Genghis Khan (Part 1)

In 1162, in modern day Mongolia, a young man named Chilidu went to look for a wife. He found her among the Olcanud, a tribe known for the beauty of their women. The young woman he found was a beautiful girl named Hulun. They did not know each other long, but in that short time they felt deeply in love, in the way that only teenagers can, likely neither of them were older than 16. After the wedding, Chilidu put Hulun in an ox cart and commenced the journey home to the lands of his own people. As they neared the end of their journey, Chilidu drove their cart near a mountain. A mountain is fate would have it, where three brothers were hunting. The men spotted the cart and saw an opportunity. They were from the Borgian clan, one of the poorest clans on the Mongols' step. But the cart looked nice, probably carried goods of value, and even more importantly, even from a distance they could see that the girl looked pretty. The brothers rode off the mountain and down toward the young couple. Chilidu's heart raced as he saw the dust in the horses' hooves get closer and heard the men's cries. He prepared to face them but his wife Hulun objected. Did you see the look on the faces of those men? They wish to kill you. As long as you remain alive, there will be girls on the front seats of carts. If you live, you will perhaps find a girl or a woman for yourself. If she has another name, you can call her Hulun. Save yourself. Chilidu fled, and as he did so, looked back at Hulun over and over again until he disappeared over the horizon. As the men neared to take her, Hulun let out a scream so violent that according to legend it stirred up the river and shook the woods in valley. The two lovers would never see each other again. The middle of the three brothers was named Yasuge and he claimed her as his own, his rightful property by the law of conquest. Capturing women was not the most common way to find a wife, but it wasn't uncommon either. He took her back to his camp where she became his second wife. The first was there in camp and she was already pregnant. Now put yourself in her shoes, imagine that you are Hulun. You started this journey with a husband who you loved, with the expectation of living a good life with a reputable tribe who had ample herds and plenty of wealth. Now she found herself in the impoverished camp of a Rogish hunter and warrior, a man who she had never met before. It was not long before she was pregnant. This new husband, Yasuge, was a way at war when the child was born. Other women must have been present to help at certain times during the labor, but given her recent arrival and her status as an outsider in the camp, I imagine she must have done much of the laboring alone. When the child struggled into the world, she first noticed that he was a boy, a large, healthy boy with reddish hair and gray eyes. Then she noticed his right hand clenched in a fist. She peeled back his fingers to reveal a large blood clot the size of a knucklebone. Her husband returned some days later, while he had been away fighting a neighboring tribe, he had killed a man named Temujin, so he named the boy Temujin after his fallen foe. As Hulun held the boy, she must have contemplated his future. She didn't know exactly how his life would go, but she knew that he would live through suffering, poverty, hunger and violence. And she must have been disturbed by the blood clot that he had brought with him into the world. Mongols were prone to see signs in nature, and this was a powerful one. But what did it mean? Was it a prophecy, a curse? Did it pretend good or bad fortune? What did it say about the child in her arms? Hulun contemplated these things in her heart as she held her baby boy and stared out at the vast rolling hills in the endless sky. In this rundown camp, she could not have imagined the life that fate held in store for this baby boy, this boy that the world would eventually come to know as Ganga's Khan. I'm going to show you how good I am. I just want to say that when the battle with me hud, I'd like to take this chance to apologize. To absolutely nobody. Hello and welcome to How To Take Over the World. This is Ben Wilson, part one in my series on Ganga's Khan. And why study Ganga's Khan? Obviously he is one of the most famous people to have ever lived and he accomplished a lot. But you might ask myself, what can you learn from a man who had scores or wise killed millions of people and put dozens of cities to the sword? Life lessons from Ganga's Khan seems a little bit ridiculous when you think about it. If he wrote a book about Ganga's Khan life coach ten steps to a better you, you'd think it would be a book that you could not relate to in 2023. Would he include a chapter on the best way to lop off a head or maybe in the relationship section, he would have a couple of pages about how to treat a new wife who you have just kidnapped? And the advice might vary depending on whether you had just killed her husband or not. But despite these obvious cultural differences and differences in circumstances, I think he's worth studying for a couple of reasons. The first is that I was shocked at how many similarities there are between the leadership style, the strategies and tactics of Ganga's Khan and other great leaders, even more modern ones like Disney or Steve Jobs. I do think there's a lot of crossover and for that reason there is a lot to be learned from him. The other thing I would say is that the story of Ganga's Khan can stretch your idea of what is possible, which isn't to say that you're going to be anything like Ganga's Khan, the way of the step warrior is closed. It's not an option anymore. But if he could go from being a nobody and outsider born into one of the poorest areas on the Mongol step to building the largest, continuous land empire in human history at Zina, it was larger than the entire continent of Africa. If he can do that, if he can go from from those lowly beginnings to that glorious conquest, then maybe you can accomplish a little more than what you had thought. Obviously, not something like that. But again, I just find that studying ambitious people raises my level of ambition, even if they are ambitious in radically different ways, which Ganga's Khan obviously was, from the ways in which I'm trying to be ambitious. The other reason to study his life is it's just a great story. It's a wonderful epic. It's fun to listen to. I loved reading about it and I think you'll like listening to it. In terms of sources, I read Ganga's Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, which is the single best biography. If you're looking for a Ganga's Khan biography, I recommend it. It's really good putting him in his context. It's very readable and I loved reading it. I also reference a copy of the secret history of the Mongols. That's a really interesting text. That is sort of the only near contemporary text to the time of Ganga's Khan. I'll reference it a few times. I also read a book called Empires of the Steps by Kenneth Harle. I'll link that up in the show notes as well. If you want to buy any of those three books, use the link in the show notes and you'll be supporting the show. The last two things I'll mention is one, Ganga's Khan more than anyone I have studied. Nothing is known about his life. I usually try to tell you the uncontroversial facts about someone's life. Tell you the stuff that everyone agrees on. Even if there are controversies, I'll point out the controversy. I usually just don't take a side because I'm not a historian. I usually don't get into it deep enough to have an opinion on who's right when historians disagree. For this one, historians disagree on everything. Like literally, he was born in this year or maybe this year or maybe this year. And then, his father takes him to this place. But maybe it wasn't that place. It might have actually been this river and this mountain over here. It's every single element of his life, especially early in his life before you start to get Chinese sources that corroborate stuff. Early in his life, everything is disputed. And so I'm not going to tell you all of the disputes. It would just be a long and not worthwhile podcast. So what I am going to tell you is essentially a version of the events. And there are slight changes here and there of like, oh, maybe he was actually here longer. Maybe it was actually this mountain. Maybe he actually did it for this reason. And I'm just not going to go through every single one of those. The last thing I'll mention is the pronunciation of his name. First of all, throughout his early life, he was known as Temujin. That was his given name. Genghis Khan was a title that he was given later. It was probably originally pronounced Chinghis Khan. I prefer in all my podcasts to use standard American pronunciation where possible. It's the same reason I don't refer to Caesar as Kaiser as the Romans would have. I usually just stick with standard American pronunciation. It makes it simpler and I think it's easier to listen to and understand. So I just know there are people who are going to be mad that I call him Genghis Khan instead of Chinghis Khan. That's why I made that decision. Okay, with all that out of the way, let's get into it. Temujin was born in 1162 AD in what is current day Mongolia to a very poor family. The great step is one of the world's most significant land features stretches from Western Ukraine and Russia, Eastern Europe. It covers Central Asia and Indochina almost to the Pacific Ocean. The step is basically one big connected rolling grassland. And on the step, herding is how one acquires wealth. Mongols kept horses, sheep, goats, cows and camels. And these animals provided milk and meat for eating, most importantly, but also hides and furs for use in clothing furniture and tents and bones for use as tools, weapons and decorations. So their lives were very dependent on these herde animals. Of course, having everything you owned tied up in easily movable livestock meant that rating and violence were incredibly common. Fighting and killing was not an optional part for the life of young Mongol men. They prepared for it early and they participated in it from the time they were young. Honestly, when you read about it, the step is kind of like Mad Max if you've ever seen that, but with horses instead of cars. Everyone is mobile going around. fighting for the very existence. Mongols didn't like to fight up close, they preferred to use the bow and arrow, and were expert bowmen, especially from horseback, so they could fire very accurately, even when at a full gallop on the back of a horse. Temmaging's father had to fight more than most, and that was because he didn't have vast herds. The Borgian clan, as already mentioned, were very poor, and that's because they didn't live in vast grasslands on which they could feed large herds. They were hunters who lived in the forested areas around Mount Borgon Caldune, a sacred mountain that was the spiritual heart of Mongolia. Hunting provided a pretty meager existence, and any time game was scarce, Temmaging's father, Yasuge, and others like him, would need to raid the herds of wealthier clans in order to feed themselves. The other thing that made the area poor is that it was so far from settled civilization, on the periphery of the step, where it kind of bordered up against India, China, and then in the west, next to Russia, the step herders would trade with large cities. Herders would trade their goods, especially their skins and their furs, for goods like silks, metals, other refined urban goods. And when you get further away from these cities, in the interior, where the Borgians were, it was rare for such goods to make their way there. So growing up, in this setting, in traditional Mongol fashion, Temmaging would have learned to ride a horse before he learned to walk, and would have learned to use a bow as soon as he was strong enough to draw it. He participated in some herding of what flocks they had, and very early on he would have learned to hunt. Now, in the Mongol fashion, sometimes individuals hunted by tracking down prey or using traps and stares, the way most people think of hunting nowadays, but mostly it was a group hunt. A group of men would mount up and ride in circles around an area with known game in it, and they would slowly tighten that circle closer and closer, and they would drive all the animals within this circle to a central sparing point. And I mentioned this because Temmaging would take many of his later tactics and strategies from these group hunting techniques. He was literally hunting humans. As a young man, Temmaging was very sensitive. He cried easily. He was scared of dogs, and his younger brother was the better archer and wrestler. So to summarize this childhood, if you had looked at this kid at like five or six years old, not much would have told you that he was going to be a future conqueror of the world. He was in a difficult situation, in a poor family, at the end of the world, and things were about to get worse. When he's still only eight years old, Temmaging's father takes him to find a wife. Eight is obviously young to get married even then, and this might have been because Yassouge could see that there was tension brewing between Temmaging and his older half brother, who was born only a few months before Temmaging to Yassouge's first wife. So I'm sorry, let me give you a little bit of the family history here. Yeah, Yassouge, the father. He's got two wives. He got Holoon, who's the one he stole, and that's Temmaging's mother. And he has his other wife who he had first. And so his first wife had a son right before Temmaging. So there are only a few months apart, but in Mongol tradition, being the first born was very important. And that gave you lots of rights that you didn't have as second born. And so he could see that Temmaging didn't necessarily love being the second born. He's the first born of a different mother. There's plenty of opportunity for conflict between these two. So he thinks, all right, I'll go get this kid married off early, take him to a different tribe, and they can raise him there. And that's because when men were engaged, they typically worked for the bride's family for a few months or even years to work off the bride price. And since he was coming from a very poor background, the bride price was probably going to be high. And so he was going to have to work for years before he was going to actually be able to marry a woman of any standing. And so the idea was to take Temmaging back to his mother's tribe and find a wife there. But along the way, they stay with a family whose daughter, her name was Borta, is about the same age as Temmaging. And the two apparently hit it off, Borta and Temmaging fall in love in a puppy love sort of way. And her family is charmed by Temmaging. So it's decided that they will be married. And that's one thing you see throughout Temmaging's life. He had this, I called the Golden Boy phenomenon. He was incredibly charismatic. And so people will just give him stuff for no reason and just do what he wants. People are just constantly charmed by him. I called the Golden Boy. I don't know if you have anyone like this in your life. My brother is kind of like this. He just smiles and winks and people just do what he wants. It's the wildest thing. And Temmaging had this to the nth degree. People are always just giving him stuff. So Yasuge leaves Temmaging with his new in-laws and heads home. And one thing as you point out is they are always staying with people. That was how it worked on the step. There were virtually no permanent buildings, no inns or taverns. Everyone just lived in what was essentially tense. And so you expected to stay with others on your journeys. And hospitality customs were very important to these people. You were expected to treat guests well and if someone came to you and asked, "Can I stay with you for the night?" You were expected to say yes and give them a place. And Yasuge comes upon a party, a feast. And he realizes that it's the tribe of the original Temmaging, the guy that he had killed and then named his son after. But he decides, "What are the chances that they're really going to recognize me?" So they're having a feast and he joins the feast and he tries to keep a low profile and disguise himself and hopefully not be recognized as the guy who killed Temmaging eight years previously. But they do recognize him and they poison him. And by the time he makes it back home, he's on death's door. Hold on, sends for Temmaging. And so he leaves this family that he just started to stay with. But by the time he makes it back home, Yasuge is already dead. And this is really disastrous for the family. He left behind two wives and seven children under the age of ten. And this is not a society and a setting where single motherhood was going to be easy. To give you an idea of how important a man was to a Mongol family, when a Mongol tribe was raided, the men would grab the fastest horses and head for the hills leaving the women and children behind. And everyone was okay with this because they knew, okay, we can't survive without the skills, the labor, the protection of the men in our tribe. Their ability to hunt, their ability to herd, their ability to fight and protect is so important that in the short term, we would rather make our women and children a little more vulnerable than lose any of the men. According to the secret history of the Mongols, the family that Yasuge leaves behind makes permanent camp along the river and Temmaging's mother, Hulun, makes heroic efforts to provide for this family. And this is a very desperate struggle. She was far from her homeland with no familial ties to fall back on and too many mouths to feed to make her an attractive prospect to a new husband. There's virtually no chance that she's going to be able to get remarried. And I just mentioned how crucial men were to a Mongol family and it's not like women's roles were expendable either. Being a woman in a Mongol tribe was a very full-time job, even when you didn't have to take over the responsibilities of your dead husband. So she's having to pick up the slack, trying to do a lot of hunting and a lot of fishing to provide actual food, something that the father would be expected to do in normal circumstances. The secret history of the Mongols describes her as running around night and day, just trying to scrape by a meager living for her kids. The secret history also tells us that the family had clothing, quote, "of the skins of dogs and mice and their food was the flesh of those animals and other dead things." Of course, Temmaging and the other children are expected to help out as much as they can. Early on, that's not much, but even as a boy, he's thrust into a role where he has to help provide for the family, especially through hunting. The one bright spot for Temmaging in this bleak situation is a friendship he strikes up with a boy named Jamuka. This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Helix makes the best mattresses on planet Earth. I sleep on a Helix mattress every night and I used to wake up with back pain and now I don't. That is a huge deal for me. It has changed my life. That is why I'm a huge fan of Helix. Others have found the same thing. Helix is the most awarded mattress brand. A study they ran found that 82% of those involved saw an increase in their deep sleep cycle while sleeping on a Helix mattress. I have the Helix Midnight Elite. It's phenomenal. Upgrading your sleep is one of the easiest ways to upgrade your life because you're sacrificing nothing, right? You're going to be spending that time sleeping anyway. You might as well do it on a great mattress that helps you sleep better. So go to helix sleep.com/takeoverpod for 20% off. That link is in the show notes if you need to help remembering it. That's helix sleep.com/takeoverpod for 20% off. Make sure you enter our show name after check out so they know we sent you. One day they played together, they planned to meet again the next day and they recognized each other, kindred spirits. They ride together, practice shooting arrows at targets and play a mongol game of dice that is played with the knuckle bones of sheep. They were technically very distant cousins through their fathers, but they became such good friends that they carried out a very rare and very serious ritual to make them something called Andas. And Andas was like a brother of your own choosing. The ritual to become Andas involved swearing loyalty to each other, exchanging gifts, sleeping in the same bed, and drinking "the food that could not be digested," or in other words, drinking each other's blood. Temujin and Jammuka were 11 when they first became Andas, and they renewed their vow the next year. Again, this is a very serious commitment and a very serious relationship. Jammuka was the only Anda that Temujin would have in his entire life. The relationship was intense, and as we shall see, it was one of the most important relationships of his life. Now in contrast to his relationship with Jammuka, he was beginning to chafe under the authority of his older half-brother, vector. just as his father had anticipated. So under Mongol tradition, Dr. would have certain privileges, especially when it came to decision-making, and also when it came to food. And so one of the things he does that really gets under-temaging skin is that technically, he has the right to get all the food, all the kills from any hunting, and divide it up amongst family. And so anytime "temaging kills" something, he takes it from him. He says, "I need this for everyone." Sorry, Comrade, this dog meat is being appropriated for the use of the good of the people. And this really starts to bother "temaging," and this is something that we see repeatedly throughout his life. He's someone that can't stand to be the junior partner. He has to be in charge. He can't stand to be second fiddle. It reminds me of something Caesar wrote about himself. He wrote, "For him, Dignitas has always been foremost and more compelling than life." Dignitas is this idea of like dignity and reputation. And the same could be said for "temaging." He chafed under the thumb of anyone else. He was willing to risk anything, including his own life, for his desire for independence and control. And so things come to a head one day when "temaging" catches a fish and "bector" takes it from him, which was his right to do as the oldest man in the clan, but still "temaging" hates it. So he storms off, steaming mad, and goes to complain to his mom. And to his surprise, she takes "bector's side." She says, "You shouldn't provoke him." He's the leader now. And the way she says it, the subtext of this little speech that she gives makes it clear that she plans to marry "bector" when he comes of age. And technically, according to Mongol law and tradition, that is what she was supposed to do, right? As a young widow, she was expected to marry the next patriarch of her little family. And that was the son from another wife. And it might seem weird to marry your polygamist stepmom, but that was the expectation. But it seemed weird to "temaging" too. And this makes things worse, right? Like, oh my gosh, you can understand why that would be upsetting. And so this is too much for "temaging" and he leaves the tent with murder on his mind. (dramatic music) He gets his younger brother, his full brother, Kassar, and they go out to find "bector." They find him sitting on a little grassy knoll, "temaging" sends Kassar to approach from the front since he was the better shot while he sneaks up from behind. When they get close enough, "temaging" and Kassar pop out of the tall grass with bows drawn pointed at "bector." He doesn't flinch or try to defend himself. He refused to dignify the situation as a legitimate fight. He was the older brother with authority over them. He says to them calmly, "I am not the last in your eye, "the impediment in your mouth. "Without me, you have no companion, but your own shadow." But "temaging" will not be deterred. He is determined to see this through. And so finally, "bector can see that he is going to die." And he calmly makes one final wish that "temaging" will spare his full younger brother, "Belgute." "Temaging" agrees to this wish and then gives a signal. And at the same time, he and his younger brother "shooped" "bector" and leave his body there on the hill and run back to camp. When they get back to camp, "Holun" can see what they have done and she is furious. She says to "temaging," quote, "destroyer, destroyer." You came from my hot womb, clutching a clot of blood in your hand, like an attacking panther, like a lion without control, like a monster swallowing its prey alive. Now you have no companion other than your shadow. And it's not surprising to me, I don't think that "Holun" would be mad. Imagine that for years, you are struggling to provide for your family, basically alone. There's one other widow to help. Your children are young and they contribute in some ways, however they can, but they can't do much. And now the oldest boy is 12. He's about to become as strong as an adult woman. You're about to have someone who can actually pull their own weight, at least physically, and then your son goes and ruins it all by killing him. But even more pressing was the fact that "temaging" was now an outlaw, and this would have dire consequences. We'll hear how after this quick break. So the various tribes of the Mongol Step frequently came into contact with one another. They're always riding around looking for new grasslands and bumping into other people who are doing the same. So it's not long until the Taiyu Chid, which is the tribe that sort of ruled the area, find out the "temaging" had killed his older brother. And this is a big no-no, a big violation of Mongol custom and Mongol law. And the Taiyu Chid are supposed to sort of keep a lid on things. There's supposed to be a control here. And so they come looking for "temaging." He tries to hide, but they quickly find him, and essentially put him in the Mongol equivalent of jail. So he's put in a crossbar with his hands locked in it. It's like a yoke sort of. And he's passed to a new family every day to watch after him while he's in this circumstance of imprisonment/slavery. So now he's that as lowest moment. His father's dead, his older brother's dead, 'cause he killed him. He's imprisoned, even if he were to break out of prison. He's an outlaw, he's poor. He's got nothing. The future must have looked very bleak for "temaging." But it's at this moment when he starts to rise. He makes a plan. Step one, escape. Luckily for him, he was passed from family to family every day, a new family would watch him. But he was always passed around the poorer families. And since he came from a rough background himself, he gets along well with these people. And of course, he's using his trademark charm, his golden boy effect, to get them on his side. And so he convinces one family to help him escape. And this is kind of insane on their part, because there's no immediate benefit and tons of risk if they're caught. But the night they have "temaging" under their watch, they allow him to escape. Now, he knows he doesn't have a horse with him, so he's not going to be able to make it far on foot when he's gonna be chased by mounted warriors. So he runs away some distance, and then retraces his steps back to this family's tent and hides under a pile of wool. So while the Taiyuchid warriors are out looking for him, he's hiding right under their noses. Once they have given up looking for him after a few days, only then does he make his actual escape. This family that he's hiding with is so charmed by him that they even agree to slaughter a goat and give him the meat for the road. So it's 1178, and he's 16 years old at this point when he gets his freedom. When he gets his freedom, the first thing he does is to go look for his old bride, Borta, that he had been engaged to more than eight years previously. Well, he finds her, and she was a little older than him, she's 17 by now, which is almost past marriage age for a Mongol woman at the time. They had been engaged very young, but she had been so in love with "temaging" that she had waited all these years. Her parents agreed to the marriage, which is by the way crazy. This one emphasized what a hypnotic influence to imagine had on these people. Borta had waited for years for a boy she met briefly when they were both pre-pubescent and her father agrees to the marriage, even though "temaging" is now an escaped slave, still on the run from the law, and can provide no connections or material wealth to his new bride. But he's got a wink in a smile, then it works and they get married. Now he's got a wife, which is good, but he's got a problem, which is how is he going to support her? He has just escaped, he's a runaway. He can go back to his mother and siblings down by the river, but it's only matter of time before the Taiyuchid come for him again. And besides, scratching out in existence, hunting rats and dogs by the river is not how you want to provide for your new wife. But that is where he's at. He has no herds, no goods, no connections, he's essentially got nothing. Well, he does have one thing, or rather, she has something. When a couple got married, it was customary for the bride to present her father-in-law with a gift. Well, Temujin doesn't have a father, not a living one, but his wife, Borta, has brought him this beautiful black sable for a coat. And this was the most prized type of fur on the step. So this is a beautiful, very expensive gift that she has brought him. And Temujin had the bright idea to take the coat and offer it to a man named Torgill. Torgill was a con, a tribal chieftain, who's often known as Ang-Con. And Temujin's father had served under him as a warrior and had actually helped him take his throne. And they had been close, they had been undost, they had been these blood brothers. And he was a powerful con in the area. And so by offering this bride gift to Ang-Con, Temujin is basically offering to be his surrogate son. And Ang-Con is charmed, as is everyone else by this guy. And so he accepts the gift and thereby basically agrees to be his surrogate father. And Temujin actually says to him, quote, "In earlier days, you and my father agreed to swear brotherhood, so you are almost as a father to me." So he's explicitly making this connection, like, here's this gift, will you be my dad? And so when Ang-Con says yes, that's big deal. And he invites him to stay at the court and serve as his vassal. He says, you know, if you're going to be my son, come be my son, come live with me. But Temujin, true to his form, doesn't want to be under anyone else's control. So he chooses at this point to go back to his mother and siblings and live this quiet life of a hunter down by the river, but now at the implied protection of Ang-Con to keep anyone from messing with him. According to the secret history, Temujin would have preferred this life, living a quiet existence with his new wife and family, with a meager but comfortable living, but he was soon to be revisited by ghosts from the past, which we will hear about after this quick break. Temujin had finally risen up to a stable, if not very prestigious position. He had a beautiful young wife and he had the protection of Ang-Con. His camp included his wife, his younger siblings, and a few older women who had become attached to the camp as servants. Then one day, in the very early hours of the morning, the secret history of the Mongols tells us, quote, and all. woman who worked in the year of Mother Holoone rose up and said, "Mother, mother, rise quickly. The earth is shaking. I can hear the sound of swift horses hooves. Mother, rise quickly." With this many riders this early in the morning, it was clear that they were being rated. Everyone who can catches hold of a horse and rides off. In the chaos, Temmigen's wife, Borta, is left behind. She's hidden in an ox cart, but the attacking soldiers find her and abduct her. With few cattle and no valuable goods, there wasn't much to steal. It was an odd camp to raid. So why were these men coming after Temmigen and his family? Well, the raiders had come from the Merkid tribe. The tribe of Chilidu, the guy who was supposed to marry Holoone. So this is the guy who was supposed to be Temmigen's father and then had his wife stolen from him. And so this tribe was exacting revenge. Memories were long, unmongingly in step. So they do. They steal Borta and they say an eye for an eye, a wife for a wife, or even now. Temmigen and his brothers escaped to Burkhan, Caldune, the sacred mountain. And three times the Merkid circled the mountain, but Temmigen hid in the mud and in the thickets and they were unable to track him down. Temmigen considered it divine intervention from the mountain itself that he was not discovered and he would pray to the mountain for the rest of his life. But though he was very grateful for his miraculous salvation, he was also distraught. His wife was gone and he wanted her back. So he rushes down off the mountain and goes to Ang Khan, the man to whom he had given the black sable jacket, his surrogate father, and tells him the situation and asks him, "Will you help me?" And this is Ang Khan's response. He says, "When you placed the coat on me, I spoke these words. In return for the black sable jacket, I will bring together the people who abandoned you. In return for the sable jacket, I will unite your scattered people. Did I not say those words? Now I will stand by them. In return for the sable jacket, I will crush the Merkids and rescue Lady Borta for you. In return for the black sable jacket, I will break all the Merkids into pieces and bring back your wife Borta. I gotta say, that black sable jacket, great investment, I'm this is getting great ROI. Now of course it's not all sentimental. I do think it was legitimately partly sentimental. I told you, "You're my son now when you gave me that jacket. I will do anything for you." But of course, the Merkids were fairly wealthy and this would provide an opportunity for Ang Khan to take plunder from them. So he agrees to do this to raid them. But before he would journey out, he had one request for Temujin. He should ride out and seek assistance from a young ally of his, a young man who was quickly coming up in the world, a young man named Jamuqa. Temujin was to be united with his blood brother once again. The young friend who he had sworn oaths with was now to be reunited with him after six years. So Ang Khan and Temujin bring half of the forces and Jamuqa bring the other half. And this is like all over a woman, but this is not an insignificant invasion force. This is thousands of horsemen to invade the Merkids. And this united force marches into Merkid territory and they are much too large to oppose. The Merkids hear about their approach in the night and they flee. We behind a bunch of stuff. And Temujin's forces attack the fleeing camp and while most men are taken plunder, Temujin rides through the camp shouting Borta's name. Not knowing who was attacking, Borta had been hiding. She's like, oh man, not again. Am I going to get abducted again? But as she's hiding, she hears Temujin's voice above the din and she recognizes him and runs out to greet him. They have an emotional embrace and he soon rides off with her. Now awkwardly, Borta, who had been someone else's wife for a matter of weeks, was soon discovered to be pregnant. And it was difficult to say whether the child was Temujin's or whether he was the offspring of the Merkid who had taken her as a wife during her rest day. The child was raised like a son by Temujin, but the ambiguity would hurt his chances of inheriting his father's throne. Nevertheless, despite this pregnancy, this is a very happy and triumphant moment for Temujin. The secret history reports that Temujin then reported to Jammuqa and An Khan, appointed by Mighty Heaven and escorted by Mother Earth. We made the Merkid empty their breasts and tore their livers in half. We emptied their beds and destroyed their kinsmen. Do we not also capture their survivors? In other words, our work here is done. After this victory, Temujin does not return to his small river camp. He has learned his lesson. He's in the great game now and he's never fully going to be safe from the predations of others as long as he is weak and living in this podunk camp by the river. So he decides to live the life of a herder and to do that, he decides to team up with Jammuqa. So he joins his blood brother and takes up life as a herder with Jammuqa's clan. They renew their vows as blood brothers saying, "Let us love one another and making two lives into one never forsake each other." And for a year and a half, it's like a honeymoon. Jammuqa and Temujin are working together. They're both extremely charismatic, very capable, and the strength of their tribe grows and Temujin learns the ropes of being serious herder and living on the open step. But over time, something changes. The secret history of the Mongols doesn't say exactly what, but reading between the lines, it seems that Temujin is a very naturally talented leader and maybe too talented because he grows in popularity to the point that Jammuqa begins to consider him a rival. And for that reason, he begins to put him down to make sure to show that he has authority over him. It's very much the same situation as it was with Temujin's older half-brother Bector. So once again, this really comes to a head one day. And what happens is Temujin and Jammuqa would always ride together at the front of the tribe when they moved from pastor to pastor. And then one day Jammuqa tells him, "I'll take the main camp to the mountain, you take the sheep and goats down to the river." And heading up the sheep and goats was less prestigious than working with the horses and cattle. And so he's really kind of saying, "We're no longer equals. I'm putting you in your place. I'm number one, you're number two." So seeing that Jammuqa is distancing himself, Temujin decides to preempt any conflict and leave the tribe in the middle of the night. He takes his followers with him, and undoubtedly some people who had originally been followers of Jammuqa decide to throw in their lot with Temujin and leave when he does. Jammuqa perhaps in honor of the friendship that the head once shared doesn't chase him and allows Temujin to leave with his followers. And it's happens when they're both about 19 years old. And where is Temujin going to go? Well, not very far away. And so over the years, a rivalry starts to form, and then that rivalry turns into open conflict and the two become very bitter enemies. It begins with your basic cattle rating and skirmishing. Someone from your tribe stole from someone from my tribe, and then there's a little revenge and then escalates. And then escalates and escalates. And these little skirmishes start to turn into outright battles. Now, Temujin realizes that he has a problem. And that is because Jammuqa is trying to be a con. He calls himself a con, which is a chieftain. Whereas at this point, Temujin is just a guy, a guy with some followers, and he's just resisting Jammuqa. So Jammuqa, because of the prestige associated with being a con, is growing in strength as people are being attracted to his camp. And so eight years after their initial split, Temujin decides, "I can't let him keep getting stronger for this reason." So I tubing to declare myself a con. Now, at this time, he is still a vassal to "ong con," that guy who is like his surrogate dad. So he sends him a note explaining that, "Look, I'm trying to unite some of these Mongol tribes under me, but I'm still under you." And "ong con" agreed to this. He says, "Great." And he was trying not to take sides. He was friendly with both Temujin and Jammuqa. So he's saying, "Yeah, okay, you can both call yourself cons of the Mongols. For all I care, I don't want to pick sides." But inevitably, this split of these two men calling themselves "con of the Mongols" has a gravitational pull. Everyone needs to side with either Jammuqa or Temujin, because they're getting so powerful, but if you're unaffiliated, you're going to get swept up. You're in real danger. So all the smaller tribes are joining either Temujin or Jammuqa. And Jammuqa tends to get the more aristocratic tribes, those, you know, with a more noble lineage, and who are wealthier, who have larger herds, whereas Temujin, because of his background, is picking up more followers from the lower classes. And so these two are locked into a stalemate for years. And then finally, in 1187, things come to a head. Temujin gathers his forces and Jammuqa gathers his, and they meet at the battle of Dalan-Baljut. The forces are relatively evenly matched. They clash again and again, riding toward each other, firing arrows and retreating and reloading. For much of the day, the armies are locked in a stalemate, but things begin to turn against Temujin, and by the end of the day, it becomes clear that he has suffered a major defeat. And his army suffers torture and humiliations from Jammuqa. He takes one of Temujin's commanders and cuts off his head and ties it to his horse's tail and drags it around. Which again, Mongols had a thing with blood, they didn't like blood, and so this is like really terrible. It's also reported that he's has 70 men boiled alive, which was especially bad in Mongol culture because this would not only kill the man in a very torturous manner of course, but it would also damage his body in such a way that it would destroy his soul. And so this is like a war crime that Jammu Kha is committing in the wake of this battle. And so he has completely eviscerated Temujin and his army and Temujin has to flee from Mongolia altogether. So what does he do? He goes just beyond the border and he goes and he teams up with Hong Kong. They embark on some other fights. They raid the Tatars. This part of his life is a little mysterious. It's not well reported on. He might have been in captivity to the Chinese Jin Dynasty. It's hard to know exactly what's happening. What is clear though is that he is essentially a mercenary and he's improving his skills as a warrior and a tactician. And it takes about a decade before he has secured enough wealth and experience for him to re-enter the ring. When he does finally return to his homeland in 1196, things progress quickly. Many of the people who had been with him before returned to his side and he gained some new converts as well. Jammu Kha's brutal killings after their battle a decade earlier had weakened support for him. Many people were turned off by this brutality and those people now supported Temujin. Things said that, the conflict does not immediately spiral out of control into a war. Temujin has a little room to breathe and he starts attacking other tribes. So first he defeats the Jirkin tribe and then the Merkids and then he raids two very powerful tribes, the Nyman's and the Tatars. As Temujin grows in power, a number of tribes throw their lot in with Jammu Kha to try to stop him and inevitably this finally does culminate in another large battle between the two. Both sides gather their thousands, their horsemen, their forces and they camp them nearby one another. The lead up to a large Mongol battle was a dramatic affair. The warriors would post their spirit banners which were said to carry the spirits of their ancestors. They would make sacrifices and each side would go out and get shamans. These like itinerant holy men slash fortune tellers who would foretell their good fortunes in the coming battle. Well Temujin goes all out in recruiting the best and most famous shamans and creating a big spectacle on his side. So people are looking at us like, "Whoa, he's got a lot of really great shamans on his side and they're all saying he's gonna win." And then the night before the battle when a thunderstorm hits, everyone on both sides assumes that it's because the gods were with Temujin and they had sent the thunderstorm on his behalf. And so Jammu Kha's forces flee. When Temujin finally catches up with them, they turn in the give battle and Jammu Kha's forces give a better showing than expected. In the first day of fighting, Temujin himself is wounded with an arrow to the neck. And that day of fighting is inconclusive so both armies camp near to one another and that night one of Temujin's most loyal followers, Jelmey, spends all night drinking blood from the wound to stop it from falling on the ground. The Mongols again had a weird thing with blood. They didn't like to see it, they didn't like to come into contact with it. That's one of the reasons, I mean there were tactical reasons to be horse archers but there were also kind of like cultural reasons too. They like to kill people from a distance because they didn't like to touch other people's blood or be infected with it. They're my kind of people. We have them common. I'm not a blood guy. So this is like a big sacrifice for this guy, Jelmey, to drink blood from Temujin's neck and he drinks it until he's literally so full they can't drink anymore. And then and only then, Jelmey begins to spit out the blood on the ground. And then Temujin rouses from his sleep in the night just enough to ask for a certain type of food which they don't have. So Jelmey sneaks into the enemy camp and steals some food and brings it back to Temujin. And then my favorite part is in the morning, Temujin fully wakes up and he asks what happened and Jelmey tells him the full story and he looks around and he looks down and he sees the blood on the ground and he says, and this is a quote from the secret history quote, "Would it not have been better to spit it further away?" Like real Roddy Dangerfield moment for poor Jelmey. No respect. This guy spent all night drinking blood from his wound in order to protect him and maintain ritual purity and all Temujin has to say about it is, really he couldn't spit the blood further away? Well, more or less fully recovered from this neck wound, Temujin is able to lead his forces to victory the next day, but Jomuka escapes. In the wake of this victory, Temujin carries out a policy that he had been developing for a while. He kills the leaders of the opposition but absorbs the rest of the people into his burgeoning conate. In his next campaign, he defeats an even larger and more powerful clan, the Tatars, and so he's forced to be a little more brutal with them. He has all the men walk past a wagon wheel and anyone taller than the wheel, which was the symbolic height of adulthood, he is executed, whereas everyone else is allowed to live and incorporated into Temujin's growing clan. And so it's around this time when he starts incorporating a number of important reforms that would strengthen his rule. First of all, tribes were typically arranged by kinship. You would have a Khan, a chiefdain, a king, a ruler, and the main leaders under him would be his closest relations, his brothers, direct cousins and so on. While Temujin arranges a court with a dozen top lieutenants who were assigned completely based on skill and loyalty without reference to their familial ties to Temujin, this provides a very capable officer corps that he could rely on, which no one else at the time had. They had their brothers and cousins around them who could be reliable but often were not. And Temujin was able to do this in part because he came from such an obscure background and therefore didn't have dozens of cousins who were expecting prominent placements in his court. Secondly, as mentioned, he begins to completely incorporate new tribes into his burgeoning kingdom. Normally, you came, you raided, you killed a few people, you took some stuff, and then you left. While Temujin comes in, he executes the top leaders and the rest of the people he resettles among the rest of his tribes, and he resettles them piecemeal, a little here, a little there. And this means that they don't have the cohesiveness to group up and rebel because their previous friends and relations are scattered in different parts of the territory. In the point of this is also, look, your old identity is gone. I wiped you out. You're just a mongol now. That's it. That's your land, Indy. You're a mongol. As a mongol, he will typically have his mother adopt a boy from the new tribe that's being incorporated in. And the boy wouldn't be raised as a slave or a servant, but as a full-fledged member of the family to show that, hey, you guys are mongol. Now your family now. One of your own is my little brother. You're not a taiyuchid or a murkid or whatever. You're a part of the tribe. And by the way, this is a classic tactic of great conquerors, most famously utilized by Alexander the Great and his father Philip. Philip in particular was famous for this. He said that he moved peoples the way a shepherd moved his sheep. And this is a very effective way to build a kingdom. You know, it crushes dissent and it builds your strength. And if you look at someone like Napoleon, his failure to do this is part of what doomed him, I think. If he had resettled the elites of societies everywhere he conquered so that like the Austrians could no longer rebel against him because they weren't a cohesive unit. And neither could the Prussians and instead he formed a new pan European elite class. Like that would have been quite a project obviously. But if he had been able to accomplish that, then I think things might have turned out very different for him. So that's the second reform is the way he resettles these people. The third thing Tempogen does is he reforms the way they conduct war. So normally you invade the men flee, you take their stuff and then they go summon their allies. And then they would chase you down and attack you as you were leaving with their stuff. And that's where battles happened. But you know, on first contact, you always let the guys leave and you just went after the stuff, right? Because there's other warriors who are going to take the stuff if you don't. So there's this big rush to take spoils. Well, Tempogen says no, all spoils come to me and I will distribute them. And a big part of that distribution was based on performance in the battle. And so obviously, A, this grows Tempogen's power because well, now all the spoils come to him and he gets to distribute them out. So everyone is thankful to him when they get stuff. But what is also meant was that men would not get distracted by booty, by loot. They were now all focused on defeating the enemy because that's all that counted. Tempogen was going to take all the loot anyways and give it to me later if I killed some people. So I better spend my energy go chasing these guys down and not going in and taking loot. So what this meant was bigger victories with more lasting results. None of these old victories where the enemy just ran away and got a chance to regroup. Victories now for Tempogen were actually crushing lasting victories where they chased down and killed their enemies and then came back and took their stuff. The last thing he does is something that he would become very famous for. And that is instituting a policy of if you willingly come to our side, you'll receive very lenient treatment. Things are going to go well for you. It's going to be fine. You'll become a part of the tribe. We might resettle you, but no harm is going to come to you. But if you resist and we beat you, we're going to be very cruel. Executions, torture, rape, you name it. And that creates a strong incentive to capitulate. So victories beget more victories. As people hear about this, they see, oh, look what he did to these people that resisted. We should just go with the flow. And so he's winning victories that he doesn't even have to fight because of his policy. And so the central theme of all these reforms is first centralization. And that is a theme of all great leaders from Alexander the Great to Steve Jobs. They break down competing power structures and centralize everything on themselves. For Alexander, that meant doing the same thing as Temmajin, as we said, breaking up clans and resettling them. For Steve Jobs, that meant breaking down these really strong product groups and creating cross-product functional departments that all reported to him. And those are just two examples. But you see this with Caesar, with Brigham Young, with William Randolph Hearst, with a bunch of people that we've talked about on this show. And the second thing you see in these reforms is that they really focus on the first two missions of a CEO as outlined by Steve Jobs. The first is hiring the right people. So Temmajin is saying, I'm going to hire based on merit, rather than on familial connection. And the second is setting the course, setting the vision. And Temmajin is saying, hey, we are all going to get on the same page with building up this united Mongol conate. And to that end, we're all going to get on the same page with winning these battles and not taking loot. So as I said at the beginning, it might seem a little goofy to take management lessons from Genghis Khan. But it's actually interesting to see the same leadership lessons play out in such an alien context. I feel like it really does reinforce how timeless some of these lessons are. So with Jammuqa out of power and fleeing to a border kingdom, there were only three powers left on the step. There was Temmajin and his people. There was Ang Khan and his tribe called the Kerate and the Nyman to the west. So first, he tries to take out Ang Khan through diplomacy. He proposes to him. He says, hey, let me marry my oldest son to your daughter. And that is essentially a proposal to peacefully merge the kingdoms. But obviously, at this current time, Temmajin is the one who's on the rise. So he's kind of going to be the senior partner in any merger that happens between these two kingdoms. Well, Ang Khan is becoming quite wary of Temmajin's rise. He doesn't want to be the junior partner in this relationship, this guy who's supposed to be his son. And so he says, oh, yeah, sure. Sounds like a great idea. But he tries to lure him into a trap. So he tells him, bring your son. He can totally marry my daughter. Let's hold the wedding over here on my territory. And the whole time he's actually planning to kill Temmajin. Now luckily, Temmajin is tipped off by a couple local herders who see what is happening. And he quickly tries to gather some troops to defend him. But they don't have enough time. He isn't able to get enough men. And they're badly beaten by Ang Khan's much larger force. And Temmajin is forced to hastily retreat. And so here Temmajin is, he had gained so much. He had started so low and come so high. But at this moment, he was on the verge of losing it all. [MUSIC PLAYING] Once he had escaped the pursuit of Ang Khan's men, he had a moment to pray and to think about this situation. He was on the run, and his forces were scattered. And he still had enough men to oppose to fight Ang Khan. But in this moment of confusion, the question was, would they remain loyal? And he had a few companions with him. And they came from nine different tribes. From different lands, some of them were ethnically quite heterogeneous. They belonged to different religions, including Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, as well as Temmajin's own native animism. And so he asked them what they thought. Did they think that this situation was recoverable? Would they stay with him, no matter what? And they expressed their unwavering support. And at this crucial moment, a wild horse stumbled into their camp. And Temmajin and his supporters took this as a sign of divine favor. The hungry men butchered the horse and ate it. After this meal, he takes a cup and dips it in the river. That they were next to. And he thanked his men for their loyalty. And he swore that he would never forget it. And they all swear an oath to each other. And this is what Temmajin says to them, according to the secret history of the Mongols. Quote, "Temmajin raised his hands and looking up at heaven's swore, saying, if I am able to achieve my great work, I shall always share with you men the sweet and the bitter. If I break this word, may I be like the water of this river drunk up by others." Among officers and men, there was none who was not moved to tears. And so having sworn this oath of loyalty to one another, they go writing out, seeing who will come back to the service of Temmajin. And when they go writing through the territory, they find that almost everyone is still behind him. So Temmajin is able to consolidate his rule and rally men back to his cause very quickly in a matter of days. And at the same time, on call on is pretty confident that he has just won this thing. You know, he just beat Temmajin. His army scattered, he's running away. Surely this upstart con was on the verge of collapse. So he holds a feast to celebrate. And Temmajin advances on this feast at a break next speed in what he calls a lightning advance, literally a blitzkrieg. It's funny to see how some of these things repeat throughout history. So he and his forces are on the enemy before they know what is coming. And they don't have much of a chance to prepare. Even so, Temmajin had rushed to battle with a skeleton army, and the forces are relatively evenly matched. There are three days of fighting through which Hong Kong slowly bleeds men to Temmajin. Not so much through killing, but through defection. They knew that Temmajin was harsh to the defeated, but forgiving to those who surrendered. And so there's this incentive to give yourself up before you can be defeated by Temmajin. And so in the end, weatherford writes in Genghis Khan and the making of the modern world that quote, "Ang Khan's army was not so much defeated as swallowed by Temmajin's forces." Ang Khan himself escapes for a while, but dies shortly thereafter. And Jammuqa, who had joined him, escapes with any remaining loyal men to him, and joins the one remaining independent tribe, the Niamon. And so now there's this kind of showdown of these two people eyeing each other. There are the Mongols led by Temmujin, and there are the Niamon who are harboring his sworn enemy, Jammuqa. And the Niamon were very wealthy and very aristocratic, and they looked down on the Mongols as poor and backwards. And so Temmajin uses this disdain to fire up his men and motivate them for the war to come. And it's not long coming. The final battle for control of all of Mongolia occurs in 1204. The battle of Chuckyer Mount. It is Temmajin and his forces against the Niamon, and with them, Jammuqa and his few remaining forces. And really anyone who was still around and could master the courage to oppose Temmajin joins the Niamon. This would be the largest and most important step battle in living history. First, Temmajin attacks with something called the Tumbleweed Formation. Groups of 10 attack the enemy seemingly at random and disperse before they can be chased. Then he forms his men into something called Lake Formation. He stretches his forces out into a long line, a few rows deep. One row rides up, shoots their arrows, then rides off to the sides to make way for the next row. And then they form up again in the back to cycle through. Endless waves of men attacking like waves on the shore of Lake. This has the effect of spreading out the Niamon forces who link them their line to meet the forces of Temmajin. So after they do this, he forms his men into what he calls the Chisel Formation, where they now concentrate in a narrow, deep formation and fire at a single point on the enemy's now stretched line until they break through. They don't completely destroy the Niamon forces, but they so demoralize them that many attempt to flee in the night. This battle takes place near a mountain and many of the Niamon fall off cliffs and die as they attempt to flee in the night. Jammuqa escapes once again and tries to live a life as a bandit, but in the coming months, it's betrayed by his men and brought before Temmajin. His reaction is interesting. Temmajin is actually outraged by the traders who bring him Jammuqa and has them killed. According to the secret history, Jammuqa meets a prosaic and some might say too prosaic to be believed. Supposedly, he and Temmujin reconciled and Temmujin invited him to be a brother to him once again. Quote, "We are joined together once again. We should remind each other of things we have forgotten. Wake each other up from our sleep. Even when you went away and were apart from me, you were still my lucky, blessed sworn brother. Surely in the days of killing your heart pain for me. Surely in the days of slaying and being slain, you are breasted and your heart pain for me." But it is Jammuqa that declines. While affirming that they were indeed brothers, he goes on, quote, "Now in the world is ready for you. What use is there in my becoming a companion to you?" On the contrary, sworn brother, "In the black night, I would haunt your dreams. In the bright day, I would trouble your heart. I would be the laus in your collar. I would be the splinter in your door panel." He asks for one favor only. In that is that he be killed in the aristocratic way, strangled, rather than his blood being spilled, and Temujin grants him this wish. Quote, "He vowed that if Temujin would place his body in a high place, he would watch over Temujin and all of his descendants. Kill me and lay down my dead bones in the high ground. Then eternally and forever, I will protect the seed of your seed and become a blessing for them." With all the Mongol tribes now subdued and Jammuqa dead, Temujin truly was the master of all Mongolia. In 1206 at the age of 44, he called a great Kuro Thai, a great council. He was probably the largest gathering ever held in the history of the step, and certainly the most important. Hundreds of thousands came to unite their voice in support of Temujin. The Mongol tents, known as garrers, stretched for miles. The council stretched on for days, days that were filled with solemn ceremonies and sacrifices, but also with celebration, sports, and music. The air would have been filled with sounds, shamans pounding their drums, musicians playing stringed instruments, and singing their melodies in the traditional Mongolian throat singing tones. Temujin was now the leader of about a million people. They all were there, but all of them were represented. The motion was put forward with the accept Temujin as their leader, and unanimously they raised their voice in support. He took on the title of the ruler of all people of the felt walls, in other words anyone who lived on the step, anyone who lived in a tent, and they chose a new name for him, one that had already been circulating. From that day, he would be known as the Strong Chief, the Genghis Khan. So briefly, before we end, what can be learned from the first half of Genghis Khan's life? What can be learned from this story? There are lessons that we already discussed. Centralization, make it very good to ally with you and very bad to defy you. It was actually something that Mark Zuckerberg does really well. People know that if Mark offers to acquire you, you're going to get pretty good terms, because you turn down the acquisition, he's going to turn the eye of Soran on you, copy your product, and try and drive you out of business. So that's one thing you can take away. There is surrounding yourself with the best and most capable people possible. There's also the power of Mystique. Remember how, on the evening before one of his battles, he gets the most respected shamans on his side, so that when a thunderstorm strikes, everyone believes that it must be a sign that the gods are on his side. I think developing that sense of Mystique is really powerful, and people might not believe in the gods of Thunder anymore, but they still believe in the favor of the gods in one way or another. Call it inertia, call it momentum, call it just a sense of destiny or good juju. I think it's probably best encapsulated in current terms by Steve Jobs, who had such a run from 1998 through his death in 2011 that he just seemed unstoppable. I do think there was this feeling of, oh man, I don't know what it is, but fate or nature is on his side. And I think if you can harness that, it's really powerful, it builds momentum, and people want to be on your team, they want to be involved in what you're doing. Okay, well tune in next time to hear the real action, how Genghis Khan turned the Mongol people outward and conquer as an empire, the likes of which the world had never seen. Until then, thanks for listening to How to Take Over the World.