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0:00Okay. Um, good morning. Today, uh, we will do Genghis Khan and the Mongolian conquest. Now, um, as you know, the Mongols have a terrible reputation for their brutality, uh, for, uh, their atrocities. Um, today, I want to make the argument to you that what they did, um, given the circumstances, given, uh, the constraints they were under, was actually logical and understandable.
Okay? So, that's the argument I will make to you, uh, today. All right. So, the Mongols. Uh, the Mongols, um, as you know, they are a steppe people.
Uh, the steppe, um, are divided into the western steppes and the eastern steppes. Um, and they tra- they basically go from Hungary in Europe all the way to, uh, what is modern-day Mongolia. And, um, as we discussed, steppe culture is very different from agricultural culture that we find in, um, in the Levant, in Anatolia, in Meso- Mesopotamia, and in China. In the grasslands, the economy is what we call nomadic pastoral, meaning they will raise cattle as their source of food, and they will, uh, travel wherever there is grassland. Okay?
So, they And because of their economy, they have developed a certain culture. They are extremely, uh, violent. Um, their society, their culture is based around violence. And, um, there's a lot of competition, uh, within these student groups. So,
2:00um rather than think of these people as as a nation or race of people, it's better to think of them as a culture. Okay? And for the longest time throughout human history, they have been divided among many different uh tribes. Throughout human history, the nomadic pastoral people of the steppes have always been in conflict with the agricultural empires. Um so, in response, the agricultural empires, China and the Persians, they have built walls and and fortifications to counter their threat, okay?
So, as you can see, the Mongols will eventually come south and invade most of China. Um and historically, the response has been the Great Wall of of China. Okay? Um but also in Central Asia, the steppe people have been a threat as well, and they have built uh fortified cities as a as response. Okay?
So, even though the steppe people and the agricultural empires have always been in conflict, the Mongols have had a unique reputation in Western history as the most brutal, as the most um as the most violent, okay? So, the question we're looking at today is why were the Mongols unique in their brutality? Okay? So, um um there are lots of things that were said about the Mongols that we now know today were are not true. Okay?
So, for example, back in the day, um they had a reputation for cannibalism. Um they ate their opponents. They ate their enemies. And we know that's not true today. They also had a reputation for being devious.
So, for example, um,
4:02when they approach an enemy, they would hold the cross. Okay, the cross is is a symbol of Christianity. So, their Christian enemies would see this and think that they are allies. Okay? And only when they discovered that these are actually Mongols, um, but by then it was much too late.
Okay? So, the Mongols had a reputation for being extremely, uh, devious. Um, they had a reputation for wanton brutality. They would destroy entire cities and kill all the people. Um, um, previously historians believed they killed about 65 million people.
Um, to today that figure is disputed, okay? But But if that is But if that was the case, then the Mongols killed more people than any other regime in, uh, human history before the 20th century. Um, Mon- Genghis Khan is considered the greatest conqueror in human history. So, uh, that's the the statistic that surprised everyone is one out of 200 males today, um, they're a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. So, that's that's like 16 million people, okay?
16 million males in the world are direct descendants of, um, Genghis Khan. All right? So, that is the reputation that the Mongols had for most of history. And what I want to show you today is the Mongols are not unique among the steppe people, okay? And the way they behaved, uh, there was a, um, strategy.
There's a logic to the way they behaved given the circumstances and constraints they found themselves um, under. Okay. So, as you know in this class the step people were the greatest conquerors in human history. Okay? So, let's start it with the Yamnaya who
6:02were based in the Ukraine area. And we know the Yamnaya who who are also referred to as the Proto-Indo-Europeans as well as the Aryans. Okay? They spread throughout most of the western world. So, they went to Europe and as we as you know, they basically replaced the entire male population of Europe.
And they intermarry with the local women to create European culture. They also went south and conquered Iran and India. And then they went over to the eastern steps as well. So, what's really important for us to remember and I I I know this is hard but the Mongol people they are culturally more similar to the Yamnaya than they are to the Chinese. Even though genetically the Mongols may be more similar to the Chinese, okay?
In this class we focus on cultural values rather than genetic affinity. Okay. So, over time what will happen to the western steps is it will slowly acclimatize itself to the surrounding agricultural empires. And slowly the western steps will become integrated into the the agricultural and into the agricultural neighbors. So, the example here is Scythia.
Okay? So, Scythia is slowly it's it's an empire it's a step empire, but slowly it's about to integrate itself into what is modern-day Eurasia. Okay? Um from from the Scythians, you will you will have a rise something called the Median Empire, which will then give way to the Persian Empire. Over in the eastern steps, okay, the um
8:03the step people come to conflict with the Han Dynasty. And the Han Dynasty, as we know from last class, is really the last ethnically Chinese dynasty, and they are intent on um a policy of eradication against the step people. So, they come to conflict with the step people who are now called the Xiongnu, okay? And what this conflict will do is drive these people west. Okay?
And this is interesting for us because when they go west, they will splinter off into different groups. When they go all the way to Europe, they will be known as the Huns. Okay, you may know Attila the Hun. Well, Attila the Hun is what was the leader of these people. The Huns will drive um the the western step people, meaning the Goths, into the Roman Empire, causing conflict with the Roman Empire, okay?
And the Goths will become the foundation of modern-day Europeans. Um Okay. So, this is the Han Empire at its peak when it's in conflict with the uh Roman Empire. Um the step people, the Huns, will also give rise to um a people called the Göktürk Empire, okay? And And they will sweep down, and they will become the Seljuk Turks, uh which will um take over Mesopotamia.
And then eventually you will have uh emerge the Ottoman Empire from these people. Right? So, in other words, the Mongols are just um the most successful iteration of the step people and their conflicts with the agricultural empires. So, the Mongol Empire is the second largest empire ever in human history. Only the British Empire um had more land.
The Mongols were the largest contiguous
10:03empire, meaning meaning it was all it was all interconnected together. All right? Um at its height, the Mongol Empire extended from basically what is modern-day Russia all the way to China, okay? The um the empire that will take over the Mongols centuries later is the Russian Empire, okay? The Russian Empire will take over a lot of Mongol uh territory.
Um because it is so large, um after the death of Genghis Khan and uh his son uh Ogadai, the Mongol Empire will splinter into four major um empires, okay? And these four major major empires themselves will assimilate and integrate into the local culture. Um the Golden Horde will will eventually give rise to um the Russian Empire. Um the Yuan Dynasty will eventually fall and give rise to the Ming Empire, okay? So, even though they conquer a lot of territory, um ultimately their empire is not sustainable.
And later on, I will explain to you why it was not sustainable and why ultimately the Mongol Empire declined. But while it was still in place, it created something called the Pax Mongolica. Okay, this is Latin for the Mongol peace. You've heard of the Pax Romana. We are now living in the Pax Americana.
Okay, so the Mongols created something called the Pax Mongolica, which just meant they believed in globalization. They wanted their conquered nations to trade with each other because they could collect they could collect taxes on the trade and they encouraged people, especially
12:04merchants, to travel across their empire and trade with each other. And during this time, a very famous Italian named Marco Polo had a chance to visit the world and his travels, especially those to China, captured the imagination of Europeans. This is really the first time that China figured into the European imagination. Okay. So this is a map of Marco Polo's travels.
Okay, and as you can see, he basically traveled all across the Pax Mongolica. Okay. The problem though is that when you integrate the world like this, you also give rise to disease. So the Black Death traveled all across the world. Okay, so we believe the Black Death originated in Central Asia in a in a place we we call Kazakhstan today and it traveled all over the Mongol Empire.
It made its way to Europe and it devastated Europe. Okay, it killed anywhere between a third to half of the entire population of Europe. It traveled also to uh former Islamic Empire and it traveled to China, but it was not as devastating. Okay? It's very important for us to understand.
The Black Death was devastating devastating for Europe, but it was not that devastating for China and the Islamic Empire. And the reason why is sanitation and hygiene. So, in China and in in former Islamic Empire, uh their cities were pretty well organized, pretty wealthy, pretty civilized. But, in Europe, um their streets were literally filled with manure, okay? They had horses.
They didn't have sanitation. People just threw um onto the streets. And so, like when
14:05you walk the streets, they were literally covered with And in that sort of environment, uh diseases spread very rapidly. But, the Black Death is important for us also because it will give rise to the Renaissance, which we'll do next week, okay? So, without the Black Death, historians believe the Renaissance could not have happened. Uh the Black Death basically meant a reset of European society, and it allowed uh massive innovation in Europe. Okay?
So, as you can see, the Black Death was extremely devastating for Europe. Um after the Mongols will come another great conqueror called Timur the Lame, Tamerlane. And he will be the last great conqueror from the steppes. After After Tamerlane, the agricultural empires will develop the technology to repel the steppe invaders, mainly gunpowder, okay? Um the technology and mass armies will overwhelm the steppe people, and eventually, um over time, the agricultural nations, mainly Russia, will start to colonize and conquer the steppes.
Right? Okay. So, look at Let's look at today at Genghis Khan, who is the founder of the Mongol Empire. Okay? Um Mong- Genghis Khan will you first of all unite the warring tribes of the Mongol people.
He'll turn them into a confederation, and then the confederation will aim to conquer China, but then it will come into conflict with the Central Asian nations. And so, um Genghis Khan will embark on the Central Asian campaigns that are brutal. He'll wipe out entire cities. He'll He'll kill all the He'll kill all in- in- inhabitants. And he will lay the foundation for the Mongol conquest
16:05uh that will follow after him. Okay? And again, um after the death of his son, Ögedei, the Mongols will split into four major factions, and they will attempt to continue the legacy of conquest. But, what happened is after the conquer of the Song Empire in in 1279, they will attempt to conquer uh Japan and Vietnam. And when they try to do so, they will be repelled.
They try to conquer Japan twice, um and even though the legend is that Japan was saved by the Kamikaze, right? The great divine wind. Um I will show you that's actually not true. Um there's another reason why the Mongols stopped invading uh Japan. So, in the east, they're they've reached the limit of their conquest.
Um they tried to conquer India as well, but when they tried to do so, they were repelled. And historians argue about the reason why this is why this is the case. Some believe it was because of the climate of India. Some believe it was because of some because the uh sultan of Delhi um had a organized and concerted response. Some other believe it was just internal fighting, okay?
When they try to reach Europe, they will um try to conquer Poland and Hungary, and even though they win every single battle against the Poles and Hungarians, they will ultimately turn back. And and that and that will be the limit of their conquest in the West. So, the um Mongolian fighting style is great when you fight in flat plains, okay? These are horsemen with bows, okay? So, um they're fast, they can cover great great distances.
But, when when they try to reach Europe, and Europe is thick forest, right? They really can't conquer that terrain.
18:06One really stunning event is when they try to conquer Egypt. Remember, Egypt for the longest time was the wealthiest part of the Western world. When when they try to conquer Egypt, they run into a people called the Mamluks, who fight very similarly to the uh Mongols. In fact, the the Mam- the Mamluks are originally from the steppes, as well. And for the first time, uh the Mongols will be defeated militarily on the battlefield.
And this sort of destroys the aura of inevitability and invincibility that the Mongols had for the longest time, okay? And this will be the extent of their um conquest in the West. And after these conquests, the Mongol Empire will try to rule their respective um empires, but ultimately they will fail, okay? And later on, I'll explain to you why they were doomed to fail. And the irony is the reasons that gave rise to the empire also reasons why they their empire ultimately collapsed.
Okay? Okay. So, I want to first talk about Genghis Khan. And so, we don't know much about Genghis Khan. What we do know comes from a book called The Secret History of the Mongols.
So, it is a um oral history of the life and times of Genghis Khan and his son, Ogedei. Right? Now, um the story in The Secret History is suspicious. And it's suspicious because it fits very well into the structure of Proto-Indo-European myth, all right? So, so let me show you how it's similar.
Okay. In The Secret History, Genghis Khan um his mother um and and you know, again, they are in the Mongolian grasslands. His mother is about to be wed to her husband. So, she's in her
20:08carriage and she's along her along the way to her husband's tribe. But along along the way, she is ambushed and kidnapped. That's a very common thing in that culture. The way that you obtain a wife is by stealing someone else's wife. Uh and so, she she's forced to marry a stranger.
Um but the stranger, Genghis Khan's eventual father, dies when Genghis Khan is 8 years old. When the father dies, the tribe abandons the mother and her young children. So, they're forced to uh fend for themselves. Um eventually uh the mother finds a way to find a supporting tribe and gets Genghis Khan slowly finds mentors for protection. Um he eventually finds a mentor who becomes his best friend.
And this friend's best friend's name is Jamukha, okay? And the And the two together um, are great warriors and they conquer a lot of territory territory together. In fact, when Genghis Khan's wife is stolen by a tribe, the two will race off and get the wife back. Um, but by this time, uh, Genghis Khan's wife is pregnant with another man's son. Genghis Khan raised the son as his own and he made the son heir to his empire, which will cause great difficulties, uh, when Genghis Khan dies, okay?
But that just shows you the generosity, um, of this man. Eventually, Genghis Khan will run into conflict with Jamukha. And the two are competing for control of the Mongol world. Genghis Khan kills him to, um, achieve his dominance. And, um, um, Genghis Khan will overthrow the existing Mongolian social order.
Basically, all these top chieftains, all these top shamans, he will kill in order to unite the Mongol people and bring
22:09about a new social order, okay? So, that's the story that we we have from the secret history. And that's very similar, by the way, to other, uh, founding myths of other people. Like, for example, let's look at Rome, okay? So, um, remember last semester we discussed Virgil's Aeneid, okay?
And it's about the founder of Rome, uh, his name is Aeneas. Aeneas is a prince of Troy and he has to watch destruction of Troy. He escapes the He escapes the sacking of Troy, where everyone is killed, but he gets lost at sea, okay? Eventually, he, um, stumbles onto Carthage, where he falls in love with the queen there named Dido. But the gods demand that he leave He leaves Dido, the woman that he loves and he's married, and he does.
He betrays Dido, who then kills herself. Then he goes to Italy, where he has to fight a war in order to establish the Trojan people on Italy and they will eventually give rise to the Roman people. Okay, so it's so it's a very similar structure to the story of Genghis Khan. Let's go to another story from Rome. So the founder of Rome is named Romulus who is a direct descendant of Aeneas.
Um so two so there's a king called Numitor and his brother Amulius usurps the throne. And once Amulius usurps the throne, he puts Numitor's daughter into a temple and makes her a virgin, okay? But Mars the the war god Mars visits her and impregnates her with twins. Numitor demands the twins be killed and the twins are left alone by the Tiber River, okay? And everyone thinks that they will drown.
But they are miraculously saved and a she-wolf nurses them and a shepherd adopts them. Eventually they discover their true heritage and they help their grandfather
24:10Numitor kill um his brother Amulius and restore the throne. Then the two go off to found their their own city which is Rome, okay? But they're going to be one king so the two fight and Romulus kills his twin brother Remus. All right? And then Romulus becomes Rome's first king which will eventually give rise to the greatest empire in the European world.
All right, so as you can see the structures are very similar. So let's go over very quickly the structure and meaning of Proto-Indo-European myth. The thing I want to remember is that what mythology ultimately is, it's a collective subconscious of a culture. Okay? By understanding mythology, we can understand the fundamental values that underpin this culture.
So, what is the structure we're looking at? Okay. The structure is this. First, the gods favor a man with a divine mission. But the man himself does not understand this divine mission.
Okay? The gods have picked this man for whatever reason, and this man must fulfill his divine mission. And in the process, he will suffer hardship to become as hard as a sword, okay? Hardship makes you committed. It makes you strong.
And to recognize his mission, okay? In the process, he's asking he's asking himself, "Why am I being persecuted? Why am I suffering so much?" And then eventually, he will he will have an epiphany. He will recognize, "Oh, it's because the gods have a mission for me that I must fulfill. That's why I'm That's why I'm suffering.
That's why I'm being persecuted. It's to make me strong and committed." Okay? And he will sacrifice his beloved to prove his commitment to his divine mission, okay? This is really important. In Proto-Indo-European myth, the hero must always sacrifice his beloved.
So, remember the story of Genghis Khan, he
26:10sacrifices uh he kills his best friend, Jamukha, okay? And you think, "Okay, what's the big deal?" Well, in that culture, when two warriors are best friends, they're not just friends, okay? They're basically lovers. They have sex with each other, and that's why uh they're such great warriors together. It's a very common thing.
So, remember the Iliad, where um in the Iliad, Hector kills Patroclus, and Achilles um becomes so enraged that he goes and kills Hector, okay? So, um why did Achilles become so enraged? Because Patroclus was his best friend, which at that time every everyone understood to mean Patroclus and Achilles were lovers. Okay? Achilles loved Patroclus.
So, when Genghis Khan killed Jamukha, he was basically killing the man he loved the most in this world. Okay? That's a very important part of Proto-Indo-European myth. You have to show your commitment by making the ultimate sacrifice, which means killing the person you love the most. And once he does that, he will shatter the old world to build a new one, okay?
That is the divine mission. The gods do not like this world. They want a flood to destroy this world in order for the world to be made anew. And this man, the Messiah, he is the one who will shatter the old world. He's the world shatterer, okay?
He's the flood sent by the gods. All right? So, that's the basic structure of Proto-Indo-European myth. And we And And when we understand this, now what we can do is understand the power of the Jesus story within Christianity. Why is Christianity the most uh influential and popular religion in the world?
It has to do with the story of Jesus, okay? In the story of Jesus, according to the Gospel of Mark,
28:11let's look at the structure, okay? It's very similar to Proto-Indo-European mythology. Jesus has a secret divine mission, okay? He's sent by God or he is God um come who's come to redeem the world. He must suffer persecution and doubt, okay?
So, everyone doubts who he is. No one knows who he is. He's laughed at. He's mocked, okay? He then is sacrificed to wake the world.
He kills himself. Or he is sacrificed so that everyone knows how much God loves them. And with God's sacrifice, the cycle of violence ends and a new history begins, okay? So, in Proto-Indo-European myth, what's important is that you kill your beloved. But, the founding myth of Christianity is, "No, I kill myself to show you that violence is terrible." Okay?
Once God has killed himself, once God has sacrificed himself, it means that all violence now must cease. The cycle of violence, the cycle of using violence to redeem the world, to cleanse the world, must come to an end. Okay? And that's the very idea, foundational idea of Christianity. And so, what Christianity is doing, that's very clever, is it's taking the collective subconscious that's embedded in every individual and implanting a new idea within the subconscious that grows and grows.
Okay? It's almost like a virus until people recognize that violence is bad. Proto-Indo-European mythology celebrates violence, right? Christianity uh believes violence is the worst thing. Okay?
So, so So, let's um sorry, um this is a bit uh okay. All right, anyway, I'll I'll I'll just read it to you, okay? So, this is the ending of Mark, okay? Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last, okay? So, he's been sacrificed.
He's died. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The temple is
30:12the temple second temple in Jerusalem, where Yahweh is. And at the very top of this temple is a room called the holy of the holies. That's where God lives. And the curtain is what um hides uh God from the world, okay? So, when Jesus died, the curtain now is torn in half, meaning God is now released into the world, which means that which means that everyone now has access to God.
God is now on Earth. Okay? Now, when the Centurion, this the soldier who stood facing him saw that in this way, he breathed his last, he said, "Truly, this man was God's son." So, the first person that Jesus revealed himself to was a Roman soldier. The first person that recognized the truth of Jesus and the power of his sacrifice was the Roman soldier who's always been taught that violence is the answer to everything. And once he's converted, he he he recognizes that violence is wrong and evil.
Okay? So, that's the power of um this mythology. Okay? Does that make sense to you guys? All right.
So, now I want to look at real history, okay? Because this is mythology. And what I want to do now is show you that Genghis Khan fits into the a pattern of a great conqueror. If you look at all the great conquerors of human history, and I'll list four right now, okay? Sargon of Akkad, Philip of Macedon, Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan, you will see they are very, very similar.
Okay? So, let's look at Sargon of Akkad. Remember um before in Meso- in Mesopotamia, it was divided into the Sumerian city-states that warred with each other. And these these were walled cities. Because these were walled cities, they couldn't really conquer each other, okay?
Sargon of
32:12Akkad figured out a way to conquer everyone and build the first empire in world history called the Akkadian Empire. So, we don't know much about him, but this is what we know. First of all, he was probably a mercenary, okay? It was very common back then um to be a mercenary because these city-states were at war with with each other always. He was a cupbearer to the king Ur-Zababa of Kish.
Kish is one of these city-states in Sumeria. Now, guys, cupbearer is a very important position. A cupbearer means that when you're at the king and you have a feast and a or a festival for your people, the cupbearer is a man who stands beside you and pours you the alcohol, the wine, right? Which means this is a man you trust the most. So, what does it mean for Sargon Akkad to be a cupbearer?
Well, it probably means that they were lovers. The king and Sargon were lovers who loved each other deeply, okay? But, that doesn't prevent Sargon from killing the king and taking the throne, which starts this massive war in the city states in which um Sargon will eventually triumph, okay? Um well, so the thing about Sargon is he is really good at um winning the favor of mentors, right? And ultimately he'll betray mentors in order to achieve his ambition.
Well, that's also true for Philip of Macedon. So, um Philip of Macedon, he is a prince of Macedon. And at this time in the Greek world, Thebes was the dominant military power. Thebes defeated Macedon in a battle and Thebes demanded hostages. So, Philip was sent as a hostage to Thebes where he is now mentored by the greatest military strategist of this time named Epam- my- nondas, okay?
And so, Philip the second is learning how to win battles. He's learning all the major military innovations of this time from the greatest general of this
34:12time. And then what he will do is he will return to Macedon, reorganize the Macedonian army, and then take them to conquer Thebes as well as the entire uh Greek world at the Battle of Chaeronea, okay? Well, this pattern is also true for Julius Caesar. In this at this time which is about like 50 uh BCE in Rome, Pompey the Great is the greatest general. He's the man that everyone admires.
He has most political power. So, what Julius Caesar does is he's he marries his daughter to Pompey the Great and this forms a political alliance between the two. Pompey the Great grants him um generalship of the province of Gaul where Julius Caesar will win military glory, okay? It basically establishes the power, prestige, and fame of Julius Caesar. And this will start a civil war in which um Julius Caesar will defeat his mentor, Pompey, at the Battle of Pharsalus.
Okay? Very similar pattern. Well, the same is also true for Genghis Khan. He is mentored by two chieftains, Jamukha and Toghrul, and he will defeat both in order to gain leadership of the Mongol world. So, it shows you how ruthless and ambitious these great conquerors are.
But, at the same time, let's remember this. Philip II had a really talented subordinate in Parmenion. Parmenion was really uh the person in charge of the Macedonian army. In fact, it was Parmenion who was mostly responsible for Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia, okay? Uh Julius the Julius Caesar had a talented subordinate in Titus Labienus, who was responsible for his victories in Gaul.
And then Genghis Khan had a talented subordinate in Subutai, who was considered one of the greatest military strategists um ever. Okay? And so, what this tells us is
36:14they're able to have they're able to exercise tremendous judgment in people. They know who to trust. They know who not to trust. They know who is talented and who is not talented. They know how to how to win the loyalty of their subordinates.
Okay? That's a very impressive skill. And then the question then is, how is it possible that they are ruthlessly ambitious, yet at the same time they're able to delegate power in a very effective manner? And the answer is, they all believe they have a divine mission. Their goal is not to conquer the world.
Their goal is to change the world for the better as demanded by the gods. Does that make sense? That's the only way we we can understand this. Each in their own way believe they are the Messiah sent by the gods to shatter the world so that so that it can be built anew. Okay?
And that's what drives them to kill their beloved. And that's what drives them to um um do what they do, okay? Um all four, ultimately they are able to conquer the world because they develop a professional, meritocratic, and innovative army, okay? What does professional mean? It means that look at Sargon the Great, uh Sargon of Akkad.
At this time, there were no professional soldiers. Um most people were farmers, and you only fought off-season, okay? You might fight two, three months of the year. Sargon of Akkad um was the first to say, "Nope, we will have professional soldiers. Everyone else will pay taxes in order for me to uh pay my professional army, but these are professional soldiers.
They are full-time um soldiers at war, okay?" Uh meritocratic means the system uh before was the nobility always had a priority. The nobility was always right. And Akkad Sargon of Akkad made the
38:15system more open and fair and meritocratic. So, if you were talented and you were brave, you could rise within the ranks of the army regardless of your heritage and your background. Innovative means they were always adapting and learning. So, Sargon of Akkad was able to conquer the Sumerian city-states, which again were walled, by adopting siege warfare, which was unheard of before. Okay?
And the same is true for Philip, Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan. Right? So, again, Genghis Khan fits into a pattern here of what these great conquerors look like. Does this make sense to you guys? Any questions?
So far? All right. Let's continue. Okay. So, um now I want to discuss why the Mongols did what they did.
Okay? Why did the Mongols commit so many atrocities? What was the logic or reasoning behind their brutality? Right? All right.
In order for me for me to do so, I'm going to introduce you to you today a new analytical model called game theory. Okay? The idea of game theory is this. All human reaction can be perceived as a game in which two people, at least two people are playing and they're trying to to defeat each other. Okay?
So, for example, let's just say, you know, um these two guys are um fighting each other, okay? They want to kill each other. Now, according to game theory, each person has a distinctive optimal strategy, okay? It's called optimal strategy. Optimal strategy is given the constraints of your circumstance,
40:16what is the best way for you to win? Okay, so if you're the big guy, okay? This is the big guy, he wants the game to be fair, which is like, let's just arrange to fight at a certain time, and we'll fight, okay? And he And he will he wants to uh use this strategy because he is most likely to win. But if you're this guy, a small guy, right?
Let's call him A, and you're fighting B, you don't want to do that because you're bound to lose. So, what you do is you figure out a time when uh B is most vulnerable, maybe when he when he's asleep or he's eating, and you attack him then, okay? You basically have to cheat in order to win. So, each individual has a distinctive optimal strategy, all right? Now, this sounds easy, but it's not because often there are multiple players in the game, okay?
So, you have C, and you have D. And when when you have multiple players in the game, you have to think about about alliances and coordination, okay? So, it's possible that A and D will form alliance to attack B, which will force B and C to form alliance, okay? But once maybe uh C and B kill off D, then A and C will form alliance to kill off B, okay? So, what this tells us is not only does each person have an optimal strategy given the constraints um of the game, but this optimal strategy will change according to the circumstances.
All right? Also, what's important for us to remember is that there are there are there always these external um constraints. And ex- external constraints might be just weather or weapons or whatever, okay? So, game theory sounds easy, but it's extremely complicated because you always have to switch perspective in order to better understand why this person is doing what he or she is doing. Okay?
Does that make sense? All right. So,
42:18let's look at um game theory and apply it to the Mongols. Okay, remember the Mongols are a borderland people and they're fighting empires. And remember with you if you're a borderland, okay, borderland empire you have three distinct advantages. Okay, you have energy. Um you're open and you're opportunistic.
Okay, these are the three advantages that you have as a borderland people like the Mongols. As an empire, your three advantages are mass. You have a lot of people. You have organization. You have depth.
Okay? So, um it seems so So, again, given the strengths, it is not that um easy to determine who will win. Okay, but we're trying to figure out the mentality of the Mongols, okay? We know the Mongols have these three strengths and they're trying to defeat the empire, which has these three strengths. At the same time, we have to remember the Mongols themselves have three fundamental weaknesses that they must compensate for if they are to win, okay?
So, let's go over their major constraints. The first constraint that they have is extremely low population. Okay, there are not that many of them. In fact, they're often outnumbered often 100 to 1. And so, that's a major constraint.
Um at when when Genghis Khan was alive, at his height, he had anywhere between 100,000 100,000 to 200,000 troops, okay? The second constraint is the idea of distance and geography. What I mean by that is the Mongols had to fight over huge territory because Central Asia Asia is a huge land, right? And this is problematic because of supply issues.
44:19Supplies. What this means is if you are the Mongols, the thing that you cannot ever fight is a war of attrition. A war of attrition just means a long war in which in which you're trying to deplete the other person's resources. If you are the If you are the Mongols, the worst thing that can ever happen to you is if you're stuck in a war of attrition. If the siege is too long or the war lasts for too long, okay?
Because eventually you'll run out soldiers. So, that's what the Mongols fear the most, okay? So, distance. The last thing, this is really important, is governance. Governance just means the Mongols are nomadic people who do not know how to govern other people.
So, they don't want to be stuck in a situation where they're forced to govern other people. Okay? Does that make sense? And what this means is the idea of whole territory. When you conquer a new land, what you usually do is you put in place a new regime.
They can't do that because they don't have the personnel for that. Okay? They often don't even have the personnel for siege warfare, but what they will do is recruit Chinese engineers, um Indian engineers in in order to implement siege warfare, okay? But bureaucrats are very hard to um compensate for, okay? So, these are the three fundamental weaknesses of the Mongol system.
Low population, they have to fight uh long distances, and therefore they have they have to worry about supplies, and they don't know how to govern other people, okay? And if if we do this, okay? If we look at what the strengths are and we look at what their fundamental constraints are, then we can figure out what their ultimate strategy is, okay? So, this is the ultimate strategy for the Mongols.
46:19The first is escalation dominance. Okay, escalation dominance is this. Okay, there's there's a concept in political science called escalation ladder. The escalation ladder I mean it's a very simple concept. It means like violence always escalates.
So, for example, I get into an argument with someone, okay? Well, what first happens is we start to argue, but then eventually this argument becomes more much more heated and we start to push each other, okay? Then I then I might throw a punch, he throws a punch back, then I might bite him, he might bite me back, I might pull out a knife, he might pull out a gun, okay? This is called escalation ladder, okay? Violence has to happen over time, okay?
And this is fine if this is fine, but the problem is what if you're fighting multiple people at once, right? So, what you want to do is show other people that you are more dominant, okay? So, if you insult me, I'll put a gun on you, now shoot you, okay? That's the idea of escalation dominance. I always have the capacity to inflict more damage on you than you could ever possibly inflict on me.
Okay? And that's why the Mongols did what they did. So, what what will often happen is the Mongols would send a trade delegation to a nation to negotiate a trade deal. And the nation, um, prob- usually in Central Asia, um, they would kill all the delegation in order to insult Genghis Khan. In response, Genghis Khan would send his army to destroy the entire city, burn down the city, and kill everyone, okay?
This is the idea of escalation dominance. You have to prove escalation dominance if you are to, um,
48:22to be a viable threat to everyone, okay? So, that's the first idea. Escalation dominance. Second idea is the idea of terror. Or what we call psychological warfare.
If you are badly outnumbered in warfare, then you have to have you have to make people afraid to fight you, okay? If you cannot govern people, if you don't know how to properly manage people, you have to make people afraid to rebel, okay? So, the Mongols were notorious for psychological warfare. So, for example, what they would do is this. They would conquer some territory, and to ensure the villagers would not ever rebel, they would send one Mongol soldier into the village, okay?
And this is one soldier, and there might be a thousand villagers. And then what this Mongol soldier will do is randomly kill some villagers. He'll say, "Hey, you guys come over here, line up." And he starts killing people randomly, okay? And if the villagers ever rebel, and kill him, then the Mongols will come and kill everyone in the village. All right?
So, that's the idea of psychological psychological warfare. But the Mongols do this do this to do this to themselves as well, okay? So, the Mongols have a system where units are divided into units of 10, okay? So, 10 soldiers, um, and then these 10 soldiers times 10 will make up a unit. So, what would happen is this.
If ever in a battle um one soldier ran away from battle all of the people in these units would be um executed. Okay? But if if one unit ever ran away, then the next unit 100 of them would all be executed. Okay? So, this gives everyone incentive to make sure your fellow soldier does not run away.
Okay? So, the Mongols had psychological warfare not just for other people, but
50:22also for themselves. And that's just the way the Mongols fought. And they had to fight like this given the fact that they were greatly outnumbered. And they had to win quickly against their um enemies. Right?
Does that make sense? Okay? Now, the last thing, which is the most important, is they had to create an aura of inability and invincibility. At this time, people were literally telling people these Mongols are not human. They are demons.
They have come from Tartarus. And And that's where where where where where we get the name Tartars. They have come from Tartarus, hell, in order to kill everyone. Okay? These are demons.
Guess what, guys? The Mongols wanted this reputation. Okay? They did everything they could in order to promote this reputation because it gave them an aura of inability and invincibility. They could not be defeated.
There's no point in trying to defeat them. So, let's just give up. Okay? And most did. Most said like the Mongols were able to conquer so much territory so fast because they had this aura of inability and invincibility and most people just gave up.
They just paid tribute. And if you didn't do so, then they would use escalation dominance and terror to um kill everyone. Okay? And they would send refugees all around the world, so everyone would know about the ferocity and brutality of the Mongols. Okay?
Does that make sense, guys? So, in other words, I have to say this, but according to game theory, everything the Mongols did made complete uh sense, okay? In fact, it's their optimal strategy, okay? Given the circumstances, given the constraints, what they did was
52:22completely logical and reasonable, even though it resulted in the deaths of 10 tens of millions of people. Okay? Does that make sense? All right. Okay.
So, then So, now let's discuss why their empire collapsed. All right. So, there's a fundamental weakness in the entire Mongol optimal strategy approach. It's a great strategy if you are trying to conquer the people. But, when you're trying to govern them, okay, it's an issue.
All right. So, um as we discussed, the Mongols are great warriors, uh like all steppe people, because of their cultural values. This is a culture, okay, that emphasizes three things. First is freedom. Second is egalitarianism, okay?
And the third is self-reliance. Okay? So, rather than think of the Mongol the army as a empire or organization, it's more like a confederation. People choose to join this confederation because of the immense rewards that can be achieved through conquest, okay? Um so this is a culture that values freedom, egalitarianism, and self-reliance, and therefore it makes great warriors.
The problem though is the cultures they conquer were extremely extreme hierarchies. All right? Where you have maybe the emperor at the top, a bureaucracy, and then peasantry at the very bottom. So the vast majority were peasants, okay? Now, um I know this is hard for us to understand, but the
54:22reason why the Mongols were able to conquer these empires were almost a contempt for these empires. Does that make sense, guys? The Mongols had absolutely no respect for these empires. They thought they were weak, they thought they were corrupt, and um decadent, okay? So So the Mongols were able to conquer them.
Okay? Does that make sense? There's a contempt for them. The contempt is this. The mong- underlying the ultimate strategy of the Mongols is a concept that never existed in human history before.
And the concept is this. People are an infinite resource. Okay? So throughout most of human history, people were the most valuable resource. There was not many of people around.
Therefore, you have to treat people nicely if you want to maximize their productivity. Okay? But where were the Mongols based? They were based in East Asia. They were based in China, basically.
And in China, because of the empire, people were treated like an infinite resource. You could massacre them. You could send them off in human wave attacks. It didn't matter because they were an infinite resource. And this idea never existed before in human history.
And in the Western world, this concept is radically revolutionary. It was unimaginable like you could do this. So, remember Julius Caesar, even though he um when he conquered Rome, he wasn't intent on massacring people. Why? Because people could be sold as slaves.
That was the main way he made his fortune, by selling the Gauls as slaves. Okay? But if you believe that people are an infinite resource,
56:23then you don't want them as slaves, okay? You want you want to kill as many people as possible in order to inflict terror. Okay? So, that that's the issue with the Mongols. First of all, their virus system did not lend itself to um governing a hierarchy.
They didn't know how to and they didn't want to. Also, much more problematic was their contempt for the local culture. Okay? If you have contempt for local culture, you're going to have problems managing the people. So, in China during the Yuan Dynasty, the Chinese um there's a class system.
The Mongols were at the top and the uh Chinese were at the very bottom, okay? The foreigners were sort of in between. And that just shows you the Mongol contempt for for Chinese people. And that's why ultimately uh the Chinese people rebelled against the Mongols. Right?
Now, eventually, the Mongol leadership would recognize this problem and they would try to adopt um a Chinese-style bureaucracy. But a bureaucracy, and we discussed this, comes into conflict with the nobility. Okay? Nobility. The nobility is intent on maintaining the Mongolian culture.
They did not want to assimilate. But the emperor recognized you have to assimilate if you are to have this empire. And because they couldn't agree, the nobility and the emperor couldn't agree, ultimately it led to the collapse of the Mongol empire. Okay? All right.
So, that's the history of the Mongols. Any comments? Any questions? I I I I I know Doug is. Can you speak speak speak I don't have any questions yet, though.
But but but but do do do do you want do you want to comment? Because I I I know you studied the Mongols quite quite quite quite in detail. Well, I'm kind of scared that
58:23this is on YouTube. It Okay. All right. Yeah. All right.
So, yeah, it's fine. Okay. Any questions, guys? Like, I know this there's a lot to take take in. So, um you know, ask questions.
Tell me what areas you are confused by. Okay, I got I got I got a question. Okay. So, so a few lessons ago Yep. you talked about if there was a Viking, you know, university, you would definitely want to go to that.
Yeah. Right? And because like in in the Viking world, you know, it's all about freedom and equality and self-reliance, right? Yeah. So, the Vikings might be running Harvard, but um the the Mongol university might be might be the Oxford one.
Yeah. Yeah. Got any uh Any sympathies one way or the Yeah, that's a great question, okay? That's a great question. Vikings versus Mongols, okay?
Um Okay. All right, so um the Vikings and the Mongols all come from a proto-Indo-European culture. What we know about culture is that it's very fluid and it will change over time and it will adapt itself to the local cultures, okay? And so the Vikings were in Europe. And the Mongols are near China, okay?
And um I'd just say like um I think if I wanted to be a Viking or Mongol, I'd prefer to be a Viking, okay? And the reason why is the Vikings never really um adopted a belief that people were an infinite
60:24resource. They couldn't because Europe was very poor. Um and the Vikings, regardless even though they were brutal, they still had respect for their opponents. They never developed a contempt for their opponents. They're surrounded by the Byzantines, the Muslims, and the Europeans.
And these were great warriors. So the Vikings felt they had a lot to learn from these cultures. And in fact, ultimately the Vikings will assimilate themselves into these cultures in different environments, okay? So um The Mongols are different though. The Mongols are based in East Asia and they did ultimately adopt a belief that people are an infinite resource.
They had tremendous contempt for Chinese culture, okay? And um that changes you as a person. When you believe that um people are an infinite resource and you are contemptuous of other cultures it also in a way um makes you contemptuous of yourself, if that makes any sense. Okay? Um and so, ultimately, that's why the Mongols were not able to uh even though they had tremendous wealth, they didn't really produce um cultural monuments.
We don't have I like like the Vikings I I I mean as I mentioned, the Vikings were fundamental development of Western civilization. The Mongols were not fundamental development of any civilization. I mean, they caused a lot of havoc, and they were great conquerors, but they didn't leave a a rich cultural legacy. So, and I I think I think it has to do with the belief like people are infinite resource, okay? Um so, I would pre- much prefer to be a Viking.
I I would be much prefer to be enslaved by Viking than than a than a Mongol. Like like if if if I if I if I were a slave, I would rather much rather be a slave to a Viking than a Mongol. Okay? If I were a slave to a Viking, the Vikings would at least become my friend.
62:24They'd be like, "Hey, tell me about your culture. Are there any stories that you can tell us?" Okay? And if you were a great storyteller, then they would make you um they would treat you very very nicely cuz cuz you're you're helping them learn more about your culture, okay? The Mongols had I've seen no interest in other cultures. They were interested in conquering and exploiting other people.
All right? I could be wrong, all right? And and I'm probably making these rationalizations, but I believe with the Vikings there's a genuine curiosity about the world that comes from a genuine respect of other cultures. Whereas the Mongols were not curious about the world, they were intent on conquest and enslaving other people and exploiting other people. Okay?
They were predators. And again, um that could be my prejudice, but but based on my readings so far, that that would be my um um belief. But, please change my mind. No, sounds good. Sounds good.
Okay. All right. Thanks for the question. Okay, great great question. Any other questions?
You mentioned that in the Mongol culture they don't have a lot of people. Right. What What What What What Sorry. Sorry. So, population, okay?
So, the Mongol population is loosely defined. Okay? Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do you understand? Uh it's it's hard to say who's Mongol and who's not Mongol because that that that entire area has a similar culture and it's it's very hard to figure out where the where the borders are, okay? Like You mentioned that civilization of the Mongol that they have low population.
Yeah. Then why would they believe that people are infinite resource. Okay, great question, okay, yeah. So, you're right. So, the Mongols are um a low population.
So, why would they believe that people are infinite resource? The answer is because they are always in contact with China, okay? So, the Mongols were always in contact with
64:25China. And as And as I mentioned, they're all The interaction happens in three ways, okay? The Mongols are working as either mercenaries for dynasties in China or they are trading, okay? Or they're raiding and pillaging, okay? So, uh for centuries there's been contact between China and the Mongols.
So, where did the Mongols learn the idea that people are infinite resource? Well, they learned it from China, right? And And why Why Why did they learn from China? Because Chinese warfare was also predicated on the belief that people were infinite resource. Does that make sense?
So, ba- basically the entire um idea of warfare in China is I organize this peasant army, I throw throw them at my opponent, okay? And if my entire army dies, guess what? I'll just go and I'll raise another peasant army and forward at my opponent again. Okay, it's it's it's it's it's like human wave attacks. Okay, we call this human wave attacks.
This is a this was pioneered in China, okay? And and the Mongols just took it and used it everywhere else. Right? So, if you're if you're the Mongols and you use and you're fighting this enemy and if they're throwing these peasants at you and you're killing them all, but they don't know and care is because because then like a month later another peasant army comes at you, okay? You quickly adopt the idea that people are an infinite resource.
All right? Does that make sense? I think they were also pretty liberal liberal's not the right word, but they were they were pretty loose in in terms of like who could be a Mongol or not. Yeah. Yeah.
And so it could absorb different populations into the fighting forces, right? So, Yeah. you could you could you could take Chinese people in, you could take different Turkic people in, you could take Persians in and That's right. Yeah. So, it sort of depends on how cooperative you are, basically.
That's right. Um yeah, the Mongols um were very open society. Like like if you had a benefit to their society and so for example if you're a Chinese teacher or a Chinese scholar or a Chinese engineer, it it or a Chinese merchant, they would quickly assimilate you, okay? Um and then they they would kill everyone else.
66:26Okay, so um they were pretty open society. Okay, so so does that make sense? Okay. Great. Any more questions?
Um so so like I'm curious about you mentioned the structure of like total and Indo-European language structures. Yes. And like in different cultures have basically the same structure, so did people like make the structure intentionally or was it just coincidence? Okay, great. Okay.
All right. So, let's talk about mythology. All right? So, again, if you actually study mythology, what you recognize is there's a structure that's very similar across many different cultures, right? So, if you look at Greek, if you look at Roman, uh Norse, Mongolian.
Okay, I can I can go on and on and on. Um there's a very similar structure even though the characters might be different, okay? But but but it's a mythology that celebrates violence and individualism as a way to remake the world, okay? It's about strength, individualism, violence. So, why is that the case?
And it is it's about culture, cultural values. So, as as I discussed in this class, culture cultural values are the most persistent part of who you are. Why? Because it's part of your subconscious, okay? There's a conscious you and there's a subconscious.
And ultimately you are your subconscious. And subconscious is composed of your cultural values. Okay? This is the essence of who you are. So, even though the Proto-Indo-Europeans, they were going into different environments and they were assimilate themselves into different environments and they look physically different, culturally, subconsciously, they shared a similar value system.
And this value system will then go on to inform the way they perceive the world, their worldview. And this worldview will then manifest itself
68:28through mythology, which will eventually become literature. Okay? Okay? Does that make sense? So, they might have changed clothes, they might have changed their hair color, but their soul was still Proto-Indo-European.
Okay? And that same the same is also true for language. And that's why um and that's why so many words repeat themselves in different languages, okay? All right? Does that make sense?
Okay. Great. Any more questions? Okay. All right.
Okay. Great. So, next class we will go back to Europe. We will do the Crusades, which will then take us to the Renaissance and the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution, okay?