It's a great wall. A really great wall. It also never really did its job.
Among those who so easily moved past the Great Wall were the Mongols, and Khubilai Khan, Mongol conqueror of China and founder of the Yuan dynasty, is perhaps the best known Chinese emperor, even though he's maybe the least Chinese of them all. Thanks, Marco Polo.
Joined by the phenomenal Chris Stewart of the History of China Podcast, we explore the wall, the Mongols, the Song Dynasty they vanquished, and Khubilai himself as he sat in his pleasure palace we know now as Xanadu.
There's hot pot, Olivia Newton-John references, two different typhoons, and more fun than you can shake a bottle of fermented mare's milk at.
Sources:
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. "Kubla Khan, or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment."
de Rachewiltz, Igor. tr. The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century
Keay, John. China: a History
Photograph by Severin.stalder