Was Subutai, Genghis Khan’s Greatest General, Overweight?
Debunking a popular myth about one of history’s finest military minds
One of the most influential books about the Mongol Empire in the 21st century is “Genghis Khan and Making of the Modern World” by Jack Weatherford. The work is a page-turner, which isn’t typical of a history book. This explains why it became a New York Times bestseller. In 2022, Weatherford received the Order of Chinggis Khaan, Mongolia’s highest state decoration, for popularizing the history of the Mongols.
Though Weatherford’s book is an excellent introduction to Mongol history, it has some inaccuracies. For example, the text says that Genghis Khan’s greatest general and one of history’s finest military geniuses, Subutai, was so overweight that he couldn’t ride a horse and “had to be hauled around in an iron chariot.”
According to Weatherford:
One man, however, had a different proposal. Subodei(Subutai), fresh from his victory over the Jurched, had been the greatest general in Genghis Khan’s army, and with his shrewd knowledge of seige warfare and the use of large attack machines, he had played a major role in every important campaign the Mongols fought. He was now sixty years old, probably blind in one eye and according to some reports so fat that he…
