1/ There is a belief that the Mongol Empire ruled over just empty-space, and its administration consisted of just "tribal bands running back and forth," with no structure of empire. However, that's a stereotype of modern creation. 2/ Instead, based on the latest research and the primary sources (as I have understood them), here is a set of charts highlighting the administrative structure at the height of the united Mongol Empire. With its foundations in the reign of Chinggis Khan (r.1206-1227)

1/ Translation services were important work in the Mongol Empire. Dealing with language barriers could be a great hassle in any medieval state, and the Mongol Empire had to deal with administration over numerous, unrelated languages from across Asia. Not surprisingly... 2/ ...our sources indicate the Chinggisids richly rewarded the work of translators, and those who could speak and write multiple languages could find steady work in the Mongol imperial bureaucracy. For those who managed to learn the Mongolian language and script, they could...

1/ MONGOL-BYZANTINE MARRIAGES
At least six marriages between the Palaiologoi and the Chinggisids are recorded by my counting, unless I missed some. Usually they are explicitly described as being the "natural" daughters of the Emperors (that is, their mothers were not the empress) 2/ It is assumed to have been the case for all of these women, but information on most is very limited.
The first recorded marriage was between Maria, daughter of Michael VIII, to Hülegü in 1264, though he died before arrival, so she was instead married to his son Abaqa.

1/ Today is the day Mongolia celebrates the birthday of Chinggis Khan! We do not know the day or even precise year of his actual birth; the Mongolian government chose the First Day of Winter in the Lunar Calender (Nov 14th) as a symbolic day to celebrate it. 2/ For his actual year or day of birth, there is rather sparse information to go off of. No one recorded it at the time. Our earliest source on the matter is, I believe, Zhao Gong, a Song Dynasty envoy who travelled to the court of Muqali in 1221.

1/ BATTLE OF QATWAN, 1141: SELJUQS VS QARA-KHITAI
Fought near Samarkand, the battle of Qatwan was one of the most significant battles of the 12th century, which determined the politics in Central Asia until the rise of the Mongol Empire. 2/ The Khitans were a para-Mongolic people who ruled North China and Mongolia from the 10th-12th centuries. Their state was called the Liao Dynasty, and was toppled in the early the 1100s by the rising Jurchen forces of Wanyen Aguda, declaring the new Jin Dynasty in 1115.

A Mamluk horse archer. Mamluks were well trained for both close-range and long-distance warfare. Most of the early Mamluks were sourced from the Qipchaq steppe and sold into service around 14 years old; thus, living their first years as nomads they developed early on.... ...as horse riders and archers. Their training continued under the guidance of their new masters, with constant competitions and games to hone their skills.

1/ MUHAMMAD II KHWAREZM-SHAH

'Ala al-Din Muhammad ibn Tekish was the penultimate ruler of the Khwarezmian Empire from 1200-1220. In the opinion of contemporaries like Ibn al-Athir, he was the most powerful Islamic monarch since the collapse of the Great Seljuqs... 2/ ...ruling a realm stretching from the Caucasus, today's Iran across Central Asia to the Syr Darya River.
Map of the Khwarezmian Empire after its expansion under Muhammad Khwarezm-Shah, courtesy of Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khwarazmi…

This painting gets labeled as the Battle of Ayn Jalut very regularly... which is quite interesting considering that the battle was fought in Palestine, and those some big goddamn pyramids for Palestine. The bows and swords here looks like something from Dynastic Egypt? There is an artist's signature but I cannae read it and my efforts to google what I thought was the name didn't reveal anything.

1/ GIVING CONQUERORS RED HAIR?

I've dealt with the matter of Chinggis Khan's supposed red hair in my recent video and posts, but he is not the only one commonly claimed to be a red head. 2/ Temür, founder of the Timurid Empire; Fatih Sultan Mehmed, conqueror of Constantinople; and Isma'il I, founder of the Safavid Empire, are all often said to have had reddish hair.

The famed poet Jalal al-Din Rumi, according to his hagiographies, espoused cooperation with the Mongols. The Baiju Noyan mentioned here, was the Mongol commander who crushed the Seljuqs at Köse Dağ in 1243; not a man famous for his mercy. Note is from Judith Pfeiffer, "Confessional Ambiguity vs. Confessional Polarization: Politics and the Negotiation of the Religious Boundaries in the Ilkhanate," in Politics, Patronage, and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz (2014), pg. 137