Fina? We got murder hornets shown up in the Northwest, literally decapitating honey bees, like sometimes out of some weird shitty B-hor movie. Come on, Bojangles, you and Triple M need to grab your guns and protect us.

I'm Dan Cummins, a suck master, meat sack, trying to roll with one cultural paradigm shift after another just like you, and you are listening to Time Suck. We got a new merch in the store. We just donated almost six grand to ALZ.org to help end Alzheimer's and dementia, link in the episode description, and right now it feels weird to talk about any of that. The murder of George Floyd still news to me when I recorded last week's episode, protests, you know, barely begun. I didn't have time to gather my thoughts,

took me a second to understand it, supporting or not supporting the protests, actually not a political issue. No matter how hard, many in Washington DC and the mainstream media and many of my fellow citizens try to make it to be. Why do we keep trying to frame fucking everything in America into this us versus

them binary arguments? It's bullshit. Life is not black and white. To everyone who tries to spin this into a, if you're for the protest, you're against the police. And if you're for the police, you're racist, fuck off. The protests are not about looting, right? Not about being liberal, supporting good law enforcement officers, not about being conservative. The protests right now, in my opinion, are about human rights. Racial equality is about civil liberty for everyone. Is anything more American than civil liberty and protests? Were a nation built on revolution, a nation supposedly built on liberty and justice for all?

And now it's un-American to revolt? No. A lot of the same people saying the government didn't have the right to tell them to stay at home during a pandemic or now in favor of the government shutting protests down. Fucking what? That is the ultimate hypocrisy. It makes no sense. I support the protests, not the looters, not fuck the police, the protests.

Why because black lives do matter to me? And that doesn't mean other lives don't. Please don't twist it into that. Black lives matters. Means right now no race needs a support of America more than the black race. The form is needed. Change is needed. The stats back that and it's happening, you know, some reforms, some changes is going on right now and I'm excited. It feels like some really good healing might come from all this. It's a really good unity. Why be against that? I'm hopeful the changes come and will help

the black community and help law enforcement. In order for the public to properly trust law enforcement, bad officers, they have to go. The more good cops there are, the easier their dangerous jobs become because they're met with trust instead of fear and anger from the people that are paid to protect, not the people that are paid to terrorize.

Weeding out bad officers is the best thing to do for everyone. Some professions, they need to be held to higher standards and law enforcement, one of those professions. Kate Keats, one half of the spicy club who works with us now in the sucked dungeon, she found a great Chris Rock quote that speaks to that. Chris Rock, one of the greatest comics of all time. Top 10 easy. And this is very wise, man once said, I know it's hard being a cop, but some jobs, you

can't have bad apples. Everybody got to be good, like pilots. American Airlines can be like, most of our pilots like to land We just got some bad apples like the crashing of mountains Team meets that forever and hailed them Ron. Let's talk about gang is con now All right heads up my pronunciations maybe more often ever on this one a This is how you pronounce Mongolian words in English guide, may exist. I sure as hell couldn't find it. Most of what I was able to find came from short gang

as con documentary videos on YouTube. So I hope they're accurate. Before we dig into one of the most legendary meat sacks ever, let's get an understanding of where he was from, what life was like back when he lived Mongolia, a very unique country, very unique land. And to learn a couple things about Mongolia a very unique country very unique land and to learn a couple things about Mongolia I'll share some interesting info about gangsta's legacy and then we'll dig into the Mongols mystery prowess and then uh uh uh Mr. Dessy mystery we'll dig into the Mongols military prowess maybe maybe they had mystery uh mystery prowess I don't even know what that is

and then it's time suck time long time uh beginning with gangsta's births leading us through a life of unparalleled military conquest. No empire in the history of the world kicked more ass and the Mongols at the height of their power. Right, they were the empire equivalent of a young Mike Tyson, knocking cities out in the first round. The Mongols under Genghis Khan were smart, ruthless, innovative, and just fucking tough.

Maybe being from Mongolia helped with that. It was only the strong, survived kind of place. The life of a person living in the Mongolia gang was born into. It was not an easy one. One had to endure a harsh, nomadic lifestyle in the Mongolian steps. A vegetation was scarce. There was little game to be found compared to say the lush forests of much Europe. And there wasn't a lot of natural shelter due to much of the land being barren,

high desert with very little trees. The train of Mongolia was and is one of mountains and rolling plateaus covered with rocky grass lands, semi desert highlands, flat out deserts, unforgiving. There's the rugged, the rugged, all-time mountains in the west and the north and the high plains in the east and the south. About 80% of Mongolia's lands sits at least a thousand meters or over half mile above sea level. The highest point in the nation is cut and peak. Over 14,000 feet above sea level described on some sites as the most remote peak in the

world. Nation has an average elevation of 1580 meters or 5,180 feet above sea level. It's just a hundred feet shy of a mile over twice the average elevation of the United States. A Mongol is out to his comfortable to Colorado state possessing the highest average elevation in the US at 6800 feet. And if you live somewhere near sea level and aren't used to that it can take quite an adjustment period to get used to it. I learned about that at a comedy festival years ago and asked him Colorado where I party as hard as I had at other festivals or I had during weekends back in college, but instead of just ended up drunk but still able to climb into bed like normal, I ended up literally passed out in the sidewalk. Why? Because drinking at high

altitude exaggerates enhances dehydration. Lower oxygen levels above 5,000 feet make you breathe in and out faster more deeply so that you lose more water through respiration. A lot of long distance runners and other endurance athletes train at high altitude because if your lungs can make do with less oxygen, they can excel in environments full of more oxygen. Makes sense. Even breathing harder in Mongolia than it is in much of the world. In addition to its high altitude, it's also land full of salty lakes, sand dunes, rolling grasslands, alpine forests, frequent earthquakes and glaciers. It's glaciers. Even though much of the land is deserts, they're not super hot all the time kind.

Mongolia winters long and cold with average temperatures across most of the country falling below freezing from November through March. The average high in January is negative 16 degrees Celsius, three degrees Fahrenheit. The average low is negative 26 degrees Celsius, negative 15 degrees Fahrenheit, December and February, not much better.

The temperature dips below negative 40 degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit in parts of the country everywhere. That's super cold. Those are just averages for the whole nation. Obviously, some places cold with the nets. Right. And these temperatures are brutally cold now when we live with the modern amenities of central heating, heated seats and steering wheels, our automobiles, portable electric space heaters.

She had like chemical hand warming packs and winter coats built with innovative new thermal technologies Imagine dealing with those you know rough temperatures with nothing But whatever you or some other villagers could sew or weave together out of animal heights. No, thank you Because it's normally a little frigid mon goli doesn't mean it can't get warm and get pretty hot there too Summers are short, but toasty. Temperatures can top 38 degrees Celsius, 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the southern Gobe region, and 33 degrees Celsius, a little over 91 degrees Fahrenheit. In Ulaan, Pitar, the capital city, which houses almost half of the nation's population of

just over 3 million people. And you heard that number right. Not 300 million, not 33, three in the whole country. Only a little more than three million people live in Mongolia today, despite the nation being in the top 20 for nation's worldwide in terms of overall geographical size. Mongolia, the 18th largest nation on earth, over 1.5 million square kilometers, over 600,000 square miles,

largest landlocked nation in the world that doesn't border a close sea. In terms of population, however, way down towards the bottom at 136th. To put that combination of size and population into perspective, El Salvador has over twice as many people as Mongolia, even though it's only roughly 21,000 square kilometers, 8,000 square miles. Twice as many people, 75 times smaller. Mongolia actually has the lowest population density out of any nation on earth. 1.9 people per square kilometer, about five people per square

mile. And why is Mongolia still so sparsely populated? Drug it. Not an easy land for people to survive in. More talk about Mongolia, more I feel like there is little to no chance. I will ever be hired by their board of tourism. Sounds like a place where if you live there, you will end to take a vacation to Siberia. See some place nicer. Uh, what did Mongols eat in this utopia? I'm sure I'm making sound much worse than it probably actually is. Honey. Mongolia produces more honey than almost any nation in the world,

curiously, and it is the only nation where the Miran honey bush grows. The only shrub that can produce honey without the need of bees. The only honey you can harvest straight from a plant. In addition to this abundance of honey, Mongolia is also covered in various mineral milk springs, over 5,000 natural springs, bubbling up like a root-based milk, similar to say almond milk or soy milk. And that is why Mongolia translates to the land of milk and honey. And that is not true. That's what shit, the world does not have honey bushes.

Milk springs, that'd be fucking sweet though. Imagine you stuck out in the woods. It's like, oh man, I just gotta find some honey bushes. Gotta find me a little milk spring and I'll be good. The etymology of the world of Mongolia is not known with any certainty. It may have derived from Maghulu, four century founder of the Ruron, Cognate, may also be derived from a monkey,

Tengri Gau, eternal sky fire, eternal sky fire. Dope. It's a great band name. Please welcome to the stage, eternal sky fire. It's going to be a good show. But seriously, since they just couldn't pick honey, from some kind of magical honey bush,

couldn't drink milk to bubble up from the ground via super handy dandy milksprings, what did they eat? Honey provided for a larger percentage of food that made it to your table in Mongolia than it did in a lot of other milder climates, full of fruit trees and fertile soil. A lot of Mongols had become real real handy with the bow long before Genghis showed up. There were a lot more hunters than farmers. There were snow leopards, wild sheep, the Siberian Ibex, megahorn goats, Mongolian, Saiga, these mini deer, musk deer, blacktailed gazelles, wild boars elk, black stalks, two

humped bacteria and camel, golden eagles, about 450 species of birds, nine different kinds of snakes and a whole bunch of fish if you want some of that tasty ass water steak. Monk was also a cheese yogurt butter and dried milk curds. Dried milk curds. Yeah, that's not sound delicious. They also drank a mildly alcoholic drink called Kumis made from mayor's milk, fermented horse milk. Fuck yeah bro, delicious.

Sometimes, Kumis also made with donkey milk. Mmm, get some of that sweet fermented donkey milk. Hey bartender, please pass another glass of some fermented donkey milk. Mongolia the milking season for horses traditionally runs between mid-June and early October. I love that there's a horse milk in season. I don't know why milk and horse is so funny to me,

probably because I'm a child. I have the brain of eighth grader, and when I a horse milk and seasoned. I don't know why milk and horse is so funny to me, probably because I'm a child. I have the brain of eighth grader, and when I think about milk and horses, I picture male horses being milked. That is beaten off. I just picture a bunch of Mongolia nomads. Just jerking off bunch of horses, and then fermenting the horse come

into some nasty ass creamy beer. I'm gonna move on now. Good luck getting that image out of your head. Or this next image of something almost as weird but true. Mongols did not drink horse cumbia that I know of, but they did sometimes drink horses blood. Blood from a still living horse. This is intense.

As a last resort to start a save off starvation, on like harsh long rides from place to place, or a little extra strength during a long battle, sometimes Mongols would drink blood straight from their horses' bodies by cutting a vein into their horses' neck and sucking on that like a vampire. Not kidding about that one. Just taking a few steps of horse blood from their steeds and hopping back on and riding back out into battle. According to an account of at least one 13th century Italian diplomat and archbishop Giovanni de Pian del Carpine, one of the first Europeans to enter the court of the great con in the Mongol Empire.

Times got tough enough. The Mongols were also even eat human flesh. Roast up some people they'd taken captive. It's all speaks to how pragmatic the Mongols were, right? They did whatever they had to do to survive. Humans, horse blood, you know, they would do it if they had to. Wasn't their go-to though? Heard of horses, sheep, goats, yaks, camels, gave nomads milk, wool, dung for fuel, and

meat when hunting wasn't working out. Rather than farm because they were nomadic, wasn't a lot of farming being done. Wild fruits and vegetables gathered primarily through foraging, rounded out the diet. Another mammal often hunted by the Mongols that was not a direct source of food in gangus is Mongolia, where other Mongols, nomclife was rough, with raiders frequently coming for your livestock, blood, feuds, clan rivalries, stealing, killing, full-on invasions, not uncommon. It was very much a killer, be killed environment. Centuries of one clan fighting another.

Giant nomadic families continually battling for Mongolian supremacy. So how many Mongols were living like this? Not a ton compared to how populated the world is now. This makes this story this much more impressive too. Just how tough it's like pound for pound, how strong the Mongols were. During Genghis Khan's prime, the population of Mongolia

said to have never spiked above a million. So never more than a million Mongolians for comparison at its height around 160 CE. The Roman Empire said to have had sixty to seventy million people china today around one point four billion people now uh... those one million mongol or sorry and those uh... one million mongols were spread out over an enormous geographic empire the time of genghis death his empire spanned

twelve million square kilometers four point six million square miles by the time as successors were finished the empire would control around twenty four million square kilometers, 4.6 million square miles, by the time as successors were finished, the empire would control around 24 million square kilometers, 9.2 million square miles, well over twice the size of China, which is just over 3.7 million square miles in size. I think there were smaller numbers. Their military tactics, second to none, no, times they lived in, they allowed with their numbers. And a comparatively small number of Mongols consistently took out much larger forces of foreigners.

And what were those million Mongolians doing? What was life like for the average Mongolian? Again, primarily nomads, live in mainland off trade and livestock. Gangus' Mongols lived in garrs. These portable round sturdies, sometimes elaborate tents covered with skins or felt held down with ropes made out of horse hair Designed to be dismantled and carried by camels generally to another site where we take around two hours to rebuild I watched a video on YouTube with some modern gears many Mongolian nomads

You know still living out in the step those vast generally treeless high altitude grasslands of central Asia and these big round tents Generally attached to solar panels now, powering modern electronics inside, like flat screen TVs, pretty wild mix of old and new to see. The Mongolians packed up and traveled based on feeding needs for livestock and trade routes. They traveled from lowlands to highlands, from open valleys in the summer to hidden hilly nooks in the winter to escape brutal winter winds. Mongolia, pneumatic life generally saw men do in the hunting women do in the cooking,

but the division of labor not always that clear cut. Often both sexes would perform the tasks of the other, including using a bow and riding because how much harder was to stay alive in Mongolia compared to other places women often had to hunt and sometimes fight. Mainly though women tended animals set up and packed away camps, drove the tribes wagons, looked after the children, prepared meals, and entertained guests. Things were comparatively more progressive in Mongolia as far as women's roles and rights

than in most other contemporary Asian cultures. Women could, for example, both own and inherit property. Several women even ruled as regions in the spells between the reign of the Great Cons, another area of Mongol life where women were actively involved with religion. Mongols religion, no sacred texts, are particular ceremonies, but rather a mix of animism that believes that objects, places, and creatures all possess distinct spiritual essence, ancestor worship, and shamanism. A religious practice that involves a practitioner,

a shaman, believed to interact with a spirit world through altered states of consciousness. Sounds pretty sweet. Shaman's can be both men and women, thought to be able to communicate with the spirits and travel in their world, helping to find lost souls and divine future events. Other religions will also show up in Mongol culture as they encountered and sometimes conquered Christians and Muslims, Tibet and Buddhism. Also became popular, perhaps the experts say thanks to its shamanistic elements. The Mongols had two main deities, the Earth or Mother Goddess, known as Etugin, who represented

fertility, and also John Mother fucking Cena. Five-time United States Champion, four-time World Tag Team Champion, 16-time World Champion, God of the Mongols Horde tied with Ric Flair, the Nature Boy, for the world's most championship reigns in WWE history. No, that's not true. The Mongol Second Primary DAT was of course not John Cena, not in this portion of the multiverse at least. That'd be pretty sweet.

However, Mongolian wrestling, still a huge sport of Mongolian, was popular during the time of Genghis so that we're a little diversion into John Cena land was entirely random. Wrestling was encouraged to make soldiers strong and fit. Excellent with hand-to-hand combat and the style of traditional Mongolian wrestling, the match ends when one man loses, when he touches the ground with anything other than his excellent with hand-to-hand combat and the style of traditional Mongolian wrestling, the match ends when one man loses when he touches the ground with anything other than his foot and Genghis, a big fan of wrestling. Genghis also likes to wrestle.

Genghis will have a lot of cheetah teal. Well, that's his big deal. I like the Russia Genghis Khan, a conqueror menace small children instead of men in nation. Yeah, I show myself out. Back to that secondary primary, or the second primary Mongol deity now, my God. Their second deity was Tengri, the blue sky or eternal heaven.

This latter deity was seen as a protector god, and crucially, thought by the tribal elites to have given the Mongol people a divine right to rule the entire world. And Genghis Khan and his immediate successors would use this sense of divine right. The con being appointed by God to rule to firmly carry the support of the Mongol people as they kick the shit out of foreign people in places. Conquering almost the entire continent of Asia and a portion of Eastern Europe creating

the largest empire of the world as ever. How many times have we talked about a leader who convinces his people that God wants a derule? What a great rallying cry. Right? We just went over that with Ivan the Terrible a few weeks ago. There are people today who think that the leader of their nation is destined to rule by God. That's so insane to me.

People who say stuff like that, I feel like tend to be like a gangus and Ivan the Terrible. Pretty ruthless dictators. What was the Mongol Empire like before gangus? In the decades before he took over, Mongolia was fragmented. There was the Mongol Empire like before Genghis? In the decades before he took over, Mongolia was fragmented. There was no Mongol Empire. Prior to the reign of Genghis, the Mongolian plateau was occupied primarily by five powerful tribal confederations. Genghis is great grandfather, Kabul Khan, had briefly united much of Mongolia into the Kamag Mongol confederation, and that helped Genghis has claimed to the throne, having a royal lineage, but his grandfather had failed to conquer the nearby Chinese

Jin Dynasty, and then the Confederation fell apart. Genghis Khan was able to consolidate the power of a few relatively small tribes, as his grandfather had, and quickly grow a small army into a powerful fighting force, to consolidate all of Mongolia, and then conquered foreign lands faster and more decisively than any Mongol had before him, faster and more decisively than any Mongol had before him faster More decisively than the Roman emperors than any human being before him And that's why gangus is mostly known for conquering and we're gonna spend the bulk of this stuff talking about his conquering ways But first let's talk let's talk a little bit about his dick not kidding next to conquering gangus Mostly been remembered for fucking

It's one of the reasons present-day Mongolians regard Ganges is the, or regard Ganges, is the founding father of Mongolia. He's literally the forefather to many of Mongolian, a great, great, great, so many more times, great, grandfather to huge percentages of Mongolians and tons of other people thanks to having three separate penises with matching sets of testicles that were sentient and detachable. You know, so he could be fighting present day Afghanistan and he could send like one wing to a concubine in present day Iran and another to present day Siberia. No. He just did a lot of regular old fucking with a lot of regular old wives.

He had around 500 wives and so many children, only his children with his first wife would be recorded three sons and five daughters, but it's thought he at least had, you know, or he had at least several hundred other kids, if not thousands. Harrams and concubines were the norm for high ranking Mongols. Part of it, maybe even most of it, was strategic, a form of empire building. He wasn't necessarily just some sex maniac. Genghis would be here at children with concubines

or take wives from different tribes. He'd join his ranks and then those sons and daughters would hold loyalty to him and help keep everything, you know, united. I wonder if my wife Lindsay would let me have affairs. If I just explained to her that I wasn't doing it just for me, I was doing it for our empire, right? Hailu Susfina. Baby, I'm not just getting random women pregnant from our own satisfaction.

I'm building an empire. I'm building loyalty. Why don't you ever let me build my empires? You say you're supportive. Gangus would unite so many tribes, an international group of geneticists studying why chromosome data found that nearly 8% of the men living in the region of the formal mongol empire carry Y chromosomes that are nearly identical, believe to be descendants of gangus. About 10% of the current Mongolian population, 300,000 people,

about half a percent of the male population in the world thought to be related to Genghis. That's crazy. Also helping to spread Genghis Khan's genes is the fact that a lot of his direct descendants also big tribe uniders. Khan's son Tushi reported to have had 40 sons in addition to an unknown amount of daughters.

Genghis is grandson Kublai Khan, who established a Yuhan dynasty in China, had 22 legitimate sons, reported to have added 30 virgins to his harem each year and produced an unknown amount of daughters in illegitimate sons. So he was also a casual raper. Did Genghis do anything besides Concord rape? Yes, he did some nice things, actually. I'm going to talk about war in a moment. First, let's discuss some of his lesser known, but also very impressive achievements. A gang is personally wove over

10,000 friendship bracelets during his lifetime. I wish that was true. It was such a great weird detail. He was in a digmit wrapped in a rattle, you know? Yeah, sure. I mean, he raved in pillage. That's fucked up. We also made a lot of friendship bracelets. He did unite almost the entire continent of Asia under the so-called Pax Mongolica, or the Mongolian peace. From the 13th to the 14th centuries, thanks to most of Eurasia being under Mongol rule, a great cultural expansion spread around Europe and Asia.

All the many, many kingdoms whose asses, gangus, his armies had kicked can no longer fight each other. So now they traded with one another, exchanged cultural ideas, grew artistically, academically, commercially. Ideas flowed back and forth from Europe to Asia like never before in history. After conquering Genghis and his descendants and top warriors, we're able to learn how to quickly administer this vast empire. That's impressive.

They did this by not killing everyone. They killed the royals, but they'd spare a lot of the actual administrators who actually ran the governments. And they'd placed a handful of important Mongols in the top positions of the new administration so that no one got any funny ideas when their armies moved on to conquer new kingdoms. I bet these remaining officials were more than a little stressed out when they started working for their new Mongol bosses. I had to usually start to work and form directly following a bunch of their own kingdom being brutally destroyed. You guys are starting your job that way.

You think you hate your boss? What if your boss had just killed various members of your family and a bunch of your friends? What if your boss is buddies? He just raped a couple of your sisters or daughters burned down most of your town. And they were like, Johnson, what's with the doom and gloom attitude? Right?

Let's turn that front upside down. Stop dwelling on how I burned your dad alive and go grab me a coffee, okay? Stop a good week. Ganges and his descendants able to administer their vastu empire by communicating over huge distances like or unlike any empire had ever communicated before them. Time for some more horse talk. Mungal horses weren't just used for war.

They didn't just have, you know, their blood drank in there and their wings jerked off to make Mongol beer. You heard earlier that that's not what their beer is made out of, right? I mean, I don't horse milk to be clear. Horses made swift communication possible in gangsters to do empire carrying written messages through a relay system of stations, knowledge of power in gangsters empire, and that's why one of his first orders as ruler was the creation of a pony express like courier system known as the Yam. Yam writers carried messages across the network of huts. It covers as much as 200 miles a day by constantly changing their mounts.

In addition to delivering messages, writers also acted as scouts who could monitor enemy forces and keep tabs on a simulated towns and cities doing this in the early 13th century over 500 years before the U.S. pony express. A letter sent by the emperor in Beijing could reach the city of debris some 5,000 miles away in about a month. So it wasn't exactly Amazon Prime, but it was a lot better than the previous system of just saying, ah, fuck it, he'll never know what we're up to. So just let's do what we want. The political invocation of Asia onto the Mongols resulted in much more trade and transfer and resettlement of artists and craftsmen along the main routes known as the Silk Road.

This increased communication and trade from northeast Asia, Muslim, Southwest Asia and Christian Europe, and expanded the horizons of all three cultural areas. By the middle of the 13th century, the Mongols, thanks mostly to the conquest of Gangus and the armies he created, had formed the largest contiguous empire in the world united in Chinese Islamic Iranian central Asian and nomadic cultures within an overarching Mongol sensibility contiguous by the way means touching in contact adding that definition because I always forget what it means

The Mongol Empire still the largest contiguous empire of the world has ever seen But Mongol Empire, still the largest contiguous empire of the world has ever seen. Genghis also decree the adoption of a unified and upgrading writing system for the Mongol Empire called the Weger script, the first writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language. I mean, that in and of itself would be a monumental accomplishment for someone. And it's a second afterthought I'm talking about Genghis. Genghis also introduced the concept of meritocracy into much of the world, which was novel in many places. He appointed soldiers to leadership positions based on proven

abilities, not on who their daddies were. That's a whole new thing in a lot of places. This thing, this aspect of his rule alone greatly strengthened his kingdom. No more soft trust, fun generals, only men who fought their way to the top of the heap. Doing this increased loyalty to gangus, right? You worked harder to please the con. If you knew that gaining his favor could greatly increase your status in financial position, no matter who your dad was. Gangus also encouraged religious tolerance in his secular and Mongol empire. He let people worship whatever God they chose. As long as the tributes kept pouring in, kept his people happier, decreased the possibility of uprisings, they could destabilize its empire. They also unified Mongol laws across its empire, kept shit cohesive, the gangus cons system of law known as the Yasa,

prohibited theft, adultery, blood feuds, bearing false witness. Might not sound revolutionary, but it was new then to many places. Some versions also incorporated the Mongols' respect for the environment by outlawing bathing in rivers and streams and requiring soldiers to pick up anything that had been dropped on the ground. Dude was pretty green. According to a study by the Carnegie Institute since the Department of Global Energy,

Genghis Khan may have been the greatest eco warrior of all time. The 13th century Mongol leader may have scrubed 700 tons of carbon from the atmosphere, roughly the amount of carbon dioxide generated in the year through global oil consumption by allowing previously populated and cultivated land to return to carbon absorbing forest land that returned to forest after the mongols killed all the people who used to farm it less pollution through mass death like he killed so many people that he substantially changed just the amount of forest on earth during his lifetime.

Now, let's talk about more about mass death. Let's start digging into what Genghis Khan is immediate descendants best known for kicking the shit out of basically everyone they encountered. Speak ahead and preview what's to come in the timeline by looking at one of his many bloody conquest, the Mongol destruction of Bukhara. Bukhara was one of the great cities of the Kwa Resmi and Empire, located in parts of present day Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, it was February 1220 CE, Friday mosque was filled with locals in Bukhara. They had gathered

to listen to the man who had just captured their city. The Mongol army of 110,000 soldiers had pinned down the, uh, Quaresmean army of 400,000 dudes, 400,000 took a month long siege by the Mongols to capture the city. One witness who escaped wrote they came, they raped, they burnt, they slew, they plundered, and they departed. Classic Mongol strike, defeat, pillage, rape, and then bounce. Gang is con climbed into the pulpit after dismounting from a small horse, after the army had defeated the city. An audience of religious leaders, doctors, scholars, other eminent men waited for the strange warrior to speak. Finally, he did speak into a translator.

He said to the people gathered in Bukhara, oh, people know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you. That's a little scary shit. And this does speak to his attitude about conquering cities. Ganges believed that if the leader insulted the Mongol Empire by say like refusing to pay tribute or something like not only was the leader responsible, you know, but everybody in their empire was also equally responsible. So if the leader had insulted him, all of the people of that culture had

insulted him. And that way he felt justified in killing as many of the people in that culture as he felt like his army needed to kill, to send a strong message to other empires, to not fucking disobey him. And he spoke these words after his men, he killed over 100,000 enemy soldiers. Then he ordered the rulers of Bukhara to bring him some musicians, play him a little music, bring some wine, bring some of that sweet, fermented horse come milk. He's like, guys, I'm thirsty. Go drink my horse off.

Make me some beer. He didn't say that exactly, but he did drink some fermented horse milk. Then he commanded the nobility to bring the riches, gold, precious stones, lay them all at his feet. Then after getting everybody to do all this and join himself for a bit, he just set his men upon the city and killed many of the people who just brought him all that stuff. They took everything they didn't destroy. They butchered unarmed men and children.

They raped thousands. They burned the mosque. The fire spread burned most of the city left in ruins. Most of those spared were then hurted into groups and forced to march with the conquerors to the next battle where they would be used as human shields. Only beautiful young women in the best artisans and musicians and other skilled people

would be completely spared and brought into the Mongol Empire. Sometimes gangsters would show you mercy. Other times he would destroy your city. other skilled people would be completely spared and brought into the Mongol Empire. Sometimes gangus would show you mercy. Other times he would destroy your city. Again, to send a message, you know, to other places in the empire that I can do this to you too, submit or I will erase you from the earth. And the war fought against the Kwaw Resmi and Empire, which lasted less than two years. Gangus's men killed an estimated 25 to 30% of the total population thought to be around two million people. It's numbers are accurate. That's true. All the battle numbers I will reveal today not agreed upon because ancient chroniclers tended to inflate their numbers of the enemy.

They would inflate the enemies, reduce their own numbers to make their victories seem more impressive. But if they're accurate, how could 110,000 Mongols defeat an army of 400,000? Let's try and wrap our meat sack brains now around the cons. Epic military, just strategies and the keys to his conquests. We'll start with the weapons, spears and lances given to the lowest class of soldier. Spears and lances could be used while riding on a horse or while on foot. Used to be, you know, they were used to be thrown by hand into impale enemies.

Mongol warriors also had swords, the typical Mongolian saber, was a one-handed curve, carefully forged steel blade, could be used on horseback, could also be used on foot with ease. The saber was easier to maneuver and slash width and straight edge blades that had been used before. Due to superior, superior metal forging.

Ganga's as man spared the lives of the best metal workers from the lands they conquered when possible. They could effectively cut through most armor and Helms the time. The Halberd was another bladed weapon used by Mongol warriors, typically only by the wealthiest ones. Mongolia and Halberds, two-sided blades attached to wooden poles around six feet in length. They could be used on a horse to swing down into foot soldiers on the ground. One swipe of a hellbird could sometimes did slash and kill several enemies.

Brutal man just chopping dudes down like some ancient farm, you know, farmer harvest in some wheat. Other weapons the Mongols use with a lasso used to pull enemy horsemen out of the saddle and dagger and the dagger for close combat. For real close combat, Mongols also used the Mongolian mace sometimes, basically a metal club for smashing people's ribs or heads in. The typical mace roughly 15 inches in length, weighed little over two pounds. The most important handheld weapon for Mongol soldiers was their bows. Mongolian composite bow

was lightweight and small, used in both honey and warfare. The bows were made from sinew, birch, the horns are sheep. Some great weapon for the cavalry to shoot with, while on horseback, while on combat. And no one better at shooting from the back of a charging horse in the 13th century than the Mongols. Obviously bows come with arrows. Mongols warriors use several different types of arrows.

The arrow most often used in battle by the Mongols. Had an iron head, it could travel over 300 yards, over three football fields, over 900 feet. Another arrow lighter with a sharper V-shaped tip that wouldn't travel as far but very effective at short distances at piercing armor. Some Mongol archers also had arrows with holes in them. Arrows that made a whistling sound as they flew through the air. They used these to dictate battle maneuvers, telling others which direction to march and fight in. Also had various kinds of poison arrows, some plant-based, some snake venom-based, they could kill men, hit with an initial non-lethal shot, just a few hours.

These guys didn't half-ass it when it came to war. Didn't half-ass it when it came to arrows. Oh, you showed up to the battle with one kind of arrow? Oh, you fucking knew? You know the word of the Mongols, right? Why don't you head back to your king again and then just keep on riding. Do you reach another kingdom

that we don't plan on stopping out of existence today? Well, the Mongolans had a lot of different kinds of arrows. About a large total of arrows also to each battle. Mongolian quiver would hold between 30 and 60 arrows and while out on a campaign, the typical Mongol warrior would take two to three quivers, 90 to 180 total arrows. One would be located to the left of the rider attached to his belt by iron hooks for quick

access and to quickly fire one arrow after another. The Mongolian or able to use me to quickly fire one arrow after another. The Mongolian bow was the closest thing back then to a machine gun. Shields interestingly aren't often mentioned in accounts of Mongols in battle. I guess hard to fire arrows super fast when you're trying to hold a shield. It feels like they felt the best defense was a strong offense. Mongols had a lot of shit to hurt you with. I highly recommend doing some Google image searching to see what all this stuff looked like.

As far as armor goes, they didn't have much during the reign of gangus. Gangus once said to have issued all his horsemen with thick and tightly woven silk vests. As an arrow hitting silk does not break the silk, but ends up embedding the arrow in the flesh, wrapped in silk, allowing the arrow to be removed by gently teasing the silk open. The silk vest functioned much like the padded armor used by European and Byzantine soldiers of the era, also worth a Google search. When I first read that they wore silk vests,

I kept picturing something out of the 90s, like some cheesy saved by the bell type of vest. Right now, I was like, how would wear in some sleeveless silk shirt help keep an arrow out of you? How would dressing like a 90s male stripper, like some chip and Dale, keep you from getting your heart and battle?

And then I saw the picture, I was like, oh, okay, that makes more sense. Now let's talk about siege equipment. If you're going to take down a city in the 13th century, you needed some decent siege equipment. You can't bow and arrow your way through a giant stone wall. You can't throw in a sweet silk vest, drink a little horse milk, right? Swing around your banana hammock and convince your enemies to throw down their dropperage. The model was learned how to use siege machines during the life of genghis con

prior to genghis most of their fighting was carried out against fellow nomads who did not live in walled cities so they don't have an experience attacking walled cities the mongols built or more accurately foreigners they captured or foreigners who did affected to their army's built some of the first known catapults trebuchets bombs

even some of the first cannons and twelve thirty two in the the Mongols besieged the Jin capital of Kaifung. They even used gunpowder-based weapons against the Chinese. Gunpowder had been introduced to the Mongols by the Song Dynasty way back in the late 10th century, but not be commonly used in European battles until the 14th century. How did the Mongols get all their weapons to these battles? Mostly via bacteria and camels.

The big two hump goofy is shit looking backtree and camel. This is like, this is the ugliest camel in the world. Native to the steps of Central Asia gave them a big advantage against many opponents. It allowed them to simply move much more stuff a lot faster than their mostly camelous enemies could. A thousand pound backtree and camel can carry a four hundred

forty to five hundred thirty pounds worth of goods compared to a horse. Now be able to catch more or not be able to carry much more. Excuse me, then it's writer. Now these big camels can pull anywhere from eight hundred and eighty one to one thousand three hundred and twenty two pounds of weapons and supplies for eighteen to twenty four miles per day compared to a six hundred pound Mongolian horse being able to pull closer to 200 pounds So they're much more effective the Mongol armies brought thousands of these camels and horses with them for and all the supplies They would need for extended seizures These camels could handle any weather any altitude go for several weeks in a row without drinking any water

Horse can't last for more than five days without water Speaking of horses horse milk nectar without water. Speaking of horses, horse milk, nectar of champions, seriously speaking of horses, they were the Mongolians most useful weapon. The Mongolians began to domesticate horses, around 1400 BCE, over two and a half millennia before gangus. At an early age, a Mongolian warrior would train with horses in order to hunt and herd with them.

Then when the warrior would turn 15 years old, following a long-held Mongolian custom, they would make love to their horse. The young man and the horse would go out into the step alone for seven days and seven nights. The teen warrior would bring no clothes to keep warm, no weapons to fight with, just their bravery and their horse and their love. The Mongol warrior would survive by sometimes drinking his milk, sometimes drinking his blood, and by making love to it all the time, cuddling close enough, each cold desert night to keep from freezing to death, each warrior could choose the sex of their love horse. Mayor or stallion didn't matter.

What mattered was the bond, the lifelong bond between two mammals developing out on the step under the stars. That was the longal way, and it's from this custom that ancient Mongolia is most famous saying comes from any horse Can ride you into battle, but only the horse you fuck will fight for you Of course, that's not true The age of 15 now now the young Mongol god, I wish that was true. They'd be so fucking ridiculous The age of 15 the young Mongolian who trained with horses for years would go into the army if they were skilled enough. I gang us back to that meritocracy.

He didn't just let anybody into his army and to prove they were good enough on a horse, good enough to fight, and earn a position. Once warriors were ready for battle, they were given three to seven horses to ride and war with this many horses. Mongol warriors could remain mobile even if one or two of their amounts were lost or exhausted. The Mongol horse, just a great horse for fighting to. The Mongol is native breed to, you know, and to Mongolia and did just to Mongolia. It hasn't changed much since the time of Genghis Khan. Nomads live in the traditional Mongol fashion. Still have more than three million total horses. Well, say as many Mongolian horses in Mongolia as people,

Well, it's as many Mongolian horses in Mongolia as people. Mongolian horses short, stocky with strong legs, big heads, weighing five to 600 pounds, renowned for their stamina. If small bodies compared to most other horse breeds, but they can just, they can go for a long time without having to stop. Excuse me, they can gallop for 10 kilometers over six miles without a break. Now, let's talk about tactics like Like most step armies, the Mongolians, primarily light horse archers. If you have their superior horsemanship,

they were able to stay just out of reach of their opponent's weapons, and then they'd use their speed to engage and hit and run tactics, showering enemies, waves of arrows, and rushing in for some close up melee, then bouncing back and sharing them with more arrows. They would generally only engage in close combat

after they'd broken enemy formations by turning the sky into a giant dark cloud of deadly arrows. They utilized often what was known as the Parthian shot during battle, a shot fired during a famed retreat. Famed retreat was a classic tactic, a step warfare, practice since ancient times, a token force charged the enemy, then retreated, pulling the enemy after them and pursuit. The retreat might extend a great distance in order to stretch the enemy's ranks and formations, then to prearrange location. Other forces attack from the flanks while the initial force wheels around and attacks the enemy that's all extended and all messed up from the front. Perhaps the most renowned use of the Fanger treat took place in 1223 when Mongol generals

encountered a combined army of Kipchok Turks and Rus along the Nipa River. The Mongols were treated luring the Russians several days deeper into the step until they reached the small Calcutta River. Crazy, had these guys chase them, thousands of guys for days right into a trap, then the Mongol force had been waiting, promptly swept in and destroyed their enemies. So they just lured these guys for several days to another Mongol army that just bombarded them and destroyed them. The Mongols also engaged in other types of surprise attacks, ambushes, and encirclements. They would mix it up. One of

the biggest advantages they possessed was that their enemies never knew what kind of attack they were going to face. Now let's talk more about these arrows. Excuse me. I wasn't just being dramatic earlier when I talked about the Mongols turning the sky into a dark cloud that rained arrows. The arrow storm, the most common effect, an effective tactic routinely practiced by the Mongols in battle. They would shoot a hail of arrows and such numbers that it seemed to be a phenomenon of nature to those who lived to talk about it.

We're off the 300 yards out, they're shooting still accurate enough to seriously disrupt any of the former, enemy formations. Come on, mouth. And the course of the arrow storm archers did not aim in a specific target. They just lose their arrows at a high trajectory into a predetermined killing zone or targeted area. This actually didn't kill that many enemy soldiers, but it wreaked havoc on morale. And soldiers watched wave after wave after wave of arrows, rained down upon them in their comrades, while they were too far away to strike back the Mongols. The Mongols arrows could often shoot over a hundred yards

farther than their opponents arrows could, which was a huge advantage. Enemies would just have to eat a storm of arrows, for like a hundred yards or more if they were charging the Mongols before they got a chance to strike back. I mean, how frustrated would that be? Hunker down under your shield on some field, hope that you're holding it at the right angle to keep from being hit by one of thousands of arrows raining down on your location.

Knowing that if you, you know, stand up and charge, there's an even better chance that one of those arrows is going to mow you down before you can get close enough to strike back. You gotta like run through these arrows for 100 yards or more just to then start firing your arrows back at these assholes. Mungols to bring enough of these arrows, you know, that they can really take their time, really wear down an enemy from afar,

which greatly reduce their own casualties. They would also sometimes surround a city or an army and not fire arrows and just wait, just kind of fuck with the people mentally. Right? They knew that they were exhausting their enemies by forcing them to remain vigilant. They just let them sit there and stew, knowing that the constant stress of anticipating their attack was mentally wearing them down and mind games.

The Mongols love to play mind games with their enemies. And then there was the Mongol siege warfare. Let's talk about how the Mongols used those siege weapons we mentioned earlier. In the early days of the Mongol conquest, siege warfare was a weakness that Genghis and his generals had to overcome. Genghis had no idea how to siege a walled city when he first left Mongolia to fight the Jin. But thanks to some Chinese engineers, Genghis and the Mongols figured it out. And the more walled cities they destroyed, the more talented foreign engineers they were able to retrieve from these cities

and incorporate them into their ranks and get even better at CG. For the entire existence of the Mongolia Empire, they were dependent on Muslim and Chinese engineers who manned and manufactured artillery and other siege equipment. Mongols were often first attacked a city surrounding villages in smaller cities before getting their siege on. Then they could focus all their energy on siege in the main city without worrying about being attacked by the surrounding armies. When they came up against an inaccessible city or fortress, the Mongols often first set up a blockade in order to starve and enemy into surrendering. The Mongols would use massive amounts of prisoners, captured in previous

battles to help their siege efforts as well. It used uses people as human shields or forced labor of both. After seizing a town or village, the Mongols often divided the population into units of 10. And each Mongol soldier received a unit, and then they would march these units to the next city. And when the captives arrived to the next city to be attacked, they forced them to fill up the moat or defensive trenches with stones, other materials that would have to go gather, bundles of straw, wood, debris, whatever. so the mongol warriors could then reach the walls. Brilliant and ruthless. Can you imagine a modern day equivalent?

Does it be like if some foreign army captured a lot of your country's soldiers and civilians, and then rigged in with a suicide bombs, and then marched them back into your nation before attacking you? Now you have to risk them blowing you up, or you have to kill your own people. All right, so these people, I could really paint this picture, you got these these captive is marching in front of the Mongols. And then when they get to the city, they

yeah, they just make them go grab a bunch of, you know, wood or stones or whatever. And then the Mongols, they hold back out of the out of range of your weapons. And then all these peasants, they walk to the walls of your city or to defensive trenches, you know, outside of your city. And they start filling them up so the Mongols can then take their horses over the top of them so the Mongols can reach your city Fucking crazy Right to stop the moats from being filled with these people's wood and rocking debris ancient defenders We have to execute their own people men, women, children And how do you like to be one of those unlucky fuckers marching towards the walls, right?

Some man, woman, or child carrying stones thrown them in the moat, not knowing if you're going to take an arrow shot by either one of your own people or by the Mongols. No, no, no, if you stop carrying the rocks, you're going to lose any value to the Mongols and definitely just be shot. Captives also force to dig trenches, erect defenses, undertake a variety of other tasks that often put the captives in between the Mongols and the army, the Mongols are fighting. So they use their captives extensively. During the siege, the Mongols are fighting. So they use their captives extensively. During the siege, the Mongols compelled prisoners to build siege engines, presumably, presumably under the direction of their Chinese or Persian engineers, with these engines and

their own bows, the Mongols maintained a constant barrage on the city they were staging. Engineers and soldiers working in shifts in order to prevent their enemies from ever being able to rest. They would wear down their enemies mentally. The boulders never stopped smashing into the city walls. The arrows never stopped flying over the walls. Right, so their enemy could never rest and regroup all day, all night. The Mongols also sometimes use flammable oil in their attacks, shot burning arrows, another type of arrow. To burn down cities, we learned about the burning down cities and the Ivan the the terrible suck a few weeks ago

when the Mongols burned down Moscow. Now, back to using these prisoners, Mongolian prisoners forced to do stuff like use battering rams to smash down enemy gates. So messed up, but so smart, right? Give foreign captors the most dangerous assignments. Let them stand under a castle wall or on a drawbridge. You know, taking a battering ram and smashing it into a gate while while your skilled warriors rest out of harm's way and prepare for battle. And if the cats just tried to refuse any of these assignments, you know, again, the mongol, they just killed

them. And it was like they had an HR department to complain to. Hey, band, what can I do for you? Hello, Mr. Mongle. I just want to file a complaint about how I was treated at the siege the other day. I was first off, I wasn't giving my 15 minute break mid shift. And then when the guy holding the battering ramp opposite me was killed by some burning oil being poured on him by some guy in the castle wall, no one replaced him for a good 20 minutes. And I for sure tweaked something in my back, might have strained my hamstring. And I'd like some time off, a little bit of compensation.

I'm ready to need some money for physical therapy, some massages, some short-term disability cash. You know, to keep food in my belly til I can work again. Obena here, which you're saying, and here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to fucking skin you alive. And I'm going to bury your kids in the moat. I'm going to have some guys rape your wife to death unless you're back out there holding the goddamn battery ram.

And two minutes or less. Take care of yourself. The Mongols would use battery ram's catapult other c's machinery to break down the walls of the city it would dig tunnels underneath city walls use gunpowder to crumble them none of that work to get creative do stuff like divert nearby river just to flood the inhabitants of the walled city once the city's walls were breached then the mongols would put on their armor

and attack they would often do that at night to further reduce the casualties of actual Mongol warriors. Maybe the most effective siege weapon the Mongols had was the reputation. They would make examples, as I said earlier, of certain cities, utterly destroy them. And then, you know, more cities in the region would hear about that and surrender without a fight, hoping to be spared. At their height, the Mongols were feared like no other army.

According to various chroniclers who fled sack cities just in time to save themselves, the Mongols often left no one alive when they conquered a city and people knew about it. In addition to intimidating future armies and surrendering, these massacres discourage revolts and rebellions in the lands they conquered. The conquered people knew all too well what the consequences of revolt would be, having their city erased from the earth. According to anthropologists Thomas Barfield, the Mongols were extremely conscious of their small numbers,

and they employed terror as a tool to discourage resistance against them. Cities that surrendered and then revolted were put to the sword. The Mongols could not maintain strong garrisons and so preferred to wipe out entire areas that appeared troublesome. Again, so cold and just pragmatic. We're like, we don't have, we don't have time to impress in people. We're not going to deal with that. So if they're a problem,

we're just going to, you know, we're just going to kill them all. In addition to everything, we've already talked about the Mongols. She's propaganda, often spread rumors in advance to exaggerate, the, you know, the size of their army, stuff like that in 1258, Monkey, grandson of Genghis, another con invaded Szechuan with 40,000 troops, but his army or his enemy thought he was coming with 100,000. Made it look like it was 100,000 troops. In an earlier instance of psychological manipulation when Genghis fought the Namens in 1204, he ordered his soldiers to set up camp on the steps of Western Mongolia, and he commanded each

soldier to light five campfires. So the enemy would think his army was five times as big as it actually was. They also did stuff like stir up dust behind their lines by dragging branches tied to the tails of their horses to create the illusion of approaching reinforcements where they would do stuff like put dummies on spare horses. Make their enemy think that they had many more warriors than they did. Again, they're just so good at war. The Mongols also weaken their opponents by promoting discord or rebellion amongst

their people by gaining the support of oppressed minorities, playing rivals, often one another. They would boost the morale of their own army through religion, that they would ask Tengri for favor on the battlefield in the same way that Muslim and Christian armies asked their gods for favor during battle. Maybe what I found most impressive about the Mongols regarding their warfare abilities was the thoroughness of their preparation. When preparing for war, they would take several steps to make sure they were ready to win. They would conduct a careful census before battle in order to properly identify exactly

how many troops they had. They would accumulate intelligence reports on their opponents, find out exactly how large their armies were. After sufficient intelligence had been obtained they would make a declaration of hostilities uh... the declarations of war varied initially but by the peak of their empire when they were kicking everyone's ass they would give their enemy two choices

plan a was surrender recognize the great con is the king of your king give the mongols a yearly tribute bunch of money you know uh, women, etc. or plan B. You cannot agree to plan A and feel the full wrath of the Mongol Horde and be obliterated. This is obviously a little simplified for the sake of keeping the info moving, but really this was the deal. The Mongols would send some ambassadors to a city.

They hadn't encountered yet. These guys would have to try and meet with the king or emperor or queen or whoever's in charge there and be like, hey, first off, I just want to say, please don't shoot the messenger. Now that I've said that, I got some bad news for you. If the foreign leader did not accept plan A at a Mongol assembly, the strategy for the upcoming war would be talked about and communicated until it was agreed upon. Then commanders would be chosen.

Points of rendezvous would be established. Troops would be mobilized. According to Dennis Sinoor, performer professor emeritus of Central Asian Studies at the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University. That's a long fucking title. So I'm sorry, what do you do? Uh, I'm the professor emeritus of Central Asian Studies at the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University. Uh, you could have just said history professor. Uh, he said, Mongol strategy at its best was based on a very careful planning of the military Eurasian studies at Indiana University. You could have just said history professor. He said, Mongol strategy at its best was based on a very careful planning of the military

operations to be performed at the essence of it, lay a very rigid timetable to which all Mongol commanders were expected to adhere strictly. They didn't fuck around with any aspect of war. Once mobilization for war began, the Mongol armies would follow usually several different routes of advance instead of just one. During the invasion of Russia, generals Subutai and Batu and Monkhi approached from three different directions before converging to one big army at the time deemed most strategically advantageous.

Because their forces marched in smaller detachments, for most of the journey to the battle, they could get there quicker. The advance wasn't slowed down by an enormous column stretching for miles. Another advantage of traveling this way was that their opponents then had a harder time figuring out exactly how big the Mongol army was. Once the Mongols defeated an enemy, part of their overall war strategy was to kill the opponents leaders to prevent another war from breaking out. They took this very seriously.

Hard to lead a revolt if you're dead uh... they would track people down for days weeks if necessary to find and kill leaders after the battle is already one no leaders who fled during the battle gang is constantly after learning the hard way what can happen when you don't in some early unification battles in mongolia it failed to eliminate some opposing leaders a few times and then they would regroup with their forces rise up against him again and you have to defeat them all over again.

After that, the merciless pursuit of enemy commanders just became part of the Mongol standard operational procedure. And speaking of commanders, let's talk about Genghis' secret weapon. Maybe the best military general of all time. Subudai Batur. Subudai, born in 11 seventy five died in twelve forty eight a general primary military strategist for genghis Khan and also for his son uh... the subsequent leader of the mongol empire oga di con this guy directed more than twenty

campaigns one at least sixty five major battles during which he conquered or over in more territory than any other commander in history. Dude, never lost a battle ever in his whole life. Paul Buet Well, history professor in long life, by the way. Paul Buet Well, history professor in Mongol historian has said of subutai, no Mongol general played a greater role than subutai, bautar, in establishing and maintaining the early Mongol Empire. Trusted commander and retainer of gangus later highly respected servant of ogudi and gaiyuk

uh... subiutai uh... served with great distinction in every phase of mongolian national development during the first four decades of empire and gaiyuk was uh... another subsequent con uh... when he first entered the service of gangus known then as uh... ten eugen the realm of that minor m then as Timugin, the realm of that minor Mongol chieftain comprised only a few families. This is pretty cool too. It's like when he first started working for gangus, it was just like, you know, a couple of hundred

soldiers. In his old age, Subitai saw a mighty dominion stretching from the borders of Hungary to the sea of Japan, from the outskirts of Navgarad to the Persian Gulf and the Yangtze River. He had no small part in creating it. Subitai returned to Mongolia from the songskirts of Navgarad to the Persian Gulf and the Yangtze River. He had no small part in creating it. Subitai returned to Mongolia from the song campaign in 1248 when he was 72 years old, spent the last few months of his life at home in the vicinity of modern day, Ulaan Batar, Dine Peaceful at the age, or Dine Peaceful at the age of 72. If not for having to return to Mongolia after the death of Ogudai Khan, when he gangus is sons, to help to decide who the next ruler of the Mongol Empire would be, there's a good chance

that earlier in his career, to be died would have conquered all of Europe. Let's talk about that for a moment. Let's talk about how only an untimely death and maybe some really, really bad weather saved Europe from the Mongols. Gangus in his hordes swept across Asia after a series of successful exploratory forays into

Hungary and Poland. Of course they were successful in Poland. Everyone conquered Poland. If you get that, you get that. It seemed like the rest of Europe was theirs for the taking and then they just abruptly returned to Asia. Why? Well, because their leader died, right?

Because Ogedy Khan, son of Ganges died unexpectedly in December of 1241. Ganges had died years earlier and now there was a power struggle to decide the new con ogidae died after a late night drinking session. Too much that sweet horse milk. Maybe actually died from a stroke or organ failure. Maybe poisons we don't know since that corner didn't exist. And so this bad ass general right and all the other important Mongols had to head back

to Mongolia to help decide who was gonna rule the empire. And under new leadership, Conquer and Europe was no longer a priority. So had Ogadai not died when he died, right? This kick ass general, Subi-Tai, he was ready to go fuck Europe up and he might have done exactly that. All right.

Now we know a little bit about the Mongols, enough to give Genghis's life a lot of context. Always context. Can't really understand someone's life, until you understand the times they lived in. Time to get to know more about Genghis himself, which of course will lead to learning even more about the Mongols in today's TimeSuck timeline,

but first quick word from our sponsors. And big thanks to any of you who use our codes and landing pages to get these deals, it allows us to keep getting sponsors. Now, allow me to say say hail Nimrod and hit my time suck timeline button. Shrap on those boots soldier, we're marching down a time suck timeline. On November 14th, 1162 CE, Timujin, later known as the Great Genghis Khan, probably born

in Deilun Bulldog near the border between modern-day Mongolia and Siberia. Not even a town there today. Wasn't a town there then. Unlike most great leaders of the past, he wasn't born in some great city or city at all. He was born in a Mongol gear out in the open step. Born near the modern-day Mongolian capital of Ulan, Batar, legend has he was born with a blood clot and his fist, a traditional sign of a great future leader.

Nice. I was born a skinny baby with John Dess and a big weirder shaped head. I wonder what destiny would have been expected of me. This yellow, sickly, skinny monster, had a child, would be a great leader. Yeah, right. He'll be cannon fodder We will name him retargeum, which means who dies first in battle Timbergen comes from the Mongol word Timur meaning of iron Timbergen basically meant blacksmith and while I said gangus was born 1160 do we think

His exact birthday unknown could be off by as much as five years a good good place to note that there are only a few ancient sources that speak of Ginghis Khan and they're often contradictory. There's one Mongol source, only one, written by a Mongol, the secret history of the Mongols. And then there's a variety of contemporary accounts which are mostly like, I was fucking scary, I didn't kill everybody. Tamagin the son of Yasuji Batar, a major chief of the Kameg Mongol Confederation, sometimes considered the predecessor of the Mongol Empire. Confederation was a loose union of numerous tribes in the area. Genghis was the first son of Holun, second wife of his father.

According to the important historical book, The Secret History of the Mongols, Tamujin named after a taught her chief, his father had just captured. Temmijin had three brothers, one sister, and two half brothers. Like many of the nomads of Mongolia, Temmijin's early life was difficult. When he was only nine, Temmijin's father took him to live

with the tribe of an important rival clan whose daughter Borte, he was arranged to marry. Temmijin was to live there until he reached the marriageable age of 12. Yeek, 12. My God, my daughter's 12 right now that's fucking ridiculous to me. The thing of her being, my son is 14 is ridiculous for me to think of a him being married.

Oh my God, so young back then. After dropping off his son while he was returning home, Temmijin's father then came across a tribal mongol. He had some skirmishes with in the past. They seemed cool now. They invited him to share some food with them. He's like, skirmishes with in the past. They seemed cool now. They invited him to share some food with them. He's like, oh, these guys seem pretty good. I don't know, they seem nice now.

They have dinner and then Tamajin's dad dies because they poisoned him. So apparently he missed judge. You know how good it terms they were actually on. Whoopsies. Ganges would later avenge his father's death by killing all the men of this particular tribe. The exact date of Ysuzi's death is unknown.

After his father's poison nine year old, Tam Temujin returns home to take over his father's role as chief to the tribe. In his mind, as we're going to do, the tribe is like, get right, you're nine. Get the fuck out of here. You know, and they kick him out. Take him, tough, tough break. I picked this little nine-year-old, you know, stomping into some big Mongol gear, you know, big tent, planting his feet defiantly, putting his fists against his hips, all, hey, fellas, I'm in charge now. Let's avenge my father's death. And then some big important mongol just grabs him and lifts him off the ground by the back of his pants and back of his shirt, walks him back to the tent entrance and just

fucking toss him out. Just guy your kid. I'm time for this bullshit. Temptions tribe cast out Temption. His mom is siblings, forces them to live in poverty and with no protection for the next several years He's nomads live on wild fruit ox carcasses marmits other small game the temmaging his little siblings can kill At some point during the banishment gang is murders for the first time in an argument during a hunting expedition Temmaging and his brother Kassar decided to stalk and kill their older brother or bater

Some workers say the bater like to take whatever young, to image and kill their cot and then pissed him off. He was accused of hoarding food while other family members were near starvation. Other records say that Betr is the eldest male in the family planned on exercising his right to claim Hullun, gang is his mom, and his wife. Because it wasn't Betr's mom.

It wasn't his blood mom, and gang is, you know, he didn't care for that. Which is is pretty fucked up. So bro, fuck no, come on. Seriously, I sure step mom. It's my mom. Please don't fuck my mom. I don't want a brother daddy. However, when down legend has the damage and fought and killed his older half brother, beginning his reputation as a great warrior. Things go from bad to worse than for young Timbergains sometime between 1175 and 1177. He's captured by a rival clan. Things go from bad to worse than for young Timbergen sometime between 1175 and 1177. He's captured by a rival clan. Once an ally of his father, he's enslaved. The world's

mightiest leader, spending his youth abandoned and enslaved. Finally, one night, a sympathetic guard helps him escape years later. That guard son, a man named Chalon, would become one of gangus' generals. Around 1183, Timbergen Mary's Bortay, honoring the agreement made by his father, making an alliance with her tribe. She waited for him. He's back in business. He's worked himself back into a position of power after banishment and enslavement with permission of her father.

When he takes Bortay and her mother to live in his family gear, then shortly into their marriage to Bortay, in their marriage to Borde, in his marriage to Borde, a tribe known as the Merkets attacks Ganga's family's camp at dawn and kidnaps her, takes his wife son of a bitch. Things were just starting to go well. Now his wife gets kidnapped. And then she's given to one of these, one of these tribes warriors as a spoil of war, double son of a bitch.

Now his wife is being raped by a rival warrior. As you can imagine, Temu-jen, he's not thrilled. He said that his bed was made empty and his breast was torn apart. And he probably also said, I'm gonna fucking kill those motherfuckers. Time to go to war for the first time. And 1184, roughly 22 year old Temu-jen, turns to powerful clan leader Togrel, also known as Wang Kong, Kong of the Carriots, to support him and to get his wife back. And Wang Kong offers him 20,000 Carriate Warriors, suggests the Temmogen involved his childhood friend, Jumuka in the battle.

Jumuka had become a Kong of his own tribe, the Joderon. Both Jumuka and Wang Kong were blood brothers to Temmogen's father. They had to old time connections paying off here. Together these men and 20,000 warriors make the trek an enemy territory to fight the market's tribal confederation. Many scholars describe this event as one of the key crossroads and temmaging's life, moves them along the path towards being a conqueror, had his wife not being taken from him. He wouldn't have felt the need to a mass an army to get her back.

Had he not ever amassed an army, there would be no Mongol empire. The secret history of the Mongols describes the battle scene where Genghis gets his wife bike, or gets his wife bike. He gets his wife's bike back. Did I mention that? You probably didn't hear that in your history books. Yes, the battle was about his wife, but mostly it was about his wife's bike.

He was like, she's got a fucking sweet S bike. And it's the only bike in the world because bikes, he hadn't been invented yet, you know? But somehow they had this one bike. And he was like, I want to ride it. And they're like, no, we took it. He's like, oh, get it back. And he gets 20,000 soldiers to get that goddamn bike back. And he's so happy. No. He's getting his wife back. And this book says, as the pillaging and plundering went on, Timbergen moved among the people that were hardly escaping calling Borte Borte.

And so he came upon her for Lady Borte was among those fleeing people. She heard his voice, recognized it, got off her cart, came running towards him. Although it was still night, Lady Borte recognized Timugin's reigns and tether and grabbed them. It was moonlight. He looked at her, recognized Lady Borte and they fell into each other's arms. Ah, it's beautiful. She been held captive for eight months.

She was pregnant with Jochi, heavily pregnant with her first son. She'd give birth to him just after being rescued. Because of those circumstances, the question of his lineage always put under a microscope. He'd become an accomplished military commander, but people always wonder if he was actually gangus' blood son. That didn't matter to gangus. He would claim Jochi as his own son, and then Bortay would later give him three more sons. Since Borte was considered his principal wife, only their sons were considered his heirs. She would remain a Ganges aside for his entire life,

although he took many other wives, as we mentioned earlier, she would always be his most important wife. How romantic! Sure, his dick loved a lot of different ladies, but you know his heart? His heart only got hard for one. I wonder if you've ever wrote that in a card for, I wonder if I should write that to Lindsay, the A-baby. Sure, sometimes I get boners, you know,

when I'm out around in public, seeing things, but my heart, my heart only gets hard for you. Love you. I don't think that would go well. Right after the successful rescue of Borte and the route of the markets, Ganges and Jemouca, who are also blood brothers, who have been put in charge of Wayne Con's army began to drift apart, each having different ideas of how Mongolia should be run. And what was all this blood brother business, by the way? Just symbolism, tradition, the Mongols would marry their children to members of other tribes, to strengthen their relationships with the neighbors. Mongolia leaders would often take wives from

other tribes to strengthen alliances there and warriors could pledge allegiance to one another and become blood brothers. Not sure exactly what ceremony if any took place with that happened. It might have been as simple as just cutting each other's hands and shaking on it or something like that. Anyway, blood brothers, Jemuke and Genghis began drifting apart mostly because Jemuke supported the traditional Mongolian aristocracy when it came to, you know, who got the highest positions in Mongolian society? Well, while Genghis believes in a new system of meritocracy, right?

We mentioned that earlier. Men could rise up and become high ranking generals, you know, have high positions in society, regardless of who their dads were. This philosophical difference meant each group, you know, attracted a different type of follower. The old guard followed Jammuqa, everyone else followed Timujan. Soon there were two massive armies, one led by Ganges, the other led by Jamooka. The blood brothers had become rivals. And 1186, when Ganges was around 24 after his decisive defeat and rescue of his wife, an important Mongolian shaman declares that the eternal blue sky has set the world for Timujan to rule. Right now, now God's on his side.

Word spreads, Mongol families began to quickly join his army. Jumuka doesn't like this. Nobody wants to hear about God anointing the rival. It's the one true leader. It's never been on anyone's wish list. You know, no one's ever thought I hoped to live a long, happy life, of enough money to feel secure in my retirement. And I hope God anoints my rival is the one true leader. Threatened by Ganga's rise, Jumuka surprise attacks gangus with an army of 30,000 warriors Gangus gathers his followers to defend the last second but caught off guard Doesn't have enough time to prepare and he's decisively beaten in the battle of the 13 sites Really the only significant battle where he'll ever be beaten

Jumukha must have been pumped right who who's destined to lead Uh the guy who's fucking ass, I just kicked, I don't think so. Me. Now bring me my heroine, give me some of that horse milk. Wayne Conn is exiled. Ganga's some of his men and their family is able to flee after the victory.

Jamuka horrifies and alienates some of his followers and potential followers. When he boils 70 of gangus has captured military leaders alive in cauldrons. A lot of the Mongols are like damn, man. That's fucked up. I mean, I know we're Mongols, but boiled alive. That's something we do to non-Mongols. I mean, come on dude. Followed him this defeat, gangus spends next 10 or so years kind of licking his wounds, rebuilding an army, and vowing never to be defeated again.

And probably also fucking a whole bunch. Sometime in 1187, his second son, Chagatai is born, his third son, Ogadai, born in 1189, his fourth son, Toyui, born in 1190, and 1197, Genghis makes a new alliance with his old pal, the old exiled Wang Khan, Wang had rebuilt himself into a powerful clan leader again, he plots his return to power. Genghis is like, hey dude, I know shit went south with us. You know, with a battle of 13 sides, but this time,

this time we're not gonna lose, okay? This time, pinky swear. No one's getting bold alive. No one's getting put in a cauldron. He and Wangcon partner with the gin dynasty of China, further build up their strengths through a few minor battles. And then in 1200 CE, the friendship between gangus and Wang Wang

Khan begins to falter Hard to keep fellow Mongol leaders as close friends when you desire to be the one who rules them all Wang Khan son Sangum envied gangus is growing power and relationship with his dad and he planned to assassinate him Record suggests that despite the relationship Wang Khan and gangus had built Including gangus a reportedly saving Wang's life numerous times in battle. Wang just, you know, he chose to side with his son and betray his longtime friend. And Genghis Con began to realize the ties were shifting against him when Wang refused to marry his daughter to Genghis' son, Jo Chui.

The insult led to war between the two to prepare for battle, Wang Con allied with Genghis' old friend, Jamuka, that motherfucker, partnered with the guy who boiled his generals alive. Two of his dad's old blood brothers, one of his blood brothers allied against him. And then they fight in the battle of the burning sands. They have so many good battle names. That's a great battle name, battle of the burning sands. That's way better than the battle of the hop,

but not too hot sands. Way better than the battle of the really pleasant temperature sands. Jemuka barely escapes. Dirty O'Wang gets his ass beat in this battle, loses his kingdom, killed by his soldiers shortly after Flynn. Jemuka and Genghis then battle for three more years. Finally in 1206, Jemuka is betrayed by several of his own men and captured and handed over

to Genghis. According to that secret history book, Genghis Khan then offered his friendship back to his old blood brother, Jammuqah. After years of fighting, he still didn't want to kill him. He wanted to rule by Jammuqah's side. Right? One of them to rule together. He loved this dude, but Jammuqah had no interest in being Genghis' co-leader. He refused Genghis' offer, saying there can only be one son in the sky. And then he asked for a noble death. He was a hard-ass dude. And a noble death back then was to die without spilling blood, typically by having your back broken.

YEEK! It's some hardcore shit. That sounds way more painful than just having your head cut off or your throat slashed. Dying of a broken back, I mean, I guess that's going to involve a lot of internal bleeding and probably take a long time. Be very painful. Said the gang is buried Jemuka with the Golden Belt. A belt he'd given to him years earlier when they'd become blood brothers kind of sad gang is didn't want to fight his brother he wanted to fight with him and the guy refused and he's torn up about it and maybe that helped him turn into a psychopath because he would become pretty

ruthless after this no one else would ever be offered a chance to rule by a side after having jimuka's back broken given him his noble death ganghis Khan had the men who handed Jumukas over to him also killed, said he didn't want disloyal men in his army. Sucks for those guys. Great Khan, we have handed you your enemy. Thank you guys, appreciate it. And this looks as a mother guy, say, grab these two betrayers and have them executed. Over the next two years, Genghis unites the rest of the Mongolian tribes who wanted to unite with him.

He slaughters those who oppose him. There's a new sheriff in Mongolia and he's definitely the year with me or against me type. By 12.5, Genghis had established a nation similar in size to modern Mongolia. And the next year in the spring of 12.06 at a great Mongol conference of tribal leaders, he's officially proclaimed Genghis Khan at the age of roughly 42. Prior to this, even though I know he's referring to Genghis here and there sometimes, he was still known as Timudjian. While Khan is a traditional title, meaning leader or ruler, historians unsure about the origins of the word Genghis. May have meant ocean, may have meant just, generally translated as supreme ruler, universal ruler, maybe translated as

murderous mother fucker not to be trifled with. For the next 21 years, gang is goes buck wild. And most Asian parts of Europe lays down a lot of blood mayhem. You'd conquer more land in this period than any ruler had ever done in a two stretch in our two decade stretch before since. It was the Michael Jordan of conquering. It was the Tom Brady of rape and pillaging.

Wonder if Tom Brady would like that comparison. Now that the clans are united, gang is builds an army that becomes arguably the strongest the world has ever seen. Right? And he launches the Mongol Empire that would rule central and East Asia for over 160 years. He led his soldiers to the first foreign war in 1209. He set forth on a campaign against the Tangutsu to establish a Chinese-style dynasty known as the Shia Dynasty in northwest China along the old silk roads just below Mongolia, a kingdom of about 5 million

Tibetan-speaking people roughly five times as big as the Mongol Empire, capital, you know, population-wise, capital was Zia, the Tanguits had become involved in trade dispute with the Mongols and gangsters like, hey, I need your people to pay my people more for our goods. Stop taxing us so much, you gotta drop some prices and they were like, no. And he was like, okay, well, if you don't wanna do that, I'll probably just have to slap you around. And to get Zia, the Mongols had to cross the Gobi Desert.

The first major battle took place at a mountain pass for the Mongols, feigned of retreat, then turned around, routed the enemy, when more men joined the fighting, classic Mongol move, we talked about earlier. Genghis' army consisted almost entirely of Calvary men and their deadly bow and arrows at this point. Genghis received what he wanted now in terms of a reduction of tariffs, that Tangus opposed on trade, he returned to Mongolia with some new wives, some concubines, and Gia was now

a vassal state of Mongolia. This initial victory gave Genghis control of a key silk road, oasis, and the tax revenues that came with that. And Zishia, the emperor gave Genghis Khan his daughter in marriage. Yeah, the emperor, I'm sorry, of the Zishia gave Genghis Khan his daughter in marriage in a nice yearly income in the form of a tribute. And some 30,000 Shia craftsmen were brought to Mongolia to help Genghis Khan build his new capital of Kera Koram. And 1211 Genghis launches second foreign war against the rich Jin Dynasty in northern China,

which controlled China down to the Yangtze River. The dynasty he'd allied himself with in some battles here's prior. This kingdom had about 20 million people, way more people than the Mongolians. The Jin were people from Anchuria who liked the Shia had become involved in a trade dispute with the Mongols. And the result was an attack by the Mongols who weren't going to accept not having the access they wanted for the prices they wanted for the products the Jin produced. Before leaving on his 12-11 campaign against the Jin with the force of 70,000 warriors, Genghis Khan told his people that heaven has promised me victory. And then his army breached what would become the great wall of China

by advancing through a 15-mile long gorge with the help of a turncoat Chinese general who he did not execute for betraying his initial army. He would back off that policy for the rest of his life. He was like, maybe I shouldn't kill enemy soldiers who tried to help me, who joined my side. Maybe that's not the best policy. From intelligence sources such as merchants and defecting Jin civil servants, Ganga's

kind of learned that the Jin Empire was racked with internal problems, vulnerable to attack in that it's huge army of 600,000 troops was pinned down at their southern border, where the Jins were engaged in a long-running war with another massive Chinese Empire, the Song Dynasty, the perfect time to attack them. From 1211 to 1214, the outnumbered Mongols ravaged the Jin countryside. They focused on attacking small villages and farms. They sent, you know, now homeless Jin peasants

pouring into Jin cities by the thousands. Because of this, the Jin Dynasty suffered from a massive food shortage. Starvations began, gang of starving their empire. During the food crisis, the Jin ended up killing thousands of their own peasants to keep more people from starving, which was not great for national morale. Brutal and brilliance, Genghis knew because of how many more soldiers the Jin had that heading into a head-to-head battle trying to siege their cities would not be wise. Even if

their main armies were fighting way down south, they still had more troops up north from the Mongols. In his strategy worked. The food shortage, the Mongols created push the emperor to surrender. In early 1214, the Jin emperor offered Genghis substantial rewards for the Mongols to withdraw, including enormous quantities of gold, silver, and silk. Literally thousands of horses. He gave Genghis a princess as a wife, acknowledged Genghis as his overlord, Genghis traveled back to Mongolia.

Shortly after he made it back home, the emperor broke the agreement. Damn it. Now let's go back. 1215, Genghis marches back down to Zongdu. The Mongols destroy the city in the battle of Zongdu. Before his armies arrived, the emperor had retreated to the southern portion of his kingdom. So he escaped, moved his court to the city of Kaifung. Now the northern portion of his kingdom was soon belonged to Genghis. Those who remained in the city of Songdu were slaughtered after being starved at the point of rampant cannibalism. Things got, things got crazy in the city towards the end of the fighting, Jin trapped inside the city. They'd ran out of ammo and they started putting gold and other valuables into the cannons or into their cannons and

shooting out of the Mongols. Right? Just fucking crazy. They just, they had nothing left. They're just like, ah, put, put those gold coins in the cannons, into their cannons and shooting at it the Mongols. Right? Just fucking crazy. They just had nothing left. They're just like, ah, put those gold coins in the cannons. Shoot that at those sons of bitches. They were all slaughtered. The Mongols breached the 40-foot high walls. The city butchered and raped and pillaged months after the battle. A passing eyewitness wrote that the bones of the slaughtered formed white mountains.

And the soil was greasy with human fat. It's a seriously gory visual. The war in China continued under the leadership of one of the cons generals while he advanced to the west from 1212 to 1215, gangus' armies sacked 90 different Chinese cities. The Jin would eventually be completely overthrown in the southern portion of the kingdom by the Mongols in 1235. Several years after gangus' death death eventually they would get them all after a few more years of fighting in twelve eighteen the mongol army was exhausted by continuous campaigns against the gin

against the western shea kingdom it also uh... began battling south of mongolia gengus his power hungry now he doesn't feel like taking a break from fighting or slowing down the expansion of his empire he decides to engage war with a third empire while while still fighting the other two. Ganges sends two Tumen, 20,000 warriors, a Tumen, 10,000 warriors, under the guidance of his brilliant young general, Jebe, against Cooke Lung, or Cooke Lug, excuse me, who ruled over the Western Liao dynasty of Central Asia, also known as the Kera Katai Empire, to the south and west of Mongolia, a vast empire, 580,000 square miles, 1.5 million square kilometers large.

This goes very, very well. Sends Ganges on a path westward, leads the Mongols all the way to Europe. An internal revolt is incited by Mongol spies, and then Jebe overruns the country with his 20,000 horsemen, shooting all their poison arrows and howling dudes to death left and right. Cooke Luke's forces are defeated. He's captured and executed. The Mongol Empire now extends almost to the Caspian Sea in the west and the Persian Gulf

and the Arabian Sea. A gangus cons reputation now spread throughout Asia as this next story illustrates. That's one of my favorite parts of the suck. Just to make sure they weren't on gangenghis list of places to fuck up next, on voice from Korea, traveled to Genghis Khan's care and to offer to pay him a tribute. I mean, this is some serious shit, right?

It's a preemptive measure, on voice from a nation thousands of miles away, show up out of the blue and you're like, hey, we don't even know if you even know we exist yet. We don't know if you wanna kick our asses or not, but just in case you're ever thinking about it, please do not. We preemptively surrender.

We surrender now. We know we don't even have any current plans to fight us necessarily, but just we surrender already, take our money, happy to bring back more every year. I picture Genghis accepting their offer very seriously. Like, why is decision? I did know about you guys of course, and we were gonna kick your guys ass in like a year. So good, good decision for you guys.

Thank you very much. And then they leave, you just turned to an associate, you know, it was like, who the fuck were those guys? Where's Korea? Is that a real country? And 1219 gang has decided to do some damage to the Eastern province of the, Quarrizium Empire in Central Asia after some fools, done fucked up and murdered some of his ambassadors. in the provision of the, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, 24 and 1218, a caravan of Mongol merchants have been sent by Genghis Khan to negotiate trade deals

with the, with the, while Rizm, Khorizm, ah, I don't know. The merchants were sent, fuck, this, this word, I couldn't find anything to do. The merchants were sent to give the Shah of Khorizm, gifts of Jade, ivory gold, close to valuable white camel hair,

and the Shah, fairing that they were spies, killed the envoys for being insulin enough to request some changes in the conditions of trade between the Mongols and the Central Aces big mistake from the Mongols standpoint the murder of the merchants and ambassadors most heinous of crimes had these ambassadors not been killed the Mongols may may not have you know went on to Europe to maybe just stop where they were. Sometimes it seems like gangus didn't really want to you know or didn't intend to have the kind of empire he ended up with he wanted tributes he mostly just wanted people to recognize him as you know

overlord he didn't need to rule them directly just like tell me that you know you understand that i'm the big boss give me a tribute give a fair deals to my merchants only be alone and when people didn't accept that that's when you fucking just annihilated uh... in the charisma empire did not agree to plan a, they, they aggressively rejected it and now he had to punish him. His campaign against Central Asia first and foremost, an act of revenge. Let's get ready to rumble Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Gang is con and the Mongols take on, does it really fucking matter? The Shah of who gives a shit just undead it! Over 200,000 Mongol warriors coming to Central Asia,

hoping to collect over a million skulls, who stands in their way. It's gonna be a bloodbath. We'll sell you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge. After devoting considerable time to logistical planning, Genghis organizes a major force, more than 200,000 troopshis organizes a major force,

more than 200,000 troops, huge for a Mongol army, and they set out against Central Asia, gigantic caravan. Man, just imagine that in your mind. Tens of thousands of camels, hundreds of thousands of horses, giant siege weapons, all rolling across the steps of Central Asia, headed for war. Right, 200,000 troops are gathering more and more locals to use the shields. And, you know, for these prisoners of war, it's for various duties when they get to the

next city. So they're getting tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of them, as they march through Central Asia. Can you imagine seeing that headed for your city? Especially if you knew it was the Mongols, if you knew what they'd done to other cities, the fear you would feel. Genghis vented his fury with the string of massacres beginning in Uttar and Bukhara and 1219.

It was an easy for Genghis to fully penetrate and conquer the great cities of Central Asia, but he did it. When he leaves Central Asia in 1225, up to 30% of the population had been massacred. Sac dozens of cities and settlements and 1220 Genghis kinda attacked a Samarchaan, then a great Silk Road city of 200,000 people nourished by an aqueduct that brought water to the air and step around the city from far away mountains. Famous for its craftsmen that produced saddles, copper lamps, and silver lame, fabric

with silver fibers. What was it woven into it? Like, fancy shit. When Genghis Khan's army appeared according to one report, the Shah and 110,000 of his troops fled the city and the city, noblemen opened the gates and begged for mercy. And they were shown little. A 13th century Persian historian Atama Leek, Giovanni, wrote that Ganges killed all who took refuge in the citadel and the mosque, pillaged the city completely, conscripted 30,000 young men, along with 30,000 craftsmen into his army.

The Kant armies then destroyed other great Silk Road trading centers such as Merv, Ba, Harat, Nishipur. We devoted an early episode of Time Suck, specifically to Nishipur. Kingdoms that resisted risking, you know, having their entire populations massacred. According to Muslim chroniclers, 100,000 defenders were killed and a river diverted to flood the city of Rgench. One city got hit worse than many was a place called Merv. In present day, Turkmenistan,

a Muslim holy man and as many helpers allegedly spent 13 days counting the dead of Merve, they counted 1.3 million victims. Under the Seljuk Turks, Merve had become a city full of palaces, libraries, observatories, canals, and nourished parks and lush gardens. It was beautiful. And all that came to an end when messengers of Genghis Khan

in 1218 showed up demanding their tribute, demanding their pick of the city's most beautiful women. And the Seljirks were like, where the fuck are you going to get out of here? They killed them. And then the Mongols arrived three years later and they're like, ah, those guys that, you know, you killed a couple years ago, those were our guys, right? They were, they were, they were our, their bodies. And we're pretty pissed off about it and you guys need to surrender.

And then the Seljirks did surrender. And then the, the Mongols were like, yeah, too little too late. We're pretty pissed off about it and you guys need to surrender and then the celjx did surrender and then the The Mongols like yeah too little too late. We're still pissed about those guys. They just killed them all anyway According to some accounts each Mongol soldier had to decapitate 300 to 400 civilians and set the city aflame Right, they would have and they were so organized and was so dark We talked about this in this early initiative poor suck suck. When they would have to do it, if they were ordered to kill like 300 dudes, 400 dudes, they didn't just take their word for it,

they would have to bring back like 300 sets of ears. You know, or I guess you know, 300, I guess I don't know how you tell the right ear from the left ear. I think you'd have to get a set. I know it was ears. They'd have to bring bags of ears back. Like yeah, we did it.

Here's my 300 years. Ginghis Khan's army then destroyed other Silk Road trading centers such as Bada, Nisha Puer, Ghazni, Harats, all in present day Afghanistan and Iran. They starved out many populations destroying the irrigation systems to help their siege efforts. Damaged done to various ancient irrigation systems in these areas took centuries to repair. Irrigation systems, the Mongols destroyed in present day Iraq, not repaired until just this last century. Also around this time, Genghis is General Subutai and Jeba encircled the Caspian

Sea in 1221 with 20,000 men annihilated every army that got in their way between 1221 and 1223. That specific Mongol campaign has been referred to by some historians as the most daring military campaign of all time. That's when they briefly invaded Europe. 1221, the Mongols arrived in Herat, present-day Afghanistan, inhabitants initially spared, but when they rose and revolt, Genghis Khan told one of his generals,

since the dead have come to life, I command you to strike their heads from their body. That's some cold shit, that's some crazy shit to say. Right? Did they not know that they're dead? Did not know that I could kill them at any moment? Well, they'll know now. Reportedly, only somewhere between nine and 40 of the city's original 1.6 million inhabitants survived. How weird to be one of those nine people. One day your life is living in this big giant thriving beautiful city. Then the Mongols show up a few months later.

Everyone you've ever known, everything you've ever known, destroyed or dead, outside of maybe eight other people in another trading center visited by the Horde called Baa, the citizens of this fabled mother of cities and present day Afghanistan or massacred even after surrendering again. One historian said they were divided up according to the usual custom of hundreds and thousands put to the sword. And then there's that other Mongol campaign up north, right? 1222, 1223, gangus to general supadi, Jeba, defeat two large armies, present day Georgia

across the caucus mountains and winter and defeat and 80,000 man Russian army and 1223. We touched on that recently again in the Ivan the terrible suck. Mongol leaders now thought they had accomplished their mission before returning to Mongolia. However, they decide to arrest their troops and gain a little more info by the lands of the North and the West. They camped on the mouth of the Nipur River and their spies soon are scattered throughout Eastern and Central Europe. And then a Russian army of 80,000 under the leadership of a Prince of Kiev marches against them. Initially, Jebe and Subi Dai sought peace. However, when their envoys are murdered, here we go again. They destroy the Russians.

Mongols did not let shit slide. If you killed their envoys, if you killed their ambassadors, they were never like, I get it. Those guys were assholes. Shit happens. Nope. You always got pounded. The Mongols defeat the Russians by attacking first with lightly armored archers, then

luring the enemy behind a smoke screen set by dung fires, then cavalrymen armed with lances and swords, charge forcing the Russians to break ranks, run over each other as they flee for their lives. The story in Charles Halpern estimates that by the time of this battle, the destructive power of the Mongol war machine eclipsed anything the Russians had ever seen before. But they wouldn't push farther west into Europe, not yet. Ganges in his 60s now, seen his health decline, wants to return to Mongolia, make sure Mongolia knows who will be running his empire when he's gone. In 1225, both Mongol armies returned to Mongolia. Back in Mongolia, he selects his son,

Ogadai's successor, establishes the method of succession for subsequent cons, specifying they must be his direct descendants. Also in 1225, he finds out that Western Shia and the Jin have ready to force of 180,000 troops to try and knock him out of their territories. He's got a lot of enemies by this point, a lot of borders to defend in late 1226 when the rivers are frozen, the Mongols strike south to deal with this new threat. Despite a Western Shia army of more than 300,000 troops, the Mongols annihilate them, pursuing energetically, the Mongols killed a western Shia emperor in a mountain fortress. The emperor's son takes refuge in the great walled city of Ningxia and the Mongols to Hurtokanau that's going to flood the city and just before they do

flood it, the city surrenders, leaving the third of his army to hold Ningxia. Ganga sends his boy, Ogadai, eastward to destroy the Jin. With the remainder of his troops, Genghis marches south east to the eastern Sichuan province, where the western Shia, the Jin, and the Song Empire's meat to prevent song reinforcements from reaching Ningxia. This always, always fighting, always battling, always traveling. Then on August 18th, 1227, in the midst of all this fighting, Genghis that around the age of 65 dies in a camp in Yenshuan capital of western Shia. It may have died due to complications from injuries he'd received after falling off his horse the previous year.

Horse probably got sick of him drinking his blood, drinking his milk. On his deathbed, he outlines plans that later would be used by his successors to complete the destruction of the Jin Empire, even as he lays dying, his mind is on conquest. Oga Dicon then takes over as his successor and continues to expand his father's empire. As was the practice of his tribe, Genghis Khan buried in an unmarked grave in Mongolia, possibly in the region of his birthplace. When the emperor was finally laid to rest, supposedly his soldiers rode a thousand horses over his grave to destroy and he remained in trace of it.

In the 800 years since Genghis Khan's death, no one has found his tomb. There's all kinds of rumors about what happened to it. Suppose the river was diverted over it, so no one could find his grave. Suppose everyone who ever knew about his grave, were killed, considered taboo in Mongolia to even seek out his grave. Outsellers have used satellite and radar

and shit to try and find it, but no luck. There's even a curse legend that says, all kinds of horrible things will happen to whoever finds his tomb. And all likelihood, his tomb will never ever be found. I mean, if he was just buried in like a random grave in the middle of nowhere, it might just be completely obliterated by this point. Now, let's hop out of this timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. So, Genghis Khan and the Mongols. They kicked the shit out of a good chunk of the world in the early 13th century.

Although not fame for creating a lasting architectural wonders or political institutions, the Mongols made significant contributions to the world of culture by finally connecting the Eastern and Western worlds via expanded trade routes, diplomatic embassies, and the movement of missionaries and travelers from Eurasia to the far east. And they did this by shedding an unprecedented amount of blood. Let's leave with a few more examples of that because it does fascinate me more than anything else with the Mongols, just how devastating they were in war. Although Genghis Khan actually did restrict the use of torture in his empire, a lot of people still died tortureures deaths. Mongol executions man, often extremely grizzly.

When Guyak Khan, grandson of Genghis, suspected that a powerful courtier named Fatima had poisoned his brother, he had her tortured into confessing before, quote, her upper and lower orifices were sewn up and she was rolled up into a sheet of felt and thrown into the river. Eeeh! Had her mouth buttoned vagina sewn shut if I'm interpreting that correctly. Possibly her ears nose and eyes too. Added some serial killer shit. This next death also pretty damn brutal. The Mongols had a taboo as we talked about earlier against shedding royal blood. Right, with royals, they're supposed to die without shedding blood, so instead of say like be heading a royal, they would often crush them.

You know, like we talked about Jemooka earlier dying from a broken back. They're supposed to die without shutting blood. So instead of say like be heading a royal they would often crush them You know like we talked about Jemook earlier dying from a broken back Well, this next dude's death may have been more painful than that after Baghdad was sacked by the Mongols the caliph of The Ubasid caliphate Al-Mustasim Ruled up and do a carpet the carpet set out in a field and then trampled the death by stampeding horses Can you imagine being in that carpet? Or you can't see anything. You're all fucking squeezed in there. You're rolling the carpet. You just been placed out in some field. Some translator has undoubtedly let you know what's about to happen to you.

Or maybe not. Maybe not. Maybe it's a big surprise. Maybe like, hey, what are you doing? What are you doing? They just don't even say anything to you. They just set you out in the field. And then pretty soon you just feel like a little bit of vibration. And then you can tell like, oh shit, that's horses. Oh god, those are coming towards me. I wonder how long they made this dude wait out in the heat and the dark. And before you heard that distant rumbling and then it gets closer and closer, you don't know exactly when they're going to stomp you, where they're going to stomp you.

Oh man, how do you spend those final moments screaming for help begging for mercy? Just quiet, just like I get it up with. 12-23, if the Mongolian army kicked that Russian army's ass, right, the Battle of the Calcutta River, the Mongolians decided to celebrate. This may be the most ridiculous one. They decided to celebrate by forcing the generals and the nobility of the Russian army to lie down on the ground. Then they put this giant heavy wooden gate on top of them, right, so they're smushed,

but they're not dead. There's not enough way, you know, to kill them. It's just very uncomfortable. And then they put chairs and tables, set that up on top of the gate. And then they have their generals have a feast up there. They just have a meal. So they sit there. And then the weight of the people having the feast crushes the people underneath the gate to death slowly. So they're just, they're just drinking and celebrating that these guys get most beneath them. Why is that funny to me? So fucked up. But how how satisfying would that feel to dine on top of your enemies? Man, this steak is delicious. Hey, Prince Vladimir, you're still alive down there? Knock twice. If you want to bite grunt painfully if you'd like a bite

of tasty steak. You got in your room in your belly or as your stomach already been squished out or your flat ass body. Ganga's himself once ordered a Persian noble to die in arguably even worse death. He had this guy tied up covered in sheep fat, wrapped in felt, and then set out in a field and just slowly cooked by this,

by the sun. I know that's not funny, just so ridiculous. What are we doing to somebody? They were so imaginative when it came to killing. And again, they didn't just do this stuff for their own amusement, it doesn't seem. A lot of historians have written about, again, how their greatest weapon may have been

just their terrible reputation. Other empire leaders would hear about this shit. People who did not want to be covered in sheep fat and cooked in the sun. People who did not want to be rolled up in a, some fabric and trampled the death by horses or put under a gate and squashed. While people were eating a meal above them. And, you know, so then that, then when those people are asked to surrender later, that's the kind of shit that's going around in

their heads. Like, God, do I really want to be smushed by a gate? Or should I just give these dudes some gold right now? Yeah, a lot of these atrocities, darkly strategic. When Genghis defeated, the tribe that killed his father early on, he wanted to make sure that he killed anyone who had anything to do with his father's death. He wanted to make sure that no one from that tribe came from later on down the road. So with these guys, he lined up every boy, every man measured them against a lynch pin of a wagon, the axle pin in the middle of the wheel, anyone taller than that pin. So anyone taller than around three feet high, beheaded, slaughtered every male,

but the little kids and the babies. Here's the craziest example of Mongol devastation. This is though when I did a whole suck on early in time sucks catalog, the Battle of Nishipur. According to legend to this battle, one of Genghis Khan's daughters loved her husband, very much, a man named Tukwar. Genghis loved him too, his his favorite son-in-law.law went to Kwar killed by an archer from Nishapur, a city that was

not supposed to fight back. Why didn't you fucking listen to Plane? His wife demanded vengeance and Genghis owed, he give it to her. He had his army slaughtered every person in Nishapur by some estimates, one a million 748,000 people killed, women, children, babies, even dogs, and cats tracked down and murdered. Then according to legend, they were beheaded and their skulls were piled into pyramids around the city.

A request made by Genghis Khan's daughter to ensure that no one got away with a simple wound and wanted to see those heads, wanted to look at those death pyramids and know that whoever shot her husband was dead. Mongols did a lot of crazy shit. And we know about most of it thanks to one book, primary source for a lot of this info, old book, a Mongolian book called The Secret History of the Mongols written in the 13th century. The most important, oldest medieval Mongolian text, the only Mongolian account of all of this. The book covers the origins of the Mongol people, the rise to power and reign of Genghis Khan, written from a Mongolian perspective, right? It's, you know, gives

a very different perspective on the Mongols than all the other sources, which were written by their enemies, gives unique insight into one of the most important leaders in world history. Without it, we wouldn't know half of what we knew and were able to use for this suck. What a wild life Genghis had, man man from an early age forced to contend with the brutality of life in the Mongolian step rivals poisoning his dad when he's nine his own tribe later expelling his family leaving his mom to raise her seven kids alone as to grow up hunting and forging and as an as as an adolescence may have murdered his half brother during his teenage years he became a slave. Spidily his hardships by his early 20s. He'd established himself as a formidable warrior and leader, a massive army of supporters, you know, created the Mongolian Empire for the first time.

By 12.06, it successfully consolidated, you know, the step confederations under his banner and turned to outside conquests due to a lack of contemporary records estimates of the violence associated with the Mongol conquest varies considerably, not including the mortality from the plague in Europe, West Asia or China. It's possible that between 20 and 57 million people killed between 12, 6 and 14, 05 due to various Mongol campaigns beginning with Genghis Khan's. Many of those people killed brutally. No times are turbulent.

Many of our worlds right now, but if there's a positive takeaway from this suck, is that they're not nearly as turbulent as they were during the time of the Mongols. I'm reading a lot of it. Disturbing news reports recently, but none of them talk about pyramids of human heads, thank God.

2020's rough, but it's not nearly as rough as 1220. And now let's look back at more Mongol facts and learn one new one with today's top five takeaways right after one last sponsor. Today's episode of Time, so I brought to you once again by a long time sponsor this show, Captain Whiskrohorn's ponyplane, Poryom, tax shop, and saturday. Alrighty partners, it's your old buddy Tom Anderson, aka Captain Whiskrohorn again. Owner for prior to your most trusted source of 60 bits, bridles harnesses, halters, hulves, and ass anal plug tails and more

for the Quad State area for the past 20 years. When I heard the phrase topic was Genghis Khan, well, as a pony lover, I was excited to suck me some Mongols. In honor of this week's episode, every customer who buys a Mongold ponytail butt plug or a Genghis Khan double-dong colon-conquer pony-play deal dope will get a free six pack of some human cum is pony-play milk. That's real breast milk taken from a woman dressed up like a sexy mayor, fermented and

bottled in our warehouse out back. And if you haven't sift some cold human cum is. It's a long day of training and riding and whipping your sexy pony. You haven't lived my friend. And it tastes a hell of a lot better than Don Doverman's nasty ass puppy-play dog cheddar. I'll tell you that. So come on down and say hi to Captain Whisk or Horn in his trusty sexy steed Sasperillo. Hi-oh Sasperillo! AWAY! Yeah, now it's time for the top five takeaways. Hey, Luce of Fina.

Time, suck, top five takeaways. Number one, Genghis Khan's famous name is actually a title, meaning basically the King of Kings. He was born in Timbergian, which translates roughly into blacksmiths from blacksmiths to the King of Kings. Dude made some shit happen in his life. Concord far more territory during his reign than Alexander the Great or any Roman Emperor. No one. Concord like Genghis. No one.

Number two, it's estimated that Genghis had roughly 500 wives, even more junior wives. Such creepy title. Plus, countless concubines and subsequently responsible for millions of modern-day descendants. Approximately a half percent of the world's dudes have his Y chromosome. One of the world's most prolific pro creators. Number three, O gangus didn't only murder and rape. He also opened up the Silk Road, tolerated multiple religions, maybe spared a couple of people here and there. Didn't allow his own people to be enslaved and started the first ever international post

office. Number four, horse milk beer. Good luck drinking any kumas. I'm not thinking about how I said, it may come from a stallion and not from a mayor. And number five, new info. Part of Genghis Khan's legacy is perhaps the very first usage of biological warfare in 1345, the city of Kaffa on the northern coast of the Black Sea, raised by a vicious pandemic. After successfully repelling the first Mongol siege in 1343, Kaffa leaders knew that Johnny Begg, Khan of the Golden Horde from 1342 to 1357, great, great, great, great grandson of Genghis was due, gonna strike again.

When he did in 1345, he brought more than his standard Mongolian army. He brought the Black Death. We talked about this in the Black plague episode. When the Mongols laid siege to the city of Kaffa, they were struck by the plague. According to an account of the events, the Mongols were suddenly fallen left and right as though they had been struck by thunder, with lumps on their joints and dark marks on their faces. They developed a putrid fever in died-and-days.

Their army suddenly decimated rather than just walk away from the fight, they put the corpses that they're dead on catapults and flung them over the defensive walls of Kaffa. Load the Greg! Aim! The Greg! F Load the Greg, aim the Greg, file the Greg nuts. Just catapulting plague corpses into the city and it worked. They spread the disease not just to Kaffa, but through people fleeing Kaffa to all of Europe. And doing this, the Mongol Horde may have accelerated

the spread of the black plague that killed 30 to 60% of Europe population, half a Chinese population may have reduced the world population from an estimated 475 million to 350 million in the 14th century. And they may have also made funerals the most exciting they've ever been. Forget being cremated, forget being buried when I die, I want to be catapulted. Right? I've said it before.

Long time ago, I'm standing again now. Load the den! Aim the den! FIRE the den, aim the den, file the den. Time, suck, tough, five, take away. Oh, we did it. We suck, Genghis, so dude, who was probably pretty used to getting sucked in his lifetime. I hope that was entertaining.

This is the first suck I rerecorded. Damn it, it was hard to figure out what info to leave in, what info to leave out, to say a lot of these words correctly, to make it entertaining. I don't know why this was a tricky, tricky one for me. If you didn't like this episode, you know, at least take a little solace that you would have hated the first recording more. Thank you to the time-slug team, Queen of the Bad Magic, Lindsey Cummins, Reverend Dr. Joe Horsecock, Paisley, Bidelixer, Logan and K. Dispicy Club running BadmagicMarch.com. Thank you to the Scripkeeper's Zach Flannery for, you know, putting a lot of info in here.

It's a hard topic to try and get to put into one show. Thanks to all those involved who keep in the cult of the Curious Private Facebook Group fun, a growing place for discourse and ridiculous memes, thanks to the all seen eyes of the cult and the countess of the cult Liz Hernandez for moderating the Facebook group fun, a growing place for discourse and ridiculous memes, things that all see nice, the cult and the countess of the cult, Liz Hernandez for moderating the Facebook group. Thanks to Liz for overseeing the botanical emails. And check out Discord. The Timesug Discord channel can be accessed easily via the TimeSug app available on Apple and Google Play stores.

Next week on TimeSug, the space desserts voted for a topic that takes us into the darkest most dense forests of North America to learn about the legend of the Wendigo. Been a while since we talked about cryptids here on Time Suck. Wendigo's evil, man-eating giants of several Native American tribes, mythologies, they play the roles of monsters and buggy men in some legends, while in other stories, members of certain tribes who commit sins, especially selfishness, gluttony, cannibalism, turned into Wendigo's punishment.

Wendigo is supposedly a tall, bony, humanoid-looking creature. Long, super thin limbs, elongated claw-like fingers, plus a terrifying face and sharp teeth. Several depictions of this mythical beast also describe Elkorns or even a whole decapitated Elk's skull on the monster's head. To make things spookier, these cannibals have supernatural hunting abilities, very fast and strong with heightened senses of smell and endurance, North America treasure trove of amazing folklore and fascinating tales.

This topic gives us a chance to look into not just the when to go, but many others. Stone giants, man bears, toad women, and more. We're gonna investigate several American Indian legends. And that's next week on Time Suck. Now for some community, onward to this week's Time Sucker Updates. Updates, get your time sucker updates. First update coming in today from Genius Meat Sack Thomas Fog, regarding last week's

Nature vs. Nurture discussion in the Killer Kids Suck. Thomas writes, Greetings Master Sucker. During the most recent suck, you had some self-reflections on your own interests and your own upbringing and how that relates to others' claims of what parents claim led their sweet angels who wouldn't hurt a fly down the path of evil. While I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or mental health professional,

then he kind, I've read many web articles, studies, even several thesis papers on this very subject. Let me start off by saying I've been playing violent video games since I was five or six. I've been watching horror and action movies since I was four or five. I've been reading comics for as long as I can remember and I've been watching porn

since I started being sexually curious. First off, my first nonviolent cartoon violent video game I started playing with Grand Theft Auto III. My cousins had at their house on PS2. I would play non-stop every time I was there. first nonviolent cartoon violent video game I started playing was Grand Theft Auto 3. My cousins had at their house on PS2. I would play nonstop every time I was there. My first horror movie was Texas Chainsaw Masker. To the credit of my parents, they didn't know I was watching it. I've been reading superhero comics forever, started getting in a darker and griggy or graphic novels when I was about 12 or 13, right before high

school. I love the greats like Garth and George, Perez, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, so many others. I also like everyone with a smartphone or computer now. Have access to some of the most graphic pornography ever made with the stroke of a few keys. My parents were and still are good parents, but I have three siblings, and they couldn't both work and keep track of all of us 24-7. Now I understand that it's potentially,

that it potentially has more to do with my nature than my nurture, but I'm a pacifist. I hate seeing violence done to others, non-consensual, obviously. If two guys beat the hell out of each other in an MMA tournament, they've chosen to be there, and I have no problem with them going at it. I'd never gotten to a fight throughout school, not because I'm afraid of being in a fight. I'm 5-11 and 235 pounds. Been that height weight since high school, took self-defense classes, but obviously one kid from Ohio doesn't make for much of a well-rounded study.

Let's look at the broader picture. Recently, many studies have been run based on pressure from claims coming from high ranking public officials. Many of these individuals cite violent video games as the obvious problems that are caused in America's use to start shooting each other in our schools. These individuals generally either do not name a specific game, or will cite Grand Theft Auto,

which is most likely the result of doing a Google search for violent video games. Interestingly, the most recent studies have found that many of the recent school shooters did not play violent video games. How could that be? The highest-selling video game of all time is Minecraft. While it does have violence, I've seen smaller kids,

or yeah, while it does have violence, and I've seen smaller kids poising animals and laughing as their health bar strain, violence is not the main focus of the game. Arguably, it is a creative aspect of the game that is the focus. The second highest selling video game of all time, however, is Grand Theft Auto V. On that same list of top selling video games, there are other rock star titles like Red Dead Redemption, names like Call of Duty, Skyrim, Witcher 3, pretty safe to say these games are popular, pretty violent.

When you look at school shooters, you see the trend that most of them are not popular. They aren't following the most recent trends. They don't have a ton of friends. They aren't someone that people pay attention to or if they do, it's because they're worried that they are seeing signs of a school shooter, Parkland's shooting testimonials speak to this.

What they found is that the individuals who are school shooters are less likely to consume violent media including video game and movies because that is what the societal norm is, right? They're outliers. What politicians are doing right now, what they've done since the advent of politics is scapegoating.

They've done it on anything they could possibly blame for behavior and give it a simple solution. Comic books, video games, movies, drugs, pornography. If you want evidence that it's simple scapegoating for a simple and single villain to blame for a complex systemic issue, look no further than Ted Bundy. Ted claiming that porn pushed me to do a lot of the violent axi committed. Not to say porn has no psychological side effects, but we currently have access to truly any type of porn you could possibly want in great quantity because of the dark web that includes porn feature in violent rape, murder, child molestation, other terrible acts. We absolutely

objectively have access to significantly more porn and more depraved porn that at any point before in human history. I would argue that as that we as humans are getting no more depraved or violent, though, and I would even further argue that statistics show otherwise. Yes, exactly. Like you said, people now have outlets for their base or urges and fantasies. I think the problems we have right now regarding violence, shootings, etc. are significantly more complicated than a simple, single topic or bad parenting. You said your daughter may have been likely to murder when she got older if you didn't intervene. Kind of half joking there. But would you say you were a bad parent beforehand? If she had killed, wouldn't you wonder what you could have done differently

to prevent her from getting to that point? How would you react if she suddenly snapped and killed someone today? Just some food for thought. I'm not saying I have magic answers to what causes systemic problems. We should start figuring out what's wrong with our culture. If we stop, we could start figuring out what's wrong with our culture. If we stop pointing figures, fingers, stop prejudging and have a more open and public conversation about it. Sorry for the long ramblings. I love this suck as always. Thomas Fogg, aka the essential nerd with too much time on his hands. Oh, Thomas, love your message. Sorry for a couple of points there where I paused.

One thing I haven't brought up here is we're making the show a little trickier the past few weeks is because of COVID-19. The place that makes lenses for my eye doctor's place is backed up and it's taken a while with my new prescription lenses to get here. So I can't, it would be ridiculous for me to make the font much bigger.

I just literally have trouble seeing my own notes sometimes. And like, wait, what's that word? Anyway, Thomas, if this were an Instagram post, I would like it, then unlike it, just so I could like it again. Yes, scapegoating. There's what politicians do so much at the time. They're sure doing a shit ton of it today. How nice would it be if more of our leaders would do stuff like say, like, I'm sorry, I'll

work on being better instead of just playing a blame game. I like that you talked about how most recent shooters did not play violent video games. That that's kind of the norm and a lot of them are loners, outsiders who are not doing what everyone else is doing, which makes them feel more alone, kind of weird to think about that way that maybe if they would have played more games with other kids, maybe they wouldn't have done what they did. I know it's more complicated than that, but interesting. Thanks for giving us a lot to think about as always, Thomas. Love how much research you're always doing on your own. Crazy almost got killed by a serial

killer update now coming in from Super Sucker Marie Goulet who writes, hello master sucker. I'm a new listener. I've been binging on time sucks since my boss suggested you El Patron. That was a great choice. I'm on the Golden State episode, it reminded me of something I wanted to share with the cold of the curious. During the night stock, our reign of terror, my in-laws and tiny at the time future husband lived in Diamond Bar, California. When you said that someone got attacked in Diamond Bar, I asked my husband about it. He told me that one night they were sitting in the house and the door knob jiggled.

When my father-in-law went to look it up and And no there was no one at the door my father-in-law is an imposing six foot five man at the time a reserved sheriff for Los Angeles County The next day they heard on the police radio that a house just a few doors down from theirs was attacked I think Bojangles was watching out for them Your podcast makes a long drive home more bearable Marie. Well, thank you Marie How crazy that had your father-in-law not been home, your mother-in-law, you know, might have answered the door, might have been killed. Your husband could have been killed by one of the most brutal, heartless fucks we've ever examined. How strange for them to know that the night stalker might have been trying

to open their door probably was. I imagine that's something you would think about from time and time for the rest of your life. I hope you enjoy the rest of the catalog and hail Nimrod. Awesome email now coming in from Askingik and Metaless fuck sucker, Lindsey McHandless, who shares that dark, violent music safety. Lindsey Wright, hello suck fam. Joe Paisley, I love Maretta, come to Red Rocks and call her Raddle sometime. Get out there, Joe. Go on, do it.

Just catch a red. That's awesome. Yes, Maretta is fantastic. Dan Lindsey, love you too. The world needs more people like you. Anyway, regarding your killer kid's suck and what you said about angry media and something to be said about not feeling alone, I have argued that myself, but for a different type of media, I love metal music. The screamier the better, as long as it has rhythm. No one expects that of me, because I'm so bubbly kind and full of dad jokes. Also, I am told pretty girls aren't supposed to like metal music, fuck that shit. I always say

that maybe it is because of metal music that I'm so happy. There's absolutely something to be said about shared pain. Metal got me through my oh my god, I'm a freak and no one will ever understand me face. Then upon discovery of bands like Mudvane, Tools, Slipknot, Kill Switch, Engage, I realized I'm not alone, my feelings are valid. I screamed with the songs, I cried with lyrics, I came out of my shell. One of my co-workers today says it's hard to believe I was a loner in high school,

but it's because of seemingly angry music that I'm not an angry or lonely person. Also, Dan and Lindsay, I just love the two of you so much, but husband and I wanna be friends. Time suck and scared to death make work so much easier. Although scared to death makes me jumpiest fuck. And it makes me feel good to know that fame and podcast don't ruin everyone.

Much love from Colorado, Lindsey McHanless. Well, I don't know about fame, but I appreciate it. Thank you, Lindsey. It's a very nice message. I love that Metal is able to keep you calm and carrying on. And I get it. I get it.

Oh, and by the way, speaking of just good angry music, new Run the Jules album out now, RTJ4, I think it's so good. I mean, I'm a big fan, and I love the three previous albums, but I think this definitely is just as good, maybe even a little better than some previous releases. Yeah, here in the pain of others,

can help heal our own for sure. So keep listening to that hardcore fucked up shit and keep being a bubbly, cool, less person. Now for a scary message coming in regarding a killer kid, from an anonymous super sucker that who writes greetings time suck team, I'm a loyal space lizard and have been a sucker since about 2017 when I was 17

and I've been waiting a long time for the right time to send in a message and this seems like that time. I live in Belton, Missouri, only about 15, 20 minutes south of KC. And I have my paternal side of my family living in Montgomery, Alabama and that's where this story takes place. A cousin I barely met has two sons, a 14-year-old and an 11-year-old. The 14-year-old is a known troublemaker and on Friday, May 29th, he got into trouble and his father whooped him. Somewhere in the night something snapped in his head. The next morning, sometime between 11-15, 11.30 a.m., his dad was sitting in a chair in the backyard and was greeted by

his 14 year old son who was now holding the gun. I'm unsure if any words were exchanged with the boy unloaded 12 rounds into his own father. Yeah. Police arrived, the boy convinced his younger brother to go along with the story that three men broke into the house, robbed their dad, killed him and left. The police left the body in the same chair, uncovered until about 4 p.m. during that time, my family right down the road went to look to my other cousins who are very close to the victim. Obviously, we're very torn up and crying.

The killer was hugging people, telling people everything will be all right, playing the part of the victim. That is until someone realized these two boys just basically watched their dad get murdered and there's not a single tear between them My great aunt even went as far as to say whoever killed Bobby is probably walking with us here right now Right after she said that the 14 year old walked up behind her placed both hands on her shoulders and early muttered He whispered to me Know that didn't happen my aunt said

Did say that with the boy did Nice reference there. I imagine the younger brother was in shock with older brother is a textbook sociopath. Or psychopath, I still get to to confused. I just wanted to share this with you guys since today's episode is about killer kids. Feel free to share on the show if you'd like. I changed the name of my cousin left, mine out for secrecy.

And I'm sending it really just to tell you guys a story. I'll be sending in more messages in the future with my name and everything. I listened to all the dance comedy specials for about a year, listened to all the bad magic productions content religiously, can't wait to fill my earbellies with some girthy Joe Dick and watch it down with the nectar of life that is sweet de-com. Yes, we're very excited to get our new show out.

Thank you guys for all your hard work and dedication, entertaining and forming us, giving us the opportunity to walk around in the best damn clothes in the galaxy, even though I haven't been able to buy any. Glory be to Triple M, hail and then brought in Keep on Suck in Space Lizards. PS, I know this email is long, but I refuse to apologize Well, thank you anonymous sucker, and I'm curious about this case now has it gone to trial Like if so have sentences been handed down to either kid or just one found guilty both found guilty in some way what a what a nightmare And now one last message something uplifting from an incredible prankster and awesome

space is are are leading. Arrow writes, hey Dan, arrow leading here, loyal space is your perpetrator of the highly motivating penny prank. Before I go on this message, I can't remember if I've talked about this on time stuff, we talked about it on the secret stuff several times. The penny prank, uh, arrow, send in a message to the secret talk about it. And it's a brilliant prank where you just put a penny a day around someone that you have constant access to in your life to make them think that they're going insane. Ideally, somebody you either work with, so you can see on a regular basis at work or even better that you live with so you can constantly place pennies around the house. And you start off, you know, maybe just a penny on the floor, somewhere innocuous,

and then you just slowly escalate it day after day after day. You know, maybe there's a penny on the counter, then all of a sudden, pennies are shown up in places where it's weird for someone to leave them. Maybe a penny is shown up inside a candle. Maybe a penny is shown up on top of a yogurt container in the fridge. Then, you know, maybe pennies are shown up on the person's snooze button on their alarm clock. Then a penny is on their pillow next to their head and bed, just like whatever, just get weirder and weirder with it.

And then, Errol writes, just get weirder, weirder with it. And then arrow writes, things have not always been fun. I have mental illness and you guys have shown me what consistency over time can do. Somehow I picture you sitting at the table recording your 30 minutes of thoughts about David Ike, wondering if anyone would ever care, listen, oh yeah, in that first episode.

And now we sit here years later with an amazing community that is socially distanced and able to share so much love and joy for each other that brings me to this point. In 2013, I was standing on an overpass on the William Floyd Parkway, looking down at the Long Island Expressway. I thought that no one would miss me and this pain would finally be over. I was going to kill myself.

Well, it turns out fat people can't climb fences so well. And that's all stopped me from getting over to the edge. Turns out that one month later, after giving up, my life turned around. And that time, I started to work again, worked up from a $9 an hour job to almost $25 an hour. I know that's not burning up the world, but it's enough to change my life. And now I'm married for the past two years. Dealing with mental illness never fun, but we get by and I keep on going.

I'm enclosing a picture of our new house I'm having built. Should be closing on July 1st, just in time, from my 52nd birthday. All I can say is stick with it, never give up, always get back up when the world says lay down, you're defeated, look it in the eyes and snarl, I'm not tired and I'm not done yet. I'm still breathing and I have way more to do. That's fucking awesome, man. Kick ass my cold leader, much love to everyone there. Thank you for always inspiring PS. This is a long email and I'm not sorry, early in US Air Force. I will thank you for your service, Errol, and how cool, man.

House is looking nice. Like that two car garage, looking beautiful. Happy for you, and thanks for relaying such an inspiring message, man. You almost ended everything, and now you, life is going so well, you would have never got to experience any of this if you would have jumped off that bridge. So glad you didn't. Like your message, if you get back up when the world says you're down, times are tough

now for a lot of people, a lot of anger, a lot of it's very valid. A lot of people feeling knocked down, a lot of people have been knocked down. A lot of them, if they take your advice, are going to keep getting back up and see better days ahead. Love you guys, hail Nimrod, and look forward to more messages next week. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Have a great week. Don't rape and pillage anyone. Maybe don't drink any horse comb beer. Maybe listen more points, fingerless. I'll work on that too.

And keep on sucking. Chrism, Chris, Quisrium, Cognites, how many cognates were there? There were so many empires. Yeah. Heads of pyramid schools. You did it. You learned. I tried so many good job. Okay. Now we got, we got to get you out of here. It's good. The cognates. There's a lot of them. There's a lot of millions of people died. I can't cognize it.

Shobans, no, that's Japanese.