In the late 13th century, a Mongolian princess stood in a dusty ring on the Central Asian steppe surrounded by 10,000 horses, each one won from a male warrior who had failed to defeat her in a wrestling match for her hand in marriage. This episode dives into the real life of Khutulun, born around 1260, the favorite daughter of Kaidu, the most powerful ruler in Central Asia and a cousin of Kublai Khan. Trained since childhood in archery, horsemanship, and traditional Mongol wrestling, she became her father’s most trusted military advisor.

Her story is a masterclass in physical prowess, political power, and ultimate tragedy. Multiple chronicles corroborate her status as an undefeated wrestler, even if Marco Polo’s tally of 10,000 horses was embellished. Yet her family was murdered by political rivals, she was denied or declined the throne, and she died defending her father’s legacy. Centuries later, European writers stripped away her power, renaming her Turandot and turning a warrior into a passive riddle-telling princess.

• How Mongol women held authority alien to their European contemporaries
• The wrestling wager and the competing historical accounts of her marriage
• The drowning of her husband and sons and the Mongol taboo against spilling noble blood
• The 1301 succession crisis and the kurultai that refused to make her Khan
• How Francois Petis de la Croix mutated her into the opera character Turandot