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Genghis Khan: Madman or Genius? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, Phoenix, Arizona and surrounding Desert Mesa. We have some
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Speaker 1: our clearinghouse for Stuff you Should Know Live. Welcome to
0:56
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
1:06
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and sitting
1:09
Speaker 1: across from me Charles W. Chuckis Chinks Bryant, And sitting
1:16
Speaker 1: to your right is ghost producer Casper Nobody. It was
1:21
Speaker 1: Ramsey guests producer Ramsey. We've got like all these new
1:24
Speaker 1: guest producers coming on hot and he now Jerry had
1:27
Speaker 1: she had to leave today, and I think everyone's busy,
1:31
Speaker 1: and so someone came in. There's also a distinct lack
1:34
Speaker 1: of interest I've picked up on. Boy, remember the days
1:37
Speaker 1: when people used to jump out a chance to sit
1:39
Speaker 1: in here? Oh yeah, Now they're like, I've got a
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Speaker 1: mail something. I know. You used to be like, oh
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Speaker 1: my gosh, Jerry's gone, let me do it, Let me
1:45
Speaker 1: do it. They grew up, Yeah, and then they grew
1:49
Speaker 1: up in um. Now we have our little dunking bird
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Speaker 1: to pick the key that our record button. Just going
1:58
Speaker 1: back and forth thinking about where life went wrong. Just us,
2:03
Speaker 1: just us Chuck and a guy named Genghis Dinghis Khan.
2:09
Speaker 1: Do you pronounce it Dinghis or Genghis or Chingis? Are
2:13
Speaker 1: you being serious? I know it's not Dinghis, but I've
2:16
Speaker 1: also seen it spelled in a way that would suggest
2:19
Speaker 1: you you pronounced it chingis Oh really, I think I
2:24
Speaker 1: have heard that, but we're gonna go with the the
2:27
Speaker 1: general Genghis pronunciation. Okay, right, although his what was his
2:32
Speaker 1: birth name, Timujin doesn't even Genghis Khan isn't even his
2:37
Speaker 1: real name. Everybody, so calm down. It's Temujin or Temujin. Man.
2:42
Speaker 1: Did you see that statue. I've seen it before. Yes,
2:45
Speaker 1: it's enormous. Have you seen in person? Now, I've not
2:48
Speaker 1: yet been to Mongolia. That's something else, man, I will
2:51
Speaker 1: one day though. Yeah, I know it's it's the world's
2:53
Speaker 1: biggest equestrian statue, and with good reason. It's like forty
2:58
Speaker 1: or thirty ft tall. That's an enormous statue. It's pretty
3:02
Speaker 1: impressive whether whether you're on a horse or not. That's
3:04
Speaker 1: a big old statue, right, I almost didn't say old.
3:08
Speaker 1: And I think it's made of like fifty tons of
3:11
Speaker 1: stainless steel, which means it rinses clean really well. And
3:16
Speaker 1: it looks like I saw the wide shot. It doesn't
3:19
Speaker 1: look like one of those. It's you know, surrounded by
3:22
Speaker 1: burger kings. Oh good, looks like there's a lot of
3:25
Speaker 1: land around it. Well, Mongolia has a lot of land,
3:28
Speaker 1: a lot of undeveloped land from what I understand. Yeah,
3:31
Speaker 1: this was an interesting one because depending on what kind
3:34
Speaker 1: of historian you are, he is a either a revered
3:40
Speaker 1: mastermind or scorned butcher. Butcher, yeah, I know, he's actually
3:48
Speaker 1: I think both well of Yeah, there are definite camps
3:52
Speaker 1: for sure, Like like a lot of people, um I've
3:55
Speaker 1: seen him called the pro Genghis camp um approach. Yeah,
4:01
Speaker 1: that they're they're all about like all the cultural transmission
4:04
Speaker 1: that happened under his his rule, um or all of them.
4:09
Speaker 1: All the new innovative laws of religious religious tolerance was
4:14
Speaker 1: another one. And yes, you like all that stuff happen,
4:18
Speaker 1: it's not in dispute, Like there are a lot of
4:21
Speaker 1: things that we'll talk about that we're really positive. But
4:24
Speaker 1: he's also directly responsible for the deaths of about thirty
4:30
Speaker 1: five million people over twenty million twenty five year period.
4:37
Speaker 1: That's a ridiculous amount of death of people who had
4:41
Speaker 1: Genghis Khan not been born and you know, decided to
4:46
Speaker 1: lead a conquest, would probably otherwise not have died violently.
4:51
Speaker 1: That's a big mark in his favor or against him.
4:55
Speaker 1: My morality just switched off there for so you got
4:57
Speaker 1: the pro g the anti G and the alleg it's
5:01
Speaker 1: the third camp I missed that. It's good stuff. It is,
5:09
Speaker 1: but they tried to bring it back, remember and it
5:13
Speaker 1: is there a part two or two point. They that's
5:16
Speaker 1: that's the problem. They didn't do new stuff. It was
5:18
Speaker 1: just him introducing old stuff, and it was like, we
5:21
Speaker 1: want more new stuff. We've all seen this stuff bunch.
5:24
Speaker 1: It was like for a month on FX. But they
5:26
Speaker 1: shot new hosting segments, yes, that were like fifteen seconds long.
5:30
Speaker 1: So basically they said, hey, Slasha bart Cohen, how'd you
5:34
Speaker 1: like to make another X amount of dollars by showing
5:37
Speaker 1: up for a day. How would you like to do that?
5:40
Speaker 1: The Ali G version of S Y s K selects,
5:44
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, alright, I'm not gonna examine that one too quickly. Alright,
5:49
Speaker 1: So we're talking about Ali G, I mean Genghis Khan, right, yeah,
5:53
Speaker 1: and just some large statistics right off the bat, as
5:57
Speaker 1: far as his um, his his influence, well not his influence,
6:02
Speaker 1: but his rule and sheer numbers. Yeah, this is the
6:05
Speaker 1: reason we're still talking about I'm not just because he
6:07
Speaker 1: killed so many people, yeah, agreed. Um. By the time,
6:12
Speaker 1: you know, of course, everyone knows he was a great
6:15
Speaker 1: conqueror who just kept branching out further and further, and
6:18
Speaker 1: this is how far he reached. Eventually, in modern day terms,
6:22
Speaker 1: he would reach Austria. Austria, he banged on the door
6:26
Speaker 1: of Austria, his his son did. Just get out of
6:28
Speaker 1: world map and look at where Mongolia is. So Austria, Finland, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Vietnam, Burma, Japan,
6:37
Speaker 1: and Indonesia twelve million contiguous square miles, which is the
6:42
Speaker 1: size of Africa. Again amazing. Yeah, and then to put
6:49
Speaker 1: that in context, you know the great Roman Empire that
6:52
Speaker 1: was about half the size of the United States. Yeah,
6:56
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire was half the size of the United States. Yeah,
6:59
Speaker 1: it took them four hundred years to amass that. In
7:02
Speaker 1: twenty five years, Genghas Khan had an empire the size
7:05
Speaker 1: of Africa. Yeah. And then at the time, the population
7:09
Speaker 1: in the the world was about seven billion people. The Mongolian
7:12
Speaker 1: empire was about three billion of that. So it's just astounding.
7:17
Speaker 1: It is astounding. And to put it in like true
7:19
Speaker 1: cultural or true historic context at the time and say,
7:24
Speaker 1: like the early early thirteenth century, the Mongols were the
7:27
Speaker 1: Mongols a bunch of nomadic tribes, tribes on the steps
7:31
Speaker 1: of Mongolia. China was a well established and um fairly
7:35
Speaker 1: advanced patchwork of dynasties. Um, you had like Europe growing
7:40
Speaker 1: in the they were in the Middle Ages, but they
7:42
Speaker 1: were like the Renaissance is coming not too long. Um.
7:46
Speaker 1: You had the Native Americans over in America doing their thing,
7:49
Speaker 1: Africa doing their things. So there's all these different things
7:52
Speaker 1: going on in the world, and then all of a sudden,
7:54
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, this tiny little bunch of people who
7:58
Speaker 1: aren't even in agriculture take over Eurasia in twenty five
8:05
Speaker 1: years out of nowhere and kill thirty five million people
8:10
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. It would be like if if Polynesia
8:14
Speaker 1: suddenly rose up and took over the America's in twenty
8:17
Speaker 1: five years. They just assembled and said we're taken over.
8:21
Speaker 1: And they were just so ferocious that America just didn't
8:25
Speaker 1: even know what to do and was overrun by them. Yeah,
8:28
Speaker 1: and their their rule was not long lasting for a
8:31
Speaker 1: lot of the reasons that there's a lot of ironies,
8:34
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the reasons that they were
8:36
Speaker 1: able to spread so fast ended up being their undoing.
8:39
Speaker 1: But um, this is all just set up fodder. Yeah,
8:43
Speaker 1: we haven't even gotten into it yet, so let's let's
8:45
Speaker 1: let's do start, Okay, sure back in. Uh, people think
8:50
Speaker 1: the best guess is probably I think eleven eighty five.
8:53
Speaker 1: I saw there was a kid named Timmy Jin eleven
8:58
Speaker 1: sixty two. I'm sorry, and uh he was born uh
9:02
Speaker 1: in a place called well along the Onon River near
9:08
Speaker 1: La Batar, which is a great name, but that's the
9:11
Speaker 1: capital of Mongolia. There's five a's in that's a lot.
9:16
Speaker 1: And uh, this this kid, this Temujin, who would grow
9:19
Speaker 1: up to be Genghas Khan was not genghaskm material from
9:24
Speaker 1: the outset. No, he was Um. Well, he was a
9:27
Speaker 1: middle brother, and apparently both younger and older brother outshone him. Yeah,
9:32
Speaker 1: he was very much the jam Brady of his family.
9:35
Speaker 1: He was because apparently little brother was a much better
9:38
Speaker 1: athletes and a better you know, arrow shooter or I
9:41
Speaker 1: guess you would call them archers. Um, kind of better
9:44
Speaker 1: at everything, and then his older brother picked on him.
9:47
Speaker 1: Um he was not. He was illiterate. He wasn't like
9:50
Speaker 1: formally schooled or super smart, right right, But I mean,
9:53
Speaker 1: in his defense, neither were most of the people he
9:56
Speaker 1: knew or lived on the steps. Yeah, it's not like
9:58
Speaker 1: his two brothers like got their doctorates, their PhDs and
10:03
Speaker 1: kicking butt. Uh that's true. Um, but he was there was.
10:09
Speaker 1: I mean, reading I wish I knew more about this,
10:12
Speaker 1: this whole era, because it sounds like it was just
10:15
Speaker 1: a crazy time, especially over there, where people would be
10:18
Speaker 1: like if I want something, I'm just gonna go take it.
10:21
Speaker 1: If I want that tribe gone, I'm gonna go kill them.
10:24
Speaker 1: If I want those ladies and your children, I'm gonna
10:26
Speaker 1: kidnap them. And that was just sort of how the
10:29
Speaker 1: land was ruled. It was kind of not chaos, but
10:33
Speaker 1: just brute force. Lawless. Yeah, pretty lawless. And you were
10:38
Speaker 1: you were loyal to your tribe or your clan um
10:42
Speaker 1: and your tribe or clan was nomadic and you live
10:45
Speaker 1: by the horse and yeah you you There was a
10:48
Speaker 1: lot of war between these tribes on the steps and
10:52
Speaker 1: tiny wars like like like you said, kidnapping, like you
10:55
Speaker 1: would kidnap your wife. That's how you got your wife,
10:57
Speaker 1: was you go kidnapper from another tribe and be like
10:59
Speaker 1: you're my life. Now. That's how his mother came about, right, Yes,
11:04
Speaker 1: that's how he came about. Was his father kidnapped his mother.
11:07
Speaker 1: His father was the chief of his tribe. Um oh,
11:12
Speaker 1: what's his father's name? And Yessugi kidnapped who lou who loon. Yeah,
11:19
Speaker 1: there's a lot of m louts in there. I don't
11:20
Speaker 1: know how the oom out represents Mongolian dialect, but we're
11:25
Speaker 1: gonna do a German style. So her name is Hulon?
11:28
Speaker 1: Is that pretty German mert crew? So she was kidnapped,
11:33
Speaker 1: and this is the thing, Like I have no context
11:36
Speaker 1: to put this in if this was a common thing,
11:40
Speaker 1: was she like I'm being kidnapped, Okay, Like I guess
11:44
Speaker 1: I'm eighteen now or something like this is just a
11:46
Speaker 1: normal course of events for so it didn't impact her
11:50
Speaker 1: or is that just a ridiculous thing to even think?
11:53
Speaker 1: And like, yes, if you were kidnapped and take him
11:55
Speaker 1: from your tribe and made to be some dude's wife unwillingly,
11:58
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter where it happened or when it happened.
12:01
Speaker 1: It was a horrific experience. I think it was. I
12:05
Speaker 1: mean I think it was that and just sort of
12:06
Speaker 1: the way it was. Women were just had no recourse
12:11
Speaker 1: or say in anything at the time. But like I
12:15
Speaker 1: think I know what you're saying though, Like you know,
12:17
Speaker 1: she had these children and they were a quote family,
12:20
Speaker 1: but what does you know, what does that mean in
12:21
Speaker 1: that context? Yeah? Is it a family if mom's like
12:24
Speaker 1: looking for an escape route? Right, the whole life? Right? Um?
12:29
Speaker 1: Either way, it was not like people recording one another
12:32
Speaker 1: back then. So, um, yes, Sugi right, that's what we
12:37
Speaker 1: decided on. Yes, Uh, yes, Suggi was the chief, like
12:41
Speaker 1: I said, of the clan of the tribe. Very powerful dude.
12:45
Speaker 1: And he was poisoned. Actually, he died by poisoning when
12:48
Speaker 1: Timudgin was nine, and that was bad news for Timidgen,
12:53
Speaker 1: his mom and his two brothers. Yeah, they were just
12:55
Speaker 1: sort of kicked out of this new tribe. And I'm
12:59
Speaker 1: not sure why. I guess because he was the son
13:01
Speaker 1: of of Yeah, they didn't want anybody being like, oh,
13:05
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm the rightful heir, I I should
13:07
Speaker 1: really be the chief of this tribe. I'm very surprised
13:10
Speaker 1: that they didn't just kill all of them, yeah, because
13:13
Speaker 1: that's kind of the way he usually went. So, yeah,
13:15
Speaker 1: they were kicked out. Uh. So he had a rough childhood.
13:18
Speaker 1: They were not They had a scavenge for food. Um,
13:22
Speaker 1: I reckon it toughened him up a little bit. But um,
13:26
Speaker 1: as our article points out that he uh, it kind
13:30
Speaker 1: of gave him a will too, and probably picked him off.
13:35
Speaker 1: So he had anger and will, vengeance and vengeance all
13:39
Speaker 1: rolled up into one, which says a lot about like
13:42
Speaker 1: the man that he would become. I think, um so
13:46
Speaker 1: he and his family make it so, not all of
13:49
Speaker 1: his family. There's there's a story called the Secret History
13:54
Speaker 1: of the Mongols, and it was written in about twelve forties,
13:57
Speaker 1: so shortly after Genghis Khan's death. We don't know who
14:00
Speaker 1: the author was, but that's the primary source for most
14:03
Speaker 1: of the auto or the biography of Genghis Khan. They
14:07
Speaker 1: know a lot, a lot because somebody sat down and
14:10
Speaker 1: wrote this, and we'll see eventually why Um but them,
14:15
Speaker 1: that's where we're getting all of this information, which is
14:17
Speaker 1: also why if you listen to the history of Genghis Khan,
14:20
Speaker 1: a lot of it sounds like a string of fables
14:23
Speaker 1: and tales wrapped together. But historians tend to think that
14:26
Speaker 1: there's some some kernel of truth or just outright truth
14:30
Speaker 1: to most of it. Should we take a break, Yeah,
14:33
Speaker 1: all right, We'll take a break and we'll talk about
14:35
Speaker 1: what young Timogen was like. All right, So we said
15:06
Speaker 1: that he was a bit of a cry baby, got
15:09
Speaker 1: picked on, wasn't very athletic or strong, but he had charm,
15:14
Speaker 1: he had chutzpah, he had charisma and a little bit
15:17
Speaker 1: of moxie and definitely you gotta throw in some moxie.
15:20
Speaker 1: And apparently he was able, through his charisma too, to
15:24
Speaker 1: talk people into helping him out, and that became sort
15:26
Speaker 1: of a trait through his life. And they give a
15:28
Speaker 1: couple of examples. Um, one time he was going after
15:32
Speaker 1: a horse thief and he just ran upon a stranger
15:35
Speaker 1: and kind of convinced the guide to not only give
15:38
Speaker 1: him a horse, but to help him out. Yeah, he
15:40
Speaker 1: really attracted people into his orbit from what I understand. Yeah,
15:43
Speaker 1: he was like h like gil like Gilbert Godfrey. It's
15:51
Speaker 1: funny because I knew I was trying to think of
15:53
Speaker 1: someone legitimately, and I knew that you were headed down
15:56
Speaker 1: to different Uh what I There was another time that
16:02
Speaker 1: he had a bride to be or maybe I think
16:04
Speaker 1: he was married, I think, and she was kidnapped because
16:07
Speaker 1: that's how it went. And so he went to the
16:10
Speaker 1: leader of another tribe and said, hey, take this sable skin.
16:13
Speaker 1: It was one of my wedding gifts. Yeah, he was
16:16
Speaker 1: pretty impressed apparently because he helped him rescue the wife
16:20
Speaker 1: and then pledged his allegiance to him as an ally
16:23
Speaker 1: for life. He said, not only am I going to
16:25
Speaker 1: help you get your wife, You're gonna go on to
16:28
Speaker 1: do great things and I want to be there with you.
16:31
Speaker 1: Love me so um. There's just tons of stories like that,
16:37
Speaker 1: like early stories where like he was held prisoner by
16:40
Speaker 1: he was kidnapped himself and escaped by beating the guy
16:44
Speaker 1: watching him with the wooden caller that he had fastened
16:46
Speaker 1: around his neck. There's just tons of stories like that.
16:49
Speaker 1: If you put it together, you can kind of see
16:51
Speaker 1: this guy develop over time, right, But eventually he probably
16:55
Speaker 1: hit the weights eventually, right. Yeah. As um, as he
17:00
Speaker 1: grows up and develops, and more and more people kind
17:02
Speaker 1: of come into his orbit and want to help him out,
17:05
Speaker 1: he starts putting that that charisma and that vengeance too,
17:10
Speaker 1: I guess productive use. And he he assembles like his
17:15
Speaker 1: own tribe and other tribes. He starts alying with other tribes,
17:18
Speaker 1: and the tribes that don't go along with it, he
17:20
Speaker 1: slaughters in war um, and he would. He was known
17:25
Speaker 1: for having like an eye for other talent, which would
17:29
Speaker 1: aid him tremendously throughout his years as a conqueror. But
17:34
Speaker 1: for example, if you were a good enemy soldier, and
17:38
Speaker 1: he noted that in battle, there was a good chance
17:41
Speaker 1: that you were gonna end up a field commander on
17:43
Speaker 1: his side after the battle was over, and he beat
17:46
Speaker 1: your your guys. And there's actually a story where his
17:49
Speaker 1: horse was shot out from under him. And after his
17:52
Speaker 1: his group won the battle, the Mongols won the battle. Um.
17:56
Speaker 1: He wanted to know who shot that arrow and the
18:00
Speaker 1: I on the other side stood up and said it
18:01
Speaker 1: was me. And he said you your name is Jebe now,
18:05
Speaker 1: which means arrow, and you're going to become a field
18:08
Speaker 1: commander for me. And he went on to be one
18:09
Speaker 1: of the best to you ever had. I think. I
18:11
Speaker 1: was like, is he messing with me? Yeah? But that
18:15
Speaker 1: was that was pretty par for the course with him.
18:18
Speaker 1: And so through these actions he started assembling like an
18:21
Speaker 1: army and became the leader of the steps. Yeah, and
18:24
Speaker 1: people like you said, if they challenged him, they were squashed.
18:28
Speaker 1: He um. He had a surrender or die policy, which
18:31
Speaker 1: apparently if you literally did not fight, and you were
18:36
Speaker 1: just like, okay, we're all yours. Apparently he was okay
18:39
Speaker 1: to you. He wasn't known for torturing people. Um, I
18:43
Speaker 1: don't know if he you know, I don't know. I
18:46
Speaker 1: don't want to say he was kind to them, but
18:49
Speaker 1: I think he kind of wanted his subjects to be
18:51
Speaker 1: happy and productive. So if they didn't fight him, he
18:54
Speaker 1: was like, all right, you're you're part of the big
18:56
Speaker 1: extended family. Come here, come here, you thank you for
19:00
Speaker 1: your kingdom. Although he isn't khan at this point. Still. No,
19:05
Speaker 1: that didn't take place until I believe twelve oh six. Yeah,
19:09
Speaker 1: that's when they the Mongol tribes all got together. They
19:12
Speaker 1: had a great assembly called cure Lie and they said,
19:17
Speaker 1: you know what, you're the man, You're Genghis Khan. Now
19:21
Speaker 1: we are all on your team because quite frankly, we're
19:24
Speaker 1: scared of your where scared so scared. So he was like, hey,
19:29
Speaker 1: that's fine. Yeah, So Genghis Khan. They think their khan
19:33
Speaker 1: means ruler, indisputably Genghis. They're not acent sure what they
19:38
Speaker 1: meant by it because it can mean ocean or just
19:42
Speaker 1: so they think they were saying like supreme like the
19:45
Speaker 1: leader all the way to the ocean. Sure, and then
19:47
Speaker 1: then you run into t Triton. You don't want to
19:50
Speaker 1: mess with him, right, But up to Triton's area, this
19:54
Speaker 1: guy is the leader. So that's what they meant by
19:56
Speaker 1: like ocean leader. He was an aqua man. No, So
20:02
Speaker 1: they're unified now. And he said, I have to, like
20:06
Speaker 1: I have to assemble a nation here. I've got all
20:08
Speaker 1: these tribes. I want a unified people. Yeah. That was
20:11
Speaker 1: a big move, it was, and it was a smart move. Um.
20:14
Speaker 1: And all these old clans got together, people that were
20:17
Speaker 1: enemies UM, joined forces. I don't know if they became
20:20
Speaker 1: you know, best buds or anything. Well, one of the
20:22
Speaker 1: things they did is they renounced these old rivalries. Yeah.
20:26
Speaker 1: They they stopped warring with each other, they stopped robbing
20:29
Speaker 1: one another. Um. And they started identifying not as these
20:33
Speaker 1: individual clans but as Mongols. Yeah. And like strengthened numbers.
20:37
Speaker 1: I think they realized this, this could benefit us all
20:40
Speaker 1: if we're one big, powerful group. Right. But numbers is
20:44
Speaker 1: relative though, man, Like from what I saw at its peak,
20:48
Speaker 1: the army of Genghis Khan had about a hundred thousand men, Yeah,
20:53
Speaker 1: which is peanuts. It is peanuts. So why were they
20:58
Speaker 1: should we get into why they were sick cessible yet
21:00
Speaker 1: or this? Yeah, so why were this successful? Well? Uh,
21:06
Speaker 1: a few reasons. Probably the one of the biggest is
21:11
Speaker 1: is these dudes could ride horses and shoot arrows like
21:16
Speaker 1: nobody's business. They were incredible. Uh. They had an incredible cavalry.
21:22
Speaker 1: He was one of the first that whoever wrote that
21:24
Speaker 1: article you sent um that one historian he was great.
21:29
Speaker 1: So he pointed out that he uh, he realized that
21:33
Speaker 1: that the cavalry didn't need to be followed by an infantry,
21:37
Speaker 1: which was a huge advantage. I guess in battle you
21:40
Speaker 1: needed far fewer guys. Yeah, and just get everyone up
21:44
Speaker 1: on a horse. Uh. They were incredible archers. They could
21:47
Speaker 1: their accuracy was unmatched. They could fire an arrow apparently
21:51
Speaker 1: like over three hundred yards accurately. Um. These horses were awesome.
21:58
Speaker 1: They were grass fed, they could live off the land,
22:00
Speaker 1: and they had this armor that was really lightweight and flexible.
22:03
Speaker 1: So you know, at the time they were fighting people
22:06
Speaker 1: when much heavily armored apparel, so they they were they
22:11
Speaker 1: could move around better. You know, on their horses. They
22:14
Speaker 1: were firing arrows and they had these little short swords,
22:18
Speaker 1: and they had this thing called a hooked lance, and
22:20
Speaker 1: they're like, a lance is all right, it's it's cool,
22:22
Speaker 1: I guess to poke someone off a horse, But what
22:25
Speaker 1: if you can poke them or grab them? So they
22:27
Speaker 1: added a hook to the lance, a very simple feature,
22:30
Speaker 1: and it really changed things. It was like a modern
22:33
Speaker 1: uh evolution and weaponry. So these are just a few
22:37
Speaker 1: of the reasons. One of uh. One of the others
22:40
Speaker 1: is tactics and strategy. Uh. He would scout out before
22:45
Speaker 1: battles for weeks. Sometimes he wouldn't just go as like
22:49
Speaker 1: as brutish as they were. They would spend a lot
22:52
Speaker 1: of time doing research and spying and really kind of
22:56
Speaker 1: figuring out a game plan, like like if they were
22:58
Speaker 1: going to sack a city, like they you where the
23:00
Speaker 1: trade lte or the supply lines were, escape routes, um,
23:05
Speaker 1: you know all that kind of stuff, all the stuff
23:07
Speaker 1: you need to notice sack a city one of the
23:10
Speaker 1: other things. So so part one I saw it called
23:16
Speaker 1: the quantum leap in military strategy and technology. Okay, that
23:23
Speaker 1: was the first thing. The other thing is something you
23:26
Speaker 1: touched on earlier there, surrender or die policy. Right, so
23:30
Speaker 1: their military prowess combined with their tactics and the their
23:35
Speaker 1: policy of if you don't just say yes, that's fine,
23:40
Speaker 1: we don't want to fight, we're gonna kill everybody, just
23:44
Speaker 1: about everybody. And they were actually pretty smart about it too.
23:47
Speaker 1: They'd find like the skilled craftsmen in some cities and
23:50
Speaker 1: we're gonna spare your life because you're now a Mongol.
23:53
Speaker 1: You gotta move to Mongolia, by the way. Um. But
23:56
Speaker 1: they would just kill so many people that a lot
24:00
Speaker 1: of historians have tried to figure out why were they
24:03
Speaker 1: so ferocious, and they've actually been a number of theories
24:06
Speaker 1: that have been put up. One is so apparently so
24:10
Speaker 1: Genghis Khan was a he was into shamanism. That was
24:13
Speaker 1: his religion. But he was like fervently religious about shamanism.
24:17
Speaker 1: And there was like a great god of the sky
24:19
Speaker 1: who um I think is analogous to Vishnu maybe in Hinduism.
24:26
Speaker 1: And this this god supposedly gave him a vision that
24:31
Speaker 1: he should become conqueror of the world. And so some
24:35
Speaker 1: people have said, well, he you know, if you opposed him,
24:38
Speaker 1: you were opposing his god. And so there was no
24:40
Speaker 1: room for that, and that's what made him so ferocious um.
24:43
Speaker 1: Probably the best explanation though, is that if some it's
24:47
Speaker 1: like one of their hundred thousand horsemen died, that was
24:50
Speaker 1: a big deal, right, So to save their numbers, they
24:55
Speaker 1: were better off not fighting, so by slaughtering an entire
24:58
Speaker 1: city that worried about that gets around the area. So
25:02
Speaker 1: when those guys show up to your city, there's a
25:04
Speaker 1: pretty good chance that if they say surrender or die,
25:06
Speaker 1: you're gonna surrender. And so the Mongols didn't have to
25:09
Speaker 1: sacrifice this single person. Yeah, and also get the idea.
25:13
Speaker 1: I mean, we're going to talk about his major uh sieges,
25:17
Speaker 1: but he also had a lot of smaller skirmishes with
25:20
Speaker 1: just kind of regional tribes I think, And I got
25:24
Speaker 1: the idea that he wouldn't send all his dudes in there.
25:27
Speaker 1: He would send in a small amount of people as
25:30
Speaker 1: possible because they were so fierce and good at what
25:34
Speaker 1: they did, he didn't need to. And then that also
25:36
Speaker 1: reduced the chances of lots of life, I guess. And
25:38
Speaker 1: then so the smallest units, those that hundred thousand man
25:42
Speaker 1: army boiled down to units as small as ten people. Yeah,
25:46
Speaker 1: that was the individual unit was a ten person cavalry group,
25:50
Speaker 1: and yeah, you could just say send five groups in
25:54
Speaker 1: or a thousand groups in or whatever. Yeah, there you go.
25:57
Speaker 1: And he would also, uh, he would also as he
26:01
Speaker 1: went he would pick up whatever weaponry and tactics that
26:04
Speaker 1: other armies used and use those. Because one thing that
26:09
Speaker 1: Um was pretty clear in reading this Genghis Khan did
26:11
Speaker 1: not like walls in walled cities. It ticked him off,
26:16
Speaker 1: especially for some reason. Why would you do that? You know?
26:19
Speaker 1: So he you know, he got catapults and things like that,
26:23
Speaker 1: and he would, you would do some awful things like
26:26
Speaker 1: with ladders and catapults, he would fling diseased animals like
26:29
Speaker 1: that wasn't I don't know. He wasn't the only one
26:31
Speaker 1: to do that, but some of the seems like Lord though,
26:35
Speaker 1: the thing with the cats and the birds, Yeah, he
26:37
Speaker 1: told one city that he'd spare them if they gave
26:40
Speaker 1: him a thousand cats and ten thousand birds. And they
26:43
Speaker 1: gathered up there ten thousand birds, which I guess they
26:45
Speaker 1: had in the thousand cats and gave them to him.
26:47
Speaker 1: And then he set the cats and the birds on
26:49
Speaker 1: fire and flung them over the walls to start fires
26:52
Speaker 1: in the city. Well, supposedly cod cotton got to them
26:55
Speaker 1: and set them on fire. Well that's much better, but
26:57
Speaker 1: I'm sure the fire spreads. It does seem a acry full. Yeah,
27:01
Speaker 1: I don't know if I believe that apocryphal. By the way,
27:04
Speaker 1: I just learned in like the last year or so,
27:06
Speaker 1: I mean that made up. You didn't know that's you
27:09
Speaker 1: never heard the word or plenty of times I just
27:12
Speaker 1: didn't realize. I always assumed it meant like biblical and
27:15
Speaker 1: end of time. Interesting because it's resemblance to apocalypse. I've
27:21
Speaker 1: got one more for you. What's that? I just this
27:24
Speaker 1: week learned what kudi gras actually means. I thought it
27:27
Speaker 1: meant like the cream of the crop, the ultimate it's
27:30
Speaker 1: the death blow, like there's nothing after it, not because
27:34
Speaker 1: it's the best, because you just had your head cut off. Yeah,
27:37
Speaker 1: the kuda, Yeah, yeah, the final blow. Just learned that
27:40
Speaker 1: this week. Yeah, I think I knew that. You know
27:42
Speaker 1: what word I used to always get wrong? Was dubious?
27:48
Speaker 1: Did you think about pot? I don't know. Yeah, can
27:52
Speaker 1: you score me some dubious? Did you ever listen to
27:54
Speaker 1: funk Dubious? They were like this rap group from the
27:57
Speaker 1: nineties US they were eight, they were they all they
28:01
Speaker 1: want to do is have fun in the midst of
28:04
Speaker 1: like the whole gangster totally remember that boy? They they
28:08
Speaker 1: just went away. I haven't heard that name, and I
28:11
Speaker 1: think they had like one album in that was it.
28:12
Speaker 1: What was their big hit? I don't even remember, but
28:15
Speaker 1: all but it had to do with pot probably so um.
28:19
Speaker 1: All right, So he's got Mongolia pretty well taken care of.
28:22
Speaker 1: What What did you think dubious meant? I joke instead
28:26
Speaker 1: of letting your answer, No, I don't. I don't remember
28:28
Speaker 1: what I thought it meant, but I think I just
28:30
Speaker 1: used to get it wrong. We'll go back to funk dubious. Uh.
28:34
Speaker 1: So he's got Mongolia pretty well under control, and he
28:38
Speaker 1: is insatiable though Genghis Khan is. He starts looking around
28:42
Speaker 1: and he's like, China is big do a pretty pretty
28:46
Speaker 1: pretty and I think even though they are wealthy and
28:50
Speaker 1: tough and have a lot of dudes to fight, I
28:53
Speaker 1: think I can take him because I'm Genghis Khan, which
28:56
Speaker 1: is a nuts so thing to say at that time.
28:59
Speaker 1: It's depending on which of the dynasties in China you
29:03
Speaker 1: were talking about, because I think there were at least
29:05
Speaker 1: three major ones. Well, he's like, all of them, let's
29:07
Speaker 1: just go one at a time. Yeah, so that's what
29:09
Speaker 1: he did. Yeah, that's exactly what he did. He started
29:12
Speaker 1: with the and there's I'm sorry everybody, I'm having trouble
29:16
Speaker 1: keeping up with all of the names. But the Tangots. Yeah,
29:19
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Jijia. That is how I would probably
29:22
Speaker 1: pronounce it, not dixiea chang No. Yeah, thinking about that, Yeah,
29:30
Speaker 1: Ji and the Tangets, And uh, I think this was
29:34
Speaker 1: sort of a test, his biggest test militarily at the time. Yeah,
29:40
Speaker 1: it was. He'd been fighting other tribes on the steps
29:44
Speaker 1: that to consolidate them and killing off the resistors. They
29:48
Speaker 1: didn't have cities. The Tangots were the first ones that
29:51
Speaker 1: he encountered that had like cities with walls that were
29:53
Speaker 1: fortified that he needed to figure out how to lay
29:56
Speaker 1: siege to. Yeah, and he he did, to the point
29:59
Speaker 1: where the king finally said, all right, you were my master,
30:04
Speaker 1: here are my troops, and here's the princess bride as well,
30:09
Speaker 1: because I've heard you get around and Genghas Khan said,
30:13
Speaker 1: as you wish, that's right, and that what he said,
30:17
Speaker 1: I think so. Uh So the next he said, all right,
30:20
Speaker 1: how about this other region, the Chin Kingdom, and he
30:25
Speaker 1: faced a seventy thousand man army and it said virtually
30:30
Speaker 1: wiped it out in this article. So he's working his
30:33
Speaker 1: way up here now. Yeah, so he actually hit the
30:35
Speaker 1: Chins twice from what I understand, and this How Stuff
30:38
Speaker 1: Works article says that happened in two thousand thirteen, So
30:41
Speaker 1: I'll bet the Chins were quite surprised to see Genghas
30:43
Speaker 1: Khan show up five years ago. Yeah, I wonder why.
30:46
Speaker 1: I mean, it says that came he came back and
30:48
Speaker 1: got a bunch of silk and gold and got a
30:50
Speaker 1: bunch of engineers. I wonder if that was the the
30:53
Speaker 1: purpose of that mission was, like, hey, I don't think
30:56
Speaker 1: we properly rated them. Yeah, because this was two years
31:00
Speaker 1: after the first one, I guess that's all all it
31:03
Speaker 1: was that he wanted some more silk and gold, and
31:06
Speaker 1: again in appropriating weapons like crossbows, catapults, and because it's China,
31:13
Speaker 1: early versions of explosives, right, and so he's using all
31:16
Speaker 1: the stuff he's not married to, just the hook pole
31:20
Speaker 1: and just the saber. He'll try out anything he sees worked, right,
31:24
Speaker 1: So he's he's knocked out the first two dynasties, he's
31:26
Speaker 1: brought them under his control. He now controls a significant
31:30
Speaker 1: portion of China, all of the steps around Mongolia, and
31:34
Speaker 1: he's got his sets, his sights set on the biggest
31:37
Speaker 1: one of the three, the Jin dynasty, and he um
31:42
Speaker 1: actually got in contact with them, or else they got
31:45
Speaker 1: in contact with him first. But the emperor of the
31:48
Speaker 1: Jin dynasty, this is an advanced civilization at this point,
31:52
Speaker 1: very wealthy, maybe the most advanced and wealthy civilization on
31:56
Speaker 1: the planet at the time. Genghis Khan is a backwoods
32:01
Speaker 1: redneck horse rider who just happened to get lucky a
32:05
Speaker 1: couple of times, caught the other two dynasties slipping. That's
32:10
Speaker 1: what the emperor of the of the Jin dynasty is thinking. Yeah,
32:13
Speaker 1: he's thinking, you're gonna be my slaves. Yeah, He's like,
32:16
Speaker 1: you've done pretty good, kid. I'll tell you what. I'll
32:18
Speaker 1: let you. I'll let you look over my land in
32:21
Speaker 1: the south. You'll be my vassal. And um, here here's
32:26
Speaker 1: the princess bride. I hear you like him. But it
32:29
Speaker 1: did not work out that way, No, it didn't. He
32:31
Speaker 1: actually successfully defeated the most advanced, wealthiest society on the
32:37
Speaker 1: planet at the time. The Jinn's slaughtered thousands and thousands
32:41
Speaker 1: of people. Well, that's how you do it, I guess.
32:43
Speaker 1: And these three campaigns, these these are huge, enormous campaigns.
32:48
Speaker 1: China was extremely populous at the time, and the number
32:52
Speaker 1: of people who died, most of the people who died
32:54
Speaker 1: under Genghis Khan's rule through war and conquest happened during
32:58
Speaker 1: these three China camp pains. Yeah, about thirty about thirty
33:02
Speaker 1: million people died. And this is over I mean ten years.
33:07
Speaker 1: I think less than ten years, Yeah, I think. So,
33:11
Speaker 1: it's nuts man. Yeah, so he wanted to continue going,
33:17
Speaker 1: I guess West twelve nineteen. He made his way through
33:21
Speaker 1: modern day Central Asia like Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and the
33:28
Speaker 1: Shah Mohammad there said he killed an ambassador that they
33:33
Speaker 1: had sent forward from a trading caravan and he had
33:37
Speaker 1: a big walled city and he's like, I'm gonna be fine.
33:39
Speaker 1: I'm not sweating this guy, and uh, he burned the
33:43
Speaker 1: city down. Genghis Khan did, and including a thousand of
33:47
Speaker 1: the soldiers who were in a mosque hiding out, killed
33:50
Speaker 1: about a hundred thousand people. But of course like you
33:53
Speaker 1: said earlier, he spared the skilled craftsmen and workers, right.
33:57
Speaker 1: And this is the quarsam Kuara's and I even practice
34:02
Speaker 1: this one the charasm Choorism Empire, which um it's capital
34:11
Speaker 1: city that he sacked is now in Uzbekistan, but I've
34:14
Speaker 1: seen it called mostly like Afghanistan, Iran for the most part.
34:20
Speaker 1: This is the area it covered, Iran is what I
34:23
Speaker 1: see it mostly compared to these days. Yeah, And things
34:26
Speaker 1: are starting to get a little out of hand at
34:28
Speaker 1: this point. And and it's basically sort of due to
34:30
Speaker 1: the fact that he there was he went too far.
34:34
Speaker 1: There were too many people, too much land. Um, when
34:38
Speaker 1: you control your I think that the guy who wrote
34:41
Speaker 1: that article you sent said that they weren't producers of anything,
34:45
Speaker 1: the Mongols, yeah, or or tradesmen. They were conquerors, that's it. Yeah.
34:50
Speaker 1: And that's not like you got to diversify. From what
34:53
Speaker 1: I understand, they didn't have a written language. Um, they
34:56
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. They just conquered people and took go
35:00
Speaker 1: over your land and then leeched off of you. Yeah,
35:04
Speaker 1: which is a good skill to to get going. But
35:06
Speaker 1: if that's all you can do, I think he likened
35:08
Speaker 1: it to a shark needing to feed, Like, eventually you
35:12
Speaker 1: run out of lands to conquer, and then in the
35:15
Speaker 1: interior it's such a huge corporation at this point it
35:19
Speaker 1: gets unwieldy. So Genghas kind recognized this. At some point
35:23
Speaker 1: he saw that he had basically a change of heart
35:28
Speaker 1: about agriculture, about walled cities, about a sedentary lifestyle. And
35:32
Speaker 1: I think he mostly saw like, oh, you can make
35:35
Speaker 1: way more wealth this way. So he turned from conquering
35:39
Speaker 1: as much toward figuring out how to administer this area
35:44
Speaker 1: that he conquered. Again, Eurasia is conquered. It's under this
35:49
Speaker 1: guy's This guy's had never never been united before and
35:53
Speaker 1: has hasn't been united since, even under Soviet Soviet rule.
35:58
Speaker 1: The Genghis Khan's empire is bigger than that, right, um,
36:02
Speaker 1: And so he's put it together and he's like, what
36:05
Speaker 1: do I do now? And we'll talk about that after
36:07
Speaker 1: this message about that, okay, Chuck, So Genghis Khan has
36:36
Speaker 1: conquered Eurasia and said, what now? What now, Eurigel, what
36:41
Speaker 1: do you guys want to do now? I'm done with killing?
36:44
Speaker 1: Not really the well he died, Yeah, I guess that's right. Yeah,
36:51
Speaker 1: and this is no one knows quite how he died still. Uh.
36:54
Speaker 1: Some people say he had a fall from a horse
36:56
Speaker 1: and was injured eventually died. Other people said, at my
37:00
Speaker 1: have been typhus. There are a few other theories floating
37:02
Speaker 1: around out there, but yeah, like shot in the knee
37:05
Speaker 1: with an arrow is my favorite. Yeah, which I guess
37:08
Speaker 1: just infection. I would die from pain. Yeah. Uh, it's
37:15
Speaker 1: interesting though. In August seven, when he was on his deathbed,
37:20
Speaker 1: like one of the last things he did was say,
37:22
Speaker 1: you don't remember the Tangets, go kill all of them, right,
37:26
Speaker 1: that's what he did. I think they were the first
37:27
Speaker 1: people he conquered, right, they were the ji Um people, Okay,
37:32
Speaker 1: the first people in China. And when he went to
37:34
Speaker 1: go Um go attack the choir z M empire, he
37:39
Speaker 1: demanded that they send some troops his reinforcement, and they
37:43
Speaker 1: said no. He defeated the choirs M and Um turned
37:47
Speaker 1: around and went right over to Jija. It was like,
37:50
Speaker 1: you guys are your toast. You're in trouble. And that
37:54
Speaker 1: was his last act as as a living person. Yeah.
37:58
Speaker 1: He was succeeded by one of his on ogadi who
38:02
Speaker 1: took that stuff all the way to Europe, had a
38:05
Speaker 1: bunch of sons, and I guess we might as well
38:07
Speaker 1: talk about his lineage. It's very famously the Genghis Khan.
38:12
Speaker 1: I mean, what is it like one of every two
38:14
Speaker 1: d men, something like point five per cent of the
38:19
Speaker 1: total global population is directly descended from him. That's amazing,
38:25
Speaker 1: it's amazing and gross. That's a lot of people. Yeah,
38:31
Speaker 1: he was about sixty five ish when he died, and
38:35
Speaker 1: no one knows where he's buried. No, because they killed
38:39
Speaker 1: everyone on the way to the funeral this one. And
38:42
Speaker 1: then also they rode over his his grave with horses.
38:46
Speaker 1: I looked up. Have you do you ever go on cora? Uh? Sure?
38:50
Speaker 1: And then it's great man, Yeah, like you can you
38:53
Speaker 1: can usually tell who knows what they're talking about. Of
38:57
Speaker 1: the answers, the multipla and frequently it's most of the bowl.
39:00
Speaker 1: It's it's a very it's a good serious like it's
39:05
Speaker 1: a good place to get info that you should then
39:07
Speaker 1: go double check. Yeah, but agreed, though it's not like
39:10
Speaker 1: the old days of what was the terrible when years
39:14
Speaker 1: and years ago, where you would ask question who questions?
39:18
Speaker 1: Yeah probably yeah, yeah, something like that. Yeah, there and
39:21
Speaker 1: there are a lot of platforms like this. This is
39:23
Speaker 1: a pretty good it's not corrupt yet. How about that? Yeah?
39:26
Speaker 1: I think is pretty good. Actually, so um, I went
39:28
Speaker 1: on Core. This one you can't really look up. But um,
39:31
Speaker 1: this one guy two people like. The question was why
39:34
Speaker 1: was Genghas con buried in secret? I think? And two
39:37
Speaker 1: people said, um, they didn't want a grave robbed. Um.
39:42
Speaker 1: They wanted to make sure that the transfer of power
39:45
Speaker 1: to his son was complete, so they had to keep
39:47
Speaker 1: his death a secret. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, this
39:49
Speaker 1: one guy said, don't be idiots. He's a little arrogant,
39:53
Speaker 1: but he said, like, don't be idiots. Genghas Khan was
39:56
Speaker 1: shamanistic person, religiously fervent. He would have gone one of
40:01
Speaker 1: two ways. They would have cremated him and just spread
40:04
Speaker 1: his ashes, or they would have done a sky burial.
40:07
Speaker 1: Remember we talked about before where they just left him
40:09
Speaker 1: on the mountainside for the vultures to pick over. Um,
40:13
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have buried him with grieve goods. He would
40:15
Speaker 1: have been embarrassed with that. So he's the only person
40:18
Speaker 1: I saw say something like that. But it gave me pause.
40:22
Speaker 1: It made me wonder if if the hidden grave is
40:26
Speaker 1: just you know, just a more lower about Genghis Khan
40:30
Speaker 1: and off the mark. Interesting. Well, his legacy looms large still,
40:35
Speaker 1: not only in his uh, his lineage from his loins,
40:42
Speaker 1: his overactive loins just leaching out goop. But depending on
40:48
Speaker 1: who you're talking to, Um, well, he definitely did some things.
40:53
Speaker 1: He opened up trade, Um, the West got things like
40:57
Speaker 1: noodles and tea and playing cards. He perhaps founded the
41:02
Speaker 1: very first version of what would later be at post office,
41:06
Speaker 1: which is what's it called the yam Yeah, like a
41:08
Speaker 1: pony Express. Yeah, like those different stations, the Pony Express. Yeah,
41:13
Speaker 1: like straight up, but like six years before the Pony Express, Yeah, exactly.
41:18
Speaker 1: But depending on who you're talking to, Some people lay
41:22
Speaker 1: almost all of modern warfare at his feet, which is
41:26
Speaker 1: sort of interesting because you can sort of draw a
41:29
Speaker 1: line back to his tactics that and eventually would become
41:33
Speaker 1: the Crusades or the uh the slaughtering of the Aztecs
41:38
Speaker 1: and the Incas. Yeah, so they like they would learn
41:40
Speaker 1: from him and then do that, right, because it was
41:43
Speaker 1: more of that cultural conveyor belt the right. So they
41:47
Speaker 1: say that he conquered the kars M Empire, came in
41:51
Speaker 1: contact with with Islam Um and taught them ferocity, which
41:56
Speaker 1: the Europeans learned during the crusade, and they took that
41:59
Speaker 1: for city back to Europe and then eventually to the
42:02
Speaker 1: New World, which they used on the Native Americans they
42:04
Speaker 1: found there. And somebody said, um, no, the Europeans were
42:08
Speaker 1: already well versed in ferocity and brutality and warfare. They
42:12
Speaker 1: didn't need to learn it from getting his Khan. That
42:14
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that's wrong, but it does. It's the suggestion
42:18
Speaker 1: that the Europeans were naive to brutality and warfares is incorrect. Well,
42:24
Speaker 1: it's complete bs and um. The author of that article
42:27
Speaker 1: also makes a good point, and like you can't you
42:30
Speaker 1: can't look it and judge him by today's lens. He
42:33
Speaker 1: wasn't anymore brutal than anyone else back then, it was
42:36
Speaker 1: just the number. Yeah, he just did it better. That's
42:40
Speaker 1: to me though, So I guess then maybe my problem
42:42
Speaker 1: is is like celebrating people who have killed tons of
42:45
Speaker 1: people like that's what I have a problem at at
42:48
Speaker 1: base because it's a great man, great man history. You know,
42:52
Speaker 1: it bugs me. It bugs me too. We didn't come,
42:56
Speaker 1: We didn't come across the way, did we so but
42:59
Speaker 1: just just just by carrying on the tradition of talking
43:01
Speaker 1: about this guy, and you know, there's you definitely keep
43:06
Speaker 1: his his little flame burning well and there's a what
43:09
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty ft statue of him. Yeah, like he's
43:13
Speaker 1: still very much revered. Well, let's talk about like if
43:17
Speaker 1: you were in Mongolia right now, you're probably pretty mad
43:19
Speaker 1: at me and Chuck apologies for that. We're really it's
43:23
Speaker 1: the great Man history thing we have a problem with.
43:26
Speaker 1: But Um in Mongolia, he is known as the founder
43:29
Speaker 1: of Mongolia, them the great, basically the great, the greatest
43:34
Speaker 1: leader Mongolia has ever known, and possibly the world if
43:37
Speaker 1: you're a Mongolian Um and during that, during the Soviet
43:42
Speaker 1: occupation of Mongolia, you were not allowed to talk about him. Yeah,
43:46
Speaker 1: they took him out of history books. Yeah, because they
43:49
Speaker 1: were trying to stamp out any kind of nationalism in
43:51
Speaker 1: Mongolia at the time. So the moment the Soviets left
43:54
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union dissolved, they were like Genghas Khan, Gigas Khan.
43:58
Speaker 1: Genghas Khan built a statue of him, they named him
44:01
Speaker 1: an airport after him, they put him on currency. So
44:04
Speaker 1: he's definitely revered over there. But I think that that
44:07
Speaker 1: um art that the author of the article. I think
44:11
Speaker 1: his name is Frank mclin almost positive. Yeah, it's great,
44:15
Speaker 1: Frank mclin. Um he wrote this wonderful article called the
44:18
Speaker 1: Brutal Brilliance of Genghis Khan. But he he points out, like,
44:23
Speaker 1: whatever you think of the guy, even if he was
44:26
Speaker 1: the same as his contemporaries, and it still seems alien
44:30
Speaker 1: to you, Like, think about your own leaders. Your own
44:33
Speaker 1: leaders send people to to to die on the battlefield too,
44:38
Speaker 1: and they're revered as well, aren't not noble? Right? So
44:41
Speaker 1: the the the point is is, I guess, don't hate
44:45
Speaker 1: on Genghis Khan. Hate hate the game, not the player, right,
44:50
Speaker 1: I guess. So, wow, boy, this guy took a deep
44:54
Speaker 1: left turned in it. Well it is interesting. Yeah, you
44:58
Speaker 1: can talk about this dude forever. Yeah. He also makes
45:01
Speaker 1: the point to that the Mongols were um what he
45:04
Speaker 1: called culturally unbalanced. So he's like, you know, at least
45:08
Speaker 1: the Europeans, while they were slaughtering and killing, we're giving
45:11
Speaker 1: us the divine comedy and Carmena Barana and these great
45:14
Speaker 1: cathedrals and operas, whereas the Mongols were just barbarian Raiders
45:20
Speaker 1: and Butcher's all slaughter, no substance. That's a T shirt.
45:26
Speaker 1: Very famously too in the movies, Kingis Khan was played twice,
45:34
Speaker 1: once by John Wayne believe it or not, and The
45:38
Speaker 1: Conqueror and then Omar Sharif. Okay, so Egyptian. Also not
45:44
Speaker 1: close to Mongolean. Um. I don't know if it's better
45:49
Speaker 1: worse than John Wayne is probably the same. I think
45:51
Speaker 1: it's worse or no better better. Well now it'll be
45:56
Speaker 1: Hugh Jackman. No, I think Holly would changed some what
46:00
Speaker 1: but like five years ago they would have been like,
46:01
Speaker 1: what about Jason Momoa, Matt Damono Manchu mustaches on him?
46:06
Speaker 1: But they just picked Momoa because like, he looks tough,
46:08
Speaker 1: who's he and he looks sort of ethnic. He's a
46:10
Speaker 1: guy that plays Aquaman and is on very versatile actect
46:16
Speaker 1: The Thrones probably but and I even looked up Mongolian
46:21
Speaker 1: American actors to see if there was anyone out there
46:24
Speaker 1: who they could tap into, and I don't think there
46:26
Speaker 1: are a lot of them. Oh, probably have to be
46:28
Speaker 1: some some good unknown So speaking of looking like a Mongolian, Okay,
46:34
Speaker 1: got one last thing, where you done? I'm done. The
46:38
Speaker 1: Mongolians were really really good at propaganda. And one of
46:43
Speaker 1: the ways that they showed this was in Iran, in
46:47
Speaker 1: modern day Iran, the Coras chars um Man Empire, when
46:52
Speaker 1: they subjugated it. One of the things they did that
46:54
Speaker 1: say said, we are we don't have an alphabet, we
46:58
Speaker 1: don't write things down, but you guys do, and we
47:01
Speaker 1: want to put that to good use. You have great artists.
47:04
Speaker 1: We want you to do a history of the Mongols.
47:09
Speaker 1: And the scribe said, sure, we'll do that, and we
47:12
Speaker 1: want you to do a history of the world. All
47:15
Speaker 1: the great leaders in the world, all the great civilizations
47:18
Speaker 1: in the world, we want you to do those. So
47:20
Speaker 1: they did. They built this, They wrote this huge compendium,
47:24
Speaker 1: a universal history of the world. But the Mongols had
47:28
Speaker 1: them illustrate, like illuminate the text, and they had them
47:32
Speaker 1: whenever they drew a leader or a conqueror or an army,
47:37
Speaker 1: they drew them as Mongols. So they insinuated themselves into
47:43
Speaker 1: history as basically the the progenitors of all greatness, and
47:48
Speaker 1: thus justified the subjugation of this area um And they
47:54
Speaker 1: did it through propaganda. They had like all that like copied,
47:57
Speaker 1: you know, hand copied, and distributed it as widely as
48:01
Speaker 1: they could. Wow, isn't that interesting? Yeah? There you go.
48:05
Speaker 1: That's it all right. If you want to know more
48:07
Speaker 1: about Mongolia or Genghis Khan or any of that stuff,
48:11
Speaker 1: you can type those words into the search bar how
48:14
Speaker 1: stuff works. Pick up a book you Denghis And since
48:18
Speaker 1: Chuck said that, it's time for listener ma'n Hey, guys,
48:23
Speaker 1: recently listen to the UM show about burying Ferraris. I
48:26
Speaker 1: want to share another cool story about an almost buried car.
48:29
Speaker 1: Two thirteen, Brazilian billionaire Count chin Quing host Scarpa, made
48:35
Speaker 1: headlines when he announced he wanted to bury his five
48:38
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollar Bentley like the Pharaohs did with their
48:41
Speaker 1: precious possessions, so he could supposedly right around the Afterlife
48:45
Speaker 1: and Style attracted tons of press and social media buzz,
48:48
Speaker 1: with many people outraged he would do something so selfish.
48:53
Speaker 1: On the day of the burial, tons of Brazilian press
48:55
Speaker 1: and media crew show up to his house to see
48:57
Speaker 1: him Barry's Bentley, But moments before the cars lower in
49:00
Speaker 1: the ground, the count pulls a major plot twist and
49:03
Speaker 1: announces he won't be bearing the car, and he reveals
49:06
Speaker 1: true intention to create awareness uh for organ donation. Wow,
49:12
Speaker 1: because people are buried with something valuable, their organs and
49:16
Speaker 1: it was all a stunt and the use of social
49:18
Speaker 1: media and buzz marketing and create awareness for organ donation.
49:22
Speaker 1: That is fantastic. Man, I want a cool guy. Really
49:25
Speaker 1: interesting anyway, guys, A big fan of your show, learned
49:27
Speaker 1: a lot from your stories over the years, so I
49:29
Speaker 1: wanted to take this chance to share this cool story
49:31
Speaker 1: with you. Uh. And that is from Kate Miller who
49:36
Speaker 1: was looking forward to more stories. Yeah, thanks a lot, Kate.
49:38
Speaker 1: I definitely had not heard about that. It's a good one. Um.
49:42
Speaker 1: If you want to let us know a cool story,
49:44
Speaker 1: we want to hear it. You can tweet to us.
49:48
Speaker 1: I'm at josh um Clark and s Y s K podcast, Uh,
49:52
Speaker 1: Chuck's on Facebook dot com, Slash movie Crush and Slash
49:56
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant and slash Stuff you Should Know.
49:59
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50:01
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works dot com and it's always choice
50:04
Speaker 1: at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
50:06
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
50:13
Speaker 1: Is it how Stuff Works dot com. M