Jack Weatherford: Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire | Lex Fridman Podcast #476

The following is a conversation with Jack Weatherford, anthropologist and historian specializing in Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire. He has written a legendary book on this topic titled Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. And he has written many other books, including Emperor of the Seas: Kublai Khan and the Making of China, Genghis Khan and the Quest for God, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, and other excellent books. I've gotten to know Jack more after this conversation, and I cannot speak highly enough about him. He's a truly brilliant, thoughtful, and kind soul. This was a huge honor and pleasure for me. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and consider subscribing to this channel. And now, dear friends, here's Jack Weatherford. Genghis Khan, born in approximately 1162, became the conqueror of the largest contiguous empire in history. But before that, he was a boy named Temujin, who at nine years old lost everything, his father, his tribe, living in poverty, abandoned to the harshness of the Mongolian steppe. From a boy with nothing to the conqueror of the world. So, tell me about this boy, his childhood and, uh, the Mongolian steppe from which he came from.

The story of Genghis Khan, like the story I think of all of us, it doesn't begin at birth, it begin... That's the beginning of life. The story begins long before birth. And, uh, sometimes it can be many generations before and sometimes only shortly before. But I think with Genghis Khan, a crucial thing is to understand how his parents met and then how he was conceived. And that is that one day a cart was coming across the Mongol territory. And only women drove carts. Men rode horses. Women also rode horses. But women owned the houses which were called gers, the tents. They owned all the household equipment, and so they had to have carts for moving back and forth. And the fact that a cart was moving meant that some woman was moving from one place to another. And in fact her husband was with her. She was a new bride and her husband, uh, was on a horse close to her. So what happened was a man named Yasuke... Yasuke, the future father of Genghis Khan. Yasuke was up on a hill. He was hunting with his falcon. The words of The Secret History of the Mongols were very clear. And he looked down and he saw her, and he could barely glimpse her, but he knew she was young and she was a new bride. And he rode back to camp, he got his two brothers, and they came racing down. And they came and f- first the husband of the woman looked around and he decided to flee. Not because he was a coward, but he figured he would probably pull the men after him. They would chase him. And they did. They chased him. He went far away. He circled around. He came back. He arrived back at the cart where his wife was. Her name was Hoelun. And Hoelun had time to think while he was riding around being chased by the Mongols. And she decided that it's more important for him to live. And she told him when he came back, "You must flee. If you stay here, they will kill you and they will take me. But if you flee, they will take me, but you will have the chance to find another wife. There are many women in the world. You find one and you call her Hoelun after my name, and you remember me when you're with her." It was a very dramatic moment. And he rode away, and he looked back and forth, and it's said that the pigtails or the braids that were hanging down were whipping back and forth from his chest to his back. Uh, he was divided, obviously, in whether he should go or stay. But the three men were approaching again, and they were headed straight for the cart this time. And they came in and they took Hoelun. She didn't say a word until her husband was over the ridge. And when he was over the ridge and she could no longer see him, she began to scream and wail. And one of the brothers said to her, "It doesn't matter if you shake the waters out of the river and if you shake the mountains with your screaming, you will never see this man again." And he was right. That was the moment that Genghis Khan's mother and father met. That's the beginning of his story in this kidnapping. And it's gonna reverberate. Every detail of it will come back again and again, not only throughout the story of the life of Genghis Khan, but it's gonna continue on with the feuds and the issues caused by it all the way into the future. And to some extent, in certain parts of the world, you could say it still exists.