Quick recap
After Genghis's death, his descendants fight for power. Guyuk, the khan's grandson, uses bribery and murder to hold on and strains the tribes' loyalty. His cousin Mongke wipes out the opposition and sends his younger brothers, Kublai and Hulegu, to distant lands to test their loyalty. Hulegu destroys Baghdad and takes on the Assassins. Kublai, a scholar many think unfit to rule, learns war, invents new ways to conquer, builds the city of Xanadu and goes after the Sung empire in China. Wounded and weary, he has to face his own brothers in a civil war and betrays one of them to protect the nation. His gifts carry him through that war, and its outcome changes the world.
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