Lesson video

Hello this is Mr. Cooper tuning in for your second lesson of this four lesson inquiry looking at the Mongol Empire.

So in the last lesson we looked at who Genghis Khan was, Genghis Khan, sorry and where he came from, and what he did, and now we're going to be looking at how the empire expanded, got bigger and bigger and bigger because it got really, really big.

There's some gruesome stuff in this lesson, but it's fine, we'll get through it.

So could you do the following.

Piece of paper or your books, date of whatever day it is that you're doing this lesson on, title, underline both, and hide your phone.

Maybe hide your phone before you do anything, in fact.

Leave it over there.

Well not over there specifically, but put it somewhere far away.

And then when you've done that, restart the video and we will get going with today's lesson.

So what I'd like you to do now, just to make sure that we're ready for this lesson, as I've already told you, hide your phones, and then make sure you've got the date, title, the title being the expansion of the Mongol empire, so today be looking at what happened once Temujin had united the Mongol tribes, where did he then go.

So, pause now, and remember you can pause at any point just to make sure you've got everything down, pause now, just make sure that you've got this title in your books and then we will start with the lesson.

So, I'm going to tell you about one of the most famous or infamous, because it was such a horrible thing that happened, one of the most infamous moments in the history of China.

So, Temujin, now Genghis Khan, decided that he wanted to take on the ancient kingdoms or the ancient dynasties, its a word you'll read shortly, in China.

These kingdoms had been attacking the Mongols for many many years, so Genghis Khan decided that enough was enough.

In fact, the relationship between the Mongols and these dynasties had been so bad that they built, the Chinese built the great wall of China.

You might've seen pictures of this before, to stop the Mongols invading.

What did Genghis do? Well, he just rode his horses, led his armies around the great wall of China, and he arrived outside the city of Beijing.

Beijing is now the capital city of China, it's bit was an important city, a very important city in the Jin kingdom, and there were big walls around the city of Beijing.

So, what did the Mongols do? Well, you'll see on the screen, that the Mongols obviously were very effective horse riders, bows and arrows, and you see them attacking an army there, so there was a bit of a problem, because a horse isn't particularly useful for getting through a very thick, tall wall which is what surrounded Beijing.

So what did Genghis do? Well, he decided to lay siege to Beijing so he surrounded the city, and he didn't let anyone in or out, until the people of Beijing were so desperate that they gave in, they surrendered.

Now, because they had refused to surrender, Genghis Khan wanted to make an example of them, and so he did.

Once in the city, he killed everyone.

Destroyed the city, burnt down the buildings and killed the people living there.

Very very unpleasant, and the reason he did this was because he wanted to send a message.

The message he wanted to send was that if you refused to obey, to surrender, to give up, when Genghis Khan and his armies were on their way, you were in deep trouble, so this is what then started to happen, and it lead to the creation, to the expansion of the Mongol empire.

It was a very, very, very violent process.

So just to remind us, before we continue with the lesson, we have on the screen, the timeline that I showed you in the last lesson, which is, the last two thousand years, present day 2020, first century, Jesus was born, Roman empire falls, Around 476, well the Western Roman empire falls in 476 Battle of Hastings 1066, Henry the Eighth crowned, 1509 and right between those two things, was the rise of the Mongol empire.

So, Beijing destroyed 1215 you might've done a lesson on Magna Carta with King John.

So that same year, on the other side of the world Genghis Khan was destroying the town of Beijing.

So, I've already shown you an image of Mongols on horseback, now you'll see something interesting here, so this was many years after Genghis Khan had died, but his successors the people that took over there continuing to push further and further into the surrounding kingdoms, the empire continues to expand.

Now this particular image, is an image of the invasion of Baghdad, so, Baghdad, very important city in the Muslim world, and Baghdad was surrounded by rivers, walls and rivers in fact.

So, the Mongol armies has a bit of a problem.

And you'll see the Mongol armies, let me just see if I can click here, so you can see, I'm circling a few things here so the Mongol armies, you can see them down there, no horses, but they do have bows and arrows, and you can actually see on the top of the walls, the city's defended, so basically there was a problem, because the Mongol armies, they were very fast they would attack, pretend to retreat, lull the people there into a false sense of security and then attack again, and then they also ran into this problem, they were encountering they were coming up against these very heavily fortified, these cities surrounded by thick walls.

And so what did the Mongol armies do? Well, they copied what they saw.

So they saw that to get into a big city you needed to have siege weapons, and these are a particular type of weapon and that one there that's a catapult.

You can't see the top there, a catapult, that's a bridge, so the bridge was built on you can actually see the tips of the boats so these were, this is an example, showing us what the Mongols did to get into Baghdad.

Now they got into Baghdad and they destroyed it.

And they did exactly the same thing they'd done, well, Genghis had done, many decades previously when they destroyed Beijing.

So Baghdad, another city destroyed by the Mongols.

And we see the bows and arrows just there, and again just to remind us that this is what the Mongols were known for, and I've already shown you this picture, on horseback, just a side note, if you look at the picture, here, it's a different style to the picture here, so the people look different, I don't know if you can see that, this is because this particular picture was made in China, perhaps even Japan, so different culture, and here this was made in the Middle East.

And let's just reflect how big the empire was.

The Mongols, the same group of people were invading and destroying cities and kingdoms across the world, across Asia.

So what I'd like you to do now just a short task, pause here and simply fill in the gaps using the words in the box below.

So, what I would suggest you can do is you can actually write out the paragraph leaving space for the words, and then when you've done that is simply work out which word fits in which sentence.

So this is based on what I've just told you about hopefully isn't too tricky, again, if you ever struggle, do not worry.

That is absolutely fine, I will go through the answers with you in a short moment, so have a go, pause now, have a go, and then when you've finished, restart the video.

So here we go.

The completed paragraph is as follows.

The Mongol Empire was created by Genghis Khan and his sons in a very short period of time.

He was able to do this because his armies were so fast and effective and he could travel long distances along the steppe.

Mongol soldiers fought on horseback, using bows and arrows.

They pretended to retreat to fool their enemies.

Later on, they realised they needed to build siege machines to destroy the cities they came across.

If a city surrendered, they left the people to get on with their lives.

If the city refused, then the Mongols destroyed it and the people living there.

So make sure you've got the correct words in the correct sentences, and then we will continue with the lesson.

So, thinking about the Mongol Empire, started 1206, Temujin receives the title Genghis Khan and then with his armies, with the tactics he used, the way he frightened people into surrendering he destroyed these huge towns we have the empire getting very, very big.

1279, so this is many years after Genghis had died, the empire has expanded to cover this red area.

So I'll return to the previous slide so you can really get this image clear, that red area 1206 that's Mongolia, roughly Mongolia, the area that Temujin had united, the tribes give him the title Genghis Khan and then, by 1279, the empire stretches right the way across from China, and the Pacific Ocean, all the way to the edge of Europe.

Huge, huge empire.

And then interestingly what then happens 1294, so a few years, just returning to this slide here, 1279 this is the greatest extent, this is the largest it ever gets.

It then breaks apart, into four different parts.

Now, the problem with empires when they get big is they become harder and harder to rule.

And this happened in 1294 when the Mongol Empire broke into four different areas, each area called a khanate.

So a Khan you can think of in many ways as a sort of a king or an emperor, so four different khans, and all related to Genghis, but the Mongol Empire broke into four parts.

So, 1279 and 1294 we have these four different khanates.

Each ruled by individual Mongol Khan.

So what I'd like you to do now, just another quick task, pause here, which of the following statements is true or false.

Now I'd like you to write these sentences out, because if you've just got true or false written in your notes that's not going to be very useful at all.

So, what I'd like you to do is to write out each of these sentences and then work out which is true and which is false.

Shouldn't take you too long, when you're done simply restart the lesson and I will give you the correct answers.

That doesn't mean that you should cheat.

Try not to cheat.

There's not much I can do to stop you cheating, but try not to, otherwise it's a waste of time.

Well it's not a waste of time.

Anyway, get on with it, pause here and have a go.

So, the first one, The Mongol Empire is the largest land there's a typo there, my mistake, The Mongol Empire is the largest land empire to have ever existed.

True, this is correct.

Two, the Mongol empire covered most of Asia and Europe.

False, it is false because the Mongol empire did cover most of Asia, but it only covered, it only included a small part of Eastern Europe.

Three, the Mongol Empire collapsed when Genghis Khan's successors went to war with each other.

True, this is when it fell into the four different khanates.

Four, Genghis Khan destroyed kingdoms and empires in China, Persia and Western Europe.

This is false, it was Eastern Europe, not Western Europe.

Being in control of the Asian steppe meant Mongol armies could travel fast.

True, kind of like a motorway but for horses, really bad way of putting it, but that kind of gives you the idea of how the steppe benefited the Mongols.

So, that's the, just make sure you've got this correct down and I do apologise for the typo in the first point, very embarrassing for a History teacher, to do that but there we go, we all make mistakes, don't we.

So, we're now going to do what we did and have done many times before hopefully, in a moment, you are going to do the following.

You're going to pause the video, close the video, you're going to click next at the bottom right hand corner of the screen, you're going to go to the worksheets, and you're going to read through those slides, and when you've read those slides, you're going to have a go at answering these five questions.

The five questions must be answered in full sentences, otherwise you will have no idea what your answers are about, because I'll explain this in a moment.

So, pause the video, read the slides on the next page and answer the comprehension questions.

And when you've done that, simply restart the video, and I will go through the answers with you together.

So, first question.

Now, if the answers don't look exactly like this that's fine, it's just to give you an idea of what I'm looking for.

First question, what made a Mongol leader successful? Acceptable answer, being good at fighting.

True, but I want a bit more.

So the good answer, a Mongol leader was successful when he was able to win battles and capture loot to give to his followers.

So, this is what made a Mongol leader popular.

If he can win a battle and also get hold of some loot, then this would mean he would be very popular.

And Genghis and his successors were exactly that.

Two, what made Mongol soldiers such good fighters? Acceptable answer, horses.

That is acceptable actually because it's a single word answer and I said a full sentence was really important.

Good answer, Mongol soldiers were such good fighters because they used fast and strong horses as well as bows and arrows.

This meant they could travel long distances and attack at lightning speed.

You might also have mentioned their use of siege weapons, or that they did fake retreats, so that would also have been a good thing to include.

Three, why did Genghis Khan invade China? Acceptable answer, he wanted China's wealth, he wanted China's money.

Good answer, having united the Mongol tribes, Genghis Khan wanted more land and wealth.

China was too tempting for him to resist.

So, you read about the attack on Beijing and how he gradually defeated these very powerful kingdoms and empires, and this was because he wanted more land and more wealth, and of course this relationship had been difficult between the Mongol tribes and China for a long long time, so bad that the Chinese built a giant wall across the north of the country, well this was now Genghis's opportunity to get back at them.

Four, why was Genghis Khan called "the Accursed One"? Acceptable answer, he killed lots of people.

Good answer, Genghis Khan became known as the "Accursed One" because he caused so death and destruction across Asia, so this is his rather unpleasant nickname but actually pretty well-deserved.

He was a very very violent person and caused the deaths of many many many people.

Five, last question.

Why did the Mongols cause so much destruction? Slightly trickier question, that's fine, so the acceptable answer, to scare people.

The good answer, the Mongols caused so much destruction because they wanted to make an example of anyone who didn't surrender to them.

As a result, many cities and kingdoms didn't bother trying to fight back.

So, Genghis and his successors, they wanted people to be frightened of them because if they were frightened they'd be less likely to fight, they'd just give up, they wouldn't even bother.

And this worked, lots of towns and cities and empires and kingdoms did surrender and didn't bother fighting because they were too terrified about what would happen if they fought back.

So the big question of this lesson, how did Genghis Kahn create his empire? So, we are going to answer this together, again, historians they read and they write, we've done the reading and the comprehension questions now we're going to do some writing.

So, similar thing to what we did in the last lesson, I want you to pause here, and I want you to work out which of the following statements would help you answer a question about how Genghis Khan created his empire.

There are eight sentences on the screen, and I want you to work out which of the following are useful for this question.

Now, they're all true, they're all useful bits of information that we've learnt today, but only some of them are going to help you write a short paragraph answering a question about how Genghis Khan created his empire.

So, pause now, and have a go.

So, I have identified five sentences that I think would be useful for writing a paragraph about this question, answering this question, so make sure you've got these five sentences written down in your books and then we will go to the last bit of this activity.

So, same as we did last time, how did Genghis Khan create his empire? Well, first sentence of any writing that you have to do is clearly answer the question.

So, Genghis Khan created his empire by what? How would you complete that sentence? When you've completed that sentence, thinking about what we've done in this lesson today, you then need to prove that your answer's right, so, you've got all of these bits of information, this useful information that we can now use in this paragraph and I've put some sentence starters on the screen that you might want to think about, this is because.

That is why, an example of this is, or was, if you've got another point you'd like to make, you could add in addition, Genghis Khan did what, did x did y, that is why, this is because.

So this is just for practising our historical writing, I have to do the same thing with my A-level students, and I say this all the time because I want to really make it clear that this is about practising.

If you were able to do this without thinking, then you wouldn't need to study history at school.

So, this is all about practise, all about practising and getting better and better and better.

So, have a go, pause now and have a go, don't spend more than five or ten minutes on this, five or six sentences maximum, and then we will be at the end of the lesson.

So, normally I would love to see the work that my students are producing, of course I can't because there's no one, there's literally nobody in front of me right now, so what can you do, again, just to make clear this is optional, this is not compulsory, just because I would love to see the kind of stuff that you're producing, share your work with Oak National and me.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging, at Oak National and hashtag learn with Oak.

So that brings us to the end of lesson two of four, in this particular inquiry.

I hope you found it interesting bit gruesome, I'm really sorry, there's not much I can do about that it is just a gruesome story.

But we are going to be continuing, in lesson three, starting to look at the less violent parts of the Mongol empire because there were, and we'll be looking at that next time.

So, quiz, don't forget it, only five, won't take you long, and then enjoy your day, wherever you are.