Genghis Khan: The Secret History of the Mongols (2025) s01e05 Episode Script

1
NARRATOR: Chinggis Khan is
dead, mortally injured
while on campaign
in foreign lands.
PROF SNEATH: A rather symbolic
end for such a conqueror
that he dies whilst
conquering.
NARRATOR: In his lifetime, the
leader of the Mongolian empire
remained undefeated
by his enemies.
DR MAY: Chinggis Khan had
done something no one else
had done before.
NARRATOR: He crushed the
mighty Khwarazmian empire
and invaded the lands
of the Tangut
and the Jin his most
powerful neighbors.
DR MAY The world irrevocably
changed with his actions.
It could not go back to the way
it was before Chinggis Khan.
NARRATOR: As his armies
battled the Tangut,
he drew his final breath
and now the Mongolian forces
must continue to fight
without their leader.
PROF SNEATH: It's an
empire in the making.
It's an unfinished project.
This is a really big deal
as to who might succeed
to the throne.
NARRATOR: A race for
succession begins to find
the true heir to Chinggis
Khan and continue
the Mongolian Empire's
relentless expansion.
DR MAY: Chinggis Khan
dies in 1227, August, 18,
while on campaign
and he's shot.
JOHN: There was then this
problem of what to do next.
DR MAY: You're in the
middle of a campaign,
you can't just stop and
immediately put a new ruler in
NARRATOR: Chinggis Khan's
death is kept a secret.
The Mongol army continues
to fight their enemy,
the Tanguts unaware, their
legendary leader has passed
away, only a select
few know of his demise,
ensuring the Mongol soldiers
continue their campaign.
DR FAVEREAU: After
Chinggis Khan died,
the Mongols really led
a really harsh conquest
of Tangut territories.
There have been a
lot of killings,
and it's one of the darker
page of the Mongol conquest.
And this is a very
violent moment
NARRATOR: After a
punishing, battle,
the Mongols finally
overwhelm the Tangut,
with no hope of victory, the
Tangut Emperor surrenders.
JOHN: The Emperor was summoned,
and he gave a huge slew
of gifts to Chinggis the door
of the tent being closed
at the time, and it suggests
a weird episode, namely,
that Genghis Khan
was actually there,
dead receiving these
gifts, but dead,
unknown to the Emperor.
DR MAY: They make him bow before
the tent of Chinggis Khan.
His body is there, but
he's not there anymore.
The ruler of the Tangut
surrenders to a corpse
and doesn't know it, and
they eventually execute him.
NARRATOR: With the
Tangut Emperor dead,
the Mongol forces swiftly
move to eradicate
all traces of his empire.
DR MAY: The Mongols make an
effort to kill off the royalty.
They realize that as long as
you have the Tangut royalty
who view this kingdom as
theirs, they'll never be 100%
comfortable being subjects
of the Mongol Empire.
DR FAVEREAU: This great
Tangut culture was destroyed
and not much was left.
This swallowed by
the Mongol Empire
and become something else.
NARRATOR: The death of Chinggis
Khan is finally revealed
after the Mongols have secured
their victory over the Tangut.
PROF SNEATH: After
Chinggis Khan's death,
his body is taken.
In a solemn cavalcade all the
way back to central Mongolia.
JOHN: He would have been
taken as fast as possible
back to his homeland
in northern Mongolia,
probably carried simply
in a small cart
which could move
extremely fast.
PROF SNEATH: The body
itself was taken right up
and eventually back to the
area around his birth.
JOHN: The idea that the
Mongols have is that
he was buried on the
mountain that was sacred
to him from childhood,
Burkhan Khaldun.
BULAG: The person who was
in charge of carrying
the corpse to be
buried home,
he recalled that Chinggis
Khan, when he was on his way
to conquer the Tangut,
actually stopped
at that particular place,
uttered a few words saying
that for an old man like me,
it is a place for burial.
JOHN: The burial of Chinggis
Khan has come in for a good
deal of obfuscation.
He clearly wanted
to be secret.
His retainers wanted
it to be kept secret.
It could not, therefore be a
vast mausoleum of treasure.
He was probably buried
simply in a secret grave.
I've been up Burkhan
Khaldun, and it's all stone,
and the idea of digging a grave
in it is hard to imagine.
NARRATOR: For over
eight centuries,
the final resting place of
Chinggis Khan has remained
one of history's greatest
secrets, with legends claiming
he took extraordinary measures
to ensure his burial site
would never be found.
PROF SNEATH: Some particular
division of soldiers
were placed there to
try and guard it,
to make sure that it stayed
secret and on route,
it said that anybody
who crossed the path
of the caravan was killed.
Perhaps this was part of a
way of maintaining complete
secrecy about the event.
Some accounts mentioned that
not only were the people
who dug the tomb killed
to maintain secrecy,
but even the guards were
killed and so on.
JOHN: The horses were
trampled over the land
where he was buried, and
trees came up afterwards,
and soon no one
knew where it was.
PROF SNEATH: Obviously, there's
a lot of archeological interest.
It would be the archeological
find of a century
to find that tomb, but we
still haven't located
the resting place
of Chinggis Khan.
MRS TSEDEVDAMBA: After
more than 800 years,
nobody knows where
his tomb is located,
but however curious I am,
I don't want his
tomb being found.
JOHN: My belief is that
if Genghis wanted it
to remain secret, it's going
to remain secret forever.
NARRATOR: Genghis
Khan's reign is over,
but his vast empire still has
the potential to flourish
if entrusted to the
right successor.
PROF SNEATH: It's an
empire in the making.
It's an unfinished project.
They haven't completely
defeated the Jin in the east.
In the West, Chinggis'
armies have swept through
the Khwarazmian Empire and
defeated their rivals,
but not really been able
to consolidate that rule.
So we still have this
enormous territory,
which is partly under
Mongol control
but hasn't been properly
consolidated.
And this is a huge
territory, potentially,
if it can be made
into a real empire.
That task has been passed on
to Ogodei because he'd be
already been favored and
selected by Chinggis Khan.
DR MAY: Just because Chinggis
Khan selected Ogodei to be
his successor did not
make it automatic.
Now, after he died, the
Mongols finished
their campaign
against Xi Xia,
and I think it also gave
them a moment to sort of
reflect on the life
of Chinggis Khan.
JOHN: There was a stipulation
about the validity of the heir,
whether Ogodei was really
the right person for it
DR MAY: The Mongol system is
not one of primogeniture,
where you automatically
take the eldest son.
DR DASHDONDOG: According
to the Mongol tradition,
usually the home or ger was
inherited by the youngest son.
Ogodei was, he was
the middle son.
So the question is, why
someone in the middle,
it should be either
youngest son or eldest son.
MRS TSEDEVDAMBA: Even if
Chinggis Khan wanted to decide,
this is not up to him.
NARRATOR: Although Chinggis
Khan intended Ogodei
to be his heir.
An assembly, or kurultai,
is held to determine
the rightful successor, the
prize, the greatest empire
in the world.
DR MAY: The Mongols began
organizing the Kurultai
to select the next ruler,
whether it should be one
of his sons or maybe
his brother.
Transition from one brother
to another was not uncommon
amongst steppe empires.
DR FAVEREAU: Men and
women found great Mongol
aristocracy will
decide together
who's going to get
the throne.
This time of transfer of
power can take two years,
three years, four years.
It needed discussion. It
needed negotiation a lot.
NARRATOR: Ogodei's claim to
succession remains fragile.
There are other
contenders for the throne
DR MAY: Now by this time,
Chinggis Khan has three sons
from his first wife
still alive.
His eldest son, Jochi, died in
1225, so a few years before.
So there's only Ogodei,
Chaghadai and Tolui left.
DR DASHDONDOG: The most trained
and beloved son was Tolui,
the youngest son.
He participated in Chinggis
Khans every battle,
every moment of his decision
making, Tolui was next to him.
DR MAY: Tolui was
a fabulous general.
He may have actually been a
better ruler in the sense
of military leadership.
DR DASHDONDOG: I think that
maybe he was preparing Tolui,
according to the
Mongol tradition,
the youngest son to inherit
the throne of father.
PROF SNEATH: It seems
that Chinggis Khan
didn't favor Chaghadai.
Chaghadai in particular,
seemed quite a quarrelsome
and difficult character.
DR MAY: He sort of saw things
in very much black and white,
and was very rigid in
his belief system.
DR DASHDONDOG: In my opinion,
the weakest link was Ogodei
PROF SNEATH: For whatever
reason, Chinggis seems
to have selected Ogodei Khan
as an easy going, pleasant,
charming character.
He wasn't the most militarily
successful of the sons.
He didn't seem to be
particularly strong willed.
DR DASHDONDOG: Nobody
expected him to be
Chinggis Kahn's successor.
DR MAY: I don't know if
you could say he was an
administrative genius.
However, he did have a few
qualities about him
that made him different.
He was the guy who could
get along with everybody.
He had a generous spirit.
He was not a master of
any particular skill,
so he appreciated those who
could be in that category,
and he is probably the one who
really propagated the idea
that the Mongols are
the ones who are meant
to rule the world.
PROF SNEATH: For two years,
the negotiations go on.
Presumably, there were a
lot of deals being struck,
and accommodations and
agreements had to be reached
before eventually one
of those three sons
succeeded to the throne.
NARRATOR: The Empire needs
a steady hand to serve
as regent while
succession is debated
Chinggis Khan's youngest
son Tolui takes charge.
PROF SNEATH: Tolui oversees
the ceremonies and convenes
the Kurultai and the other
meetings and so on.
DR MAY: He may have
thought that, okay,
I'm probably gonna
be the next ruler.
PROF SNEATH: After a two year
interregnum in which Tolui
was the regent overseeing the
assembly and other processes.
The choice was
apparently Ogodei Khan,
because he'd already been
favored and selected
by Chinggis Khan earlier on.
DR MAY: It was probably
already a done deal
that Ogodei was going
to be the next Khan.
Chinggis Khan, in many ways,
his words became sacred.
PROF SNEATH: In 1229, a Ogodei
is finally raised as Khan
and the emperor, the
successor to Chinggis Khan.
PROF SNEATH: He becomes
known as Ogodei Khan.
Tolui has to agree at this
stage he can do nothing
but now pledge his
loyalty to the new Khan,
and appears to be a
kind of good servant,
a good assistant
to the new ruler.
DR MAY: We don't have a clear
vision of Tolui's mind.
We don't see him ranting of
it should have been mine.
I'm the ruler. I should
be the ruler.
He doesn't have a fit.
He just says, well, okay,
that's the way it goes.
But there are hints that
there is some regret,
and I do think this
issue was not forgotten
by his sons or his wife.
NARRATOR: For now, internal
dissent has been set aside,
and the newly crowned Ogodei
Khan can claim his throne.
Under his guidance, the
Mongolian empire will conquer
lands even Chinggis Khan
could not have imagined.
Ogodei Khan assumes control
of the Mongolian empire,
but he is a very different
leader than his father.
MRS TSEDEVDAMBA: Ogodei, a
very different personality
from Chinggis.
PROF SNEATH: He seems
to have been something
of a merry monarch.
There's a story about Ogodei
Khan that he was being nagged
by his courtiers for
drinking too much.
So he promised that he would
drink half as many goblets
of wine every day, but he then
promptly doubled the size
of his goblet so that he
could continue to drink
as much as he wanted.
And that seems rather
typical of his character.
He was clever, shrewd,
generous, open-handed.
One of the things he was
well known for was giving
all sorts of servants,
even kind of strangers
and underlings, large
amounts of money and wealth.
On one occasion, he's supposed
to have looked at the Treasury
stuffed full of products,
and said, you know,
what's the point of us
keeping all this here?
We only have to guard it.
Why don't we just have
people take it away?
And apparently, invited
people to just come
and take away the treasures.
But that wasn't stupidity,
I think it was seen
as generosity, and he
felt that that actually
was a valuable
quality of a ruler.
He wasn't the most famous or
victorious of the various
generals of the Mongol Empire,
but Ogodei does seem to have
been quite gifted when it
came to political leadership.
DR MAY: He is the guy who
begins to envision the Empire
as a true empire, as
a functioning state.
PROF SNEATH: Under
Ogodei's reign,
the Mongol Empire
expands much further.
NARRATOR: Ogodei Khan's first
move is to address unresolved
matters from his
father's reign.
DR MAY: He is determined to
finish off the Jin empire.
He's going to finish what
Chinggis Khan started there.
Well, that's what his
father would have liked.
NARRATOR: Ogodei and his
brother Tolui lead
the campaign against
the Jin empire,
fortified by the assistance
of one of their most
loyal and trusted men.
DR MAY: They recall the general
Subutai to finish off the Jin,
and he does so he
attacks Kaifeng.
NARRATOR: However, in 1232
as the Mongol forces
are attacking the Jin, Ogodei
unexpectedly falls ill.
PROF SNEATH: One of the most
fascinating and mysterious
incidents recorded by the
Secret History was the moment
when Ogodei Khan is
campaigning with his younger
brother Tolui in
northern China.
And the record says that Odogei
becomes really seriously ill.
The account says that the
shamans have decided
this is because the local
spirits are attacking him.
MRS TSEDEVDAMBA: Mongolian
original belief is shamanism.
So there is so many shamanist
tales in The Secret History.
DR MAY: Shamans are
not priests, per se,
they're intermediaries
with the spirit world,
and many illnesses are viewed
as being caused by spirits.
So you'd call shaman in to
enter the spirit world
to find out what spirit is
tormenting the soul of Ogodei,
or if they had stolen his
soul, you need to go out
and find it and bring it back.
PROF SNEATH: And they try all
sorts of different cures,
and in the end,
they say, you know,
the sacrifice of
animals isn't enough.
Only the sacrifice of a
royal prince will satisfy
the spirits and save
the life of the Khan.
MRS TSEDEVDAMBA: So
Tolui tells the brother,
saying that you are
the Khan of Mongols.
If you die, Mongols
will have no Khan
so I'll die instead of you,
channel all the curses to me.
PROF SNEATH: He drinks a
potion, a preparation,
possibly poison, prepared
by the shamans.
And he dies.
And when he dies,
Ogodei Khan recovers.
Now this is a really
interesting moment,
because it looks as if
the prime candidate
who might have otherwise
expected to become
the emperor had not
only stepped aside
and allowed his brother
Ogodei to become emperor,
but actually sacrificed his
life to support his throne.
We don't really know how
historically accurate that is.
It could have happened,
of course,
it might well be a kind of
semi fictional account
of something else. He
could have just died
of drunkenness.
That might well be
a sort of most likely
explanation really.
DR MAY: He drank heavily,
and perhaps he drank heavily
because he was robbed
of the throne.
But I have my suspicions
that Ogodei might have had
his brother poisoned to
remove that potential threat.
NARRATOR: Tolui is dead,
but Ogodei's battle
with the Jin continues.
He besieges their
capital, Kaifeng,
and reduces it to
a pitiful state.
DR MAY: eventually the
Mongols take the city,
and that's the end of
the Jin empire in 1234.
With the Jin wrapped up there's
some other tasks as well.
PROF SNEATH: Out west
in the Middle East,
where the Khwarazmian
Empire had been defeated
by Chinggis Khan
and his general.
The son of the old emperor,
the old Khwarazm Shah,
Jalal al Din, begins
to rally the troops,
trying to create his
own force to combat
the Mongols and to retake
some of the territories
and cities that he's lost.
DR MAY: And Ogodei sends a
general named Chormaqan,
and they march with
allegedly 50,000 troops
into what is now Iran,
Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.
NARRATOR: Chormaqan dispatches
a second unit of troops
to capture and kill
the Shah's son
before he can rebuild
his father's empire.
DR MAY: Its sole job is to
hunt him like an animal.
Eventually this task
force does hunt him down.
Allegedly, he escapes it and
is killed in the mountains
by Kurdish peasants.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
Chormaqan's own army
is forcefully bringing Iran
under the control of the
Mongolian empire.
DR MAY: Local princes are
coming to submit to Him,
and then he moves
into Azerbaijan,
into the Mughan steppe.
And then they go forth and
conquer Armenia and Georgia,
wrapping all that up in 1240.
DR FAVEREAU: All middle
eastern region are preparing
to be a part of the
Mongol Empire.
PROF SNEATH: In Ogodei's reign,
the Empire expands further.
JOHN: The logic of
Ogodei's advance
now becomes ideological.
Chinggis had wanted booty
and had been inspired
by his own success to
gain more and more land.
But Ogodei sees things
differently,
namely, that the Mongols
should conquer the world.
They knew from the great raid
under Chinggis that there was
not just Russia, but
Europe and beyond,
and all of this
was up for grabs,
and the natural inheritance
of the Mongols.
NARRATOR: As Ogodei's
realm expands.
He realizes the creation of a
central stronghold is crucial
for the Empire's future.
DR FAVEREAU: He decided
to have his own capital.
Having a city for a
nomadic empire Khan sounds
very strange, but in fact,
it's really part of the way
they envision the control
of the world.
DR MAY: In 1235, Ogodei
orders the construction
of a city Karakorum.
This will be in the
Orkhon River Valley.
The Orkhon River Valley has
long been an important site
in steppe history.
It's in the central steppe
of the Mongolian plateau.
There's good water,
there's good pasture.
It's a perfect place to
establish a capital.
JOHN: This was the first time
that they'd had a fixed site
for a capital.
Before that, it had
been movable tents.
NARRATOR: To build a great
capital Ogodei needs
a skilled workforce.
DR FAVEREAU: So craftsmen are
going to be taken by force
from northern China
to Mongolia,
1000s of them are going to
stay with their family
in the area and remain for
probably several generations,
and will be part of the
population of the city.
PROF SNEATH: It wasn't
particularly impressive
as a built structure. Instead,
it was more of a kind
of leisure and
administrative center,
and he also has nearby
pavilions, movable palaces,
spring pastures and
hunting grounds,
so that he can create a
kind of fuller center,
a center that can attract
his court and that can act
as a kind of center of
gravity in its own right.
MRS TSEDEVDAMBA: Karakorum was
quite a cosmopolitan city
of that time, because every
trade, every Silk Road,
and not Silk Road trade,
comes to Karakorum
DR MAY: Karakorum was not just
an exit off the Silk Road.
It was not one of
the main branches.
Ogodei turns it into
the destination.
Merchants would go and
they'd be paid double
or even triple
for their goods.
What he's doing is
establishing a principle that
if you're a merchant,
you want to go here,
even though you're traveling
into the middle of
literally nowhere, you
will make money.
DR FAVEREAU: We know
they were traders,
but also religious people.
The Mongol built the city also
to help religious leaders
to have their own communities
and build their own buildings.
PROF SNEATH: Ogodei himself
seems to have been very open
minded about different
religious creeds,
different religious specialists
could debate and philosophize.
DR FAVEREAU: Religious elite
are exempted from taxation,
and they are also exempted
from conscriptions.
They don't go to war.
They don't fight
because Mongol said these
people need to pray.
It explains why all these
religious leaders from
all these religions are going
to support very early on,
Chinggis Khan and
his successors,
because they immediately see the
benefit for their community.
NARRATOR: Thanks to Ogodei's
embrace of religious freedom,
Kara quorum prospers,
attracting a wide range
of cultures and turning it
into a bustling center.
DR FAVEREAU: This city is
immediately like boiling,
you know, with different
faces, cultures and religions.
PROF SNEATH: Karakorum
also becomes the center
for a lot of political activity
and diplomatic activity,
so ambassadors arrive, envoys.
Rulers from other lands
will send envoys
or turn up themselves in
person at Karakorum.
DR MAY: Karakorum, in many ways,
it was a place not only where
envoys and travelers could come
and expect eventually to meet
the Khan, but it was
also a walk in closet
where he could store
all of his stuff.
This is where the
treasure houses were.
This is where they put all
the loot from the campaigns.
Ogodei also created a
true administration.
So we have these territories
that are ruled by the sons
of Chinggis Khan, but we
also need imperial control
over them, so we'll divide
them into fiscal districts
where we will gather the taxes.
They did not try to make
everything all at once.
It was a gradual process.
Probably the greatest
accomplishment of Ogodei
was he made a city
that soon became
arguably the most important
city in the world.
Everyone flocked there.
NARRATOR: With Karakorum
flourishing,
Ogodei holds a Kurultai once
again to discuss pressing
matters of state, including
which new territories
the Mongol army
should conquer next.
Karakorum fills with countless
Mongolians arriving to attend
Ogodei's Kurultai, including
prominent members
of the aristocracy, each
seeking the Khan's ear.
PROF SNEATH: Ogodei faced a
lot of ambitious other royals,
and part of his role as the
chairman or the overlord was
to try and satisfy different
factions within the royal
and imperial family.
The son of Jochi, Batu was
increasingly asking Ogodei
for support so that he could
claim his own kingdom,
because Jochi had been
given by Chinggis Khan
a notional rulership of
the lands to the west.
Since Jochi had died, that
promise passed Batu Khan
and Ogodei takes the request
that Batu is making seriously.
NARRATOR: Ogodei's most loyal
General Subutai supports
Batu's plan to push westward,
eager to settle old scores
from an expedition
14 years earlier.
This followed the death of
the Shah and the collapse
of the Khwarazmian empire.
PROF SNEATH: In 1221,
Jebe and Subutai,
two of Chinggis
Khan's best generals,
are released on a kind
of detached command,
and they end up undertaking
what must be one of the most
outstanding and extraordinary
adventures in military
exploration in history.
DR MAY: Now, Subutai, after he
had chased Muhammad Khurram Shah
and ended his life on the
island from dysentery.
Subutai put in a request to
Chinggis Khan that he and Jebe
would continue westward
to explore those lands,
and so they go on
this reconnaissance
and they went through
Armenia, Baghdad
JOHN: And the small column
of troops go into
what is now Georgia, devastate
a good deal of Georgia,
shatter that particular
culture,
and then go on into
southern Russia.
PROF SNEATH: When they
came down the other side
of the mountains, they found
that news of their arrival
had got ahead of them, and
they were actually faced
by a large army
waiting for them.
So that is the Kipchaks who live
in the southern Russian steppes,
but they're joined
by allies locally,
Alans or other nearby
polities have sent
a really substantial army.
the Mongol invasion force
under Subutai and Jebe
are really in no position
to defeat them.
It's then that Subutai
uses diplomacy.
He manages to open diplomatic
relations with the Kipchaks,
and he basically bribes
them with an enormous gift
of the plunder that
they'd accumulated
from other conquests to
create a kind of separate
arrangement with the
Mongols and Alans.
And that strips off
about half the army,
leaving the other half much
weakened, and of course,
Subutai and Jebe attacked
that and destroyed it.
Then, typically, Subutai
and Jebe chased after
the Kipchak force caught
up and defeated them,
and then took back all the
tribute they'd handed over
as bribes in the first place,
and they then settled
down in 1222,
to find out more about
this European region
and now on the fringes
of Europe, quite close
to the Black Sea
and Sea of Azor.
Having collected quite
a lot of information,
start to begin to make their
way back east to rendezvous
with Chinggis Khan.
The Mongols presence
has not gone unnoticed,
and the Russian princes and
the traumatized refugees
from the Kipchak who have been
defeated by the Mongols,
they begin to assemble an army
and shadow the Mongol force.
Now, by all accounts, that
Russian and Kipchak army
was probably four or five times
as big as the Mongol force.
It was certainly a
very formidable force.
So Subutai and Jebe withdraw.
They use a perfect
example of a step tactic,
which is the feigned retreat.
And they use this many
times in battle the Mongols,
but this time, they use
it on a strategic scale.
So instead of just
withdrawing, you know,
a few miles on a
battlefield, now,
Subutai and Jebe withdraw
for nine days solid.
And as the Russian
army follows them,
they string them out so that
they don't go too quickly.
They don't want to
lose track of them.
They want the Russians
to remain in contact.
And they string out that
army all the way to a river,
which happens to
be the Kalka River.
DR MAY: Eventually, there's
a battle at the river Kalka
where they encounter
the Mongols,
and the Mongols
annihilate them.
PROF SNEATH: When one part of
the Russian army is across
the river, strung out and
tapped from the other one,
they turned around and
defeat it, and in the chaos,
they drive through and destroy
almost all of that Russian Army.
They completely annihilate this
much larger Russian force.
NARRATOR: However,
during the battle,
the Mongols also suffered
important casualties.
DR MAY: Jebe died in that
encounter, probably,
because he disappears
from the sources.
NARRATOR: With the loss of
Jebe, Subutai plans to return
home and report what
he discovered
in the Russian lands.
DR MAY: Subutai goes back.
He has to fight his way
through the Kipchak tribes,
the Volga Bulgas
and some others
in order to cross the Volga
River to link up with Jochi.
Subutai has a plan.
He wants to conquer
all of the Kipchak tribes.
NARRATOR: Now, 14 years later,
at the Kurultai of 1235,
it is agreed that Subutai
shall return to the land
of the Kipchaks to take
their territories for Batu
and settle his
unfinished business.
Ogodei Khan has decreed
that his nephew Batu
should head west with
a general Subutai
and conquer the Kipchak people.
DR FAVEREAU: Kipchaks are
the most powerful nomads
in Western Asia.
DR MAY: The Kipchaks
are the real targets.
They are great warriors. And
every state that borders
the steppes uses Kipchak
warriors as mercenaries,
they intermarry with them,
they have marriage
alliances with them.
The Khawarzam Shah, he had
a lot of nomadic troops.
The Georgians had
Kipchak mercenaries.
Ruling family would have some
connection to the Kipchaks,
because you wanted someone on
your side from the steppe.
So for Subutai is mine, and
probably every Mongol there,
subduing the other
nomads was key,
because you can add those to
your own armies, augment them.
They fight the same.
Their weapons or cultures
are very similar.
You take the nomads,
you conquer them,
you incorporate
them into your army,
and suddenly you
have more troops
and you can do more things.
NARRATOR: To defeat the
Kipchaks and conquer
the western lands.
Ogodei must create
a formidable army.
PROF SNEATH: Ogodei Khan,
sometime around 1236,
puts together a
very large army.
He requires the other princes
and his other subjects
to furnish Batu Khan.
DR FAVEREAU: He's the one
who's going to be in charge
with the conquest of the
northwestern part of the world.
And Batu will be one of
the greatest leaders
of the Mongol Empire.
NARRATOR: Batu's army is formed
from conscripts and soldiers
from other Mongolian houses.
PROF SNEATH: Guyuk and Mongke,
two of the other princes
of the Imperial house,
also served as commanders
in the new army.
DR FAVEREAU: The fact that
they sent those very important
princes mean they care very
much about this campaign.
Subutai, the general is
certainly the brain
of the operation.
Subutai was there with
Jebe at the Kalka River,
and this will
create some tension.
NARRATOR: Batu builds a force
of nearly 100,000 men,
with cavalry, infantry and
siege engineers
from the Mongolian steppes and
the lands of Persia and China.
DR FAVEREAU: The campaign
towards Russia
and the Russian principalities
is actually one of the biggest
ever organized by the Mongols.
The campaign really
starts in 1236,
the idea was first to control
the lower Volga Valley.
Volga is a major trade artery,
and also there are people
living around the Kipchak, but
also important Muslim kingdom
called the Volga kingdom.
And this is Volga Bulgaria, so
it's different from European
Bulgaria, but this kingdom
is also very important,
and the Mongol really
wanted to absorb it into
the Mongol Empire.
And this happened in
between 1235 and 1238,
it took a lot of time.
NARRATOR: It has taken
almost three years for Batu
to build his army.
Now highly trained and
tactically skilled,
Batu and his general Subutai
launched their campaign
against the Kipchaks.
It will be a ferocious war.
DR FAVEREAU: It's always
more difficult for nomads
because they have to
chase other nomads.
Cities, it's easy. You
acquire your siege engines,
and you attack and you wait.
So it's very different
type of war.
DR MAY: Militarily, the nomads
are much more dangerous
than anyone else.
PROF SNEATH: A full force
of Imperial Mongol military
might was brought to bear to
actually conquer the region.
NARRATOR: the Mongol
army clashes fiercely
with the Kipchaks,
overpowering them
and inflicting massive
casualties in a matter
of months, 1000s of
men are killed,
and The Mongols now control
all of the steppe lands,
having crushed the nomadic
Kipchaks and Bulgars,
Batu and Subutai realize they
stand at the edge of a new
land in the wealthy cities of
a region known as Kievan Rus.
DR MAY: after they deal
with the Volga Bulgars,
and they've subdued much of
the steppes they do decide,
as long as we're here, let's
go after these cities
NARRATOR: Without waiting for
Ogodei Khan's permission.
Subutai and Batu decide
to invade Kievan Rus,
six long years of brutality
and bloodshed awaits.
In the most devastating
show of Mongolian strength.