at its height in the 13th century the
mongol empire was the largest contiguous
land empire in history it stretched from
the sea of japan all the way into
eastern europe including most of
continental asia and the middle east
genghis khan his sons grandsons and
trusted generals were rampaging across
the continent with a fine-tuned military
machine that was as brutal as it was
brilliant
by 1223 they had their sights set on
kevin rust a loose federation of eastern
european states that hadn't yet become
russia
over the next 250 years death would
literally rain down
in the aftermath the mongol empire was
dead
and russia was born
welcome back to nutty history today
we're exploring why you wouldn't stand a
chance in mongol russia
viewer discretion is advised for this
video as some of this video may be
offensive or disturbing we the makers of
this video in no way support or condone
the actions of the subjects featured
let's start with one of the world's
first known examples of biological
warfare
by the end of the 13th century after
just 100 years of conquest the mongol
empire was falling apart
when genghis khan died in 1227 the
mongol empire continued to expand under
the leadership of his sons and grandsons
particularly batu khan who marched
towards europe and kublai khan who ended
up conquering most of china and
establishing the yuan dynasty
infighting and rivalries would soon take
their toll however a series of civil
wars led to the fracturing of the empire
into four khanates which were basically
the mongol version of kingdoms
the eastern khanate was the golden horde
which controlled the crimean peninsula
and the lands north towards what is
modern-day russia in 1266 the mongols
became friendly with the genoese and let
them have the city of kapha a strategic
trading post that sat on the southern
coast of crimea and gave the genoese
valuable access to the black sea
but by 1346 janabek khan was ruled in a
golden horde that was now muslim and he
didn't like that the genoese were
trading muslim slaves in the mamluk
slave trade so janabeg besieged the city
of kapha hoping to send them back to
italy
but then the black plague arrived fleas
carrying the deadly disease hopped in
the fur of rats and the rats hopped on
ships and caravans traveling from asia
to europe spreading death along the way
the fleas and rats made their way to the
mongols as they were laying seized to
kapha jatabek's men began dying by the
hundreds it got so bad that the mongols
began using their siege catapults to
hurl the dead decaying bodies of their
comrades over the walls of kapha for
days and days the rotting corpses piled
up within the city those behind the
walls could only cover their mouths and
noses to mask the stench
twelve years later a genoese lawyer
named gabrielle demussy wrote in grisly
detail about the horror that unfolded
the dying mongols stunned and stupefied
by the immensity of the disaster brought
about by the disease and realizing that
they had no hope of escape lost interest
in the siege but they ordered corpses to
be placed in catapults and lobbed into
the city in the hope that the
intolerable stench would kill everyone
inside what seemed like mountains of
dead were thrown into the city and the
christians could not hide or flee or
escape from them although they dumped as
many bodies as they could into the sea
as soon as the rotting corpses tainted
the air and poisoned the water supply
and the stench was so overwhelming that
hardly one in several thousand was in a
position to flee the remains of the
mongol army this gruesome scene is how
the black plague spread to europe
although it's up for debate whether the
catapulted play corpses were able to
actually transmit the disease or whether
flea ridden rats had managed to sneak
through the walls of kaffa and do the
job themselves
either way both kapha and the mongol
horde were decimated the black death
would rampage through mongol and the
european territory alike leaving heaps
of death in its wake
estimates for the worldwide death toll
of the worst worldwide outbreak in
recorded history top out at nearly
200 million
the mongols were skilled warriors
disease would kill more people than they
ever could with their empire already
tearing at the seams the play quickly
made a bad situation worse the mongols
were heading towards a full-on collapse
but let's rewind 100 years and travel to
the time of peak mongol muscle flexing
you wouldn't want to be living in kevin
rust during the mongol invasion of the
region as we know by now the safety of a
fortified wall can often be an illusion
between 1237 and 1242 the mongols
destroyed cities across modern-day
ukraine and western russia using
catapults and siege engines to tear
through enemy gates anyone who didn't
immediately surrender was slaughtered
entire cities were burned to the ground
not even women children or the elderly
were exempt from mongol wrath
the full-scale invasion began in 1237
when genghis khan's grandson batu khan
led his forces into kievan rus batu khan
commanded an imposing army of 35 000
archers on horseback and they had their
way with the disorganized principalities
of the rus
at this point the city of vladimir was
one of the main capitals of kevin russ
although again kevin russ was a loose
collection of separate states many of
which did not get along too well in
november of 1237 batu khan told prince
yuri ii of vladimir that he should
surrender before things got too bloody
he didn't so things did get bloody the
mongols besieged the city of riazon
first the prince of frieza also named
yuri appealed to yuri of vladimir to
help him out but his appeal was ignored
in just a few days riazon was sacked the
mongols slaughtered the entire
population and burned the city to the
ground it was never rebuilt then the
mongols besieged vladimir and burnt it
to the ground again no one was spared
yuri ii and his entire royal family were
killed
batu khan and his generals then split
into smaller units and lay waste to 14
more cities in the region before
focusing on kiev the most important city
in the region at the time the mongols
really wanted to avoid burning kiev to
the ground like the rest of the rust
cities that lay smoldering in their wake
kiev was a spectacular city by medieval
standards it was the namesake of the
kievan rus federation one of the oldest
uninhabited cities in the region and a
cultural and economic hub it wouldn't be
for long though batu khan sent envoys to
kiev to tell its grand prince michael of
chernigaf that he should submit to
mongol rule instead of submitting
michael killed the envoys in 1240 the
siege was on the mongol siege tech make
quick work of kiev's fortifications and
batu's army massacre nearly the entire
population
of the fifty thousand inhabitants of
kiev just two thousand were alive when
it was all finished of the forty major
buildings constructed in the city just
six were left standing it would take
centuries for kiev to recover kevin russ
was no more and what remained were
beholden to their mongol overseers they
would remain vassal states for the next
200 plus years
the onslaught of kevin russ really began
in 1223 when two of genghis khan's most
decorated generals jeeb and subhuta led
their armies in what's now the donetsk
obelisk region of ukraine there the
mongols pummeled the rus army in the
battle of the calca river if you were a
regular fighter in the rus army it was
likely you were killed in battle the
mongols annihilated nearly everyone
however if you were a noble or
high-ranking russ military leader it was
likely you died in a much more painful
way in traditional mongol fashion kevin
nobles and their leader mistyslav of
kiev were killed without bloodshed
instead they were stacked beneath a
mongol victory platform and slowly
suffocated to death while the mongol
generals celebrated by feasting atop
their dying bodies it was a similarly
slow death for the federation of kevin
russ as quickly as the mongols arrived
and decimated the rus army at culkin
they left they would go no further than
kolka it was more of a renaissance
mission with some like pillaging and
bloody battles along the way
instead of pushing further into eastern
europe the mongols withdrew back to asia
to meet up with their leader genghis
khan
the battle of kalka left the rus
federation in tatters and the region
would be right for the picking when batu
khan brought his forces there 15 years
later
although they had frightenedly superior
armies there were not many of them for
the mongols skill and strategy beat
sheer numbers every time their ability
to organize tens of thousands of men on
horseback while at the same time firing
arrows with pinpoint accuracy was reason
enough for their easy romp across asia
and eastern europe it was like
synchronized swimming but with horses
and pools of blood
tack onto that the use of terror tactics
like biological black plague catapult
warfare and you have yourself a recipe
for world domination
in addition to harnessing the deadliest
worldwide outbreak in human history to
torment their enemies the mongols also
enjoyed long walks on the beach burning
farmland to induce famine wiping
cultures clean of their history by
destroying their books and decimating
entire populations over time though this
terror strategy became a propaganda
strategy the mongols were clever they
knew that perception was the key to the
game destroying city after city and
leaving nothing behind would leave your
kingdom an empty shell with no economic
value
it was better to leave cities intact but
subservient bent but not broken
a broken city couldn't pay tribute so
the mongols used their reputation to
their advantage
their surrender or die war cry directed
at the cities in their crosshairs became
one of the best bluffs in military
history
facing armies far larger than their own
the mongols were able to storm two
continents in many cases simply by
puffing out their chest and letting the
past do the talking but the past could
become the future very quickly if you
met the mongols and you didn't fall in
line
true to form the slaughtered
orthodox christians in kievan rus
without mercy before relenting and
allowing christianity to spread
throughout the region
initially it was an extermination
helpless churches and monasteries were
torched after their treasuries were
eluded priests were killed and their god
was humiliated
eventually though the mongols came to
respect the russian orthodox faith many
mongols were in fact christian
however they practiced nestorian
christianity a version that split off
early on in the evolution of the
religion
differing views on the divinity of jesus
led most europeans including the
crusaders to consider an historianism
heretical all the same the mongols would
relate somewhat to their defeated vassal
states in the rus
after the mongols tore through kevin
rust they maintained their strangled
hole for a while by using dividing
conquer tactics similar to people
bending the truth or exaggerating
information on social media the mongols
were master manipulators
they were able to incite hatred and war
amongst the fragmented states of kevin
russ through feigned alliances and house
of card style backdoor dealings that
would make even the most seasoned
veteran of capitol hill blush as a
result the region remained split at war
with themselves while also paying taxes
to the few men from mongolia who managed
to bring them to their knees eventually
the russ leaders learned to use this
same tactic against their mongol
overlords a game of political cat and
mouse ensued where various rust leaders
would ally with the mongols against
other rust leaders in the hopes of
gaining more territory
it worked the rus also learned from the
mongols administrative finesse the rust
territory slowly but surely congealed
into a powerful state unified at last by
ivan the great who declared himself the
ruler of all rus in 1503
it wasn't all fun and games for the
mongols though if you were in the mongol
military there's a good chance you'd be
killed by the cold before a sword or
arrow ever came near you
russia and eastern europe are
notoriously difficult places to wage
sustained warfare in just ask napoleon
and hitler whose armies were defeated as
much by harsh winters and starvation as
by the russian military the same thing
happened to the mongol hordes over the
course of their conquests in the region
before they got to the kolka river and
dined atop suffocating rust nobility
batu khan and his army had to weather a
harsh winter in the cacoosas where botu
lost hundreds of men to the frigid cold
and had to abandon a lot of their siege
equipment it's difficult to lug heavy
battering ramps through snowy mountains
while starving and frostbitten
part of the reason the mongols were able
to advance into rust territory was
because earth's climate gave them some
advantageous conditions when the
medieval warning period ended around the
beginning of the 14th century the gobi
desert in central asia was transformed
from a harsh dry unforgiving landscape
into a wetter one as glaciers melted and
pooled into lush oasis scattered across
central asia these watering holes helped
sustain the silk road and allowed the
mongols to push eastward from their
homeland on the plains of mongolia
towards europe but it also led to their
downfall as the mongols stormed through
kiev and russ it seemed like they were
destined to take all of europe their
military strategy was medieval high tech
their propaganda machine was purring and
their ruthless reputation preceded them
wherever they went entire kingdoms were
kneeling before them
after kiev was sacked in 1240 the
mongols turned east towards hungary
by 1241 they had forced the hungarian
king bella iv into exile and had killed
an estimated 1 million hungarians
the mongols were all set to move into
hungary and began their campaign towards
the mighty holy roman empire but then
they turned around and headed back
through their newly conquered lands in
kievan rus
it seems like the same wet conditions
that allowed the mongols to move east
from the mongolian step and transformed
from humble nomadic herders into a
continent spanning empire were also the
same conditions that led to their
downfall on the western edges of their
territory successive years of rainy
weather between 12 38 and 12 41 turned
the normally dry hungarian planes into
marshland the mongol armies were bogged
down their horses and siege weaponry
couldn't navigate this new terrain the
wet weather also ruined harvest and crop
failure led to food shortages which led
to famine and the death of thousands of
mongol soldiers as they were preparing
to move west through hungary
by 1490 the vast mongol empire was a
shell of itself the golden horde the
dynasty established by batu khan that
once controlled a vast area from central
asia and the kakuzas into western rust
territories was no more
a united russia had emerged under ivan
the great in 1480 and the mongols were
scattered to the wind susceptible to the
harsh winters and plagued by famine
sheikh ahmed the last mongol khan of the
now feeble golden horde inherited a mess
from his father ahmed khan ben kuchek to
shore up his dwanaling empire sheikh
ahmed tried to ally with the kingdom of
lithuania to stave off the growing might
of ivan the great but the alliance
failed
to make matters worse ivan and his
growing russian empire had allied with
ahmed's rival khan down in crimea mingli
giddy together they decimated sheikam
its forces but not through direct
warfare they burned farmland which led
to famine
successive winters throughout the 1490s
killed thousands of livestock with no
food and no hope left most of sheikh
ahmed's men either died or defected
the end of the mongol reign in the rus
was complete
so do you think you would survive life
in mongol russia if so comment below
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