What if the Mongol Empire Never Existed? 

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The Mongols changed so much in so many places that they're basically the human series reboot force.

My favorite thing about the fall of the Rum Sultanate is that it was genuinely hilariously petty. Rum was *willing* to pay tribute and even approached the MONGOLS with the offer, the Mongols asked if he could do it in person and the Sultan just told them he wouldn't be able to do it in person, due to the distance. The messenger then left to pass on the message and the Sultan continued on and thought nothing of it. Then the Mongols showed up with an army.

Genghis Khan really was like "if you shoot the messenger, you're going to wish I only shot you."

You forgot the most important ramifications of Genghis Khan being out of the picture: West Germany’s entry in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest would have been significantly less memorable.

*I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Genghis’s descendants cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.*

Cody being part Canadian is actually the most horrific thing in this video.

If anything, Genghis Khan existing was a defining moment for our planet's history. Crazy that he really came from the backwater steep with nothing but minor tribes bickering and next to actual regional powers that were just grinding each other down,

Genealogy sponsorship on a Genghis Khan video is too good

cody absolutely needs to do a "what if the black plague never existed" after teasing us with it at the end, the black plague has always weirded me out, like nature server wiped half the planet in the middle ages and cherry picked the bloodlines of our modern day its fucking scary 0_0

Genghis Khan was basically the Thanos of the middle ages.

as a georgian (yes the country) this is the saddest a video of yours has ever made me. thanks cody.

So what you're saying is that several states were entering the Golden Age arc when the Mongols came in with a bunch of editorial changes and turned it into the Mongols Win vs Everyone arc instead.

And there goes 5% of the world population’s ancestry

I think the funniest thing about the Mongol rampage over Europe is that it wasn't even a proper campaign army. The empire was busy rampaging elsewhere, and Ghengis Khan wanted a scouting report on the lands in the West before a "proper" invasion, so he gave his best general Subutai three Tumen (30,000 men) and told him to go figure out what's out there and bring back whatever plunder they can. Turns out, it was states that had much smaller armies than they expected.

"Cities you've never heard of" You underestimate my power

Fun fact: There's actually an alternate history timeline called the "Chaos Timeline" with this exact premise- Genghis Khan dies in 1200 after falling off his horse, and so, the Mongol Empire never comes to be. I'd recommend checking it out if you're interested!

I'm American, but because of a single Indian ancestor in the 1600s, I can trace my family tree back to Chengis Khan

I should be note that the reason why Gheghis has so much descendant was mainly due to him lived 800 years ago and his linage split and spread across the world follow his death as the Empire was divided. Also the research that started the meme about Gheghis Khan is the ancestor of 5% of humanity was actually a research into a gene that came from Mongolia and spread across Asia. They manage to trace the origin back to the time frame around Ghenghis time and he as the most famous Mongolian common ancestor during that time.

Almost makes me sad. Imagine how many potentially great people were killed before they got the chance to achieve insane goals.

Kicking Genghis Kahn in the balls as a kid to see what would happen in the future is the most chaotic response to what would you do if you had a time machine

19:44 Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz jumpscare for the non-poles

"If you want to reshape the world, just be really good at horseback riding and shooting arrows." I feel there's a Legend of Zelda joke in there somewhere

This topic ABSOLUTELY deserves a part 2!

Without Genghis Khan, there’s no Ottoman Empire. Without the Ottoman Empire, European nations don’t have to look for alternate routes to India. Without that, the American continent isn’t discovered, at least nowhere near as quickly.

I do just want to point out the comment about the library of alexandria - we didnt really loose that much. It was already declining in its use and a lot of the information was in other libraries already. Yes it was awful to lose it, but its not nearly as devastating as its always made out to be

Something tha'ts worth adding to the situation in Poland, is that without the battle of Legnica Silesian Piasts could potentially reconsolidate the kingdom and keep Silesia in Poland, which could mean weaker Teutonic Order, so the christianization of the Baltics and Lithuanian conquests go very differently, as well as without the rise of Kuyavian Piasts, Casimir III does not make a deal for his nephew Louis of Hungary to leave the kingdom to Louis's daughter Jadwiga which means no marriage to Jogaila, no Krewo Union and no Commonwealth.

Georgia is one of the greatest cultures that could have been. An immense shame and what would have been a powerful representative of a language family so unlike all others

Ghengis Khan was really the main character of the world. 😂

"The great man effect is a pretty outda-" I JUST READ CRIME AND PUNISHMENT? HOW DID YOU KNOW? ARE YOU IN MY CLOSET???

5:24 Background baby certainly agrees about how significant this is. Good video, and hello background baby!

Today's Fact: The 'Green Children of Woolpit' legend from the 12th century involves the discovery of two children with green skin in a Suffolk village, with no clear explanation for their origins.

It is unimaginable how influential he got to the world stage. Can't think of another person in the history of human civilization that can be equal or even close

I guess this is the closest thing we can ever get about "What if Ymir Fritz left King Fritz gets assassinated" for sure.

6:46 The Song did have a huge military that was superbly armed and technologically probably the most advanced militaries in the world at the time and the Song government spent around 50% of their annual budget on the military. However the Song Government had a really fun little tendency to constantly shoot itself in the foot when it was doing well (see the story of Yue Fei, who was executed due to factional rivalries while he was allegedly on the verge of crushing the Jurchen Jin and driving them back) or alternatively order military expeditions at the worst possible times that ended in failure, due to its factionalism and general (not unfounded) distrust of the military. The Song's success in a world without the Mongols to become more like the Tang would be through a mix of diplomacy and military power, because while they had plenty of skill in both they were really bad at using them together and usually the diplomats and generals were at odds over how things should be done (again, see Yue Fei).

me rediscovering this channel and binging it the past 3 days payed off well

The history of the Mongol empire is just so fascinating to me. Yeah it’s a lot of bloodshed and conquering but the influence they had and the way they did things was just so unique. When they invaded people it always sounds like an alien invasion. I saw another comment in a different video mention that their threats were akin to the “resistance is futile” message aliens would send.

3:44 sure bro, I'll check *insert link* out

The Byzantine Empire refered to as Roman cosplayers is hilarious 11:24

That description of Zheng was top notch 👌

The biggest change without the mongols are being the native people conquered by them as many artifacts and paintings like white pottery from China and combining it with blue dye from Iran wouldn’t have existed. Simply these paintings and artifacts wouldn’t have been merged from different cultures. For the Mongols on their part, their only legacy was conquering and being a massive empire. The mongols never invented new technologies or written any books or try to spread their language. They simply conquered and assimilated.

I love his backstory reviews before he gets into the alternate timeline

As an iranian I got to say we use the word Mongol as a synonyme for barbarian/savage sorry if it feels mean but they could have not decimated almost all the population :)

I feel that if you made one of these videos every week for an entire year you’d only have begun to scratch the surface of the ways in which Khan changed the world. Great video and fantastic research as always. This was a great topic and not to mention quite original as well.

People go on and on about how disastrous the destruction of the Library of Alexandria was on scholarship, but when you consider that most of the books in the library were copied under order of Ptolmey and the copies were given to the owners (traders and anyone who came through Alexandria) and the originals were kept in the library (without the owners knowledge). So most of the books and scrolls there had copies circulating

I think you're missing the point completely with regards to Japan. By the time the Yuan invasion of Japan happened, Japan was already too far gone down that road, Kublai just pushed them a little further down the road they were already going. At the time of the invasion, the Japanese government had split into two. It was what's now called the Kamakura period. After the Genpei war, the officially recognised Japanese government was still hanging around in Kyoto but they were so mired in bureacracy and ritual that they didn't really do a lot of ruling. Meanwhile the military shogunate ruled from the city of Kamakura. This was happening because of various clans squabbling over power, and when the Minamoto clan couldn't gain power over the imperial family, they created their own parallel royal family in Kamakura to give them power. After the founder of the Shogunate died, the Houjou clan tried to muscle in and declare themselves regent. You can see that this is rapidly spiralling out of control. No, Japan's slide towards militarism and isolationism was as a result of the feuding of Samurai clans, not outside influence. Also I think you're wrong with your assertion that the Mongols didn't end the Islamic golden age. Yes the Kingdoms of Islam were in a bad place anyway and would collapse, but I will maintain that had they done so, new ones would have risen and Islam would have recovered. What you got instead was a bunch of traumatised theocrats going "Oh god, if Allah can go into the console and type 'Spawn Mongol_horse_archer 100000' whenever we do something wrong, that means that there's nothing we can gain from the study of reality that Allah can just change" That severely stunted Islamic science. That is what ended the Islamic golden age.

A vid on if the Sino-Soviet split never happened or was patched up in the 70s would be megakino

16:09 No. The Kievan Rus by this point was way more feudal than in say 900s. Different principalities were inherited by others, not conquered. Had the mongols not invaded, I could see the rus being fragmented for a while, just like the HRE, before eventually one principality reunites it thanks to great diplomacy.¨ Also by 1206, there wasnt a strong Byzantium, so no, Byzantines wouldnt have influence on the rus.

One of the most plausible and scarely impactful alternate histories

I don't think Caesar counts. The republic was incredibly dysfunctional already. Look at Sulla. Cicero even worried that no matter the outcome of the first civil war, rome would be left with a king in all but name.

13:50 The only Norse people in Russia were members of the ruling dynasty but only in name. The rest of the people were Slavs.

Interesting to note Genghis only had less than ten kids who survived to adult hood. Which for the time is REALLY low. It's just the kids went on to inherit his massive empire and resources and proceeded to sow enough oats that all of the Eastern world is still enjoying the bounty.

As someone with Georgian ancestry, would love to see a sequel to this about what if Georgia survived! I wholeheartedly support an individual video on each region hahaha!

This is amazing you should definitely make this into a mini series, with an episode dedicated for each of those regions that were heavily affected by the Mongols.

It's amazing how Khan had somewhere between 200 and 300 kids yet he has as many descendants today as Charlemagne who had 10.

I've been a subscriber for 10 years ever since I was 12 years old I'm 22 now😅 but I'm happy to see how far of you in your RU-vid career😊

Around 3:52 you hear a cat or cats meowing in the background how cute

A separate video on Bela IV and the Kingdom of Hungary sounds like an awesome idea.

The way I look at the "Great Man Theory" is that it is a misinterpretation of probability. There were a lot of "right place, right time" stories of heroes because those people had essentially won the lottery when it came to historical influence, if no one wins that lottery then the passage of time "prints more winning tickets and burns them all when the lottery is over". In that way you could say that historic events involving countless people are equivalent to everyone getting the "$5 prize" on their scratch ticket, meaning that it was already very likely and they had still won back double what they paid, but very few had been lucky enough to be remembered as individual figures even if the changes they made were of monumental significance.

Really can’t believe I’ve been watching your channel for nearly 10 years, I discovered your channel when I was 12?! And now I’m 21, truly an insane journey thank you for the dope history content!

Another interesting change. No Mongol Empire means no Tamerlane, no Tamerlane means possibly a large part of the Middle East and Central Asia remains Christian. For over a thousand years the Church of the East was spread across the Middle East, India, Central Asia and China. Tamerlane's brutal campaigns and the Black Death are seen as major causes for the collapse of the Church of the East. If the Mongol Empire had never been founded its not impossible a significant percentage of Asia would still follow the Church of the East instead of small remnant of Iraqi Assyrians and Indians in Kerala today.

"which doesn't even include the black plague" "Which doesn't even include the destabilization of European feudalism" "Which doesn't even include the Spanish colonization of the new world" "which doesn't even include the sread of Western diseases to the new world" "Which doesn't even include the slave trade." "Which doesn't even include European industrialization." "which doesn't even include the scramble for Africa." "Which doesn't even include WWI." "Which doesn't even include WWII." Nice going Ghengis.

You have become on of my all time favorite channels thank you for the well made quality content

What if Genghis Khan't?

nomad empires are like an update for stagnating empires

Studying the impacts of the Mongol Empire through the textbook to prepare for the AP World test ❌ Watching this video where the Mongol Empire never existed so that I can learn the impacts of the Mongols thanks to Alternate History Hub ✅

Fire vid as usual cody, keep up the great work 😊

Hungary already massively altered Europe (they raided literally everything everywhere and beat the HRE multiple times), and was continuing to rise in power until all of a sudden it just got yeeted and eventually ended up as a subject of the austrians, who hungary had previously conquered. I so would want a video about if that didn't happen.

I think for india things would change in sense that with decline of Delhi (jaunpur, bahmanis , malwa , gujrat, kutch ... Other 30 states declared independence from decaying Delhi sultanate) sone governors started their own muslim Dynasty which made them prey to Rising Rajputana forces (except bahmanis) Rajput under mewar 2 times rose and conquered back rajasthan and central india 2 times . Ironically one of reason they did it fast was bcz they realised one of reason they lost to invading afgni-turkic forces bcz of their better horses and they bred one of best indian horses for generations . When Delhi sultanate was collapsing. Rana defeated sultans of gujrat, malwa ,delhi and some small hindu city states and reached it zenith . Only to loose to babur cannons even then most of Rajputana was free from Mughals but rana was assinated by his own nobels (just like his father rana khumba who ironically also defeated gujurat, malwa and delhi sultanates and those same city states lol) . So without babur in north rajputs will be biggest power and sun sets on delhi ,in south Vijayanagar empire under Raja Krishna devraya and deccan under bahamanis and east under bengal sultanate. Without some other outside force i doubt these border will change for atleast few decades and may end up being unending skirmishes (like under umyaad and bordering Grujara prathiara empire) . So regional identies would be even more entrenched.

fun fact: the mongols also spread their cuisine around the lands they conquered, and they evolved over time into their own different foods. so, without the mongol empire, the world would be without tartare, samosas, pierogis, and even baklava! (the last one is a bit of a debate)

In Indonesia, the Mongols were indirectly responsible for aiding the nascent Raden Vijaya in defeating the remnants of Singasari and unifying much of Java; creating Indonesia's largest empire, Majapahit. Without the Majapahit Empire, I could see Islam taking hold far faster and the Hindu kingdoms disintegrating, perhaps there might be another Indonesian Empire but an Islamic one

Genghis Khan reads like someone min maxing a Paradox game on their 500th playthrough of it

5:24 The kiddo screaming in the background. I forgot you’re a dad.

What if you went back in time and killed an important person? Albert Einstein: "First time?"

I still hold to the idea that the industrial revolution and modern civilization would never have happened, at least leading to how we know it, had Genghis Khan never existed.

This is a much more interesting scenario than the "what if Hitler died as a baby?" one that so many people like to speculate on, because in this case a lot of things genuinely did rest on one specific person. With the Nazis, Hitler was largely just the guy put in charge; removing him wouldn't have done much to stop Germany from steamrolling into genocide. With the Mongol Empire, though? The whole thing is such a camel through a needle's eye that it almost definitely wouldn't have happened, at least not to anywhere near the same extent, if this one guy wasn't in the picture.

So, the Mongols are essentially what led to the rise of "western" Europe over "eastern "Europe? It seems like without them the Balkans, the Caucasus, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary etc. could have become dominant over the 2nd millenium instead

Ok now we need a "You're Welcome" Moana parody but it's Genghis Khan

Tbh the impact of the Mongol invasion of Poland in 1241 was much more significant. At that time, Poland was fragmentated, there was no such thing as a polish kingdom, only minor principalities ruled by the Piasts. It started with the fact that the Polish ruler, Bolesław III Wrymouth had 5 sons, so he came up with the idea of ​​dividing the country between them. He wanted to maintain the stability so he created a set of rules and the title of senior-prince (princeps) who was to lead this "confederation of Piast principalities" - I will not go into details. The plan was quite good, but unfortunately the division of the principalities intensified, and principate officially fell in 1227. From then on, many Piast princes wanted the title of unifier and king of Poland. Unfortunately, there was constant turnover on the throne of Kraków. At the time of the Mongol invasion, the strongest polish principality was Silesia, which controlled about 50% of the country. There were many indications that it would be the Silesian Piasts who would unite the country. Duke Henry II the Pious faced the Mongols near Legnica, where he literally lost his head. It is highly probable that Poles would have united much faster and perhaps they would have pursue their political orientation towards the west rather than the east. Well, after unification Rus were an way easier target for Poland than Brandenburg, Bohemia, Teutonic Order, etc. and that's because of the Mongols - again.

As a Georgian this is the timeline we most dream of! The never ending Golden age, taking our place as the protectorate of all Christians in western Asia! But alas. What's even more sad, is that we managed to reamerge after the break of Mongol empire, starting the short lived silver age, but then Timur the Lame came and declared Jihad on all Georgians and other Christians in Caucasus, campaigning 8 times, loosing first few but winning through sheer numbers. P.s. It's king Tamar, she was our king and the main ruller. We don't have gendered language.

What if Harambe was never shot?

The only badasss guy whose surname was included in both Star Trek and Mortal Kombat.

20:12 Ah yes the great dinasty of baklava! (I was eating some earlier today)

Fun fact:The mongol army was mostly made of kipchak turks and tatar turks even before china was invaded

Hell Yeah, Mongolia I did my college finale on the Mongol Empire. They refused to accept it or give me credit for the class since I "failed" to fill out this one form. After that, I cut my loses and Dropped out. But I'm still really glad I took that class because the Mongols are really cool.

If anything this video may be an understatement. I believe there are good arguments that the damage the Mongols caused opened the door to the rise of Western European hegemony in the long term.

This video deserves a part 2

Cody, I’m Canadian-American and I find it hilarious how you have lineage to the great moose up north.

You being part Canadian makes so much sense, that's why you look like the Canadian guys from South Park

"Cities you've never heard of before..." *Laughs in EU4*

Constantinople and by extension the Byzantines could still very much fall by the hands of Rum due to the following reasons -Military and strategy wise the Ottomans and Rum were very similar if not the same -Going west and taking over the Byzantines to become Rome wasn't something that the Ottomans came up with, it was literally borrowed from the Seljuks and Rum ("Rum" literally means "Rome" in old Turkish) -Rum was already pretty much slapping the Byzantines left and right, so removing the Mongols might actually make the Byzantines life span even shorter My point is that the Ottoman Empire was just a continuation of the Sultanate of Rum, not entirely its own thing

destruction of the library of alexandria is generally not considered that big a loss due to it being in such horrible decay by the time it was burnt and that the majority of its books were either commonplace in other libraries or decayed already.

LING LIVE KHAN (please come to Australia)

America’s Georgia: (breathes) Cody: “NOT YOUUU”

This would be such a good premise for a hoi4 mod.

Great men dont usually push history... except for Ghengis. **Queues Crashcourse Mongol-tage**

I think you're wrong on Japan. By the time of the Mongol Invasion, Japan was already firmly in the hands of the samurai since the Genpei War. The Mongol Invasion didn't change that, it only created more instability by creating discontent (which fueled later wars, but they were bound to happen at some point anyway). The biggest consequence would probably be that Japan would skip the Kenmu Restoration, meaning the Hojo would maybe stay in power a little bit longer. Also Japan wouldn't have been more "open". Its relationship with China was always one of trade/closing, with Japan being eager to trade with China to get their hands on luxury Chinese goods and Chinese coins, only for China to stop trading with Japan much later (which is why the Shimazu eventually conquered the Ryukyu Kingdom). In fact, the Japanese were so eager to trade with China that they kept trading with the Yuan Dynasty even after the two invasion attempts! (if anything, it's the Yuan Dynasty who hurt that trading relationship by "punishing" Japan with high tariffs)

Once, the many nations lived in "harmony" but everything changed when the Mongol nation attacked.

I've really noticed how much your history skills have improved over the years. Your perspectives and analysis are much more informed now and you still manage to make it entertaining. I really appreciated how you managed to throw in some lessons about how history is viewed and formed in this as well that a lot of people who don't study it at a college level never get taught. It's just really refreshing to see a very responsible and informed historian present history because there's too many people spreading conspiracies and nonsense nowadays.

To summarise: The Song Empire reunites, after taking over the Jin dynasty, and Japan remains open and trades with China. The great centers of learning in the Middle East and Central Asia stay alive. The Ottoman Turks never come to power, and Russia never unites (though Kiev still has a larger sphere of influence. Georgia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland stay alive, and become much more powerful. Bulgaria takes over Constantinople and the Eastern Balkans, and Poland stays united and strong. Other implications/questions: In one of Stakuyi's videos, he mentions how the Black Death was spread by the Mongols, and thus ended up causing the fall of the feudal system. Without the spread of the Black Death, and the success of the centers of learning in Central Asia, does the Renaissance start in Central Asia or India, while Europe remains a backwater? Is there still a Greek state, or is OTL Greece split between the Venetian and Genoese merchant republics and Bulgaria? Does Albania still exist? Does Poland (/Lithuania?) spread farther east, perhaps eventually taking on the shape of OTL Russia, since the Russians never unite? And most relevant of all: does the Indian spice trade to Europe still get cut off, without the Ottomans to do so? I.e. do the Europeans still get to the Americas first, or would it be China or Japan? Perhaps with Bulgaria occupying Constantinople and Venice and Genoa still kicking around in Greece, the spice trade still flows to Europe, and the incentive of Europeans to colonize is reduced. This is a FASCINATING scenario, I hope we get more of it!