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Hard places often breed hard people and Mongolia is one of the most inhospitable lands in the world.
This is the story of the people who came out of the steppes and built the biggest empire in history.
This is the story of Temujin and how he became Genghis Khan.
The history of the eastern part of the Asian steppe is shrouded in mystery,
and so the early history of the Mongols is still debated.
At the beginning of the 10th century the proto-Mongolic Kitan people formed an empire called the Great Liao.
The Kitans fought many wars in Korea, China, and Central Asia,
but by 1125 were defeated by the Chinese Jin dynasty
and moved to establish a new Kitan state called Western Liao.
To the north in modern-day Mongolia a number of nomadic tribes united in a tribal confederation
called Khamag Mongol, which can be translated as "Whole Mongol."
One of the clans within the confederacy was the Borjigin,
and its representatives were elected the khans of the union multiple times in the 12th century.
Khamag Mongol was in a long-term rivalry with the Tartar Confederacy, which also nomadized in the region.
This struggle weakened the Mongols
and their confederacy almost ceased to exist in the second half of the 12th century.
The chief of the Borjigin clan at the time, Yesugei, was trying to reunite the tribes once again.
In 1171 he arranged a marriage between his nine-year-old son Temujin
and the daughter of the chief of a nearby clan, Borte.
Some sources claim that Yesugei was poisoned by the Tartars during the wedding.
Temujin attempted to assume the role of chieftain, but he was rejected and exiled with his family.
For the next six years Temujin lived in poverty and was even enslaved on occasion.
Eventually Temujin started forming his tribe with the help of his blood brother Jamukha
and the leader of the Kerait tribe Toghrul Khan.
Temujin and Jamukha raided other tribes together, but eventually they had a falling-out.
Jamukha supported the traditional Mongolian aristocracy
while Temujin gave positions of power to capable people outside his tribe.
Threatened by Temujin's rise in popularity, Jamukha attacked him in 1187 with an army of 30,000 men.
Temujin's 20,000 men were decisively beaten at the Battle of Dalan Balzhut.
Not much is known about Temujin's life in the next 10 years, but in 1197
we see him commanding a united force of the Mongols and Keraits
in the war against the Tatars initiated by the Jin dynasty.
Temujin would avenge his father in this conflict.
The leaders of the tartar tribes were executed while the non-aristocrats were invited to join his ranks.
He delegated authority based on skill and loyalty rather than tribal affiliation or blood.
As an incentive Temujin promised civilians and soldiers a portion of the war spoils.
His new rules laid the foundations of a code of law,
which would eventually be developed and applied to his empire.
His father's death influenced Temujin and one of the laws was that hospitality was sacred.
Guests and envoys should not be harmed.
Temujin revolutionized the steppe world.
Each victory brought more warriors to his side, and he reformed the Mongols into an army.
The decimal system was implemented and the army was divided into 10s, 100s, 1000s, and 10000s.
Transfers between units were forbidden, and if one man deserted the other nine in his unit were put to death.
Commanders were chosen by their men except for the commanders of the 10000s (so-called tumens)
who were hand-picked by the Khan himself.
This chain of command allowed flexibility, discipline, and loyalty
and was vital to performing sophisticated maneuvers.
Every able-bodied man had to be a part of this structure.
In 1201 a number of opposing clans called a council, Kurultai in the Mongolian language,
and declared Jamukha the Khan.
This sparked a five-year war between him and Temujin,
and the latter managed to defeat his former blood brother at the Battle of the Thirteen Sides.
That same year Temujin assembled another council of the Mongol chiefs who elected him as their leader
Giving him the title of Genghis Khan, the leader of all.
For the first time the warring tribes united as one nomadic nation under one banner and one authority.
In 1209 the Mongols began their first invasion against the powerful Liao dynasty to the southwest.
The details of this conflict are not clear, but it seems that Genghis Khan was successful in open battles
but had difficulty is taking the well fortified cities.
The Mongols learned the importance of siege warfare in this campaign.
The surrounded city slowly succumbed to starvation and diseases
and the Liao emperor had to submit to Genghis Khan and become his vassal.
Up until this point the Jin dynasty underestimated
the Mongols as a nuisance on their northern border and even refused a call to aid by the Liao,
but by 1211 they were on high alert.
They even demanded Mongol submission, which led to war.
In March 1211 Genghis Khan summoned all Mongol chieftains and prepared to wage war against China.
The Jin had a massive population and mobilized around 800,000 infantry,
most of which were untrained peasants with low morale, and 150,000 highly-trained heavy cavalry.
This vast army however was spread across the Great Wall and garrisoned separate fortresses.
Meanwhile the Mongols had a ninety thousand strong cavalry army, which had three main components:
light cavalry scouts, horse archers armed with composite bows, and
heavy cavalry armed with lances and curved swords.
All of these men were highly trained and loyal.
After they bypassed the hopelessly ineffective Great Wall the Mongols split into two armies.
The main army was led by the Great Khan himself and was 60,000 strong
while the other 30,000 were taken by his son Ogedei to attack the city of Datong.
Genghis Khan headed for the strategic Juyong pass protecting Beijing, but along the way,
he was stopped at the pass of Yehuling where the bulk of the Jin army awaited him.
For months the Mongols waited for the Jin to make a move, but they held their ground.
While waiting, Genghis sent his trusted generals Jebei and Subutai
To lead a small force which attacked the Western Front from the rear in the Battle of Wuxia fortress.
The Jin army and their commander were annihilated.
Once the secondary army quickly grouped up with the main force which was still waiting in Yehuling,
the Mongols attacked the defenders in the mountainous terrain and pushed the Jin forces back.
Genghis sent men over the peaks surrounding the pass which the Jin generals thought was impossible and
attacked the much larger army from both sides.
Jebei, one of the best Mongol generals, used the trademark Mongol tactic of a feigned retreat.
After a short skirmish the Mongols pretended to flee, leaving loot as they fled.
The Jin defenders took the bait and left their fortifications trying to chase them down.
Little did they know, they were falling into a deadly trap
where thousands of them were attacked from all sides by Mongol archers.
With the gates of China now open, Genghis Khan began raiding the countryside
before he withdrew for the winter.
The following year the Mongols struck again, only this time
they besieged Datong where Genghis was wounded by an arrow.
The city held out against the invaders who once again
retreated for the winter, this time with even more knowledge about their enemy and siege warfare.
In 1213 when the Mongols invaded again, their mobility
prevented the Jin from organizing a successful resistance as their countryside was raided.
The Mongols began besieging multiple fortresses and cities and
waited for the enemy to attempt to break the siege, only to be ambushed and defeated.
The Mongols were fighting guerrilla warfare within a foreign land.
The cities that surrendered had most of their inhabitants murdered or enslaved.
However, engineers, artisans, merchants, doctors, teachers, priests, and administrators
were spared and asked to join the Mongol horde.
Many others were taken and used as meat shields for the following sieges
Marching in the vanguard to block arrows or discourage the archers from firing.
After securing all Jin lands north of the Yellow River,
Genghis moved against the capital of Beijing and besieged it.
The Mongols tried to starve the city out, but after a few months an epidemic spread through their camp,
and they had to negotiate with the Jin emperor, Xuan Zong.
He agreed to peace in exchange for a tribute of loot, men, horses, and his daughter
along with subjugation to the Mongol Khan.
Thus the Mongols left China and returned to Mongolia with their treasure.
But just outside the Great Wall a messenger galloped to Genghis Khan.
The Emperor had moved his court to Kaifeng to the south.
This enraged the Great Khan as it signaled that the Jin planned to retaliate.
The Mongols quickly returned to Beijing and besieged the city with the help of thousands of Chinese engineers.
The city was surrounded, breached, and razed. For weeks, thousands of carts hauled loot back to Mongolia.
The fires in the city burned for over a month while its people were massacred.
What was once considered a nuisance had brought a 20 million strong nation to its knees
and now the Mongol devastation was heading west.
While creating this documentary we use the series of lectures called The Barbarian Empires of the Steppes
from Professor Kenneth W. Howe, provided by the sponsor of this video, The Great Courses Plus.
This very detailed 36 part series covers the history of the nomadic peoples
from the Huns to the Pechenegs, from the Scythians to the Bulgars,
with multiple episodes on the heroes of this video, the Mongols.
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Thank you for watching the first video in our series on the Mongol invasions.
In the next three months we will cover all the major battles and conflicts of the Mongols.
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