Original subtitles

He is among the deadliest warriors

in history...

Once you have inflamed the wrath of the Mongols,

they do not hold back.

Trained to unleash destruction and horror...

Boiling them alive in cauldrons.

They pour silver into all of his orifices.

And built to carve out an empire...

Entire populations get slaughtered.

These bodies are landing on them...

and splat, splat.

The only way to win respect is to be the ultimate warrior.

Warriors aren't born...

They're built.

Understanding how

reveals the true nature of their greatness.

From the cradle to the grave,

these are the steps to creating...

History's Greatest Warriors.

The Mongol...

The most feared warrior of the medieval world.

Ruler over the largest single land mass

ever conquered by man,

the Mongol is born into a hostile

and turbulent society...

and raised to be both a brilliant strategist

and merciless warrior.

As the Mongols are bursting on the scene,

everyone is terrified of them.

They're viewed as an apocalyptic threat.

They want to build a giant empire that

no one has ever seen before.

If you resist,

entire populations would get slaughtered.

The Mongols killed between 20 and 40 million people.

Over the course of the 12th and 13th centuries,

the Mongols conquered 12 million square miles,

making it the largest contiguous land empire

in history.

They create an empire that spans from the

Korean peninsula to the middle of central Europe.

They end up dominating some of the greatest warriors

in world history.

Clearly, there's something special

about Mongolian fighters.

The relentless expansion of the Mongol's

territory can only be achieved by building a

warrior who is faster and stronger than any other

in the Middle Ages.

His journey to becoming a warrior will see him

endure brutal training,

master deadly weapons of war...

And conquer his enemies through the most feared

battle tactics of the ancient world.

It is a roadmap for greatness,

first developed in the 12th century,

in the wild Mongolian Plains.

Mongol culture emerges from diverse people

who are really intermixing on the steppe.

The word steppe is from the old Slavic,

and it means flat, grassy plain.

And the landscape, as beautiful as it is,

it's also cold, it's desolate, it's empty.

You're hungry.

You've got to move from place to place to place

to find your next sustaining day.

There's no unified territory

for the Mongols in the steppes.

Their lands are scattered across parts of present day

Mongolia, Siberia, and northern China.

They're nomads.

They move herds of horses, camels, oxen, or yak.

These are the wealth of the nomads,

and we have all these tribes that are

competing with each other.

There hasn't been a unified empire on the plateau

for almost a hundred years.

And so this means that we have a lot of leaders

vying for power, for control of resources,

for authority.

A young Mongol must learn how to survive the

non-stop bloodshed that engulfs his homeland.

Historically groups who look after herds of animals

are fierce, in contrast to, say,

farmers who have to cooperate to do well,

who are more settled.

Herdsmen are territorial.

They have to be tough fighters to survive,

and to protect their flocks...

and, to hold onto their grazing lands,

in case any of them are taken by rivals.

They would steal each other's pastures

if they needed to, and drive other people off.

But they also would steal other people's goods,

including stealing their women.

Not only the Chinese, but other entities

near Mongolia never want the Mongols to unite.

The Jin Dynasty, moved its troops from Mongolia

back into China because of other concerns.

Well, that created a vacuum in Mongolia,

so the different tribes have to figure out

who's going to be the top dog there.

One man will unite the Mongols,

and give birth to an empire...

by creating one of the greatest army of warriors, ever.

His beginnings are legendary.

In 1162, there's a boy born,

and he's the son of a powerful clan warlord.

His parents name him Temujin.

And this is the future Genghis Khan.

The story is that Temujin is born with a

blood clot clutched in his fist.

And they take this as a very powerful symbol

that he will be a great warrior,

a great leader.

Before he can meet his destiny,

the boy's family will be terrorized by rival clans.

Temujin's gonna have a rough childhood.

His father is murdered, he's poisoned.

And because he was a rising figure in Mongolian society,

this leads to...

the ostracization of Temujin's family.

He starts attaining adulthood,

and he eventually does get married,

and once he gets married, then another rival tribe

kidnaps his own wife.

So, he then has to rescue her and form an alliance to do so.

But he never forgets where vengeance is due.

Ultimately, this is a warrior culture,

and the only way to win respect is to be

the ultimate warrior.

Temujin skillfully forms some key alliances

to seek revenge.

He's a natural born leader, and he and his

new coalition crush all of his rivals.

He gains a reputation as a brilliant negotiator

and a fierce warrior.

He's definitely not somebody you want to cross.

While crushing his enemies in the steppes,

he also faces a new rival...

within his own family.

Temujin's brother goes to war against him.

And when that blood brother takes 70 of

Temujin's warriors and tortures them

by boiling them alive in cauldrons...

...it's a huge insult to the future Khan.

And when that brother is eventually captured and

brought to Temujin's feet, he's executed.

Some say that Temujin broke his spine.

He'll continue to be threatened by

competing clans, but this Mongol leader

uses his tactical brilliance to rule over them all.

He has the perfect combination of charisma and

ruthlessness to be able to rule an empire

the size of which he was able to conquer.

In 1206, Temujin...

gets elected as the new khan.

There is only one khan.

It's like being the king of the entire nation.

He is given a new title,

and he becomes Genghis Khan, which means,

firm, resolute, or fierce leader.

And so he becomes the single leader of Mongolia.

Having unified the surrounding clans,

Genghis Khan now looks beyond his own borders

into the wider world.

He wants to take control of trade routes and generate

wealth and tribute from the spoils of war.

But a powerful rival to the east, the Jin Dynasty,

is a formidable empire.

Since 1115,

it has ruled over northern China and Manchuria,

and is hostile to the Mongol threat to the west.

There are some old grievances between the

Mongols and the Jin that go back for generations.

And so, his goal is to do enough damage so they

cannot bother him while he's stabilizing Mongolia,

but he's also getting his army outside of Mongolia,

and he's keeping them busy.

There's nothing better as a team building experience

than to go where other people might kill you.

The khan cannot fulfill his ambition

for conquest alone.

To seize vast, hostile lands,

Genghis must build the Mongol warrior

to be unlike any before him.

The rugged Mongolian terrain tests the

strength of every Mongol who lives here.

But to become a Mongol warrior,

training begins before he takes his first step.

What makes the Mongols so special and different for

their time was their relationship with horses.

They were the greatest and

most powerful cavalry unit

on the planet at the time.

Children just a few months old,

they're going to be strapped to horses.

Then, at three years old,

your mother is teaching you how to ride.

At five years old, you're given your

first bow and from five years old on,

you're living your life in the saddle.

Everything the Mongols do-

perfecting their horsemanship,

becoming highly skilled archers, hunting-

all those skills translate into being a great warrior.

And if you have enough great warriors,

you're going to have a great army.

The Mongol's relationship to his horse is

a bond that will serve him on and off the battlefield.

It's said that in the cold,

the riders use the horses for warmth.

They'll eat the body of their dead horse.

They'll drink the horse's blood.

The horse is more than just a beast of burden,

or instrument of war, but it's a big part of

how they survive.

The young Mongol warrior trains to be a

lethal combatant, whether he encounters the enemy

on horseback or on the ground, face to face.

There's a combination of things that the Mongols

do by tradition.

One is Mongolian wrestling, which is called bokh.

Mongolian wrestling takes place in an open area,

and the key is to throw your enemies so that they touch

the ground with something besides their hands or feet.

They're putting so much pressure on one another,

the weight of each other, and they're barely moving

until they can tip one or the other over.

What this does is train you for strength.

Also, balance, which is key,

whether you're on foot or actually on horseback.

In combat, if you can keep that balance,

you're more likely to survive.

As he masters the art of fighting one-on-one,

the young warrior also learns to work in concert

with his fellow Mongols.

In the training of Mongol warriors,

we usually discuss a couple things-

hunting and shooting.

The Mongols are on the move when they're hunting.

In fact, they might be hunting khulan,

which are wild asses, or antelope.

You have to keep up with them.

You have to hit the target while you're shooting.

So that's a great skill to have.

But they will also implement another hunting technique.

Each winter, young Mongols participate

in a unique event,

that not only sharpens their horsemanship,

but exposes them to death on a massive scale.

The Mongols engage in this annual

three-month-long hunt called the Nerge.

You would participate in the Nerge

from the earliest age.

Learning to shoot, learning to hunt, learning to kill.

They deploy their warrior hunters in a single line.

In some cases, it's reported to be 80 miles long.

And as this line moves forward,

the hunters gradually start bringing the wings of the

line in to attract all the animals inside.

It's like tightening a giant noose.

All the riders have to keep the animals in the

circle as they're doing it, to control these animals,

to drive them where you want to.

And then the great Khan gives the word, "kill".

And then they slaughter the animals.

You have sort of a chaotic scene of animals that

are frightened, who are trying to break out.

You have to be able to shoot an animal

while it's panicky, and other guys are also shooting,

and you obviously do not want to shoot the other hunters.

The execution of the entire maneuver

has to be done perfectly because any soldier

that allows an animal to escape gets punished,

and so this is one of the ways

that tactics are perfected,

and discipline is maintained.

This is fantastic training for war.

Genghis Khan uses tactics like the Nerge to

conquer what he considers to be less than human.

He doesn't see foreign fighters as people.

He sees them as cattle, as prey.

He is willing to take all of these hunting techniques

and apply them to people.

When you look at the Muslim and the

European chroniclers, the Mongol army is described as

the most organized, the most disciplined.

They've lived it their entire lives.

A young Mongol quickly learns that no one

in a hunt, or in the army,

will be given preferential treatment.

The khan only rewards excellence on the battlefield.

He's gone from the heights of being the son of

a well-respected aristocrat leader,

to basically poverty.

He's seen all levels of society.

And so, what he does is he sets up a meritocracy

where he values talent and skill over lineage.

Even the khan's own enemies

are worthy of mercy...

if they prove themselves in combat.

Genghis Khan is shot in battle.

And, after the battle is done and he has won,

he gathers all the captives, and asks them,

"Which of you has shot me?"

And Jebe, the warrior who is responsible,

raises his hand, and says, "It was me,"

knowing that he's about to be executed.

And instead, Genghis Khan says,

"I want you to be one of my generals."

When this warrior takes responsibility,

protects his own people, Genghis sees the

kind of nobility that he needs in his ranks.

Jebe goes on to become one of

the Mongols' most loyal and successful generals

for the next 20 years, proving that the khan

knows how to build his warrior army.

If you make it a meritocracy and anyone can

prove their worth by what they contribute on the field

of battle, you're actually helping those who otherwise

would have felt themselves ostracized find a way in.

And you're creating a new order,

a new hierarchy of which the khan-

Genghis Khan- is the center.

It switches allegiance from the clan...

to the khan.

Genghis Khan, in service to

his growing empire, will test this allegiance,

and his warrior's skills, against the tactics and

weaponry of central Asia.

There's a territory to the west of the Mongol Empire

that's ruled by a people called the Qara Khitai.

This is also known as the Western Liao.

When the monarch of the Western Liao,

Prince Kuchlug, sends his forces into

a small medieval city called Amalek,

they murder the king there,

who is a relative of Genghis Khan.

Genghis, of course, is furious about this.

And so, the Qara Khitai

become the Mongols' next target.

Jebe, the khan's trusted general,

leads an army of 20,000 Mongols into the Qara Khitai

where they seize the capital.

Here, the Mongol warrior will learn that bloodshed

is not the only path to victory.

Jebe, like Genghis, is a brilliant strategist.

He'll appeal to the Qara Khitai,

and turn them against Prince Kuchlug.

Kuchlug is ousted from power, and then eventually captured,

and brought back to the Mongols,

who then cut off his head.

The young warrior sees firsthand the

consequences of losing in battle.

Such lessons motivate him to master all of

the Mongols' weapons of war.

The Mongols expand their territory to the west

after seizing control of the Qara Khitai.

Now they share a border with the Islamic state

of the Khwarazmians.

These two massive empires

will soon become mortal enemies...

But before the young Mongol follows

Genghis Khan's army into battle,

he must first master the instruments of war.

Through their conquests,

the Mongols are able to create

the ultimate arsenal of their era.

As the Mongols are expanding the empire,

they encounter new weapons, new warriors.

If the Mongols find a weapon that's useful,

they'll incorporate it.

The preferred Mongol weapon is one

he's trained with since childhood,

one that allows him to kill from afar.

The majority of the army are what we consider

horse archers, and the primary weapon

of the Mongols is the composite bow.

The difference between the Mongol

composite bow and the longbow made famous by

the English and the Welsh before them,

the longbow is typically 6 to 7 feet long.

The Mongol bow is about 4 feet.

It is made specifically for horseback use.

The composite bow is a recurve style bow.

The string is placed on the opposite end of

where you might think it's placed.

The reason for this is because you can get

a longer range of firing with it.

Now, there's one record of a Mongol warrior

shooting over 500 yards.

That's a remarkable shot.

Typically, however, the Mongol bow is gonna be

more about an effective range of about 300 yards.

As the Mongols approach,

the Mongols are engaging in what we call

an arrow storm, where they're just firing arrows,

you know, so it looks like it's raining arrows.

The pull weight of a bow is 160 pounds.

And the stone ring is used to pull the string.

And they don't pull it full, they just pull it enough

so that they have energy into the bow, and let it go.

Having that capability allows the Mongol soldier

to actually shoot faster.

The average English bowmen could fire maybe

between 6 and 10 arrows, a minute.

The Mongols, they could go up to 20 arrows a minute.

It's very difficult to do archery on horseback...

because of the up and down motions,

the shock of the hooves on the ground.

So, they have to learn from an early age how to

time their shots with the moment

when the horse's hooves leave the ground.

The speed and versatility of the

Mongol warrior's arrows...

prove to be deadly in more ways than one.

The type of arrows used by the Mongols can

sometimes be poison-tipped as well with wolfsbane.

Even if they miss a vital organ,

they could be...

killing the opponent using the poison instead.

Arrows are effective from afar...

but at close range, the Mongol warrior will need

new armaments to strike down his enemy.

In hand-to-hand combat the Mongols

would use several different weapons.

We see axes, we see maces and clubs,

but the saber is probably the preferred weapon.

The saber is a very functional weapon

on horseback or on foot.

If the Mongols break into a city,

it's going to be a weapon that gives them

maneuverability in close combat.

The Mongols' sabers famously draw blood

during the Siege of Sandomierz in 1260.

When the Mongols breach the walls of the Polish city

and move through the streets on foot,

they methodically execute its citizens with their blades.

When defending his own life,

the Mongol warrior will use his enemy in

an unconventional- and terrifying-

siege tactic.

One of the things that the Mongols did

on a regular occasion was use human shields.

They would conquer an area, raid a village.

They'd take the population.

They would march in front of the Mongols.

And if they stop, the Mongols will kill them.

They would drive the enemy captives

as they converge on the walls,

and push them into the moat so that they can actually

use the bodies as a platform to scale the walls.

If you think about the psychological effect of

watching your own people in front of the invading army,

you have to...

make a difficult choice.

Do you kill your own people in front of this army

to protect yourselves?

Or do you allow the invading army to get closer and closer?

And there is one weapon that amplifies the

capabilities of the Mongol's entire arsenal...

his horse.

Their horses probably are not like

what most people picture in terms of horses today.

These were kind of tough ponies who learned

how to scavenge, themselves,

so when they're encountered with the snow,

they dig out with their hooves the grass

that's underneath, and drink the snow.

Because of their capability,

the Mongols are able to travel long distances.

When we discuss the mobility of the Mongols,

we have to remember that this is on a scale that

isn't really matched until the 20th century

with mechanized warfare.

We have Mongols who are able to travel 100 miles in

one day, and this is because they're switching horses.

They bring about five extra horses for every man.

So they keep on going.

With each new conquest,

the Mongol warrior acquires new weapons

for his own arsenal.

One such instrument will lay waste to the

walled cities of his enemies.

One of the key capabilities that they

acquire when they're in China is the trebuchet.

When trade relations break down between

the Mongols and the Genoese in the port city of Caffa,

the Mongol warrior uses his trebuchet

in a diabolical maneuver.

They lay siege to the city for two years,

bombarding it with rocks and other debris

in an effort to force the Genoese out.

But what they discover is that their men are dying from

some strange disease, which is the bubonic plague.

What better way to get rid of these bodies

than to fling them over the walls of the city,

into the midst of the Genoese?

According to one Italian writer,

what the Mongols did was they'd load bodies onto

the trebuchets, launch them over the walls...

And this is how the plague gets into the city.

These bodies are landing on them,

and splat, splat,

and entrails are spilling out.

Literally having death rained on them from above.

As the Genoese are fleeing the city in boats,

now infected with the bubonic plague,

they spread the disease throughout the rest of Europe,

taking the lives of upwards of 25 million people.

Equipped with an array of deadly weapons,

the young Mongol warrior is ready to taste first blood.

The Mongol has mastered his horsemanship

and his weaponry, but he will only be deemed

a true warrior after he succeeds in battle...

and takes a trophy carved

from the flesh of his enemy.

In 1241, the Mongols continue their westward expansion

by invading Europe with a two-pronged attack.

While one army marches into Hungary,

a second is sent to Poland,

where the Mongols face an army of

30,000 men that includes a calvary

of European knights.

Here, the mounted Mongol warrior will need to prepare

for all manner of combat.

Mongols prefer to be on horseback.

It gives them the most advantage.

They're higher, they're stronger,

they're faster.

But let's say a Mongol is on foot-

this could happen a couple ways-

his horse is killed,

he's thrown from the horse in some way.

He has now to fight on foot.

Without his horse, the Mongol warrior lacks

the mobility and speed he relies on in battle.

What do they do then?

They have to face, perhaps, a European knight

in huge, heavy metal armor.

The knight would probably have

a slight advantage 'cause they're more

accustomed to fighting on foot.

But the Mongol warrior is a more cunning...

and agile fighter

than any the western knight has faced before.

The Mongols are not going to put on lots of

heavy armor because they do value

the mobility over the protection.

The Mongol, with his lightweight leather armor,

is much more nimble, so he can move more quickly

and catch the European knight off balance.

The Mongol knows his enemy's impenetrable

helmet is also his greatest vulnerability.

The helmet on the knights are very heavy.

You don't have peripheral vision.

You're isolated with one focal point.

It's kind of like horses with blinders.

They don't have the mobility where

you see their Mongol warriors who get just out of the

distance of where they can strike.

It's very, very effective.

A lot of times you get so agitated,

you exhaust yourself, getting in that panic mode.

And you're not assessing the situation properly.

To overcome his enemy's fortified exterior,

the Mongol preys on the knight's innermost fears.

Mongols are masters of psychological warfare.

They had built up such a reputation

of ruthlessness, of cruelty...

that I think many warriors would have been

quaking in their boots just with the thought of it.

Terror inhibits the ability to fight back...

and the Mongol uses the opportunity

to dominate his enemy.

In the 13th century, obviously,

there's no rules for engagement.

It's all about survival.

And who can beat the enemy first.

Years of training in hand-to-hand combat have

prepared the Mongol for this life and death struggle.

With their background in

a wrestling culture, they're able to keep up

with anyone on foot, and hold their own.

Because Mongolian wrestling matches can be quite long,

even lasting hours.

They can use this skill to off-balance...

this huge, weighty metal man...

and throw them onto the ground.

Even the smallest opening can be

exploited by the Mongol warrior...

with devastating results.

He can attack viciously at vulnerable

access points, where they lack shield and

protection underneath the armpits.

Mongols are very strong-willed fighters.

They can be very ruthless as well.

There's no mercy from the Mongol warrior

as he moves in for the kill.

But before he leaves the knight to

bleed out on the battlefield,

the Mongol will extract a gruesome trophy.

After the battle is over, there is a requirement

on behalf of the Mongol commanders for an accurate

body count of everybody that's been killed.

They would take the right ear, slice it off,

and put it in a bag.

At the battle of the Kalka River,

the Mongols reportedly kill 50,000 soldiers.

They leave with nine sacks of severed ears.

The Mongol warrior has tasted victory

for the first time.

But to achieve true greatness,

he'll have to breach the fortified kingdom

of a rival empire alongside thousands of

his fellow Mongols.

13 years into his reign,

Genghis Khan has proven to be a master strategist,

having already conquered the armies of the Jin Dynasty

and the Western Liao.

The khan seeks to expand his empire into much of

present-day central Asia,

including Afghanistan and Iran.

To do so, the Mongol warrior will draw on

all of the tactics he has learned

to prove himself in the battle ahead.

The awesome might of the Mongol army

is demonstrated in the year 1218,

during an infamous conflict with the Khwarazmian Empire,

a region with which Khan intends to form an alliance.

The Mongol Empire is now butting up against

the empire of Muhammad Shah.

So, Genghis Khan sends a caravan to the shah...

in order to establish trading relations

with the shah's empire.

And so, the caravan reaches the town of Otrar,

and the governor, who is a relative of the shah,

thinks that the caravan is full of spies.

The governor of Otrar communicates a message to

the shah, saying, "I mean to execute everyone

in the caravan and take all the spoils,"

and the shah agrees.

He gives the governor permission to

carry out this massacre.

One guy escapes, gets back,

and spreads the news to the Mongols.

Now, Genghis Khan, he wants his stuff back,

and he also wants the governor

who did this atrocity.

So he sends a new delegation directly to the

shah with the demand that the governor be executed.

Sultan Muhammad Husain Shah

is offended by Genghis Khan.

He's also viewing himself as

the second Alexander the Great.

He's created this vast empire.

He has an army of over 400,000 men.

And so, he dismisses the Mongols.

He kills the ambassador...

and burns the beards of his guards,

and sends them back with his message of, "No."

Crossing the Mongol warriors brings about

a swift and significant response.

Genghis Khan gets the news of what's happened

to his second delegation...

and he declares war.

Genghis Khan raises an army of between

100 and 150,000 warriors.

The challenge with this invasion is there's only one

established route of access into the shah's empire.

To take the shah by surprise,

the Mongol leader uses a series of tactics refined

over decades of successful warfare.

He begins by dividing his armies and sending them

through what is thought to be impassable

mountain and desert terrain.

They're marching divided,

but they all have one objective,

which is the capital.

There's deserts, there's mountains,

which allegedly was impassable.

Turns out it isn't.

The Mongol horses are not the fastest in the world.

They're probably the toughest.

Three months later,

Genghis Khan's army arrives at the city of Otrar.

The Mongols are bringing siege equipment

from China. They have trebuchets,

they have battering rams, they have siege towers.

The genius behind Mongols is that

they learn and they adapt.

They incorporated all the things that they learned

from all these conquered people.

They learn how to attack a city,

they learn about siege warfare.

They use these trebuchets to sling pots

filled with naphtha,

which is a petroleum-based incendiary.

Naphtha is basically like the napalm of the Middle Ages.

Genghis Khan enters the Friday mosque, and says,

"Know that I am the punishment of God.

If not for the sins of your leaders,

God would not have sent a punishment such as me."

A Mongol definition of victory is the total

annihilation of the opponent, and in particular,

the opponent's leadership.

With his city surrounded and

his armies divided, the shah escapes with his life.

His relative, the governor...

is not so lucky.

The governor, he's eventually captured.

And the Mongols do have a sense of irony,

and since he was so greedy and took all of their treasure,

they pour silver into all of his orifices.

Once you have inflamed the wrath of

the Mongols, they do not hold back.

The Khwarazmian Empire is probably the

largest empire you've never heard of.

And Genghis Khan is why.

He literally wipes it off the map.

For the Mongol warrior and his army,

victory over a powerful rival empire sends a message

to his enemies across the continent.

The Mongols are now looking back and

realizing what they've just accomplished.

Genghis Khan has conquered more territory than

any other person in history.

But just like the fiercest warriors,

all empires eventually fall...

and that of the Mongols is no exception.

The Mongol warrior builds an empire

that stretches across a continent.

Just 15 years after Genghis Khan is proclaimed leader,

the Mongols have won victories against the

Jin Dynasty of northern China...

the Western Liao in western China...

and brought down the Khwarazmian Empire.

The Mongols try to rationalize this.

Why are they so successful?

And the only answer they can come up with is that

the world is meant to be ruled by the Mongols.

The empire's sheer size,

once its greatest strength,

makes it vulnerable in later years...

even more so after the fall of the Mongol warrior's

ambitious leader.

Genghis Khan dies of an arrow wound

that becomes an infection, in 1227.

And his sons and his descendants

are unable to sustain the...

coherency that makes the Mongol Empire great.

When you consider the Mongol Empire, its creation,

it's based on the Mongol belief in

raid and plunder, not occupation.

So they continue to raid across all of these

different nations, countries and countryside,

to create this empire.

But they don't build any national institutions.

There is no infrastructure building.

The Mongols are great at conquering.

They're not great at administration.

After the death of Genghis Khan,

leadership splinters into four rival factions.

One in China, one in Persia,

another in Central Asia,

and a fourth in what is today Russia.

The empire will break up over time.

And then in 1368,

we have a rebellion in southern China

that builds up, and will eventually lead to the

creation of the Ming Dynasty

and drives the Mongols from China.

And there's a great fear among the Ming that the

Mongols will rise again, which will lead to the

creation of the Great Wall.

But the Mongol Empire does not fall.

It's still there. It's just in Mongolia.

We'll see generals will struggle for the throne.

So the Mongol Empire, it never falls.

It fades away over time.

700 years after the empire's decline,

the Mongol warrior's achievements continue to

reverberate across the continent.

The Mongols exist because of the Mongol Empire.

If not for the rise of Genghis Khan,

we probably wouldn't know a group of people

known as Mongols.

We wouldn't have a Mongolia today.

He's a polarizing figure because, on one hand,

people might remember him as such a brutal conqueror

and a brutal warlord. And the other hand,

he's still revered and celebrated in

parts of East Asia even today.

Now, the Mongols do have this darker side.

We do have massacres.

It's alleged that the carbon levels dropped

because Genghis Khan killed so many people.

The bloody conflicts stoked by the khan

transformed the Mongols into masters of warfare,

and the lessons they leave behind

are studied to this day.

The military legacy of the Mongols is vast.

After World War I, with the horrors of trench warfare,

many military thinkers tried to find a way

to add mobility to warfare.

This will be passed on to Germany,

which will help lead to the formation of

Blitzkrieg warfare.

In Britain, we have military thinkers looking at tanks

and airplanes to add that mobility.

If you look at the battle plan for Gulf War One,

the US Marines attacking straight into the front,

which was the heavy cavalry of the Mongols,

while the light armored forces swing around the rear

to take the opponent in the side.

And so, studying the past,

translating into warfare in the future.

The Mongols occupy a unique place in conversation

primarily because they dominate such a large region

over the course of their run and reign.

They're the best of the best.

Their leadership...

Ruthlessness...

Innovative thinking, and astonishing mobility...

earn the Mongols their rightful place...

among History's Greatest Warriors.