Lesson video

Hello, this is Mr Cooper tuning in for your third of four lessons on the inquiry, How Did the Mongols Create a World Empire? It was pretty big and you will hopefully remember that from the last lesson.

So today we're going to be looking at how having created this huge empire, how do they hold it together? How was that possible? So there's all these different things that the Mongols did in order to achieve that, and we'll be looking at that these different things in today's lesson.

So same thing again and again and again piece of paper, date of whatever day you're doing this lesson on, title, underline both, hide your phone, put it away don't want to see it.

You don't need to see it.

Then you can focus on this lesson.

So when you've done that, we will start with lesson.

So simply click, restart the video and then we'll get going.

So please make sure that in your notes or your books, whatever you're using, you have this title, Controlling the Mongol Empire, underline it and then have the dates as well as I've already said.

Repeat myself endlessly, but there's a reason for it.

So pause if you need to get the date, the title down, and then we will start with the lesson.

So here we have a rather interesting image.

Now this is not from the time that the Mongol Empire existed.

It's a reconstruction based on a story that was written down by someone who visited the Mongol Empire.

So his name was William and he was a monk.

So he was a holy man.

And he was from France.

Well, the area, I think it's Northern Europe, no it wasn't France at the time.

Anyway, so this man William, he decided to go to visit the Mongol Emperor.

So Genghis had died now we're talking about a different emperor.

And he travelled all across Asia to this place called Karakorum.

Karakorum, I'll show you on a map in a moment where this place was.

And he wrote about his travels.

It was kind like a travel diary.

So he wrote down what he found when he got there.

And what he found when he got there was a very, very odd, strange place.

He was a bit rude about it.

'Cause he was familiar with Paris, this beautiful, well it wasn't beautiful the way it is now, but Paris, a big, big city in mediaeval Europe.

And he went to Karakorum and he said, "oh, it's not that impressive." But what he did find impressive, as well as seeing churches and mosques so holy places so lots of different types of religious, religious places of worship.

He also saw this well not particularly this, this is what he describes, a tree made of silver and with four fountains attached to it.

Each fountain, a different kind of alcoholic drink coming out of it.

One of these alcoholic drinks was made out of horse milk, another out of honey.

So these were the four different drinks that the Mongols really, really, liked to drink.

When the emperor, when the Khan wanted to have a drink, a bell was rung.

And the bell, the noise would come out of the top of the silver tree.

And then some slaves would start pumping or they'd start pushing this drink through the pipes from outside the palace, the pipes would then go to the top of the silver tree and out would come these alcoholic drinks into basins at the bottom of this tree.

Now there's a possibility that this isn't actually, this wasn't actually there.

It's possible that William, the monk was making it up.

However, there isn't really a good reason for him to do this because, and a lot of what he wrote can be supported by other things that have been found.

But this is just an example, of the kind of thing that you might've seen in the Mongol Empire.

So remember Temujin rewinding right back to the very beginning.

Temujin is the starving boy, he manages to unite the Mongol tribes.

He's given the title Genghis Khan He conquers this huge empire and then his successors his children and his family they continue pushing the boundaries even further.

And Karakorum becomes the heart of this empire.

And to Karakorum travel people from all over the world, from Europe, from Asia, from China, from the middle East to buy and sell things, to learn things.

The emperors want the, the Khans wanted these people to visit.

And this kind of thing, this silver tree was this that showed the power of the wealth of the khan the Mongol khan.

And this again is just a reminder.

So this is the Mongol empire in 1259, huge empire stretching right across the, right across Asia.

And again, just in the green circle, you'll see Britain, just to give you the, just to help you understand where we're talking about.

And then Karakorum where this arrow is pointing.

Now, Karakorum is no longer there, it's an abandoned, it was left to fall apart.

Remember the step was a very difficult place to live.

So when the Mongol empire collapsed, when it broke up into these four different Khanates the city also to started to fall apart.

And just to zoom in here, there are a few things that are still there that remain there.

There are some ruins that are still there, and this is one of them a stone tortoise wearing a nice neck scarf that scarf isn't from 867 years ago.

But just to give you an idea that once there was this very, very, very important city called Karakorum where the khans lived.

So first tasks, very simply, all I want you to do is work out which word goes in which space.

So you might want to copy out the paragraph, leaving some space where the gaps are, and then just work out, which bit goes where.

So pause now, and then match the words to the sentences and then restart when you're done.

So the capital city of the Mongol empire was called Karakorum.

A monk called William, visited the city and saw a tree made of silver.

Out of the tree, came four types of alcoholic drink.

It was made at the request of the Khan by a man from Paris, the capital of France.

William also wrote that he saw a church, two mosques and other temples in Karakorum.

So don't worry if you weren't able to complete that correctly, as long as you've got the correct answers now that is the main thing.

So that's the just make sure you've got that sorted in your notes, your books.

So now I'm going to talk about something called The Yasa, The Yasa.

The Yasa is a set of rules introduced by Genghis Khan to help him keep control of his followers.

So remember, we talked in the last lesson about how the empire expanded now, what happens? How do you keep control of that empire once it's expanded? And on there are many men there's over a hundred of these rules.

I've chosen four of these rules and what I'd like you to do now, we'll go through them together.

So, first one, it is forbidden under the death penalty to destroy an enemy before the commander gives permission.

Two, the soldier must have the same opportunity on the battlefield as the commander and must be allowed to keep what he has carried off provided, he has paid his share to the Khan.

Now, I want you to remember that the way the Mongol army, the Mongols fought.

How effective they were at fighting, Why they fought.

They wanted loot.

So think about that.

These rules are directed at the soldiers in the Mongol armies, on the horse, on horseback.

The ones attacking Beijing, attacking Baghdad.

Three men who are guilty of stealing a horse will be punished by death.

And their bodies will be cut into two parts.

So again, we have a rule about horses and what happens if you steal a horse.

And the last one, this is my favourite.

It is forbidden to wash clothes in running water during thunder.

Hmm, interesting one.

So what I'd like you to do is, right, so I've done the first one.

I want you to answer this question.

How did these laws these four different laws help Genghis Khan keep control? So I've done the first one, the first one, it is forbidden under the death penalty to destroy an enemy before the commander gives permission.

So clearly this rule was introduced because it made sure soldiers followed commands on the battlefields.

If they didn't follow commands, then they were at risk of being executed.

So try and do that with the next three.

Don't worry if you find this difficult, this is a difficult task, but have a go.

Why do you think that the other three rules were introduced? Why did they help Genghis Khan? So first one we've done together.

It made sure soldiers followed commands.

Two so what about this one? Well, the soldier must have the same opportunity as the commander and must be allowed to keep what he has carried off provided he has paid his share to the Khan.

Now, what this makes clear is that even if you were at the lowest rank of soldier, you could still get loot.

So if you, so it didn't matter if you were a commander, it didn't matter if you were in charge of the armies, you have the same rights if you were fighting in the Mongol armies.

Now this was a really, really effective way of keeping control, because it meant that if you were a Mongol, you wanted to keep on this man's you wanted to stay fighting for him because he treated his soldiers fairly.

Three, men who were guilty of stealing a horse will be punished by death and their bodies will be cut into two parts.

So it made sure people were less likely to steal horses, which were the most important thing to Mongols.

So just think about how we've been talking about the role horses played in the Mongol armies.

Hugely important.

And again, this rule clearly refers to that, that if you steal a horse, you are in deep trouble.

And then the last one, it is forbidden to wash clothes in running water during thunder.

It stopped people getting electrocuted by lightning.

I put that one in just as a bit of a lighthearted one, because I thought it was, I thought it was quite an amusing one.

Don't wash your clothes if you're in running water during thunder.

So that's yeah, that's just a little bit of fun.

And now we are going to do what we've done many times before, which is comprehension questions.

So five questions, and this is what you're going to in a moment.

You're going to close, you're going to pause this video.

You're going to go to the next part of this lesson.

You're going to read through the slides, and then you're going to answer these five questions in full sentences in your books, your notes.

And then when you've done that, you're going to return to this video and we will answer these questions together.

So pause the video now, read the slides on the next page and answer the comprehension questions and then resume once you're finished.

So, first question, what was The Yasa? Acceptable answer a law code.

The good answer, The Yasa was the law code introduced by Genghis Khan to control his empire.

Full sentence, clearly answering the question.

Two, what was Genghis Khan's view of a person's religion? Acceptable answer, he didn't mind.

Good answer, Genghis Khan let the people, he conquered continue to worship their own religion provided they accepted that he was in charge.

So the key thing here Genghis Khan didn't really mind, and this was a big deal because it meant that people could get on with their lives.

They they probably would have met the Mongols when they tried to attack, and then they might not have seen the Mongols ever again.

And this meant that they could, that this was a really effective way of controlling the empire with The Yasa, these clear rules for the Mongols.

And then also this clear, this allowing people to continue to worship how they wish provided that they accepted Genghis Khan was in charge.

What was The Yam? The Yam so acceptable answer a messaging network, good answer, The Yam was the communications network that Genghis Khan set up that allowed him to send messages across the empire very quickly.

Kind of like a relay race.

I don't know if you've ever done that in sports day or P.

E.

One, person's carrying the Baton.

He runs up to the next person who takes the baton he then runs up to the next person who gives it to the next person.

And this allows for messages to be kind of like baton gets right the way round very quickly so you can sprint really, really fast.

Then you get really exhausted, you pass it on.

And this is kind of what happened.

This is the similar kind of way The Yam network worked in the Mongol empire, which meant that if there was a problem at one part of the empire, then that message could be sent very quickly to the other side of the empire.

Four, what did having a paiza mean? Safety.

Good answer.

Having a paiza meant that a person could travel across the Mongol empire without needing to fear being attacked or put prison.

So the paiza was a medal.

Was a medal that you would carry with you at all times.

And it would give whoever was holding it protection throughout the Mongol empire.

Now again, remember the red area on that map that showed how big the Mongol empire was.

It was huge.

So the ability to travel across this empire, if you had a paiza was a very big deal.

And it meant that yeah, it meant the messages could be travelled very, very quickly transported very quickly across the whole, across most of Asia.

Last question.

How did Genghis Khan keep his soldiers loyal? Acceptable answer, by promoting them.

Good answer.

Genghis Khan kept his soldiers loyal by giving them promotions when they impressed him.

He also found new sources of booty or loot for them by invading other kingdoms and empires.

So when we're talking about how did the empire, how did Genghis Khan keep control of the empire? Well, we have this communications network, The Yasa We have the, sorry The Yam.

We have the Yasa this law code, these rules that the Mongols had to follow.

We have this, we have the Khan allowing people to left to worship what they want to worship.

And we have a very effective way of allowing people if they were good at what they did to get promotions.

So this gave people a reason to stay loyal.

So last bit writing activity, how did Genghis Khan keep control of his empire? So we are going to together answer this question.

Historians do two things, they read and they write.

So we've done some reading, and now we're going to do some writing.

And I don't want you to be spending more than 10 minutes maximum on this task and I will guide you through it.

So don't worry if you're a bit sort of concerned about how long it's going to take.

So similar thing to what I've done, previous lessons.

I want you to pause here now, and I want you to write down the sentences that will help you answer a question about how Genghis Khan kept control of his empire.

Eight sentences, not all of them will help you answer this question.

So pause here and then restart when you're done.

So on the screen you have now five sentences that I think would be useful for you writing the answer, the answer to this question.

Make sure you've got these five sentences written down.

Now, I also want you to realise that in this lesson, we've covered a huge amount.

So if you've been paying attention and we are now able to write this question.

So what these five sentences in your books is going to do, is allowing you to write a good, a good paragraph.

So have a go, get these down, and then we will continue with the lesson.

And as we did in the last lesson, how did Genghis Khan keep control of his empire? Well, first question, first sentence has to clearly answer the question.

One way that Genghis Khan kept control of his empire was, and then we have to explain what we mean by that first sentence.

So we've got these two sentence starters.

This meant that.

It allowed him to, and then if we've got another idea, then we can also write those down.

So we've got these five sentences that we just wrote down from the previous slide.

Now turn those sentences into a paragraph answering this question.

Don't spend more than five or 10 minutes max on this.

And don't worry if you find this difficult, because this is difficult.

If you, I said it, I it say all the time, if you found this easy, you would not need to be doing this lesson.

So practise, practise, practise, and you will gradually get better.

I know that you will get better at this because I've seen it happen with my students in the real world.

If you practise, you get better.

So have a go.

And when you're done, pause now and write what you can, and then that will bring us to the last part of our lesson.

So I'd love to see the work you're producing, not compulsory, but if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Again not compulsory, but I would love to see the work that you're producing.

So that brings us to the end of Lesson Three of four lessons in this inquiry, looking at the Mongol empire.

I hope you've found it interesting.

I hope the lessons are generally interesting.

I mean I find them interesting but then I'm a history teacher so it'd be weird if I didn't find them interesting.

I will see you next time for the Lesson Four the last about four lessons.

And don't forget the quiz.

There's always a little quiz just to make sure that the stuff you've done today, stuck in your head.

That is the goal of what we're doing here to make sure that you've got this interesting stuff in your brains.

So see you next time.