he founded the Mongol Empire, he might have

a little of his DNA in you.

He is Genghis Khan.

Today, we're going to talk about things you

didn't know about Genghis Khan.

But before we get started, subscribe

to our channel, Weird History.

Leave us a comment, and let us know what historical figure

you want us to cover next.

First things first, you heard his name

100's if not 1000's of times before,

but there's a very good chance you've never

heard it pronounced correctly.

While most Westerners say Genghis with a hard g,

that's incorrect.

In Mongolia, the g is soft, so it's actually

pronounced like this, Chinghis.

But we're going to go with Genghis today, because that's

what you're used to.

What does it mean.

Well, there's no historical consensus,

but Khan means ruler or King.

And Genghis, or to be 100% accurate, Chinghis,

is believed to mean stern or fierce.

So Genghis Khan means stern or fierce King.

The confusion goes all the way back

to spelling and pronunciation getting

lost in European translation.

Since we're on the topic of names,

Genghis Khan wasn't his name either,

despite what you were taught in junior high and most,

if not all, of high school.

The man who would unite the Mongol tribes

was actually born to Mujin, meaning of or from iron,

while Jin denotes agency.

Thus, if you break it down Temujin means blacksmith.

His name was said to have come from a Tatar tribesman who

had been captured and brought home by the boy's father.

The name Genghis Khan wasn't given to Temujin until 1206,

when he was 44 years old, as part of this coronation

as the King of all Mongols.

Most of what we know about young Temujin

comes from the Secret History of the Mongols.

An anonymous record of the early days of the United Konate.

According to that book, written for the Khan successors,

Temujin was born sometime in 1162

on the banks of the Onon River.

His father, Yesugei, was the chieftain

of the Borjigin clan, the ruling class of the Mongol tribes.

If you believe the legend, Temujin

was born clutching a blood clot in his fist.

An omen and that he was destined to be a great leader.

Whether that's true is actually anyone's guess.

For someone who radically altered the world's population

with his very own DNA--

we'll get back to that in a bit--

Temujin's first son may not even have been his.

It all started when his father arranged a marriage for him

and delivered him at age 9 to the family of his future wife,

in order to cement alliances between the Onggirat

and the Mongols.

Here's where things get messy.

On his way home after delivering his son to the Bortes,

Temujin's father ran into the neighboring Tatars,

who had long been Mongol enemies,

and they assassinated him.

When young Temujin heard about his father's death

by poisoning, he returned home to claim his position

as tribe's chief, but they denied the kid

and abandoned his family leaving them without protection.

After several years of hardship and in slavery,

Temujin finally married Borte, but the bad news kept coming.

Not long after the marriage, Borte

was kidnapped by the Merkit, a rival tribe,

and she was reportedly given away as a wife.

Temujin rescued her several months later

and she gave birth to a son, Jochi,

nine months after her rescue.

The timeline of Jochi's birth was iffy at best.

Was Jochi Temujin's legitimate firstborn son or was

Borte impregnated when she was kidnapped?

It's something we'll probably never know.

But Jochi grew up to become a great military leader

nonetheless, even though he was excluded from Genghis's line

of succession

We know of Jochi, the son who may or may not

have been the first son of Genghis Khan.

We also know of eight other sons and daughters

Temujin had with Borte, but that's

not the extent of Genghis's offspring, not by a long shot.

While married to Borte, Temujin took

a number of other wives, far too many to name here.

While many of these women were taken as war trophies, at least

one woman, Princess Qiguo was married to Genghis Khan

as a gift of sorts, in exchange for relieving the Mongol

siege upon Zhongdu.

In short, it's uncertain which if any of these marriages

were consensual.

Although it's certain his spouses

bore him numerous children, including

a number of daughters whose names weren't even recorded.

As famous and infamous as Genghis Khan is,

very little is known about his personal or physical

appearance.

No contemporary portraits or sculptures

of him survived and what is written about him at the time

is practically revisionist history,

The little we do know about Genghis Khan

describes him as tall and strong with a flowing mane

of blond hair, blue eyes, and a bushy beard.

But 14th century Persian chronicler Rashid Al Din

claims Genghis had red hair and green eyes.

Al Din never met the Khan in person,

but these striking features were not

unheard of among the Mongol.

You hear the name Genghis Khan and the first things

your imagination conjures up are probably brutish

acts of mass destruction, barbarism, and blood lust.

All of those things are a big part of Genghis Khan's story

but he was quite the innovator too.

He created the Yam route, which was an efficient postal system

meant to send written orders to the far

flung outposts of his empire.

He also adapted an official script in 1206

upon his election as Khan.

And while he was very likely illiterate,

Genghis Khan kept written books of his laws.

A complex and far reaching system of edicts

called the Yassa.

Of course, for any good he did, he

soured by destroying countless works of art,

priceless artifacts, cultural sites,

and other various precious objects.

Chinese, Russian, Persian, and Muslim traditions

of sculpture and painting were subjugated,

and their masters almost always were killed.

While other Mongol leaders appreciated the cultures

of the sedentary people they wiped out,

the Mongols themselves left little

in terms of cultural heritage and almost no written works.

Genghis Khan probably enjoyed the sight of blood

but he was also a man of his word.

Take for example, the time he honorably

murdered the Mongol military and political leader,

and childhood pal, Jamukha.

According to the Secret History of the Mongols,

Jamukha was eventually betrayed to Temujin

by his followers in 1206.

The first thing Temujin did was execute Jamukha's betrayers

on basic principle.

Betrayal merits the worst punishment imaginable.

Then Temujin offered Jamukha a renewal of the brotherhood,

but Jamaica refused.

He insisted that just as there was

only room for one sun in the sky,

there was room only for one Mongol lord.

Instead Jamukha asked to be executed

by dying a noble death, without the spilling of blood.

Temujin honored his request by having

a soldier snap Jamukha's spine.

It's said that Temujin then buried Jamukha

with the golden belt that he had given

to him when they had formed their bond of brotherhood.

Pretty dramatic on the Khan's part.

Sounds like something a young George Lucas

would have written in the mid 70s.

One of the great things about Genghis Kahn

was that he had an eye for talent

when it came to choosing people for leadership roles.

Take for example, Jelme.

During the 1201 Battle of the 13 Sides against the Taichuud

tribe, Genghis got hit in the neck with an arrow.

He obviously survived, and his army won the battle.

But when he recovered from his wound

he asked the soldiers of the defeated Taichuud tribe

to reveal who shot his horse in the neck.

Side note, either Genghis was using his horse's neck

as a euphemism for his own injury,

in an attempt to conceal his injury,

or possibly to smoke out a false confession.

Moving along, a soldier named Zurgadai voluntarily

confessed and told Genghis, and we paraphrase,

you got me, I did it, but if you let me

live I will serve you loyally.

Genghis was impressed.

He valued skill and loyalty, so he pardoned and praised

Zurgadai, making him an officer and nicknamed

him Jebe, Mongolian for both arrow and weapon.

How's that for luck?

It's like hitting your boss over the head with a Louisville

slugger because he swiped your idea.

Then he promotes you for your candor

and calls you bat boy at the next office happy hour.

Jebe would go on to become one of the Mongol's greatest field

commanders during the conquest in Asia and Europe.

Mongol warriors began learning how to fight and live off

the land, as children.

When they came of age, usually around 15,

they had mastered how to ride, shoot, fight, and go for days

at a time without provisions.

At this point in their lives, they

were Genghis Khan's warriors.

These young warriors were tactical and calculating.

Employing many war worn strategies when it came to war.

Fighting was never a simple exhibition of force.

It was an evenly paced, evaluated,

and considered option.

The Mongols would fight using formations,

proven battle game plans, and were comfortable with a bow.

If no bow was on hand, then a Mongol warrior

was more than comfortable and capable

of using a saber or a spear to kill their enemy.

No contemporary army could match a Mongol warrior's skill,

bravery and tenacity.

Like most men in power who wielded their force

with little regard for their foe,

Genghis Khan was a religious man.

He passed laws declaring religious freedom

in conquered lands, even granted tax exemptions

to places of worship.

The Mongols generally had an exceptionally liberal attitude

towards religion.

While they subscribe to a shamanistic belief system that

revered the Eternal Blue Sky, the step peoples

also included Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, and others.

No one was persecuted for their faith.

Genghis Khan also had a personal interest in spirituality.

He was known to pray in his tent for multiple days

before important campaigns and he often

met with different religious leaders

to discuss their faiths.

Conquering the Western Xia and Jin empires

was a matter of survival for Genghis.

He had no intention of war with the powerful Khwarezmid Empire

in modern day Iran, but it became inevitable

after the Khwarezmian Shah executed Genghis's ambassadors

to him and massacred a peaceful caravan.

In a war lasting just three years, from 1218 to 1221,

the Khwarezmid Empire was annihilated.

With its population cold and its beautiful walled

cities destroyed.

Final defeat was inflicted at the Battle of the Indus River

where 50,000 men, led by the Shah's son,

were beaten and killed.

The Mongols exacted such a toll on the Khwarezmid Empire,

that of its nearly three million people, at least

one million were killed.

Usually executed methodically using swords or axes.