Civilization #39: Genghis Khan, World Shatterer

Today, we will do Genghis Khan and the Mongolian conquest. As you know, the Mongols have a terrible reputation for their brutality, for their atrocities. Today, I want to make the argument to you that what they did, given the circumstances, given the constraints they were under, was actually logical and understandable. That's the argument I will make to you today.

The Steppe People

The Mongols, as you know, are a steppe people. The steppes are divided into the Western Steppes and the Eastern Steppes, and they basically go from Hungary in Europe all the way to what is modern-day Mongolia. As we discussed, steppe culture is very different from agricultural culture that we find in the Levant, in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and in China. In the grasslands, the economy is what we call nomadic pastoral, meaning they will raise cattle as their source of food, and they will travel wherever there is grassland.

Because of their economy, they have developed a certain culture. They are extremely violent. Their society, their culture is based around violence, and there's a lot of competition within these certain groups. Rather than think of these people as a nation or race of people, it's better to think of them as a culture. And for the longest time, throughout human history, they have been divided among many different tribes.

Throughout human history, the nomadic pastoral people of the steppes have always been in conflict with the agricultural empires. In response, the agricultural empires, China and the Persians, have built walls and fortifications to counter their threat. As you can see, the Mongols will eventually come south and invade most of China. Historically, the response has been the Great Wall of China. But also in Central Asia, the steppe people have been a threat as well, and they have built fortified cities as a response.

Even though the steppe people and the agricultural empires have always been in conflict, the Mongols have had a unique reputation in Western history as the most brutal, as the most violent. The question we're looking at today is, why were the Mongols unique in their brutality?

The Mongol Reputation

There are lots of things that were said about the Mongols that we now know today are not true. For example, back in the day, they had a reputation for cannibalism. They ate their opponents. They ate their enemies. And we know that's not true today. They also had a reputation for being devious. For example, when they approach an enemy, they would hold the cross. The cross is a symbol of Christianity, so their Christian enemies would see this and think that they are allies. And only when they discovered that these are actually Mongols, by then it was much too late. The Mongols had a reputation for being extremely devious.

They had a reputation for wanton brutality. They would destroy entire cities and kill all the people. Previously, historians believed they killed about sixty-five million people. Today, that figure is disputed. But if that was the case, then the Mongols killed more people than any other regime in human history before the twentieth century.

Genghis Khan is considered the greatest conqueror in human history. The statistic that surprised everyone is one out of two hundred males today are a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. That's like sixteen million people. Sixteen million males in the world are direct descendants of Genghis Khan. That is the reputation that the Mongols had for most of history. What I want to show you today is the Mongols are not unique among the steppe people. And the way they behaved, there was a strategy. There's a logic to the way they behaved, given the circumstances and constraints they found themselves under.

Steppe Conquerors

As you know in this class, the steppe people were the greatest conquerors in human history. They started with the Yamnaya, who were based in the Ukraine area. We know the Yamnaya, who are also referred to as the Proto-Indo-Europeans as well as the Aryans, spread throughout most of the Western world. They went to Europe, and as you know, they basically replaced the entire male population of Europe. And they intermarried with the local women to create European culture. They also went south and conquered Iran and India. And then they went over to the Eastern Steppes as well.

It's really important for us to remember, and I know this is hard, but the Mongol people are culturally more similar to the Yamnaya than they are to the Chinese, even though, genetically, the Mongols may be more similar to the Chinese. In this class, we focus on cultural values rather than genetic affinity.

Over time, what will happen to the Western Steppes is it will slowly acclimatize itself to the surrounding agricultural empires. Slowly, the Western Steppes will become integrated into their agricultural neighbors. The example here is Scythia. Scythia is an empire. It's a steppe empire, but slowly it's about to integrate itself into what is modern-day Eurasia. From the Scythians, you'll have arise something called the Median Empire, which will then give way to the Persian Empire.

Over in the Eastern Steppes, the steppe people come into conflict with the Han Dynasty. And the Han Dynasty, as we know from last class, is really the last ethnically Chinese dynasty. They are intent on a policy of eradication against the steppe people. They come in conflict with the steppe people who are now called the Xiongnu. What this conflict will do is drive these people west. This is interesting for us because when they go west, they will splinter off into different groups. When they go all the way to Europe, they will be known as the Huns. You may know Attila the Hun. Attila the Hun was the leader of these people. The Huns will drive the Western Steppe people, meaning the Goths, into the Roman Empire, causing conflict with the Roman Empire. And the Goths will become the foundation of modern-day Europeans.

This is the Hun Empire at its peak when it's in conflict with the Roman Empire. The Huns will also give rise to an empire called the Göktürk Empire. And they will sweep down, and they will become the Seljuk Turks, which will take over Mesopotamia. And then, eventually, you will have emerge the Ottoman Empire from these people. In other words, the Mongols are just the most successful iteration of the steppe people and their conflicts with the agricultural empires.

The Mongol Empire: Pax Mongolica and Its Consequences

The Mongol Empire is the second-largest empire ever in human history. Only the British Empire had more land. The Mongols were the largest contiguous empire, meaning it was all interconnected together. At its height, the Mongol Empire extended from basically what is modern-day Russia all the way to China. The empire that will take over the Mongols centuries later is the Russian Empire. The Russian Empire will take over a lot of Mongol territory.

Because it is so large, after the death of Genghis Khan and his son Ögedei, the Mongol Empire will splinter into four major empires. And these four major empires themselves will assimilate and integrate into the local culture. The Golden Horde will eventually give rise to the Russian Empire. The Yuan Dynasty will eventually fall and give rise to the Ming Empire. Even though they conquer a lot of territory, ultimately their empire is not sustainable. And later on, I will explain to you why it was not sustainable and why ultimately the Mongol Empire declined.

But while it was still in place, it created something called the Pax Mongolica. This is Latin for the Mongol peace. You've heard of the Pax Romana. We are now living in the Pax Americana. The Mongols created something called the Pax Mongolica, which meant they believed in globalization. They wanted their conquered nations to trade with each other because they could collect taxes on the trade. And they encouraged people, especially merchants, to travel across their empire and trade with each other. During this time, a very famous Italian named Marco Polo had a chance to visit the world. And his travels, especially those to China, capture the imagination of Europeans. This is really the first time that China figured into the European imagination. This is a map of Marco Polo's travels. As you can see, he basically traveled all across the Pax Mongolica.

The problem, though, is that when you integrate the world like this, you also give rise to disease. The Black Death traveled all across the world. We believe the Black Death originated in Central Asia, in a place we call Kazakhstan today, and it traveled all over the Mongol Empire. It made its way to Europe, and it devastated Europe. It killed anywhere between a third to half of the entire population of Europe. It traveled also to the former Islamic Empire, and it traveled to China, but it was not as devastating.

It's very important for us to understand the Black Death was devastating for Europe, but it was not that devastating for China and the Islamic Empire. And the reason why is sanitation and hygiene. In China and in the former Islamic Empire, their cities were pretty well-organized, pretty wealthy, pretty civilized. But in Europe, their streets were literally filled with manure. They had horses. They didn't have sanitation. People just threw shit onto the streets. And so when you walk the streets, they were literally covered with shit. And in that sort of environment, disease spread very rapidly.

But the Black Death is important for us also because it will give rise to the Renaissance. Historians believe the Renaissance could not have happened without the Black Death. The Black Death basically meant a reset of European society, and it allowed massive innovation in Europe. As you can see, the Black Death was extremely devastating for Europe.

After the Mongols will come another great conqueror called Timur the Lame, Tamerlane. And he will be the last great conqueror from the steppes. After Timur, the agricultural empires will develop the technology to repel the steppe invaders, mainly gunpowder. The technology and mass armies will overwhelm the steppe people. And eventually, over time, the agricultural nations, mainly Russia, will start to colonize and conquer the steppes.

The Limits of Conquest

Let's look today at Genghis Khan, who is the founder of the Mongol Empire. Genghis Khan will first of all unite the warring tribes of the Mongol people. He'll turn them into a confederation. And then the confederation will aim to conquer China, but then it will come into conflict with the Central Asian nations. And so, Genghis Khan will embark on the Central Asian campaigns that are brutal. He'll wipe out entire cities. He'll kill all the inhabitants. He will lay the foundation for the Mongol conquests that will follow after him.

• Again, after the death of his son Ögedei, the Mongols will split into four major factions, and they will attempt to continue the legacy of conquest. But what happened is after they conquer the Song Empire in twelve seventy-nine, they will attempt to conquer Japan and Vietnam. And when they try to do so, they will be repelled. They try to conquer Japan twice. And even though the legend is that Japan was saved by the kamikaze, the great divine wind, I will show you that's actually not true. There's another reason why the Mongols stopped invading Japan. So, in the east, they've reached the limit of their conquest.
• They tried to conquer India as well. But when they tried to do so, they were repelled. And historians argue about the reason why this is the case. Some believe it was because of the climate of India. Some believe it was because the Sultanate of Delhi had an organized and concerted response. Some others believe it was just internal fighting.
• When they tried to reach Europe, they will try to conquer Poland and Hungary. And even though they win every single battle against the Poles and Hungarians, they will ultimately turn back. And that will be the limit of their conquest in the west. The Mongolian fighting style is great when you fight in flat plains. These are horsemen with bows. They're fast. They can cover great, great distances. But when they try to reach Europe, and Europe is thick forest, they really can't conquer that terrain.
• One really stunning event is when they try to conquer Egypt. Remember, Egypt, for the longest time, was the wealthiest part of the Western world. When they try to conquer Egypt, they run into a people called the Mamluks, who fight very similarly to the Mongols. In fact, the Mamluks were originally from the steppes as well. And for the first time, the Mongols will be defeated militarily on the battlefield. This sort of destroys the aura of inevitability and invincibility that the Mongols had for the longest time. And this will be the extent of their conquest in the west.

After these conquests, the Mongol Empire will try to rule their respective empires. But ultimately, they will fail. Later on, I'll explain to you why they were doomed to fail. And the irony is the reasons that gave rise to the empire are also reasons why their empire ultimately collapsed.

The Secret History of the Mongols

I want to first talk about Genghis Khan. We don't know much about Genghis Khan. What we do know comes from a book called The Secret History of the Mongols. It is an oral history of the life and times of Genghis Khan and his son Ögedei. The story in the Secret History is suspicious. And it's suspicious because it fits very well into the structure of Proto-Indo-European myth. Let me show you how it's similar.

In the Secret History, Genghis Khan's mother, and again, they are in the Mongolian grasslands, is about to be wed to her husband. She's in her carriage, and she's along the way to her husband's tribe. But along the way, she is ambushed and kidnapped. That's a very common thing in that culture. The way that you obtain a wife is by stealing someone else's wife. And so, she's forced to marry a stranger. But the stranger, Genghis Khan's eventual father, dies when Genghis Khan is eight years old. When the father dies, the tribe abandons the mother and her young children. So, they're forced to fend for themselves.

Eventually, the mother finds a way to find a supporting tribe, and Genghis Khan slowly finds mentors for protection. He eventually finds a mentor who becomes his best friend, and this best friend's name is Jamukha. The two together are great warriors, and they conquer a lot of territory together. In fact, when Genghis Khan's wife is stolen by a tribe, the two will race off and get the wife back. But by this time, Genghis Khan's wife is pregnant with another man's son. Genghis Khan raised the son as his own, and he made the son heir to his empire, which will cause great difficulties when Genghis Khan dies. But that just shows you the generosity of this man.

Eventually, Genghis Khan will run into conflict with Jamukha, and the two are competing for control of the Mongol world. Genghis Khan kills him to achieve his dominance. And Genghis Khan will overthrow the existing Mongolian social order. Basically, all these top chieftains, all these top shamans, he will kill in order to unite the Mongol people and bring about a new social order. So, that's the story that we have from the Secret History, and that's very similar, by the way, to other founding myths of other people. For example, let's look at Rome.

Roman Founding Myths

Remember, we discussed Virgil's Aeneid.

It's about the founder of Rome. His name is Aeneas. Aeneas is a prince of Troy, and he has to watch the destruction of Troy. He escapes the sacking of Troy, where everyone is killed. But he gets lost at sea. Eventually, he stumbles upon Carthage, where he falls in love with a queen there named Dido. But the gods demand that he leave. He leaves Dido, the woman that he loves, and he's married. He betrays Dido, who then kills herself. Then he goes to Italy, where he has to fight a war in order to establish the Trojan people in Italy, and they will eventually give rise to the Roman people. It's a very similar structure to the story of Genghis Khan.

Let's go to another story from Rome. The founder of Rome is named Romulus, who was a direct descendant of Aeneas. There's a king called Numitor, and his brother Amulius usurps the throne. Once Amulius usurps the throne, he puts Numitor's daughter into a temple and makes her a virgin. But Mars, the war god, visits her and impregnates her with twins. Numitor demands the twins be killed. And the twins are left alone by the Tiber River. Everyone thinks that they will drown, but they are miraculously saved. And a she-wolf nurses them, and a shepherd adopts them. Eventually, they discover their true heritage, and they help their grandfather Numitor kill his brother Amulius and restore the throne.

Then the two go off to found their own city, which is Rome. But there's going to be one king, so the two fight. And Romulus kills his twin brother, Remus. Then Romulus becomes Rome's first king, which will eventually give rise to the greatest empire in the European world. As you can see, the structures are very similar.

The Structure of Proto-Indo-European Myth

Let's go over very quickly the structure and meaning of Proto-Indo-European myth. The thing I want you to remember is that what mythology ultimately is, it's a collective subconscious of a culture. By understanding mythology, we can understand the fundamental values that underpin this culture. So, what is the structure we're looking at?

• The structure is this. First, the gods favor a man with a divine mission, but the man himself does not understand this divine mission. The gods have picked this man for whatever reason.
• This man must fulfill his divine mission, and in the process, he will suffer hardship to become as hard as a sword. Hardship makes you committed. It makes you strong, and it makes you recognize your mission. In the process, he's asking himself, "Why am I being persecuted? Why am I suffering so much?"
• Then, eventually, he will have an epiphany. He will recognize, "It's because the gods have a mission for me that I must fulfill. That's why I'm suffering. That's why I'm being persecuted. It's to make me strong and committed."
• And he will sacrifice his beloved to prove his commitment to his divine mission. This is really important in Proto-Indo-European myth. The hero must always sacrifice his beloved. Remember the story of Genghis Khan. He sacrifices, he kills his best friend, Jamukha. And you think, "What's the big deal?" In that culture, when two are best friends, they're not just friends. They're basically lovers. They have sex with each other, and that's why they're such great warriors together. It's a very common thing.
  
  Remember the Iliad, where Hector kills Patroclus, and Achilles becomes so enraged that he goes and kills Hector. Why did Achilles become so enraged? Because Patroclus was his best friend, which, at that time, everyone understood to mean Patroclus and Achilles were lovers. Achilles loved Patroclus. So, when Genghis Khan killed Jamukha, he was basically killing the man he loved the most in this world. That's a very important part of Proto-Indo-European myth. You have to show your commitment by making the ultimate sacrifice, which means killing the person you love the most.
• Once he does that, he will shatter the old world to build a new one. That is his divine mission. The gods do not like this world. They want a flood to destroy this world in order for the world to be made anew. And this man, the messiah, is the one who will shatter the old world. He's the world-shatterer. He is the flood sent by the gods. That's the basic structure of Proto-Indo-European myth.

The Story of Jesus

When we understand this, now what we can do is understand the power of the Jesus story within Christianity. Why is Christianity the most influential and popular religion in the world? It has to do with the story of Jesus. In the story of Jesus, according to the Gospel of Mark, let's look at the structure. It's very similar to Proto-Indo-European mythology. Jesus has a secret divine mission. He's sent by God, or he is God, who's come to redeem the world. He must suffer persecution and doubt. Everyone doubts who he is. No one knows who he is. He's laughed at. He's mocked. He then is sacrificed to wake the world. He kills himself, or he is sacrificed, so that everyone knows how much God loves them. And with God's sacrifice, the cycle of violence ends, and a new history begins.

In Proto-Indo-European myth, what's important is that you kill your beloved. But the founding myth of Christianity is, "No, I kill myself to show you that violence is terrible." Once God has killed himself, once God has sacrificed himself, it means that all violence now must cease. The cycle of violence, the cycle of using violence to redeem the world, to cleanse the world, must come to an end. And that's the very foundational idea of Christianity.

What Christianity is doing, it's very clever, is it's seeking the collective subconscious that's embedded in every individual and implanting a new idea within the subconscious that grows and grows. It's almost like a virus until people recognize that violence is bad. Proto-Indo-European mythology celebrates violence. Christianity believes violence is the worst thing.

This is the ending of Mark:

Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.

He's been sacrificed. He's died.

And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

The temple is the Second Temple in Jerusalem, where Yahweh is. And at the very top of this temple is a room called the Holy of Holies. That's where God lives, and the curtain is what hides God from the world. So, when Jesus dies, the curtain now is torn in half, meaning God is now released into the world, which means that everyone now has access to God. God is now on Earth.

Now when the centurion—

The soldier.

Who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was God's Son."

The first person that Jesus revealed himself to was a Roman soldier. The first person that recognized the truth of Jesus and the power of his sacrifice was a Roman soldier, who's always been taught that violence is the answer to everything. And once he's converted, he recognizes that violence is wrong and evil. That's the power of this mythology.

A Pattern of Great Conquerors

Now I want to look at real history because this is mythology. What I want to do now is show you that Genghis Khan fits into a pattern of a great conqueror. If you look at all the great conquerors of human history, and I'll list four right now, Sargon of Akkad, Philip of Macedon, Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan, you will see they are very, very similar.

• Let's look at Sargon of Akkad. Remember, before, Mesopotamia was divided into the Sumerian city-states that warred with each other. And these were walled cities. Because these were walled cities, they couldn't really conquer each other. Sargon of Akkad figured out a way to conquer everyone and build the first empire in world history called the Akkadian Empire. We don't know much about him, but this is what we know. First of all, he was probably a mercenary. It's very common back then to be a mercenary because the city-states were at war with each other always. He was a cup-bearer to the king, Ur-Zababa of Kish. Kish is one of the city-states in Sumeria.
  
  Now, guys, cup-bearer is a very important position. A cup-bearer means that when you're the king and you have a feast or a festival for your people, the cup-bearer is a man who stands beside you and pours you the alcohol, the wine, which means this is the man you trust the most. What does it mean for Sargon of Akkad to be a cup-bearer? It probably means that they were lovers. The king and Sargon were lovers who loved each other deeply. But that doesn't prevent Sargon from killing the king and taking the throne, which starts this massive war in the city-states in which Sargon will eventually triumph. The thing about Sargon is he is really good at winning the favor of mentors. And ultimately, he will betray mentors in order to achieve his ambition.
• That's also true for Philip of Macedon. Philip of Macedon is a prince of Macedon. And at this time in the Greek world, Thebes was the dominant military power. Thebes defeated Macedon in a battle, and Thebes demanded hostages. Philip was sent as a hostage to Thebes, where he is now mentored by the greatest military strategist of this time, named Epaminondas. Philip II is learning how to win battles. He's learning all the major military innovations of this time from the greatest general of this time. And then what he will do is he will return to Macedon, reorganize the Macedonian army, and then take them to conquer Thebes, as well as the entire Greek world, at the Battle of Chaeronea.
• This pattern is also true for Julius Caesar. At this time, which is about fifty BCE in Rome, Pompey the Great is the greatest general. He's the man that everyone admires. He has the most political power. What Julius Caesar does is he marries his daughter to Pompey the Great, and this forms a political alliance between the two. Pompey the Great grants him generalship of the province of Gaul, where Julius Caesar will win military glory. It basically establishes the power, prestige, and fame of Julius Caesar. And this will start a civil war in which Julius Caesar will defeat his mentor, Pompey, at the Battle of Pharsalus. A very similar pattern.
• The same is also true for Genghis Khan. He is mentored by two chieftains, Jamukha and Toghrul, and he will defeat both in order to gain leadership of the Mongol world. It shows you how ruthless and ambitious these great conquerors are. But at the same time, let's remember this. Philip II had a really talented subordinate in Parmenion. Parmenion was really the person in charge of the Macedonian army. In fact, it was Parmenion who was most responsible for Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia. Julius Caesar had a talented subordinate in Titus Labienus, who was responsible for his victories in Gaul. And then Genghis Khan had a talented subordinate in Subutai, who was considered one of the greatest military strategists ever.

What this tells us is they're able to exercise tremendous judgment in people. They know who to trust. They know who not to trust. They know who is talented and who is not talented. They know how to win the loyalty of their subordinates. That's a very impressive skill. And then the question is, how is it possible that they are ruthlessly ambitious, at the same time they're able to delegate power in a very effective manner? The answer is they all believe they have a divine mission. Their goal is not to conquer the world. Their goal is to change the world for the better, as demanded by the gods. That's the only way we can understand this. Each, in their own way, believed they are the messiah sent by the gods to shatter the world so that it can be built anew. And that's what drives them to kill their beloved. And that's what drives them to do what they do.

• All four, ultimately, are able to conquer the world because they develop a professional, meritocratic, and innovative army. What does professional mean? It means that, look at Sargon of Akkad. At this time, there were no professional soldiers. Most people were farmers, and you only fought off-season. You might fight two, three months of the year. Sargon of Akkad was the first to say, "Nope, we will have professional soldiers. Everyone else will pay taxes in order for me to pay my professional army." But these are professional soldiers. They are full-time soldiers at war.
• Meritocratic means the system before was the nobility always had a priority. The nobility was always right. And Sargon of Akkad made the system more open and fair and meritocratic. If you were talented and you were brave, you could rise within the ranks of the army, regardless of your heritage and your background.
• Innovative means they were always adapting and learning. Sargon of Akkad was able to conquer the Sumerian city-states, which, again, were walled, by adopting siege warfare, which was unheard of before. And the same is true for Philip, Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan. Again, Genghis Khan fits into a pattern here of what these great conquerors look like.

Game Theory

Now I want to discuss why the Mongols did what they did. Why did the Mongols commit so many atrocities? What was the logic or reasoning behind their brutality? In order for me to do so, I'm going to introduce you today to a new analytical model called game theory. The idea of game theory is this. All human interaction can be perceived as a game in which at least two people are playing, and they're trying to defeat each other. For example, let's just say these two guys are fighting each other. They want to kill each other. According to game theory, each person has a distinctive optimal strategy. It's called optimal strategy. Optimal strategy is, given the constraints of your circumstance, what is the best way for you to win?

If you're the big guy, he wants the game to be fair, which is, let's just arrange to fight at a certain time, and we'll fight. He wants to use this strategy because he is most likely to win. But if you're this guy, a small guy, let's call him A, and you're fighting B, you don't want to do that because you're bound to lose. So, what you do is you figure out a time when B is most vulnerable, maybe when he's asleep or he's eating, and you attack him then. You basically have to cheat in order to win. So, each individual has a distinctive optimal strategy.

This sounds easy, but it's not because often there are multiple players in the game. You have C, and you have D. And when you have multiple players in the game, you have to think about alliances and coordination. It's possible that A and D will form an alliance to attack B, which will force B and C to form an alliance. But once maybe C and B kill off D, then A and C will form an alliance to kill off B. What this tells us is not only does each person have an optimal strategy given the constraints of the game, but this optimal strategy will change according to the circumstances.

Also, what's important for us to remember is that there are always these external constraints. External constraints might be just weather or weapons or whatever. Game theory sounds easy, but it's extremely complicated because you always have to switch perspective in order to better understand why this person is doing what he or she is doing.

Applying Game Theory to the Mongols

Let's look at game theory and apply it to the Mongols. Remember, the Mongols are a borderland people, and they're fighting empires. If you're borderland, you have three distinct advantages. You have energy. You're open. And you're opportunistic. These are the three advantages that you have as a borderland people like the Mongols. As an empire, your advantages are mass. You have a lot of people. You have organization. You have depth.

Again, given the strengths, it is not that easy to determine who will win. But we're trying to figure out the mentality of the Mongols. We know the Mongols have these three strengths, and they're trying to defeat the empire, which has these three strengths. At the same time, we have to remember the Mongols themselves have three fundamental weaknesses that they must compensate for if they are to win. Let's go over their major constraints.

1. The first constraint that they have is extremely low population. There are not that many of them. In fact, they're often outnumbered, often a hundred to one. That's a major constraint. When Genghis Khan was alive, at his height, he had anywhere between a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand troops.
2. The second constraint is the idea of distance and geography. What I mean by that is the Mongols have to fight over huge territory because Central Asia is a huge land. And this is problematic because of supply issues. Supplies. What this means is if you are the Mongols, the thing that you cannot ever fight is a war of attrition. A war of attrition just means a long war in which you're trying to deplete the other person's resources. If you're the Mongol, the worst thing that can ever happen to you is if you're stuck in a war of attrition. If the siege is too long or the war lasts for too long because eventually you'll run out of soldiers. So, that's what the Mongols fear the most. Distance.
3. The last thing, this is really important, is governance. Governance just means the Mongols are nomadic people who do not know how to govern other people. So, they don't want to be stuck in a situation where they're forced to govern other people. What this means is the idea of holding territory. When you conquer a new land, what you usually do is you put in place a new regime. They can't do that because they don't have the personnel for that. They often don't even have the personnel for siege warfare. But what they will do is recruit Chinese engineers, Indian engineers, in order to implement siege warfare. But bureaucrats are very hard to compensate for.

These are three fundamental weaknesses of the Mongol system. Low population, they have to fight long distances, and therefore they have to worry about supplies, and they don't know how to govern other people. If we look at what the strengths are, and we look at what their fundamental constraints are, then we can figure out what their optimal strategy is.

The Mongol Optimal Strategy

1. This is the optimal strategy for the Mongols. The first is escalation dominance. Escalation dominance is this. There's a concept in political science called the escalation ladder. The escalation ladder is a very simple concept. It means violence always escalates. For example, I get into an argument with someone. What first happens is we start to argue. But then, eventually, this argument becomes much more heated. We start to push each other. Then I might throw a punch. He throws a punch back. Then I might bite him. He might bite me back. I might pull out a knife. He might pull a gun. This is called the escalation ladder. Violence has to happen over time.
   
   This is fine. But the problem is, what if you're fighting multiple people at once? What you want to do is show other people that you are more dominant. If you insult me, I'll pull a gun on you, and I'll shoot you. That's the idea of escalation dominance. I always have the capacity to inflict more damage on you than you could ever possibly inflict on me. That's why the Mongols did what they did. What often happened is the Mongols would send a trade delegation to a nation to negotiate a trade deal. And the nation, usually in Central Asia, would kill all the delegation in order to insult Genghis Khan. In response, Genghis Khan would send his army to destroy the entire city, burn down the city, and kill everyone. This is the idea of escalation dominance. You have to prove escalation dominance if you are to be a viable threat to everyone. That's the first idea, escalation dominance.
2. The second idea is the idea of terror, or what we call psychological warfare. If you are badly outnumbered in warfare, then you have to make people afraid to fight you. If you cannot govern people, if you don't know how to properly manage people, you have to make people afraid to rebel. The Mongols were notorious for psychological warfare. For example, what they would do is this. They would conquer some territory, and to ensure the villagers would not ever rebel, they would send one Mongol soldier into the village. This is one soldier, and there might be a thousand villagers. And then what this Mongol soldier will do is randomly kill some villagers. He'll say, "Hey, you guys come over here, line up," and he starts killing people randomly. If the villagers ever rebel and kill him, then the Mongols will come and kill everyone in the village.
   
   That's the idea of psychological warfare. But the Mongols do this to themselves as well. The Mongols have a system where units are divided into units of ten. Ten soldiers, and then these ten soldiers times ten will make up a unit. What would happen is this. If ever in a battle, one soldier ran away from battle, all of the people in these units would be executed. But if one unit ever ran away, then the next unit, a hundred of them, would all be executed. So, this gives everyone an incentive to make sure your fellow soldier does not run away. The Mongols had psychological warfare, not just for other people but also for themselves. That's just the way the Mongols fought, and they had to fight like this, given the fact they were greatly outnumbered and they had to win quickly against their enemies.
3. The last thing, which is the most important, is they had to create an aura of inevitability and invincibility. At this time, people were literally telling people, "These Mongols are not human. They are demons. They have come from Tartarus," and that's where we get the name Tartars. "They have come from Tartarus, hell, in order to kill everyone. These are demons." Guess what, guys? The Mongols wanted this reputation. They did everything they could in order to promote this reputation because it gave them an aura of inevitability and invincibility. They could not be defeated. There's no point in trying to defeat them, so let's just give up. And most did.
   
   The Mongols were able to conquer so much territory so fast because they had this aura of inevitability and invincibility. And most people just gave up. They just paid tribute. If you didn't do so, then they would use escalation dominance and terror to kill everyone. They would send refugees all around the world so everyone would know about the ferocity and brutality of the Mongols.

In other words, I have to say this, but according to game theory, everything the Mongols did made complete sense. In fact, it's their optimal strategy. Given the circumstances, given the constraints, what they did was completely logical and reasonable, even though it resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Why the Empire Collapsed

Now let's discuss why their empire collapsed. There's a fundamental weakness in the entire Mongol optimal strategy approach. It's a great strategy if you are trying to conquer the people. But when you're trying to govern them, it's an issue.

As we discussed, the Mongols are great warriors, like all steppe people, because of their cultural values. This is a culture that emphasizes three things. First is freedom. Second is egalitarianism. And the third is self-reliance. Rather than think of the Mongol army as an empire or organization, it's more like a confederation. People choose to join this confederation because of the immense rewards that can be achieved through conquest. This is a culture that values freedom, egalitarianism, and self-reliance, and therefore it makes great warriors.

The problem, though, is the cultures they conquered were extreme hierarchies, where you have maybe the emperor at the top, a bureaucracy, and then peasantry at the very bottom. The vast majority were peasants. I know this is hard for us to understand, but the reason why the Mongols were able to conquer these empires was almost a contempt for these empires. The Mongols had absolutely no respect for these empires. They thought they were weak. They thought they were corrupt and decadent. So, the Mongols were able to conquer them. There's a contempt for them.

The contempt is this. Underlying the optimal strategy of the Mongols is a concept that never existed in human history before. And the concept is this. People are an infinite resource. Throughout most of human history, people were the most valuable resource. There weren't that many people around. Therefore, you have to treat people nicely if you want to maximize their productivity. But where were the Mongols based? They were based in East Asia. They were based in China, basically. And in China, because of the empire, people were treated like an infinite resource. You could massacre them. You could send them off in human wave attacks. It didn't matter because they were an infinite resource. And this idea never existed before in human history. In the Western world, this concept is radically revolutionary. It was unimaginable that you could do this.

Remember Julius Caesar. When he conquered Rome, he wasn't intent on massacring people. Why? Because people could be sold as slaves. That was the main way he made his fortune, by selling the Gauls as slaves. But if you believe that people are an infinite resource, then you don't want them as slaves. You want to kill as many people as possible in order to inflict terror.

That's the issue with the Mongols. First of all, their value system did not lend itself to governing a hierarchy. They didn't know how to, and they didn't want to. Also, much more problematic was their contempt for the local culture. If you have contempt for local culture, you're going to have problems managing the people. In China, during the Yuan, there's a class system. The Mongols were at the top, and the Chinese were at the very bottom. The foreigners were sort of in between. That just shows you the Mongol contempt for Chinese people, and that's why, ultimately, the Chinese people rebelled against the Mongols.

Eventually, the Mongol leadership would recognize this problem, and they would try to adopt a Chinese-style bureaucracy. But a bureaucracy, and we discussed this, comes into conflict with the nobility. The nobility is intent on maintaining the Mongolian culture. They do not want to assimilate. But the emperor recognized you have to assimilate if you are to have this empire. And because they couldn't agree, the nobility and the emperor couldn't agree, ultimately it led to the collapse of the Mongol Empire.

Questions and Discussion

I know there's a lot to take in, so ask questions. Tell me areas you are confused by.

Vikings and Mongols

"I got a question. A few lessons ago—"

"Yep."

"You talked about if there was a Viking university, you would definitely want to go to that."

"Yeah."

"Because in the Viking world, it's all about freedom, equality, and self-reliance."

"Yeah."

"But the Mongol university might be the Oxford."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Got any sympathies one way?"

That's a great question. That's a great question. Vikings versus Mongols. The Vikings and the Mongols all come from the Proto-Indo-European culture. What we know about culture is that it's very fluid, and it will change over time, and it will adapt itself to the local cultures. The Vikings were in Europe, and the Mongols are near China. I think if I wanted to be a Viking or a Mongol, I'd prefer to be a Viking.

The reason why is the Vikings never really adopted a belief that people were an infinite resource. They couldn't because Europe was very poor. And the Vikings, even though they were brutal, still had respect for their opponents. They never developed a contempt for their opponents. They're surrounded by the Byzantines, the Muslims, and the Europeans, and these were great warriors. The Vikings felt they had a lot to learn from these cultures. In fact, ultimately, the Vikings will assimilate themselves into these cultures in different environments.

The Mongols are different, though. The Mongols are based in East Asia, and they did ultimately adopt a belief that people are an infinite resource. And they had tremendous contempt for Chinese culture. That changes you as a person. When you believe that people are an infinite resource, and you are contemptuous of other cultures, it also, in a way, makes you contemptuous of yourself, if that makes any sense. Ultimately, that's why the Mongols, even though they had tremendous wealth, didn't really produce cultural monuments.

The Vikings were fundamental to the development of Western civilization. The Mongols were not fundamental to the development of any civilization. They caused a lot of havoc, and they were great conquerors, but they didn't leave a rich cultural legacy. And I think it has to do with the belief that people are an infinite resource. I would much prefer to be a Viking. I would much prefer to be enslaved by a Viking than a Mongol. If I were a slave, I would much rather be a slave to a Viking than a Mongol. If I were a slave to a Viking, the Vikings would at least become my friend. They'd be like, "Hey, tell me about your culture. Are there any stories that you can tell us?" And if you're a great storyteller, then they would treat you very, very nicely because you're helping them learn more about your culture.

The Mongols have absolutely no interest in other cultures. They're interested in conquering and exploiting other people. I could be wrong. And I'm probably making these crass generalizations, but I believe with the Vikings, there's a general curiosity about the world that comes from a general respect for other cultures. Whereas the Mongols were not curious about the world. They were intent on conquest and enslaving other people and exploiting other people. They were predators. And again, that could be my prejudice. But based on my readings so far, that would be my belief. But please change my mind.

"Sounds good. Sounds good."

Population and Contact with China

The Mongol population is loosely defined. It's hard to say who's Mongol and who's not Mongol because that entire area has a similar culture. And it's very hard to figure out where the borders are.

You're right. The Mongols are a low population, so why would they believe that people are an infinite resource? The answer is because they are always in contact with China. The Mongols were always in contact with China. And as I mentioned, the interaction happens in three ways. The Mongols are working as either mercenaries for dynasties in China, or they are trading, or they're raiding and pillaging. For centuries, there's been contact between China and the Mongols. So, where did the Mongols learn the idea that people are an infinite resource? They learned it from China.

Why did they learn it from China? Because Chinese warfare was also predicated on the belief that people were an infinite resource. Basically, the entire idea of warfare in China is, "I organize this peasant army. I throw it at my opponent. And if my entire army dies, guess what? I'll just go, and I'll raise another peasant army and throw it at my opponent again." It's like human wave attacks. We call this human wave attacks. This was pioneered in China, and the Mongols just took it and used it everywhere else. If you're the Mongols, and you're fighting this enemy, and they're just throwing these peasants at you, and you're killing them all, but no one cares because then, a month later, another peasant army comes at you, you quickly adopt the idea that people are an infinite resource.

"I think they were also pretty loose, so it could absorb different populations."

That's right. Yeah. Depends. That's right. The Mongols were a very open society. If you had a benefit to their society, for example, if you're a Chinese teacher or a Chinese scholar or a Chinese engineer or a Chinese merchant, they would quickly assimilate you. And then they would kill everyone else. They're a pretty open society.

Mythology and Cultural Values

Let's talk about mythology. Again, if you're actually studying mythology, what you recognize is there's a structure that's very similar across many different cultures. If you look at Greek, if you look at Roman, Norse, Mongolian, I could go on and on and on. There is a very similar structure, even though the characters might be different. But it's a mythology that celebrates violence and individualism as a way to remake the world. Strength, individualism, violence.

Why is that the case? It's about cultural values. As I discuss in this class, cultural values are the most persistent part of who you are. Why? Because it's part of your subconscious. There's a conscious you, and there's a subconscious you. And ultimately, you are your subconscious. And the subconscious is composed of your cultural values. This is the essence of who you are.

Even though the Proto-Indo-Europeans were going into different environments, and they were assimilating themselves into different environments, and they looked physically different, culturally, subconsciously, they shared a similar value system. And this value system will then go on to inform the way they perceive the world, their worldview. This worldview will then manifest itself through mythology, which will eventually become literature. They might have changed clothes. They might have changed their hair color. But their soul was still Proto-Indo-European. And the same is also true for language, and that's why so many words repeat themselves in different languages.