Podcasts about jurchen jin

Had you to guess a kingdom to offer decades of resistance to the Mongols at the height of their power, Korea might not have been high on your list. Situated close to Mongol dominated North China and first coming to Mongol attention at the start of the 1220s, it took until the beginning of the 1260s for the peninsula to be firmly under Mongol rule. Today’s episode will detail the long and devastating Mongol war in Korea and the final subjugation during the reign of Great Khan Mongke. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   By the 13th century the Korean peninsula had been ruled by the house of Wang since 918. Their kingdom was called Koryo [also written Goryeo (Gor-yeo)], a shortened form of the name of the more ancient Korean Kingdom of Kokuryeo (kok-ur-yeo) [also written Goguryeo] which fell in 668 CE. Both terms are the origin of the modern name for the peninsula. Smaller in scale than the empire of Kokuryeo, the 13th century Koryo kingdom’s territory did not extend much past the Yalu river. Staunch Buddhists, the Kingdom of Koryo was a major player in regional trade and commerce, and a centre of art and culture, and was a proud state. Successfully resisting invasions by the Khitan Liao and Jurchen Jin, Koryo entered into tributary relationships with both but maintained its internal autonomy, and unique worldview where the Korean King was essentially also son of Heaven, alongside the Chinese monarch who traditionally held the title. Similar to the contemporary Song Dynasty, military roles were subservient to the civilian classes and excluded from powerful civil positions. Despite the military being key to repulsing the Jurchen invasion of the 1120s, they gained no recognition, or promotions, for their efforts. Conditions worsened over the 12th century when revolts needed the military to be crushed. During the reign of King Uijong from 1146-1170, matters came to a head. More interested in visiting Buddhist temples than governing, under Uijong, corruption peaked. Government institutions were controlled by aristocratic families competing with the central government, the court was divided among factional lines and critics were exiled. These grievances fed into existing frustrations of the military leaders, ultimately culminating in a coup by the general Chong Chungbu in 1170. The King was dethroned in favour of a brother, and military leaders assumed most of the top offices. This was the beginning of a century of military dictatorship in Korea, its kings reduced to puppets. It was a system remarkably similar to the shogunate established at nearly the same time by Minamoto no Yoritomo in Japan, wherein the Japanese Emperor still head his title and conducted ceremonial roles, but real power was held by the shogun- though after Yoritomo’s death in 1199, real power was held by regents, the shikken of the Hojo clan.    Chungbu struggled to exercise his authority and could not fix the problems facing Koryo; revolts across the country continued and Chungbu was ousted by rivals in 1178, followed in turn by a succession of generals vying for power. It was not until 1196 when the general Ch’oe Ch’unghon assassinated the military dictator. A skilled and brave warrior, Ch’oe Ch’unghon was also a patriot, and saw the years of failed military rule as a disaster for his career, and for Koryo. Ch’oe was adept at political maneuvering. After assassinating the current dictator, he met the King and explained his actions. Gaining royal approval, his authority was established quickly. With support of the Korean King- whom Ch’oe Ch’unghon soon replaced- as well as key military figures, Ch’oe rooted out rivals, skillfully threw bones to military officers, civil leaders and literati, and revitalized the dynasty. Authority was extended through existing dynastic institutions, reformed to weed out corruption but ensured loyal men were in control of those institutions. Marriage ties cemented political alliances, and Ch’oe Ch’unghon essentially established his own dynasty alongside the royal dynasty. He was careful to ensure that alternate power bases to his own were undermined: government military forces weakened while he built up his own private army. Knowing how to champion Zen Buddhism and Confucianism, Ch’oe Ch’unghon masterfully manipulated his public image and public works. Allowing the King to focus on ceremonial and religious roles, Ch’oe’s tight lease on government meant that, over the first decade of the thirteenth century, he felt his position on HIS peninsula to be quite secure.   But like so many others, Ch’oe Ch’unghon’s plans were upset by a little someone named Chinggis Khan. The Great Khan’s invasion of the Jin Empire began in 1211, during which the Korean ambassador to the Jin was killed in the fighting. We have little information on what the Koreans and Ch’oe Ch’unghon thought of the rapid Mongol conquest of the Jin. During these centuries, the Korean kingdoms were always concerned with their northern border with Manchuria, where the Manchurian tribesmen, be they Khitan or Jurchen, invariably proved dangerous foes, crossing to raid in small parties or conquer with full armies. As Jin Dynastic authority collapsed in their Manchurian homeland, the Koreans watched the north uneasily. There, aside from the ongoing warfare, two new states were formed: the first was a Khitan Kingdom in central Manchuria, a “restored” Liao Dynasty made subject to the Mongols in 1212. The second was in Eastern Manchuria and Russia’s Primorsky Krai, founded by the Jin defector Puxian Wannu in 1215, which soon submitted to the Mongols. The latter is often called the Kingdom of Ta-chen, Tung-chen or the Eastern Xia. The frontiers north of Korea were unstable, and Ch’oe Ch’unghon expected trouble would spill over his borders sooner or later.   In 1216 as many as 90,000 rebel Khitans displaced by Jin forces overran Wannu’s southern territory. A few months later, Mongols accompanied by loyal Khitans chased these rebel Khitans from Wannu’s borders. The rebels’ requests to Koryo for aid were denied, and stuck between the Mongols and Korea, the Khitans chose Korea. In autumn 1216 the Khitans blazed through the Korean border defences. Skilled horse archers, the Khitans drove deep into Korea, menacing the capital, modern Kaesong. Korean military resistance contained them to the northern half of the country. Aside from a brief foray back over the border to gain reinforcements in autumn 1217, the Khitans spent most of 1217 and 1218 pillaging and plundering in the northeast.    Unexpectedly, in winter 1218 10,000 Mongols under the command of Qacin and Jala, with 20,000 troops provided by Wannu, arrived in Korea. The Mongols sent a simple message to the Koreans: they would crush the rebel Khitans, requested troops and provisions from the Koreans to assist with this, and then would enter into the same tributary relationship the Koreans had with Liao and Jin. After a brief delay in answering the Koreans acquiesced, sending 1,000 picked troops and 1,000 bushels of rice. The rebels Khitans were crushed, and Korea began sending tribute to the Mongols in 1219.    Korea’s first Mongol experience was relatively peaceful. Though forced to send tribute, their cities had not suffered. Ch’oe Ch’unghon’s advancing age, failing health, and desire to pass his rule onto his son stopped him from taking any provocative actions. A keen observer, he had judged the danger of this new foe, expecting the relationship would differ little from Liao or Jin tribute demands. Ch’oe Ch’unghon died in late 1219, and was succeeded by his oldest son, Ch’oe U. A military man like his father, an effective administrator and decisive leader, though not quite as cautious, Ch’oe U helmed Koryo for the next two decades. Ch’oe U found Mongol demands were downright rapacious, especially for otter skins, highly desired for their water resistant properties. For a people who lived their entire lives outdoors, an otter-skin cap was a valuable product. The chief Mongol envoy to Korea, Ja’uyu (Chao-ku-yu), was said to have abandoned the rest of the tribute at the border and just kept the otter skins!   As we’ve noted in episodes past, when Chinggis Khan marched west against the Khwarezmian Empire in 1219 his general Mukhali was left to maintain pressure on the Jin Dynasty. With Mukhali’s death in 1223, the reduced Mongol military presence in north China and with Chinggis still in Central Asia, the political situation across the region changed dramatically. The end of hostilities between the Jin, Xi Xia and Song Dynasties around 1225 we’ve dealt with already, but changes occurred even in Manchuria and Korea. There, Puxian Wannu renewed his independence and asked for alliance with Koryo. The Koreans declined, but made their own moves. In 1225 the chief Mongol envoy to Korea, the aforementioned Ja’uyu (Chao-ku-yu), mysteriously disappeared while transporting the annual tribute north. The Koreans insisted it was bandits, but the Mongols put the blame square on Koryo.    Ogedai Khaan was enthroned in 1229 and immediately set about bringing the region to heel. The Jin Dynasty took his personal attention and was destroyed by 1234. Both Puxian Wannu and the Koreans were also to be punished. Initially the new Khaan demanded Korea aid in an attack against Wannu. With the failure of the Koreans to comply, Ogedai ordered an invasion of the peninsula, the first of six Mongol invasions. Led by Sartaq-Qorchi, the army crossed the Yalu River in autumn 1231. The attack was overwhelming; the government armies were annihilated in the field and the capital surrounded. There was some notable resistance at a few fortified cities, none more famous than the defence of Kuju. Famed for a victory over the Khitans in 1018, in late 1231 through early 1232 under the command of Pak So, the city withstood weeks of constant Mongol assault. The most famous event occurred early in the siege. The southern wall of the city was defended by Kim Kyongson and a skilled unit of pyolch’o, translated as Defense Command Patrol, Extraordinary Watches or Night Patrol. These were local troops from outside the regular army, an elite militia specializing in guerilla warfare. Sending most of the unit inside the city, Kim Kyongson led a group of 12 picked men before the south gate. Telling them “not to think of their lives and accept death as their fate,” Kim and his men withstood four or five Mongol charges. Taking an arrow to the arm, Kim and his forces stood proudly and girded the city to further resistance;  Attacks were launched on the walls day and night: carts of dry grass and wood were pushed to the gates to burn them, only to be destroyed by Korean catapults; a tower built before the walls to protect sappers was destroyed when the Koreans dug holes through their own walls to pour molten iron onto it. 15 large catapults were driven off by the Korean counter artillery; scaling ladders were toppled by Korean polearms. Bundles of sticks soaked allegedly in human fat, set aflame and hurled into the city could not be put out with water, but were smothered with mud and earth. Another catapult team through constant barrage made 50 breaches in the walls, which the defenders filled back in as the holes were made. After a month of terrible destruction but no success, the Mongol siege was lifted, deciding the city was protected by heaven.   Kuju city and other select settlements outlasted the central government. Military ruler Ch’oe U came to terms with the Mongols in January 1232, and was so frustrated that Kuju had continued to resist that he wanted to have its commanders, Pak So and Kim Kyongson, executed fearing Mongol retaliation. Here the Mongols are said to have interceded, saying: “Although he went contrary to our orders, he is a loyal subject of yours. We are not going to kill him now that you have already pledged peace with us. Would it be proper to kill the loyal subjects of all your cities?”   Still, Koryo had submitted to Sartaq-qorchi in the first month of 1232. The tribute demands were massive. 20,000 horses, 20,000 otter skins, slaves, royal hostages and clothing for 1 million men were demanded, alongside gold, silver and other treasures. The demands were impossible to meet; within a few months the Koreans had procured barely 1,000 otter skins. 72 Mongol darughachin were appointed to oversee Koryo, and Sartaq withdrew his forces, considering the peninsula conquered.    The Koreans were less keen to comply, however. The demands were onerous; while they sent much in gifts, they were unwilling to send royal hostages. Ch’oe U organized sambyolch’o units, a sort of paramilitary police force of the house of Ch’oe. By the end of spring 1232, Ch’oe held a meeting of his top ministers to decide the course of action. In June and July, the plan was struck. Ch’oe U, the King and the court moved from the capital at Kaesong to Kanghwa island offshore, making it the new administrative centre of Korea, protected by the experienced Korean navy. Mongol officials in Korea were murdered and the peninsula was in open revolt. Sartaq returned in fall 1232, blazing a trail of destruction across the northern half of the country until he was killed during a siege by a Buddhist monk turned archer, Kim Yunhu. On Sartaq’s death, the Mongol army withdrew.   The Mongols were not done with Korea. The defection of one Korean commander, Hong Pogwon, gave them control of Korea stretching north from Pyongyang, which Hong was made the overseer of. In early 1233 a Mongol envoy came with a list of grievances and demands, among them that Koreans had to fight against Puxian Wannu- though this came to naught, as Wannu’s kingdom, and the connection between his head and his neck, were removed from the scene later that year by armies under Ogedai’s son Guyuk. After the fall of the Jin Dynasty in 1234, a quriltai was held in Mongolia in 1235 to determine the next campaigns. Attacks were ordered against the Song Dynasty, Guyuk, Subutai and Batu were sent on the great western campaign, and another army, this time under Tangut Ba’atar, was sent to Korea.    Tangut Ba’atar’s invasion in summer 1235 was hugely destructive; with the assistance of Hong Pogwon by winter 1236, he had penetrated some 470 kilometres into Korea. The Koreans were unable to field armies against them, and alternative strategies were developed to respond. Just as the court had fled to Kanghwa Island, most of the population outside of fortified settlements was ordered to flee to coastal islands or mountain refuges, where they could escape Mongol riders. Offensives were limited to guerilla warfare, pyolch’o units launching surprise night raids, ambushes through mountain passes and striking small parties. Hitting quick and hard and making use of their excellent knowledge of local terrain, these small units were actually more mobile than the Mongols. It was a frustrating way of war for the Mongols, and when the Mongols got frustrated, the devastation only increased. Fortified settlements were left to fend for themselves, and when they did fall, the destruction was horrific. The countryside was ravaged, the death toll horrendous. The guerilla tactics could harass but not stop the Mongols, who in turn, unable to strike directly at the royal court or military dictator, could not immediately bring the country to submission. Korean defections to the Mongols were enormous; and in many respects the Ch’oe rulers had chosen a strategy to bring the most damage to their people.   By winter 1238, the Korean court was willing to come to talks with the Mongols to halt the destruction.  Tangut Ba’atar withdrew his forces with talks ongoing and it seemed the Koreans would pledge eternal submission. As the Koreans feared, the Mongolian idea of negotiated settlement was a bit different from their own. Alongside the expected tribute demands, the Mongols required a census, the court could no longer stay on Kanghwa Island, and the Korean King, at that time Kojong, had to present himself to the Mongol court. For the military ruler Ch’oe U, this presented an issue. His legitimacy rested on him being the one to control the King; Mongol demands would remove him from power. Peace on the terms the Mongols wanted could not be accepted as long as the Ch’oes wanted to remain in control. For two years the Koreans made excuses on not sending the King, Ch’oe U trying to find some room to maneuver. Finally, a ploy was decided on: a distant relation of the King was made up to be the Crown Prince, and thus Wang Sun was sent to Karakorum in 1241. The Mongols found out about the deception…. Some 14 years later. By then, he was a loyal member of the Mongol court and even married a daughter of Great Khan Mongke.   With the royal hostage sent in 1241 and resumption of tribute, Ch’oe U achieved a six year truce. The Mongols still wanted the royal court to return to the mainland though, and their envoys grew ever more insistent on the matter. Ch’oe U spent the next six years preparing defenses, building elaborate fortifications on Kanghwa Island and readying militia units.  Buddhist projects were consecrated to secure heavenly favours; the most famous was the recarving of the Tripitaka, the Buddhist scriptures, begun in 1237. Often called the Tripitaka Koreana, this was a massive project, over 80,000 wooden printing blocks carved, requiring thousands of scholars and 12 years to complete.   Guyuk was elected as Great Khan in 1246, and decided the Koreans had stalled long enough on returning the court to the mainland.  In Autumn 1247 an army under the general Amukhan and Hong Pogwon invaded. Official orders were sent for the countryside to be abandoned for coastal islands and mountain fortresses; guerilla attacks were launched; the northern half of the peninsula was desolated. The death of Guyuk in summer 1248 and Ch’oe U in winter 1249 brought a relative calm. Ch’oe U was succeeded by his son, Ch’oe Hang, who proved not the equal of his father or grandfather. More arrogant and hasty than his father, he struggled to maneuver the complicated politics of Koryo and Mongol attacks. Within a few months there was an attempted coup against him, and his reaction alienated major allies, at a time when they couldn’t afford to lose a single one.   In 1251 Mongke was confirmed as Great Khan; driven by the need to complete the conquests, the continued independence of Koryo was not something he could abide. Again, envoys demanded the Korean King visit the Mongol court and abandon Kanghwa island. Again, excuses were made.  King Kojong was too old and sickly for such a trip, but they could discuss the possibility of considering sending the Crown Prince. At the same time, the Koreans prepared for the expected invasion. At the quriltai in 1252 wherein Kublai was ordered against Dali and Hulegu against the Caliph in Baghdad, forces were organized to attack Korea. Prince Yeku invaded in August 1253 alongside Amukhan and Hong Pogwon. Envoys preceded him stating he was there to find out if King Kojong was as sick as he said he was. He had six days to comply and meet Mongol representatives on the mainland. Kojong actually met with Mongol envoys on the straits across from Kanghwa island, and achieved precisely nothing. Mongol forces rode and burned across the peninsula, inland settlements were abandoned for coastal and mountain defenses. Pyolch’o raids attacked Mongol parties, and Mongols destroyed the cities which fell to them. Yeku was held up and fell ill during the long siege of Ch’ungju, ably defended by Kim Yunhu, the same Buddhist Monk who had killed Sartaq some 20 years prior. Ultimately, Mongke recalled Yeku before the end of the year due to his feuding with another prince. Amukhan and Hong Pogwon continued the campaign for a few more weeks, organizing a brief effort at amphibious warfare: seven captured Korean ships landed troops on Kal Island in early 1254, to no great result. Amukhan pulled the troops back in spring, returning in August with reinforcements under Jalayirtai Qorchi.   Jalayirtai brought a variation on the Mongol demands for submission. Now ministers and people had to shave their heads in the Mongol style: leaving only a tuft on the forehead between the eyes, and over the ears to be braided into loops. He also demanded Ch’oe Hang and King Kojong come to the mainland. Predictably, Ch’oe Hang was unwilling to do so. Early in summer 1255 Jalayitrai and Amukhan fell back to the northern border; by then, aside from years of destruction and abandonment of farmland, the peninsula was also in the midst of an ongoing drought. We are told in the first year of Jalayirtai’s command in Korea an estimated 206,8000 persons were taken captive. The suffering was horrific. Jalayirtai’s forces attacked again in autumn 1255, beginning a ship building program. Frustrated with continued resistance from the Korean court, the Mongols were considering assaulting the well defended Kanghwa Island. A sense of Jalayirtai’s frustration is evident in his response to Korean envoys in mid-1256. The envoys came asking for peace and Mongol withdrawal, to which Jalayirtai, incensed with pyolch’o attacks in the night, snapped “if you desire peace and friendship, then why do you kill our soldiers in great numbers?”   Jalayirtai’s movement of troops back north in autumn 1256 was no respite: in spring 1257, famine gripped even Kanghwa island. As Jalayirtai returned in the spring, it must have been apparent that the Ch’oes were hanging by a thread. Ch’oe Hang soon died, succeeded by his son Ch’oe Ui, who proved a very poor choice. His attempts to win favour by grants of food to the populace and court did not offset bad advisers enriching themselves and his own poor decisions. Alienating just about everyone in the court, the pressure of the situation finally led to a coup. Officers led by Kim Injun assaulted Ch’oe’s palace in May 1258. Ch’oe Ui tried to escape over the walls, but was too fat to get himself over. Caught by the assassins, Ch’oe Ui’s death ended six decades of Ch’oe military rule in Korea. Gaining the support of the elderly Kojong and handing out the wealth of the Ch’oe’s, Kim Injun made himself the new military governor. However, his position was much weaker than the Ch’oe’s had been, and still refused to submit to the Mongols. Mongol envoys who arrived in summer 1258 brought threats that they would storm Kanghwa Island, and in August Jalayirtai received further reinforcements under the command of Yesuder. Refusal to supply either the Crown Prince or the King was met with unchecked destruction across the Korean peninsula. If the Royal court would not come to then, then the Mongols would impose direct rule.  No matter how bloody the pyolch’o attacks were, they could not stop the Mongols.   Resistance broke in 1259. Revolts against military rule began across the country, towns and cities surrendered on the arrival of the Mongols rather than continue fighting. With food supplies exhausted, their military forces ground nearly to dust, in the spring of 1259 a peace deal was reached. The Crown Prince, Wang Chon, was to travel to the Mongol court as a royal hostage, the court move back to the mainland, and the defences of Kanghwa be demolished. Kim Injun was not removed but his power was considerably lesser to that of the Ch’oes. Organized Koryo resistance to the Mongol Empire was over. In May 1259, Prince Wang Chon set out for the imperial court, which met a hiccup when Mongke died in August 1259. Wang Chon decided to head for the court of Mongke’s younger brother in China, Kublai. There, he became the first foreign ruler to officially recognize Kublai as the next Great Khan of the Empire. In turn, Kublai provided Wang Chon an armed escort to return to Korea and be installed as the new king, as the venerable Kojong had died in July 1259. Kojong had reigned through the entire Mongol-Korean war, and it was fitting he died only weeks after it ended.   Wang Chon, known better by his temple name, Wonjong, proved a loyal vassal to Kublai Khan, marrying his son and eventual successor to one of Kublai’s daughters. Military rule in Korea ended in 1270 after a series of assassinations, and the Korean court finally returned to the mainland. With that, Koryo was a fully incorporated client kingdom. The King ruled in earnest, though with Mongol backing; when briefly ousted by a coup, Kublai’s forces came in and reinstalled him. Yet Mongol demands upon Korea did not grow any less burdensome; rather,. Wonjong had to mobilize the Koreans for another war, this time fighting alongside the Mongols. Koreans ships, food supplies and men were needed by Kublai Khan against the island of Japan, which had spurned his demands for submission. Korea was to be a launchpad for the first Mongol Invasion of Japan of 1274. To coincide with the release of the new SuckerPunch game Ghost of Tsushima which covers that very same invasion, we will have a few special episodes discussing this area, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast. To help us keep bringing you content, consider supporting us on Patreon, at (inset patreon link here). I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

Had you a bird’s eye view of the Eurasian steppe in 1236, you could have watched an unparalleled sight.  Perhaps more than 100,000 mounted warriors spread out in vast columns converging upon the Kama River, followed with nigh on one million horses, goats, and sheep at some distance behind; thousands of carts, some small enough to be pulled by a single ox, to those so large they required full teams of oxen. Mounted on these carts were spare weapons and arrows, specialists and engineers in siege technology and the tools they needed to build their fearsome machinery, and on the largest carts, royal Mongols gers, round felt tents to house the many princes leading the army. Their very movement changed the landscape, politically and ecologically. The nomadic Turkic peoples who inhabited the steppe fled before them; new roads were cut, others formed by the very passage of ten thousand horses stripping bare the grassland; to avoid lengthy detours in order to stay on schedule, rivers were blocked and diverted to accommodate the great carts. This was an army with one purpose: to conquer everything as far as the hooves of Mongol horses would take them. This was the Great Western Invasion, Mongol princes from across the dynasty collected and hurled as a great spear westwards, which in the coming years would land deep into Europe. I’m your host David, und this is…       The Great Western Invasion is perhaps the most famous campaign of the Mongol Empire. It’s a campaign of big names and big personalities: Batu, Mongke, Guyuk and the great commander Subutai. It’s a story you likely know the broad strokes of already, the bloody conquest of the Russian principalities culminating in the famous battles of Liegnitz and Mohi. It’s generally presented as the master stroke of Subutai’s strategic genius,commonly said that the Mongols would have driven right to the shores of Britain if hadn’t been for the untimely death of Ogedai Khaan at the end of 1241, forcing them to withdraw to elect his successor.  It’s a great story and quite cinematic, but one which barely conveys any of the complexities of the great invasion, and one ripe with exaggerations and myths. Over the next episodes we’re going to try to change your view of the invasion, including as many of the intricacies and historiography of it as we can to provide a fuller understanding of the campaign, and a better, though more nuanced, respect for Mongol military success.       Mongol knowledge of the west came through an offshoot of the invasion of the Khwarezmian Empire, when Jebe Noyan and Subutai Ba’atar led an army through the Caucasus and onto the steppe, where they fought with the nomadic Turkic Cuman-Qipchaq tribes, an army of the Rus’ principalities on the Kalka River, and the Volga Bulghars, the mercantile masters of the Volga River’s trade routes. We covered this in a previous episode, so check that out for the specifics. Though popularly portrayed as a reconnaissance in force, it was a hard fought campaign resulting in the death of Jebe Noyan and Mongol defeats or narrowly won victories. The defeats demanded Mongol retaliation, as did the loss of a top commander- it’s  easy to imagine Subutai personally wanting to avenge himself and his fallen friend, as Jebe may have been a mentor to him. The foes encountered in the west had shown themselves fierce fighters, and the Mongols left with an impression that overwhelming force was needed for further campaigning in the region. The Cuman-Qipchaqs, a loose confederation of Turkic tribes inhabiting the steppes from the borders of Hungary past the Caspian Sea, were a particular issue. Nomadic enemies, similar in lifestyle to the Mongols themselves, were perceived as their greatest threat. Not only could they more readily flee Mongol armies than any sedentary foe, thus continuing to be a threat, but they were likewise skilled horse archers. If united under a charismatic leader as Chinggis Khan had done with the Mongol tribes, the Cuman-Qipchaqs could directly challenge Mongolian hegemony in the steppe. In the Mongolian universalist ideology which developed at the end of Chinggis Khan’s life, everything beneath Eternal Blue Heaven was the Mongols to rule. The fact that these foes had fought the Mongols, at times even besting them, was a state of open rebellion that the Great Khan could not allow.       Subutai had withdrawn from the western steppe over 1224, but that was not the final Mongol encounter in the west before the great invasion. Modern Kazakhstan was by then the ulus of Jochi, the territory granted to Chinggis Khan’s eldest son. As Jochi had died in 1225, the appanage was now headed by Jochi’s second son, Batu- this was the territorial beginnings of the later Golden Horde. From the Jochid ulus, the Mongols had a forward base to attack their foes within the Volga steppe. The closest foe was the Volga Bulghars, a distant Turkic relation to the Bulgarians who gave their name to the empires on the Danube in Southeastern Europe and the Balkans. Controlling the meeting point of the Volga and Kama Rivers, their influence extended to the Urals in the east, and to the borders of the Rus’ principalities in the west. Dominating the fur trade and other exports from the local Finno-Ugric population like the Mordvins and Bashkirs, Volga Bulgharia was a major trade centre, the stopping point between the Rus’ principalities and Khwarezmian Empire. At least, it had been until Chinggis Khan wiped the Khwarezmian Empire from the map. With extensive contacts in Khwarezm and the Qipchaq tribes of the region, the Volga Bulghars were well informed of the fall of Khwarezm and approach of Subutai in 1223, and defeated him on the Volga River that year. Despite this victory, they were not left in a great position. The most powerful Rus’ princely state, that of Vladimir-Sudzal’, was encroaching on Bulghar territory and competing for control over the Mordvins, making one of the Mordvin principalities their vassal. The Bulghars tried to appease the Rus’ through peace negotiations, hoping to focus their efforts for a Mongol return.   It proved fruitless. In 1229 with Ogedai’s ascension came the second Mongol attack, in which Mongol forces seized the steppe from the Ural River to the Volga, overrunning the Bulghars’ border guards.  This attack was led by the commanders Koketei and Sonitei, though it’s commonly suggested that this Sonitei may have been a misspelling of Subutai in the source. If it was Subutai, he was soon recalled to aid Ogedai and Tolui in the final conquest of the Jin Dynasty. The 1229 attack caused a great displacement of tribes, fleeing deeping into Bulghar territory to escape the Mongols. Another attack came in 1232, spending the winter in Bulghar country but were unable to move onto their capital.    Relatively smaller armies had undertaken these two offensives; with significant forces dispatched under Chormaqun to finalize conquests in Iran and accompanying Ogedai, Tolui and Subutai to destroy the Jin, as we have covered in our previous episodes, major resources were unavailable to attack Bulghar. Victory over the Jurchen Jin in 1234 changed this, freeing up troops to divert elsewhere. Most of the Mongol army and its auxiliaries were pulled back within weeks of the final victory over the Jin, though some forces remained on the border due to an attack from the Song Dynasty. Despite Song attacks, Ogedai ordered only minor offensives against them for the time being; the west had to be dealt with.    In 1235 a great quriltai was held in Mongolia to which the available princes of the dynasty were invited. In classic Ogedai fashion upon their gathering an entire month was spent in feasting, drinking and celebrating; gifts and loot were handed out from the treasury; the laws and ordinances of Chinggis Khan were read out again. After this imperial bender, it was time to get to business.  Ogedai’s son Qochu was ordered to hold the frontier with the Song Dynasty, while the rest of the available forces were to be taken west. The Mongol leadership was under the impression that the western end of the continent was home to fierce foes. Ogedai’s only surviving full brother, Chagatai, had been collecting information for him. In the Secret History of the Mongols, Chagatai gave this warning to Ogedai:    “The enemy people beyond consist of many states, and there, at the end of the world, they are hard people. They are people who, when they become angry, would rather die by their own swords. I am told they have sharp swords.”       Chagatai's idea was that this should be a unified effort with all branches of the dynasty -that is, from the lines of Chinggis Khan’s four sons with Borte- contributing troops. This was agreed to. While the western campaign is sometimes depicted as a side show, the sources inform us that the chief figures of the third generation of Chinggisids were present. A number of Jochi’s numerous children, especially his most important sons Orda, Batu, Shiban and Tangqut, were to be present. From Chagatai’s line were Buri and Baidar, Buri his grandson via Moetugen, Chagatai’s beloved favourite who had died in the Khwarezmian campaign. Ogedai’s own sons Guyuk and Qadan represented him, and from the line of the late Tolui was his eldest, Mongke, and Mongke’s half-brother Bojek. If some of these names sound familiar to you, it's because these were among the most prominent Chinggisids of the next decades: Batu, founder of the Golden Horde, with Guyuk and Mongke to be Great Khans in the years after Ogedai. Kolgen, a son of Chinggis Khan from a secondary wife accompanied them, as did the most famous of all Mongol generals, Subutai. While Batu was the lead prince and it was ostensibly his territory they were expanding, Subutai was to hold overall command. Ogedai wished to lead this army himself, but was talked out of it by the assembly- it was deemed too dangerous an expedition, and  Ogedai’s health may have already declined past being fit for such a trek.       Each of these princes brought the troops attached to their households and appanages, resulting in a massive and diverse army. Common estimates range from 100,000-150,000 men- largely Mongolian and Turkic horse archers, but with an important contingent of Chinese siege engineers. Representatives of other conquered peoples joined them- Tanguts, Uighurs, Khitan, Jurchen, already conquered Qipchaqs and perhaps even Central Asian Iranians. A mainly cavalry army,  speed, maneuverability and overwhelming firepower was its strength, taking advantage of the seemingly unlimited grassland and pasture of the great Eurasian steppe.  We know at one point in the quriltai it was considered to send a vast army of Chinese along with them, but this idea was talked down: Yelu Chucai declared they were unfit to the climate and long march.       A moment must be given to what the strategic goals were. The Qipchaq and Bulghars were obviously targets, with the Rus’ to be punished for allying with them. In general, the western steppe was to be conquered, but beyond that? It’s often said the famous European component of the invasion was an afterthought, little more than a raid, but there is some suggestion that Hungary was a definite target right from the beginning. Most Mongol imperial sources discuss Hungary, or rather, their garbled name representing the Kingdom, as a target from the outset. In the 1220s the Hungarian King, Bela IV, who we will meet in our next episodes, had declared himself King of the Cumans. The Hungarian Kingdom wanted to expand its control over and convert the neighbouring Cumans to Christianity. It’s possible rumour made it down the steppes that the Hungarian King was not the Cuman King in name only, but the actual lord of the Cuman tribes in fact. For the Mongols, who saw the Cuman-Qipchaqs as enemies, this made their “king” a major foe. As they moved west they likely gained more accurate information on him, but in distant Mongolia it was hard to correct that. Beyond that, we have statements from the likes of Friar Julian, who will be introduced below, stating in 1236 that the Mongols intended on attacking Rome. So the army, representing the four branches of the Chinggisid dynasty, had a goal to essentially conquer everything westwards, specifically intending on Europe as a part of this.        After the quriltai, the princes returned to their ordus, [or-doos] to assemble their forces: the various armies marched separately, setting out in spring 1236 to unite on the Kama River on the edge of Volga Bulghar territory.        We are provided an absolutely fascinating perspective from an Hungarian Dominican friar who traveled through Volga Bulgharia on the eve of the Mongol invasion. Called Julian, or sometimes Julianus, he had been sent to find the  Hungarians who remained in their old homeland. In a journey that took him across the steppe, through the Rus’ principalities, and Volga Bulgharia, he arrived east of Volga Bulgharia in what he called Magna Hungaria - “great Hungary,” inhabited by a Ugric people whose language, Julian was astonished to find, was mutually intelligible with his own, despite the 400 years since the Magyars had separated from them to enter the Pannonian Basin. These were the Bashkirs, related to the modern people of the same name in Russia’s Bashkortostan, though the modern descendants have been thoroughly turkicized. More relevant for us, Julian was in Magna Hungaria and Volga Bulgharia while Mongol armies gathered on the Kama River only a few days away. There is a sense that the Bulghars were quite aware of the strength of the Mongol army and the approaching terror, but lacked the manpower to repulse such a horde, leaving them to watch helplessly. During his time there, Julian encountered Mongol envoys  moving ahead of the main army with demands of submission. Julian departed before the Mongol attack on Bulghar, and we are provided no specifics on the fall. The Bulghar cities were well fortified, their army of fine repute, but they had been weakened in recent years by conflict with the Rus’ and Mongols. Over winter 1236, their capital cities were destroyed and the state of Volga Bulgharia ended.       While there, Friar Julian heard that Saqsin, a Turkic city along the lower Volga, had already fallen to them. Indeed, it seems the Mongols made to secure the steppes around the northwestern Caspian before moving onto the Volga Bulghars. This was a region inhabited by the Qipchaq-Olberli-Qanglis of the Cuman-Qipchaq confederation, who had fought the Mongols several times. We have little specific details of this, except for one episode. Many Cuman-Qipchaq peoples fled west before the Mongols, while others submitted, with limited resistance by one individual in particular. This was Bachman of the Olberli Qipchaqs. The ruler of a territory along the Ahktuba, a branch of the lower Volga, Bachman emerged sometime in the late 1220s and early 1230s, trying to organize against the Mongols. The leading Cuman-Qipchaq chiefs had fallen to Jebe and Subutai during their campaign in 1222-1223, leaving few in the Qipchaq steppe with the following or influence to rise up. According to the Yuan Shih, dating from the early Ming Dynasty, part of Subutai’s specific instructions had been to strike down this Qipchap chief. Before the fall of Volga Bulgharia, Subutai advanced with the vanguard ahead of the main and scattered Bachman’s army, somewhere along the Caspian Sea, capturing Bachman’s wife and sons. Subutai then turned back for the Kama River to await the main army before moving onto the Bulghars. Bachman was reduced to irregular warfare with a small following, striking at Mongol parties while fleeing southwards. In early 1237 as the main army under Subutai continued on from the ruins of Volga Bulgharia, Mongke and his half brother Bojek were despatched to hunt Bachman down, each travelling down a bank of the Volga. Finding an old woman left behind by Bachman’s troops who pointed them after him, Mongke and Bojek cornered Bachman on an island in the river. Heaven showed its favour when the winds picked up and pushed the water back to reveal a ford. Crossing rapidly, Mongke and Bojek’s army fell upon the unprepared and outnumbered Bachman, destroying the remnants of his men. Bachman was captured, asking only for the final honour to be killed by Mongke’s own hand. Mongke instead had Bojek cut Bachman in half, essentially putting an end to any form of organized Cuman-Qipchaq resistance to the Mongol advance.        After Bachmann’s death, Mongke and Bojek marched back across the steppe to rejoin the main army, which had stayed busy. The Bashkirs had been dispersed and subjugated, Volga Bulgharia destroyed, the next target being the Mordvins, another Ugric people still extant today, giving their name to the Russian republic of Mordovia. The Mordvins were divided into two principalities; once both under Volga Bulgharian influence, the western had since fallen under the domination of the Rus’. The eastern principality submitted to the Mongols and provided troops; the western made the mistake of resisting and was crushed.        This left the Mongols on the borders of the Rus’ principalities. Halting on the Voronezh River in late summer 1237, Batu and Subutai waited to allow Mongke and Bojek to rejoin them, finalizing their plan of assault, sending envoys to demand submission and waiting for the rivers to freeze in order to cross them. The Rus’ principalities were the divided heirs to the Kievan Rus’; still linguistically and culturally a part of the same heritage and the Riurikid dynasty, but politically each  principality was an independent entity. In the 1230s, the most powerful was the northeastern principality of Vladimir-Suzdal’ under the Grand Duke Yuri Vsevolodovich. While the Volga Bulghars had made efforts to prepare for the Mongol return, it seems the great slaughter on the Kalka River did nothing for the Rus’, who chalked it up to another attack, though a destructive one, by the various nomads of the steppe. Few rumours of the Mongols had reached the Rus’ in the following years, and their return was sudden and unexpected. For Batu’s force, the  closest Rus’ principality was  Ryazan, which bravely, but foolishly, refused to submit. The Princes of Ryazan, Murom and Pronsk sent an army against the Mongols, at the start of winter 1237, which was destroyed near the Voronezh River, the Rus’ horsemen pierced by Mongol arrows.   On December 16th, 1237, Batu’s  armies arrived outside Ryazan, surrounding the city with a stockade. On the 21st of December, the city’s wooden walls were breached by catapult and battering ram, the Mongols pouring in. In the words of the Chronicle of Novgorod, the Mongols “killed the Knyaz and the Knyaginya and men, women, and children, monks, nuns and priests, some by fire, some by the sword, and violated nuns, priests’ wives, good women and girls in the presence of their mothers and sisters.” The slaughter was total and indiscriminate. Grand Duke Yuri was unable, or unwilling to help. Some historians such as Alexander Maiorov have suggested based on the Laurentian Chronicle that Yuri had actually accepted a Mongol demand for submission, having sent back their envoys with gifts. In the Chronicle, Roman Igorevich, the brother of the Prince of Ryazan fled with his druzhina bodyguards, hotly pursued by Mongols, making his way to Kolomna on the Oka River. There he was unexpectedly supported by the commander- an officer of Grand Duke Yuri- who tried to help him. The Mongols won the battle, but one of their generals was killed- Kolgen, a son of Chinggis Khan. The killing of a Chinggisid prince was always cause for horrific retaliation, and even if Yuri had accepted submission, or at least hoped to avoid violence, it was too late. The consequence of Kolgen’s death was the rapid assault and sacking of numerous cities across the northern principalities over spring 1238, among them a small town called Moscow on the 15th of January.    Grand Duke Yuri fled north, his capital of Vladimir falling on February 7th, his family killed in the process. On the 4th of March , Yuri and a small force was caught on the Sit’ River by the Mongol Noyan Boroldai. Yuri was captured and suffered a horrific death the sources could only allude to   Only at Torzhok and Kozel’sk did resistance last weeks. Kozel’sk in particular was a bloody affair, aptly defended under its young prince Vasilko. Batu was unable to force the city for almost two months. At one point a wall was breached and the Mongols rushed it, only to be repulsed. Only when  Qadan and Buri arrived with reinforcements was the city to be taken. Before the city fell in May 1238, the citizenry rushed from the gates in an unexpected charge, taking the Mongols by surprise and inflicting heavy casualties, destroying catapults and killing the sons of three commanders before the Mongols overcame them. According to the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle, the Mongols came to call Kozel’sk “the evil city,” and none dared mention it in their presence. Of the major cities of the northern principalities, only the republic of Novgorod escaped slaughter with the timely submission of its prince, Alexander Nevsky, perhaps aided by the spring melt turning the approaches to the city into marsh and hamphering Mongol advances. Nevsky is most famous today as the victor over the Teutonic Knights at Lake Peipus in 1242, a small victory the Rus’ clung to in an era of devastation. With the onset of warmer weather around May 1238, the Mongols withdrew from northern Rus’ to rest men and horses and take stock of their efforts.   Why did the Rus’ fair so poorly? From December 1237 to May 1238,  the Mongols took the major cities of the northern principalities with few holding out longer than a couple of days. We can boil it down to two main factors. The first being the matter of defenses and weaponry. The defenses of the Rus’ cities were mainly logs on top earthworks, with towers few or non-existent and stone works rare. For catapults designed to bring down the great pounded earth walls of China, such walls provided little defense. Mongol siege techniques were simply far advanced beyond that of the Rus’, where sieges were generally blockades to starve out the inhabitants and catapults exceedingly uncommon. Defenders behind the city walls had nothing to compare to the range of Chinese catapults, leaving them only able to watch as the walls were battered down from afar. Cities and fortresses were, unlike Europe, built on level and approachable ground, making them easy to surround, advance to, and easy to strike with siege machines.    The other cause for the swift Rus’ defeat was the deep fragmentation of the principalities. Princely conflict was tense in the years building up to, and even during, the Mongol invasion,  princes keen to watch their neighbour take the force of the Mongol assault, only to be surprised when they were struck next. In comparison, the Mongols had a mostly unified and effective leadership- though their own princely antagonisms were about to begin to rear their heads. Mongol army units were able to cooperate and move independently from hundreds of kilometres apart, kept in contact with a series of messengers and set timelines to meet. Rather than a massive assemblage moving altogether, the Mongol army split into contingents led by their princes and commanders, units of 1000 darting across Rus’. The sensation within the cities must have been that they were totally surrounded, new parties of Mongols riding to and fro daily, their numbers seemingly endless. Like the cities of the Khwarezmian Empire, the Rus’ cities were basically each left to their own defense, allowing the Mongols to always isolate the enemy and enjoy local superiority in numbers despite the fierceness of the Rus’ garrisons.   By the time Batu ordered the withdrawal for summer 1238, northern Rus’ was devastated. Archaeologically the evidence of the slaughter of men, women and children has sadly corroborated Rus' accoutnts, though the destruction was not as total as commonly portrayed, as Rus’  princes still had military and economic power to continue fighting each other in the following years. Their ability to offer an effective military resistance to the Mongol Empire was broken, and it would be well over a century before the Rus’ could provide a direct military challenge to Mongol forces. Still, not all the principalities were destroyed in this first wave: the south and far western principalities like Chernigov, Kiev, Galicia and Volhynia had not yet been targeted, and the Cuman-Qipchap inhabited steppe between the Caspian and Black Seas still needed to be conquered, the next tasks for Batu and Subutai after their break for summer 1238, and the topic for our next episode, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!

    While Ogedai Khaan led his armies in the final war against the Jurchen Jin Dynasty, covered in our previous episode, this was far from the only theatre his forces operated in. As the conquest of northern China was completed, Chormaqun Noyan brought Mongols armies back to the west, returning to Iran to hunt down the energetic Khwarezmian Prince, Jalal al-Din Mingburnu, hoping to restore his father’s empire. In the course of this, the Mongols effectively completed the conquest of Iran, the Caucasus and entered Anatolia- a great southwestern expansion of the empire. At the same time, Mongol armies under Subutai conquered the western steppes and Rus’ principalities, a vast, two pronged pincer assault on western Eurasia, and the subject of our following episodes.       First, we must wind the clock back from the 1230s to the Khwarezmian campaign of Chinggis Khan in the 1220s. As you’ll recall from that episode, the Mongol invasion at the end of 1219 brought about the near total collapse of the Khwarezmian defense and flight of the empire’s ruler, Muhammad II Khwarezm-Shah. Muhammad died at the end of 1220, harried to his end by Jebe and Subutai. On his death in December, Shah Muhammad’s son Jalal al-Din Mingburnu, a far braver and more talented general, took up the mantle of leadership- or rather, what was left of it. Rallying what forces he could, he eventually made his way into what is now Afghanistan, defeating two Mongol armies but finally crushed by Chinggis Khan himself on the Indus river in November 1221. At the battle's climax, Mingburnu spurred his horse off the cliff and into the Indus, swimming across and making into the Punjab. Chinggis Khan, to give the devil his due, is said to have personally ordered archers not to fire on him, admiring Jalal al-Din’s courage. The same mercy was not spread to other Khwarezmian troops trying to make it across the river.       Jalal al-Din spent the next three years in northwestern India. At that time, northern India was ruled by several Muslim warlords, mainly former generals of the Ghurid Empire which had once stretched from Iran across northern India. Among these was the general Iltutmish, based in Delhi- the origins of the Delhi Sultanate. At the end of the thirteenth century, the Delhi Sultanate had the strength to repel Mongolian invasion, but in the 1220s was only one power among several. At the time of Jalal al-Din’s arrival,  Iltutmish of Delhi’s main rival was Qubacha, a fellow Ghurid controlling the Punjab and lower reaches of the Indus River. Despite being fellow Muslims, the post-Ghurid powers had little love for the Khwarezmians. Jalal al-Din’s father Muhammad had been a stalwart foe of the Ghurids, and after the Ghurid collapse in the early 1200s, it was the Khwarezm-shah who had gobbled up their western territories in Iran and Afghanistan, bringing Khwarezmian influence right to the borders of India.  Jalal al-Din’s own appanage given to him by his father was the former Ghurid capital of Ghazna. Further, the Khwarezmians had also become foes of the ‘Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, who provided his holy support to those generals battling the Khwarezm-shah. The Khwarezmian reputation was that of an aggressive, unreliable and expansionist empire, and the chief scion of that house, Jalal al-Din, was not destined to enjoy a warm welcome among his co-religionists in India, nor among those Hindu rulers still extant in the region.        Upon his defeat on the Indus, Jalal al-Din needed to make space for himself from the Mongols, who initially turned back from the river but soon sent parties to hunt for Mingburnu.  Managing to gather survivors from the Indus battle and other refugees from the invasion, his victory over local Hindus in the Salt Range brought defections to Jalal al-Din’s force. Charismatic and with a reputation as a superb warrior, Jalal al-Din rarely had trouble attracting followers- making friends with other states was another matter. With Mongol forces under Dorbei Doqshin approaching, Jalal al-Din fled further into India, coming to within a few days of Delhi. His envoys sent to Sultan Ilutumish were killed, for Iltutmish, a wily politician, had likely weighed the costs of providing aid to Mingburnu with the Mongols now approaching. Delhi was too well protected for Jalal al-Din to assault, so he doubled back to the west, ransacking as he went and successfully avoiding Dorbei Doqshin’s Mongols. Dorbei abandoned the pursuit, returning to Chinggis Khan at Samarkand in late 1222, where he was severely reprimanded and ordered back to India.       Jalal al-Din in the meanwhile attacked the Ghurid successor in northwestern India and Iltutmish’s main rival, Qubacha, forcing him to submit and pay tribute. Most of 1223 he spent ravaging cities along the Indus, making his way to the Gujarat peninsula. Having successfully pissed off everyone between the Indus and the Ganges rivers, Jalal al-Din was greeted with rumours of a grand coalition -Iltutmish, Qubacha, and various Hindu lords- uniting against him, as well as Dorbei Doqshin’s second approach. Learning that a half-brother had set up a state in western Iran, Jalal al-Din decided it was a good time to leave India in 1224, leaving his officers Ozbeg-bei and Hasan Qarluq in control of his Indian territory. They, along with Qubacha, took the full brunt of Dorbei Doqshin’s returning army, who took his frustration out on them when he found himself unable to locate Jalal al-Din. While this proved unfortunate for them,  Iltutmish did rather well out of this episode. With his major rivals weakened by Jalal al-Din and Mongol attacks but his own state relatively untouched, over the late 1220s and 30s Iltutmish was able to overcome these rivals and set the Delhi Sultanate on a path to regional dominance. In due course we will return to Iltutmish’s successors, but now we must follow our friend Jalal al-Din westwards.       Jalal al-Din’s three years in India did little for his dream of restoring the Khwarezmian Empire, but saw better opportunity in the efforts of his half-brother, Ghiyath al-Din. Around Rayy, modern Tehren, Ghiyath al-Din had started to reestablish Khwarezmian control. Jalal al-Din’s  thought seems to have been that, if anyone was to continue the Khwarezmian Empire, it was going to be him, damn it! Mingburnu cut across southern Iran, hoping to restore Khwarezmian rule as he went, first stopping in the province of Kerman. There, Baraq Hajib ruled, a former general of the Qara-Khitai brought into Khwarezmian service who established his independence in the wake of the Mongol invasion.  Jalal al-Din gained his submission and married one of his daughters, though Baraq soon revolted and Mingburnu carried on. At Shiraz in the province of Fars he was welcomed and again married a daughter of the local dynasty, the Salghurids. He then departed for Isfahan, where he rested his main army. With a handful of picked horsemen, said to be carrying banners of white cloth like the Mongols, Jalal al-Din led a daring raid against his half-brother, attacking him in his camp, capturing him and absorbing his followers and territories.        This greatly strengthened his position. Knowing that the former northeastern sections of the Khwarezmian empire, including the former capitals of Gurganj and Samarkand were under firm Mongol control, Mingburnu must’ve thought it more prudent to push west, in theory providing himself more resources and space to resist the Mongols. Gaining the submission of the chiefs of Luristan, marrying princesses of local Turkomans, he now had a not-insubstantial force under his belt.  Most of southern, central and western Iran had now submitted or was under his direct control. Casting his eyes west, he marched towards Baghdad. Supposedly he was expecting assistance from the Caliph, at that time an-Nasir, who had reigned since 1180. Caliph an-Nasir had been paralyzed and blind for a few years at that point, but the memory of Muhammad Khwarezm-shah’s own failed march on Baghdad had not been forgotten. Anticipating that the son shared the same greed as the father, an army was dispatched to repel Jalal al-Din. Drawing them into a feigned retreat, Jalal al-Din put them to flight, pursuing them as far as Baghdad’s suburbs before withdrawing, and then defeating a force sent from Irbil, capturing that city’s ruler.        Lacking the means to siege Baghdad itself, Jalal al-Din sought easier targets. He moved next against the Eldeguzid atabegs of Azerbaijan- former Khwarezmian vassals who had submitted to the Mongols- and destroyed them in 1225, taking their capital of Tabriz. A brief Georgian foray against Tabriz while Jalal al-Din was mopping up remnants of the Eldeguzids brought him, for the first time in his life, into conflict with Christians. Over the next few years, Jalal al-Din unleashed a torrent of destruction against the Kingdom of Georgia. At that time ruling Georgia and Greater Armenia, the kingdom had suffered terribly during Jebe and Subutai’s own expedition through the region only a few years prior. In 1226, Jalal al-Din took the Geergian capital Tbilisi, destroying the churches within the city. According to a contemporay historian, Kirakos Ganjaketsi, rather than spend time to determine who in the city’s diverse population was Christian or Muslim, Jalal al-Din simply ordered all the men to be circumsized.       After this, Mingburnu marched rapidly back to Iran, having heard rumours that Baraq Hajib was attacking Isfahan, the new Khwarezmian capital. Baraq apologized and sent gifts, and while Jalal al-Din rested in Isfahan, he learned that the Georgians revolted. Speeding back to Georgia, Jalal al-Din undertook a slaughter outside the walls of Akhlat, but was unable to enter the city. In similar time, news reached him of another threat to Isfahan. A Mongol army was approaching the city, ordered there by Chin-Temur, the Mongol appointed governor of  Gurganj, a former capital of Khwarezm. Jalal al-Din brought his army back to Isfahan, and in August 1228, bravely led his forces to be defeated by the Mongols. His half-brother Ghiyath al-Din fled, and Jalal al-Din was forced to retreat when the Mongols drove back his remaining forces. However, with losses high or fearing a trap, the Mongols failed to advance, and withdrew back to their own empire. Thus was Isfahan saved, if narrowly.        Really changing things up, Jalal al-Din returned to Georgia again in late 1228, and inflicted one of the most famous defeats in Georgian history at Bolnisi, known also as Mindori. A large army of Georgians, Armenians, various ethnic groups from across the Caucasian mountains as well as a significant Qipchaq component had been assembled against him. Qipchaqs had a long history serving as mercenaries for both the Georgian Kingdom and the Khwarezm-shahs, and we may well assume a number were present among Mingburnu’s forces. Outnumbered and lacking swordsmen and lancers, it was a precarious position for Jalal al-Din. His vizier, Yulduzchi, suggested it would be better to pass behind the enemy, cutting them off from water, thus weakening the larger force in the heat. Jalal al-Din’s reaction as recorded by Juvaini is rather illustrative of his character. Becoming as enraged as was possible for him, he hurled a pencase at the vizier’s head while shouting “they are a flock of sheep! Does the lion complain of the size of the flock?” It is unfortunate for Mingburnu that this was a mantra he applied to everything.       Yulduzchi repented, paying a fine of 50,000 dinars. Opening contact with the Qipchaq, reminding them of his own connections with their people, he successfully convinced them to remove themselves from the battlefield. Then he convinced the Georgians to send champions out to face him- supposedly Jalal al-Din killed them all himself, then ordered a general charge against the demoralized Georgians. The foe was destroyed and we might regard this as the high water mark of his military career. The last half of 1229 Jalal al-Din was held up besieging Akhlat, falling only to great massacre in April 1230 after a 8 month siege. Learning that the Seljuq Sultan Kayqubad I, master of Anatolia, was organizing an alliance against him, Jalal al-Din moved west. Falling ill, he lost his strength and was unable to ride his horse, forced to be carried in a litter. At Yassıçemen near Erzincan in August 1230, Jalal al-Din met an allied force of Seljuqs under Kayqubad I and the Ayyubid Sultan of Syria al-Ashraf, the nephew of the famed Saladin. During the battle Jalal al-Din tried to mount his horse, but lacked the strength to even hold the reins. His courtiers pulled him back. Seeing his banners fall back, the army thought Jalal al-Din was retreating, and thinking the battle thus lost, fled. The Seljuq-Ayyubid forces, believing it a feigned retreat, held their ground. Jalal al-Din escaped another major military defeat, this time while seriously ill. Certain to improve his mood was news of a large Mongol army now approaching.        Far to the east, Ogedai had been elected Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. Aware of Jalal al-Din’s resurgence, Ogedai could not allow him to reform the Khwarezmian Empire. Seeking to complete the conquest of the region, perhaps even hoping to take Baghdad itself, Ogedai ordered fresh troops to be sent. Commanded by Chormaqun, a member of the keshig, the imperial bodyguard and a veteran of the Khwarezmian campaign, this is our first mention in the sources of the tamma. The tamma was essentially the closest the Mongols came to garrison duty, sent to the empire’s borders to expand, consolidate and intimidate, rather than a full, tsunami like tidal wave of invasion.  There is some suggestion Chormaqun may have initially been ordered west by Chinggis Khan in his final days, but would have been held up by the Khan’s death in 1227. Ogedai in that case would have been reaffirming his father’s decision.        So, Chormaqun set out with perhaps 30,000 men, ordered to be supported and reinforced by the appointed basqaqs and darughachi governing the western Mongol empire, like Chin-Temur. In early 1230 Chormaqun crossed the Amu Darya  and began the proper subjugation of Khurasan, which had been left a ruinous buffer after the 1220 invasion. Chormaqun bypassed those few strongpoints still holding out, leaving Chin-Temur to reduce them and set up a proper administration in his wake. By autumn 1230, Chormaqun was in Mazandaran, northern Iran, and took Rayy, which he set up as his headquarters. Chormaqun spent the next two years in Rayy, from where he ordered his various forces and took the submission of most of the powers in Iran, the states of the south sending representatives and recognizing Mongol rule. By 1233 essentially all that was left of Jalal al-Din’s reconstituted Khwarezmian Empire in Iran had submitted to the Mongols, leaving his capital of Isfahan isolated until it fell in 1236. In eastern Khurasan, that is, now modern eastern Iran and Afghanistan, Chormaqun’s lieutnentats Dayir and Monggedu operated, driving out Khwarezmian holdouts. By 1235 they had brought the Mongol Empire to the borders of India, forcing an officer Jalal al-Din had left behind, Hasan Qarluq, to submit. It seems even the Isma’ilis, the famed ‘Order of Assassins,’ allied themselves with the Mongols, providing intelligence on Jalal al-Din’s movements and strength.    By spring 1231, Mongol forces had entered Azerbaijan’s Mughan plain, zeroing in on Mingburnu. He frantically sent word to the Seljuq Sultan and Ayyubid Sultan of Syria, urging cooperation against the Mongols. But it was too little too late. Jalal al-Din had long ago soured the relationship through his aggression. Too busy raiding and campaigning, he had not created anything in the last decade to actually prepare for the return of the Mongols, and now he paid for it. He spent 1231 hopping across the Caucasus, narrowly avoiding Mongol forces. At one point, he only just escaped his camp as the Mongols came across it, only the action of a general waving Mingburnu’s banners and therefore distracting them, giving Jalal al-Din enough time to escape.   Near Diyar Bakir, known also as Amida, in what is now southeastern Turkey, his luck finally ran out.  Hounded down to just a few followers, in mid-1231 he was killed by Kurdish bandits robbing him for his robes. The clothes were recognized, the Kurds killed and the body thought to be that of Jalal al-Din buried. So ended the reign of Jalal al-Din Mingburnu, final ruler of the Khwarezmian Empire. A fine soldier and warrior but a poor king, he could not improve upon the Khwarezmian tradition of treachery and aggression to his neighbours. With the time, energy, troops, experience and personal charisma, Jalal al-Din had the potential to build a proper resistance to the Mongols, yet he instead squandered this opportunity, in many ways showing himself little better than them. Still he remained a powerful symbol; for years, rumours persisted of his survival, and every once and a while someone would claim his identity, only to be swiftly killed by the Mongols. Many a medieval Muslim author glorified him, such as his own secretary Nasawi, the Khwarezmian refugee to Delhi Juzjani, and even Juvaini, a beaureaucrat who worked for the Mongols. We might consider him the Bonnie Prince Charlie of the 13th century Muslim world. A figure whose actual person could not stand up to the legend and potential of his idea.   Jalal al-Din’s demise had other consequences. For one, there was still a large body of Khwarezmian troops in the region, fleeing the Mongols and now acting as mercenaries. In time, they were displaced from their refuge in Syria, making their way south and in 1244, took Jerusalem. Jerusalem had only been in Christian control again since Emperor Frederick II’s crusade in 1228. Not until 1917 would Jerusalem again be controlled by non-Muslims.    In Azerbaijan, Tabriz came under Mongol rule quickly after Mingburnu’s death. With Iran secured, Chormaqun marched into newly subjugated Azerbaijan, and there planned the conquest of the Caucasus. Georgia was severely weakened; first Jebe and Subutai’s attacks, then Jalal al-Din’s repeated depredations, it would be just a matter of reducing fortresses.  In 1236 Chormaqun ordered a three pronged assault against the territories of the Georgian Kingdom: Chormaqun himself drove into Greater Armenia, Mular up the Kura Valley and Chagatai Noyan, known as ‘the lesser’ to distinguish himself from Chinggis’ son, attacked Georgia proper. So weakened, the Georgians could offer no unified defence, with each lord retreating to his own castle in the mountains. The Mongols moved at a leisurely, careful pace, forcing some castles but needing to starve out others. Some Armenian and Georgian lords, like the influential Awag Zak’arian, willingly submitted, receiving special treatment and encouraging others to follow his example. With the flight of the Georgian Queen Rusudan from Tbilisi, Awag was the most powerful lord in the kingdom, and assisted in the Mongol expansion. In 1238 Tbilisi fell to Chagatai Noyan, Queen Rusudan fleeing into the far western mountains of Georgian territory, near the Black Sea. So remote was it that the Mongols did not even pursue her. By that point, Subutai and Batu’s armies were overrunning the steppes north of the Caucasus, so perhaps they felt her trapped between them.   The conquest of the Caucasus was essentially complete by 1240. Though it saw its shares of massacres, it was considerably less disastrous for the locals than, say, the war against the Jurchen Jin had been in north China. Most local forms of government were allowed to continue operating, though now with Mongol overlordship at the top. The Mughan plain in Azerbaijan became a favoured centre for Mongol power, and in time, a political centre under the Ilkhanate. For more details on Mongol rule in the region, one can easily find a copy of Bayarsaikhan Dashdondag’s The Mongols and the Armenians online, kindly uploaded to the internet and academia.edu by Dashdondag herself.   The early 1240s saw notable political upheaval in the Mongol Empire- of course at the end of 1241, we have Ogedai Khaan’s own death, though we’ll deal with that in a later episode. Chormaqun was struck down by a paralytic disease, leaving him unable to command, his wife acting as regent until officially replaced by his lieutenant, Baiju Noyan.  Baiju had a habit, even for Mongol standards, of ordering senseless executions. It is Baiju who brings us to the final section of today’s episode, the battle of Kose Dagh.    The Seljuqs of Rum, as the Anatolian branch of the once mighty dynasty was known, had experienced a heyday and expansion under Kayqubad I. After his death in 1236, he was succeeded by Kaykhusraw II, not his equal and certainly not up to repelling the predatory Baiju. From 1240 to 1241 a Turkoman revolt led by Baba Ishak hamstrung the Seljuq state, and Baiju took note of this Seljuq weakness.  In 1242, hungry to continue expanding, Baiju led his armies into Anatolia.  The Seljuq controlled Armenian city of Erzurum was a first target. After a two month siege, catapults brought down the city walls, the Christians and Muslims within the city brought to an indiscriminate slaughter. Valuable gospels found in Erzurum were gifted by Baiju to his Chirstian followers, while Armenian princes in his army sought to rescue those taken as slaves. Following further campaigning, Baiju returned to the Mughan plain for winter 1242, before returning in Spring 1243. The Seljuq Sultan Kaykhusraw II had boasted he would march and defeat the Mongols in the Mughan; Baiju marched back into Anatolia before Kaykhsuraw’s men were even mobilized. Kaykhusraw tried to get reinforcements from his vassals and allies, at Trebizond, Aleppo, Nicaea, and Cilician Armenia. The Armenian King, Het’um I, was a stout observer, and knew that the drunkard Sultan Kaykhusraw fared little chance, and held his forces back.   Erzincan, Sivas, Kayseri, all fell to Baiju as he pushed into Anatolia. He brought with him a large, multi-ethnic force, with notable Armenian and Georgian contingents. Baiju encouraged the intermingling of his forces, so as to prevent ethnic rivalries flaring up and increasing unit cohesion. By June 26th, 1243, Baiju caught the Sultan’s army in the defile of Kose Dagh, in what is now northeastern Turkey. The Seljuqs likewise brought a diverse contingent, including important Frankish mercenaries commanded by a Cypriot and a Venetian. Kaykhusraw drank himself into a stupor the night before, and was so hungover that army organization was non-existent, his force failing to assemble until late in the day. Stationed well beyond the lines, the Sultan had little awareness of what was happening at the front. Moral was poor, the Mongols’ reputation was one of invincibility and absolute terror. There could be only one end.    Mongol horse archers supported by Georgian and Armenian heavy cavalry clashed with the Turkish and Frankish troops of the Seljuq Sultan. Within an hour, they had broken and fled. So sudden was the Seljuq flight that Baiju suspected it had to be a feigned retreat, and held his army back. Only cautiously did he send scouts forward to check out the abandoned Sultan’s camp, and when they found it truly abandoned, the celebration was great. Kaykhsuraw left all his treasure behind in his flight, and what a great deal of treasure it was. Though he survived, his reputation and military were broken. The Seljuqs had little option but to submit to the Mongols- as did the King of Armenian Cilicia, Het’um I, leaving the Mongols as masters of Anatolia.    The Kose Dagh campaign was a part of a growing shift in Mongol military thought. Under Chinggis Khan, campaigns were normally a reaction to an incident or a need; the Otrar Massacre was of course an important precipitate to the Khwarezmian campaign, but Chinggis Khan had tried to avoid it, even after the massacre sending envoys to seek a peaceable solution. Only when his envoys were killed by Muhammad Khwarezm-shah did Chinggis Khan order an assault. The initial campaigns ordered by Ogedai were sent against targets who had survived Chinggis Khan’s invasions, that is the Jurchen Jin and Jalal al-Din. But by Chormaqun’s final years and the time Baiju took office in 1241, the justifications for invasions grew ever flimsier. The greatly weakened Kingdom of Georgia and the Seljuqs of Rum were not a threat to the already vast Mongol Empire, though the Georgians were considered enemies since Jebe and Subutai’s expedition. No, this was conquest for the sake of conquest. Baiju attacked the Seljuqs in their moment of weakness, for little reason other than the expansion of the Mongol Empire. This was the manifestation of the belief that the Chinggisids were to rule everything under the Eternal Blue Heaven. The very existence of non-subject powers was, in itself, resistance against the will of Heaven. The Khan had no allies, only vassals.    The submission of the Anatolian Seljuqs by the mid 1240s marked the highpoint of Mongol efforts in the region for some years. Baiju probed Syria, bringing the submission of local Ayyubid princes there, and his armies tested the borders of Iraq. However, the Mongols seem to have been under the impression that Baghdad was supported by a massive army, and were hesitant to commit to any serious operation against it. It would not be until the arrival of Hulegu in the 1250s that the Mongol conquest in the region would be finalized. As it was, Mongol rule now stretched from the Mediterranean and Black Seas all the way to the Pacific Ocean, and still continued to expand. Our next episode will begin to cover the conquest of the greatest western steppe, the prelude to the invasion of Europe proper, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!

A desperate, starving crowd of thousands presses together, smothering each other in the narrow city streets; defenders clad it broken or hastily repaired lamellar armour hurry to and fro, responding to new alerts along the city walls; the constant thundering of stone slamming into the city walls; the loud cracks of bombs exploding, lobbed into houses by the enemy siege weapons and setting them alite. Screams, some ongoing and others cutting off suddenly, marking where a poor defender, foolish enough to stick his head over the ramparts, was struck by arrows. Outside the city, smoke billowed up enemy sieges machines set on fire by the defender. Beyond them, was the whinnying of tens of thousands of Mongol horses, with Chinese subjects and allies sharpening swords and preparing for the assault. Such was life in the nearly year-long siege of Kaifeng, capital of the Jin Empire and now the target of the Mongol war machine. Today, we look at the final collapse of the Jurchen ruled Jin Dynasty, ending the twenty year long Mongol conquest of Northern China. Victory here laid the groundwork for Mongol war with the masters of southern China, the Song Dynasty, setting the stage for a conflict which would eventually leave the Mongols the rulers of the Middle Kingdom. I’m your host David and this is Ages of Conquest: The Mongol Invasions!        We’ve covered the early stages of the Mongol-Jin war in previous episodes but to give a quick recap. Mongol armies under Chinggis Khan had invaded the Jin Empire in 1211. The Jin, ruled by the Jurchen, hailing from Manchuria and ancestors of the later Manchu, controlled China north of the Huai river and had enjoyed a fearsome military reputation, renowned for their heavy cavalry and horse archers. But after nearly a century of their rule, the semi-nomadic Jurchen in China had adopted Chinese culture and language, losing their formidable military edge. Jin armies were routinely swept away in the field by the Mongols, and those Jurchen and Khitans who still lived as nomads or semi-nomads were soon allied with Chinggis Khan. In 1215, the Emperor Xuanzong of Jin fled south of the Yellow River, abandoning the capital of Zhongdu, now modern Beijing, and cutting ties to his Manchurian homeland. Formerly hardy horsemen, the final emperors of the Jin Dynasty, though still ethnically Jurchen, were now little different from the Chinese. Their armies were now made up of Chinese infantry, having lost most of their access to horse producing regions. Defections from the Jin army early on in the war brought the Mongols knowledge of Chinese siege weapons, and soon the fortifications of northern China were reduced one by one.  When Chinggis Khan moved against the Khwarezmian Empire in 1219, the Jin were granted no respite, as the talented commander Mukhali was left to continue pressure on the Jin. Only Mukhali’s death in 1223 granted the Jin a brief rest, with Mongol attacks for the next few years becoming decidedly more limited.       The Jin had been in an unenviable position from 1215-1223. Mongol pressure in the north was unrelenting and of great concern, bringing the losses of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. In the west, the Tangut ruled Xi Xia, former Jin vassals, had submitted to the Mongols and joined them in attacking the Jin. In the east, the Shandong peninsula and surrounding coastline was lost to a local insurrection known as the Red Coats, an umbrella term for a collection of independent warlords, some of whom declared for the Mongols, some who declared for the Song Dynasty, and all hating the Jin. The Chinese Song Dynasty ruled almost all of China south of the Huai river,  and were a formidable economic power as well as being longtime foes of the Jin. Having lost their northern territories, and two emperors, to the Jurchen in the early 1100s, few tears were shed in the Song court for the Jin’s struggles. In 1217 the Jin invaded the Song- a shocking development considering their ongoing military issues, but one with the intention to essentially provide further room to retreat from the Mongols. Fighting continued until 1221, proving both indecisive and wasteful.       1223-1224 provided an unexpected change of events. Beginning with Mukhali’s death, we have the already noted reduction in Mongol pressure. Though Mukhali’s son and brother continued to campaign, it was without Tangut military support, as their forces had abandoned Mukhali in his final days. Furthermore, Chinggis Khan was still absent in Central Asia, though making his return. This was the first real breathing room northern China had experienced in well over a decade. In the first days of 1224, the Emperor Xuanzong of Jin died, succeeded by his third son Ningjiasu (Ning-ji-asu), known also by his chosen Chinese personal name, Wanyan Shouxi (Wan-yan Shou-shi), Wanyan being the royal clan of the Jurchen Jin.    25 years old on his ascension, Ningjiasu (Ning-ji-asu) was the closest the Jin came to a competent monarch since the death of Shizong of Jin in 1189. More evenhanded and thoughtful than Xuanzong (shuan-zong) of Jin, and more competent than the arrogant and inept Wei Shao Wang, had Ningjiasu taken the throne at any other time, he may have enjoyed a fine reputation. However, he was unable to arrest the collapse of his state, and would die only a few hours before the end of his dynasty. In life, rulers of Chinese-style dynasties are simply known as ‘the Emperor,’ and prior to the Ming Dynasty, would take era titles to delineate certain years of their reign. After their deaths, they are all given posthumous temple names, such as ‘Taizu’ for dynastic founders. Xuanzong of Jin was the posthumous title for Ningjiasa’s father, whose personal name had been Wudubu. Wudubu’s predecessor was so hated he was posthumously demoted from emperor to prince, and hence known as the Prince of Wei, or Wei Shao Wang. The posthumous temple name given to Ningjisau was Aizong, meaning, ‘pitiable ancestor.’ His Chinese personal name, Shouxu (Shou-szhu), was also turned into a pun by the Mongols, as it sounded similar to “little slave.”        Aizong of Jin, as we’ll call him had a promising start to his reign. Both the Tangut and Song emperors died in similar time, and Aizong quickly set about organizing peace between them, though no military cooperation came of this. Able to redistribute troops against the Mongols and Red Coats, the Jin also began to receive horses in trade from the Tangut. Seeking to inprove relations with the Mongols, on Chinggis Khan’s death Aizong even sent envoys bearing formal condolences to the Mongols, though they were turned away. Jin forces were able to reoccupy some territory and strengthen fortifications. As we mentioned earlier, Xuanzong of Jin had moved the capital from Zhongdu to Kaifeng in 1215. Though a foolhardy decision which brought Mongol armies back into China, it wasn’t strategically awful. Kaifeng, in the central Henan province, had been the capital of the Song Dynasty before captured by the Jurchen in the early 12th century. With massive walls, a large population and rich hinterland, the city itself was difficult to siege. Unlike Zhongdu, which was situated comparatively close to Mongolia, Kaifeng was sheltered behind the Yellow River, fordable only at select, and guarded, points. Any passage directly over the river could prove highly costly. The Mongols would thus be more inclined to ford the river further along its great bend towards the Ordos, allowing them to make an approach to the west of the city. This would bring them into mountainous territory in Shaanxi (Shaan-shi) province to Henan’s west, the passage between these provinces guarded by the fortress of Tongguan. Bordered by mountains and possessing a strong garrison, either Tongguan would have to be forced by a costly siege, or bypassed entirely by cutting south through the territory of the now neutral Song Dynasty. Indeed, this was advice Chinggis Khan was said to have given his sons on his deathbed. But since peace had now been reached between Jin and Song, it was impossible to say if they would allow Mongol troops through their country unimpeded.       Such was the problem Ogedai faced when he became Khan in 1229. Ogedai was not the military equal of his father or brothers, and to quiet questions of how fit he was to succeed his famous father, he needed to complete the conquest of the Jin. Growing bolder through the recapture of their cities, defeats of small Mongol parties and absence of any major offensives for some years, the Jin would be a test of worthiness for the new Khan. Weeks after becoming Khan, Ogedai sent an army against the Jin, perhaps to test the waters. A Mongol army of  8,000 under Doqulqu (do-khul-khu) entered Shaanxi (Shaan-shi) at the end of 1229, besieging Qingyangfu (Ching-yang-foo). After a failed Jin peace embassy, a relief force was raised under the commander Pu’a with a vanguard of the “Loyal and Filial Army.” Pu’a was a bit of a rapscallion who had led raids into Mongol occupied territory for several years, looting and carrying off captured horses and provisions, then withdrawing before Mongol forces could catch him. Through his habit of playing up minor skirmishes like they were great victories, he had earned a reputation for skill against the Mongols, though whether it was deserved was another matter. The ‘Loyal and Filial Army,’ which Pu’a had been associated with for years also had an unsavoury, though effective, reputation. Made up of deserters and captives from the Mongols it included northern Chinese, Uighurs, Naiman, Tanguts and the odd Qipchaq, these were mounted units specializing in Mongol tactics. Paid three times that of normal soldiers, to encourage defections from the diverse Mongol armies, by the 1230s this was a crack force of 7,000. Often undisciplined and unruly, they proved effective at plundering and were fine horse archers- one of Pu’a commanders, Chenheshang (Chen-hae-shang) commanded a 1,000 strong vanguard of these men.        At Dachangyuan (da-chang-yuan) in January-February 1230, Pu’a drew Doqulqu’s (Do-hool-hoo’s) force up for battle. Chenheshang led the Loyal and Filial Army as vanguard, and for the first time in the nearly 20 years of war, the Jin defeated the Mongols in open battle. After the battle, Pu’a released a captured Mongol envoy, and sent him to Ogedai with a simple message: “We’ve got all our soldiers and horses ready- come on over and fight!” Soon afterwards, Pu’a, Chanheshang and the general Hada defeated  a Mongol army investing Weizhou on the northern bank of the Yellow River in Henan.        Ogedai was furious and frightened. Doqolqu (do-khul-khu) was removed from command  and possibly poisoned. Pu’a’s boast, followed by actual Jin victories coupled with peace between Jin and Song, made the new Khan very nervous. Naysayers within his own court who whispered how the more militaristic Tolui, Ogedai’s younger brother, should have been Khan, saw this as signs of Heaven’s displeasure. Ogedai tried to quiet these whispers by saying this was like the candle flaring up before it goes out, while at the same time raising a large army to personally lead against the Jin. It should be noted that details of this campaign are often contradictory, with later authors hiding details due to the Mongol defeats suffered in the campaign. The reconstruction which will follow is based on the work of historian Dr. Christopher Atwood, and his fantastic article on Doqulqu’s death.        Ogedai set out in early 1231, praying for nine days to Eternal Blue Heaven for victory. His solution to the described defenses of the Jin- the wide and fast moving Yellow River guarding the north, the neutral Song border to the south and the fortress of Tongguan protecting the west, was to bring the full might of his army against Tongguan, to force it or bypass it.       Up to 100,000 men in Ogedai’s army, including his brother Tolui, the general Subutai freshly recalled from the western steppe, and Mongols, Khitans, Uighurs and subject Chinese, marched into Shaanxi province, already suffering from a severe famine. With such a large army and limited resource available, Ogedai needed to find a way through Tongguan quickly. The Jin commanders, Pu’a and Hada, pulled all their available troops out of Shaanxi before the Mongol advance in order to reinforce Tongguan, and it quickly became apparent that an assault on the fort would be costly and lengthy.    An attempt by Ogedai’s adopted brother Shigi Qutuqu (shi-gi hoo-too-hoo) to draw the Jin defenders into a feigned retreat resulted in heavy Mongol losses, the Jin refusing to leave the safety of their fortifications. Subutai for his part, was able to find a route through the hills south of Tongguan, and seemed likely to outflank the fort. However, his forces became spread too thin during the rough voyage, and a counterattack led by Chenheshang and 1,000 of the Loyal and Filial Troops defeated Subutai at Daohuigu (dao-hui-goo). Subutai and part of his force returned, humbled, to Ogedai, who was so furious he threatened to totally remove him from command, and was only restrained by Tolui. The Mongols withdrew from Tongguan, besieging the large city of Fenxiangfu. The city fell in May 1231, 400 catapults concentrating on one corner of the walls. Despite this victory, Ogedai’s mood was little improved, and lambasted his generals, saying “If Mukhali were alive, I would not have had to come here myself!”       Struggling to support the large army in famine stricken Shaanxi, Ogedai ordered a withdrawal to Inner Mongolia for summer 1231 and replan the assault. There, Tolui suggested a plan which their father had discussed in his final days, bypassing Tongguan by going through Song territory and arriving deep behind Jin defenses. Ogedai agreed, ordering Tolui and Subutai to take their tumens on this flanking maneuver. Meanwhile, Ogedai and the main army would attempt a crossing of the Yellow River, while a smaller force under Ochin Noyan was to try the end of the Yellow River in Shandong, guarding Ogedai from encirclement. The plan was for their armies to act as a giant pincer, striking Kaifeng from the north and southwest simultaneously, Tolui coming up behind enemy lines and preventing the Jin from marshalling all of their forces on a single army.         Nothing started off to plan. While Ogedai’s force was held up by a long siege at Hezhongfu (Hay-zhong-foo) in their effort to cross the Yellow River, early indications were that the Song would not cooperate with Tolui. At the start of 1231 the Song had killed Li Quan, the Mongol’s Red Coat ally in Shandong. Also, the envoy sent at the end of summer to request passage through Song territory had disappeared. Entering into the Song empire without their approval could mean Tolui would face resistance or an army. If Tolui was bogged down fighting Song troops, he would be unable to rendezvous with Ogedai, leaving his brother isolated. Much of Tolui’s army had been in famine stricken Shaanxi, or relocated to the barren Qinling mountains during summer 1231- lacking resources to feed perhaps 20-30,000 men, medieval authors speak of cannibalism occurring here. They could hardly eat the horses they needed for war, afterall. These starving men faced a difficult ride through hostile territory, beyond which  they needed to return to the Jin realm with strength and numbers to fight.            It is testament to Tolui’s military ability that he kept his men together through this hard ride through mountainous territory. Once they reached the Song border in November 1231, Tolui allowed his men a month of pillaging across Sichuan. This Song province was rich, fertile and untouched by the two decades of Mongol-Jin warfare, a chance for Tolui’s men to regain strength, morale and fatten their horses. It also showcased a noted weakness of the Song border defenses- Tolui’s troops travelled over 290 kilometres into Song territory before turning back. This was not the first occasion of Mongol-Song warfare: a brief clash had occurred in 1227 during the destruction of the Tangut Kingdom when Mongol forces attacking the western edge of the Jin empire had gone over the border and raided Song prefectures. The Chief Councillor of the Song Dynasty, Shih Mi-yuan, in power since 1208, was as cautious and pragmatic as he was unpopular in the empire, and he was very unpopular. Neither clash was enough for him to send Song Chinese to die at Mongol hands, and he didn’t let Tolui’s raid escalate into a full military response. Tolui was thus able to enter the southern flank of Jin ruled Henan province in January 1232.       The Jin were panicking now, and Pu’a and Hada rapidly withdrew the garrisons of Tongguan to catch Tolui. At Sanfeng mountain, Tolui and Subutai found themselves surrounded by multiple converging Jin forces under Pu’a and Hada. Pu’a sent a message to Tolui which, in the words of the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid al-Din, the Jin threatened to “do this and that to their women folk.” The actual message was certainly not so polite, and Tolui bristled at this. Surrounded, the Mongols were in a tough position. Aid came from an unexpected direction, as it suddenly began to snow forcefully, a blizzard mixed with hail. Subutai reminded Tolui that they were facing soft men from cities and small villages- the Mongols, used to harsh winters on the open steppe, put on their winter coats and waited on their horses. The Jin troops were unprepared for the early February storm, and for four days they froze and suffered. On the fourth day, deciding their enemy was suitably weakened, Tolui ordered the assault. Racing down the mountain side, the Mongols cut into the Jin and obliterated them, Pu’a and Hada both captured. As punishment for their threat to rape the Mongol women, we are told the Mongols sodomized the captured Jin troops, and made a huge mound of severed ears from the slain.    The defeat at Sanfang mountain and capture of their best generals marked the end of the Jin Dynasty’s offensive capabilities. Ogedai pushed through the northern defenses, and was soon reunited with his brother. Subutai was given overall command of the army while Ogedai and Tolui returned to Mongolia,  possibly because Ogedai had fallen quite ill.  In April 1232, Subutai began the siege of Kaifeng, a noose which took almost a year to tighten.   Ogedai  and Tolui returned to Mongolia. Precisely what occurred is unclear, but by the end of 1232 Tolui was dead. The ‘official’ verison in the Secret History of the Mongols had Ogedai fall deathly ill, and Tolui urges the spirits to take him instead, sacrificing himself for his brother- but mention of him drinking  a ‘special  brew’ prepared for him have fueled rumours that Ogedai in fact had his brother poisoned. The problem with this theory is that it relies too strongly on later antagonism between the heirs of Ogedai and Tolui. By all accounts the two brothers were extremely close, and later editing to what became the Secret History of the Mongols by Tolui’s sons may have chosen to portray their father more heroically, and by villianizing Ogedai, helped justify their eventual ascension to the throne. Other writers like Juvaini say Tolui drank himself to death. Since this was the fate Ogedai, and numerous other Mongolian princes, shared, this is rather likely. Ogedai Khaan lost his closest companion late in 1232, a loss from which he never recovered.   Back at Kaifeng, Subutai led a brutal siege. The city, so flooded with refugees that it held over 1 million people, was totally blockaded, starvation and pandemic setting in over the summer of 1232. Gunpowder weapons were used by both sides in the form of bombs lobbed by catapults, and in fire-lances by the Jin. Essentially a flame thrower, fire-lances shot a jet of fire three metres long, burning men to death horrifically and were used to effectively block breaches in the walls. You can see this in action in episode 10, season 1, of Netflix’s Marco Polo. Subutai tried various means to breach the walls of Kaifeng, but the city was skillfully defended. Sappers would approach the walls under mobile shelters, with the intention to physically dig through them. Jin defenders dropped bombs onto them, destroying both shelter and attackers. Dykes on the Yellow River were broken, flooding the plain and the city.    This resistance was valiant, but ultimately doomed. The Jin leadership was chaotic, with individuals promoted, then demoted and executed within days for perceived slights or on suspicion of treachery. Finally, in February 1233 Aizong of Jin abandoned the city with some loyal guards, leaving it to its fate. One commander left in Kaifeng, Cui Li (Tsui Li),  assassinated those still loyal to Aizong, leaving himself in control. Realizing the only way to spare the population was a voluntary surrender, on 29 May 1233 Cui Li (Tzui Li) opened the gates to Subutai. Ogedai was urged to mercy by the protests of his adviser Yelu Chucai, and Subutai was restricted to plundering, killing only 500 members of the royal Wanyan clan who were still in the city. Cui Li for his efforts was assassinated by another Jin officer, in response for an offense Cui Li had committed to the man’s wife.   By August 1233, Aizong of Jin and his ever decreasing retinue fled to Caizhou (Tsai-zhou), only 64  kilometres from the Song border. Aizong’s messages to the Song for aid, warning them they would be the next target of the Mongols, fell on deaf ears. The Song agreed to cooperate with the Mongols against the Jin, closing off Aizong’s route of escape. By November 1233, a Song army joined Subutai outside Caizhou. Caizhou was reduced to starvation, but its defenders fought tooth and nail, inflicting heavy casualties. But there could be no other end now.   As Mongol-Song forces filled in a nearby lake with bundles of reeds and sticks to gain access to the city in February 1234, Aizong declared he would not be remembered as the last Jin Emperor. He abdicated for a distant relation, a man in better shape who Aizong faintly hoped would escape and continue to resist. Barely had Aizong hanged himself and the new emperor been enthroned when the Mongols had broken through the walls. On the 9th of February, 1234, the final emperor of the Jin Dynasty died fighting in the streets alongside his men, having reigned only a few hours. So ended the Jurchen Jin Dynasty, controlling north China for a little over a century. Despite defections, defeats and numerous other setbacks, both Jurchen and Chinese alike showed loyalty to the Dynasty to the very end. Few other kingdoms had suffered the full might of the Mongols as the Jin had, and it was not an easy conquest. In 400 years, the descendants of the Jurchen, the Manchu, would come to rule both the Mongols and the Chinese, but that’s quite another story.   The Mongol-Song alliance barely outlasted the Jin. Subutai moved north with his armies not long afterwards, eager for discussions on where to take them next. The Song commander in the region, Meng Gung, withdrew as well, the devastated Henan province no place to keep an army fed. Aside from a few sites, most of the area, including Kaifeng, stayed in Mongol hands.    As we’ve noted earlier, Kaifeng had once been a capital of the Song Dynasty before it fell to the Jurchen. Long had voices in the Song clamoured to reclaim the north. Chief Councillor Shih Mi-yuan had kept these hawks in check during his long administration, but his death in late 1233 left a vacuum, one the feeble Emperor Lizong of Song could not fill. Those Song officials and commanders who had firsthand experience of conditions in the north and against the Mongols knew what a foolhardy thought a campaign there would be, and understood the limits of the Song army, an army which had never performed well offensively against either the Khitan Liao or Jurchen Jin. However, Song generals who had won battles against the Red Coats and had been uninvolved with the Caizhou campaign were ecstatic at news of the destruction of the Jin, and immediately urged war.    Assuming the local Chinese would happily rise up and supply them, two Song armies marched into Henan in summer 1234, walking into the undefended Kaifeng and Loyang, the birthplace of the founder of the Song Dynasty- and found a population hardly able to feed itself, let alone an entire army. So expectant of a gracious local population, the Song armies had brought provisions for only two weeks. Their men refused to advance further, and a retreat began… just as Mongol forces returned to deal with the incursion. The Song army at Loyang was ambushed and almost totally destroyed. For a campaign that had lasted barely a month, the Song had unwittingly began what was to be a 40 year long war resulting in the destruction of their own Dynasty.   Rather inconclusive Mongol-Song warfare continued for the rest of Ogedai’s reign- much of the Mongol armies freed up from the fall of the Jin were sent to conquer the far west. This early Mongol-Song conflict did cost the life of one of Ogedai’s sons and designated heir, Kochu, in 1236. This was perhaps the final blow to Ogedai’s interest in anything other than alcoholism, which consumed his final years even as his armies under Subutai blazed into Europe. But we’ll return to those years of Ogedai’s  reign in future episodes. Our next episode will discuss the  continued Mongol expansion into the Middle East in the 1230s, led by Chormaqun Noyan (chor-ma-huun Noyan) against the Khwarezmian prince Jalal al-Din Mingburnu, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Positive reviews on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or any other podcast catcher of your choice are also greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!

The crowd that had assembled was mighty. The princes, sons, and generals from across the Mongol Empire had collected on the Kerulen [Хэрлэн] river in September 1229 to elect Ogedai, third son of Chinggis Khan, as Khan of Khans. From the line of  Ogedai’s late brother Jochi, his sons Orda, Batu, Berke and more made the journey from the Qipchaq steppe; Ogedai’s two surviving full brothers and their children, Chagatai and Tolui (to-loo-i), stood present, as were the only living siblings of Chinggis Khan, his brother Temuge and half-brother Belgutei (bell-gu-tai). It was a huge gathering, perhaps the final meeting of many members of the old guard: the last of those who had fought alongside Temujin to unify the Mongols now watched as the reins of power were handed to the next generation. I am your host David and this is the Ages of Conquest podcast: The Mongol Invasions!       Chinggis Khan had died in August 1227. Two years had been needed for the appropriate funeral arrangements, for the various princes to return to Mongolia and preparations for the coronation. Tolui had been appointed regent of the empire during those two years, and despite some later rumours, there can have been little doubt as to the decision. Chinggis Khan himself had decreed Ogedai to succeed him, and there could be no serious thought of challenging his will. To quote the Persian writer Juvaini, writing in the 1250s, Chinggis Khan spoke thus:    “If it is your wish to pass your lives in ease and luxury and to enjoy the fruits of sovereignty and wealth, my advice, as I have lately given you to understand, is that Ogedai should ascend the throne of the Khanate in my place because he stands out amongst you for the excellency of his firm counsel and the superiority of his perspicacious understanding; and that the government of the army and the people and the defence of the frontiers of the Empire should be executed by his auspicious advice and good counsel. I therefore make him my heir and place the keys of the Empire in the hands of his valour and ability.”   To which his sons are said to have replied after kneeling before him,        “Who hath the power to oppose the words of Chinggis Khan and who the ability to reject it?”       Removing their hats and belts as signs of submission, Chagatai took Ogedai’s right hand, Temuge his left, and hoisted him onto the throne while Tolui passed a cup to Ogedai, symbolically showing the three main alternatives supporting him. Then, all in attendance kneeled three time before Ogedai, saying “May the Kingdom prosper by his being Khan!”, then exited the grand tent, knelt to the sun three times, and returned into the tent to drink and cheer: Ogedai was now ruler of the Mongol Empire, taking not his father’s title of Khan, but the older Turkic title Khakhan, “Khan of Khans,” often transliterated as Khan written with two ‘a’s.       So, who was Ogedai? Born in 1186, the third son of Chinggis Khan and Borte,  Ogedai was 43 years old when he became Khaan. Not as skilled a military commander as his brothers, Ogedai instead had a reputation as generous, easy-going and incredibly fond of alcohol. Unlike his surviving brothers, who could be unyielding like iron, Ogedai was one to compromise and seek solutions- and therefore stabilize the empire his father had created. It was Ogedai who famously constructed the imperial capital of Karakorum in Mongolia’s Orkhon Valley. Early on in his reign, Ogedai took to administration with vigour, not just streamlining but in many respects creating an actual bureaucracy and tax system for the empire. Compared to Chagatai, Ogedai was rather positively portrayed by Muslim historians of the period, who shared numerous anecdotes, although many of questionable verocity, of Ogedai intervening to save the lives of Muslims about to be executed for transgressing a law of Chinggis Khan, such as washing in a river. Of course, this is not to say Ogedai was a man of peace. As we will see in the coming episodes, the conquests continued rapidly on his orders: crushing the Jurchen Jin and remnants of Khwarezm, as well as driving into Europe in the 1240s. Ogedai could also fly into horrific rages and order slaughter and sacrifice: from sending 40 virgins to join Chinggis Khan in the next world, to a terrible rape of the women of the Oirat tribe to continued destruction in China, Ogedai could order the deaths of thousands just as easily as his father. Later in his reign, Ogedai found increasing solace in alcohol and withdrew from government, leading to his sudden demise in December 1241.        But in 1229, Ogedai was an energetic and ambitious monarch, one eager to prove himself a worthy successor to his father’s enormous legacy. Ogedai needed to not just consolidate an empire, but set out finding long term methods to rule one as well, rather than the temporary garrison occupation it had been to that point. Civilian administration had been completely subordinate to military rule. The general in the theater who held the highest office, such as Mukhali in north China from 1218-1223, had also acted as governor general. Being engaged in ongoing conquest at the same time meant that civil matters were secondary, and the population was subject to the whims of whatever local power had survived the Mongol onslaught, or been appointed to govern them. This often ended up an appointed general concerned with how to best mobilize their resources for the Mongol war effort or to enrich himself. Furthermore, Chinggis Khan had never established a system of regular taxation. Taxes were collected in kind, that is, in whatever goods the Mongols felt they needed for the war effort, be they animals, weapons, iron implements to be turned into weapons or food stuffs. There was no regular interval for this, nor a set level of assessment. Mongol parties came and took what they needed, when they needed it, and the local populations were thus exploited, suffering depredations well beyond their initial subjugation.     Upon taking the throne, Ogedai had several issues to deal with, such as the matter of how to accommodate the large sedentary populations of north China and Transoxania while completing the conquest of the Jin Dynasty and Khwarezmian Empire. The Jin were now based behind the great defensive line of the Yellow River, with new generals leading a valiant defensive effort, while in western Iran the son of Khwarezm-shah Muhammad II, Jalal al-Din Mingburnu, had reappeared after years in India, making claim to restore his father’s empire. Challenged from these fronts, on his ascension to Khaan in late 1229 Ogedai held a council to decide the courses of action to take.       Some choices were obvious: new military forces needed to be raised to crush these opponents. Chormaqun Chor-mah-hun) Noyan, a member of the keshig, the imperial bodyguard, was given a large force to destroy Jalal al-Din and subdue Iran. We will look at his campaign later in this series. In China, the Jin Dynasty, though reduced, was not yet broken, and had even reclaimed some territory in the years during the Khan’s absence. A final Mongol invasion of the Jin would be forthwith, though difficult, as their remaining territory was well fortified by the Yellow River guarding the north, and the great fort of Tongguan protecting the western approaches. The Chinese Song Dynasty bordered the Jin to the south, and while no friend to the Jin, they remained neutral in the war. Careful planning was needed, and we will explore Mongol strategy in the final war against the Jin  in our next episode.        The other question raised at this council was what to do with the sedentary populations, especially in occupied north China. For some Mongols, the solution was simple: an extreme faction led by a general Bedger (bed-ger) suggested the total annihilation of the northern Chinese, turning the now empty land into pasture for their horses. For some at the meeting, this was beyond the pale. One such was the scholar, Yelu Chucai. Chucai, you will remember, was a Khitan, a semi-nomadic people related to the Mongols who had once ruled China before the establishment of the Jurchen Jin Empire; though adopting aspects of Chinese culture in the following centuries, they retained their identity and many had risen up against the Jin with Chinggis Khan’s invasion. Yelu Chucai entered the Khan’s service in 1218. Having lived through the terrible siege of Zhongdu, he spent three years learning Buddhism before being called into Mongol service. His height - well over 6 feet, or 182 centimetres tall- deep voice and long beard down to his waist instantly caught the attention of the Mongols, as did his promulgations of loyalty, a trait Chinggis Khan always valued. Yelu Chucai accompanied Chinggis Khan west into Khwarezm, where he served as a court astrologer, scribe and advisor, building a network of contacts and a respected reputation among the Mongols, as well as a keen understanding of how the Chinggisids viewed the world. A great humanitarian, Yelu Chucai could not allow Ogedai to approve this genocide, and vehemently argued against it. His suggestion was to instead begin a system of regular taxation. Chucai knew that appealing to the Mongols’ sense of empathy would be fruitless, so essentially argued this simple tenant: kill everyone, and you’ll only gain their wealth once, but tax them every year, and long term you’ll make more revenue at less danger to yourself.       Ogedai was intrigued, and allowed Yelu Chucai to try out his strategy as part of the newly created Branch Secretariat for China. At the same time, a similar Branch Secretariat was established for the Islamic lands the Mongols controlled, headed by Mahmud Yalavach, a Turkic merchant who had been a part of the embassy to Muhammad Khwarezm-shah in 1218. Yalavach likewise instituted tax reforms and rebuilding, and Ogedai was  immediately pleased by the results. What Yalavach and Chucai did in both Secretariats was basically set up systems of regular, categorized taxations, though each with regional differences based on local tradition.    In his Secretariat, Yalavach’s taxes were on every adult male, as per Islamic tradition, while in time Chucai’s would align with the Chinese model of taxation based on the household, with different rates for urban and rural peoples. Streamlining taxation and reducing the numbers of minor officials and princes collecting taxes at whim meant that the revenues coming to the Mongol court increased significantly. Ogedai allowed Chucai further power for more reforms, and by 1231 Yelu Chucai was responsible for the administration of North China. Former officials of the Jin Dynasty were rescued to aid Chucai’s burgeoning bureaucracy, rebuilding efforts were launched, the power of monasteries were curtailed and fiscal obligations forced onto monks conducting business. Chucai had further ambitions, such as continued refinement of his tax system and hoping to reduce the power of regional princes to strengthen the central government. Long term, his intention was a return to his idealized, Confucian style of Chinese governance. You could almost say he looked to rescue the Chinese from Mongol rapaciousness, allowing northern China a chance to heal from the ravages of the Mongol-Jin wars. Chucai even managed to convince Ogedai to allow a census to be undertaken, something Chucai later came to regret, as we will discuss in future.        Much of Ogedai’s early reign was caught up with continued war with the Jin Dynasty, subject of our next episode but completed by 1234. Mongol victory there had been a long time coming, but Ogedai needed to continue his father’s work should he wish to step out from under his shadow. In 1235,  preparations began to be made for the Great Western Invasion. As you may recall, during the expedition of Jebe and Subutai, they had fought Rus’, Cuman-Qipchaqs and Volga Bulghars, all peoples who now needed to be brought under Mongol rule. By this time, the Mongols were increasingly supporting the belief in their united destiny to rule the world. Those who rebuffed initial Mongol demands for submission, or worse, fought and even defeated Mongol armies were an affront to the obvious will of Heaven. The Song Dynasty had made an unfortunate effort to claim, by force, the territory of the fallen Jin Dynasty, and now the south of China too fell prey to Mongol designs.        The scope of Ogedai’s empire was increasing dramatically year-by-year. Don’t worry, though, we’ll cover these regionally rather than overburden a single episode. Ogedai made adjustments to suit this expansion. One such was the expansion of the yam system, essentially a relay system to quickly transport messages across the empire. It was similar to the American Pony Express, except the Mongol system actually lasted longer than 18 months. During Chinggis’ reign, the yam  was confined to Mongolia, but Ogedai oversaw its extension into north China, the former Qara-Khitai and occupied Khwarezmian territories, tying these far flung corners to the central administration. The yam was made up of relay stations which a messenger could reach on a day's ride, quickly acquiring a new horse and provisions and continuing onwards to the next station. As Ogedai, much like his father, was concerned with encouraging trade he allowed merchants to utilize the system. To determine who could use what at each station, travellers were assigned with a gereg, known also as paiza, essentially a passport. The material the passport was made of -wood, iron, silver or gold- determined what provisions the carrier could access at each station, and allow them unimpeded or protected movement across this empire. Not that this system was without any issues, as it was the responsibility of local communities to provide provisions and animals for their nearest yam station, leaving them exposed to exploitation of merchants or commanders lining their own pockets.   To further facilitate these trade routes, Ogedai also ordered the construction of protected wells, security patrols, improved roads and bridges, all in order to encourage merchants to make the trip in Mongolia.  But Ogedai knew that merchants would need a definite location to carry their wares too, as well as a place for diplomatic envoys to always find the Khan’s representative: the extensive march of Qiu Chuji from northern China to Afghanistan to find Chinggis Khan was too inefficient to repeat. Partly for this purpose, in 1235 Ogedai ordered the construction of his most famous project: Karakorum, an actual capital city for the Mongol Empire. Once again, this may have been Ogedai expanding upon another of his father’s ideas, though the specifics are somewhat murky.    Chinggis Khan seems to have had a semi-permanent, but poorly understood, base at Avarga along the Kherlen River, in northeastern Mongolia where he spent so much of his life. Archaeologically, little remains of Avarga, perhaps being little more than a location to store loot and house envoys, or hostages, from the sedentary world. Two large mounds have been discovered there, and it has been speculated that each mound held a palace, one built for Chinggis and the other by Ogedai, though they were likely unimpressive structures surrounded by Mongolian gers rather than walls. More interestingly is that for decades, the site continued to serve as a cultural and religious destination, and thousands of burned animals bones have been found there, indicating large and ongoing sacrifices. Perhaps rather than palaces, it has been speculated that the  mounds were temples, and as the site had been associated with Chinggis it became a holy memorial to him.    Chinggis Khan may have not been totally averse to the notion of a capital then, though he may have seen them more useful as places to store treasures too inconvenient to carry with him. BUT, there is some evidence he actually chose the site of Karakorum and wanted to build a capital there: late Yuan Dynasty transcriptions and the Yuanshih, ‘History of the Yuan Dynasty,’ from 1370, assert Chinggis founded Karakorum in 1220. This is unlikely, as we know Chinggis spent all of 1220 campaigning in the Khwarezmian Empire. He did, however, pass through the Orkhon Valley, where Karakorum would later be built, on his way to invade Khwarezm in 1219. Entering the valley, Chinggis would have noted much to find attractive. Rich in water and grass, vital to maintaining the Mongols’ valuable animal herds, it’s central location in Mongolia also placed it in easier reach of merchants and envoys while still a safe distance from any sedentary foe. Further, it was a region of cultural and imperial significance to nomads, as the Orkhon Valley was associated with the capitals of earlier steppe empires and confederations , such as the Uighur Empire, whose capital of Qarabalaghun (Kh-ara-bal-a-ghun) had been built there. Qarabalghasun’s (Kh-ara-bal-gha-sun’s) ruins, or Ordu Baliq, are only 30 kilometres north of where Karakorum was built. It’s also the home of the famed Orkhon Inscriptions of the Turkic Khaganates. For an ever growing Mongol imperial identity as the masters of the steppes, it was a powerful political connection to lean on.    While Chinggis Khan may have designated the site of Karakorum to serve as the great capital of his empire, as we have shown in our previous episodes, he spent the remainder of his life on campaign or preparing for campaign. It’s doubtful any construction was undertaken on his orders. While Ogedai may have built on a site chosen by his father, what he built was entirely his own, and served as the administrative centre of much of Eurasia for the next 30 years.    Karakorum was not a huge city even by medieval standards- travellers to the city in the 1250s found a population of around 10,000 people. Separated into four quarters and surrounded by a low wall, Karakorum was an amazingly diverse city. Mosques, Christian churches, Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist temples stood across the street from each other. Markets were constructed for merchants travelling from across the Muslim world, while Chinese craftsmen built the imperial palace and later, captured artisans from Europe were brought back to further decorate it, most famously in the form of a silver tree with four spouts to pour various alcoholic drinks from. With its own mint for coinage, gold and silversmiths alongside blacksmiths and other craftsmen, it served as a major production centre. The major streets were paved with limestone, lined with wood to prevent displacement during the freezing and thawing cycles, and all atop gravel to aid in water drainage. A canal was even dug to bring water into the city and drive the water wheels of the smiths.   Many scribes and members of the bureaucracy could be found there, taking in messages sent from across the empire via the yam system and passing on instructions back. Numerous storehouses were built to house captured goods and tribute sent by subservient peoples, and it was to Ogedai’s delight to showcase his generosity by using this loot to overpay merchants several times what their goods were worth. This served as an effective means to encourage merchants to actually make the journey to Karakorum, which in contrast to a nomadic camp, featured amenities to keep visitors occupied and entertained. Limited agriculture was undertaken around the city, with evidence for wheat and barley, and one account mentions a proud farmer presenting his locally grown radishes to Ogedai. The city was not self-sufficient however, and at its height required hundreds of cartloads of food to be shipped to the city daily in order to feed it, something which came to be a major strategic weakness later in the century.    The Great Khan essentially used Karakorum as his office, and the city likely had few actual Mongols within it at any given time. Rather than actually residing in Karakorum’s palace, Ogedai and his successors continued to nomadize around the capitol, venturing within it sparingly as business or ritual commanded. Ogedai himself preferred another palace he had built in Mongolia, the Wanangong, or Palace of Eternal Peace. Having a fixed location to send diplomats and treasure was to the benefit of the empire, while also helping to rebuild the overland trade routes damaged in the initial Mongol expansion. Neither was it the only city in Mongolia at the time, though it was certainly the largest. There was also Chinqai Balasagun, meaning ‘Chinqai’s city,’ named for the able minister Chinqai, a former Onggut merchant who served as Ogedai’s chancellor. Built by thousands of captured Chinese, it was intended as a logistics base in western Mongolia to prepare for the great invasion of Khwarezm but had turned into a major farming and production centre, manufacturing goods and weapons for Mongol armies.       Ogedai’s early reign was marked by activity. New conquests were launched across Eurasia, an extensive new administration was created and a capital city built.  Perhaps initially uncertain of how fit he was for the position, Ogedai was eager to prove himself a worthy successor to his awe-inspiring and terrifying father.  The expansion of the Mongol Empire only continued under Ogedai, and his armies seemed unstoppable. Chinggis Khan bequeathed him a mighty army, but Ogedai built a political system to back it up. A number of historians for this reason consider him to be the true founder of the Mongol Empire. But the zeal was soon burned out of Ogedai, and by 1237 he essentially removed himself from most affairs of state.    With access to most of the alcohol of Eurasia, Ogedai busied himself by sampling as much as he could. His final years were swallowed up by constant drunkenness and without his forceful presence, corruption set in. His second wife, Toregene Khatun, began exercising her own authority, pushing to the edge reform minded figures such as Yelu Chucai and Mahmud Yalavach. This later period of Ogedai’s rule and his weaknesses will be investigated in an upcoming episode, but our next episodes will detail the continued conquests by the Mongol armies on Ogedai’s orders, beginning with the final destruction of the Jurchen Jin Empire. This will carry us onto the invasion of Europe, so be sure to subscribe to Ages of Conquest: A Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals and if you want to help us continue to grow our audience, be sure to leave us a positive review on Apple Podcasts! Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!

“Heaven has abandoned China owing to its haughtiness and extravagant luxury. But I, living in the northern wilderness, have not inordinate passions. I hate luxury and exercise moderation. I have only one coat and one food. I eat the same food and am dressed in the same tatters as my humble herdsmen. I consider the people my children, and take an interest in talented men as if they were my brothers. We always agree in our principles, and we are always united by mutual affection. At military exercises I am always in the front, and in time of battle am never behind. In the space of seven years I have succeeded in accomplishing a great work, and uniting the whole world in one empire. I have not myself distinguished qualities.”       So opens a letter from Chinggis Khan in 1219. Though he did not write it himself, as no evidence suggests he ever learned to read or write, he may have dictated much of what was written down. Emphasizing his nomadic background and lifestyle, his military qualities and extreme humility, it’s easy to imagine this as part of the many ultimatums the Mongols sent to rulers across the world, demanding their submission by the will of Eternal Blue Heaven. However, this was not sent to any monarch, but a Taoist sage, and the letter goes on to describe the graces of one Qiu Chuji, begging him to come and provide his wisdom- and the secret to eternal life- to Chinggis Khan. The elderly Qiu Chuji agreed, and made the difficult journey from northern China, through Mongolia and Central Asia to finally meet Chinggis Khan in what is now modern Afghanistan. In this episode, we’ll relay to you one of the lesser known, but most intriguing episodes in the life of history’s greatest conqueror. Not a military campaign, but a religious discussion, one which illuminates some of the personality of Chinggis Khan. I’m your host David…       As always, context is key! In thirteenth century China, the three most noteworthy belief systems were Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Their history, and how they intertwined and affected one another, is fascinating but far beyond the scope of this episode. Each strongly influenced daily life and government in China, had done so for centuries and still does today. They were not monolithic belief systems, nor singular ecceleisatical entities like the Roman Catholic Church, and various sects and trends impacted each of  these systems over their combined millenia of adherence. What interests us in this episode is a sect of Taoism which combined elements of Buddhist and Confucian thought that emerged in the mid 12th century, the Quanzhen sect, meaning ‘complete realization’ or ‘complete perfection.’ Founded by Wang Zhe, a man who historical commentators have defined more for his eccentricity than sanctity, the Quanzhen quickly became associated with prolonging life, perhaps indefinitely, through controlling one's internal alchemy, which includes among other things, total celibacy. Thus the Quanzhen leadership, among them Qiu Chuji, were invited to the Jurchen Jin capital of Zhongdu in 1188 to share their knowledge with the ailing emperor, Shizong of Jin. The fact that Jin Shizong died the next year, and that Wang Zhe had died in 1170 at age 57, did little to dispel the association.        Qiu Chuji was among Wang Zhe’s earliest disciples, and after the master’s death, became one of the sects leading figures, eventually earning the title of Master Changchun. After Shizong of Jin’s death, Qiu Chuji was largely confined to his home region in north China’s Shandong peninsula, and along with other Quanzhen leaders, cultivated the sect’s popularity until it became one of the most popular of north China and the Jin Empire. As we know, the thirteenth century was not a good time for the Jurchen Jin state, and Mongol forces invaded in 1211, quickly grinding down the empire. In this time, Qiu Chuji received invitations from both the Jin court and Chinese Song Dynasty to the south, inviting him to come and share his knowledge. Both were declined. The sage may have been rather surprised when a messenger arrived from the Great Khan of the Mongols in 1219.        How did Chinggis Khan learn of Qiu Chuji?  That takes us to some interesting characters. One was Liu Zhonglu, personal name Liu Wen, a Jin defector, Chinggis Khan’s personal Chinese physician, a herbalist also skilled in the making of whistling arrows. The Mongols prized men of useful skills, as well as archery, so Liu Wen was a snug fit in the Khan’s expanding entourage. It was he who heard of the Taoist sage and brought him to Chinggis’ attention, having heard rumours Qiu Chuji was over 300 years old. He told the Khan that the Taoist would be able to share these secrets and prolong his life.       The meeting was encouraged by another figure of growing influence, a Khitan scholar named Yelu Chucai. Chucai is worth a digression as he is among the most famous of the non-Mongolian administrators of the empire, though his importance would not come until the reign of Ogedai. The Khitans, you may recall, were a people related to the Mongols who had once ruled northern China during the Liao Dynasty, from the 10th century to 1100s, before being conquered by the Jurchen ruled Jin Dynasty. Yelu Chucai was a distant relation of the Liao ruling clan, and his own father had been a personal attendant to Emperor Shizong of Jin.  He would have followed in his footsteps as a highly educated, sinicized servant of the Jin, if it wasn’t for the Mongol invasion. Stationed inside Zhongdu, the city of his birth, during the terrible final siege in 1215, Chucai was deeply traumatized by the intense suffering and horrors he witnessed. Had it not been for the three years of intensive Buddhist training he underwent following the siege, it seems unlikely he would ever have reared his head for posterity. But finding peace and purpose within the teachings of the Buddha, Yelu Chucai developed a steely resolve and determination to do his greatest to reduce further sufferings.  In 1218 he was summoned to Mongolia, gathered in a Mongol search to find ministers to govern their new empire- as a Khitan, educated in Chinese government but of kin to the Mongols, he was highly prized. In April of that year, he met Chinggis Khan in person, who was immediately impressed by the tall, deep voiced and long bearded Yelu Chucai- the Mongols would call him Urtu Saqal, ‘long beard.’       On meeting him, Chinggis Khan stated “Liao and Jin have been enemies for generations; I have taken revenge for you.”     To which Chucai responded: “My father and grandfather both served Jin respectfully. How can I, as a subject and a son, be so insincere at heart as to consider my sovereign and my father as enemies?”         Loyalty to one’s lord was something Chinggis Khan valued above almost all else, and would honour the Khitan for this. So Yelu Chucai entered his service, acting in a variety of roles, such as astrologer, adviser and court scribe. Hearing Liu Zhonglu’s notification of Qiu Chuji, Chucai encouraged the meeting, hoping the Taoist would be able to help pacify the Khan’s more violent tendencies. It is likely Chucai drafted the letters to Qiu Chuji, though he would in time come to regret this.       Was Chinggis genuinely enticed by the idea of eternal life? As always, the personal thoughts of the man are unknown to us. Rarely did Chinggis Khan ever find a single use for anything- while Qiu Chuji could bring the secrets to immortality, he was also a highly influential religious leader within territory the Mongols wished to conquer. To have him on their side would prove valuable in both the spiritual realm- for his prayers could entice Heaven’s continued support for the Mongols- and in the physical realm, as to bring the many Quanzhen followers into accepting and supporting Mongol rule would ease and consolidate the conquest. If a religious leader was unwilling to accept Mongol rule, then he must be destroyed.       The implicit threat behind this would have been clear to Qiu Chuji when Liu Zhonglu arrived with Chinggi Khan’s message and 20 armed Mongols in late 1219. Declining was not really an option for Qiu Chuji, though he may have been eager to attach his name to the growing hegemon of northern China; such an attachment would only strengthen the place of Quanzhen, and save them from Mongolian retribution.        Qiu Chuji and several disciples, protected by Liu Zhonglu and his men, set out in early 1220, traveling through the war torn  north China. We are rather fortunate to have one of Qiu Chuji’s disciples record the journey for us- it has been translated into English twice, by Emil Bretschneider and Arthur Waley. Both are available to read for free online: look up Bretschneider’s Mediæval Researches From Eastern Asiatic Sources, or Waley’s Travels of an Alchemist, if you wish to read the full, fascinating itinerary. In April they reached the Mongol occupied ruins of Zhongdu, now renamed Yen, where Qiu Chuji was received by escatic crowds. There the party received unfortunate news, as Chinggis had set out on the great Khwarezmian campaign- they were reaching Yen while Chinggis was resting his horses near the fallen capital of Muhamamd Khwarezm-shah, Samarkand. Qiu Chuji  understandably did not want to make the long journey to Central Asia, but Liu Zhonglu would not have it, and forced him on. Qiu Chuji’s next stalling tactic was directed at the large group of young girls Liu Zhonglu was collecting to present to the Khan. For reasons relating to purity and celibacy, Qiu Chuji refused to travel in their company, and a perhaps flustered Liu Zhonglu sent a messenger to Chinggis to inform him. They spent most of the rest of 1220 near Yen, awaiting the Khan’s reply, when in winter messengers arrived from Chinggis’ youngest, and perhaps only, surviving full brother, Temuge [te-moo-guh], who wished to hear his words.   In February 1221 they set out again, having received the Great Khan’s replies- one of which was a reminder for Liu Zhonglu to take the utmost care of the master. Before they departed, Qiu Chuji is said to have told his adherents in Yen he would return in three years time. Traveling north, they passed through the fortifications which the Mongols had broken through in 1211. Crossing the Yehuling, the site of the bloody battle of the Badger’s Mouth Pass, they saw the ground still littered with bleached human bones, 10 years after the engagement.  Around April or May, the party reached Temuge’s encampment in northeastern Mongolia. There, Temuge inquired about the secrets to prolonging life, to which Qiu Chuji told him it was improper for the prince to learn these secrets before the emperor. Getting the hint, Temuge supplied the travellers with oxen and carts to help them on their journey and hurry them onto his older brother.       The voyage is of great interest to scholars, as it provides a fascinating view of early imperial Mongolia, visiting the Orkhon Valley and encampment cities like Chinqai Balasghun, where they met the eponymous Chinqai, a senior minister of the empire ordered to help expedite the journey.  Jurchen and Tangut princesses that Chinggis had taken as wives came out to greet Qiu Chuji, as did various Chinese who had been transplanted west to serve the Mongol war machine. Sadly, we don’t have time to share all the details of the lengthy and difficult journey westwards, following roads cut by Mongol armies en route to Khwarezm, or at times, forced to tie ropes around carts and animals to lift or lower them through passes in the mountains. Details of cities they passed by or through, like Beshbaliq, Almaliq, Urumqi and the former Qara-Khitai capital of Balasagun are provided, In December 1221, they finally reached Samarkand, Qiu Chuji wintering in the palace of the late Khwarezm-shah. Likely at this time, he met Yelu Chucai and spent time discussing religion and philosophy.        Judging from the writings of Qiu Chuji’s disciple, the master found great pleasure in Samarkand, particularly in its gardens, describing them as finer than those in China. There he noted that Samarkand had a quarter of its former population, but had been repopulated somewhat by Chinese, Khitans, Turks and Tanguts who had travelled with the Mongol army. The party stayed in Samarkand in comfort until April 1222, when a Tangut messenger from Chinggis arrived.     “Sainted man, thou hast arrived from the country where the sun rises; thou hast met great difficulties in crossing mountains and valleys; indeed, thou hast taken great pains. I am now about to return, but I wait impatiently for thine explanation to me of the doctrine of the Tao. Do not delay meeting me.”  ...read the Khan’s letter to Qiu Chuji. At that time, Chinggis was making his steady way north after his victory over the Khwarezmian prince Jalal al-Din Mingburnu in November 1221 on the borders of India. Qiu Chuji met Chinggis Khan somewhere south of the Amu Darya River in what is now Afghanistan, on the 22nd of May 1222, where the Khan was joyed that this old man had made such an arduous voyage to meet him. After allowing him a meal, the Khan asked rather bluntly:       “Sainted man, you have come from a great distance. Have you a medicine of immortality?”       To which Qiu Chuji replied, equally bluntly:   “There are means for preserving life, but no medicines for immortality.”   Counter to what  you might have expected, at least publicly, Chinggis Khan lauded Qiu Chuji for his honesty. For a man to travel such a distance and  hardship at his age, only to tell the World Conqueror, “no,” required quite some courage, and the Khan always respected that. The Khan was not yet finished with him though, and ordered him to have a tent pitched next to his own. They were to together travel higher into the valleys of the Hindu Kush to rest and wait out the summer heat, though uprisings took Chinggis Khan away before he could speak with the master again. Qiu Chuji requested to return to Samarkand in the Khan’s absence, which Chinggis reluctantly agreed to, providing him a 1,000 man escort.   As Chinggis spent the next months putting down local rebellions, Qiu Chuji again in the palace of Shah Muhammad, enjoying melons and bathing. By the end of August, Chinggis Khan was ready for him, and sent for Qiu Chuji. A particularly erie detail mentioned is that while traveling south to rejoin Chinggis, Qiu Chuji passed the ruins of the once great city of Balkh: only dogs could be heard  barking within.    Chinggis once more showed the master great respect and patience. Presented to Chinggis by the minister Chinqai, Qiu Chuji was not required to bow or kneel before the Khan. When the Khan offered him airag, the traditional fermented mares’ milk so beloved by the Mongols, Qiu Chuji refused to drink it. Everyday he invited Qiu Chuji to join him for dinner, and everyday he declined, saying he preferred seclusion. The master told Chinggis to keep his soldiers distant, for the noise annoyed him, and when the army moved north in the autumn of 1222 and wintered near Samarkand, Qiu Chuji was given leave to take up in Shah Muhammad’s palace once more.    Over the course of this period, Chinggis Khan and Qiu Chuji had several meetings, Chinqai and Liu Zhonglu present, the Khitan governor of Samarkand Yelu Ahai acting as translator between the Mongolian and the Chinese. Together they discussed the concepts of the Tao, Chinggis supposedly being quite interested. Qiu Chuji’s disciple failed to provide specific details of these discussions, though we know he urged Chinggis to show mercy on the Chinese, establish a buffer state in north China and lift taxes for three years. In January 1223 their journey back east resumed, though the Taoist showed himself displeased with the progress of the army.  By March he was asking to set out on his own, hoping to return to his native Shandong before the end of the year. Chinggis urged him to stay, saying his sons would soon arrive and would like to hear of the doctrine and that he himself needed more information. Qiu Chuji cooly replied that he had told the Khan everything he knew.       Later that month while hunting wild boar, Chinggis Khan was thrown from his horse: the boar failed to charge and gore the Khan, avoiding the fate of Game of Thrones’ Robert of House Baratheon. When he learned of this, Qiu Chuji called it a warning from heaven, a sign that the Khan should give up hunting in his old age. Reluctantly, Chinggis gave up this favourite activity… for two months. Qiu Chuji’s advice on abstaining from sexual intercourse to prolong his life was likewise ignored. Continuing to badger Chinggis to allow him to leave, the Khan finally acquiesced and in April 1223 they seperated. The master declined the gifts Chinggis Khan offered, except for a major one: an edict declaring Taoists exempt from taxation and corvee labour        Qiu Chuji returned to Yen, modern Beijing, in the first months of 1224, within 3 years as he had foretold. He spent the remainder of his life in that city, dying in August 1227, the same month as Chinggis Khan.  We just mentioned the edict proclaiming Taoists exempt from taxation. Well, part of the original edict was that no more Taoists would be ordained. This was followed up with a proclamation a few months later making Qiu Chuji the head of all the Taoists and Buddhist of China. The consequences of this were many. It’s not sure what exact role Qiu Chuji had in what followed, as he fell ill not long after he returned to Yen and the Khan’s edicts may have been taken advantage of by ambitious disciples. Almost immediately this turned into thousands flocking into Quanzhen temples to escape taxation and forced labour for the Mongols. Likely, thousands of lives were saved through this, and Quanzhen Taoism quickly became the most influential religious sect of North China.  One scholar, Yuan Hao-wen, estimated that by the late 13th century, some 20% of northern Chinese were adherents. Even today, it remains one of the most popular forms of Taoism in China. Less positively, was that the Khan’s elevation of Qiu Chuji’s status over Buddhists turned into free license to confiscate Buddhist temples, destroy Buddhist artifacts and texts and force the conversion of Buddhist monks and nuns.    When the Buddhist Yelu Chucai returned to Yen in 1228, he was infuriated by what he found there, and how the Quanzhen had taken advantage of the privileges granted to them, compounding Chucai’s existing dislike of Qiu Chuji. Initially they had been friendly, but Yelu Chucai soon found Qiu Chuji to be totally ignorant of Buddhism, and came to see him as a fraudster taking advantage of the Khan’s generosity and power. In 1229, Yelu Chucai wrote a lengthy work criticizing Qiu Chuji and his positions, while blaming himself for having encouraged the meeting. He further accused Qiu Chuji of being fully complicit in the seizure and desecration of Buddhist temples, and it is in Chucai’s account we are told that Qiu Chuji died on the toilet, but his followers covered this up and said he died while at prayer. Yelu Chucai’s work provides a fascinating counterbalance to the more hagiographic account of the journey provided by Qiu Chuji’s disciple, though Chucai’s writing remains difficult to access, leaving Qiu Chuji’s reputation intact as a ‘saviour’ of the Chinese. The influence of Quanzhen Taoism, and it's armed conflict with Buddhists continued until the reign of Chinggis’ grandson Kublai, when their privileges were drastically reduced and forced to return Buddhist temples.        What did Chinggis Khan think of Qiu Chuji? He seems to have enjoyed his company, and would certainly have had respect for an old man who made the long journey to his court. If he was disappointed in the failure of Qiu Chuji to provide an elixir of immortality, he did not show it publicly. Since the main account of these meetings was from a follower of Qiu Chuji, we must note he had a vested interest to make the relationship between the two look as good as possible, securing Quanzhen privileges as they were granted at the Khan’s behest.       On the internet, their relationship is famous for the following letter, sent from Chinggis to Qiu Chuji not long after their final meeting in 1223:   “You left me and set out on your travels in the Spring and were still on the road during the great heats of the summer. I hope you suffered no inconvenience and were well supplied with post-horses. I hope that you were always provided with plenty to eat and drink and were never stinted. I hope the officials at Hsuan-te [Xuande] and elsewhere treated you properly.  Hope that the common people came to hear you. Are you well and in good spirits? Here I am always thinking about you, O Holy immortal. I have never forgotten you. Do not forget me.”       It is… a little unbecoming for the world conqueror, making him appear rather desperate for Taoist’s affection, like a high school student trying to win back his crush. There are two things to keep in mind:   The most obvious is that this letter was sent in very basic and repetitive simple  Chinese. Form wise, it is totally alien to the literary flourishes, metaphors and references from writing of scribes like Yelu Chucai. Arthur Waley suggested that because the Chinese is so basic, that perhaps this was Chinggis Khan himself dictating it in Chinese. He had Chinese speakers in his entourage for well over a decade, meaning he had plenty of time to learn to make simple sentences in the language. So the letter may have come across particularly love-lorn because the Khan couldn’t do much better than that. Chinggis Khan knew Qiu Chuji was a very popular figure in northern China. Getting Qiu Chuji to encourage his many followers across China to accept Mongol rule and pray for them may have been the Khan’s ulterior motive throughout. Note how Chinggis hopes the common people came to hear him- to hear him spread the word of accepting Mongol rule, and to pray for them. Then, the final line “I have never forgotten you. Do not forget me.” While it can be read as a rather sappy declaration, we might wonder if there was a threat  hidden between the lines. Should Qiu Chuji choose to forget about the Khan and proclaim for the Jin Dynasty, Chinggis and his men would not forget about him, and their arrows never missed their mark…       Shortly after the departure of Qiu Chuji, Chinggis Khan learned of the death of his general Mukhali in China, how Tangut forces had abandoned him and were now in peace talks with the Jurchen Jin. The aging Chinggis Khan was about to partake on the final campaign of his long life, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!

Rain. The constant, incessant rains of autumn.  A wide brown river, its water swirling and churning, now overflowing its banks due to the rain. A great inconvenience and threat to the local farmer, but to the commander on horseback, his piercing eyes see a weapon. Men are sent with buckets of earth, stones and trees, and a makeshift dyke soon rises. The water is now unable to travel its standard route, and is now diverted, towards the great city and proud defenders who  have dared to resist the Mongols. Lacking tools to take down the city’s walls, Chinggis Khan will now use the very landscape itself to strike his foe.        This was the tactic Chinggis Khan would use in his first conquest of sedentary power, a campaign against the Tangut Kingdom, known also as the Xi Xia Dynasty, in what is now northwestern China. His armies having never even seen walled cities before, this campaign would be the first true test of the army of the newly established Mongol Empire, the prelude to the fearsome conquests which would soon grip Asia. I’m your host David and welcome to Ages of Conquest: a Kings and Generals Podcast.  This is the Mongol Conquests.   Before we get to the first Mongol invasion of the Tangut, we must step back a few  years. When we last left off with Chinggis Khan, he had finally unified the Mongol tribes and proclaimed the Mongol Empire in 1206. A little over 50 years of age, Chinggis had spent his life fighting for every inch of ground. He had known victory as keenly as defeat, and learned from not only every mistake he himself had made, but all that his enemies had made as well. The new Mongol state had been hard won: yet, it was a brittle entity. Tribal confederations were not known for their longevity, and Chinggis Khan had to ensure that the animosity of the tribes would not rear its head and tear his new empire apart.    He developed several strategies to prevent this. First, was breaking down the powers of the traditional chiefs and Khans: loyalties were now to be to the Great Khan. Old leaders who had resisted were removed from power entirely, extinguishing them as possible beacons of resistance. The majority of these tribes were broken up, their families mixed among Chinggis’ own people, which was then cemented by the extension of the army’s decimal system to the entire nation, totally reorganizing Mongol society.    But what was the decimal system that we have now made reference to several times? Organized into units of 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000, or in Mongolian, arban, jaghun, minghaan and tumen, peoples from various tribes were placed into the same minghaan, replacing the tribal social organization with the decimal one. Just as there was the military unit of the minghaan, now families were placed into their own ‘units,’ which were used as basis for taxation. Each military Minghaan was supported by the ‘civilian’ minghaans, which supplied, produced and maintained equipment and utensils used by the warriors, and in the absence of the fighting men, were responsible for managing the various herds of the Mongols. "No longer were they Taychiud, Tatar, Kereyit or Naiman, but Mongols. A few select tribes who had shown themselves loyal were allowed to maintain their integrity and their rulers, but had to recognize the absolute authority of Chinggis Khan himself. There was to be no Khan but the Khan himself.   The individual law codes and customs of each tribe were now overruled by a single code set out by Chinggis- the great yassa. The yassa standardized tribal customs, forbidding acts which would antagonize the spirits and bring misfortune upon the young nation. Acts seemingly as innocuous as washing dirty things in running water, putting a knife into a fire or urinating in ashes were all punishable by death, as they offended the spirits within and could bring calamity.  Such prohibitions mattered when Heaven’s support was crucial for success. Death seems to have been a common punishment in the yassa, and none doubted that the Khan was willing to carry it out. It also ordained the proper way to slaughter animals, via crushing the heart and not spilling any blood. All religions were to be respected, and religious figures exempt from taxation- though how far this religious tolerance went, when the yassa expressly forbid the Islamic method of slaughter which mandated draining the blood, is a part of the strong debate around the code. Was the yassa intended to apply to sedentary peoples?  When it was, how thoroughly was it enforced upon them? The answers to this vary over time and place, and we will discuss these in due course.   To aid in the management of the Mongols,Chinggis Khan needed to establish an administration for his new empire. Now, this should not be conflated with the hulking bureaucracies of China, in comparison to which the Mongol 'administration’ would have been a laughably simple thing. But it was necessary for managing a state of about one million people and the roughly 100,000 strong army. With the defeat of the Naiman, Chinggis had acquired their Uighur scribes. Mongolian at that time had no written form, and Chinggis Khan quickly saw the use of a script. Thus, Mongolian gained its first alphabet, still in use today in Inner Mongolia. One of Chinggis’ adopted sons, a Tatar named Shigi Qutuqu (Koo-too-koo), was appointed yeke jarghuchi,(Yayk-eh jarg-hoochi) the chief judge of the empire, given great power settling legal matters, preserving justice and recording the edicts of Chinggis Khan and judicial decisions in their new alphabet.       To assist the burgeoning administration was the expansion of the keshig to 10,000 men. The keshig had been established only in 1204, essentially as a bodyguard for the Khan. Aside from guarding the Khan, they acted as grooms, preparing his meals, maintaining his ger, his herds, weapons and even musical instruments. Made up of trusted men, sons of commanders or sons of vassal chiefs and Khans, it also served as a sort of military college. It provided first hand learning experience at army leadership and administration, to see who was fit to ‘graduate’ to command armies, govern peoples or in time, territories. Richly rewarded and trusted, when those of keshig who were sons of vassals were sent back to their homelands, they acted as agents for the Khan to ensure the loyalty of their people, and were an important instrument of control for Chinggis Khan and his successors.        These actions helped strengthen what the Mongols valued most in their armies: loyalty, and discipline. Great trust would be placed in the commanders of not just armies, but of each level of the decimal system. In order for their maneuverability in warfare to succeed, where Mongol armies could literally be operating hundreds of kilometres apart, it was absolutely necessary that commanders could trust each other to meet timetables, objectives, stay in contact and meet up to surround enemy armies. It is to the credit of the Mongol military that the Khan could be operating on the far side of Asia, and he could trust his commanders to remain loyal, carry out his duties and expand the empire. By removing possible allegiances that could challenge loyalty to the Khan, rewarding those who showed ability and skill while supporting and protecting the soldiers’ families, the Great Khans were rewarded by a hardy, adaptable and reliable army. Individual soldiers went to great lengths to prove their worth and carry out orders: abandoning their arbans would bring strict punishment, or even death, to their comrades and families. Defections of Mongol soldiers, officers or commanders during the height of Mongol unity was extremely rare, and almost every contemporary foreign author commented on that loyalty, how the average Mongol stoically, even happily, endured the fiercest hardship for the Khan.        The few possible rivals for power who emerged from within the early empire were quickly dealt with. An ambitious shaman, Chinggis’ step-brother Kokochu, also known by the title of Teb-Tenggeri, grew greedy and bold. Already famous for his strong connection with the spirits, and supposed ability to walk naked through even the fiercest of snow storms, it was he, we are told in one source, who gave the title of Chinggis Khan to the warlord Temujin in 1206. Having in his view, appointed the Great Khan, he was  soon bold enough that he assaulted Chinggis’ brothers. When he overstepped, Chinggis allowed his youngest brother to break the shaman’s back and leave him to die. It served as a stark message: the Khan was stronger than even the mightiest of shamans. No religious authority would be able to claim power over the Great Khan of the Mongols.       These methods provided internal control to his new state, but its footing was not entirely stable yet. Various enemy leaders or their sons had survived the wars of unification- Toqto’a Beki of the Merkit and his sons, Buiruk Khan of the Naiman and his nephew Kuchlug, and the son of the late Ong Khan, Senggum Ilkha of the Kereyit. The Naiman and Kereyit sons were a particular concern, as the Jin Dynasty in the south could choose to support them as candidates against Chinggis, a beacon for those extant disaffected elements to gather around. In the years immediately following unification in 1206, it was against these potential sparks that Chinggis Khan had to stamp down. Buiruk was crushed first in the later part of 1206, leading the surviving Naiman under Kuchlug to move west, joining the Merkit under Toqto’a on the Irtysh River, where they were defeated in 1208. Toqto’a was killed in battle, his sons fleeing to the far west to the Qipchaq tribes, and Kuchlug would in time end up in the Qara-Khitai, where he would usurp power in 1211. We’ll pick up with him in a later episode for his final fate.       To the north, a number of the tribes of the Siberian forests around Lake Baikal were forced to submit in 1207. This included the Kirghiz, the Tumed and the Oirat, among others. By 1208, Chinggis had secured his northern and western borders, and with his eastern borders bounded by the Khingan mountains, that left the south, the kingdoms of China.        While these other actions to establish an administration and destroy potential rivals helped secure his power, he knew that without a common enemy to throw the whole of his people against, if left idle, the Mongol would begin to fight each other in due time. Reminiscent of Otto von Bismarck’s ploy to unify the German states against their French foe, Chinggis Khan needed ample loot and warfare to burn off their excess energies and keep them united towards a shared goal. It served other aspects as well- we noted already the danger from the potential of the Jin Dynasty giving support to a rival chief and churning up the internal rivalries of the new empire. The late 12th century seems to have been a drier period with an increase in desertification, accentuating the decrease in herds brought on by years of continuous warfare in Mongolia. Attacking China would replenish their herds, and by providing the Mongols with loot, Chinggis Khan would be undertaking part of his duties as the steppe warchief par excellence.    Ideologically it buttressed his new state as well. Part of Chinggis Khan’s legitimacy was based on his connection to the Khamag Mongol union of the early 12th century. The Khamag was destroyed by the Jurchen Jin, the Khan Ambaghai tortured and murdered by them. By attacking the Jin, Chinggis would also be performing another duty of the Khan, that is, avenging past wrongs. Finally, while in the first years of the 1200s the Jin Dynasty was distracted by internal revolts, flooding and renewed warfare with the Chinese Song Dynasty to their south, they would not sit idly by for long while the steppes to the north were unified under a single power. The Jin considered Chinggis Khan their vassal, and confrontation would be inevitable. It was to the advantage of the Mongols to make the first move.       It should be noted that no evidence suggests at this point that the Mongols believed in dominating the world or any such thing. At the outset, even an actual conquest of China doesn’t seem to have been considered.       In a previous episode, we discussed the states of 13th century China, so we won’t repeat that at length here. The two kingdoms the Mongols faced at the outset was the Jurchen Jin empire, its capital at Zhongdu, modern day Beijing, which controlled a huge stretch of territory from the Ordos loop to the far east of Manchuria. Ruled by the Jurchen, a semi-nomadic people originally from Manchuria, it was certainly the strongest single military force in the world at this point, with a population of about 40 million, mainly Chinese but a notable Jurchen and Khitan minority. Chinggis Khan would have considered them the single greatest foe he faced. To the west of the Jin Dynasty, in the Gansu corridor, was the ‘backdoor’ to north China. The Xi Xia Dynasty, or the Tangut Kingdom. Considerably smaller in both population, geographic size and in its military, it was a stout kingdom ruled by a people of Tibetan heritage, with a mixed population of Turkic nomads, sedentary Chinese and Uighurs. Much of it was covered by desert and mountain, its major cities huddled along the Yellow River west of the Ordos desert. Controlling the Gansu corridor, the narrow strip between the Gobi desert and Mongolia in the north, and the offshoots of the Himalayas to the south, most of the overland trade routes, the Silk routes, were funnelled through here, increasing the wealth of the kingdom substantially.  It was here the hammer would fall first.       The first Mongol raids into the Tangut realm were in 1205, pursuing the fleeing Kereyit prince Senggum Ilka. The Senggum evaded them, as he had been chased out by the Tangut and was then murdered shortly afterwards in the Tarim basin. The Mongols made due with captured animals and goods before withdrawing. In 1207, the Mongols returned to the Tangut, a more serious probe this time, taking advantage of the first coup d’etat in the Xi Xia’s history, and the ascension of the new King Weiming Anquan (an-quan). Tangut garrisons were sent out to meet the raiders, and were destroyed, and the border fort of Wu-la-hai was sacked and occupied until early 1208.       The new Tangut King looked to the Jin, their nominal overlords, for aid, but in the winter of 1208 the Jin emperor had died and was succeeded by his uncle, Wanyan Yongji. History does not look kindly on him. So poor was his reign that his successor posthumously demoted him from Emperor to Prince, and hence, instead of emperor, sources call him the Wei Shao Wang, the Prince of Wei. To give you an idea of his character, his helpful response to the Mongol attacks on the Tangut was allegedly to say “it is to our advantage when our enemies attack one another. Wherein lies the danger to us?” How could a man who tempts fate so willingly have been a poor emperor?       By autumn 1209, Chinggis Khan was ready for more serious actions. His flanks now secured with the defeat of the Naiman-Merkit force on the Irtysh in the west, the submission of the forest tribes to his north, and the voluntary submission of the Uighurs, the neighbours of the Tangut in 1209, the Mongol conquests were to begin. The Mongols marched in spring 1209, when there would be sufficient water and sparse grasses to allow the perhaps 60,000 man army to cross the Gobi desert. The Tangut armies, generally Turkic and Tangut horse archers and lancers, supported by Chinese infantry, fared poorly against Chinggis, who personally led the invasion.    His disciplined army in the open proved itself almost immediately. Made strong by their hard lifes, at a strategic level the army moved swiftly, effectively and without complaint. Honed and sharpened by decades of continuous war, at the tactical level they were a storm, out maneuvering and surrounding their enemies on the field, their arrows flying far, hitting hard and striking true. Thousands of arrows would rise into the sky like a cloud, dropping like rain and suddenly releasing cries of anguish from an army of dying men and horses.  Wings of the Mongol army, separated by kilometres but kept in touch through messengers, signal arrows, flags and drums, seemed to move as one to envelope their foe. Or, in their units of 10, 100 or 1,000, sent to run against the enemy, appearing like an undisciplined horde before suddenly forming into a wall of unyielding cavalry, or swiftly wheeling about, turning in their saddles to send arrows behind them, tempting the foe to pursue. Often, they took the bait, charging the Mongol archers, who parted, the impetus of the enemy charge leading into nothing. Isolated, these horsemen were quickly surrounded, filled with arrows or crushed by the Mongols’ own lancers. The enemy infantry without cavalry support could be then almost contemptuously picked off, like a wolf among a flock of sheep.   Chinggis Khan marched first to Wu-la-hai, where he destroyed a Tangut army sent against him. The fort fell once more shortly afterwards. Marching south along the Yellow River, they had to cross the Helan mountains, which formed a shield from west to north in which the Tangut capital, Zhongxing, modern Yinchuan, lay huddled in its fertile valley. On its eastern approach it was guarded by the Yellow River, which watered the irrigation canals that sustained life and crops in this beating heart of the Tangut realm. The approach through the Helan Shan was marked by the fort of Kei-min, reinforced in the aftermath of Wu-lai-hai’s fall, and led by an imperial prince. The Mongol vanguard was initially repulsed, but with the arrival of the main Mongol army the Tangut garrison remained on the defensive, hiding behind their walls. For two months, the Mongols waited before the fort, lacking the means to force Kei-min and the garrison refusing to sally forth. Frustrated in the summer heat, Chinggis Khan was not outplayed.  Feigning a retreat, the Tangut garrison was tricked into pursuing their fleeing foe- only to find themselves met by the full Mongol army far from the protection of their walls. Kei-min surrendered shortly afterwards.       Descending from the Helan Shan, Chinggis Khan was now before the walls of the Tangut capital, and it was these walls which threatened to halt his invasion. Thick walls of stamped earth, dotted by sturdy towers and well armed defenders and surrounded by irrigation canals, without siege equipment the Mongols could barely advance to the city. They looted the surrounding countryside and villages, but Zhongxing itself stood defiant, unassailable. So Chinggis sat before the walls, wasting away until the autumn of 1209, when a solution seemed to present itself. The rains of the fall swelled the nearby Yellow River, and Chinggis had an idea. His horsemen were sent forth with looted tools, and built an impromptu dyke, diverting the water which now was forced into the city. The stamped earthen walls were undermined, homes were washed away and the standing water threatened disease in Zhongxing, all while the usual rigours of the siege and blockade, starvation and illness, sapped away at Tangut moral. Somewhat embarrassingly, the makeshift dyke broke and flooded the Mongol camp, but by then it could not change the outcome, and finally in January 1210 the Tangut agreed to peace talks.          Humiliated, the Tangut became vassals of the Mongols, providing a princess in marriage for Chinggis and extensive tribute, including falcons, camels and textiles. Chinggis Khan returned to Mongolia in early 1210, vindicated- the Tangut King, Weiming Anquan, died under suspicious circumstances the next year. Thus ended the first Mongol conquest.    Cities and walls had proved an issue, but in the field the Mongols had performed spectacularly, and proved highly adaptable. No reliable method for forcing cities had yet been determined, but garrisons could be tricked out into the field by thoughts of easy victory. Compared to later Mongol conquest, the Tangut got off relatively light in 1210. The tribute was costly, but not prohibitively so, and cost less than the damage which continued Mongol attacks would cause. Neither did the Mongols leave a garrison in the country, and aside from demands for troops and tribute, the Mongols would interfere little in the internal autonomy the Tanguts so dearly prized. The submission was not popular within the Kingdom, and a notable faction in the court would develop urging the Tangut King to break with the Mongols at every opportunity. Despite the fact the Tanguts had survived the Mongol conquest more or less intact, this element in the court would ultimately lead to the destruction of the Tangut Kingdom.        Not long after his return, Chinggis Khan received messengers from the Jin court, informing him of the ascension of Wanyan Yongji and to reaffirm Chinggis’ tribute obligations. You may recall that Chinggis had fought against the Tatar tribes with Jin assistance in 1196. The Jin would have considered him a vassal after that, and he likely sent gifts, or tribute, to the Jin for a few years. It seems around 1206, he had stopped this, and in 1208 Emperor Zhangzong of Jin had sent his uncle Wanyan Yongji as embassy to get Chinggis to supply that tribute and reaffirm his vassalage. Chinggis had found Yongji utterly unthreatening, and had disrespected him. Now in 1210, learning that Yongji was the new emperor, Chinggis could only laugh. According to protocol, he was supposed to kowtow to the news. Instead, he spat on the ground towards the south, the direction of the Jin Emperor, and said, “I thought that the ruler of the Middle Kingdom must be from Heaven. Can he be a person of such weakness as Wei Shao Wang? Why should I kowtow for him?” before riding away. War had been declared, the start of a 20 year struggle that would outlast both Chinggis Khan and Wei Shao Wang.   This has been the start of our discussion on the Mongol conquests, and the next one is going to be even bigger, so be sure to hit subscribe to Ages of Conquest: A Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!  

On the background of widespread portrayals of China as a monolithic geographical and political entity moving through time, insights into the endlessly contingent, local and contested events which have occurred in this part of East Asia over time are always valuable. This arguably applies all the more the further back in history we look, and so Jinping Wang's In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200-1600 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) offers a welcome trove of detail concerning an especially crucial period. Beginning at the conjuncture of two 'foreign' Chinese dynasties – the Jurchen-Jin and Mongol-Yuan – Wang carries us all the way forward into the Ming era, discussing throughout the complex ways in which local people responded to the Mongol invasion of northern China from the 13th century. Radical transformations in local lives emerge through Wang's focus on Shanxi province and a host of evocative characters from wandering nuns to dispossessed literati, canal managers and warlords’ wives. Based on not-previously-studied stele inscriptions and on-the-ground fieldwork, the book charts political, social and religious changes some of which, the author shows, had a long afterlife. It is these sorts of historical continuities which, whilst perhaps not permitting us to talk about ‘China’ in an entirely uncritical and broad-brushed way, certainly make studying the country’s long history a compelling and important pursuit in the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the background of widespread portrayals of China as a monolithic geographical and political entity moving through time, insights into the endlessly contingent, local and contested events which have occurred in this part of East Asia over time are always valuable. This arguably applies all the more the further back in history we look, and so Jinping Wang's In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200-1600 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) offers a welcome trove of detail concerning an especially crucial period. Beginning at the conjuncture of two 'foreign' Chinese dynasties – the Jurchen-Jin and Mongol-Yuan – Wang carries us all the way forward into the Ming era, discussing throughout the complex ways in which local people responded to the Mongol invasion of northern China from the 13th century. Radical transformations in local lives emerge through Wang's focus on Shanxi province and a host of evocative characters from wandering nuns to dispossessed literati, canal managers and warlords’ wives. Based on not-previously-studied stele inscriptions and on-the-ground fieldwork, the book charts political, social and religious changes some of which, the author shows, had a long afterlife. It is these sorts of historical continuities which, whilst perhaps not permitting us to talk about ‘China’ in an entirely uncritical and broad-brushed way, certainly make studying the country’s long history a compelling and important pursuit in the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the background of widespread portrayals of China as a monolithic geographical and political entity moving through time, insights into the endlessly contingent, local and contested events which have occurred in this part of East Asia over time are always valuable. This arguably applies all the more the further back in history we look, and so Jinping Wang's In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200-1600 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) offers a welcome trove of detail concerning an especially crucial period. Beginning at the conjuncture of two 'foreign' Chinese dynasties – the Jurchen-Jin and Mongol-Yuan – Wang carries us all the way forward into the Ming era, discussing throughout the complex ways in which local people responded to the Mongol invasion of northern China from the 13th century. Radical transformations in local lives emerge through Wang's focus on Shanxi province and a host of evocative characters from wandering nuns to dispossessed literati, canal managers and warlords’ wives. Based on not-previously-studied stele inscriptions and on-the-ground fieldwork, the book charts political, social and religious changes some of which, the author shows, had a long afterlife. It is these sorts of historical continuities which, whilst perhaps not permitting us to talk about ‘China’ in an entirely uncritical and broad-brushed way, certainly make studying the country’s long history a compelling and important pursuit in the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the background of widespread portrayals of China as a monolithic geographical and political entity moving through time, insights into the endlessly contingent, local and contested events which have occurred in this part of East Asia over time are always valuable. This arguably applies all the more the further back in history we look, and so Jinping Wang's In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200-1600 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) offers a welcome trove of detail concerning an especially crucial period. Beginning at the conjuncture of two 'foreign' Chinese dynasties – the Jurchen-Jin and Mongol-Yuan – Wang carries us all the way forward into the Ming era, discussing throughout the complex ways in which local people responded to the Mongol invasion of northern China from the 13th century. Radical transformations in local lives emerge through Wang's focus on Shanxi province and a host of evocative characters from wandering nuns to dispossessed literati, canal managers and warlords’ wives. Based on not-previously-studied stele inscriptions and on-the-ground fieldwork, the book charts political, social and religious changes some of which, the author shows, had a long afterlife. It is these sorts of historical continuities which, whilst perhaps not permitting us to talk about ‘China’ in an entirely uncritical and broad-brushed way, certainly make studying the country’s long history a compelling and important pursuit in the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the background of widespread portrayals of China as a monolithic geographical and political entity moving through time, insights into the endlessly contingent, local and contested events which have occurred in this part of East Asia over time are always valuable. This arguably applies all the more the further back in history we look, and so Jinping Wang's In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200-1600 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) offers a welcome trove of detail concerning an especially crucial period. Beginning at the conjuncture of two 'foreign' Chinese dynasties – the Jurchen-Jin and Mongol-Yuan – Wang carries us all the way forward into the Ming era, discussing throughout the complex ways in which local people responded to the Mongol invasion of northern China from the 13th century. Radical transformations in local lives emerge through Wang's focus on Shanxi province and a host of evocative characters from wandering nuns to dispossessed literati, canal managers and warlords’ wives. Based on not-previously-studied stele inscriptions and on-the-ground fieldwork, the book charts political, social and religious changes some of which, the author shows, had a long afterlife. It is these sorts of historical continuities which, whilst perhaps not permitting us to talk about ‘China’ in an entirely uncritical and broad-brushed way, certainly make studying the country’s long history a compelling and important pursuit in the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the background of widespread portrayals of China as a monolithic geographical and political entity moving through time, insights into the endlessly contingent, local and contested events which have occurred in this part of East Asia over time are always valuable. This arguably applies all the more the further back in history we look, and so Jinping Wang's In the Wake of the Mongols: The Making of a New Social Order in North China, 1200-1600 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) offers a welcome trove of detail concerning an especially crucial period. Beginning at the conjuncture of two 'foreign' Chinese dynasties – the Jurchen-Jin and Mongol-Yuan – Wang carries us all the way forward into the Ming era, discussing throughout the complex ways in which local people responded to the Mongol invasion of northern China from the 13th century. Radical transformations in local lives emerge through Wang's focus on Shanxi province and a host of evocative characters from wandering nuns to dispossessed literati, canal managers and warlords’ wives. Based on not-previously-studied stele inscriptions and on-the-ground fieldwork, the book charts political, social and religious changes some of which, the author shows, had a long afterlife. It is these sorts of historical continuities which, whilst perhaps not permitting us to talk about ‘China’ in an entirely uncritical and broad-brushed way, certainly make studying the country’s long history a compelling and important pursuit in the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The JURCHEN JIN reigns. Having decimated the Song Dynasty, Emperor Jin Taizong now deploys his merciless legions to seize military control of the Yellow River Valley.Only Prince Zhao Gou and his band of LOYALIST ministers stand against the rising tyranny, certain that the last scion of Zhao can yet restore a spark of hope to the fight.But the Loyalists have been exposed. As the Jin cavalry speeds toward Yintian Fu, the brave heroes mount a desperate escape....Historical Period Covered:1127-1130 CEMajor Historical Figures:Song Dynasty:Prince Zhao Gou, Prince of Kang (Emperor Gaozong of Song) [r. 1129-1162]Chancellor Li Gang [1083-1140]Yue Fei, LEGENDARY CHINESE HERO [1103-1142]General Zong Ze, He Tried [d. 1129]General Du Cheng, Brave Sir Du Cheng Ran Away... Bravely Ran Away, Away!General Han Shizheng, He Means BusinessJin Dynasty:Emperor Taizong of Jin (Wuqimai) [r. 1123-1135]Prince Wanyan Wuzhu, Commander of Jin Strikeforce [d. 1148]Zhang Bangchang, Puppet Emperor of Great Chu [r. 1129-1129]  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The JURCHEN JIN reigns. Having decimated the Song Dynasty, Emperor Jin Taizong now deploys his merciless legions to seize military control of the Yellow River Valley. Only Prince Zhao Gou and his band of LOYALIST ministers stand against the rising tyranny, certain that the last scion of Zhao can yet restore a spark of hope to the fight. But the Loyalists have been exposed. As the Jin cavalry speeds toward Yintian Fu, the brave heroes mount a desperate escape.... Historical Period Covered: 1127-1130 CE Major Historical Figures: Song Dynasty: Prince Zhao Gou, Prince of Kang (Emperor Gaozong of Song) [r. 1129-1162] Chancellor Li Gang [1083-1140] Yue Fei, LEGENDARY CHINESE HERO [1103-1142] General Zong Ze, He Tried [d. 1129] General Du Cheng, Brave Sir Du Ran Away... Bravely Ran Away, Away! General Han Shizheng, He Means Business Jin Dynasty: Emperor Taizong of Jin (Wuqimai) [r. 1123-1135] Prince Wanyan Wuzhu, Commander of Jin Strikeforce [d. 1148] Zhang Bangchang, Puppet Emperor of Great Chu [r. 1129-1129]

The Song Dynasty manages to epically pull defeat from the jaws of victory when it manages to twice goad its nominal ally, the Jurchen Jin, into a border war. The first time, it’s beaten so badly that it has to give up almost half of its northern holdings. But when even that’s not enough to quench Emperor Qinzong’s delusions of grandeur, he and his regime will pay with everything they have…Time Period Covered: 1125-1127 CEMajor Historical Figures:Northern Song:Emperor Huizong of Song (Zhao Ji) [r. 1100-1126, ret. Emperor 1126-1127]Emperor Qinzong of Song (Zhao Huan) [r. 1126-1127]General Tong Guan [1054–1126]General Wang Bing [d. 1126]Jurchen Jin:Emperor Taizong of Jin (Wuqimai) [r. 1123-1135] Prince Wanyan Zonghan (Nianhan) [1080-1136]Prince Wanyan Zongwang (Wolibu) [c. 1073-1133?]Zhang Bangchang, Puppet Emperor of Chu [1081–1127]Major Works Cited:Levine, Ari Daniel. “The Reigns of Hui-Tsung and Ch-in-Tsung” in The Cambridge History of China, Vol.05: The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907–1279. Part 1.Lorge, Peter Allen. War, Politics, and Society in Early Modern China, 900-1795Tao, Jing-shen. “The Move to the South and the Reign of Kao-Tsung (1127–1162)” in The Cambridge History of China, Vol.05: The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907–1279. Part 1.Various. the Accounts of Jingkang  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Song Dynasty manages to epically pull defeat from the jaws of victory when it manages to twice goad its nominal ally, the Jurchen Jin, into a border war. The first time, it's beaten so badly that it has to give up almost half of its northern holdings. But when even that's not enough to quench Emperor Qinzong's delusions of grandeur, he and his regime will pay with everything they have… Time Period Covered: 1125-1127 CE Major Historical Figures: Northern Song: Emperor Huizong of Song (Zhao Ji) [r. 1100-1126, ret. Emperor 1126-1127] Emperor Qinzong of Song (Zhao Huan) [r. 1126-1127] General Tong Guan [1054–1126] General Wang Bing [d. 1126] Jurchen Jin: Emperor Taizong of Jin (Wuqimai) [r. 1123-1135] Prince Wanyan Zonghan (Nianhan) [1080-1136] Prince Wanyan Zongwang (Wolibu) [c. 1073-1133?] Zhang Bangchang, Puppet Emperor of Chu [1081–1127] Major Works Cited: Levine, Ari Daniel. “The Reigns of Hui-Tsung and Ch-in-Tsung” in The Cambridge History of China, Vol.05: The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907–1279. Part 1. Lorge, Peter Allen. War, Politics, and Society in Early Modern China, 900-1795 Tao, Jing-shen. “The Move to the South and the Reign of Kao-Tsung (1127–1162)” in The Cambridge History of China, Vol.05: The Sung Dynasty and Its Precursors, 907–1279. Part 1. Various. the Accounts of Jingkang

Emperor Huizong’s Song Dynasty’s luck runs dry with a series of epic screw up that throw the whole system in disarray. War with the Tangut Xi Xia goes badly awry – and his generals won’t even tell him about it. And then rebellions start breaking out in the south – on by a millennialist death-cult led by a 12th century Jim Jones: Fang La… and another breaking out in the swamps and marshes of Liangshan, and led by Chinese Robin Hood of literary fame: Song Jiang. All of this will throw the Song military's carefully laid plans against the crumbling Khitan Liao into disarray, and make their would-be allies the Jurchen Jin wary of how reliable a partner the Chinese might actually be.Time Period Covered: 1103-1123 CEMajor Historical Figures:Emperor Huizong of Song (Zhao Ji) [r. 1100-1126]Chancellor Cai Jing [1047-1126]General Tong Guan, Commander of the Imperial Armies, eunuch [1054-1126]Fang La, lacquer farmer-cum-millenialist death-cult leader and rebel commander, mad as hell and not going to take it anymore [d. 1121]Song Jiang, Liangshan rebel commander, Leader Star of Destiny, “Timely Rain,” Haohan Hero [d. ca. 1123]"Chapter/Poetry Music" "Spring River Flower Moon Night" 古筝 - 春江花月夜 - played on guzheng  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Emperor Huizong's Song Dynasty's luck runs dry with a series of epic screw up that throw the whole system in disarray. War with the Tangut Xi Xia goes badly awry – and his generals won't even tell him about it. And then rebellions start breaking out in the south – on by a millennialist death-cult led by a 12th century Jim Jones: Fang La… and another breaking out in the swamps and marshes of Liangshan, and led by Chinese Robin Hood of literary fame: Song Jiang. All of this will throw the Song military's carefully laid plans against the crumbling Khitan Liao into disarray, and make their would-be allies the Jurchen Jin wary of how reliable a partner the Chinese might actually be. Time Period Covered: 1103-1123 CE Major Historical Figures: Emperor Huizong of Song (Zhao Ji) [r. 1100-1126] Chancellor Cai Jing [1047-1126] General Tong Guan, Commander of the Imperial Armies, eunuch [1054-1126] Fang La, lacquer farmer-cum-millenialist death-cult leader and rebel commander, mad as hell and not going to take it anymore [d. 1121] Song Jiang, Liangshan rebel commander, Leader Star of Destiny, “Timely Rain,” Haohan Hero [d. ca. 1123] "Chapter/Poetry Music" "Spring River Flower Moon Night" 古筝 - 春江花月夜 - played on guzheng