The Legacy of Mongol Warriors

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can. Only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. So said Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces at D-Day. Most of us would agree. And yet, despite its carnage and senseless destruction, we can see bravery, toughness, and tenacity. The kind that also speaks to the best in humanity. In this series, we pay tribute to warriors, men, and sometimes women, whose stories speak to us down the centuries. Whether fighting the good fight or defending a lost cause, they followed the warrior's way. The Mongol warriors were as feared as any soldiers have ever been. The Mongols, on the attack, showed no mercy. What must it have been like to fight alongside these tribesmen from the Great Steppe, to have been part of one of the greatest armies in history, the Mongol Horde? Kanubish, for that is his name, is one such warrior, a Mongol cavalryman. Kanubish has had a tough childhood, even by Mongol standards. The name Kanubish actually means not human and was once a popular Mongol name, since it was believed that it would protect the child from evil spirits. Kanubish is an orphan whose childhood is spent among distant relatives. It's a tough start in tough times. In some respects, his backstory is like that of the greatest of all Mongol warriors, Genghis Khan, who lived around 180 years before the time of Khunubish. Unlike the great Khan, Khunubish is not destined for glory and fame, but he is still a moving part of the massive yet intricate Mongol war machine. Well, the Mongols were the most ruthless people that probably ever existed. I think as a warrior class, as warriors, they had the least value of human life. There was no regard for anybody who, you know, if you gave up any resistance to the Mongols. you died and they had no care about that. Sometimes if they went into a town and decided that they needed to move on, they would ransom any artisans out. So if you could bake bread or you could make something, you were in pretty good shape. If you weren't, they just, that was it, you were dead. Genghis Khan's cry of feed the horses might sound innocent enough, but those very words, feed the horses, were the Mongol army's signal to slaughter, rape, and pillage a civilian population. In those days, there was almost no such thing as a male, civilian population in Mongolia. Virtually every Mongol man was either a soldier or supported the military in some capacity. Being a warrior was a way of life and a highly disciplined one. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the great Khans of the Mongol Empire carved out the largest empire the world has ever seen, and maybe ever will see. And Mongol cavalry were the vanguard for the armies of that empire. empire, striking terror into the hearts of their enemies for over 150 years. Their brutality was legendary. But when you dig deeper into Mongol history, you realize they were of course remarkably more subtle and complex. The Mongols succeeded because of their discipline, their speed and their discipline, and the awe in which they were held. They fought in small groups of very mobile cavalry. It was certainly a professional army. Horde is from a Mongolian word, urdu, which in fact means the camp. I think that's probably where this idea of the Horde came from. But no, they were extremely disciplined in force. And again, they may have appeared to be one huge Horde woman. mass, but in fact they were working in small, sometimes independent, groups which would come together when the occasion demanded. Renowned for their ferocity, Mongol cavalry attacked with lightning speed and devastating effectiveness with the bow and arrow. Pure warriors who fought during winter, unlike those lazy Europeans, they were the fighting force that spearheaded conquest of the largest ever empire by land mass in world history. The Europeans called them devils when they were first confronted with them in the 13th century. Of course, European armies were no strangers to savagery themselves. But none were more violent than the Mongols, who massacred millions in their frenzy of conquest. In looking at military societies throughout history and how good some were, some are there because they simply expand, like the Romans, they simply expand, they take over, and that's that. The Ottomans did the same thing. The Mongols did the same thing. The Mongols, they ruled in fear. They would sweep in, they'd sweep through a place, they took everything that wasn't tied down, nailed down, they burned everything else, they killed everybody else, and so they left. And there was often a time when nobody would rule in that place, would come into that area, even though the Mongols had left, because they were scared to death that they were on the Mongol frontier and that they would return. There is no doubt that to ride with a Mongol horse soldier, Kanubish would have to be a trained killer, willing even to commit what today would be considered war crimes. But let's not forget, these were warlike days. We are speaking about Middle Ages. This was the age of brutality from our point of view. Especially, for example, when we are mentioning that Mongols were able to destroy the whole cities and kill everybody if the city did not give up before the battle. This was something usual. This was something that was somehow natural even for the European warriors. They deliberately encouraged this reputation. They encouraged this. Why? Because it was a method of being cruel to be kind. People were so in awe of them and so frightened that they in fact often surrendered without a fight. The Mongols were past masters at psychological warfare as well as physical warfare. One story about Mongol brutality which persists is of the pyramids of decapitated enemy skulls the Mongols were said to have built. The story about the pyramids, the Towers of Skulds, is a true story but in fact it applies to Tamerlane. Now Tamerlane is often associated or often connected with the Mongols but strictly speaking he was from a different era and from a different armies. He rose to power after the fall of the Chinggisids, after the empire basically fell, and his aim was to recreate the emperor of Chinggis Khan. And he was known for his ferocity, for his cruelty, and for these pyramids of skulls. Said on fairly good authority to have stacked 55,000 skulls in a heap after he invaded India. Brought back some 55,000 carts of gems and jewels. Gold and all sorts of things, but in doing so he killed masses of numbers of people. Tamerlane captured the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I and used to cart him around. Bayezid finally beat his skull until his brains poured out and he died of suicide, which would have been for an Ottoman Sultan the greatest of humiliations. Tamerlane seemed not to have bothered at all, just buried him all in the way. That was it. The Mongol hordes maintained their reputation for savagery and brutality for over 250 years. But what was it about these mounted marksmen that made them such effective warriors? How was a relatively small army of cavalry and foot soldiers from the steppes of Eurasia able to conquer most of the known world? The key to the Mongols'success in battle, and in building their vast empire, Was their unique relationship with the animal at the heart of their culture and way of life, the horse? Their chief means of doing so was the horse, and actually not even a horse, we'd probably call it a pony, they were rather small. And the Mongols developed a society around them, especially a military society around them. Every warrior had at least three or four that he strung along with him. He would change bounds if one needed. He would eat the horse when it was tired or died. He would drink the mare's milk when he was thirsty. And he would use the saddle to cook his food, place the raw meat in between the horse and the saddle. And it probably wasn't the most tasty of delights, but it seemed to exist that way. And so the society changed. The military society changed the world. It's said that children could ride a horse before they could walk. We don't know if that's literally true, but it could well be. So I think this combined with their discipline is why they were so... effective. Well again, I mean they're famous for their small very powerful bows which they could famously fire behind them. They could turn in the saddle and fire behind them and this is again is an art they would have learned from from very young. There has likely been no rider of horses in the world that surpassed a Mongol warrior at his height. The Mongols had small ponies. They knew how to pasture them. They knew how to herd them. They knew how to feed them on the march. They knew what they needed to eat. They knew how much water they needed. They knew how to use every facet of the horse if it was living, and they knew every facet of the horse if it had died. They understood. the Romans saw their precursors, the Huns, they saw them as men and horse together, not as separate individuals. And I think the Mongols have that similar idea later on. We can talk about knights and their horses, we can talk about anybody and their horses, and they do not match like a Mongol and his horse does. He could live on that horse, he could sleep on that horse, he could shoot arrows off the back of that horse, he could conduct cavalry raids off that horse, and he also knew when to... simply get off and pasture and sleep next to it. Mongol horses were tough, durable, and fast. Every Mongol cavalryman had four or even more horses, switching from one to another during a campaign, which meant no one horse was ridden until exhausted. This meant the Mongol army could move much faster than any other fighting force of the time, often covering 60 to 100 miles in a day. The Mongol way was that of the warrior, but it was also the way of the nomad. The nomads usually tend to have a particular style of war. Of course, they were using their horses, which means that they were... They were mounted warriors, they were able to move from place to place with a high speed. They were using bows or spares, which means that they were able to surprise their enemies. They could fight, they could pretend that they are escaping the battle, but on the other way they were able to turn around very swiftly and surprise the enemy with a sudden impact even after a very long period of escape. The camps, the wudus, were more like mobile cities. Giovanni, the Persian historian, he's known for his... He wrote a history of Genghis Khan. He was an eyewitness. Now the point about Jivani is this. He learned his arrogance, he learned his sophistication in Mongol Urdu camps. He was brought up in a Mongol camp. Why is this so? In the camps representatives from all the leading families were there. They were the sons and the daughters. Well, they were hostages, effectively, but comfortable hostages. History and peoples are always more complicated than the stereotypes. Travel to Mongolia today, and leaving the modern and developed capital Ulaanbaatar behind, you'll discover that many rural Mongolians still lead nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyles in the grasslands. Families living together in large circular tents, the famed yurt, just as they have for centuries. They are constantly on the move with their herds in search of fresh grazing grounds. The Mongolians who thrive in this harsh yet picturesque landscape would not trade it for all the riches of modern civilization. Perhaps you need to sit around a campfire on the Great Steppe, sipping Mongolian milk vodka under a blanket of stars to truly understand. Today, the Mongolians'deadliest enemy may be the fast-encroaching modern world. But this is how it's been for almost a millennium. Kanubish understood it, and he is from 800 plus years ago. Some people are born loners, and he is one of them. Then again, he is never quite alone. There is almost always one of his horses. simple and usual aspects of their life. They were really taught to fight since they were kids. Kanubish would have been trained from boyhood to fight, ride, and shoot. Shooting arrows from horseback is the defining characteristic of a Mongol warrior. But what weapons were used in close quarter combat? The Mongols were great horse archers. That's what made them. All-step archers were really good horse archers. The Mongols seemed to have been able to... to twist in their saddle and to shoot their arrows off the rear of the horse, thus not having the head of the horse ever distract them. This made them greatly accurate. It also endeavored them to continue to shoot arrows while the horse is riding. That gave the Mongols an advantage over anybody who stayed in one position or could not chase them and do the same. The nomadic bow was an interesting weapon. It was much shorter than the European longbow. Obviously it was necessary for the bow to be shorter in order to be used as a mounted weapon. Nomads were able to fight even behind their back because they were able to stand in their saddles and they were able to shoot behind them, which was key for, for example, the pretended escapes. Mongol armies included heavy cavalry units which, like their European counterparts, carried lances and wore metallic armor and swords and daggers for close-quarter combat. But the mounted bowmen we think of as Mongol cavalry wore light armor, very light in some instances. This is Jingsha they used to wear silk undergarments, and this is because if you are a shot with an arrow The silk will not stop it exactly but it will absorb it and then the point of the arrow doesn't actually cut through the silk. So it's easy to pull the arrow out using the silk and you pull the silk out, that will pull most of the arrow out as well. It will limit the damage done. They wore the silk and they wore it well as defensive armament. Even if it could not compete with the greatest of iron armors that were in the world, it still had a wonderful ability to stop. an arrow before penetrating and dirtying a wound enough for infection to set in we've got interesting stories about mongols living for a very long time being wounded with things that should have killed them otherwise and i think one of the conclusions of the story is that the silk is particularly strong, but also particularly hygienic. As a way of both honing their fighting skills and gathering meat for a huge feast, the Mongols held an annual great winter hunt during which thousands of horsemen gathered. Any warrior who failed to kill an animal could expect to hang his head in shame. Khnubis is quietly confident as he goes on his first nurj. During the hunt they were using certain military tactics and they were learning to fight by that way. They should circle around the animals and if any warrior would let any animal escape, it would mean that he would be severely punished. By this way, they were trained for the battles. The Great Winter Hunt, or NERJ, was a cruel business. But Kanubis is proud to have taken part in it. The nurj, which again all Mongols participated in, they would form a circle. This could be hundreds of kilometers in diameter. The idea was to capture all livestock, all animals within the that circle. They would do this by slowly constricting the circle. This is over hundreds of miles. Slowly, bit by bit, they would constrict the circle and push all animals within it into the center. It took intelligence. They had to send signals to each other where animals were grouping, where they were. So a lot of skills were learnt. And again, this would go on for days on end, pushing these animals to the centre. And it's said by the time the circle narrowed to a small area, the animals were going absolutely wild, crazy. But they were not allowed to let them die. Only when the commander called a halt to the nurse would the captain or the highest ranking... person be allowed to kill an animal and then they would then there would be a bloodthirsty feast and the animals of course would be saved for the for the winter one noble tradition that has survived down the generations is the eagle hunt the bond between Mongol hunter and eagle remains as strong today as ever it is nice to see that some things don't change 900 years ago, the Mongols were a warlike race whose main preoccupations were hunting, survival, and fighting each other. The Mongolian steppe had no real borders, and the Mongols respected none anyway. They believed it was their destiny to conquer the world. But if they were ever going to conquer the world, they would need a leader. Cometh the hour, cometh the man, as the saying goes. Genghis, also pronounced Chinggis, Genghis, or Genghis, original name Tumizhin, was and is one of the most famous conquerors in all history. Born in 1162, all sorts of legends grew up around Genghis Khan, such as the tale that he was born with a blood clot in his little hand, a sign of things to come. Like Khnubis, Genghis Khan had a difficult childhood. childhood. He was born the son of a Yaka Mongol chief. However, when he was ten, his father was poisoned and his mother kidnapped. Genghis became chief, but the tribe abandoned him. And for a while, he was forced to survive on his wits, digging roots for food and stealing sheep, before he was able to return to his tribe to prove himself worthy to lead it. One of the things the secret history of the Mammoths tells us is that Genghis had a hard life as a child. Genghis Khan's mom is abducted. Then he had problems with his brothers. Well, my uncle's always had problems with his brothers. In fact, Genghis's own sons had problems, and grandsons had problems with each other. His family was dishonored and exiled from the... the tribe that seems to be a case as well that could have happened i suppose to other people but the fact that all of these things together happen to gangas and yet he rises above them all gives him an origin story that's not unlike those that even today tug at our heartstrings they must have tugged at the heartstrings of many people who he encountered and thought well can i trust this guy should i follow it look at how he's done look at what he's raised himself to be Genghis Khan's first historic feat was to unite the warring tribes on the Great Step into a unified Mongolia. Before 1206, the various tribes, the Mongols, Tatars, Naiman, Keraites, all of these various Turk-Mongol tribes spent their lives fighting each other. Genghis Khan united them. He dissolved this tribal system and amazingly successful. He abolished the tribes and that's why they all became Mongols. He divided the various units into units of 10. 10 men were under the command of a a leader of 10. Those leaders of 10 were under the command of a leader of 100. Those leaders of 100 were under the command of a leader of 1,000, up to the leaders of 10,000. These were the elites. These were the chosen, handpicked by Genghis Khan himself, whose loyalty was beyond question, these leaders of 10,000. Once that insanely difficult task had been accomplished, Genghis then set about extending his empire into Persia and China and oversaw the Mongols'first victorious encounter with the Russians. Khan was a military genius to rival Alexander the Great or Napoleon. Genghis Khan's military genius could quickly adapt itself to changing conditions. A good example, when he set out on his trail of conquests, practically all his troops were cavalry. This was fine when it came to defeating other armies of nomads, such as rival Mongolian tribes. But as they pushed into China, they began to encounter the problem of having to lay siege and penetrate cities. Genghis Khan captured some enemy engineers and offered them a choice between a slow and painful death or serving in the Great Khan's army. So when they moved into China, they had very little experience of siege warfare. But they learned. Why? Because they incorporated other armies, other peoples. It wasn't long before the Mongols were able to lay siege to large cities, using trebuchets, siege towers, catapults, burning oil, and all the machinery and techniques of siege warfare. In this way, they were able to capture Zangdu, or as we better know the city today, Beijing. Later, the Jin Emperor Azong committed suicide there, rather than be taken by Genghis Khan. Virtually the whole world was seeing the consequences of trifling with the Mongol horde. Ultimately, Genghis Khan came to rule an empire which extended from northeast China to the Caspian Sea, in total an astounding 28 million square kilometers. But all things must pass. Not long after being thrown from his horse, Genghis Khan died in 1227 from internal bleeding. Even without Genghis, the Mongols were able to continue his warrior tradition. They were smart enough to know they didn't know everything. They had no hesitation copying from the Persian or the Chinese art of war. It was the Chinese who introduced them to gunpowder. Historians have for a long time resisted giving a nomadic peoples the credit for using and diffusing gunpowder. But it seems to be our only conduit between the East and the West of the Mongols. Historians have now gone back through and especially looking at the history of the Mongols. at those campaigns in the early 13th century, recognizing that the Mongols did use gunpowder weapon. They used it as a very crude bombs. They used it as flamethrowers. They would attach it, and crude bombs, not very... efficient bombs. They would try to, for example, put these bombs underneath walls and blow them up. But again, they weren't that efficient. But certainly gunpowder started to be used and the Mongols started to use it. With gunpowder, the Mongol armies became even more fearsome adversaries. Brutal by all means, yes. But they were also clever tacticians, skilled cavalrymen riding swift horses. The Mongols were capable of all sorts of quick, nimble maneuvers that would catch their foes off guard. The Mongols'repertoire of maneuvers included ambushes, hit-and-run, and wave attacks. Then there was the so-called feigned retreat, in which the Mongols would fake defeat and flee. The enemy would follow and be led into an ambush. One of the most famous techniques was the feigned retreats, and this worked again and again, even though they became famous for it. They would often pretend... to give up. They wouldn't surrender, they would just turn and flee. And without fail, this one, the armies would chase, they would call them cowards, and of course this was a technique. They would simply move the battle to a more, a different location, more advantageous to them. And then they would suddenly turn and ambush the pursuing army. Naturally, these kind of hairpin turns as part of battle strategy were based on reliable sources of information. And it is the mission in life for Kanubis to be part of the Mongols'13th century intelligence network. Because the Mongols deployed networks of scouts and spies, men like Khnubis, these messengers were vital. Before mounting a major attack, the Mongols would spend months scouting enemy defenses, supply lines, and possible escape routes. It was the practical application of what the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War. Every battle is won before it's ever fought. Mongols were using a lot of elements of psychological warfare, especially they were trying to pretend that their army is much bigger than it really was. They were for example mounting their slaves or wives or kids or even just taking the horses without riders together in order to look much numerous. They were using the branches of trees in order to produce enormous clouds of dust. This way they could somehow surprise their enemies and they could also appear from an unexpected place because of the dust, because of the element of surprise and because of the speed of their horses. In our story, Kanubish is made a messenger and scout in the Mongol army, which suits his disposition just fine. In many ways, he has always felt closest to animals. The eagles that he has hunted with since he was a boy, the horses that carry him on his way, and never complain or make fools of themselves when they drink, like some humans he knows. A solitary life is no hardship for Kanubish, but he cannot begin to imagine the importance of the messages he will one day deliver to all corners of the vast Mongol Empire. Mongols were using a very sophisticated system of messengers or envoys. It was, let's say, the key organization of their vast empire. They really needed to travel or send messages from place to place very swiftly. By this they used... certain stations where the envoy could change the horse and travel with the swiftest speed as it was possible. By this way even hundreds of kilometers could be crossed during one day. Of course every envoy had the same military training as a usual warrior. Long distance communication in the Mongol Empire was based on supply or message routes known as the yam. A yam was a system of relay stations used by the Mongol riders to transfer messages quickly and effectively. The first messenger would travel by horseback to the nearest yam where another messenger already stationed there would take over and Travel to the next station while the original writer recovered from his journey and so on it went. I'm a great great opinion that communication traveled faster in the pre-modern world than we want it to have traveled. We want everything to travel basically the speed of a horse or basically the speed of a ship traveling at normal speeds. In fact, they had messenger services. We know the Mongols had messenger services. We know that those messenger services traveled on many horses over many days for many men to carry one message. In his life as a messenger and scout, Kanubis travels along the Silk Road trade routes, where it was said a maiden with a plate of gold on her head could wander safely from one end to the other. The year is 1241. Kanubish is 21, and is a scout and courier. And Ogedei Khan is the supreme leader of the Mongol horde. Ogedei, the young man who Genghis Khan chose to be his successor, was. in many respects, his father's son. For Ogedei was not content with ruling over his father's newly conquered lands. No, Ogedei Khan sought to expand the empire, who knows how far, to the limits of the known world, perhaps. Where was the end of the world for the Mongols? They get all the way to Russia, they get all the way to the Hindu Kush, they get all the way to the Iranian Kush. The extent of Asia in their minds is probably being crossed. They do make it all the way into Hungary, but what promotes them into Hungary is unknown. By Christmas 1241, Ogedei and his generals had expanded the Khanate by conquering what was left of northwest China and pushing into Russia. The year before, they had sacked Kiev in modern-day Ukraine, and the horde was rapidly moving west. All of Europe trembled in the face of the Mongols, their terrifying reputation, the ruthless Mongol cavalry, and their sophisticated siege tactics. When the huge Mongol army reached Hungary, King Bela IV tried to stop them at the Battle of Mohi, but even the fierce Hungarians were no match for the Mongol hordes. Their European campaign, the Mongols... met with the Hungarian army. This was particularly interesting meeting because Hungarians originally were nomads as Mongols so they were using originally the same way of warfare. But we are speaking about the 13th century. So the Hungarian army during the 13th century was already a common European army with heavy horsemen, heavy armor, and using a short distance fight technique. On the other hand, the Mongols were using the typical nomadic tactics. So they were using the swift attacks, light cavalry, and they were surprising their enemies. So in a way it was meeting. between the European and the nomadic warfare. In the aftermath of the Battle of Mohi, Ogadi's armies unleashed hell on the Hungarians, killing an estimated one million people. Whether noble, knight or peasant, they were indiscriminately put to the slaughter by the Mongol invaders. It was one of the bloodiest invasions of a blood-soaked period in history. Hungary first, the rest of Europe next. That is how it must have looked. December 1241, as the rest of Christian Europe quaked in its boots. And then, something like a miracle occurred. The great Ogedy Khan, the bloodthirsty son of Genghis Khan, had always been a hard drinker. Then one night in December of 1241, he drank himself to death, aged 65. With the death of Ogedy Khan, the Mongols withdrew from the fringes of Europe. They turned their forces back towards Karakoram, the Mongol capital, for the election of a new leader. Right on the brink of invasion, and they suddenly withdrew, Hungary assigned. Europe had been spared the Mongol war machine. But exactly why? One thing can be certain when you've got nomadic forces or you have forces that rely on charismatic leadership like the Mongols did, is when that charismatic leader dies, there's a vacuum. and that vacuum is going to be filled by somebody. We know with the Ottomans, for example, that when the sultan died, the West could breathe easy for a few years while that inheritance was settled. When a great khan died, all the princes had to reconvene in a so-called kurultai. It's like a great council meeting. They had to meet in a kurultai to decide on the next leader. So it was paramount that all the princes return to the centre to make this decision. And if they didn't... If they didn't come, they wouldn't partake. Basically, that prevented the possible expansion, the conquest into Europe. After their withdrawal from Central Europe in 1242, Mongol armies would return from time to time to slaughter, raid, and plunder. But there would be no large-scale invasion, and their withdrawal that year was the beginning of the end of the Mongol war. Mongol Empire. Ogedei Khan's fatal drinking binge had saved Western Europe from the Mongol hordes. But was that necessarily a good thing, or might a generation under Mongol rule have accelerated their development? So it's quite possible, yes, that Europe would have fallen, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Remember, Iran fell to the Mongols, we had the Al-Khanate, and they, first of all, they became Iran again. They benefited. They had a very... They were able to absorb it. Remember that the Mongols absorb people. Interestingly enough, when they conquered Iran, they formed, together they formed this multicultural, multi-ethnic state, ruling with the Persians. Who knows, once the actual invasion was over, the Mongols usually turned out to be fairly benevolent dictators. But it isn't the Mongols'tolerance and an Enlightenment for which they will be remembered, or their skills as administrators. They'll always be remembered for their cons, their conquerors, and their ferocious warriors. Theirs was truly the warrior's way. The life of a Mongol warrior wouldn't have much appeal for most of us today. Too violent, but also too arduous and austere. But what lessons can be learned from the brave and resilient Mongol warrior? What lessons can we learn from the Mongols? Probably don't let them exist again. They were an incredibly ruthless, terrible, warm fighting machine that destroyed everybody in its wake. No more Mongols. Well, that's one viewpoint, but here's another. I mean, people say, when did it end? The Mongol Empire didn't end. For example, it came to an end in Iran, but there were no Mongols, didn't go home. You know, they just faded away, and nobody ever went home. In China, the Yuan dynasty came to an end, and yes, the actual Great Khan did return to Mongolia, but he went with his immediate army. But, you know, for all of... millions of people who made up the Yuan dynasty, they didn't go anywhere, they were there. In other words, it just it was assimilated. So I think the greatest mistake that people make about the Mongols, they think of them as an entity which spread from the steppe around the world. It didn't, it was a movement, it was a revolution and it was transforming the whole time. And it lasts in one shape or form until today. Although we may not know it, we may all have the spirit of the great Khan living on within us. In his crammed 64 or so years, Genghis Khan had several wives and hundreds of concubines to ensure his legacy would last long into the future. Who knows, you may even share some of this great warrior's DNA. Geneticists have estimated that around 16 million people alive today are genetic descendants of Genghis Khan. Was that the warrior's way? Well, it was certainly a way of keeping the Khan's legacy and warlike spirit alive, long after he had departed the field of battle.

The kind that also speaks to the best in humanity. In this series, we pay tribute to warriors, men, and sometimes women, whose stories speak to us down the centuries. Whether fighting the good fight or defending a lost cause, they followed the warrior's way.

The Mongol warriors were as feared as any soldiers have ever been. The Mongols, on the attack, showed no mercy. What must it have been like to fight alongside these tribesmen from the Great Steppe, to have been part of one of the greatest armies in history, the Mongol Horde?

Kanubish, for that is his name, is one such warrior, a Mongol cavalryman. Kanubish has had a tough childhood, even by Mongol standards. The name Kanubish actually means not human and was once a popular Mongol name, since it was believed that it would protect the child from evil spirits.

Kanubish is an orphan whose childhood is spent among distant relatives. It's a tough start in tough times. In some respects, his backstory is like that of the greatest of all Mongol warriors, Genghis Khan, who lived around 180 years before the time of Khunubish.

Unlike the great Khan, Khunubish is not destined for glory and fame, but he is still a moving part of the massive yet intricate Mongol war machine. Well, the Mongols were the most ruthless people that probably ever existed. I think as a warrior class, as warriors, they had the least value of human life. There was no regard for anybody who, you know, if you gave up any resistance to the Mongols.

you died and they had no care about that. Sometimes if they went into a town and decided that they needed to move on, they would ransom any artisans out. So if you could bake bread or you could make something, you were in pretty good shape.

If you weren't, they just, that was it, you were dead. Genghis Khan's cry of feed the horses might sound innocent enough, but those very words, feed the horses, were the Mongol army's signal to slaughter, rape, and pillage a civilian population. In those days, there was almost no such thing as a male, civilian population in Mongolia. Virtually every Mongol man was either a soldier or supported the military in some capacity.

Being a warrior was a way of life and a highly disciplined one. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the great Khans of the Mongol Empire carved out the largest empire the world has ever seen, and maybe ever will see. And Mongol cavalry were the vanguard for the armies of that empire.

empire, striking terror into the hearts of their enemies for over 150 years. Their brutality was legendary. But when you dig deeper into Mongol history, you realize they were of course remarkably more subtle and complex. The Mongols succeeded because of their discipline, their speed and their discipline, and the awe in which they were held. They fought in small groups of very mobile cavalry.

It was certainly a professional army. Horde is from a Mongolian word, urdu, which in fact means the camp. I think that's probably where this idea of the Horde came from.

But no, they were extremely disciplined in force. And again, they may have appeared to be one huge Horde woman. mass, but in fact they were working in small, sometimes independent, groups which would come together when the occasion demanded. Renowned for their ferocity, Mongol cavalry attacked with lightning speed and devastating effectiveness with the bow and arrow. Pure warriors who fought during winter, unlike those lazy Europeans, they were the fighting force that spearheaded conquest of the largest ever empire by land mass in world history.

The Europeans called them devils when they were first confronted with them in the 13th century. Of course, European armies were no strangers to savagery themselves. But none were more violent than the Mongols, who massacred millions in their frenzy of conquest.

In looking at military societies throughout history and how good some were, some are there because they simply expand, like the Romans, they simply expand, they take over, and that's that. The Ottomans did the same thing. The Mongols did the same thing.

The Mongols, they ruled in fear. They would sweep in, they'd sweep through a place, they took everything that wasn't tied down, nailed down, they burned everything else, they killed everybody else, and so they left. And there was often a time when nobody would rule in that place, would come into that area, even though the Mongols had left, because they were scared to death that they were on the Mongol frontier and that they would return. There is no doubt that to ride with a Mongol horse soldier, Kanubish would have to be a trained killer, willing even to commit what today would be considered war crimes.

But let's not forget, these were warlike days. We are speaking about Middle Ages. This was the age of brutality from our point of view.

Especially, for example, when we are mentioning that Mongols were able to destroy the whole cities and kill everybody if the city did not give up before the battle. This was something usual. This was something that was somehow natural even for the European warriors. They deliberately encouraged this reputation. They encouraged this.

Why? Because it was a method of being cruel to be kind. People were so in awe of them and so frightened that they in fact often surrendered without a fight. The Mongols were past masters at psychological warfare as well as physical warfare. One story about Mongol brutality which persists is of the pyramids of decapitated enemy skulls the Mongols were said to have built.

The story about the pyramids, the Towers of Skulds, is a true story but in fact it applies to Tamerlane. Now Tamerlane is often associated or often connected with the Mongols but strictly speaking he was from a different era and from a different armies. He rose to power after the fall of the Chinggisids, after the empire basically fell, and his aim was to recreate the emperor of Chinggis Khan.

And he was known for his ferocity, for his cruelty, and for these pyramids of skulls. Said on fairly good authority to have stacked 55,000 skulls in a heap after he invaded India. Brought back some 55,000 carts of gems and jewels. Gold and all sorts of things, but in doing so he killed masses of numbers of people. Tamerlane captured the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I and used to cart him around.

Bayezid finally beat his skull until his brains poured out and he died of suicide, which would have been for an Ottoman Sultan the greatest of humiliations. Tamerlane seemed not to have bothered at all, just buried him all in the way. That was it. The Mongol hordes maintained their reputation for savagery and brutality for over 250 years. But what was it about these mounted marksmen that made them such effective warriors?

How was a relatively small army of cavalry and foot soldiers from the steppes of Eurasia able to conquer most of the known world? The key to the Mongols'success in battle, and in building their vast empire, Was their unique relationship with the animal at the heart of their culture and way of life, the horse? Their chief means of doing so was the horse, and actually not even a horse, we'd probably call it a pony, they were rather small.

And the Mongols developed a society around them, especially a military society around them. Every warrior had at least three or four that he strung along with him. He would change bounds if one needed. He would eat the horse when it was tired or died.

He would drink the mare's milk when he was thirsty. And he would use the saddle to cook his food, place the raw meat in between the horse and the saddle. And it probably wasn't the most tasty of delights, but it seemed to exist that way.

And so the society changed. The military society changed the world. It's said that children could ride a horse before they could walk. We don't know if that's literally true, but it could well be. So I think this combined with their discipline is why they were so...

effective. Well again, I mean they're famous for their small very powerful bows which they could famously fire behind them. They could turn in the saddle and fire behind them and this is again is an art they would have learned from from very young.

There has likely been no rider of horses in the world that surpassed a Mongol warrior at his height. The Mongols had small ponies. They knew how to pasture them.

They knew how to herd them. They knew how to feed them on the march. They knew what they needed to eat. They knew how much water they needed. They knew how to use every facet of the horse if it was living, and they knew every facet of the horse if it had died.

They understood. the Romans saw their precursors, the Huns, they saw them as men and horse together, not as separate individuals. And I think the Mongols have that similar idea later on. We can talk about knights and their horses, we can talk about anybody and their horses, and they do not match like a Mongol and his horse does. He could live on that horse, he could sleep on that horse, he could shoot arrows off the back of that horse, he could conduct cavalry raids off that horse, and he also knew when to...

simply get off and pasture and sleep next to it. Mongol horses were tough, durable, and fast. Every Mongol cavalryman had four or even more horses, switching from one to another during a campaign, which meant no one horse was ridden until exhausted.

This meant the Mongol army could move much faster than any other fighting force of the time, often covering 60 to 100 miles in a day. The Mongol way was that of the warrior, but it was also the way of the nomad. The nomads usually tend to have a particular style of war. Of course, they were using their horses, which means that they were...

They were mounted warriors, they were able to move from place to place with a high speed. They were using bows or spares, which means that they were able to surprise their enemies. They could fight, they could pretend that they are escaping the battle, but on the other way they were able to turn around very swiftly and surprise the enemy with a sudden impact even after a very long period of escape.

The camps, the wudus, were more like mobile cities. Giovanni, the Persian historian, he's known for his... He wrote a history of Genghis Khan. He was an eyewitness. Now the point about Jivani is this.

He learned his arrogance, he learned his sophistication in Mongol Urdu camps. He was brought up in a Mongol camp. Why is this so? In the camps representatives from all the leading families were there.

They were the sons and the daughters. Well, they were hostages, effectively, but comfortable hostages. History and peoples are always more complicated than the stereotypes.

Travel to Mongolia today, and leaving the modern and developed capital Ulaanbaatar behind, you'll discover that many rural Mongolians still lead nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyles in the grasslands. Families living together in large circular tents, the famed yurt, just as they have for centuries. They are constantly on the move with their herds in search of fresh grazing grounds.

The Mongolians who thrive in this harsh yet picturesque landscape would not trade it for all the riches of modern civilization. Perhaps you need to sit around a campfire on the Great Steppe, sipping Mongolian milk vodka under a blanket of stars to truly understand. Today, the Mongolians'deadliest enemy may be the fast-encroaching modern world.

But this is how it's been for almost a millennium. Kanubish understood it, and he is from 800 plus years ago. Some people are born loners, and he is one of them.

Then again, he is never quite alone. There is almost always one of his horses. simple and usual aspects of their life.

They were really taught to fight since they were kids. Kanubish would have been trained from boyhood to fight, ride, and shoot. Shooting arrows from horseback is the defining characteristic of a Mongol warrior.

But what weapons were used in close quarter combat? The Mongols were great horse archers. That's what made them. All-step archers were really good horse archers.

The Mongols seemed to have been able to... to twist in their saddle and to shoot their arrows off the rear of the horse, thus not having the head of the horse ever distract them. This made them greatly accurate. It also endeavored them to continue to shoot arrows while the horse is riding.

That gave the Mongols an advantage over anybody who stayed in one position or could not chase them and do the same. The nomadic bow was an interesting weapon. It was much shorter than the European longbow. Obviously it was necessary for the bow to be shorter in order to be used as a mounted weapon. Nomads were able to fight even behind their back because they were able to stand in their saddles and they were able to shoot behind them, which was key for, for example, the pretended escapes.

Mongol armies included heavy cavalry units which, like their European counterparts, carried lances and wore metallic armor and swords and daggers for close-quarter combat. But the mounted bowmen we think of as Mongol cavalry wore light armor, very light in some instances. This is Jingsha they used to wear silk undergarments, and this is because if you are a shot with an arrow The silk will not stop it exactly but it will absorb it and then the point of the arrow doesn't actually cut through the silk.

So it's easy to pull the arrow out using the silk and you pull the silk out, that will pull most of the arrow out as well. It will limit the damage done. They wore the silk and they wore it well as defensive armament.

Even if it could not compete with the greatest of iron armors that were in the world, it still had a wonderful ability to stop. an arrow before penetrating and dirtying a wound enough for infection to set in we've got interesting stories about mongols living for a very long time being wounded with things that should have killed them otherwise and i think one of the conclusions of the story is that the silk is particularly strong, but also particularly hygienic. As a way of both honing their fighting skills and gathering meat for a huge feast, the Mongols held an annual great winter hunt during which thousands of horsemen gathered.

Any warrior who failed to kill an animal could expect to hang his head in shame. Khnubis is quietly confident as he goes on his first nurj. During the hunt they were using certain military tactics and they were learning to fight by that way. They should circle around the animals and if any warrior would let any animal escape, it would mean that he would be severely punished.

By this way, they were trained for the battles. The Great Winter Hunt, or NERJ, was a cruel business. But Kanubis is proud to have taken part in it.

The nurj, which again all Mongols participated in, they would form a circle. This could be hundreds of kilometers in diameter. The idea was to capture all livestock, all animals within the that circle. They would do this by slowly constricting the circle.

This is over hundreds of miles. Slowly, bit by bit, they would constrict the circle and push all animals within it into the center. It took intelligence.

They had to send signals to each other where animals were grouping, where they were. So a lot of skills were learnt. And again, this would go on for days on end, pushing these animals to the centre.

And it's said by the time the circle narrowed to a small area, the animals were going absolutely wild, crazy. But they were not allowed to let them die. Only when the commander called a halt to the nurse would the captain or the highest ranking... person be allowed to kill an animal and then they would then there would be a bloodthirsty feast and the animals of course would be saved for the for the winter one noble tradition that has survived down the generations is the eagle hunt the bond between Mongol hunter and eagle remains as strong today as ever it is nice to see that some things don't change 900 years ago, the Mongols were a warlike race whose main preoccupations were hunting, survival, and fighting each other.

The Mongolian steppe had no real borders, and the Mongols respected none anyway. They believed it was their destiny to conquer the world. But if they were ever going to conquer the world, they would need a leader.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man, as the saying goes. Genghis, also pronounced Chinggis, Genghis, or Genghis, original name Tumizhin, was and is one of the most famous conquerors in all history. Born in 1162, all sorts of legends grew up around Genghis Khan, such as the tale that he was born with a blood clot in his little hand, a sign of things to come.

Like Khnubis, Genghis Khan had a difficult childhood. childhood. He was born the son of a Yaka Mongol chief.

However, when he was ten, his father was poisoned and his mother kidnapped. Genghis became chief, but the tribe abandoned him. And for a while, he was forced to survive on his wits, digging roots for food and stealing sheep, before he was able to return to his tribe to prove himself worthy to lead it. One of the things the secret history of the Mammoths tells us is that Genghis had a hard life as a child.

Genghis Khan's mom is abducted. Then he had problems with his brothers. Well, my uncle's always had problems with his brothers. In fact, Genghis's own sons had problems, and grandsons had problems with each other. His family was dishonored and exiled from the...

the tribe that seems to be a case as well that could have happened i suppose to other people but the fact that all of these things together happen to gangas and yet he rises above them all gives him an origin story that's not unlike those that even today tug at our heartstrings they must have tugged at the heartstrings of many people who he encountered and thought well can i trust this guy should i follow it look at how he's done look at what he's raised himself to be Genghis Khan's first historic feat was to unite the warring tribes on the Great Step into a unified Mongolia. Before 1206, the various tribes, the Mongols, Tatars, Naiman, Keraites, all of these various Turk-Mongol tribes spent their lives fighting each other. Genghis Khan united them.

He dissolved this tribal system and amazingly successful. He abolished the tribes and that's why they all became Mongols. He divided the various units into units of 10. 10 men were under the command of a a leader of 10. Those leaders of 10 were under the command of a leader of 100. Those leaders of 100 were under the command of a leader of 1,000, up to the leaders of 10,000.

These were the elites. These were the chosen, handpicked by Genghis Khan himself, whose loyalty was beyond question, these leaders of 10,000. Once that insanely difficult task had been accomplished, Genghis then set about extending his empire into Persia and China and oversaw the Mongols'first victorious encounter with the Russians. Khan was a military genius to rival Alexander the Great or Napoleon. Genghis Khan's military genius could quickly adapt itself to changing conditions.

A good example, when he set out on his trail of conquests, practically all his troops were cavalry. This was fine when it came to defeating other armies of nomads, such as rival Mongolian tribes. But as they pushed into China, they began to encounter the problem of having to lay siege and penetrate cities. Genghis Khan captured some enemy engineers and offered them a choice between a slow and painful death or serving in the Great Khan's army.

So when they moved into China, they had very little experience of siege warfare. But they learned. Why?

Because they incorporated other armies, other peoples. It wasn't long before the Mongols were able to lay siege to large cities, using trebuchets, siege towers, catapults, burning oil, and all the machinery and techniques of siege warfare. In this way, they were able to capture Zangdu, or as we better know the city today, Beijing. Later, the Jin Emperor Azong committed suicide there, rather than be taken by Genghis Khan. Virtually the whole world was seeing the consequences of trifling with the Mongol horde.

Ultimately, Genghis Khan came to rule an empire which extended from northeast China to the Caspian Sea, in total an astounding 28 million square kilometers. But all things must pass. Not long after being thrown from his horse, Genghis Khan died in 1227 from internal bleeding. Even without Genghis, the Mongols were able to continue his warrior tradition.

They were smart enough to know they didn't know everything. They had no hesitation copying from the Persian or the Chinese art of war. It was the Chinese who introduced them to gunpowder. Historians have for a long time resisted giving a nomadic peoples the credit for using and diffusing gunpowder. But it seems to be our only conduit between the East and the West of the Mongols.

Historians have now gone back through and especially looking at the history of the Mongols. at those campaigns in the early 13th century, recognizing that the Mongols did use gunpowder weapon. They used it as a very crude bombs.

They used it as flamethrowers. They would attach it, and crude bombs, not very... efficient bombs. They would try to, for example, put these bombs underneath walls and blow them up.

But again, they weren't that efficient. But certainly gunpowder started to be used and the Mongols started to use it. With gunpowder, the Mongol armies became even more fearsome adversaries. Brutal by all means, yes. But they were also clever tacticians, skilled cavalrymen riding swift horses.

The Mongols were capable of all sorts of quick, nimble maneuvers that would catch their foes off guard. The Mongols'repertoire of maneuvers included ambushes, hit-and-run, and wave attacks. Then there was the so-called feigned retreat, in which the Mongols would fake defeat and flee.

The enemy would follow and be led into an ambush. One of the most famous techniques was the feigned retreats, and this worked again and again, even though they became famous for it. They would often pretend... to give up.

They wouldn't surrender, they would just turn and flee. And without fail, this one, the armies would chase, they would call them cowards, and of course this was a technique. They would simply move the battle to a more, a different location, more advantageous to them. And then they would suddenly turn and ambush the pursuing army. Naturally, these kind of hairpin turns as part of battle strategy were based on reliable sources of information.

And it is the mission in life for Kanubis to be part of the Mongols'13th century intelligence network. Because the Mongols deployed networks of scouts and spies, men like Khnubis, these messengers were vital. Before mounting a major attack, the Mongols would spend months scouting enemy defenses, supply lines, and possible escape routes.

It was the practical application of what the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War. Every battle is won before it's ever fought. Mongols were using a lot of elements of psychological warfare, especially they were trying to pretend that their army is much bigger than it really was. They were for example mounting their slaves or wives or kids or even just taking the horses without riders together in order to look much numerous. They were using the branches of trees in order to produce enormous clouds of dust.

This way they could somehow surprise their enemies and they could also appear from an unexpected place because of the dust, because of the element of surprise and because of the speed of their horses. In our story, Kanubish is made a messenger and scout in the Mongol army, which suits his disposition just fine. In many ways, he has always felt closest to animals. The eagles that he has hunted with since he was a boy, the horses that carry him on his way, and never complain or make fools of themselves when they drink, like some humans he knows.

A solitary life is no hardship for Kanubish, but he cannot begin to imagine the importance of the messages he will one day deliver to all corners of the vast Mongol Empire. Mongols were using a very sophisticated system of messengers or envoys. It was, let's say, the key organization of their vast empire. They really needed to travel or send messages from place to place very swiftly.

By this they used... certain stations where the envoy could change the horse and travel with the swiftest speed as it was possible. By this way even hundreds of kilometers could be crossed during one day. Of course every envoy had the same military training as a usual warrior.

Long distance communication in the Mongol Empire was based on supply or message routes known as the yam. A yam was a system of relay stations used by the Mongol riders to transfer messages quickly and effectively. The first messenger would travel by horseback to the nearest yam where another messenger already stationed there would take over and Travel to the next station while the original writer recovered from his journey and so on it went. I'm a great great opinion that communication traveled faster in the pre-modern world than we want it to have traveled.

We want everything to travel basically the speed of a horse or basically the speed of a ship traveling at normal speeds. In fact, they had messenger services. We know the Mongols had messenger services.

We know that those messenger services traveled on many horses over many days for many men to carry one message. In his life as a messenger and scout, Kanubis travels along the Silk Road trade routes, where it was said a maiden with a plate of gold on her head could wander safely from one end to the other. The year is 1241. Kanubish is 21, and is a scout and courier.

And Ogedei Khan is the supreme leader of the Mongol horde. Ogedei, the young man who Genghis Khan chose to be his successor, was. in many respects, his father's son. For Ogedei was not content with ruling over his father's newly conquered lands.

No, Ogedei Khan sought to expand the empire, who knows how far, to the limits of the known world, perhaps. Where was the end of the world for the Mongols? They get all the way to Russia, they get all the way to the Hindu Kush, they get all the way to the Iranian Kush.

The extent of Asia in their minds is probably being crossed. They do make it all the way into Hungary, but what promotes them into Hungary is unknown. By Christmas 1241, Ogedei and his generals had expanded the Khanate by conquering what was left of northwest China and pushing into Russia. The year before, they had sacked Kiev in modern-day Ukraine, and the horde was rapidly moving west. All of Europe trembled in the face of the Mongols, their terrifying reputation, the ruthless Mongol cavalry, and their sophisticated siege tactics.

When the huge Mongol army reached Hungary, King Bela IV tried to stop them at the Battle of Mohi, but even the fierce Hungarians were no match for the Mongol hordes. Their European campaign, the Mongols... met with the Hungarian army. This was particularly interesting meeting because Hungarians originally were nomads as Mongols so they were using originally the same way of warfare. But we are speaking about the 13th century.

So the Hungarian army during the 13th century was already a common European army with heavy horsemen, heavy armor, and using a short distance fight technique. On the other hand, the Mongols were using the typical nomadic tactics. So they were using the swift attacks, light cavalry, and they were surprising their enemies. So in a way it was meeting. between the European and the nomadic warfare.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Mohi, Ogadi's armies unleashed hell on the Hungarians, killing an estimated one million people. Whether noble, knight or peasant, they were indiscriminately put to the slaughter by the Mongol invaders. It was one of the bloodiest invasions of a blood-soaked period in history.

Hungary first, the rest of Europe next. That is how it must have looked. December 1241, as the rest of Christian Europe quaked in its boots.

And then, something like a miracle occurred. The great Ogedy Khan, the bloodthirsty son of Genghis Khan, had always been a hard drinker. Then one night in December of 1241, he drank himself to death, aged 65. With the death of Ogedy Khan, the Mongols withdrew from the fringes of Europe. They turned their forces back towards Karakoram, the Mongol capital, for the election of a new leader.

Right on the brink of invasion, and they suddenly withdrew, Hungary assigned. Europe had been spared the Mongol war machine. But exactly why?

One thing can be certain when you've got nomadic forces or you have forces that rely on charismatic leadership like the Mongols did, is when that charismatic leader dies, there's a vacuum. and that vacuum is going to be filled by somebody. We know with the Ottomans, for example, that when the sultan died, the West could breathe easy for a few years while that inheritance was settled. When a great khan died, all the princes had to reconvene in a so-called kurultai. It's like a great council meeting.

They had to meet in a kurultai to decide on the next leader. So it was paramount that all the princes return to the centre to make this decision. And if they didn't... If they didn't come, they wouldn't partake. Basically, that prevented the possible expansion, the conquest into Europe.

After their withdrawal from Central Europe in 1242, Mongol armies would return from time to time to slaughter, raid, and plunder. But there would be no large-scale invasion, and their withdrawal that year was the beginning of the end of the Mongol war. Mongol Empire. Ogedei Khan's fatal drinking binge had saved Western Europe from the Mongol hordes. But was that necessarily a good thing, or might a generation under Mongol rule have accelerated their development?

So it's quite possible, yes, that Europe would have fallen, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Remember, Iran fell to the Mongols, we had the Al-Khanate, and they, first of all, they became Iran again. They benefited. They had a very... They were able to absorb it.

Remember that the Mongols absorb people. Interestingly enough, when they conquered Iran, they formed, together they formed this multicultural, multi-ethnic state, ruling with the Persians. Who knows, once the actual invasion was over, the Mongols usually turned out to be fairly benevolent dictators.

But it isn't the Mongols'tolerance and an Enlightenment for which they will be remembered, or their skills as administrators. They'll always be remembered for their cons, their conquerors, and their ferocious warriors. Theirs was truly the warrior's way.

The life of a Mongol warrior wouldn't have much appeal for most of us today. Too violent, but also too arduous and austere. But what lessons can be learned from the brave and resilient Mongol warrior? What lessons can we learn from the Mongols?

Probably don't let them exist again. They were an incredibly ruthless, terrible, warm fighting machine that destroyed everybody in its wake. No more Mongols.

Well, that's one viewpoint, but here's another. I mean, people say, when did it end? The Mongol Empire didn't end. For example, it came to an end in Iran, but there were no Mongols, didn't go home. You know, they just faded away, and nobody ever went home.

In China, the Yuan dynasty came to an end, and yes, the actual Great Khan did return to Mongolia, but he went with his immediate army. But, you know, for all of... millions of people who made up the Yuan dynasty, they didn't go anywhere, they were there. In other words, it just it was assimilated. So I think the greatest mistake that people make about the Mongols, they think of them as an entity which spread from the steppe around the world.

It didn't, it was a movement, it was a revolution and it was transforming the whole time. And it lasts in one shape or form until today. Although we may not know it, we may all have the spirit of the great Khan living on within us. In his crammed 64 or so years, Genghis Khan had several wives and hundreds of concubines to ensure his legacy would last long into the future. Who knows, you may even share some of this great warrior's DNA.

Geneticists have estimated that around 16 million people alive today are genetic descendants of Genghis Khan. Was that the warrior's way? Well, it was certainly a way of keeping the Khan's legacy and warlike spirit alive, long after he had departed the field of battle.

Transcript for:The Legacy of Mongol Warriors

Transcript for:
The Legacy of Mongol Warriors