All language subtitles for Genghis Khan BBC 720p HDTV EN Sub_Subtitles01.ENG

In 1162, deep in the heart of Asia,
a child was born.

He was clutching a blood clot,
a sign from heaven that he was
destined to be a great warrior.

His life was to become a legend.

His name...

Genghis Khan.

Many believe his story is simple,

that he was the incarnation of evil,
a brutal barbarian
who butchered millions.

But the real character of
Genghis Khan is far more intriguing.

How did this illiterate outcast
turn the feuding tribes of Mongolia
into a powerful nation?

And how did he transform
the Mongol hordes into a ruthless
and disciplined fighting machine?

An army that, ultimately,
stood poised to conquer Europe.

And why, on his death bed,
did he believe his divine mission
remained unfulfilled?

TRANSLATION:
Soon I will know death,
but I will never know my destiny.

Shortly after his death,
his heirs gathered their memories
into an epic account of his life.

They called it
The Secret History Of The Mongols.

Evidence from Chinese
and Persian sources,
the work of leading scholars

and The Secret History allow this
to be the most complete television
portrait of Genghis Khan ever made.

The characters are all
real historical figures.

And the words of Genghis Khan
are rooted in the great
speeches of The Secret History.

This is the story of how
that tiny fist turned to iron

and came to rule the largest
land empire ever known to man.

The boy who would become
Genghis Khan was called Temujin.

He was the son
of a tribal warrior chief.

When he was only nine years old,
he received news that was
to change his life.

TRANSLATION FROM MONGOLIAN:

HE CRIES

'My father had been poisoned
by a rival tribe.

'My mother told me
my father's enemies were forever
the enemies of my own heart.

'From that day,

'I would never be a child again.'

As the eldest son,
Temujin grew up to lead what was
little more than an extended family.

And on the Steppes, a small tribe
was weak and vulnerable.

To survive, Temujin knew he must
forge links with other tribes.

And there was only one way
he could do that.

'Her name was Borte.

'We were betrothed
when we were children.

'There were only two things to know
about my marriage.

'She was a woman of beauty.

'And the sable fur they gave us
was worth a thousand
of the swiftest horses.

'Borte was mine.
And so was her tribe.'

The great tribes of Mongolia
were locked in a spiral
of murderous vendettas.

There was only one law
on the Steppes...

If a man wanted something,
he took it.

Now Temujin had something
another man wanted.

The Merkit tribe had feuded
with Temujin's father.

Now Temujin himself was in danger.

And especially vulnerable
was his new wife.

Temujin!

Temujin!

The Secret History recalls
what Temujin, the man who would one
day be Genghis Khan, did next.

'They've taken my wife.

'I knew what I had to do.'

What Temujin had to do
was to escape.

'Only a fool fights a battle
he knows he cannot win.'

Wife-stealing was common
on the Steppes.

Borte knew she had no choice
but to submit...

..if she wanted to live.

HE SHOUTS ANGRILY

'I had just one friend I could trust.

'Jamuka.

'As children,
we had sworn the vow of "anda".

'It was the most sacred vow of all.

THEY WHOOP

HE SPEAKS IN MONGOLIAN

'We were blood brothers.

'The bond that joined
our lives as one.

'But to take revenge,

'I needed more
than just my blood brother.'

Temujin and Jamuka
sought an audience with the one man
they thought could help.

He was a khan. The leader of
an uneasy alliance of tribes.

His name was Toghril.

Many years before, he had fought
alongside Temujin's father.

TRANSLATION FROM MONGOLIAN:

HE SPEAKS IN MONGOLIAN

'I reminded the khan he was once
my father's blood brother.

'I told him he was as a father to me.

'A man who seeks power needs friends
who have power

'and there was
only one thing I had to offer.

'The sable fur.

'His judgement
would decide my future.'

Temujin's reaction
to being accepted by the khan
is written in The Secret History.

'With the friendship of Toghril
and my sworn bother Jamuka,

'my power had been increased
by heaven and earth.'

At the Merkit camp in the
mountains of northern Mongolia,
Temujin went looking for his wife.

Temujin!

Aaagh!

'We made the Merkits
pay for their deed.

'We destroyed their families
and emptied their breasts.'

Temujin, the man who was to
become Genghis Khan, was barely 20

and he'd already eliminated
one of Mongolia's great tribes.

Nine months after the raid,
Temujin's wife gave birth to a son.

But no-one would ever know
who was the true father...

Temujin or the tribal leader
who had captured his wife.

But Temujin treated the child
as one of his own.

SHE HUMS

In those early days,
Temujin and Jamuka
shared the leadership of the tribe.

Yet even as they celebrated
the victory over the Merkits, there
was a hidden tension between them.

At the root was
a fundamental question.

How to measure a man's worth.

Both Temujin and Jamuka
were the sons of tribal leaders,
Mongolian aristocrats.

But only Temujin
had experienced real adversity

and learned from it.

'After my father was murdered,
our tribe deserted us.

'Men are loyal
only to a strong leader.

'They'd left us with nothing.

'We had no friends
but our own shadows.

'Like the wolf, we endured.

'And from hardship,

'I grew strong.

EAGLE CRIES

'Now I cared only for the strength
in a man's heart.

'A warrior does not win a battle
by virtue of his birth.'

Temujin rewarded
ability and loyalty alone.

One of his most promising
warriors was Subodei,
the son of a humble herdsman.

HE SPEAKS IN MONGOLIAN

But this attitude flew in
the face of Mongol tradition.

Jamuka's noble birth
led him to believe

that high rank should be
reserved only for Mongol
aristocrats.

But now, his blood brother
was throwing out the old ways.

HE YELLS

The gulf between Temujin and Jamuka
widened still further,

until the prophesy of the
Mongol holy man brought their
relationship to a crisis.

'The shaman said he had ascended
into Heaven in the holy trance

'where the Supreme God told him that
he would give to me and to my sons

'the whole surface of the world.'

For the tribe and for Jamuka,
it was a decisive moment.

One that made Jamuka determined
to bring the question of leadership
into the open.

'Men who are sworn brothers
share one life,

'but I began to question whether
Jamuka was truly my blood brother
for all eternity.

'It was not right that our
differences should force a feud,

'but my wife stopped me
from going after him.

'She warned that one day my blood
brother would ride against me.'

For Temujin, this feud brought back
the darkest memory of his childhood.

'I knew where a war
between brothers would lead.

'Even when we were starving,
my brother Bekter had betrayed us.

'He refused to share
the spoils of a hunt.

'He died of his wounds.'

Jamuka split the tribe.

Now the very thing that
Temujin feared most, disunity,
had happened again.

Two years would pass before
they would hear from Jamuka.

He accused a member of Temujin's
tribe of stealing horses.

Jamuka's revenge was brutal.

But this was only the beginning.

High on the plateau
of central Mongolia

is a place known as Dalan Bhalzhut.

It was here that Jamuka's men
ambushed Temujin's tribe.

It had been a catastrophic defeat.

CROWS CALL

'My army was unprepared,
outnumbered and outwitted.

'The earth was soaked
with the blood of my warriors.

'But worse was to come.'

Jamuka took the generals he had
captured and subjected them to
the cruellest of punishments.

He boiled them alive.

PRISONER SCREAMS

Aaargh!

When Temujin learned of the
atrocity, he made this vow...

'By the power of Heaven,
I swore to gain my vengeance.

'Never again would I be defeated,

'nor my loyal warriors
so dishonoured.'

It was now that Temujin
started a revolution.

HE SPEAKS IN MONGOLIAN

'They say that the Mongols
were descended from the wolf.

'Like the wolf...

THEY CHANT

'..we were famous
for our ferocity and courage.

'But to win a battle,
we had to fight fiercely.

'Not as individual warriors,
but as parts of a whole.'

Temujin formed an elite officer
training corps, the Kashik.

He was building a professional
fighting machine from top to bottom.

The Mongol's universal
instrument of battle was the bow.

Made from wood and animal bone,
it had a shooting range
of 500 yards.

Training in archery and horsemanship
was made compulsory for all, even
children.

They learned to release their arrows

at the exact moment the horse's
hooves were off the ground,
for maximum accuracy.

Temujin had thrown out
the old tribal divisions.

This was a meritocracy.

This was a modern army.

THEY CHEER

Now he was ready.

In the summer of 1204, Temujin rode
west to confront his blood brother.

The outcome would be decisive
for the future of the Mongol people.

In the foothills of the Khangai
Mountains, on the eve of battle,
Temujin called his generals to him.

HE SPEAKS IN MONGOLIAN

'I told them,

' "One tribe is like a single arrow,
easily broken.

' "But many tribes together
would be strong.

' "They could never be broken." '

THEY CHEER

But Temujin didn't just rely
on inspirational speeches,

he practised psychological warfare.

'I knew Jamuka's scouts
would be watching
as my men prepared for battle.

'I ordered each man to light not one,
but five fires.'

Jamuka's scouts reported
that Temujin's army was so large

they had more fires than
there were stars in the sky.

At daybreak, Jamuka led his army
onto the heights of Chakirma'ut.

And this was the sight
that confronted him.

'I saw the man
who had been my friend, who had
sworn the sacred vow of anda.

'But he had broken that vow.'

Jamuka was about to
become the first commander

to face an army that would
eventually conquer 12 million
square miles.

'We advanced in silence,
saving our battle cries to the last.

'When the enemy came within reach, my
archers released a storm of arrows.

'And my cavalry
attacked without mercy.'

According to The Secret History,
each tactic was meticulously planned
and ingenious.

Temujin held squadrons
and weapons in reserve.

Then, with the enemy in disarray,
they regrouped and charged.

One of Temujin's cavalry squadrons
suddenly fled the battlefield.

Jamuka's men chased them down.

But they were being
lured into a trap.

In the heart of the battle,
Jamuka saw his army destroyed...

and he ran.

'Across the battlefield,

'I saw the bodies
of Jamuka's men

'lying together
like felled logs in the forest.'

Following the defeat, Jamuka
fled into the mountains of Tannu.

He hid throughout the winter
of 1204.

In the spring he re-appeared,

escorted by two of his own
generals who thought they knew
where their best interests lay.

They delivered Jamuka to Temujin.

'The generals expected a reward
for betraying their leader

'and delivering him into
the hands of his enemy.

'And I saw they got their reward.'

Temujin granted his blood brother
his final wish.

And broke his back.

SNAPPING

CHANTING

The defeat and death of Jamuka
led to a sight never before seen
in the history of Mongolia.

The recognition of one man as the
leader of all the Mongol tribes.

In the Mongol world,
there had never been such a figure.

And in 1206, a new title
was created to honour him.

Universal King,

Ruler Of All Men.

Genghis Khan.

'But my destiny, the destiny
of the great Mongol people,

'was still unfulfilled.'

Genghis Khan had forged a nation.

But now he faced a new
and more potent threat...China.

He knew the Chinese would not
tolerate such a powerful leader
as him on their border.

So he took the fight to them.

In a campaign that was
to last six years,

he led his army of 50,000 Mongols
on one of the most audacious
military actions in history.

He crossed the Gobi Desert
and invaded northern China.

On hearing that the Mongol army
was approaching, the emperor of
north China sent this message.

"Our empire is as vast as the sea.

"Yours is but a handful of sand.

"How can we fear you?"

The Chinese had spent centuries
perfecting their defences.

But Genghis Khan solved the problem
posed by China's biggest border
defence, the Great Wall,

by one simple expedient -
they went around it.

The Chinese were the richest and
most civilised people in the East.

But they also knew how
to fight a dirty war.

Iron spikes, like Medieval
minefields, were buried in the
path of the oncoming Mongol armies.

HORSE WHINNIES IN PAIN

The Chinese could afford to
employ people to fight for them.

In the borderlands, the Mongols
met a force of heavily armed
mercenaries...

..who were loyal
as only mercenaries could be.

MERCENARIES CHANT

MONGOLS CHANT

Reinforced by the mercenary troops,
they marched into the fertile plains
of northern China.

Few of the Chinese villagers
had seen a Mongol warrior before.

And few of the Mongols would have
journeyed this far into China.

It was the clash of
two alien cultures.

There was only one certainty.
The Chinese would never forget them.

The Mongols plundered without mercy

and, from each conquest,
Genghis Khan took his own reward.

A highborn wife from the vanquished.

'The greatest fortune a man can have
is to conquer his enemy,

'steal his riches, ride his horses
and enjoy his women.'

Further east
lay an even greater prize.

With a population of 350,000,
13th century Beijing was one of the
most sophisticated cities on Earth.

Capital of the northern Chinese
empire, famous for its
grand palaces,

gilded temples and markets
overflowing with silks and spices.

In his quest to take
these riches for himself,
Genghis Khan faced one huge problem.

Standing between him and the
conquest of the city was a wall.

40 feet high and 10 miles long
with 900 guard towers.

To a nomadic army, used to
fighting on the open Steppes, these
fortifications seemed impregnable.

'I'd trained my men to attack
with the speed of the wind.

'Now they had to learn
the guile of the wolf.'

His first tactic
was straightforward.

He waited.

The Mongols set up camp
outside the city

and stopped supplies
from getting in.

From Chinese engineers
who had defected,

his generals learned to build
catapults, portable defences
and battering rams.

The tools of siege warfare.

The Mongols were in no hurry.

They feasted on the
supplies they captured.

Genghis Khan turned Beijing
into a prison.

Within the walls,
thousands starved to death.

The survivors resorted
to cannibalism.

Finally, Genghis Khan's
army was ready to attack.

'All who surrender would be spared.

'Those who did not surrender,

'but opposed with struggle and
dissention, would be annihilated.'

Despite enduring months
of starvation,

the commander of the Chinese army
still controlled a formidable
garrison

with thousands of men
and a powerful array of weapons.

Genghis Khan knew
that few in the first wave
of the attack would survive.

So he forced captured enemy
prisoners to wheel the siege engines
forward into the killing zone.

It is said that each of his own
warriors was given a silk shirt.

If the arrow penetrated the body,
it took the silk with it,

making it easier to draw the arrow
out and minimising the wound.

But despite the Mongols' attempts
to master siege warfare,

the Chinese were still
much more advanced in their
military technology.

They responded by filling
bombs with crude oil, molten metal,
chemicals and excrement.

Despite the ferocious bombardment,

Genghis Khan ordered his men
to advance to the walls.

Once again, Chinese prisoners
were in the front line.

HEAVY THUD

HEAVY THUD

As the city fell, the Chinese
commander had just one option.

Genghis Khan was so confident
of victory that he left his army
to capture the city.

His final command to his generals

was to fulfil his prophecy.

He ordered total annihilation.

For one month, his army plundered,
burned and raped.

A year later, visiting foreign
ambassadors described the streets
as "slippery with human fat".

They also recorded that,
beyond the walls,
stood an entire mountain of bones.

Genghis Khan's fearsome reputation
grew from the destruction and
carnage he practiced in Beijing.

But what he now created at Karakorum
in central Mongolia revealed
an entirely different nature.

Genghis Khan wanted Karakorum to be
a great trading and cultural centre.

Here, in stark contrast to his
nomadic origins,

he began to establish
a permanent capital.

And he wanted his people
to benefit from his conquests.

'My people are as numerous
as the trees in a forest.

'I wanted them
to feed on tender meat,

'live in beautiful tents and
pasture their horses on rich soil.'

He imported knowledge.

Captured Chinese citizens were
brought here to teach the great
secrets of their culture.

He established a medical corps
trained by Chinese physicians.

He learned the technology
of the Chinese military.

BOOM!

Above all, Genghis Khan wanted
to leave a lasting legacy.

It was not only the sword
he wished to be remembered by.

The Mongols could neither read nor
write, but Genghis Khan understood
the power of the written word.

He ordered his Imperial Court
to create a record of
all his judgements.

It was the beginning
of a legal system.

The death penalty was introduced
for crimes such as rustling
and kidnapping.

It was forbidden for any man
to own a Mongol slave.

And each tribe
was granted its own land.

Genghis Khan had been born
into a world of betrayal
and eternal feuding.

Now he wanted order.

He looked to the west
to build on his conquests.

Not through war, but through trade.

He sent ambassadors to Persia.

And he established
a network of routes linked
by staging posts 25 miles apart.

A messenger could travel
125 miles in a single day.

It was a mediaeval pony express.

In the summer of 1218,
one messenger sent back to Genghis
Khan from Persia carried a package.

A package that would
change the course of history.

It was the head
of Genghis Khan's ambassador.

The Sultan had fundamentally
misjudged Genghis Khan's character.

'I was not the instigator
of these tribulations.

'God, grant me the strength
to exact vengeance.'

Genghis Khan sent an army
200,000 strong to invade Persia.

It was a campaign
of extreme savagery.

On his order,
every Persian town that did not
submit was burned to the ground.

When they had finished,
over a million men, women
and children were dead.

The extent of the bloodshed
in Persia was without precedent.

'I am the punishment of God.

'If you had not committed great sins,

'God would not have inflicted
a punishment such as me upon you.'

After the conquest of Persia,

Genghis Khan ordered a small army
to see how far west they could
penetrate before they were stopped.

And they weren't stopped at all.

This was the Mongols'
first raid into Europe.

It would not be their last.

His empire was now four times
the size of Alexander the Great's

and twice the size
of the Roman Empire.

But even this was not enough to
satisfy the desire of Genghis Khan.

He wanted something more, something
his army could not give him.

Which is why, in 1222,
this man travelled towards
Genghis Khan's court.

He was a revered Taoist monk.

From him,
Genghis Khan sought just one thing.

'I told him how my life
was a divine mission.

'I'd been sent to Earth
to conquer the world.

'I spoke of the prophecies,

'the battles, my ambitions, my age.

I asked what medicine he had brought
to prolong my earthly existence.

It was only then the monk realised

Genghis Khan was asking for the
secret elixir of eternal life.

Unfortunately, the monk could only
offer him advice about prolonging
life through sexual abstinence.

But not immortality.

There is nothing to indicate that
Genghis Khan took the monk's advice.

Recent scientific evidence suggests
that perhaps one in 200 men alive
today

can trace their genetic lineage
to Genghis Khan.

Four years later,
he embarked on one more campaign
of conquest, into China.

HE SHOUTS IN MONGOLIAN

According to legend, these were
the last words of Genghis Khan.

'I have conquered for you
a large empire,

'but my life was too short
to take the whole world.

'That I leave to you.'

He appointed his son, Ogodei,
to succeed him as Khan.

Genghis Khan died
without having achieved
what he believed was his destiny,

to conquer the entire world.

In the years after his death,
his sons carried out his wish,

doubling the size of the empire.

They returned to Europe and invaded
Russia, Poland and Hungary.

But in 1242, approaching Vienna,
the new Khan died.

Mongol law decreed that all chiefs
return to elect a new leader

and Europe was spared
the Mongol terror.

A century later,
his mighty empire began to crumble.

His reputation has made him
one of history's immortals.

A reputation enhanced by
the mystery of his burial.

It is said that every witness
to his funeral cortege

was executed to keep the site
of the tomb a secret.

Today, almost eight centuries later,

the burial place of Genghis Khan
remains undiscovered.

There is no grave, no mausoleum,

no monument to this
bloodthirsty conqueror.

The most successful military
commander the world has ever known.

Subtitles by Chris Boyd
BBC Broadcast 2005

E-mail us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk