After a hiatus of 5 years I am back behind the mic, reading through many different resources and trying to work out how best to tell the story of the rise of the Mongol Empire. During my time out I have continued to build on my collection of Mongol-related books and retained a strong interest in the subject, which is why we are back today picking up from where I left off in 2021.
Episode 16 is the first of three episodes where we will explore the Oyirat, Qarluq, Qirghiz and Uyghur. The link between these groups is that they were added to Chinggis Khan’s growing empire between the years 1206 and 1211, and have very little information about them in our primary sources. Technically these four were not the first campaigns beyond the steppe undertaken by the Mongols after the Quriltai, that honour falls to Xi Xia – however Xi Xia has so much material that it warrants its own episodes laying out the sequence of events leading to the state’s submission to Chinggis.
Like so many episodes of this podcast, my aims when embarking on research are usually warped out of recognition by the time I have finished. In this case I was not planning on doing a deep dive of these groups and certainly not planning to write three episodes that some might consider to have only a tenuous link to the Mongols; however, I came away from my research with the impression that the early history of these groups had a strong influence on the rise of the Mongols and so re-telling their stories would add context to the main narrative. After all, the people conquered by the Mongols weren’t two-dimensional caricatures so we should try our best to add depth to them.
In terms of conquest, the order goes thus:
• 1207 the Qirghiz submit.
• 1208 the Oyirat submit.
• 1209 the Uyghur submit.
• 1211 the Qarluq submit.
As these episodes will show, the submission of these groups required little to no bloodshed on either side and may have come about more by accident then by design, with the Mongols clearly operating on limited knowledge in the west.
To aid our comprehension of these states I will be producing a map or two, which will be released with Episode 17.
Due to the world being as it is, the only route to contact me now is via email, so if you want to get in touch this is the address you will need:
I hope you enjoy Episode 16, and until next time, take care and thanks for listening!