The Mongols Conquered China in 70 Years They Lost It in 90

The Mongols built the largest land empire in human history. They took China in 70 years. They lost it in 90. Their grandfather had predicted it. How did a steppe tribe of one million people conquer a country of fifty million, hold it for less than a century, and lose it to an illiterate peasant from a Buddhist monastery? Because Genghis Khan was right about his grandsons. In this video, we trace the Yuan dynasty from Temüjin's birth on the eastern steppe through the conquest of the Jin, the destruction of the Song, the Pax Mongolica that opened Eurasian trade, the Yellow River flood that broke the dynasty's mandate, and the peasant rebel who chased the great-great-great-grandson of Kublai Khan back to the desert his ancestors had ridden out of.