Late in the 12th century a young nomadic tribeswoman goes into labor under on the Mongolian Steppe. Some claim that this woman’s child came into our world gripping in his fist a ball of coagulated blood, foreshadowing the millions of deaths that would soon follow. Upon his birth, the child was given the name, Timujin. If that name seems unfamiliar to you, it is probably because this child would eventually come to have a different name, a name rivaled maybe only by Jesus of Nazareth in terms of its attributed misery and murder. This child would come to be known as Genghis Khan and his birth marks the beginning of an era that, that by its end, would bring about the violent death of more than 10% of the Earth's population. On this episode, our focus is not on Genghis Khan himself. Instead, we’ll be talking about the man who served as the Khan's right hand. A general in the Mongolian army who was unnaturally gifted in the arenas of war and wartime subterfuge. A man who, when unleashed...