'Empire of Silver' about people who reshaped history
The cover doesn't tell you much. Just a shield and two spears. Another quick hoot about wild, martial men, I thought to myself. I picked it up only because it seemed to be set in Mongolia.
Our President Prathibha Patil was in Mongolia last week. The county is about half the size of India and probably has the least population density in the world. It hardly ever makes international news. China wants to mine Mongolia's coal and uranium. Most citizens are farmers and shepherds - not warriors.
Genghis Khan was. Many of us don't know it - but he and his sons built the largest land empire known in history. China, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hungary, Poland, Armenia, Serbia, Austria - they all fell. All of Europe would have crumbled if they'd carried on. In the 12th century, an Asian emperor terrorized and enslaved the west.
The Empire of Silver isn't about the Khan himself. It's set immediately after his death, when his sons and their sons were scrambling for power. It's fiction, not historical fact. But it does give you an alternate view of the Mongols.
Most accounts say they were ruthless barbarians - pure killing machines. They existed only to kill and loot, to burn and destroy everything in their wake. They moved like lightning, covering hundreds of kilometers in a single day, sleeping on horseback if they had to. They could hang under a galloping horses belly and still shoot arrows bang on target.
Surprisingly, The Empire of Silver doesn't really dwell on any of those nuggets. What it's trying to weave is not a tale of brawn - it's looking inside the myth, at the daily lives of people who were re-shaping world history. Fighting and dying is a mundane part of life for them.
It's the politics of the royal court, the uncertainty, the treacherousness, the emotions and relations that ebb and flow around positions of power that they grapple with. It's not something they're used to - nomads suddenly leashed to the concept of one nation, one emperor. In a state of constant flux, intellect and instinct count more than military prowess.
Maybe that would make this book accessible to female readers as well. I'd want my mom and wife to read this tale. Because it also talks about queens ruling men in a wildly macho state. While soldiers roar and chancellors scheme, it's two strong women who ultimately take the reins of power.
It's hard to understand why they collaborate and support each other. Hard to affirm if all their tactics are moral. For a male reader, it's galling when one can't predict their next move. They turn into iron when they should be most frightened, turn soft and motherly when their quarry is weakest. They're inscrutable - just like real women.
The book also winks at the myth that the Mongols were dumb hordes of barbarians. It talks about Ogedei, son of Genghis, who's even more inscrutable than the women. Who builds a glorious city, when his father only detested and burnt them. Who survives a palace coup by his own brother - yet pardons him because he knows he'd make an able ruler one day.
It talks about Tsubodai, the Mongol commander, who'd scout foreign territory for months in advance before attacking. Who'd pretend to be weak and draw out powerful enemies before turning back and ambushing them. He'd send his forces in different directions, only to come racing back in a pincer formation, squeezing the enemy from all sides. With his tactics he defeated armies even when they outnumbered him six to one.
It mentions the compact command units the Mongols had - from ten men, to ten thousand. On the battlefield, they looked like swarms of locusts. But a word from their section commanders would ripple through the ranks, letting them switch directions, feint, regroup and attack again.
Instant communication, multiple points of attack, relentless speed - they're techniques that modern armies are still learning and perfecting. Even the deadliest commandos of Europe at that time, The Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights, couldn't cope with the tricks the Mongols unleashed at them.
But the book doesn't gloat on those incidents - merely presents them as a matter of fact. What it does touch on are the quirks of human nature. The emperor knows he will die, yet he allows his own brother to be killed to appease the spirits.
The general orders the destruction of an entire city. Yet he spends the night protecting one poor girl from rape. The scholar who's life's ambition is to build a library full of the entire world's knowledge. Yet, he tries to kill a woman. The wife who's broken at the loss of her husband. Yet, who kisses a rotting king, just to bring him back to life.
There's also a fascinating little mention of the Cuman, a nomadic people like the Mongols, who once took refuge in Hungary. Their king is described as short and dark. His people are poor, they love in grubby enclaves away from the more well of Hungarians. They aren't well liked, there's racial tension between the two people.
Hungarians blame the Cumans for petty crimes and rapes - sometimes even without establishing the truth. It seemed almost like an action replay of the underlying racism in Europe today - a simmering distrust of all that's foreign and unknown.
The Cumans stay on because they need shelter from the Mongols. Hungary tolerates them because it needs extra fighters when the Mongols attack. But when the Cuman king is murdered in a petty roadside brawl, the entire nation simply packs its bags and leaves. Right from the battlefield.
It's an aching, painful moment. They leave just before the Mongols attack. Not because they're cowards. But because their pride is hurt. But the European knights spit behind them, ridiculing them, calling them goat-herders.
It's a glimpse of what happens all over, even today. The failure to understand and empathize with people. We put them into brackets, refuse to learn more about them. Talk to them. Treat them as equals. Perhaps when we do that, all wars would cease.
Author: Conn Iggulden; Book: The Empire of Silver; 400 pages; Publisher: Delacorte Press
Our President Prathibha Patil was in Mongolia last week. The county is about half the size of India and probably has the least population density in the world. It hardly ever makes international news. China wants to mine Mongolia's coal and uranium. Most citizens are farmers and shepherds - not warriors.
Genghis Khan was. Many of us don't know it - but he and his sons built the largest land empire known in history. China, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hungary, Poland, Armenia, Serbia, Austria - they all fell. All of Europe would have crumbled if they'd carried on. In the 12th century, an Asian emperor terrorized and enslaved the west.
The Empire of Silver isn't about the Khan himself. It's set immediately after his death, when his sons and their sons were scrambling for power. It's fiction, not historical fact. But it does give you an alternate view of the Mongols.
Most accounts say they were ruthless barbarians - pure killing machines. They existed only to kill and loot, to burn and destroy everything in their wake. They moved like lightning, covering hundreds of kilometers in a single day, sleeping on horseback if they had to. They could hang under a galloping horses belly and still shoot arrows bang on target.
Surprisingly, The Empire of Silver doesn't really dwell on any of those nuggets. What it's trying to weave is not a tale of brawn - it's looking inside the myth, at the daily lives of people who were re-shaping world history. Fighting and dying is a mundane part of life for them.
It's the politics of the royal court, the uncertainty, the treacherousness, the emotions and relations that ebb and flow around positions of power that they grapple with. It's not something they're used to - nomads suddenly leashed to the concept of one nation, one emperor. In a state of constant flux, intellect and instinct count more than military prowess.
Maybe that would make this book accessible to female readers as well. I'd want my mom and wife to read this tale. Because it also talks about queens ruling men in a wildly macho state. While soldiers roar and chancellors scheme, it's two strong women who ultimately take the reins of power.
It's hard to understand why they collaborate and support each other. Hard to affirm if all their tactics are moral. For a male reader, it's galling when one can't predict their next move. They turn into iron when they should be most frightened, turn soft and motherly when their quarry is weakest. They're inscrutable - just like real women.
The book also winks at the myth that the Mongols were dumb hordes of barbarians. It talks about Ogedei, son of Genghis, who's even more inscrutable than the women. Who builds a glorious city, when his father only detested and burnt them. Who survives a palace coup by his own brother - yet pardons him because he knows he'd make an able ruler one day.
It talks about Tsubodai, the Mongol commander, who'd scout foreign territory for months in advance before attacking. Who'd pretend to be weak and draw out powerful enemies before turning back and ambushing them. He'd send his forces in different directions, only to come racing back in a pincer formation, squeezing the enemy from all sides. With his tactics he defeated armies even when they outnumbered him six to one.
It mentions the compact command units the Mongols had - from ten men, to ten thousand. On the battlefield, they looked like swarms of locusts. But a word from their section commanders would ripple through the ranks, letting them switch directions, feint, regroup and attack again.
Instant communication, multiple points of attack, relentless speed - they're techniques that modern armies are still learning and perfecting. Even the deadliest commandos of Europe at that time, The Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights, couldn't cope with the tricks the Mongols unleashed at them.
But the book doesn't gloat on those incidents - merely presents them as a matter of fact. What it does touch on are the quirks of human nature. The emperor knows he will die, yet he allows his own brother to be killed to appease the spirits.
The general orders the destruction of an entire city. Yet he spends the night protecting one poor girl from rape. The scholar who's life's ambition is to build a library full of the entire world's knowledge. Yet, he tries to kill a woman. The wife who's broken at the loss of her husband. Yet, who kisses a rotting king, just to bring him back to life.
There's also a fascinating little mention of the Cuman, a nomadic people like the Mongols, who once took refuge in Hungary. Their king is described as short and dark. His people are poor, they love in grubby enclaves away from the more well of Hungarians. They aren't well liked, there's racial tension between the two people.
Hungarians blame the Cumans for petty crimes and rapes - sometimes even without establishing the truth. It seemed almost like an action replay of the underlying racism in Europe today - a simmering distrust of all that's foreign and unknown.
The Cumans stay on because they need shelter from the Mongols. Hungary tolerates them because it needs extra fighters when the Mongols attack. But when the Cuman king is murdered in a petty roadside brawl, the entire nation simply packs its bags and leaves. Right from the battlefield.
It's an aching, painful moment. They leave just before the Mongols attack. Not because they're cowards. But because their pride is hurt. But the European knights spit behind them, ridiculing them, calling them goat-herders.
It's a glimpse of what happens all over, even today. The failure to understand and empathize with people. We put them into brackets, refuse to learn more about them. Talk to them. Treat them as equals. Perhaps when we do that, all wars would cease.
Author: Conn Iggulden; Book: The Empire of Silver; 400 pages; Publisher: Delacorte Press
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