Podcasts about rubruck

William traveled to the court of the Great Khan of the Mongols, and wrote about his experiences in a report for Louis IX that is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of medieval travel ...

From the heart of the Mongolian steppe, to North China's loess plateaus; from the rugged edges of Northern India, to the hot sands of Syria and the Levant, to humid jungles in southeastern Asia, rocky islands off the coast of Japan, the high peaks of the Caucasus, Himalayas, Altai, Tien Shan and Carpathian Mountains, to the frozen rivers  in Rus' granting access to Eastern Europe, and everywhere in between.  Our series on the Mongol Empire has taken you across Eurasia, meeting all sorts of figures; the brutal Tamerlane, the indefatigable Sultan Baybars, the brave if shortsighted Jalal al-Din Mingburnu and his foolish father Muhammad Khwarezmshah; the cunning Jia Sidao, the silver-tongued Qiu Chuji, the thorough scholar Rashid al-Din, and travellers like John de Plano Carpini, William of Rubruck, and Ibn Battuta, to the exhausted but noble-hearted Yelü Chücai. And of course, the Mongols themselves: the powerful Öz Beğ, Khan of the Golden Horde; the thorough and pious convert Ghazan Il-Khan; the scheming Du'a of the Chagatais, the stout Qaidu Khan of the Ögedaids, to the Great Khans of the thirteenth century, the most powerful of men; Khubilai, whose hands scrambled for more until his body and empire failed his ambitions; his brother Möngke, whose steely determination sought to solidify the empire at all costs, no matter the bloodshed; Güyük, a reluctant and unfortunate man to ascend to the throne; his mother Törögene, whose fierce will forced her son to that same throne; Ögedai, a drunk who despite his failings built the infrastructure of the empire. And of course, Chinggis himself; once a scared boy in the steppes, turned into the greatest conqueror of them all. Today we end our journey with the Empire of the Great Khans, and reflect on the passage of the Chinggisids. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals, Ages of Conquest.       Back in our first episode, we highlighted certain trends to look for over the course of this series. The first emphasized looking for the middle ground between the Mongols as inherently evil or good forces, but as people whose expansion was rooted in historical events and personages. The second was the struggles that came with the management of a world empire, and the need to rely on non-Mongolian subject peoples—Chinese, Central Asian Muslims, Persians, Turks and others. The third was the struggle for the purpose of the empire; should it be continued conquest, or consolidation and serving the needs of the imperial princes. This was the balance between the Khan and his central government, or the Chinggisid and military aristocrats. The fourth was the steady assimilation, particularly Turkification, of the Mongols outside of Mongolia, as Mongolian was replaced as the language of administration, legitimacy and finally, among the ruling family itself, even while retaining the Mongolian imperial ideology.        Regarding the first theme, we have sought to highlight in our many discussions of sources their often complicated, conflicting portrayals or events and persons. While authors like Ibn al-Athir, Nasawi and Juzjani had little good to say about the Mongols or Chinggis Khan, and fit well with the popular model the destructive brute, we've also looked at many sources which had more positive portrayals of the khans. Some of these are rather obvious, imperial-produced sources such as the Secret History of the Mongols, but even sources from outside the empire could give glowing reviews of Chinggis Khan. For instance, the fourteenth century English writer Geoffrey Chaucer, in the Squire's Tale of his famous Canterbury Tales, opens with the following lines:   At Tzarev in the land of Tartary There dwelt a king at war with Muscovy Which brought the death of many a doughty man This noble king was known as Cambuskan And in his time enjoyed such great renown That nowhere in that region up or down Was one so excellent in everything; Nothing he lacked belonging to a king.       Written at the same time as Toqtamish Khan of the Golden Horde was fighting for control of that Khanate, here Chaucher remembered Chinggis Khan not as a bloodthirsty barbarian, but as a monarch embodying all ideal qualities of kingship. Chaucer continues thusly;   As to the faith in which he had been born He kept such loyalties as he had sworn, Then he was powerful and wise and brave, Compassionate and just, and if he gave His word he kept it, being honourable, The same to all, benevolent, and stable As is a circle's centre; and in fight As emulous as any squire or knight. Young personable, fresh and fortunate, Maintaining such a kingliness of state There never was his match in mortal man, This noble king, this Tartar Cambuskan.        For writers in fourteenth century England, obviously distant from the Mongol Empire itself, it was not unbecoming to idealize the portrayal of Chinggis Khan. This is not to say that Chaucher's description is accurate, or necessarily reflects any actual qualities about the man or any of his descendants. But rather, it reflects historical perception. How an individual is perceived by contemporaries, history, and modern people often bears little resemblance to actual details of the individual.  Instead, people will contort an image for whatever use suits their current purposes, context and political climate. Thus, warlords from the late imperial, and post-Mongol world styled Chinggis' image to suit their needs. In Central Asia Chinggisid descent remained one of the most prestigious, and necessary, requirements for rulership up until the nineteenth century in some areas. This was problematic though with the spread of Islam, given that Chinggis Khan's actual life produced very few episodes to nicely accommodate an Islamic narrative. Certain Persian writings during the Ilkhanate sought to fix this by making Chinggis a Muslim in all but name. On the tomb of Tamerlane, an inscription likely added during the reign of his grandson Ulugh Beğ, makes Tamerlane a descendant of both the Prophet Muhammad and of Chinggis Khan. Later post-imperial authors had a more direct solution; simply making Chinggis Khan outright a Muslim. As the destruction of the conquests slipped further back in time, this became easier and easier to accomplish.    Religion was not the only aspect which can be molded, for Chinggis' very status as a Mongol becomes malleable in state efforts to construct national mythos, in both medieval and modern settings. Today, you can find countries where official propaganda, or influential theorists, incorporate Chinggis into the desired story of their nation-state. In China, there remains a significant Mongolian population, largely in what the Chinese call the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, the land south of the Gobi desert but north of the mountains which divide it from the North China plain. The Chinese government has taken to presenting China's non-Han peoples, Mongols among them, more or less as Chinese minority peoples and actively encourages their adoption of the state-language, Mandarin, and Han Chinese culture. In this view, the Mongol conquests are sometimes presented as a period of national reunification rather than foreign conquest. The efforts of Khubilai Khaan to legitimize the Yuan Dynasty based on Chinese dynastic legal precedent becomes the quote-on-quote “historical evidence,” that Chinggis Khan was actually Chinese, or that in fact, the Mongol conquerors were fully assimilated into the Chinese population and culture. The borders of the Yuan Dynasty served to justify later Chinese territorial claims in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Manchuria, Tibet and Yunnan; places that were, before the Mongols, inconsistently in the Chinese sphere of influence, but since the conquests have often remained dominated by empires based in China. Not coincidentally, such narratives serve to support the narrative of 5,000 years of a continuous Chinese Empire, and remove the sting that may accompany the embarrassment of being conquered by perceived barbarians.    Likewise, various Turkic peoples, most notably Kazakhs, Tatars, and Anatolian Turks, have sought to claim Chinggis as their own, and there are even groups in Korea and Japan that will argue that Chinggis was actually one of theirs. The Japanese version has Chinggis as the Samurai Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who faked his death and fled Japan for the steppe! Khubilai's later invasions of Japan again become not foreign assaults, but attempts at national reunification or the efforts by Yoshitsune's descendants to return home. And of course, fringe groups even in Europe and Russia which, refusing to believe a barbarian horseman could conquer such great states, insist that Chinggis was actually a red-haired, green-eyed man of European ancestry. Such claims often include vague references to the mummies of the Tarim Basin, who bore some features associated with Caucasian populations. The fact that these mummies pre-date Chinggis by millenia is often conveniently left out. All of these people care much more about ethnic categorization than Chinggis himself likely ever did.        Just as religion or ethnicity can be forced to fit certain agendas, so too can portrayal as barbarian or saviour. In Mongolia today, Chinggis Khan's unification of the Mongols, his introduction of a writing system, religious tolerance, laws and stability are most heavily emphasized. For building a post-soviet national identity, obviously these are useful attributes to appeal to for the desired national character. But the Mongolian governmet also tends to gloss over the aspects less appreciated in the twenty-first century: namely, the destruction of people and property on a massive scale, mass-rapes, towers of skulls and wars of conquest. The fact that Mongolia's two neighbours, Russia and China, suffered particularly under Mongol onslaughts, also avoids some diplomatic hurdles to step past these military aspects. For most of the twentieth century during Mongolia's years as a Soviet satellite state, Chinggis was largely pushed aside, framed as a feudal lord. Instead, Mongolia's hero of the 1921 socialist revolution, Damdin Sükhbaatar, became the preferred national icon. After Mongolia was democratized in the 1990s after the fall of the USSR, Chinggis Khan has seen a massive resurgence in popularity. Today, Chinggis and Sükhbaatar remain national icons, with monuments to both throughout the country. Outside Mongolia's parliament, the main square has changed names from Sükhbaatar to Chinggis Square, and since back to Sükhbaatar square. An equestrian statue to Sükhbaatar sits in the middle of that square. More than a few foreign observers had mistakenly called this a statue of Chinggis. In fact, only a few metres away from the equestrian statue of Sükhbaatar sits a massive Chinggis Khan on a throne flanked by his generals, at the top of the steps leading into Mongolia's parliament. In a way it is metaphorical. No matter how prominent any later hero of Mongolia may be, he will always stand in the shadow of Chinggis Khan.  And that's not even mentioning the 40 metre tall silver monstrosity about 50 kilometres outside of Ulaanbaatar. Speaking of state narratives, much of the cost for this statue was covered by the company owned by Khaltmaagin Battulga, a former professional sambo wrestler who from 2017-2021 served as the fifth President of Mongolia.       Outside of Mongolia though, Chinggis and the Mongol Empire remain a top-point of reference to paint someone in the most unfavourable light. One of the highest level cases of recent years was when the President of Iraq, the late Saddam Hussein, compared former US President George W. Bush to Hülegü, Chinggis' grandson and conqueror of Baghdad. The American bombing and capture of Baghdad, and ensuing tragedies that Iraq as suffered in the aftermath of the campaign, have only solidified the connection for a number of Muslims.  Meanwhile Russian television and education tend to present the Mongols in a style comparable to Zack Snyder's film 300, such as the 2017 Russian film Легенда о Коловрате [Legenda O Kolovrate], also known as Furious. Like the Spartans in the film or Frank Miller's graphic novel, the Rus' soldiers are presented as formidable warriors fighting monstrous, untrained hordes from the east. Only through sheer numbers or trickery do the disgusting Orientals overcome the pasty-white heroes of the story— though few of the heroes in the Russian films have Scottish accents. Russia has turned the so-called Tatar Yoke into a catch-all to explain any perceived deficiencies compared to western Europe, from government absolutism to alcoholism. Not only the Russians have employed the comparison: “scratch a Russian and you'll find a Tatar,” Napoleon Bonaparte is supposed to have quipped. And in 2018 the Wall Street Journal released a particularly poorly written article, which compared the political machinations of current president Vladimir Putin as “Russia's turn to its Asian past,” accompanied by vague comparisons to the Mongols and an awful portrait of Putin drawn in Mongolian armour. In contrast, the Russian Defence Minister, at the time of writing, is Sergei Shoigu, a fellow of Tuvan descent who is alleged to enjoy comparisons of himself to Sübe'edei, the great Mongol general popularly, though inaccurately, portrayed as a Tuvan. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, essentially a good old-fashioned war of conquests accompanied by war crimes and destruction of cities, has also earned many comparisons to the Mongol conquests by many online commentators. Though unlike the Russians, the Mongols actually took Kyiv.   Somewhat surprisingly, most cinematic portrayals of Chinggis himself lean towards sympathetic or heroic. One of the most recent is a 2018 Chinese film entitled Genghis Khan in English, which features a slim Chinese model in the titular role, and one of his few depictions without any facial hair. In that film he battles a bunch of skeletons and monsters, and it could be best described as “not very good,” as our series researcher can, unfortunately, attest. One popular portrayal is the 2007 film Mongol, directed by Sergei Bodrov and starring a Japanese actor in the role of Chinggis. That actor, by the way, went on to play one of Thor's buddies in the Marvel movies.  Here, Chinggis is a quiet, rather thoughtful figure, in a film which emphasizes the brutal childhood he suffered from. Another sympathetic portrayal, and one perhaps the most popular in Mongolia, is the 2004 Inner Mongolian series where Ba Sen, an actor who claims descent from Chagatai and appeared in the previously two mentioned films, plays the role of Chinggis.       Hollywood does not tend to portray Chinggis Khan or the Mongols in films at all, but when it does, it really goes for a swing and a miss. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure has Chinggis essentially only a step above a cave-man in that film. Other Hollywood endeavours are infamous for having non-Asian actors in the role, such as Egyptian-born Omar Shariff in 1965's Genghis Khan, Marvin Miller in 1951's The Golden Horde and the most infamous of them all, the cowboy John Wayne in 1956's The Conqueror. That film's theatrical release poster bears the tasteful tagline of, “I am Temujin…barbarian… I fight! I love! I conquer… like a Barbarian!” The film was also produced by Howard Hughes, founder of Playboy Magazine, and was filmed near a nuclear testing site.  As you may suspect, that film bears as much resemblance to the historical events as an opium-induced fever dream.        The appearance and depiction of Chinggis and his successors varies wildly. The internet today loves the stories of Chinggis being the ancestor of millions of people, and killing so many people that it changed the earth's climate. The articles that made both of these claims though, rested on shaky evidence. In the first, which we dedicated an entire episode of this podcast too, the study claimed that high rates of a certain haplotype among the Hazara of Afghanistan demonstrated that Chinggis himself bore that haplotype, and Chinggis was extrapolated to be the ancestor of other peoples bearing such a haplotype. But the historical sources indicate Chinggis and his immediate descendants spent little time in Afghanistan, and the associated Haplotype was probably one associated with various populations leaving Mongolia over centuries, rather than specifically Chinggis himself.  Likewise, the study which spawned the claim that the Mongols killed enough people to cool the climate, firstly did not make that claim itself, but moreso incorrectly made the Mongol conquests last from 1206 to 1380, and presented it as an almost two-century period of population decline brought on by Mongolian campaigns; despite the fact that the major destructive Mongolian military campaigns largely halted after 1279. While campaigns continued after that, they were never on the level of the great-campaigns of conquest. Thus it's irresponsible to claim that any atmospheric carbon loss over the fourteenth century was brought on by continued Mongol military efforts.       What these two popular descriptions lend themselves to, is one of extremes. The internet loves extremes of anything. For instance, since 1999 the Internet has always sought to outdo itself in declaring the latest Star Wars product to actually be the worst thing ever made. And the Mongol Empire, as history's largest contiguous land-empire, responsible for immense destruction and long-ranging campaigns and forced migrations, can easily slot in this ‘extreme manner.' A “top-ten” list where the author writes about how the Mongols were the most extreme and destructive and badass thing ever, repeating the same 10 facts, probably gets released on the internet every other month. Just as national-myth makers in Ulaanbaatar, Beijing and Moscow set how to portray the Mongol Empire in the way most suited to them, so too does the internet and its writers choose an aspect of the empire to emphasis; be it religious tolerance, free-trade, brutality, multi-culturalism, Islam, clash of civilizations, human impact on climate, the territorial expanse of a certain country or its national identity, or whatever argument the author hopes to make.        The Mongol Empire though remains in the past, and should be treated, and learned about, as such.  The events which led to the rise, expansion and fall of the Mongol Empire do not fit into nice, sweeping modern narratives, but their own historical context and situation. The Mongol Empire was not predetermined to ever expand out of Mongolia, or to break apart in 1260; had Chinggis Khan been struck by an arrow outside the walls of Zhongdu, or Möngke lived another ten years, in both cases the empire, and indeed the world, would look dramatically different. History is not the things which ought to be or needed to happen or were supposed to happen; it is the things that did happen, and those things did not occur simply for the purposes of the modern world to exist. A million choices by hundreds of millions of individuals, affected by climate and geography with a healthy dose of luck and happenstance, resulted in the world as we know it. Reading backwards from the present to understand the course of the Mongol Empire, and attempting to make it fit into the political narratives we like today, only does a disservice to history. It should be seen not as a virtuous force bringing continental peace justified by easier trade, nor as a demonic horde, but as an event within human history, in which real humans took part, where great tragedy occured in the pursuit of empire.     History is not just written by the victor of the actual battles; as we've detailed across this series, we have no shortage of historical sources on the Mongol Empire; imperial approved sources, sources by travellers passing through the empire, to sources written by the peoples the Mongols crushed. Instead, the history learned in schools and passed down through historical memory and media is built on top of preferred state narratives, those made today and in the past.   Our series on the Mongol Empire concludes next week with a final afterward on Mongolia after 1368, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this was want to help us keep bringing you great content, then consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I'm your host David, and we'll catch you on the next one. 

Having taken you, our dear listeners, through the Yuan, Chagatayid and Ilkhanates, we now turn our attention to the northwestern corner of the Mongol Empire: the Jochid ulus, the Golden Horde. Ruled by the line of Chinggis' eldest son Jochi, this single division of the Mongol Empire was larger than the maximum extent of most empires, dominating from the borders of Hungary and the Balkans, briefly taking the submission of Serbia, stretching ever eastwards over what is now Ukraine, Russia, through Kazakhstan before terminating at the Irtysh River. Under its hegemony were many distinct populations; the cities of the Rus' principalities, the fur trading centres of the Volga Bulghars along the Samara Bend, the mercantile outposts of the Crimean peninsula which gave the Jochid Khans access to the Mediterranean Sea, to the Khwarezm delta, giving them a position in the heart of the Central Asian trade. These distant frontiers, hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres apart, were connected by the western half of the great Eurasian steppe, the Qipchaq Desert as it was known to Islamic writers. Thus was the Golden Horde, and over the next few episodes we'll take you through its history, from its establishment under Batu, to the height of its glory under Özbeg, to its lengthy disintegration from the end of the fourteenth century onwards. This first episode will serve as an introduction to the history of the Golden Horde, beginning first with its very name and important historiographical matters, then taking you through its origins, up to the death of Berke and ascension of Möngke-Temür, the first ruler of the Golden Horde as an independent state.  I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       As good a place to start as any is terminology, and the Golden Horde is known by a host of names. Firstly and most famously, we can note that the Golden Horde is a later appellation, given to the state centuries later in Rus' chronicles. In Russian this is Zolotaya Orda (Золотой Орды),  which in Mongolian and Turkish would be Altan Orda. The English word “horde” comes directly from Mongolian ordu, though also used in Turkic languages, and signifies, depending on the case, a command headquarters, the army, tent or palace- quite different from the image of uncontrolled rabble that usually comes to mind with the term. While commonly said that the Rus' chronicles took the term from the golden colour of the Khan's tents, we actually do see the term Golden Horde used among the Mongols before the emergence of the Golden Horde state. For the Mongols and Turks, all the cardinal directions have colour associated with them. Gold is the colour associated with the center; while the divisions of the army would be known by their direction and colour, the overall command or imperial government could be known as the center, the qol, or by its colour, altan. This is further augmented by the association of the colour gold with the Chinggisids themselves, as descent from Chinggis Khan was the altan urugh, the Golden Lineage; and the name of a well-known Mongolian folk band. For example, in 1246 when the Franciscan Friar John de Plano Carpini travelled to Mongolia as an envoy from the Pope, he visited a number of camps of the new Khan, Güyük. Each camp was named, and one of these was, as Carpini notes, called the Golden Horde. In this case, Carpini also describes Güyük's tent as being literally covered in gold, with even the nails holding the wooden beams being gold.       So Altan orda, or Golden Horde, may well have been in use within the Golden Horde khanate. However, the term is never used to refer to it in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. What we see instead is a collection of other terms. In the Ilkhanate, it was common to refer to the rulers as the Khans of Qipchap, and the state as the Desht-i-Qipchaq, the Qipchaq steppe or desert. Hence in modern writing you will sometimes see it as the Qipchap Khanate. But this seems unlikely to have been a term in use by the Jochid Khans, given that the Qipchaps were the Khan's subjects and seen as Mongol slaves; a rather strange thing for the Mongols to name themselves after them. Given that it was the pre-Mongol term for the region, and the Ilkhanid writers liked to denigrate the Jochid Khans whenever possible, it makes rather good sense that they would continue using it.       Many modern historians, and our series researcher, like to refer to it as the Jochid ulus, the patrimony of the house of Jochi, particularly before the actual independence of the Golden Horde following 1260. This term appears closer to what we see in Yuan and Mamluk sources, where the Golden Horde was usually called the ulus of Batu or Berke, or ulus of whoever was currently the reigning Khan. Either designating themselves by the current ruler, or by the more general ulug ulus, meaning “great state or patrimony,” with perhaps just the encampment of the Khan known as the altan ordu, the Golden Horde, among the Jochids themselves. Over the following episodes the term Jochid ulus will be used to refer to the state in general, and Golden Horde will be used specifically for the independent khanate which emerged after the Berke-Hülegü war in the 1260s.       There is another matter with terminology worth pointing out before we go further. The Jochid domains were split into two halves; west of the Ural river, ruled by the line of Batu, Jochi's second son. And east of the Ural River, ruled by the line of Orda, Jochi's first son. Now, Batu may have been the general head of the Jochids, or a first amongst equals, or Orda and Batu may have been given totally distinct domains. Perhaps the ulus of Orda simply became more autonomous over the thirteenth century. Opinions differ greatly, and unfortunately little information survives on the exact relationship, but the ulus of Orda was, by 1300, effectively independent and the Batuid Khans Toqta and Özbeg would, through military intervention, bring it under their influence. So essentially, there were two wings of the Jochids with a murky relationship, which is further obfuscated by inconsistent naming of them in the historical sources. Rus' and Timurid sources also refer to the White Horde and the Blue Horde. The Rus' sources follow Turko-Mongolian colour directions and have the White Horde, the lands ruled by the line of Batu, the more westerly, and Orda's ulus being the Blue Horde to the east.  Except in Timurid sources, this is reversed, with Batu's line ruling the Blue Horde, and Orda the White.        There has been no shortage of scholarly debate over this, and you will see the terms used differently among modern writers. This is not even getting into the matter if the Golden Horde was then itself another division within this, referring to territory belonging directly to the Khan within the Batuid Horde. For the sake of clarity, this podcast will work on the following assumptions, with recognition that other scholars interpretations may differ greatly: that following Jochi's death around 1227, the Jochid lines and lands were divided among Batu and Orda, with Batu acting as the head of the lineage. The western half of this division, under Batu, we will call the White Horde, and Orda's eastern division will be the Blue Horde. Together, these were the Jochid ulus, with the rest of their brothers given allotments within the larger domains. While Batu was the senior in the hierarchy, Orda was largely autonomous, which following the Berke-Hülegü war turned into the Blue Horde becoming effectively independent until the start of the fourteenth century, as apparently suggested by Rashid al-Din and Marco Polo,        One final note is that we have effectively no internal sources surviving from the Golden Horde. In the opinion of scholars like Charles Halperin, the Golden Horde simply had no chronicle tradition. Any records they maintained were likely lost in the upheavals of the late fourteenth century that culminated in the great invasion under Tamerlane in the 1390s, where effectively every major city in the steppe region of the Horde was destroyed.  The closest we come to Golden Horde point-of-view chronicles appear in the sixteenth century onwards, long after the dissolution of the Horde. The first and most notable was the mid-sixteenth century Qara Tawarikh of Ötemish Hajji, based in Khiva in the service of descendants of Jochi's son, Shiban. Sent to the lower Volga by his masters, there he collected oral folk tales which he compiled into his history. While often bearing intriguing and amusing tales, they reveal little in the way of the internal machinations of the Golden Horde. Luckily we are serviced from more contemporary sources, most notably Ilkhanid and Mamluk sources- once again our friend the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid al-Din is of utmost importance, who provides us an important outline of the Golden Horde's politics up to 1300. The Mamluks and Ilkhanid sources largely collected information from Jochid diplomats or refugees. Most of our understanding of Golden Horde political events, and the details of the following episodes, comes from these sources.   Post-Ilkhanid Timurid and Jalayirid authors help somewhat for the later fourteenth century, while the Rus' sources provide information on the Golden Horde almost exclusively in the context of its interactions with the principalities, similar to other European and Byzantine sources. A few details can be gleaned too from travellers like Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, and even distant Yuan sources from China. Archaeology has provided some interesting details, particularly relating to trade and the extensive coinage circulation of the Jochids. Despite this, the Golden Horde remains, regardless of its fame, arguably one of the poorer understood of the Mongol Khanates.       So, with that bit of paperwork out of the way, let's get on with it! The kernel of the immense Golden Horde can be found in the first decades of the thirteenth century. In the first ten years of the Mongol Empire Jochi, Chinggis Khan's first son, was tasked with leading campaigns around Lake Baikal, as well as the first expeditions that brought their armies far to the west of Mongolia. While around Baikal he had been sent to subdue the local peoples, in 1216 Jochi and Sübe'edei pursued fleeing Merkits across Kazakhstan, to the region between the Aral Sea and the Caspian. Here, the Merkits had allied with Qangli-Qipchaps, beginning the long running Mongol animosity to the various Qipchap peoples. While Jochi was the victor here, he was forced into battle with the Khwarezm-Shah Muhammad on his return, as we have previously detailed. But the result seems to have been an association of these western steppes as Jochi's lands, in the eyes of the Mongol leadership.       Such an association was strengthened following the campaign against the Khwarezmian Empire. The Mongols saw conquering a region as making it part of the patrimony of a given prince, and such a belief fueled into the interactions between Jochi and his brothers, especially Chagatai. This was most apparent at the siege of the Khwarezmian capital of Gurganj, where Jochi sought to minimize destruction to the city- not out of humanity, but as it would be a jewel in his domains as one of the preeminent trade cities in Central Asia. Chagatai, in a long running competition with his brother, was not nearly so compassionate. The end result was Gurganj being almost totally annihilated, and Jochi and Chagatai's antagonism reaching the frustrated ears of their father. As you may recall, Jochi's mother Börte had been captured by Merkits before he was born, leaving an air of doubt around the true identity of his father. Chinggis, to his credit, always treated Jochi as fully legitimate, and indeed up until 1221, in the opinion of some scholars, appears to have been grooming him as his primary heir. However, the falling out between Jochi and Chagatai over the siege of Gurganj, and Chagatai's apparent refusal to accept Jochi as anything but a “Merkit bastard,” as attributed to him in the Secret History of the Mongols, left Chinggis with  the realization that should Jochi become Khan, it would only lead to war between the brothers. And hence, the decision to make Ögedai the designated heir.       It has often been speculated that Jochi's massive patrimony was essentially a means to keep him and Chagatai as far apart as possible,and appeasing Jochi once he was excluded from the throne.  Following the conquest of Khwarezm, Jochi seems to have taken well to the western steppe being his territory, the grasslands between the Ural and Irtysh Rivers. Juzjani, writing around 1260, writes of Jochi falling in love with these lands, believing them to be the finest in the world. Some later, pro-Toluid sources portray Jochi then spending the last years of his life doing nothing but hunting and drinking in these lands, but this seems to have been aimed at discrediting his fitness. Rather he likely spent this time consolidating and gradually pushing west his new realm, past the Aral Sea towards the Ural River, while his primary camp was along the Irtysh. Though effectively nothing is known of Jochi's administration, we can regard this period as the true founding of what became the Jochid ulus, and eventually the Golden Horde. Though he died between 1225 and 1227, either of illness, a hunting accident or poisoned by his father, Chinggis immediately confirmed upon Jochi's many offspring -at least 14 sons- their rights to their father's lands. And Chinggis, or perhaps Ögedai, made Jochi's second son Batu the head of the lineage. It was then that the division of the Jochid lands into two wings under Orda and Batu may have been first implemented.        By the start of Ögedai's reign, the western border of the Mongol Empire  extended past the Ural River, and Mongol armies were attacking the Volga Bulghars.  While we do not have much information on it, we may presume a level of involvement on the part of Batu and his brothers. Of course, in the second half of the 1230s Ögedai ordered the great invasion that overran the western steppe. Starting from the Ural River, within 5 years the Mongol Empire was extended some 3,000 kilometres westwards to the borders of Hungary. Whereas previously the urban area of the Jochid lands was restricted to the Khwarezm Delta and the scattered steppe settlements, now it included the cities of the Rus' principalities, Volga Bulghars, other Volga communities, and the Crimean peninsula. All in addition to the western half of the great Eurasian steppe, and the now subdued Cuman-Qipchaq peoples. By 1242, Batu was arguably the single most powerful individual in the Mongol Empire. Enjoying the rich grasslands along the Volga between the Black and Caspian Seas, Batu created a permanent capital, Sarai. Much like the imperial capital of Qaraqorum, Sarai served as a base to collect tribute, receive embassies, and house the administration and records, while Batu and the other Jochid princes continued to nomadize. The newly conquered territories were quickly incorporated in the Mongol tax system, and the Rus' principalities began to see Mongol basqaqs and darughachi come to collect the Khan's due.       But Batu was an ambitious man. There was clearly an understanding that the Jochids were granted the west of Asia as theirs, and he took this quite literally. As the Mongol Empire incorporated Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia over the 1230s through 40s, Batu ensured that Jochid land rights were not just respected, but expanded. The administration in these regions was picked either from Batu's men, or from his consultation, such as Baiju Noyan, the commander of the Caucasian tamma forces and who brought the Rumi Seljuqs under Mongol rule.    In the turmoil following Ögedai's death, Batu extended his hold over western Asia. Naturally, this put him on a collision course with the Central Government. When Ögedai's widow, Törögene tried to hunt down her political rivals, such as the head of the Central Asia Secretariat Mas'ud Beg, Batu gave shelter to him. When her son Güyük took the throne, Batu did not attend his quriltai in person, putting off any meeting due to, Batu claimed, the severe gout he suffered from preventing his travel. Batu and Güyük had been rivals ever since the great western campaign, where Güyük had insulted Batu's leadership. Güyük hoped to put a cap on the decentralization of power which had occurred during the last years of his father's reign and during his mother's regency, and showed a willingness to execute imperial princes, such as the last of Chinggis Khan's surviving brothers, Temüge. When rumour came to Batu that Güyük was planning a massive new campaign to subdue the west, Batu must have suspected that Güyük planned on bringing him to heel too; either limiting his political freedom, or outright replacing him with Batu's older brother, Orda, with whom Güyük was on good terms with.    The news of Güyük's advance came from Sorqaqtani Beki, the widow of Tolui and sister of one of Jochi's most important wives. Sources like William of Rubruck have Batu preemptively poison Güyük in spring 1248, thus avoiding civil war. Batu and Sorqaqtani then promptly had many of Güyük's favourites executed and, in a quriltai in Batu's territory, had her son Möngke declared Khan of Khans in 1250, before an official ceremony in Mongolia the next year. The relationship was an effective one. In being key supporters for Möngke's otherwise illegal election, Jochid land rights were confirmed across the empire. Transoxania was cleared of Chagatayids and handed over the Jochids, Georgia confirmed for Batu's younger brother Berke, and travellers who passed through the empire in these years like William of Rubruck basically have the empire divided between Batu and Möngke. Most of western Asia, both north and south of the Caucasus, was overseen by Batu and his men. When Batu died around 1255, the Jochids enjoyed a preeminence second only to the Great Khan himself. The special place of the Jochid leader was recognized by numerous contemporary sources, and it is notable that while the rest of the empire was divided into the great branch secretariats, that the Jochid lands were not placed into one until late in Möngke's reign, and there is little indication it was ever properly established before Jochid independence.    However, despite even Möngke recognizing Batu's power, as a part of his wider centralizing efforts he reminded Batu of the leash on him. Batu's interactions with William of Rubruck indicate that Batu saw his power to conduct foreign diplomacy was limited; the Jochid lands were not exempted from Möngke's empire-wide censuses, and when Möngke demanded Batu provide troops for Hülegü's campaigns against the Nizari Ismailis and Baghdad, Batu duly complied. During Batu's lifetime it was the name of the Great Khan who continued to be minted on coinage in the Jochid lands, and Rus' princes still had to receive yarliqs, or confirmation, not from Batu but from Qaraqorum. And in 1257, Möngke ordered the Jochid lands to be incorporated into a new Secretariat, and thus bring them better under the control of the Central Government. There is no indication from the sources that Batu or his successors resisted Möngke in any capacity in these efforts   Following Batu's death, Möngke promptly ratified Batu's son Sartaq as his successor, but as Sartaq returned from Qaraqorum, he died under mysterious circumstances; in a few sources, the blame falls onto his uncles, Berke and Berkechir. Sartaq's son or brother Ilagchi was made Khan under the regency of Batu's widow Boraqchin Khatun, but soon both were dead. Though Ilagchi's cause of death is unmentioned, for Boraqchin the Mamluk sources note that Berke had her tried and executed for treason. Still, for Sartaq and Ilagchi the tendency for Mongol princes to die at inopportune times can't be forgotten, and Berke may have simply reacted to a favourable circumstance.  The fact that he stood with the most to gain from their deaths made him the likely scapegoat even to contemporary writers, even if he happened to actually be innocent of the matter. Much like how Batu may or may not have poisoned Güyük, the deaths are a little too convenient for the relevant Jochid princes to be easily dismissed.   Between 1257 and 1259, possibly waiting for Möngke to begin his Song campaign and be unable to interfere, Berke became the head of the Jochid ulus. As the aqa of the Jochids, that is, the senior member of the line of Jochi, he did this with the approval of his fellow Jochid princes and military leaders. But there is no indication that Berke ever received support from Qaraqorum for his enthronement. Given that Chinggis Khan had confirmed upon Batu the right to rule, the shift from brother-to-brother, though common in steppe successions, was still an extreme matter.   Part of the success of Berke's ascension may have been achieved through an agreement with Batu's family. According to the fourteenth century Mamluk author al-Mufaddal, the childless Berke designated Batu's grandson Möngke-Temür as his heir. Some historians like Roman Pochekaev have suggested that Berke's enthronement may have been leveraged as part of an agreement; that Berke, as the most senior member of the Jochids, could take the throne following the death of Ilagchi Khan. But, the prestige of Batu made his line the designated leaders of the White Horde. Without his own children, on Berke's death the throne would fall back to the line of Batu, under his grandson Möngke-Temür.  And so it would remain among Batu's descendants until the 1360s, almost 100 years after Berke's death.    As you likely know, Berke was the first Mongol prince known to convert to Islam. The exact time of his conversion varies in the sources, but a convincing argument has been put forward by professor István Vásáry. Essentially, that Berke, likely through a Muslim mid-wife that raised him (and not a Khwarezmian Princess, as sometimes suggested) was either in his youth a convert to Islam, or at least extremely influenced by it. By the time of the 1251 quriltai in Mongolia which confirmed Möngke as Great Khan, Berke is attested in independent sources writing at the same time to have sought to Islamize the event; getting the meat to be slaughtered for the feast to be halal, according to Juvaini, and trying to get Möngke to swear on the Quran, according to Juzjani. On his return from Mongolia, he was contacted by a Sufi shaykh in Bukhara, Sayf ad-Din Bakharzi, who is mentioned in a number of sources in connection with Berke's conversion. Having heard of a prominent Mongol prince's interest in Islam, the Shaykh invited Berke to Bukhara, and there gave him a formal education in the religion, leading to Berke to make a more official declaration of his faith likely around 1252. Berke's conversion was accompanied by the conversion of his wives, a number of other princes, members of his family and his generals, though all evidence suggests there was only limited spread of the faith among the rank and file Mongols at the time.    As Khan, Berke sought to ensure Jochid hegemony on frontier regions. His troops crushed a newly independent Ruthenian Kingdom in Galicia, and in 1259 his armies under Burundai Noyan led a devastating raid into Poland. Possibly in this time Bulgaria began paying tribute to the Jochids as well. Berke demanded the submission of the Hungarian King, Béla IV, and offered a marriage alliance between their families. As Hungary was spared any damage in Burundai's 1259 campaign, it has been suggested that Béla undertook a nominal submission to Berke, sending tribute and gifts in order to spare Hungary from another assault.    In Khwarezm and the Caucasus Berke continued to exercise influence. But tensions were fraying with his cousin Hülegü, who in 1258 sacked Baghdad and killed the ‘Abbasid Caliph. Obviously, as a Muslim Berke was not keen to learn of the Caliph's death. According to the contemporary author Juzjani, writing from distant Delhi, Berke had been in contact with the Caliph in the years preceding the siege. Much of Berke's anger though, as gleaned from his letters to the Mamluks and the writing of Rashid al-Din, was at Hülegü's failure to consult with Berke as the senior member of the family, and as the master of western Asia. Though Jochid troops partook in the siege, and we have no indication from the sources that Berke tried to prevent them taking part, it seems Hülegü did not reach out to Berke regarding the fate of Baghdad, or in the dispensation of loot.   Berke was greatly angered at this, and relations only worsened over the following years, once Hülegü killed the Jochid princes in his retinue on charges of sorcery; it just so happened that these same prince had previously annoyed Hülegü through attempting to enforce Jochid land rights over Iran and Iraq. The final straw came in early 1260 once Hülegü learned of Möngke's death. Hülegü by then had already set up in the pastures of Azerbaijan, land Berke considered his. As he learned of the fighting between his brothers Khubilai and Ariq Böke which broke out later that year, Hülegü decided to use the interregnum to seize the pastures of the Caucasus, as well as all of the land between the Amu Darya and Syria, for himself. Berke's officials in these lands were driven out or killed. With no Great Khan to intercede, Berke felt forced to resort to violence to avenge his fallen kinsmen and retake his lands; in 1262 he went to war with Hülegü, and so did the Mongol Empire in the west split asunder.   We've covered the Berke-Hülegü war in detail in a previous episode, so we don't need to repeat ourselves here. The end result was both Berke and Hülegü dead by 1266, and the frontier between them set along the Kura River, where Hülegü's son and successor Abaqa built a wall to keep out the Jochids- though the jury is out on whether he made them pay for it. The conflict set the border between the newly emerged Ilkhanate and the Jochid state for the next century, and the Jochids would not forget the sting of losing this territory to the Ilkhanids for that time either.    On Berke's death his coffin was carried back to Sarai.  Berke's reign, though much shorter than Batu's, had been a decisive one. For not only did it determine many aspects of the Golden Horde's diplomacy and character, notably antagonism to the Ilkhans, a predatory view to the Chagatayids who in the 1260s retook control of Transoxiana and killed Berke's officials, and a cool, distant view to Khubilai Khaan's legitimacy. He helped begin the alliance with the Mamluk Sultans, which never materialized into any actual military cooperation but uneased the Ilkhans and allowed the Mamluks to continue to purchase Qipchaq slaves from the steppe. This alliance too would survive essentially until the dissolution of the Golden Horde at the start of the fifteenth century.    But it also seeded the kernel for eventual islamization of the Khanate, a slow process which would only be fulfilled some sixty years later under Özbeg Khan. While their father was the true founder of the Jochid ulus in the 1200s, both Batu and Berke could argue for this title. Batu posthumously became the Sain Khan, the Good Khan, while to the Mamluks the Golden Horde rulers ascended to the throne of Berke. With his death, it seems at Sarai a quriltai was held to confirm the enthronement of his grand-nephew, Möngke-Temür, the first true independent ruler of what we can call the Golden Horde, and subject of our new episode, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on patreon a www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals, or giving us a like, comment and review on the podcast catcher of your choice, and share with your friends, it helps immensely. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I'm your host David, and we'll catch you on the next one.   

    The Mongols were famous for their ultimatums of destruction and submission. No shortage of thirteenth century states received demands for their unconditional surrender to the Great Khan granted divine mandate to rule by Eternal Blue Heaven. Initially, the Mongol imperial ideology was extremely black and white: you could submit to Mongol rule, or face total annihilation. There was no room for other relationships, for the Great Khan had no allies, only subjects. But as the thirteenth century went on and the dream of Chinggisid world hegemony slipped away as the divisions of the Mongol Empire went their separate ways, the Mongol Khans in the west began to seek not the capitulation, but the cooperation of western Europe to aid in their wars against Mamluks. For the Ilkhanate's sixty-year struggle against the Mamluk Sultanate, the Il-Khans sought to bring the Popes and Monarchs of Europe to a new crusade to assist in the defeat of the Mamluks, an ultimately fruitless endeavour, and the topic of today's episode. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       The first Mongol messages to the Kings of Europe came in the late 1230s and 40s, accompanying Batu and Sube'edei's western invasion, asking the Hungarians how they possibly could hope to flee the grasp of the Mongols. We know the Mongols sent a number of envoys to European monarchs and dukes, and employed a variety of peoples in this enterprise, including at least one Englishman. Over the 1240s and 50s, European envoys like John de Plano Carpini or William of Rubrucks to the Mongol Empire returned from Karakorum with orders for the Kings and Popes to come to Mongolia and submit in person.While Rus' and Armenian lords and kings did do so, there is little indication that European rulers even responded to these demands. For the Mongols, who seemed poised to dominate everything under the Eternal Blue Sky, there was little reason to adopt more conciliatory language. From their point of view, the Europeans were only stalling the inevitable: soon Mongol hoofbeats would certainly be heard in Paris and Rome. The Mongols treated the European states as their diplomatic inferiors, subjects basically in a state of rebellion by fact that they had not already submitted. Cruel, threatening and demanding letters were the norm, and it's safe to say any future efforts at alliance were greatly hampered by this opening salvo. The rare diplomatic exception was an embassy sent to King Louis IX of France during his stay in Cyprus in 1248 just before the 7th Crusade. There, messengers came from the Mongol commander in the west, Eljigidei, an ally to the reigning Great Khan, Guyuk. Headed by two Christians in Eljigidei's service, the embassy bore letters from Eljigidei. These letters called Louis ‘son,' and had no demand of submission, but mentioned Mongol favouritism to Christians, urged the French King not to discriminate between Latin and non-Latin Christians as all were equal under Mongol law, and wished him well in his crusade. The two Christian representatives of Eljigidei asserted that he was a Christian and that Guyuk himself had already been baptised. The urged Louis to attack Egypt, and prevent its Ayyubid prince from sending forces to aid the Caliph in Baghdad, who the Mongols were soon to attack.     Louis, is should be noted, almost certainly had not been anticipating any cooperation from the Mongols; he had  been well aware of their attacks on Hungary only a few years before, learned of Mongol demands and treatment of foreign powers from travellers like Carpini, and apparently received Mongol ultimatums for his submission in 1247. Further, a devout Christian, it is unlikely he would have gone looking for allies among “pagans,” even for fighting against Muslims. Still, he reacted well to Eljigidei's messengers and sent a return embassy with gifts with them back to Eljigidei which were to be sent on to Guyuk, while the initial letter was forwarded back to France and ultimately to King Henry III of England. Ultimately, it was for naught. Guyuk was dead even before Louis received Eljigidei's letter, and  Eljigidei himself was soon put to death in the following political turmoil. Little is known of the embassy Louis sent back with Eljigdei's representatives, but from the little heard of it through William of Rubruck a few years later, it seems to have achieved nothing beyond meeting Guyuk's widow and the regent, Oghul Qaimish, who portrayed Louis' gifts as tokens of the French King's submission.  Following the meeting on Cypress, Louis IX suffered a humiliating defeat in Egypt at Mansura, captured and was ransomed by the newly emerging Mamluks. By the time he returned to France and received Oghul Qaimish's reply, not only was she dead, but the responding letter was essentially another demand for his surrender. This first non-threatening Mongol embassy succeeded only in making the King of France feel like he had been tricked, especially since the new Great Khan, Mongke, sent a letter back with William of  Rubruck that disavowed Eljigidei's embassy. It has been speculated that Eljigidei was using the embassy to spy on Louis, as he was wary of the sudden arrival of Louis' army in Cyprus, and a desire to find out his military intentions, rather than any genuine interest in cooperation at this point.  His hope may have been to ensure that this new army attacked Mongol enemies, rather than get in the way of the Mongols.       The halting of the Mongol advance at Ayn Jalut by the Mamluks, and fracturing of the Empire into independent Khanates after Great Khan Mongke's death left the new Ilkhanate in a precarious position. Surrounded by enemies on all sides, the only direction they could expand not at the expense of fellow Mongols was against the Mamluks, who fortified their shared border with the Ilkhans. Even a small raid could trigger the arrival of the full Mamluk army, a dangerous prospect against such deadly warriors. Yet the Ilkhans could not bring their full might to bear on the shared border with the Mamluks in Syria, as it would leave their other borders open to attacks from the Golden Horde, Chagatais or Neguderis, in addition to the trouble of provisioning an army in the tough, hot and dry conditions of the Levantine coastline, a route the Mamluks secured and fortified. Opening a new front against the Mamluks was necessary, and there were already convenient beachheads established  in the form of the remaining Crusader States.   A shadow of their former selves, the Crusader states were represented by a few major coastal holdings like Antioch, Tripoli, and Acre, and inland fortifications like Krak de Chevaliers and Montfort, as well as the Kingdom of Cyprus, whose ruler, Hugh III of Cyprus, took the title King of Jerusalem in 1268. The Crusader States had shown neutrality to the Mongols, or even joined them such as the County of Tripoli did in 1260 after the Mongols entered Syria. In early 1260, the papal legate at Acre sent an embassy to Hulegu, most likely to discourage him from attacking the Crusader holdings. Along with information from the Kings of Armenian Cilicia, their most important regional vassals, the Mongols would have had a vague knowledge of western Europe and their crusading history. The Ilkhanate's founder, Hulegu, sent the first letter to the west in 1262, intended once more for King Louis IX, though this embassy was turned back in Sicily. This letter was friendlier terms than most Mongol missives, but still contained threats, if rather subdued. Pope Urban IV may have learned of the attempt, and the next year sent a letter to Hulegu, apparently having been told that the Il-Khan had become a Christian.  Delighted at the idea, the Pope informed Hulegu that if he was baptised, he would receive aid from the west. In reality, Hulegu never converted to Christianity, and died in 1265 without sending any more letters.       His son and successor, Abaqa, was the Il-Khan most dedicated to establishing a Franco-Mongol alliance and came the closest to doing so. Due to conflict on his distant  borders with the Golden Horde and Chagatayids, as well as the troubles of consolidating power as new monarch in a new realm, for the 1260s he was unable to commit forces to the Mamluk frontier. As a good Mongol, Abaqa was unwilling to allow the enemy total respite, and made it his mission to encourage an attack from the west on the Mamluks. His first embassy was sent in 1266, shortly after becoming Il-Khan, contacting the Byzantines, Pope Clement IV and King James I of Aragon, hoping for a united Christian front to combine efforts with the Mongols against the Mamluks, inquiring which route into Palestine the Christian forces would take. The responses were generally positive, Pope Clement replying that as soon as he knew which route, he would inform Abaqa.       Abaqa sent a message again in 1268, inquiring about this progress. James of Aragon found himself the most motivated by the Il-Khans requests, encouraged by the promises of Abaqa's logistical and military support once they reached the mainland. James made his preparations, and launched a fleet in September 1269. An unexpected storm scattered the fleet, and only two of James' bastard children made it to Acre, who stayed only briefly, accomplishing little there.        Not long after, King Louis IX set out for Crusade once more, making the inexplicable choice to land in Tunis in 1270. Despite his well planned efforts, the Crusade was an utter disaster, and Louis died of dysentery outside the walls of Tunis in August 1270. Prince Edward of England with his army landed in Tunis shortly before the evacuation of the crusaders, and disgusted by what he saw, set his fleet for the Holy Land, landing at Acre in May 1271, joined by Hugh of Lusignan, King of Cyprus.  Edward's timing was good, as Abaqa had returned from a great victory over the Chagatai Khan Baraq at Herat in July 1270, though had suffered a major hunting accident that November.       The Mamluk Sultan Baybars was campaigning in Syria in spring 1271, the famous Krak des Chevaliers falling to him that April. Tripoli would have fallen next, had Baybars not retreated back to Damascus hearing of the sudden arrival of a Crusader fleet, and was wary of being caught between European heavy cavalry and Mongol horse archers. Soon after landing Edward made his preparations for an offensive, and reached out to Abaqa. Abaqa was delighted, and sent a reply and orders for Samaghar, the Mongol commander in Anatolia, to head to Syria. Edward did not wait for Abaqa's reply, and there is no indication he ever responded to Abaqa's letter. He set out in mid-July, ensuring his army suffered the most from the summer heat, while missing the Mongols who preferred to campaign in the winter. Suffering high casualties and accomplishing little, he withdrew back to Acre. In mid-October Samaghar arrived with his army, raiding as far as to the west of Aleppo while an elite force of Mongols scouted ahead, routing a large group of Turkmen between Antioch and Harim, but was soon forced to retreat with the advance of the Mamluk army under Baybars.       Missing Samagahr by only a few weeks, in November Edward marched south from Acre at the head of a column of men from England, Acre, Cyprus, with Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights. They ambushed some Turkmen on the Sharon plain, forced the local Mamluk governor to withdraw, but with the arrival of large Mamluk reinforcements the Crusaders fled, losing their prisoners and booty.  That was the closest the Mongols and the Franks came to proper coordination. Edward helped oversee a peace treaty between the Mamluks and the Kingdom of Jersualem, but the heat, difficulties campaigning, political infighting and an assassination attempt on his life permanently turned him off of crusading. By September 1272, Edward set sail for England. A  few weeks after his departure the Mongols again invaded, besieging al-Bira but were defeated by the Mamluks in December.        Edward's brief effort in Syria demonstrated the difficulties prefacing any Mongol-Frankish cooperation. The Mamluks were a cohesive, unified force, well accustomed to the environment and working from a well supplied logistic system and intelligence network, while the Franks and Mongols were unable to ever develop a proper timetable for operations together. The European arrivals generally had unrealistic goals for their campaigns, bringing neither the men, resources or experience to make an impact.       Abaqa continued  to organize further efforts, and found many willing ears at the Second Council of Lyons in France in 1274, a meeting of the great powers of Christendom intended to settle doctrinal issues, the division of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and plan the reconquest of the Holy land. Abaqa's delegation informed the Council that the Il-Khan had secured his borders, that peace had been achieved between all the Mongols Khanates, and he could now bring his full might against the Mamluks, and urged the Christian powers to do likewise. The current Pope, Gregory X, fully supported this and made efforts to set things in motion, but his death in 1276 killed whatever momentum this process had had. Abaqa sent another round of envoys, who reached the King of France and the new King of England, Edward. The envoys brought the Il-khan's apologies for failing to cooperate properly during Edward's crusade, and asked him to return. Edward politely declined. This was the final set of envoys Abaqa sent west. Perhaps frustrated, he finally organized a proper invasion of Syria, only an army under his brother Mongke-Temur to be defeated by the Mamluks at Homs, and Abaqa himself dying soon after in 1282. His successors were to find no more luck that he had.        The most interesting envoy to bring the tidings of the Il-Khan to Europe did not originate in the Ilkhanate, but in China: Rabban Bar Sawma, born in 1220 in what is now modern day Beijing, was a Turkic Nestorian priest who had set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before being conscripted to act as a messenger for the Il-Khan, in a journey which is a fascinating contrast to that of his contemporary Marco Polo. Even given him his own dedicated episode in this podcast series, but we'll give here a brief recount of his journey. Writing his accounts down upon his return to Baghdad later in life, he described how he brought messages and gifts to the Byzantine Emperor Andronicos II Palaiologus, marvelled at the Hagia Sophia, then landed in Sicily and made his way to Rome, having just missed the death of Pope Honorius IV. Travelling on to France, he was warmly welcomed by King Phillip IV, and then on to Gascony where he met the campaigning King Edward of England, who again responded kindly to the Il-khan's envoy.  On his return journey, he met the new Pope Nicholas IV in 1288 before returning to the Ilkhanate.    Despite the generous receptions Rabban Sauma was given by the heads of Europe, and despite the Il-khan's promises to return Jerusalem to Christian hands, the reality was there was no ruler in the west interested, or capable of, going on Crusade. By now, the act of Crusading in the Holy land had lost its lustre, the final crusades almost all disasters, and costly ones at that. With the final Crusader strongholds falling to the Mamluks in the early 1290s, there was no longer even a proper beachhead on the coast for a Crusading army. The sheer distance and cost of going on Crusade, especially with numerous ongoing issues in their own Kingdoms at hand, outweighed whatever perceived benefit there might have been in doing so. Further, while Rabban Sauma personally could be well received, the Mongols themselves remained uncertain allies. From 1285 through to 1288, Golden Horde attacks on eastern Europe had recommenced in force. Even the new Khan of the Golden Horde, Tele-Buqa, had led an army into Poland. For the Europeans, the distinctions between the Mongol Khanates were hard to register; how could messages of peace from some Mongols be matched with the open war other Mongols were undertaking? All evidence seems to suggest that the western Franks did not understand that the Golden Horde and Ilkhanate were separate political entities. Recall earlier the conflicting letters Louis IX had received in the 1240s, where one Mongol general offered friendship, only to be tricked in seemingly submitting to the Mongols and then receive letters in the 1250s telling him to discount the previous envoys. Together these encouraged unease over perceiving the Mongols as allies, and served to further dampen interest to pursue these alliances.       In contrast, the Mamluks had somewhat greater success in their own overseas diplomacy: in the 1260s Baybars initiated contact with the Golden Horde, ruled by the Muslim Berke Khan, encouraging him to keep up his warfare with his Ilkhanid cousins. Sultan Baybars also kept good relations with the Byzantine Empire and the Genoese, allowing him to keep the flow of Turkic slave soldiers from the steppes of the Golden Horde open, the keystone of the Mamluk military. There is also evidence they undertook some limited diplomacy with Qaidu Khan during the height of his rule over Central Asia and the Chagatayids. While the Mamluks and Golden Horde never undertook any true military cooperation, the continuation of their talks kept the Ilkhanate wary of enemies on all borders, never truly able to bring the entirety of its considerable might against one foe least another strike the Il-Khan's exposed frontiers. But, did the Golden Horde, in the 1260s, perceive this as an alliance? We only have Mamluk accounts of the relationship, but scholarship often supposes that the Golden Horde Khans perceived this as the submission of the Mamluks, and any cooperation was the cooperation between overlord and subject. As many of the Mamluk ruling class were Qipchaqs, so the Mongols had come to see as their natural slaves, it may well be that Berke saw the submission of the Mamluks as a natural part of their relationship, especially since he already ruled the Qipchaq homeland. This alliance, alongside never resulting in direct cooperation, was also never always amicable. When the Jochid Khans grew annoyed with the Mamluks, they would halt the trade of Qipchaq slaves and threaten to deprive the Mamluks of their greatest source of warriors. During the long reign of Mamluk Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, a daughter of the Golden Horde Khan Ozbeg was wed to him, in an effort to cement the relationship after a rocky start to the 1300s. Al-Nasir soon accused her of not actually being a Chinggisid, insulting her and infuriating Ozbeg. Yet the relationship survived until the invasions of Emir Temur at the close of the fourteenth century, when the Mamluks and Golden Horde once again took part in a doomed west-Asian effort to ally against Temur.       Ilkhanid-European contacts continued into the 14th century, but with somewhat less regularity after Rabban bar Sawma's journey. An archbishopric was even founded in the new Ilkhanid capital of Sultaniyya in 1318, and Papal envoys would travel through the Ilkhanate to the Yuan Dynasty in China until the 1330s. A few envoys came from the Il-Khans still hoping to achieve military cooperation; Ghazan Il-Khan continued to send them before his invasions, including the only one that actually defeated the Mamluk army and led to a brief Mongol advance down the coast, occupying Damascus. News of Ghazan's successes did spread rapidly, for the Spanish Franciscan Ramon Llull learned of it and promptly sailed all the way across the Mediterranean, hoping to be among the first missionaries to land in the newly reclaimed Holy Land. But upon arriving in Cypress, Llull learned of Ghazan's equally quick withdrawal. The combined news of a Mongol victory followed by sudden Mongol withdrawal must have only affirmed the opinion of many of the futility of taking part in any more crusades with the Mongols.  Military operations against the Mamluks mostly ceased after Ghazan's death, until a formal peace was achieved between them and the Ilkhanate at the start of the 1320s. Naturally, no further messages for alliances with the powers of Europe were forth coming, and consequently putting an almost total end to European interest and contacts with the Middle East for the next five centuries. European-Mongol relations would continue for some time longer in the territory of the Golden Horde, where the attention of our podcast moves next, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast for more. If you enjoyed this and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, then consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I'm your host David, and we'll catch you on the next one.   

One of the most enduring images of the Mongolian Empire is that it was a model of religious tolerance, one where each of the Khan's subjects were free to worship as they pleased. This is not a new belief;  in the 18th century, Edward Gibbon presented Chinggis Khan as a forerunner of the enlightenment, and for modern audiences the notion was repopularized with Jack Weatherford's book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Some use the notion to counter the common presentations of Mongol brutality, usually accompanying blanket terms that all religious clergy were exempted from taxation, labour and were respected- or go as far as to present the Mongols as the inspiration for modern liberal religious toleration. While there is an element of truth to be had here, as with so much relating to the Mongols, describing the Chinggisid empire as a state of religious tolerance where all religions east and west lived in harmony fails to capture the reality of the period.       Even before the founding of the empire, Chinggis Khan interacted with a variety of religions. During his war to unify Mongolia, Chinggis Khan was supported by men of various religious backgrounds: Mongolian shamanist-animists, Nestorian Christians, Buddhists and Muslims, one of whom, Jafar Khoja, was supposedly a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, and stood with him at the muddy waters of Lake Baljuna during one of his lowest moments. The most prominent tribes in the Mongolian steppe in the 12th century were Nestorian Christians such as the Kereyid and Naiman, and on the declaration of the Mongol Empire in 1206 Chinggis Khan's army and administration were quite mixed. Chinggis Khan himself was an animist: in Mongolian belief, all things in the world were inhabited by spirits which had to be consulted and placated. It was the job of shamans to intercede with these spirits on the Mongols' behalf. Generally, shamanism is not an exclusive religion; one can consult a shaman and still practice other faiths. The shaman was not like a Christian priest or Islamic imam, but a professional one could consult with regardless of other religious affiliation. The persuasion and power of religion in the Mongol steppe  came from the charisma of specific holy men -such as shamans- and their power to convene with spirits and Heaven on the Khan's behalf in order to secure his victory.        This seems to have been the guiding principle for how Chinggis Khan, and most of his successors, approached religion. Some Mongols viewed the major religions they encountered -Daoism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam- as all praying to the same God via different methods. This was more or less the statement that in the 1250s, Chinggis' grandson Mongke Khaan provided to the Franciscan friar William of Rubruck during an interview, stating that “We Mongols believe that there is only one God through whom we have life and through whom we die, and towards him we direct our hearts [...] But just as God has given the hand several fingers, so he has given mankind several paths.”       Usually for the Khans, it did not matter who was right, as basically all of the major religions were. What mattered was that these religions should pray to God on behalf of the Chinggisids to ensure divine favour for their rule. Heaven's will was manifested through victories and rulership, while it's displeasure manifested in defeats and anarchy. Much like the concept of the Chinese Mandate of Heaven, the right to rule provided by heaven could be rescinded, and thus the Mongols hoped to continually appease Heaven.       But the Mongols' views on religion were not static and took years to develop into their political theology- and nor were they inherently tolerant, and favours were allotted more on a personal basis. For example, in 1214 Chinggis Khan, or one of his sons, had an encounter with a Buddhist monk named Haiyun. Haiyun, with his head shaved bare in accordance with his role as a monk, was told by the Khan to grow his hair out and braid it in Mongolian fashion- for at that time, the Mongols were attempting to order the general population of north China to do so as a sign of their political subordination.  Religions in China dictated how one should maintain their hair; Buddhist monks had to shave their heads, Daoist monks could keep their hair long, while the general Chinese population, on Confucian teaching, could not cut their hair in adulthood, as it was a gift from the parents, and thus was kept in topknots. Demanding that the general population adopt the unique, partly shaved Mongolian hairstyle, was therefore a decree against all of China's major religions. The Mongols did not succeed in this policy and soon abandoned it's implementation on its sedentary subjects, though other sources indicate it was enforced on nomadic Turkic tribes who entered Mongol service, indicating their submission to the Great Khan. Notably the Manchu would successfully implement such a policy after their conquest of China 400 years later, forcing the population to adopt the long queues at the back of the head. When the Chinese revolted against Manchu rule, the cutting of the queue was one of the clearest signs of rejecting the Qing Dynasty.   Back to the Buddhist monk Haiyun, who Chinggis had ordered to grow out his hair in Mongol fashion. Haiyun told Chinggis that he could not adopt the Mongol hairstyle, as growing his hair out violated his duty as a monk. Learning this, Chinggis Khan allowed Haiyun to maintain his baldness, then in time extended this allowance to all Buddhist and Daoist clergy.  Even with this first privilege, Haiyun and his master did not receive coveted tax exempt status until 1219, and then on the recommendation of Chinggis' viceroy in North China, Mukhali. This is the earliest indication of Chinggis Khan granting of such a favour, followed soon by the extensive privileges granted to the Daoist master Qiu Chuji. The Daoist had made the journey from North China to meet Chinggis Khan in Afghanistan on the Khan's urging, ordered to bring Chinggis the secret to eternal life, as the Mongols had been told Qiu Chuji was 300 years old. Master Qiu Chuji told Chinggis that not only did he not have such power, but Chinggis should also abstain from hunting and sexual activity. Not surprisingly, Chinggis Khan did not take this advice, but he did grant the man extensive privileges, tax exempt status and authority over all Daoists in China. Importantly, Chinggis' edict was directed personally at Qiu Chuji and his disciples, rather than Daoism as a whole. The value Qiu Chuji had to Chinggis was on his individual religious charisma and ability to intercede with the heavens on the Khan's behalf, as well as his many followers who could be induced to accept Mongol rule. In Chinggis' view, the fact that Qiu Chuji was a Daoist leader did not entitle him to privileges. Neither did the Mongols initially differentiate between Buddhism and Daoism. In part due to the vaguely worded nature of Chinggis' edicts, Qiu Chuji's Daoist followers used these decrees to exert authority over Buddhists as well, seizing Buddhist temples and forcing Buddhist monks to become Daoists, beginning a Buddhist-Daoist conflict that lasted the rest of the 13th century.       The point of these anecdotes is to demonstrate that the conquests did not begin with a specific policy of general religious tolerance or support for local religious institutions. Governmental support and privilege was provided on an ad hoc basis, especially when a group or individual was seen as influential with the almighty. Toleration itself was also advertised as a tool; in the Qara-Khitai Empire, in what is now eastern Kazakhstan and northwestern China, an enemy of Chinggis Khan, prince Kuchlug of the Naiman tribe, had fled to Qara-Khitai and eventually usurped power. Originally an Eastern Christian, that is a Nestorian, in Qara-Khitai Kuchlug converted to a violent strang of Buddhism and began to force the Muslim clerics, particularly in the Tarim Basin, to convert to Chrisitanity or Buddhism on pain of death. When Chinggis Khan's forces under Jebe Noyan arrived in 1217 pursuing the prince, they recognized the general resentment against Kuchlug and, in order to undermine his support, declared that anyone who submitted to the Mongols would be free to practice their religion. The announcement worked well, as the empire was quickly and successfully turned over to the Mongols, and the renegade prince Kuchlug cornered and killed. Notably, this announcement did not come with statements of privileges or tax exemptions at large for the Islamic religious leaders. It was a decree spread to deliberately encourage the dissolution of the Qara-Khitai and ease the Mongol conquest- in this region, it was a comparatively peaceful conquest, by Mongol standards. But it was not coming from any specific high-mindedness for the treatment of religion, but an intention to expand into this territory and defeat the fleeing Kuchlug.       By the reign of Chinggis' son Ogedai in the early 1230s, the Mongol stance towards religions became more solidified. A major advancement, on the insistence of advisers like the Buddhist Khitan scholar Yelu Chucai, was that privileges were to be granted on religious communities and institutions rather than based on individual charisma, which made them easier to regulate and manage. Chucai also impressed upon the Mongols that Buddhism and Daoism were distinct beliefs, though the Mongols seem to have often continually erroneously thought both creeds worshipped a supreme deity a la Christianity and Islam. Buddhist and Daoism became, alongside Christianity and Islam, the four main “foreign religions” which the Mongols would issue edicts regarding privileges. It was not an evenly applied thing. With Islam, for instance, it can be said the Mongols often had the greatest difficulties. For one thing, the rapid annihilation of the Khwarezmian empire, the world's single most powerful islamic state at the time, resulted in the deaths of perhaps millions of Muslims as well as the belief that the Mongols were a punishment sent by God- a belief the Mongols encouraged. The reduction of Islam from “the state religion” to “just another religion of the Khan's subjects,” was a difficult one for many an imam and qadi to accept. For a universalist religion like Islam, subjugation to a pagan entity was a difficult pill to swallow, and the destruction of cities, mosques, agriculture and vast swathes of the population would not have been eased by statements of how tolerant the Mongols supposedly were.        Further, it is apparent that the Mongols' rule for the first decade or two of their interaction with the Islamic world was not tolerant. Part of this comes to an inherent conflict between the sharia law of Islam, and the yassa of Chinggis Khan. The yassa and yosun of Chinggis Khan were his laws and customs set out to provide a framework for Mongol life, which regulated interactions for the state, individuals, the environment, the spirits and the heavenly. As a part of this, it was decreed that animals had to be slaughtered in the Mongolian fashion; the animal usually knocked unconscious, turned onto its back, an incision made in the chest and its heart crushed. The intention was to prevent the spilling of the animals' blood needlessly upon the earth, which could beget misfortune. Contravening this was forbidden and punishable by death. The problem was that this is inherently conflicting with halal and kosher slaughter, which entailed slitting the throat and draining the blood. At various times over the thirteenth century, this was used as an excuse to punish and lead reprisals against Muslims. A number of Persian language sources assert that Ogedai Khaan's brother Chagatai was a harsh enforcer of the yassa on the empire's Muslim population. In the 1250s ‘Ala al-Din Juvaini asserted that Muslims in Central Asia were unable to make any halal killings due to Chagatai, and were forced to eat carrion from the side of the road. The Khwarezmian refugee Juzjani meanwhile said Chagatai planned a genocide of the Muslims. While these sources like to depict Chagatai as a foil to Ogedai's more ‘friendly to islam' image, it remains clear that for many Muslims, it was felt that the Mongol government had a particular hatred for them. But Chagatai was not the only one to enforce this. Ogedai himself briefly sought to enforce this rule, and the famous Khubilai Khan grew increasingly unfriendly to religion in his old age, and in the 1280s launched anti-muslim policies, banning halal slaughter and circumcision on pain of death. The incident which apparently set him off was a refusal of Muslim merchants in Khubilai's court to eat meat prepared in the Mongolian manner, though it may also have been an attempt to appease some of the Chinese elite by appearing to reduce Islamic and Central Asian influence in his government, particularly after the assassination of Khubilai's corrupt finance minister Ahmad Fanakati.        Even Daoism, favoured early by the Mongols thanks to the meeting of Qiu Chuji and Chinggis Khan, suffered stiff reprisals from the Mongol government. As the conflict between the Daoists and Buddhists escalated, in the 1250s on the behest of his brother Mongke Khaan, prince Khubilai headed a debate between representatives of the two orders. Khubilai, inclined to Buddhism on the influence of his wife and personal conversion, chose the Buddhists as the winners. Declaring a number of Daoist texts forgeries, Khubilai ordered many to be destroyed and banned from circulation, while also reducing their privileges. This failed to abate the tensions, and in the 1280s an older, less patient Khubilai responded with the destruction of all but one Daoist text, Lau Zi's Daodejing, and with murder, mutilation and exile for the offending Daoists.       Privileges only extended to religions the Mongols saw as useful, or offered evidence that they had support from heaven. Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Manicheism and Hinduism were usually totally ignored by the Mongols and did not receive the same privileges as the Christian, Buddhist, Daoist and Islamic clergy. Judaism may have received tax exemption status in the Ilkhanate for a brief period in the 1280s  and 90s due to the influence of a Jewish vizier, Sa'd al-Dawla, while in the Yuan Dynasty it took until 1330 for Judaism to earn such a status. As these religions lacked states which interacted with the Mongols, the Mongols saw these religions as having no power from heaven, and were therefore useless to them. Without any political clout, and of small representation within the Empire, these groups largely escaped the notice of the Khans.       The Mongols were also not above ordering the annihilation of a religion or religious groups when they defied them. The most well known case was a Shi'ite sect, the Nizari Ismailis, better known as the Assassins. Due to their resistance against the Mongol advance, the sect was singled out for destruction not just politically, but religiously, as Mongke Khaan had become convinced of this necessity by his more orthodox Islamic advisers. This task fell to his brother Hulegu, who enacted his brother's will thoroughly. Soon after the destruction of the Ismaili fortresses, which was lauded by Hulegu's Sunni Muslim biographer ‘Ala al-Din Juvaini,  Hulegu famously sacked Baghdad and killed the Caliph in 1258. Juvaini's chronicle, perhaps coincidentally, cuts off just before the siege of Baghdad. This attack on Baghdad was not religiously motivated; the Caliph had refused to accept Mongol authority. As a seemingly powerful head of a religion, his independence could not be abided. It was not a specifically anti-Islamic sentiment here, but a political one. Had the Mongols marched on Rome and the Pope also refused their mandate, such a fate would have awaited him as well. The presence of Christians in Hulegu's army, many from the Kingdom of Georgia and Cilician Armenia who partook with great enthusiasm in the slaughter of Muslims on Hulegu's request at Baghdad and in his campaign into Syria, as well as the fact that Hulegu's mother and chief wife were Chrisitans, would not have been lost on many Muslims, as well as the fact that Hulegu himself was a Buddhist.  Hulegu after the conquest of Baghdad ordered its rebuilding, but placed a Shi'ite Muslim in charge of this task and sponsored the restoration of Christian churches and monasteries, and other minority religions in his majority sunni-islam territories.     When the Mongols did convert to the local religions, they were not above carrying out with zeal assaults on other religious communities in their empire. Such was the case for Khans like Ozbeg in the Golden Horde or Ghazan in the Ilkhanate, who converted to Islam and struck against Christian, Buddhist and shamanic elements in their realms. These were as a rule very brief rounds of zealousness, as the economic usage of these groups and the uneven conversion of their followers to Islam made it politically and economically more useful to abandon these measures.        This is not to say of course, that there is no basis for the idea of Mongol religious tolerance, especially when compared to some contemporary states: just that when the favours, privileges and state support were granted, they were usually done to the four main religious groups the Mongols designated: again, Muslims, Christians, Daoists and Buddhists. So entrenched did these groups become as the “favoured religions” that in the Yuan Dynasty by the 14th century it was believed these four groups had been singled out by Chinggis Khan for their favours. This is despite the fact that Chinggis Khan had no recorded interactions with any Christian holymen.   But not idly should we dismiss the notion of there being a certain level of religious toleration among the Mongols. Not without reason was Ogedai Khaan portrayed as friendly in many Islamic sources, and he regularly gave the most powerful positions in the administration of North China to Muslims.  European travellers among the Mongols, such as John De Plano Carpini, Marco Polo and Simon of St. Quentin, along with Persian bureaucrats like ‘Ala al-Din Juvaini and the Syriac Churchman Bar Hebraeus, generally reported Mongol indifference to what religions were practiced by their subjects, as long as said subjects accepted Mongol command. Sorqaqtani Beki, the mother of Mongke and Khubilai, was a Nestorian Christian famous for patronizing and supporting mosques and madrassas. Mongke Khaan held feasts to mark the end of Ramadan where he would distribute alms and at least one such feast held in Qaraqorum, listened to a qadi deliver a sermon. He show respect to his Muslim cousin Berke, and for him had halal meat at one imperial banquet. If the yassa of Chinggis Khan was upheld thoroughly, then the Khans and all princes present would have been executed. In the four level racial hierarchy Khubilai Khan instituted in China, Muslims and Central Asians were second only to Mongols and nomads, and ranked above all Chinese peoples.    Religious men visiting the Khans usually left with the belief that the Khan was about to convert to their religion, so favourably had they been received. Khubilai Khan asked Marco Polo's father and uncle to bring him back  100 Catholic priests and holy oil from Jerusalem, and likely sent the Nestorian Rabban bar Sauma to Jerusalem for similar purposes. Marco Polo then goes on to present Khubilai as a good Christian monarch in all but name. Qaraqorum, the Mongol imperial capital, held Daoist and Buddhist temples across the street from Mosques and Churches. In Khubilai's capital of Dadu and the Ilkhanid capital of Sultaniyya were Catholic archbishoprics by the early 14th century. So there certainly was a level of toleration within the Mongol Empire that contemporaries, with wonder or frustration, could remark truthfully that it was quite different from their own homelands.    Such religious syncretism survived well into the century, when claimants to the fragmenting successor Khanates in western Asia, in order to define their legitimacy amongst the largely converted Mongol armies and stand out amongst the many Chinggisids, latched onto Islamic identities. Eager to prove their sincerity, they pushed back violently against even traditional Mongol shamanism. Despite it's early difficulties, in the end Islam largely won amongst the Mongols of the western half of the empire and their descendants, overcoming the brief revitalization Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism had enjoyed thanks to Mongol patronage. Such was the final outcome of the Mongols' religious toleration     Our series on the Mongols will continue, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this, and would like to help us keep bringing you great content, please consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals, or sharing this with your friends. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I'm your host David, and we'll catch you on the next one.

    The Mongols were known for unleashing a series of unrelenting horrors upon the Islamic world, from the catastrophic destruction of the Khwarezmian Empire under Chinggis Khan, to the sack of Baghdad under his grandson Hulegu, where the Caliph himself was killed on Mongol order. No shortage of Islamic authors over the thirteenth century remarked upon the Mongols as a deathblow to Islam, a punishment sent by God for their sins. Yet, many of the Mongols of the west end of the empire even before the end of the thirteenth century converted to Islam, and in time some of the heirs of Chinggis Khan held the sharia over the yassa. In today's episode, we explore why so many Mongols chose to convert to Islam. I'm your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       The Mongolian interaction with Islam began in the twelfth century, as Muslim merchants came to Mongolia with expensive goods such as textiles or metal weapons and tools to exchange for furs and animals to sell in China or Central Asia. Some of these merchants took up valued roles among the up and coming Mongol chiefs; at least two Muslims, Hasan the Sartaq and Ja'far Khoja, were among the warlord Temujin's close allies during his fabled escape to lake Baljuna, where they swore long lasting loyalty to him. Hasan's arrival brought much need flocks of sheep to help feed Temujin's starving men, while Ja'far Khoja was supposedly a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. Ja'far served Temujin in valued roles for the rest of his life, acting as an embassy to the Jin Emperor and as daruqachi, or overseer, over the Jin capital of Zhongdu and its environs once the Mongols took it in 1215. When Temujin took the title of Chinggis Khan and began to expand the Mongol Empire, initially Muslims found little reason to lament the expansion of the Great Khan. Muslim merchants continued to serve in prominent roles, acting as emissaries and spies on behalf of Chinggis Khan, who rewarded them handsomely: gladly did Chinggis give them gifts and overpay for their wares in order to encourage them to make the difficult journey to Mongolia, as well as bring him useful information of Central Asia. One such Central Asian, Mahmud, served as Chinggis' loyal envoy to the Khwarezm-Shah Muhammad. His actions earned him the title of Yalavach, becoming Mahmud the Messenger.   In the Tarim Basin in 1218, the local Muslim population had suffered oppression under the Naiman prince Kuchlug, who had usurped power in the Qara-Khitai Empire. When Chinggis Khan's great general Jebe Noyan entered the region pursuing Kuchlug, he proclaimed that all those who willingly submitted would be free to worship as they chose. The region largely seems to have swiftly thrown out Kuchlug's garrisons and officers and happily accepted Mongol rule, not as conquerors but liberators.       This, of course, was not the case for the next stage of Mongol expansion. The highly destructive campaign against the Kwarezmian Empire launched in 1219 resulted in the deaths of perhaps millions of people from what is now Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan through eastern Iran and Afghanistan, a predominatly Muslim region. There are no shortage of accounts of horrendous atrocities suffered throughout the former domains of the Khwarezm-shahs. Though most of what is now modern Iran submitted peacefully to the Mongol commander Chormaqun over the 1230s, with the arrival of Hulegu in the 1250s a new wave of massacres were unleashed, culminating in the infamous sack of Baghdad in 1258 and death of the ‘Abbasid Caliph, an immense blow the psyche of the ummah. At the end of the 1250s it seemed reasonable to anticipate that soon the whole of the remaining Muslim world would become the subject of the Grand Khan.       The initial period after the Mongol conquest was, for many Muslims, not easier. Statements by modern writers of Mongol religious toleration have been greatly over-exaggerated. While it is true that the Mongols in the early years of the Empire generally did not persecute on the basis of religion, the Mongols did persecute on the basis on specific beliefs that they felt ran contrary to steppe custom or the laws of Chinggis Khan, the great yassa. For example, for slaughtering animals the Mongols forbid the spilling of blood. This differed greatly from Muslim and Jewish halal and kosher slaughter, that mandated the draining of it. This in particular became a frequent source of conflict over the thirteenth century, with the Mongols feeling the spilling of blood on the earth would bring misfortune. We are told from the Persian writer Juvaini, a member of Hulegu's entourage in the 1250s, that Chinggis Khan' second son Chagatai so thoroughly enforced this prohibition that “for a time no man slaughtered sheep openly in Khorasan, and Muslims were forced to eat carrion.” Essentially, the Mongol viewpoint was that as long as a given religion adherents remained loyal and did not perform the tenets the Mongols forbid, then the worshippers could practice freely. But such freedoms could be revoked: Khubilai Khan in the 1280s, upon feeling insulted when a group of Muslims at his court refused to eat meat he offered them, banned halal slaughter and circumcision, on pain of property loss and death, for almost the entire decade. A Khwarezmian refugee to the Delhi Sultanate writing around 1260, Juzjani, wrote of his sincere belief that Chagatai and other members of the Mongol leadership intended a genocide of the Muslims.   Why then, did Islam succeed in converting the Mongols of western Asia, after such a low-point? It was a matter of proximity. The majority of the population in the major centres in the Golden Horde, Ilkhanate and Chagatai Khanate were Muslims, ensuring that not only could sufis and others proselytize to the Mongol leadership, but also their military. Efforts by Buddhists or various Christian representatives, be they Catholic, Syriac or Nestorian, lacked comparable resources or presence, and their efforts were generally restricted to attempting to convert the highest ranking Mongols. While this brought them some influence, in contrast to the image in most historical narrative sources monarchs tended to convert once enough of their followers had done so for it to be a sound decision for their legitimacy. More Mongols simply had closer proximity to Muslims populations than they ever did Christian or Buddhist, leading to a more thorough conversion than any Franciscan friar could ever accomplish. Similar proximity prompted the slow sinicization of the Mongols in Yuan China.       While the Mongols disliked certain tenets of Islam, they still found use of it. Islamic craftsmen, administrators and healers were quickly spread across the Mongol Empire, accompanying every Khan and Noyan everywhere from campaigns to their personal camps. In short order they commanded armies, often of their own locally raised forces, to fight for the khans. The various Islamic peoples of Central Asia, be they Turkic or Iranic, could provide a plethora of skills and manpower the Mongols found useful or themselves lacked. Various Mongol armies, particularly the tamma garrison forces, were stationed in close proximity to Islamic centres for extended periods of time. Mongol princes from the highest ranks of the empire, including Chinggis Khan and his own sons, took Muslim wives and concubines. For the lower ranking soldiers forced to leave their families behind in Mongolia, they took Muslim wives and began new Muslim families which replaced their own.        By the reign of Chinggis Khan's son and successor Ogedai, Muslims made up many of the highest ranking members of the bureaucracy and administration from eastern Iran to Northern China. Some of these men, such as Mahmud Yalavach, his son Mas'ud Beg, and ‘Abd al-Rahman, served as heads of the Branch Secretariats the Mongols established to govern Asia. These men were answerable only to the Great Khan, and held immensely powerful positions.       The proximity of high ranking Muslims throughout the Mongol government and army in significant numbers made them an influential force. The presence of well educated Islamic jurists in the courts of the Khans is very well attested, and a merchant who showed great fiscal ability could find himself richly rewarded in lucrative ortogh arrangements with Mongol princes, where a  Mongol prince would provide silver and other currencies, taken via conquest, tribute and taxation, to a merchant as a loan, who would then use it for trade, make money and pay back the prince. Sometimes a well connected merchant could even be rewarded with prominent government position once they won the favour of a prince or khan. The Mongol search for whatever skills they saw as useful particularly rewarded Muslims with aptitude in alchemy and astrology. The Khans of the Ilkhanate spent considerable sums of money on the alchemists who claimed to be able to produce gold or prolong life, much to the chagrin of the Ilkhanid vizier and historian Rashid al-Din. Astrologists who could help determine the future or courses of action also received great reward, for the Mongols put great stock in this, as it was a position similar to the occupation of their own shamans.       With the mention of the shamans, we should give a brief account of the Mongols pre-Islamic religion, and in what ways it helped pave the way for their conversions. Though often dubbed “shamanism,” this is a poor description. Shamans occupied only a part of the Mongol folk religion, which was a series of practices relating to the appeasement and interpretation of spirits which inhabited every part of the natural world. It was the fear of offending these spirits which was behind the Mongols' own methods of slaughter, refusing to spill blood on the earth, place dirty things into running water or urinate or place knives into fire and ashes. It was the job of shamans to communicate, appease or harness these spirits, and ensure no misfortune befell the family or, after 1206, the Empire. The duties of shamans strictly fell to influencing events within the current life, rather than with a next level of existence. Thus, for the Mongols it was useful to accumulate other holymen who could interact with the supernatural on their behalf beyond what their own shamans did. It also demonstrates why, once they did convert, the Mongols saw it fit to continue to commune with shamans, and makes it so difficult for many to accept the conversion of the Mongols as sincere.       In fact, as historians like Devin DeWeese or Peter Jackson have thoroughly argued, we are in no place to gauge the authenticity of any Mongol's conversion. Our vantage point centuries later, and nature of our sources, leaves us unable to actually determine the conviction of each convert, and makes it inappropriate to reduce the story of a given khan's conversion to simply a matter of political convenience. The Mongols actively selected aspects of sedentary societies which benefitted themselves, and therefore could choose to profess Islam while continuing observe shamanic practices and standard cultural actions, all the while seeing no juxtaposition between this.        The earliest conversions of the Mongols or their servants began in the 1230s and 40s. One of the earliest, most prominent figures to convert was not even a Mongol, but a Uyghur named Korguz, Ogedai's appointment to the new Branch Secretariat of Western Asia, covering Iran and the Caucasus, towards the end of his life. Korguz was one of the most powerful civilian officials in the empire, and his conversion to Islam from Buddhism at the start of the 1240s marked the highest profile convert yet in the Mongol government, though he was killed in 1244 on the order of Ogedai's widow, the regent Torogene. Batu, shortly before the climactic battle against the Hungarians at Mohi in 1241, certainly had a number of Muslims in his army. According to Juvaini, while preparing for the confrontation Batu ascended a hill to pray to Eternal Blue Heaven, and asked the Muslims in his army to pray for victory as well. It is unclear if they were Muslim troops raised from Central Asia and the steppe, or Mongol converts to Islam in his army.        The exact mechanics of conversion are unknown. Though the historical sources like to portray the people following a prominent prince or khan's conversion, it seems generally that it was the other way around, where the lower ranks converted in enough numbers to make it useful or safe for a prince to convert. For example, one of the primary army units in Mongol expansion and consolidation were the tamma,  a sort of garrison force permanently stationed in a region, made up of a mixed body of nomadic and sedentary troops. The Mongols in these troops were usually forbidden to have their wives and families accompany them. Separated from their homeland, families or local shamans, and taking new, local wives who were generally Muslims, these Mongols were largely removed from the infrastructure that would have encouraged the maintenance of their traditional religion and made them more susceptible to conversion. If not themselves, then their children. Perhaps the best example comes from the tamma commander Baiju, stationed in the Caucasus and Anatolia from the early 1240s until the start of the 1260s. Over the twenty or so years of his career, he appears in a variety of historical accounts, which demonstrate not only the presence of a great number of Muslims in his camp, as advisers, administrators and sufis, but also demonstrate the gradual conversion of his men. By the end of his life, according to sources like the Mamluk encyclopedist al-Nuwayri, Baiju himself became a Muslim and asked to be washed and buried in the Muslim fashion on his death.     Perhaps the most famous convert though, was Berke. A son of Jochi and grandson of Chinggis Khan, Berke is most well known for his war against his cousin Hulegu over the Caucasus. Conflicting accounts are given for his conversion, with some having him raised a Muslim, while others suggest a conversion in the 1240s, drawn to Islam through the efforts of the sufi Shaykh Sayf al-Din Bakharzi. Certainly by the 1250s Berke was a Muslim, and quite a sincere one: the Franciscan Friar William of Rubruck remarks during his trips through the Jochid territories in 1253 that Berke was a Muslim, and forbid the consumption of pork in his camp. Juvaini reported that meat at Mongke Khaan's enthronement feast in 1251 was slaughtered in halal fashion out of deference to Berke, and Juzjani in distant Delhi had learned of Berke's Islam by 1260. Mamluk accounts present him having a Muslim vizier and showing great respect for qadis and other Muslim holymen. Yet, the Mamluk embassy also remarked that Berke still continued to dress and wear his hair in the distinctive Mongolian style, rather than don Islamic clothing. While Berke's war with Hulegu is often portrayed as his anger over the death of the Caliph, it seems this was a secondary concern to him. His own letter to Sultan Baybars remarks on his anger over Hulegu's infringement of the yassa of Chinggis Khan, by failing to send Berke loot from Baghdad and Iraq or consult with him. The fact that war began three years after Baghdad's fall, and that Hulegu occupied Jochid territory in northern Iran and the Caucasus after Mongke's death, suggests that Berke's immediate concerns were more strategic than spiritual. Islam for the early converts like Berke was not a change of identity, but an acceptance alongside their existing beliefs and incorporated into a Chinggisid world view. Almost certainly Berke, like his Islamic successors, continued to consult with shamans and the yassa, yet never felt disloyal to the sharia.       While Berke's conversion was accompanied by some of his brothers and commanders, it did not precipitate the Islamization of the emerging Golden Horde. Following Berke's death around 1266, it took some 14 years for another Islamic Khan to sit on the throne of the Jochids. At the start of the 1280s, both the westernmost khanates of the Mongol Empire saw the enthronement of Muslim rulers: Töde-Möngke taking the throne in the Golden Horde between 1280 and 1282,, and from 1282 to 1284 Tegüder Ahmad in the Ilkhanate. Once more, the sources hint that shaykhs and sufis were behind the conversion of both men, and continued to be held in great esteem in both courts. For the Ilkhan Tegüder, who upon his enthronement went by the name of Sultan Ahmad, we have a variety of sources which describe his commitment to Islam, which vary widely and demonstrate why it remains difficult for many to accept the authenticity of the early conversions.      In a letter Tegüder sent to the Mamluk Sultan Qalawun, Tegüder spoke of establishing sharia law in the Ilkhanate, protected pilgrimage routes and built new religious buildings, similar claims to what Töde-Möngke made in his first letter to the Mamluks around similar time. Tegüder argued that based on the fact of their now shared religion it was easier for the Mamluk Sultans to submit to him. Cilician Armenian writers like Het'um of Corycus and Step'annos Orbelian generally portray Tegüder as a prosecutor of Christians. Yet at the same time the Syriac churchman Bar Hebraeus wote of Tegüder as a friend to Christians, an upholder of religious toleration who exempted them from taxation and allowed Hebraeus to build a new church, while the Mamluks were largely skeptical of his conversion.   Ghazan, the great reformer of the Ilkhanate, sought to portray himself as a powerful Muslim monarch and an heir to the defunct ‘Abbasid Caliphate, but also as the first true Muslim Ilkhanate. For this reason, his two predeceassers who were attached to Islam, Tegüder and Baidu, were both denigrated in official accounts from his reign. Ghazan was raised a Buddhist, and only came to Islam a few weeks before his enthronement, urged to convert by his commander Nawruz Noyan and the Shaykh Sadr al-Din al-Hamuwayi during his rebellion against Ilkhan Baidu. While his biographer Rashid al-Din desperately sought to portray Ghazan's conversion causing his commanders and soldiers to follow suit, it seems almost certain that it was in fact the opposite, and that by converting Ghazan hoped to gain the wavering support of Baidu's Muslim followers. Ghazan did so successfully, and overthrew Baidu only a few months after he had himself seized the throne. Upon becoming IlKhan, on the instigation of his zealous general Nawruz, Ghazan order the destruction of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Zoroastrian centres in Muslim cities in his empire and imposed the jizya. However, these harsh measures were quickly rescinded by 1297 with the downfall of Nawruz, though Buddhists did not return to the prominence they had previously enjoyed. Ghazan before the end of the 1290s donned a turban and even declared jihad against the Mamluks. Though some Mamluk scholars, none more famous than the jurist and scholar Ibn Taymiyya, were not convinced of Ghazan's Islam. Outside of Damascus in 1300, Ibn Taymiyya insulted both Ghazan and his vizier, the Jewish convert to Islam Rashid al-Din, of being false Muslims. Ghazan, he stated, continued to worship Chinggis Khan in place of sharia.   The life of Ghazan's brother and successor Oljeitu demonstrates perhaps the most extreme example of a Mongol prince's flexible approach to religion. His father Arghun had the young Oljeitu baptized a Nestorian Christian and given the name of Nicholas, supposedly after the Pope Nicholas IV, with whom Arghun was attempting to ally with against the Mamluks. As a teen, he converted to Buddhism, when he took the Buddhist name of Oljeitu. Under the influnece of a wife, he then converted to Sunni islam, taking the name of Muhammad Khudabanda, servant of God, which became the source of rude puns on his name: kharbunda, donkey driver. First he attached himself to the Sunni school of Hanafism, then to Shafi'ism, before frustration with fighting between the schools turned him back to Buddhism, before in 1309 returning to Islam, but this time abandon the Sunnis for Shi'ism. A number of different sources offer explanations for what drove Oljeitu to become a Shi'a, generally focusing on how a various princes, commanders, scholars and others convinced upon Oljeitu the merits of Shi'a Islam. One particularly detailed account has a Shi'a Scholar describe the succession of the first of the Rashidun Caliphs, those accepted in Sunni Islam, to the Prophet Muhammad instead of 'Ali, remarking to Oljeitu it would be as if a non-Chinggisid general were to succeed Chinggis Khan. According to the Mamluk sources, Oljeitu's conversion to Shi'ism prompted a series of rebellions across Ilkhanid Iraq. In some accounts, Oljeitu converted back to Sunni Islam shortly before his death in 1316. His son, Abu Sa'id, followed him to the throne, a Sunni Muslim who did not waver in his faith as his father.    Following Ghazan's reign from 1295 until 1304, the Ilkhanate became an Islamic state, with the majority of its army and upper echelons converted to Islam.  The process was slower in the Golden Horde and Chagatai Khanate. After Töde-Möngke's deposition in 1287, the Golden Horde would not have another Muslim monarch until the reign of Özbeg, who took the throne in 1313. It seems he converted shortly after his accession, seemingly to gain the support of influential noyans within the Horde. In legendary accounts Özbeg was converted by a sufi named Baba Tükles, who proved the veracity of his religion when he comfortably survived an oven wearing nothing but chain maille, while the shaman he challenged was burnt to death in his oven. However, Baba Tükles does not enter into accounts of Özbeg's life until centuries after his death. It seems likely that Özbeg was converted by influential sufi and islamic jurists in his entourage, and the increased islamization of members of military and aristocracy making it a viable political choice to convert as well. To cement his reign and his religion, Özbeg ordered the executions of over a hundred Chinggisid princes and noyans. Other prominent converts, such as Ghazan in the Ilkhanate and Tughluq Temur in the eastern Chagatai Khanate, also carried out large scale purges though none matched those of Özbeg. So extensive was Özbeg's purge that within a generation, the line of Batu had died out within the Golden Horde. In the Chagatai Khanate, Islamization proceed in stops and starts. In the western half of the Chagatai realm, centered as it was around the trade cities of Transoxania and closer to the Iranian world, islamization went quicker, more or less winning out by the mid 14th century. It would take another century in the eastern half of the Chagatai realm, Moghulistan, where steppe lifestyle maintained greater influence. Not until the reign of Tughluq Temur's grandson, appropriately named Muhammad Khan, in the fifteenth century did Islam win out most of the remaining holdouts, according to the mid-sixteenth century source of Mirza Haidar Dughlat. For the eastern Chagatais, where the local islamic population was much smaller, there was much less interaction with the faith, and thus it took much longer for the military and the noyans to fully convert, despite the conversion of the Khans themselves.   Still, in policy men like Özbeg, Ghazan and Oljeitu largely matched their forebears in providing taxation exemptions, favours and other privileges to Christians, especially Franciscan missionaries, though on a lesser scale than earlier in the thirteenth century. Their successors, Özbeg's son Janibeg and Oljeitu's son Abu Sa'id, proved less welcoming, as even Christians found their privileges revoked. Janibeg ordered his men to dress in the fashion of Muslims, while Abu Sa'id sought to become the protector of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, one year even sending an elephant there for inexplicable reasons. Still, these monarchs showed themselves to continue in their traditions, such as acts of levirate marriage, that is marrying their father's wives, something forbidden by Islam.  Islam proved an aspect of these monarch's identities, but it took many generations in Iran for all elements of Mongol culture and Chinggisid ideology to be driven out, and in the steppes the process, it can be argued, never truly fully replaced the memory of the house of Chinggis Khan.        Our series on the Mongols will continue, and we will visit in detail the topic of Mongol religious tolerance very soon, which ties closely to this matter, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast. If you'd like to help us continue to bring you great content, please consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Please also consider leaving us a positive review and rating on the podcast catcher of your choice, and sharing us with your friends; each one helps the podcast out alot. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I'm your host David, and we'll catch you on the next one.

Having now taken you to the end of Mongol rule in China, we move westwards in our histories of the Mongol Khanates. Our next stop is the middle Khanate: the ulus of Chagatai. Encompassing much of Central Asia, the Khanate ruled by the descendants of Chinggis Khan’s second son Chagatai is perhaps the most poorly known. In our first episode on the Chagatais, we’ll take you through their history in the 13th century, touched on often in previous episodes but now recieving its own focus. From efforts at reconstruction by Mahmud Yalavach and his son Mas’ud Beg, to stability under the regeny of the widow Orghina Khatun, to disasters  in battle at Herat to domination under Qaidu and the rise of Du’a Khan. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       The territory which became the Ulus of Chagatai was conquered by the Mongols in two stages. The eastern half of the ulus, in what is now southeastern Kazakhstan and northwest Xinjiang, was taken largely peacefully when Jebe Noyan overran the empire of Qara-Khitai in 1218-1219. As covered back in episode 8, the fleeing Naiman prince Kuchlug had fled to Qara-Khitai and usurped power there. When Jebe invaded, Kuchlug ran for his life, leaving the cities of his new empire defenseless. The lack of defense was ironically beneficial, as they largely submitted peacefully, and the former Qara-Khitai troops joined their new Mongol overlords. The more densely populated western half of the empire was not so lucky. This region, including Transoxania and the Ferghana valley in modern southern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan down to Turkmenistan, was controlled by  the Khwarezmian Empire, and was violently crushed by Chinggis Khan in the first years of the 1220s, as we saw in episode 9.        Each site that put up resistance fell victim to the Khan’s wrath. The destruction not just of cities, but of agriculture and irrigation canals. The toll on the population was horrific. Perhaps millions were killed in the course of the conquest. Perhaps as many died from the ensuing starvation, spread of disease and banditry. Thousands upon thousands were displaced from their  homes, or transported elsewhere on Mongol order. The initial governors set over the region and cities did little to help, simply bringing more taxation and material demands onto the population.       Chinggis Khan’s second son, Chagatai, stayed in the region after the conquest. Contrary to popular belief, Chinggis did not divide his empire among his sons in order for them to become distinct states. Rather, they were each allotted territory within the empire in order to support themselves. Chagatai was granted much of the former Khwarezmian and Qara-Khitai realms, becoming the basis of the ulus of Chagatai. Stern and demanding, Chagatai had little care for city life or  the cultures of the people he ruled over. He was a man of the steppe, and his reign was spent in the steppe. Though he maintained a quasi-capital at Almaliq, near modern Kulja, northwestern Xinjiang on the Ili River, Chagatai resided in his summer and winter pastures. Almaliq served to collect tribute and house his treasures, his officials and received messengers from the court. Reconstruction of the conquered territories was not his concern. His engineers were used to build large pools for water fowl to flock to for Chagatai to hunt.       This is not to say Chagatai had no interaction with his subjects. Chagatai was a strict upholder of the yassa and the yosun, the laws and customs of his father Chinggis Khan. We have mentioned in previous episodes that there was conflict on who these laws should apply to; that is, just nomads, or to the sedentarized populations of the empire as well. Well, Chagatai was of the opinion that everyone was subject to the laws, which were to be enforced as strictly as possible. Laws against theft were violently enforced. The Persian historian Juvaini, writing in the mid 1250s, who worked for the Mongols and spent quite some time in the Chagatai realm, wrote this famous passage you may have heard variations of:        “For fear of his yasa and punishment his followers were so well disciplined that during his reign no traveller, so long as he was near his army, had need of guard or patrol on any stretch of road; and, as is said by way of hyperbole, a woman with a golden vessel on her head might walk alone without fear or dread.”       The presence of Chagatai was enough to discourage thievery, although the quote has often been taken out of context to suggest a woman could walk across all of Asia under Mongol rule and not face any  danger. While a strict enforcer of the yassa’s promulgations against theft, Chagatai was more infamous in the Muslim world for the anti-Islamic aspects of the yassa. Though the Mongols have a popular image as a beacon of religious liberty, this has been overstated. Though often tolerant in the most literal sense, as in they just tolerated certain religions seen as useful, the Mongols were less accommodating when they found that a religion conflicted with their own customs. The yassa, for instance, mandated the method in which an animal must be slaughtered: crushing the heart, and not letting any blood spill. Needlessly spilling blood on the ground was a great offense to the spirits. The halal method of slaughter perscribed by Islam though, requires cutting the throat and draining the blood. The two methods were inherently contradictory, and conflicts often arose from Mongols attempting to ban halal slaughter. Immediately after describing how Chagatai’s army dissuaded theft, Juvaini wrote the following:   “And he enacted minute yasa that were an intolerable imposition upon such as the Taziks, [so] that none might slaughter meat in the Moslem fashion nor sit by day in running water, and so on. The yasa forbidding the slaughter of sheep in the lawful manner he sent to every land; and for a time no man slaughtered sheep openly in Khorasan, and Moslems were forced to eat carrion.”   Chagatai may not have specifically hated Muslims or been a man of constantly boling rage, as he is often portrayed  by modern authors.  He certainly employed Muslims in the top ranks of his bureacracy. We should probably imagine him better as an uncomprosiming figure seeking to stringently enforce his father’s laws; it just so happened that this enforcement was quite harmful to Muslims caught in the crosshairs. From the Mongol point of view, you could still be a Muslim as long as you did not practice these certain customs the Mongols disliked, such as spilling blood or washing dirty things in running water.   The nuance made little difference to the Muslims of Central Asia, to whom Chagatai consistently appears as a tormenter in the sources. Juzjani, a Khwarezmian refugee to the Delhi Sultanate in India, wrote in the 1250s and describes Chagatai as a demonic figure who wanted to exterminate the Muslims. Often, Chagatai is used in these sources as a contrast to Ogedai, usually depicted as generous and a friend to Islam.    Ogedai’s  enthronement as Khan of Khans in 1229 certainly was a benefit to the Muslims of the empire. At  the start of his reign Ogedai created another governmental layer, the Secretariat system- check out episode 13 for more on this. While the North China Branch Secretariat has received greater attention in our series, at  the same time a Branch Secretariat for Turkestan, or Central Asia, was established to oversee the populations under Chagatai’s rule, and strengthen the Great Khan’s authority there. The man  chosen to head the department was a good choice, a native of Khwarezm called Mahmud Yalavach.   Mahmud Yalavach, and his son Mas’ud Beg, were perhaps the two longest serving ministers of the Mongols, and the two have often weaved their way in and out of our series. Mahmud Yalavach’s early life is unknown, other than that he hailed from Khwarezm. The great Russian orientalist Vasili Bartold suggested that Mahmud Yalavach is identical to Mahmud Bey, the vizier of the final Gur-Khan of the Qara-Khitai. Yalavach first reliably appears as a part of Chinggis Khan’s 1218 embassy to the Khwarezmian Empire, where he is identified as Mahmud Khwarezmi. Taken aside by the Khwarezm-Shah Muhammad II, Mahmud deftly handled their interaction, and for the mission he earned the title of Yalavach, Turkic for messenger or ambassador. Staying in Mongol service, in 1229 Ogedai appointed him manager of the Branch Secretariat for Central Asia.   Yalavach, assisted by his son Mas’ud Beg, proved a very capable man, and under him the first genuine reconstruction efforts after the Mongol conquest were implemented. At his direction with the backing of Great Khan Ogedai, cities and irrigation systems were rebuilt, agriculture encouraged and revitalized, a new tax system implemented and efforts to clamp down on extra-ordinary levies on the part of Chagatai and his sons were enacted. His efforts were successful. Several contemporary sources agree to the restoration of prosperity to the region, corroborated by numismatic evidence.   Yalavach’s first decade in charge of the Central Asian Branch Secretariat was a much needed salve for the region, though he faced competition from Chagatai, who did not take kindly to his brother’s officer’s  interference. At the first opportunity he would get, Chagatai would undermine Yalavach.   In 1238, an unexpected crisis emerged from one of the chief cities of Transoxania, Bukhara. There, a sieve-maker named Mahmud Tarabi became a popular  figure on account of his supposed magical capabilities and ability to communicate with djinn. Juvaini says that, according to reputable individuals with whom he spoke with in Bukhara, one of Tarabi’s spells included making a medicine from dog feces and blowing it into the eyes of the blind, which restored their sight. Juvaini did not have a high opinion of him,  also remarking that in regards to his stupidity and ignorance Tarabi had no equal.   Tarabi developed quite a reputation for magic and miracles, encouraged by a local notable named Shams-ad-Din Mahbubi, who through his personal vendetta against Bukhara’s leadership and the Mongols, encouraged Tarabi’s pretensions. How the very planets were aligning in his favour! Mahbubi told him, even going as far, Juvaini says, speaking of a prophecy that a man from Tarabi’s home village of Tarab would conquer the world. Unfortunately for Tarabi, there was some very stiff competition for such a claim.   Mahmud Yalavach was alerted to the bubbling unrest in Bukhara gathering around Tarabi, and sought to lure the man out and kill him. Tarabi saw through the trap and evaded it, which escalated his troublemaking. His inflammatory speeches to the people of Bukhara riled them up, and his claims of support from the invisible hosts of heaven seemed to have been given some merit when a merchant with a shipment of swords had his wares fall into Tarabi’s hands. With his followers now armed, Tarabi, as all good prophets do, collected around himself riches and women. Convinced of their power, they killed or drove out the Bukharan government and Mongolian representatives.   A response force was rallied- likely local militia under the command of regional darughachi. Mahbubi and Tarabi marched out of Bukhara at the head of their army, convinced of their divine protection. Neither wore armour or weapon, and spread rumours that whoever rose a hand against them would be struck down parrarlyed. The response force was worried, and only set off a volley of arrows when the wind picked up a dust storm. Frightened that this was some trick of Tarabi, the response force fled, and Tarabi’s army doggedly pursued. They caught up to the response force and killed a great many. Upon returning to Bukhara, they were unable to find either Tarabi or Mahbubi. Juvaini asserts that both were struck by arrows in the volley set off by the government forces and killed, though it went unnoticed by both the Bukharan and the government forces. Regardless, under new local leadership, Tarabi’s army turned to looting and pillaging the countryside.   So they remained occupied for a week until a proper Mongol army arrived, either imperial troops or sent by Chagatai. The Bukharan forces went up confident towards them, believing defeating local  militia was the same as defeating the horsemen of the Great Khan.  The first volley of arrows killed  the leadership of the Bukharan forces, and within hours 20,000 of the late-Tarabi’s followers had joined them.  The following day, the Mongols were leading the citizens of Bukhara onto the plain before the city, preparing to unleash a horrific massacre as punishment. Only at the intervention of Mahmud Yalavach, with approval of Great Khan Ogedai, was this averted, and the population spared, probably to the displeasure of Chagatai.    The Tarabi revolt however had undermined Yalavach’s credibility. Later in 1239 when Chagatai sought to transfer territory under Yalavach’s  supervision to another official -something which under the secretariat system, Chagatai lacked the power to do- Yalavach complained to Ogedai. Ogedai agreed with Yalavach’s complaint, but to smooth things over with his brother, removed Yalavach from his office. But to demonstrate that he was not doing this to allow imperial perogative to slip,  Ogedai immediaely appointed Yalavach’s  son Mas’ud Beg to his father’s position at head of the Central Asian Secretariat, while Yalavach would, in the final months of Ogedai’s life in 1241, be appointed to head the Secretariat in North China after Yelu Chucai’s [choots-eye’s] demotion.    Mas’ud Beg was just as capable as his father, and dedicated himself to the reconstruction of Central Asia, but with little progress over the 1240s. Ogedai had little energy for governance in his final years, and when he died in December 1241, Chagatai was the chief figure of the empire, the senior Chinggisid. Chagatai’s support for the regency of Ogedai’s widow  Torogene helped ensure her position, but the last son of Chinggis Khan soon died of illness in 1242.     Chagatai’s favourite son, Motugen, had died during the Khwarezmian campaign. He moved his choice of heir to another young son, but he too died early. Finally, Chagatai decided on a son of Motugen, Qara-Hulegu to be his heir. Qara-Hulegu was quickly confirmed into his father’s position in 1242, and largely cooperated in both financial policy and personnel with the regent Torogene Khatun. Therefore, Mas’ud Beg had to flee to Batu, chief of the Jochids, as Torogene threatened both him and his father Yalavach, men she saw as her enemies. This period we covered back in episode 20. Torogene’s son Guyuk became Great Khan in 1246, welcoming Mas’ud Beg and Mahmud Yalavach back to their positions, but deposing Qara-Hulegu. Instead, Guyuk Khan appointed his friend, a son of Chagatai named Yesu-Mongke, as the new Khan of the Chagatais.  Yesu-Mongke was good at exactly one thing, the sources agree: drinking.    After Guyuk’s  death in 1248, the former Khan Qara-Hulegu and his clever wife Orghina wisely backed the new contender for the throne, Tolui’s son Mongke. When Mongke became the Khan of Khans in 1251, he undertook a massacre of princes of the line of Ogedai and Chagatai who had opposed him and plotted against him. As we saw in episode 21, Mongke essentially dissolved the ulus of Ogedai, and while the territory of the Chagatais remained intact, their ranks were thinned. Guyuk’s appointed Chagatai Khan Yesu-Mongke was deposed and eventually killed on Mongke’s order, and Qara-Hulegu was rewarded for his loyalty with the khanate again. Mas’ud beg and Mahmud Yalavach were reconfirmed in their positions in Central Asia and China. Everyone set out from Karakorum to return to their posts, except for Qara-Hulegu, who died en route. His young son Mubarak-Shah was duly enthroned as Khan of the Chagatais, with his mother, Qara-Hulegu’s widow Orghina Khatun, as regent.    She was a good choice, an intelligent and shrewd woman who understood the dynamics of the Chagatai realm well. She was well respected, as she had been held in esteem by Chagatai himself, and as a granddaughter of Chinggis Khan via his daughter Checheyigen and a prince of the Oirats, she was of distinguished lineage. Over the 1250s, Orghina Khatun in cooperation with Mas’ud Beg furthered the reconstruction of Central Asia. According to Juvaini in the 1250s Transoxania finally reached the level of prosperity it had before the Mongol conquest. Fully backed by Mongke Khan, who also married her aunt, strengthening their connection, Orghina may as well have been the Chagatai Khan herself. The Mongol Empire saw a number of female regents  over the 1240s and 50s, and Orghina may well have been the most capable. She gave Mas’ud Beg full support and materials to restore the economic power of the region. Both became quite wealthy through their efforts, as they had enough money to persoally endow madrassas. When Mongke Khaan’s brother Hulegu passed through the region in 1253 en route to his Iran campaign, Orghina Khatun hosted lavish banquets for Hulegu and his wives, who happened to be Orghina’s sister and half-sister.    The height of the Chagatai Khanate was probably this decade under Orghina Khatun and Mas’ud Beg’s governance. The Chagatayids enjoyed their best relationship with the imperial government, having the full backing of Grand Khan Mongke, the trade routes prospered, cities were rebuilt, their economies restored and the region had a period of relative peace, and the horrors of the  conquest began to slip into the past. There is some indication that the realm may have been, in this time, called something like the ulus of Oghina. The Franciscan Friar William of Rubruck, who passed through the region in the early 1250s, reported that he heard it called Organum. The term is of uncertain origin. Rubruck himself didn’t know where it came from, and there is debate in the scholarship if it actually refers to Orghina, with a number of alternative suggestions made, such as it coming from the name of Urgench, the capital of Khwarezm. But it is terribly coincidental though, that Rubruck would use such a rare term with more than a passing similarity to the name of the lady ruling the area skillfully at the exact same time.    As with so many things, this came to a crash with Mongke Khan’s death on campaign in 1259. Orghina Khatun and her kinsmen supported Mongke’s brother, Ariq Boke, in his declaration as Khan of Khans, which put them at odds with Mongke’s other brother, Khubilai. Khubilai in 1260 sought to place a more amenable figure on the Chagatayid throne in order to deny Ariq an ally, and sent a great-grandson of Chagatai named Abishqa to depose or marry Orghina Khatun. Ariq Boke arrested and executed Khubilai’s Chagatai prince, but soon decided he needed his own man leading the Chagatayids. Orghina was a skilled administrator, but no miltiary leader, and she may not have been willing to allow Ariq to use her realm as a supply depot for war against Khubilai, who had access to all the materials of north China. In 1261 Ariq had Orghina removed and placed Alghu, another grandson of Chagatai, onto the throne. Orghina came to Ariq’s  court and basically spent the next two years criticizing him for the action.    As you undoubtedly know by now, as we covered it in episode 32, the war between Ariq Boke and Khubilai did not go well for Ariq. Alghu turned out to be unreliable, denying Ariq his supplies and backing Khubilai. Soon after, Orghina Khatun left Ariq Boke, returning to the Chagatai Khanate where Alghu forced her into marriage. Orghina was very popular among the Chagatayids, and it seems Alghu struggled for legitimacy. Marrying the influential Orghina was Alghu’s best solution. To seal the agreement, Alghu made her young son Mubarak-Shah his designated heir and once more confirmed the great administrator Mas’ud Beg over Transoxania.    Ariq Boke was furious at Alghu’s  betrayal, and in his frustration invaded the Chagatai Khanate, attacking Almaliq, but was soon, due to famine and desertion, forced to surrender to Khubilai. His victory complete, Khubilai confirmed Alghu and Orghina as the masters of the Chagatayids. With the war between the Toluids settled but the Great Khan’s influence severely curtailed in Central Asia, Alghu was free to strengthen himself as an independent monarch. He had to deal with an upstart Ogedeid prince on his northern border, however, a young man named Qaidu. Qaidu managed to defeat Alghu’s forces in a first battle, but Alghu regrouped and defeated Qaidu late in 1265. Poised to invade Qaidu’s small dominion, matters seemed bleak for Qaidu until Alghu suddenly died at the start of 1266. This much needed reprieve for Qaidu would define the Chagatais for the rest of the 13th century.   As per their agreement, on Alghu’s death Orghina Khatun finally placed her son Mubarak-Shah on the Chagatayid throne in March 1266. This is the last known event of Orghina Khatun’s life, and it seems she died soon after enthroning her son. Apparently this was done without the approval of Khubilai Khan, as when Khubilai learned of this he sent another grandson of Chagatai from his court, Baraq. Only months into his reign, and some 15 years since his father’s death, Mubarak-Shah Khan was captured by Baraq and made his prisoner.        The new Chagatai Khan, Baraq, won his first victory over Qaidu, but when Qaidu returned backed with troops from the Golden Horde sent by the Jochid Khan Mongke-Temur, Baraq was sent onto the backfoot. He pillaged Bukhara and Samarkand to fund  a new army, starting the first round of undoing Mahmud Yalavach and Mas’ud Beg’s work. Even worse, it was for naught; Qaidu and Mongke-Temur sent emissaries for a truce. And so, either in 1267 on the Qatwan Steppe, or in 1269 at Talas, Chagatai Khan Baraq, the Ogedeid Prince Qaidu and representatives of the Jochid Khan Mongke-Temur made peace. They divivded the revenue of Transoxania between them, with ⅔ going to Baraq and ⅓ to be split between Qaidu and Mongke-Temur. Pastures were divided between them, princes and troops were forbidden to enter cities, Mas’ud Beg was to be placed in control of administering the sedentary population and Baraq and Qaidu became anda, blood brothers. Promising to support Baraq in an invasion of the Ilkhanate, they apparently also sent a joint letter to Khubilai criticizing his sinicization. The peace of Talas can be considered a definitive end to Mongol imperial unity, for now the princes ignored divided the empire between themselves.       Though a  peace, it was an uneasy one, and one dependent on turning their energies against other Mongols. Late in 1269 in preparation for his invasion of the Ilkhanate, Baraq encouraged a Chagatayid prince who served the Ilkhans to desert. Ilkhan Abaqa, son of Hulegu, swiftly crushed the prince’s attempt near Derband.        In 1270 Baraq entered Ilkhanid territory in Khurasan, in what is now northeastern Iran and Afghanistan. Accompanying him were a large body of soldiers from Qaidu. Baraq’s army devastated much of Khurasan, overruning Badakhshan, Shaburghan, Taliqan, Merv and Nishapur in the first months of 1270, undoing much of the recovery these places had had since the invasion of Chinggis fifty years prior. Baraq won a victory over Abaqa Ilkhan’s  brother Tubshin and the long serving governor of the region, Arghun Aqa, causing them to flee to Abaqa and warn him of the danger. But Qaidu had given explicit orders to his own men; after the victory over Tubshin, a disagreement between Qaidu’s commanders and Baraq’s was used as pretext for Qaidu’s men to abandon Baraq. Baraq was incensed and sent some men to pursue, all the while giving valuable time for Abaqa Ilkhan to mobilize his forces.   Baraq then turned his attention on Herat in northern Aghanista in July of 1270. But Abaqa, was already on the march, and  the Georgian forces in Abaqa’s vanguard surprised and destroyed Baraq’s advance force. Baraq pulled his men back after the brief clash, with Abaqa keeping his large army mostly hidden. Abaqa then sent a peace embassy to Baraq, and Baraq seems to have momentarily considered; then promptly sent a small group of spies to find and track Abaqa’s army.       Abaqa captured the spies, executing all but one when he had a terribly clever idea. Absolutely devious, in fact. Leaving one spy tied up but near feasting troops, Abaqa had his troops in a panic abandon their camp and make much noise that an army of the Golden Horde had crossed the Caucasus and Abaqa needed to pull back to deal with it. The spy was allowed to escape and report his news back to Baraq, who was positively delighted. He quickly advanced, crossing the Herat river and plundered Abaqa’s deserted camp then moved leisurely onto a nearby plain… where he found Abaqa’s larger army drawn up for battle. Baraq had fallen into the trap, but he was not going to roll over for Abaqa. Baraq’s Chagatayid horsemen led the first charge, unleashing a volley of arrows into the Ilkhanid forces.  Devastating cycle charges of a thousand  horse archers ravaged the Ilkhanid lines, the apparently lighter equipped Chagatais too mobile for the heavier Ilkhanid cavalry. One of Baraq’s chief commanders was struck down by an arrow, but they resumed the attack and their repeated charges pushed back the Ilkhan’s centre and left.       Abaqa considered retreating, but was encouraged by his generals to stick to the field. Redeploying his forces, gradually the Ilkhan encircled Baraq’s army. In a last attempt, Baraq personally led charges against the Ilkhan, until knocked from his horse. According to Rashid al-din, the grounded Baraq shouted at his men, “I am Baraq, give me a horse!” until finally acquiring a horse and riding off the field, pursued by the Ilkhanid troops for two days. One of Baraq’s commanders continued to fight, holding off the Ilkhans long enough to allow a number of Chagatayid troops to escape as well. So ended the battle of Herat, July 1270, ensuring Ilkhanid dominaion of Khurasan. Abaqa’s preoccupation with Baraq allowed the Mamluks to take Tripoli, and the defeat of Baraq ended up allowing Qaidu to dominate Central Asia for the next 30 years.       Baraq reached Bukhara, where he soon fell deadly ill. Qaidu sent troops to capture Baraq, but in August 1271 found that Baraq had succumbed to his illness. The captive Mubarak-Shah used this opprounity to plunder Baraq’s camp and steal his possessions, even the jewelry of his widows, before fleeing to the Ilkhanate with his sister.       Qaidu was now the dominant power in the Chagatai Khanate, a period we largely covered in episode 41. Only a month after Baraq’s death, Qaidu was declared Khan of the Ogedeids, and appointed his first Chagatai Khan. His initiall efforts to instill control were difficult, as sons of Alghu, Baraq and the puppet Chagatai khan himself rebelled. It would not be until 1282 when Qaidu was able to impose his authority,  placing Du’a, a son of Baraq, onto the throne of Chagatai. Du’a and Qaidu had a very effective partnership, and channeled the energies of their combined khanates against the Yuan Dynasty, Ilkhanate and even India. It brought much needed peace to the region internally, even if the overland trade routes, the famed silk roads, were disrupted by their warfare. The aging Mas’ud Beg was heart broken when Abaqa Ilkhan preemptively attacked and sacked Bukhara in 1273, and the city was sacked again in 1276 by the rebellious sons of Alghu and Baraq. Mas’ud Beg must have been pleased for some sense of stability with Du’a and Qaidu’s partnership, and continued to do what he could to rebuild until his death in 1289. So honoured was he that Qaidu and Du’a had Mas’ud’s son immediately take his stead. Du’a and Qaidu certainly did what they could to encourage trade and growth, and even constructed cities, though they did not live in them. Their direction of the energies of their warriors against their foes must have helped keep  rapacious nomads away from the fragile economic centres within the khanates.       It certainly allowed for expansion of their influence. In the 1290s Du’a with Qaidu’s support exerted his authority over Ghazna in Afghanistan, and the fearsome Neguderis there. His eldest son Qutlugh Khwaja was appointed to head them, and from that base conducted raids on northern India at the same time as Du’a and Qaidu led their armies into Yuan territory in northwestern China. Chagatai raids on the Ilkhanate in the 1290s reached as far as Mazandaran, Fars and Kirman, and they even tried to put their own claimant on the throne of the Blue Horde, between the Caspian and Aral Seas.     The final years of this effective partnership, as we covered in quite some detail in episode 41, ended in 1301 with Qaidu’s death against Yuan forces. At the start of the 14th century, Du’a was master of Central Asia and the Chagatai Khanate. Our next episode picks up with Du’a’s reign and the long shadow he cast over the Chagatais, namely in the form of all of his sons who basically each took a turn being Khan. So be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this, and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, please consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. This episode and researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one!

The rapid expansion of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century cannot be attributed to a single new military invention providing technological supremacy over their enemies. The weaponry and equipment of the Mongols differed little from those of their enemies or from previous nomadic empires. Still, the Mongols were adept in employing the tools of their foes. As historian Timothy May wrote, “the Mongols rarely met a weapon they did not like.” Therefore, many questions have been raised regarding the usage, or lack thereof, of gunpowder weapons in Mongolian expansion, particularly outside of China. Today, we give a brief introduction to gunpowder weapons, both their history of use, their use by the Mongols, and the possible role of the Mongol Empire in the dissemination of these weapons. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   For some historians, like J.J. Saunders or Kate Raphael, the Mongols as both users of gunpowder and transmitters of its knowledge to the west is a total negative or extremely unlikely. They see no clear indication of it’s usage in the western historical sources, seeing possible mentions as too equivocal to be relied upon. But the great British sinologist Joseph Needham and his associates, after a thorough study of well over a millennium of Chinese written sources and archaeology, has demonstrated thoroughly that not only were a number of a gunpowder weapons a common feature of Chinese warfare by the thirteenth century, but that the Mongols also used these during their wars in China. More recent historians such as Iqtidar Alam Khan, Thomas T. Allsen and Stephen G. Haw, have advanced Needham’s arguments, arguing that the Mongols carried gunpowder weapons, such as bombs, fire-lances and rockets, west in their conquests over the rest of Eurasia. Stephen Haw in particular has suggested that the infamous smoke-screen employed by the Mongols in Poland at the battle of Liegnitz in 1241 was a gunpowder-based weapon.    To demonstrate this, we must very briefly give an introduction to Chinese usage of gunpowder. Chinese alchemists and engineers had been mixing various chemicals for medicinal and experimental purposes for centuries, including some of those which constitute gunpowder. Gunpowder itself was not the result of any single individual’s experiments, in the style of the old European fable of Berthold Schwarz, but rather a long series of trials combining materials -often, rather ironically, in search of elixirs to eternal life- which ultimately resulted in discovering a rather flammable substance. The first recipe for gunpowder finally appears during the Tang Dynasty in the 8th century CE, in a Taoist work urging alchemists not to mix saltpetre (potassium nitrate), sulphur and carbon-rich materials like coal, and to especially not add arsenic to the mixture, as the result would light aflame. The Chinese quickly found the energy produced by these materials quite mesmerizing when used in fireworks display, and found use for it in civil engineering and mining,  but contrary to some popular sentiments that the Chinese only used it for peaceful purposes, it appears they rather quickly applied this new material for warfare. From the 10th century to the 13th, the Chinese created a great number of weapons to violently disseminate knowledge of gunpowder. By 1044, possibly in reaction to military defeats against the newly established Tangut ruled Xi Xia Dynasty, the Song Dynasty was presented a collection of nine kinds of gunpowder weapons and three distinct gunpowder recipes in the Wujing Zongyao. This technology advanced under the Song Dynasty, which faced a collection of ever-more fearsome foes on its northern borders.   From the 10th century onwards, these weapons took a number of forms.  Bombs thrown from catapults (huopao), enclosed in pottery or fragmenting metal shells. Arrows (huojian) with incendiary packages strapped to them, launched from bows or massive mounted crossbows, developing into early rockets over the twelfth century.  Most infamous was the fire-lance (huojiang): a bamboo or metal tube capable of shooting a jet of flame three metres in length, sometimes with shrapnel and toxic materials packed into the tube to form a terrifying, flame-spouting shotgun. The proportions of consitutent chemicals were refined to increase power, with other additives such as lime to even human faeces to produce a number of horrific bombs; some to explode and throw armour piercing shrapnel, some to spread flame and destroy buildings, with others to have a choking, blinding gas dispersed by the explosion to envelop and confuse the enemy.   The Song Dynasty government was so reliant on these weapons -and so terrified of their foes acquiring them- that it prohibited the sale of any of the materials composing gunpowder to the Khitan Liao Dynasty or Tangut Xi Xia in the 11th century. Both lacked access to natural reserves of saltpetre producing lands. But with the Jurchen conquest of the Liao and Northern Song in the early 12th century, the newly formed Jin Dynasty seized not only stores of these weapons, but the knowledge and resources to produce their own. Now facing a powerful, gunpowder armed foe, this spurred a new stage of gunpowder experimentation by the Song Dynasty. The first textual references to fire-lances, rockets, and new kinds of bombs appear as Song forces desperately resisted Jin invasions. The Song were imaginative when it came to employing these against the Jurchen. The narrow crossing over the rivers into south China became the main lines of defence, and the Song quickly took to arming their ships with rockets and huopao, catapults capable of lobbing bombs against Jin troops, to destroy ships or cast poisonous clouds against men and horses. As early as 1127, Song officials were recommending that all warships be equipped with such weapons to repel the Jin. Other uses speak of the desperation of defenders, coupled with considerable access to gunpowder. The 1207 siege of Te-an is a well known example: the Song defenders filled tea sacks with rice straw, used matting and gunpowder to hurl against the Jin troops assaulting the walls. The Jin were quick to pick up such weapons too, a cause for no shortage of alarm amongst the Song court, among other things. While perhaps effective in slowing the Jin invasions of southern China, gunpowder weapons were neither key in the initial Jurchen conquests of the north, or in actually repelling them. Skilled leadership and political will, in addition to general miltiary resources and logistics, were by far the determining factors. Gunpowder weapons were another tool in an arsenal, rather than the defining strategic component as they often appear in popular imagination.    When Chinggis Khan invaded the Jin Dynasty in 1211, whole companies of Chinese siege engineers entered into his service, either willingly deserted to him or forced into service, bringign with them knowledge to construct various siege machines from catapults to rams. There is not, however, clear indication of the usage of gunpowder weapons against the Jin in these very first years of the conflict. One such Chinese siege specialist who willingly deserted, Guo Baoyu, accompanied Chinggis Khan west on his camapign against the Khwarezmian Empire. According to his biography in the Yuanshi, when the Mongols attempted to force a crossing of the Amu Darya, a number of Khwarezmian ships blocked their path. Guo Baoyu ordered a volley of huojian to be launched against the fleet. The ships were all set aflame, allowing the Mongols passage. While huojian originally and literally meant fire arrows, according to Joseph Needham, Jixing Pan, and Thomas Allsen, over the twelfth century the term came to signify rockets, when powdered gunpowder mixtures with higher percentages of saltpetre, charcoal and less sulphur made for effective rocket propellants.   In addition, the Persian historian Juvaini often makes a distinction between “fire, naphtha and stones,” being thrown into cities during Chinggis Khan’s Khwarezmian campaign, as if there were distinct incendiary weapons being used in addition to the naptha (i.e, petroleum) derived weapons more familiar in the Islamic world. According to Needham, naptha has been utilized for military purposes since the 4thc entury BCE, and remained a feature of armies in the Middle East up until the Mongol conquest. Juvaini’s flowery language makes it difficult at times to know if he was simply being poetic, or literal in terms of the weapons being used, even when he was an eyewitness to the events he describes. While Chinggis Khan certainly brought Chinese siege engineers westwards with him, it does not seem that gunpowder weapons made up a key component of his tactics. Likely, Chinggis lacked the resources to manufacture gunpowder and gunpowder weapons, and if he was making use of them, it was in limited quantities- his tactics for taking cities relied on skillful use of Chinese siege machines in great numbers alongside local forced labour and his powerful Mongol warriors. As mentioned earlier, gunpowder weapons were a tool in the arsenal, rather than a defining component. They lacked the ability to destroy walls by themselves: this was still the job of stones thrown from catapults, which the Mongols are expressly described using throughout the Khwarezmian campaign.    After Chinggis Khan’s death in 1227, his son and successor Ogedai completed the war with the Jin Dynasty, in the process cquiring greater experience with gunpowder weapons, and the natural and manpower resources to produce them. In the early 1230s there are a number of references in Chinese sources to the use of these weapons in the last years of the Mongol-Jin war. In 1231, for instance, the Jin utilized a new development in bomb technology, the heaven-shaking thunder-bomb (zhen tien lei), to sink Mongol ships in a naval engagement. These were bombs with high nitrate content in their  gunpowder mixture encased in a cast-iron shell. When set off, they created a monstrous noise like thunder, while also splintering the iron shell into a wave of armour and flesh tearing shrapnel, an early fragmentation grenade.   The most famous gunpowder engagement came the next year well recorded in a detailed description in the dynasty history of the Jin, the Jinshi, compiled under Mongol auspices in the fourteenth century. In 1232, the great Mongol general Subedei besieged the Jin capital of Kaifeng, in a year-long siege in which sides utilized gunpowder weapons. Subedei had catapults launched gunpowder bombs into the city, while the Jin defenders had a variety of gunpowder tools in their defensive arsenal. Mobile shelters pushed up to the walls of Kaifeng were annhilated by thunder-crash bombs dropped onto them via an iron chain. Additionally, great number of ‘flying-fire-spears’ (feihuojiang) were employed. Depending on the interpretation of the historian, these were either fire-lances packed with wads of shrapnel and arrows which when fired acted as a sort of flaming shot gun, while others like Jixing Pan suggets these were infact rockets.    Either way, they were used to great effect and in great numbers. At one point in the siege, a Jin commander took 450 men armed with fire-lances into the Mongol encampment, a surprise attack resulting in hundreds of Mongol troops killed or drowned then they tried to flee. The Jinshi remarked that the thunder-clap bombs and flying-fire-spears were the only two weapons of the Jin the Mongols feared. Yet, these devices could not arrest the fate of the dynasty. A scovered back in episode 14 of this series, the Emperor abandoned Kaifeng before the siege was complete, and the city fell in 1233, and the Jin Dynasty itself finally extinguished the next year.   We must emphasize again, that while terrifying, these gunpowder weapons were not themselves the key determining factors in these wars. The modern concept of all powerful, destructive guns, bombs and cannon must be ignored. The reliability of these early medieval weapons was questionable. Different proportions of the necessary chemicals, or in the design of a given weapon, might result in a device going off early, too late, or not at all. The range of these weapons was often short, and they were best utilized in the defense, in situations where their effect on enemy morale could be maximized. These bombs were not yet the secret to destroying city walls, though they could set fire to wooden structures, towers or gates along the battlements.    Regardless, they were a frightful weapon when used properly. Thus it seems unusual that Subedei, the commander of the final campaigns against the Jin who faced these gunpowder weapons, made little use of them in the great western campaign begun only a few years later. Though specialized Chinese artillery was employed against the Alans of the north Caucasus, Rus’ principalities and Hungarian, there is little direct indication of the use of gunpowder weaponry in the west. Many of the mostly wooden cities of the Rus’ principalities were burned, it is true, but the Rus’ sources generally offer no description of how this occurred, only that it did. Usually they imply the fire was started after the city already fell. In the case of the siege of Vladimir, the Nikonian Chronicle specifies that a great volume of stones were shot into the city, and that the church at Vladimir was burnt only after the Mongols stacked a great pile of wood next to it and set that on fire.   A possible indication of gunpowder usage is supplied by the Franciscan friar John de Plano Carpini, who travelled through the Rus’ principalities late in the 1240s bearing messages from the Pope to the Great Khan. In his report of his travels, Carpini offers a very accurate description of Mongol battle and siege tactics, with the intention that his observations be used to help prepare Christendom against further attacks. Carpini’s short description is worth quoting:   They reduce fortresses in the following manner. If the position of the fortress allows it, they surround it, sometimes even fencing it round so that no one can enter or leave. They make a strong attack with engines and arrows and they do not leave off fighting by day or night, so that those inside the fortress get no sleep; the Tartars however have some rest, for they divide up their forces and they take it in turns to fight so that they do not get too tired.  If they cannot capture it in this way they throw Greek fire; sometimes they even take the fat of the people they kill and, melting it, throw it on to the houses, and wherever the fire falls on this fat is almost inextinguishable. It can however be put out, so they say, if wine or ale is poured on it. If it falls on flesh, it can be put out by being rubbed with the palm of the hand.   As the Mongols, as far as is known, did not have access to Greek Fire, it seems that Carpini is attempting to describe an incendiary of unusual properties using cultural terms he was familiar with. And as Carpini’s knowledge of Mongol siege tactics largely came from his discussions with survivors in the Rus’ territories, it seems to imply that a special type of fire-causing weapon was used against the Rus’: quite possibly gunpowder weapons Subedei had brought from China.   The famous smoke screen employed by Mongol forces at the battle of Liegnitz in Poland in April 1241 may also have been a type of gunpowder weapon, as suggested by Stephen Haw.  Firstly, for those of you unaware of the context, here is the relevant quote from the description of the battle of Liegnitz, recorded in the fifteenth century Polish chroncile by Jan  Długosz.   “Among the Tatar standards is a huge one with a giant X painted on it. It is topped with an ugly black head with a chin covered with hair. As the Tatars withdraw some hundred paces, the bearer of this standard begins violently shaking the great head, from which there suddenly bursts a cloud with a foul smell that envelopes  the Poles and makes thm all but faint, so that they are incapable of fighting. We know that in their wars the Tatars have always used the arts of divination and witchcraft, and this is what they are doing now. Seeing that the all but victorious Poles are daunted by the cloud and its foul smell, the Tatars raise a great shout and return to the fray, scattering the Polish ranks that hitherto have held firm, and a great slaughter ensues.”   Haw suggests that the smoke weapon used at Liegnitz was the same as a category of smoke bombs used in Chinese warfare over the preceding centuries. Devices to deploy toxic smoke and smoke screens have been used in Chinese warfare since at least the 4th century CE, but during the Song Dynasty more effective versions were developed with gunpowder. in easily shatterable pottery containers, these weapons were packed with poisons, foul-smelling ingredients, shrapnel, arsenic and lime. Dispersed by the force of the explosion, these bombs unleashed a cloud or fog of painful gas containing lime and arsenic in order to blind, disorient and confuse enemy forces- very similar to the smoke weapon described at Liegnitz. Not understanding it was a gunpowder weapon, either a bomb or modified fire-lance, the Poles focused on the most visible ‘tool’ as the origins of the smoke, mistakenly identifying a Mongolian horse-hair standard as the device. The failure of the chronicle to describe the sound of the weapon going off could be attributed to the confusion of battle distance in time of Jan  Długosz’s compilation from the actual event. None of the contemporary Polish observers would have known what gunpowder was, and therefore failed to associate obvious things we would associate with it, such as the sound, lash of flight or actual mentions of delivering the weapon.    This is a point we must emphasize. The ambiguity of language of many western sources on the Mongols makes it difficult to  identify if a new gunpowder weapon was used. Not knowing what the device was, or lacking words for these new devices which the Mongols were almost certainly unwilling to let non-military individuals examine, it is hard to determine when a medieval author is using a term they were familiar with, such as Greek Fire or Naptha, to refer to a new technology which served a similar purpose. The fact that most chroncilers were not first hand witness, but recording accounts from survivors, means it is hard to  know how many details of a given day or battle’s events were accurately recorded, particularly as in the case of Jan  Długosz, who was writing almost two centuries after the battle of Liegnitz, and was at the mercy of whatever was recorded or survived discussing the battle in 1241.   On the other hand, it can be hard to tell if a source is  just providing a dramatic description of a more ‘mundane’ weapon. Such is the case of the Persian writer Juvaini’s account of Hulegu’s campaign in the 1250s, to which he was a direct eye-witness. Juvaini writes of how Hulegu was provided by his brother, the Grand Khan Mongke, a thousand households of Chinese catapultmen, as well as naphtha throwers. As the siege of the Nizari Assassin fortress of Maymun Diz, covered  back in episode 28, Juvaini mentions a large crossbow-like weapon deployed by Hulegu’s Chinese siege engineers, which he called an  ox-bow, in Persian, kaman-i-gav, a direct translation of the Chinese term for the weapon, ba niu nu, “eight-ox-bow.”. Juvaini writes that it delivered meteoric shafts which burnt the enemy, in comparison to stones lobbed by the defenders, which did little but harm a single person. The passage is as follows:    [A] kaman-i-gav [‘ox’s-bow’ ], which had been constructed by Khitayan craftsmen and had a range of 2,500 paces, was brought to bear on those fools, when no other remedy remained and of the devil-like Heretics many soldiers were burnt by those meteoric shafts. From the castle also stones poured down like leaves, but no more than one person was hurt thereby.   These ox-bows in Chinese warfare, as described by the Wujing Zongyao, could have gunpowder packages attached to the bolts, and were used in the same manner as Juvaini describes. While some historians like Stephen Haw see this as a clear usage of gunpowder, it must be remarked that Juvaini’s tendency for over-flowery language makes it difficult to gauge how literal this passage must be taken, though he was an eye-witness to the siege.   Generally it seems that gunpowder was little used in most of the Mongols’ western campaigns. Likely difficulties in travelling with it prevented them from taking great quantities of it, and at the time of the conquests there was not sufficient knowledge in the west which would allow them to procure more supplies. The matter was very different in the continuing Mongol wars in China, where under Khubilai Khan bombs were a main component of the wars against the Song Dynasty, which continued to employ them as well. Thousands of bombs were made every month in the Song Dynasty, though often they failed to properly supply these to the necessary border regions which needed them. One Song official in 1257 inspecting the arsenals of the border lamented how poorly supplied these vulnerable sites were in these weapons, and how despite repeated requests to the central government, amends could not be made. The Song continued to throw whatever they could against the Mongols as they advanced deeper into southern China, but by then the Mongols not only had ample supplies of these weapons for war in China, but manpower reserves, a powerful military structure and a leadership hell-bent on overrunning the south, driven by the energetic Khubilai who believed in the eventuality of his conquest. Khubilai’s great general Bayan set up ranks upon ranks of huopao during his drive to Hangzhou, lobbing stones to pound down the walls, gunpowder bombs to annhilated gates and towers and terrify the defenders withi. Against such an inplacable foe, the last of Song resistance was ground to dust.   Khubilai employed gunpowder weapons against other enemies as well. Most famously against the Japanese, where archaeological evidence, the account of the Hachiman Gudokun and the invasion scrolls of Takezaki Suenaga demonstrates the Yuan forces using iron bombs against the Japanese. Though as we mentioned in episode 26 discussing Suenaga’s scrolls, the addition of the bomb going off in the scroll was likely made later, as it is in different ink and Suenaga fails to mention such weapons. For such a boisterrous warrior like Suenaga to not mention surviving a terrifying grenade like that is rather unlikely.   It appears that an advance in gunpowder weapons was made sometime in the late thirteenth century. Near the ruins of Khubilai Khan’s summer capital of Shangdu, the earliest confirmed cannon has been found. Bearing an inscription in the ‘Phags-pa script dating it to 1298, a serial number, weighing just over 6 kilograms (13 lb 11 oz) and just under 35 cm (approx. 14 in) in length,  it suggests a product of considerable experimentation and systemization. Earlier, much more primitive and rougher models have been found which from archaological context imply they come from the last years of the Tangut Xi Xia Dynasty, crushed in 1227 by Chinggis Khan. It is probable that the evolution of fire-lances from bamboo to metal tubes was a stepping stone to larger metal tubes capable of larger gunpowder charges and projectiles, brought on by the emergency of the Mongol invasions.  Only in the last years of the 13th century did these models reach a level of standardization and sophistication to become bombards, and more and more sophisticated models are known from over the fourteenth century. There are a few passages from 13th and 14th century Chinese texts which may indicate the usage of these cannons, usually in naval engagements; where muzzle flashes seem to be described when Mongol ships fire upon fleeing Jin ships, or on small vessels at the blockade of Xiangyang launch projectiles, but from ships too small for catapult. Much like the western texts, the Chinese did not yet have a name for this new technology though. Calling them huopao, the same name for the catapults which threw gunpowder bombs, it is impossible to know, unless a description is given, which texts refer to bombs, and which to early cannons.    From 1288 we have perhaps the earliest description of small hand held guns or cannons. In the war against his rebel cousin Nayan, Khubilai Khan led his army against Nayan himself, but attacked from multiple fronts. One such operation was led by a Jurchen commander in Khubilai’s service, Li Ting. Using the word for fire-catapult or cannon, huopao, Li Ting and his small squad of Korean soldiers is described as at night sneaking into an encampment of Nayan’s men and setting off these weapons to great effect. From the context, it is clear that these weapons are too small and mobile to be catapults. In further support of this interpretation, it appears one of the actual weapons has been found. Discovered in 1970 in Heilongjiang province, nearwhere Li Ting’s troops fought Nayan, a small bronze cannon or handgun has been discovered from an archaeological site supporting a late thirteenth century context. Weighing 3 and a half kilograms, 34 cm in length, with a bore of 2 and a half centimeters, these were small, anti-personnal weapons. Not much use against walls, but devastating against men and horses. It is no suprise that Nayan’s rebellion was quickly crushed if Khubilai had men with such armaments at his disposal.   The Yuan Dynasty continued to produce cannon over the fourteenth century. One well known example from 1332 bears an inscription with its date and purpose of manufacture, intended to be used on board a ship for suppression of rebels. By the rise of Zhu Yuanzhang and the Ming Dynasty in the late fourteenth century, cannons and other  firearms were standard features of Chinese armies.  Over the Ming Dynasty, gunpowder weapons continued to advance into more deadly and efficient variants, but did not replace the basic tools of the Mongol conflict in China. Rockets, fire-lances, and bombs were used even into the Qing Dynasty, but supported by cannon, mines and two-staged rockets and even multiple-rockets launchers, similar to the famous Korean hwacha developed during the Imjin war. The Qing too would face fearsome nomads bearing firearms in the form of the Dzunghars, but by  then the military advantage was considerably in favour of the Qing.    We can also briefly note evidence for an even earlier usage of firearms, in the form of some controversial iconographic evidence in China. In the Dazu cave system in Sichuan, there is an extensive carved relief featuring individuals armed with a variety of weapons. One carved figure holds something visually very close to early designs of handguns or handcannons, from which clouds of smoke, and possibly a projectile, seem to be carved leaving. As these carvings dates to 1128, this would push back the development of the fire-arm even earlier, and suggest a much more widespread usage of cannon and gun than previously thought. However, the identification is hardly accepted. Some have suggested it was a later addition to the complex during repairs, while others have argued it is not depicting a fire-arm, but merely a wind-spirit holding a bag of wind. As it currently stands, there is no hard evidence for emergence of true fire-arms until the late thirteenth century during the Yuan Dynasty.   So did the Mongols spread gunpowder westwards? Recipes for gunpowder and even the first gunpowder weapons appear in Europe, the Islamic World and India late in the thirteenth century, after contact with Mongol armies. However, the diffusion is difficult to track due to the already mentioned ambiuigisties in terminology. It’s likely the Mongol armies did not travel with great quantities of powder and were reluctant to share it’s knowledge. It is notable though that when perhaps the earliest recipe for gunpowder is recorded in Arabic, circa 1280 by Hasan al-Rammah, he records most ingredients as being Chinese in origin, with saltpetre for instance called Chinese snow, or rockets as chinese arrows. A common word for gunpowder in Arabic and Persian meant [dawā’ in Arabic, and Persian dārū], a literal translation of the Chinese huoyao, fire-drug [ often shortened to just yao in 13th century] which implies that knowledge was transmitted directly from Chinese engineers in Mongol service. By the start of the fourteenth century, fireworks appear as  objects of regular entertainment in the Ilkhanate, and therefore transmission from the Mongols, in some fashion, seems certain.   In Europe there are tantalizing clues to transmission. A great number of diplomats, travellers, priests and merchants made the trek from Europe across the Mongol Empire and back, and many brought gifts from the Khans with them, or observed closely the Mongol army in an attempt to learn its secrets. The Franciscan friar, William of Rubruck, spent much time with a European goldsmith in Mongol service, William Buchier, the man who made the famous Silver Tree of Karakorum. Buchier appears to have worked often in conjunction with Chinese artisans in his work for the Mongols. Though Rubruck’s account does not describe gunpowder, Rubruck is known to have met, while back in Paris, the first European who did: Roger Bacon, who describes with amazement his experience viewing Chinese firecrackers going off in Europe. Even if the Mongol army itself did not directly or intentionally transfer gunpowder, or use it in quantities to replace their own bows and arrows, they opened the pathways which allowed its knowledge to move across the Eurasian continent. Over the early decades of the fourteenth century, fearsome hand guns and bombards became regular features of battlefield across the continent, the secret to gunpowder no longer restricted to the Chinese government.   Our series on the Mongols will continue, so please be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast to follow. If you enjoyed this and would like to help us continue bringing you great content, please consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/KingsandGenerals. This episode was researched and written by our series historian, Jack Wilson. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next none. 

Maps from Medieval Europe are littered with strange lands, monsters and mythical races. On them you can find the Tower of Babel, the Minotaur's Labyrinth, unicorns and men with the heads of dogs. Find out what these maps can tell us about how medieval European's saw the world in the latest episode of the History and Folklore Podcast.    Sources: B.L Gordon, 'Sacred Directions, Orientations, and the Top of the Map' History of Religions Vol. 10, No. 3 (Feb., 1971), pp. 211-227 British Museum, 'Tablet' https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1882-0714-509 Chet Van Durez, 'Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps' (2014). Edward Brooke-Hitching, 'The Phantom-Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps' (2016). Gerhard Dorhn-van Rossum 'Al-Idrisi and His World Map (1154)' (2011) http://www.cliohworld.net/onlread/wg2/wg2.pdf#page=209 Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping, 'History of Mapping' https://www.icsm.gov.au/education/fundamentals-mapping/history-mapping John Block-Friedman, 'The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought' (2000). John Mandeville, 'The Complete Works of John Mandeville (Shrine of Knowledge, 2020) 'Mappa Mundi Hereford Cathedral.' https://www.themappamundi.co.uk/ Paul B. Sturtevant, 'A Wonder of the Multicultural Medieval World: The Tabula Rogeriana' (2017) https://www.publicmedievalist.com/greatest-medieval-map/ Richard Barber, 'Bestiary MS Bodley 764' (1999). Richard Jones, 'The Medieval Natural World' (2013). Robert Bartlett, 'The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages' (2006). Thomas Wright, 'Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian.' http://public-library.uk/ebooks/60/81.pdf   Transcript: ‘Whatever Part of the Earth that Men dwell, either above or beneath, it seemeth always to them, that they go more up-right than any other Folk. And right as it seemeth to us that they be under us, right so it seemeth to them that we be under them.'   Hello, welcome to the History and Folklore podcast, where we look at different folk beliefs through history and how these beliefs shape people's perceptions of nature. Today we're looking at historical maps and the strange creatures and the mythical races found within them. This is a huge subject, so I am only going to be able to really give an overview of the subject, but am happy to make more indepth episodes on any of the different topics if there is any interest.   I find this topic really fascinating as maps, despite what we like to tell ourselves, very rarely show the world how it actually is. Instead they are excellent sources to show us the preconceptions, assumptions and prejudices of the map maker and the society the map is made in.    It has also been claimed that maps can affect the perception of people who view the map. We like to tell ourselves that maps are entirely neutral records of landscapes and settlements but this is not entirely true. Even today there are issues with our world map that are believed to affect  the way we see the world. The most well-known example is the Mercator Projection, invented in 1569 as a way of displaying a globe on a 2D surface. Because of the way the projection works, countries at the top are distorted to become larger, while those closer to the equator appear smaller. The creator of this method, Gerardus Mercator, also chose to orientate the map with North at the top, which is the way we still orientate maps today. It has been argued that, while this map is useful for navigation, the location and relatively large size of northern countries gives them a more prominent place in the mind of the viewer.   While there is still a lot of discussion as to whether this is actually true, it is clear that maps have traditionally been used as a means of communicating ideas and values to the viewer. The earliest maps that survive today depict very local places that highlight sites of interest. There were no real conventions in cartography yet and so the layout and orientation of these maps was pretty much all over the place.    While it seems normal and obvious to us, it is only really quite recently in human history that maps have been oriented with North at the top. In Europe, East was often placed as the highest point as in early Christian tradition heaven was located in the east. This is an idea that was likely borrowed from ancient Jewish traditions which saw the east as a particularly holy direction. Likewise, South was often seen as a desirable direction as it was associated with warmer, more hospitable weather. North, on the other hand, was considered a dark and sinister direction.   Ancient Egyptians also tended to orientate maps with east at the top, as this is the direction in which the sun rises. Early Islamic cartographers often placed south at the top of the map, as these mapmakers often resided in countries that were north of Mecca and they envisioned they were looking up towards it when they prayed. In Ancient China, compasses were oriented to point south, which was considered a more desirable direction as it was believed to be where the winds came from. However, maps in ancient China tended to place north at the top as the Emperor resided in the north of the country and the people were expected to look towards him. So it appears that there is a tendency among people everywhere to place that which they consider the most important at the top or centre of the image.    The oldest surviving world map is the Imago Mundi, which was created between 500-700 BCE in a town called Sippar in Iraq. This map placed Babylon in the centre, as this was probably the most important city to the map maker. The Euphrates is also shown and circles surround Babylon to show other cities and districts, including Assyria, Der and Habban. These cities are surrounded by a circular ‘bitter river' in which other districts are located. These represent the unknown or unexplored world, and are labelled with descriptions such as ‘where shamash (the sun deity) is not seen, reflecting the belief that the sun does not pass through the northern lands. The map is accompanied by accounts of Babylonian myths, written in conform script, with the corresponding locations in which they happened.    Early medieval maps are remarkably similar in design to the Imago Mundi. Known as TO maps, they show the world as a round disc. Inside this disc the known world is split into three segments, with the East orientated at the top. Asia fills up the top half of the circle, and is separated from Europe in the bottom left quarter and Africa in the bottom right quarter by a river that starts as the Don or Tanais in the left and turns into the Nile half way through. Europe and Africa are separated by the meditteranean sea, depicted as a line that meets the rivers at the half way point to make a T shape. The rivers and continents are surrounded by a circle of sea, the O of the TO map.    It is unclear where this style of map originated from. Similarities can be drawn with the Imago Mundi, but some historians think that they may originate in the Ancient Greece or Rome. Others argue that they probably have a Judaic origin, due to the habit of labelling each continent in association with one of Noah's sons - Asia often has the label of Shem, Africa is labelled with Ham and Europe tagged with Japhet.    TO maps are only concerned with recording areas of the world that were known to be habitable. Maps that showed all habitable and uninhabitable land on the globe were portrayed in a different way, based on the subdivision of the world created by Ptolemy in the second century and built on by Macrobius in the fifth century. In this, the world was divided into five latitudinal zones that varied in climate. The poles were the two frigid zones and considered to be too cold to sustain life. The fiery zone was located at the equator and was too hot to sustain life. Between these two extremes were the temperate zones, which were both theoretically habitable although it was believed that the southern temperate zone was uninhabited by humans.    The subdivision of the world in this way was still being used as late as the fifteenth century. It was also used as the basis for maps created by influential Islamic geographers and cartographers, such as al-Muqaddasi and al-Biruni, who developed this technique and further broke the inhabited world down into seven climes, which differed by half an hour each. These cartographers also believed that only the northern part of the world was inhabited and was separated by the rest of the globe by inhospitable climates that could not be crossed by humans. Islamic scholar Abu Rayhan al-Biruni claimed that the ‘sea separates the inhabitable world from whatever continents or inhabitable islands there may be beyond it, both towards West and East; for it is not navigable on account of the darkness of the air and the thickness of the water.'   This method of dividing the world was used in what was the most influential map of its time, the Tabulana Rogeriana, translated in English as the ‘Book of Roger', which proves that everything sounds more impressive in Latin. This was created by Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154 for King Roger II of Siciliy in a book containing 70 smaller regional maps which, when put together, created a huge rectangular map of the world. This incredibly detailed map was broken down into seven different climatic zones and ten geographical sections. As well as this al-Idrisi was able to calculate the circumference of the globe within ten percent of its actual size. To achieve this, al-Idrisi poured over Arabic, Latin and Classical records, as well as conducting extensive interviews with contemporary travellers, endeavouring to dismiss the fantastical and include only what could be corroborated or proven. While this technique was not foolproof, and popular mythical elements such as the islands of Gog and Magog were still included, it was by far the most accurate world map of its day, and was used and distributed for three hundred years after its creation.   Despite the creation and popularity of the Book of Roger, new maps continued to be made and distributed. One of the most well-known today is the Hereford Mappa Mundi, which was created around the year 1300. This was created at a time when European maps were becoming more complex, showing serrated coastlines and individual islands. Despite these details, it still keeps the early ‘TO' format with Asia at the top, Europe on the bottom left and Africa on the bottom right. Christ sits above the world, looking over God's creation, and paradise and the garden of Eden can be found just below him. Jerusalem sits prominently in the centre of the inhabited world.    As well recording existing cities and landscape elements we would expect to see on modern maps, the Hereford Mappa Mundi also depicts stories from the bible such as Eden, Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel, all located in the top half of the map, as well as stories from Classical Greece and Rome. The columns of Hercules, the golden fleece and the labyrinth can all be seen on the map. This reflects a method of map making that leaned more towards symbolism than accuracy. The purpose of maps such as this was not to create an accurate geographical record to assist travellers. They were instead created the greatness and expanse of God's creation and the viewers place within it spatially, culturally, temporally and spiritually. Medieval maps were created to measure time and culture as well as space.    For this reason the anomalies in early maps can give a real insight into the mindset, worldview and values of the time. We already know that places like Eden and the Minotaur's labyrinth were placed on maps due to their spiritual, cultural and historical importance. But some other elements are less easily explained. Strange islands and creatures pepper the seas and the margins of early maps.    Sometimes these were recorded through simple error, especially non-existant islands and land formations. Other times weather conditions such as low forming clouds could appear to sailors as an island, which would later be recorded on maps. Anomalies were sometimes included on purpose as a type of copyright protection. If an incorrect detail was found on a different map, the original cartographer would know they had been plagiarised.    I think the most amusing incidents were when islands were included on a whim. In 1659 Peter Helyn recorded a story about the explorer Pedro Sarmiento when he was captured by Walter Raleigh. Raleigh asked him about a particular island that was depicted on one of his maps, which Raleigh had never seen but which may have had some tactical advantage to him. Sarmiento explained that that island was known as ‘painters island' because when the painter was drawing the map, his wife asked him to add an island for her, so that in her imagination she could have an island of her own. A really lovely story, but not very helpful to people trying to actually navigate.   I think that the monsters and so called monstrous races that were recorded in maps, bestiaries and encyclopedias of the time are even more interesting than mysterious island stories as they raise so many questions about medieval assumptions of the foreign, otherness and humanity itself.    Strange creatures were also often believed to be found in far flung lands. Dragons fought elephants in India, hyenas mimicked and ate humans in Africa, leopards were the ferocious offspring of lions and pards and birds the colour of fire and with razor sharp wings soar through the air in Asia. These creatures all give an impression of foriegn countries as strange and dangerous places to be, as though the further you get from the known world the more fantastic and deadly nature becomes, a reflection of understandable anxieties and real dangers involved in travel during this period.    Probably the most fascinating are the so called ‘monstrous races' that are depicted on the edges of world maps, reflecting their perceived status as being just on the edge of civilisation.  Many of these races were taken from the writings of Pliny the Elder and were even further embellished over the years by explorers and traders, missionaries and pilgrims who would come back with tales of the strange lands, creatures and people they had seen on their travels.  Monstrous races that were commonly recorded included the Blemmyes, a warlike people found in Africa, notable in that they had no head but whos faces were instead located on their torso. Sciapods could be found in India. They had only one leg which they would use to hop about, and would use their one giant foot to shade them from the sun. Panotti had long ears that they used to wrap around themselves to keep warm at night. The Astomis were found by the Ganges river, they had no mouths but gained nourishment through pleasant smells. The cynocephalli were humans with the heads of dogs that were widely recorded from Scandinavia to Syria to India. In some accounts they were depicted as bloodthirsty fighters, while other writers claimed they were relatively shy and kept to themselves in peaceful communities.    While some believe that these people were solely the creation of overactive imaginations and tall tales spun by travellers, others think that there may have been a grain of truth in the stories, filtered through the perceptions of reporters trying to understand what they saw through the filter of a very ethnocentric worldview. For example, the Sciapods may have simply been people practicing yoga, lifting their feet above their heads as though to shade from the sun. While the true origins of these stories is not known, the fact that the stories exist at all raise a lot of interesting insights into the medieval European worldview.   There was a fair amount of contemporary discussion as to whether any of these races could be considered human, or whether they were closer to animals. This debate was based on the medieval Christian worldview that God created three different types of living spirit. Angels, which are not bound to a physical body, humans which are bound to a physical body but do not die with it and animals, which are bound to a physical body and who die with the body. It was believed that what separated humans from animals was their rationality. The issue then lay in defining and identifying rationality in the behaviour of the monstrous races.    The answer to this question had practical as well as theological implications. In the ninth century a missionary in Scandinavia wrote to a monk named Ratramnus asking whether he should preach to the dog headed people in order to win human souls for Christ, or whether it would be wasted effort, akin to trying to convert mice or birds. Ratramnus responded by stating that the dog heads should be viewed as human. He claimed that while certain elements of their behaviour, such as their barking speech, pointed more towards the animal, other behavioural aspects placed them firmly in the realms of the human. The fact they covered themselves with clothes showed they had a sense of shame and decency. They could farm and make tools and, according to Ratramnus, ‘knowledge of technical skills is granted only to the rational soul.' The main point in their favour though was that they lived in communities and therefore had laws and were able to create and keep to the rules of society.   Personally I find Ratramnus' answer unstatisying when looking at perceptions of other mythical creatures. Trolls, for example, were considered different from humans as they were not Christians and were, in fact, often believed to be angels that had remained neutral in the war between God and Satan and so fell to earth. Trolls could be killed and it was not believed that they had the promise of eternal life, as humans did. However, like other hidden people, they were portrayed as rational, they lived in societies that mimicked humans, wore clothes and used tools. It was not rationality or mortality, but lack of Chritian belief and immortal soul that separated the trolls from humans or angels, but Ratramnus made no suggestion of this possibility for the cynocephalli.   During the twelfth century Europe and Asia became linked in a way that it had never been before, largely due to the expansion of the Mongol Empire that spanned from Korea to Persia, Poland to Vietnam. This overarching administration facilitated merchants trading across borders and was also a tempting target for Christian missionaries, as the Mongols were not originally Muslim and appeared to be widely accepting of Christianity - employing Asian Christians as advisors and administrators.   As such a greater number of Europeans than ever before began travelling to places that they previously had either non-existent or very weak contact with. You may think that as explorers, traders and missionaries came to be more familiar with distant lands, and as travellers from across Asia came to be a more familiar sight in European cities, that medieval Europeans would quickly realise that the monstrous races on maps and monsters in bestiaries did not exist. In some cases doubt did begin to creep in. In 1253 William of Rubruck recalled a conversation he had with a group of Mogul people during his travels in India saying ‘I asked about the monsters or monstrous humans but they had never seen such beings, wherefore we wonder very much whether it were true.'   But belief in monsters and monstrous races was surprisingly tenacious amongst the general population. This was partly because returning travellers could not resist telling fantastic tales of ferocious and strange beasts to impress people back home. However, even when travellers wanted to present a more realistic view of the world their efforts could be undermined. Marco Polo's Travels, for example, was published in 1298 and presented a fairly subdued and down to earth picture of Asia that was somewhat sabotaged by illustrators who added monsters and wonders to the margins, likely trying to meet the expectations of the readers.   In other cases, when monsters were not found where they were expected to be, it was sometimes assumed that they did exist but their location had been recorded wrong. As European travellers became more familiar with the wider world the monstrous races were pushed further, always pushed the edges of the known world, and those that were once believed to reside in India were later thought to reside in the habitable southern hemisphere, where humans did not live. An early example of this was the Panotti people with long ears. Around 43 CE Roman writer Pomponius Mela claimed they lived on the Orkney islands. When the Orkney islands became part of the civilised world they were recorded as living in Scythia and later, when Scythia was no longer considered particularly distant, it was believed that they resided in southern Asia.    It is probable that the belief in monstrous races reflects a need in people to create a recognised ‘other' against which they can define themselves. Through these stories, they were able to explore what it meant to be civilised, what it meant to be human and understand and define their place in the world.    It is also apparent that this belief in strange and monstrous races was not just limited to Europeans. John de Marignollis  travelled extensively through China and India in the 1330s. Although he was originally sent by the Pope he extended his travels in order to search for the monstrous races he had heard about. He wrote ‘I travelled through all the provinces of India with great curiosity. . . never was I able to track down such peoples in the world in reality; instead people asked me whether there were such creatures.'    As well as giving the impression that medieval Asia was filled with people wandering round asking each other if they knew where the dog-heads were, de-Marignollis statement, and the quote from John Mandeville at the beginning of this episode, suggests that people around the world created their own kinds of strange and monstrous people, living in far away lands. I think it is likely that such stories were important in helping people strengthen their identity at a time of increased travel and exploration. Through these tales people could examine who they were, who belonged to their group, who were outside it and why. They could even be used to examine what it meant to be human at all.    Thank you for listening to this episode of the History and Folklore podcast. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting. An extra thank you goes to my new patreons DD Storyteller, the Fairy Folk Podcast, Louise, Vanessa, Ben and John. My supporters on patreon help make these episodes possible and I am so grateful.  If you would like to support the History and Folklore Podcast tiers range from £1-£5 a month in exchange for benefits including early access to podcast episodes, a monthly zine with more information about the episode topic, chance to vote on episode topics, recorded folktales and how to train your house elf fact files. Patrons help pay towards the cost of running the podcast and are greatly appreciated. You can also follow the podcast on Instagram at history and folklore, twitter at HistoryFolklore and Facebook at the History and Folklore podcast where I post hopefully interesting history and folklore facts pretty much daily and answer any questions or feedback. Thank you so much for listening, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

The fourth and final part of our series on The Silk Road. It is important to understand the impact of The Silk Road both in its own time and in ours. And few better symbols exist to help us do that than The Silver Tree Fountain of Karakorum. To understand why, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the man who first described it for the Western world. Unfortunately, that man is William of Rubruck and he doesn’t much like anyone. At all. No, sir. Check out our shiny new YouTube Channel. And, as always, we’re happy to have your support. Head over to https://www.gmwordoftheweek.com/ to see how you can help out.

(NOTE: This is Pt. 1 or 2. The Full Episode & all other bonus content is available via Patreon.com/thehistoryofchina) Mongke has ascended as the Great Khan of the Mongols and set loose his younger brother, Hulegu Ilkhan to bring the Islamic world to heel. The Caliph of the Abbasid Dynasty, al-Mustasim, sits ensconced in his citadel city of Baghdad - the jewel of Islam - and believes that Allah above and his loyal subjects beneath will be more than a match for barbarian hordes. He's about to learn a lesson neither he - nor the world - will ever forget... Time Period Covered: 1258-1259 CE Major Historical Figures: Mongol Empire: Hülegü Ilkhan [ca. 1215-1265] General Kitbukha [d. 1260] General Baiju [1201-1260] Abbasid Caliphate: al-Musta'sim-Billah Abu-Ahmad Abdullah bin al-Mustansir Billah, 37th Caliph [1213-1258] Governor Shahab al Din Sulaiman shah [d. 1258] Vizier Ibn al Alkami [1197-1258] Major Sources Cited: Al-Din, Rashid. Jami al Tararikh (Compendium of Histories). Al-Din, Rashid (tr. John Andrew Boyle). The Successors of Genghis Khan. Chugtai, Mizra Azeem Baig. “The Fall of Baghdad” in The Annal of Urdu Studies. Daftary, Farhad. The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines. Hillenbrand, Robert. “Propaganda in the Mongol ‘World History'” in British Academy Review, issue 17 (March 2011). Hodgson, M. G. S. “The Isma'ili State” in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods. Jamal, Nadia Eboo. Surviving the Mongols: Nizari Quhistani and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia. Marozzi, Justin. Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood. Paris, Matthew of (tr. John Allen Giles). Chronica Majora (Matthew Paris's English History From the Year 1235 to 1273, Volume 1). Saunders, J.J. The History of the Mongol Conquests. van Ruysbroeck, Willem (tr. W. W. Rockhill & Peter Jackson). The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian del Carpine. Wiet, Gaston. Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate.

(NOTE: This is Pt. 1 or 2. The Full Episode & all other bonus content is available via Patreon.com/thehistoryofchina)Mongke has ascended as the Great Khan of the Mongols and set loose his younger brother, Hulegu Ilkhan to bring the Islamic world to heel. The Caliph of the Abbasid Dynasty, al-Mustasim, sits ensconced in his citadel city of Baghdad - the jewel of Islam - and believes that Allah above and his loyal subjects beneath will be more than a match for barbarian hordes.He's about to learn a lesson neither he - nor the world - will ever forget...Time Period Covered:1258-1259 CEMajor Historical Figures:Mongol Empire:Hülegü Ilkhan [ca. 1215-1265]General Kitbukha [d. 1260]General Baiju [1201-1260]Abbasid Caliphate:al-Musta’sim-Billah Abu-Ahmad Abdullah bin al-Mustansir Billah, 37th Caliph [1213-1258]Governor Shahab al Din Sulaiman shah [d. 1258]Vizier Ibn al Alkami [1197-1258]Major Sources Cited:Al-Din, Rashid. Jami al Tararikh (Compendium of Histories).Al-Din, Rashid (tr. John Andrew Boyle). The Successors of Genghis Khan.Chugtai, Mizra Azeem Baig. “The Fall of Baghdad” in The Annal of Urdu Studies.Daftary, Farhad. The Isma’ilis: Their History and Doctrines.Hillenbrand, Robert. “Propaganda in the Mongol ‘World History’” in British Academy Review, issue 17 (March 2011).Hodgson, M. G. S. “The Isma’ili State” in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods.Jamal, Nadia Eboo. Surviving the Mongols: Nizari Quhistani and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia.Marozzi, Justin. Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood.Paris, Matthew of (tr. John Allen Giles). Chronica Majora (Matthew Paris’s English History From the Year 1235 to 1273, Volume 1).Saunders, J.J. The History of the Mongol Conquests.van Ruysbroeck, Willem (tr. W. W. Rockhill & Peter Jackson). The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian del Carpine.Wiet, Gaston. Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Following the destruction of the Khwarazmian Empire in 1221, the Mongol Empire's appetite for conquest to the west is whetted. It will take a few Great Khans to kick it off, but with the accession of Möngke to the throne in 1251, the way will be laid bare - to be led by his brother Hülegü Khan. The only thing standing between him and the beating heart of Islam is a ragged band of heretics scattered across the mountain fortresses of northern Persia - a group known as the Nizari Isma'ili... or more infamously: the Assassins. Time Period Covered: 765-1257 CE Major Historical Figures: Mongol Empire: Möngke Khaghan [r. 1251-1259] Hülegü Ilkhan [r. 1251-1265] General Ket-Buqa (Noyan) [d. 1260] Nizari Isma'ili: Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq [702-765] Hassan-i Sabbah [1050-1124] Imam Jalal al-Din Hassan [1187-1221] Imam Ala al-Din Muhammad III [1211-1255] Imam Rukn al-Din Khurshah [1230-1256] Other: Brother Matthew of Paris [1200-1259] Friar William of Rubruck [1220-1293] Ata-Malik Juvayni [1226-1283] Rashid al-Din Hamadani [1247-1318] Major Sources Cited: Al-Din, Rashid (tr. John Andrew Boyle). The Successors of Genghis Khan. Daftary, Farhad. The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines. Hillenbrand, Robert. “Propaganda in the Mongol ‘World History'” in British Academy Review, issue 17 (March 2011). Hodgson, M. G. S. “The Isma'ili State” in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods. Jamal, Nadia Eboo. Surviving the Mongols: Nizari Quhistani and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia. Marozzi, Justin. Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood. Paris, Matthew of (tr. John Allen Giles). Chronica Majora (Matthew Paris's English History From the Year 1235 to 1273, Volume 1). Saunders, J.J. The History of the Mongol Conquests. van Ruysbroeck, Willem (tr. W. W. Rockhill & Peter Jackson). The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian del Carpine.

Following the destruction of the Khwarazmian Empire in 1221, the Mongol Empire's appetite for conquest to the west is whetted. It will take a few Great Khans to kick it off, but with the accession of Möngke to the throne in 1251, the way will be laid bare - to be led by his brother Hülegü Khan.The only thing standing between him and the beating heart of Islam is a ragged band of heretics scattered across the mountain fortresses of northern Persia - a group known as the Nizari Isma'ili... or more infamously: the Assassins.Time Period Covered:765-1257 CEMajor Historical Figures:Mongol Empire:Möngke Khaghan [r. 1251-1259]Hülegü Ilkhan [r. 1251-1265]General Ket-Buqa (Noyan) [d. 1260]Nizari Isma'ili:Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq [702-765]Hassan-i Sabbah [1050-1124]Imam Jalal al-Din Hassan [1187-1221]Imam Ala al-Din Muhammad III [1211-1255]Imam Rukn al-Din Khurshah [1230-1256]Other:Brother Matthew of Paris [1200-1259]Friar William of Rubruck [1220-1293]Ata-Malik Juvayni [1226-1283]Rashid al-Din Hamadani [1247-1318]Major Sources Cited:Al-Din, Rashid (tr. John Andrew Boyle). The Successors of Genghis Khan.Daftary, Farhad. The Isma’ilis: Their History and Doctrines.Hillenbrand, Robert. “Propaganda in the Mongol ‘World History’” in British Academy Review, issue 17 (March 2011).Hodgson, M. G. S. “The Isma’ili State” in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods.Jamal, Nadia Eboo. Surviving the Mongols: Nizari Quhistani and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia.Marozzi, Justin. Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood.Paris, Matthew of (tr. John Allen Giles). Chronica Majora (Matthew Paris’s English History From the Year 1235 to 1273, Volume 1).Saunders, J.J. The History of the Mongol Conquests.van Ruysbroeck, Willem (tr. W. W. Rockhill & Peter Jackson). The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian del Carpine.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Mongke Khaan was dead. Over his 8 year reign, he had ruled the Mongol Empire firmly, strengthening government and renewing the conquests. Yet had not solved the tensions and problems which had been simmering below the surface since the death of Ogedai. Having not designated a successor, Mongke’s brothers Kublai and Ariq Böke would stand in to fill the void, with disastrous results for the empire. In the aftermath of Mongke’s death, the Mongol Empire was irrevocably torn apart, ending the dreams of Chinggis Khan for Mongolian unity. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   Before we carry on with our narrative, we must note that following events are highly coloured by who won- quite literally a case of history being written by the victors seeking to justify their victory. Based on recent scholarship and recognition of these biases, we will try to offer a slight reinterpretation of the events, though the outcome remains the same.   Mongke died in August 1259 while on campaign in China, fighting the Song Dynasty in Sichuan. His plan to overwhelm the Song came to a crashing halt, bogged down in sieges and mud, before his demise caused his army to fall back. Perhaps the sole safe guard left in place in event of his death was his youngest brother, Ariq Böke, left as regent in the imperial capital, Karakorum, while Mongke marched on China. Intended to keep the empire running smoothly in Mongke’s absence, it’s possible Mongke, as with so much of his reign, had tailored this as reaction to the regencies after the deaths of Ogedai and Guyuk. Rather than repeat the chaotic periods of control by Torogene and Oghul Qaimish, Mongke may have wanted Ariq to seamlessly step up and guide the empire to an organized quriltai, rather than rely on conniving mothers to do it themselves. Thus was Ariq brought to the forefront of the world stage.   So who was Ariq Böke? The youngest son of Tolui and Sorhaktani Beki, he was born sometime in the early 1220s, putting him in his early forties at Mongke’s death. Unlike his older brother Kublai, Ariq never showed any affinity to Chinese culture, despite being provided Confucian advisers. Instead, he is generally portrayed as a proud supporter of Mongolian culture, priding himself as a nomad uncorrupted by the sedentary world. The second part of his name, Böke, is an epithet, which means variously ‘bull, strong/unbreakable, wrestler.’ Evidently, he was a man of quite some physical prowess, perhaps a star in that favourite Mongol pastime of wrestling. He seems to have had an affinity to Christianity: the Franciscan Friar, William of Rubruck, during his visit to Mongke’s court in 1254 interacted with Ariq and noted that he listened to Christian oratory several time, made the sign of the cross and stated that he knew the Messiah is God. Considering that Rubruck remarked on Mongke’s own refusal to convert to Christianity or Islam and his personal failures to convert anyone, there’s no reason to think he lied on Ariq’s interest in the religion. Ariq’s mother Sorhaktani and at least one of his sons, Mingliq-Temur, were Christians. His chief wife was an Oirat princess, Elchiqmish (el-chiq-mish), described as very tall and as a granddaughter of Chinggis Khan via his daughter Chechiyegen (Chech-ee-yeg-en), she was also Ariq’s cousin. They had no children, but Ariq is said to have loved her very much.    One of Mongke’s sons who accompanied him on the campaign into China, Asutai, brought his father’s body to Mongolia in autumn 1259. Immediately, Ariq Böke stepped into his duties as regent. Messages were sent across the empire to alert princes and notables of the Great  Khan’s demise: Kublai, Mongke’s brother closest in age and also campaigning in China, learned of his death in September. Their third brother, Hulegu, learned of it in spring 1260. Representatives of the family were told to come to Mongolia in order for Ariq to arrange a quriltai and decide who would succeed Mongke. But trouble came from a perhaps expected direction: Kublai, their brother who had often butted heads with Mongke, now refused to return to Karakorum.    Over Mongke’s reign, Kublai had been a repeated problem for both the Khan and his chief officials. After his return from the Dali campaign in 1254, Kublai began administering a large swath of northern China. There he showed what some modern authors interpret as inclinations to independence; or at the very least, pretensions to greater autonomy. The first sign was Kublai butting heads with the head of the Secretariat for China, the long-time servant of the Central Government, Mahmud Yalavach. Yalavach was reappointed to the position in 1251, and nominally in charge of tax assessment and collection, but found his efforts challenged by Kublai and his Chinese advisers who desired a more ‘Confucian,’ and local method of taxation and governance. Yalavach was never on good terms with the Chinese, and found many enemies among Kublai’s faction. Accused of malfeasance by Kublai’s followers, around 1254 Yalavach was removed from his post and soon died, though the exact details are murky. So ended the long career of a man who had once served as Chinggis Khan’s envoy to the Khwarezmshah.   Without Yalavach’s meddling, Kublai could strengthen his local influence and position. Most apparent was in the building of a city in 1256 in what is modern Inner Mongolia, on the very edge of the steppe and north China. Called Kaiping, it was built in Chinese style and looked rather suspiciously like a capital city, a rival to Karakorum. The next year, some of Mongke’s ministers under Alandar led an investigation into Kublai’s administration, finding numerous infractions. Kublai’s authority was curtailed, his powers of tax collection rescinded, and some of his men executed. But there were further concerns, most identifiable in Kublai’s affinity for Chinese culture. Filling his staff with Buddhist and Confucians, Kublai’s administration looked a little too Chinese for Mongke’s tastes. The Mongol Empire needed to be ruled by Mongols, afterall, and placing more power into the hands of the Chinese simply would not do. Kublai remained in Mongke’s bad graces until 1258, when Mongke needed him for the oncoming campaign against the Song Dynasty. Provided one of the main armies, Kublai led his force through Central China to O-chou, modern Wuhan, where he learned of Mongke’s death in September 1259. Ariq Böke’s officials were there to get Kublai to move north for the quriltai, only for Kublai to spurn them.     While Kublai’s official excuse was that he could not depart with his task unfinished, an alternative explanation is often provided by modern authors. That is, that Kublai saw this as his chance to take the throne, but needed to beef up his military credentials with victories- so far unearned in that campaign. Ariq Böke, to our knowledge, had not led any armies, making this perhaps the one area Kublai could one-up his brother in the eyes of the Mongol aristocracy. Keep in mind how Ariq’s epithet stressed his strength and ability as a wrestler. In comparison, Kublai suffered from gout and may have already been overweight. Already seen as soft for his interest in Chinese culture and known for having lost Mongke’s trust as an administrator, Kublai needed every advantage he could get in an election against Ariq. If he could paint himself as the better, more experienced military commander, that could be all the edge he needed. Since elections took a while to be called to allow for the appropriate princes and representatives to return to Mongolia, Kublai e predicted he had plenty of time to take a few cities and score some victories of his own.   Kublai spent the next two month crossing the Yangzi River and taking O-chou, linking up with another commander, Uriyangqadai, the son of the illustrious Subutai. The news of Kublai’s continued campaigning was not well met back in Karakorum. Two members of Mongke’s keshig were particularly displeased by this: Alandar, the official who investigated Kublai’s administration, and most importantly, Bulghai, the chief judge of the empire, a Nestorian Christian and Mongke’s #2. Neither was friendly with Kublai. As brother closest in age to the late Khan, Kublai was a prime candidate for the throne, albeit one too interested in Chinese culture and a threat to the current top men of the empire. Therefore, Bulghai and Alandar began to organize the election of Ariq as the next Khan of Khans, if Ariq had not already begun to encourage this himself. With the burial of Mongke, his son Asutai and his generals returned and presented Mongke’s jade seal to Ariq.    Part of organizing a quriltai was getting the appropriate bribes -again, sorry, gift giving- out in time to ensure the princes voted for the right candidate. It had taken Torogene a matter of years to organize the proper support for Guyuk’s coronation, and this was not a process done in secret. That Ariq was left as regent in Karakorum suggests he had a good relationship with those top officials of the Central Secretariat. Having these men and their government institutions on his side made for a powerful campaigning apparatus. Quickly, it seems Ariq gathered widespread support, particularly from the imperial administration and Mongke’s family, especially his sons Asutai and Urungtash who, for reasons we cannot discern, do not seem to have ever been considered as candidates.   In November 1259, messages reached Kublai from his wife, Chabi, at that time in Kaiping. Kublai highly valued Chabi’s advice, and when she sent word that Ariq looked to be moving to claim the Khanate, Kublai was forced to give up his advance to China. That this exchange occurred suggests Kublai’s primary interest was not carrying out the expansion, but securing his own claim for the throne. Withdrawing north to Kaiping, he left only a token force behind to guard his conquests, which was soon crushed when an army was sent by the Song chancellor, Jia Sidao. Sidao portrayed it as a great victory, playing it up to secure his newly taken place at the head of the Song court. Kublai could only send envoys seeking a diplomatic settlement, who were imprisoned by the chancellor, an anticlimactic end to Kublai’s effort at military glory in time for the election.   Returning to Kaiping in Inner Mongolia in the first days of 1260, Kublai watched the support for Ariq’s election continually grow. Having been forced to give up his military conquests in the south, and therefore not creating a reputation as a great conqueror, Kublai may have felt he lost the chance to win an election on Ariq’s term. Perhaps fearful that Ariq may try to arrest him if he approached Karakorum with a small entourage, yet knowing approaching with a larger escort would look like he was attacking the city, Kublai felt he had only one choice: declare himself Khan first, on ground of his choosing. In April or May 1260, at his own city of Kaiping, did Kubla Khan a stately reign decree, and in doing so signed the death warrant for Mongol imperial unity. By all standards, it was illegal: Kublai had neither the support of the four branches of the family and the election was not in the Onon-Kerulen region, the homeland of Chinggis Khan, but in his Chinese-style city. Kublai Khan had just usurped the throne.    He had one small feather in his cap; Kublai could boast he was already recognized by a foreign power. When moving northwards, Kublai met the travelling Crown Prince of Korea, Wang Chon. Having been sent as a royal hostage to Mongke’s court, his timing was poor: while on the road, both Mongke and Wang Chon’s father, King Kojong, died. Korean sources assert that upon learning of Mongke’s death, like a good loyal subject Wang Chon sped to recognize Kublai as the rightful Khan. The idea that Wang Chon had any choice of the matter is generally dismissed by modern scholars. As part of Kublai’s entourage, he witnessed Kublai’s election and was soon sent back to Korea to be installed as the new King, Wonjong. A powerful opening move, it was the beginning of a decades-long close relationship between Kublai, Wonjong and their descendants. Kublai followed up his election with official messages to the Song and official proclamations; that his goals were to feed the hungry, reduce taxes and burdens on the people. Within days of becoming Great Khan, Kublai took a Chinese era name. In Chinese imperial tradition, emperors denoted sections of their reign as eras, which was used for year identification. It’s the kind of thing one does if they want to be associated with Chinese customs of leadership. From the start, Kublai Khan did not just hold an illegal election, but a shockingly Chinese one as well.  For Ariq’s faction in Karakorum, this was a shocking demonstration against the legacy of Chinggis Khan. More immediately, it was a dangerous grab for power.   In reaction, in July of 1260 Ariq Böke finally held his election and was declared Khan in an appropriately placed, decidedly non-Chinese process. Ariq held a better claim to legitimacy, for it seems he actually had the support of the branches of the family. The regent of the Chagatai Khanate was the popular Orghina Khatun, sister of Ariq’s beloved wife Elchiqmish, who gave her support. The Jochid Khan, Berke, sent his support, as did some Ogedeid princes, and it seems so did Kublai and Ariq’s brother, Hulegu, whose son Jumqhur attended.  Mongke’s sons Asutai and Urungtash, his widows, his keshig and the Central Secretariat led by Bulghai and Alandar, sided strongly with Ariq, and so did the venerable Shigi Qutuqu, an adopted son of Chinggis Khan now well into his 70s.    Over summer 1260, as tensions heightened, messengers sped between the two brothers. Each wanted the other to submit and recognize their rule. Neither yielded. While Ariq had the official support, Kublai was decidedly in the advantage in terms of position. Kublai could exert his hold across northern China, ousting officials who had declared for Ariq and allying with  Qadan, a son of Ogedai and the prince holding the Uighur territories around Beshbaliq. Between them, they sought to close off access to north China to Ariq. For Ariq in Karakorum, this placed him in an unsustainable position. Karakorum could not support itself, requiring hundreds of cartloads of supplies daily, largely from northern China. With his army stationed there, this was even more imperative. In a contest of resources, Kublai’s hold of north China was a trump card.    To further starve out Karakorum, Kublai sought to install a new Chagatai Khan loyal to him, a great-grandson of Chagatai named Abishgha. With a small party, Abishgha was sent to oust Orghina Khatun and take power there, denying the Chagatai ulus’ resources and men to Ariq. Abishgha and his small party were captured and brought to Ariq. Tensions boiled. It was a diplomatic impasse. By autumn, it was war. Kublai began to occupy Mongolia, while Ariq sent an army under Alandar to seize the former Tangut territory, the Gansu corridor, the conduit which links north China to Central Asia. In October, Alandar was killed and his  army defeated by Kadan and Kublai’s loyalists. Kublai could now exert control across the northern Chinese right to Kadan in Uighuria. At a similar time, part of Ariq’s army was also defeated by Kublai’s troops at an unknown site called Baski. A panicked Ariq had Ahishgha executed, then moved his army from the untenable position at Karakorum, falling back to the Yenisei River valley. Northwest of Mongolia proper, the Yenisei is a valuable region producing wheat, millet, barley and craftsmen, but no place to conquer China from. Sending messages of peace to Kublai, Ariq managed to diplomatically hold off Kublai, stopping him from seizing Karakorum and providing Ariq time to think of new plans.   With the start of 1261, Ariq implemented his new schemes. While popular in the Chagatai ulus, Orghina Khatun, regent for her young son Mubarak Shah, was not a war leader. Ariq had her replaced by Alghu, a grandson of Chagatai who could hopefully rally the ample resources of the Middle ulus for Ariq’s needs with loss of access to resources of China. In the summer, Ariq sought to wrest control of Mongolia from Kublai’s men. Ariq won the first engagement, but Kublai merely sent another army against his brother. In November 1261, at Shimu’ultu Lake in southeastern Mongolia, Ariq Böke Khan’s army was defeated and forced to retreat. Ariq had to abandon Mongolia for good, falling back to the Yenisei River.    Ariq could never come back from the defeat at Shimu’ultu. He lacked the manpower to engage in any attrition with Kublai, and over 1262 the chance of victory was wrenched from his grasp. That year Kublai’s forces entered Karakorum, though his direct actions against Ariq were limited due to an uprising within his Chinese territory. In the west, Ariq’s ally Berke was unable to provide support with the opening of war between him and Hulegu over the Caucasus.  Alghu, Ariq’s appointee in the Chagatai realm, started to attack Jochid possessions in Khwarezm and Tranosxiana, ousting Berke’s representatives. Killing Ariq’s envoys, by the end of the year Alghu declared for Kublai. Ariq’s only chance at securing anything depended on the resources of the Chagatais, and in 1263 from his base on the Yenisei he attacked Alghu. Alghu won in the first two engagements, but Ariq had the better of the third, forcing Alghu to flee to Kashgar.    Ariq took the Chagatai capital of Almaliq, in modern Xinjiang close to the border with Kazakhstan. It was here that Ariq spent the final days of his reign. An incredibly harsh winter in 1263 brought famine to men and horses on the steppe. A frustrated Ariq Böke took his anger out on captured Chagatai prisoners. Harsh treatment of fellow Mongols alienated Ariq’s supporters and coupled with the conditions, led to desertion. Hulegu’s son Jumghur left, as did Mongke’s son Urungtash, who brought his father’s seal to Kublai. The omens were bad: harsh winds tore Ariq’s tent right from its pegs, causing it to crash about and injure many. At its end and with an ever decreasing circle of supporters, Ariq knew the gig was up. In August of 1264, he came in person before Kublai at Kaiping, now renamed to Shangdu. Per the account of the Ilkhanid historian and vizier Rashid al-Din, Ariq waited in front of Kublai’s ger for permission to enter, and upon coming face to face with his brother burst into tears. An emotional Kublai asked, “my dear brother, during this strife and contention, were we right or were you?”   To which, as written by Rashid al-Din, Ariq Böke replies “we were then. But you are today.”   Blame was placed onto Ariq’s generals, who were accused of instigating Ariq’s “revolt.” 10,  including Bulghai, were executed. Ariq was to be put on trial before the other heads of the family, but all of them- Berke, Hulegu and Alghu, refused to come. Yet Kublai’s generals demanded punishment. The problem was fixed when illness very conveniently struck down the erstwhile healthy Ariq Böke. The timing was certainly handy, and accusations fall on Kublai. Yet it’s possible that a depressed Ariq, brought down by a difficult and fruitless civil war, drunk himself to an early grave. So it was that Kublai was the sole claimant as Khan of Khans.    Having won the war, Kublai lost the empire. Only Hulegu provided his nominal support, but neither he nor Berke or Alghu ever made an attempt to submit in person. Over 1265 and 1266, the three of them died. Hulegu’s successor, his son Abaqa, received an official investiture from Kublai, but Kublai had no power to depose or appoint him or his successors. Kublai sent another descendant of Chagatai, Baraq, to take Alghu’s place, but Baraq soon operated independent of the Great Khan, and fought with the rising prince of the Ogedeids, Qaidu. By 1269, a brief peace was organized between Baraq, Qaidu and the new Jochid Khan, Mongke-Temur. The Peace of Qatwan as it’s known, saw territorial distribution and allotment totally without Kublai’s consideration, circumventing utterly the Great Khan’s authority. Kublai’s rule as Great Khan was nominal in the western half of Mongol territory, a spectre of illegitimacy hanging over him. By 1271, we can speak in earnest of the divisions of the Empire as independent entities, khanates:  the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate, the Ilkhanate and the Yuan Dynasty, the latter being the Chinese dynastic name Kublai gave to his reduced empire. As well, there is the matter of the Ogedeid Khanate under Qaidu, the Neguderis and the Blue and White Horde, but we will illuminate these in future episodes.   Most of our sources from within the Mongol Empire come from areas ruled by the descendants of Kublai and Hulegu, the Yuan Dynasty and the Ilkhanate. In the Yuan Dynasty, the need to justify Kublai’s election as legitimate is obvious. The most influential of Ilkhanid authors was the vizier Rashid al-Din, whose Compendium of Chronicles is among the most valuable of all medieval sources on the Mongols. Writing around 1300, Rashid was personally informed of the events of the 1260s from Bolad Chingsang, one of Kublai’s judges who took part in the trials against Ariq and his generals. This pro-Kublai bias strongly affected Rashid al-Din’s work, who dubbed the war as “Ariq’s revolt.” Like so many other figures of the Mongol Empire, only by carefully sifting through the surviving sources can we hope to see through the biases of the winning side. Doubtless, had Ariq had won, Kublai’s name would have been the one tarnished. But Kublai secured his empire, and now the long reign of Kublai Khan was to begin.    The Mongol Empire as a united entity ceased to exist by Kublai Khan’s victory in 1264, but it’s history does not end there. Our future episodes will discuss the other great breakup of the empire, the Berke-Hulegu war, and the continued histories of the successor Khanates, so be sure to subscribe to our podcast. If you’d like to help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one!

When Ögedei dies in late 1241, the empire must choose a successor before it can move forward. In spite of the late Khan determining in advance that it should be his grandson, his empress has other ideas - namely, installing her own irascible son, Güyük, instead. This raises more than a few eyebrows, especially from the Lord of the Golden Horde (and Güyük's personal nemesis) Batu Khan. He'll spend then next 5 years doing absolutely everything in his power to prevent Güyüks' enthronement. And so, when Güyük is finally installed... is it any surprise that he'll seek to get even on his hated cousin? Their looking showdown on the fields of Dzungaria will set the stage for a truly unpredictable series of events, that will leave the Mongol Empire altered forever... (NOTE: This is Part 1 of a Bonus Episode! Get the rest, and all other bonus content by subscribing via patreon.com/thehistoryofchina Time Period Covered: 1242-1254 CE Major Historical Figures: Mongol Empire: Temuge Otchigin, Genghis Khan's youngest brother, Prince of the Hearth [1168-1246] House Ögedei: *Ögedei Khaghan [r. 1232-1241] Toregene Khatun [r. 1242-1246] Güyük Khaghan [r. 1246-1248] Oghul Khaimish Khatun [r. 1248-1251] Prince Shiremun [d. 1251] Prince Khodan [d. 1246] Lady Fatima [d. 1246] House Tolui: *Tolui Otchigin [1191-1232] Sorkhakhtani Beki [1190-1252] Möngke Khaghan [r. 1251-1259] Prince Khubilai Prince Hulagu Prince Ariq Boke General Menggesar, Noyan Companion of Mongke House Jochi: *Jochi [c. 1182-1225] Batu, Khan of the Golden Horde [1205-1255] Major Sources Cited: De Nicola, Bruno. “Regents and Empresses: Women's Rule In the Mongols' World Empire” in Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns, 1206-1335. Hamadani, Rashid-al-Din. Compendium of Chronicles. Dowson, John (tr.) Juvaini, Ata-Malik. History of the World Conqueror. (tr. John Andrew Boyle). Kim, Hodong. “A Reappraisal of Güyüg Khan” in Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomand and the Sedentary World. Man, John. Kublai Khan: The Mongol King Who Remade China. McLynn, Frank. Genghis Khan: This Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy. Onon, Urgunge (tr.). The Secret History of the Mongols: The Life and Times of Chinggis Khan. Rockhill, William Woodville (tr.). The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian de Carpine. Rossabi, Morris. “The Reigns of Ogodei and Guyug” in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368. Weatherford, Jack. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.

When Ögedei dies in late 1241, the empire must choose a successor before it can move forward. In spite of the late Khan determining in advance that it should be his grandson, his empress has other ideas - namely, installing her own irascible son, Güyük, instead. This raises more than a few eyebrows, especially from the Lord of the Golden Horde (and Güyük's personal nemesis) Batu Khan. He'll spend then next 5 years doing absolutely everything in his power to prevent Güyüks' enthronement. And so, when Güyük is finally installed... is it any surprise that he'll seek to get even on his hated cousin? Their looking showdown on the fields of Dzungaria will set the stage for a truly unpredictable series of events, that will leave the Mongol Empire altered forever...(NOTE: This is Part 1 of a Bonus Episode! Get the rest, and all other bonus content by subscribing via patreon.com/thehistoryofchinaTime Period Covered:1242-1254 CEMajor Historical Figures:Mongol Empire:Temuge Otchigin, Genghis Khan's youngest brother, Prince of the Hearth [1168-1246]House Ögedei:*Ögedei Khaghan [r. 1232-1241]Toregene Khatun [r. 1242-1246]Güyük Khaghan [r. 1246-1248]Oghul Khaimish Khatun [r. 1248-1251]Prince Shiremun [d. 1251]Prince Khodan [d. 1246]Lady Fatima [d. 1246]House Tolui:*Tolui Otchigin [1191-1232]Sorkhakhtani Beki [1190-1252]Möngke Khaghan [r. 1251-1259]Prince KhubilaiPrince HulaguPrince Ariq BokeGeneral Menggesar, Noyan Companion of MongkeHouse Jochi:*Jochi [c. 1182-1225]Batu, Khan of the Golden Horde [1205-1255]Major Sources Cited:De Nicola, Bruno. “Regents and Empresses: Women’s Rule In the Mongols’ World Empire” in Women in Mongol Iran: The Khatuns, 1206-1335.Hamadani, Rashid-al-Din. Compendium of Chronicles. Dowson, John (tr.)Juvaini, Ata-Malik. History of the World Conqueror. (tr. John Andrew Boyle).Kim, Hodong. “A Reappraisal of Güyüg Khan” in Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomand and the Sedentary World.Man, John. Kublai Khan: The Mongol King Who Remade China.McLynn, Frank. Genghis Khan: This Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy.Onon, Urgunge (tr.). The Secret History of the Mongols: The Life and Times of Chinggis Khan.Rockhill, William Woodville (tr.). The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55, as narrated by himself, with two accounts of the earlier journey of John of Pian de Carpine.Rossabi, Morris. “The Reigns of Ogodei and Guyug” in The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368.Weatherford, Jack. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Before we get into this week's episode, I want to give a shout out to another podcast that we’ve recently discovered here at Ages of Conquest! Pax Britannica is a narrative history podcast on the British Empire. Season 1 covered the start of English colonisation in North America and the Caribbean, the first decades of the East India Company, and the ruthless politics of the British Isles. Season 2 has just begun on the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Civil war and revolution erupt in England, Ireland, and Scotland, pitting the forces of Charles I against his own subjects. By the end, the king will be dead, the monarchy abolished, and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell will be at the head of a militarised and expansionist Commonwealth. If any of this sounds even remotely appealing, go give Pax Britannica a listen; available where all fine podcasts are downloaded. And now, on with OUR show!   “You are to go with a large army and innumerable force from the borders of Turan to the country of Iran. Observe Chinggis Khan’s customs and yosun and yasa in all matters large and small. From the River Oxus to the farthest reaches of the land of Egypt, treat kindly and affectionately and reward sufficiently whoever obeys and submits to your orders. Grind beneath the feet of your wrath those who resist, along with their wives, children, and kith and kin. Begin with Quhistan and Khurasan, and destroy the fortresses and castles. Rip up GirdKoh and [Lammasar] fortress and turn them upside down! Neither let any bastion remain in the world nor leave a pile of dust standing! When you are finished there, head for Persia and eliminate the Lurs and Kurds who constantly practice brigandage along the highways. If the Caliph of Baghdad comes out to pay homage, harass him in no way whatsoever. If he is prideful and his heart and tongue are not one, let him join the others. In all cases make your clear-sighted intelligence and golden mind your guide and leader, and be awake and sober in all situations. Let the subjects be free of excessive taxes and impositions. Return devastated lands to a flourishing state. Conquer the realm of the rebellious through the might of the great god so that your summer and winter pastures may be many. Consult Doquz Khatun on all matters.”       So were the orders Mongke Khaan, Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, gave to his brother Hulegu on the outset of his campaign in 1253, according to the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid al-Din. Among the most famous of the Mongol campaigns, Hulegu led Mongol armies to destroys the Ismaili Assassins in Iran, the ‘Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad and into Syria, the prelude to the famous clash at Ayn Jalut. As this is perhaps the Mongol campaign with the greatest surviving detail, and one of the most well known, we’re going to take you on a thorough look at Hulegu’s western march, beginning with the destruction of the so-called “Order of Assassin.” I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Hulegu, the famed sacker of Baghdad, was the younger brother of Great Khan Mongke and Kublai, the third son of Tolui with Sorqaqtani. As mentioned back in episode 23, Mongke Khaan took the throne in 1251 with a renewed drive to complete the Mongol conquest of the world. He organized administrative reforms, censuses, and new taxes to levy the forces of the empire for this goal. In 1252, he held a meeting in Mongolia to put this next round of conquest in motion, placing his brothers at the head of two great armies. Kublai was sent against the Kingdom of Dali, in China’s modern Yunnan province, as the opening move in the conquest of Song Dynasty. Hulegu meanwhile was to march west and subdue the few independent powers of the Islamic world: specifically, the Nizari Ismailis, popularly known as the Assassins; the Kurds and Lurs of western Iran, who annoyed the Great Khan through their brigandage, and the ‘Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad.       There is discrepancy in the sources as to what precisely Hulegu’s mandate was. A number of later authors of the Ilkhanate- the state which emerged from Hulegu’s conquests- assert that Mongke intended for the area from the Amu Darya River to the Meditteranean to be ruled by Hulegu as another ulus, or Khanate of the empire, a counterbalance to those of Jochi and Chagatai, a sort of Toluid axis across Asia sandwiching the Chagatayids. This is hardly agreed upon however. Other sources present Hulegu’s command as a temporary military one. The Ilkhanid vizier and historian Rashid al-Din wrote that Mongke told Hulegu to return to Mongolia once he had achieved his tasks; Hulegu had to confer with his commanders on all strategic decisions, which included representatives from the houses of Jochi, Chagatai and even Ogedai, a first amongst equals rather than an almighty prince; and when Hulegu began to seize Jochid possessions in Iran, Khurasan and the Caucasus after Mongke’s death, it seems to have taken them quite by surprise, for in the early 1250s Mongke confirmed grants of Caucasian territory to the house of Jochi. It’s likely that Mongke had intended for Iran and much of the Middle East to be dominated by the Central Imperial Government, but did not intend to remove land rights the other branches of the family enjoyed in the region.          So, who was Hulegu? Born in 1217, he was two years younger than Kublai, almost ten years younger than Mongke, and a few years older than their youngest brother, Ariq Boke. His life before the ascension of Mongke is almost totally unknown to us, but he presumably received similar education in both governing and warfare to his brothers.  While Mongke was groomed for the possibility of stepping into the imperial throne, Hulegu, to our knowledge, was not provided any such pretensions. He was well exposed to other religions and cultures; his mother, Sorqaqtani was a Nestorian Christian, as was his most influential wife, Doquz Khatun, who had been a widow of his father Tolui. Despite this, he showed more personal interest in Buddhism, though he took part in shamanistic practices throughout his recorded life. He was interesedt in science, especially astronomy, though for Hulegu this was more so in the form of astrology, which he often consulted for major decisions. He was a heavy drinker, with the lovely combination of often flying into horrific rages. Even reading pro-Ilkhanid sources like Rashid al-Din, who long served the descendants of Hulegu, one is shocked by the regularity in which Hulegu fell into a towering rage, which tended to be quite dangerous for whomever it was targeted at. His final years were marked by ill health, brought on excessive drinking, and at least one source indicates he suffered from epilepsy.       With the quriltai of 1252, the plan to finalize the conquest of western Asia was set, and Hulegu put in motion. A member of Mongke’s keshig was provided for Hulegu’s command, Kitbuqa of the Naiman tribe, also a Nestorian Christian. Kitbuqa departed as Hulegu’s vanguard in August 1252 with 12,000 men, beginning operations against the Ismailis in eastern Iran. Various sources give Hulegu’s own departure from Mongolia as Autumn 1253 or 1254. By the 1250s, the Mongols had an absolutely massive army: some estimates put the nomadic soldiers at their disposal upwards of one million men, and many more among the sedentary peoples across Eurasia to be called upon.  Mongke provided Hulegu with a relatively small contingent of Mongols at the outset: perhaps as low as a tumen, 10,000 men, for Hulegu in addition to the 12,000 Kitbuqa had already set out with. As Hulegu moved west, his army snowballed, as contingents from across the empire met with him. 1,000 Chinese siege engineers and crossbowmen were provided for him. Most of the former warriors of the house of Ogedai were conscripted for Hulegu’s army. He was joined by a contingent of Oirats under Buqa Temur, the brother of Hulegu’s first senior wife, named somewhat amusingly, Guyuk. A grandson of Chagatai, Teguder, headed the perhaps 10,000 Chagatayid troops provided for Hulegu as he marched through their ulus. As many as 30,000 troops under the Jochid princes Balaghai, Quli and Tutar were provided by Batu. Tamma forces stationed in Kashmir and in the Caucasus, under Baiju Noyan, would also link up with Hulegu, and forces were supplied by all the client sultans, maliks, and atabegs of Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia. By the time Hulegu’s army converged on Baghdad at the start of 1258, he commanded perhaps 150,000 men if not more.        Extensive preparation was necessary for this army’s movement. We are told that roads were cleared of obstructions, bridges built and boats readied to cross rivers. All the pastures and meadows on Hulegu’s route were reserved for the feeding of his army’s horses and livestock. Flour and skins of wine were levied from across the subject populations and stored at depot stations along the way. Thanks to the census launched at the start of Mongke’s reign, the imperial government had a good idea of what could be called upon to provide for Hulegu’s army.        By Autumn 1255 Hulegu was near Samarkand, where he rested for 40 days, feasting with the head of the Secretariat for Central Asia, Mas’ud Beg. Another month was spent at Kish, about 80 kilometres south of Samarkand and the later birthplace of amir Temur, or Tamerlane. There, Hulegu feasted with the head of the Secretariat for Iran and Western Asia, Arghun Aqa. These were not just engagements for drinking (though there certainly was that) but to confer with the regional administrators and line up further provisions, troops and intelligence. At Kish, messengers were sent to vassals across Iran calling upon them to provide troops and assistance against the Ismaili assassins, whose territory Hulegu entered in the spring of 1256.   This takes us to Hulegu’s first target, the Assassins, which we’ll introduce and address some popular myths. Though popularly known as the Order of the Assassins, this is quite the misnomer; more accurately called the Nizari Ismaili state, they controlled a number of fortresses and settlements in three general regions; in Syria, centered around Masyaf; in the rugged eastern Iranian region called Quhistan; and in northwestern Iran’s Alburz mountain, where their  leadership was based across several mountain fortresses, most famously Alamut. Leadership of the branches in Quhistan and Masyaf was generally appointed by Alamut, but were autonomous otherwise. Shi’a Muslims, specifically Ismailis, in the late 1080s and 1090s the Ismaili Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt suffered a succession dispute as to who would succeed the Imam, the rather distant successor to the Prophet Muhammad and ehad of Shi’a Islam. The supporters of one candidate, Nizar, were known as Nizaris, and hence, Nizari Ismailis. For the majority of Muslims, who were Sunnis, the Nizaris were seen as a sect within a sect, and heretics par excellence. At the same time as this succession dispute an Ismaili revolt broke out in Seljuq ruled Iran. In 1090, Hassan-i Sabbah captured the fortress of Alamut, while other adherents seized territory in Quhistan and elsewhere. The last of the Great Seljuqs, Sultan Malik-Shah I, attempted to crush them, but his untimely death, and the ensuing succession risis which splintered the vast Seljuq Empire, allowed the Ismailis to consolidate. Geographically spread out and lacking great economic or military power, they had to rely on other means to protect themselves and convince their neighbours to not attack them.  One tool was assassinations, making a big splash with the murder of the Great Seljuq Vizier Nizam al-Mulk in 1092. Alongside well defended and inaccessible fortresses, it was a useful deterrent for any would-be conqueror. The assassinations were often public and dramatic to make the message as loud as possible. One method was for Ismailis to infiltrate the households of powerful figures as servants: they could then kill the man when he became too great a danger, or leave a warning, such as a knife, on the sleeping man’s pillow. The threat of assassination was as effective as an actual assassination, and soon anyone could be worried he had a secret Nizari Ismaili hiding in his entourage. Because of this, popular myths that the Ismaili imbued copious amounts of hashish before going on assassinations can be ignored. There is no evidence for this, and it’s unlikely considering the patience and planning that went into these missions. However, the appellation of them as heavy users of hashish stuck, hashishiyya, which became “assassin.”   So the Nizaris carried on for over a century. Hassan-i Sabbah and his successors, without any clear imam after Nizar’s death in 1095, basically stepped into the role themselves. The Ismaili leaders -popularly known in the West as ‘the Old Man of the Mountain,’- were generally long reigning without succession disputes, withstanding outside pressures while they mulled over doctrine, all the while being decried as just the worst sort of heretic by Sunni Muslims. In 1210, the ascension of the new imam and Ismaili leader, Hassan III, brought something of a rapprochement. Generally, the Ismailis had poor relations with the head of Sunni Islam, the ‘Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad. They had after all claimed responsibility for the murders of two Caliphs in the 1130s. Yet Hassan III dramatically declared he followed the Sunni Sharia and fostered better relations with both the Caliph and other neighbouring Sunni rulers, such as Ozebg, the Eldeguzid Atabeg of Azerbaijan, and Muhammad II Khwarezm-shah. According to ‘Ata-Mailk Juvaini, a member of Hulegu’s entourage, Hassan III was also the first monarch west of the Amu Darya to submit to Chinggis Khan. Despite his state being largely surrounded by the Khwarezmian Empire, Ismaili fortresses in the Elburz Mountains and Quhistan were spared Mongol attacks. Indeed, Quhistan was a veritable island of security as the Mongols overran the Khwarezmian Empire. Juzjani, a Sunni Khwarezmian refugee who fled to Quhistan before later finding refuge in Delhi, describes the Ismailis in glowing terms.    Hassan III’s successor, ‘Ala al-Din Muhammad III, abandoned the overtures to the ‘Abbasid Caliph, but maintained the ties with the Mongols. When Jalal al-Din Mingburnu returned to western Iran in the mid 1220s, the Ismailis had no love for him and assassinated at least one of his lieutenants. When major Mongol forces returned to the region under Chormaqun Noyan at the start of the 1230s, the Ismailis provided valuable information on the whereabouts and weaknesses of Jalal al-Din, and within a year the Khwarezmian Prince was driven to his death. The details of the Mongol relationship with the Ismails for the next decade is difficult to discern. In 1246 Ismaili representatives came to the coronation of Guyuk Khaan in Mongolia, where they were insulted and sent off. Precisely what occurred is unclear. A possible reconstruction is offered by historian Timothy May in his article on the “Mongol-Ismaili Alliance.” He suggests the positive Mongol-Ismaili relationship was a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” No record is made of Mongol demands for troops or tribute from the Ismailis, and it may have been that while powerful Khwarezmian elements were still extant, relative Ismaili independence was permitted as they were useful allies. After Mingburnu’s death in 1231, and especially after the death of Chormaqun in 1241, Mongol demands on the Ismailis may have increased, and in the early 1230s the Mongols annexed Ismaili controlled Damghan. The Ismailis were so concerned that in 1238, the English Monk Matthew Paris recorded that representatives of “the Old Man of the Mountain,” had come to England and France trying to organize a Christian-Muslim alliance against the Mongols, warning the King of England that “if they themselves could not withstand the attacks of such people, nothing remained to prevent their devastating the countries of the west.” Three years later, Mongol armies under Subutai and Batu crossed the Carpathian Mountains into Hungary.   Back in the Middle East, one Mongol commander, Chagatai Noyan “the Lesser,” may have moved to enforce demands on the Ismailis, and was assassinated at some point in the early 1240s. Perhaps intended as just a warning, the Ismailis realised this was a mistake and sent representatives to Guyuk’s coronation in 1246. The Mongols were never forgiving of such things, and the destruction of the Ismailis was added to the agenda. An opportunity to actually do this didn’t present itself until the reign of Mongke Khan. The qadi of Qazwin, a city south of Alamut and quite antagonist to the Ismailis, came to Mongke’s court and revealed, in quite the breach of etiquette, that he had a suit of maille worn underneath his robes, claiming that his fear of the Ismailis was so great even in the Mongol court he needed this protection. When the Franciscan Friar William of Rubruck came to Mongke’s court in 1253, he heard rumours that 400 assassins had been dispatched to kill Mongke, and the Mongols were concerned enough that they were checking and interrogating everyone entering Karakorum. The threat of the assassins was taken seriously, and on Mongke’s directive Hulegu would treat the assassins very seriously   By then, the only independent power within proximity to Alamut was, somewhat ironically, the Caliph in Baghdad. The Ismailis stood alone against the incoming might of Hulegu. In the winter of 1255, as Hulegu stood at the border of Ismaili Quhistan, the imam ‘Ala al-Din Muhammad was murdered, quite likely on the instigation of his young and inexperienced son, Rukn al-Din Khwurshah, who then ascended to the imamate.  ‘Ala al-Din was long on bad terms with his son, and seems to have suffered some sort of mental decline as news of Hulegu’s overwhelming force approached. Rukn al-Din may have thought himself capable of maneuvering them out of the impending disaster, but would have no success in the matter.   In the spring of 1256, Hulegu and his ever growing army entered Quhistan. Kitbuqa had been campaigning throughout the region since 1253, but had had no success in holding settlements like Tun, Ismaili Quhistan’s chief city, taking them only to lose them once he moved on. The Ismaili fortresses, built on imposing mountains and hard to access sites, proved beyond his means to siege. On Hulegu’s arrival, the dynamic was quickly changed. Vague ‘incidents’ mentioned by Juvaini and Rashid al-Din as Hulegu entered the region may refer to Ismaili attacks in some form, but Hulegu’s army was beyond compare. The chief cities of Quhistan fell within days, and by the summer Kitbuqa led the vanguard to Mazandaran and raiding parties probed towards Alamut. Once Quhistan was subdued, Hulegu moved west, skirting around the edge of Iran’s uninhabitable Great Salt Desert, the Dasht-e Kevir, to arrive at the eastern endof the Alburz mountains. Near Damghan stood the Ismaili fortress of Girdkuh; Kitbuqa had first attempted to attack it in May of 1253. Hulegu committed more troops for it, then moved on. The castle, receiving only minor reinforcement from Alamut, held out until 1271. Such was the design of these fortresses when properly defended.   Rukn al-Din Khwurshah was within the fortress of Maymundiz, downstream of Alamut towards the western end of the Alburz mountains. As Hulegu moved westwards along the Alburz, he sent messengers to Rukn al-Din, demanding his submission. He was nervous, and as Hulegu’s second set of messengers arrived at the beginning of September 1256, Rukn al-Din was convinced to offer submission by the captive scholar, polymath, mathematician, astronomer and theologian, Nasir al-Din Tusi. Tusi was a much, much smarter man than Rukn al-Din Khwurshah and well respected. Having lived through Chinggis Khan’s destruction of Khwarezm, Tusi calculated that a lengthy Mongol siege wouldn’t be very healthy for anyone left inside the citadel. Therefore, on Tusi’s urging, Rukn al-Din sent his brother to Hulegu, offering the submission of the Ismailis. Hulegu thought this was nice, and treated Rukn al-Din’s brother well. He then sent another embassy with demands that Rukn al-Din tear down the Ismaili forts. Rukn al-Din was slow to respond; Hulegu was quick to advance. The token attempt by the Ismaili leader to abate Hulegu by abandoning 5 lesser castles and demolishing a few towers on Alamut, Maymundiz and Lammasar did not succeed. Unwittingly, Rukn al-Din was caught in a nerge, a Mongol hunting circle, as multiple armies converged on him from several directions and trapped him. As the armies neared Maymundiz, taking castles and settlements as they went, Rukn al-Din frantically sent a son and another brother to Hulegu, to no avail, hoping to at least stall until the cold of winter set in. By the 7th of November 1256, the three armies had Maymundiz surrounded.   Hulegu needed a quick victory. So many troops and horses needed a vast quantity of feed, the local environment was depleted and winter was forthcoming. Hulegu demanded provisions from across Iran and the Caucasus be delivered and, as if the seasons themselves adhered to the bidding of the Great Khan, the winter was mild and refused to hampher the Mongols as they approached Maymundiz. Once the armies were arrayed outside of the fortresses, Hulegu surveyed the site. Like so many Ismaili fortresses, Maymundiz was perched on a mountaintop, and hard to access. But Hulegu had his plan.    Fighting began on November 12th, 1256. The first weapons Hulegu brought forth were the kaman-i-gav, as they were known in Persian sources, generally taken to refer to the ox-bow, a Chinese siege machine which was essentially a large, mounted crossbow. These were not for destroying walls, but for picking off defenders. The writer ‘Ata-Malik Juvaini, who accompanied Hulegu on his sieges of the Ismaili cities describes “meteoric shafts,”  from these weapons “burning up” the “devil-like heretics” of Maymundiz, in constrast to stones cast by the defenders which could only hurt single persons. Historian Stephen Haw postulates that this is a reference to gunpowder weapons being used by the Mongols, in the form of explosives tied to the shafts fired from the oxbow, perhaps propelling it as an early rocket. A common critique of this argument is that such poetic language is rather typical of Juviani’s writing, and nowhere else in Hulegu’s campaign does he appear to use such dramatic weapons.    By November 17th, Hulegu’s teams had constructed their catapults and hauled them to a nearby hilltop. It’s possible that these were not just traction style Chinese catapults, but those of the counterweight variety- trebuchets. It’s not specified in written sources that Hulegu used them, but we know they were used by the Mongols by the 1270s, in addition to artwork from later in the century depicting them. Some modern authors like Michael S. Fulton believe the speed at which the major fortresses and cities of the region fell to Hulegu, even those of stone as opposed to stamped earth or mud brick, indicate the usage of counterweighted artillery. Far more powerful with greater range than man-powered traction catapults, instead of teams of men hauling on ropes, the counterweight catapult relied on, well, a counterweight instead, using gravity to propel the projectile with much greater force. Some authors also assert that the Chinese had their own counterweight catapult which the Mongols also used, but the matter is contentious, our sources providing no illumination.   The Mongols differed in their usage of artillery by relying on constant barrages. Their access to a large number of knowledgeable engineers, teams of specialists and overseers allowed them to keep up an unceasing rate of fire day and night, often from dozens of machines at once. For the defenders huddled behind the walls, psychologically it was exhausting. Aside from stones, naphtha, a petroleum-based weapon, was hurled into the city to start fires. Gunpowder bombs may have been lobbed as well. Unused to such weapons, especially in the form of the noise and smell they made, the impact must have seemed unearthly. After less than a week of bombardment, Rukn al-Din Khwurshah surrendered, and the Mongols soon demolished Maymundiz.   Hulegu received the Khwurshah kindly, for he needed him. Through his mediation, Rukn al-Din convinced some 40 odd Ismaili strongholds to surrender to Hulegu and tear down their walls. Alamut and Lammasar held out, and both were put under siege. Rukn al-Din was able to get Alamut’s garrison to come to terms, and it surrendered by December 15th. Briefly, Hulegu went sight-seeing around the castle after it surrendered, amazed by the size of the mountain, the many storerooms and indomitable defenses. It certainly saved him some time to not have to storm it! ‘Ata-Malik Juvaini was able to get permission to take some of the rare and useful tomes from Alamut’s library before the fortress was destroyed and its books burnt. Lammasar took a year to fall, but fall it did.   Hulegu kept Rukn al-Din with him until the great majority of the Ismaili fortresses in Iran had submitted or been torn down. He humoured Rukn al-Din, granting him a Mongol wife and watching Rukn al-Din’s favourite sport of camel fighting. Helping the Mongols avoid many lengthy, difficult sieges on the well defended Ismaili strongholds saved Hulegu considerable effort, but personally Hulegu found him repellent. Once his usefulness was over, in early 1257 Hulegu shipped him off to Mongke Khaan to deal with. According to Rashid al-Din, when Mongke learned the Khwurshah was in Karakorum, he was annoyed and said, “why are they bringing him and tiring a horse uselessly?” then ordered Rukn al-Din’s death. Upon learning of this, Hulegu ordered the deaths of the rest of Rukn al-Din’s captive family, sparing only a young son. Some Ismaili traditions attest another son was snuck away and kept safe, raised as the next imam in secret, but such beliefs never found widespread acceptance. As far as we are concerned, the Nizari Ismaili state ceased to exist by the end of 1256, sparing a few holdouts in Iran and their castles in Syria, as yet untouched by the Mongols.    Hulegu had completed the first of his tasks. After wintering near Lammasar and then Qazwin, in the early months of 1257 he set out west for the greatest target of the campaign: Baghdad, and the 500-year-old Abbasid Caliphate. So be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast to pick up with that next week. To help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. I’m your host David, and we will catch you on the next one. 

From Anatolia to Central China; from northern Korea to the eastern edge of Europe; from the forests of Siberia to the borders of India.  This was the empire of Grand Khan Mongke, perhaps the single most powerful monarch in history. No other king, sultan or emperor could compare to the sheer swath of humanity that Mongke ruled over, a man who reformed, centralized and expanded the empire even further. Yet, he was to be the last as uncontested Khan of the Empire, and on his death, the dream of Mongol unity was to be shattered. Today’s episode will present the reign of Mongke Khaan and his efforts to strengthen the Mongol Empire in the 1250s, while our following episodes will take us through the conquests launched and completed under his orders. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   Mongke, as we covered in episode 21, came to the throne in what historians call “the Toluid Revolution.” On Chinggis Khan’s death back in 1227, it seemed the throne was to remain in the line of his third son, Ogedai. After the death of Ogedai’s son, Guyuk Khaan in 1248,  the next Khan was the son of Ogedai’s brother Tolui, supported by the descendants of Jochi. Mongke, the oldest son of Tolui and his wife Sorqaqtani Beki, was enthroned in 1251 in Mongolia. A failed attempt to oust Mongke resulted in a great purge against the line of Ogedai, seizing most of their territory. Several figures of the Chagatai lineage were killed and the Chagatai Khan replaced, while top officials were forced into a very bloody retirement. The new line of the Great Khans held the throne with the permanent animosity of many of the surviving Ogedaids and Chagatayids. But with the full support of the Toluids and the Jochids under Batu Khan, Mongke had the strength to keep everyone in line. A Toluid Khan without that support would find it very difficult to extend his authority westwards, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves…   Enthroned as the fourth Great Khan in summer 1251, Mongke immediately set out reorganizing government. Mongke came to the throne with a view of ‘getting things back on track,’ since the death of Ogedai. The empowerment of the ortoq merchants as tax collectors, the strengthening of regional Mongol princes at the expense of the central government and infighting was a distraction to the Empire’s true purpose: bringing everything under Heaven under Mongol rule. That this had not yet been accomplished was an embarrassment as far as Mongke was concerned. Everything Mongke did was for this goal, this destiny, and none would stand in his way. The house of Ogedai had shown resistance, and for this had been crushed. Though raised to the throne by the efforts of Batu and Sorqaqtani, Mongke was no puppet. Sorqaqtani died soon after her son became Khaan, and Batu and Mongke reached an agreement, wherein Batu was essentially viceroy of the west. Given great autonomy and little imperial interference in his affairs with the integrity of the Jochid realm confirmed, Batu, until his death in 1255, was a staunch supporter of the new Khaan.   Mongke presented himself as the ideal Mongol ruler in the mould of Chinggis Khan. With his brother closest in age, Kublai, the two had a proudly shared experience with their famous grandfather. On a hunting trip with the old Chinggis, the young boys had fat from the kill spread on their fingers by the Great Khan himself. Considering how many grandchildren Chinggis had in his final years, to be singled out in any manner was a proud thing. Mongke’s father Tolui was often on campaign, leaving Mongke to be raised under the auspices of Sorqaqtani. Alongside the necessary riding, hunting and warfare abilities ingrained into all Mongol children, Mongke and his brothers were also taught leadership skills, administration, how to read and write Mongolian and were introduced to foreign cultures. Mongke was groomed to be a ruler. Taking part in the great western campaign, Mongke made it as far as Kiev, and led in various theaters, battles and sieges, forging a reputation as a skilled general. By Guyuk’s death in 1248, Mongke was a well respected and leading figure among the third generation of Chinggisids. Intelligent, brave, and ambitious, he stepped into the mantle of leadership easily. Vengeful, domineering and merciless to those he deemed as standing in his way, he was a dangerous foe.  Mongke’s reign from 1251 to the beginning of 1258 was largely focused on political and administrative needs in order to support large military campaigns across Asia. In contrast to the campaigns of his grandfather Chinggis, the conquests of the 1250s come across almost as an institutionalized form. For Chinggis Khan, government was somewhat of an accidental creation out of military-tribal structures and conquests: necessary, but minimal. For Mongke, the government served as a tool of organizing conquest, an arm of the Khan with which to pursue his will. Mongke’s control was not totalitarian by any modern sense, but it dominated the system in its most influential levels. Not constrained by any pesky constitutions or parliaments to pass laws through, Mongke wielded a level of power that perhaps no other figure in history could truly compare to.   To complete the conquest of the world, Mongke needed a stable and efficient government to take stock of the resources and materials necessary for expansion at an enormous scale.  For this project, Mongke had a fine group of men to fall upon. The top officials of the empire came from each Khan’s keshig, the imperial bodyguard. Part guard, part retinue, part administration, the men in Mongke’s keshig were a varied lot, a number of whom had served in the keshig of Tolui, and even Chinggis Khan. Intensely loyal, they had eaten, drank, lived and fought alongside one another for years. They had also prepared for the possibility of stepping into the lead roles of state.    It’s no surprise than that Mongke’s #1 and #2 were both from his keshig. The first was Menggeser Qorchi, a Jalayir Mongol who was inquisitor, judge, and executor in Mongke’s purges. He served as chief judge of the empire, head of the imperial guard and head of the Central Secretariat; essentially, Mongke’s Chancellor, replacing the late Chinqai. #2 was Bulghai of the Kereyit, a Nestorian Christian in charge of the many, many scribes and chamberlains of the Central Secretariat and the capital. An entire third of Karakorum was set aside for them. A good many were translators. Every edict of the Great Khan was translated into the main languages of the empire- Mongolian, Uighur, Persian, Chinese, Tangut and Tibetan, in order for them to be distributed properly. Upon Menggeser’s death in 1253, Bulghai was promoted to his position as well. From Mongke’s keshig, the holes made by the destruction of Ogedaid officials were filled. In the words of historian Thomas Allsen, describing Mongke’s keshig: “These people, recruited from his own household staff, were the only individuals with whom Mongke ever willingly shared power.”   With the Central Secretariat in reliable hands, Mongke looked to the regional Secretariats. Here Mongke kept some continuity with Guyuk. Mahmud Yalavach was reinstated as the head of the Secretariat for North China, and his son Mas’ud Beg back to the Central Asian Secretariat. Under Guyuk, a Secretariat for Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia was created, headed by the Oirat Mongol Arghun Aqa, who Mongke confirmed in this position. Another secretariat was ordered for the Rus’ territory in 1257, headed by a man called Kitai.  All were competent enough and not too closely associated with the Ogedeids to have survived the purges. Mongke envisioned a return to the regular taxation system under the early years of Ogedai proposed by Yelu Chucai. The tax farming of ‘Abd al-Rahman could not do; not out of a sense of empathy to the civilian populations of Asia, but because it was terribly inefficient. Beggaring the taxbase in a single year reduced revenues for years to come, simply unacceptable when armies needed to be supported for long campaigns. Yalavach, Mas’ud Beg and Arghun Aqa were able bureaucrats associated with economic rebuilding and reliable taxation, rather than personal enrichment. But to tax efficiently, the government needed to know what resources and how many people lived in each region, to ensure the most efficient demands could be made.   For this end, Mongke ordered an empire wide census. This was not unusual: the Mongols had employed censuses for decades. Guyuk had made such an order shortly before his untimely demise. The new Khan did not just want a population count though. He wanted to know the resources of the empire, numbers and locations of skilled craftsmen, who could provide what and what could be mobilized. Knowing the local population, their economic status and quality of local resources allowed the government to set taxes at appropriate levels- and made it harder for government intermediaries to skim off the top, when the Central Secretariat had its own registers to compare to. At the same time, if the population was found to be too low or too poor to pay their current rate, it could be adjusted to fit the location. This also affected recruitment, allowing the government to allocate skilled craftsmen and engineers to each army as needed.    The census moved relatively quickly given the scale of the operation: beginning in north China and Central Asia in late 1252, by 1259 Novgorod, the northernmost Rus’ principality and furthest outpost of the empire, was registered. After being surveyed, supplementary censuses were launched to catch the floating population or accommodate newly conquered territories, ensuring the Central Secretariat had reasonably up-to-date information for setting their demands. Registers were carried out by imperial agents alongside representatives of the regional Mongol prince and local rulers, for assistance and protection.  In Novgorod, the famed prince Alexander Nevsky had to provide military protection for the census takers against an agitated Rus’ populace.    Under Mongke, three main categories of taxation existed, varying if the given population was nomadic, agricultural or urban. The first was the qubchir, a head tax. For nomads, 1 in every 100 head in a herd was paid in tax. Less than 100 animals, and no tax was paid. In most of the Muslim territories, this was imposed on all adult males and paid in silver dinars; in China, this was assessed on household, and could be paid in silver or precious goods like silk. For populations without coinage like the Rus’, furs and other valued commodities were accepted tender. Khalan was an agricultural tax, paid in kind in rural areas based on local tradition, while tamgha was basically a sales tax, collected in urban markets and customs stations. This tax was placed on services and products manufactured, including artisans, fisherman and prostitutes! In general the Mongols encouraged payment in coinage, and local mints were established throughout Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia to produce large volumes of coins. In 1253, they even began circulating paper money in China, each stamped with the seal of Mongke Khaan. No effort was made to collect unpaid taxes from before Mongke’s enthronement, setting everyone on a clean slate. Tax exemptions for clergy continued, but many who had gained exemption under Guyuk, such as a fair number of merchants, had their exemptions rescinded. Mongke was not going to disregard the merchants though; he paid the outstanding debts of Guyuk and the regents, despite the resistance of some top ministers, leading to the Persian writer Rashid al-Din to remark “in what history has it ever been read that a king paid another king’s debt?”   Also rescinded were numerous paizas and gerege, that is, the passports allowing an individual use of the yam system, the vast continental messenger stations. The gerege, depending on the material it was made from, granted an individual use of the horses and resources of a given station to allow them swift passage over the empire, changing horses and getting provisions at each station to continue at speed. Intended for members of the dynasty, envoys and messengers of the Khan, under Guyuk and the regents many a merchant had been given a gereg, and thus saw fit to travel the yam leisurely, enriching himself as he went. On Mongke’s order, all gerege were handed back to the Central Secretariat and redistributed on a more limited basis, greatly reducing the pressure on the local populations who supplied the resources for the stations. The yam itself was improved and routes set up by regional Khans were tied into the main imperial system. For these regional Mongol princes, new restrictions were forced on them, forbidding them to intervene on fiscal matters or set new taxes without approval from the Central Secretariat. These measures helped reduce the power of local forces who could compete with Mongke’s interests.   The rebuilding of devastated regions was ordered and destruction while on campaign was to be limited. How successful these initiatives were is hard to measure, but a few Mongol officers were punished for transgressions in these areas. Mongke placed agents who reported directly back to him across the Secretariats to keep him informed of such matters and enforce his will. This was not an innovation of government, but a domination of it. The Central Secretariat wielded greater authority than ever, supported by a highly energetic and motivated emperor.    Mongke, certainly more than his predecessor, understood the value of image. Knowing that the movement from the line of Ogedai to Tolui brought shade upon his legitimacy, Mongke strived to portray himself as the very embodiment of the words and laws of Chinggis Khan. Guyuk, Torogene and Oghul Qaimish were portrayed in as negative a light as possible, while Mongke and his father Tolui were elevated. Posthumously, Tolui was promoted to Great Khan, a position he had never held in life. In 1252, Mongke established an official Cult of Chinggis Khan and his worship. An entire department of government was made responsible for dealing with sacrifices, shamans, fortune tellers and more, suggested by Thomas Allsen to have been the ‘managers’ of the Chinggis cult. We might say these propaganda efforts were successful: almost all of our written sources from the empire come from regions ruled by the Toluids, and as such Mongke seems ever the greater and his predecessors all the more inept.    Per the suggestion of historian Christopher Atwood, the famed Secret History of the Mongols may have been a result of this program, written at a quriltai in 1252. As our only surviving Mongolian language history from the 13th century, the Secret History of the Mongols was a chronicle intended for the royal family, and is hugely influential on how we view the early Mongol empire. Further, it influenced several of the later histories we also rely upon. In the Secret History, several embarrassing stories are told of Jochi, Chagatai, Ogedai, and Guyuk, the last appearing as a peutlent, whiny brat. Tolui and Mongke are treated much more reverently in the Secret History, which has Chinggis Khan give allowance for another branch of the family to take over should the line of Ogedai prove incapable. A rather useful clause to suddenly uncover; one, we may note, not found in other sources.   In this vein, he also understood the importance of maintaining the Mongol policy of religious toleration. Mongke was quite effective at it, as there were both Christians and Muslims at the time convinced Mongke had converted to their religion. Mongol religious toleration was not the same as our modern liberal sense of toleration, but more in the sense it was literally tolerated, as long as the given religion did not oppose the Mongols. The Mongols generally wanted to ensure religious figures were on their side: their prayers, and those of their followers, were useful for ensuring divine favour for the Khaan. Having religious leaders and priests persuade and preach about how important it was to be a loyal subject of the Mongol Khaan also served as a useful means of maintaining order. Our previous episode briefly detailed the encounter of the European Franciscan Friar, William of Rubruck, with Mongke, and that probably best encapsulates Mongke’s own view on religion. Just as there are five fingers leading to the palm, Heaven had provided multiple means to the same end. To Mongke, no religion was more true than another, but all were equally useful for his goals. While Mongke’s armies would destroy the ‘Abbasid Caliphate, this was not done out of a need to spite Islam, but because the Caliph had failed to submit to the Khaan. As Mongke firmly believed Heaven had decreed the world to belong to the Chinggisids, resistance against the Chinggisids was therefore resistance against Heaven’s decree. Everything Mongke did was through this worldview and the belief in the eventuality of Mongol dominion.   With internal matters set and the resources of the empire being recorded, Mongke could plan for outward expansion- the topics of the next episodes in our series. In early summer 1252, a quriltai was held to plan for the subjugation of the rest of the world. It is this quriltai that Dr. Atwood suggests the Secret History was composed at, where Mongke made his plans for the future. His brothers were to lead armies both to the south and the west.    To the south lay the Song Dynasty, controlling southern China. Warfare with the Song had begun in the 1230s, but progress was slow and the fighting inconclusive. Mongke’s brother Kuublai was granted much of north China under his princely jurisdiction, and then was to lead the opening move of the new round of warfare with the Song. Kublai was not to move directly against them, but against the smaller Kingdom of Dali, in what is now China’s Yunnan province. On the Song Dynasty’s southwesten border, the conquest of Dali would open a second front against the Song. In the west, their younger brother Hulegu was to lead a massive army against the remaining independent Muslim powers, first the Order of the Assassins, and then the Caliph in Baghdad. From there, presumably Hulegu would drive right to the Meditteranean. Both brothers set out in later 1253, and we will pick up with their campaigns in following episodes. Armies were also sent to complete the conquests of Tibet and Korea. By the mid 1250s, Tibet was mostly subjugated, though Korea was a bit more complicated. Our next episode will cover the Mongol-Korean wars from start to finish, and look at how this peninsula managed to prove such a thorn in Mongol efforts for decades.   Kublai was to be the prince overseeing most of China, and Hulegu most of the Muslim world west of the Chagatai Khanate. It was hardly a coincidence that Mongke’s two closest brothers were being situated to command two of the most valuable economic regions of the continent.  Mongke envisioned a sort of Toluid axis across Asia, keeping tight imperial control across distant regions through brotherly ties. But if they overstepped their bounds, Mongke was not above reproaching them.    After Kublai completed the conquest of Dali by the early months of 1254, he returned to oversee matters in North China, promoting government reform and reconstruction efforts. Lil’ Kublai started to get a bit too big for his britches however. In 1256 Kublai began building a summer residence in what is now Inner Mongolia- in time it would be called Shangdu, the Xanadu of Marco Polo. It suspiciously looked a bit too much like a capital, though. Rumours of Kublai’s ambitions reached Mongke, and on pretexts of irregularities in Kublai’s revenue collection, Mongke sent investigators into his brother's domains. Administrative records were seized, Kublai’s officials harshly tortured and numerous infractions found. Some of Kublai’s officials were executed, others dismissed, extraordinary levies placed on his domains and Kublai himself saw his administrative power reduced. We are told Kublai had to be convinced out of a hasty retaliation by his advisers, and was not able to get Mongke’s forgiveness until the start of 1258.  While the Chinese sources depict it as an act of brotherly attachment, the two weeping in each others’ arms, the reality is that Mongke had need of Kublai again. The Khaan was about to launch an invasion of the Song Dynasty, and needed to secure loose ends. One such loose end was well suited to Kublai and his inclination to Chinese culture: a rather violent, ongoing conflict between Buddhists and Taoists in Northern China threatening to undermine local stability. Kublai was ordered to bring this matter to a close, which he largely accomplished at a famous debate between leading members of both creeds in later 1258. The Buddhists had the better of the debate, no doubt aided by Kublai’s own Buddhist leanings and support of his ardent Buddhist wife, Chabi. The result was an end to the ascendency of the Taoists, begun, somewhat accidentally, by Chinggis Khan and his support of the Taoist Master Qiu Chuji back in the 1220s. Taoist texts deemed forgeries were destroyed, they were forced to return occupied Buddhist temples and other privileges were lost. In turn, Buddhism saw an ascendence in influence among the Mongols, not for the last time.   Mongke also needed Kublai to lead one of the armies in the multi-pronged assault on the Song, in what was to be a massive operation. Planning for the Song campaign was thorough, intending to completely overwhelm the Dynasty from multiple points. The census efforts came to full fruition: Mongke had an enormous, well prepared army drawn from across Asia. Contingents from as far west as the Alans of the Northern Caucasus were mobilized for this assault. Setting out in 1258, nothing would quite go as expected, putting true the old adage that no battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. One area Mongke’s foresight proved remarkably poor was his failure to nominate an heir to succeed him. Not that we’re foreshadowing anything in that regard… But, we’ll return to Mongke’s war with the Song in a few episodes time. Prior to that, we will be exploring the other campaigns launched during his reign, first in Korea and then his brother Hulegu’s western campaign, 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

Especially in modern textbooks and broad historical surveys, the Mongol withdrawal from Europe in 1242 is presented as the Mongols ‘disappearing into the mists of the east,’ as far as the Europeans were concerned. But in the immediate wake of the 1242 withdrawal, Europeans needed to know more about this new foe. Rather than a ‘Mongol disappearance’ from the European mind, European diplomats and representatives made the trip to the Mongol Empire on behalf of Kings and Popes- even to distant Mongolia. A number of these travellers wrote down accounts of their journeys, providing us yet another viewpoint to events within the Mongol Empire. In this episode, we will discuss three of these accounts from the 1240s and 1250s- that of John de Plano Carpini, Simon of St. Quentin and William of Rubruck. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   Our first journey is that of John of Plano Carpini, or Giovanni da Pian del Carpine. Like today’s other accounts, Plano Carpini was a member of a religious order, in this case the Franciscans, an influential group of Christian mendicants founded in the early 13th century by St. Francis of Assisi. Known for their rejections of wealth, simple brown habits, or robes, and often going about barefoot, since the lifetime of St. Francis they had worked closely with the Catholic Church in Rome. John of Plano Carpini was a leading figure among the Franciscans, having been at the forefront of their expansion into Germany. The impetus for Plano Carpini’s journey could not have come from a higher authority, that of Pope Innocent IV. This Pope had in 1245 organized the First Council of Lyons, one of those great ecclesiatical gatherings held every few years in the High Middle Ages to determine church doctrine and how to react to temporal matters. At Lyons in 1245, the biggest topics on the menu were two great foes of the Pope: Frederick II Hohenstaufen, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Mongols. While Innocent’s main concern was the Kaiser, there was great worry over the mysterious horsemen. On the initiative to learn more about them and establish diplomatic ties to avert a repeat of the horrors in Hungary, Pope Innocent sent the 65 year old John of Plano Carpini on the long road east in late 1245.   Aided along the way by the King of Bohemia and the High Duke of Poland, Carpini soon reached the Prince of Volhynia, Vasilko. Vasilko and his brother, Daniel of Galicia, were the westernmost princes of Rus’, and who escaped most of the destruction suffered by the other Rus’ principalities. With Vasilko, Carpini was provided the most up-to-date information on the Mongols one could have in Europe. Passing the ruins of Kiev and an emptied countryside, only at Kaniv did Carpini reach territory under direct Mongol rule. As official envoys of the monarch the Mongols dubbed “the great Pope,” Carpini and his small company were provided escorts and use of the yam system, the great continental messenger route.     Once on the yam, Carpini’s route picked up speed. They rode day and night over the steppe, changing horses three or four times a day as they reached yam stations. By April 4th 1246, they were in the camp of Batu. Batu did not return to Mongolia after the invasion of Europe, instead setting up his camp in the great swath of grassland along the Volga River which made up the middle of his territory, where he held immense power.  Carpini saw that Batu used King Bela IV’s linen tents as his own, taken as booty after the victory at Mohi. At Batu’s camp their letters from the Pope were translated into Russian, Persian and Mongolian, and then they were sent on their way. This stage of the journey is one Carpini had little love for. They rode their horses day and night, sometimes eating nothing except millet with water and salt, or only drinking snow melted in kettles.  They passed the ruins of the cities of the Khwarezmian Empire, the names of which Carpini had no chance to learn before they had moved on.    By July 1246, they were in Mongolia. The hard ride had a purpose, for Carpini arrived in in time for the election of the new Great Khan, Guyuk. As messengers of the Pope they were treated well, provided their own tent and provisions. Carpini gives a fantastic description of Guyuk’s enthronement and the accompanying ceremonies- one detail is a sudden hailstorm postponing Guyuk’s official enthronement until August 24th.  He noticed representatives of powers from across Asia: the Rus’ Prince Yaroslav of Suzdal’, Chinese and Korean representatives, princes from the Kingdom of Georgia and the ambassador of the Caliph of Baghdad, among many others. Carpini’s embassy spent little time with the new Great Khan, offering only a brief description of him: quote, “The present Emperor may be forty or forty-five years old or more; he is of medium height, very intelligent and extremely shrewd, and most serious and grave in his manner. He is never seen to laugh for a slight cause nor to indulge in any frivolity, so we were told by the Christians who are constantly with him.”   On the matter of Chrisitianity, Carpini shares rumours that Guyuk was on the verge of converting. Guyuk did have affinity for the religion, as some of his closest advisers were Christians of the Nestorian flavour. No such baptism for Guyuk was forthcoming, however. As for Carpini’s actual mission to Guyuk, it proved less successful. Guyuk explained that the slaughter wrought in Hungary and Poland was due to the failure of the Europeans to submit to Heaven’s will and Mongol authority. Further, more would come, and when Carpini departed Guyuk’s camp for Europe in November 1246, he left utterly convinced that Guyuk was intent on marching on Europe.    With this fear in mind, Carpini tailored his work as a manual to prepare for the Mongol return. He wrote a very accurate description of the appearance of the Mongols, their culture and society, to detailed descriptions of their armour, tactics, and strategy. He follows this with recommendations on how they should be countered. His solution is that European armies needed to copy the organization of the Mongols and their discipline: literally, they should adopt the decimal organization system and instil the same punishment for desertion or failure to advance. The importance of crossbows were emphasized; the need to not allow themselves to be flanked and to watch for feigned retreats; maintain reserve units to assist the line and always have the army covered by scouts to alert to Mongol movements. If relying on fortifications, they needed to be built in places inaccessible to siege weapons. Care should be shown to captured prisoners: using the descriptions he provides, he argues that Europeans needed to learn to identify the Mongols from those subject peoples forced to fight for the Khan. These peoples, Carpini says, would fight against the Mongols if provided the chance.   When Carpini is describing things he did not directly observe, he falls easily into accepting myths and rumours. In his account Jesus Christ and the scriptures are honoured in China (which he never visited), there are literal monsters under Mongol control, and the Mongols were repulsed from Greater India by its Christian King, Prester John. However, he provides a keen eye at Mongol politics at the start of Guyuk’s reign, listing the top chiefs and mentions Mongke and his mother Sorqaqtani, who he says “among the Tartars this lady is the most renowned, with the exception of the Emperor’s mother [Torogene], and more powerful than anyone else except Batu.”  On his return journey, Carpini remet with Vasilko of Volhynia and Daniel of Galicia, who sent with Carpini letters and envoys to Pope Innocent for cooperation, leading to Pope Innocent crowning Daniel King of Ruthenia, or Galicia-Volhynia, a brief flirtation of Orthodox and Catholic unity. Innocent provided no support for the newly independent monarch beyond this, and Daniel saw his autonomy crushed at the end of the 1250s with a major Mongol attack.   Carpini’s account, written on his return to Europe, was hugely disseminated through Carpini’s own efforts and its inclusion in one of the most popular medieval encyclopedias, Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum Historiale. It's clear, detailed descriptions of the Mongols, based entirely on observation, was hugely influential on the writings of other travellers. Some have even argued it spurned the beginnings to more analytic, scientific descriptions of the world, in part as it brought a detailed presentation on a world outside of Europe. It was not exactly a friendly world, mind you. Carpini returned with a letter from Guyuk demanding the submission of the Pope and all the monarchs of Europe, immediately, and in person- with the direct threat of horrific consequences if they failed to do so.   As Carpini returned from the Mongol Empire in 1247, another embassy reached the Mongols in what is now Armenia. Pope Innocent ordered a party of Dominican friars from the Crusader states to bear a letter to the Mongols, opening a second diplomatic front in the event Plano Carpini did not return. The Dominicans were another mendicant order founded in the 13th century, famous both as preachers and inquisitors, and visually distinctive in their black cloaks over white habits.  This group of Dominicans was led by a Friar Ascelin, but the account was written by another member of the embassy, Friar Simon of St. Quentin. An online translation has been made accessible online by our friend of the podcast Dr. Stephen Pow- check out www.simonofstquentin.org to read the full account, with maps!    The Dominican embassy arrived in the camp of the Mongol commander of the Caucasus- Baiju Noyan, on the 24th May, 1247. Learning of their arrival, Baiju sent a representative to enquire as to their purpose, and things immediately got off to a poor start. Upon being asked who they were the representatives of, Friar Ascelin replied, “I am the envoy of the Lord Pope, who among Christians is considered superior in dignity to all men and to whom they show reverence as to their father and lord.”   To which Baiju’s representative became immediately annoyed and responded, “How, speaking with such proud words, do you say that your lord pope is the greatest of all men? Does he not know that Khan is the son of God and that Baiju Noyan and Batu are his princes and thus their names are made known and exalted everywhere?” To which Friar Ascelin replied that the Pope knew none of these names, and that they were simply instructed to find the nearest Mongol army -wherever that might be- and to present a letter from the Pope urging a cessation to the slaughter of Christians.   From here, the meeting devolved. The representative returned to Baiju with the message, and returning in a new set of clothes, asked what gifts the Pope had sent for Baiju. The embassy had failed to provide any, stating that in fact, people sent gifts to the Pope! When he returned from Baiju, again in a new set of clothes, he scolded them for failing to show up with gifts- then inquired if they were at the head of any European armies being sent into Syria.  Before allowing the embassy to meet Baiju, they were then ordered to genuflect before him- which the Friars refused to do, fearing it was idolatry. One in their party who had some experience with Mongol customs informed them it wasn’t idolatry they were asking for- just a sign of the submission of the Pope and Catholic Church to the Khan. On this, the Friars proudly stated they’d rather be decapitated than imply the submission of the Church. They would genuflect and even kiss the soles of Baiju’s feet on the condition that he became a Christian. The response was… not ideal.   “You advise us that we become Christians and be dogs like you. Isn’t your pope a dog and aren’t all you Christians dogs?” the Mongols shouted at the party, and upon learning of this insolence Baiju ordered them all to be killed. Baiju’s advisers urged mercy- don’t kill all four of the friars, only two! Another suggested it would be better to skin the lead friar and send him back to Rome stuffed with straw. Or, have two of them beaten by sticks by the whole Mongol army! Another voice said the wisest course was to place them at the front of the army during a siege, and allow them to be killed by enemy missiles. Murder was only abandoned when one of Baiju’s wives talked him down from it- reminding him quite rightly it was poor conduct to kill envoys, and it would bring him into trouble with the imperial court.    Brought back from the brink- and this was still only the first day, mind you- Baiju’s representative inquired what would be an appropriate way for them to worship Baiju. No solution could be reached. The Mongols could not understand the stubbornness of the Christians in this regard: from their point of view, the Christians worshipped wood crosses and stone churches, and could not comprehend why the same respect could not be shown to Baiju, chosen by the Great Khan who was chosen by Heaven itself! The Friars’ explanations turned to theology, how St. Peter granted the keys to the Pope and so on. Lost in translation, the arguments went nowhere, until it was decided that Acelin would hand over the Pope’s letters but not appear before Baiju. The letter then needed to be translated for Baiju, which required Friar Ascelin explaining it word by word to Greek and Turk translators, who then explained it to Persian translators, who then translated it into Mongol, who then read it out for Baiju.   Annoyed by the initial proceedings, Baiju showed them disrespect after that. Left waiting in the hot sun, they were initially told they would be allowed to leave on the 12th of June, 1247, but this was rescinded when Baiju learned of the approach of Eljigidei to be his new superior. Eljigidei was a close ally of Great Khan Guyuk, sent west to resume military operations in the region.  Given only minimal bread and water, they could only wait. And wait. And wait. With no sign of Eljigidei and Ascelin fretting over continued delay, he finally got a councillor to plead on their behalf with promises of gifts. Baiju prepared a letter to send to the Pope, and things looked just about ready for the Dominicans to depart… when Eljigidei finally arrived. Then followed 7 straight days of feasting, drinking and celebrating before finally, some nine weeks after their initial arrival, on the 25th of July 1247 the Friars left Baiju’s camp.    Like Plano Carpini, Ascelin returned with a letter from the Mongols, this time from Baiju, and within it were only the strictest of demands. The Pope was to come himself, in person, and submit to the Mongols. Failure to do so meant he was an enemy to the Great Khan, and only one fate awaited the enemies of the Great Khan. By the end of the 1240s Pope Innocent IV had at least two letters from top Mongol leaders- one of them the Great Khan, Guyuk- demanding his immediate submission.  That’s a fairly strong indication that the Mongol high command was intent on the subjugation of Europe. Much like Carpini, Ascelin’s colleague Simon recorded considerable detail on the customs, habits and warfare of the Mongols, with information on the strategies and tactics they used in their expansion over Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia- much of it from first hand sources. As much as they were failed conversion and diplomatic efforts, they were valuable sources of intelligence on a foe they had frustratingly little information on. The impression garnered over the 1240s was of an immensely antagonistic power interested in nothing less than mastery of the world.   Our final traveller for today is William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar who also made the long trip to Mongolia carrying a letter from the King of France Louis IX- though insisting the entire time he was not a diplomat, merely holding the letter for a friend.  Rubruck’s mission both in structure and situation differed from his predecessors. There is no indication he ever met John de Plano Carpini: he was familiar with his work, but not enough that he could get Carpini’s name correct in his own account, referring to him as John of Policarpo. Rubruck provides one detail about himself in his own account: that he was rather on the large side. Stationed in the Holy Land, he joined  the crusading King Louis IX in Cyprus in winter 1248, and went with him on his disastrous Egyptian campaign of 1250- the Seventh Crusade. This campaign was a catalyst to the usurpation of the Mamluks in Egypt over the Ayyubids, something to have major consequences for the Mongols in a few years. Rubruck’s accounts do not indicate he was among them during the debacles further down the Nile in 1250, during which Louis was captured by the Mamluks, held for ransom and released. The following years the French King spent restoring local fortifications in Palestine, humbled and penitent. It seems in this period Rubruck spent quite some time with the King and Queen. Louis had already been in contact with the Mongols, having sent the Dominican friar Andrew of Longjumeau to the Great Khan’s court in the 1240s, and received envoys from Eljigidei in early 1249. This led to nothing: Guyuk was dead before the Dominican reached his court, and Eljigidei, as a close ally of Guyuk, was soon to follow him on Mongke’s orders.   Rubruck, as a good Fransciscan, was keen to spread the word of God among the heathens and had learned from Andrew of Longjumeau’s report of German miners carried east as slaves by the Chagatai prince Buri during the invasion of Hungary.  Keen to bring salvation to the Mongols, and peace to these slaves, it was Rubruck’s own initiative to travel to the Mongol Empire in 1253. Before he left King Louis provided Rubruck a letter to the Khan, as a sort of “while you’re going that way,” rather than an official embassy.. Learning that a Jochid prince, Sartaq son of Batu, was a Christian, Rubruck decided to make a stop at his court first, perhaps hoping to seek his assistance for the long trek. Taking his leave of King Louis likely at Jaffa, Rubruck set out north and reached Constantinople in April 1253, there getting a chance to preach in St. Sophia, the modern Hagia Sofia; he spoke with other men who had gone as envoys to the Mongols; and there picked up a companion, another Franciscan named Bartholomew of Cremona. Sailing across the Black Sea to Crimea, he travelled north into the steppes to the camp of Sartaq.    Sartaq was the first of many disappointments for Rubruck. His Chrisitanity Rubruck found lacking, and his secretaries admonished Rubruck for calling him a Christian, telling him “Do not say that our master is a Christian. He is not a Christian; he is a Mongol.” The customary gift giving resulted in much of his possessions being taken or outright stolen. In the four days they were there, they were not even provided food, only airag, fermented mare’s milk, though Rubruck took a liking to it. Rubruck stressed he was not an envoy, merely carrying a letter of friendly intent from King Louis. This made a real mess. This was not an area in Mongol diplomacy their world view accounted for. To quote historian Peter Jackson in his translation of Rubruck’s account, “the Mongols were in fact unable to comprehend why representatives of independent peoples should trouble to visit the imperial court if not to bring submission.” Sartaq, not understanding the purpose of Rubruck’s letter, decided this was a matter for his father Batu to settle. So Rubruck, at this time in his mid forties and trying to travel barefoot as in Franciscan tradition, was forced to follow Plano Carpini’s route over the Volga Steppe to the court of Batu.   He was amazed at the size of Batu’s camp, comparing it to a large city. Taken before the tent of Batu, he gazed upon the second most powerful man in Asia. Sitting upon a golden throne with a wife at his side, Rubruck provides us our only physical description of Batu Khan: “He regarded us with a keen gaze, as we did him. He struck me as being of the same build as the lord John of Beaumont, and his face was covered at this time with reddish blotches.” As numerous commentators have stated, it is a deep shame that we do not know what build John of Beaumont was. Through his interpreter, Rubruck spoke to Batu and the audience, in which he urged Batu to be baptized. Batu gave a slight smile, and the audience began laughing at Rubruck.    Batu interrogated Rubruck, having learned through spies of King Louis’ military expedition to Egypt. Telling the Khan that the purpose was to recapture Jerusalem, Rubruck was given airag and sent to the side. Batu decided it was best to send this representative of the French King right to the highest authority: Mongke Khaan, quite without Rubruck’s consent and with no choice in the matter. “There is no counting the times we were famished, thirsty, frozen and exhausted,” Rubruck says of the lengthy voyage in winter 1253 over Central Asia to Mongolia. Rubruck’s account, unlike that of Carpini, is full of personal opinions on matters: mainly in the form of how much he hated everything. Their hygiene and personal habits, such as relieving themselves in the middle of the open steppe right beside him he found ‘excessively tiresome.’   By the end of December 1253 William of Rubruck was in the camp of Mongke Khaan, some ten days journey from Karakorum. Unlike with Ascelin and Baiju, Rubruck was asked how he would like to make his obeisance to the Khan, per European custom or Mongolian. Rubruck would sing praises to God, then do as Mongke wished. Inside a tent Rubruck describes as covered in gold, the friar provides a brief description of Mongke. The Khan was seated on a golden couch with a wife, dressed in spotted fur, snub nosed, of medium build and about 45 years old. One of Mongke’s daughters was seated on the steps before him: Rubruck says she was very ugly. The initial meeting did not go very far. Alcohol was offered, and Rubruck’s interpreter helped himself. After Mongke’s first statement, “Just as the sun spreads its rays in all directions, so my power and that of Batu are spread to every quarter,” Rubruck’s interpreter was too drunk to translate, and the friar was quickly pushed to the side.   Rubruck did not have a good time in the Mongol court. Provided lodging and food, he found himself interrogated and often mistreated. The Mongols sought information on Europe, on what and how many goods and animals the French possessed, and if the Pope was really 500 years old. Rubruck had gone to convert the heathens and bring salvation to the captured German miners: he succeeded in converting only six people during his stay and learned the Germans were beyond his reach in Central Asia. Rubruck was stuck with Nestorian and Greek Orthodox Christians which he did not take a great liking too, there only to enrich themselves. The priests, among many others, were convinced Mongke was on the verge of converting to their creed. Rubruck saw that the Khan didn’t care for any of them, content to utilize all their prayers. Spending several months in Mongke’s camp and Karakorum, the imperial capital, Rubruck met persons from all over Asia. From ambassadors from the Nicaean Empire, the Delhi Sultanate, Baghdad and China to Europeans brought as captives to Mongolia. He met Hungarians, Germans, Russians and French. One was William Buchier of Paris, a goldsmith highly prized by the Mongols. He designed and built the famous silver tree of Karakorum: literally, a tree made from silver with conduits running through it, at the base through four silver lions and higher up coming down as spouts shaped as snakes. From the lions came airag, fermented mare’s milk; from the gilded mouths of four snakes poured grape wine; qaraqumiss, refined mare’s milk; bal, a honey drink, and a rice wine. At the top of the tree was a silver angel with a trumpet. On command, a man inside the tree would sound the trumpet, alerting stewards in another room to feed the alcoholic beverages through their respectives conduits. Below each animal was a vessel to collect the drinks, and when filled they were carried to the cheery guests, applauding at the show. Aside from this and the Khan’s palace in Karakorum, Rubruck found the city terribly unimpressive, likening it to a small town in France but with a very diverse population.    Rubruck endured a number of almost sitcom-like vignettes during his time there. On one occasion he joined with a Nestorian priest to ‘save’ one of Mongke’s sickly wives through a decoction of rhubarb and holy water. Most notable was a religious debate he took part in, sparked by a conflict between Rubruck and the Buddhist priests at Karakorum. While Rubruck gives a detailed and accurate description of the Buddhist customs he saw, he had little care for the Buddhists themselves. This spat turned into the Mongols hosting a religious debate- on one side, Rubruck representing the Catholic Church, with Nestorian Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians and Muslims, and on the other Buddhists lamas. Three umpires - a Buddhist, Christian and Muslim- judged. Mongke, in typical fashion, called for a respectful debate forbidding insulting remarks to opponents, on pain of death.   Rubruck’s version is that he was the star player, deftly disarming the arguments of the Buddhists while his own teammates proved incompetent. We lack any other accounts of this debate, so we should perhaps take it with a grain of salt. He does remark that even though his arguments were like, totally 100% awesome and really effective, no one was convinced to become a Christian because of it, and the debate ended with everyone drinking heavily with half his team singing loudly and presumably, off-key.    The most interesting portion of Rubruck’s narrative is his brief interview with Mongke Khaan, albeit through an interpreter. In this discussion, Mongke provides a fascinating explanation for his religious view:   “We Mongols believe that there is only one God, through whom we have life and through whom we die, and towards him we direct our hearts. But just as God has given the hand several fingers, so he has given mankind several paths. To you God has given the Scriptures and you Christians do not observe them. You do not find in the scriptures, that one man ought to abuse another, do you? And likewise you do not find that a man ought to deviate from the path of justice for financial gain. So, then, God has given you the Scriptures, and you do not observe them; whereas to us he has given soothsayers, and we do as they tell us and live in peace.”   After this, Rubruck was instructed to return to the west with a letter for King Louis, upon which he lamented he had no chance to attempt to convert the Khan. Mongke’s letter to Louis is preserved in Rubruck’s account, and it’s somewhat more cordial compared to the demands of Guyuk. I mean, it still has demands that the Kings of Europe come and submit to him, and that it would be foolish to trust in distance and mountains to protect them.  But it offered something of an apology- well, not quite an apology-  for inconsistent messaging by the envoys of Eljigidei, and for Andrew of Longjumeau’s journey which met not Guyuk Khan, but his widow Oghul Qaimish. On Oghul Qaimish, Mongke stated his opinion on her rather bluntly in his letter: “But as for knowing the business of war and the affairs of peace, subduing the wide world and discerning how to act for the best- what could that worthless woman, lower than a bitch, have known of this?” That he would so openly write this in an official channel- a letter to another monarch- is indicative of the malice he felt to her, and partially explains some of the violence Mongke ordered against the house of Ogedai.   Alas for William of Rubruck, but well for us, was that he was unable to return to King Louis to deliver the message in person. Believing Louis had remained in the Crusader States, after reaching the court of Batu in the Volga steppe, Rubruck cut south through the Caucasus- briefly staying in Baiju Noyan’s camp, where he heard of the approach of Hulegu, Mongke’s younger brother, and a massive army marching through Iran. Learning that Louis had returned to France, Rubruck’s Franciscan superiors ordered him to remain in Acre, forced to send Mongke’s letters alongside a written account of his journey, which luckily for us survives. Unlike Carpini’s account, Rubruck writes little on the warfare of the Mongols, spending more time on their customs and character, with remarkably astute, though not compassionate, descriptions of the cultures and religions he saw throughout his journey. It’s also a detailed geographical and observational survey, challenging views set out by ancient writers. For instance, noting that the Caspian Sea was not an ocean but a lake;  noting the proper courses of the Don and Volga Rivers; connecting the Chinese to the Seres mentioned in antiquity; noted linguistic connections between various groups and, upon finding no evidence for popular medieval monsters like the dog-headed people, argued against their existence. One of the few people to read Rubruck’s account in the 13th century was the English Franciscan Roger Bacon, who met Rubruck in Paris in 1257. Bacon was the first European to record the mixture for gunpowder in 1267. It’s sometimes suggested that Rubruck provided it to Bacon, but as Rubruck mentions nothing of the sort in his account, this is unlikely.    And that is a brief overview of three early European journeys to the Mongol Empire. Not as famous as the slightly later journey of one Messer Marco Polo, but fascinating nonetheless. Our next episode will be an overview of the reign of Great Khan Mongke, 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!

In the smoke filled air, the cries of men and women reach towards Eternal Blue Heaven as horsemen ride over ruined city walls. The men of fighting age are forced together, their weapons and armour abandoned or taken, to be shortly executed en masse. A tower of their skulls be all that remains of their resistance The women, holding close crying children and infants, are led away, chattel for their new masters. Those craftsmen and artisans of skills -engineers, masons, woodworkers, and smiths of metal- are deemed to be useful to their new master in the east, and will be carried off for his service. Over the 13th century, from the islands off Korea to the plains of Hungary, from the forests of Siberia to the rugged borderlands of India, variations of this scene are enacted again and again, in the pursuit of nothing less than the domination of everything under Heaven by one family. I’m your host David and welcome to Ages of Conquest: a Kings and Generals Podcast.  This is the Mongol conquests.       In Bukhara, in early 1220, as the formidable Khwarezmian (Khwa-rez-mian)  Empire buckles under their onslaught, the man who has caused this horrific explosion of violence stands before a crowd of the city’s notables and wealthy. Once proud and haughty, now they are held humble before this horseman from the steppe. “O peoples,” he tells them through his translator, “know that you have committed great sins and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have of these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. Had you not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.” As the translator finished the statement, the shocked murmurs and hurried glances of the crowd would surely have pleased him - Genghis Khan, the World Conqueror, who had driven this proud people before him like  hunters do their prey.        The 13th century Mongol Conquests today are often presented in apocalyptic imagery, a carry over from many of the medieval sources, for whom the only explanation for the speed and thoroughness of these conquests could only be that they were a punishment sent by God, surely heralding the end of times. These connotations are difficult to dissociate, and indeed, one might ask why we should look deeper, when these conquests resulted in an estimated 30-40 million deaths, unimaginable suffering, rape and cruelty. Genghis Khan’s name, to many in the west, Iran and China, brings to mind the stock image of the blood thirsty barbarian, who raped his way to over 200 million modern descendants!    Yet, in Mongolia today, he is not a national shame, but rather considered the heroic, legendary founder of their country, the unifier of the Mongols who led them to an unprecedented age of greatness. He is a lawgiver, the ideal steppe chieftain. Stern and vengeful to his enemies, but generous to his followers, a protector bringing peace and ending the age of intercine steppe warfare. For centuries, descent from Genghis Khan was perhaps the single most important source of legitimacy for dynasties and states across Asia. Even those monarchs not of the altan urugh - the Golden Lineage- often maintained a puppet Khan descended from him, or married a daughter of distant descent. For many of the Turkic peoples across the steppe today, Genghis takes  the form of a great folk hero, and individual clans, tribes and peoples will feature some legend wherein a famous ancestor of theirs was granted their rights to that territory by Genghis himself, or was held as a loyal general by him.        How do we reconcile these differing interpretations? As with so much of history, the truth lies in the middle. That is what we will discuss over the course of this podcast series. Not a dramatized, apocalyptic presentation, but neither a glowing heroic description, we will instead in detail go through the Mongol conquests, beginning with the origins of the empire and following through its expansion, administration, collapse and legacy, and address along the way popular misconceptions. To begin this, then perhaps we should first take a note of the name of the great Khan himself. Rather than the ‘Genghis,’ of modern English, we should instead use the more accurate rendition of his name in Mongolian: Chinggis Khan. Not meaning ‘universal emperor,’ it instead is something like ‘fierce, stern ruler,’ and neither was it his birth name.    Chinggis Khan was born in about 1162, as Temujin, son of the minor chieftain Yesugei. Greatness did not come to him easily. When he was about 9 years old, his father was poisoned by a rival tribe, and Temujin and his family were soon abandoned by their own people. Only slowly did he gain power, suffering numerous setbacks, captures, and military defeats, forced to crawl and scratch for every inch. It was only in 1206, when he was over 40 years of age, that he finally unified the tribes of Mongolia, was elected Great Khan and took the title of Chinggis Khan. Even then, there is no evidence suggesting world domination was a goal he set himself to at this point: the initial attacks on China, beginning with an invasion of the Tangut Xi Xia in 1209 ,and an invasion of the Jurchen ruled Jin Dynasty in 1211, were intended for plunder and the punishing old enemies rather than establishing a vast empire.    Only in the final years of his life, as Mongol armies obliterated the Khwarezmian ((Khwa-rez-mian)) Empire in modern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Iran, does it seem the Mongols started to envisage themselves not just as rulers of the steppe and north China, but of much, much more. To paraphrase the Historian David Morgan, the Mongols came to believe it was their destiny to rule the world when they found out that they were in fact, doing so.        The empire Chinggis Khan founded was the largest contiguous land empire in history, coming to incorporate most of the Eurasian continent by the end of the thirteenth century. Contrary to some statements you may seen online by those reminding you of the size of the British Empire that this was an ‘empire of empty space,’ the Mongols took control of all of the Chinese mainland, the trade cities of the famed Silk Routes in Central Asia, with Persia, Iraq, the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia and the cities of what is now Russia and Ukraine. That Mongol armies never landed in England and France is perhaps why to many in the west they remain but a foggy topic, the might of Genghis Khan glossed over in favour of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great for most English speakers.    Yet the Great Khan’s lifetime and legacy was a defining period for most of Eurasia, an immense period of transformation. Few powers of the 12th and early 13th century survived the Mongol onslaughts, and those that did were often significantly impacted by them. Neither were these impacts solely military: the expansion of trans-continental trade, spread of ideas and movements of peoples resulted in major economic changes, and Europe learned in detail of the wealth of China and the far east; population losses from the conquests and the Mongol civil wars, and finally the Black Death, as well as huge migrations of people across Asia, changed the population figures and distribution across the continent; Islam, from its low point with the destruction of Baghdad by Mongol armies in 1258, spread across Central Asia in the wake of the Mongols; and the states which succeeded the Mongol Empire now bore much different political and cultural outlooks, with a slew of Turko-Mongolian empires rising and falling ruled by Chinggisids or those who married into the family, most famously the great conqueror Temur; the likes of the Ming Dynasty in China, which after a brief flirtation with its famous trade fleets, became a Dynasty famously insular, closing itself off to outsiders and with a near-paralyzing phobia of the Mongols: it is this dynasty which built the Great Wall of China as we know it today. All of these various aspects and more, we will explore over the course of this series.   For purposes of this series, we define the Mongol Empire as the single, unified state ruled by the Great Khans from 1206-1259. Upon the death of Chinggis Khan’s grandson, the Great Khan Mongke in 1259, civil war tore apart the empire into regional Khanates: the Yuan Dynasty in China, ruled by the heirs of the famous Kublai Khan, who maintained the title of Great Khan; the Ilkhanate in Persia, the Caucasus and Iraq, ruled by the descendants of Kublai’s brother Hulegu (Hoo-le-goo), the conqueror of Baghdad; the Golden Horde in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, ruled by the sons of Chinggis Khan’s ill-fated eldest child, Jochi; and the Chagatai Khanate in the geographic expanse between them, where the line of Chinggis’ second son Chagatai would rule in some form for centuries.    These were not the only Khanates of the period: an Ogedaid (O-ge-dai-id) Khanate would emerge in the late thirteenth century under the rule of Qaidu (Kai-doo) Khan, and would dominate the Chagatai khanate for some time; the rambunctious Neguderis (Neg-ood-er-is) in modern Afghanistan would be a thorn in the side of the Ilkhans and rulers of India; and one may even suggest the constituent Khanates of the Golden horde like the White Horde, held their own true independence. And this is not even discussing the further fragmentations and reunifications over the following centuries!   As one can gather from this brief description, this can be a complicated period and certainly overwhelming if we dive in unprepared. This series will hopefully serve to ease the uninitiated into it: we will begin with an introduction to nomadism in Mongolia, the tribes of that region and the local powers of North China, before detailing the rise of Chinggis Khan and his conquests. From there we will follow a history of the empire and the succeeding Great Khans of the 13th century: first Ogedai Khan, who would send Mongol armies to conquer the western steppe, Russia and into eastern Europe before his unexpected death in late 1241; then the regency of his wife Torogene, the brief reign of their son Guyuk and regency of his widow Oghul Qaimish (og-hool kwai-mish); and then the significant Toluid Revolution in 1250, when Mongke (mong-ke), the eldest son of Ogedai’s brother Tolui (to-lu-ee), took power. Mongke’s reign saw the major consolidation and expansion of the empire, sending his brother Hulegu into the Middle East while he and his brother Kublai took up arms against the Song Dynasty of Southern China. Mongke’s death in 1259 brought an end to Mongol unity, and the following years saw the outbreak of war between the various newly emerging Khanates.  Following that, we will cover the history of these Khanates, and their own successor states, and will note when appropriate historiography, sources and other related matters.   With this brief outline complete, let us note some important themes and trends to keep an eye out for during our sojourn into Mongol history. Perhaps the most notable and reoccuring being the notion that ‘conquering the world from horseback is easy: ruling from it is hard,’ to paraphrase a supposed quote of Chinggis Khan. That is, in military matters the Mongols proved themselves to be well-versed professionals, but actually garrisoning, managing and governing an empire thousands of kilometres in scale is a rather different matter entirely. At the start of the 13th century, the Mongols lived as nomads without walled cities, without written languages and without the complex administrative features necessary to manage huge populations. These were all skills the Mongols had to acquire, on a vast scale dealing with added problems of diverse populations speaking hundreds of unrelated languages in territories where the pre-existing government apparatus had generally been annihilated in initial Mongol assaults.  The difficulties of this, and the surprising successes, is a matter we will explore.   Closely related to that is what we might call the conflict between steppe and sedentary culture. That is, whether the Mongols should maintain their traditional ways, the nomadism and herding of Chinggis Khan and his fore-fathers, as well as adhering to the laws he laid out for them, known as the yassa. In this case, the wealth of the sedentarized, agricultural world should be utilized mainly for the further expansion of the empire, and was there for the Mongols’ exploitation.  It was believed that the sedentary world would soften them, and force them to lose their military edge. In contrast, there were many who instead wished to adopt aspects of these urbanized societies and sedentary cultures, most notably in Persia and China where ancient traditions captured their attention. In these cases, the view was not to exploit these resources for expansion, but focus the empire onto these territories.    In the Yuan Dynasty based in Mongolia and China, this is most keenly visible. There, the heirs of Kublai Khan quite literally went to war over this matter. The conflict was whether the leadership should live in Mongolia, using China proper as a sort-of supermarket, its resources there for the Mongols to use against their enemies outside the dynasty. The other party believed that China should be the empire, where the Mongols should make their capital and should adopt Chinese traditions as it suited them, particularly to serve the Mandate of Heaven, as Chinese monarchs justified their rule. In the Yuan Dynasty, it may be said the sedentary party won their civil wars, but by the time the Mongol rulers were expelled from China in 1368, they were too Mongol for the Chinese, but too Chinese for the Mongols who had remained in their homeland. The Ilkhans of Persia found themselves struggling between the conflict of the yassa of Chinggis Khan and the shariah of Islam; the Chagatai Khanate literally broke into western and eastern halves over this matter; and though the Golden Horde’s rulers had the most success avoiding the perils of sedentery soceity, they still needed to build cities for their trade.   Another matter we’ll examine is the Turkification of the western Khanates. From early on, Turkic tribes formed an integral part of the Mongol armies, and as they moved west, ‘true Mongols,’ those actually from Mongolia, made up only a small percentage of some of these armies, well represented in leadership positions but forcing various Turkic peoples, especially Kipchak-Cumans, into their services. In the Golden Horde the role of these Turks is easily noted, but they took on significant roles even in Yuan China, and in the Ilkhanate and Chagatai realm this intermixing occurred as well. In fact, the role of non-Mongols in both the Mongol army and administration is something to keep an eye out for in general: without the skills, knowledge and manpower of Uighurs, Khitans, Turks and Chinese, it is difficult to see the Mongols expanding beyond China, let alone across Eurasia.    Indeed, the empire was ‘Mongol’ in the sense of its primary leadership and army core: the vast majority of its population and even armies however were non-Mongol. By the time Chinggis Khan rode west against the Khwarezmian (Khwa-rez-mian) Empire in 1219, there were more Chinese fighting for the Mongols in China, than there were Mongols fighting there! This is very much the key to how a population of about one million Mongols was able to dominate Eurasia for a century.    All history is based from the historical sources which have survived to the present day. At times, you may hear people on the internet state that ‘we know nothing of the Mongol Empire! They wrote nothing down!’ or something like that. This is quite far from the truth: in fact, this a period particularly rich in historical sources. Authors from China to Japan to Java to India to the Islamic world and Christendom all describe their dealings with the Mongols. Often, we have sources written decades apart, in different languages on the far sides of Eurasia presenting their own garbled versions of the same events, each now bolstered with a greater understanding of the world at large.    The first battle fought in Europe to be described in a Chinese source was the famous encounter between Subutai, Batu and the armies of Hungary at Mohi in 1241. European travellers to the Mongol Empire, such as William of Rubruck, John de Plano Carpini and the famous Marco Polo describe in exquisite detail their experiences with the Mongols, describing their histories, appearances, empire and military tactics. There are wonderful extensive histories written in Persian, that of ‘Ata-Malik Juvaini (ju-vai-ni) with his History of the World Conqueror, to the mammoth universal history of the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid al-Din Hamadani, in his Compendium of Chronicles, which not only provides a history of the Mongols, but makes an attempt to provide a history of the Turks, the Islamic World, China and the Franks as well! Juzjani, a refugee from the Khwarezmian (Khwa-rez-mian) Empire, shares with us all the awful rumours he heard of the Mongols during his asylum in Delhi; al-Nasawi, the secretary of the valiant Khwarezmian (Khwa-rez-mian) Prince Jalal al-Din Mingburnu (ming-bur-new), provides a fantastic account of that prince’s resistance against the Mongols; ibn al-Athir, writing in Mosul in the 1220s, shows us the horror of hearing reports of the Mongol devastation of the Khwarezmian (Khwa-rez-mian) Empire trickled down to him.    In the east, we have numerous Chinese accounts, notably the hastily compiled Yuan-shih, a general dynastic history of the Yuan Dynasty put together in the early years of the succeeding Ming Dynasty. And of course, no source is as famous, or infamous, as the great wild card, the Secret History of the Mongols, an epic chronicle written sometime after Chinggis Khan’s death to record his unification of the Mongols and his words. The oldest history written in the Mongolian language, it is an invaluable chance to look at how a nomadic state viewed its own history before being ‘tainted by sedentary cultures.    This is of course, only a brief survey, as it doesn’t even mentions the accounts of Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Rus’, Byzantine, Korean or later authors. The idea though, is to present that we have a rich variety of sources for this period, from both within the empire, written on imperial order, or from outside the empire and written by its enemies, all over the course of the 13th century.The great difficulty for any historian of the Mongol Empire is that there are so many sources in so many languages. To read them all, in their original languages and original scripts, is a task beyond any individual mortal. Yet, in recent years, and especially with the advent of the internet, translations are far more accessible, and now we can discuss in detail numerous aspects of the empire undreamable decades ago.    This won’t be an endless description of battles, instead something which will show that this was no apocalyptic swarm of demons but rather events undertaken by, and against, other humans. Not just bloodshed, but a period of increased cultural contacts and learning, trade and exploration, yet also of prejudice, violence and human greed. So truthfully then, something demonstrating all the colours of the human experience. A complicated and complex yet incredibly fascinating and unique period in human history, we hope this series can spark not just your own interest in the Mongol Empire, but increase your appreciation in other historical topics as well, seeing them all with the same ribbon of complexity.    We hope that you have enjoyed this introduction to our series about the Mongol Empire. We at Kings and Generals will be bringing you the next episode introducing Mongolian nomadism and steppe society, so be sure to hit 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

Nomadism! It is a term closely  associated with the Mongols and other inner Asian peoples of the vast Eurasian steppe-lands.  Yet what does it entail, specifically? How did it influence Mongolian culture, religion and warfare? We are going to explain this all in detail, hopefully providing you a solid foundation for our forthcoming discussions on the Mongol Empire. I’m your host David and welcome to Ages of Conquest: a Kings and Generals Podcast.  This is the Mongol conquests.   Let us begin with a description from a Chinese writer on peoples from Mongolia, which provides an apt generalization: “The animals they raise consist mainly of horses, cows, and sheep, but include such rare beasts as camels, asses, mules, and the wild horses known as taotu and tuoji. They move about in search of water and pasture and have no walled cities or fixed dwellings, nor do they engage in any kind of agriculture. Their lands, however, are divided into regions under the control of various leaders. They have no writing, and even promises and agreements are only verbal. The little boys start out by learning to ride sheep and shoot birds and rats with a bow and arrow, and when they get a little older they shoot foxes and hares, which are used for food. Thus all the young men are able to use a bow and act as armed cavalry in time of war. It is their custom to herd their flocks in times of peace and make their living by hunting, but in periods of crisis they take up arms and go off on plundering and marauding expeditions. This seems to be their inborn nature. For long-range weapons they use bows and arrows, and swords and spears at close range. If the battle is going well for them they will advance, but if not, they will retreat, for they do not consider it a disgrace to run away. Their only concern is self-advantage, and they know nothing of propriety or righteousness.     From the chiefs of the tribe on down, everyone eats the meat of the domestic animals and wears clothes of hide or wraps made of felt or fur. The young men eat the richest and best food, while the old get what is left over, since the tribe honours those who are young and strong and despises the weak and aged. On the death of his father, a son will marry his stepmother, and when brothers die, the remaining brothers will take the widows for their own wives. They have no polite  names but only personal names, and they observe no taboos in the use of personal names.”     Now here’s the thing: that is not a description from the 13th century, but rather, the second century BCE! This is a very famous passage from the Chinese ‘grand historian,’ Sima Qian, a writer from the early Han Dynasty, describing not the Mongols, but the Xiongnu. And everything he says in this excerpt is just as applicable to the Mongols of the 13th century CE as it is to the Xiongnu a thousand years before them, from the animal lists, little boys learning to shoot, everyone acting as armed cavalry to the sons marrying their widowed stepmothers. Pastoral nomadism, which is where people with no fixed abode undergo seasonal or regular migrations with their various herds for fresh pasture, has long been the staple form of subsistence in Mongolia. Even today, about 40% of modern Mongolians still live in this fashion.    With irregular rainfall in arid summers and long, harsh winters, agriculture has never been extensively practiced in the country, though never totally unknown. Mongolia today is about the size of western Europe: the south of the country towards the low mountain range which divides China proper from the steppe is more arid, made up mostly of the Gobi desert, a mix of sand, scrub brush and gravel. To the east, the Greater Khingan Range separates the Mongol inhabited steppe from Manchuria, and in the west the Altai range serves as the natural barrier splitting the Mongol steppe from the western Eurasian steppe. The north of Mongolia edges onto the forests of eastern Siberia, with the deepest lake in the world Lake Baikal, a rough border between the Mongols and what they called the hoi-yin irgen, the forest people. Between these barriers was a territory of vast grassland, rolling hills and low mountains, rivers and lakes. It is a land greatly suited to pastoral nomadism. It is Mongolia.       Living out of their felt tents, known in Mongolian as gers or in Turkish as yurts, Mongolian families generally herded a collection of animals known as the ‘five snouts:’ sheep, goats, oxen, camels and the most prestigious, the horse. The ratios of these animals would depend on the region and the conditions, such as those living on or closer to the Gobi desert using greater numbers of camel than those in the far north of the country. Generally, sheep and goats were kept in the greatest numbers, with an ideal herd size being about one thousand head. The sheep provided mutton and the felt so necessary for constructing their gers. Goats provide milk, meat and soft cashmere, while also requiring less water than sheep, making them more desirable in more arid regions. Yet both had to be carefully managed, as they graze grass very close to the ground while the sharp hooves of the goats can damage pastures. Overgrazing had to be carefully avoided, and indeed in modern Mongolia, the expansion of the cashmere industry and resulting growth in goat herds, has led to an increase in desertification in the country.        Oxen and bactrian camels were used in smaller numbers, more for hauling than for meat, the camel in particular being too expensive, too useful and their gestation too long at 12 to 14 months for routine slaughtering. The milk from the oxen was utilized, and in more recent centuries oxen have been cross bred with yaks, especially for herders in higher elevations. Horses were exempt from hauling carts and the like: this was the job of the herds of oxen, and dozens could be yoked together to haul the great mobile gers mounted on the backs of carts. The camels could carry loads of 400 pounds or 181 kilos, and pull loads exceeding 900 pounds or 408 kilos. Their famed suitability for dry, arid climate made them a particularly valuable tool for those herders of the Gobi regions, and coats of camel hair were considered a fine gift.        But of course, we would be remiss for discussing Mongolian nomadism without mentioning the horse. The Mongol horse today is considered to have changed little since the thirteenth century: a short, sturdy animal, sure footed, with great endurance and physical strength, this is an animal aptly suited to the climate of Mongolia, where large Arab stock breeds even in modern times struggle to survive the often harsh winters. Often inaccurately called ponies, being rarely taller than fourteen hands, or 56 inches at the shoulder, this is a resilient, intelligent animal which was and still is the pride of any herder.    In a country with few roads even today, the horse is the most reliable tool for crossing the steppe. Aside from transportation, they were the tools which facilitated herding, giving a Mongol herdsman a high vantage point to look over his herd, move among them or chase after separated flocks. In winter, the horses pawed through the snow, allowing access to the winter grazing to keep the other livestock alive. A Mongol would ideally not rely on a single horse, but dozens, for long journeys using remounts rather than tire out an individual mare or gelding, which were preferred over stallions, kept only for reproduction or protecting herds.       As noted by Sima Qian, Mongols learned to ride early on. In fact, before they could even walk, they were tied to their saddles, building up the requisite balance and endurance for long hours on horseback. This is part of what made them such excellent horse archers: by the time they came of age, they had long developed the ability to maintain themselves in the saddle as if the horse’s legs were their own. While most of these animals provided milk for dairy products, it was mare’s milk which held the highest honour, which when fermented became airag, or the Turkish kumiss. A drink of low alcohol level, it was a delicacy and something which one could drink considerable amounts of. Even a few foreign travelers to the Mongol Empire, such as the Franciscan William of Rubruck, developed quite a taste for it. It was considered a manly thing to drink copious amounts of airag, vomit, and continue drinking more. Something which was fine for the low alcohol content of airag, but would become more of an issue when the Mongols were introduced to the stronger alcohols of the sedentary world, and applied this same practice.       In modern Mongolia, a herder is considered to be in poverty if he has a herd of less than one hundred animals, seen as a minimum amount needed for eating and replenishing stock after the hard winter. Mongols and other steppe peoples generally did not provide fodder for the animals, at least extensively, relying instead on year round grazing. In the cold winters of Mongolia, this winter grazing can be difficult, and if a dzud event occurs, when periods of freezing and thawing and dropping temperatures leave the grass hidden below layers of ice, thousands upon thousands of animals can die: for that reason, herders could be responsible for hundreds or even thousands of animals.    Pasture had to be carefully managed: pastoral nomadism is not the ‘aimless wandering’ it can sometimes be presented as, but careful, indeed even strategic, movement of animals to ensure the appropriate pasturage is maintained, not just for that season, but the upcoming winter and also future years. As we’ve mentioned, goats and sheep can crop the grass too close to the root and damage it, while the urine from animals concentrated in an area too long will poison the grass. Winter pastures, where the location is in the shade of mountains, hills and treelines as the only protection against the winter winds had to be left alone during the rest of the year. Different animals require different amounts of water, which can mean different sections of the herd must be fed over vast distances to accomodate what local water sources are nearby, while striving to avoid too much animal manure and urine polluting that water. Flash floods in Mongolia can also be an issue in the spring time, where low country provides no protection for rapidly rising waters: herds and gers too close can be swept away suddenly. On top of all of this, they must also recognize the grazing rights to territory owned by other families, clans and tribes: grazing in someone else's land, and ruining it for them, could lead to retaliatory raids.        To successfully do all of this, the Mongols gained exceptional experience in logistics, moving these herds without constant loss of life. The herders themselves grew strong, forced to endure hardship after hardship and lean times. The Mongols were noted by more than a few authors of the period as being able to live off of scraps, drinking blood from the veins of their mares or their milk, and when an animal dropped dead,  devouring every possible part they could, ensuring nothing went to waste. This was a hard life, but it meant that when on campaign, the Mongols could endure that which few other armies could, and allowed them to move over areas which would have been impassable for others, such as the Gobi, Alashan and Kyzylkum deserts. They were not reliant on baggage trains, as much as they were on baggage herds.       Men and women were expected to be able to do the same work, though there were general divisions in labour. It was necessary that both groups understood how to do the work of the other, especially should one die, or the men be absent while at war, or extra help was needed with particular jobs. To paraphrase historian Timothy May, aside from warfare, the men focused on maintaining the herds and taking them out to pastures, while women gathered local foods, cleaned and processed  food and animals products and maintained the campsites and gers. During the imperial periods, the women and families would take on more significant roles, now responsible for producing and maintaining much of the armaments the men took to war with them.    Men could take multiple wives provided they had the means to support them. Marriages were arranged and socially, women had fewer restrictions on them than their counterparts in China, Europe and the Islamic world, something often noted to the chagrin of writers from those same regions, though we should be careful not to view this as a precursor to modern notions of gender equality. Women learned how to shoot an arrow from horseback because it was a necessary part of survival, though the cases of female warriors are of some controversy.    Chinggis Khan himself had a number of women take major roles in his life as advisers, such as his mother Hoelun (ho-e-lun) and chief wife Borte (bort-ee), and for most of the 1240s the Mongol empire was ruled by the widows of Ogedai Khan, and then of his son Guyuk, though no woman ever made the claim to hold the imperial title herself. As mentioned in Sima Qian’s description, sons and brothers could marry their widowed stepmothers or sisters-in-law, known as levirate marriage. This is something which confused many a medieval author, who were forced to refer to a woman as an individual’s wife and mother, as was the case of the Naiman queen Gurbesu and her son-in-law and husband, Tayang Khan! Generally, this helped prevent widows and their young children from becoming abandoned, while also maintaining the political ties this marriage may have established in the first place.        In a land of such open space, where one can quite literally see their enemy coming from many kilometres away, it is perhaps no surprise that the bow is such a favoured weapon, both a tool for hunting as a supplement to what meat their herds provided, and as a tool for war. The famed Mongol bow is a composite recurve design. A bow like an English longbow is made from a single strip of wood, a self-bow; whereas a composite bow was made of layers of different materials, generally a wooden core, with sinew on the back and horn on its belly, held together with natural glues. A recurve bow has the ears or siyah, the ends of the bow, curve back away from the archer and putting the whole thing under much greater tension.    The result was a weapon of marvelous strength, shooting an arrow with far greater energy compared to a self bow of similar poundage. At 130-140 cm long, or 51-55 inches, it was a relatively short bow, making it excellent for use on horseback. Constructing these bows was a long and difficult process, and the final quality would vary depending on the skill of the maker. Arrows were approximately 75-82 cm in length, or 29-32 inches long, the shafts of bamboo, reeds or willow wood with birch nocks. Mongols drew their bows with their thumbs instead of the forefingers, allowing a cleaner draw facilitated by a thumb ring. Unlike European archers, the arrow was nocked on the far side of the bow, placing the string between the archer and his arrow. Arrowheads varied widely, depending on the target, and were made of bone, horn or iron. A well known favourite was the ‘whistling arrows,’ arrows with the horn head hollowed out so that, as it traveled through the air, it produced a distinct whistling noise, serving to signal other units and frighten enemies.       Mongol children, both boys and girls, learned to shoot from horseback at a very young age. To be a truly proficient horse archer in battle, it is a skill which must be learned from childhood and ingrained to the culture, and this was very much the case for the Mongols. It takes a lifetime of skill to build the muscles necessary to shoot arrows for hours if needed, especially while maintaining the balance to ride a horse at the same time. Numerous medieval authors remark on the accuracy and power of Mongol archers: one Armenian historian of the period, Grigor Aknertsi, went as far as to call them the Nation of Archers! The distance the arrows could go is a matter of some debate, caused by some confusion between maximum distance and maximum effective combat range, which could be significantly less. There is a stone inscription in Mongolia, commemorating an occasion in about 1224, when Chinggis Khan’s nephew Yisungge supposedly sent an arrow roughly 520-535 metres, or 569-585 yards, or over 1700 feet! For that, we must note first that this may be a case of some exaggeration, like a fisherman increasing the size of the fish he caught with each retelling: the noted historian Igor de Rachewiltz suggested the inscription was erected in the 1240s, when Yisungge held more political power, and could have ‘politely suggested’ the increase of an impressive shot to even greater lengths.    As well, for such long ranges, these were not heavier war arrows being used, but lighter ‘flight arrows,’ designed to go great distances, but would not have as much punch when they landed. Actual range for combat has been suggested to be about 150 meters, about 164 yards, though some authors have suggested as low as 30 meters, or just under 100 feet, would be the preferred range, a ‘sweet spot,’ as it were, between distance while maintaining penetrative power. To penetrate armour, heavier arrows are needed, but heavier arrows cannot fly as far while maintaining their energy, whereas those long distance arrows will lack the weight to go through armour at range.    It is often said that their animals provided everything the Mongols needed, with even their dung utilized as fuel for fires, known as argal. However, they were not able to gain quite everything they needed from this. While metal forging was undertaken in limited amounts, and blacksmiths were not totally unknown, it was rare, and they would have to rely on trading or raiding to the south to acquire at least the raw materials for this process. Therefore, due to the costs and difficulties involved, things like swords would be very uncommon, instead preferring weapons which used less metal to make and had other uses as tools, like spears, knives and axes. A pot for boiling water and meat had far more utility for the average Mongol than a sword ever would. This interest in material items, such as silks, spices, porcelain and even replenishing livestock herds depleted by war, would be an important component of initial Mongol interests to China and the sedentary world, and we will make further notes on that later.    While there was interest in the goods of the Chinese, there was much less interest in their lifestyle or civilization. The settled, agricultural life, and hiding behind city walls, made the Mongols think their enemies weak and unable to suffer hardship; there are more than a few examples of Mongols making statements along the lines of ‘where can you go to escape us, hiding in your city walls?’ In the Secret History of the Mongols, when Chinggis Khan suffers a fall from horseback while campaigning against the Tangut, a general remarks that they should withdraw and return after the Khan had healed, saying:  “The Tang’ut people  are ones who have towns with pounded-earth walls,  are ones who live in permanent camps.  They won’t leave, carrying off their towns with     Pounded-earth walls.”   Culturally, the Mongol tribes shared little with their Chinese neighbours, aside from the obvious differences of nomadic versus settled. The Mongols had no written language, and the languages spoken in Mongolia in the 12th century, Mongolian and Turkic, are completely unrelated to Chinese. In religion, they were very distinct. Whereas the Chinese had ancestor worship, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and various sects and combinations thereof, things were rather different in the steppe. Some tribes to the south and west like the Kereyit and Naiman were in fact Nestorian Christians, though ones who still made use of shamans. Named for Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431, the Church of the East as it is also known were deemed heretics by the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431. The adherents had fled to the Sassanid Empire, before being pushed out of there into Central Asia, ultimately coming to contact with the Naiman and Kereyit perhaps around the 10th century. Some Mongolian names were garbled forms of Chirstian names, such as Solomon becoming Shiremun, the name of a grandson of Great Khan Ogedai.    Outside of the Kereyit and Naiman, most of the tribes would have been shamanist-animists. It was the job of the shaman to act as a healer and mediator between the physical world and the spirit world, interacting with the gods and spirits who inhabited it, or those spirits who had become stuck in the physical world. The most well known of these gods was the sky, heaven, known as Tengri, and Etugen-eke, the earth-mother. The exact nature of Tengri, often called koko mongke Tenggeri, or Eternal Blue Heaven, before the imperial period is not well understood. See, there seems to have been an unintentional anthropomorphization of Tengri, into something a bit more in line of the personal God of the Abrahamic religions. This may not have been by the Mongols themselves, but by Christian and Muslim authors who merely saw Tengri as another name for God or Allah and indeed, there are many cases where Tengri is used as a translation for these terms.    As the Mongol Empire gradually transformed into a continent spanning geopolitical entity, Tengri transformed to accommodate this: almost every letter sent by the Mongol imperial court opens with ‘by the Will of Eternal Blue Heaven.’ But before the unification of the Mongols, Tengri’s exact nature may have been much less personal. One did not convene with Tengri, at best thanking him for a storm passing by their encampment. Neither was his wrath the sole thing to fear: fire, rivers, mountains all had spirits, and it was the duty of the Mongols and their shamans not to offend them. Knives could not be pushed into a fire; dirty things and humans could not be washed in running water. The spirit world was not like the Christian Heaven were everything was better and an eternal paradise. A person’s status did not change upon death. People of noble blood had more powerful spirits, and while alive that person’s soul was believed to be inside the blood. Therefore, spilling the  blood, especially of nobility or royalty, on the earth outside of battle was not only dishonourable, but a great danger, offending the earth and their spirit could now become stuck to that location. This affected even the Mongolian method of animal slaughter, which sought to spill as little blood as possible, instead knocking the animal unconscious, turning it over and pinching, cutting or crushing the aorta, depending on the animal. This had the advantage of also preserving all of the blood, a useful ingredient for sustaining a hungry herder and his family.   When Chinggis Khan formed his law code, the yassa, many of its promulgations were the enforcement of these taboos, designed to maintain heaven’s fortune for the Mongols. Violating these restrictions could bring natural disaster: thunderstorms and lightning in particular were dreaded, and seen as the wrath of heaven. Mongolia’s geographic position, an inland continental climate of high elevation, helps make these storms particularly severe. And when a man on horseback can literally be the highest thing around for hundreds of kilometres, essentially the only lightning rod, you can understand why it could be such a concern for them.   For the Mongols, life was difficult, and the afterlife would not be any better. Without a strong political authority to maintain order, people would turn quickly to raiding, capturing and stealing women and herds. These turned into rivalries which were slow to be forgotten, leading to retaliatory raids which only brought further retaliation, cementing long grudges. Orphaned children could become burdens upon the small family groups, and as a young boy named Temujin learned in about 1170, they and their hungry siblings could be abandoned. Yet this hard life made the Mongols into hardy warriors, skilled archers and superb horsemen: if a general could come along to mold them into an army, then they could truly be a weapon to be feared.   We hope that you have enjoyed this introduction to Mongolian nomadism: we hope it has given you some insight into the life of these herders, and perhaps some of the cultural factors which influenced Chinggis Khan. In our next episode, will introduce the tribes and politics of twelfth and thirteenth century Mongolia and North China, the political world Chinggis Khan entered into, so be sure to hit 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!

Nathan and Spencer pull another switch-a-roo and talk about a man's quest to bring Catholicisim into Mongolia.

The three Polos depart for the summer palace of Kublai Khan. There'll be Assassins, baked corpses, and papal elections along the way! Website: humancircuspodcast.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/circus_human Email: HumanCircusPod@gmail.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/humancircuspod/ Donate to the podcast: https://ko-fi.com/A7071B1K Sources: - The Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian, translated by Willam Marsden, edited by Thomas Wright. George Bell & Sons, 1907. - The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, translated by Peter Jackson. The Hakluyt Society, 1990. - Cathay and the Way Thither, Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China, Vol. III, translated and edited by Henry Yule and Henri Cordier. London, 1916. - Ackroyd, Peter. Venice: Pure City. Chatto & Windus, 2009. - Daftary, Farhad. The Assassin Legends. I. B. Tauris, 1994. - Larner, John. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World. Yale University Press, 1999. - Madden, Thomas F. Venice: A New History. Viking, 2012. - Olschki, Leonardo. Marco Polo's Asia. University of California Press, 1960. - Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman. Chinese Imperial City Planning. University of Hawaii Press, 1999. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The journey of Venice's most famous merchant and traveller begins today, but we won't see much of him in this episode. We'll look at Venice in the early 13th century and touch on the 4th crusade, Mediterranean-Asian trade, and the Pax Mongolica, before following the other Polos, Niccolo and Maffeo, east on their own little adventure. Enjoy!  Website: humancircuspodcast.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/circus_human Email: HumanCircusPod@gmail.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/humancircuspod/ Donate to the podcast: https://ko-fi.com/A7071B1K Sources: - The Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian, translated by Willam Marsden, edited by Thomas Wright. George Bell & Sons, 1907. - The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, translated by Peter Jackson. The Hakluyt Society, 1990. - Cathay and the Way Thither, Being a Collection of Medieval Notices of China, Vol. III, translated and edited by Henry Yule and Henri Cordier. London, 1916. - Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350. Oxford University Press, 1989. - Ackroyd, Peter. Venice: Pure City. Chatto & Windus, 2009. - Ciociltan, Virgil. The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. Brill Academic, 2012. - Larner, John. Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World. Yale University Press, 1999. - Madden, Thomas F. Venice: A New History. Viking, 2012. - Olschki, Leonardo. Marco Polo's Asia. University of California Press, 1960.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Friar William wraps up his affairs at the court of Mongke Khan and heads for home. Today, we cover his last audience with the khan, cross the walls of Alexander, and advise King Louis IX as to the future of the crusades. Thanks for listening! Website: humancircuspodcast.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/circus_human Email: HumanCircusPod@gmail.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/humancircuspod/ Donate to the podcast: https://ko-fi.com/A7071B1K Shop: www.redbubble.com/people/HumanCircus    Sources:  * Carpini, Giovanni. The Story of the Mongols: Whom we Call the Tartars, translated by Erik Hildinger. Branden Books, 1996.  * The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, translated by Peter Jackson. The Hakluyt Society, 1990.  * The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, edited by Christopher Dawson. Sheed & Ward, 1955.  * Rachewiltz, Igor de. Papal Envoys to the Great Khans. Faber & Faber, 1971.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Friar William goes through stone-cracking cold, frozen toes, and the threat of demons to reach the camp of Mongke Khan. There, his interpreter causes him more problems, and he falls into the bizarre religious life of the camp before being drawn into a debate between Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians before the khan. Thanks for listening! Website: humancircuspodcast.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/circus_human Email: HumanCircusPod@gmail.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/humancircuspod/ Donate to the podcast: https://ko-fi.com/A7071B1K Shop: www.redbubble.com/people/HumanCircus    Sources:  * Carpini, Giovanni. The Story of the Mongols: Whom we Call the Tartars, translated by Erik Hildinger. Branden Books, 1996.  * The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, translated by Peter Jackson. The Hakluyt Society, 1990.  * The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, edited by Christopher Dawson. Sheed & Ward, 1955.  * Gladysz, Mikolaj. The Forgotten Crusaders: Poland and the Crusader Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, translated by Paul Barford. Brill, 2012.  * Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the West: 1221-1410. Pearson Longman, 2005.  * Morgan, David. The Mongols. Blackwell, 1986.  * Rachewiltz, Igor de. Papal Envoys to the Great Khans. Faber & Faber, 1971.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We go east again this episode, in the company of a friar who carried a letter to the son of Batu Khan. Was he there on behalf of King Louis IX? Was his mission more personally religious in nature? Why was he so concerned with the noses of Mongol women? All (or most) will be revealed... Thanks for listening!   Website: humancircuspodcast.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/circus_human Email: HumanCircusPod@gmail.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/humancircuspod/ Donate to the podcast: https://ko-fi.com/A7071B1K Shop: www.redbubble.com/people/HumanCircus    Sources:   * Carpini, Giovanni. The Story of the Mongols: Whom we Call the Tartars, translated by Erik Hildinger. Branden Books, 1996.  * The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, translated by Peter Jackson. The Hakluyt Society, 1990.  * The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, edited by Christopher Dawson. Sheed & Ward, 1955.  * Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the West: 1221-1410. Pearson Longman, 2005.  * Morgan, David. The Mongols. Blackwell, 1986.  * Rachewiltz, Igor de. Papal Envoys to the Great Khans. Faber & Faber, 1971.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, a quick rewind into what it means to be a Mongol, some early reactions to the Mongol invasion, some King Louis IX, the death of a khan, and the question of who is to be next. Also, I horribly butcher Eljigidei's name (Sorry, Eljigidei). Thanks for listening! Website: humancircuspodcast.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/circus_human Email: HumanCircusPod@gmail.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/humancircuspod/ Donate to the podcast: https://ko-fi.com/A7071B1K Shop: www.redbubble.com/people/HumanCircus    Sources:   * Carpini, Giovanni. The Story of the Mongols: Whom we Call the Tartars, translated by Erik Hildinger. Branden Books, 1996.  * Joinville, Jean. The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville. John Murray, 1906.  * Paris, Matthew. English History. From the Year 1235 to 1273, translated by J. A. Giles. George Bell & Sons, 1889.  * The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck, translated by Peter Jackson. The Hakluyt Society, 1990.  * The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, edited by Christopher Dawson. Sheed & Ward, 1955.  * The Secret History of the Mongols, translated by Urgunge Onon. RoutledgeCurzon, 2001.  * Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the West: 1221-1410. Pearson Longman, 2005.  * Jackson, Peter. "Medieval Christendom's Encounter with the Alien." In Travellers, Intellectuals, and the World Beyond Medieval Europe, edited by James Muldoon, 347-369. Routledge, 2016.  * Man, John. Kublai Khan. Bantam, 2007.  * Morgan, David. The Mongols. Blackwell, 1986.  * Rachewiltz, Igor de. Papal Envoys to the Great Khans. Faber & Faber, 1971.  * Waterfield, Robin. Christians in Persia. Allen & Unwin, 1973.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marco Polo is the most famous European explorer to the Far East, but he definitely wasn’t the first. His father and uncle came there years before. And they found a small colony of Europeans who lived permanently in China. Perhaps the most famous pre-Polo European in the Far East is William of Rubruck. This plucky monk did his best to convert the Great Khan to Christianity. He made his effort by debating Muslims and Buddhists as to which religion was the true one. See how that turns out in today's episode.   TO HELP OUT THE SHOW Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke's third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt's Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne's piety. Our conversation about Truitt's comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO's medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke's third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt's Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne's piety. Our conversation about Truitt's comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO's medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt’s Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne’s piety. Our conversation about Truitt’s comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt’s Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne’s piety. Our conversation about Truitt’s comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt’s Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne’s piety. Our conversation about Truitt’s comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt’s Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne’s piety. Our conversation about Truitt’s comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt’s Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne’s piety. Our conversation about Truitt’s comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  Clarke’s third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt’s Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne’s piety. Our conversation about Truitt’s comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s third law, coined in 1973, expresses the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels. In a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west, E.R. Truitt’s Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) traces the story of automata from their early appearance in the Latin west as gifts of foreign courts, to the literary manifestations of these objects, to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata in the middle of the thirteenth century. Along the way, this history examines the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe (8, 9). The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, embraces writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose stay in Constantinople brings him face to face with a pagan rulers powers of astral science that test the potentials of Charlemagne’s piety. Our conversation about Truitt’s comprehensively researched and highly readable book ranges over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices