00:14A long time ago, my friends, in the early 1200s, in fact, Genghis Khan created the largest empire
00:21the world had ever known. It stretched from the Black Sea to Korea, from Siberia to the
00:27borders of India. It was big. 9 million square miles big. 16% of the Earth's land mass big.
00:37In its various forms, the Mongol Empire existed for hundreds of years and had a lasting impact
00:42on cultures from China and India to Europe. But when and how did it actually end? And what
00:48happened afterwards? Well, if your immediate answer involves blood, slaughter and war,
00:53then you're not far off the mark. Although they did do a few other things as well.
00:58The Mongol Empire didn't per se end so much as it instead descended into a series of civil
01:04wars between its supposed heirs. Remember, the Mongols were not one people, but a hodgepodge
01:10of various tribes and clans, each with a long history of raids, battles and blood feuds.
01:17On top of that, after Genghis's death, they split into different factions, each loyal to
01:22one of his sons. And as they conquered more and more lands, tensions only increased. Should they
01:28keep to their original culture, riding horses across the steppe and killing anything that
01:33looked at them sideways? What are you looking at? Go away. Yes. Or should they enjoy the benefits of
01:40their conquests and live in actual houses? That was just one of the tough choices that Genghis's
01:46heirs had to face. Unfortunately, the laws and customs they observed were silent on such issues.
01:52The system of laws that Genghis created was called Yasser, but it only aimed at binding together the
01:59nomad clans and creating utter loyalty to the great Khan himself. And any wrongdoing was mercilessly punished.
02:07Go hunting and kill an animal during a banned month? Decapitation. Go hunting but let the animal escape?
02:14Well, decapitation. Just plain kill an animal but in the Islamic fashion? Well, you guessed it.
02:21Decapitation. Sorry. You see, it worked when the great Khan was strong and unquestioned,
02:27but it became a very convenient way to justify killing someone. And it didn't help that the laws weren't
02:33really written down anywhere. So anyone could apply their own flavour of justice. There. And so,
02:40once the Mongols had conquered just about everybody else, the only people they had left to fight were,
02:46well, themselves. So, when Genghis's grandson, great Khan Monki, died without naming an heir,
02:54all hell broke loose. First off, Monki's two brothers Kublai and Arik went at it, with Kublai
03:02coming out on top. Good on you, Kublai. But that was just a warm-up for the main event. Because
03:07when
03:07Kublai summoned his nobles to swear allegiance, his cousin Kaidu refused to bend the knee,
03:13kicking off a 30-year insurrection. Nasty. By the end, the empire had split into four separate
03:20Khanates. The Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the Golden Horde in Russia, the Ilkhanate in the Middle
03:27East, and the Yuan dynasty in China. So, was that the end of the Mongol Empire? Well, it was the
03:35beginning of the end, certainly. While Kublai's line kept the title of Great Khan ruling the empire in
03:42name, if not in practice, it didn't help when the Chinese red turbans rebelled half a century later.
03:48The last Great Khan fled China and died in exile, ironically, in Mongolia, leaving the Chinese a free
03:55people once more. So, was this the end of the Mongol Empire? Well, it's more like the middle of the
04:02end. The end of the end comes from the other end of the empire. Over there. Yes. Oh, no, just
04:09a bit
04:09to the left. There. That's the one. Over there. The Ilkhanate wasn't doing so well. In the mid-1300s,
04:16it fell to a combination of the Black Death and the Golden Horde. In fact, the same Golden Horde that
04:22innovatively used biological warfare to capture Katha in the Crimean Peninsula. They catapulted
04:28the dead bodies of their plague victims over the walls to infect the Genoese populace of the city.
04:34Very clever. Who, of course, then ran back home to Europe, bringing the Black Death along with them.
04:40Eventually, the Chagatai Khanate split in two around the same time as the Ilkhanate's demise.
04:46The eastern half of the Chagatai Khanate survived until around 1705, while Mongolia, ruled by the
04:52exiled Yuan dynasty, remained free until the early 1600s. The Golden Horde, meanwhile, converted to
05:00Islam and ruled southern Russia for a few hundred years, falling to the Russian Empire after it too
05:05broke up into smaller and smaller Khanates. But the real Mongol legacy comes from the changes brought
05:11about by the Mongol Empire. I mean, sure, they razed entire cities, killed maybe 40 million people
05:18or so, and helped spread the Black Death into Europe. But they also established the first period
05:23of peace in Eurasia. The Pax Mongolica linked the east to the west via the Silk Road, allowing the trade
05:31of goods and ideas such as paper, the printing press, and gunpowder. It really did go off with a bang.
05:38The Mongols also encouraged the arts, sciences, and teaching. They created paper money centuries
05:44before Europe and built the most effective postal system at the time. And if you travel the Silk Road
05:50today, you're likely to meet a number of Genghis's descendants. Around 16 million men in Central Asia
05:58today are descended from one man who lived in that region about a thousand years ago. Ah, Genghis, you old
06:06dog, you.
06:07So after the Mongol Empire fell, the Mongols, well, carried on being Mongols. They fought, raided,
06:14and killed across Asia. But without the unity that Genghis inspired, they were isolated and conquered
06:20one at a time. Until eventually, even their own homeland was no longer their own. So sad.
06:28Well then, folks, thank you so much for watching. Please do like, subscribe, support us on Patreon.
06:35You know, we take credit cards. You can throw bags of food parcels and sweets.
06:39But we will see you next time, God willing, for more defibrillatingly murderous magic here on SideQuest.
06:48Now, where's the button?
06:49We will see you next time.
06:49No
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