Who was Genghis Khan? (Full Episode) | Secret History of the Mongols | National Geographic

The Mongolian Empire swept across continents,

unmatched in power, changing the course of history forever.

It was a dynasty

that conquered much of

At its heart was a man once known as

but now honored with his true historical Chinggis Khan.

His name was translated

in many different ways

in many different but Mongolians

call him Chinggis Khan.

He was a warrior,

a strategist, a visionary.

He united the rival houses

on the vast Mongolian

steppe into one great

and powerful The world

changed with his actions.

They could not go back to the way it was before Chinggis Khan.

He crushed every empire

that dared stand in his path.

He conquered more territory

than any other single ruler in history.

Historians once painted him as a savage

barbarian, but a new translation

of an ancient text

unveils the real story

of Chinggis Khan's life and legacy.

We know Chinggis Khan was of a royal

>> a general who is worshipped,

something close between Napoleon and Jesus.

But it was under the rule of his son,

Ogedei Khan, that the empire

expanded sweeping from the shores

of the Pacific to the deserts of Persia.

This is the story of the powerful

rulers who built the Mongolian Empire.

The vast and desolate Mongolian

plains are home to nomadic

rulers whose people thrive

in these barren moving over distant pastures

to sustain their families and herds.

These people are skilled

horse riders, expert archers,

and masters of this unique landscape

known as the steppes.

So, the steppe lands

is an enormous belt

of grassland that runs

all the way from the Manchurian

forests right across the Eurasian continent

as far as the Hungarian

plains in the The steppe lands of what is now Mongolia

were divided between different

In the central part, there was the kingdom of the Keraits.

To the west, there's another

well-established dynasty, the Naimans.

And these two kingdoms,

they'd been around for

And then, in the south

and the east was the Jin dynasty,

part of northern China and Manchuria.

And in this eastern

Mongolian area, there were a lot of different warlords

and smaller petty dynasties

and smaller petty rulers.

So, this was a kind of borderland between great powers.

And for thousands of years, the steppe

empires have emerged in this

The lifestyle of these

aristocrats of the time

would have been different

from their equivalents in Europe or China, but recognizably elite.

They would have lived in these large

mobile structures, almost like small palaces.

And that's where the noble class lived.

All around them, their subjects

would be in smaller,

much more humble dwellings herding livestock.

In nomadic society, life was difficult.

And as you're traveling across the steppe,

you will have to spread out.

Nomads do not just simply wander

They know where they're going.

They have seasonal migrations to pastures.

In the summer, they might go into the highlands

where it's going to be cooler.

Or they'll go to different pastures

depending on the environment

and the They hunted a lot.

That was a leisure activity.

But also, it could be used to actually produce

large amount of meat.

And the subjects would be delivering

all sorts of produce to the nobles,

including a lot of milk products.

Animals are not only

your livelihood, they're also your wealth.

And although it looked exotic

and different to visitors,

it was actually a very sophisticated system of movement.

Which allowed the rulers of the steppes

quite a lot of options.

Nomadic families followed one leader at one time.

The tribes don't have to be one ethnic groups.

It can be several families, several ethnic groups.

But, they would follow one leader.

Generations earlier, the great Mongolian

ruler, Kabul Khan, briefly united

the most powerful nomadic

factions under his leadership.

Kabul Khan ruled the earlier Mongolian

kingdom called Hamag Mongol.

That means all of the Mongols.

A whole bunch of disparate

noble families united just as a single

Which was almost certainly

in the area of what is now eastern Mongolia.

Years later, his grandson,

Yesugei, leads one of the noble families

thriving on the eastern edge

of the Mongolian Yesugei Baghatur,

who was a good

led about maybe a hundred

something He's described himself as a khan.

That means as a king.

Although Yesugei commands the loyalty

of many of his grandfather's

subjects, he knows that to continue

his legacy and secure his dynasty,

he requires an heir.

Yesugei's wife, Hoelun, gives birth to their first child

and heir to the kingdom.

The boy will be called

Temüjin, a name taken

from a rival leader

captured in a recent battle.

He was stealing the enemy's name

for his to commemorate this event.

This is not unique to Mongolian.

Stealing somebody's name for yourself

is a widespread sort of practice.

That name was indicative

of his He was celebrating

his achievement through that.

The name means pursuer,

somebody who has wishing and goal.

And when he was born

he was holding a blood clot

in his right The clot of blood

in his hand when he was born

was an indication of brutality,

you know, Sometimes it would symbolize

he was such strong person and he was

God-given and he had different power.

In years to come this child,

will be known as Genghis Khan.

His extraordinary life is documented

in a mysterious text

written in the decades after his death.

Genghis Khan is described

from the beginning till his

end of his life in this book.

The Secret History of the

The Secret History of the Mongols

is the only document

in Mongolian that tells the rise of Genghis Khan

to supreme authority in Mongolia.

The Secret History was lost for a long time.

It was lost in Mongolian

but preserved in Chinese.

Chinese scholars, Mongolian scholars, and then English scholars have

worked extremely hard reconstructing

the original Middle This translation

makes it literate in a way that it had not been before.

It makes readable what is actually extremely difficult.

A collection of stories

that were common in Mongolia

at the time in the mid-13th

It tells incidents that are crucial

to understanding Genghis' background and his psychology.

One story is about

Genghis Khan himself, and his family.

And the other is

how Genghis Khan built

Mongolia as a It's a very

poetic book to read.

Secret history is now considered

not only literature, but also

Mongolia's first ever historic

documentation of the founding of the country.

Historians once painted Genghis Khan as a savage

barbarian, ruthless in his quest to conquer the

But in The Secret History of the Mongols,

he is revealed to be an exiled

prince, a sophisticated leader,

and a military tactician,

unveiling how a nomadic

boy, born on the Mongolian

becomes one of the greatest rulers

the world has ever known.

Temüjin is 9 years old,

and his father sets out with him to find a bride.

A wife from a powerful

noble house will strengthen their dynasty.

Temujin's mother was from a prestigious

who had long provided

wives for Mongol They ride towards her homeland

in search of the perfect match.

Before they reach their destination,

they are stopped by a senior

noble who tells them of a premonition

he had the night before.

The man says, "I saw a magic dream last night.

The white falcon came on to me

holding sun in the one hand and the moon in the other hand.

And it was sitting on me.

Your son has fire in his eyes.

I have a girl

and she had also

fire in her eyes.

Maybe it might work."

They accept the leader's offer

and go to meet his daughter.

This girl will one day stand by Temujin's

side as his powerful

Her name is Börte.

That moment changes Temujin's life totally.

His father ends up making this betrothal as a sort of alliance in waiting.

Marriage was always a political

objective and very useful

as a way of binding loyalties

in this world which was a feuding world.

Börte was 1 year older than Temujin.

And the two were betrothed.

They know that later when

their children grow up, this will form a powerful

marriage alliance between their two

Then Yesugei decided to leave Temujin

at Borte's place and went back by himself.

Yesugei, he was traveling

back to his own camp.

He stopped at a Tatar camp.

The Tatars were enemies

of the Mongols and they recognized him.

>> On the steppe, for those of the aristocratic

class, they were always engaged

with hosting each other.

There was a good deal of civility

as well as occasional hostility.

There are these customs

that exist to help normalize

society even in times

of hostile relations to allow

societies to function on the

And as you're traveling across the

if you came to a camp,

hospitality was If you violated

the hospitality, then this could lead to other issues.

Yesugei Baghatur didn't realize

the depths of the animosity

that these particular Tatar nobleman

must have held for him.

The relationship was a combination

of feuding and friendship.

They seemed friendly and he is poisoned by the Tatars.

He began to feel ill.

Getting sicker and sicker on the way back home.

By the time he reached his own camp,

he was extremely sick.

He told one of his followers,

"Bring my son Temujin

back because Tatars just

poisoned me and I'm

Temujin races across the step

towards his home, but he is too late.

His father, Yesugei, has succumbed

to the Tatars' lethal poison.

His followers, left without the protection

of a strong leader,

abandoned their kingdom in search

of a new ruler.

As soon as Temujin's

father died, the entire

structure of the tribe had to change.

Somebody should lead immediately

after him or his tribe was about to dissolve.

Temujin was too young.

Those days, women didn't lead.

So, Oulen couldn't lead the tribe.

So, there was nobody who would inherit

the leadership of the tribe.

When the followers left,

Oulen probably saw the hard reality

that suddenly there is no sheep, no horses.

Only they were left.

The young Temujin, born a noble prince,

is now reduced to

His family must fight for survival

on the harsh Mongolian

steppe, but rival leaders keep watch.

Temujin's very existence is a threat to their power.

On the death of his father,

Temujin's kingdom seems to dissolve.

They lost probably thousands

of their subjects with all of their

livestock, hundreds of thousands of animals.

But almost certainly they would have had some things.

They certainly had horses

with just a dozen servants

or something very minimal.

But it would have been

terribly poor and harsh

in comparison to what the family would have been used to.

Especially during winter time it should be very isolated.

Quite deprived, quite lonely.

It's 9 months of cold season, you know.

And there should be a lots of endurance

needed to survive in that land.

They survived therefore on their own.

It's a few tents, a very small

group of who were really

under the authority of Temujin. His mother.

It's absolutely characteristic of Temujin's mother.

She was clearly enormously powerful, strong-willed.

Temujin's mother did gather

berries and fruits and go fishing and go hunting.

His mother proved extremely

strong, managed to hold the family

The whole family wouldn't have survived without her.

The family struggles for several years

in the unforgiving landscape.

As Temujin and his brothers grow older

and mature, they learn to hunt

and catch fish to support their mother.

Bringing a child in the step

environment means he learns

all these survival instincts.

And they were trained

from their childhood archery

and being good warriors on horseback.

So, when boys started

growing up, they started

hunting and they started bringing food to the family.

So, who brings fish,

who brings birds, That's how they probably

were After years of abandonment

and tensions grow between Temüjin

and his older half-brother, Bekhter.

Temüjin and his brother Khasar

quarrel with the half-brothers,

the sons of secondary

wife of their dead

The two sets of boys quarrel

over apparently a fish.

Bekhter and Temüjin were probably

fighting for Young Temüjin

and his brother went to his mother and complained.

But, she ignored it.

The reaction of Temüjin is really

They get their bows.

Khasar, one of Temüjin's brothers,

comes up from the front and approaches

who's on the top of the hill.

Temüjin, meanwhile, is sneaking up from

And when he sees them coming,

he realizes what they're going to do.

And Bekhter told them,

"If you want to kill, just kill me.

Don't kill my brother Belgutei.

Leave descendants from my family.

And that's precisely what happened.

He was shot in the most cowardly way.

Surrounding this poor half-brother and shooting him in the back as well as the And died.

elder brother was domineering.

He was very powerful.

therefore he was a challenge to his authority.

So he had to be killed.

The fact that Temüjin shot from the back

shows that he was quite manipulative.

That was a tragic

and dark family That was the secret of the Secret History, I think.

The shadowy side of Temüjin

is woven into the fabric

of the Secret History.

And that's one of the fascinating

features of the work.

It's included lots of incidents

that got edited out

of some of the other historical materials.

All sorts of really rather shameful events.

Particularly in the early part of his career.

This is written to

tell the lessons of the past

mistakes and past achievements

to the next generations.

Containing the life lesson, containing

the family lesson >> to the next generation

in order not to be repeated

or not to forget.

To show that this is precisely

how you do not behave

if you're trying to create loyalty.

You don't kill your own brother.

When Temüjin's mother, Hoelun,

learns of Bekter's death. She is distraught.

She confronts Temujin, questioning

how he could turn against his own brother.

Oulen said, "Always be united

and always be peaceful among each other because

there is no one

but us in this world.

>> We don't have any friends

except our When you don't have any friend except our shadows,

you should be friends with each other."

Temujin's hunger for power

has ended his brother's life.

News of the murder reaches a rival

who was once part of his father's

He believes Temujin's growing ambition must be stopped.

The nobleman realizes these kids

are now growing up.

So, when he hears news of the killing,

he decides to act.

The nobleman arrives with his day

Now, the day guards were sort of like the personal

bodyguard or police force, if you like, of the time.

The nobleman's guards shout they just want Temujin,

and Temujin flees away.

Temujin hid for 9 days.

Time passes, he's got nothing to eat.

He eventually decides, "Better than starving,

I just go out."

And that's when they finally

arrest him and take him away to punish him.

Temujin is held captive,

watched over by his rivals,

the They don't kill him.

He still have royal rank.

Even a senior nobleman doesn't just kill

somebody outright when they're descended

from one of the most

famous khans of the region.

Instead, he's punished by being forced to wear a cang,

a wooden yoke or collar, to really unpleasant.

You can't feed You can't lie down properly when you're wearing this thing.

The Taichud, that is the ruling house who have captured him, took the opportunity to humiliate him.

So, when he was arrested,

Taichud was hoping that from this humiliation

he will not come out as leader in future.

Everybody saw his humiliation.

That's what they're calculating

on, you So, Tarugudai was

sealing his own by belittling Chingis that way.

And so, Temujin was then rotated

between the houses of the subjects

of the nobleman, spending a day in each one, wearing his cang.

Every family when he's spending a night,

he would observe the family and see who's supporting him.

Young Temujin would have known very well that the key to survival was security.

The only way to build security

was to create loyalty

and win over the local family clans

and get them to work together.

He found only one

supportive family among the all those families that he's been around.

It is a man called

Sorkhan Shira and his family who take pity on Temüjin.

They were sympathetic when he visited.

They let him take the cangue off so he could get a good night's rest.

After a few months,

the Taichud have a big feast.

The Secret History recounts

that the Taichud host a banquet

in celebration of the first full moon of the summer.

Temüjin is taken to the feast

by a young and ever alert,

he senses an When the Taichud

were feasting, Temüjin manages to break away from his

knocking him on the head with the

and then he runs off and escapes.

He takes refuge in the Onon River,

evading his captors who scour the banks.

Nighttime in Mongolia's freezing, freezing cold.

That actually shows how desperate

he and how tough he was.

Among the searchers is Sorkhan Shira,

who spots Temüjin hiding in the river.

So Sorkhan Shira sees him

and lets him stay hidden,

and makes some excuse

so that Temüjin is not discovered by anyone but him.

And then Sorkhan Shira

told him, "Go to your mother.

Go to your Don't come back to Taichud."

Instead of fleeing, Temüjin

slips back into the Taichud

camp in search of Sorkhan Shira.

He knows that to return

home safely, he will need help.

Sorkhan Shira is not very pleased

because he said, "Didn't I tell you to just run?"

Nevertheless, he takes him in and helps him.

Takes off the gang.

And they hide him for several days.

After 3 days, Temujin's

captors are still hunting for him.

Growing desperate, they begin to suspect

that he might be hiding among their own ranks.

He was almost found

when the Tajuts started looking for him amongst each other.

Sorkhan Shira said, "No,

since to look And they left.

As soon as the Tajuts

search group left, Sorkhan Shira

told the Temujin that

we can't hide you anymore.

And they give him provisions

and a horse so he can return to his family.

This daring escape by the young Temujin

displays the cunning and courageous

spirit that will one day help him

realize his destiny as a powerful

leader on the Mongolian steppe.

Temujin has escaped his captors

and begins the treacherous

journey back to his family.

Riding for days and nights,

he is eventually reunited

with his mother and his brothers.

After Temujin came back to his

the Secret History describes

it how big a relief

for Oulen, the mother,

because they were so afraid that Temujin will not return,

but they happily Years pass

and Temüjin works tirelessly

to rebuild the kingdom

that was lost after his father's death.

Although young, he is persuasive >> and charismatic.

He forms a loyal bond

with a boy from another noble family.

The boy's name is Jamukha.

So, Jamukha is one of the most important

characters in the Secret History

and he was clearly

of central importance to Temüjin's

life and the early part of his

They were generally as close as kids are at that age.

Now 16, Temüjin must consider his future

and the prospect of marriage.

The time has come for him to be reunited with Börte.

That is the bride he was betrothed

to from another influential

noble house nearby and this is a key moment in Temüjin's career.

Temüjin blindly goes to the east of

to find out whether she's

still waiting for him or she's already

And Börte was there waiting for Temüjin. They are married.

The union provides Temüjin

with Börte's wisdom and counsel,

but it is her dowry

that is immediately vital for Temüjin's ambition.

And her mother gives

to Temüjin's mother a really fine gift, a beautiful sable coat.

Now, sables are not big creatures

like sort of weasels

and they have a very beautiful silky black coat.

Sable coat is a very

valuable item for a nomadic

family even Sable fur

was associated with very senior status.

This is going to come in very useful.

When Temujin returns with his new bride

and this very princely

gift, he and his brothers immediately

go to the neighboring

kingdom, the Khanate of the Keraite,

and give this to the ruler,

Toghrul, to sort of reforge

an that had been endured

between Temujin's father and the king of the Keraite.

He probably swears loyalty to him.

Now, the Keraite Khanate is a big,

stable, and large kingdom

in the central part of what's now Mongolia.

He must have been one of the most influential,

powerful rulers in the

Toghrul Khan is someone who was an ally Temujin's father.

Yesugei Baghatur and he were both anda.

It's a sort of bond of loyalty

that should never be broken. A blood brotherhood.

This link is something that Temujin

Toghrul had some political influence.

He was leading the largest

tribe with the most

expansive pasture of that time.

So, Temujin saw that Toghrul Khan's resources

will be very helpful for him.

The ruler of the Keraite

makes this extraordinary promise.

He says, "In return

for this sable coat,

I will reunite your scattered kingdom.

Temüjin, the kind of semi-exiled,

reduced prince, is now being supported

by the most powerful

local ruler as the new

ruler of a large

section of the Mongolian steppe.

So, his fortunes were transformed

by the gift of the sable cloak.

So, it's clear there must have been something about Temüjin.

The Secret History mentions

how his contemporaries praised

him, thought he had personality,

fire in his But, the old narrative,

it was treated as a sort of puzzle

as to why a kind of simple

barbarian people would create

an amazingly successful empire.

So, one way to try and explain

this apparent contradiction was charisma.

They obviously did have a commanding presence.

The king himself, Toghrul,

seems to trust him enormously, supports him.

So, all of these qualities,

I think, were parts of his amazing

character, but he's still only one

of many contenders for these senior

royal I think at this stage in his career,

Temüjin really is concerned

with reestablishing what he's lost.

After all, his father had

ruled most of the

kingdom that had been established

by Temüjin's great-grandfather, and Temüjin has been deprived

of it and wants to get it back.

But, perhaps even beyond that,

he's on the cusp of something bigger.

He enters the courtly politics

of the Kerait Khanate,

this kingdom, and is doing very well at it.

It It be that the

possibilities of something even bigger

begins to occur to him, that he realizes

he might go further

and in fact perhaps even reunite

and reestablish this much bigger

Temüjin's influence is growing stronger.

But as his power increases,

so do the dangers.

The Mongolian Steppe is a land of endless rivalry.

And an old enemy

is preparing to strike

at the heart of Temüjin's family.

Temüjin's happiness with Börte didn't last long.

A serving woman is sleeping.

She wakes up because she hears the sound of

It was Merkit, the long-time

rival of Temüjin's father.

They came to kidnap his wife, Börte.

It was so many Merkits

and if they fought back everybody would be killed.

There was a general scattering

of the Oulen, Temüjin's

mother, immediately organizes them.

They jump on the available horses.

Amongst them, Temüjin himself,

who took a local horse and fled.

But there is no horse for Börte.

Poor Börte is left.

And you might think this was an act of cowardice,

but in fact he knew that Börte

was going to be kidnapped,

whereas he himself would have been killed.

Börte the bride is captured,

but Temüjin and his mother and brothers and so on, they've all escaped.

This is a really dramatic moment in the young Temüjin's career.

He seemed to be on the cusp of so much,

but now he's lost his bride.

The problem is, at the moment, he doesn't command

very much of anything.

So, if he's going to get his bride

Börte back again, he is going to need help.

Börte has been kidnapped

by the Merkit, and Temüjin

needs to get her

Merkit was a really strong and established tribe.

Temüjin didn't have soldiers,

didn't have army, didn't have anyone

to help him bring Börte back.

So, Temüjin immediately enlists

the support of the ruler of the neighboring kingdom,

probably now his overlord,

Toghrul Ong Khan, the ruler of the Kerait.

Toghrul Khan says, "For the

sable coat that you gave me last

year, I will bring your wife back."

So, Toghrul Khan says

that he will raise two divisions.

Just how many thousand

people is in each one, we don't know,

but nominally, it means 10,000 troops.

So, he's going to raise two

10,000 troop units to support

Temüjin to get his bride back.

But, it will not be

strong enough to beat the Merkit immediately.

He said, "You should go to Jamukha and ask for Jamukha's help.

If Jamukha can help you,

I can help Jamukha and Temujin

became blood That means that they are not just family friends, they are battle friends.

And this is very important

for the young Temujin.

Jamukha is going to raise another two of these divisions.

Turns out one of these will actually be placed

under the command of Temujin

Temujin is put in charge

of a unit of 10,000 troops.

This is an important

milestone for the young,

soon-to-be ruler, He has endured

poverty for a decade

and is slowly becoming

a fearsome leader and warrior.

This is his first true test of leadership.

Some months later, the time came to rescue Börte.

When meeting up with Jamukha, Temujin came late.

Jamukha told him off a bit of a strip for being late.

And the reason he did this is because

if you have an army waiting

to go into action,

they need feeding and they would have eaten a lot of the pasture.

Temujin puts this in the Secret History

as a lesson for everybody

not to be late.

Said Mongols should not be late.

This new army start marching

up north towards the Merkit territory

to retrieve Because this is a really big force,

there's really nothing that the Merkit can put together that's going to stop

And they move up.

Temujin, Jamukha, and Toghrul Khan's soldiers attacked Merkit.

>> Overtaking and eliminating the Merkit

They conquered the Merkits.

They destroyed the Merkits.

There are lots of suffering happening

for the Merkit families.

Temujin's forces sweep through the enemy

laying waste to everyone in their path.

The Merkits, caught off guard, attempt to flee,

but many are cut down in the chaos.

Temujin runs through the ruined camp,

calling out for his kidnapped bride.

Temujin is running around calling her

and eventually he discovers

Borte living in somebody else's home.

It seems that Borte has been assigned

to a minor nobleman to look after.

The couple find each other and fall

into each other's arms,

and becomes once again part of Temujin's

>> Temujin has emerged victorious,

rescued his bride, and shown his rivals

that despite his he is a force

to be reckoned with.

even though Temujin has reclaimed

what was lost after his father's death,

a new ambition will now consume him.

The battle to dominate

all of the Mongolian Steppe. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.