June 21, 2018 • 50 mins
Depending on who you talk to, Genghis Khan was either a sadistic madman or one of the great leaders in world history. One thing is sure, he was one of the most advanced military minds of all time.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Phoenix, Arizona and surrounding Desert Mesa. We have some
big news. You guys bought so many tickets. We have
actually changed theaters to a bigger theater. Yeah. We moved
from the Van Buren, which is very beautiful right around
the block to the amazing Orpheum Theater so that more
of you Phoenix Scitians can show up and see us,
(00:23):
because we want to see as many of you as possible. Yeah. Otherwise,
everything is the same. So if you have tickets to
uh that Van Buren show, then they count for the
Orpheum show obviously. And now there are a whole lot
more tickets for you desert dwellers. And I can't wait
to see you all in your lovely tans and your
scorpions and your tarantulas and your rattlesnakes yep. So we'll
be there on Wednesday, October twenty four at the Orpheum Theater.
(00:46):
And if you haven't gotten tickets yet, you can get
them by going to s y s K Live dot com,
our clearinghouse for Stuff you Should Know Live. Welcome to
Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and sitting
(01:09):
across from me Charles W. Chuckis Chinks Bryant, And sitting
to your right is ghost producer Casper Nobody. It was
Ramsey guests producer Ramsey. We've got like all these new
guest producers coming on hot and he now Jerry had
she had to leave today, and I think everyone's busy,
(01:31):
and so someone came in. There's also a distinct lack
of interest I've picked up on. Boy, remember the days
when people used to jump out a chance to sit
in here? Oh yeah, Now they're like, I've got a
mail something. I know. You used to be like, oh
my gosh, Jerry's gone, let me do it, Let me
do it. They grew up, Yeah, and then they grew
up in um. Now we have our little dunking bird
(01:53):
to pick the key that our record button. Just going
back and forth thinking about where life went wrong. Just us,
just us Chuck and a guy named Genghis Dinghis Khan.
Do you pronounce it Dinghis or Genghis or Chingis? Are
(02:13):
you being serious? I know it's not Dinghis, but I've
also seen it spelled in a way that would suggest
you you pronounced it chingis Oh really, I think I
have heard that, but we're gonna go with the the
general Genghis pronunciation. Okay, right, although his what was his
birth name, Timujin doesn't even Genghis Khan isn't even his
(02:37):
real name. Everybody, so calm down. It's Temujin or Temujin. Man.
Did you see that statue. I've seen it before. Yes,
it's enormous. Have you seen in person? Now, I've not
yet been to Mongolia. That's something else, man, I will
one day though. Yeah, I know it's it's the world's
biggest equestrian statue, and with good reason. It's like forty
(02:58):
or thirty ft tall. That's an enormous statue. It's pretty
impressive whether whether you're on a horse or not. That's
a big old statue, right, I almost didn't say old.
And I think it's made of like fifty tons of
stainless steel, which means it rinses clean really well. And
it looks like I saw the wide shot. It doesn't
(03:19):
look like one of those. It's you know, surrounded by
burger kings. Oh good, looks like there's a lot of
land around it. Well, Mongolia has a lot of land,
a lot of undeveloped land from what I understand. Yeah,
this was an interesting one because depending on what kind
of historian you are, he is a either a revered
(03:40):
mastermind or scorned butcher. Butcher, yeah, I know, he's actually
I think both well of Yeah, there are definite camps
for sure, Like like a lot of people, um I've
seen him called the pro Genghis camp um approach. Yeah,
(04:01):
that they're they're all about like all the cultural transmission
that happened under his his rule, um or all of them.
All the new innovative laws of religious religious tolerance was
another one. And yes, you like all that stuff happen,
it's not in dispute, Like there are a lot of
things that we'll talk about that we're really positive. But
(04:24):
he's also directly responsible for the deaths of about thirty
five million people over twenty million twenty five year period.
That's a ridiculous amount of death of people who had
Genghis Khan not been born and you know, decided to
(04:46):
lead a conquest, would probably otherwise not have died violently.
That's a big mark in his favor or against him.
My morality just switched off there for so you got
the pro g the anti G and the alleg it's
the third camp I missed that. It's good stuff. It is,
(05:09):
but they tried to bring it back, remember and it
is there a part two or two point. They that's
that's the problem. They didn't do new stuff. It was
just him introducing old stuff, and it was like, we
want more new stuff. We've all seen this stuff bunch.
It was like for a month on FX. But they
shot new hosting segments, yes, that were like fifteen seconds long.
(05:30):
So basically they said, hey, Slasha bart Cohen, how'd you
like to make another X amount of dollars by showing
up for a day. How would you like to do that?
The Ali G version of S Y s K selects,
Oh yeah, alright, I'm not gonna examine that one too quickly. Alright,
So we're talking about Ali G, I mean Genghis Khan, right, yeah,
(05:53):
and just some large statistics right off the bat, as
far as his um, his his influence, well not his influence,
but his rule and sheer numbers. Yeah, this is the
reason we're still talking about I'm not just because he
killed so many people, yeah, agreed. Um. By the time,
you know, of course, everyone knows he was a great
(06:15):
conqueror who just kept branching out further and further, and
this is how far he reached. Eventually, in modern day terms,
he would reach Austria. Austria, he banged on the door
of Austria, his his son did. Just get out of
world map and look at where Mongolia is. So Austria, Finland, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Vietnam, Burma, Japan,
(06:37):
and Indonesia twelve million contiguous square miles, which is the
size of Africa. Again amazing. Yeah, and then to put
that in context, you know the great Roman Empire that
was about half the size of the United States. Yeah,
the Roman Empire was half the size of the United States. Yeah,
(06:59):
it took them four hundred years to amass that. In
twenty five years, Genghas Khan had an empire the size
of Africa. Yeah. And then at the time, the population
in the the world was about seven billion people. The Mongolian
empire was about three billion of that. So it's just astounding.
It is astounding. And to put it in like true
(07:19):
cultural or true historic context at the time and say,
like the early early thirteenth century, the Mongols were the
Mongols a bunch of nomadic tribes, tribes on the steps
of Mongolia. China was a well established and um fairly
advanced patchwork of dynasties. Um, you had like Europe growing
(07:40):
in the they were in the Middle Ages, but they
were like the Renaissance is coming not too long. Um.
You had the Native Americans over in America doing their thing,
Africa doing their things. So there's all these different things
going on in the world, and then all of a sudden,
out of nowhere, this tiny little bunch of people who
aren't even in agriculture take over Eurasia in twenty five
(08:05):
years out of nowhere and kill thirty five million people
out of nowhere. It would be like if if Polynesia
suddenly rose up and took over the America's in twenty
five years. They just assembled and said we're taken over.
And they were just so ferocious that America just didn't
even know what to do and was overrun by them. Yeah,
(08:28):
and their their rule was not long lasting for a
lot of the reasons that there's a lot of ironies,
you know, a lot of the reasons that they were
able to spread so fast ended up being their undoing.
But um, this is all just set up fodder. Yeah,
we haven't even gotten into it yet, so let's let's
let's do start, Okay, sure back in. Uh, people think
(08:50):
the best guess is probably I think eleven eighty five.
I saw there was a kid named Timmy Jin eleven
sixty two. I'm sorry, and uh he was born uh
in a place called well along the Onon River near
La Batar, which is a great name, but that's the
(09:11):
capital of Mongolia. There's five a's in that's a lot.
And uh, this this kid, this Temujin, who would grow
up to be Genghas Khan was not genghaskm material from
the outset. No, he was Um. Well, he was a
middle brother, and apparently both younger and older brother outshone him. Yeah,
(09:32):
he was very much the jam Brady of his family.
He was because apparently little brother was a much better
athletes and a better you know, arrow shooter or I
guess you would call them archers. Um, kind of better
at everything, and then his older brother picked on him.
Um he was not. He was illiterate. He wasn't like
formally schooled or super smart, right right, But I mean,
(09:53):
in his defense, neither were most of the people he
knew or lived on the steps. Yeah, it's not like
his two brothers like got their doctorates, their PhDs and
kicking butt. Uh that's true. Um, but he was there was.
I mean, reading I wish I knew more about this,
this whole era, because it sounds like it was just
(10:15):
a crazy time, especially over there, where people would be
like if I want something, I'm just gonna go take it.
If I want that tribe gone, I'm gonna go kill them.
If I want those ladies and your children, I'm gonna
kidnap them. And that was just sort of how the
land was ruled. It was kind of not chaos, but
just brute force. Lawless. Yeah, pretty lawless. And you were
(10:38):
you were loyal to your tribe or your clan um
and your tribe or clan was nomadic and you live
by the horse and yeah you you There was a
lot of war between these tribes on the steps and
tiny wars like like like you said, kidnapping, like you
would kidnap your wife. That's how you got your wife,
was you go kidnapper from another tribe and be like
(10:59):
you're my life. Now. That's how his mother came about, right, Yes,
that's how he came about. Was his father kidnapped his mother.
His father was the chief of his tribe. Um oh,
what's his father's name? And Yessugi kidnapped who lou who loon. Yeah,
there's a lot of m louts in there. I don't
(11:20):
know how the oom out represents Mongolian dialect, but we're
gonna do a German style. So her name is Hulon?
Is that pretty German mert crew? So she was kidnapped,
and this is the thing, Like I have no context
to put this in if this was a common thing,
was she like I'm being kidnapped, Okay, Like I guess
(11:44):
I'm eighteen now or something like this is just a
normal course of events for so it didn't impact her
or is that just a ridiculous thing to even think?
And like, yes, if you were kidnapped and take him
from your tribe and made to be some dude's wife unwillingly,
it doesn't matter where it happened or when it happened.
It was a horrific experience. I think it was. I
(12:05):
mean I think it was that and just sort of
the way it was. Women were just had no recourse
or say in anything at the time. But like I
think I know what you're saying though, Like you know,
she had these children and they were a quote family,
but what does you know, what does that mean in
that context? Yeah? Is it a family if mom's like
looking for an escape route? Right, the whole life? Right? Um?
(12:29):
Either way, it was not like people recording one another
back then. So, um, yes, Sugi right, that's what we
decided on. Yes, Uh, yes, Suggi was the chief, like
I said, of the clan of the tribe. Very powerful dude.
And he was poisoned. Actually, he died by poisoning when
Timudgin was nine, and that was bad news for Timidgen,
(12:53):
his mom and his two brothers. Yeah, they were just
sort of kicked out of this new tribe. And I'm
not sure why. I guess because he was the son
of of Yeah, they didn't want anybody being like, oh,
by the way, I'm the rightful heir, I I should
really be the chief of this tribe. I'm very surprised
that they didn't just kill all of them, yeah, because
(13:13):
that's kind of the way he usually went. So, yeah,
they were kicked out. Uh. So he had a rough childhood.
They were not They had a scavenge for food. Um,
I reckon it toughened him up a little bit. But um,
as our article points out that he uh, it kind
of gave him a will too, and probably picked him off.
(13:35):
So he had anger and will, vengeance and vengeance all
rolled up into one, which says a lot about like
the man that he would become. I think, um so
he and his family make it so, not all of
his family. There's there's a story called the Secret History
of the Mongols, and it was written in about twelve forties,
(13:57):
so shortly after Genghis Khan's death. We don't know who
the author was, but that's the primary source for most
of the auto or the biography of Genghis Khan. They
know a lot, a lot because somebody sat down and
wrote this, and we'll see eventually why Um but them,
that's where we're getting all of this information, which is
(14:17):
also why if you listen to the history of Genghis Khan,
a lot of it sounds like a string of fables
and tales wrapped together. But historians tend to think that
there's some some kernel of truth or just outright truth
to most of it. Should we take a break, Yeah,
all right, We'll take a break and we'll talk about
what young Timogen was like. All right, So we said
(15:06):
that he was a bit of a cry baby, got
picked on, wasn't very athletic or strong, but he had charm,
he had chutzpah, he had charisma and a little bit
of moxie and definitely you gotta throw in some moxie.
And apparently he was able, through his charisma too, to
talk people into helping him out, and that became sort
(15:26):
of a trait through his life. And they give a
couple of examples. Um, one time he was going after
a horse thief and he just ran upon a stranger
and kind of convinced the guide to not only give
him a horse, but to help him out. Yeah, he
really attracted people into his orbit from what I understand. Yeah,
he was like h like gil like Gilbert Godfrey. It's
(15:51):
funny because I knew I was trying to think of
someone legitimately, and I knew that you were headed down
to different Uh what I There was another time that
he had a bride to be or maybe I think
he was married, I think, and she was kidnapped because
that's how it went. And so he went to the
leader of another tribe and said, hey, take this sable skin.
(16:13):
It was one of my wedding gifts. Yeah, he was
pretty impressed apparently because he helped him rescue the wife
and then pledged his allegiance to him as an ally
for life. He said, not only am I going to
help you get your wife, You're gonna go on to
do great things and I want to be there with you.
Love me so um. There's just tons of stories like that,
(16:37):
like early stories where like he was held prisoner by
he was kidnapped himself and escaped by beating the guy
watching him with the wooden caller that he had fastened
around his neck. There's just tons of stories like that.
If you put it together, you can kind of see
this guy develop over time, right, But eventually he probably
hit the weights eventually, right. Yeah. As um, as he
(17:00):
grows up and develops, and more and more people kind
of come into his orbit and want to help him out,
he starts putting that that charisma and that vengeance too,
I guess productive use. And he he assembles like his
own tribe and other tribes. He starts alying with other tribes,
and the tribes that don't go along with it, he
(17:20):
slaughters in war um, and he would. He was known
for having like an eye for other talent, which would
aid him tremendously throughout his years as a conqueror. But
for example, if you were a good enemy soldier, and
he noted that in battle, there was a good chance
(17:41):
that you were gonna end up a field commander on
his side after the battle was over, and he beat
your your guys. And there's actually a story where his
horse was shot out from under him. And after his
his group won the battle, the Mongols won the battle. Um.
He wanted to know who shot that arrow and the
I on the other side stood up and said it
(18:01):
was me. And he said you your name is Jebe now,
which means arrow, and you're going to become a field
commander for me. And he went on to be one
of the best to you ever had. I think. I
was like, is he messing with me? Yeah? But that
was that was pretty par for the course with him.
And so through these actions he started assembling like an
army and became the leader of the steps. Yeah, and
(18:24):
people like you said, if they challenged him, they were squashed.
He um. He had a surrender or die policy, which
apparently if you literally did not fight, and you were
just like, okay, we're all yours. Apparently he was okay
to you. He wasn't known for torturing people. Um, I
don't know if he you know, I don't know. I
(18:46):
don't want to say he was kind to them, but
I think he kind of wanted his subjects to be
happy and productive. So if they didn't fight him, he
was like, all right, you're you're part of the big
extended family. Come here, come here, you thank you for
your kingdom. Although he isn't khan at this point. Still. No,
that didn't take place until I believe twelve oh six. Yeah,
(19:09):
that's when they the Mongol tribes all got together. They
had a great assembly called cure Lie and they said,
you know what, you're the man, You're Genghis Khan. Now
we are all on your team because quite frankly, we're
scared of your where scared so scared. So he was like, hey,
that's fine. Yeah, So Genghis Khan. They think their khan
(19:33):
means ruler, indisputably Genghis. They're not acent sure what they
meant by it because it can mean ocean or just
so they think they were saying like supreme like the
leader all the way to the ocean. Sure, and then
then you run into t Triton. You don't want to
mess with him, right, But up to Triton's area, this
(19:54):
guy is the leader. So that's what they meant by
like ocean leader. He was an aqua man. No, So
they're unified now. And he said, I have to, like
I have to assemble a nation here. I've got all
these tribes. I want a unified people. Yeah. That was
a big move, it was, and it was a smart move. Um.
(20:14):
And all these old clans got together, people that were
enemies UM, joined forces. I don't know if they became
you know, best buds or anything. Well, one of the
things they did is they renounced these old rivalries. Yeah.
They they stopped warring with each other, they stopped robbing
one another. Um. And they started identifying not as these
individual clans but as Mongols. Yeah. And like strengthened numbers.
(20:37):
I think they realized this, this could benefit us all
if we're one big, powerful group. Right. But numbers is
relative though, man, Like from what I saw at its peak,
the army of Genghis Khan had about a hundred thousand men, Yeah,
which is peanuts. It is peanuts. So why were they
(20:58):
should we get into why they were sick cessible yet
or this? Yeah, so why were this successful? Well? Uh,
a few reasons. Probably the one of the biggest is
is these dudes could ride horses and shoot arrows like
nobody's business. They were incredible. Uh. They had an incredible cavalry.
(21:22):
He was one of the first that whoever wrote that
article you sent um that one historian he was great.
So he pointed out that he uh, he realized that
that the cavalry didn't need to be followed by an infantry,
which was a huge advantage. I guess in battle you
needed far fewer guys. Yeah, and just get everyone up
(21:44):
on a horse. Uh. They were incredible archers. They could
their accuracy was unmatched. They could fire an arrow apparently
like over three hundred yards accurately. Um. These horses were awesome.
They were grass fed, they could live off the land,
and they had this armor that was really lightweight and flexible.
So you know, at the time they were fighting people
(22:06):
when much heavily armored apparel, so they they were they
could move around better. You know, on their horses. They
were firing arrows and they had these little short swords,
and they had this thing called a hooked lance, and
they're like, a lance is all right, it's it's cool,
I guess to poke someone off a horse, But what
if you can poke them or grab them? So they
(22:27):
added a hook to the lance, a very simple feature,
and it really changed things. It was like a modern
uh evolution and weaponry. So these are just a few
of the reasons. One of uh. One of the others
is tactics and strategy. Uh. He would scout out before
battles for weeks. Sometimes he wouldn't just go as like
(22:49):
as brutish as they were. They would spend a lot
of time doing research and spying and really kind of
figuring out a game plan, like like if they were
going to sack a city, like they you where the
trade lte or the supply lines were, escape routes, um,
you know all that kind of stuff, all the stuff
you need to notice sack a city one of the
(23:10):
other things. So so part one I saw it called
the quantum leap in military strategy and technology. Okay, that
was the first thing. The other thing is something you
touched on earlier there, surrender or die policy. Right, so
(23:30):
their military prowess combined with their tactics and the their
policy of if you don't just say yes, that's fine,
we don't want to fight, we're gonna kill everybody, just
about everybody. And they were actually pretty smart about it too.
They'd find like the skilled craftsmen in some cities and
(23:50):
we're gonna spare your life because you're now a Mongol.
You gotta move to Mongolia, by the way. Um. But
they would just kill so many people that a lot
of historians have tried to figure out why were they
so ferocious, and they've actually been a number of theories
that have been put up. One is so apparently so
Genghis Khan was a he was into shamanism. That was
(24:13):
his religion. But he was like fervently religious about shamanism.
And there was like a great god of the sky
who um I think is analogous to Vishnu maybe in Hinduism.
And this this god supposedly gave him a vision that
he should become conqueror of the world. And so some
(24:35):
people have said, well, he you know, if you opposed him,
you were opposing his god. And so there was no
room for that, and that's what made him so ferocious um.
Probably the best explanation though, is that if some it's
like one of their hundred thousand horsemen died, that was
a big deal, right, So to save their numbers, they
were better off not fighting, so by slaughtering an entire
(24:58):
city that worried about that gets around the area. So
when those guys show up to your city, there's a
pretty good chance that if they say surrender or die,
you're gonna surrender. And so the Mongols didn't have to
sacrifice this single person. Yeah, and also get the idea.
I mean, we're going to talk about his major uh sieges,
but he also had a lot of smaller skirmishes with
(25:20):
just kind of regional tribes I think, And I got
the idea that he wouldn't send all his dudes in there.
He would send in a small amount of people as
possible because they were so fierce and good at what
they did, he didn't need to. And then that also
reduced the chances of lots of life, I guess. And
then so the smallest units, those that hundred thousand man
(25:42):
army boiled down to units as small as ten people. Yeah,
that was the individual unit was a ten person cavalry group,
and yeah, you could just say send five groups in
or a thousand groups in or whatever. Yeah, there you go.
And he would also, uh, he would also as he
went he would pick up whatever weaponry and tactics that
(26:04):
other armies used and use those. Because one thing that
Um was pretty clear in reading this Genghis Khan did
not like walls in walled cities. It ticked him off,
especially for some reason. Why would you do that? You know?
So he you know, he got catapults and things like that,
and he would, you would do some awful things like
(26:26):
with ladders and catapults, he would fling diseased animals like
that wasn't I don't know. He wasn't the only one
to do that, but some of the seems like Lord though,
the thing with the cats and the birds, Yeah, he
told one city that he'd spare them if they gave
him a thousand cats and ten thousand birds. And they
gathered up there ten thousand birds, which I guess they
had in the thousand cats and gave them to him.
(26:47):
And then he set the cats and the birds on
fire and flung them over the walls to start fires
in the city. Well, supposedly cod cotton got to them
and set them on fire. Well that's much better, but
I'm sure the fire spreads. It does seem a acry full. Yeah,
I don't know if I believe that apocryphal. By the way,
I just learned in like the last year or so,
I mean that made up. You didn't know that's you
(27:09):
never heard the word or plenty of times I just
didn't realize. I always assumed it meant like biblical and
end of time. Interesting because it's resemblance to apocalypse. I've
got one more for you. What's that? I just this
week learned what kudi gras actually means. I thought it
meant like the cream of the crop, the ultimate it's
(27:30):
the death blow, like there's nothing after it, not because
it's the best, because you just had your head cut off. Yeah,
the kuda, Yeah, yeah, the final blow. Just learned that
this week. Yeah, I think I knew that. You know
what word I used to always get wrong? Was dubious?
Did you think about pot? I don't know. Yeah, can
(27:52):
you score me some dubious? Did you ever listen to
funk Dubious? They were like this rap group from the
nineties US they were eight, they were they all they
want to do is have fun in the midst of
like the whole gangster totally remember that boy? They they
just went away. I haven't heard that name, and I
think they had like one album in that was it.
(28:12):
What was their big hit? I don't even remember, but
all but it had to do with pot probably so um.
All right, So he's got Mongolia pretty well taken care of.
What What did you think dubious meant? I joke instead
of letting your answer, No, I don't. I don't remember
what I thought it meant, but I think I just
used to get it wrong. We'll go back to funk dubious. Uh.
(28:34):
So he's got Mongolia pretty well under control, and he
is insatiable though Genghis Khan is. He starts looking around
and he's like, China is big do a pretty pretty
pretty and I think even though they are wealthy and
tough and have a lot of dudes to fight, I
think I can take him because I'm Genghis Khan, which
(28:56):
is a nuts so thing to say at that time.
It's depending on which of the dynasties in China you
were talking about, because I think there were at least
three major ones. Well, he's like, all of them, let's
just go one at a time. Yeah, so that's what
he did. Yeah, that's exactly what he did. He started
with the and there's I'm sorry everybody, I'm having trouble
keeping up with all of the names. But the Tangots. Yeah,
(29:19):
the Kingdom of Jijia. That is how I would probably
pronounce it, not dixiea chang No. Yeah, thinking about that, Yeah,
Ji and the Tangets, And uh, I think this was
sort of a test, his biggest test militarily at the time. Yeah,
(29:40):
it was. He'd been fighting other tribes on the steps
that to consolidate them and killing off the resistors. They
didn't have cities. The Tangots were the first ones that
he encountered that had like cities with walls that were
fortified that he needed to figure out how to lay
siege to. Yeah, and he he did, to the point
where the king finally said, all right, you were my master,
(30:04):
here are my troops, and here's the princess bride as well,
because I've heard you get around and Genghas Khan said,
as you wish, that's right, and that what he said,
I think so. Uh So the next he said, all right,
how about this other region, the Chin Kingdom, and he
(30:25):
faced a seventy thousand man army and it said virtually
wiped it out in this article. So he's working his
way up here now. Yeah, so he actually hit the
Chins twice from what I understand, and this How Stuff
Works article says that happened in two thousand thirteen, So
I'll bet the Chins were quite surprised to see Genghas
Khan show up five years ago. Yeah, I wonder why.
(30:46):
I mean, it says that came he came back and
got a bunch of silk and gold and got a
bunch of engineers. I wonder if that was the the
purpose of that mission was, like, hey, I don't think
we properly rated them. Yeah, because this was two years
after the first one, I guess that's all all it
was that he wanted some more silk and gold, and
again in appropriating weapons like crossbows, catapults, and because it's China,
(31:13):
early versions of explosives, right, and so he's using all
the stuff he's not married to, just the hook pole
and just the saber. He'll try out anything he sees worked, right,
So he's he's knocked out the first two dynasties, he's
brought them under his control. He now controls a significant
portion of China, all of the steps around Mongolia, and
(31:34):
he's got his sets, his sights set on the biggest
one of the three, the Jin dynasty, and he um
actually got in contact with them, or else they got
in contact with him first. But the emperor of the
Jin dynasty, this is an advanced civilization at this point,
very wealthy, maybe the most advanced and wealthy civilization on
(31:56):
the planet at the time. Genghis Khan is a backwoods
redneck horse rider who just happened to get lucky a
couple of times, caught the other two dynasties slipping. That's
what the emperor of the of the Jin dynasty is thinking. Yeah,
he's thinking, you're gonna be my slaves. Yeah, He's like,
you've done pretty good, kid. I'll tell you what. I'll
(32:18):
let you. I'll let you look over my land in
the south. You'll be my vassal. And um, here here's
the princess bride. I hear you like him. But it
did not work out that way, No, it didn't. He
actually successfully defeated the most advanced, wealthiest society on the
planet at the time. The Jinn's slaughtered thousands and thousands
(32:41):
of people. Well, that's how you do it, I guess.
And these three campaigns, these these are huge, enormous campaigns.
China was extremely populous at the time, and the number
of people who died, most of the people who died
under Genghis Khan's rule through war and conquest happened during
these three China camp pains. Yeah, about thirty about thirty
(33:02):
million people died. And this is over I mean ten years.
I think less than ten years, Yeah, I think. So,
it's nuts man. Yeah, so he wanted to continue going,
I guess West twelve nineteen. He made his way through
modern day Central Asia like Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and the
(33:28):
Shah Mohammad there said he killed an ambassador that they
had sent forward from a trading caravan and he had
a big walled city and he's like, I'm gonna be fine.
I'm not sweating this guy, and uh, he burned the
city down. Genghis Khan did, and including a thousand of
the soldiers who were in a mosque hiding out, killed
(33:50):
about a hundred thousand people. But of course like you
said earlier, he spared the skilled craftsmen and workers, right.
And this is the quarsam Kuara's and I even practice
this one the charasm Choorism Empire, which um it's capital
(34:11):
city that he sacked is now in Uzbekistan, but I've
seen it called mostly like Afghanistan, Iran for the most part.
This is the area it covered, Iran is what I
see it mostly compared to these days. Yeah, And things
are starting to get a little out of hand at
this point. And and it's basically sort of due to
the fact that he there was he went too far.
(34:34):
There were too many people, too much land. Um, when
you control your I think that the guy who wrote
that article you sent said that they weren't producers of anything,
the Mongols, yeah, or or tradesmen. They were conquerors, that's it. Yeah.
And that's not like you got to diversify. From what
I understand, they didn't have a written language. Um, they
(34:56):
didn't do anything. They just conquered people and took go
over your land and then leeched off of you. Yeah,
which is a good skill to to get going. But
if that's all you can do, I think he likened
it to a shark needing to feed, Like, eventually you
run out of lands to conquer, and then in the
interior it's such a huge corporation at this point it
(35:19):
gets unwieldy. So Genghas kind recognized this. At some point
he saw that he had basically a change of heart
about agriculture, about walled cities, about a sedentary lifestyle. And
I think he mostly saw like, oh, you can make
way more wealth this way. So he turned from conquering
(35:39):
as much toward figuring out how to administer this area
that he conquered. Again, Eurasia is conquered. It's under this
guy's This guy's had never never been united before and
has hasn't been united since, even under Soviet Soviet rule.
The Genghis Khan's empire is bigger than that, right, um,
(36:02):
And so he's put it together and he's like, what
do I do now? And we'll talk about that after
this message about that, okay, Chuck, So Genghis Khan has
(36:36):
conquered Eurasia and said, what now? What now, Eurigel, what
do you guys want to do now? I'm done with killing?
Not really the well he died, Yeah, I guess that's right. Yeah,
and this is no one knows quite how he died still. Uh.
Some people say he had a fall from a horse
and was injured eventually died. Other people said, at my
(37:00):
have been typhus. There are a few other theories floating
around out there, but yeah, like shot in the knee
with an arrow is my favorite. Yeah, which I guess
just infection. I would die from pain. Yeah. Uh, it's
interesting though. In August seven, when he was on his deathbed,
(37:20):
like one of the last things he did was say,
you don't remember the Tangets, go kill all of them, right,
that's what he did. I think they were the first
people he conquered, right, they were the ji Um people, Okay,
the first people in China. And when he went to
go Um go attack the choir z M empire, he
demanded that they send some troops his reinforcement, and they
(37:43):
said no. He defeated the choirs M and Um turned
around and went right over to Jija. It was like,
you guys are your toast. You're in trouble. And that
was his last act as as a living person. Yeah.
He was succeeded by one of his on ogadi who
took that stuff all the way to Europe, had a
(38:05):
bunch of sons, and I guess we might as well
talk about his lineage. It's very famously the Genghis Khan.
I mean, what is it like one of every two
d men, something like point five per cent of the
total global population is directly descended from him. That's amazing,
(38:25):
it's amazing and gross. That's a lot of people. Yeah,
he was about sixty five ish when he died, and
no one knows where he's buried. No, because they killed
everyone on the way to the funeral this one. And
then also they rode over his his grave with horses.
(38:46):
I looked up. Have you do you ever go on cora? Uh? Sure?
And then it's great man, Yeah, like you can you
can usually tell who knows what they're talking about. Of
the answers, the multipla and frequently it's most of the bowl.
It's it's a very it's a good serious like it's
a good place to get info that you should then
(39:07):
go double check. Yeah, but agreed, though it's not like
the old days of what was the terrible when years
and years ago, where you would ask question who questions?
Yeah probably yeah, yeah, something like that. Yeah, there and
there are a lot of platforms like this. This is
a pretty good it's not corrupt yet. How about that? Yeah?
I think is pretty good. Actually, so um, I went
(39:28):
on Core. This one you can't really look up. But um,
this one guy two people like. The question was why
was Genghas con buried in secret? I think? And two
people said, um, they didn't want a grave robbed. Um.
They wanted to make sure that the transfer of power
to his son was complete, so they had to keep
his death a secret. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, this
(39:49):
one guy said, don't be idiots. He's a little arrogant,
but he said, like, don't be idiots. Genghas Khan was
shamanistic person, religiously fervent. He would have gone one of
two ways. They would have cremated him and just spread
his ashes, or they would have done a sky burial.
Remember we talked about before where they just left him
(40:09):
on the mountainside for the vultures to pick over. Um,
it wouldn't have buried him with grieve goods. He would
have been embarrassed with that. So he's the only person
I saw say something like that. But it gave me pause.
It made me wonder if if the hidden grave is
just you know, just a more lower about Genghis Khan
(40:30):
and off the mark. Interesting. Well, his legacy looms large still,
not only in his uh, his lineage from his loins,
his overactive loins just leaching out goop. But depending on
who you're talking to, Um, well, he definitely did some things.
(40:53):
He opened up trade, Um, the West got things like
noodles and tea and playing cards. He perhaps founded the
very first version of what would later be at post office,
which is what's it called the yam Yeah, like a
pony Express. Yeah, like those different stations, the Pony Express. Yeah,
like straight up, but like six years before the Pony Express, Yeah, exactly.
(41:18):
But depending on who you're talking to, Some people lay
almost all of modern warfare at his feet, which is
sort of interesting because you can sort of draw a
line back to his tactics that and eventually would become
the Crusades or the uh the slaughtering of the Aztecs
(41:38):
and the Incas. Yeah, so they like they would learn
from him and then do that, right, because it was
more of that cultural conveyor belt the right. So they
say that he conquered the kars M Empire, came in
contact with with Islam Um and taught them ferocity, which
the Europeans learned during the crusade, and they took that
(41:59):
for city back to Europe and then eventually to the
New World, which they used on the Native Americans they
found there. And somebody said, um, no, the Europeans were
already well versed in ferocity and brutality and warfare. They
didn't need to learn it from getting his Khan. That
doesn't mean that's wrong, but it does. It's the suggestion
that the Europeans were naive to brutality and warfares is incorrect. Well,
(42:24):
it's complete bs and um. The author of that article
also makes a good point, and like you can't you
can't look it and judge him by today's lens. He
wasn't anymore brutal than anyone else back then, it was
just the number. Yeah, he just did it better. That's
to me though, So I guess then maybe my problem
is is like celebrating people who have killed tons of
(42:45):
people like that's what I have a problem at at
base because it's a great man, great man history. You know,
it bugs me. It bugs me too. We didn't come,
We didn't come across the way, did we so but
just just just by carrying on the tradition of talking
about this guy, and you know, there's you definitely keep
(43:06):
his his little flame burning well and there's a what
hundred and fifty ft statue of him. Yeah, like he's
still very much revered. Well, let's talk about like if
you were in Mongolia right now, you're probably pretty mad
at me and Chuck apologies for that. We're really it's
the great Man history thing we have a problem with.
But Um in Mongolia, he is known as the founder
(43:29):
of Mongolia, them the great, basically the great, the greatest
leader Mongolia has ever known, and possibly the world if
you're a Mongolian Um and during that, during the Soviet
occupation of Mongolia, you were not allowed to talk about him. Yeah,
they took him out of history books. Yeah, because they
were trying to stamp out any kind of nationalism in
(43:51):
Mongolia at the time. So the moment the Soviets left
the Soviet Union dissolved, they were like Genghas Khan, Gigas Khan.
Genghas Khan built a statue of him, they named him
an airport after him, they put him on currency. So
he's definitely revered over there. But I think that that
um art that the author of the article. I think
his name is Frank mclin almost positive. Yeah, it's great,
(44:15):
Frank mclin. Um he wrote this wonderful article called the
Brutal Brilliance of Genghis Khan. But he he points out, like,
whatever you think of the guy, even if he was
the same as his contemporaries, and it still seems alien
to you, Like, think about your own leaders. Your own
leaders send people to to to die on the battlefield too,
(44:38):
and they're revered as well, aren't not noble? Right? So
the the the point is is, I guess, don't hate
on Genghis Khan. Hate hate the game, not the player, right,
I guess. So, wow, boy, this guy took a deep
left turned in it. Well it is interesting. Yeah, you
(44:58):
can talk about this dude forever. Yeah. He also makes
the point to that the Mongols were um what he
called culturally unbalanced. So he's like, you know, at least
the Europeans, while they were slaughtering and killing, we're giving
us the divine comedy and Carmena Barana and these great
cathedrals and operas, whereas the Mongols were just barbarian Raiders
(45:20):
and Butcher's all slaughter, no substance. That's a T shirt.
Very famously too in the movies, Kingis Khan was played twice,
once by John Wayne believe it or not, and The
Conqueror and then Omar Sharif. Okay, so Egyptian. Also not
(45:44):
close to Mongolean. Um. I don't know if it's better
worse than John Wayne is probably the same. I think
it's worse or no better better. Well now it'll be
Hugh Jackman. No, I think Holly would changed some what
but like five years ago they would have been like,
what about Jason Momoa, Matt Damono Manchu mustaches on him?
(46:06):
But they just picked Momoa because like, he looks tough,
who's he and he looks sort of ethnic. He's a
guy that plays Aquaman and is on very versatile actect
The Thrones probably but and I even looked up Mongolian
American actors to see if there was anyone out there
who they could tap into, and I don't think there
(46:26):
are a lot of them. Oh, probably have to be
some some good unknown So speaking of looking like a Mongolian, Okay,
got one last thing, where you done? I'm done. The
Mongolians were really really good at propaganda. And one of
the ways that they showed this was in Iran, in
(46:47):
modern day Iran, the Coras chars um Man Empire, when
they subjugated it. One of the things they did that
say said, we are we don't have an alphabet, we
don't write things down, but you guys do, and we
want to put that to good use. You have great artists.
We want you to do a history of the Mongols.
(47:09):
And the scribe said, sure, we'll do that, and we
want you to do a history of the world. All
the great leaders in the world, all the great civilizations
in the world, we want you to do those. So
they did. They built this, They wrote this huge compendium,
a universal history of the world. But the Mongols had
them illustrate, like illuminate the text, and they had them
(47:32):
whenever they drew a leader or a conqueror or an army,
they drew them as Mongols. So they insinuated themselves into
history as basically the the progenitors of all greatness, and
thus justified the subjugation of this area um And they
(47:54):
did it through propaganda. They had like all that like copied,
you know, hand copied, and distributed it as widely as
they could. Wow, isn't that interesting? Yeah? There you go.
That's it all right. If you want to know more
about Mongolia or Genghis Khan or any of that stuff,
you can type those words into the search bar how
(48:14):
stuff works. Pick up a book you Denghis And since
Chuck said that, it's time for listener ma'n Hey, guys,
recently listen to the UM show about burying Ferraris. I
want to share another cool story about an almost buried car.
Two thirteen, Brazilian billionaire Count chin Quing host Scarpa, made
(48:35):
headlines when he announced he wanted to bury his five
hundred thousand dollar Bentley like the Pharaohs did with their
precious possessions, so he could supposedly right around the Afterlife
and Style attracted tons of press and social media buzz,
with many people outraged he would do something so selfish.
On the day of the burial, tons of Brazilian press
and media crew show up to his house to see
(48:57):
him Barry's Bentley, But moments before the cars lower in
the ground, the count pulls a major plot twist and
announces he won't be bearing the car, and he reveals
true intention to create awareness uh for organ donation. Wow,
because people are buried with something valuable, their organs and
it was all a stunt and the use of social
(49:18):
media and buzz marketing and create awareness for organ donation.
That is fantastic. Man, I want a cool guy. Really
interesting anyway, guys, A big fan of your show, learned
a lot from your stories over the years, so I
wanted to take this chance to share this cool story
with you. Uh. And that is from Kate Miller who
was looking forward to more stories. Yeah, thanks a lot, Kate.
(49:38):
I definitely had not heard about that. It's a good one. Um.
If you want to let us know a cool story,
we want to hear it. You can tweet to us.
I'm at josh um Clark and s Y s K podcast, Uh,
Chuck's on Facebook dot com, Slash movie Crush and Slash
Charles W. Chuck Bryant and slash Stuff you Should Know.
(49:59):
You can end us all an email to stuff podcast
at how Stuff Works dot com and it's always choice
at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how Stuff Works dot com. M
Hey, Phoenix, Arizona and surrounding Desert Mesa. We have some
big news. You guys bought so many tickets. We have
actually changed theaters to a bigger theater. Yeah. We moved
from the Van Buren, which is very beautiful right around
the block to the amazing Orpheum Theater so that more
of you Phoenix Scitians can show up and see us,
(00:23):
because we want to see as many of you as possible. Yeah. Otherwise,
everything is the same. So if you have tickets to
uh that Van Buren show, then they count for the
Orpheum show obviously. And now there are a whole lot
more tickets for you desert dwellers. And I can't wait
to see you all in your lovely tans and your
scorpions and your tarantulas and your rattlesnakes yep. So we'll
be there on Wednesday, October twenty four at the Orpheum Theater.
(00:46):
And if you haven't gotten tickets yet, you can get
them by going to s y s K Live dot com,
our clearinghouse for Stuff you Should Know Live. Welcome to
Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and sitting
(01:09):
across from me Charles W. Chuckis Chinks Bryant, And sitting
to your right is ghost producer Casper Nobody. It was
Ramsey guests producer Ramsey. We've got like all these new
guest producers coming on hot and he now Jerry had
she had to leave today, and I think everyone's busy,
(01:31):
and so someone came in. There's also a distinct lack
of interest I've picked up on. Boy, remember the days
when people used to jump out a chance to sit
in here? Oh yeah, Now they're like, I've got a
mail something. I know. You used to be like, oh
my gosh, Jerry's gone, let me do it, Let me
do it. They grew up, Yeah, and then they grew
up in um. Now we have our little dunking bird
(01:53):
to pick the key that our record button. Just going
back and forth thinking about where life went wrong. Just us,
just us Chuck and a guy named Genghis Dinghis Khan.
Do you pronounce it Dinghis or Genghis or Chingis? Are
(02:13):
you being serious? I know it's not Dinghis, but I've
also seen it spelled in a way that would suggest
you you pronounced it chingis Oh really, I think I
have heard that, but we're gonna go with the the
general Genghis pronunciation. Okay, right, although his what was his
birth name, Timujin doesn't even Genghis Khan isn't even his
(02:37):
real name. Everybody, so calm down. It's Temujin or Temujin. Man.
Did you see that statue. I've seen it before. Yes,
it's enormous. Have you seen in person? Now, I've not
yet been to Mongolia. That's something else, man, I will
one day though. Yeah, I know it's it's the world's
biggest equestrian statue, and with good reason. It's like forty
(02:58):
or thirty ft tall. That's an enormous statue. It's pretty
impressive whether whether you're on a horse or not. That's
a big old statue, right, I almost didn't say old.
And I think it's made of like fifty tons of
stainless steel, which means it rinses clean really well. And
it looks like I saw the wide shot. It doesn't
(03:19):
look like one of those. It's you know, surrounded by
burger kings. Oh good, looks like there's a lot of
land around it. Well, Mongolia has a lot of land,
a lot of undeveloped land from what I understand. Yeah,
this was an interesting one because depending on what kind
of historian you are, he is a either a revered
(03:40):
mastermind or scorned butcher. Butcher, yeah, I know, he's actually
I think both well of Yeah, there are definite camps
for sure, Like like a lot of people, um I've
seen him called the pro Genghis camp um approach. Yeah,
(04:01):
that they're they're all about like all the cultural transmission
that happened under his his rule, um or all of them.
All the new innovative laws of religious religious tolerance was
another one. And yes, you like all that stuff happen,
it's not in dispute, Like there are a lot of
things that we'll talk about that we're really positive. But
(04:24):
he's also directly responsible for the deaths of about thirty
five million people over twenty million twenty five year period.
That's a ridiculous amount of death of people who had
Genghis Khan not been born and you know, decided to
(04:46):
lead a conquest, would probably otherwise not have died violently.
That's a big mark in his favor or against him.
My morality just switched off there for so you got
the pro g the anti G and the alleg it's
the third camp I missed that. It's good stuff. It is,
(05:09):
but they tried to bring it back, remember and it
is there a part two or two point. They that's
that's the problem. They didn't do new stuff. It was
just him introducing old stuff, and it was like, we
want more new stuff. We've all seen this stuff bunch.
It was like for a month on FX. But they
shot new hosting segments, yes, that were like fifteen seconds long.
(05:30):
So basically they said, hey, Slasha bart Cohen, how'd you
like to make another X amount of dollars by showing
up for a day. How would you like to do that?
The Ali G version of S Y s K selects,
Oh yeah, alright, I'm not gonna examine that one too quickly. Alright,
So we're talking about Ali G, I mean Genghis Khan, right, yeah,
(05:53):
and just some large statistics right off the bat, as
far as his um, his his influence, well not his influence,
but his rule and sheer numbers. Yeah, this is the
reason we're still talking about I'm not just because he
killed so many people, yeah, agreed. Um. By the time,
you know, of course, everyone knows he was a great
(06:15):
conqueror who just kept branching out further and further, and
this is how far he reached. Eventually, in modern day terms,
he would reach Austria. Austria, he banged on the door
of Austria, his his son did. Just get out of
world map and look at where Mongolia is. So Austria, Finland, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Vietnam, Burma, Japan,
(06:37):
and Indonesia twelve million contiguous square miles, which is the
size of Africa. Again amazing. Yeah, and then to put
that in context, you know the great Roman Empire that
was about half the size of the United States. Yeah,
the Roman Empire was half the size of the United States. Yeah,
(06:59):
it took them four hundred years to amass that. In
twenty five years, Genghas Khan had an empire the size
of Africa. Yeah. And then at the time, the population
in the the world was about seven billion people. The Mongolian
empire was about three billion of that. So it's just astounding.
It is astounding. And to put it in like true
(07:19):
cultural or true historic context at the time and say,
like the early early thirteenth century, the Mongols were the
Mongols a bunch of nomadic tribes, tribes on the steps
of Mongolia. China was a well established and um fairly
advanced patchwork of dynasties. Um, you had like Europe growing
(07:40):
in the they were in the Middle Ages, but they
were like the Renaissance is coming not too long. Um.
You had the Native Americans over in America doing their thing,
Africa doing their things. So there's all these different things
going on in the world, and then all of a sudden,
out of nowhere, this tiny little bunch of people who
aren't even in agriculture take over Eurasia in twenty five
(08:05):
years out of nowhere and kill thirty five million people
out of nowhere. It would be like if if Polynesia
suddenly rose up and took over the America's in twenty
five years. They just assembled and said we're taken over.
And they were just so ferocious that America just didn't
even know what to do and was overrun by them. Yeah,
(08:28):
and their their rule was not long lasting for a
lot of the reasons that there's a lot of ironies,
you know, a lot of the reasons that they were
able to spread so fast ended up being their undoing.
But um, this is all just set up fodder. Yeah,
we haven't even gotten into it yet, so let's let's
let's do start, Okay, sure back in. Uh, people think
(08:50):
the best guess is probably I think eleven eighty five.
I saw there was a kid named Timmy Jin eleven
sixty two. I'm sorry, and uh he was born uh
in a place called well along the Onon River near
La Batar, which is a great name, but that's the
(09:11):
capital of Mongolia. There's five a's in that's a lot.
And uh, this this kid, this Temujin, who would grow
up to be Genghas Khan was not genghaskm material from
the outset. No, he was Um. Well, he was a
middle brother, and apparently both younger and older brother outshone him. Yeah,
(09:32):
he was very much the jam Brady of his family.
He was because apparently little brother was a much better
athletes and a better you know, arrow shooter or I
guess you would call them archers. Um, kind of better
at everything, and then his older brother picked on him.
Um he was not. He was illiterate. He wasn't like
formally schooled or super smart, right right, But I mean,
(09:53):
in his defense, neither were most of the people he
knew or lived on the steps. Yeah, it's not like
his two brothers like got their doctorates, their PhDs and
kicking butt. Uh that's true. Um, but he was there was.
I mean, reading I wish I knew more about this,
this whole era, because it sounds like it was just
(10:15):
a crazy time, especially over there, where people would be
like if I want something, I'm just gonna go take it.
If I want that tribe gone, I'm gonna go kill them.
If I want those ladies and your children, I'm gonna
kidnap them. And that was just sort of how the
land was ruled. It was kind of not chaos, but
just brute force. Lawless. Yeah, pretty lawless. And you were
(10:38):
you were loyal to your tribe or your clan um
and your tribe or clan was nomadic and you live
by the horse and yeah you you There was a
lot of war between these tribes on the steps and
tiny wars like like like you said, kidnapping, like you
would kidnap your wife. That's how you got your wife,
was you go kidnapper from another tribe and be like
(10:59):
you're my life. Now. That's how his mother came about, right, Yes,
that's how he came about. Was his father kidnapped his mother.
His father was the chief of his tribe. Um oh,
what's his father's name? And Yessugi kidnapped who lou who loon. Yeah,
there's a lot of m louts in there. I don't
(11:20):
know how the oom out represents Mongolian dialect, but we're
gonna do a German style. So her name is Hulon?
Is that pretty German mert crew? So she was kidnapped,
and this is the thing, Like I have no context
to put this in if this was a common thing,
was she like I'm being kidnapped, Okay, Like I guess
(11:44):
I'm eighteen now or something like this is just a
normal course of events for so it didn't impact her
or is that just a ridiculous thing to even think?
And like, yes, if you were kidnapped and take him
from your tribe and made to be some dude's wife unwillingly,
it doesn't matter where it happened or when it happened.
It was a horrific experience. I think it was. I
(12:05):
mean I think it was that and just sort of
the way it was. Women were just had no recourse
or say in anything at the time. But like I
think I know what you're saying though, Like you know,
she had these children and they were a quote family,
but what does you know, what does that mean in
that context? Yeah? Is it a family if mom's like
looking for an escape route? Right, the whole life? Right? Um?
(12:29):
Either way, it was not like people recording one another
back then. So, um, yes, Sugi right, that's what we
decided on. Yes, Uh, yes, Suggi was the chief, like
I said, of the clan of the tribe. Very powerful dude.
And he was poisoned. Actually, he died by poisoning when
Timudgin was nine, and that was bad news for Timidgen,
(12:53):
his mom and his two brothers. Yeah, they were just
sort of kicked out of this new tribe. And I'm
not sure why. I guess because he was the son
of of Yeah, they didn't want anybody being like, oh,
by the way, I'm the rightful heir, I I should
really be the chief of this tribe. I'm very surprised
that they didn't just kill all of them, yeah, because
(13:13):
that's kind of the way he usually went. So, yeah,
they were kicked out. Uh. So he had a rough childhood.
They were not They had a scavenge for food. Um,
I reckon it toughened him up a little bit. But um,
as our article points out that he uh, it kind
of gave him a will too, and probably picked him off.
(13:35):
So he had anger and will, vengeance and vengeance all
rolled up into one, which says a lot about like
the man that he would become. I think, um so
he and his family make it so, not all of
his family. There's there's a story called the Secret History
of the Mongols, and it was written in about twelve forties,
(13:57):
so shortly after Genghis Khan's death. We don't know who
the author was, but that's the primary source for most
of the auto or the biography of Genghis Khan. They
know a lot, a lot because somebody sat down and
wrote this, and we'll see eventually why Um but them,
that's where we're getting all of this information, which is
(14:17):
also why if you listen to the history of Genghis Khan,
a lot of it sounds like a string of fables
and tales wrapped together. But historians tend to think that
there's some some kernel of truth or just outright truth
to most of it. Should we take a break, Yeah,
all right, We'll take a break and we'll talk about
what young Timogen was like. All right, So we said
(15:06):
that he was a bit of a cry baby, got
picked on, wasn't very athletic or strong, but he had charm,
he had chutzpah, he had charisma and a little bit
of moxie and definitely you gotta throw in some moxie.
And apparently he was able, through his charisma too, to
talk people into helping him out, and that became sort
(15:26):
of a trait through his life. And they give a
couple of examples. Um, one time he was going after
a horse thief and he just ran upon a stranger
and kind of convinced the guide to not only give
him a horse, but to help him out. Yeah, he
really attracted people into his orbit from what I understand. Yeah,
he was like h like gil like Gilbert Godfrey. It's
(15:51):
funny because I knew I was trying to think of
someone legitimately, and I knew that you were headed down
to different Uh what I There was another time that
he had a bride to be or maybe I think
he was married, I think, and she was kidnapped because
that's how it went. And so he went to the
leader of another tribe and said, hey, take this sable skin.
(16:13):
It was one of my wedding gifts. Yeah, he was
pretty impressed apparently because he helped him rescue the wife
and then pledged his allegiance to him as an ally
for life. He said, not only am I going to
help you get your wife, You're gonna go on to
do great things and I want to be there with you.
Love me so um. There's just tons of stories like that,
(16:37):
like early stories where like he was held prisoner by
he was kidnapped himself and escaped by beating the guy
watching him with the wooden caller that he had fastened
around his neck. There's just tons of stories like that.
If you put it together, you can kind of see
this guy develop over time, right, But eventually he probably
hit the weights eventually, right. Yeah. As um, as he
(17:00):
grows up and develops, and more and more people kind
of come into his orbit and want to help him out,
he starts putting that that charisma and that vengeance too,
I guess productive use. And he he assembles like his
own tribe and other tribes. He starts alying with other tribes,
and the tribes that don't go along with it, he
(17:20):
slaughters in war um, and he would. He was known
for having like an eye for other talent, which would
aid him tremendously throughout his years as a conqueror. But
for example, if you were a good enemy soldier, and
he noted that in battle, there was a good chance
(17:41):
that you were gonna end up a field commander on
his side after the battle was over, and he beat
your your guys. And there's actually a story where his
horse was shot out from under him. And after his
his group won the battle, the Mongols won the battle. Um.
He wanted to know who shot that arrow and the
I on the other side stood up and said it
(18:01):
was me. And he said you your name is Jebe now,
which means arrow, and you're going to become a field
commander for me. And he went on to be one
of the best to you ever had. I think. I
was like, is he messing with me? Yeah? But that
was that was pretty par for the course with him.
And so through these actions he started assembling like an
army and became the leader of the steps. Yeah, and
(18:24):
people like you said, if they challenged him, they were squashed.
He um. He had a surrender or die policy, which
apparently if you literally did not fight, and you were
just like, okay, we're all yours. Apparently he was okay
to you. He wasn't known for torturing people. Um, I
don't know if he you know, I don't know. I
(18:46):
don't want to say he was kind to them, but
I think he kind of wanted his subjects to be
happy and productive. So if they didn't fight him, he
was like, all right, you're you're part of the big
extended family. Come here, come here, you thank you for
your kingdom. Although he isn't khan at this point. Still. No,
that didn't take place until I believe twelve oh six. Yeah,
(19:09):
that's when they the Mongol tribes all got together. They
had a great assembly called cure Lie and they said,
you know what, you're the man, You're Genghis Khan. Now
we are all on your team because quite frankly, we're
scared of your where scared so scared. So he was like, hey,
that's fine. Yeah, So Genghis Khan. They think their khan
(19:33):
means ruler, indisputably Genghis. They're not acent sure what they
meant by it because it can mean ocean or just
so they think they were saying like supreme like the
leader all the way to the ocean. Sure, and then
then you run into t Triton. You don't want to
mess with him, right, But up to Triton's area, this
(19:54):
guy is the leader. So that's what they meant by
like ocean leader. He was an aqua man. No, So
they're unified now. And he said, I have to, like
I have to assemble a nation here. I've got all
these tribes. I want a unified people. Yeah. That was
a big move, it was, and it was a smart move. Um.
(20:14):
And all these old clans got together, people that were
enemies UM, joined forces. I don't know if they became
you know, best buds or anything. Well, one of the
things they did is they renounced these old rivalries. Yeah.
They they stopped warring with each other, they stopped robbing
one another. Um. And they started identifying not as these
individual clans but as Mongols. Yeah. And like strengthened numbers.
(20:37):
I think they realized this, this could benefit us all
if we're one big, powerful group. Right. But numbers is
relative though, man, Like from what I saw at its peak,
the army of Genghis Khan had about a hundred thousand men, Yeah,
which is peanuts. It is peanuts. So why were they
(20:58):
should we get into why they were sick cessible yet
or this? Yeah, so why were this successful? Well? Uh,
a few reasons. Probably the one of the biggest is
is these dudes could ride horses and shoot arrows like
nobody's business. They were incredible. Uh. They had an incredible cavalry.
(21:22):
He was one of the first that whoever wrote that
article you sent um that one historian he was great.
So he pointed out that he uh, he realized that
that the cavalry didn't need to be followed by an infantry,
which was a huge advantage. I guess in battle you
needed far fewer guys. Yeah, and just get everyone up
(21:44):
on a horse. Uh. They were incredible archers. They could
their accuracy was unmatched. They could fire an arrow apparently
like over three hundred yards accurately. Um. These horses were awesome.
They were grass fed, they could live off the land,
and they had this armor that was really lightweight and flexible.
So you know, at the time they were fighting people
(22:06):
when much heavily armored apparel, so they they were they
could move around better. You know, on their horses. They
were firing arrows and they had these little short swords,
and they had this thing called a hooked lance, and
they're like, a lance is all right, it's it's cool,
I guess to poke someone off a horse, But what
if you can poke them or grab them? So they
(22:27):
added a hook to the lance, a very simple feature,
and it really changed things. It was like a modern
uh evolution and weaponry. So these are just a few
of the reasons. One of uh. One of the others
is tactics and strategy. Uh. He would scout out before
battles for weeks. Sometimes he wouldn't just go as like
(22:49):
as brutish as they were. They would spend a lot
of time doing research and spying and really kind of
figuring out a game plan, like like if they were
going to sack a city, like they you where the
trade lte or the supply lines were, escape routes, um,
you know all that kind of stuff, all the stuff
you need to notice sack a city one of the
(23:10):
other things. So so part one I saw it called
the quantum leap in military strategy and technology. Okay, that
was the first thing. The other thing is something you
touched on earlier there, surrender or die policy. Right, so
(23:30):
their military prowess combined with their tactics and the their
policy of if you don't just say yes, that's fine,
we don't want to fight, we're gonna kill everybody, just
about everybody. And they were actually pretty smart about it too.
They'd find like the skilled craftsmen in some cities and
(23:50):
we're gonna spare your life because you're now a Mongol.
You gotta move to Mongolia, by the way. Um. But
they would just kill so many people that a lot
of historians have tried to figure out why were they
so ferocious, and they've actually been a number of theories
that have been put up. One is so apparently so
Genghis Khan was a he was into shamanism. That was
(24:13):
his religion. But he was like fervently religious about shamanism.
And there was like a great god of the sky
who um I think is analogous to Vishnu maybe in Hinduism.
And this this god supposedly gave him a vision that
he should become conqueror of the world. And so some
(24:35):
people have said, well, he you know, if you opposed him,
you were opposing his god. And so there was no
room for that, and that's what made him so ferocious um.
Probably the best explanation though, is that if some it's
like one of their hundred thousand horsemen died, that was
a big deal, right, So to save their numbers, they
were better off not fighting, so by slaughtering an entire
(24:58):
city that worried about that gets around the area. So
when those guys show up to your city, there's a
pretty good chance that if they say surrender or die,
you're gonna surrender. And so the Mongols didn't have to
sacrifice this single person. Yeah, and also get the idea.
I mean, we're going to talk about his major uh sieges,
but he also had a lot of smaller skirmishes with
(25:20):
just kind of regional tribes I think, And I got
the idea that he wouldn't send all his dudes in there.
He would send in a small amount of people as
possible because they were so fierce and good at what
they did, he didn't need to. And then that also
reduced the chances of lots of life, I guess. And
then so the smallest units, those that hundred thousand man
(25:42):
army boiled down to units as small as ten people. Yeah,
that was the individual unit was a ten person cavalry group,
and yeah, you could just say send five groups in
or a thousand groups in or whatever. Yeah, there you go.
And he would also, uh, he would also as he
went he would pick up whatever weaponry and tactics that
(26:04):
other armies used and use those. Because one thing that
Um was pretty clear in reading this Genghis Khan did
not like walls in walled cities. It ticked him off,
especially for some reason. Why would you do that? You know?
So he you know, he got catapults and things like that,
and he would, you would do some awful things like
(26:26):
with ladders and catapults, he would fling diseased animals like
that wasn't I don't know. He wasn't the only one
to do that, but some of the seems like Lord though,
the thing with the cats and the birds, Yeah, he
told one city that he'd spare them if they gave
him a thousand cats and ten thousand birds. And they
gathered up there ten thousand birds, which I guess they
had in the thousand cats and gave them to him.
(26:47):
And then he set the cats and the birds on
fire and flung them over the walls to start fires
in the city. Well, supposedly cod cotton got to them
and set them on fire. Well that's much better, but
I'm sure the fire spreads. It does seem a acry full. Yeah,
I don't know if I believe that apocryphal. By the way,
I just learned in like the last year or so,
I mean that made up. You didn't know that's you
(27:09):
never heard the word or plenty of times I just
didn't realize. I always assumed it meant like biblical and
end of time. Interesting because it's resemblance to apocalypse. I've
got one more for you. What's that? I just this
week learned what kudi gras actually means. I thought it
meant like the cream of the crop, the ultimate it's
(27:30):
the death blow, like there's nothing after it, not because
it's the best, because you just had your head cut off. Yeah,
the kuda, Yeah, yeah, the final blow. Just learned that
this week. Yeah, I think I knew that. You know
what word I used to always get wrong? Was dubious?
Did you think about pot? I don't know. Yeah, can
(27:52):
you score me some dubious? Did you ever listen to
funk Dubious? They were like this rap group from the
nineties US they were eight, they were they all they
want to do is have fun in the midst of
like the whole gangster totally remember that boy? They they
just went away. I haven't heard that name, and I
think they had like one album in that was it.
(28:12):
What was their big hit? I don't even remember, but
all but it had to do with pot probably so um.
All right, So he's got Mongolia pretty well taken care of.
What What did you think dubious meant? I joke instead
of letting your answer, No, I don't. I don't remember
what I thought it meant, but I think I just
used to get it wrong. We'll go back to funk dubious. Uh.
(28:34):
So he's got Mongolia pretty well under control, and he
is insatiable though Genghis Khan is. He starts looking around
and he's like, China is big do a pretty pretty
pretty and I think even though they are wealthy and
tough and have a lot of dudes to fight, I
think I can take him because I'm Genghis Khan, which
(28:56):
is a nuts so thing to say at that time.
It's depending on which of the dynasties in China you
were talking about, because I think there were at least
three major ones. Well, he's like, all of them, let's
just go one at a time. Yeah, so that's what
he did. Yeah, that's exactly what he did. He started
with the and there's I'm sorry everybody, I'm having trouble
keeping up with all of the names. But the Tangots. Yeah,
(29:19):
the Kingdom of Jijia. That is how I would probably
pronounce it, not dixiea chang No. Yeah, thinking about that, Yeah,
Ji and the Tangets, And uh, I think this was
sort of a test, his biggest test militarily at the time. Yeah,
(29:40):
it was. He'd been fighting other tribes on the steps
that to consolidate them and killing off the resistors. They
didn't have cities. The Tangots were the first ones that
he encountered that had like cities with walls that were
fortified that he needed to figure out how to lay
siege to. Yeah, and he he did, to the point
where the king finally said, all right, you were my master,
(30:04):
here are my troops, and here's the princess bride as well,
because I've heard you get around and Genghas Khan said,
as you wish, that's right, and that what he said,
I think so. Uh So the next he said, all right,
how about this other region, the Chin Kingdom, and he
(30:25):
faced a seventy thousand man army and it said virtually
wiped it out in this article. So he's working his
way up here now. Yeah, so he actually hit the
Chins twice from what I understand, and this How Stuff
Works article says that happened in two thousand thirteen, So
I'll bet the Chins were quite surprised to see Genghas
Khan show up five years ago. Yeah, I wonder why.
(30:46):
I mean, it says that came he came back and
got a bunch of silk and gold and got a
bunch of engineers. I wonder if that was the the
purpose of that mission was, like, hey, I don't think
we properly rated them. Yeah, because this was two years
after the first one, I guess that's all all it
was that he wanted some more silk and gold, and
again in appropriating weapons like crossbows, catapults, and because it's China,
(31:13):
early versions of explosives, right, and so he's using all
the stuff he's not married to, just the hook pole
and just the saber. He'll try out anything he sees worked, right,
So he's he's knocked out the first two dynasties, he's
brought them under his control. He now controls a significant
portion of China, all of the steps around Mongolia, and
(31:34):
he's got his sets, his sights set on the biggest
one of the three, the Jin dynasty, and he um
actually got in contact with them, or else they got
in contact with him first. But the emperor of the
Jin dynasty, this is an advanced civilization at this point,
very wealthy, maybe the most advanced and wealthy civilization on
(31:56):
the planet at the time. Genghis Khan is a backwoods
redneck horse rider who just happened to get lucky a
couple of times, caught the other two dynasties slipping. That's
what the emperor of the of the Jin dynasty is thinking. Yeah,
he's thinking, you're gonna be my slaves. Yeah, He's like,
you've done pretty good, kid. I'll tell you what. I'll
(32:18):
let you. I'll let you look over my land in
the south. You'll be my vassal. And um, here here's
the princess bride. I hear you like him. But it
did not work out that way, No, it didn't. He
actually successfully defeated the most advanced, wealthiest society on the
planet at the time. The Jinn's slaughtered thousands and thousands
(32:41):
of people. Well, that's how you do it, I guess.
And these three campaigns, these these are huge, enormous campaigns.
China was extremely populous at the time, and the number
of people who died, most of the people who died
under Genghis Khan's rule through war and conquest happened during
these three China camp pains. Yeah, about thirty about thirty
(33:02):
million people died. And this is over I mean ten years.
I think less than ten years, Yeah, I think. So,
it's nuts man. Yeah, so he wanted to continue going,
I guess West twelve nineteen. He made his way through
modern day Central Asia like Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and the
(33:28):
Shah Mohammad there said he killed an ambassador that they
had sent forward from a trading caravan and he had
a big walled city and he's like, I'm gonna be fine.
I'm not sweating this guy, and uh, he burned the
city down. Genghis Khan did, and including a thousand of
the soldiers who were in a mosque hiding out, killed
(33:50):
about a hundred thousand people. But of course like you
said earlier, he spared the skilled craftsmen and workers, right.
And this is the quarsam Kuara's and I even practice
this one the charasm Choorism Empire, which um it's capital
(34:11):
city that he sacked is now in Uzbekistan, but I've
seen it called mostly like Afghanistan, Iran for the most part.
This is the area it covered, Iran is what I
see it mostly compared to these days. Yeah, And things
are starting to get a little out of hand at
this point. And and it's basically sort of due to
the fact that he there was he went too far.
(34:34):
There were too many people, too much land. Um, when
you control your I think that the guy who wrote
that article you sent said that they weren't producers of anything,
the Mongols, yeah, or or tradesmen. They were conquerors, that's it. Yeah.
And that's not like you got to diversify. From what
I understand, they didn't have a written language. Um, they
(34:56):
didn't do anything. They just conquered people and took go
over your land and then leeched off of you. Yeah,
which is a good skill to to get going. But
if that's all you can do, I think he likened
it to a shark needing to feed, Like, eventually you
run out of lands to conquer, and then in the
interior it's such a huge corporation at this point it
(35:19):
gets unwieldy. So Genghas kind recognized this. At some point
he saw that he had basically a change of heart
about agriculture, about walled cities, about a sedentary lifestyle. And
I think he mostly saw like, oh, you can make
way more wealth this way. So he turned from conquering
(35:39):
as much toward figuring out how to administer this area
that he conquered. Again, Eurasia is conquered. It's under this
guy's This guy's had never never been united before and
has hasn't been united since, even under Soviet Soviet rule.
The Genghis Khan's empire is bigger than that, right, um,
(36:02):
And so he's put it together and he's like, what
do I do now? And we'll talk about that after
this message about that, okay, Chuck, So Genghis Khan has
(36:36):
conquered Eurasia and said, what now? What now, Eurigel, what
do you guys want to do now? I'm done with killing?
Not really the well he died, Yeah, I guess that's right. Yeah,
and this is no one knows quite how he died still. Uh.
Some people say he had a fall from a horse
and was injured eventually died. Other people said, at my
(37:00):
have been typhus. There are a few other theories floating
around out there, but yeah, like shot in the knee
with an arrow is my favorite. Yeah, which I guess
just infection. I would die from pain. Yeah. Uh, it's
interesting though. In August seven, when he was on his deathbed,
(37:20):
like one of the last things he did was say,
you don't remember the Tangets, go kill all of them, right,
that's what he did. I think they were the first
people he conquered, right, they were the ji Um people, Okay,
the first people in China. And when he went to
go Um go attack the choir z M empire, he
demanded that they send some troops his reinforcement, and they
(37:43):
said no. He defeated the choirs M and Um turned
around and went right over to Jija. It was like,
you guys are your toast. You're in trouble. And that
was his last act as as a living person. Yeah.
He was succeeded by one of his on ogadi who
took that stuff all the way to Europe, had a
(38:05):
bunch of sons, and I guess we might as well
talk about his lineage. It's very famously the Genghis Khan.
I mean, what is it like one of every two
d men, something like point five per cent of the
total global population is directly descended from him. That's amazing,
(38:25):
it's amazing and gross. That's a lot of people. Yeah,
he was about sixty five ish when he died, and
no one knows where he's buried. No, because they killed
everyone on the way to the funeral this one. And
then also they rode over his his grave with horses.
(38:46):
I looked up. Have you do you ever go on cora? Uh? Sure?
And then it's great man, Yeah, like you can you
can usually tell who knows what they're talking about. Of
the answers, the multipla and frequently it's most of the bowl.
It's it's a very it's a good serious like it's
a good place to get info that you should then
(39:07):
go double check. Yeah, but agreed, though it's not like
the old days of what was the terrible when years
and years ago, where you would ask question who questions?
Yeah probably yeah, yeah, something like that. Yeah, there and
there are a lot of platforms like this. This is
a pretty good it's not corrupt yet. How about that? Yeah?
I think is pretty good. Actually, so um, I went
(39:28):
on Core. This one you can't really look up. But um,
this one guy two people like. The question was why
was Genghas con buried in secret? I think? And two
people said, um, they didn't want a grave robbed. Um.
They wanted to make sure that the transfer of power
to his son was complete, so they had to keep
his death a secret. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah, this
(39:49):
one guy said, don't be idiots. He's a little arrogant,
but he said, like, don't be idiots. Genghas Khan was
shamanistic person, religiously fervent. He would have gone one of
two ways. They would have cremated him and just spread
his ashes, or they would have done a sky burial.
Remember we talked about before where they just left him
(40:09):
on the mountainside for the vultures to pick over. Um,
it wouldn't have buried him with grieve goods. He would
have been embarrassed with that. So he's the only person
I saw say something like that. But it gave me pause.
It made me wonder if if the hidden grave is
just you know, just a more lower about Genghis Khan
(40:30):
and off the mark. Interesting. Well, his legacy looms large still,
not only in his uh, his lineage from his loins,
his overactive loins just leaching out goop. But depending on
who you're talking to, Um, well, he definitely did some things.
(40:53):
He opened up trade, Um, the West got things like
noodles and tea and playing cards. He perhaps founded the
very first version of what would later be at post office,
which is what's it called the yam Yeah, like a
pony Express. Yeah, like those different stations, the Pony Express. Yeah,
like straight up, but like six years before the Pony Express, Yeah, exactly.
(41:18):
But depending on who you're talking to, Some people lay
almost all of modern warfare at his feet, which is
sort of interesting because you can sort of draw a
line back to his tactics that and eventually would become
the Crusades or the uh the slaughtering of the Aztecs
(41:38):
and the Incas. Yeah, so they like they would learn
from him and then do that, right, because it was
more of that cultural conveyor belt the right. So they
say that he conquered the kars M Empire, came in
contact with with Islam Um and taught them ferocity, which
the Europeans learned during the crusade, and they took that
(41:59):
for city back to Europe and then eventually to the
New World, which they used on the Native Americans they
found there. And somebody said, um, no, the Europeans were
already well versed in ferocity and brutality and warfare. They
didn't need to learn it from getting his Khan. That
doesn't mean that's wrong, but it does. It's the suggestion
that the Europeans were naive to brutality and warfares is incorrect. Well,
(42:24):
it's complete bs and um. The author of that article
also makes a good point, and like you can't you
can't look it and judge him by today's lens. He
wasn't anymore brutal than anyone else back then, it was
just the number. Yeah, he just did it better. That's
to me though, So I guess then maybe my problem
is is like celebrating people who have killed tons of
(42:45):
people like that's what I have a problem at at
base because it's a great man, great man history. You know,
it bugs me. It bugs me too. We didn't come,
We didn't come across the way, did we so but
just just just by carrying on the tradition of talking
about this guy, and you know, there's you definitely keep
(43:06):
his his little flame burning well and there's a what
hundred and fifty ft statue of him. Yeah, like he's
still very much revered. Well, let's talk about like if
you were in Mongolia right now, you're probably pretty mad
at me and Chuck apologies for that. We're really it's
the great Man history thing we have a problem with.
But Um in Mongolia, he is known as the founder
(43:29):
of Mongolia, them the great, basically the great, the greatest
leader Mongolia has ever known, and possibly the world if
you're a Mongolian Um and during that, during the Soviet
occupation of Mongolia, you were not allowed to talk about him. Yeah,
they took him out of history books. Yeah, because they
were trying to stamp out any kind of nationalism in
(43:51):
Mongolia at the time. So the moment the Soviets left
the Soviet Union dissolved, they were like Genghas Khan, Gigas Khan.
Genghas Khan built a statue of him, they named him
an airport after him, they put him on currency. So
he's definitely revered over there. But I think that that
um art that the author of the article. I think
his name is Frank mclin almost positive. Yeah, it's great,
(44:15):
Frank mclin. Um he wrote this wonderful article called the
Brutal Brilliance of Genghis Khan. But he he points out, like,
whatever you think of the guy, even if he was
the same as his contemporaries, and it still seems alien
to you, Like, think about your own leaders. Your own
leaders send people to to to die on the battlefield too,
(44:38):
and they're revered as well, aren't not noble? Right? So
the the the point is is, I guess, don't hate
on Genghis Khan. Hate hate the game, not the player, right,
I guess. So, wow, boy, this guy took a deep
left turned in it. Well it is interesting. Yeah, you
(44:58):
can talk about this dude forever. Yeah. He also makes
the point to that the Mongols were um what he
called culturally unbalanced. So he's like, you know, at least
the Europeans, while they were slaughtering and killing, we're giving
us the divine comedy and Carmena Barana and these great
cathedrals and operas, whereas the Mongols were just barbarian Raiders
(45:20):
and Butcher's all slaughter, no substance. That's a T shirt.
Very famously too in the movies, Kingis Khan was played twice,
once by John Wayne believe it or not, and The
Conqueror and then Omar Sharif. Okay, so Egyptian. Also not
(45:44):
close to Mongolean. Um. I don't know if it's better
worse than John Wayne is probably the same. I think
it's worse or no better better. Well now it'll be
Hugh Jackman. No, I think Holly would changed some what
but like five years ago they would have been like,
what about Jason Momoa, Matt Damono Manchu mustaches on him?
(46:06):
But they just picked Momoa because like, he looks tough,
who's he and he looks sort of ethnic. He's a
guy that plays Aquaman and is on very versatile actect
The Thrones probably but and I even looked up Mongolian
American actors to see if there was anyone out there
who they could tap into, and I don't think there
(46:26):
are a lot of them. Oh, probably have to be
some some good unknown So speaking of looking like a Mongolian, Okay,
got one last thing, where you done? I'm done. The
Mongolians were really really good at propaganda. And one of
the ways that they showed this was in Iran, in
(46:47):
modern day Iran, the Coras chars um Man Empire, when
they subjugated it. One of the things they did that
say said, we are we don't have an alphabet, we
don't write things down, but you guys do, and we
want to put that to good use. You have great artists.
We want you to do a history of the Mongols.
(47:09):
And the scribe said, sure, we'll do that, and we
want you to do a history of the world. All
the great leaders in the world, all the great civilizations
in the world, we want you to do those. So
they did. They built this, They wrote this huge compendium,
a universal history of the world. But the Mongols had
them illustrate, like illuminate the text, and they had them
(47:32):
whenever they drew a leader or a conqueror or an army,
they drew them as Mongols. So they insinuated themselves into
history as basically the the progenitors of all greatness, and
thus justified the subjugation of this area um And they
(47:54):
did it through propaganda. They had like all that like copied,
you know, hand copied, and distributed it as widely as
they could. Wow, isn't that interesting? Yeah? There you go.
That's it all right. If you want to know more
about Mongolia or Genghis Khan or any of that stuff,
you can type those words into the search bar how
(48:14):
stuff works. Pick up a book you Denghis And since
Chuck said that, it's time for listener ma'n Hey, guys,
recently listen to the UM show about burying Ferraris. I
want to share another cool story about an almost buried car.
Two thirteen, Brazilian billionaire Count chin Quing host Scarpa, made
(48:35):
headlines when he announced he wanted to bury his five
hundred thousand dollar Bentley like the Pharaohs did with their
precious possessions, so he could supposedly right around the Afterlife
and Style attracted tons of press and social media buzz,
with many people outraged he would do something so selfish.
On the day of the burial, tons of Brazilian press
and media crew show up to his house to see
(48:57):
him Barry's Bentley, But moments before the cars lower in
the ground, the count pulls a major plot twist and
announces he won't be bearing the car, and he reveals
true intention to create awareness uh for organ donation. Wow,
because people are buried with something valuable, their organs and
it was all a stunt and the use of social
(49:18):
media and buzz marketing and create awareness for organ donation.
That is fantastic. Man, I want a cool guy. Really
interesting anyway, guys, A big fan of your show, learned
a lot from your stories over the years, so I
wanted to take this chance to share this cool story
with you. Uh. And that is from Kate Miller who
was looking forward to more stories. Yeah, thanks a lot, Kate.
(49:38):
I definitely had not heard about that. It's a good one. Um.
If you want to let us know a cool story,
we want to hear it. You can tweet to us.
I'm at josh um Clark and s Y s K podcast, Uh,
Chuck's on Facebook dot com, Slash movie Crush and Slash
Charles W. Chuck Bryant and slash Stuff you Should Know.
(49:59):
You can end us all an email to stuff podcast
at how Stuff Works dot com and it's always choice
at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how Stuff Works dot com. M
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