Age of Conquest: A Kings and Generals Podcast

“From the King of Kings of East and West, the supreme Khan:  In your name, O God, who stretched out the earth and lifted up the heavens; Qutuz is of the race of those Mamluks, who fled to this region to escape our swords... Let Qutuz know, as well as all his emirs, and the peoples of his empire who inhabit Egypt and the neighboring countries, that we are the soldiers of God on earth; that he created us in his anger, and delivered into our hands all those who are the object of his wrath; what has happened in other lands should be a matter for you to think about, and distract you from making war on us. Learn from the example of others and commit your fate to us before the veil is torn, and, delivered to repentance, you see the penalty for your sins fall upon you: for we will not allow ourselves to be touched by crying and we will be insensitive to complaints. You have heard that we have conquered a vast expanse of land; that we have purified the earth of the disorders which defiled it; and that we have slaughtered most of the inhabitants. It’s up to you to flee, and it’s up to us to pursue you; and what land will offer you a refuge? Which road can save you?... You have no way of escaping our swords, of escaping the slaying of our weapons… Hurry to give us an answer, before the war ignites its fires and launches its sparks on you: then you will no longer find asylum, strength, protection, support. You would experience the most terrible catastrophes on our part, and you would soon leave your lands deserted. In sending you this message, we have acted nobly towards you; we have sought [...] to wake you from your slumber. Now you are the only enemies we must march against. May salvation be upon us, upon you, and upon all [...] who submit to the orders of the Supreme Khan. "   So reads the ultimatum delivered to Cairo in early summer 1260, as recorded by al-Maqrizi. Qutuz, the newly declared ruler of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, faced the awesome might of an army unsurpassed, invincibile and merciless. Qutuz, in a fragile alliance with his erstwhile enemy Baybars, made the frightful decision to kill Hulegu Khan’s envoys, and roll the dice to challenge the Mongol hosts, ultimately facing them at the Battle of Ayn Jalut. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquests.   Our previous episode detailed Hulegu’s sack of Baghdad in February 1258, and the death of the last ‘Abbasid Caliph, al-Musta'sim. Hulegu soon moved north to Maragha to rest and prepare for the next leg of his journey; reducing the remaining independent powers along the Levantine Coast. For Hulegu and his massive army, it seemed nothing would stand in the way of the subjugation of the remainder of the Muslim world. Spending the summer of 1258 moving between Maragha and Tabriz, many throughout the region reaffirmed their submission. Sons and representatives came from the atabeg of Fars, various lords of the Caucasus and the Ayyubid Sultan of Aleppo and Damascus al-Nasir Yusuf.  In person came the 90 year old Badr al-Din Lu’lu of Mosul and the two Seljuq Sultans of Rum, ‘Izz al-Din Kaykaus II and his half-brother, Rukn al-Din Kilich Arslan IV. The fall of the Caliph sent shockwaves, and most were eager to reaffirm their vassalage lest they share his fate. ‘Izz al-Din Kaykaus, knowing Hulegu was already displeased with him for his brief rebellion in 1256, made Hulegu a pair of fine boots with his portrait on the soles, and kneeling before Hulegu told him “your slave hopes the padishah will elevate this slave’s head with his royal foot.”    Hulegu was pleased with himself; the conquests were coming easily and it seemed he would complete his older brother’s will in good time. It’s possible that at this time Hulegu adopted for himself a new title, il-khan, which he began to include on coinage he minted the following year. Generally il-khan is translated as ‘viceroy,’ or ‘subject khan,’ il in Mongolian having connotations of submission. However, there is argument that it’s a Mongolian form of an older Turkic title, ileg khan, meaning ‘sovereign.’ Some sources from the Ilkhanate use it in this sense; one writer refers to Chinggis Khan as Il-khan,when such connotations of submission were quite inappropriate.   Hulegu spent the remainder of 1258 in Azerbaijan, wintering in Arran and the Mughan plain, where the cool temperatures and fine pastures pleased the Mongols. Maragha emerged as Hulegu’s de facto capital, and that region became the administrative centre and summer retreat of the Ilkhanate for the next 70 years. From here, Hulegu plotted. Intelligence came in of the fractured politics of the statelets from Syria to Egypt. The ruler of Mayyafariqin in the Jazira had previously submitted to the Mongols, but had revolted as the Mongol army surrounded Baghdad. Hulegu sent his son Yoshmut to deal with them. The Ayyubid sultan of Syria, al-Nasir Yusuf, had been a Mongol tributary since the early 1240s, but had failed to provide troops against Baghdad or to appear before Hulegu in person. So, Hulegu would appear before him in person, along with 100,000 of his closest friends and at least 300,000  of their favourite horses. The only power of any note other than the small Ayyubid princes and Crusader holdouts on the coast, was the newly established Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. Sending Yoshmut and Kitbuqa as his vanguard in spring 1259, in September Hulegu led the main army to Syria, anticipating a swift and glorious conquest of the region.   Some 80 years prior, Egypt to eastern Turkey had been unified by an-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, who you may know better as Saladin. On his death in 1193 Saladin intended for three of his sons to rule in a sort of confederacy, one in Cairo, Egypt; one in Aleppo in Syria, and one in Damascus, also in Syria, to be the senior over the others. Within 3 years, his plan went awry. Saladin’s brother al-Adil bin Ayyub took control of Damascus and Egypt and forced Aleppo to recognize his authority. al-Adil placed his own sons as governors, and allowed the jihad to fall to the wayside, enjoying a fruitful 20 year truce with the Crusader states. The trade they brought was valuable and al-Adil found his Seljuq and Zengid neighbours of much greater concern. It was not until 1218 when his system cracked; that year the fifth Crusade landed in Egypt and soon took Damietta; the Anatolian Seljuqs backed Saladin’s ousted son al-Afdal in attempting to take Aleppo; and al-Adil died of illness is August 1218. On his death, the Ayyubids never regained their unity. al-Adil’s son al-Kamil took power in Egypt, but continually butted heads with the Ayyubid princes of Syria, especially his brother controlling Damascus, al-Muazzam. It was in the face of war with al-Muazzam that in 1229 al-Kamil agreed to a truce with the oncoming Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II Hohenstaufen, bloodlessly returning Jerusalem to Christian hands for the first time since Saladin took the city in 1187.    Al-Kamil died in 1238, his family vying for control of Egypt. It took two years for his oldest son, al-Salih Ayyub, to seize power there.  By then, the Ayyubids of Syria and Egypt were totally independent of each other; al-Nasir Yusuf, the prince of Aleppo, became tributary to the Mongols in 1243. In Egypt, al-Salih Ayyub showed himself a powerful and militaristic ruler- the last effective Ayyubid Sultan, exerting his power against his cousins in Syria. The first means to do this was to invite the bands of Khwarezmian mercenaries in Syria to him. These were the remnants of Jalal al-Din Mingburnu’s army, who, since Mingburnu’s demise in 1231, had acted as mercenaries and pillagers, raiding for the highest bidder. In 1244, al-Salih Ayyub invited them to Egypt, intent on employing them, or at least, keeping them from being employed against him by the Syrian Ayyubids. The Khwarezmians under Husam al-Din Berke Khan took up the call, en route sacking Jerusalem in early summer 1244, the Crusaders losing Jerusalem for good. The panicking Franks organized an alliance against the Khwarezmians- a grand army of Frankish troops, knights of the Military Orders, and the Ayyubid princes of Damascus and Homs, eager to keep the Khwarezmians out of al-Salih Ayyub’s hands. Their largest field army since the Third Crusade, some 13,000 men, was resoundingly crushed by the Khwarezmians at La Forbie in October 1244. It was a massacre, the offensive ability of the Crusader States permanently broken. Representatives from Acre reached Europe and called for aid- only the penitent King Louis IX of France would answer.   Al-Salih Ayyub took the Khwarezmians north, and after assisting him in taking control of Damascus, gave them the boot, and they were overwhelmed and dispersed by Syrian forces in 1246. So ended the last remnant of the Khwarezmian Empire, some 20 years after Chinggis Khan’s invasion.   Giving up on unreliable Khwarezmians, al-Salih Ayyub turned to slave soldiers. Military slavery was hardly a new institution, used from the ‘Abbasids to the Fatimids to the Ayyubids under Saladin himself. Generally, the Islamic institutions of military slavery differed greatly from the chattel slavery we associate the term with. In the words of historian Bart Hacker, “although his owner might buy or sell him and otherwise dictate certain life choices, the relationship of owner to soldier more nearly resembled that of patron to client than master to slave in the western sense. These are complex issues, but Muslim military slavery clearly did not define the soldier’s occupation, wealth, social standing or power.” Depending on the dynasty, military slavery actually increased a man’s access to wealth and social standing.   Prior to the 12th century, these slave soldiers were generally called ghulams, but by 1200 mamluk had replaced it. While a ghulam or mamluk could come from anywhere, Turkic steppe nomads were preferred. Bought as children between 8 and 12, from their upbringing on the steppe they already had valuable experience in archery and horseback riding. The most physically skilled were sold as mamluks, upon which they were converted to Islam and received further training in weapons and tactics, provided armour, horses and the support of the state. Often they were  taught languages, administrative skills and how to read and write. They were expected to be absolutely loyal to their master, who heaped rewards on them. They combined all the military skill of the Turkic nomads, but with greater discipline and reliability.

In the dusty flood plain, 100,000 men and many times that in horses surround the walls of Baghdad. Catapults lob stones relentlessly into the city walls, hauled from great distance. Here, towers collapse under the barrage; there, ladders bring Mongol and subject peoples onto the fortifications, seizing them from the disorganized and panicking garrison. Arrows, some bearing messages, bring both confusion and injury where they land. The mighty Tigris River, the city’s lifeblood, is now part of the trap; pontoon bridges, from them dangling nets embedded with iron hooks, rest both north and south of the city to catch those trying to flee. The final ‘Abbasid Caliph sits frightened and overwhelmed in his palace, as the grasp of Hulegu Khan closes around him. Today, we discuss the fall of Baghdad, 1258. But first, we’d like to remind you that for those of you who enjoy the podcast, your support would be highly appreciated and would help us keep going. We have a patreon available for monthly or even one-time donations or, if you aren’t able to support us financially, positive reviews on Apple Podcasts or other review sites really helps us out. And now, I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   We left our previous episode off with Hulegu destroying the Nizari Ismaili state, better known at the Order of Assassins, who had controlled a series of fortresses across eastern and northern Iran. By the end of 1256, Hulegu had reduced them to but a few holdouts, and he could begin to look to his next target. Considered heretics of the worst variety by most Sunni Muslims, the Persian writer Juvaini, a member of Hulegu’s retinue, described his victory over the Nizaris in glowing terms, Hulegu as a sword of Islam carrying out God’s will. Juvaini presents Hulegu’s war as a more ‘civilized’ form of conquest compared to that of his grandfather, Chinggis Khan. Destruction was limited to Ismaili territories and the towns and fortresses that failed to submit, as opposed to the veritable tsunami of bloodshed Chinggis Khan wrought on the Khwarezmian empire over thirty years prior. What Hulegu was soon to do in Baghdad and to the titular head of Sunni Islam would not be so praised, and it is perhaps no coincidence that Juvaini’s own chronicle ends with the fall of the Ismailis. As Hulegu left Ismaili territory in the final month of 1256, his eye was drawn to the ‘Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad.   In Islam, the spiritual leader of the religion was whoever was considered the successor to the Prophet Muhammad. For Shi’a Muslims, this was the imam- for Nizari Ismailis, the Imam was the ruler of Alamut, who had just been put to death on Mongol orders. For the majority of Muslims, known as Sunnis, the head of their faith was the Caliph, literally meaning ‘successor.’The first four Caliphs to succeed the Prophet were the “Rightly Guided,” the Rashidun, whose legitimacy is generally unquestioned by most Muslims. The Rashidun were succeeded by the Umayyads, who greatly extended Muslim rule east and west, across North Africa into Spain and across Eastern Iran into Central Asia. In 750, the Umayyad Caliphs were overthrown in the ‘Abbasid revolution. Claiming descent from the Prophet’s uncle ‘Abbas, it was under the early ‘Abbasids that the Caliphal capital was moved from Damascus to the newly established Baghdad along the Tigris River. Never comparable to the power of the Umayyads at their height, from the 9th century onwards the still vast ‘Abbasid empire fragmented with threat from all directions: the Fatimids in Egypt, the Samanids, Buyids and Saffarids of Iran and finally from the steppes, the Great Seljuqs, all of which ground the ‘Abbasids down until their state hardly stretched past the walls of Baghdad. The weakening of the Seljuqs after Sultan Malik-Shah’s death in 1092 allowed the ‘Abbasids to gradually reclaim independence and some authority, even repulsing a Seljuq army attacking Baghdad in 1157. The long reigns of Caliph al-Nasir and al-Mustansir, from 1180 until 1242, saw the ‘Abbasids reclaim much of central and southern Iraq. A far cry from the sweeping power they had held in the 8th century, by the 13th century they still remained influential and held prestige. For 500 years they had been the heads of Islam, and had long cultivated an useful image as invioable and holy, above temporal affairs though they were more often than not mired in them.    For instance, in the late 12th century Caliph al-Nasir was in conflict with the Seljuqs who continued to rule in Iran. He allied with the rising power northeast of the Iranian Seljuqs, the Khwarezmian Empire. Once vassals of the Great Seljuqs, the Khwarezm-shahs now butted heads with them as they expanded southwards, and the reigning Khwarezm-Shah, Tekesh bin Il-Arslan, was happy to ally himself with the Caliph. In 1194 at Rayy, modern Tehran, Tekesh defeated and killed the last Seljuq Sultan in Iran, Toghrul III, ending the dynasty and sending the Sultan’s severed head to al-Nasir in Baghdad. Rather than provide freedom for the Caliphate, Tekesh now wanted to step into the place of Seljuqs. The Seljuqs’ territory in Iran was largely annexed by Tekesh Khwarezm-shah, who soon began making aggressive motions to the Caliph. Al-Nasir encouraged the Khwarezmians’ eastern neighbours, the Ghurids, in their war with Tekesh. Tekesh died in 1200, succeeded by his son Muhammad II as Khwarezm-shah who, through luck, timely assassinations and military victories, overcame the Ghurids, consolidated power over Iran and in 1217 tried to march on Baghdad itself. Muhammad’s march on Baghdad was halted by a vicious snowstorm as he crossed the Zagros mountains, forcing him back. Returning to the northeast of his empire, Muhammad would there make the poor decisions which led to the Mongol Invasion of Khwarezm, covered way back in episode 9 of this podcast.   Now, some authors of the period assert that Caliph al-Nasir actually invited Chinggis Khan to attack Muhammad of Khwarezm- when placed in the context of the Caliph switching to support whoever was on the eastern side of his current foe, there is definitely a logic to it. However, as we described in detail in episode 8 of the podcast, the cause of the Mongol invasion can be found in the foolery of Muhammad Khwarezm-shah alone. Had the Mongols come on the invitation of the Caliph, then surely they would have publicized that to justify the attack and sow further confusion among the Khwarezmians.    In fact, in 1221 when detachments of Jebe and Subutai’s army penetrated into northern Iraq, Caliph al-Nasir was hardly welcoming. Along with the rulers of northern Iraq’s most important cities, Muzaffar ad-Din of Irbil and Badr al-Din Lu’lu’, the de facto ruler of Mosul, the Caliph organized a short lived military coalition, which proved unnecessary as the Mongols soon withdrew. Evidently, the ‘Abbasids spread a rumour that their army was absolutely gargantuan, their power unassailable and heavenly protected, and the Mongols were hesitant to commit. Had they paid close attention in the following years, they might have called the Caliph’s bluff. In 1225 that favoured Khwarezmian rapscallion, Jalal al-Din Mingburnu, defeated a Caliphal army after the ‘Abbasids failed to provide him assistance. Jalal al-Din chased the survivors right to the suburbs of Baghdad, then went north, defeated an army from Irbil sent to assist the Caliph and captured Irbil’s ruler, Muzaffar ad-Din. Caliph al-Nasir, by then elderly, paralyzed and blind for three years, died soon after Jalal al-Din’s attack, and was succeeded by his son, az-Zahir, as the 35th Caliph… for nine months. On Caliph az-Zahir’s death in 1226, he was succeeded by his own son, al-Mustansir, the 36th and penultimate ‘Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad.    As Caliph, al-Mustanir continued to try to strengthen ‘Abbasid control in Iraq and expand the army, but Mongol rule steadily spread over the region. By the start of the 1230s, Chormaqun Noyan and his lieutenants brought the submission of most of Iran and cast Mongol authority over the Caucasus. For Caliph al-Mustansir, the Mongol empire was a vast crescent to his north and east, where it stretched seemingly indefinitely. By 1235, Mongol forces mainly under Chagatai Noyan, “the Lesser,” were probing northern Iraq and directly, but hesitantly, testing ‘Abbasid hegemony in the region. In June 1237, Chagatai Noyan captured Irbil in what is now Iraqi Kurdistan, though the Citadel held out and in August Caliphal forces relieved the city. In February of 1238, an attack was launched on Baghdad, and a panicked Caliph al-Mustansir sent messages to the remaining independent Muslim powers from the Jazira and Syria down to Egypt for aid. Only 2,000 troops from the Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt,  al-Kamil, reached Baghdad, and in June 1238 a caliphal army was defeated near the city. However, the defences of Baghdad itself remained formidable and the city stood defiant while the Mongols turned back from the walls, unprepared for both a long siege and or the fearsome Iraqi summer.  Possibly, the Mongols suffered some sort of reverse while attacking Baghdad; some sixty years later, when the Persian historian Wassaf [vassaf] visited Baghdad, he recorded a Mongol defeat outside the walls, though this goes unmentioned by the other sources.    While Baghdad remained independent, the Mongols continued to take cities in the region. Chormaqun’s successor Baiju brought the submission of the Seljuqs of Anatolia in 1243; in 1244, the Mongol general Yasa’ur rode into Syria, dislodging the remnants of Jalal al-Din’s Khwarezmians. The Ayyubids of Syria, the successors of the once mighty empire of Saladin Ayyubi, largely submitted over 1244-5, and even Antioch, one of the last of the Crusader Kingdoms, offered its submission.  In late 1245 another attack on Baghdad was launched but soon aborted. The new Caliph since 1242, al-Mustasim ibn al-Mustansir, was lucky the attack was called off, for he was rather rapidly running out of allies. It seem that the new Caliph managed to avoid further attacks with a token submission: the Franscisan Friar John de Plano Carpini, present at the coronation of Guyuk Khaan in 1246, noted ‘Abbasid envoys were present in Karakorum and believed they paid a regular tribute.    The 38th and final ‘Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, al-Mustasim, was not the equal of his father or great-grandfather. While al-Nasir and al-Mustansir sought to strengthen the Caliphate, al-Mustasim was more interested in the luxury of Baghdad, and was nearly universally condemned for decadence. A great lover of music, he sponsored an entire neighbourhood in Baghdad to house musicians, including the most famous of the age, Saif al-Din Urmawi. A lover of pigeon racing, art, calligraphy and treasures, al-Mustasim was also indecisive and easily swayed by factions in his court, some of whom, such as the vizier, sought accomodation with the Mongols, while others urged to meet them in battle. As we will see shortly, the result was al-Mustasim vacillating in policy, wavering between antagonizing the Mongols and sending them gifts. Essentially, the worst sort of man to have in power when Hulegu marched on him with upwards of 100,000 men.    Neither was weak leadership the only problem. Corruption and decadence of Baghdad’s elite alienated the lower classes. A weak currency and high food prices contributed to revolts; many of Baghdad’s soldiers increasingly found themselves unpaid and resorted to bandity or desertion. Topping off years of natural disasters- heavy rain, storms, annual flooding, in 1256, the Tigris, the river which runs through Baghdad, flooded for over a month, washing away much of Baghdad’s lower city. Attributed to divine displeasure at the decadent al-Mustasim, for decades afterwards this flood was remembered as the “Mustasimid flood.” As Mongol armies approached the city, pestilence killed many hundreds, if not thousands. The Caliph stood in a precarious position.   Likely in late 1255, Hulegu sent a message to Caliph al-Mustasim demanding, as Hulegu had done with other rulers across the region, that Baghdad supply troops to help in the attack on the Nizari Isamilis. Al-Mustasim refused. As the ‘Abbasids had been sending tribute in the previous years and were considered vassals, such a refusal was a declaration of independence. Hulegu, having been sent in part to find how sincere the Caliph’s submission was, now had his casus belli, for to the Mongols, the Caliph of Baghdad was now in open revolt. War with the Caliph was not intended to punish Islam specifically; had the Mongols caught the Pope and considered him a rebel, certainly he would have shared a similar fate. What mattered to the Mongols was submission to their divinely mandated rule; refusal to submit was blasphemy of the highest order.   After the fall of Alamut in December 1256, and spending some time near the still-resisting Nizari fortress of Lammasar, Hulegu stayed in Qazwin, just south of Alamut, until March 1257. From Qazwin he undertook a somewhat repetitive journey: from Qazwin he went to Hamadan, then to Dinavar, then Tabriz, then back to Hamadan, then back to Tabriz, then back to Hamadan in September 1257, from whence he would finally march on Baghdad. The reasons for this were multiple, and not just because Hulegu really liked northwestern Iran, though it did give him good time to evaluate the region. Firstly, Hulegu did not want to besiege Baghdad in the summer months, and instead needed to time the march so he arrived outside the city in the winter. Secondly, it provided time for his lieutenants to secure the neighbouring theaters: Kitbuqa Noyan secured through force and diplomacy Luristan and the passes through the Zagros mountains, ensuring Hulegu’s main army could march unimpeded when the time came. In Anatolia, Baiju Noyan had needed to put down a Seljuq revolt, culminating in the battle of Aksaray in October 1256. Baiju then needed to move back east, in order to march on Baghdad from the west when the time came.   Thirdly, Hulegu and the Caliph engaged in an entertaining round of diplomatic fisti-cuffs. Hulegu offered the Caliph another chance to surrender, repudiating him for his failure to send troops against the Nizaris. Hulegu’s threat, as recorded by the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid al-Din, went as follows:   “Previously we have given you advice, but now we say you should avoid our wrath and vengeance. Do not try to overreach yourself or accomplish the impossible, for you will only succeed in harming yourself. The past is over. Destroy your ramparts, fill in your moats, turn the kingdom over to your son, and come to us. If you do not wish to come, send all three, the vizier [al-Alqami], Sulaymanshah, and the Dawatdar, that they may convey our message word for word. If our command is obeyed, it will not be necessary for us to wreak vengeance, and you may retain your lands, army, and subjects. If you do not heed our advice and dispute with us, line up your soldiers and get ready for the field of battle, for we have our loins girded for battle with you and are standing at the ready. When I lead my troops in wrath against Baghdad, even if you hide in the sky or in the earth, ‘I shall bring you down from the turning celestial sphere; I shall pull you up like a lion. I shall not leave one person alive in your realm, and I shall put your city and country to the torch.’ “If you desire to have mercy on your ancient family’s heads, heed my advice. If you do not, let us see what God’s will is.”   The Caliph refused Hulegu’s demands, and when he sent back Hulegu’s envoys, they were harassed by the people of Baghdad; the Caliph’s vizier, ibn al-Alqami, had to send soldiers to protect the envoys to ensure they weren’t killed. When Hulegu learned of the incident, he derided the Caliph as a total incompetent, and then flew into a rage when he heard the official response, which called Hulegu a young and inexperienced man: somewhat humorous, considering al-Mustasim was only four years older than Hulegu. Hulegu’s response was about as subtle as you’d expect. Again, as per the account of Rashid al-Din, quote:   “God the eternal elevated [Chinggis] Khan and his progeny and gave us all the face of the earth, from east to west. Anyone whose heart and tongue are straight with us in submission retains his kingdom, property, women, children, and life. He who contemplates otherwise will not live to enjoy them. Love of status and property, conceit, and pride in transitory fortune have so seduced you that even the words of your well-wishers have no effect on you. Your ear cannot hear the advice of the compassionate, and you have deviated from the path of your fathers and forebears. You must get ready for battle, for I am coming to Baghdad with an army as numerous as ants and locusts. Be the turning of the celestial sphere how it may, the power to command is God’s.”   Upon hearing this message, al-Mustasim’s vizier ibn al-Alqami understood the colossal danger they were in, and fervently argued for the Caliph to appease the Mongols. Al-Alqami has something of a bisecting reputation in the Islamic world. For some, reading the Mamluk sources, the Shia Muslim ibn al-Alqami was a conspirator, plotting with Hulegu to topple the head of Sunni Islam for his own gain. For those reading from Persian and Ilkhanid sources, ibn al-Alqami was earnestly trying to steer the Caliph away from annihilation and save as many lives as he could. On this last response from Hulegu, al-Alqami was able to convince al-Mustasim to send gifts, only for the Caliph to be talked out of it by the dawatdar, Mugahid al-Din Aybek, the Caliphate’s top military man and a staunch supporter of resistance against Hulegu. Convincing the Caliph to abandon the expensive gifts, al-Mustasim sent the following message to vizier al-Alqami to assuage his worries:   “Do not fear the future, and do not talk fables, for there is friendship and unity, not enmity and hostility, between me and Hülägü and [Mongke Khaan]. Since I am their friend, they are of course friendly and benevolent toward me. The envoys’ message is false. Even if these brothers contemplate opposition to or treachery against me, what has the Abbasid dynasty to fear, when the monarchs of the face of the earth stand as our army and obey our every command? If I request an army from every country and mount to repulse the foe, I can incite Iran and Turan against these brothers. Be of stout heart, and do not fear the threats of the Mongols, for although they are powerful upstarts, they pose nothing but an empty threat to the House of Abbas.” If Rashid al-Din is accurate in recording this message, then it goes some way to demonstrate just how greatly al-Mustasim misunderstood the situation. al-Mustasim’s next letter to Hulegu spoke of monarchs who had attacked the ‘Abbasids and suffered divine retribution for it, noting specifically Muahmmad Khwarezm-shah, who for his attack on Baghdad in 1217 suffered the power of Hulegu’s grandfather. Hulegu sent another threat, promising to bring the Caliph “down miserably into the jaws of a lion,” and had enough of parlay.   Hulegu had only to check with the astrologers and diviners of his retinue in order to ensure the assault had good fortune. Variously they warned of failure, catastrophe, and death for harming the Caliph. Finally, Hulegu turned to the famed Iranian scholar rescued from the Nizari fortresses, Nasir al-Din Tusi, and asked what he thought of the matter. After thinking for a moment, Tusi told Hulegu that none of these things would happen. Hulegu asked what would. Tusi replied, “Hulegu Khan will take the Caliph’s place.” And that was enough for Hulegu. The border passes were now secured, and the march on Baghdad could begin.    As Hulegu marched through Kermanshah, massacres followed him. His army approached Baghdad in three directions. Kitbuqa took a route through Luristan, and would march on Baghdad from the south. Baiju Noyan came through northern Iraq, crossing the Tigris near Irbil and closing in on Baghdad’s west and north. Hulegu took the main army through the Hulwan pass and would close off Baghdad from the east, thus encircling the city.    As the armies entered Iraq, cities and towns across Mesopotamia surrendered to them. In January 1258 as the Mongols closed in on the city, the Caliphal army under the Dawatdar tried to repulse Baiju’s army. They were lured into a feigned retreat; a dyke was broken and their camp flooded. Few survivors escaped back to Baghdad. By January 22ned, the Mongol armies had linked up around the city. Not just Mongols, but subject Iranians, Turks, Georgians and Armenians made up this force, with a thousand Chinese siege engineers. The defenders of Baghdad were outnumbered and without hope. For a week, the Mongols prepared their siege lines. Pontoon bridges were built across the Tigris, nets and iron hooks hanging from them to ensure none could escape either up or downriver. No stones for the catapults were within the area, so they needed to be hauled in from elsewhere. A ditch was dug around the city, the earth from the ditch used to build a rampart with gates set in it. Protective coverings were built for the siege engines. With the typical thoroughness of the early Toluids, Baghdad was closed off, its fate sealed.   The assault began on January 29th. An incessant barrage of stones and arrows brought the defenders to their knees. The artillery upon the walls of Baghdad was poorly maintained and outranged by that of the Mongols, useless in the words of one source. Under mobile wooden shelters, the Mongols advanced on the walls, sending arrows deeper into the city. One of the Caliph’s daughters was killed when an arrow passed through a window in his palace. Messages were tied to arrows, proclaiming that all those who did not resist would be spared. By the start of February, towers and bastions along the walls were collapsing. By February 3rd, Mongol forces were capturing the walls. When one of Hulegu’s commanders was killed by an arrow sent from the city, he angrily forced his army on at greater speed.   Realizing just how monumentally he had erred, al-Mustasim sent envoys, among them the once bellicose Dawatdar, to discuss terms with Hulegu. They were quickly put to death. Nothing but the unconditional surrender of the Caliph himself was good enough. Finally, on February 10th, al-Mustasim and his family came out from Baghdad, and put his life in the hands of Hulegu. Initially, the Caliph was treated respectfully. Other notables came out to submit to Hulegu, and many others fled out of the city to escape the pestilence which had already claimed thousands within. These who came out were trapped between the walls of Baghdad and the Mongol palisade. Once the garrison and its weapons were collected, on the 13th of February, the sack of Baghdad began.   In popular culture, the sack of Baghdad is uncontrolled, disorganized, horrifically violent and results in the city’s utter destruction and death of a million people. In reality it was controlled, organized, horrifically violent and resulted in only most of the city’s destruction and deaths of thousands. Rather than wiping Baghdad from the map, it was more of an organized dismemberment. Evidence comes from multiple accounts, but we’ll focus on that of the musician, Urmawi. In contrast to the image of the mob running wild over Baghdad, Urmawi’s account, recorded by the Mamluk historian Shihab al-Din al-’Umari, records the Mongols meticulously planned the sacking. Depending on rank, commanders were given 1 to 3 days to collect loot from sections of the city allotted to them. In Urmawi’s case, his neighbourhood was allotted to Baiju Noyan and his retinue- notably just men Baiju picked to bring into the city with him, rather than a whole portion of his army. Urmawi greeted Baiju with gifts and hosted a feast for him, entertaining him with music and ingratiating himself to the Noyan. Baiju was so pleased he urged Urmawi to come with him to play before Hulegu. Hulegu enjoyed a concert before the walls of Baghdad, ordered Urmawi’s neighbourhood spared and protected with picked men, and even granted Urmawi gardens which had belonged to the Caliph.   Likewise, various sources note that a number of segments of the populations were spared and their property protected: Christians, notably Nestorian priests; Shi’ites and Alids; Khurasani merchants, Qadis, scholars, shaykhs and in one source, Jews. Individuals are mentioned petitioning Hulegu to spare their homes- likely for a hefty payment, of course- but in order to follow these orders, the forces looting the city had to be disciplined enough to actually take note of addresses. Even the oft-repeated statement that the Tigris River ran black with ink of the books of Baghdad’s library must be re-examined, for Nasir al-Din Tusi took many with him to Maragha, where he built his famous observatory. A number of sources indicate the city’s looting lasted only a week, rather than a full month.   Clemency was extended to multiple groups… but for the majority of the city’s population who did not fall into these categories, it appears no quarter was given. For all the gated neighbourhoods like Urmawi’s which were protected, many more were gutted and looted. Treasures collected over the city’s 500 years were stolen, the finest architecture of the ‘Abbasids ruined and torn down. Hulegu entered the city on February 15th, visiting the Caliph’s palace, where al-Mustasim was forced to reveal where he had hidden his wealth. 12,000 severed ears were brought before Hulegu to mark the slain citizenry. The dead littered the street; after a few days, the heat and stench of the rotting bodies led Hulegu to end the looting by February 20th. Notably, the city was not to be left to brigandage: a governor and Mongol officials were appointed, ibn al-Alqami kept his position as vizier, to clean up the bodies and restore the city.   On the 20th of February, Hulegu moved to the village of Waqaf to avoid the foul air of Baghdad, from which he apparently fell sick. At Waqaf, Hulegu had al-Mustasim put to death, most likely rolled into a carpet and stomped upon to avoid spilling his blood on the earth. His family soon followed him.  In European accounts, the popular version was that Hulegu locked Mustasim in his treasury, where he starved to death in an ironic punishment to mark the Caliph’s failures to pay for troops and defences.   So ended the 500 year old ‘Abbasid Caliphate. The impact on Islam is hard to understate. Since the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, there had been a widely recognized successor to him in the form of the Caliphs -Rashidun, Umayyad and ‘Abbasid. Most Muslims saw him as the spiritual, if not the actual political, head of Islam. For the Caliphate, seemingly inviolable and permanent, to come to such a violent and sudden end sent shockwaves throughout the Islamic world. Caliphates had been overthrown before; previous dynasties like the Buyids and Seljuqs had held the Caliphs as puppets and militarily defeated them, while the Nizari Assassins had claimed the lives of at least two; but never before had the Caliphate actually been erased from existence by a power claiming universal sovereignty in its place. Distant relations of al-Mustasim were eventually set up in Mamluk Cairo as new Caliphs, but were never widely recognized. The Ottoman Sultans would also claim the title of Caliph in time, but none have ever been able to step into the position held by the ‘Abbasids. It’s no surprise that many Muslims throughout the following centuries have referred to the sack of Baghdad as a scar of the psyche of the ummah, one which it has not recovered from today. With the fall of Baghdad, Hulegu could now cast his eyes onto Syria, down the Levantine coast to the newly established Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. The sense was real that Hulegu was about to bring the whole of Islam under the authority of the house of Chinggis. Our next episode takes us to the Mongol drive to the Meditteranean- and the famous clash of ‘Ayn Jalut, an episode you won’t want to miss. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, and to help up continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

Before we get into this week's episode, I want to give a shout out to another podcast that we’ve recently discovered here at Ages of Conquest! Pax Britannica is a narrative history podcast on the British Empire. Season 1 covered the start of English colonisation in North America and the Caribbean, the first decades of the East India Company, and the ruthless politics of the British Isles. Season 2 has just begun on the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Civil war and revolution erupt in England, Ireland, and Scotland, pitting the forces of Charles I against his own subjects. By the end, the king will be dead, the monarchy abolished, and Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell will be at the head of a militarised and expansionist Commonwealth. If any of this sounds even remotely appealing, go give Pax Britannica a listen; available where all fine podcasts are downloaded. And now, on with OUR show!   “You are to go with a large army and innumerable force from the borders of Turan to the country of Iran. Observe Chinggis Khan’s customs and yosun and yasa in all matters large and small. From the River Oxus to the farthest reaches of the land of Egypt, treat kindly and affectionately and reward sufficiently whoever obeys and submits to your orders. Grind beneath the feet of your wrath those who resist, along with their wives, children, and kith and kin. Begin with Quhistan and Khurasan, and destroy the fortresses and castles. Rip up GirdKoh and [Lammasar] fortress and turn them upside down! Neither let any bastion remain in the world nor leave a pile of dust standing! When you are finished there, head for Persia and eliminate the Lurs and Kurds who constantly practice brigandage along the highways. If the Caliph of Baghdad comes out to pay homage, harass him in no way whatsoever. If he is prideful and his heart and tongue are not one, let him join the others. In all cases make your clear-sighted intelligence and golden mind your guide and leader, and be awake and sober in all situations. Let the subjects be free of excessive taxes and impositions. Return devastated lands to a flourishing state. Conquer the realm of the rebellious through the might of the great god so that your summer and winter pastures may be many. Consult Doquz Khatun on all matters.”       So were the orders Mongke Khaan, Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, gave to his brother Hulegu on the outset of his campaign in 1253, according to the Ilkhanid vizier Rashid al-Din. Among the most famous of the Mongol campaigns, Hulegu led Mongol armies to destroys the Ismaili Assassins in Iran, the ‘Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad and into Syria, the prelude to the famous clash at Ayn Jalut. As this is perhaps the Mongol campaign with the greatest surviving detail, and one of the most well known, we’re going to take you on a thorough look at Hulegu’s western march, beginning with the destruction of the so-called “Order of Assassin.” I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Hulegu, the famed sacker of Baghdad, was the younger brother of Great Khan Mongke and Kublai, the third son of Tolui with Sorqaqtani. As mentioned back in episode 23, Mongke Khaan took the throne in 1251 with a renewed drive to complete the Mongol conquest of the world. He organized administrative reforms, censuses, and new taxes to levy the forces of the empire for this goal. In 1252, he held a meeting in Mongolia to put this next round of conquest in motion, placing his brothers at the head of two great armies. Kublai was sent against the Kingdom of Dali, in China’s modern Yunnan province, as the opening move in the conquest of Song Dynasty. Hulegu meanwhile was to march west and subdue the few independent powers of the Islamic world: specifically, the Nizari Ismailis, popularly known as the Assassins; the Kurds and Lurs of western Iran, who annoyed the Great Khan through their brigandage, and the ‘Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad.       There is discrepancy in the sources as to what precisely Hulegu’s mandate was. A number of later authors of the Ilkhanate- the state which emerged from Hulegu’s conquests- assert that Mongke intended for the area from the Amu Darya River to the Meditteranean to be ruled by Hulegu as another ulus, or Khanate of the empire, a counterbalance to those of Jochi and Chagatai, a sort of Toluid axis across Asia sandwiching the Chagatayids. This is hardly agreed upon however. Other sources present Hulegu’s command as a temporary military one. The Ilkhanid vizier and historian Rashid al-Din wrote that Mongke told Hulegu to return to Mongolia once he had achieved his tasks; Hulegu had to confer with his commanders on all strategic decisions, which included representatives from the houses of Jochi, Chagatai and even Ogedai, a first amongst equals rather than an almighty prince; and when Hulegu began to seize Jochid possessions in Iran, Khurasan and the Caucasus after Mongke’s death, it seems to have taken them quite by surprise, for in the early 1250s Mongke confirmed grants of Caucasian territory to the house of Jochi. It’s likely that Mongke had intended for Iran and much of the Middle East to be dominated by the Central Imperial Government, but did not intend to remove land rights the other branches of the family enjoyed in the region.          So, who was Hulegu? Born in 1217, he was two years younger than Kublai, almost ten years younger than Mongke, and a few years older than their youngest brother, Ariq Boke. His life before the ascension of Mongke is almost totally unknown to us, but he presumably received similar education in both governing and warfare to his brothers.  While Mongke was groomed for the possibility of stepping into the imperial throne, Hulegu, to our knowledge, was not provided any such pretensions. He was well exposed to other religions and cultures; his mother, Sorqaqtani was a Nestorian Christian, as was his most influential wife, Doquz Khatun, who had been a widow of his father Tolui. Despite this, he showed more personal interest in Buddhism, though he took part in shamanistic practices throughout his recorded life. He was interesedt in science, especially astronomy, though for Hulegu this was more so in the form of astrology, which he often consulted for major decisions. He was a heavy drinker, with the lovely combination of often flying into horrific rages. Even reading pro-Ilkhanid sources like Rashid al-Din, who long served the descendants of Hulegu, one is shocked by the regularity in which Hulegu fell into a towering rage, which tended to be quite dangerous for whomever it was targeted at. His final years were marked by ill health, brought on excessive drinking, and at least one source indicates he suffered from epilepsy.       With the quriltai of 1252, the plan to finalize the conquest of western Asia was set, and Hulegu put in motion. A member of Mongke’s keshig was provided for Hulegu’s command, Kitbuqa of the Naiman tribe, also a Nestorian Christian. Kitbuqa departed as Hulegu’s vanguard in August 1252 with 12,000 men, beginning operations against the Ismailis in eastern Iran. Various sources give Hulegu’s own departure from Mongolia as Autumn 1253 or 1254. By the 1250s, the Mongols had an absolutely massive army: some estimates put the nomadic soldiers at their disposal upwards of one million men, and many more among the sedentary peoples across Eurasia to be called upon.  Mongke provided Hulegu with a relatively small contingent of Mongols at the outset: perhaps as low as a tumen, 10,000 men, for Hulegu in addition to the 12,000 Kitbuqa had already set out with. As Hulegu moved west, his army snowballed, as contingents from across the empire met with him. 1,000 Chinese siege engineers and crossbowmen were provided for him. Most of the former warriors of the house of Ogedai were conscripted for Hulegu’s army. He was joined by a contingent of Oirats under Buqa Temur, the brother of Hulegu’s first senior wife, named somewhat amusingly, Guyuk. A grandson of Chagatai, Teguder, headed the perhaps 10,000 Chagatayid troops provided for Hulegu as he marched through their ulus. As many as 30,000 troops under the Jochid princes Balaghai, Quli and Tutar were provided by Batu. Tamma forces stationed in Kashmir and in the Caucasus, under Baiju Noyan, would also link up with Hulegu, and forces were supplied by all the client sultans, maliks, and atabegs of Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia. By the time Hulegu’s army converged on Baghdad at the start of 1258, he commanded perhaps 150,000 men if not more.        Extensive preparation was necessary for this army’s movement. We are told that roads were cleared of obstructions, bridges built and boats readied to cross rivers. All the pastures and meadows on Hulegu’s route were reserved for the feeding of his army’s horses and livestock. Flour and skins of wine were levied from across the subject populations and stored at depot stations along the way. Thanks to the census launched at the start of Mongke’s reign, the imperial government had a good idea of what could be called upon to provide for Hulegu’s army.        By Autumn 1255 Hulegu was near Samarkand, where he rested for 40 days, feasting with the head of the Secretariat for Central Asia, Mas’ud Beg. Another month was spent at Kish, about 80 kilometres south of Samarkand and the later birthplace of amir Temur, or Tamerlane. There, Hulegu feasted with the head of the Secretariat for Iran and Western Asia, Arghun Aqa. These were not just engagements for drinking (though there certainly was that) but to confer with the regional administrators and line up further provisions, troops and intelligence. At Kish, messengers were sent to vassals across Iran calling upon them to provide troops and assistance against the Ismaili assassins, whose territory Hulegu entered in the spring of 1256.   This takes us to Hulegu’s first target, the Assassins, which we’ll introduce and address some popular myths. Though popularly known as the Order of the Assassins, this is quite the misnomer; more accurately called the Nizari Ismaili state, they controlled a number of fortresses and settlements in three general regions; in Syria, centered around Masyaf; in the rugged eastern Iranian region called Quhistan; and in northwestern Iran’s Alburz mountain, where their  leadership was based across several mountain fortresses, most famously Alamut. Leadership of the branches in Quhistan and Masyaf was generally appointed by Alamut, but were autonomous otherwise. Shi’a Muslims, specifically Ismailis, in the late 1080s and 1090s the Ismaili Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt suffered a succession dispute as to who would succeed the Imam, the rather distant successor to the Prophet Muhammad and ehad of Shi’a Islam. The supporters of one candidate, Nizar, were known as Nizaris, and hence, Nizari Ismailis. For the majority of Muslims, who were Sunnis, the Nizaris were seen as a sect within a sect, and heretics par excellence. At the same time as this succession dispute an Ismaili revolt broke out in Seljuq ruled Iran. In 1090, Hassan-i Sabbah captured the fortress of Alamut, while other adherents seized territory in Quhistan and elsewhere. The last of the Great Seljuqs, Sultan Malik-Shah I, attempted to crush them, but his untimely death, and the ensuing succession risis which splintered the vast Seljuq Empire, allowed the Ismailis to consolidate. Geographically spread out and lacking great economic or military power, they had to rely on other means to protect themselves and convince their neighbours to not attack them.  One tool was assassinations, making a big splash with the murder of the Great Seljuq Vizier Nizam al-Mulk in 1092. Alongside well defended and inaccessible fortresses, it was a useful deterrent for any would-be conqueror. The assassinations were often public and dramatic to make the message as loud as possible. One method was for Ismailis to infiltrate the households of powerful figures as servants: they could then kill the man when he became too great a danger, or leave a warning, such as a knife, on the sleeping man’s pillow. The threat of assassination was as effective as an actual assassination, and soon anyone could be worried he had a secret Nizari Ismaili hiding in his entourage. Because of this, popular myths that the Ismaili imbued copious amounts of hashish before going on assassinations can be ignored. There is no evidence for this, and it’s unlikely considering the patience and planning that went into these missions. However, the appellation of them as heavy users of hashish stuck, hashishiyya, which became “assassin.”   So the Nizaris carried on for over a century. Hassan-i Sabbah and his successors, without any clear imam after Nizar’s death in 1095, basically stepped into the role themselves. The Ismaili leaders -popularly known in the West as ‘the Old Man of the Mountain,’- were generally long reigning without succession disputes, withstanding outside pressures while they mulled over doctrine, all the while being decried as just the worst sort of heretic by Sunni Muslims. In 1210, the ascension of the new imam and Ismaili leader, Hassan III, brought something of a rapprochement. Generally, the Ismailis had poor relations with the head of Sunni Islam, the ‘Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad. They had after all claimed responsibility for the murders of two Caliphs in the 1130s. Yet Hassan III dramatically declared he followed the Sunni Sharia and fostered better relations with both the Caliph and other neighbouring Sunni rulers, such as Ozebg, the Eldeguzid Atabeg of Azerbaijan, and Muhammad II Khwarezm-shah. According to ‘Ata-Mailk Juvaini, a member of Hulegu’s entourage, Hassan III was also the first monarch west of the Amu Darya to submit to Chinggis Khan. Despite his state being largely surrounded by the Khwarezmian Empire, Ismaili fortresses in the Elburz Mountains and Quhistan were spared Mongol attacks. Indeed, Quhistan was a veritable island of security as the Mongols overran the Khwarezmian Empire. Juzjani, a Sunni Khwarezmian refugee who fled to Quhistan before later finding refuge in Delhi, describes the Ismailis in glowing terms.    Hassan III’s successor, ‘Ala al-Din Muhammad III, abandoned the overtures to the ‘Abbasid Caliph, but maintained the ties with the Mongols. When Jalal al-Din Mingburnu returned to western Iran in the mid 1220s, the Ismailis had no love for him and assassinated at least one of his lieutenants. When major Mongol forces returned to the region under Chormaqun Noyan at the start of the 1230s, the Ismailis provided valuable information on the whereabouts and weaknesses of Jalal al-Din, and within a year the Khwarezmian Prince was driven to his death. The details of the Mongol relationship with the Ismails for the next decade is difficult to discern. In 1246 Ismaili representatives came to the coronation of Guyuk Khaan in Mongolia, where they were insulted and sent off. Precisely what occurred is unclear. A possible reconstruction is offered by historian Timothy May in his article on the “Mongol-Ismaili Alliance.” He suggests the positive Mongol-Ismaili relationship was a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” No record is made of Mongol demands for troops or tribute from the Ismailis, and it may have been that while powerful Khwarezmian elements were still extant, relative Ismaili independence was permitted as they were useful allies. After Mingburnu’s death in 1231, and especially after the death of Chormaqun in 1241, Mongol demands on the Ismailis may have increased, and in the early 1230s the Mongols annexed Ismaili controlled Damghan. The Ismailis were so concerned that in 1238, the English Monk Matthew Paris recorded that representatives of “the Old Man of the Mountain,” had come to England and France trying to organize a Christian-Muslim alliance against the Mongols, warning the King of England that “if they themselves could not withstand the attacks of such people, nothing remained to prevent their devastating the countries of the west.” Three years later, Mongol armies under Subutai and Batu crossed the Carpathian Mountains into Hungary.   Back in the Middle East, one Mongol commander, Chagatai Noyan “the Lesser,” may have moved to enforce demands on the Ismailis, and was assassinated at some point in the early 1240s. Perhaps intended as just a warning, the Ismailis realised this was a mistake and sent representatives to Guyuk’s coronation in 1246. The Mongols were never forgiving of such things, and the destruction of the Ismailis was added to the agenda. An opportunity to actually do this didn’t present itself until the reign of Mongke Khan. The qadi of Qazwin, a city south of Alamut and quite antagonist to the Ismailis, came to Mongke’s court and revealed, in quite the breach of etiquette, that he had a suit of maille worn underneath his robes, claiming that his fear of the Ismailis was so great even in the Mongol court he needed this protection. When the Franciscan Friar William of Rubruck came to Mongke’s court in 1253, he heard rumours that 400 assassins had been dispatched to kill Mongke, and the Mongols were concerned enough that they were checking and interrogating everyone entering Karakorum. The threat of the assassins was taken seriously, and on Mongke’s directive Hulegu would treat the assassins very seriously   By then, the only independent power within proximity to Alamut was, somewhat ironically, the Caliph in Baghdad. The Ismailis stood alone against the incoming might of Hulegu. In the winter of 1255, as Hulegu stood at the border of Ismaili Quhistan, the imam ‘Ala al-Din Muhammad was murdered, quite likely on the instigation of his young and inexperienced son, Rukn al-Din Khwurshah, who then ascended to the imamate.  ‘Ala al-Din was long on bad terms with his son, and seems to have suffered some sort of mental decline as news of Hulegu’s overwhelming force approached. Rukn al-Din may have thought himself capable of maneuvering them out of the impending disaster, but would have no success in the matter.   In the spring of 1256, Hulegu and his ever growing army entered Quhistan. Kitbuqa had been campaigning throughout the region since 1253, but had had no success in holding settlements like Tun, Ismaili Quhistan’s chief city, taking them only to lose them once he moved on. The Ismaili fortresses, built on imposing mountains and hard to access sites, proved beyond his means to siege. On Hulegu’s arrival, the dynamic was quickly changed. Vague ‘incidents’ mentioned by Juvaini and Rashid al-Din as Hulegu entered the region may refer to Ismaili attacks in some form, but Hulegu’s army was beyond compare. The chief cities of Quhistan fell within days, and by the summer Kitbuqa led the vanguard to Mazandaran and raiding parties probed towards Alamut. Once Quhistan was subdued, Hulegu moved west, skirting around the edge of Iran’s uninhabitable Great Salt Desert, the Dasht-e Kevir, to arrive at the eastern endof the Alburz mountains. Near Damghan stood the Ismaili fortress of Girdkuh; Kitbuqa had first attempted to attack it in May of 1253. Hulegu committed more troops for it, then moved on. The castle, receiving only minor reinforcement from Alamut, held out until 1271. Such was the design of these fortresses when properly defended.   Rukn al-Din Khwurshah was within the fortress of Maymundiz, downstream of Alamut towards the western end of the Alburz mountains. As Hulegu moved westwards along the Alburz, he sent messengers to Rukn al-Din, demanding his submission. He was nervous, and as Hulegu’s second set of messengers arrived at the beginning of September 1256, Rukn al-Din was convinced to offer submission by the captive scholar, polymath, mathematician, astronomer and theologian, Nasir al-Din Tusi. Tusi was a much, much smarter man than Rukn al-Din Khwurshah and well respected. Having lived through Chinggis Khan’s destruction of Khwarezm, Tusi calculated that a lengthy Mongol siege wouldn’t be very healthy for anyone left inside the citadel. Therefore, on Tusi’s urging, Rukn al-Din sent his brother to Hulegu, offering the submission of the Ismailis. Hulegu thought this was nice, and treated Rukn al-Din’s brother well. He then sent another embassy with demands that Rukn al-Din tear down the Ismaili forts. Rukn al-Din was slow to respond; Hulegu was quick to advance. The token attempt by the Ismaili leader to abate Hulegu by abandoning 5 lesser castles and demolishing a few towers on Alamut, Maymundiz and Lammasar did not succeed. Unwittingly, Rukn al-Din was caught in a nerge, a Mongol hunting circle, as multiple armies converged on him from several directions and trapped him. As the armies neared Maymundiz, taking castles and settlements as they went, Rukn al-Din frantically sent a son and another brother to Hulegu, to no avail, hoping to at least stall until the cold of winter set in. By the 7th of November 1256, the three armies had Maymundiz surrounded.   Hulegu needed a quick victory. So many troops and horses needed a vast quantity of feed, the local environment was depleted and winter was forthcoming. Hulegu demanded provisions from across Iran and the Caucasus be delivered and, as if the seasons themselves adhered to the bidding of the Great Khan, the winter was mild and refused to hampher the Mongols as they approached Maymundiz. Once the armies were arrayed outside of the fortresses, Hulegu surveyed the site. Like so many Ismaili fortresses, Maymundiz was perched on a mountaintop, and hard to access. But Hulegu had his plan.    Fighting began on November 12th, 1256. The first weapons Hulegu brought forth were the kaman-i-gav, as they were known in Persian sources, generally taken to refer to the ox-bow, a Chinese siege machine which was essentially a large, mounted crossbow. These were not for destroying walls, but for picking off defenders. The writer ‘Ata-Malik Juvaini, who accompanied Hulegu on his sieges of the Ismaili cities describes “meteoric shafts,”  from these weapons “burning up” the “devil-like heretics” of Maymundiz, in constrast to stones cast by the defenders which could only hurt single persons. Historian Stephen Haw postulates that this is a reference to gunpowder weapons being used by the Mongols, in the form of explosives tied to the shafts fired from the oxbow, perhaps propelling it as an early rocket. A common critique of this argument is that such poetic language is rather typical of Juviani’s writing, and nowhere else in Hulegu’s campaign does he appear to use such dramatic weapons.    By November 17th, Hulegu’s teams had constructed their catapults and hauled them to a nearby hilltop. It’s possible that these were not just traction style Chinese catapults, but those of the counterweight variety- trebuchets. It’s not specified in written sources that Hulegu used them, but we know they were used by the Mongols by the 1270s, in addition to artwork from later in the century depicting them. Some modern authors like Michael S. Fulton believe the speed at which the major fortresses and cities of the region fell to Hulegu, even those of stone as opposed to stamped earth or mud brick, indicate the usage of counterweighted artillery. Far more powerful with greater range than man-powered traction catapults, instead of teams of men hauling on ropes, the counterweight catapult relied on, well, a counterweight instead, using gravity to propel the projectile with much greater force. Some authors also assert that the Chinese had their own counterweight catapult which the Mongols also used, but the matter is contentious, our sources providing no illumination.   The Mongols differed in their usage of artillery by relying on constant barrages. Their access to a large number of knowledgeable engineers, teams of specialists and overseers allowed them to keep up an unceasing rate of fire day and night, often from dozens of machines at once. For the defenders huddled behind the walls, psychologically it was exhausting. Aside from stones, naphtha, a petroleum-based weapon, was hurled into the city to start fires. Gunpowder bombs may have been lobbed as well. Unused to such weapons, especially in the form of the noise and smell they made, the impact must have seemed unearthly. After less than a week of bombardment, Rukn al-Din Khwurshah surrendered, and the Mongols soon demolished Maymundiz.   Hulegu received the Khwurshah kindly, for he needed him. Through his mediation, Rukn al-Din convinced some 40 odd Ismaili strongholds to surrender to Hulegu and tear down their walls. Alamut and Lammasar held out, and both were put under siege. Rukn al-Din was able to get Alamut’s garrison to come to terms, and it surrendered by December 15th. Briefly, Hulegu went sight-seeing around the castle after it surrendered, amazed by the size of the mountain, the many storerooms and indomitable defenses. It certainly saved him some time to not have to storm it! ‘Ata-Malik Juvaini was able to get permission to take some of the rare and useful tomes from Alamut’s library before the fortress was destroyed and its books burnt. Lammasar took a year to fall, but fall it did.   Hulegu kept Rukn al-Din with him until the great majority of the Ismaili fortresses in Iran had submitted or been torn down. He humoured Rukn al-Din, granting him a Mongol wife and watching Rukn al-Din’s favourite sport of camel fighting. Helping the Mongols avoid many lengthy, difficult sieges on the well defended Ismaili strongholds saved Hulegu considerable effort, but personally Hulegu found him repellent. Once his usefulness was over, in early 1257 Hulegu shipped him off to Mongke Khaan to deal with. According to Rashid al-Din, when Mongke learned the Khwurshah was in Karakorum, he was annoyed and said, “why are they bringing him and tiring a horse uselessly?” then ordered Rukn al-Din’s death. Upon learning of this, Hulegu ordered the deaths of the rest of Rukn al-Din’s captive family, sparing only a young son. Some Ismaili traditions attest another son was snuck away and kept safe, raised as the next imam in secret, but such beliefs never found widespread acceptance. As far as we are concerned, the Nizari Ismaili state ceased to exist by the end of 1256, sparing a few holdouts in Iran and their castles in Syria, as yet untouched by the Mongols.    Hulegu had completed the first of his tasks. After wintering near Lammasar and then Qazwin, in the early months of 1257 he set out west for the greatest target of the campaign: Baghdad, and the 500-year-old Abbasid Caliphate. So be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast to pick up with that next week. To help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. I’m your host David, and we will catch you on the next one. 

Most popular discussions of the Mongol invasions of Japan simply end with the typhoon of 1281 wiping out the Yuan fleet off the coast of Kyushu. This was not the end of Kublai Khan’s dreams to conquer Japan though, nor do such retellings present the long term consequences of the invasion. Today, we will do just that, describing what happened in the years after the events of the new video game, Ghost of Tsushima. Our previous two episodes have discussed the first invasion in 1274, the story of Takezaki Suenaga, a samurai who fought in both invasions, and went over in brief the invasion of 1281. If you’re following Kings and Generals on Youtube, then you’ve also seen one of our newest videos, focusing on the battles on Tsushima and Iki islands. Now, we’re going to tie together everything we’ve talked about, and how this huge expenditure of men and resources affected both Japan, and Kublai Khan’s Yuan Empire. I’m your host David, but just before we get to today's content, we here at Ages of Conquest would like to say thank you to you, our listeners who download the podcast every week. Your support is greatly appreciated and the reason we do this. You could help us even more by donating through our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals or by leaving a five star review in your podcast app of choice! And now, this is,Ages of Conquest.   We’ll start off with the impact on Japan and then go into the consequences for Kublai later on in the episode. In Japan, the impact was significant but not immediate. In the days after the typhoon in August 1281, the Japanese killed the Mongol and Korean survivors they found. The Chinese were spared the sword, instead enslaved with few returning. Though a victory, the Japanese government, the shogunate ruling from Kamakura city, was wary. It was impossible for them to judge the full might of the Yuan, and Mongol envoys continued to arrive over the next few years demanding Japanese submission. In preparation for a third invasion, defences continued to be manned, the long sea wall built around Hakata Bay maintained, and garrisons stationed for the next 50 years. The Bakufu -the Japanese term for the shogunate- again considered launching an attack against Korea, the departing point for Mongol fleets in both invasions. Korean naval experience and ships were an important part of Mongol naval capabilities. It’s difficult to gauge how far these talks actually went, but they never materialized into anything concrete. The shikken, Japan’s de facto ruler, Hojo Tokimune, kept Japan on a war footing, a process which consolidated the power of the Bakufu, especially on Kyushu island where the fighting had happened.    This was valuable, due to the rather… wonky nature of Japanese government. The shikken was officially regent for the shogun, who was ruling in the name of the emperor, who still had his own court, but the actual power in the court was the peculiar Japanese position of the retired emperor, or emperor emeritus. Sometimes called ‘cloistered rule,’ an emperor would retire after a short reign, and then allow a son to become emperor, who dealt with court protocol and ceremony while the retired emperor made the actual decisions. During this period, the shogun was also the grandson of the late emperor Go-Daigo. Of course, this isn’t mentioning the layers of regional and local lords and vassals the government worked through. Officially the shikken could only boss around vassals of the shogun, and was in theory only in charge of military matters. The crisis brought on by the Mongol threat was a great opportunity to expand the power of the bakufu, placing allies and members of the Hojo clan into prominent military governor positions, bringing these into the direct hold of the bakufu. The only troops the bakufu could raise were the gokenin, or‘housemen,’ the vassals of the shogun. But in the danger of the oncoming second invasion, non-gokenin forces in western Japan were mobilized, making the precedent for increased military reach of the bakufu.    In 1281 Hojo Tokimune was still young with foresight and great energy, and intended to further strengthen his family’s hold on Japan. What more would he get away with using the justification of another Mongol attack! The position of the shogun and the emperor were totally compliant to Tokimune, and factions within his own clan were kept tightly in check. What might have been, had Tokimune not suddenly died in April 1284, only 34 years old. He was succeeded by his son, Hojo Sadatoki, too young to rule in earnest. The young Sadatoki was dominated by two advisors, Adachi Yasumori and Taira Yoristuna. The two had been at odds for years, but Tokimune had kept the peace. Without his presence, their cooperation could only be temporary. In late 1285, Taira Yoristuna and his faction suddenly attacked and killed Adachi Yasumori, leaving Yoristuna to control the young Sadatoki. From 1285 until 1293, Japan was ruled by the regent of the regent acting for the shogun acting for the emperor, who was also sidelined by the retired emperor.    The murder of Adachi Yasumori sent shockwaves across the bakufu. A popular man who had been energetic in promoting judicial reforms, his death prompted murders and suicides of Adachi loyalists and family, as well as armed revolts in Kyushu. The loss of many prominent officers was a first blow to the bakufu’s governing ability. Taira Yoritsuna also had to deal with the growing discontent of the samurai clamouring for rewards after the 1281 invasion. As we discussed in our previous episode, it was the custom for samurai to be rewarded for bravery in battle, generally with land confiscated from the defeated enemy. After the Genpei War, which saw the rise of the Shogunate in the 1190s, a whole class of land owning samurai was created, the gokenin, rewarding loyal samurai who fought for the Minamoto clan with inhabited lands. They’d collect the revenues, send part to the shogun and use the remainder to support themselves; the lands could then be inherited by their children. By the 1280s, these lands had been parcelled up and divided, and then divided again, leaving many of the gokenin facing destitution. Enough gokenin were forced to sell or pawn their lands that by the late 1260s the bakufu was issuing laws forbidding this and ordering lands to be returned. For many, the rewards they expected to receive from fighting the Mongols was the difference between maintaining the status quo and impoverishment. The Kamakura Bakufu proved slow to doll out the rewards: under Taira Yoristuna, the rewards largely went to important Hojo and Bakufu supporters, leaving out the poorer gokenin who actually needed it. A large group of well armed men with little stake in the status quo was gradually being formed.   In 1293, the shikken Hojo Sadatoki had Taira Yoristuna and his supporters assassinated, ushering in an era of attempted centralization. Sadatoki was only 24 years old in 1293 and wanted to consolidate the power of the bakufu like his father, largely through force and largely unsuccessfully. He struggled to reduce factionalism within the bakufu, and tried to employ the gokenin in suppressing bandity and piracy. Too late was it realized that in many cases the bandits were the gokenin, and such suppression efforts proved futile. All while dealing with the expenditure of continuing to prepare for a Mongol return. When Sadatoki died in 1311, he was remembered as a tired politician who had decreed innumerable death sentences. Sadatoki was succeeded by a nine year old son, Takatoki, dominated by his advisers. Largely ignoring political matters, even when he came of age he was unable, and unwilling, to exert a redirection on the ailing Bakufu.   Takatoki was a poor figure to match another growing threat facing the bakufu.  Back in 1221 the retired emperor Go-Toba attempted to throw off the rule of the Hojo, only to be quickly defeated and Hojo rule secured. In the aftermath, the Hojo asserted greater power over the emperors, including the mandate to decide the imperial succession as needed, though generally left this to the retired emperor. Since the 11th century, the retired emperors held authority and influence over the sitting emperors, just to add that extra layer of confusion to medieval Japanese politics. The Bakufu had a particularly good relationship with the emperor Go-Saga, who reigned as Japan’s 88th emperor, ruling from 1242 to 1246 but acting as retired emperor until his death in 1272. Go-Saga’s son Prince Munetaka became Shogun in 1251, his next son was the 89th Emperor, Gofukakusa and a third son was the 90th emperor, Kameyama, reigning until his retirement in 1274. Go-Saga had never declared whether Gofukakusa or Kameyama would control the succession, anticipating that the Bakufu would simply decide. In theory Gofukakusa, as the senior retired-emperor on Go-Saga’s death in 1272, had control over the succession. The Bakufu sought the opinion of Go-Saga’s widow, who told them to instead choose Kameyama. For the first time in 200 years the sitting emperor, Kameyama, was dominant over the retired emperor, Gofukakusa. It was a step towards the empowerment of the emperors which led to the downfall of the Bakufu.    A consequence of this was both Gofukakusa and Kameyama each thought his own children should sit on the Chrysanthemum Throne. When Kameyama retired in 1274 he declared his son to succeed him as the 91st Emperor, Go-Uda. When it was apparent that Gofukakusa was angry at this, the Bakufu made an unusual decision: they declared that the throne would alternate between the two lines, with Go-Uda to make his heir Gofukakusa’s son, the future 92nd Emperor, Fushimi.  The motive isn’t exactly clear: historian Ishii Susuma has suggested this was a means of control. Facing the threat of the Mongol invasion, the first in 1274 and a second sure to follow, the Bakufu may have believed tightly controlling the imperial succession was another way to secure their power in the crisis of the Mongol threat. Whatever the case, the Bakufu now interfered with the succession at will, demanding the resignation of an emperor whenever rumour reached them of anti-Bakufu sentiment. By the early 1300s the alternating succession was formalized, and the antagonism between the lines of Gofukakusa and Kameyama institutionalized. By the time the two brothers died in 1304 and 1305, the competition between their families had gone on for some 30 years. By 1318 the Bakufu enforced further guidelines, limiting each emperor to a maximum ten year reign and forbidding the offspring of the new monarch, the 96th emperor Go-Daigo, a grandson of Kameyama, from ever taking the throne. For Go-Daigo, who dreamed of overthrowing the shogunate, this was infuriating.    Luckily for Go-Daigo the time was ripe to topple the Kamakura Bakufu. The current shogun was Go-Daigo’s cousin, a grandson of Gofukakusa and an absolute non-entity. The shikken until 1326 was the distracted Takatoki, who retired that year and brought further crisis to the leadership of the bakufu. His successor resigned after only a month, due to an assassination attempt by Takatoki’s mother, who then installed Takatoki’s brother as the final shikken of the Kamakura Bakufu, Hojo Moritoki. The political leadership of the shogunate was hamstrung.  The unrest among the gokenin and earlier banditry turned into rebellion, small armies emerging across Japan challenging the shogunate’s rule. Go-Daigo shopped for allies and didn’t have far to look. In 1333 Go-Daigo’s star general, the masterful tactician Kusunoki Misahige, defeated a Bakufu army. With their military might broken, or at least the longstanding belief in it, the key underpinning of Bakufu rule was removed. Bakufu commanders such as Ashikaga Takauji and Nitta Yoshisada joined the imperial cause.Yoshisada attacked the Bakufu’s capital of Kamakura. The leadership of the Hojo committed suicide and the Shogunate was dismantled. The Emperor was now back in real power for the first time in generations… for about three years.   The aforementioned Ashikaga Takauji hadn’t fought for the restoration of imperial power, but rather, to make himself shogun: essentially, replace the Kamakura Bakufu with one led by his own family. Emperor Go-Daigo’s failure to reward his new military supporters with confiscated Kamakura lands alienated his fragile base of support.  In 1335 some Hojo survivors briefly recaptured Kamakura, and this was the spark for Ashikaga Takauji’s own putsch. Retaking the city, Takauji acted as shogun, ordering lands of his political foes confiscated and redistributed. In 1336 Takauji marched on the imperial capital of Kyoto. Go-Daigo fled before him and when Takauji set up a puppet emperor in Kyoto from the line of Gofukakusa, Go-Daigo set up a rival court in the mountains south the city. So began the 60 year period in Japanese history known as the Northern and Southern Courts, with the Northern Court, based in Kyoto, puppets to legitimize the Ashikaga Shogunate, and a southern court officially challenging them. Not until 1392 was this settled and the long running conflict between the lines of Gofukakusa and Kameyama brought to an end. The Ashikaga Shogunate nominally ruled Japan until 1588, but never matched the strength of the Kamakura Bakufu. Though the Ashikaga Shoguns held high pretensions- the third Shogun called himself the King of Japan in official correspondence- over the 15th century their hold weakened precipitously, and by the 1490s Japan’s famous Sengoku Jidai period began, the warring states period which eventually yielded to the control of the Tokugawa Shoguns.   The Mongol invasion on Japan undermined the Kamakura Bakufu, both causing and compounding fractures within the shogunate. Other than this, the impact of the invasion was much more limited, and not until recently was it seen as a ‘national’ event for the Japanese. On Kyushu, where the fighting had been and home of most of the actual defenders, the Mongol invasion held a high place in memory, shaping the identity of many warrior families. The island’s administration and judicial system were greatly affected, both by increasing Bakufu control and decades of preparing for Mongol returns. For the majority of Japanese though, other than the government shifts and conflicts, they saw little influence of the invasion on their lives. Claims that it prompted a shift in Japanese perceptions of the “foreign” have little basis in the 13th or 14th centuries. Samurai like Takezaki Suenaga saw it as just another battle for which to claim reward, rather than a national emergency: his own account simply calls the Mongols ‘pirates,’ or ‘rebels.’ The invasion did not prompt a national consciousness for Japan. Outside of Kyushu, after the 13th century wider Japanese interest in the invasions did not pick up until Takezaki Suenaga’s scrolls depicting the invasion began to be copied and distributed at the end of 1700s. Since the Samurai no longer had an actual military role by then, they were eager to celebrate the heroic combat of their ancestors -not because of victory over foreigners or civil wars, but that they had done brave deeds.   If the slow distribution of the scrolls promoted knowledge of the invasions, it was the forced opening of Japan and interaction with western imperial pressure in the mid-1800s in which, retroactively, the Mongol invasions became the “first round” of ‘Japan vs the world.’ The Mongol invasion was a popular medium to depict the Americans and Europeans as invaders coming to Japan.  The last of the Tokugawa Shoguns was ousted in 1868, and the 122nd emperor, Meiji, was the first to hold real power since the defeat of Go-Daigo some 500 years prior. Under Meiji, a national historiography was promoted to catch on to this new-fangled European idea of ‘nation-states.’ The Mongol Invasions were especially prominent in the new history textbooks, appearing on the currency and in popular art. With the boom in Japanese nationalism at the turn of the century and military victories over China and the Russian Empire, the Japanese government made the Mongol invasion a useful propaganda tool, presenting Japan as a divinely protected, and superior, nation to its foes. It’s roughly this time that the term kamikaze specifically came to be associated with the storms which marked the end of both invasion attempts. As we mentioned in previous episodes, the 13th and 14th century Japanese sources make little mention of the storms; divine support was seen in the fact that the Japanese won, rather than a specific manifestation via the storms. In the late 19th century, as both knowledge and popularity of the invasions grew, the storms became the sign of Japan’s divine favour, an idea which is now irrevocably tied to the invasions. The connotations of divine rescue in Japan’s hour of need reached their ultimate evolution with the kamikaze pilots of 1944, a last ditch effort to slow the American approach on the Japanese home islands.   The consequences of the invasion on the Mongol Empire were not as significant. Kublai Khan’s immediate reaction to the defeat in August 1281 was to demand a third invasion. Envoys were again sent to Japan demanding its submission, and orders were sent across his realm for ships and rice for another attack. Only by 1286 were Kublai’s advisers able to dissuade him against another attack.  Thought for invading Japan did not totally go away though: in 1280, the “Mobile Bureau for the Subjugation of Japan,” was established in Korea which was officially to prepare for further incursions. Dissolved and reformed several times, it became the highest arm of Mongol authority in Korea until the end of Yuan rule in the late 14th century.    We will explore Kublai’s career in greater detail in future episodes, but by the mid-1280s his most trusted advisers, his chief and most beloved wife and his favourite son and heir were dead. Losing the only voices that could rein Kublai in, he became depressed, seeking solace in food and alcohol, suffering from gout and obesity. Japan was not his only failed foreign venture; he also ordered inconclusive invasions against Vietnam, Burma, Java and fought rebellions in Central Asia, Mongolia, Manchuria and Tibet. Having lost direct rule over the rest of the empire, the destruction of the fleets against Japan must have felt to Kublai like a failure to complete the Mongol conquest of the world. The defeats only deepened the morose of Kublai’s final years, but the invasion of Japan did not singularly cause this.    More immediate effects were economic. The expenditure of men, ships and resources against Japan, and other overseas ventures, were enormous for no gain. To try to make up the difference, Kublai demanded his finance ministers bring in ever greater tribute and taxation. In Chinese sources, these men are called the “three Villainous Ministers,” or some variation thereof- Ahmad Fanakati, Lu Shirong and Sangha, who, in their attempts to meet the demands  of the aging Khan, with some personal enrichment along the way, were accused of heinous crimes and greed, from stealing women to looting tombs of the Song Emperors. While some accusations are likely exaggerations, the impression gained by the Chinese was one of mistreatment, and undid much of the goodwill Kublai earned from his other reconstruction efforts. The 1280s up until Kublai’s death at the start of 1294 saw mismanagement and corruption set in which Kublai’s less able successors never shook off. The attacks did not end Japanese trade with China; it continued after Kublai’s death, but with increasing restriction and regulation ordered by the Yuan government. To protect themselves, Japanese ships coming to China came with armed men, which gave way easily to piracy. Hence, wako pirates once again threatened the Korean and Chinese coastlines from the 14th century on.   To the Chinese and Mongols, they were left with an impression of the Japanese as tough warriors, but at that time little else was learned of them. Marco Polo, who arrived in China after the first invasion, provides the first European mention of Japan -Zipangu, he calls it- and a garbled version of the invasion. Describing the Japanese as incredibly wealthy, he describes the storm sinking the fleet, but with the addition that shipwrecked survivors were able to sneak into the Japanese capital city and take it, a paltry attempt to preserve the image of Mongol invincibility. It is from Polo’s account that Japan would first appear on European maps, some 200 years before Europeans first physically set foot on Japan in the 1540s.    Our final note is a brief one;  The sword used by the samurai at the time of the Mongol invasion was the tachi, a long, single-edged blade with a pronounced curvature.  It seems to some extent the Japanese found the swords ill suited to the task, that the sword was deemed too fragile against either the Mongol armours, particularly full iron lamellar, or Mongol and Chinese swords which were shorter, thicker and sturdier made than the Japanese equivalents. As the Japanese did not use shields, attempts to block sword blows with the tachi may have resulted in significant chipping of the blade. According to the theory this spawned a need to redesign the tachi, making it stronger, shorter and somewhat straighter. The centralization of the Kamakura Bakufu and large mobilization of warriors resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of men making the trips across Japan and to the capital and beyond. This provided a means to pass on technical knowledge of changing sword designs, and by the late 14th century spawned the emergence of a new weapon for the samurai: the katana. In that respect at least, the expansion of the Mongol Empire was an irregular road to providing a classic weapon for thousands of anime characters. Such is the nature of history!   This ends our series on Mongol Invasions of Japan; hopefully you’ve listened to this, the previous episodes and our newest video while you’ve been playing Ghost of Tsushima, and perhaps learned something along the way. Our next episode will go back to our regular series, picking up with the western expansion of Hulegu against the ‘Abbasid Caliph in the 1250s. If you’d like to help us continue bringing you great content, consider supporting us on patreon at www.patreon/kingsandgenerals. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

For most who experienced the Mongol invasions first hand, it was a sight of untold horror, an unstoppable enemy bringing fire and ruin. For Takezaki Suenaga, a samurai who fought against the Mongols in both of their failed invasions of Japan, it was a chance for the highest glory, and none could restrain him from taking the field against them. For the second episode in our Ghost of Tsushima -themed week, we present the story of a historical samurai who fought the Mongols, one who provided us with a set of illustrated scrolls which described his exploits. Today, we’re going to go through the account of Takezaki Suenaga, a rare opportunity to see how one man experienced the Mongol invasions first hand. Perhaps you’ll be able to compare his experiences with those of the player character, Jin, in Ghost of Tsushima. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Very little is known of Takezaki Suenaga prior to the invasions. He was a gokenin, a ‘houseman,’ a minor samurai from Higo province of Kyushu island, the southernmost of the main five of the Japanese home islands. He was part of the Takezaki clan, owned lands, could provide himself a horse, armour and bring 5 retainers to battle- about average for warriors from Kyushu, but slightly more than what the common samurai of Honshu, the largest Japanese island, could muster. 29 years old on the eve of the first Mongol invasion in 1274, Suenaga was known to have been involved in a land dispute which had put his personal finances in great jeopardy. Beyond such broad strokes, his early life is lost to us.   Higo Province, located in western Kyushu, was comparatively close to the strategic  Hakata Bay, the large, natural harbour which any invasion fleet departing southern Korea would certainly strike for. Suenaga, living in Higo Province, was probably put on warning from 1268 onwards, when the Japanese government, the Kamakura Bakufu, began to prepare for a possible Mongol invasion. The details of this buildup of tension between Japan and Kublai Khan was explained in our previous episode, and we won’t reiterate that here. The Mongol invasion fleet departed Korea early in November 1274, swiftly taking the islands of Tsushima and Iki. As the fleet neared Hakata Bay, the warriors of Kyushu were mobilized, Suenaga among them.  In theory, the warrior would fight together with families of shared lineage, but were under no obligation to do so. Suenaga was part of the Takezaki clan, but operated nearly totally independently of them. By the time he and his men, all on horseback, arrived near the area of Hakata Bay, the Mongols had already broken through the defensive line. Suenaga had trained since childhood in archery, swordsmanship and riding; he had his own colourful set of yoroi armour, rows of iron lamellar and lacquered leather laced together. His principal weapon was the long, asymmetrical yumi, the Japanese warbow, a heavier bow than that utilized by the Mongols. In his small party was a bannerman to mark Suenaga’s location on the battlefield. The sword- not yet the famous katana,which developed in the 14th century- was the dignified sidearm, though the longer, spear-like naginata was more commonly used once the enemy was too close for bow-work.   When Suenaga arrived, the Mongols had already established a temporary camp at Akasaka, some kilometres inland. The commander in charge of the gathering samurai was Shoni Kagesuke.  He ordered those samurai who were already approaching Akasaka, Suenaga among them, to fall back and await reinforcements. As it was poor terrain, they hoped to encourage the Mongols to come to them, lose their formation and then allow Japanese archery to tear at them. Suenaga followed the order, and once the various warriors were recalled and far from the enemy, Suenaga spurred his horse onwards, saying, “Waiting for the general will cause us to be late to battle. Of all the warriors of the clan, I Suenaga will be the first to fight from Higo!”   In Japanese warfare of the period, men were rewarded for valour in combat, being the first to enter battle, taking enemy heads or losing men of their own. Rewards included fine garments, horses, even lands. For a relatively poor samurai like Suenaga who could quite possibly lose his expensive armour, weapons and horse in the battle, not to mention faced dispossession of his lands, such rewards made all the difference. The prestige itself from heroic acts in combat could not be dismissed, either. The problem was that these were powerful incentives against patiently waiting for orders.  As Suenaga rode on, one of commander Kagesuke’s retainers called on Suenaga to dismount and wait, to which he replied, “We five are going to fight before you. We won’t limit ourselves to merely shooting down the enemy! I have no purpose in life but to advance and be known!” Kagesuke recognized that he’d be unable to hold Suenaga back, and told him that he would be witness to him. This was an important aspect to this reward system: unless someone could bring severed heads of the enemy, he needed witnesses, preferably multiple, who could vouch for the samurai’s actions. If the multiple witnesses provided contrasting details, then the Bakufu could dismiss the account.   On his ride to Akasaka, Suenaga encountered some Samurai returning, carrying severed heads of the enemy. Learning that the Mongols had abandoned Akasaka and were retreating to the beach in two main bodies, Suenaga drove his horse onwards ever faster. Pursuing the smaller of the two retreating Mongol forces, Suenaga was frustrated when he rode his horse right into mud flats. By the time he freed his horse, the Mongols had stopped at Sohara. Here he was finally about to close with his enemy, when one of his own retainers stopped him, urging him to wait for the oncoming Japanese reinforcements: better chances of victory, and witnesses, for his actions. In typical fashion, Suenaga dismissed his concerns, shouting: “The way of the bow and arrow is to do what is worthy of reward. Charge!” By then the Mongols had pressed on, reaching the beach and open ground. To Suenaga’s credit, he mentions  his bannerman was the first one out. The small party of samurai were met with a hail of Mongol arrows. The bannerman’s horse was shot out from under him and he was thrown; Suenaga and three other retainers were injured by arrows, and finally his own horse was struck, throwing him into the sand. This is the most famous scene in the illustrated scrolls, which shows Suenaga being thrown forward off his horse while blood spills copiously from the wound.  In the illustration, a bomb is being set off nearby. The presence of this bomb is generally taken to be a later addition to the art, drawn in a different style. Had the Mongols thrown explosives at Suenaga, doubtless he would have mentioned surviving such a terrifying weapon. The likely archaeological remains of such bombs have been found; this specific party of Mongols is just unlikely to have lobbed them at Suenaga.   Thrown from his horse, Mongol arrows raking his small party, Suenaga admits in his narrative that he would have died there, had it not been for a timely charge of a formidable unit of samurai cavalry from Hizen province. It’s commander, Shiroishi Rokuro Michiyasu (shi-roy-shi Ro-ko-ru Mich-i-yasu), rode right through the Mongol line, rider and horse miraculously emerging unscathed. Suenaga was evidently impressed by this, and acted as witness for him. Another gokenin was not so lucky: Suenaga watched the man bestruck in the neck by an arrow. After brief fighting, the Mongol party they had been chasing fled, evidently reached their ships, and thus ended Suenaga’s part in the first Mongol invasion of Japan.  The fleet soon departed, pushed back to Korea by strong winds, as we covered previously. Suenaga, by the way, never mentions anything regarding divine winds or storms, presenting a victory entirely through Japanese force of arms.    The next event in the narrative presented in Suenaga’s scrolls is the most detailed, wherein he travels to Kamakura city to try and get his rewards in 1275. To pay for the journey, Suenaga had to sell horse and saddle, and took the trip from Kyushu to Kamakura. There he met with little luck. The officials of the court ignored his requests, deeming him a minor, insignificant warrior. Here, Suenaga gives the most attribution to divinely inspired favour. Visiting a nearby shrine of Hachiman, the war god, and praying fervently, he returned and was in time to speak with the Office of Appeals. There he met with its administer, Adachi Yasumori, military governor of Suenaga’s home Higo province, one of the most powerful men in Japan and father-in-law to the shikken and Japan’s de facto ruler, Hojo Tokimune.  Suenaga told his story to Yasumori, and learned that Kagesuke’s brother, Tsunesuke, the military governor of Chikuzen province, had not mentioned Suenaga’s exploits in his report on the battle. Lacking this evidence, with neither dead retainers or enemy heads to show for it, Suenaga emphatically declared that if Kagesuke said under oath that Suenaga was lying, then they could take his head. Finally, Yasumori decided to take Suenaga’s deeds straight to the highest authority, the shikken Hojo Tokimune. Suenaga was recognized, rewarded with a fine horse and saddle, and had his land dispute settled in his favour. Of the 120 samurai rewarded for the 1274 invasion, Suenaga was also the only one who received commendation from the shogun. Yasumori’s actions evidently touched Suenaga, who commemorates him in the scrolls and in his will, urged his descendants to serve loyally the house of Adachi.    The Bakufu was generally reluctant to pay out these rewards. Normally as fighting was between the Japanese, confiscated lands and goods from the losing side were made the rewards for valourous samurai. But, fighting against a foreign enemy who retreated back over the sea, meant such rewards essentially had to be paid out of pocket by the Bakufu. A temporary measure to this was to forbid samurai like Suenaga from leaving Kyushu to make the trip to Kamakura to demand rewards, citing reasons of military defence. For the Kamakura Bakufu, this was to become a rather dangerous matter for them in coming years, and our next episode.   Hojo Tokimune and the Bakufu readily realized the victory in 1274 was not an end to the war. The Mongols would return, and in greater force. For this, an even greater effort was thrown into the defences. For over 20 kilometres around Hakata Bay a sea wall was built at likely beachheads, in places 3 metres high and 3 metres wide. Warriors from the provinces of Kyushu were to serve 3 months guard duty along the coast. The shugo positions, the military governors, came under more direct rule of the Hojo clan to strengthen its coordination abilities. Temples were ordered to pray for the nation, and in the final months of 1275 there was even discussion of a retaliatory attack against Korea, though it is difficult to judge if these preparations ever went past discussion.   With the conquest of the Song Dynasty in 1279, Kublai Khan now had ample men and resources for side projects, such as punishing the insolent Japanese archipelago. It was by all accounts a massive undertaking: 40,000 Northern Chinese, Mongolian and Korea troops departing from Korea aboard 900 ships, and as many as 100,000 men from the territories of the former Song Dynasty departing southern China aboard 3,500 ships.  It was immense, likely the largest seaborne invasion before D-Day in 1944, and only barely lurched from the gate. Many of the vessels were repurposed ships designed for rivers in southern China, not open ocean. Others were hastily constructed, built to hurriedly meet the deadline of an impatient Great Khan. The northern fleet, manned by experienced Korean sailors aboard sturdier ships, was ready to go, with a timetable to link up with the southern fleet at Iki island. The southern fleet was held up by the death of a commander, while its provisions spoiled in the warmth of south China. Frustrated, the northern fleet set out on its own;  by the 10th June 1281, Iki island was occupied, and again the fleet set out for Kyushu’s Hakata Bay. The Japanese sea-wall did its work. The Yuan Dynasty armada could not force a landing, well-protected Japanese archers repulsing efforts to land. For two months the fleet was essentially held in standstill, occupying Shiga island and unable to take advantage of the southern fleet’s arrival and disembarking on Kyushu.    With the enemy at sea, when the 35 year old Takezaki Suenaga arrived at Hakata Bay, he had a problem. He didn’t have a boat. Since the Mongols were not coming to them, and hungry for glory, the samurai were taking their small vessels out to sea, boarding the Yuan ships and fighting there. Suenaga and his retainers ran along the beach, looking for ships to take them but none had room. When hope seemed lost, the flag of Adachi Yasumori was spotted on a ship. Boarding a messenger skiff unsuited to the deeper waters where the Mongol fleet was, Suenaga and his retainers reached Yasomuri’s vessel. To the great displeasure of Yasumori’s retainers, Suenaga jumped aboard their ship. He told them he was ordered there by the military governor, and had to be on the ship- which Yasumori’s men saw right through, and ordered him to be thrown off. Suenaga cried that if they just gave him a small boat of his own, he’d leave on his own accord, but somehow that didn’t convince them.    Suenaga tried this same trick on the boat of another lord, Tsumori, where he annoyed them enough that they let him on board. There was no space for Suenaga’s retainers, who complained but could only watch him sail away. Such is the way of the bow and arrow, Suenaga simply wrote on that. In the process Suenaga forgot to grab his helmet, and fashioned an impromptu defence out of two shinguards he tied to his head.  Finally they neared an enemy ship, and in the process of trying to board Suenaga was injured. Frustrated, Suenaga threw his bow away, grabbed a naginata and roared at the rowers to bring them closer to the enemy ship-  only by then the rowers were trying to push them away, fearing for their life. Switching ships again, Suenaga finally got his boarding action later that afternoon, in which he suffered another wound. To his pleasure, his name was the first from the province to be entered into the report for the battle.    His final engagement with the Mongols was taking part in driving them from Shiga island. One of Suenaga’s retainers and a relative were injured in that battle, and two of their horses killed. The Yuan fleet had it worse. Bickering between the Mongolian, Chinese and Korean commanders hampered them, while the soldiers from South China fought poorly, seeing little incentive to die for foreign masters in a foreign land. The lack of progress raised tensions, provisions ran low, and the fleet was on the verge of retreat when on the 15th of August, 1281, the sea began to churn. With a storm oncoming, the men loaded onto the ships and tried to set out for deeper waters. A typhoon, rising unseasonably early, punished the fleet design. The riverine Chinese ships of the southern fleet were annihilated, brought to the depths or tossed onto the rocks. The archaeological remnants found on the sea floor by Takashima island mark their deep graves. The larger Korean vessels designed for open waters fared better; whereas half of the southern fleet was estimated to have been destroyed, only a third of the northern shared the same fate. Survivors who made it to shore, on Kyushu and the neighbouring islands, were hunted down and killed, though some mercy was shown to Southern Chinese- their fate was to be slaves to the Japanese. So ended the second Mongol attempt to invade Japan. Kublai Khaan was furious and demanded a third attack, but we will discuss this in our next episode.   Suenaga, in typical fashion, mentions none of this once his part in the fighting was done. Suenaga’s scrolls were compiled between 1293-1324, and were concerned with his personal exploits and commemorating Adachi Yasumori, murdered in 1285, rather than an overall view of the campaign. The existence of the scrolls themselves is quite unusual for someone living well outside the capital, and were an expensive undertaking. Extensive battle scenes are portrayed, highly detailed armours, horses and dozens of warriors. While his position in 1274 had been humble, he earned himself a pretty penny after the second invasion, primarily through donations people made to a shrine he controlled, and lending seeds at usurious rates. When the farmers failed to pay back the loan, Suenaga seized their lands. For Suenaga, the scrolls were an expensive endeavour, requiring foresight generally uncommon to the samurai of the period. The fact the scrolls survived for us is remarkable: the Takezaki clan lost them in the late fourteenth century when fighting spread through their lands and the scrolls, among other possessions, were seized. They traded between families; at one point, their owners died during the Japanese invasion of Korea in the 1500s. Not until the 1700s did they begin to be copied, and in 1890 they were handed over to Emperor Meiji: today, they sit in Japan’s Museum of the Imperial Collections. If you have seen medieval artwork of the Mongol invasion of Japan, you are looking at one of the illustrations from the scrolls. A full translation by Thomas Conlan can be found in his work, In Little Need of Divine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasion of Japan, and provide a fascinating look at a man who perhaps best embodied the ideals of 13th century samurai culture.    If you’re eager for more from us on the Mongol invasions of Japan, please check out the previous episode in our series, and the latest video on our Youtube Channel, Kings and Generals. Our next podcast episode, will wrap up our short series on Japan, detailing the consequences of the invasion on both the Japanese and the Mongol Empire, and its longer historical legacy. Once that is complete, we will return to our original narrative timeline! To help us keep bringing you great content, please consider supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon/kingsandgenerals. I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one   

For the release of the new Sucker Punch video game, Ghost of Tsushima, which depicts a lone samurai defending a Japanese island from Mongol invaders, we’re going to change up our presentation for a few episodes.  This will be the first in a three part series looking at the Mongol invasions of Japan, a slight jump ahead in the timeline of our episodes so far, going from the reign of Great Khan Mongke to that of his younger brother, Kublai Khan. This first episode will provide greater context to the game, discussing the cause of the first Mongol invasion of Japan in 1274, the actual battle for Tsushima island and the fighting in Hakata Bay.  Our following episode will detail the story of Takezaki Suenaga, a samurai who fought against both invasions and later produced a brilliant set of scrolls depicting his exploits. The final episode will cover the oft-overlooked consequences of the invasion on both Japan and Kublai Khan’s empire, as well as its historical legacy: altogether, we hope to provide an accurate and well rounded view of the historical events surrounding the game utilizing both primary sources and scholarly literature. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.       Japan first came to Mongol attention through Japanese raids against the Korean peninsula. Called wakō, piracy against the Korean coastline had existed for centuries, but picked up again in the 1220s during Korean weakness caused by the Khitan and Mongol invasions, covered in our previous episodes. The island of Tsushima, situated between Korea and Japan, was a prominent base for these pirates making the short trip over the straits to strike undefended settlements. These attacks were not court sanctioned, a crime of individual opportunity rather an organized effort. By the time the Korean leadership finally submitted in 1259 the raids had largely ceased, but it meant the existence of Japan was known to the Mongols. The new King of Korea in 1260, King Wonjong, had a good relationship with the new Mongol Emperor, Kublai. We will return to Mongke’s reign after these episodes, but for those of you who do not know, Mongke Khan died on campaign in China in August 1259. Two of his younger brothers, Kublai and Ariq Boke, both declared themselves Khaan in the months following. Known as the Toluid Civil War, Kublai based in China was able to overcome his brother based in Mongolia by 1264. Consequences were immense: Mongol imperial unity was shattered as the Mongol ruled Khanates across western Asia began their own conflicts, the Hulegu-Berke war between the Ilkhanate and Golden Horde. Kublai had defeated Ariq, but lost the empire. His authority beyond the western borders of China was only nominal, and the Khanates were effectively independent states from that point on, though contact remained between them. Kublai, by necessity, was forced to focus his continued conquests on China and the surrounding territories.      Kublai’s main target was the Song Dynasty, which ruled southern China. A huge economic power with a massive population, the Song war was a difficult task. The Mongols needed to resort to indirect strategies to help bypass the frontier: in the 1250s, Kublai had conquered the Kingdom of Dali, in China’s modern Yunnan province, to open a front on the southwest of the Song. The Japanese, who had trade ties with the Song, were another direction Kublai could exert his influence. Forcing the Japanese to cut trade with the Song would help weaken the Song economy, and so aid Kublai’s overall war with them. Further, like his brother Mongke, Kublai firmly believed in the eventuality that all of the world was to come under Mongol rule. Bringing in the submission of the Japanese was merely Kublai enacting heaven’s will. He had one other concern that his predecessors did not. Despite controlling Mongolia, the core of Kublai’s realm was China, and tied himself to Chinese imperial tradition for legitimacy there. In classic Chinese tradition he declared his own dynasty in 1271, the Yuan Dynasty, marking himself as heir to the Chinese empires of Han, Tang and successor to the dying Song Dynasty. In the days of the mighty Tang Dynasty, ruling from 618-907 CE, Japan had diplomatic, economic and religious ties with China, and the Tang Emperors considered the Japanese their vassals. These ties petered out before the end of the Tang, and only during the years of the southern Song was there even trade between them. For Kublai, to vassalize Japan would help to legitimize him to the Chinese, bringing Japan ‘back into the fold,’ so to speak. With these various interests in mind, in 1266 he ordered a first set of envoys to travel to Japan via Korea.       Kublai addressed the letter to the King of Japan, and it's here we can discuss a rather unique feature of Japanese government of the time. Firstly, Japan’s official ruler was not the ‘King,’ but the Emperor, at that time Emperor Kameyama, the 90th emperor of Japan. However, since the end of the Genpei War in 1185, the emperor was a figurehead, with real power held by the Shogun. Known as the Kamakura Bakufu, based in the city of Kamakura, the Shogunate was founded by the fearsome Minamoto no Yoritomo, military rulers exercising real authority with the imperial court relegated to ceremonial and religious roles. However, on Yoritomo’s death in 1199, he was succeeded by his young son as shogun. The boy too young to rule, real power was held by the family of Yoritomo's widow, the Hojo clan. Sidelining and replacing shoguns as necessary, for well over a century, Japan was ruled by the regent of the regent, called the shikken. In 1268, the 17 year old Hojo Tokimune became shikken, the de facto ruler, of Japan.       Though Kublai’s envoys in 1266 turned back before they reached Japan, he was not discouraged. Envoys were sent again in 1268, taken aboard Korean vessels specifically instructed not to return without handing off Kublai’s letter. The letter was not as demanding as earlier Mongol missives of the century, but still referred to Kublai as master of the universe, and informed the Japanese that they should open contact with him, for, as Kublai’s wrote at the end of the letter, “Nobody would wish to resort to arms.” It was a tough position for the Japanese, as they knew next to nothing of the Mongols. What they did know, they had learned from merchants or Buddhist Monks from the Song Dynasty, at war with the Mongols since 1234. Having not engaged in actual overseas diplomacy since the 9th century, there was no experience within the court or the Bakufu on how to react. So, the chosen Japanese response was to simply dismiss the envoys with no official response, per the order of the shikken. Ghosting the most powerful monarch on the planet is not a terribly easy thing to do, however.       Later that same year, Kublai ordered the Koreans to build 1,000 warships and conscript 10,000 men, for use against the Song Dynasty or Japan. Later in 1268, he sent a third embassy, which in the first months of 1269, stopped on the island of Tsushima and turned back, but not without first capturing two local fishermen. Brought all the way back to Kublai’s imperial capital of Dadu, modern day Beijing, they were wined and dined by the mightiest man under heaven. Showing off his splendour and unimaginable power, the Khan of Khans told the fishermen he only wanted to have his envoys reach Japan, and to have his name remembered for all time. Was that so much to ask? The fishermen were escorted back to Japan late in 1269 to bring word of Kublai’s desires and his great power, and were promptly ignored by the Bakufu. The ongoing insolence of the Japanese was not something Kublai could ignore.        A diplomatic solution was still preferable, as the war with the Song Dynasty was still ongoing and in 1269 revolt broke out in Korea due to the onerous demands for materials and men. As we discussed in the previous episode, Korea had suffered under near continuous Mongol attacks from 1231 until 1259, and the population struggled to meet the latest demands. It took until the middle of 1271 for the rebellion to be crushed, but by then some Koreans had brought word to Japan of Mongol preparations. Since 1268, some coastal defenses had started to be rallied, but news of the proximity of the danger caused quite the start in the Bakufu. No aid was sent to Korea despite the requests of the defectors, but more warriors began to be mobilized to the island of Kyushu, the westernmost of the five main islands of Japan and most likely site of attack. Mongol envoys returned in 1271 after Korea was pacified, now with a direct threat of invasion if the Japanese failed to reply.  The envoy returned to Korea empty handed by the end of the year, and after trips back to Japan in 1272 and 1273, he finally came to Kublai with news of his failure. The envoy had spent some time in Japan while trying to get the court’s response, so at least he brought the Khan intelligence on the people, land and defences. This was enough for Kublai. Sending more envoys would only make him look toothless. His armies had just taken the major Song Dynasty stronghold of Xiangyang in 1273, the key to southern China. With the Song poised to fall, Kublai could spare forces to punish Japan.        The final preparation for the invasions were carried out over 1274, and departed from southern Korea that November. It was not a massive army, some 15,000 Mongol, Northern Chinese, Khitan and Jurchen troops, 6-8,000 Korean troops, another 7,000 Korean sailors aboard some 8-900 ships. Prince Khindu served as overall commander, with Mongol, Chinese and Korean generals and admirals. The Mongols had little naval experience beyond fighting on rivers in South China, so were reliant on the knowhow of the Koreans for this aspect. Once they made landfall, the Mongols would take care of the rest. The Mongols had overcome every foe they had faced in the 13th century: Kublai imagined a swift victory against the insignificant island of Japan, for Eternal Blue Heaven mandated nothing less. Late on the 4th of November, 1274, the fleet was spotted off the coast of Tsushima.        The island of Tsushima was controlled by the Sō clan, whose head, Sō Sukekuni, was the deputy shugo, military governor. Per the tradition held in the Japanese chronicle, the Hachiman Gudokun, on Tsushima there was a major shrine to Hachiman, the Japanese god of war. The day of the Mongol approach, a fire broke out at the shrine, a bad omen. Once the fire was extinguished, white doves gathered on the shrine’s roof. As doves were the messengers of Hachiman, Sukekuni saw it must have been a warning from Hachiman: surely, he would not have set his own shrine on fire? Indeed, later that day Sukekuni was alerted that a fleet was seen approaching the island. His garrison was mobilized, some 80 Samurai and their retainers who he led to the beach of Komoda; there, they awaited the dawn and the Mongols.        Sukekuni sent a small vessel out as the Mongols neared the beach to inquire as to their intentions. His envoys were rebuffed and the landing ships neared the beaches, forcing Sukekuni to draw his small force up for battle. While famous for their swordsmanship, the 13th century Samurai was primarily a horse archer like the Mongols. With their long, asymmetrical yumi, the iconic bow of the Samurai, their skill and accuracy with the arrow made them deadly. However, the desire for individual glory and distinction in combat preempted them from utilizing the complex unit tactics, repeated hit and runs, skirmishing and feigned retreats which made Mongol horse archery so tactically powerful. When the ships landed under the command of the general Ho-tun, the first troops sent up the beach were likely those considered expendable- i.e, anyone not Mongolian. Poorly armoured Chinese were rushed off the ships and met with Japanese arrows. They suffered under this withering fire, but the Chinese and Koreans did their job, holding up large wicker shields to soak up arrows while the Mongols had time to disembark and prepare their own horses. Sukekuni’s position was overrun, despite withdrawing to the treeline to face the Mongols in close combat where the Samurai were deadly. One of Sukekuni’s comrades took down several advancing soldiers and a Mongol officer, and standing on the body he shouted threats at the Mongols, daring them to face him in battle. The Mongols responded with arrows, piercing the man’s chest armour and ending his boasts. Sukekuni led one final charge against the Mongols before the last of his men were cut down. The Mongols overran Tsushima from November 5th until the 13th, destroying towns, farmland and annihilating the last strands of resistance. The women of the Sō family committed suicide so as to not fall into Mongol hands. The next island to face the fleet, Iki, was greeted by a gruesome sight. Attested in both Japanese and Yuan Dynasty sources, prisoners, mainly women, had wire threaded through their palms and were strung across the prows of the ships in a horrific necklace.       The island of Iki too fell within a day. Several small islands and the Matsuura peninsula were taken after only token resistance as the fleet neared  the northwestern corner of Kyushu and Hakata Bay, the island’s largest natural harbour. It made an ideal landing point for any large army. Hojo Tokimune knew this, and here had collected his warriors. The defensive force was mainly drawn of men from Kyushu, though the mobilization had been extended to parts of western Honshu, the largest Japanese island, in 1274. Exact figures for the Japanese force are uncertain, but were outnumbered. 4-6,000 is a common estimate, against over 20,000 of the Yuan fleet- though the main source for the Mongol side, the Yuan shi, states 102,000 Japanese were arrayed against them.        Landing on the soft sand beaches of Hakata Bay on November 19th, the Chinese and Korean infantry protected by their large shields and long spears disembarked; following were Mongols, Turks, Khitans and Jurchen leading their horses out and mounting them. Traditionally, the Japanese began battle by sending arrows with holes dug through the head, creating a whistling sound as they went through the air. The Mongols, who used such things often for communication in battle, laughed. The beating of drums and gongs signalled Mongol orders; unused to such noise, the Japanese horses panicked. Samurai riding forward to challenge worthy opponents to single combat were met with arrows, and those who tried to ride individually through the thickly pressed enemy line were cut down.. The Japanese sources accused the Mongols of using poisoned arrows, which sickened the men struck by them. Bombs, made of paper or iron and filled with Chinese gunpowder, were lobbed into the Japanese who had never experienced such things- the flash, the noise and smoke injured, disoriented and frightened them.       The Mongols, advancing or retreating as ordered and in unison, were an unnerving sight to Samurai used to smaller, individually led combat. Over the course of the day the Japanese were pushed from the beach and their defensive line was broken through. Fires were set on the nearby town of Hakata, which spread quickly. Another force broke out and tried to make camp at Akasaka, but were repulsed. Once past the initial surprise of the assault, the Japanese archers made a good show of themselves. Every samurai trained since a young age with a bow, and the accuracy and power of their bows took even the Mongols by surprise. Small Mongol parties isolated from the main force were picked off, and one of the top Yuan commanders, Liu Fuxiang, was struck in the face by a Japanese arrow and had his horse stolen. The gravely injured commander was rushed back to the ships. Japanese resistance had proven stiffer than anticipated, and the overconfident Yuan forces had suffered losses for this. Divisions and language barriers in the leadership hamstrung them, and uncertain of moving further inland in unknown territory without reinforcement, by nightfall it was decided to call a retreat.        The Yuan forces returned to their ships and set out for Korea, at which point we get to the most well known aspect of the invasions. Very few contemporary Japanese sources mention divine favour or wind in regards to the withdrawal, at most, stating strong winds pushed the armada back to Korea. One of the main Japanese sources, the Hachiman Gudokun, states the defenders were surprised to find the fleet gone in the morning, only a single ship having run aground. In sources from the Mongol point of view though, we have the most dramatic presentation. The Yuan shi, compiled in the 1370s from Mongol documents, describes the Mongols having crushed the Japanese and needing to withdraw for they had ran out of arrows. On the way back, they were struck by an almighty storm, losing many ships in the ocean. This emphasis by the Mongols is obvious: by blaming a freak weather accident, the retreat was easier explained, rather than give credit to the Japanese fighting harder than the Mongols had expected. Whatever the fact of the storm was, the first of the so-called kamikazes, the Yuan fleet had begun to withdraw before it struck. In the words of historian Thomas Conlan, the Japanese were “in little need of divine intervention.”       Neither side saw this as inconclusive though. The Japanese anticipated a Mongol return, and further preparations were made, such as building a wall for dozens of kilometres along Hakata Bay and preparing to quickly mobilize samurai if needed. For Kublai, this had been but a small force, a taste of what he could throw against Japan. He sent envoys again in 1275 to the bakufu, who were killed by the Japanese, ensuring the Khaan would need to send an armed force once more. Once Kublai completed the conquest of the Song Dynasty in 1279, he turned his attention to a massive invasion to subdue Japan once and for all.    But the second invasion is a topic for another day. Our next episode will come out this Friday, looking at the story of Takezaki Suenaga, a historical samurai who fought in both invasions and later compiled an excellent set of scrolls presenting his exploits. Through him, we’ll get a chance to talk in-depth on the Japanese defence, tactics and more. If that isn’t enough, we’ll have another episode coming out after that discussing the impact of the invasions on Japan and the Mongol Empire. But that’s not all: check out Kings and Generals on Youtube for a video this Thursday on the battles for Tsushima and Iki islands, the direct inspiration for the game. As well, the narrator for Kings and Generals will actually be playing Ghost of Tsushima on a livestream this weekend. Our writer for this series will be there as well, so prepare any questions you have for him and he’ll do his best to answer. If you’d like to help us continue bringing you content, please consider subscribing to our Patreon at www.patreon/kingsandgenerals.com. I’m your host David, and we will catch you on the next one. 

Had you to guess a kingdom to offer decades of resistance to the Mongols at the height of their power, Korea might not have been high on your list. Situated close to Mongol dominated North China and first coming to Mongol attention at the start of the 1220s, it took until the beginning of the 1260s for the peninsula to be firmly under Mongol rule. Today’s episode will detail the long and devastating Mongol war in Korea and the final subjugation during the reign of Great Khan Mongke. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   By the 13th century the Korean peninsula had been ruled by the house of Wang since 918. Their kingdom was called Koryo [also written Goryeo (Gor-yeo)], a shortened form of the name of the more ancient Korean Kingdom of Kokuryeo (kok-ur-yeo) [also written Goguryeo] which fell in 668 CE. Both terms are the origin of the modern name for the peninsula. Smaller in scale than the empire of Kokuryeo, the 13th century Koryo kingdom’s territory did not extend much past the Yalu river. Staunch Buddhists, the Kingdom of Koryo was a major player in regional trade and commerce, and a centre of art and culture, and was a proud state. Successfully resisting invasions by the Khitan Liao and Jurchen Jin, Koryo entered into tributary relationships with both but maintained its internal autonomy, and unique worldview where the Korean King was essentially also son of Heaven, alongside the Chinese monarch who traditionally held the title. Similar to the contemporary Song Dynasty, military roles were subservient to the civilian classes and excluded from powerful civil positions. Despite the military being key to repulsing the Jurchen invasion of the 1120s, they gained no recognition, or promotions, for their efforts. Conditions worsened over the 12th century when revolts needed the military to be crushed. During the reign of King Uijong from 1146-1170, matters came to a head. More interested in visiting Buddhist temples than governing, under Uijong, corruption peaked. Government institutions were controlled by aristocratic families competing with the central government, the court was divided among factional lines and critics were exiled. These grievances fed into existing frustrations of the military leaders, ultimately culminating in a coup by the general Chong Chungbu in 1170. The King was dethroned in favour of a brother, and military leaders assumed most of the top offices. This was the beginning of a century of military dictatorship in Korea, its kings reduced to puppets. It was a system remarkably similar to the shogunate established at nearly the same time by Minamoto no Yoritomo in Japan, wherein the Japanese Emperor still head his title and conducted ceremonial roles, but real power was held by the shogun- though after Yoritomo’s death in 1199, real power was held by regents, the shikken of the Hojo clan.    Chungbu struggled to exercise his authority and could not fix the problems facing Koryo; revolts across the country continued and Chungbu was ousted by rivals in 1178, followed in turn by a succession of generals vying for power. It was not until 1196 when the general Ch’oe Ch’unghon assassinated the military dictator. A skilled and brave warrior, Ch’oe Ch’unghon was also a patriot, and saw the years of failed military rule as a disaster for his career, and for Koryo. Ch’oe was adept at political maneuvering. After assassinating the current dictator, he met the King and explained his actions. Gaining royal approval, his authority was established quickly. With support of the Korean King- whom Ch’oe Ch’unghon soon replaced- as well as key military figures, Ch’oe rooted out rivals, skillfully threw bones to military officers, civil leaders and literati, and revitalized the dynasty. Authority was extended through existing dynastic institutions, reformed to weed out corruption but ensured loyal men were in control of those institutions. Marriage ties cemented political alliances, and Ch’oe Ch’unghon essentially established his own dynasty alongside the royal dynasty. He was careful to ensure that alternate power bases to his own were undermined: government military forces weakened while he built up his own private army. Knowing how to champion Zen Buddhism and Confucianism, Ch’oe Ch’unghon masterfully manipulated his public image and public works. Allowing the King to focus on ceremonial and religious roles, Ch’oe’s tight lease on government meant that, over the first decade of the thirteenth century, he felt his position on HIS peninsula to be quite secure.   But like so many others, Ch’oe Ch’unghon’s plans were upset by a little someone named Chinggis Khan. The Great Khan’s invasion of the Jin Empire began in 1211, during which the Korean ambassador to the Jin was killed in the fighting. We have little information on what the Koreans and Ch’oe Ch’unghon thought of the rapid Mongol conquest of the Jin. During these centuries, the Korean kingdoms were always concerned with their northern border with Manchuria, where the Manchurian tribesmen, be they Khitan or Jurchen, invariably proved dangerous foes, crossing to raid in small parties or conquer with full armies. As Jin Dynastic authority collapsed in their Manchurian homeland, the Koreans watched the north uneasily. There, aside from the ongoing warfare, two new states were formed: the first was a Khitan Kingdom in central Manchuria, a “restored” Liao Dynasty made subject to the Mongols in 1212. The second was in Eastern Manchuria and Russia’s Primorsky Krai, founded by the Jin defector Puxian Wannu in 1215, which soon submitted to the Mongols. The latter is often called the Kingdom of Ta-chen, Tung-chen or the Eastern Xia. The frontiers north of Korea were unstable, and Ch’oe Ch’unghon expected trouble would spill over his borders sooner or later.   In 1216 as many as 90,000 rebel Khitans displaced by Jin forces overran Wannu’s southern territory. A few months later, Mongols accompanied by loyal Khitans chased these rebel Khitans from Wannu’s borders. The rebels’ requests to Koryo for aid were denied, and stuck between the Mongols and Korea, the Khitans chose Korea. In autumn 1216 the Khitans blazed through the Korean border defences. Skilled horse archers, the Khitans drove deep into Korea, menacing the capital, modern Kaesong. Korean military resistance contained them to the northern half of the country. Aside from a brief foray back over the border to gain reinforcements in autumn 1217, the Khitans spent most of 1217 and 1218 pillaging and plundering in the northeast.    Unexpectedly, in winter 1218 10,000 Mongols under the command of Qacin and Jala, with 20,000 troops provided by Wannu, arrived in Korea. The Mongols sent a simple message to the Koreans: they would crush the rebel Khitans, requested troops and provisions from the Koreans to assist with this, and then would enter into the same tributary relationship the Koreans had with Liao and Jin. After a brief delay in answering the Koreans acquiesced, sending 1,000 picked troops and 1,000 bushels of rice. The rebels Khitans were crushed, and Korea began sending tribute to the Mongols in 1219.    Korea’s first Mongol experience was relatively peaceful. Though forced to send tribute, their cities had not suffered. Ch’oe Ch’unghon’s advancing age, failing health, and desire to pass his rule onto his son stopped him from taking any provocative actions. A keen observer, he had judged the danger of this new foe, expecting the relationship would differ little from Liao or Jin tribute demands. Ch’oe Ch’unghon died in late 1219, and was succeeded by his oldest son, Ch’oe U. A military man like his father, an effective administrator and decisive leader, though not quite as cautious, Ch’oe U helmed Koryo for the next two decades. Ch’oe U found Mongol demands were downright rapacious, especially for otter skins, highly desired for their water resistant properties. For a people who lived their entire lives outdoors, an otter-skin cap was a valuable product. The chief Mongol envoy to Korea, Ja’uyu (Chao-ku-yu), was said to have abandoned the rest of the tribute at the border and just kept the otter skins!   As we’ve noted in episodes past, when Chinggis Khan marched west against the Khwarezmian Empire in 1219 his general Mukhali was left to maintain pressure on the Jin Dynasty. With Mukhali’s death in 1223, the reduced Mongol military presence in north China and with Chinggis still in Central Asia, the political situation across the region changed dramatically. The end of hostilities between the Jin, Xi Xia and Song Dynasties around 1225 we’ve dealt with already, but changes occurred even in Manchuria and Korea. There, Puxian Wannu renewed his independence and asked for alliance with Koryo. The Koreans declined, but made their own moves. In 1225 the chief Mongol envoy to Korea, the aforementioned Ja’uyu (Chao-ku-yu), mysteriously disappeared while transporting the annual tribute north. The Koreans insisted it was bandits, but the Mongols put the blame square on Koryo.    Ogedai Khaan was enthroned in 1229 and immediately set about bringing the region to heel. The Jin Dynasty took his personal attention and was destroyed by 1234. Both Puxian Wannu and the Koreans were also to be punished. Initially the new Khaan demanded Korea aid in an attack against Wannu. With the failure of the Koreans to comply, Ogedai ordered an invasion of the peninsula, the first of six Mongol invasions. Led by Sartaq-Qorchi, the army crossed the Yalu River in autumn 1231. The attack was overwhelming; the government armies were annihilated in the field and the capital surrounded. There was some notable resistance at a few fortified cities, none more famous than the defence of Kuju. Famed for a victory over the Khitans in 1018, in late 1231 through early 1232 under the command of Pak So, the city withstood weeks of constant Mongol assault. The most famous event occurred early in the siege. The southern wall of the city was defended by Kim Kyongson and a skilled unit of pyolch’o, translated as Defense Command Patrol, Extraordinary Watches or Night Patrol. These were local troops from outside the regular army, an elite militia specializing in guerilla warfare. Sending most of the unit inside the city, Kim Kyongson led a group of 12 picked men before the south gate. Telling them “not to think of their lives and accept death as their fate,” Kim and his men withstood four or five Mongol charges. Taking an arrow to the arm, Kim and his forces stood proudly and girded the city to further resistance;  Attacks were launched on the walls day and night: carts of dry grass and wood were pushed to the gates to burn them, only to be destroyed by Korean catapults; a tower built before the walls to protect sappers was destroyed when the Koreans dug holes through their own walls to pour molten iron onto it. 15 large catapults were driven off by the Korean counter artillery; scaling ladders were toppled by Korean polearms. Bundles of sticks soaked allegedly in human fat, set aflame and hurled into the city could not be put out with water, but were smothered with mud and earth. Another catapult team through constant barrage made 50 breaches in the walls, which the defenders filled back in as the holes were made. After a month of terrible destruction but no success, the Mongol siege was lifted, deciding the city was protected by heaven.   Kuju city and other select settlements outlasted the central government. Military ruler Ch’oe U came to terms with the Mongols in January 1232, and was so frustrated that Kuju had continued to resist that he wanted to have its commanders, Pak So and Kim Kyongson, executed fearing Mongol retaliation. Here the Mongols are said to have interceded, saying: “Although he went contrary to our orders, he is a loyal subject of yours. We are not going to kill him now that you have already pledged peace with us. Would it be proper to kill the loyal subjects of all your cities?”   Still, Koryo had submitted to Sartaq-qorchi in the first month of 1232. The tribute demands were massive. 20,000 horses, 20,000 otter skins, slaves, royal hostages and clothing for 1 million men were demanded, alongside gold, silver and other treasures. The demands were impossible to meet; within a few months the Koreans had procured barely 1,000 otter skins. 72 Mongol darughachin were appointed to oversee Koryo, and Sartaq withdrew his forces, considering the peninsula conquered.    The Koreans were less keen to comply, however. The demands were onerous; while they sent much in gifts, they were unwilling to send royal hostages. Ch’oe U organized sambyolch’o units, a sort of paramilitary police force of the house of Ch’oe. By the end of spring 1232, Ch’oe held a meeting of his top ministers to decide the course of action. In June and July, the plan was struck. Ch’oe U, the King and the court moved from the capital at Kaesong to Kanghwa island offshore, making it the new administrative centre of Korea, protected by the experienced Korean navy. Mongol officials in Korea were murdered and the peninsula was in open revolt. Sartaq returned in fall 1232, blazing a trail of destruction across the northern half of the country until he was killed during a siege by a Buddhist monk turned archer, Kim Yunhu. On Sartaq’s death, the Mongol army withdrew.   The Mongols were not done with Korea. The defection of one Korean commander, Hong Pogwon, gave them control of Korea stretching north from Pyongyang, which Hong was made the overseer of. In early 1233 a Mongol envoy came with a list of grievances and demands, among them that Koreans had to fight against Puxian Wannu- though this came to naught, as Wannu’s kingdom, and the connection between his head and his neck, were removed from the scene later that year by armies under Ogedai’s son Guyuk. After the fall of the Jin Dynasty in 1234, a quriltai was held in Mongolia in 1235 to determine the next campaigns. Attacks were ordered against the Song Dynasty, Guyuk, Subutai and Batu were sent on the great western campaign, and another army, this time under Tangut Ba’atar, was sent to Korea.    Tangut Ba’atar’s invasion in summer 1235 was hugely destructive; with the assistance of Hong Pogwon by winter 1236, he had penetrated some 470 kilometres into Korea. The Koreans were unable to field armies against them, and alternative strategies were developed to respond. Just as the court had fled to Kanghwa Island, most of the population outside of fortified settlements was ordered to flee to coastal islands or mountain refuges, where they could escape Mongol riders. Offensives were limited to guerilla warfare, pyolch’o units launching surprise night raids, ambushes through mountain passes and striking small parties. Hitting quick and hard and making use of their excellent knowledge of local terrain, these small units were actually more mobile than the Mongols. It was a frustrating way of war for the Mongols, and when the Mongols got frustrated, the devastation only increased. Fortified settlements were left to fend for themselves, and when they did fall, the destruction was horrific. The countryside was ravaged, the death toll horrendous. The guerilla tactics could harass but not stop the Mongols, who in turn, unable to strike directly at the royal court or military dictator, could not immediately bring the country to submission. Korean defections to the Mongols were enormous; and in many respects the Ch’oe rulers had chosen a strategy to bring the most damage to their people.   By winter 1238, the Korean court was willing to come to talks with the Mongols to halt the destruction.  Tangut Ba’atar withdrew his forces with talks ongoing and it seemed the Koreans would pledge eternal submission. As the Koreans feared, the Mongolian idea of negotiated settlement was a bit different from their own. Alongside the expected tribute demands, the Mongols required a census, the court could no longer stay on Kanghwa Island, and the Korean King, at that time Kojong, had to present himself to the Mongol court. For the military ruler Ch’oe U, this presented an issue. His legitimacy rested on him being the one to control the King; Mongol demands would remove him from power. Peace on the terms the Mongols wanted could not be accepted as long as the Ch’oes wanted to remain in control. For two years the Koreans made excuses on not sending the King, Ch’oe U trying to find some room to maneuver. Finally, a ploy was decided on: a distant relation of the King was made up to be the Crown Prince, and thus Wang Sun was sent to Karakorum in 1241. The Mongols found out about the deception…. Some 14 years later. By then, he was a loyal member of the Mongol court and even married a daughter of Great Khan Mongke.   With the royal hostage sent in 1241 and resumption of tribute, Ch’oe U achieved a six year truce. The Mongols still wanted the royal court to return to the mainland though, and their envoys grew ever more insistent on the matter. Ch’oe U spent the next six years preparing defenses, building elaborate fortifications on Kanghwa Island and readying militia units.  Buddhist projects were consecrated to secure heavenly favours; the most famous was the recarving of the Tripitaka, the Buddhist scriptures, begun in 1237. Often called the Tripitaka Koreana, this was a massive project, over 80,000 wooden printing blocks carved, requiring thousands of scholars and 12 years to complete.   Guyuk was elected as Great Khan in 1246, and decided the Koreans had stalled long enough on returning the court to the mainland.  In Autumn 1247 an army under the general Amukhan and Hong Pogwon invaded. Official orders were sent for the countryside to be abandoned for coastal islands and mountain fortresses; guerilla attacks were launched; the northern half of the peninsula was desolated. The death of Guyuk in summer 1248 and Ch’oe U in winter 1249 brought a relative calm. Ch’oe U was succeeded by his son, Ch’oe Hang, who proved not the equal of his father or grandfather. More arrogant and hasty than his father, he struggled to maneuver the complicated politics of Koryo and Mongol attacks. Within a few months there was an attempted coup against him, and his reaction alienated major allies, at a time when they couldn’t afford to lose a single one.   In 1251 Mongke was confirmed as Great Khan; driven by the need to complete the conquests, the continued independence of Koryo was not something he could abide. Again, envoys demanded the Korean King visit the Mongol court and abandon Kanghwa island. Again, excuses were made.  King Kojong was too old and sickly for such a trip, but they could discuss the possibility of considering sending the Crown Prince. At the same time, the Koreans prepared for the expected invasion. At the quriltai in 1252 wherein Kublai was ordered against Dali and Hulegu against the Caliph in Baghdad, forces were organized to attack Korea. Prince Yeku invaded in August 1253 alongside Amukhan and Hong Pogwon. Envoys preceded him stating he was there to find out if King Kojong was as sick as he said he was. He had six days to comply and meet Mongol representatives on the mainland. Kojong actually met with Mongol envoys on the straits across from Kanghwa island, and achieved precisely nothing. Mongol forces rode and burned across the peninsula, inland settlements were abandoned for coastal and mountain defenses. Pyolch’o raids attacked Mongol parties, and Mongols destroyed the cities which fell to them. Yeku was held up and fell ill during the long siege of Ch’ungju, ably defended by Kim Yunhu, the same Buddhist Monk who had killed Sartaq some 20 years prior. Ultimately, Mongke recalled Yeku before the end of the year due to his feuding with another prince. Amukhan and Hong Pogwon continued the campaign for a few more weeks, organizing a brief effort at amphibious warfare: seven captured Korean ships landed troops on Kal Island in early 1254, to no great result. Amukhan pulled the troops back in spring, returning in August with reinforcements under Jalayirtai Qorchi.   Jalayirtai brought a variation on the Mongol demands for submission. Now ministers and people had to shave their heads in the Mongol style: leaving only a tuft on the forehead between the eyes, and over the ears to be braided into loops. He also demanded Ch’oe Hang and King Kojong come to the mainland. Predictably, Ch’oe Hang was unwilling to do so. Early in summer 1255 Jalayitrai and Amukhan fell back to the northern border; by then, aside from years of destruction and abandonment of farmland, the peninsula was also in the midst of an ongoing drought. We are told in the first year of Jalayirtai’s command in Korea an estimated 206,8000 persons were taken captive. The suffering was horrific. Jalayirtai’s forces attacked again in autumn 1255, beginning a ship building program. Frustrated with continued resistance from the Korean court, the Mongols were considering assaulting the well defended Kanghwa Island. A sense of Jalayirtai’s frustration is evident in his response to Korean envoys in mid-1256. The envoys came asking for peace and Mongol withdrawal, to which Jalayirtai, incensed with pyolch’o attacks in the night, snapped “if you desire peace and friendship, then why do you kill our soldiers in great numbers?”   Jalayirtai’s movement of troops back north in autumn 1256 was no respite: in spring 1257, famine gripped even Kanghwa island. As Jalayirtai returned in the spring, it must have been apparent that the Ch’oes were hanging by a thread. Ch’oe Hang soon died, succeeded by his son Ch’oe Ui, who proved a very poor choice. His attempts to win favour by grants of food to the populace and court did not offset bad advisers enriching themselves and his own poor decisions. Alienating just about everyone in the court, the pressure of the situation finally led to a coup. Officers led by Kim Injun assaulted Ch’oe’s palace in May 1258. Ch’oe Ui tried to escape over the walls, but was too fat to get himself over. Caught by the assassins, Ch’oe Ui’s death ended six decades of Ch’oe military rule in Korea. Gaining the support of the elderly Kojong and handing out the wealth of the Ch’oe’s, Kim Injun made himself the new military governor. However, his position was much weaker than the Ch’oe’s had been, and still refused to submit to the Mongols. Mongol envoys who arrived in summer 1258 brought threats that they would storm Kanghwa Island, and in August Jalayirtai received further reinforcements under the command of Yesuder. Refusal to supply either the Crown Prince or the King was met with unchecked destruction across the Korean peninsula. If the Royal court would not come to then, then the Mongols would impose direct rule.  No matter how bloody the pyolch’o attacks were, they could not stop the Mongols.   Resistance broke in 1259. Revolts against military rule began across the country, towns and cities surrendered on the arrival of the Mongols rather than continue fighting. With food supplies exhausted, their military forces ground nearly to dust, in the spring of 1259 a peace deal was reached. The Crown Prince, Wang Chon, was to travel to the Mongol court as a royal hostage, the court move back to the mainland, and the defences of Kanghwa be demolished. Kim Injun was not removed but his power was considerably lesser to that of the Ch’oes. Organized Koryo resistance to the Mongol Empire was over. In May 1259, Prince Wang Chon set out for the imperial court, which met a hiccup when Mongke died in August 1259. Wang Chon decided to head for the court of Mongke’s younger brother in China, Kublai. There, he became the first foreign ruler to officially recognize Kublai as the next Great Khan of the Empire. In turn, Kublai provided Wang Chon an armed escort to return to Korea and be installed as the new king, as the venerable Kojong had died in July 1259. Kojong had reigned through the entire Mongol-Korean war, and it was fitting he died only weeks after it ended.   Wang Chon, known better by his temple name, Wonjong, proved a loyal vassal to Kublai Khan, marrying his son and eventual successor to one of Kublai’s daughters. Military rule in Korea ended in 1270 after a series of assassinations, and the Korean court finally returned to the mainland. With that, Koryo was a fully incorporated client kingdom. The King ruled in earnest, though with Mongol backing; when briefly ousted by a coup, Kublai’s forces came in and reinstalled him. Yet Mongol demands upon Korea did not grow any less burdensome; rather,. Wonjong had to mobilize the Koreans for another war, this time fighting alongside the Mongols. Koreans ships, food supplies and men were needed by Kublai Khan against the island of Japan, which had spurned his demands for submission. Korea was to be a launchpad for the first Mongol Invasion of Japan of 1274. To coincide with the release of the new SuckerPunch game Ghost of Tsushima which covers that very same invasion, we will have a few special episodes discussing this area, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals Podcast. To help us keep bringing you content, consider supporting us on Patreon, at (inset patreon link here). I’m your host David, and we’ll catch you on the next one.

From Anatolia to Central China; from northern Korea to the eastern edge of Europe; from the forests of Siberia to the borders of India.  This was the empire of Grand Khan Mongke, perhaps the single most powerful monarch in history. No other king, sultan or emperor could compare to the sheer swath of humanity that Mongke ruled over, a man who reformed, centralized and expanded the empire even further. Yet, he was to be the last as uncontested Khan of the Empire, and on his death, the dream of Mongol unity was to be shattered. Today’s episode will present the reign of Mongke Khaan and his efforts to strengthen the Mongol Empire in the 1250s, while our following episodes will take us through the conquests launched and completed under his orders. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   Mongke, as we covered in episode 21, came to the throne in what historians call “the Toluid Revolution.” On Chinggis Khan’s death back in 1227, it seemed the throne was to remain in the line of his third son, Ogedai. After the death of Ogedai’s son, Guyuk Khaan in 1248,  the next Khan was the son of Ogedai’s brother Tolui, supported by the descendants of Jochi. Mongke, the oldest son of Tolui and his wife Sorqaqtani Beki, was enthroned in 1251 in Mongolia. A failed attempt to oust Mongke resulted in a great purge against the line of Ogedai, seizing most of their territory. Several figures of the Chagatai lineage were killed and the Chagatai Khan replaced, while top officials were forced into a very bloody retirement. The new line of the Great Khans held the throne with the permanent animosity of many of the surviving Ogedaids and Chagatayids. But with the full support of the Toluids and the Jochids under Batu Khan, Mongke had the strength to keep everyone in line. A Toluid Khan without that support would find it very difficult to extend his authority westwards, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves…   Enthroned as the fourth Great Khan in summer 1251, Mongke immediately set out reorganizing government. Mongke came to the throne with a view of ‘getting things back on track,’ since the death of Ogedai. The empowerment of the ortoq merchants as tax collectors, the strengthening of regional Mongol princes at the expense of the central government and infighting was a distraction to the Empire’s true purpose: bringing everything under Heaven under Mongol rule. That this had not yet been accomplished was an embarrassment as far as Mongke was concerned. Everything Mongke did was for this goal, this destiny, and none would stand in his way. The house of Ogedai had shown resistance, and for this had been crushed. Though raised to the throne by the efforts of Batu and Sorqaqtani, Mongke was no puppet. Sorqaqtani died soon after her son became Khaan, and Batu and Mongke reached an agreement, wherein Batu was essentially viceroy of the west. Given great autonomy and little imperial interference in his affairs with the integrity of the Jochid realm confirmed, Batu, until his death in 1255, was a staunch supporter of the new Khaan.   Mongke presented himself as the ideal Mongol ruler in the mould of Chinggis Khan. With his brother closest in age, Kublai, the two had a proudly shared experience with their famous grandfather. On a hunting trip with the old Chinggis, the young boys had fat from the kill spread on their fingers by the Great Khan himself. Considering how many grandchildren Chinggis had in his final years, to be singled out in any manner was a proud thing. Mongke’s father Tolui was often on campaign, leaving Mongke to be raised under the auspices of Sorqaqtani. Alongside the necessary riding, hunting and warfare abilities ingrained into all Mongol children, Mongke and his brothers were also taught leadership skills, administration, how to read and write Mongolian and were introduced to foreign cultures. Mongke was groomed to be a ruler. Taking part in the great western campaign, Mongke made it as far as Kiev, and led in various theaters, battles and sieges, forging a reputation as a skilled general. By Guyuk’s death in 1248, Mongke was a well respected and leading figure among the third generation of Chinggisids. Intelligent, brave, and ambitious, he stepped into the mantle of leadership easily. Vengeful, domineering and merciless to those he deemed as standing in his way, he was a dangerous foe.  Mongke’s reign from 1251 to the beginning of 1258 was largely focused on political and administrative needs in order to support large military campaigns across Asia. In contrast to the campaigns of his grandfather Chinggis, the conquests of the 1250s come across almost as an institutionalized form. For Chinggis Khan, government was somewhat of an accidental creation out of military-tribal structures and conquests: necessary, but minimal. For Mongke, the government served as a tool of organizing conquest, an arm of the Khan with which to pursue his will. Mongke’s control was not totalitarian by any modern sense, but it dominated the system in its most influential levels. Not constrained by any pesky constitutions or parliaments to pass laws through, Mongke wielded a level of power that perhaps no other figure in history could truly compare to.   To complete the conquest of the world, Mongke needed a stable and efficient government to take stock of the resources and materials necessary for expansion at an enormous scale.  For this project, Mongke had a fine group of men to fall upon. The top officials of the empire came from each Khan’s keshig, the imperial bodyguard. Part guard, part retinue, part administration, the men in Mongke’s keshig were a varied lot, a number of whom had served in the keshig of Tolui, and even Chinggis Khan. Intensely loyal, they had eaten, drank, lived and fought alongside one another for years. They had also prepared for the possibility of stepping into the lead roles of state.    It’s no surprise than that Mongke’s #1 and #2 were both from his keshig. The first was Menggeser Qorchi, a Jalayir Mongol who was inquisitor, judge, and executor in Mongke’s purges. He served as chief judge of the empire, head of the imperial guard and head of the Central Secretariat; essentially, Mongke’s Chancellor, replacing the late Chinqai. #2 was Bulghai of the Kereyit, a Nestorian Christian in charge of the many, many scribes and chamberlains of the Central Secretariat and the capital. An entire third of Karakorum was set aside for them. A good many were translators. Every edict of the Great Khan was translated into the main languages of the empire- Mongolian, Uighur, Persian, Chinese, Tangut and Tibetan, in order for them to be distributed properly. Upon Menggeser’s death in 1253, Bulghai was promoted to his position as well. From Mongke’s keshig, the holes made by the destruction of Ogedaid officials were filled. In the words of historian Thomas Allsen, describing Mongke’s keshig: “These people, recruited from his own household staff, were the only individuals with whom Mongke ever willingly shared power.”   With the Central Secretariat in reliable hands, Mongke looked to the regional Secretariats. Here Mongke kept some continuity with Guyuk. Mahmud Yalavach was reinstated as the head of the Secretariat for North China, and his son Mas’ud Beg back to the Central Asian Secretariat. Under Guyuk, a Secretariat for Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia was created, headed by the Oirat Mongol Arghun Aqa, who Mongke confirmed in this position. Another secretariat was ordered for the Rus’ territory in 1257, headed by a man called Kitai.  All were competent enough and not too closely associated with the Ogedeids to have survived the purges. Mongke envisioned a return to the regular taxation system under the early years of Ogedai proposed by Yelu Chucai. The tax farming of ‘Abd al-Rahman could not do; not out of a sense of empathy to the civilian populations of Asia, but because it was terribly inefficient. Beggaring the taxbase in a single year reduced revenues for years to come, simply unacceptable when armies needed to be supported for long campaigns. Yalavach, Mas’ud Beg and Arghun Aqa were able bureaucrats associated with economic rebuilding and reliable taxation, rather than personal enrichment. But to tax efficiently, the government needed to know what resources and how many people lived in each region, to ensure the most efficient demands could be made.   For this end, Mongke ordered an empire wide census. This was not unusual: the Mongols had employed censuses for decades. Guyuk had made such an order shortly before his untimely demise. The new Khan did not just want a population count though. He wanted to know the resources of the empire, numbers and locations of skilled craftsmen, who could provide what and what could be mobilized. Knowing the local population, their economic status and quality of local resources allowed the government to set taxes at appropriate levels- and made it harder for government intermediaries to skim off the top, when the Central Secretariat had its own registers to compare to. At the same time, if the population was found to be too low or too poor to pay their current rate, it could be adjusted to fit the location. This also affected recruitment, allowing the government to allocate skilled craftsmen and engineers to each army as needed.    The census moved relatively quickly given the scale of the operation: beginning in north China and Central Asia in late 1252, by 1259 Novgorod, the northernmost Rus’ principality and furthest outpost of the empire, was registered. After being surveyed, supplementary censuses were launched to catch the floating population or accommodate newly conquered territories, ensuring the Central Secretariat had reasonably up-to-date information for setting their demands. Registers were carried out by imperial agents alongside representatives of the regional Mongol prince and local rulers, for assistance and protection.  In Novgorod, the famed prince Alexander Nevsky had to provide military protection for the census takers against an agitated Rus’ populace.    Under Mongke, three main categories of taxation existed, varying if the given population was nomadic, agricultural or urban. The first was the qubchir, a head tax. For nomads, 1 in every 100 head in a herd was paid in tax. Less than 100 animals, and no tax was paid. In most of the Muslim territories, this was imposed on all adult males and paid in silver dinars; in China, this was assessed on household, and could be paid in silver or precious goods like silk. For populations without coinage like the Rus’, furs and other valued commodities were accepted tender. Khalan was an agricultural tax, paid in kind in rural areas based on local tradition, while tamgha was basically a sales tax, collected in urban markets and customs stations. This tax was placed on services and products manufactured, including artisans, fisherman and prostitutes! In general the Mongols encouraged payment in coinage, and local mints were established throughout Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia to produce large volumes of coins. In 1253, they even began circulating paper money in China, each stamped with the seal of Mongke Khaan. No effort was made to collect unpaid taxes from before Mongke’s enthronement, setting everyone on a clean slate. Tax exemptions for clergy continued, but many who had gained exemption under Guyuk, such as a fair number of merchants, had their exemptions rescinded. Mongke was not going to disregard the merchants though; he paid the outstanding debts of Guyuk and the regents, despite the resistance of some top ministers, leading to the Persian writer Rashid al-Din to remark “in what history has it ever been read that a king paid another king’s debt?”   Also rescinded were numerous paizas and gerege, that is, the passports allowing an individual use of the yam system, the vast continental messenger stations. The gerege, depending on the material it was made from, granted an individual use of the horses and resources of a given station to allow them swift passage over the empire, changing horses and getting provisions at each station to continue at speed. Intended for members of the dynasty, envoys and messengers of the Khan, under Guyuk and the regents many a merchant had been given a gereg, and thus saw fit to travel the yam leisurely, enriching himself as he went. On Mongke’s order, all gerege were handed back to the Central Secretariat and redistributed on a more limited basis, greatly reducing the pressure on the local populations who supplied the resources for the stations. The yam itself was improved and routes set up by regional Khans were tied into the main imperial system. For these regional Mongol princes, new restrictions were forced on them, forbidding them to intervene on fiscal matters or set new taxes without approval from the Central Secretariat. These measures helped reduce the power of local forces who could compete with Mongke’s interests.   The rebuilding of devastated regions was ordered and destruction while on campaign was to be limited. How successful these initiatives were is hard to measure, but a few Mongol officers were punished for transgressions in these areas. Mongke placed agents who reported directly back to him across the Secretariats to keep him informed of such matters and enforce his will. This was not an innovation of government, but a domination of it. The Central Secretariat wielded greater authority than ever, supported by a highly energetic and motivated emperor.    Mongke, certainly more than his predecessor, understood the value of image. Knowing that the movement from the line of Ogedai to Tolui brought shade upon his legitimacy, Mongke strived to portray himself as the very embodiment of the words and laws of Chinggis Khan. Guyuk, Torogene and Oghul Qaimish were portrayed in as negative a light as possible, while Mongke and his father Tolui were elevated. Posthumously, Tolui was promoted to Great Khan, a position he had never held in life. In 1252, Mongke established an official Cult of Chinggis Khan and his worship. An entire department of government was made responsible for dealing with sacrifices, shamans, fortune tellers and more, suggested by Thomas Allsen to have been the ‘managers’ of the Chinggis cult. We might say these propaganda efforts were successful: almost all of our written sources from the empire come from regions ruled by the Toluids, and as such Mongke seems ever the greater and his predecessors all the more inept.    Per the suggestion of historian Christopher Atwood, the famed Secret History of the Mongols may have been a result of this program, written at a quriltai in 1252. As our only surviving Mongolian language history from the 13th century, the Secret History of the Mongols was a chronicle intended for the royal family, and is hugely influential on how we view the early Mongol empire. Further, it influenced several of the later histories we also rely upon. In the Secret History, several embarrassing stories are told of Jochi, Chagatai, Ogedai, and Guyuk, the last appearing as a peutlent, whiny brat. Tolui and Mongke are treated much more reverently in the Secret History, which has Chinggis Khan give allowance for another branch of the family to take over should the line of Ogedai prove incapable. A rather useful clause to suddenly uncover; one, we may note, not found in other sources.   In this vein, he also understood the importance of maintaining the Mongol policy of religious toleration. Mongke was quite effective at it, as there were both Christians and Muslims at the time convinced Mongke had converted to their religion. Mongol religious toleration was not the same as our modern liberal sense of toleration, but more in the sense it was literally tolerated, as long as the given religion did not oppose the Mongols. The Mongols generally wanted to ensure religious figures were on their side: their prayers, and those of their followers, were useful for ensuring divine favour for the Khaan. Having religious leaders and priests persuade and preach about how important it was to be a loyal subject of the Mongol Khaan also served as a useful means of maintaining order. Our previous episode briefly detailed the encounter of the European Franciscan Friar, William of Rubruck, with Mongke, and that probably best encapsulates Mongke’s own view on religion. Just as there are five fingers leading to the palm, Heaven had provided multiple means to the same end. To Mongke, no religion was more true than another, but all were equally useful for his goals. While Mongke’s armies would destroy the ‘Abbasid Caliphate, this was not done out of a need to spite Islam, but because the Caliph had failed to submit to the Khaan. As Mongke firmly believed Heaven had decreed the world to belong to the Chinggisids, resistance against the Chinggisids was therefore resistance against Heaven’s decree. Everything Mongke did was through this worldview and the belief in the eventuality of Mongol dominion.   With internal matters set and the resources of the empire being recorded, Mongke could plan for outward expansion- the topics of the next episodes in our series. In early summer 1252, a quriltai was held to plan for the subjugation of the rest of the world. It is this quriltai that Dr. Atwood suggests the Secret History was composed at, where Mongke made his plans for the future. His brothers were to lead armies both to the south and the west.    To the south lay the Song Dynasty, controlling southern China. Warfare with the Song had begun in the 1230s, but progress was slow and the fighting inconclusive. Mongke’s brother Kuublai was granted much of north China under his princely jurisdiction, and then was to lead the opening move of the new round of warfare with the Song. Kublai was not to move directly against them, but against the smaller Kingdom of Dali, in what is now China’s Yunnan province. On the Song Dynasty’s southwesten border, the conquest of Dali would open a second front against the Song. In the west, their younger brother Hulegu was to lead a massive army against the remaining independent Muslim powers, first the Order of the Assassins, and then the Caliph in Baghdad. From there, presumably Hulegu would drive right to the Meditteranean. Both brothers set out in later 1253, and we will pick up with their campaigns in following episodes. Armies were also sent to complete the conquests of Tibet and Korea. By the mid 1250s, Tibet was mostly subjugated, though Korea was a bit more complicated. Our next episode will cover the Mongol-Korean wars from start to finish, and look at how this peninsula managed to prove such a thorn in Mongol efforts for decades.   Kublai was to be the prince overseeing most of China, and Hulegu most of the Muslim world west of the Chagatai Khanate. It was hardly a coincidence that Mongke’s two closest brothers were being situated to command two of the most valuable economic regions of the continent.  Mongke envisioned a sort of Toluid axis across Asia, keeping tight imperial control across distant regions through brotherly ties. But if they overstepped their bounds, Mongke was not above reproaching them.    After Kublai completed the conquest of Dali by the early months of 1254, he returned to oversee matters in North China, promoting government reform and reconstruction efforts. Lil’ Kublai started to get a bit too big for his britches however. In 1256 Kublai began building a summer residence in what is now Inner Mongolia- in time it would be called Shangdu, the Xanadu of Marco Polo. It suspiciously looked a bit too much like a capital, though. Rumours of Kublai’s ambitions reached Mongke, and on pretexts of irregularities in Kublai’s revenue collection, Mongke sent investigators into his brother's domains. Administrative records were seized, Kublai’s officials harshly tortured and numerous infractions found. Some of Kublai’s officials were executed, others dismissed, extraordinary levies placed on his domains and Kublai himself saw his administrative power reduced. We are told Kublai had to be convinced out of a hasty retaliation by his advisers, and was not able to get Mongke’s forgiveness until the start of 1258.  While the Chinese sources depict it as an act of brotherly attachment, the two weeping in each others’ arms, the reality is that Mongke had need of Kublai again. The Khaan was about to launch an invasion of the Song Dynasty, and needed to secure loose ends. One such loose end was well suited to Kublai and his inclination to Chinese culture: a rather violent, ongoing conflict between Buddhists and Taoists in Northern China threatening to undermine local stability. Kublai was ordered to bring this matter to a close, which he largely accomplished at a famous debate between leading members of both creeds in later 1258. The Buddhists had the better of the debate, no doubt aided by Kublai’s own Buddhist leanings and support of his ardent Buddhist wife, Chabi. The result was an end to the ascendency of the Taoists, begun, somewhat accidentally, by Chinggis Khan and his support of the Taoist Master Qiu Chuji back in the 1220s. Taoist texts deemed forgeries were destroyed, they were forced to return occupied Buddhist temples and other privileges were lost. In turn, Buddhism saw an ascendence in influence among the Mongols, not for the last time.   Mongke also needed Kublai to lead one of the armies in the multi-pronged assault on the Song, in what was to be a massive operation. Planning for the Song campaign was thorough, intending to completely overwhelm the Dynasty from multiple points. The census efforts came to full fruition: Mongke had an enormous, well prepared army drawn from across Asia. Contingents from as far west as the Alans of the Northern Caucasus were mobilized for this assault. Setting out in 1258, nothing would quite go as expected, putting true the old adage that no battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. One area Mongke’s foresight proved remarkably poor was his failure to nominate an heir to succeed him. Not that we’re foreshadowing anything in that regard… But, we’ll return to Mongke’s war with the Song in a few episodes time. Prior to that, we will be exploring the other campaigns launched during his reign, first in Korea and then his brother Hulegu’s western campaign, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one

Especially in modern textbooks and broad historical surveys, the Mongol withdrawal from Europe in 1242 is presented as the Mongols ‘disappearing into the mists of the east,’ as far as the Europeans were concerned. But in the immediate wake of the 1242 withdrawal, Europeans needed to know more about this new foe. Rather than a ‘Mongol disappearance’ from the European mind, European diplomats and representatives made the trip to the Mongol Empire on behalf of Kings and Popes- even to distant Mongolia. A number of these travellers wrote down accounts of their journeys, providing us yet another viewpoint to events within the Mongol Empire. In this episode, we will discuss three of these accounts from the 1240s and 1250s- that of John de Plano Carpini, Simon of St. Quentin and William of Rubruck. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest.   Our first journey is that of John of Plano Carpini, or Giovanni da Pian del Carpine. Like today’s other accounts, Plano Carpini was a member of a religious order, in this case the Franciscans, an influential group of Christian mendicants founded in the early 13th century by St. Francis of Assisi. Known for their rejections of wealth, simple brown habits, or robes, and often going about barefoot, since the lifetime of St. Francis they had worked closely with the Catholic Church in Rome. John of Plano Carpini was a leading figure among the Franciscans, having been at the forefront of their expansion into Germany. The impetus for Plano Carpini’s journey could not have come from a higher authority, that of Pope Innocent IV. This Pope had in 1245 organized the First Council of Lyons, one of those great ecclesiatical gatherings held every few years in the High Middle Ages to determine church doctrine and how to react to temporal matters. At Lyons in 1245, the biggest topics on the menu were two great foes of the Pope: Frederick II Hohenstaufen, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Mongols. While Innocent’s main concern was the Kaiser, there was great worry over the mysterious horsemen. On the initiative to learn more about them and establish diplomatic ties to avert a repeat of the horrors in Hungary, Pope Innocent sent the 65 year old John of Plano Carpini on the long road east in late 1245.   Aided along the way by the King of Bohemia and the High Duke of Poland, Carpini soon reached the Prince of Volhynia, Vasilko. Vasilko and his brother, Daniel of Galicia, were the westernmost princes of Rus’, and who escaped most of the destruction suffered by the other Rus’ principalities. With Vasilko, Carpini was provided the most up-to-date information on the Mongols one could have in Europe. Passing the ruins of Kiev and an emptied countryside, only at Kaniv did Carpini reach territory under direct Mongol rule. As official envoys of the monarch the Mongols dubbed “the great Pope,” Carpini and his small company were provided escorts and use of the yam system, the great continental messenger route.     Once on the yam, Carpini’s route picked up speed. They rode day and night over the steppe, changing horses three or four times a day as they reached yam stations. By April 4th 1246, they were in the camp of Batu. Batu did not return to Mongolia after the invasion of Europe, instead setting up his camp in the great swath of grassland along the Volga River which made up the middle of his territory, where he held immense power.  Carpini saw that Batu used King Bela IV’s linen tents as his own, taken as booty after the victory at Mohi. At Batu’s camp their letters from the Pope were translated into Russian, Persian and Mongolian, and then they were sent on their way. This stage of the journey is one Carpini had little love for. They rode their horses day and night, sometimes eating nothing except millet with water and salt, or only drinking snow melted in kettles.  They passed the ruins of the cities of the Khwarezmian Empire, the names of which Carpini had no chance to learn before they had moved on.    By July 1246, they were in Mongolia. The hard ride had a purpose, for Carpini arrived in in time for the election of the new Great Khan, Guyuk. As messengers of the Pope they were treated well, provided their own tent and provisions. Carpini gives a fantastic description of Guyuk’s enthronement and the accompanying ceremonies- one detail is a sudden hailstorm postponing Guyuk’s official enthronement until August 24th.  He noticed representatives of powers from across Asia: the Rus’ Prince Yaroslav of Suzdal’, Chinese and Korean representatives, princes from the Kingdom of Georgia and the ambassador of the Caliph of Baghdad, among many others. Carpini’s embassy spent little time with the new Great Khan, offering only a brief description of him: quote, “The present Emperor may be forty or forty-five years old or more; he is of medium height, very intelligent and extremely shrewd, and most serious and grave in his manner. He is never seen to laugh for a slight cause nor to indulge in any frivolity, so we were told by the Christians who are constantly with him.”   On the matter of Chrisitianity, Carpini shares rumours that Guyuk was on the verge of converting. Guyuk did have affinity for the religion, as some of his closest advisers were Christians of the Nestorian flavour. No such baptism for Guyuk was forthcoming, however. As for Carpini’s actual mission to Guyuk, it proved less successful. Guyuk explained that the slaughter wrought in Hungary and Poland was due to the failure of the Europeans to submit to Heaven’s will and Mongol authority. Further, more would come, and when Carpini departed Guyuk’s camp for Europe in November 1246, he left utterly convinced that Guyuk was intent on marching on Europe.    With this fear in mind, Carpini tailored his work as a manual to prepare for the Mongol return. He wrote a very accurate description of the appearance of the Mongols, their culture and society, to detailed descriptions of their armour, tactics, and strategy. He follows this with recommendations on how they should be countered. His solution is that European armies needed to copy the organization of the Mongols and their discipline: literally, they should adopt the decimal organization system and instil the same punishment for desertion or failure to advance. The importance of crossbows were emphasized; the need to not allow themselves to be flanked and to watch for feigned retreats; maintain reserve units to assist the line and always have the army covered by scouts to alert to Mongol movements. If relying on fortifications, they needed to be built in places inaccessible to siege weapons. Care should be shown to captured prisoners: using the descriptions he provides, he argues that Europeans needed to learn to identify the Mongols from those subject peoples forced to fight for the Khan. These peoples, Carpini says, would fight against the Mongols if provided the chance.   When Carpini is describing things he did not directly observe, he falls easily into accepting myths and rumours. In his account Jesus Christ and the scriptures are honoured in China (which he never visited), there are literal monsters under Mongol control, and the Mongols were repulsed from Greater India by its Christian King, Prester John. However, he provides a keen eye at Mongol politics at the start of Guyuk’s reign, listing the top chiefs and mentions Mongke and his mother Sorqaqtani, who he says “among the Tartars this lady is the most renowned, with the exception of the Emperor’s mother [Torogene], and more powerful than anyone else except Batu.”  On his return journey, Carpini remet with Vasilko of Volhynia and Daniel of Galicia, who sent with Carpini letters and envoys to Pope Innocent for cooperation, leading to Pope Innocent crowning Daniel King of Ruthenia, or Galicia-Volhynia, a brief flirtation of Orthodox and Catholic unity. Innocent provided no support for the newly independent monarch beyond this, and Daniel saw his autonomy crushed at the end of the 1250s with a major Mongol attack.   Carpini’s account, written on his return to Europe, was hugely disseminated through Carpini’s own efforts and its inclusion in one of the most popular medieval encyclopedias, Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum Historiale. It's clear, detailed descriptions of the Mongols, based entirely on observation, was hugely influential on the writings of other travellers. Some have even argued it spurned the beginnings to more analytic, scientific descriptions of the world, in part as it brought a detailed presentation on a world outside of Europe. It was not exactly a friendly world, mind you. Carpini returned with a letter from Guyuk demanding the submission of the Pope and all the monarchs of Europe, immediately, and in person- with the direct threat of horrific consequences if they failed to do so.   As Carpini returned from the Mongol Empire in 1247, another embassy reached the Mongols in what is now Armenia. Pope Innocent ordered a party of Dominican friars from the Crusader states to bear a letter to the Mongols, opening a second diplomatic front in the event Plano Carpini did not return. The Dominicans were another mendicant order founded in the 13th century, famous both as preachers and inquisitors, and visually distinctive in their black cloaks over white habits.  This group of Dominicans was led by a Friar Ascelin, but the account was written by another member of the embassy, Friar Simon of St. Quentin. An online translation has been made accessible online by our friend of the podcast Dr. Stephen Pow- check out www.simonofstquentin.org to read the full account, with maps!    The Dominican embassy arrived in the camp of the Mongol commander of the Caucasus- Baiju Noyan, on the 24th May, 1247. Learning of their arrival, Baiju sent a representative to enquire as to their purpose, and things immediately got off to a poor start. Upon being asked who they were the representatives of, Friar Ascelin replied, “I am the envoy of the Lord Pope, who among Christians is considered superior in dignity to all men and to whom they show reverence as to their father and lord.”   To which Baiju’s representative became immediately annoyed and responded, “How, speaking with such proud words, do you say that your lord pope is the greatest of all men? Does he not know that Khan is the son of God and that Baiju Noyan and Batu are his princes and thus their names are made known and exalted everywhere?” To which Friar Ascelin replied that the Pope knew none of these names, and that they were simply instructed to find the nearest Mongol army -wherever that might be- and to present a letter from the Pope urging a cessation to the slaughter of Christians.   From here, the meeting devolved. The representative returned to Baiju with the message, and returning in a new set of clothes, asked what gifts the Pope had sent for Baiju. The embassy had failed to provide any, stating that in fact, people sent gifts to the Pope! When he returned from Baiju, again in a new set of clothes, he scolded them for failing to show up with gifts- then inquired if they were at the head of any European armies being sent into Syria.  Before allowing the embassy to meet Baiju, they were then ordered to genuflect before him- which the Friars refused to do, fearing it was idolatry. One in their party who had some experience with Mongol customs informed them it wasn’t idolatry they were asking for- just a sign of the submission of the Pope and Catholic Church to the Khan. On this, the Friars proudly stated they’d rather be decapitated than imply the submission of the Church. They would genuflect and even kiss the soles of Baiju’s feet on the condition that he became a Christian. The response was… not ideal.   “You advise us that we become Christians and be dogs like you. Isn’t your pope a dog and aren’t all you Christians dogs?” the Mongols shouted at the party, and upon learning of this insolence Baiju ordered them all to be killed. Baiju’s advisers urged mercy- don’t kill all four of the friars, only two! Another suggested it would be better to skin the lead friar and send him back to Rome stuffed with straw. Or, have two of them beaten by sticks by the whole Mongol army! Another voice said the wisest course was to place them at the front of the army during a siege, and allow them to be killed by enemy missiles. Murder was only abandoned when one of Baiju’s wives talked him down from it- reminding him quite rightly it was poor conduct to kill envoys, and it would bring him into trouble with the imperial court.    Brought back from the brink- and this was still only the first day, mind you- Baiju’s representative inquired what would be an appropriate way for them to worship Baiju. No solution could be reached. The Mongols could not understand the stubbornness of the Christians in this regard: from their point of view, the Christians worshipped wood crosses and stone churches, and could not comprehend why the same respect could not be shown to Baiju, chosen by the Great Khan who was chosen by Heaven itself! The Friars’ explanations turned to theology, how St. Peter granted the keys to the Pope and so on. Lost in translation, the arguments went nowhere, until it was decided that Acelin would hand over the Pope’s letters but not appear before Baiju. The letter then needed to be translated for Baiju, which required Friar Ascelin explaining it word by word to Greek and Turk translators, who then explained it to Persian translators, who then translated it into Mongol, who then read it out for Baiju.   Annoyed by the initial proceedings, Baiju showed them disrespect after that. Left waiting in the hot sun, they were initially told they would be allowed to leave on the 12th of June, 1247, but this was rescinded when Baiju learned of the approach of Eljigidei to be his new superior. Eljigidei was a close ally of Great Khan Guyuk, sent west to resume military operations in the region.  Given only minimal bread and water, they could only wait. And wait. And wait. With no sign of Eljigidei and Ascelin fretting over continued delay, he finally got a councillor to plead on their behalf with promises of gifts. Baiju prepared a letter to send to the Pope, and things looked just about ready for the Dominicans to depart… when Eljigidei finally arrived. Then followed 7 straight days of feasting, drinking and celebrating before finally, some nine weeks after their initial arrival, on the 25th of July 1247 the Friars left Baiju’s camp.    Like Plano Carpini, Ascelin returned with a letter from the Mongols, this time from Baiju, and within it were only the strictest of demands. The Pope was to come himself, in person, and submit to the Mongols. Failure to do so meant he was an enemy to the Great Khan, and only one fate awaited the enemies of the Great Khan. By the end of the 1240s Pope Innocent IV had at least two letters from top Mongol leaders- one of them the Great Khan, Guyuk- demanding his immediate submission.  That’s a fairly strong indication that the Mongol high command was intent on the subjugation of Europe. Much like Carpini, Ascelin’s colleague Simon recorded considerable detail on the customs, habits and warfare of the Mongols, with information on the strategies and tactics they used in their expansion over Iran, the Caucasus and Anatolia- much of it from first hand sources. As much as they were failed conversion and diplomatic efforts, they were valuable sources of intelligence on a foe they had frustratingly little information on. The impression garnered over the 1240s was of an immensely antagonistic power interested in nothing less than mastery of the world.   Our final traveller for today is William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar who also made the long trip to Mongolia carrying a letter from the King of France Louis IX- though insisting the entire time he was not a diplomat, merely holding the letter for a friend.  Rubruck’s mission both in structure and situation differed from his predecessors. There is no indication he ever met John de Plano Carpini: he was familiar with his work, but not enough that he could get Carpini’s name correct in his own account, referring to him as John of Policarpo. Rubruck provides one detail about himself in his own account: that he was rather on the large side. Stationed in the Holy Land, he joined  the crusading King Louis IX in Cyprus in winter 1248, and went with him on his disastrous Egyptian campaign of 1250- the Seventh Crusade. This campaign was a catalyst to the usurpation of the Mamluks in Egypt over the Ayyubids, something to have major consequences for the Mongols in a few years. Rubruck’s accounts do not indicate he was among them during the debacles further down the Nile in 1250, during which Louis was captured by the Mamluks, held for ransom and released. The following years the French King spent restoring local fortifications in Palestine, humbled and penitent. It seems in this period Rubruck spent quite some time with the King and Queen. Louis had already been in contact with the Mongols, having sent the Dominican friar Andrew of Longjumeau to the Great Khan’s court in the 1240s, and received envoys from Eljigidei in early 1249. This led to nothing: Guyuk was dead before the Dominican reached his court, and Eljigidei, as a close ally of Guyuk, was soon to follow him on Mongke’s orders.   Rubruck, as a good Fransciscan, was keen to spread the word of God among the heathens and had learned from Andrew of Longjumeau’s report of German miners carried east as slaves by the Chagatai prince Buri during the invasion of Hungary.  Keen to bring salvation to the Mongols, and peace to these slaves, it was Rubruck’s own initiative to travel to the Mongol Empire in 1253. Before he left King Louis provided Rubruck a letter to the Khan, as a sort of “while you’re going that way,” rather than an official embassy.. Learning that a Jochid prince, Sartaq son of Batu, was a Christian, Rubruck decided to make a stop at his court first, perhaps hoping to seek his assistance for the long trek. Taking his leave of King Louis likely at Jaffa, Rubruck set out north and reached Constantinople in April 1253, there getting a chance to preach in St. Sophia, the modern Hagia Sofia; he spoke with other men who had gone as envoys to the Mongols; and there picked up a companion, another Franciscan named Bartholomew of Cremona. Sailing across the Black Sea to Crimea, he travelled north into the steppes to the camp of Sartaq.    Sartaq was the first of many disappointments for Rubruck. His Chrisitanity Rubruck found lacking, and his secretaries admonished Rubruck for calling him a Christian, telling him “Do not say that our master is a Christian. He is not a Christian; he is a Mongol.” The customary gift giving resulted in much of his possessions being taken or outright stolen. In the four days they were there, they were not even provided food, only airag, fermented mare’s milk, though Rubruck took a liking to it. Rubruck stressed he was not an envoy, merely carrying a letter of friendly intent from King Louis. This made a real mess. This was not an area in Mongol diplomacy their world view accounted for. To quote historian Peter Jackson in his translation of Rubruck’s account, “the Mongols were in fact unable to comprehend why representatives of independent peoples should trouble to visit the imperial court if not to bring submission.” Sartaq, not understanding the purpose of Rubruck’s letter, decided this was a matter for his father Batu to settle. So Rubruck, at this time in his mid forties and trying to travel barefoot as in Franciscan tradition, was forced to follow Plano Carpini’s route over the Volga Steppe to the court of Batu.   He was amazed at the size of Batu’s camp, comparing it to a large city. Taken before the tent of Batu, he gazed upon the second most powerful man in Asia. Sitting upon a golden throne with a wife at his side, Rubruck provides us our only physical description of Batu Khan: “He regarded us with a keen gaze, as we did him. He struck me as being of the same build as the lord John of Beaumont, and his face was covered at this time with reddish blotches.” As numerous commentators have stated, it is a deep shame that we do not know what build John of Beaumont was. Through his interpreter, Rubruck spoke to Batu and the audience, in which he urged Batu to be baptized. Batu gave a slight smile, and the audience began laughing at Rubruck.    Batu interrogated Rubruck, having learned through spies of King Louis’ military expedition to Egypt. Telling the Khan that the purpose was to recapture Jerusalem, Rubruck was given airag and sent to the side. Batu decided it was best to send this representative of the French King right to the highest authority: Mongke Khaan, quite without Rubruck’s consent and with no choice in the matter. “There is no counting the times we were famished, thirsty, frozen and exhausted,” Rubruck says of the lengthy voyage in winter 1253 over Central Asia to Mongolia. Rubruck’s account, unlike that of Carpini, is full of personal opinions on matters: mainly in the form of how much he hated everything. Their hygiene and personal habits, such as relieving themselves in the middle of the open steppe right beside him he found ‘excessively tiresome.’   By the end of December 1253 William of Rubruck was in the camp of Mongke Khaan, some ten days journey from Karakorum. Unlike with Ascelin and Baiju, Rubruck was asked how he would like to make his obeisance to the Khan, per European custom or Mongolian. Rubruck would sing praises to God, then do as Mongke wished. Inside a tent Rubruck describes as covered in gold, the friar provides a brief description of Mongke. The Khan was seated on a golden couch with a wife, dressed in spotted fur, snub nosed, of medium build and about 45 years old. One of Mongke’s daughters was seated on the steps before him: Rubruck says she was very ugly. The initial meeting did not go very far. Alcohol was offered, and Rubruck’s interpreter helped himself. After Mongke’s first statement, “Just as the sun spreads its rays in all directions, so my power and that of Batu are spread to every quarter,” Rubruck’s interpreter was too drunk to translate, and the friar was quickly pushed to the side.   Rubruck did not have a good time in the Mongol court. Provided lodging and food, he found himself interrogated and often mistreated. The Mongols sought information on Europe, on what and how many goods and animals the French possessed, and if the Pope was really 500 years old. Rubruck had gone to convert the heathens and bring salvation to the captured German miners: he succeeded in converting only six people during his stay and learned the Germans were beyond his reach in Central Asia. Rubruck was stuck with Nestorian and Greek Orthodox Christians which he did not take a great liking too, there only to enrich themselves. The priests, among many others, were convinced Mongke was on the verge of converting to their creed. Rubruck saw that the Khan didn’t care for any of them, content to utilize all their prayers. Spending several months in Mongke’s camp and Karakorum, the imperial capital, Rubruck met persons from all over Asia. From ambassadors from the Nicaean Empire, the Delhi Sultanate, Baghdad and China to Europeans brought as captives to Mongolia. He met Hungarians, Germans, Russians and French. One was William Buchier of Paris, a goldsmith highly prized by the Mongols. He designed and built the famous silver tree of Karakorum: literally, a tree made from silver with conduits running through it, at the base through four silver lions and higher up coming down as spouts shaped as snakes. From the lions came airag, fermented mare’s milk; from the gilded mouths of four snakes poured grape wine; qaraqumiss, refined mare’s milk; bal, a honey drink, and a rice wine. At the top of the tree was a silver angel with a trumpet. On command, a man inside the tree would sound the trumpet, alerting stewards in another room to feed the alcoholic beverages through their respectives conduits. Below each animal was a vessel to collect the drinks, and when filled they were carried to the cheery guests, applauding at the show. Aside from this and the Khan’s palace in Karakorum, Rubruck found the city terribly unimpressive, likening it to a small town in France but with a very diverse population.    Rubruck endured a number of almost sitcom-like vignettes during his time there. On one occasion he joined with a Nestorian priest to ‘save’ one of Mongke’s sickly wives through a decoction of rhubarb and holy water. Most notable was a religious debate he took part in, sparked by a conflict between Rubruck and the Buddhist priests at Karakorum. While Rubruck gives a detailed and accurate description of the Buddhist customs he saw, he had little care for the Buddhists themselves. This spat turned into the Mongols hosting a religious debate- on one side, Rubruck representing the Catholic Church, with Nestorian Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians and Muslims, and on the other Buddhists lamas. Three umpires - a Buddhist, Christian and Muslim- judged. Mongke, in typical fashion, called for a respectful debate forbidding insulting remarks to opponents, on pain of death.   Rubruck’s version is that he was the star player, deftly disarming the arguments of the Buddhists while his own teammates proved incompetent. We lack any other accounts of this debate, so we should perhaps take it with a grain of salt. He does remark that even though his arguments were like, totally 100% awesome and really effective, no one was convinced to become a Christian because of it, and the debate ended with everyone drinking heavily with half his team singing loudly and presumably, off-key.    The most interesting portion of Rubruck’s narrative is his brief interview with Mongke Khaan, albeit through an interpreter. In this discussion, Mongke provides a fascinating explanation for his religious view:   “We Mongols believe that there is only one God, through whom we have life and through whom we die, and towards him we direct our hearts. But just as God has given the hand several fingers, so he has given mankind several paths. To you God has given the Scriptures and you Christians do not observe them. You do not find in the scriptures, that one man ought to abuse another, do you? And likewise you do not find that a man ought to deviate from the path of justice for financial gain. So, then, God has given you the Scriptures, and you do not observe them; whereas to us he has given soothsayers, and we do as they tell us and live in peace.”   After this, Rubruck was instructed to return to the west with a letter for King Louis, upon which he lamented he had no chance to attempt to convert the Khan. Mongke’s letter to Louis is preserved in Rubruck’s account, and it’s somewhat more cordial compared to the demands of Guyuk. I mean, it still has demands that the Kings of Europe come and submit to him, and that it would be foolish to trust in distance and mountains to protect them.  But it offered something of an apology- well, not quite an apology-  for inconsistent messaging by the envoys of Eljigidei, and for Andrew of Longjumeau’s journey which met not Guyuk Khan, but his widow Oghul Qaimish. On Oghul Qaimish, Mongke stated his opinion on her rather bluntly in his letter: “But as for knowing the business of war and the affairs of peace, subduing the wide world and discerning how to act for the best- what could that worthless woman, lower than a bitch, have known of this?” That he would so openly write this in an official channel- a letter to another monarch- is indicative of the malice he felt to her, and partially explains some of the violence Mongke ordered against the house of Ogedai.   Alas for William of Rubruck, but well for us, was that he was unable to return to King Louis to deliver the message in person. Believing Louis had remained in the Crusader States, after reaching the court of Batu in the Volga steppe, Rubruck cut south through the Caucasus- briefly staying in Baiju Noyan’s camp, where he heard of the approach of Hulegu, Mongke’s younger brother, and a massive army marching through Iran. Learning that Louis had returned to France, Rubruck’s Franciscan superiors ordered him to remain in Acre, forced to send Mongke’s letters alongside a written account of his journey, which luckily for us survives. Unlike Carpini’s account, Rubruck writes little on the warfare of the Mongols, spending more time on their customs and character, with remarkably astute, though not compassionate, descriptions of the cultures and religions he saw throughout his journey. It’s also a detailed geographical and observational survey, challenging views set out by ancient writers. For instance, noting that the Caspian Sea was not an ocean but a lake;  noting the proper courses of the Don and Volga Rivers; connecting the Chinese to the Seres mentioned in antiquity; noted linguistic connections between various groups and, upon finding no evidence for popular medieval monsters like the dog-headed people, argued against their existence. One of the few people to read Rubruck’s account in the 13th century was the English Franciscan Roger Bacon, who met Rubruck in Paris in 1257. Bacon was the first European to record the mixture for gunpowder in 1267. It’s sometimes suggested that Rubruck provided it to Bacon, but as Rubruck mentions nothing of the sort in his account, this is unlikely.    And that is a brief overview of three early European journeys to the Mongol Empire. Not as famous as the slightly later journey of one Messer Marco Polo, but fascinating nonetheless. Our next episode will be an overview of the reign of Great Khan Mongke, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!

You could be forgiven for not knowing the name of Guyuk Khan. Guyuk, as Great Khan of the Mongol Empire since 1246, makes a poor figure compared to the likes of his grandfather, Chinggis Khan, his father Ogedai, or cousins Mongke and Kublai. Few medieval writers had much good to say about him, and his successor, Mongke, ensured Guyuk’s legacy was tarnished. Yet, the reign of Guyuk was a turning point in the history of the Mongol Empire, the transition of the Khanate from the line of Ogedai to the descendants of Tolui. I’m your host David, and this is Kings and Generals: Ages of Conquest. Guyuk was about 40 years old when he became Great Khan of the Mongol Empire in summer 1246. The oldest son of Ogedai Khaan and his wife, Torogene, not much is known of him prior to his ascension. He seems to have had little administrative experience, and only in the great western campaign does Guyuk come to notice. There, he performed well though friction developed between him and the senior prince of the campaign, Jochi’s son Batu. Guyuk and his cousin Mongke left with their troops before the campaign reached Hungary, but did not reach Mongolia before Ogedai’s death in December 1241. After Ogedai’s death, his widow Torogene began orchestrating support for Guyuk’s election to succeed his father. While Ogedai at various points -and various states of sobriety- had named several of his sons and a grandson as heirs, he never seems to have made such an explicit statement in regards to Guyuk. The Mongols did not practice primogeniture, so it was hardly a sure matter that, as the eldest, Guyuk had any right to succeed Ogedai. Neither did Guyuk seem to exert much effort for the nomination; the historical sources depict this as the efforts of Torogene, Guyuk almost a bystander to the matter. Despite this, Torogene succeeded, at quite some financial and personal cost, falling out with another son, Koten, and a grandson, Shiremun, who also wanted the throne. So what was the character of the new monarch? Raised under the close supervision of the atabeg Qadaq, the atabeg being a Turkic institution to train young men in the art of war, the fact that Qadaq was a Christian seems to have instilled an affinity for the religion in Guyuk though he never converted. As we will explain later, Guyuk’s reputation was ripped apart by his successors. In the official accounts, he is generally depicted as suffering from some chronic, unidentified illness, engaging in daily drinking binges like his father, and generally shown as a poor monarch more interested in debauchery than ruling. Sources outside the empire, as stressed by historian Hodong Kim, provide a more balanced view. An important account is that of John de Plano Carpini, a European Friar sent as an envoy from the Pope to the Mongol Empire who attended Guyuk’s coronation in 1246. His account, uncoloured by the intrigues which emerged between the later Chinggisids, shows a strict, stern man who did not engage in frivolity, interested more so in continuing his father’s legacy, centralizing and expanding the empire. Guyuk, as we will see, probably was an alcoholic and suffering from illness, though neither was a trait unique to him among the Mongol princes. Yet, that he was also trying to restabilize the empire after Torogene’s regency and reign in local princes used to less imperial oversight, better explains the actions of his reign. Keeping that in mind, let us see what our boy Guyuk got up to. Torogene had bitterly campaigned to place her son on the throne, in the process making several enemies, granting positions to favourites and in many respects, unintentionally weakening the central government of the empire. With her close confidant, the Shia Central Asian Fatima, she attempted to arrest Ogedai’s chancellor, the Nestorian Christian Chinqai, the head of the secretariat for China Mahmud Yalavach, Yalavach’s son and the head of the Central Asian secretariat Mas’ud Beg, and other appointees who stood against tax farming and exploitation. Chinqai and Mahmud Yalavach fled to Koten, Torogene’s son who also desired the throne, while Mas’ud Beg fled to the court of Batu in the western steppe. Others less fortunate were caught and killed. To raise the necessary funds for the bribes and gifts to secure Guyuk’s nomination, Torogene needed rapacious tax farmers, and thus appointed ‘Abd al-Rahman to the head of the China secretariat. ‘Abd al-Rahman, as we covered in the previous episode, had essentially put all of Mongol occupied north China in debt, and there is no reason to doubt that his efforts under Torogene were any less greedy. Other favours and positions were awarded to secure loyalties and remove figures who stood in Torogene’s path. The picture is of a destabilization of the empire’s bureaucracy, a general weakening of the central government over the corners of the empire. Batu, situated in what is now modern Russia and Kazakhstan, began to emerge in this period as an immensely powerful figure. With the death of Chagatai in 1242, Batu was considered the aqa, the senior prince of the Chinggisid lineage, and well outside Torogene’s influence. The cracks in the Mongol Empire were starting to form. On his ascension in 1246 Guyuk’s main goal was reversing these trends. Just before his official enthronement, Guyuk had a reconciliation with his brother Koten, who had fallen deathly ill. Koten was convinced that Fatima, their mother’s confidant, was a witch and had cursed him, and was the cause of the strife under Torogene- or at least, a useful scapegoat. Getting Guyuk to promise to avenge him, Koten soon died. As he had given shelter to Chinqai and Mahmud Yalavach, these experienced figures entered Guyuk’s camp and were reinstated to their old positions, and were a major influence on Guyuk’s drive to centralization. Guyuk moved quickly on Chinqai’s urging. After Guyuk’s election, Torogene fell ill, and within 2-3 months had passed away. Before she did though, Guyuk made sure to dismantle her entire support network. ‘Abd al-Rahman, the money-hungry tax collector of China, was captured and executed. Offices and privileges granted since Ogdeai’s death- yarlighs, in Mongolian- were declared void. The greatest strike to Torogene was against Fatima. The sources depict them as dear friends, and some modern online commentators have suspected the relationship was even romantic, but nothing can be proven in that regard. When Guyuk’s envoys came demanding Torogene hand over Fatima, Torogene refused. In response, Guyuk sent an armed escort with orders not to leave without her. Under armed guard, Fatima was taken captive, bound, starved, humiliated and under torture forced to admit to charges of witchcraft, a crime punishable by death. Her family and supporters were killed, but witchcraft itself needed a more severe punishment. All of Fatima’s orifices were sewn shut, then she was rolled up in felt and, still living, thrown into a river. Torogene was heartbroken, mortified at what she had created, and soon died. Fatima, on Guyuk’s orders, took the blame for the mismanagement of the previous years, sparing any official condemnations of his own mother. The executions did not stop there. You’ll recall in the previous episode how we mentioned Temuge, the youngest brother of Chinggis Khan, and his only surviving full-brother, had attempted to seize power during Torogene’s regency. Though he abandoned this, it was not forgotten. An official investigation was launched, headed by Orda, Batu’s older brother, and Mongke, the oldest of Tolui’s children, and thus senior members of their respective branches. Found guilty of treason, Temuge Otchigin was executed. Few details of the matter are known, and we can suppose information was suppressed. Also tried was Al Altan, Chinggis Khan’s favourite daughter who was married into the Uighur royal family. At Ogedai’s final feast, Al Altan had been present and argued with her brother regarding imperial encroachment on her territory. Ogedai was dead by the next morning. Al Altan was accused of poisoning Ogedai and executed by Guyuk’s right hand man, Eljigidei (el-ji-gi-de). Guyuk also intervened elsewhere. On Chagatai’s death in 1242 he was succeeded by his grandson Qara-Hulegu. Guyuk had Qara-Hulegu removed and appointed his friend and drinking buddy Yesu-Mongke to replace him, putting a more pliant individual in charge of the Chagatai territories. He meddled even further afield. After the victory at Kose-Dagh in 1243, the Seljuqs of Anatolia were Mongol vassals, and a dispute had emerged over who should hold the sultanate after the death of Kaykhusraw II (kay-huus-raw the second): his sons Qilich Arslan IV or Kaykaus II. As Qilich Arslan made the journey to Mongolia to attend Guyuk’s coronation, Guyuk appointed him the Seljuq Sultan. In the Kingdom of Georgia, there was a dispute as to who would succeed the late Queen Rusudan. Batu wanted Rusudan’s son, David, to succeed her, while the local commander, Baiju, wanted Rusudan’s nephew, also named David, on the Georgian throne. Guyuk’s solution was to divide the Kingdom between the two of them. Militarily, Guyuk wanted to resume the conquests after their general hiatus under Torogene. Venerable Subutai was sent on his final campaign alongside Chaghan Noyan against the Song Dynasty, though this was a brief affair. Eljigidei was sent to the Middle East with an army, and threatening letters were sent to the Caliph in Baghdad. Guyuk wanted to finally subjugate Europe, in what was effectively a massive pincer movement against the remaining independent powers on the western end of the continent. A demand for submission was sent with John de Plano Carpini to take back to the Pope and in Autumn 1247, Guyuk and his army set out. This was something of a two birds, one stone situation. While Guyuk’s overall plan was to attack Europe, this brought him close to the territory of Batu. Batu would either have to assist the army, thus demonstrating his submission to the Khan, or he would be destroyed. This was not an attack on the Jochids, though. Guyuk got on fine with Batu’s older brother, Orda, and Guyuk may have intended to replace Batu with Orda as he had done in the Chagatai Khanate with Qara-Hulegu and Yesu-Mongke. Batu was forewarned of the possibility from an unlikely source: Tolui’s widow, Sorqaqtani Beki. Alerted to the danger Batu prepared an army and moved eastwards, sending his brother Shiban ahead to determine Guyuk’s intentions. It seemed the Mongol Empire was veering dangerously close to civil war. This was averted as in April 1248, Guyuk Khan suddenly died, a week’s march west of Beshbaliq. The timing is convenient, and medieval sources share rumours of Guyuk being poisoned by Batu via his brother Shiban. But, as we noted earlier, the sources also mention Guyuk in chronically poor health worsened by his heavy drinking. If true, Guyuk was hardly the first, nor the last, Mongol prince undone from alcoholism and its associated risks. But the timing was rather convenient for Batu, who seems to have been a little too prepared to jump on the opportunity. Batu immediately sent messengers to Guyuk’s widow, Oghul-Qaimish, urging her to take the regency with the assistance of the able Chinqai until a quriltai could declare Guyuk’s successor. In the meantime, Batu proposed a quriltai to be held at a more central location, called Ala Qamaq. The precise location is unclear, but seems to have been somewhere south of Lake Balkhash, rather near to Batu’s territory. The suggestion was met with uproar among the families of Chagatai and Ogedai. The traditional homeland of Chinggis Khan, the Onon-Kerulen region of northern Mongolia, had to be where the Khan was decided! Support for Batu’s suggestion came from his lineage, the Jochids, and what at first seems unlikely allies, the Toluids. To explain this, we need to step back a few years. Tolui, the fourth son of Chinggis Khan and Borte, had married a Kereyit woman, a niece of Toghrul Ong Khan named Sorqaqtani Beki. On Tolui’s death in 1232, Sorqaqtani became the head of that branch of the family. The sources across the board agree that Sorqaqtani was highly intelligent, diplomatically and commercially skilled. She was diplomatically skilled enough to decline, without issue, Ogedai’s offer for her to marry his son Guyuk after Tolui’s death. Instead, she remained independent, inheriting Tolui’s lands and making off very well in the allotment of appanages in 1236. She spent the following years fostering her territories, making ties with merchants and amassing quite the fortune. Even before Tolui’s death, he was often away on campaigning, leaving her to the rearing of their four children: Mongke, Kublai, Hulegu, and Ariq Boke, four names we’ll get to know very well in the following episodes. Teaching them to read and write Mongolian, about administration and leadership, she groomed them for leadership. She also made ties abroad. One of her sisters, Ibaqa, had been married to Chinggis Khan, while another was married to Jochi and though she bore him no sons, it allowed her to make contact with his sons from other wives and form a good relationship with Batu. And then she waited. When Guyuk moved his army westwards, Sorqaqtani was quick to have messengers contact Batu. Batu, concerned with his own autonomy, prepared for the worst. While we can offer no proof if they actually conspired to kill Guyuk, or simply took advantage of the situation as it developed, either way they deftly handled what followed. The combination of the wealth of Batu and Sorqaqtani, and their tremendous influence, made them a dangerous pair, one which outplayed their political rivals. As the quriltai at Ala-Qamaq looked to be going ahead, Sorqaqtani likely felt she compared very well to Guyuk’s widow and the regent, Oghul-Qaimish. Nothing is known of Oghul-Qaimish until she was suddenly thrust into the regency. Like Torogene, she was originally from the Merkit tribe, awarded to Guyuk when both were young. She bore Guyuk two sons, Qucha and Naqu, and may have been the mother of his three known daughters. Unlike Torogene and Sorqaqtani, Oghul-Qaimish had no network of carefully selected allies to rely upon, and was completely unprepared for the role of imperial regent. She is described as generally ignoring the requirements of governing the empire, spending her time with shamans and merchants. Dismissive of Batu’s efforts to organize the quriltai, it seems she was under the impression that the succession would of course go to one of her sons, while also believing it could not go forth without her presence. Because of this, she also seems to have failed to undertake the extensive bribery- sorry, ‘gift giving’- necessary to help smooth along one’s nomination. The quriltai at Ala-Qamaq was held in 1250. While it saw strong attendance from the houses of Jochi and Tolui, few Chagatayids or Ogedeids bothered to show up, refusing to see it as legitimate. Oghul-Qamish was not present, and her sons Qucha and Naqu briefly stopped in before departing and leaving a representative, Temur Noyan, to vote for them. As Qara-Hulegu, the deposed grandson of Chagatai, and one of Ogedai’s sons from a concubine, Qadan, showed up, Batu could say that all branches of the family were represented and therefore, was perfectly legal. In the absence of Qucha and Naqu, the only candidate who fielded enough respect was Mongke, though we can suspect it was engineered to choose him either way. Mongke was the eldest son of Tolui and Sorqaqtani, a fit, well respected military leader who had fought well during the great western campaign. Mongke and his mother were friendly to Batu, and made an agreement to essentially make Batu ruler of the western half of the empire. Hence, Batu ensured Mongke had the Jochid vote. This was by no means uncontested. The house of Ogedai believed that Chinggis Khan had meant for rule of the empire to stay within their line. Batu, Sorqaqtani and her children presented various arguments against this. One was that the Ogedeids, through their actions such as the executions of Temuge and Al Altan, or by choosing to elect Guyuk to succeed Ogedai instead of his grandson Shiremun, had voided this. Another was that, in Mongolian tradition, the youngest son inherited the father’s property. As Tolui was Chinggis Khan’s youngest son, that therefore made his line the rightful heirs. The fact that Mongke was not in turn Tolui’s youngest son was thoughtfully glossed over. Generous bribery did much to convince the naysayers present, and in the end even the representative left by Qucha and Naqu voted to elect Mongke as great Khan. The assembly agreed to hold a quriltai in Mongolia as soon as possible to confirm it. That an election went ahead without their presence sent the Ogedeids into a tailspin. They had failed to declare their own candidate in the first place: Qucha and Naqu each wanted to be Khan, while their mother Oghul-Qaimish seems to have actually picked Ogedai’s grandson Shiremun as her candidate. At each other’s throats, the three actually formed their own courts in opposition to each other. Government at the highest level ground to a halt, the minister Chinqai said to have been left in the wind as none of these courts listened to him. Oghul-Qaimish tried to raise funds for a quriltai: like Guyuk, she only paid merchants in drafts rather than, well, actual payment, and increased irregular acquisitions on the sedentary population. Even nomads saw their taxes increase: normally every 1 in 100 horses was paid in tax, but in 1250 this increased to every 1 in 10! An embassy from King Louis IX of France brought a red scarlet tent as gift for Oghul-Qaimish, which she took around to claim she had just garnered the submission of the King of France. It was all for naught. In summer 1251 the quriltai was held by the Kerulen River, where Mongke was formally enthroned at a lavish ceremony. Oghul-Qaimish and her son Qucha did not attend. Naqu did, in the company of Shiremun, and an army hidden inside large gers mounted on carts. They were going to arrive late and ambush the new Khaan in the middle of feasting. Or they would have, if not for a lost camel. A member of Mongke’ keshig, a falconer, was in search of a camel which had wandered off when he ended up in the camp of Naqu and Shiremun. There he stopped to help in repairing a broken cart, which he noticed was full of weapons and armour- something one simply did not bring to a quriltai. Politely excusing himself, he was said to have ran “three days distance in one,” to reach the new Khan. The sources present Mongke refusing to believe members of his family would march against him. We can dismiss this entirely. The possibility of such a counter effort had to have been anticipated from the beginning, and the fact that Mongke immediately had an armed company under his right-hand man, Menggeser, on standby to send against them speaks to that. Menggeser and his men apprehended Naqu and Shiremun and dispersed his force. Mongke needed to begin his reign with clearing the board of enemies, on a scale beyond even what Guyuk had done. Qucha was ordered to come to Mongke, and only reluctantly agreed. Oghul-Qaimish refused to come, calling Mongke’s messengers traitors for having taken the rule from the line of Ogedai. They returned with an armed escort, taking her captive with her hands stitched together in rawhide. Along with Shiremun’s mother, they were taken to the camp of Sorqaqtani. There, they were beaten with burning brands until they confessed to charges of witchcraft. As Sorqaqtani had fallen ill about this time, this accusation for those assembled may have felt legitimate. Put on trial by Menggeser, now chief judge of the empire, Oghul-Qaimish was stripped naked and humiliated, but defiant. “How can anyone else look upon a body that only an emperor has seen?” she told the court. She was found guilty, then rolled up in felt and thrown into the Kerulen River, though spared having her orifices sewn. Her sons fared better, as Shiremun’s chief commander was tortured into saying the princes were innocent of the treason. Qucha was forced to live basically within sight of Karakorum, while Naqu and Shiremun were sent to the front lines in China. Guyuk’s man Eljigidei was punished for the execution of Al Altan, his sons caught and their mouths filled with stones until they died. Eljigidei was captured and sent to Batu, who either boiled him alive, or cut off his feet and head. Buri, a grandson of Chagatai and friend of Guyuk, was put to death by Batu, while Yesu-Mongke, the prince Guyuk had placed in charge of the Chagatais, was executed and replaced by Qara-Hulegu, who had originally held the position. Guyuk’s atabeg, Qadaq, was also captured and killed. The Uighur idiqut was put to death by his own brother on Mongke’s orders. Even the able and long serving Chinqai was killed, an old enemy Danishmand Hajib allowed to take out a grudge upon him. This purge continued until the line of Ogedai had been pruned and their lands confiscated. Only a few princes, those who had sided with Mongke or were too young, such as Qaidu, the future foe of Kublai, survived on much reduced territories. The ulus of Ogedai essentially ceased to exist, most of its territory given to the Jochids, central government or Toluids. The Chagatai Khanate fared better, but saw a change in leadership and loss of several princes. This was the Toluid Revolution, a massive transformation in the Mongol Empire. The switching of the ruling line from that of Ogedai to Tolui, the near eradication of the line of Ogedai and effective division of the empire between Batu and Mongke marked a radical transformation in the composition of the empire. Mongke and the lines of his brothers wrote official histories to justify the switch to their rule, and here we see the ravaging of the reputations of Torogene, Guyuk and Oghul Qaimish. Sorqaqtani died shortly after Mongke’s ascension, and unlike Torogene and Oghul Qaimish, she passed away on good terms with her son, having seen him elevated to the highest of positions. Nevertheless, it was in part to her efforts that the empire was placed on a path to fragmentation. Deep seated grudges were now set among the lines, and the unity that Chinggis Khan had fought so fiercely to achieve was cracking. In the meantime, Mongke was going to lead the empire in another massive phase of expansion, so be sure to subscribe to the Kings and Generals podcast and to continue helping us bring you more outstanding content, please visit our patreon at www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. Thank you for listening, I am your host David and we will catch you on the next one!