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He was born into chaos, a boy named Temujin, abandoned after his father's murder. Betrayed by his tribe and forced to fight for survival in the brutal Mongolian wilderness. From famine and violence, a legend would rise. One who would unite warring clans and bend empires to his will. This is the story of how a hunted outcast became Genghis Khan, the world's greatest conqueror. A man who built an empire larger than Rome's, commanded armies that moved faster than lightning, and ruled through both terror and innovation. He rewrote the societal structure. He created laws that outlasted dynasties, and he believed he was chosen by God to bring order to the world. But the question is, was he a monster or a visionary? A destroyer of civilizations or their unifier? Or maybe he was both. If you're curious to learn about the brutal genius, hidden philosophy, and the lasting legacy of the man who changed history forever, this is Genghis Khan. So sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp. What's up, people? And welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single week, we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from all time, throughout all history ever. Yes, this is the place where I go to in order to understand everything that's been going on. And there's all sorts of stuff. I mean, thousands of years of history, and I'm trying to figure it all out. So today. Today we have an amazing episode for you that I think is going to chip away one of the. The most significant, I guess, you know, military leaders of all time. This guy has been absolutely etched into the minds of people that are interested in military history. But before I begin, I do need to give a shout out to my dear friend Christos for sitting in the tent with me every single day. How are you, my friend? Doing great. All right, no time. Christos, you can't be putting Conquest on this episode, all right? Because we were talking about one of the. I mean, maybe the most infamous, you know, military leader ever, and it is a man by the name of Genghis Khan. Now, let me just say no one really knows how to pronounce his name, all right? No one really speaks ancient Mongolian. So I've heard Genghis. I've heard Chingus. I'm just gonna go with Genghis because I'm American, all right? And that's just what we call him. So for the rest of this, just know that that is why I am saying that. Anyway, Genghis Khan. Also, let me just say there's going to be a bunch of other words in here that I'm having a tough time pronouncing. Just roll with me, all right? If I do kind of a Mongolian accent, it racist. I'm trying my best. All right, so where do we start with Genghis Khan. Apparently everyone's related to him. You've heard that before. There's like a ton of people, specifically in the region that are like tacitly related to Genghis Khan because of, you know, how many. How many shorties he was. He was cracking down. That's sort of the story, most of which I don't know how consensual. Regardless, it doesn't matter. All right? That's what people say. They say he was the most fierce warrior ever. They say he, you know, destroyed and, you know, conquered the most people ever. They say a bunch of people related to him. But let's get into the actual facts of who this guy was. All right, 1162, I'm going all the way back. Near the banks of the Onan river in what is modern day Mongolia, there's a boy that is born. His name is Temujin. Mongol shaman said that he was born holding a blood clot, yes, a bumble clot in his hand, which was interpreted as him being destined to become like a great warrior. His father, Yesugwe, was a small time, kind of like chief of the Borjigin clan and one of the many struggling sort of Mongol tribes in the region, trying to basically just survive in this brutal terrain. I mean, it was like frozen winters, food was scarce, there was warfare all the time. And in that world, you either learned how to fight or you died. So Temujin's early life was pretty tough. When he was just nine, his father was poisoned by rival Tartars who were, you know, basically sharing a meal, which was common, uh, back then. You know, people would invite each other over, and then you poison a little bit of their food bar, drop them with a little zanny or something, and then bang, he's out of there. So that one moment wrecked everything in the life of young. Of young Temujin. So with his father gone, his men abandoned the family, thinking that they weren't strong enough to lead anymore. Temujin's mother, Holon, was left with five kids, no protection, no husband, no money, and forced to basically survive off the land, just like eating wild berries that they could find, fishing, hunting small animals just to make it through the deadly, deadly Mongolian winters. Those early years taught Temujin that survival just required brutality In a lot of ways, right? His half brother Bekter kept stealing the food he and his brother Khazar hunted. Temujin killed him. Yeah. And it wasn't out of anger. It was just like, hey, if you keep on stealing me and my brother's food, you were gonna die. So either you have to stop or I have to kill you. And he didn't stop, so he's out. That's just how it was. You know, I couldn't imagine being raised by Genghis Khan and be like, oh, you have it so easy. Back in my day, I had to murder my half brother. That's how I had to get by. So this is the world that he was in. His mother was furious, right? She's pissed because this, again, this was her son, the half brother of Genghis. But she also understood the harsh realities, you know, that they were living in would sometimes require harsher actions. So as he grows old, Temujin befriended a boy named Jamuka who shared his ambition and kind of his charm. And they became what's known as Anda. This is basically blood brothers. This is like a sacred bond amongst Mongolian warriors of that time. And so, you know, you weren't literally brothers, but you just kind of decided, like, hey, here's the. The brotherhood that I choose. And what started as a deep friendship would later explode into one of history's most ferocious rivalries for control. I mean, maybe ever. I mean, it's like almost like biblical, the. The scale of. Of this conflict. So we'll get to that later. Around 16, Temujin married a woman named Bort from the Concrete Tribe, fulfilling a promise that his father had made years earlier. This marriage would change everything. Not long after, Bort was kidnapped by the Merkits. This was basically a neighboring tribe that was seeking revenge for an old grudge against Yesugwe, who was Temujin's father. Instead of accepting this as kind of fate, Temujin acted. He rallied any allies that he could. He got his blood brother Jamukha and his father's old friend Tangrul Khan, the leader of the Karaite tribe. And together they launched this raid to go get his wife back. And the mission was successful, and his wife Bort was rescued. This was Temujin's first real military campaign. And it showed what he was becoming. This was a leader who could unite people, inspire loyalty, and he could plan, like, an effective attack. And above all, he was showing people, like, hey, don't f with me, Don't f with my people, or I'm going to have to get it back in blood. And that's just what type of time he was on. But victory in this case came with some complications. Soon after, Bort gave birth to a son, Jokai. And because of the timing, his paternity was questioned. And this was a scandal that would haunt Temujin's family and his empire for years. This created a secession problem that we will talk about. These early experiences of, you know, betrayal, hunger, loss, kidnapping, warfare, and the lessons of loyalty shaped this young Temujin. And he learned that noble blood meant nothing without the strength to defend it. It doesn't matter who your daddy is, if you can't defend what your daddy gave you, then you ain't got it. So from suffering, he built up this sort of toughness. And from betrayal, he learned strategy. And through survival, he began the journey that would turn him from Temujin into the Genghis Khan we know today. So between 1185 and 1206, Temujin went from being an outcast, fighting to survive, to becoming the undisputed ruler of all the Mongol tribes. He literally united this entire landmass of kind of battling tribes into one kind of united kingdom. And his rise wasn't just like luck or brute force. It was a ton of strategy and revolutionary thinking. So most Mongol chiefs relied on bloodlines and family ties for power. But what Temujin did was the opposite. He built his strength on loyalty and merit. Anyone who proved themselves, whether they were an outcast, an enemy, just a regular soldier from, you know, like a low birth, had a place by his side if they were good, and what mattered to him wasn't your birth, but it was your loyalty. And again, in America, I think we get. We get kind of wrapped up in these ideas of meritocracy, like, yeah, give the best job to the best people, but that's not how most of human history has gone. Most of human history was kind of, you know, cronyistic and, you know, nepotistic. You could say it was all just like, oh, if your dad was this person, then you are now this person. Like, it was all very regimented in these sort of class hierarchies. So for Genghis Khan to see this and be like, I don't care who you are, if you're down, I'm down. And that's what he did. So as historians note, Tamujan's real genius wasn't just in battle. It was how he was reshaping this old hierarchical society. He promoted people based on their talents and their Courage. Two of his best generals, Subai and Jeb, came from these kind of humble, kind of, like, lowly backgrounds. So Subai was a black blacksmith's son who went on to become one of the greatest military strategists in history. Jeb earned his position after shooting Temujin with an arrow in battle and then boldly admitting it and offering to serve him. I mean, imagine that Temujin, AKA Genghis Khan, gets shot with an arrow in battle and he goes, I need that guy. Who was that who hit me with that thing? Because that was a.from 50 yards out. I mean, like Patty Mahomes style. He goes, I'm. I'm. We're drafting that man. So he's literally, like, impressed by his bravery and his honesty and accepts him. And that moment really, I think, captures his philosophy. He doesn't care who you are, he doesn't care if you try to kill me. As long as you are down and you're loyal and you're good at what you do. You're on the team. But not every relationship survived in this kind of new world order that he was creating. His bond with Jamuka, once his literal blood brother, collapsed under the weight of this ambition. So in 1201, Chamuko rallied several tribes and was declared Gurkhan, or the universal ruler. And at the Battle of Koiten, Shamuka's forces decisively defeated Temujin, literally. He destroyed his own brother and forced him to retreat and temporarily go into hiding. But Chamukha made a mistake. He brutally executed prisoners by boiling them alive, which, I mean, people look back at history and they're like, oh, they did crazy stuff. This was so brutal that it disgusted many of his own followers. And over the next few years, his warriors began to defect. They thought, this guy is too brutal. He's too much of a bloodthirsty warlord. And they started to go with Temujin, whose reputation was known as being way more fair and, you know, had much more respect for meritocracy and loyalty. And so by 1204, when Jamukha allied with the Naimans, which is just another troop or tribe nearby, Temujin had rebuilt his strength and actually defeated the the entire coalition. And then in 1206, a massive tribal assembly, or what was known as a Kuroi, was held near the Onan River. And there, Temujin was formally proclaimed Genghis Khan, which literally means, like, you know, the overall, like, ruler of the universe or the oceanic ruler. And it wasn't just a political title. It carries Like a divine sort of element. With it, he claimed to rule by the will of the Tengri, which is like the eternal blue sky. Basically this idea that heaven itself had chosen him to unite the entire world under one law. And this law was known as Yassa. This was a basically like a revolutionary legal code that governed everything from war to justice, trade, and even, like, social behavior. So although the full text of the Yassa law was lost, historians like Ala Ad din Juviani wrote down a lot of the key principles. And let me just say some of these principles are a little harsh, but they probably got the job done. So if you were a thief, if you were adulterer, or if you betrayed someone, you'd be put to death. And, you know, this gave a lot of protection for merchants and, you know, different envoys. Religious freedom and total obedience under Khan. Now, religious freedom is actually really interesting. He would allow people to kind of worship whatever they did, as long as he was still seen as the biggest, most, you know, divine, you know, military force. And it was harsh, but it was generally pretty fair for the time. And it brought a lot of order into a land that was known for a lot of chaos and betrayal. So Genghis Khan also reorganized his army in a really, really brilliant way. So he basically brought in what's known as the decimal system. So units of ten hundred and thousand and ten thousand. And so this kind of made command simple and communication really fast. Every man was tied to his unit and shared a lot of responsibility for each other's action. So if one soldier deserted or acted cowardly, the entire group was punished. And that built like a level of discipline and loyalty and pressure unlike anything the Mongolians had ever seen. So again, you have these groups of ten, and these groups of ten now form groups of 100 and then groups of a thousand, etc. And if one of your ten guys did something effed up, you were on the hook for it. So everyone was keeping each other accountable. And his early campaigns against the Tartars, the Merkits and the Nimans, weren't random raids. They were planned steps towards unifying this region that we now know as Mongolia. So the Tartars, for example, these are the people, important note, who had poisoned his father years ago, were nearly completely wiped out. The Naimans, this strong sort of Turkic tribe with a lot of Christian influence, were the final major rival. When Genghis Khan defeated them in 1204, he finally had full control of the heartland of Mongolia. Centuries of tribal infighting kind of just came to an end, because it was now unified under one military Leader. And by 1206, the orphan who once scavenged for food in the, you know, wild lands of Mongolia had become the Genghis, the master of the United nations, the, you know, basically ready to extend his rule beyond his little homeland. So let's talk about the army, because this is really, you know, the tool that Genghis uses to, you know, take over this entire region. And it wasn't just powerful, it was revolutionary. And at its heart stood the mounted archer. Now, this was a warrior who could hit targets with deadly precision while riding full speed on horseback. And these horsemen could fire behind them mid gallop. They could reload without slowing down. They could travel 50 to 60 miles a day with the ability to push up to, like, even 80 or 100 miles in, like, super urgent situations. And each soldier owned several horses and switched between them to keep each animal fresh. And this mobility made a lot of, you know, traditional defenses, like walls or, you know, slow moving infantry on foot and heavy armor basically useless that you just had, like, okay, this is like the F15 of the time. You had a skilled archer on horseback that could just fly past you, bang, arrow to the head, boom, you're done. And the Mongols didn't just rely on speed. They obviously had that, but they also mastered a ton of strategy and deception. One of their favorite tricks was the feigned retreat. And it's basically what it sounds like. They would pretend to flee the enemy so that the enemy would then chase him, only to be led into an ambush where fresh Maul troops surrounded and then wiped them out. It's actually not that different from Hannibal. We did an episode on Hannibal, Barca, that would kind of do that same sort of encapsulation, like half crescent, where, you know, part of the team would kind of retreat, they would force them in, and then they would get surrounded on all sides. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because buying work boots is annoying. Okay? Take it from me. Stand up, comedian, podcaster. Okay, I'm. I'm busting my. I'm busting my. Took us. You can see my hands here. Calloused. Don't look too close. Doesn't matter, guys. Buying work boots is tough because basically you got to choose. All right? Do I want them to be comfortable? Do I want them to be really durable? Do I want them to be safe, or do I want them to be affordable? You know, and so now you're going through all these different brands. You're like okay, well, these are going to wreck my feet. You know, these ones are going to last a long time, but they're super expensive. 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Check out Brunt. And now let's get back to the show. Now, their communication system was just as impressive. They would use flags and drums and whistles to send instant commands. So beyond the battlefield, Genghis Khan built what they called a yam. And this was a massive relay network of stations with fresh horses and riders ready to carry messages. And this system was really, really intelligent. I mean, it was like kind of like the first, like, intelligence system you could say that was going at this rate of speed. So basically, Genghis could get messages anywhere into the kingdom or into the world at that time. And he would get reports from hundreds of miles away and be able to adjust his strategy really quickly. Now, what made the Mongols ultimately unstoppable was their adaptability. When they first attacked the walled cities in China or Central Asia, their traditional hit and run, like cavalry tactics didn't really work in the same way. Instead of retreating, Genghis Khan hired engineers from the conquered land. So we're talking like Chinese Persians, a lot of, like Muslim specialists who built siege towers and catapults and even like early forms of like, gunpowder bombs. So this historian, Timothy May, pointed out the Mongols became experts at the sort of like blended advanced siege technology with this lightning fast cavalry. And because of that, they were able to break down walls and storm cities and just overwhelm any other force that they could, you know, get to. And then there's the psychological component. And Genghis was a master at this. He was using fear as a weapon in a way that not many people had seen in this region. So Genghis Khan made the rules very simple. You can surrender and you will live, or you can resist and you will be destroyed. So when a city resisted, like Nishapur. The Mongols annihilated it so completely. Then, as the stories went, not even dogs or cats survived. Now, this may seem just completely unnecessarily brutal, but the brutality was deliberate by Genghis. This was a message to the rest of the world. After hearing what happened to those who defied the Khan, many cities just opened their gates without a fight, Right? It wasn't this, like, senseless violence. It was a calculated terror campaign that just saved time and men and resources. And before every campaign, Genghis Khan's armies knew exactly who they were up against. They had, you know, merchants, spies, envoys would gather intel on enemy defenses and sort of the political situation and supply routes. And they knew which leaders were weak, which cities were wealthy, and how they could cut off food and water to ultimately starve out their enemies. And every campaign was a planned operation, not just this random raid. Behind every charge and every conquest was the bigger strategy designed to expand the Mongol power with precision. So by 1209, Genghis Khan had finally united the Mongol tribes under his rule, and his eyes now turned outward. His first target was the Western Xia kingdom and what's now in northwest China. The Tangut rulers were controlling basically, like, major trade routes and had heavily fortified cities. And this was a perfect challenge for Genghis Khan and his army, which, again, they excelled at open field battles, but had little experience with sieges of a city. At first, the Mongols really struggled. The stone walls and the gates really slowed down their momentum. But like I said, the adaptability is their superpower. They learned quickly, and by January 1210, the Xia Emperor surrendered and agreed to become a Mongol vassal state and pay tribute to Genghis Khan. And it wasn't a complete conquest. You know, the Western Asia remained kind of like this semi independent state and would later rebel and force Genghis Khan to return and utterly destroy them in his final campaign years later. But we'll get to that. Next came the much stronger Jin dynasty in northern China. And this was a rich, organized empire with millions of people, powerful cities, and one of the most advanced bureaucracies in the world. The Jin were everything that the Mongols were not. They were settled down into one specific area. They were wealthy, they were making money from trade. They were heavily fortified. But Genghis Khan wasn't reckless. Starting in 1211, he fought really smart. He avoided any type of direct battle, but he would cut off food and supply lines, and he would pick off smaller cities one by one. So historian Morris Rosabi notes that Genghis Showed a lot of patience for a Mongolian conqueror. He would wait months, sometimes even longer, to just wear down cities instead of just going in head first. And the strategy really paid off. By 12:15, after a long brutal siege, the Jin capital Zhongdu in modern day Beijing fell to the Mongols. With northern China under his control, Genghis turned his attention west. And in 1218, a new enemy emerged. This is the Khwarizam Empire. And this was a basically just like a massive realm spanning modern day Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. And the trouble started when the Shah of Khwarzam made a mistake. He executed Mongol envoys and merchants. So to Genghis, this wasn't just an insult, this was like sacrilegious killing. Envoys violated the sacred laws of the Tengri, the Eternal Blue Sky. And the response was going to be total annihilation. In 1219, Genghis Khan led roughly 150 to 200,000 men west. I mean, think about that, a force of 200,000 men. And now this was smaller than the Shah's forces, but they were much more disciplined. So his strategy was masterful. Instead of one giant army just descending upon the Shah and his city, he split his troops into multiple divisions that attacked from different directions. While Generals Jeb and Subutai led diversionary strikes, Genghis drove straight into the heart of the empire. And by 1220, the great city of Bukhara, which is in present day Uzbekistan, had fallen. The Persian historian Juveni described how Genghis Khan entered the city's Grand Mosque, stood before the terrified people and declared, I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you. That is bars, unfortunately. I mean, poor one out for all the people over there, my bad. But also kind of bars. And then you have Samarkand, which is in modern day Uzbekistan, another jewel of the Muslim world at the time. And they once again surrendered without much of a fight. The Khwarzam Empire didn't collapse. In one epic battle, it crumbled piece by piece as the Mongols destroyed its major cities and then its trade routes and then its food supplies. And they just knew that anyone that resisted would face these unimaginable consequences. And then in modern day Turkmenistan, at a town known as Merv, one of the largest cities on earth at the time, the Mongols reportedly killed the entire population after a brief uprising. I mean the entire, like the entire thing gone from Genghis Khan and his people. I mean it's, it's pretty Brutal. Like I, I don't like, I feel like in history we can kind of gloss over but like this is like, yeah, I mean this is, this is proper. Shouldn't say proper. This is like, you know, brutal genocide of just going through city to city be like, hey, if you resist us, we will destroy everything, every single thing that is living in the city. So at Nishapur, where Genghis Khan's son in law had been killed, the revenge was so total that according to the chroniclers, once again even the animals were slaughtered. They would find a rat and they would just kill it, they would find a cat attic here. The historian Rashid Al Din wrote that pyramids of skulls were left behind as monuments to the Mongolian wrath. I mean like the level of brutality here I don't even know if can be really comprehended. I mean the destruction across Central Asia was beyond belief, but it was calculated. Genghis Khan wanted every ruler to understand that if you resist me, your entire city, everything in it is going to die. Or you could just surrender and you'll live. And it was terror used as strategy. It's shock and awe, right? And it sort of worked in a way. I mean news of these Mongolian, you know, brutalists was spreading so fast that many cities just surrendered off rip like even before they got there. They're like, hey, if the Mongols ever come, we're just giving it to them. And in a way this saved a lot of lives in the process. Meanwhile, Genghis Khan's generals, Subutai and Jeb, his homies from back in the day, pressed even farther west on a long, daring expedition. They crushed the Georgian and the Russian armies, they circled the Caspian Sea and they gathered priceless intelligence about Europe's terrain and its defenses. It was one of history's boldest, like reconnaissance missions ever. And when they returned in 1223, they had traveled thousands of miles, destroyed several armies and handed Genghis Khan a clear picture of the world that lay beyond. And this was ultimately the next stage of his empire's destiny. By 1223, Genghis Khan's empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea. I mean, we should get a visual of this on the screen because it's so massive. This is an unprecedented domain covering, you know, modern day Mongolia, northern China, Central Asia, including Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and parts of Iran and southern Russia. I mean in terms of land acquired in such a short period of time, it's like difficult to really fathom. In just over two decades, the Mongols had conquered more territory than the Roman Empire had taken in four centuries. It was the largest contiguous land empire the world had ever seen. And Genghis still wasn't finished. I mean, just as like, a side note, I'm pretty sure the reason why, you know, like, not only, but the reason why, like, Moscow is where it is because the Russians at the time that survived the conquest of the Mongolians, they just fled to a place that would be safe. And so they found, like, this little enclave. But, like, the memory of the Mongolian terror fit so deeply into the mind of Russian war leaders that they still carried on that sort of, like, fear to this very day. And which is why they're so concerned about any type of, like, western invasion coming from Europe, because the Mongols were so brutal that they forced the Russians into a new piece of land. Now, Genghis Khan understood that conquering was the easy part. Ruling is where things are really tricky, especially in this time. But his genius didn't stop in the battlefield. It carried over into how he managed one of the biggest empires in history. So at the heart of this rule was this yassa. This was this massive code of laws that applied to every. No matter the tribe, the rank, religion, whatever you are, you all abide by the yassa. And it wasn't just a bunch of military rules. It was the foundation of justice and order. So, like the things I mentioned before, theft, adultery, betrayal, death sentence. But what made Yasser remarkable was the fairness. So, like, even princes and generals had to follow it. If a noble broke the law, they faced the same punishment. And for the 13th century, this idea of equality before the law was revolutionary. I mean, again, in America, we have this idea like, no one's above the law. That is generally a new idea in the scale of human history. For most of human history, it was like the fiefdom, the serfs, that would kind of be on the lower class. They had to uphold the law. And oftentimes the law would be used against them. And then the wealthiest people, the most powerful people, the religious authority, they would be exempt from the law. But it seems like in Genghis's sort of new empire he built, whoever you were, it didn't matter. You know, I imagine Genghis could do whatever you want, but for most people, they had to, you know, abide by the law or else they would be punished. And so he also built this same government on this merit idea and not on bloodline. So what mattered was your skill and your loyalty and not who your father was. So like I said, Subatai, the son of the blacksmith was one of the generals, Mughalai, who served under one of Genghis Khan's rivals and was later captured, proved his loyalty and was then trusted to rule northern China basically independently. Even Genghis Khan's sons, Chhai, Chagatai, Ogedai and Tolu weren't spared from earning their keep. They got territories to manage, but if they messed up, their father would come down on them just like he would anyone else. Now, one of the smartest moves was promoting the idea of religious tolerance, which again in America we kind of take for granted. But at the time it was, you know, convert or die. So Genghis himself followed the traditional sort of Mongol shamanistic faith. Faith. They worshiped this eternal blue sky, this tengri that I mentioned. But he didn't force his beliefs onto others. So they would conquer, you know, Christians and Muslims and Buddhists and shamans, and they were all treated generally pretty equally. All right, fellas, sorry to interrupt this wonderful program, but it is that time of the year. The air is cooler, days are a little shorter, the leaves are falling, and maybe you're feeling a little reflective, maybe thinking about life. So let's reflect on something. How's. How's the old P word treating you? You know, you know what I'm talking about. Talking about the porn word. You've heard me talk about it. Porn messes with your brain, your relationships, maybe even your soul, if you believe in all that. And with no nut. November finally here. There's no better time to just hit pause and see what life would be like without just, you know, gooning all the time. But here's the thing. Quitting anything is pretty difficult. You know, it's quitting something hard. This hard. As hard as this is extremely hard. It is very difficult. And that's where the November project comes in. It's a 30 day global movement to stay porn free for the month of November. 30 days, that's. That's nothing. You got that right. The goal, basically, 1 million people taking it, you know, together to just retain just their precious life fluid all, all up in their body. So once you sign up, you'll get daily texts or emails with quick reflections, some tools and maybe challenges to even help you, you through the month. You'll basically be a part of a movement, something bigger than yourself, right? Thousands of people all working towards the same goal, focused, you know, focused on freedom, focused on controlling your life. And I'll be honest, me and all the people here in this wonderful studio have already, you know, signed our pledge. Chris's you're off, right? That's right. Starting early, I can tell. I mean, you're glowing. You're just. You have a. You have a vitality to you I've never seen before. So come on through. Not literally, but more don't come through. You get what I'm saying? So let's see what we're capable of when we put the phone down and we show up for ourselves and just tap in with the boys. Let's take control just for November. How hard could it be? Let's get back to the show. I mean, interestingly, religious leaders, from the priests of the day to imams and, you know, even rabbis were exempt from their taxes and military service. And this wasn't some type of, like, you know, equality or kindness. This was a. A strategic political move. Genghis knew that religious conflict would weaken the empires. And by having such a massive empire with so many different types of people and people groups and religious identities, he would have to find some way to keep some type of cohesion. So with this religious tolerance, he let people worship freely, and that kept the peace and the loyalty amongst his subjects. So, as historian Jack Weatherford points out, that level of tolerance was basically unprecedented for its time. And under his rule, trade flourished again across the region that had been destroyed by war. The Silk Road came back to life with Mongol soldiers protecting caravans and keeping trade routes safe. The same sort of yam system, that, you know, relay station with fresh horses that could move information really quickly, was really helpful for travelers and traders. So merchants were encouraged to operate freely and bring wealth and goods and valuable intel back into the empire. And Genghis didn't see them as mere businessmen. He saw them as the veins of his empire, and it would keep it connected and alive. Now, behind the scenes, he ran a tight intelligence and diplomacy network. So the Mongolian spies would go out and gather information, and they had informants in foreign courts. And diplomatic missions weren't just handshakes, but they were scouting operations. And when someone dared to harm a, you know, envoy of Mongolians like the Shah of Khar, Zamdid, the punishment was total destruction. And once again, this was just a message to anyone that says, hey, if you disrespect the Mongolians or you just disrespect our diplomacy, you will pay for it dearly. And throughout all this, Genghis Khan didn't just create an empire through fear and war. I mean, he did do that, but he built one with systems, you know, law and trade and intelligence and tolerance. In certain Ways that really tied a lot of these vast territories together. And that's what made this empire not just the largest in size, but one of the most efficiently run in history up until this point. And at the core of his beliefs was this idea of tengrism. And this was an old Mongolian faith built around, you know, this blue sky. And this was the divine force that ruled over everything. And he didn't see himself as a God, but as heaven's chosen instrument, almost like a messianic figure meant to bring order to this fractured world. So when he set out to conquer other lands, he didn't think he was chasing power. He believed he was literally doing the will of God. In his eyes, resisting, you know, Mongolian rule isn't a rebellion or a defiance against him. It is a defiance against God itself. And for that, destruction was not only justified, it was just necessary. Like, that's the way that he saw it at the time. And this wasn't just political talk. The secret history of the Mongols and other sources make it very clear that he truly believed in the sacred mission. Like, he was a proper sort of shamanistic religious ideologue. And it gave his conquest the spiritual backbone and his rule a sense of higher purpose. Now, Genghis had a personal code that was really blunt. Loyalty is the most important thing. If you stood with him in the tough times, he rewarded you with land and power and trust. But if you betrayed him even a little bit, death was guaranteed. Merit mattered more than birth. And, you know, a poor shepherd could become a top commander if he was good. And his law, this yassa, was the backbone of this justice system, and everyone was underneath this rule. But here's the thing. Genghis wasn't only about this fear and destruction. He also knew when to use mercy. So anytime they would take over a city or a kingdom, they would find the people that had skills. You know, engineers, doctors, artisans, and even, like, administrators were protected and actually absorbed back into the empire. So captured enemies could rise the ranks if they could, you know, prove that they were loyal. And his mercy was really calculated. It wasn't emotional. It wasn't, you know, like, oh, I should spare this person. It was like, are you valuable to me? Do you have skills that I can use? And are you willing to be loyal? And if you resisted in any way, you would just be destroyed. In his personal life, Bort, his first wife, was actually really important to him, and that relationship was, you know, really substantial in a lot of ways. Even though he took on other wives for political alliances, his first wife remained the empress and his most trusted confidant. And they had this, this bond that endured a lot of the wars and long separations and even her abduction. Early on, their sons inherited vast lands, but family life was far from calm. You see, Jokai, the eldest, was brave, but always clouded by whispers about his true father. Chagatai was hot headed and very rigid, especially about, you know, strictly following the law, and often clashed with his brother Jokai over questions of legitimacy. And Ogedai, level headed diplomatic who would eventually become his successor. Now Tolu, the youngest, was considered the best warrior of all four brothers. He was fierce and hot blooded and you know, the one who most reflected his father's warrior spirit and temper. And descriptions of his behavior show a man full of contradictions. Right? He was traditional, but ahead of his time in a lot of ways. He was extremely brutal, but also, you know, kind of sharp and diplomatic. And he demanded honesty and courage from everyone around him. Advisors were expected to argue their case openly until there was one clear decision that everyone could kind of agree on. Indecision and cowardice was not tolerated at all. He rejected, you know, like soft luxuries because he believed that it made weak men. He also deeply appreciated knowledge and craftsmanship and beauty from a lot of the con, the cultures that he had conquered. I mean, historian John Mann described him as a leader who probably understood power almost better than anyone else in history. Someone that was both feared but also respected in a lot of ways, who ruled with a kind of brutal clarity and purpose. Now, you know, Genghis Khan, his rule didn't last forever. So in 1227, he launched a final campaign against Western Gia, the Tangut Kingdom that had refused to provide the promised military support. Now, this is the one that he took over and everything was fine until there was a rebellion. Well, this is what it is. He knew. He said, all right, Gia, it's time for your military to come through and do one of my conquests. And they said no. Now, Genghis Khan was in his mid-60s, ancient by the standards of Mongolian warriors. But he still led his army with the same relentless energy. At 60, he was still going into battle on horseback, just effing people up, up. Now, the Mongols crushed the Tengus, but during the siege of their capital in Yinchui, now in like north central China, Genghis Khan died. How he died remains a mystery. In the book the Secret History of the Mongols, it says that he fell from his horse during a hunt. Persian authorities claim that it was from illness or a battle wound. Other stories Say it might have been from revenge that maybe a Tengate princess had plotted to, you know, assassinate him. But whatever the truth is, it seems like it was deliberately hidden. What we do know is that his death was kept secret until this war was over. His generals didn't want the army to lose focus or to lose morale, and his body was quietly taken back to Mongolia while his troops finished the campaign. And they did. They wiped out Western Gia just as he had ordered. His burial was done in basically total secrecy. According to the legend, those who witnessed the funeral procession were killed to preserve the secrecy. However, historians consider these stories largely unreliable, and the true burial methods remain unknown. What is certain is that the extraordinary measures were taken to actually conceal the location of his burial site. No one knows where he's buried to this day. The Mongols believe that great leaders should return to the earth without monuments or temples. And for centuries, explorers and archaeologists have searched. They want to find the actual remains of Genghis Khan. And they went from the Kenti mountains, where he was born, to remote valleys far away. But nothing to this day has ever been found. And that secrecy, maintained for almost 800 years, shows both the discipline of his people and the reverence that they had for him. You see, before his death, Genghis Khan made sure his empire wouldn't collapse into chaos. So he named his third son, Ogedei, as the next Great Khan, the one with the calm sort of diplomatic judgment that his other sons lacked. And the empire was divided amongst his heirs, each ruling their own lands but ultimately answering to Ogede. That system would eventually lead to rivalry and division. But for several generations, Mongol power continued to grow. Under Ogede, the empire pushed even farther, deeper into China, west all the way into Europe. And what Genghis Khan built didn't just survive him in a lot of ways, it exploded into the largest continuous land empire the world had ever seen. Even after his death, stretching from Korea to Hungary, from Siberia to Southeast Asia. I mean, it's really difficult to understand the actual the vastness of this piece of land that he had conquered. And after the chaos of conquest, the Mongols did something that nobody expected. Peace. Yeah, like, they actually create, like, historians call it the Pax Mongolica or the Mongolian Peace. And this was basically a century of stability that stretched basically all of Eurasia. And under their rule, merchants, monks, scholars, and travelers could move from Italy to China with a level of safety that had never been seen before. And this is basically what allowed Marco Polo's famous journey to even happen in the first place. And for the first Time, ideas, and, you know, products and merchandise and technology flowed freely in every direction. And this is where we get these, you know, these ideas of, like, gunpowder printing. In a lot of ways, paper money was traveling west. Islamic science and Persian astronomy was reaching the Chinese courts. The Silk Road, which was once, you know, extremely dangerous and fragmented, kind of just became like a highway of trade and culture underneath this Mongol protection. But that same interconnectedness has a dark side. The Mongols made it possible for people and goods to move really fast, but not only goods, but diseases too. So the Black Death, which killed between a third and a half of Europe's population in the 1300s, likely spread along the very trade routes that the Mongols had secured. In trying to unite the world, they also unknowingly created the perfect conditions for a global pandemic. Politically, they reshaped the entire map of Eurasia. In 1258, they destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, ended over 500 years of Abbasid rule, and kind of marked this symbolic end of the unified caliph authority in the Islamic world. In China, they wiped out Jin and the Song dynasties and established the Yuan Dynasty, which brought a massive cultural exchange between the east and the West. In Eastern Europe, they shattered Kievan Rus, setting off political changes that would influence Russia's rise centuries later, like I mentioned. And wherever they went, the Mongols didn't just conquer. They kind of were like a reset for history. And culturally, their empire became like a melting pot, right? Like, they just conquered so much disparate land that they would borrow different pieces of culture. So Persian art would borrow Chinese brushwork, and Chinese porcelain started using Islamic geometric patterns, books, ideas, technology would cross borders in a way that was never seen before in history. And out of that mix came new art and new science and new philosophical ideas, seeds that would later help fuel the European Renaissance. It was a brutal age, but it was also one of this creative fusion that kind of came out of the piece that was created. Now, modern views of Genghis Khan couldn't be more divided. I mean, in Mongolia, he's a national icon. He's the father of. Of the nation. His face is on money and statues and government buildings. And since the fall of the Soviet Union, Mongolians have kind of reclaimed him as a unifier and a visionary leader. In China, his Huan dynasty is now treated as a part of the broader Chinese story. But in places like Central Asia, the Middle east, you know, Eastern Europe, the memories of Genghis Khan are much darker. There, Genghis is remembered as the destroyer of worlds, the man whose Armies would just level cities and destroy entire people groups and just ended civilizations completely. Even today, the ruins of once great centers like Merv stand as just reminders of that destruction. Yet historians increasingly recognize the paradox. The Mongols brought both devastation, but also connection. They destroyed, but they also built the first global trading system. And perhaps the strangest legacy is not written in the history books, but in the DNA. So modern studies suggest that about 16 million men alive today share genetic markers that researchers believe trace back to Genghis Khan and to his descendants. Though the exact lineage remains debated amongst a lot of geneticists, his bloodline spread through conquest and alliances and dynastic marriages and stretched from China to Persia. In a way, his influence lives not just in the culture, the history. Obviously it does, but. But it's also in, like, the human genome itself. And through all of this, I mean, the trade routes, the cultural exchange, the genetic legacy, the political reshaping of entire continents, it really forces us to confront this uncomfortable kind of question, like, how do we reckon with someone whose actions brought both unprecedented connection but also unimaginable destruction? Right. Like, we see the paradox because Genghis Khan destroyed empires and killed so many people, yet also built the framework for global exchange and, you know, allowed new ideas to spread and kind of sparked in a lot of ways, like the Renaissance, but also brought in the Black plague that killed so many people. Half of Europe was decimated. It's really just a dual legacy, but it doesn't really resolve the moral weight of what happened. It kind of like intensifies it. And this ultimately brings us to the question that. That has haunted historians, ethicists, Mongolian nationals. I mean, everyone really was Genghis Khan a genocidal monster. And it's one of the biggest debates in history, right? Like, there are people on both sides that will argue ferociously for their point. Some historians will look at the massacres, like at Nishapur and Merv. The entire city wiped out every animal, every man, woman, child, every horse, every rat. Like, this is obviously genocide. Others argue that Mongols weren't driven by hatred or ideology. It was just strategy. And that in war, you got to get rid of people. And their violence had a purpose. It wasn't just to destroy and for death. It was to spread this fear and this kind of shock and awe tactic that would make others surrender without a fight. And in that case, you're actually saving lives, right? You kill an entire city of a thousand people to then force a city of a hundred thousand to surrender. So where does that leave you in most Cases, they offered peace first, right? They weren't just going in saying, hey, we're going to destroy you. They said, hey, you can surrender. And those who resisted were then destroyed. And those who surrendered were spared and in certain ways would prosper underneath this Mongol rule. So in that sense, the brutality was, you know, calculated. It was not senseless in a way. But again, this debate still goes on today. And this raises even a bigger question. Can we really judge someone from the 13th century by today's moral standards? Right. Like, back then, war was much more common. It was much more brutal. I mean, cities were burned down, populations were enslaved. It's not unique to Mongols, right? What set them apart was how fast and how organized, how relentless they were. Still, saying it was normal for the time doesn't erase the human cost. I mean, millions of. Of human beings just like you and I died. And the terror that they unleashed left scars that exist even to this day. It's also worth noting how history treats similar empires kind of differently. So take Rome, for example. I mean, their conquest killed and enslaved massive numbers of people, yet they're often seen as, like, civilizing. We have roads, we have laws, there's governance. You know, all these things are so important, and then the violence is sort of down, downplayed. The Mongols, by contrast, are remembered mostly for the destruction, even though they also built law and trade and network and order and religious tolerance. So, in other words, part of the difference, I think, is in perspective, right? Western history is going to glorify their own empires, right? Like, we are, in a lot of ways descendants of, you know, Romans. So we say, you know, like, yeah, they were pretty good. Look at all the good stuff we got. Whereas these outsiders over there that were trying to infringe on that lifestyle, those are the bad guys. Even though the methods and the results were, you know, at least comparable. Interestingly, Mongol society was far more progressive than really any of their contemporaries, especially when it came to women. So women in Mongol culture had rights and influence that would really shock outsiders. So Genghis Khan's wife, his first wife, Bort, wasn't just his partner, but was like a political advisor. And his daughters weren't sidelined either. They ruled territories, and they managed diplomacy and gathered intelligence. Mongol women could own land, they could run business, they could sit in family councils. And at the 13th century, this was, like, unheard of. This was revolutionary. So how Genghis Khan is remembered also depends on who's telling the story. So the secret history of the Mongols paints him as a man chosen by Heaven, he's just, he's loyal, destined to bring order to the world. Persian historians, as you can imagine, like Rashid Al Din, though writing under Mongol rule, described both his genius and the destruction he caused. Chinese records will differ. You know, the Yuan dynasty writers celebrate him as a legit emperor, while later Ming historians condemn him as a barbarian and a conqueror. History, as always, is written through the lens of whoever you're looking through. Even archaeology struggles to get clear answers. The Mongols, based off of their shamanistic religion, didn't build these grand monuments or these massive cities. They valued movement. They liked being able to be quasi nomadic and they didn't necessarily long for the permanence of a lot of, you know, European type of empires. They also hid their dead. So the sites linked to Genghis Khan or any of his descendants are treated as sacred in modern Mongolia. So excavation is heavily restricted. Despite decades of searching, his tomb is, you know, probably going to remain an unsolved mystery, hidden either by terrain or, you know, perhaps a deliberate attempt to keep his whereabouts unknown. I mean, just to give a, an example of like the scale of how, how like Genghis Khan and his armies actually changed the world. It literally changed the environment. So as populations were wiped out in parts of China and Central Asia, farmland was then abandoned and the forest that these farmlands were on actually grew back. And some researchers think that this may have temporarily cooled the global climate. But in other areas, especially in Persia, irrigation systems were destroyed, returning fertile land into desert, which then, you know, damaged the region for centuries. And beyond politics and ecology, their empire changed the course of disease itself. Just like I mentioned, the Black Death, you know, the most infamous plague ever. And there were many other, you know, smaller outbreak caused by these unfamiliar pathogens spreading through the trade routes, really affected the landscape of the entire earth. And they didn't intend it, but their vast network transformed global health in ways that no one could have ever imagined. So I don't know, where does that leave us? Right? Genghis Khan, I mean, undoubtedly one of history's greatest paradoxes. A destroyer who built a conqueror who connected. Born in the unforgiving plains of Mongolia, rose from nothing to rule. From the Pacific to the Caspian Sea. He created revolutionary laws and trade and order. Amongst this chaos and empire, his successors would expand even further to the Danube River. His empire unleashed both civilization and catastrophe. I mean, it did everything. It was, it was, it just bifurcated, it seems like the human existence, it was really good and really bad. And maybe such as the, the story of, you know, revolutionary people in history. I don't know if he can be confined to be, like, a hero or a villain. He's both. Right. Like, is a wildfire good or bad? It's like, well, it destroys a lot of stuff, but also, there's new growth. It's also like, is it inevitable again in the modern world? We're connected and we're global. We're shaped by trade, and we still carry the legacy of Genghis Khan. I mean, more than eight centuries later, he still exists in the, you know, the psyche of basically every human on Earth, either directly or indirectly. And the fact that it all began with an orphan boy from those wild Mongolian plains, to me, still remains one of history's most extraordinary stories. And that is the life and conquest of Genghis Khan. I mean, truly a fascinating guy. Like. Like, I don't know. I think the bifurcation is the most interesting point to me, right? Like. Like, I think people try to do this with, like, social media. They're like, oh, is social media good or is it bad? I'm like, I think it's just doing this. Like, it's like, oh, on the one side, like, people are more connected than they ever have been. People are, like, sharing stories. They're sharing art. Like, old friends are reconnecting 60 years later, people are reconnecting with their families. Like, people have a way to share information without government control. Like, that's amazing. On the other side, you have echo chambers and algorithms that make you feel terrible, that spark misinformation campaigns that lead to global catastrophe and isolation and, you know, sort of radicalization of people. It's like, is it good or bad? I'm like, it just is. Like, is that. Is that a nihilistic take? I'm like, it just sort of is. And I think Genghis Khan is maybe, like, the quintessential, like, embodiment of that where, like, is he good or bad? He just is like, I don't know. Like, if he killed my family, like, if I was, you know, part of, you know, the. The, you know, Jia dynasty or whatever, like, I'd be like, yeah, this guy sucks. If I was a Mongolian, I'd be like, this guy's awesome. Like, if I was, like, a merchant that got, you know, I was able to trade now freely. If I was Marco Polo, I'd be like, oh, this guy's pretty cool. So it really just depends on, like, who you are. Like, I don't know. Know. I'm curious. Like, the best way to even, like, really wrap My head around it, I think, yeah, he was both. He was both. He was good guy and he was bad guy. Does the bad outweigh the good? I don't. I have no idea. I don't even know how you quantify that. Like, how, like, is it just based off human life? Is it just like lives lost? Like, am I better than Genghis Khan because I haven't killed anyone yet? But like, like, like, what is the, like, the metric? Like, I haven't done nearly as much good as Genghis Khan. I don't know, what do you guys think? Like, how do you wrap this up in your heads? Like, I'm so curious, like, what the ethical framework you would use to even try to understanding a guy like this. I would love to know your thoughts. Is he a good guy, is he a bad guy? Or is he both? And maybe that's the story of just history. Like all of the most revolutionary people that have ever existed are both. Because it just seems like in order to move human history not even forward or back, just to move human. I guess evolution, in a way, whatever it means to be a part of the Anthropocene just requires radical behavior that does both things, like AI, the good or bad. Probably both. It's probably both the things happening simultaneously. And whatever side of the stick you're on is going to massively tarnish your perspective. But maybe that's a good framework for thinking about, you know, when we're in unprecedented times of massive change and revolution that's going to, you know, affect the way that we interact with each other in the modern world, where it's like, you know, is capitalism good or bad? Is fiat currency good or bad? You know, like, it's like it just. And I feel like this is like a fence sitting position, but I'm like, I don't know. Like, yeah, I want to be like, yeah, obviously him killing all these people is bad, but it's like, he did good stuff. I don't know. I'm curious what you guys think. Please drop a comment. Help me, like, figure out my own moral framework for this, because I think about this a lot and I don't know what the answer is. I would love to know what you guys think. Please drop a comment. If there's anything I missed, please let me know. If there's anything I got wrong, please let me know. I read every comment, so please be nice about it too, and I'll go through and respond to a bunch if you have something thought thoughtful to say. I really appreciate it. Additionally, top comment on this video, you're getting free merch. Yes, you can get the merch. You can also check it out. Camp R D, Religion Camp, History Camp. Check out all the other channels. I mean, we're on History Camp, Religion Camp, and Camp Gagnon for the interviews. And also, I'm on the road. Mark Yagnon live. You can come. Come see me do stand up comedy. They describe me as the Genghis Khan of comedy. Is that a good or bad thing? No one knows. No one knows. I'm going city to city making some people happy and also horrifying half the office audience. That's what we do. All right, anyway, guys, thank you so much for joining me for another episode of History Camp. Thank you guys for being a part of it. I truly appreciate it so much. Like, the community that we're building is just. It's exceeded my expectations. So thank you so much for being a part of the ride. I appreciate you all dearly and I will see you in the future to discuss the past. I'll see you then. Peace.