Eastern hemisphere--1200 AD--map

The best historical fiction of the Mongols from Genghis to Kublai Khan with events in all these places is still the Genghis Series by Conn Iggulden. I started with Bones of the Hills.

The Mongols had the largest empire in history--Pretty amazing.

Present would-be "conqueror" can't even sit a horse, was never in army,let alone in combat.

The most impressive campaign took place after Genghis had died, when his star general--Tsubodai, orchestrated battles of 3 different divisions arriving in Kievan Rus and Hungary on the same days--

before airplanes- before wireless, radio, Signal, before anything but horses.

Now that's impressive. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/East-Hem_1200ad.jpg

You should also read Secret History of the Mongols--a contemporaneaous document in poetry, written in Uigher Turk, and transcribed in Mandarin--

which would be like me writing Burmese--say Nay Pyi Taw --in Roman script like this.

I go back and read the Secret History very often--

The horse culture, the steppe culture is very vivid here, all the different colors of horses, horses can't bet too thin, their bellies must be down to the grass,

How Yesugai, Genghi's father abducted his mother, how she cried--and so on--

It's all as vivid as the family history your story-telling grandmother never told you.

Kyi May Kaung

4-13-2025