Kublai Khan inherited the most devastating military machine in world history and turned it into a bureaucracy. The grandson of Genghis Khan conquered China, founded the Yuan Dynasty, and governed the largest contiguous empire the world had ever seen — not through the terror tactics of his grandfather but through paper currency, postal systems, census records, and the administrative machinery of a modern state.

This episode traces Kublai from his education under his mother’s influence through the civil war for the Mongol succession, the conquest of the Song Dynasty, and the ambitious but ultimately doomed attempts to invade Japan and Java.

• Kublai’s education and the Chinese cultural influence that set him apart from other Mongol rulers
• The civil war with his brother Ariq Boke for control of the Mongol Empire
• The conquest of Song China and the founding of the Yuan Dynasty with its capital at Beijing
• The failed invasions of Japan, the typhoon kamikaze, and the overextension that weakened his empire