Mongol Destruction of Beijing Genghis Khan s Masterpiece

History Dose is written and illustrated by humans. I have conquered these lands, armies, and tribes for you, my sons. There is no better place for an enemy of our nation than the grave. The Mongolian winter is a blinding frost that each year claims the lives of many thousands of animals and people, their bodies left rigid on the white steppe. A boy named Temujin may soon share the same fate. His family has been abandoned by their clan following the death of his father. Seven children and two widows are left to the wild. According to the royal histories, his devoted mother, Hoelun, scavenges along the riverside for sustenance, roots and berries, onions, and leeks. Perhaps supported by servants or nearby herders, the family survives, but days of hunger still lie ahead. When sons of the second widow steal fish from Temujin, the boy takes up his bow and kills his older half-brother Bector. It is the first life that Temujin ever takes. Hoelun rebukes her son for his vicious fratricide. Loyalty and unity are vital in a world where weak clans are pillaged and enslaved by the strong, the same world that poisoned the father of Temujin and left his family to die. Temujin is still learning to survive and fight on the steppe. In a sense, the art of combat comes naturally to the Mongols. From early childhood, steppe nomads ride horses, herd sheep and goats, and hunt small animals. This nomadic pastoralist life thus acts as a never-ending training in horse riding and mounted archery. As now the eldest surviving son of his father, the young Temujin is a potential rival to the rulers of his former clan, the Taichud. One day, Taichud riders ambush his family, demanding the boy be turned over to them. Temujin hurries to his horse and flees into a rocky and high forest. The woods are surrounded. After nine days without food or water, Temujin stumbles out of the thicket. He's taken prisoner and fettered with a heavy king about his neck. There are many rivals on the steppe in addition to the Mongol clans vying for power. Among them are the Naimans, Merkits, Karyids, and the hated Tatars who poisoned the father of Temujin. The chaos of these grasslands is in part the making of a more powerful enemy to the south across the Gobi, the Jurchen Jin dynasty of northern China. When the Mongols began to rise in power years ago under the leadership of Temujin's forefather, the Jin nailed him to a wooden donkey and bled the life from him. Sowing division and endless war among the peoples of the steppe is how the Jin secure their northern border. The Jin and their allies also mount campaigns against the Mongols each year, during which they kill and plunder, and kidnap thousands of Mongol mothers and their children to be sold in the slave markets of China. All of it is orchestrated by the court of the Jin emperor, which stands in the impenetrable capital of Zhongdu, the city later known as Beijing. The Jin assume that their towering cities will never fall to the likes of tribal nomads. On the Mongolian steppe, the summer sun begins to wane, and the imprisoned Temujin seizes his chance. He attacks the weak man holding his chain and flees on foot from the enemy camp. As the clan sets out to hunt him, a man named Sorkin Shira finds Temujin hiding in a stream and says, In secret, Sorkin Shira shelters the boy, and as the royal history relates, he set Temujin on a tawny barren mare with a white mouth, cooked him a lamb, and provided him with mare's milk. He did not give him either saddle or steel for striking fire, but gave him a bow and two arrows. Other contemporary sources claim that Temujin spent part of his youth as a slave of the Jin or captive of the Tangut people. Regardless of the circumstances, the boy rides free again. In the Mongol worldview, the universe is subject to the will of heaven, Tengri, and so the Mongols will, in time, come to believe that the boy did not survive by chance. The lowly Temujin will one day defeat his enemies and unite the warring tribes of the steppe, and when he pounds at the gates of Zhongdu, the Jin dynasty will know him by the name of Genghis Khan. Joe and I actually explored Mongolia on the History Dose trip, and I learned that the country is incredibly beautiful and yurts are very cozy. Now, I'm naturally an awful sleeper and travel tends to mess with my sleep even more, but hands down, the thing that's most radically improved my sleep since then is the Manta Pro sleep mask. I now use it every single night and it's huge for falling and staying asleep. I say this as someone who strongly dislikes standard sleep masks. Those flimsy pieces of fabric that let in light move all over the place and uncomfortably press directly onto your eyelids. Manta Sleep fixes all of that. It has inner cups so the mask doesn't touch your eyes and it doesn't let light in. It's also made of soft and very breathable materials, and it fits all sizes because it has an adjustable strap. I'm also the kind of sleeper that can't handle either outside sounds or dead silence when I'm trying to sleep, so I also picked up the Manta Sleep white noise machine, and I grabbed the Manta Sleep sound mask which connects to my phone with Bluetooth, allowing me to fall asleep to podcasts or relaxing music. Right now, History Dose viewers can get 10% off the world's best sleep mask. Just go to the link in the description or use the code HISTORYDOSE at checkout. In the waning years of his adolescence, Temüjin begins to chart his life ahead. His late father, a minor nobleman named Yesugei, was not a rich man, but he had managed to secure his son the hand of a girl named Borte, one year older than Temüjin. The 13th century secret history of the Mongols relates, Now Temüjin went downstream along the Kalurin River to look for Lady Borte, from whom he had been separated since he had visited her at the age of nine. He's welcomed at the camp of her family and soon thereafter marries Lady Borte. Around the year 1180, the husband and wife welcome their first child, a daughter. Peace will not last long. One morning, men of the Merkit overrun his camp. Temüjin and his family scatter, but the raiders find Borte hiding in a cart and abduct her. Temüjin is crestfallen. He admits that he fled from the Merkits out of fear and begins to pray to Tengri each day from a mountaintop. Temüjin cannot rescue his wife alone, so he and his brothers journey into the Black Forest, to the court of the Kherid Khanate, a powerful but embattled royal house whose nobles practice Eastern Christianity. Temüjin has come to make an appeal to the Kherid Khan, a man named Toghrul, whom his father had helped to the throne years ago. Toghrul is prone to brutality and duplicity, slaying his own brothers in his rise to power, but he will honor his alliance to the family of Temüjin. Several months after his wife was taken, Temüjin and Toghrul ready thousands of nomads for battle. They will be joined by a retainer of Toghrul, the cunning Prince Jamukha. Jamukha has known Temüjin since childhood and so proclaims, To know that my sworn friend Temüjin's bed has become empty brought pain to my heart. Taking our revenge, wiping out these clans of Merkit, we shall rescue your lady Borte. The forces move north and under the cover of darkness converge on the Merkit camp. People flee before the swarming Kherids and Mongols. Hundreds of Merkit are cut down while Temüjin rides through the chaos. It was in the moonlight that he recognized Lady Borte and they fell into each other's arms. Temüjin revels in victory, proclaiming, Temüjin has taken his vengeance, only to find that his wife Borte is pregnant. Whether the child is his own or that of a Merkit who violated her is unclear. He nevertheless will always treat the boy, Jochi, as his own blood even as rumors persist. Temüjin and Jamukha meanwhile renew an oath of loyalty and friendship, connected as Anda, or blood brothers. Under the tutelage of Jamukha, Temüjin evolves into a great warrior and leader. While he cannot deny the power of rank and lineage, Temüjin above all reveres ability and loyalty. Thus esteemed nobles and throngs of poor nomads alike flock to him, and in time a group of elite Mongols elevate him as the Khan of the extended Borjigin family to which he belongs. Regardless of the true power of this new title, tensions begin to grow between the new Khan and Prince Jamukha. Then around the year 1186, Temüjin's men kill a horse thief who happens to be related to Jamukha. The blood brothers summon their respective allies and ride to war. The old sources differ widely in their accounts, but it seems that Jamukha leads an attack on Temüjin. Thousands of warriors spill into the wetlands in what will be called the Battle of Seventy Marshes. Men are shot down and trampled, stamped red into the mud. According to one account, Temüjin flees while 70 of his noble allies are captured by Jamukha, who places the prisoners in large cauldrons and boils them alive. Jamukha then sends away the horse of another ally of Temüjin, with the head of its owner tied to its tail. The victorious Jamukha has nevertheless failed to kill his rival. Broken and defeated, Temüjin then seems to vanish from the historical record for years. He will sire seven more children with Borte in this time. Like other wandering warlords, he may have spent his years as a mercenary in the services of neighboring sedentary states such as the Xixia or even the Jin Dynasty. For in 1196, Temüjin, Toghrul, and the Jin Dynasty joined forces against the Tatars. The Tatars had long been enemies of the Mongols and allies of the Jin, but they've grown too powerful for the Jin to tolerate. So Temüjin and Toghrul defeat and ransack the Tatars and receive honors from the Jin for their service. It is not lost on Temüjin that the Jin Dynasty has often brought poverty, enslavement, and death upon his own people. He sees the incomparable power of the Jin, their vast cities enclosed in high and thick walls, and a core of elite warriors, including fearsome heavy cavalry units clad in full panoplies of iron. Yet proximity to the Jin has made Temüjin aware of the subtle weaknesses of their empire. Though ruled by ethnic Jurchens, the population of the Jin Dynasty largely comprises Han Chinese, Khitan, and other peoples of varying degrees of allegiance to the Jin state. Conquered subjects along the northern border find themselves taxed and recruited into wars for the Jin elites. And to the south, the Jin engage in draining, periodic conflict against the mighty Song Dynasty. As a mere warlord, Temüjin poses no threat to the Jin Dynasty. For now, his enemies lie closer to his own camp. In the years to come, he wages a triumphant war across the Mongolian plateau against the Merkit, Naimans, Tatars, and others. The power and prestige of Temüjin grow, but so too do the ranks of his enemies. In the year 1201, rival clans and peoples form a coalition to oppose him, electing Jamukha as Gurkhan, the universal ruler. Jamukha rallies his vast new armies and rides against Temüjin and Toghrul in the Battle of Khoyaten. The forces clash viciously while a terrible storm overtakes the sky. Through the howling winds, the army of Temüjin cuts down and drives off the disoriented forces of Jamukha, sending them tumbling into ravines or fleeing across the steppe. Temüjin has won the battle. Though his horse was shot out from under him, he mounts another and leads the chase until an enemy arrow strikes him in the neck. Blood spurts from the wound as his men drag him to camp. He grows weaker with each passing moment, but it is the loyal General Jelme that tends to his master day after day, and Temüjin begins to recover his strength. While still in camp, Temüjin reunites with another man who saved him many years ago. Sorkin Shira has come to pledge himself to the victorious Temüjin. But alongside Sorkin Shira is the very enemy who had shot and killed Temüjin's horse from atop a mountain. The master archer boldly confesses to the shot, but requests that Temüjin spare his life and make use of his talents as a warrior. The Khan, sensing honesty and valor in the man, accepts. He will be known as Jebe, and he will become one of Temüjin's finest generals. Winter comes and melts into the spring of 1202. By autumn, Temüjin summons his growing horde to destroy the last holdouts of the hated Tatars. When people of the steppe traditionally raided one another, the attacking force would drive off enemies, but break rank to loot the enemy camp. Temüjin observes that this convention merely leaves one's enemy alive to return and seek vengeance another day. Thus, before the assault on the Tatars, Temüjin decrees, So at his command, the Mongols overrun the Tatars, and they hunt them down as they flee. But Temüjin learns that his own noble relatives did not join the pursuit, that they had disobeyed him and stopped to gather plunder for themselves. For this, he punishes them and orders his generals Jebe and Kubalai to seize their loot. The Khan thus demonstrated to his men that his word carries absolute authority, heedless of the rank or ancestry of his subjects. As for his enemies, Temüjin and his council determine the fate of the surviving Tatars. From the olden days, the Tatar people have destroyed our fathers and forefathers. To avenge them, we shall measure the Tatars against the linchpin of a cart, and kill those taller than the linchpin to the last one. The rest we shall enslave. With his status in the ascendant, Temüjin soon makes arrangements to inherit the karyid throne of his aging ally, Toghrul. But in 1203, Jamukha and the son of Toghrul persuade the old man to betray Temüjin. As the three ready their attack, Jamukha, for one reason or another, warns Temüjin of their plans. Nevertheless, a terrible battle ensues. Both sides are in the end forced to retreat, leaving behind fields of corpses shaded by dripping red grass and stray arrows. Temüjin and his retinue limp to the shores of Lake Baljuna. Most of the army has deserted Temüjin, and it seems that decades of struggle and careful diplomacy have ended only in ruin. All that remains is the loyalty of his closest allies. These last followers drink of the muddy lake waters and swear an oath that they will follow Temüjin to the ends of the earth. Though broken in this moment, Temüjin swears in turn to richly reward these brethren in the great victories to come. Temüjin and the remnants of his army survive on the lakeside with the assistance of common folk, who offer their livestock for sustenance. One of the loyal herders is then kidnapped by bandits, but the man's sons ride out and rescue their father. Temüjin lauds the bravery of the younger son and soon recruits him to his elite bodyguard unit, the Keshig. His name is Subutai, and he will grow into the greatest Mongol general in history. Temüjin sends out messages to former allies informing them of his justice and generosity, while swearing to take revenge against those who turn against him. The Mongol clans day by day flock to him, and his army grows anew. In the late months of 1203, Temüjin and his riders overtake the Kherids. The traitorous Toghrul flees in the night, only to be killed along the Naiman border. As it happens, it is the Naiman lands that offer the final resistance to Temüjin. There, his nemesis Jamukha has taken refuge and made powerful allies. In 1204, the Mongol armies thunder toward Naiman territory. Jamukha warns the eastern Naiman Khan of the men who hunt him. My sworn friend Temüjin has been feeding four dogs on human flesh. They are the ones approaching in pursuit of our patrol. With hearts of iron and swords for whips, they advance feeding on dew and riding on the wind. Loose from their iron chains, they are now full of joy and are approaching thus, slavering at the mouth. They are Jebe, Kubalai, Jelme, and Subutai. Shaken by the advance of Temüjin and his dogs of war, Jamukha deserts his allies. The Naimans then flee to a mountain and the Mongols surround them. The royal history records. That night, the Naiman moved from their position and tried to escape. Tumbling down from the height of Naku Cliff, they piled on top of each other. They fell breaking their bones and died crushing each other till they were like heaps of rotten logs. After Temüjin surveys the carnage, he comes across the late Khan's stepmother and takes her as a wife. In the coming years, the western Naimans will fall to him as well. And at long last, his great rival Jamukha is captured and dragged before him. The royal history records a final conversation between the blood brothers in which Jamukha laments his actions against the Khan. Temüjin wishes to reconcile with his old friend but understands what he must do. He orders his men to execute Jamukha. They break his spine and honor him with a proper burial. After decades of trial and bloodshed, the vast eastern grasslands now bow to Temüjin. In the year 1206, long and elegant caravans cross the green country in a great assembly. A council of the varied steppe peoples unites there under sacred and white banners to formally elect Temüjin as their overlord. The Mongol Empire is born. Temüjin henceforth will be known as Genghis Khan. The name itself may mean roughly fierce ruler. Among the throngs of nobles and warlords in attendance is a prince who has not come in submission. Yongji, a callous Jurchen royal of the Jin dynasty. The Jin still claim authority over the Mongols. Genghis Khan finds this Yongji weak and insulting. The Jin underestimate the power of the Khan who now holds sway over a million subjects. The clans and royal houses of the preceding centuries persist but Genghis breaks up rival hierarchies and sees to it that clans are led by men loyal to him. Taxation and many other matters of administration are entrusted to a newly expanded 10,000-man Keshig whose members serve as his loyal bodyguards' household in court. The Khan also orders the adoption and modification of the Uyghur script for writing Mongolian. With it, scribes will spread his laws and declarations across the empire and Mongol generals will send demands for submission to enemies. The Mongol army can muster some 100,000 troops. With ingrained talents for archery and riding, nomads of the steppe have long been capable warriors. Genghis Khan will turn them into soldiers. Mongols know how to lead attacks for plunder and hunt animals in unison. Now they will learn to execute large-scale military maneuvers and follow orders. Organized in a decimal system, the Mongol forces are trained and led by an elite officer class. Genghis Khan grants command of some divisions to men of modest origins such as Subutai and one to his former bondman or servant, Mukhalay. It is a sign that in this new empire, loyalty and military prowess can raise even the low-born to greatness. Matters of rulership are of course still tied to questions of royalty and ancestry. It's not only by war but also careful political maneuvering that Genghis Khan has united the peoples under the Mongol banner. The Jin dynasty still claims dominion over them. In 1208, Prince Yongji comes to collect tribute from Genghis Khan. Yongji is soon thereafter raised to the throne as the next emperor of the Jin dynasty. When Genghis Khan hears of this, he says, When this sort of ordinary weakling can be emperor, why should I pay homage? Since the end of the last century, the Jin have adopted a more defensive approach to the nomads beyond their borders. They peppered the north with earthen walls and lonely outposts, garrisoned by their remote subjects and vassals. Slowly, these border peoples have begun to defect to the Mongol side. And the new Jin emperor Yongji does not fully appreciate the coming storm of Genghis Khan. That same year, as raiding Mongols trace fire through the lands of Xixia, the king of that realm begs the Jin dynasty to send aid. Yongji rejects the chance to unite against the Mongols, believing it better to watch his enemies fight among themselves. And so the Mongols gather their army and properly invade Xixia. Here, the nomadic steppe peoples will press their advantage against sedentary enemies. The Mongols are not bound to farms and harvests, but live in collapsible yurts of wood and felt and sustain themselves on herds of livestock. As such, they can commit a massive share of their population to the warpath without draining the homeland of resources. Moreover, each warrior crafts his own composite bow and brings around five small but durable Mongolian horses, a constant reserve of fresh mounts. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongols synchronize attacks across entire regions, forcing war refugees into the main cities and straining enemy food stores. By 1210, the Mongols cornered the Tanguts of Xixia in their capital of Zhangxing. With little experience in siege warfare, the city walls stymied the nomadic army for weeks. So Genghis Khan and the Mongols build the dike to divert the nearby river into the capital. Floods engulf the walls and homes, and the Mongols are forced from their own camp when the dike breaks. Dark and foul standing water overtakes the city over the coming days. With no end in sight, the king surrenders to the Mongol Empire, bequeathing a mighty tribute and his own daughter to Genghis Khan and sparing his realm from total destruction. Emperor Yongji can no longer tolerate the impudence of Genghis Khan and the Mongols. As a later Chinese account tells it, Yongji grew even more angry, and he desired to wait until Genghis Khan would come again to deliver tribute, and then advance on the arena and murder him. The Khan knew this and so broke off relations with the Jin. The time has come for the invasion of China. But such a war may bring the Mongols to ruin. The Jin rule over millions of subjects, and led by a corps of Jurchen elite warriors, cavalry, and officers, their standing army comprises over half a million men, much of them lighter-armed Han infantry units. The Jin arsenal contains impressive military technology, including early gunpowder weapons that can be deployed against any who attack their massive walled cities. Furthermore, the Jin proved their strength in a recent war against the Song Dynasty, a victory owed in part to the leadership of a great general named Hushahu. Strong and influential, Hushahu will command his own army along the border. If Genghis Khan is to make war on the Jin dynasty, he will seek the blessing of Tengri. He climbs a hill alone, kneels, and says, Oh God, you know all from long ago. You know that the Jin Emperor initiated hostilities and began our enmity. My elders and ancestors were abducted by the Tatars and sent before the Jin Emperor, who killed them. If you consider me right in what I think, I ask for vengeance and retaliation for their blood. Hundreds of thousands of horses and livestock are prepared for the journey ahead. In the spring of 1211, Genghis Khan and 110,000 men traverse the Gobi Desert and invade China. While some Mongols possess iron, leather, or padded armor, most are common folk with little more than their robes and perhaps a helmet. Their mastery of warfare is nevertheless astounding. The frontier fortresses fall quickly to the Mongols. Genghis Khan ignores the Jin appeals to make peace while his vanguard under Jebe clears Jin defenses from the mountains. The sons of Genghis, Jochi, Chagatai, and Ogedai lead part of the army to approach from the west, while the Khan leads the main force into the pass of Yehuling with his fourth son, Tolui. The Mongols pursue the fleeing Jin armies and then flood onto the northern plains. Over the coming months, the Mongols rampage through farmlands, plundering livestock and food stores. Many settlements and garrisons save themselves by surrendering and joining the Mongol ranks. But in the early weeks of the year 1212, rumors reach the Khan that the Jin are raising an army as large as half a million men to annihilate his forces. Genghis Khan pulls his army north into the mountains with the Jin on his trail. The Jin fend off Mongol attacks and push forward under the command of the brutal general, Hushahu. After days of riding among the jagged cliffs, Genghis Khan slackens his pace. He positions his army outside the pass called Badgermouth and waits. Despite all the rumors, the pursuing Jin force numbers perhaps 100,000 men or much fewer. General Hushahu is wary of abandoning his position in the mountains to face the Mongols on open ground. Thus, he sends an emissary to discuss terms with Genghis Khan. But the messenger defects to the Mongol side and warns them of the Jin plan. Negotiations have failed. In the morning, a massive Jin infantry advances with the cavalry and elite troops. The Mongol horse archers ride toward them, rapidly shoot arrow after arrow into the Jin ranks and nimbly turn back to allow the next Mongol wave to repeat the maneuver. This wheeling onslaught buries the enemy in an unrelenting rain of arrows. And then General Mukhali, on the orders of Genghis Khan, leads a charge of heavy cavalry. The Jin line is punctured as armored men are run through with spears and stabbed with swords. The Jin abandon the fight in a bleeding, desperate retreat. Many thousands will perish as the relentless Mongols hound them for days. Years after the Battle of Badremouth, Taoist monks traveling from China write that the path remains strewn with the gaping skeletons of the fallen. For now, Hushahu is alive, albeit shaken by the defeat. He believes his emperor is too incompetent to hold off the Mongols. Genghis Khan and his armies have departed, but they return mere months later in autumn of 1212. They plunder and destroy outlying lands and advance on forts and cities. At the siege of one city, General Subutai demonstrates his bravery as the first man to scale the enemy wall. Jebe, meanwhile, abandons his supplies and feigns a retreat outside the eastern capital of Dongjing, drawing the garrison out for him to massacre in the field and take the city. Many other Jin strongholds, however, prove too strong to conquer. The Khan himself receives an arrow to the leg, and the Mongols retire north again. Despite this, spies and defectors assure the Khan that northern China is breaking in the wake of the Mongol attacks. Famine grips the gutted provinces, and brigands roam the lands. Moreover, Yongji attempted to ensure the loyalty of the Khitan people by colonizing their lands, provoking a massive revolt. The Khitan rebels will pledge themselves to the invading Mongols. In the fall of 1213, Genghis Khan returns to China with a vengeance. He and Jebe butcher the Jin armies guarding the mountain passes, and with the aid of the Muslim merchant Jafar Khoja, the Mongols move through secret passes and overrun the nearby Jin fortress. They now hold the northern mountain roads into China, and a shadow of dread spreads over the Jin dynasty. General Hushahu, in a fit of madness, has taken to murdering court rivals and deserted his post along the frontier. The Jin emperor orders him put to death, but Hushahu marches his army to Chengdu, arrests Yongji, and has him executed. With command of the army, Hushahu establishes himself as the de facto dictator of the Jin dynasty. He governs through a puppet emperor, Xuanzang. This ambitious change in leadership has not slowed the advance of Genghis Khan. As surrounding towns fall to the arrows and flames of the invaders, Hushahu grows increasingly erratic, until he himself is assassinated by his own general. Amidst the hysteria in the Jin throne room, the garrison atop the high walls of Chengdu at last beholds the rising tide of the Mongol Empire. Jin defectors have provided the Mongols with training and siege craft, including traction trebuchets, but Chengdu is surrounded by moats, 900 towers, and 18 miles of thick earthen walls that stand 40 feet tall. 20,000 men man the walls with bows, crossbows, and siege engines such as ballistae. Even the gates of Chengdu are likely protected by semi-circular barbicans, which allow archers to cut down attackers from all sides. The city defenses will hold for now. During the long winter months of the siege, a Mongol force maintains the blockade on Chengdu, while the rest of the army rides out to take and plunder nearly 100 Chinese towns. There they capture thousands of refugees, whom they force to serve as frontline laborers in human shields and assaults against Chengdu. Mongol attempts to storm the gates continue to fail, but by the spring of 1214, the streets of Chengdu begin to groan with throngs of aimless, starving people. The Mongol army is also beset by hunger and disease, so Genghis Khan at last accepts a peace offering. Emperor Xuanzang sends out a long line of wagons filled with gold and silk, as well as hundreds of slaves, thousands of horses, and a princess, the daughter of the previous emperor, to serve as a wife of Genghis Khan. Weary and rich with treasure, the Mongols return north. For generations, the Jin devastated the lands of the Mongols. Genghis Khan has returned the favor. One day, in the presence of his officers, Genghis Khan asks what the greatest joy in life is. One answers that it is flying falcons on a hunt. The Khan asks a second and third officer, and they give the same answer. Genghis Khan then says to them, You have all spoken well, but a man's greatest pleasure is to defeat his enemies, to uproot them, to take all that they possess, to make their women weep so that tears run down their noses, to ride their stallions, and to embrace their beautiful ladies. Indeed, Emperor Xuanzang now finds the northern parts of his realm desolate. Windblown ash lies where villages once stood. Farms are stripped of crops and people. Fortresses demolished. The Jin emperor knows that the Mongols still lurk in the mountain passes. So he abandons the palaces of Zhongdu and declares Kaifeng the new seat of his government. Genghis Khan perceives this move south as a betrayal, perhaps a Jin ploy to regroup and counterattack. And so, in the winter of 1214, the Mongol armies encircle Zhongdu once more with orders to destroy it. Again, the defenses of Zhongdu prove strong, so the Mongols content themselves to wait and watch the city starve. Months pass in agony. By March of 1215, stragglers from Zhongdu arrive in Kaifeng, pleading for the emperor to send aid to Zhongdu. At last, the emperor resolves to save his old capital. He rejects the Mongol terms for peace and raises two armies, likely totaling over 50,000 men and 1,000 carts of supplies, to finally vanquish the Mongol invaders and feed the starving city. But Genghis Khan learns of the plan and directs contingents of his warriors to cut them off. Though outnumbered, the Mongols ambush the Jin and slaughter them. The heaps of food meant to save Zhongdu will instead nourish the invaders. There is no more hope of rescue for Zhongdu. The once-noble capital quakes under the Mongol bombardment while hollow-faced citizens begin to consume human flesh. The commandant of the city sees that death is coming and drinks poison. By June of 1215, Zhongdu surrenders and the gates are thrown open. The Mongols have no orders to massacre the inhabitants, but as they plunder and strip the city for the next month, thousands of innocents are killed. Flames devour the towering imperial palaces and tear through markets and neighborhoods. The Mongols count every bar of gold and silver in the Jin treasury and deliver it all to Genghis Khan. The Jin dynasty is forever weakened. The Jurchen homeland of Manchuria is lost and the emperors push south of the Yellow River. The provinces around Zhongdu become host to uprisings, famine, and masses of war refugees. Led by generals such as Mukhalay and Samuka, the Mongol armies will return with devastating campaigns deep into Jin territory. Though it will take decades, the Mongol conquest of China has begun. The expansion of the Mongol empire across the west is also underway. Temüjin, who as a boy nearly perished in the wild, his family abandoned by the world, has become a world conqueror. Sometime after 1215, a Muslim envoy arrives in the east to visit Emperor Xuanzang of Jin, but his guides have led him to the old capital. He recounts, When we arrived near to the seat of the government of the Jin emperor, from a distance a high white mound appeared in sight, which we supposed was perhaps a hill of snow. But the guides replied, The whole of it is the bones of men slain. When we proceeded onwards, the ground became greasy and dark from human fat, and at the gate of Zhongdu we perceived an immense quantity of human bones. The traveler has now seen the terror of the Mongols. He is an emissary of the Khwarezmian Empire, the very empire that soon massacres Mongol trade caravans, attacks a Mongol force, and executes their envoys. And thus they marked themselves for death, as the next enemy of Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Here is the Mongolian winter artwork being manually drawn by the accomplished artist slash my brother Joseph Feely. Joe used a stylus and tablet to make all of the original art in this video, referencing a 195 page document I made for him with research on everything from Zhongdu gates to Khitan hairstyles. As the entire two-man team behind History Dosed, we spent around four months making this video between all the research, writing, and illustration. If you're the kind of person who values accurate history and artistic expression, please drop us a single dollar or more at the Patreon link in the description. Thanks.