Genghis Khan - The Final Conquering Years - Extra History - #6
Added 2018-03-23 17:31:00 +0000 UTCGenghis Khan wanted to establish a long-lasting legacy of conquering and growth for the Mongols, but at what cost? Even his own sons fought each other for the throne. Would peace truly last in the lands he had conquered?
Comments
I couldn't find anything about this 'largest hunt in human history'. I find that a bit odd. Does anyone even know what it was named?
Thomas Alfred Weaver
2018-03-26 19:05:41 +0000 UTCWhat I'm most disappointed in this series (which, to be fair, is still one of my favorites overall) is the lack of mention of Subutai and Jebe, Genghis's top generals. Both came from lowly classes like Temujin, but they outsmarted and out maneuvered every army they came across. They also helped reform the mongol army (which was touched on) and I think it is fair to say without them, Genghis Khan would have been just another barbarian warlord pestering China.
Collin James
2018-03-25 02:01:13 +0000 UTCThe Mongols aren't really part of that. The region converted to Islam pretty early, the orthodox churches came with the Russian Empire, the Soviet architecture with the Soviet Union replacing the Russian Empire and the Koreans came as fallout of the Korean War stranding a large number of Koreans in the Soviet Union. And the apples? Indigenous and the strudel technique is as well and the Austrians got it from the Turks.
Christina Maria Jessen
2018-03-25 01:50:17 +0000 UTCThat seems like a somewhat tricky argument to make. After all the Mongol conquests came before the Ottoman Empire and Safavid Persia. The Middle East wasn't uniquely terrible off even in the years leading up to WWI. The region was in fact undoubtedly better off than China, a country so impoverished that most plows were pulled by humans because farmers couldn't afford draft animals. The woes of the Middle East all seem to come down to 20th century political instability. As for Eastern Europe, much of it was actually not particularly backwards until recently. Bohemia was one of the earliest centers of European industrialization and regions like the Baltic states and Prussia did have substantial industry as well. Twentieth century political turmoil seems to account for a lot of the issues here as well and even then, it's worth keeping in mind that most of Eastern Europe has a substantially higher GDP per capita than, say, China. Also, if having been devastated in war would render a place backwards for centuries, then Germany should be a third world country. It lost something like 20% of its population in the 30 Years War, while also serving as the main battlefield of the Napoleonic wars and being devastated in both world wars. Europe in general would be in a bad spot, given that only China can really compete with Europe for a history of giant, horrific wars. Speaking of China, the country suffered through several world war scale wars between the Mongol Conquests and today as well, including losing the second most people in WWII, and it has come out better than much of the Middle East. Korea on the other hand weathered the Mongol Conquest pretty well and was barely touched by war between it and the outbreak of the Korean War. Yet it was one of the poorest areas of the planet before the Japanese occupation, the second world war and the Korean war and remained desperately, grindingly poor until the late 1960s. So while the Mongol conquests certainly hurt various areas, they were not deterministic for what went on later. Several factors hurt these regions, including continued political instability, trade routes changing to go around Africa and often they weren't actually that hurt until they happened to be out of loop of industrialization. Also, it's really worth keeping in mind just how much 20th century politics hurt the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The two world wars were absolutely devastating on Eastern Europe, while the Sykes Picot agreement and subsequent western meddling kept fanning the flames in the Middle East.
Christina Maria Jessen
2018-03-25 01:47:37 +0000 UTCI agree! maybe we can get an extra one-off special on Jalal ad-din, the shah's son, who spent his life being chased by mongols (and even defeated them a few times)
Collin James
2018-03-25 01:21:59 +0000 UTCI hope in Lies, we get to look at a few portraits of Genghis Khan. I'm often surprised by how gentle and jolly looking he is depicted sometimes. I watched a documentary about him one time that asked whether Temujin was a psychopath, or just a normal guy thrust into extraordinarily bloody circumstances. Their conclusion was that he was mentally a normal guy, and when you see some of the portraits of him, you get the impression that, in a different timeline, he could have been someone like Mary Seacole or John Snow, instead of a conqueror.
Erik Eldritch
2018-03-24 22:18:28 +0000 UTCI was kind of disappointed about the coverage of the Khwarezm campaign. This was some of the mongol's most tactically brilliant and ruthless work and we didn't get to hear anything specific.
Erik Eldritch
2018-03-24 22:08:19 +0000 UTCWhy does the globe (at the beginning and the end) show America but not Asia? Are you implying Genghis Khan changed America, or was this just because of your American bias`? Other than that great episode. Looking forward to your "lies".
eisprinzessin
2018-03-24 21:38:16 +0000 UTCThis was a good series, but there were some erroneous conclusions at the end. 1) Heavilly Armoured Knights and Soldiers were not rendered obsolete by the Mongols. Plate armor hasn't even been invented at this point, and the Mongols thought riveted chain mail was some sort of magic arrow proof armor when they fought the Kwarezimate. 2) Though they wrote no books themselves, the Mongols did facilitate the learning of the subjects and allies. Though a sort of chauvinistic streak does seem to have prevented them from actually applying this learning themselves over all. 3) Are we not gonna cover the Ghengis Khan DNA thing? At all? Saving it for lies?
Richard Fejdasz
2018-03-24 19:02:37 +0000 UTCI am sorry but the conclusion leans a bit too much into Orientalism. The Mongols gave the world no new agriculture, books and so on but assimilated other peoples. Well that's true of all empires. The Roman Republic/Empire sat on its ass for 800 years giving not one book in mathematics, and physics to compare to Euclid or Archimedes (who was killed by a Roman Legionnary at Carthage). Their education system was non-existent, and almost everything about Rome was borrowed and stolen from Etruscans (their engineering), the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Persians, The Samnites and others. Yet it's only the Mongols who get to be described this way. I mean the worth of the Empire being their culture and intellectual contribution is a colonialist and European conception, and I am disappointed that Extra History went the route and made such a normative judgment when there wasn't any need of it. And in any case it's not true. The Yuan Dynasty of China which was started by the Mongols unleashed a Golden Age in China, whose riches are still being measured. Yes it's by assimilation but the Vikings also changed the world by assimilation giving us places and cities like Russia, Dublin, Cork, Iceland among others. The idea that an empire only creates by its own means rather than conquest and assimilation is not a universal truth. P. S. I did greatly enjoy this series, I wish we went more into the Khwarezmian Empire. I also recommend to you and to other posters, the wonderful and magnificent film THE FALL OF OTRAR which shows the destruction of the Khwarezmian Empire. It's a Kazakh film and obscure but if you can seek it from World Cat I recommend it.
Sudarshan Ramani
2018-03-24 18:16:45 +0000 UTCIn addition, by the end of his life, Ghengis was obese, probably had cirrhosis of the liver due to his alcoholism, and probably 1 or more STD's. Not to mention problems stemming from battle injuries. He'd been ill for some time (though how long and from what exactly was obscurred to keep his people from worrying), so his dying on campaign wsa not unexpected by those close to him.
Dani McKenzie
2018-03-24 17:46:43 +0000 UTCThere's some argument that the relative backwardness of the modern Muslim world and Eastern Europe can be traced back to the Mongol conquests which destroyed much of the existing infrastructure in the regions conquered. Certainly the Khwarazmid Empire, the Caliphate in Baghdad and the Kievan Rus ceased to exist (which is why the Russian Capital these days is Moscow, not Kiev) and its probably the Mongols' own lack of a strong, established culture that allowed the local traditions to survive as much as they did.
Darren Loo
2018-03-24 02:38:28 +0000 UTCIn Kazakhstan, you can see the weird mishmash of cultures in that part of the world- thanks in part to the Mongolians I guess. Silk road cities are an odd mix of mosques, orthodox churches, soviet architecture and Korean restaurants. (And in Almaty they make a pretty good apple strudel, too. I'd recommend it if you ever find yourself in that part of the world.)
Keith Richards
2018-03-24 01:04:33 +0000 UTCI met a traveler from an antique land, who said "Two vast and truckless legs of stone stand in the steppe......near them, on the ground, half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, tell that it's sculptor well those passions read, which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, the hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; and on the pedestal, these words appear: My names is Temujin, Khan of Khans; look on my works, ye mighty and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that collosal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level plains stretch far away".
Symmetrymaster
2018-03-24 01:02:52 +0000 UTCI think this episode should have emphasised a little stronger just how bloody the Mongol conquest of Khwarezmia was. While the Mongol forces did try to save certain professionals entire population centres were still slaughtered in an extremely brutal way.
Chang E
2018-03-23 23:08:27 +0000 UTCThe Mongol Conquests killed roughly 5% of the total global human population, making them proportionally the most deadly war in human history. So I'm going to say that no, it was not worth it.
Joshua Evans-Lowell
2018-03-23 22:44:38 +0000 UTCThe summary at the end doesn't strike me as terribly legit. The Mongols didn't exactly render heavily armored knights obsolete, given that Europeans kept using them for three centuries after the Mongol conquests. Not just that, the one force to defeat the Mongols on the field of battle was that of the Egyptian Mameluks, who fought as heavy cavalry, though, of course, with light cavalry and infantry support. I'm not actually sure what entire cultures the Mongols eradicated. The Jurchen would keep on trucking, change their name to the Manchu and conquer China. The Uighur are still alive and kicking, as are the various other Turkic and Iranian people of Central Asia. The Mongols did also drive a lot of exchange across Eurasia. While we know there had been considerable trade before and China, Iran and India have at various points influenced each other, the Mongol Empire still tied Eurasia closer together than ever before. Partly through the simple presence of the same soldiers across most of Asia and much of Eastern Europe, but far more so by leaving the actual day to day management of the empire to Arab bureaucrats and tax farmers. Technology, administrative practices and philosophy traveled with these groups, tying the vast landmasses of the old world together in ways they hadn't been before.
Christina Maria Jessen
2018-03-23 22:38:39 +0000 UTCIn 1162 AD , when tribes of nomadic warriors roamed the Mongolian steppes, a bay boy was born. The oracles foretolf that the boy, named Temujin, would one day become Khan of the Mongols. Like the gray wolf of legend, the young Temujin had strong limbs and a fearless heart... and cold hungry eyes... Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf (SNES intro)
Jonathan Luoto
2018-03-23 19:39:42 +0000 UTCA gray wolf descended from the clouds and took as his Empress a white doe.... Legend of the Mongol origins
Jonathan Luoto
2018-03-23 19:33:36 +0000 UTCEmpire of Mali --> Non-Euclidean Geometry --> 1918 Flu Pandemic
Thomas Alfred Weaver
2018-03-23 17:49:44 +0000 UTC"I have Conquered for you a Large Empire, but my Life was too short to take the whole World." ~ Genghis Khan I find myself very excited to Learn what the next Topic will be.
Martin Verran
2018-03-23 17:35:19 +0000 UTC
