Weatherford says Yesuke was supposedly poisoned by Tatars he met at a drinking party and died within days of riding home.
“He got on his horse and was able to ride back home, but within a few days he died.”
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Jack Weatherford
1 episodes · 21 quoted claims
Wang Khan, a powerful ruler in central Mongolia, agreed to send troops to help Temujin recover Börte and told him to ask Jamukha for more men.
“I will send some troops, but we need more, and you need to ask Jamukha”
Temujin and Jamukha, as boys, swore a lifelong bond of anda, or sworn brotherhood, and exchanged knuckle bones.
“they swore that they would be there forever to protect each other, to help each other in every moment, and they exchanged knuckle bones.”
Weatherford says Temujin and his brother Hasar killed their older half-brother Bekter, an episode known only from the Secret History.
“for whatever reason, he and his next brother, Hasser, decided to kill him, and they did.”
Weatherford says Temujin received the new title Chinggis Khan at Black Heart Mountain by the Blue Lake, a title nobody is known to have held before.
“They give him that at, uh, um, Black Heart Mountain by the Blue Lake.”
Weatherford says Jamukha asked to be executed without bloodshed and buried on high ground, and that Genghis Khan ordered his death.
“He said, Kill me without shedding my blood, let me die. And if you do, take my remains up to a high place and bury me”
Weatherford says Genghis Khan ordered a Mongolian alphabet to be created, adapted from the Uyghur script.
“Genghis Khan ordered the invention of the alphabet for the Mongol people, and it was adapted from the Uyghur people.”
A Russian academic in Beijing discovered a manuscript of the Secret History in the nineteenth century, written in Chinese characters that recorded Mongolian sounds.
“And then, in the nineteenth century, a Russian academic who was working in, uh, China at the time in Beijing, he discovered a manuscript”
Francis Woodman Cleaves of Harvard University translated the Secret History in the 1950s, but it was not published in English until 1982.
“It was not published in English until 1982, but Francis Woodman Cleaves at Harvard University translated it in the fifties.”
Weatherford says Genghis Khan's army never exceeded about 100,000 to 110,000 men.
“Genghis Khan's army was extremely good in warfare, but small. He never got probably above 100,000, at the most 110,000.”
Weatherford says each Mongol soldier was organized with five horses and carried a bow and many arrows.
“The army was they were organized with five horses each man. They had their bow and they had a lot of arrows”
Weatherford says news of Ögedei Khan's death travelled from Mongolia to Hungary in six weeks.
“at the time of the death of Ögedei Khan, the word went from Mongolia to Hungary in, uh, six weeks.”
Weatherford says Genghis Khan punished his son-in-law Tokotar for looting a city that had surrendered by sending him first into the next battle as a common soldier, where he was killed.
“Genghis Khan called him in, and he stripped him of his rank, and he said, The next city, you go first as a common soldier.”
Weatherford says Kiev was destroyed in 1240 after its people killed a woman sent as a Mongol envoy.
“That's it. Kiev was destroyed for killing a Mongol envoy.”
Weatherford says merchants under Mongol rule were taxed once rather than at every town they passed.
“For example, they get to be taxed one time, whatever the national tax is, that's it. They're not taxed every time they stop in some new town.”
Kublai Khan was born in 1215, about three months after Genghis Khan captured Beijing, and was not an obvious heir.
“But Kublai Khan was born that year in 1215, about three months after the the capture of Beijing, and he was nobody.”
Weatherford says one reason Kublai Khan invaded Japan was to cut off the Southern Song's supply of sulfur, needed for gunpowder.
“The main one was to cut off the supply of sulfur. They needed it for gunpowder in South Song, they lost their sources in northern China when they were driven out”
Weatherford says the Southern Song dynasty ended when its prime minister jumped into the sea holding the seven-year-old emperor Bing.
“So, the seven-year-old boy and the parrot died in the water. That was the end of one of the greatest dynasties in the history of the world.”
Weatherford says the Mongols were overthrown in China in 1368 and went back to Mongolia.
“bit by bit, 1368, the Mongols had become so weak within China that they were overthrown, but they weren't absorbed into China.”
Weatherford argues that the Mongol communication network helped spread the plague from southern China across the world and contributed to the empire's collapse.
“then it could also take the plague out of southern China into all parts of the world, and I do think that's what happened.”
Weatherford says Genghis Khan had four wives and children with two of them, and doubts that the genetic finding can be tied to him specifically.
“He had 4 wives all the time. He had children with 2 of them. Just not a lot of descendants.”