Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 476, To Have My Deeds Known.

Today, I want to tell a story about one of the most unique sources I've ever encountered

and what we can learn from it about a complicated moment in Japanese history.

The source in question is the Molko Shura'e e Kotoba, roughly illustrated account of the Mongol invasion,

which is, well, more or less what it says.

There is an excellent translation out there in English, produced by Dr. Thomas Conlin,

and if you're at all interested in the period, I highly recommend checking it out.

So, first and foremost, we should

probably refresh ourselves on the Mongol invasions of Japan. Some time around 1162, a boy,

named Temujin, was born to Yasuge, a chieftain of the Borgiguan clan of Mongols, a nomadic

people eking out in existence on the Eurasian

Step. Temujin's early life is not well documented. What we have comes from substantially later

sources that are of dubious accuracy. We can be fairly certain, however, that by the 1190s,

Temujin had succeeded in unifying most of the Mongol tribes

under his leadership.

Within the next few years, he defeated major rival step tribes in the form of the Tatar's,

Jurchins, and Naimans.

As a result in 1206, he was proclaimed Chingis Khan, or anglicized Genghis Khan, roughly universal ruler, by his fellow Mongols.

Most of us are, I imagine, familiar with what comes next.

By the time the great Khan himself died in 1224, he already ruled over a massive empire forged by the military

prowess of Mongol horsemen, and by his own carefully refined approaches to tactics and military

organization. That empire stretched from northern China well into Central Asia, and his forces

...