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- [00:00]
Afwa Hersh
Wondery subscribers can binge seasons of Legacy early and ad free. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
- [00:08]
Peter Frankopan
This episode contains depictions of violence and discusses sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.
- [00:16]
Wondery
Wondry.
- [00:25]
Afwa Hersh
On the plains of the Mongolian steppe, a falcon circles high above the head of a young boy on horseback. Swooping down, it comes to rest on his gloved arm, its black, unblinking eye observing the child. Temujin is the son of a lowly tribesman, but even at 5 years old, he's already showing signs of being exceptional. He's clever, a skilled rider, and a wily hunter. These talents will eventually take him from the felt tents of his nomadic village into the annals of history. The boy would become a man who shaped the world through insight, determination, and unprecedented ferocity.
- [01:11]
Peter Frankopan
Hello and welcome to this brand new series of Legacy. That little boy, Temujin, out with his falcon, he became known by another name, Chinggis Khan. In this series, we are exploring the life of of one of the bloodiest rulers ever and a man who changed the course of history. Chinggis Khan seems to have come from nowhere to have created one of the largest empires that the world has ever seen. And in the process, it's claimed that he oversaw the deaths of millions upon millions of people.
- [01:44]
Afwa Hersh
But is there more to the man that we often write off as a monster? He also gave religious freedom to millions, brought peace to millions, and despite being illiterate himself, he promoted scholarship and the rule of law. Chinggis Khan, as we'll see, embodies more than just a single headline about brutality and bloodshed. And what can we learn about today's leaders from his monumental example.
- [02:16]
Peter Frankopan
From Wandery and Goal Hanger. Hi, I'm Peter Frankopone. I'm Afwa Hersh and this is Legacy, the show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived and asks if they have the reputation that they deserve.
- [02:40]
Afwa Hersh
This is CHINGGIS KHAN, Episode 1, Survival of the Fittest.
- [02:55]
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- [03:53]
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- [04:36]
Afwa Hersh
Peter I'm gonna fess up straight away. I have not had a very complete image of Chinggis Khan most of my life, and a lot of what I did know about him comes from your book the Silk Road. So I am very excited to be talking to you about this. But I will say that I think the few things that I did know about him seem now in hindsight, monstrously cliched, like a real caricature of a figure. And actually the first thing I want to start with is his name, because I think most of my life where I knew anything about him, I knew him as Genghis Khan. Why is that?
- [05:12]
Peter Frankopan
Oh, that's to do with British scholars in the 18th century getting it wrong from Persian. And Chingis is the Mongolian Persian way we should call him, but it's gone to Genghis and it's one of those things that then sticks. Sometimes these legacies are very hard to shake away. So I'm sure we're going to get people emailing and complaining saying we're being politically correct, but we're going to call him Chingis because, well, that's his name.
- [05:36]
Afwa Hersh
It's funny that you say that people would say we're being politically correct because I think it would be great to talk a tiny bit at the outset about how loaded the whole conversation about him is. Well, as I was learning about him, I realized that most of the narrative we have in European countries comes from this incredibly colonial, post enlightenment racist idea about leaders from Asia, about world history outside of Europe. And I feel like so much of what most people know about him has been filtered through that lens.
- [06:10]
Peter Frankopan
I mean, you're right that Asiatic empires all get a bad press. The Mongols aren't alone like that. You know, anywhere in the east has been pushed downwards by the triumph of The West Post 15, 1600. The sort of characterization of the east as being a place of lazy living and of violence has a long history that goes right back to ancient Greece and so on. So I think that that's one reason why the Mongols get bad press. Second, they're nomadic peoples. And even our word civilization, if you want to talk about loadedness, really refers to the history of cities. And if you have a different life way, the way in which those peoples are depicted throughout history, likewise, is always extremely negative with caricatures of violence, irrationality, etc. But the third and really big problem that the Mongols have is that although they built a great empire, they did the one thing that means that you get a bad press from everybody else, which is they didn't hire historians to write their past and they didn't employ people to extol their virtues, their glories. So we're reliant on how the Mongols are seen by others, and that's the worst place to start off with in history, because other people control how you're seen.
- [07:18]
Afwa Hersh
I'm curious to talk about the sources as well as the actual events as we go through.
- [07:23]
Peter Frankopan
Well, so there's a bunch of sources that cover the Mongol world. One is the Jami Al Tariq by Rashid Ad Din. But probably the most famous one is called the Secret History of the Mongols is the oldest surviving literary work written in the Mongolian language. It's written in Middle Mongol using Mongolian script. It's written somewhere in the middle of the 13th century probably, and it describes what happens in Mongol history from before Chinggis Khan onwards, taking us through some of those great conquests. The first time we find Mongols being written about are in the 9th century in Tang Dynasty texts. In China, they are found living in gers yurts is a Russian version of that, but they're living in felt tents. The story of how they come into being is through the hooking up between a sort of grey bluey wolf who's ordained to fall in love with a fallow doe. They cross a lake or a sea or an ocean. We don't know where exactly that is, but they produce a single child called Batachikhan. And from that single individual, all Mongols descend. And that's really important in giving a kind of story that's passed through Mongol traditions that allows a kind of an idea that there's a reason why their story is slightly different to other tribal groupings. So the right way to do this is, as always, to start at the beginning, to try to understand who Temujin is and to think and look at parts of his life and his legacy that perhaps are not quite so well known. Chinggis Khan is something that he takes on much later, and it's as a result of the fact that he is the ruler of everything he surveys. But as a boy, Temujin is the way he's known, and it just means smith or ironsmith or blacksmith, something like that.
- [09:04]
Afwa Hersh
He was born in north eastern Mongolia, not far from Siberia, and there are numerous legends surrounding his birth, which probably happened around 1162, although it could have been several years earlier than that. And the area of his birth is probably on the upper reaches of the River Onon or on the slopes of Borkan Khaldun. And that's relevant because that mountain is considered sacred to the Mongols. And his proximity to that mountain and its sacred status is something that crops up over and over again in the legend and the story and the history that's told of him. And it's not the only mythical element surrounding his birth.
- [09:47]
Peter Frankopan
Peter no, I mean, it's interesting when you give the dates when he's born. I mean, I think that's something that is very specific, particularly to urban societies about benchmarking your age and knowing what year you were born. I mean, why does it really matter when you die if you're 55 or 59 or whatever it is? So that kind of idea that you can ascribe value from the date, but the location is important because that tells you something about Temujin's destiny. And this is all written up afterwards. But Temujin, his name is taken from a member of the Karaite tribe who's captured and killed by his father. And that's a sort of odd thing to do, but there's a purpose of showcasing power. As a result, when Temujin is born, it's later described saying that he's born clutching in his right hand a blood clot the size of a knuckle bone. And that's interpreted again as a sort of propitious sign that he's destined for greatness. So the idea of telling his story after he's dead is about destiny, that he's the man who's going to inherit an enormous empire and build something special, and therefore all These little signs doesn't mean they're not true, doesn't mean that he wasn't born that way. But they are sort of, I think, important in trying to explain how he's a man who defines not just a generation, but a whole set of peoples.
- [11:02]
Afwa Hersh
I've never been to the Mongolian steppe, Peter, have you?
- [11:04]
Peter Frankopan
Yes, it can be very cold. I mean, across Central Asia, the steppes, S, T, E P P E. They're these sort of flat lands that go roughly from the top of the Black Sea right the way eastwards to the Korean peninsula. And there are sort of particular sort of heartlands, Mongolia being one of them, but also the Kazakh plains, where they're home to lots of different people's tribal groupings. I was there this summer in Central Asia and it was 45 degrees.
- [11:28]
Afwa Hersh
Wow.
- [11:29]
Peter Frankopan
And I was in Central Asia last winter and it was minus 35. So, yeah, you have these extremes of temperatures, and that means that the societies you have have to be able to cope with real differences. You know, 80 degrees spread is quite a lot.
- [11:42]
Afwa Hersh
I can't even imagine that. And these are nomadic people, so they are exposed to the ele in the way that they live. And that's a big part of the culture and the heritage and the context in which Temujin is growing up.
- [11:56]
Peter Frankopan
One of the kind of misunderstandings about groups like the Mongols and others nomadic societies is that they do have permanent settlements. In fact, in some places you have big cities and towns that are nomadic. So it's not that there's a kind of people who live in cities who go about their business, and then there are nomads wandering from place to place. It's highly structured, it's highly thought through, and in fact, trade, competition, collaboration, these happen in lots of different key locations. Nomadic peoples typically have to work quite closely with the environment, with environmental change. So access to things like water and to pasture for their livestock, particularly horses, is extremely important.
- [12:33]
Afwa Hersh
There's a saying I read, a Mongol without a horse is like a bird without a wing, which is quite an evocative way of imagining how central horses were. Temujin's father, Yesuge, was an ambitious, violent leader of a clan called the Borchigid. And his mother, Hoa Lun, was captured by his father from the neighboring Merkit tribe. And from what I've read, this was not an anomaly in the region. At the time, it was quite common for a woman to be kidnapped away from her husband and taken as a wife to another man. And that a young member of a clan in The Mongolian steppe, who maybe couldn't afford a bride price or captured someone in battle, would take his wife and make her his own.
- [13:19]
Peter Frankopan
And that means sometimes collaboration, joining up with other groups can be competitive, sometimes it can be violent. So some of these things are about customs. Some of them are about forcing people to do what they don't want to do. Some of them are about trying to find better pasture land. But Yesuge and Hulun, Chinggis's parents, that story is not an unusual one.
- [13:42]
Afwa Hersh
And it's relevant to the story of Chinggis life because the Borgigid tribe, which his father comes from and which will be his clan, has this longstanding feud, grievance, conflict with the Mekit, which his mother originally came from. And that will play out over the years as he becomes an adult.
- [13:59]
Peter Frankopan
Temujin's not the eldest child. He has an elder brother called Kasar.
- [14:03]
Afwa Hersh
Kasar is supposed to have been so strong and have had such broad shoulders that when he lay on his side, a dog could pass beneath them. That's quite an image. He was supposed to be capable of snapping a man in two. I feel like that's something you could only know if you'd seen it done. But anyway, I won't dwell on that. They have a rivalry between them, these two brothers. When Temujin is nine, his father begins planning his future marriage, which isn't unusual in Mongol culture at this time. Marriages are often negotiated between children. It's a deal between families that have something to gain by uniting in that way. And the clan that Temujin's father has his eye on is called the Ongarid. The father in law to be is called Di Sechen. And it's a long way to get to where he lives. Peter.
- [14:54]
Peter Frankopan
Yeah, he'll go across the mountains and part of the Gobi Desert and go on horseback. You know, the other problem is that the Mongols have a lower status than the Ongara. They're not the grouping that perhaps you'd be betting on in the 12th century to come out and create this enormous empire. So, you know, he's not an obvious match. His father, Yesuge, offers only a single horse as a marriage prize, which isn't enough. But Temujin is charming. I mean, he becomes friends with the chief's eldest son and is able to show that he has got potential.
- [15:26]
Afwa Hersh
Apparently, the chieftain dreams of a falcon which is holding together the sun and the moon when Temujin appears. And that's taken as a sign that this boy will one day become a world leader. I mean, that is quite a significant dream, and especially if you come from a culture as many cultures around the world believe in dreams as signs foretelling of things to come, you can imagine that would impress him further about the real significance of this marriage.
- [15:57]
Peter Frankopan
And these birds of prey, the falcons and so on, have a hugely important part and role in nomadic cultures in Eurasia, where even today they're hugely respected and revered. Temujin has these projections put onto him later on. What I don't know is whether that's really what the father in law was thinking about at the time. But you know, it's very convenient going back in time to see the fact that this is all foretold and predetermined that Temujin would make it into the big leagues.
- [16:25]
Afwa Hersh
So as a result of Temujin's charm and the apparent omens surrounding the fortuitous nature of this, a deal is agreed so Temujin can stay with the ongared and he can work to earn his groom status when a message arrives back from his family and it is not good news.
- [16:46]
Peter Frankopan
His father is dead, presumed poisoned, and that means his family are under immediate threat and how things are gonna play out is going to shape his.
- [17:03]
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- [18:56]
Peter Frankopan
So Temujin had spent about three years with the Angarad clan when news comes that his father had been poisoned by a neighboring Tata group and he races back home. And the reason he does that is not just that he's scared about his family. It's also about you got to be in the right place at the right time. It's not just that there's resources that you have to stake a claim to. Horses, livestock, the best land, the best water, and so on. It's also that you can get absorbed and pushed out and your important status can disappear in one go. So he gets hold of his two elder stepbrothers, Belghuti and Begta and Khazar, who's a deadly bow and arrow man, and they sort of melt away into the background to make sure that they can survive for a while. They're able to sort of negotiate harsh winters and to survive off millet and plants and roots to try to stay ahead of the fact that other peoples are moving into their territories. But it all also sews into Temujin's mind a sense of vengeance and wrongdoing and the need to stand back up to what's happened to his father.
- [20:02]
Afwa Hersh
It's a desperate existence, and under the strain, the family begin to fall out. A fallout that will have a deadly ending.
- [20:15]
Peter Frankopan
Winter. 1176. The Orkhon Valley, Mongolia. Shielding his face from the driving wind, Temujin studies the tracks left by Begta and Belguti's horses. His stepbrothers have gone hunting. Beside him, his brother Khazar scans the landscape, snowflakes whipping against his face. When Temujin told him about the stolen food, he'd refused to let him confront their stepbrothers alone. Cresting a hill, they see the dark outlines of Begter and Belguti returning. For a moment, he doubts their plan, but the law is on their side. On the step. Food theft is punishable by death. It's not the first time Begta has violated the code. Despite the odds against him, he must make a stand. As the hunters approach, Temujim and Kazar dismount and lead their horses onto the pass, blocking the brothers way. Bloodstained rabbits swing from Begta's saddle. Peering down on them with a smirk, he says, you must be lost. Shouting over the wind, Temujin tells him, the salmon you took, it took me six hours to Catch. You had no right. Bekter wrinkles his nose and scans the horizon. This is the order of things. What's yours is mine. Stepping behind his horse, Temujin Re emerges with an arrow poised in his bow. He sees Bekta share an amused glance with his brother. He sneers, if you think you can. But an arrow to the belly stops him short. Beside him, Belguti's eyes are wide, but he doesn't move, clutching the arrow with both hands. Begta growls defiantly, but two more arrows for Khazar's bow make him sit up straight in the saddle, a look of shock on his face as flurries of ice whirl around them. Temujin fires again, close to Bekta's, and watches him tumble onto the frozen ground. He feels any last doubts obliterated by the purity of his action. He won't be underestimated again.
- [22:35]
Afwa Hersh
Peter There are a few different rules and codes of the steppe culture that I'm trying to navigate here. In working out the rights and wrongs of this, I read that there's a real strict hierarchy of with siblings, that the eldest has authority over the youngest, and that's important in maintaining order in these families. But at the same time under other rules, this isn't really technically murder. What Temujin's done by killing his stepbrother who unfairly took the food that he had caught for himself.
- [23:06]
Peter Frankopan
I think it is technically murder, but I think that the laws of the steppes, like any society, there are things that are acceptable and things that aren't, and the codes of conduct and the ways in which you can behave and things that are considered criminal or offensive. You know, those are the ways in which organized societal structures function. And some of it is sort of logical, which is that if you spend time catching food, then if someone takes it from you, then that's a distortion of the natural world. And that's something that Temujin is shown in this story, that he is putting things right rather than committing a wrong.
- [23:42]
Afwa Hersh
He does seem to have a strong sense of justice. I mean, I use that word advisedly because his sense of justice is very different from our modern ideas about human rights and rule of law. But at the same time there is an order and a value system that he's running. He feels that he's caught this fish. For his brother to take it is unfair, and this kind of abuse of power isn't something he'll tolerate. And he also being somebody who is willing to put his money where his mouth is when he feels a wrong has been done. He acts.
- [24:12]
Peter Frankopan
I mean, his mother is furious with her sons, with Temujin and with Khazar. She berates them and says, you're like wolves, like mad dogs that tear from their own flesh, like crazy young camels that attack their mother from behind, like vultures that madly swoop to attack rocks. And I think that what Temujin works out is that he's got to be able to take an action and then to be able to either justify it or get away with it, or to be able to finesse it. That's a real political skill that he has. And I think that's a really underrated part of Temujin's. Not only his character, but also his route to being so successful.
- [24:47]
Afwa Hersh
So now we're getting to a really critical point in his life where he goes from being this vulnerable boy, having to fend for himself along with his siblings and his mother, to building himself into somebody who is now the head of a family and has followers.
- [25:02]
Peter Frankopan
The Mongols, like many other tribal groupings, have a specific social system where you have the kind of ruling clan, I guess you'd call them the nobility or the aristocracy within a group, and they have around them the sort of group of retainers. They're people who have extra high status, who are highly valued. I guess in Western cultures, they'd be, you know, the court, whose fortunes are very closely tied to the success of the leader. And to be able to have stability within that group, you need to do two things. You need to be able to explain to them what your ambitions are, and you've got to convince them to follow you. And the key to the second part of that is to deliver rewards. That's where Temujin's judgment is really important. You need to be able to choose the right moment to knock over other groups. You've got to choose a good reason to be doing so. And then when you take booty or you take resources, you've then got to distribute them. And if you can do that, then other people will want to join your retainer group.
- [25:57]
Afwa Hersh
So this is a society on the steppe where there are many different groups, but they are all familiar with each other. They're watching each other. There are these complex relationships between them. And the rise of Temujin at this point is making him more powerful and therefore more threatening to other neighboring groups. And one neighboring Mongol clan in particular, the Tayichid, decide that they need to put down this powerful upstart before he becomes any more of a threat to them. So in 1177, they raid the family and capture Temujin.
- [26:30]
Peter Frankopan
That's right. They don't just capture him, they take him back to the camp and they tie him up to a kang, which is a kind of Mongol version of a yoke. I mean, he's literally tied down. And the purpose of that is of course, physical humiliation. But Temujin is able to overpower his guards and then able to escape slightly elaborately, hiding under reeds in a nearby river. And again, it doesn't really matter exactly how true those stories are, but there's an emphasis on his resourcefulness and his inability to be dominated by others and to use his physical strength and his.
- [27:03]
Afwa Hersh
Ingenuity even when he's captured by the tired and escapes. The story relates a guard who turns a blind eye to his escape. And that speaks to his popularity, that he has sympathizers even in enemy camps. And I think that helps explain how he escapes from this captivity and then is able to rebuild his following to the point where he's able to take on the Tai Chi and spend the next few years fighting them, to the point that he's now starting to build this early reputation as a leader, as somebody who is climbing up the hierarchy within Mongol society. And at one point, he's ambushed by six men and still a teenager. Temujin kills them all, sneaks back into the tired camp one night and takes back all the horses that were taken from his family when his family were raided. And it's these kinds of feats that are building a reputation for him. And in turn that attracts more and more followers in this kind of spiral, where the more he does, the more followers he accumulates, the more he's able to achieve. This attractiveness isn't just manifesting in military prowess. You might remember a little while ago that when Temujin was nine, he was betrothed to Borte, whose father was singularly unimpressed with the offering of a single horse. Well, now Temujin is really making a name for himself as a leader and somebody able to defeat his enemies. He's a far more attractive prospect as a son in law. And that means that the marriage to Borte is now able to actually happen.
- [28:37]
Peter Frankopan
But you know, things are not simple just because Temujin has managed to pull a fast one on a couple of rivals. The bigger the name you make for yourself, the bigger the target you become. So in the late 1170s, maybe early 1180, a disaster strikes when a raiding party of around 300 Merkit attack Temujin and his camp. And Temujin and his men all flee in disarray, leaving Botha behind. And the secret history, which is the main source we have for this period, written in the 1240s, just simply says there was no horse for Berte. And Temujin sticks with her. He goes back into alliance with another tribe, the Karait, led by Tulkiril, which means Bird of Prey. And together they go on the rampage in Merkit lands until they get Berta back.
- [29:22]
Afwa Hersh
We've met the Merkit before because Temujin's mother was initially from the Birkit until Temujin's father kidnapped her. So this is a repeating pattern, these two clans kidnapping each other's wives. So Temujin has rescued Borte. He's reunited with his wife. And she has been through a huge ordeal having been kidnapped, and now she is pregnant by the man who kidnapped her. And in that, she is one of so many women in this era and in this part of the world who experienced sexual violence as a weapon of war, of conflict, of rivalry. It's also speaks somewhat to Temujin's character that he still embraced her and then went on to acknowledge that child as his own.
- [30:13]
Peter Frankopan
Yeah, that child, Jochi, is treated by Temujin later as his own. And I think that it's hard to judge these things from long distance of time and place. What Temujin does when he goes after the mekit is he finds out the names of those who had kidnapped Berte and has them all executed and their wives taken to slavery. So I don't think it's unusual that Temujin incorporates children who've been conceived by other men. But what Temujin is able to do is he keeps seeing the bigger picture. I think what is key is to keep on moving so you settle your scores and then you think about tomorrow rather than worrying about the past. And that is something that Temujin is incredibly good at doing.
- [30:51]
Afwa Hersh
And one of the ways he moves forward is by growing his own family now that he's reunited with water. So in 1186, his first son with her, Ogede, is born. And he's come a long way at this point. He was scavenging for his next meal, scratching survival in the wilderness only a few years ago. And now only age 24, he is leading his clan and recognized as being in that position. And he's bursting with ideas, full of ambition. He's beginning to shape what will eventually become the Mongol army, one of the most formidable fighting forces that the world has ever seen. But that's a gradual process because for now, they are still vulnerable. The Bawjid are still surrounded by enemies, including somebody who was closer than almost anyone to Temujin, his blood brother, his childhood friend, Jammuha.
- [31:46]
Peter Frankopan
Yeah. So Temujin and Jamukha had been inseparable as young boys, but they'd lost touch when Temujin had been taken away by his father when he was young. But Jamukha, like Temujin, is ambitious and able to work out that the world is changing. One of the things that's going on at this point in history, afua, in the 1180s, 1190s, is there's an unusually dry spell in East Asia. And in fact, there's a sort of minor climate reorganization in quite a few parts of the world at the same time. And that puts pressure on ecologies. So as a result, there's sort of increased and heightened competition between nomadic groups and competition between leaders of who can either be subsumed or subsume others. Temujin and Jamukha make an alliance that they fight together to start with. But then at the end of the 1180s, Jamukha aligns with a few other Mongol clans, but they attack Temujin with an army three times bigger at the Battle of Dalam bajut, which means 70 marshes, and temujin has to flee for his life. And in the meantime, legend has it that Jamukha captures prisoners and has them boiled alive to show what the risks are of messing with the wrong person.
- [33:00]
Afwa Hersh
This is a contrast to Temujin as well, who, even though he's obviously capable of great violence, prides himself on a sense of justice and actually treats his followers very well and doesn't torture people for sport. I mean, that's something that's said over and over again through his life, that he doesn't take pleasure or enjoyment by thinking of new and innovative ways to kill people for entertainment. And I think that speaks to the difference between these young warriors, that that is something Jamuha is known for, that kind of brutality.
- [33:33]
Peter Frankopan
Jamuha with the boiling alive of prisoners, it not necessarily takes pleasure in it. I'm not a good enough historian to tell you whether he did or didn't. It's about acts that allow you to be someone not to mess with. I'm not absolutely convinced that Temujin, as he gets older, somehow behaves more like a sort of an English gentleman coming off the cricket pitch, shaking everybody's hand and saying, well done and I'm not going to punish you. What he does do is he's very sensitive I think to the idea that you can over humiliate and you can overuse your powers to dominate. And he understands that there's a longer game and that's a key part of his success.
- [34:06]
Afwa Hersh
His success is still taking time though. For now he's escaped Jamoha but not defeated him. And there's a bit of a gap in the record Peter, over the next decade where he kind of goes off the radar. We think he spent several years fighting as a client of the Northern Chinese Qin Dynasty and he does rebuild and return. He's punishing those he feels betrayed him by joining Jiamuha and he's really demonstrating that his ambition continues, that he is still moving forward. But exactly how he's going to do that now that he's back on the step with an army behind him remains to be seen.
- [34:46]
Peter Frankopan
By the late 1190s, Temujin is on the move again. And once again he's facing off against Semucha. And again Semmukha is the one who has the larger force. He looks like the person who might be the one who's going to build a bigger constellation. And if he loses a second time to a friend turned foe, then maybe there's going to be no coming back for Temujin.
- [35:30]
Afwa Hersh
Where we left you childhood friends, Temujin and Yamuha are locked in a life or death struggle for control of the steppe. They both want the same thing to lead. Jammuha has the larger army, but he's not the clear headed commander that Temujin is. He goes into battle with all his forces assembled. But Temujin takes advantage of of a snowstorm to make a lightning attack. And this is something that we'll see in his tactics again and again, these lightning attacks. And with it Jammuha's army falls apart with Temujin in hot pursuit. But not all of Jammuha's men have given up the fight. An archer from his side fires at Temujin, sending a poisoned arrow into his neck. And Temujin is only saved by the actions of Djelme, another of his great future generals who sucks the poison from his wound. And the story goes that the blood is pumping so quickly from Temujin's neck that Djelma has no time to spit it out and has to swallow his leader's blood to save him. The archer who fired the arrow is captured. Autumn 1202 Koyatan, Mongolia Temujin gulps greedily from a cup of koumis, feels the fermented mare's milk warming his throat and strengthening his body. He gingerly touches the gash on his neck. He recalls the agony and terror of the night before. The hot blood pulsing through his fingers. The choking noises as gel may suck the arrow's poison from the wound. His face unrecognizable through a mask of crimson. Temujin's strength is returning and with it his focus. He knows that while Jamuha lives, he remains a threat. Only his defeat and death can bring lasting peace. Temujin emerges from his tent, finds his generals and demands, take me to the prisoners. Someone must know where Jammuha is hiding. Proudly, one informs him, my lord, we captured the archer who hit you. Temujin hurries to the heavily guarded encampment. Bloodied, wounded men sit huddled in the snow. A general orders one to stand. Temujin takes in the prisoner's defiant expression and barks. You failed to kill me. And now your life is mine. For a moment the archer is silent, his eyes cast down. In a soft voice he says, if you spare me, I will serve you for the rest of my life. I will trade my life for yours. Temujin grips the handle of his saber, anticipating the thrill of revenge. But then he pauses. He understands the constraints of duty. The archers served Jammuha well. Striding toward the man, Temujin draws his sword. If I let you live, will you be loyal to me? There is terror in the man's eyes, but he nods. Placing his saber on the archer's shoulder, Temujin tells him, you new life needs a new name. I'll call you Jurbe. The word for the arrow that almost killed me. I trust you'll prove yourself worthy of this mercy. He knows it's a risk, but it's one he has benefited from from before. As the man is set free, Temujin hopes his instinct has not been clouded by this close brush with death.
- [39:08]
Peter Frankopan
I mean, I quite like the banter of Temujin. The fact that he wants to rename the archer J. To call him Arrow, you know, as a sort of reminder. But the fact that he grants clemency is meant as a signal to say, look, I understand why you were shooting at me because you were serving another master. But now you're part of my group. We won't let you forget it. We'll tease you about it, the fact you tried to kill me. But I'm willing to extend forgiveness to you as long as you serve me. And you know you put your life on the line for me in due course. So that's a kind of understanding of human nature.
- [39:41]
Afwa Hersh
He's nothing if not a strategist. And he's got this story, and there are different versions of it, but they all more or less speak to the same thing, show that he's perfectly capable of mercy if it serves tactical purposes. And this has earned him intelligence that he needs and loyalty that he can use.
- [40:00]
Peter Frankopan
And in this period, the late 12th century up into the early 1200s, Temujin is able to generate proper momentum. And he does that because he's able to raise the size of his armies. So he goes from one victory to the next, incorporating group after group after group. Often he executes the leaders, but he then brings men into his camp. He gives them a chance to be part of a growing army. He's able to promote some of them into his inner circle. And it's in these years that he also is learning new military tactics. I mean, there's no better way to learn anything than practicing. And because he generates war experience, you know, he gets better and better at what he does too. He's battle hardened, as are his men. But that process of expansion is a way that he's able to generate more and more rewards for the people around him. That gets the machine rolling faster and faster and faster. So eventually he comes into contact with the Tatars, who are the force on the Steppes. For a long time, he swears that he's going to kill every single male Tatar who's taller than a wagon wheel. And after a long campaign, he beats them in battle. And this time he does annihilate, so far as we're told, all the adult males. But that process of becoming the biggest figure on the steppes is a kind of relentless one. It's kill or be killed. You can't ever stop. That's, I think, a key part of the kind of expansion of all nomadic empires. There's no end to ambitions and there's no end to horizons because you need to keep generating more and more and more.
- [41:29]
Afwa Hersh
But Temujin still has not defeated his old and formidable foe, Jammuha. He manages to split Temujin's alliance with the leader of the Kerrit and set a trap that Temujin only narrowly avoids. That leaves Temujin and his army, who are outnumbered three to one, caught near the Chinese border in a battle that lasts all day. And that night, Temujin, having at this point lost nearly half his men, has no choice but to retreat under cover of darkness. But crucially, Jianmuha does not follow. As Temujin retreats and that teaches Temujin a lesson he will never forget, that you should never let your enemy retreat. You must always follow and wipe them out. And Jammuha's failure to do that means that even though Temujin has lost this battle, the war is still there to be won. And the Mongol practice is normally for a defeated commander to be abandoned by his allies at a time like this, having failed to win, having retreated to. But this doesn't happen with Temujin. Instead, they retreat to a lake near the Chinese border, where Temujin's able to gather his remaining loyal men on the dried out muddy banks. And he knows now that he cannot sustain another failure. The men have stayed with him till now, but this is make or break.
- [42:54]
Peter Frankopan
Summer 1203 Lake Baljana, eastern Mongolia. Crouching on the dry lake bed, Temujin weighs a clod of dirt in his hand. Around him, tents are being hoisted into position. There's a smell of broiling meat and men huddle in groups, murmuring as he makes his way through them. He notes uncertainty on the faces he passes by. Aligning with him, these men have made an enemy of Togril and his vast karate forces. And despite Temujin's remarkable ascendancy, he can't guarantee them victory. The battle at Kulkujid Sands was proof of that. More than 2,000 soldiers slaughtered before he was forced to flee. He looks at his senior commanders as they group together. 19 leaders of the coalition he's pulled into his orbit as readily as they joined him. He knows that they would leave for better odds. He raises his hand for silence. As he begins to speak, Temujin feels clearer than ever that they are undertaking something new. He tells the men, our victory would tip the balance of power decisively. That is what I plan. His eyes shine with fervor. The Mongol world is changing. Together we can take control, but not without organization, discipline and loyalty. Lifting the clod of earth above his head, his voice booms out. May any of our covenant who divulge this plan collapse like this riverbank and be felled like this forest. He feels them lean in, transfixed by the image. In their eyes, he can see courage and defiance. Letting the dried earth crumble through his fingers, he says, if I finish this great work, I will share with you men the sweet and the bitter. And if I break my word, let me be as this water. For a moment, his words hang in silence. Then a single roar erupts from the gathering. Temujin receives the handshakes and embraces as the wind whips the dust along the river, predetermined course.
- [45:14]
Afwa Hersh
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a flex. That was a serious gamble that he took there, Peter. I mean, he is staking his whole future on this moment of making a promise that these men will not regret following him. And he knows that if he can't get them to follow him, he's finished. It really speaks to a level of self belief and a level of willing to invest in your future victory with everything you've got. That I think tells us a lot about how he had the mettle to become the ruler he did.
- [45:50]
Peter Frankopan
Call me cynical and I don't like to spoil a good story, but feels a little bit like the director's cut to me of, you know, how this all looks and sounds. You know, historians are pretty ambivalent about exactly how real this is. Partly because everybody comes up smelling of roses, but also because, you know, it's not as simple as just to say, look, take my word for it, we're going to win. I mean, the Battle of the Burning Sands, or Kul Kuljid is a setback where Temujin looks like he's finished. You know, he looks like he's really in trouble and that everyone's backed the wrong horse. But he is able to be resilient and to turn it around. However charming somebody is, however much somebody holds up a clod of earth above their head to promise you victory, you know that if you're on the wrong side, you may end up turning back into dust. So I think it sounds great. And it becomes a very famous part of the Secret History of the Mongols. It is a moment of real drama, whether this speech, whether this scene actually really happens. But you know, he is obviously able to generate huge loyalty around himself and a bubble to spot talent. So that's what makes him such a great leader.
- [46:51]
Afwa Hersh
Whatever happened at that moment, whether that oath was real, the reality is that it is a turning point. That over the next few months years, Temujin's army are able to defeat their enemies to who allied with his enemy. Jammuha is defeated in a three day battle. And he flees until he's murdered by a band of peasants. Jammuha slips away yet again. Not again. Series 9 But there is not a mass slaughter after this victory. Instead, Temujin is focused. He wants to unite the Mongol clans. That's his ambition. All of this bloodshed is in service of this sense of creating a Mongol nation that he can lead. He seizes the keiret throne and declares the Mongol and Kerr will be one nation. And this is the first big move towards this vision of nation building that will turn into empire building. And he then, less on the feminist side of his track record, instigates a policy of forced intermarriages between these two clans to help solidify the idea that they are one people.
- [48:00]
Peter Frankopan
I mean, there are two things I think, that are really interesting. One is that the Mongols are a kind of minority group, the creator, the kind of dominant power really in this period. So the fact that it's an outsider label in some ways is more palatable than if it was one of the much bigger, more powerful groupings. But second, what Temujin is very sensitive to is the idea that you can't have one group that dominates. You've got to be quite inclusive. And that's something which in our political discourse, whichever country you want to pick, particularly in democratic states Today in the 21st century, leaders slightly struggle with. Now, I think the question is, how far can his ambitions go? Is it enough to be the master of the steppe? Or are there other worlds where his fighting force might be able to not just flex, but to deliver even greater goals than he could ever have thought imaginable?
- [48:47]
Afwa Hersh
By 1204, Temujin is now 42 years old. And over the last couple of decades, he's come out of nowhere to stand on the verge of uniting the Mongols. A truly remarkable rise.
- [48:59]
Peter Frankopan
But the job is not done. And if his own experiences tell him anything, it's that men can fall as quickly as they rise.
- [49:07]
Afwa Hersh
There's only one last powerful clan now standing between Temujin and his dream of ruling the steppe. That is the Nayman tribe. And they have been joined by gestures.
- [49:19]
Peter Frankopan
Don't tell me. Is it Jamukha?
- [49:20]
Afwa Hersh
How did you guess? Jamuha is still there, still fighting, and still standing between Temujin and the glory and unity he seeks. And this will be their final confrontation. That's next time on Legacy. Follow Legacy on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge seasons early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wonder App or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondery.com survey from Wandery and Goal Hanger. This is the first episode in our series on Genghis Khan.
- [50:18]
Peter Frankopan
A quick note about our dialogue. We can't know everything that was said or done behind closed doors, particularly when we go far back in history. But our scenes are written using the best available sources. So even if a scene or conversation has been recreated for dramatic effect. It is still based on biographical research.
- [50:35]
Afwa Hersh
We've used many sources for this series, including Chinggis Khan, the Man who Conquered the world by Frank McLint and Charles Halperin, Russia and the Golden Horde. Legacy is hosted by me, Efwer Hersh.
- [50:48]
Peter Frankopan
And me, Peter Frankenban.
- [50:49]
Afwa Hersh
Scene writing is by Jack McKay for Goal Hanger.
- [50:52]
Peter Frankopan
Our series producers are Jane Morgan and Anoushka Lewis. Robin Scott Elliot is associate producer. Our production managers are Izzy Reid and Alex Hack, Robin Roberts. The executive producers are Tony Pastor and Jack Davenport.
- [51:07]
Afwa Hersh
This series of Legacy is sound engineered and designed by Will Farmer.
- [51:11]
Peter Frankopan
Music supervision is Scott Velasquez for Frit?
- [51:14]
Afwa Hersh
N Sink, our producer for Wondery is Emanuela Quinorte Francis and our managing producer is Rachel Sibley.
- [51:20]
Peter Frankopan
Executive producers for Wondery are Estelle Doyle, Chris Bourne, Morgan Jones and Marshall Louis.
- [51:28]
Afwa Hersh
1.