- 1 year ago
AccuWeather Founder & Executive Chair and author of "Invisible Iceberg: When Climate & Weather Shaped History" Dr. Joel Myers and Bernie Rayno discuss the incredible tale of Kublai Khan's dream to conquer Japan and how an unexpected force of nature stood in his way.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to Invisible Iceberg. I'm Bertie Raynaud. On today's show, we discuss the incredible tale
00:07of Kublai Khan's dream to conquer Japan and how an unexpected force of nature stood in his way.
00:14Plus, we explore the connection between typhoons and the meteorological phrase kamikaze and their
00:21influence on Japanese culture. And we discover the incredible power of Western Pacific typhoons.
00:28It all starts now on Invisible Iceberg.
00:39October 1274. Mongol forces assemble a massive armada to conquer Japan. With unparalleled military
00:48might, the attack would be decisive. Japan, vastly outnumbered with only 10,000 fighters,
00:54appeared to stand no chance. As the Mongols set out, a sudden and devastating typhoon struck.
01:01This unforeseen and powerful storm obliterated the Mongol fleet, reducing it to mere splinters
01:07and preserved Japan's independence. It's just one of the truly fascinating stories in the book
01:13Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and Weather Shaped History. Joining us right now is Accu with the
01:19founder and executive chairman and author of the book Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and Weather
01:24Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers. Thanks for joining us today.
01:28My pleasure, Bernie.
01:29All right. We have another empire to talk about. These empires are sprinkled throughout the book.
01:36But let's talk about Kublai Khan. Who was that?
01:41Well, he was a great emperor, dictator of China, grandson of Khungus Khan, who we know who greatly
01:52expanded China's influence of the Mongols, even into Europe. So he continued the expansion
02:01of China and spread their influence and conquered many of the surrounding countries, part of Siberia
02:09and Korea and a number of other countries in Southeast and Eastern Asia. And he wanted all
02:18of Eastern Asia under his control and rule.
02:22And the one area he did not rule during this time was Japan. And that's, he attacked Japan
02:32in 1274. Was it just the idea of gaining that territory?
02:37Well, he lived to be 79. He ruled for a long period of time. And he was deliberate that he wanted
02:45Japan as the final piece to control all of East Asia, obviously. And he had a great army and so
02:55on. So he thought because he had so much control and so much more powerful than Japan, he would
03:02just tell the Japanese to surrender and they would. And so he sent them a note. He said, stop,
03:09it'll be a great loss of life on both sides. We have a powerful military surrender. Well, Japan was
03:15in no mood to surrender. So he sent 900 ships and 40,000 people against a greatly inferior Japanese
03:25force and was prepared to take it over in October. And of course, that's the typhoon season.
03:34Well, I was going to say, because on paper, this shouldn't have even been a close battle because
03:38the disparity in armies between those two, we'll call them powers, wasn't close.
03:46No, it wasn't. No. So by numbers and the type of equipment and so on, it shouldn't have been
03:53close at all. But as we know, the hurricane typhoon season starts in July. Most of the hurricanes and
04:04typhoons occur in August, September, and October. And it's a little longer season in the Pacific
04:10because the Pacific's a bigger ocean. But basically that time. So he attacked on October,
04:15mid-October. And as he was attacking, a great typhoon wiped out most of his Navy.
04:23How bad did the storm hurt his army and his ships? Well, great havoc, loss of life, loss
04:31of the ships. And so they had a retreat of what was left. And clearly Japan lived to fight
04:40another day. And how did Khan react to this? Not well. Not well. You would imagine that he
04:46was probably not happy at all. He had never lost a battle. And in a sense, he lost this little
04:52weather. But so he just built a bigger Navy, more ships, and again sent the warning and Japan
05:00wouldn't surrender. And so several years later, Bernie, he sent 4,400 ships and 140,000 people.
05:11Now imagine in the 1200s, in the 13th century, a fighting force of 140,000 people. I mean,
05:18the population of the Earth much less, and so on. So this is huge. And how could he possibly
05:25lose?
05:27He was delayed a little bit. I mean, maybe he was a little wiser about when the hurricane
05:32typhoon season was. But it was delayed, so he didn't really get to attack the main island
05:38to mid-August.
05:40Well, turned out, August, you could have hurricanes. The bulk of the hurricane, the most intense
05:46hurricanes, typhoons occur in September, but from about mid-August to mid-October. Same
05:52thing happened. A very intense typhoon destroyed a lot of his ships. He almost had too many ships.
06:00They crashed into each other in the wind. Sailors drowned. It was a disaster.
06:06But it was not one, but two typhoons that saved Japan during that time.
06:12Yes.
06:12Fascinating stuff. Thanks for the story, Dr. Joel.
06:14You're very welcome.
06:15All right. We'll talk with you again in just a few minutes.
06:18Okay.
06:19Here now with more perspective is Morris Rosabi, historian and associate adjunct professor
06:25at Columbia University. Thank you for joining us here today, sir.
06:29Thank you. I appreciate your being interested in this topic.
06:33Well, that's a great, great topic, and let's get right into it. Who was Kublai Khan, and
06:38what was his role in history?
06:43Well, Kublai Khan was Genghis Khan's grandson, and his most important contribution was actually
06:50trying to rule an area, not just pillage and conquer it and destroy it. He actually started
06:59efforts to set up a government in China and in other locations and was supportive of many
07:07of the arts of China. So he played a very important role in moving from just simple destruction
07:15to creation, to developing a new system in China.
07:20And what territories did he conquer and then rule?
07:26Well, he himself conquered China, particularly, but his brothers and cousins created the largest
07:33land empire in world history. They conquered everything from Korea through China, through
07:40Central Asia, parts of the Middle East, parts of Southern Russia, and reached all the way
07:46to Hungary. So it was an immense amount of territory that they subjugated.
07:53And how did his troops and weapons compare to Japan's defenses?
07:58Well, in the first defense, the Japanese were not well prepared. Had the Mongol fleet actually
08:05landed in Japan, they would have had a much easier time than they actually did. And the difference
08:13between the two armies was that the Mongols had a cavalry and were very good at long distance
08:20warfare. The Japanese were greater swordsmen, and they were much better at hand-to-hand combat.
08:28How did Japan's victory shape its history and national identity?
08:33Well, the Japanese didn't think that the typhoon was an accident. They believed
08:39that the gods had sent a wind down to destroy the Mongol fleet. And they called that wind,
08:50in Japanese it's called kamikaze, a divine wind. They attributed their victory over the Mongols
09:00to this kamikaze. And from that point on, they began to feel that Japan was divinely protected
09:09and would never be conquered, would never really be invaded. That had a tremendous impact on Japanese
09:16history from that time forward. In the 20th century, it prompted them to be somewhat more aggressive
09:24than they should have been.
09:28And how was kamikaze used during World War II?
09:31Well, of course, as the Japanese realized in 1944 that they were losing the war against
09:39particularly the United States, they invoked the idea of kamikaze
09:44as a divine wind, and in this case, suicide missions by Japanese pilots to hit American ships
09:53and other parts of enemy undertakings against the Japanese. So kamikaze became a suicide mission
10:04rather than a divine wind, as it was originally conceived.
10:09Morris Rasabi, historian and associate adjunct professor at Columbia University.
10:14Thanks again for joining us today, sir.
10:18It's a pleasure.
10:19Coming up, dive deep into the world of Western Pacific typhoons, from their origins to their incredible power.
10:27But up next, we explore the differences between typhoons and hurricanes and the connection to the term kamikaze.
10:35Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg.
11:05I'm Bernie Raynaud. Joining me again is Accu, the founder and executive chairman and author of the book, Invisible Iceberg.
11:11One climate and weather-shaped history, Dr. Joel Myers.
11:14Let's get in back to our story here. The term typhoon.
11:19Of course, in the Atlantic Basin, where we live here in the United States, we use the term hurricane.
11:25For our viewers, they don't know. What's the difference?
11:28There is no difference. It's just a name.
11:31Typhoons occur in the Pacific.
11:33A hurricane is used for tropical storms that reach 75 miles an hour, wind speeds, in the Atlantic, the Gulf of America, the Caribbean, and also off the west coast of Mexico.
11:47There are a lot of hurricanes each year off the west coast of America.
11:50They mostly die out.
11:53One, it's a while, one will hit California.
11:56Some will hit Baja.
11:57Some will hit Mexico.
11:58And occasionally, they'll last all the way to Hawaii.
12:02But in the western part of the Pacific, they're called typhoons.
12:06On average, there are a few more typhoons in an average season than there are hurricanes in the Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean.
12:14There are other similar kind of storms in other parts of the world.
12:19The Indian Ocean.
12:20You know, they're called cyclones or tropical cyclones.
12:24And the same thing around Australia.
12:27There's many more hurricanes in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere.
12:33They're very rare around South America, for example, because the water temperatures aren't warm enough.
12:39But for the globe as a whole, there are about 80 to 90 tropical storms.
12:44They don't want to reach hurricane for us each year.
12:47What does the term kamikaze have to do with a typhoon?
12:52There's a relation.
12:53There is a relation.
12:54It goes back to the 1200s, the 13th century, when the emperor of China twice attempted to invade Japan.
13:06And twice, his much more powerful navy and army was destroyed by a typhoon.
13:14And how did the victories of Japan over Kahn affect Japanese history?
13:22Well, the Japanese felt that they were favored by the gods.
13:26They clearly survived that.
13:30And they had a mentality that this was their island.
13:33Nobody could take it.
13:35The gods favored it remaining that way.
13:38And it played an important role throughout their culture, throughout their history, their military, their mentality.
13:45And it persisted, obviously, right into World War II.
13:49And of course...
13:50I mean, Japan, after that, had never lost a war in a thousand years.
13:56And then, of course, when we hear the term kamikaze, we think of World War II.
14:03Yeah, the term was invented, really, or came about because of divine wind.
14:09That's what it means in Japanese.
14:11Divine wind.
14:12Twice, the typhoons that saved Japan.
14:14But the term kamikaze was used for the suicide pilots who flew their aircraft into American ships.
14:26Hundreds of them died.
14:30They weren't that effective in killing American sailors.
14:35They did destroy some of the ships.
14:37But that was part of the mentality.
14:40It was a last-ditch effort because they didn't have enough sophisticated defense planes.
14:47And so they actually had to try to use this suicide attempt as a last-ditch effort to defeat the Allies, the Americans and such.
14:55So two typhoons helped Japan in defeating Khan.
15:00Have tropical storms always helped Japan?
15:03Have they hurt them in the past?
15:07Well, we know they've been hit by many typhoons.
15:10And hundreds of thousands of Japanese over, I'm sure, over the centuries have died from typhoons.
15:19Maybe even a million.
15:20And, of course, during the war, too, typhoons, one particular typhoon did great damage to the Japanese Navy in 1944.
15:32But, of course, hurricanes have also hurt the American Navy, and they also have hurt our ships in the Pacific.
15:45We went into typhoons.
15:47And there was one hurricane that comes to mind, the U.S. Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944.
15:55That comes up.
15:57Did that hurt any U.S. ships?
15:59Yeah, that was one that did.
16:00There was a terrible hurricane in 1938.
16:05The great New England hurricane killed over 500 people in New England.
16:09And in 1944, there was a similar one, and it wiped out several American ships.
16:18Hundreds of American sailors went down with those ships.
16:23You know, some of those, it created a stir.
16:26There was actually a court-martial hearing, or an inquiry at least, into why American ships were right in the path of a hurricane.
16:37It's just such a rich history, good and bad, depending on your point of view of typhoons and hurricanes across this earth.
16:46It's a fascinating story.
16:47Well, we do a much better job of forecasting the development and the path and the track of hurricanes and typhoons today.
16:54Obviously, it's one of AccuWeather's areas of expertise, of superior accuracy, and just how well we have alerted people, warned people, of the development and path and the impact of hurricanes saving many lives.
17:10So what happened in World War II would not happen today.
17:15The military is better prepared on all sides.
17:18We just have much greater knowledge of the weather than many people had in history.
17:22Yeah, we see them so much earlier now, and we can forecast them so much better.
17:27All right, I want to thank AccuWeather, founder and executive chairman and author of the book Invisible Iceberg.
17:32When climate and weather shaped history, Dr. Joel Myers.
17:35Thanks for joining us today, Joel.
17:37My pleasure, as always.
17:38All right.
17:38Up next, we'll tell you all about Western Pacific typhoons.
17:43Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg.
18:05I'm Bernie Raynaud.
18:06In the Western Pacific, tropical cyclones are known as typhoons, which are equivalent to hurricanes.
18:13Unlike the Atlantic hurricane season, the Western Pacific typhoon season doesn't have a strict start and end date.
18:19In fact, typhoons can occur year-round.
18:22The most active period is often from late August into October.
18:25On average, there are about 26 named storms per year in the region.
18:30Of these, around 16 reach typhoon status, and nine become super typhoons, reaching sustained winds of at least 131 miles per hour.
18:40Typhoon impacts include damaging winds, flooding rainfall, and storm surge are often felt in countries such as the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula,
18:50as well as other parts of Southeast Asia and even Eastern Russia.
18:54Western Pacific typhoons are named by the Japan Meteorological Agency.
18:59The naming process involves a list of names that have been submitted by countries in the region.
19:05Now, unlike the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific hurricane naming conventions, the list is not reset each year, but continually rotates.
19:13Notable typhoons in history include Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, which caused catastrophic damage in the Philippines and tragically resulted in at least 6,300 fatalities.
19:23And typhoon tip in 1979 that had maximum sustained winds of 190 miles per hour and holds the world record for the lowest observed atmospheric pressure.
19:35That's our show for today.
19:36For more information and get your copy of the book Invisible Iceberg When Climate and Weather Shapes History by Dr. Joel Myers, go to invisibleiceberg.com.
19:47A big thanks to all of you for watching.
19:50If you have any questions or comments, send us an email at questions at accuweather.com.
19:54We look forward to seeing you next time.
Comments