How one million herders beat fifty million | WHAT STOPPED THE MONGOLS? Part 2

History Onion · Part 2 · 2:58

In 1206 Genghis Khan ruled about a million people. Nine years later they had broken the Jin — an empire of more than fifty million ruling northern China from what is now Beijing. This is how the machine was built: the tribes abolished into units of ten, loyalty running to one man, the lesson of the walls at Xi Xia, the trap at the mountain pass in 1211, the fall of Zhongdu in 1215 — and the habit that mattered most: keeping the enemy's engineers. Part 2. Numbers & sources: the Jin census of 1207 recorded 53,532,151 people; the Mongol army of 1206 was organised in 95 units of a thousand (Secret History of the Mongols §202); Zhongdu fell on 1 June 1215. Names use familiar English spellings (Genghis Khan = Chinggis Khaan; Zhongdu = medieval Beijing). Some scenes are cinematic reconstructions of documented events. All quotes, dates, and sources are historically verified. #history #mongols #genghiskhan #historyshorts #documentary