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Eurasia: the world's largest land mass.

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Some 10,000 kilometers from the Pacific
to the Atlantic ocean.

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A formidable distance, 
even in today's world.

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And yet over that vast distance,

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human beings have pursued
one of history's greatest enterprises:

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The Silk Road.

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A tremendously profitable trade route

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and so much more.

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For thousands of years,

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exotic goods,

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new technologies,

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conquering armies,

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and brilliant ideas

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traveled along the Silk Road.

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Silk Road trade helped to build empires

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and to break them.

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It fanned the fires of revolution.

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Drove great explorations,

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and forged powerful bonds
between far away peoples.

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The Silk Road made human beings realize

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that there are other people out there,

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and it opened the eyes 
of the east and the west.

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This is the story of how Silk Road trade 
made so much more than money.

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It's the epic tale of how the Silk Road
helped create a world;

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a world that created us.

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2,000 years ago, the Roman Empire
seemed unstoppable.

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Rome had conquered much of Europe

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and was sending its legions beyond
the eastern Mediterranean

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to the Middle East

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-- gateway to the riches of Asia.

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But a journey to the east 
could become a road of blood.

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In 53 BC. near the Mesopotamian
town of Carrhae,

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the Parthians — an empire blending
Persian and Greek cultures —

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confronted a Roman army.

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The outcome of the battle
seemed beyond doubt.

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Some 40,000 Romans
faced only 10,000 Parthians.

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And Rome's legions
were Europe's finest foot soldiers.

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There was just one problem.

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The Parthian army didn't fight on foot.

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The Parthians, they were cavalry.

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They were horse archers.

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Versatile. Rode like the wind.

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What the Romans did
was what the Romans always did.

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They took a fixed position.

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They were ordered into a hollow square
defending all sides.

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But that was nothing 
to the Parthian horse archers

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because they could just ride
around them, and they did.

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They galloped around and around 
and around and around,

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shooting as they went.

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Thousands and thousands of arrows
loosed into those Romans.

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What the Romans eventually did 
was they were ordered to go into testudo.

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That's that Roman formation
where they lock their shields together

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and put the next layer
of shields to make a roof.

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Testudo is Latin for tortoise.

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But the Parthians 
had the answer to this tortoise.

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They had a hammer 
to break open its shell.

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The Parthian hammer was a cataphract,

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a Greek word meaning 
"clothed in full armor".

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Horse and rider wore heavy coats of mail.

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The cataphract was the ancient world
equivalent of a battle tank.

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At Carrhae, charging cataphracts
broke open the testudo.

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Exposing the Romans inside
to more arrow attacks.

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Some 30,000 Romans 
were killed or captured.

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Parthian losses were minor.

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It was one of Rome's 
worst military defeats.

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But it may have been 
something else as well.

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A Roman historian wrote

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that the Parthians dazzled the Romans

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with banners made of a beautiful fabric:

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silk.

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That may only be a legend.

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But around the time of Carrhae,

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Romans began coveting Chinese silk,

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and China began selling silk to Rome

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in exchange for fine
Roman glassware and gold.

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Inspiring the name
we give Eurasian trade today:

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the Silk Road.

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But long before Romans and Parthians
fought at Carrhae,

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trade between the peoples of Eurasia
were shaping lives,

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making new things possible,

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and changing the world.

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At Carrhae, the Parthians 
won with a style of warfare

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that had evolved centuries earlier

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and thousands of kilometers away.

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On the steppes of Central Asia,

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an ocean of land,

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where victory in battle, and life itself,

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depended on moving 
very far, very fast.

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Thousands of years 
before the battle of Carrhae,

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a transportation revolution 
took place on these vast plains.

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There's good evidence for the existence
of domesticated horses

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in what is today Kazakhstan
and southern Russia by 3500 BC.

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And we actually think that probably
horses were domesticated

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and began to be ridden 
500 or maybe 1,000 years before that,

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maybe as early as 4500 BC.

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The domestication of the horse

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was the first step
towards cavalry warfare.

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But the second step 
would be a long time coming.

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The first use of horses in warfare 
was with chariot warfare,

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and we have that well established
Tutankhamun's chariot,

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which many people have seen
in museum exhibits.

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And we know that people
were using chariots in warfare

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starting in the Near East
in about 1600, 1700 BC..

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Horses were not used as organized cavalry

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until after about 900 BC,

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almost 1,000 years 
after chariot warfare began.

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And it's always seemed odd to me
that cavalry began after chariotry.

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Chariotry is very difficult to manage.

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You have to train horses to work together.

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They have to pull this clumsy vehicle

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that has two people in it:
a driver and a warrior.

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Training the units to work together,
very difficult thing to do,

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whereas jumping on the back of a horse
is an easy thing.

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So, why did cavalry come after chariotry?

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I think the real reason 
that cavalry waited

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is that you needed to have
really three innovations.

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The earliest evidence for the recurved bow
is in Shang Dynasty, China,

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probably dated between 1300 and 1100 BC.

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Shang emperors communicated 
with their ancestors

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by heating animal bones or turtle shells
until they cracked

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and then interpreting
the patterns made by the cracks.

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One of these so-called oracle bones

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is carved with the Chinese 
character for bow

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— the earliest known image
of a recurved bow.

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And in the tomb of Lady Fuhao

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— an imperial consort 
and renowned military commander —

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archaeologists found more evidence.

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It's a thumb cover 
for drawing bow string

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and there's another piece that went
in the middle of a recurved bow,

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a hand grip.

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The bows themselves are not preserved,

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so, it's a difficult thing to identify
the origins of the recurved bow.

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The different components of it

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probably came from different places
geographically.

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Just how far the recurved bow
traveled across Eurasia

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was revealed in 2005 at Yanghai,
in China's Xinjiang region.

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Wooden bows rarely survive 
burial in the ground,

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but Xinjiang's cold, dry climate
preserved one

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in a 3,000-year-old tomb.

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Other grave goods 
and the human remains

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found in the Yanghai tombs

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confirmed that the bow was made
by the Scythians,

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a highly sophisticated culture
that originated in southern Russia

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and migrated on horseback

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across the length and breadth of Eurasia.

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The true birthplace 
of the recurved composite bow

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remains an archaeological mystery.

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But there is no doubt 
that 3,000 years ago

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anyone who fought on horseback
would have found it revolutionary.

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A bow is as strong as it is long.

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It derives its strength from its length.

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And the recurved bow 
packs the same length

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into this very short bow

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that can be swung over the horse's rear 
and over the horse's neck.

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And it was much, much easier 
to use on horseback.

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And the recurved bows are
technologically quite difficult to make.

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It took a long time to develop
the craft of bow making to that point.

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The recurve all these sinewy bends
— reflex and deflex —

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that gives it in-built spring.

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But that can only be created
with composite materials.

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What we mean by that is
it's made of a number of materials.

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The heart of it is wood, usually beech.

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And then you have horn,
horn from a water buffalo,

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and then sinew, the tendons of an animal.

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That, when you bash it,

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you can tease apart
and get these very fine fibers,

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fibers with tremendous tensile strength.

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That has elasticity and spring,

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and it stops the bow bursting apart.

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These are all materials that enhance
the power, the spring of the bow.

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But only if bow makers
could solve a very big problem.

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How to keep such a powerful bow

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made from so many different materials

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from breaking up when its own power
was pulling it apart?

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Somewhere in Eurasia, sometime long ago,

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some unknown genius discovered the answer.

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This is the swim bladder of a sturgeon
— a fish from the Black Sea.

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And if you start to break these up 
then put it in hot water,

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and you get this wonderful, viscous glue.

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This simple idea of making a glue
out of a swim bladder of a fish

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was a technological breakthrough
of immense consequences.

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It is what enabled
the composite bow to exist.

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And in turn the composite bow
was a military revolution

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of far-reaching consequences.

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The composite recurved bow
gave birth to a new kind of warrior

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the horse archer.

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The horse archer was able
to shoot from the saddle

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in part because of the new technology
of the composite bow.

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They were short, compact bows,

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and that meant that you 
can shoot them from horseback.

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You see I can cross
to the other side of the horse,

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I can turn and shoot behind.

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It's much more suitable
for shooting on horseback.

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Everyone who fought with Eurasian nomads,

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whether as enemy or friend,

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wanted a recurved composite bow.

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By the early first millennium BC,

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it was in use from east Asia
to eastern Europe.

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A recurved bow gave a horse archer
unprecedented killing power.

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But it didn't make him a cavalryman.

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Before horse archers could fight
as an effective military force,

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they needed a large supply
of identical arrows.

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And that didn't exist.

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Arrowheads were a variety 
of different sizes and weights.

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Some were made of bone.

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00:16:14,787 --> 00:16:16,743
Some were made out of flint.

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Some were made out of bronze.

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00:16:18,621 --> 00:16:20,775
All of them would be individually made

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and you had to adjust your shot
for the weight of different arrows.

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Also a unit of soldiers 
who were firing at the same time

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would be firing arrows
of slightly different weights

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and they might go different distances.

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One of the features of a stone arrowhead
is its flattened rear

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But how did it connect 
with the arrowshaft?

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It can only be tied to the shaft
by rope or ox tendons.

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But what about the disadvantages?

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First, the released arrows 
tend to change direction easily.

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Second, they are likely to fall off,

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One of the technological innovations

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was the invention
of the socketed arrowhead.

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They were made of bronze, usually,

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and they were made in a mould 
and cast in a mould,

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so that an infinite number 
of socketed arrowheads of the same weight

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could be made from the same mould.

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Making socketed projectile points 
was actually a big deal.

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You have to have a mould with a core
where the socket is going to be

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that you can pour molten metal around

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so that it's the same thickness 
all the way around.

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Making arrowheads
of the same size and weight

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was another Central Asian
technological revolution.

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For the first time, mounted warriors
could unleash

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coordinated arrow attacks 
on their enemies.

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With arrowheads of the same weight,

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every time you drew the bow to shoot

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you knew that you were firing an arrow

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that was exactly the same weight
as the last arrow that you fired,

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so you could determine
the range and the distance well.

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And also all of the archers 
that were firing

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were firing arrowheads
at the same weight at the same time.

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So the distance for all of them 
would be the same.

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With a socketed arrowhead

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you can directly insert 
the head into the shaft.

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It look like this.

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So what are the advantages
of this type of arrowhead?

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Its improvements greatly enhanced

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00:18:52,314 --> 00:18:54,671
the lethality and efficiency
of ancient arrows.

247
00:18:54,722 --> 00:18:58,341
Even in the chaos of war, the shooter 
could aim t the target easily.

248
00:18:58,465 --> 00:19:01,835
He wouldn't loose the direction
by aiming t the target quickly.

249
00:19:02,379 --> 00:19:06,048
This ivention is a giant leap 
in the development of human history.

250
00:19:07,768 --> 00:19:11,888
Archaeologists believe that sometime
in the second millennium BC,

251
00:19:12,368 --> 00:19:15,494
socketed bronze arrowheads
began spreading east

252
00:19:15,819 --> 00:19:19,879
while the composite 
recurved bow spread west.

253
00:19:20,649 --> 00:19:23,004
Sometime around 900 BC,

254
00:19:23,004 --> 00:19:25,559
socketed arrowheads and recurved bows

255
00:19:25,589 --> 00:19:28,649
met in the Tarim Basin area 
of Central Asia,

256
00:19:31,069 --> 00:19:35,284
brought together by traders,
warriors, and migrating nomads.

257
00:19:38,804 --> 00:19:43,773
After about 700 BC, you begin to see
thousands and thousands of arrowheads

258
00:19:43,813 --> 00:19:47,510
and dozens of arrowheads
in a single quiver in a grave.

259
00:19:47,591 --> 00:19:50,089
It's like they're being mass produced.

260
00:19:52,259 --> 00:19:56,263
Bronze socketed arrowheads
turned central Asia into an arsenal,

261
00:19:56,643 --> 00:19:59,506
but cavalries still couldn't exist

262
00:20:00,883 --> 00:20:03,871
until warriors could become soldiers.

263
00:20:08,057 --> 00:20:10,619
It was really the age of heroic warfare

264
00:20:10,619 --> 00:20:14,484
— individuals going out 
and doing great deeds by themselves

265
00:20:14,534 --> 00:20:16,926
and attracting glory for their own name.

266
00:20:17,016 --> 00:20:19,714
And this is the kind of warfare
that's described

267
00:20:20,034 --> 00:20:23,878
in the "Iliad", in the "Odyssey," 
or in the "Rigveda,"

268
00:20:23,928 --> 00:20:27,955
a religious text that's at the deep roots
of modern Hinduism.

269
00:20:29,201 --> 00:20:32,503
What had to change
was a psychological change

270
00:20:32,503 --> 00:20:35,099
in the nature of the warrior.

271
00:20:35,759 --> 00:20:39,152
You had to change
from individuals to units

272
00:20:39,262 --> 00:20:42,983
working under the command
of a commanding general,

273
00:20:43,152 --> 00:20:46,468
who would attack and retreat
upon command.

274
00:20:48,305 --> 00:20:52,343
The psychological change 
from the heroic warrior to the soldier,

275
00:20:53,735 --> 00:20:57,461
probably is a feature of urban warfare.

276
00:20:57,891 --> 00:21:00,384
The armies that were associated

277
00:21:00,384 --> 00:21:04,198
with the great cities 
of Mesopotamia and Iran.

278
00:21:06,516 --> 00:21:11,536
That psychology had to spread 
northward up into the steppes

279
00:21:12,168 --> 00:21:16,350
and be accepted by warriors
in the steppes,

280
00:21:16,652 --> 00:21:19,336
in the same area 
where the recurved bows

281
00:21:19,396 --> 00:21:22,090
and the socketed arrowheads were crossing.

282
00:21:24,630 --> 00:21:27,214
While recurved bows were spreading west

283
00:21:27,244 --> 00:21:29,656
and socketed arrowheads
were spreading east,

284
00:21:29,676 --> 00:21:32,922
the concept of military discipline
was spreading north.

285
00:21:36,462 --> 00:21:38,905
Sometime around 900 BC,

286
00:21:39,085 --> 00:21:42,561
all three combined
in the heart of central Asia.

287
00:21:44,861 --> 00:21:47,169
When those three things came together,

288
00:21:47,169 --> 00:21:51,922
cavalry became a really deadly form
of military force.

289
00:21:55,182 --> 00:21:59,542
A force that would severely test
the ancient world's most powerful armies.

290
00:22:02,318 --> 00:22:03,836
2,000 years ago,

291
00:22:03,846 --> 00:22:07,500
as the Romans pushed east 
to expand their empire,

292
00:22:08,340 --> 00:22:10,652
China was pushing west.

293
00:22:13,224 --> 00:22:15,063
And like the Romans,

294
00:22:15,093 --> 00:22:18,376
the Chinese encountered
a formidable enemy on horseback.

295
00:22:23,008 --> 00:22:26,584
The Xiongnu were nomads
from the Central Asian steppes.

296
00:22:28,044 --> 00:22:30,964
Armed with recurved bows
and socketed arrows,

297
00:22:30,964 --> 00:22:34,660
they fought under commanders 
as a disciplined military force.

298
00:22:38,250 --> 00:22:41,093
They raided Chinese villages

299
00:22:41,483 --> 00:22:44,956
and plundered the growing trade
between East and West,

300
00:22:46,304 --> 00:22:48,915
and no one could stop them.

301
00:22:49,745 --> 00:22:55,806
The Xiongnu was the migraine
of the ancient world for the Chinese.

302
00:22:56,820 --> 00:23:01,401
They simply just kept coming
and they would not stop.

303
00:23:04,731 --> 00:23:12,270
The Xiongnu wanted the finest
material goods produced by the Chinese.

304
00:23:16,115 --> 00:23:18,742
That is why they raided.

305
00:23:23,311 --> 00:23:27,025
Imagine you're a villager in China
and these men come from nowhere.

306
00:23:27,055 --> 00:23:29,196
They come from over the hill 
without warning,

307
00:23:29,286 --> 00:23:30,919
tearing into your village.

308
00:23:30,937 --> 00:23:33,294
They shoot the headman, 
they shoot your husband.

309
00:23:33,334 --> 00:23:34,822
They chase the women out.

310
00:23:34,862 --> 00:23:38,426
There is no hiding place
and there's a flurry of dust and arrows.

311
00:23:38,436 --> 00:23:41,649
They're in and they're out 
and they take the stuff and they go.

312
00:23:44,788 --> 00:23:47,693
China sent its military might
against the Xiongnu.

313
00:23:49,819 --> 00:23:51,696
The famed Terracotta Warriors

314
00:23:51,716 --> 00:23:54,504
reveal the size and power
of Chinese armies.

315
00:23:56,543 --> 00:23:59,883
But the Chinese fought on foot
and from chariots.

316
00:24:02,723 --> 00:24:05,683
Not effective against hit-and-run cavalry.

317
00:24:07,030 --> 00:24:12,857
A Chinese courtier wrote that the Xiongnu
moved like a flock of birds over the land,

318
00:24:13,227 --> 00:24:15,600
impossible to control.

319
00:24:16,420 --> 00:24:20,101
Once mounted warfare really
became deadly and effective,

320
00:24:20,261 --> 00:24:22,666
it became a real problem.

321
00:24:22,856 --> 00:24:27,669
If you're a farmer, the nomads know
where you're going to be all the time.

322
00:24:27,729 --> 00:24:31,276
Your house is in the same place
12 months of the year,

323
00:24:31,445 --> 00:24:35,321
and when your crops become ripe,
you have to harvest,

324
00:24:35,548 --> 00:24:39,257
and the nomads know when that season is.

325
00:24:40,187 --> 00:24:43,152
Whereas when you're trying
to strike them back,

326
00:24:43,172 --> 00:24:45,759
it's impossible to know
where they're going to be

327
00:24:45,799 --> 00:24:47,698
or when they're going to be there.

328
00:24:47,868 --> 00:24:50,017
You have to search to find them.

329
00:24:53,188 --> 00:24:58,168
To beat the Xiongnu, the Chinese 
needed soldiers who could fight like them.

330
00:25:01,089 --> 00:25:03,077
They needed cavalry.

331
00:25:06,198 --> 00:25:09,357
There are manuals of warfare
that were written

332
00:25:09,367 --> 00:25:12,638
to instruct Chinese warriors

333
00:25:12,638 --> 00:25:16,694
on how to counter the tactics
and the methods of the Xiongnu.

334
00:25:17,824 --> 00:25:20,522
Those manuals introduced 
the idea of cavalry

335
00:25:20,572 --> 00:25:22,641
to the Chinese military.

336
00:25:23,151 --> 00:25:26,266
The Chinese military
had not really used cavalry

337
00:25:26,306 --> 00:25:28,801
before about probably 350 BC.

338
00:25:30,628 --> 00:25:34,009
Chinese military, at first 
with some resistance

339
00:25:34,029 --> 00:25:36,750
from the old aristocratic families, said:

340
00:25:36,870 --> 00:25:39,004
"Well, my father fought on a chariot,

341
00:25:39,034 --> 00:25:40,871
"and his father fought on a chariot,

342
00:25:40,891 --> 00:25:44,809
"and I'm gonna fight on a chariot
in my long robes like my ancestors."

343
00:25:46,409 --> 00:25:49,020
But it wasn't long before Chinese warriors

344
00:25:49,050 --> 00:25:51,742
traded their traditional
long, flowing robes

345
00:25:52,462 --> 00:25:56,665
for shorter tunics that didn't get
in the way of fighting on horseback.

346
00:25:59,165 --> 00:26:05,109
Eventually, the practicalities
forced them to get rid of their robes,

347
00:26:05,162 --> 00:26:07,968
to put on riding trousers,

348
00:26:08,008 --> 00:26:10,786
to learn to shoot the bow on horseback,

349
00:26:10,981 --> 00:26:14,655
and they, too, became 
a mighty horse archer force.

350
00:26:19,656 --> 00:26:23,613
Chinese cavalry became experts
at shooting the recurved composite bow,

351
00:26:25,623 --> 00:26:30,134
and a lethal Chinese weapon, the crossbow.

352
00:26:34,132 --> 00:26:36,403
While its cavalry trained,

353
00:26:36,473 --> 00:26:41,043
China agreed to Xiongnu demands
for payments of money and silk

354
00:26:42,343 --> 00:26:45,283
until the year 133 BC,

355
00:26:46,103 --> 00:26:49,249
when Emperor Han Wudi refused to pay.

356
00:26:53,218 --> 00:26:55,696
And sent his army to attack the Xiongnu.

357
00:27:30,952 --> 00:27:33,645
Chinese cavalry defeated the nomads.

358
00:27:37,305 --> 00:27:40,802
And China seized
new territories in the steppes,

359
00:27:42,932 --> 00:27:46,654
pacifying trade routes 
and opening new horizons.

360
00:27:52,030 --> 00:27:55,019
On one hand, 
we have this perpetual conflict

361
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:59,400
— in Chinese culture would be
the Xiongn and the Han Chinese

362
00:28:00,381 --> 00:28:03,985
that created incessant warfare.

363
00:28:05,390 --> 00:28:08,557
On the other hand, it is this conflict

364
00:28:08,567 --> 00:28:11,954
that demolished physical boundaries.

365
00:28:12,995 --> 00:28:17,054
Even territory boundaries 
were constantly being pushed farther,

366
00:28:17,154 --> 00:28:20,144
pushed back between the two forces.

367
00:28:20,554 --> 00:28:26,029
This was a stimulus for exchanges,

368
00:28:26,753 --> 00:28:28,876
for political changes,

369
00:28:28,876 --> 00:28:32,607
for new ideas, for artistic traditions.

370
00:28:36,057 --> 00:28:38,684
It was also a new era for the Silk Road.

371
00:28:40,488 --> 00:28:43,677
A fortune in Roman gold 
traveled east

372
00:28:43,677 --> 00:28:46,138
in exchange for Chinese silks.

373
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:53,940
And the Central Asian kingdom of Kushan

374
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,355
made its own fortune 
selling another luxury to China:

375
00:28:59,565 --> 00:29:00,868
jade.

376
00:29:03,915 --> 00:29:06,613
Silk Road caravans passed 
through this border station

377
00:29:06,613 --> 00:29:08,988
on China's western frontier.

378
00:29:10,839 --> 00:29:13,380
So many of them carried Kushan jade

379
00:29:13,430 --> 00:29:16,570
that this station became known 
as the Jade Gate.

380
00:29:21,860 --> 00:29:25,450
Chinese aristocrats
coveted jade for its beauty

381
00:29:25,493 --> 00:29:27,414
and something more.

382
00:29:30,034 --> 00:29:33,659
They believed that jade 
would keep them alive forever.

383
00:29:36,789 --> 00:29:39,538
The ruling elite commissioned 
jade burial suits

384
00:29:39,558 --> 00:29:42,327
to preserve their bodies in the grave.

385
00:29:45,617 --> 00:29:48,722
They believed that, upon death,

386
00:29:48,762 --> 00:29:51,822
all the orifices should be plugged in

387
00:29:51,842 --> 00:29:56,076
to preserve the spirit inside the person.

388
00:29:56,966 --> 00:30:00,347
And this notion of jade

389
00:30:00,347 --> 00:30:05,318
as a material with protective power
in the afterlife,

390
00:30:05,368 --> 00:30:08,348
is further enhanced by the fact

391
00:30:08,348 --> 00:30:11,062
that they built an armor

392
00:30:11,062 --> 00:30:16,876
made of thousands
of pieces of jade.

393
00:30:17,916 --> 00:30:20,120
And of course, if you're the emperor,

394
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:25,855
your jade armor would be made
from the finest jade

395
00:30:26,997 --> 00:30:29,731
from the western regions.

396
00:30:30,451 --> 00:30:33,523
During the Roman empire,
Silk Road trade flourished

397
00:30:33,569 --> 00:30:36,522
as Chinese, Persian, and Kushan armies

398
00:30:36,532 --> 00:30:39,173
kept the trade routes open across Eurasia.

399
00:30:46,743 --> 00:30:48,568
China had leveled the battlefield

400
00:30:48,629 --> 00:30:51,282
with nomad raiders from the steppes.

401
00:30:57,492 --> 00:30:59,757
But Central Asian horse archers

402
00:30:59,757 --> 00:31:02,717
were about to carve
their names on History.

403
00:31:04,452 --> 00:31:08,912
In the 4th century CE., Europe was invaded
by a Central Asian people

404
00:31:09,042 --> 00:31:12,174
whose name still evokes barbaric cruelty.

405
00:31:18,664 --> 00:31:22,464
The Huns, who fought their way West,
all the way to Rome.

406
00:31:32,708 --> 00:31:35,214
European peoples
like the Goths and Visigoths

407
00:31:35,268 --> 00:31:37,703
— the so-called barbarians —

408
00:31:37,713 --> 00:31:39,410
fled before their onslaught,

409
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:41,894
and sought refuge in Roman territory.

410
00:31:43,684 --> 00:31:46,662
When the Huns withdrew
from the Roman world,

411
00:31:46,732 --> 00:31:49,439
those barbarian refugees stayed.

412
00:31:55,449 --> 00:31:58,197
And the rest is History.

413
00:32:02,387 --> 00:32:05,882
The western Roman empire 
was plunged into chaos

414
00:32:07,766 --> 00:32:10,655
as barbarian tribes, 
dissatisfied with their lot,

415
00:32:10,685 --> 00:32:13,835
rebelled against Roman authority,

416
00:32:14,138 --> 00:32:17,303
and weak Roman emperors 
failed to crush them.

417
00:32:21,743 --> 00:32:26,209
As Rome declined, migrating 
horse archers, called the Avars,

418
00:32:26,209 --> 00:32:30,436
carved their own country 
out of eastern Europe,

419
00:32:30,436 --> 00:32:33,949
bringing with them 
another Asian military innovation:

420
00:32:36,739 --> 00:32:38,252
the stirrup.

421
00:32:41,755 --> 00:32:44,703
This Chinese statue 
from the fourth century CE,

422
00:32:44,783 --> 00:32:48,092
is the earliest known
depiction of stirrups.

423
00:32:52,572 --> 00:32:54,788
Some 300 years later,

424
00:32:54,788 --> 00:32:57,218
an Avar horseman
was riding with these stirrups

425
00:32:57,264 --> 00:32:59,440
across Hungary.

426
00:33:05,428 --> 00:33:07,277
By the eighth century CE,

427
00:33:07,287 --> 00:33:11,633
the stirrup had spread
from one end of Eurasia to the other

428
00:33:11,831 --> 00:33:14,997
and mounted warfare
was entering a new era.

429
00:33:18,083 --> 00:33:19,959
The importance of the stirrup

430
00:33:19,989 --> 00:33:24,087
relates to what kinds of weapons
can you use from horseback,

431
00:33:24,198 --> 00:33:28,682
and it made it possible to use 
certain kinds of weapons from horseback

432
00:33:28,682 --> 00:33:31,389
that you couldn't use without stirrups.

433
00:33:31,409 --> 00:33:33,958
Those weapons are the long sabre.

434
00:33:34,228 --> 00:33:37,720
You have to lean over and absorb shock,

435
00:33:38,062 --> 00:33:40,669
if you're going to use
a long sabre in battle.

436
00:33:40,699 --> 00:33:44,998
And the stirrups allow the rider 
to absorb the shock of contact

437
00:33:44,998 --> 00:33:47,308
with a stationary target.

438
00:33:47,788 --> 00:33:50,382
The other big weapon 
that was possible with stirrups

439
00:33:50,422 --> 00:33:54,074
was a seated lance held under the arm.

440
00:33:54,354 --> 00:33:58,796
You could stab somebody with the lance
and then remove it,

441
00:33:58,956 --> 00:34:01,992
riding past them without stirrups.

442
00:34:02,521 --> 00:34:07,639
But if you seated it under your arm
and used the lance as a shock weapon,

443
00:34:07,814 --> 00:34:10,428
it would knock you
off the back of the horse

444
00:34:10,468 --> 00:34:12,431
if you didn't have stirrups.

445
00:34:12,441 --> 00:34:16,693
So stirrups made it possible to use
long swords and lances

446
00:34:16,812 --> 00:34:19,598
as shock weapons 
against stationary targets

447
00:34:19,608 --> 00:34:21,930
and keep your seat.

448
00:34:21,936 --> 00:34:27,150
And of course that made it possible
to have really heavy mounted warriors.

449
00:34:28,090 --> 00:34:31,877
Now, the rider becomes 
a unit with the horse.

450
00:34:32,237 --> 00:34:35,295
He's so anchored with his stirrups,
anchored with this,

451
00:34:35,295 --> 00:34:37,535
and then with his long lance

452
00:34:37,585 --> 00:34:41,395
he becomes a single projectile unit.

453
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:48,942
Man, horse, saddle, lance, 
all locked together for the impact charge.

454
00:34:52,762 --> 00:34:55,753
This was the age of the medieval knight.

455
00:35:01,108 --> 00:35:02,929
A medieval knight's power

456
00:35:02,969 --> 00:35:06,744
came from combining the Asian stirrup
and the ancient shock tactics

457
00:35:06,794 --> 00:35:10,868
of the Persian cataphract
with a European invention:

458
00:35:11,431 --> 00:35:13,788
articulated plate armor.

459
00:35:15,930 --> 00:35:19,354
Strong enough to protect the wearer 
from sword and lance thrusts

460
00:35:20,765 --> 00:35:24,918
while light enough to allow him 
to move freely on horseback

461
00:35:24,988 --> 00:35:26,769
and on foot.

462
00:35:29,519 --> 00:35:33,639
Heavy cavalry had never been
a more potent weapon of war.

463
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:38,954
Medieval mounted warfare 
could be warfare

464
00:35:38,984 --> 00:35:42,707
that generated
a lot of force on the rider,

465
00:35:43,089 --> 00:35:45,175
a high impact warfare.

466
00:35:46,785 --> 00:35:49,517
In that case, the mounted warrior
is being used

467
00:35:49,577 --> 00:35:53,117
really as a shock weapon
to strike the enemy.

468
00:36:00,259 --> 00:36:03,229
But even Europe's 
formidable mounted knights

469
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:06,634
would be outfought
by Central Asian cavalry

470
00:36:08,859 --> 00:36:12,129
that burst out of the steppes 
and changed the world.

471
00:36:16,821 --> 00:36:21,677
The largest conquest empire
that the Earth has ever seen

472
00:36:23,647 --> 00:36:27,743
was created by pastoral nomads
from Central Asia.

473
00:36:35,962 --> 00:36:37,929
In the 13th century,

474
00:36:37,929 --> 00:36:40,632
the Mongols conquered 
as far West as Poland

475
00:36:40,656 --> 00:36:43,328
and as far East as the Sea of Japan.

476
00:36:47,978 --> 00:36:52,019
Mongol armies combined the devastating
shock tactics of horse archers

477
00:36:52,259 --> 00:36:55,445
with a highly sophisticated
military organization.

478
00:36:57,796 --> 00:37:02,794
They could gather quickly
and march to distant battlefields.

479
00:37:04,690 --> 00:37:08,103
Then the cavalry could reach
the enemy's battlefield

480
00:37:08,162 --> 00:37:11,111
before they set up defenses

481
00:37:11,164 --> 00:37:16,014
which could deter their enemy
psychologically and strategically.

482
00:37:16,864 --> 00:37:21,052
It is said that the cavalry came suddenly

483
00:37:21,542 --> 00:37:25,241
like something falling fro the sky.

484
00:37:25,522 --> 00:37:29,485
and disappeared quickly

485
00:37:29,515 --> 00:37:32,625
leaving no trace at all.

486
00:37:32,715 --> 00:37:35,633
Western, especially European historians,

487
00:37:35,663 --> 00:37:41,281
wrote that the Mongols appeared 
far away like several spots

488
00:37:41,508 --> 00:37:46,011
but would suddenly gather
before you, like dark clouds.

489
00:37:46,311 --> 00:37:50,284
Unexpected attack was the core

490
00:37:56,474 --> 00:38:00,091
The Mongols have gone down
in History as bloodthirsty killers,

491
00:38:00,895 --> 00:38:04,359
but they were also sophisticated,
open-minded,

492
00:38:04,359 --> 00:38:06,661
often generous conquerors.

493
00:38:08,671 --> 00:38:11,237
They pacified the Silk Road.

494
00:38:16,777 --> 00:38:18,783
Trade between West and East

495
00:38:18,783 --> 00:38:21,530
flourished under 
this Mongol-enforced peace,

496
00:38:21,580 --> 00:38:23,646
the Pax Mongolica.

497
00:38:26,376 --> 00:38:29,079
Before the age of Pax Mongolica,

498
00:38:29,129 --> 00:38:33,496
banditry was a very serious
problem for traders,

499
00:38:33,575 --> 00:38:36,039
for caravans, along the Silk Road.

500
00:38:37,089 --> 00:38:40,561
The reputation of Genghis Khan
and his descendants

501
00:38:41,433 --> 00:38:45,797
created peace and safe passage
along the Silk Road

502
00:38:45,867 --> 00:38:53,773
because bandits were so afraid
of the Mongol soldiers.

503
00:38:54,243 --> 00:38:56,821
The Pax Mongolica,

504
00:38:57,221 --> 00:39:05,071
the control of trade and exchange

505
00:39:05,499 --> 00:39:08,389
that was made possible under the Mongols

506
00:39:08,449 --> 00:39:12,334
connected China with Europe
and with the Near East

507
00:39:12,397 --> 00:39:16,196
in a really close way 
for the first time in world History

508
00:39:16,586 --> 00:39:19,423
And that had a profound effect

509
00:39:19,490 --> 00:39:22,547
on the development
of European civilization.

510
00:39:24,355 --> 00:39:26,479
Protected by the Pax Mongolica,

511
00:39:26,479 --> 00:39:30,181
and anxious for good relations 
with the Mongol empire,

512
00:39:30,245 --> 00:39:34,099
Europeans began traveling East 
as never before.

513
00:39:36,243 --> 00:39:38,745
Merchants, missionaries, and diplomats

514
00:39:38,815 --> 00:39:41,346
flowed East along the trade routes,

515
00:39:43,386 --> 00:39:46,833
bringing back popular Asian goods
like cloth and spices

516
00:39:48,562 --> 00:39:51,975
and tales of the wealth 
and wonders of the East,

517
00:39:52,145 --> 00:39:56,265
some true, some fabulous, 
but all fascinating.

518
00:39:57,906 --> 00:39:59,571
From Europe to China,

519
00:39:59,581 --> 00:40:03,557
Silk Road trade spread 
new knowledge of far-away lands.

520
00:40:04,567 --> 00:40:09,079
The Silk Road made human beings realize

521
00:40:09,229 --> 00:40:12,077
that there are other people out there,

522
00:40:12,117 --> 00:40:15,975
and it opened the eyes 
of the East and the West.

523
00:40:19,672 --> 00:40:23,699
The Italian cities of Venice and Genoa
reaped huge rewards.

524
00:40:27,048 --> 00:40:29,951
Their merchants traveled safely
throughout Eurasia

525
00:40:31,681 --> 00:40:34,102
and founded trading posts on the Black Sea

526
00:40:34,142 --> 00:40:37,173
to receive and pass on Silk Road goods.

527
00:40:38,805 --> 00:40:42,831
Their Silk Road profits funded
magnificent art and architecture.

528
00:40:45,404 --> 00:40:49,333
But their competition frequently
plunged them into war with one another.

529
00:40:51,644 --> 00:40:56,149
In one of these wars, Genoa captured
a prosperous Venetian merchant

530
00:40:56,189 --> 00:40:58,101
named Marco Polo.

531
00:40:59,091 --> 00:41:02,774
Imprisoned by the Genoese, 
Polo dictated the story

532
00:41:02,823 --> 00:41:06,257
of his Silk Road journey to China
to a fellow prisoner.

533
00:41:09,170 --> 00:41:13,078
Today, experts debate whether
Marco Polo really visited China

534
00:41:14,308 --> 00:41:16,866
or was simply retelling stories

535
00:41:16,916 --> 00:41:19,264
he heard from fellow Silk Road travelers.

536
00:41:23,666 --> 00:41:26,991
But there's no debate 
that "The Travels of Marco Polo"

537
00:41:27,051 --> 00:41:31,256
was one of the most influential books
in all of human History.

538
00:41:32,036 --> 00:41:34,241
It tantalized Europe with tales

539
00:41:34,241 --> 00:41:37,926
of China's immense wealth 
and advanced civilization.

540
00:41:45,190 --> 00:41:49,887
And years before Marco Polo was telling
those tales in a Genoese prison,

541
00:41:52,717 --> 00:41:57,556
a Chinese invention was making
its way across Eurasia to the West.

542
00:42:02,566 --> 00:42:05,105
Something created centuries earlier

543
00:42:05,105 --> 00:42:08,815
when an experiment ended very badly.

544
00:42:19,455 --> 00:42:23,755
Ancient Chinese alchemists
prepared potions of lead or mercury

545
00:42:23,755 --> 00:42:26,050
for their aristocratic patrons

546
00:42:26,060 --> 00:42:29,402
who believed that drinking these metals
would help them live forever.

547
00:42:32,748 --> 00:42:36,934
Instead, those concoctions killed them 
or made them insane.

548
00:42:38,804 --> 00:42:41,684
Another deadly combination was sulfur

549
00:42:41,684 --> 00:42:45,634
heated with an organic nitrate
found in soil throughout China,

550
00:42:48,041 --> 00:42:50,750
known today as saltpeter.

551
00:42:52,950 --> 00:42:55,465
When alchemists experimented
with this formula,

552
00:42:55,525 --> 00:42:57,668
it burst into flame,

553
00:42:57,678 --> 00:42:59,741
injuring the alchemists,

554
00:42:59,822 --> 00:43:01,186
(Explosion)

555
00:43:01,256 --> 00:43:03,923
and burning down their laboratory.

556
00:43:05,943 --> 00:43:10,536
From that disaster was born 
a chemical mixture like none other.

557
00:43:15,036 --> 00:43:18,193
It may have failed
as an elixir of immortality,

558
00:43:18,193 --> 00:43:22,554
but it would prove to be
a potent agent of death.

559
00:43:25,273 --> 00:43:29,427
This Chinese Buddhist scroll 
dating from around 950 CE,

560
00:43:29,427 --> 00:43:32,819
depicts demons surrounding
a seated Buddha.

561
00:43:34,259 --> 00:43:39,465
One demon holds what the Chinese called
a "huo quiang", or fire lance.

562
00:43:42,352 --> 00:43:44,886
It's the earliest known image of a weapon

563
00:43:44,906 --> 00:43:48,328
powered by that deadly mixture 
of saltpeter and sulfur.

564
00:43:51,518 --> 00:43:55,739
Known to history as gunpowder.

565
00:44:01,094 --> 00:44:03,545
In the early 13th century,

566
00:44:03,545 --> 00:44:06,695
the Mongols attacked China's Jin Dynasty.

567
00:44:07,205 --> 00:44:11,635
The Jin Dynasty's army fought back 
with exploding gunpowder bombs.

568
00:44:15,755 --> 00:44:18,860
But as the Mongols conquered 
more and more of China,

569
00:44:18,860 --> 00:44:22,368
Han Chinese artillerymen
joined their armies

570
00:44:22,418 --> 00:44:26,162
and marched West, bringing
their gunpowder weapons with them.

571
00:44:29,142 --> 00:44:32,284
The Mongols attacked 
Russian and Polish cities

572
00:44:32,294 --> 00:44:34,720
with exploding fire bombs.

573
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,973
And Europeans found out the hard way 
what gunpowder could do.

574
00:44:44,396 --> 00:44:46,763
By the end of the 13th century,

575
00:44:46,763 --> 00:44:49,986
the formula for gunpowder 
was known as far West as England,

576
00:44:51,754 --> 00:44:55,953
and Europeans were inventing 
their own versions of the new weapons.

577
00:44:59,873 --> 00:45:04,479
It wasn't long before this Chinese 
invention changed European history.

578
00:45:08,385 --> 00:45:11,051
On 26th August, 1346,

579
00:45:11,417 --> 00:45:14,332
near the village of Crecy
in northern France,

580
00:45:14,692 --> 00:45:18,407
the armies of France and England
prepared to fight.

581
00:45:26,940 --> 00:45:30,543
Mounted on their war steeds, 
encased in their armor,

582
00:45:30,583 --> 00:45:33,959
the flower of French nobility 
formed their battle line,

583
00:45:42,728 --> 00:45:46,087
while the English deployed 
a very different force.

584
00:45:50,197 --> 00:45:52,966
Thousands of expert archers.

585
00:45:59,966 --> 00:46:04,555
The French sent their higher Genoese
crossbowmen to attack the English

586
00:46:04,575 --> 00:46:07,650
before French knights annihilated them.

587
00:46:14,813 --> 00:46:17,429
But the English king, Edward III,

588
00:46:17,429 --> 00:46:20,537
had spent years training his longbow men.

589
00:46:24,517 --> 00:46:27,576
And all that training
was about to pay off.

590
00:46:41,426 --> 00:46:46,505
Nothing like this had been seen
on a western battlefield up to this time.

591
00:46:46,685 --> 00:46:51,754
The first time that a volley of arrows 
was unleashed by the archers at Crecy

592
00:46:52,214 --> 00:46:55,329
would have represented 
something completely new

593
00:46:55,369 --> 00:46:58,513
to many of those
in the French army watching it.

594
00:46:58,553 --> 00:47:01,150
A cloud of arrows descending towards them.

595
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:04,713
It would have been frightening,

596
00:47:04,733 --> 00:47:07,630
and of course the effect
was almost immediate.

597
00:47:11,660 --> 00:47:15,957
Showered by English arrows, 
the Genoese turned and ran,

598
00:47:17,318 --> 00:47:19,917
and according to medieval 
accounts of the battle,

599
00:47:19,917 --> 00:47:23,136
they were also panicked 
by another English weapon.

600
00:47:32,031 --> 00:47:35,156
Giovanni Villani, writing
very soon after the battle,

601
00:47:35,206 --> 00:47:39,563
says in his chronicle that 
so loud and intimidating

602
00:47:39,693 --> 00:47:42,235
was the noise created by the guns

603
00:47:42,355 --> 00:47:45,418
that they thought God was thundering.

604
00:47:48,997 --> 00:47:51,909
"The English guns cast
iron balls by means of fire.

605
00:47:52,689 --> 00:47:54,950
"They made a noise like thunder

606
00:47:55,020 --> 00:47:57,625
"and caused much loss
in men and horses."

607
00:48:04,835 --> 00:48:07,373
Noise like that would have been 
unprecedented

608
00:48:07,413 --> 00:48:09,911
to the soldiers on the battlefield.

609
00:48:10,538 --> 00:48:13,668
Nothing in their lives
could have prepared them

610
00:48:13,668 --> 00:48:15,464
for a a bang of that size

611
00:48:15,464 --> 00:48:19,539
and accompanied by smoke
and acrid sulfur smell,

612
00:48:19,662 --> 00:48:22,219
which would hang in the air.

613
00:48:22,409 --> 00:48:25,043
The impact of which, of course,
they couldn't see

614
00:48:25,063 --> 00:48:27,387
until men around them dropped.

615
00:48:29,087 --> 00:48:32,119
Not even professional soldiers 
like the Genoese

616
00:48:32,298 --> 00:48:36,039
would have experienced anything 
like this before in their lives.

617
00:48:36,189 --> 00:48:38,776
That would have been terrifying,

618
00:48:38,806 --> 00:48:41,759
and it's no wonder
that they scattered and ran.

619
00:48:44,019 --> 00:48:49,721
They turned and fled into the face
of the oncoming French cavalry charge.

620
00:48:50,100 --> 00:48:53,205
The French cavalry were now
coming onto the battlefield

621
00:48:53,204 --> 00:48:55,310
and they were appalled

622
00:48:55,310 --> 00:48:59,000
at these people they'd hired
running away.

623
00:49:01,270 --> 00:49:03,830
And they cursed them
and they rode into them,

624
00:49:03,850 --> 00:49:06,675
and as many Genoese fell to French hooves

625
00:49:06,725 --> 00:49:09,643
as they did to English 
arrows and gunshots.

626
00:49:11,813 --> 00:49:14,220
And the French knights, 
all 12,000 of them,

627
00:49:14,220 --> 00:49:16,099
double the size of the English army,

628
00:49:16,101 --> 00:49:18,531
they came charging down onto the English.

629
00:49:21,911 --> 00:49:26,031
And they, too, fell to the English arrows
and the English gunshot,

630
00:49:27,621 --> 00:49:30,431
and they came again and again and again.

631
00:49:30,501 --> 00:49:32,846
15, 16 times, they came.

632
00:49:34,706 --> 00:49:36,716
And their horses were ripped to shreds

633
00:49:36,716 --> 00:49:39,133
and the men were thrown from their horses.

634
00:49:39,203 --> 00:49:40,633
And those that weren't thrown,

635
00:49:40,653 --> 00:49:43,218
they had the opportunity
that the dagger men rushed in

636
00:49:43,218 --> 00:49:45,517
and they brought these knights down.

637
00:49:50,787 --> 00:49:54,609
This was a moment in History
where the world changed.

638
00:49:54,789 --> 00:49:58,715
It spelled the beginning of the end 
for the medieval knight.

639
00:50:01,772 --> 00:50:04,215
The Battle of Crecy
has gone down in history

640
00:50:04,215 --> 00:50:07,413
as one of the earliest uses 
of gunpowder weapons

641
00:50:07,563 --> 00:50:10,507
on a European battlefield.

642
00:50:17,987 --> 00:50:19,945
Some 500 years after,

643
00:50:19,985 --> 00:50:22,664
it burned down 
a Chinese alchemist's workshop,

644
00:50:22,752 --> 00:50:26,081
gunpowder had become 
destiny's weapon of choice.

645
00:50:28,566 --> 00:50:31,614
After Crecy, it was only a matter of time

646
00:50:31,614 --> 00:50:35,276
until the fates of peoples and nations
were decided by the gun.

647
00:50:40,126 --> 00:50:42,367
Within two centuries,

648
00:50:42,387 --> 00:50:45,307
Europeans would use their powerful 
gunpowder weapons

649
00:50:45,347 --> 00:50:47,907
to dominate the world,

650
00:50:51,747 --> 00:50:55,826
creating empires that would evolve
into today's global trading culture,

651
00:50:59,832 --> 00:51:03,378
which binds people together
by commerce instead of the gun.

652
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999