All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S06E12.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

- Tonight, Chinggis Khan,

a legendary ancient ruler

who amassed unimaginable wealth.

- His riches would be
worth in the neighborhood

of $120 trillion today.

- The influence of Chinggis
Khan's Mongol empire

is still felt across
Asia and beyond,

but the fate of his
treasure remains a mystery.

- He absolutely wanted to
keep his enemies guessing,

so he probably engaged in
substantial amounts of deception

regarding his fortune.

- Great leaders like Khan

were known to be buried
with their treasure,

but 800 years later,

neither his tomb nor his
supposed hoard have been found.

- Was he buried
with his treasure?

Is it scattered across Asia,

or could it be both?

- There's also a curse.

Anybody who disturbs his tomb

will actually cause
the end of the world.

- Now we'll explore
the top theories around

exactly where Chinggis Khan's
buried treasure might be.

[dramatic music]

The Khentii Mountains, a
rugged and remote region

in the most sparsely populated

nation on the planet, Mongolia.

But turn the clock
back 800 years,

and it's the heart of an empire

that covers one fifth
of all land on Earth,

and it's ruled by one
man: Chinggis Khan.

- Historians have
often struggled

to put the sheer size
of Chinggis' empire

into some kind of
comprehensible scale.

At its height under his rule,

it was well over 9
million square miles.

It stretched from the Caspian
Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

He conquered civilization
after civilization,

civilizations that have
stood in many cases

for thousands of
years on their own.

And now this group
of pastoral nomads

are coming out of
essentially no man's land

in the central
steppes of Mongolia,

and winning nothing but
victory after victory.

- Although a lot of times he's
referred to as Genghis Khan,

we believe it's
probably more accurate

to refer to him
as Chinggis Khan.

But for a lot of people,
especially in the West,

when you hear the
name Chinggis Khan,

you think about brutality;

you think about this kind of
cruel, almost barbaric ruler,

but that's really one
small part of the story.

He rules, actually,
with a ton of tolerance.

In a lot of ways, he's
a lot more progressive

than his European
contemporaries.

He understands that allowing
the people that he's ruling

to continue their customs,

their religious practices,

is probably what's
best for his empire.

In a lot of ways, his
rule sets the stage

for the modern world.

- [Laurence] Chinggis
Khan builds his empire

from practically nothing.

- The man we think
of as Chinggis Khan

was born Temujin in
the late 12th century,

and his father was fairly
prominent within their tribe.

However, when Temujin
is about 10 years old,

his father is murdered
by a rival tribe

and when that happens,

all of the standing
of his family

essentially declines
within the tribe.

- To be fatherless in
one of the Mongol tribes

is really a huge liability.

His entire family is cast out.

They're essentially homeless,

wandering the steppes,

hunting for their
own food, rodents,

or whatever other
animal they could find.

- At one point, there's a
dispute within the family

over the distribution of food.

Temujin actually
murders his half-brother

to end the dispute,

and that tells us something
about his ruthlessness,

even as a young boy.

- So as Temujin grows
into his adulthood,

he's able to game
some followers.

He establishes this meritocracy.

So basically, if you are
the strongest soldier,

if you're the best
fighter, the best provider,

then you're gonna have a
place in Temujin's tribe

and this really makes people

wanna join him and follow him.

- He starts to
develop a reputation

for being both
ruthless and crafty.

And it seems in hindsight

that Temujin was probably
plotting his revenge

against the tribe that
murdered his father, all along.

And here's where we
see the ruthlessness

of what Temujin
brings to the fight,

because he does take
an awful revenge

for the death of his father.

He orders the murder

of every member of the tribe
taller than a cart axle.

In other words, only small
children were spared;

everybody else was killed.

- This area of the world

was characterized by
groups of nomadic tribes.

There is no sense
of social cohesion

like we would think of today,

living in communities together.

So because they are tribal,

there tends to be
a lot of conflict

and it is that sort of situation

that almost requires someone
who could step in and unify,

and that's what Temujin does.

- [Laurence] An assembly
of Mongol tribesmen

proclaims Temujin
their new leader

and gives him a new
name, Chinggis Khan,

which means universal ruler.

He decides to expand the
territories he rules.

- Chinggis builds an
empire within a generation.

When you think about,
this is 25 years,

how can you even draw parallel
with the Roman Empire,

which is built over 400 years?

- If you resist Chinggis Khan,

it's probably not gonna
end very well for you.

A lot of times there
are very few people

left in a village to survive.

Often he will only allow
a few people to survive

to go and tell the
other villages,

the other tribes,
about his cruelty

and then hopefully
surrender in advance.

- The Mongols
understand intrinsically

that it's inherently better

to actually convince the enemy

to surrender and collaborate,

than it is to have
to slaughter them

or wear them down through an
attrition approach to war.

So on the one hand,

he needs to be a fairly
generous conqueror.

When he conquers you,

he offers to let
you join his society

under very specific rules.

- In addition to the
territorial expansion

that goes on as a
result of his conquest,

he's also acquiring treasure

and treasure not
just in the sense

that we might think
of coins and jewels,

he's also amassing a
treasure of people;

of livestock, of land.

- [Laurence] At the
height of his empire,

Chinggis Khan amassed a fortune

estimated to be worth over

$120 trillion in today's money.

- When it comes to
the spoils of war,

whether it was forcibly
taken from a city

or given voluntarily
through tribute,

the possibilities are
quite literally endless.

Any kind of treasure made
of anything from jade,

to porcelain, to ivory,
to gold, to silver.

And so it's fair to think
that all of these treasures

ranging from the far east
to the edge of Europe,

may have made their way back

to the heart of their empire.

- Chinggis Khan establishes
his own new currency system,

which is based on silver coins.

We also have some evidence
that him and his successors

were some of the first
to use paper money,

which is really interesting.

So we have to imagine that
there was a lot of gold

and silver and just
precious metals

floating around
the empire as well.

- [Laurence] But all of
Chinggis Khan's riches

can't save him from
a mysterious death.

- We're not sure exactly
how Chinggis Khan died,

but we do know when
and where he died,

which is August 18th, 1227,

somewhere in what's
today Northwestern China.

There are a lot of
stories about how he died.

He was almost 70
years old at the time,

so that might have been
one of the main causes.

But some stories say
that he took an arrow

and he fell off his horse
and suffered an injury.

There are others who
say he might have died

of some disease like
the bubonic plague.

There's even a story
that a conquered princess

might have injured his
genitalia, leading to his death;

but a lot of these
sound kind of legendary

befitting a Chinggis Khan,

but will never exactly
know what happened.

- The Mongols have some
very interesting beliefs

about death and burial.

In particular, they
believe that you really can

take it with you.

You require wealth and
riches in the afterlife,

and so it is entirely plausible

that Chinggis Khan was buried

with a substantial
amount of treasure.

- So most experts believe

that if you can find the
burial site of Chinggis Khan,

you are going to find a
great cache of treasure.

- Chinggis Khan made sure

that it would be incredibly
difficult to find his tomb.

So even to this day,

we really don't know exactly

where he was buried.

He wanted it to
be kept a secret.

There's a lot of
legends and stories

around how this happened.

- One of which suggests
that almost no one

was trusted with the
actual burial location.

The troops that were
detailed to create the tomb

and placed Chinggis
Khan within it

were ordered to kill anyone

they met on the
route to the tomb,

and were then themselves
killed in turn

by a separate unit.

That separate unit was
killed by a third unit,

thus continually breaking

the chain of
information and evidence

as to where the tomb
might be located.

- [Laurence] One
of the oldest clues

pointing to a potential
location of the tomb

comes from a young explorer
employed by the Mongol Empire

about 50 years after Chinggis
Khan's death, Marco Polo.

- Marco Polo served
as an emissary

at the court of Kublai Khan,
Chinggis Khan's grandson.

He reports that what
he's hearing at the court

of Kublai Khan is that

the great Chinggis
Khan is buried

in the Khentii Mountain
region in a specific mountain,

which he does not name.

The challenge is that
we're talking about

an area that is thousands
of square miles.

- [Laurence] After the fall of
the Mongol Empire in 1368,

the ruling powers of Mongolia

change hands several times.

Then in the 1920s,
the northern region

known as Outer Mongolia,

joins the newly
formed Soviet Union.

After World War II,

the southern region
known as Inner Mongolia

becomes part of China,
where it remains today.

- For the next few centuries,

whoever is in charge
of this mountain range

is gonna make it really
difficult to go in and explore.

Even once Mongolia becomes

a puppet state of the
Soviet Union in the 1920s,

the Soviets also wanna
keep this area off limits.

- There is the added
dramatic element here

that there's a curse
associated with his burial.

Anyone who opens the grave
of the great Chinggis Khan

doesn't just doom
their own life,

they bring about the
end of the world.

- It's not really until
the Iron Curtain falls

that we get to have
some exploration

of this region of the
Khentii Mountains.

So, starting in 1989,

people come and start
exploring the region

looking for his tomb.

- [Laurence] During this time,

a wealthy Chicago commodities
trader named Maury Kravitz

grows obsessed with finding
Chinggis Khan's tomb.

- He identifies
multiple locations

in the Khentii mountains

that he believes might hold
the remains of the great Khan.

In the summer of 2000,
he's ready to begin.

Almost from the beginning,

the Kravitz expedition
is all but doomed.

His horses become exhausted

when they're only
halfway to the elevation

of the intended site.

- They have to be taken the
rest of the way by helicopter,

but they do eventually discover

some really interesting sites.

About 150 tombs, but none
of them are Chinggis Khan's.

So, on his second
excursion in 2001,

they meet a local herdsman

who tells him about
this walled structure

on one side of a mountain,

that's signifying some
place of importance.

- As they crest the
rise on their climb,

they discover a wall stretching
two miles in distance,

reaching heights as
high as 12 feet high,

surrounding a
mysterious complex.

- [Laurence] In 2002, the
Mongolian government

gives Kravitz's team
permission to dig.

- Then, trouble hits basically
at every step of the way.

Several of Kravitz's team
are bitten by pit vipers,

which can be deadly.

They have to be medevaced out.

At one point, one of their cars

rolls off the side
of a mountain,

and surprisingly no one is hurt.

There's also an
outbreak of anthrax

among some of the animals.

So, at that point,

the Mongolian government
decides to shut it down.

- [Laurence] Kravitz is unable
to resume the expedition

and dies in 2012.

- There has been no return to
that site to explore since,

but whenever you're talking
about 800 year old loot

involving a great
Mongol emperor,

there'll be treasure hunters
from all over the world

who are going to seek this site.

- [Laurence] Chinggis Khan's
riches may have been buried

with him according to
Mongolian beliefs,

but his tomb has eluded

discovery for nearly 800 years.

- After Chinggis Khan's

death in 1227,

there's a special
work commissioned

called "The Secret
History of the Mongols,"

that chronicles his life
and that of his court.

This was never a text that was
meant for public consumption.

This is something
that was written

for the private use of those
closest to the emperor.

- This document was
lost for centuries.

It was originally written
in a Mongol dialect,

but eventually since the
Mongols later conquer China,

it gets translated into Chinese

and it is rediscovered
in the 1800s

in a Chinese version,

which we've been
able now to read.

So according to "The Secret
History of the Mongols,"

Chinggis Khan is buried
in a sacred mountain

in the Khentii Mountain range,

one of the highest
mountain there,

some 8,000 feet,
called Burkhan Khaldun.

And this is also the
place where he was born.

[tense music]

- Burkhan Khaldun actually
translates to God Mountain,

so it's a very sacred
site to begin with

in Mongolian thinking.

It was a site that
was very, very special

to Chinggis Khan himself.

It was a site where
early in his life,

he had escaped to find refuge

during a battle that
had gone south on him.

He kind of felt this life
debt to the mountain itself,

and it was this place where
he had returned to often.

In fact, there's
one account found

in "The Secret History
of the Mongols,"

which says that one day
he was out on the plains

there at the foot of the
Burkhan Khaldun Mountain,

and there was a solitary
tree growing there,

and that he sat
beneath its shade.

And while sitting there,

he came to the realization

that this was where he
wanted to be buried.

- If Chinggis Khan's
wish was honored,

then it's very possible

that not only is he buried
there on Burkhan Khaldun,

but some of the treasure
could be as well.

In 2009, Albert Lin,
an American explorer,

decides he's gonna take
a more modern approach

to searching for
Chinggis Khan's tomb.

- [Laurence] Using drones
and satellites,

Lin and his team collect
over 85,000 aerial images

of the Khentii Mountains.

- It's a very large area.

He has 85,000 images,

so he can't do all this himself.

But in our modern age,

he decides that
he could bring in

more people through the internet

in a form of crowdsourcing.

Now, these people don't
necessarily have to be experts.

They just have to look for
things that seem unusual,

that doesn't look natural there,

and he creates an algorithm

for all of the hits that
people identify there.

And in narrowing these down,

one spot in particular

on the slopes of
the Burkhan Khaldun,

there seems to be a large

man-made structural
remains there.

- The only problem for Lin

is that this site is
right in the middle

of an area known
as the Great Taboo

or the Forbidden Zone.

Almost as soon as
Chinggis Khan is gone,

this area becomes off limits

to everyone except
for the Mongol elite.

- In fact, it's even said

that it's guarded by a
shaman tribe of Mongols

known as the Darkhans,

who protect the area.

This goes hand in
hand with this notion

of there being a curse for
anybody who disturbs the tomb.

[tense suspenseful music]

- This Great Taboo continues

even during the Soviet
rule of Mongolia.

The Soviets don't want anyone

getting hold of
Chinggis Khan, his tomb,

any of his treasures
that could be used

to spark Mongol nationalism.

It's not until the 2010s

that the Mongolian government

finally allows some
in-person research there.

- [Laurence] In 2012,
Dr. Lin and his team

are allowed to examine the site

of the stone
structure in person.

- They're able to do
preliminary digging,

and they do find
things like arrowheads

and ceramic pottery shards,

which they're then
able to actually date

to the 1200s when Chinggis
Khan would've lived.

But unfortunately, the
Mongolian government

hasn't granted them permission

to go back and follow
up on that dig.

So that mysterious
stone structure

remains something
of a mystery to us.

- But Lin is not the only one

who's interested in this site.

In 2015, there's a team
of French researchers

who use a drone
and identify a site

on the side of a mountain
at Burkhan Khaldun

that appears to be an ancient
mound surrounded by stones.

So this is intriguing,

because it has all the features

of being a potential
burial site.

The challenge is that
these French researchers

didn't receive the
proper approvals

of the Mongolian government,

so the investigation
is shut down.

[tense dramatic music]

- Although Burkhan
Khaldun seems like

the most likely spot for
Chinggis Khan's tomb,

there are still
other possibilities.

And in fact, maybe people
are working backwards.

We shouldn't think
about the tomb first,

maybe we gotta go to
Chinggis Khan's death

and start working from there.

- [Laurence] 2016.
Yinchaun, China.

American Explorer Alan
Nichols leads an expedition

he believes will
finally end the mystery

of Chinggis Khan's
tomb and treasure.

- Alan Nichols is an
attorney and an explorer

who has made himself into
somewhat of an expert

on sacred mountains.

So Nichols's idea is to start

with the last information

that we know is true
about Chinggis Khan,

which is when and where he died,

and work backwards from there.

[tense dramatic music]

- Nichols instead
essentially looks at a map

and he says, "Well, we know
where Chinggis Khan died,

and we know that was
Chinese territory.

We're relatively certain

that the Mongols would
not have buried him there.

However, we also know
that the Mongols believed

that burial needed to occur
immediately after death,

and as such, they
probably would've taken

the most direct route
out of Chinese territory

and buried the
Great Khan as soon

as it was culturally
permissive to do so."

- [Laurence]
According to Nichols,

there's another
reason why the Khan

would not be buried where
historical accounts indicate.

- It's quite possible that
there's false information,

deception in these sources,

like "The Secret
History of the Mongols,"

because we know that
Chinggis Khan himself

was a master of deception.

He used deception frequently
in his military tactics.

Besides the feigned retreats
and then turning on enemies,

we also know that
he would do things

to make the enemy
think that his force

was much greater in
size than it was.

For example, having his
cavalry drag branches

and wood behind
them to kick up dust

to make it seem like
they had a huge force,

so it was common for him
to use deception like this

and so why not to see people
about where he's buried?

[tense suspenseful music]

- There is a belief in shamanism

that as soon as you die,

your physical remains can
be invaded by evil spirits.

Because he represents
the identity

of the Mongolian people,

there would be a
special attention made

to an immediate burial for him

to prohibit that from happening.

Nichols believes that
Chinggis Khan's army

does not go the distance
to take him back home,

but instead goes to
the closest place

that is just over the boundary
of what is Mongol land.

The land today is inside China,

but at the time, this
was Mongol territory.

- [Laurence] In 2016, Nichols
claims to have found

Chinggis Khan's likely burial
location in Northwest China,

which he refers to
only as Mountain X.

- We do know that this
so-called Mountain X,

it's in a very modern
Chinese city, Yinchaun,

and in addition to
ruins of earlier things,

there's also modern structures.

Unfortunately, he won't tell
us what that mountain is.

He just calls it Mountain X.

He doesn't want anybody else

to go in there and excavate it

and beat him to the punch,

and get all the glory.

- Applying for permission
to dig in such an area

is going to require
permissions of the government,

so we have the challenge

of requesting permission
to explore a site

that we are simultaneously
unwilling to reveal.

The Chinese government says
no to further exploration

and shuts this team down.

- [Laurence] Finding
Chinggis Khan's tomb

has been an obsession of
archaeologists and explorers

for hundreds of years,

but for those focused on
locating the treasure,

his tomb may not
be the only answer.

- Not all of his treasure
might be in his tomb.

After all, the Mongol
Empire continued.

In fact, it would
continue to expand

even after Chinggis Khan,
under his successors

and they would've had
to have some wealth

to continue on the empire,

so surely his successors
would've retained

some if not most of that wealth.

- We don't have an exact number

for how many children
Chinggis Khan produced,

but we're fairly certain that
it's well over a thousand.

There is a 2003
DNA study conducted

that suggests that 16
million men on Earth

may have a direct
genetic heritage

that can be drawn
from Chinggis Khan.

However, in his lifetime,

he only publicly
acknowledged four sons

and he determines that the
third of those sons, Ogedei,

will be his chosen successor.

- When Chinggis
Khan dies in 1227,

he leaves his vast Mongol Empire

to his third son, Ogedei Khan.

The new Emperor,
much like his father,

conquers people and territory

with terrifying efficiency.

He expands the Empire west

all the way to
modern-day Poland,

but it's Ogedei's transformation
of the Mongolian capital

that may hold clues to his
father's missing riches.

- The capital of the Mongol
Empire was Karakorum,

which is located on
the famous Silk Road.

It is the nexus of the
East-West trading route.

So Chinggis Khan
established this capital

really as a base of operations

from which his
armies would go out.

At his time, it
was not much more

than a collection of yurts,

but this is going to
dramatically transform

under the reign of his son.

- Ogedei unlike Chinggis,

doesn't really see himself

as a nomadic warrior
of the steppes.

He's been raised
in the environment

that's populated by Mongol
power and all of these riches.

And so Ogedei is
going to start to look

for more forms of permanence,

and that's going to
include the construction

of a massive palace
at Karakorum.

- What's really
interesting about Karakorum

is that it's not a village
that grows gradually

from a village into
a town, into a city.

It's essentially like a
pop-up city all at once

that Ogedei creates,

and it's meant to be sort of

the jewel of the Mongol Empire,

the place where people from
all over can come and visit

and essentially be impressed
by what they've accomplished.

- One of the first
thing that he does

is he brings in all
of the conquered,

captured and
conscripted craftsmen

from across the
Eurasian continent,

and collectively, they
pour their talents

into the construction of this
quite glorious capital city.

It was kind of a site
of cultural blending

unparalleled at that time.

Walking down the street,

you would see Buddhist temples
next to Islamic mosques,

next to Christian churches.

- It is designed to
over-awe anyone visits it.

When you start to think about

how you show off
wealth and power,

that's what you see
embodied in this palace,

and it's where the
loot flows back to

because it's important
to keep in mind

that Ogedei is still conquering.

He's still expanding the Empire,

so that's probably where a
lot of this treasure was.

We have eyewitness accounts
showing all of this opulence.

Everything seems to be covered

in gold and silver,
ivory and precious gems.

- [Laurence] One of the most
detailed accounts of the palace

is written by a
visiting missionary

known as William of Rubruck.

- William of Rubruck
describes these buildings,

calling them "as long as barns."

He describes these barns
as holding treasures,

and if you consider
what that means

to a European observer,

you're talking about
a vast, long hallway.

[light dramatic music]

- William of Rubruck describes

this incredibly opulent
silver and gold fountain

in the shape of a tree,

where literally the tree
branches serve as pipes

that can dispense and
serve wine, milk, mead.

It's incredible.

Just this fountain alone
is a really good indicator

that the Mongols have a lot
of precious metals on hand.

- In regards to the wealth
accumulated by the Mongols,

while it's doubtful
that all of it

was contained in a tomb left
for the Great Khan himself,

much of it would've been

brought into the
city of Karakorum.

However, the city of
Karakorum is kind of

a temporary capital in the
history of the Mongol Empire.

- By the 1270s, the Mongols have

abandoned Karakorum
as their capital,

basically because it doesn't
really have the resources

to support such a
large population

and then later on in 1380,

it gets ransacked and destroyed

by a marauding Chinese army.

- For all intents and purposes,

it's no longer a center of
imperial power of any type,

it's a relatively
small settlement,

but what's left
there is destroyed.

Two hundred years
after that in 1586,

a large Buddhist monastery
is built on the same site.

- In the 1940s, Soviet
archaeologists claim

that they have
discovered the ruins

of this palace of
the Great Khan,

but other experts disagree

and believe that what
they found was a temple

and that it's possible that
the ruins of the palace

are actually underneath
the monastery itself.

The main problem is
that the monastery

is still in use today.

They have to get a
lot of permission

from the Mongolian government

to actually dig under the site.

[drone whining]

- [Laurence] But technological
advances in the 2000s

make it possible
to search Karakorum

without extensive digging.

This sparks renewed interest

in the hunt for
Chinggis Khan's riches.

- In 2021, German researchers
spend fifty two days

surveying the site
using something

called super sensitive
magnetometry.

It's designed to detect
voids and pockets

beneath the surface of the Earth

that might identify previously
existing structures.

So if they were able to discern

that this was probably
the site of a palace

beneath the monastery.

[mysterious music]

- Archaeologists have discovered

a lot of really interesting
artifacts around Karakorum,

including Muslim silver coins,

Chinese pottery,
an Egyptian mask,

and even a gold bracelet
in the shape of a phoenix.

The main problem is
that we don't know

if these treasures are related

to Chinggis Khan's leadership,

or they're just more
evidence of Karakorum

as this bustling
center of trade.

- The Mongols built great
palaces in many locations.

This is not the only one.

If you really wanna make sure

that you have ruled out

every possible location
for this treasure,

you've got to go to Xanadu.

- [Laurence] Some
believe the key

to finding Chinggis
Khan's riches

is to investigate his
successors' extravagant palaces,

and none are more impressive

than those constructed by
the mighty Kublai Khan.

- Kublai Khan is
Chinggis Khan's grandson.

He's actually going to
oversee the Mongol Empire

kind of at its height,
at its absolute apex.

Kublai Khan is the
one that actually

kind of wins the war with
China once and for all.

He's obsessed with bringing
about the final conquest

of the southern Chinese cities,

that up until the
time of his reign

had been able to withstand
the Mongol assaults.

- So one of the things

that helped Kublai
Khan conquer China

is a new kind of catapult.

The Mongols called
it the Huihui Pao,

and basically by having
a heavy counterweight,

it can sling a large
projectile of some 600 pounds

a good three hundred yards

to smash through enemy
walls of fortified cities.

[tense music]

- The Mongols don't just
fling stone projectiles

or explosives into
Chinese cities,

they will also try to
poison the water supplies

by flinging the carcasses of
dead livestock over the walls.

They will also fling the
heads of their enemies

over the walls.

There's nothing quite
like a pile of skulls

to serve as a wonderful message

to anyone who might be thinking

about resisting your conquest.

- [Laurence] With his invasion
of China complete,

Kublai Khan now controls
20% of all land on Earth.

- So Kublai Khan inherits
the capital in Karakorum,

but because his focus is on

controlling and ruling China,

he wants to build
palaces further south,

closer where he can keep
an eye on the Chinese.

- So after he conquers China,

Kublai Khan wants
to be closer to it

rather than staying
in Karakorum.

And so he creates
this new capital

some 200 miles
away from Beijing.

- There are many
experts who believe

that Kublai Khan would've wanted

to bring Chinggis Khan's
treasure along with him

to this new capital
that he built

to showcase all of
the Mongol riches.

Kublai Khan names his
new capital Shangdu,

but at the same time,

Marco Polo is working for
the Empire as an advisor

and through his accounts,

the name becomes
somewhat garbled,

and it's why we now
know it as Xanadu.

- Xanadu is this splendid,

wealthy, magnificent place,

a couple of palaces, gardens,

hunting grounds, streams
running through it.

In fact, this is what inspired

the famous poem
called, "Kubla Khan"

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

which starts off
with the famous line,

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
a pleasure dome decree."

- Xanadu is in some
ways mythological

and in some ways entirely real.

It's like a Shangri-La,

only we know for sure that
it was actually constructed.

Marco Polo claimed to have seen

storehouses filled
with treasures

belonging to the Great Khan,

as well as golden and bronze
statues in every room.

- [Laurence] Several
surviving accounts

document the vast
treasure held at Xanadu,

but none of them indicate

what happened to that treasure.

- When Kublai Khan dies in 1294,

there's a lot of infighting
among the Mongol successors,

there's a lot of Chinese revolts

and things really go
south for the Mongols.

And by 1368, about 75 years
after Kublai Khan's death,

the Empire falls.

[fire roaring]
[warriors yelling]

- So by 1430, the city
of Xanadu no longer

has any real influence.

And as a matter of fact,

the great structures themselves

begin to be reused to
build domestic dwellings,

or for other civil purposes.

So the image that we might
have of Xanadu is lost to us

because it is incorporated
into the next page of history.

[upbeat propulsive music]

- There's really no doubt

that a lot of the loot conquered
by Chinggis Khan's armies

continues to amass in
the various palaces.

It starts in Karakorum, it
winds up next in Xanadu.

That's how empires work.

And as their capital moves,

the riches that underpin
it move along with them.

And so it really shouldn't
come as a surprise

that when you go to
construct a new palace,

you're probably gonna
strip the old one

of most of its wealth.

You're gonna reuse a lot
of the same materials.

- [Laurence] But the legend of
this glittering city lives on.

- The legacy of Xanadu lives on

partly because of
Marco Polo's writing,

partly because of
the Coleridge poem.

But it's important to remember

that this is not a
fictional paradise.

It was a real place.

- We know where Xanadu is.

You can Google map it
right now with satellite

and you can see where it is.

There's still a possibility,

with further archaeological
investigation,

that something more
can be found there.

It's just a matter of what.

[mysterious music]
[soldiers chatterng]

- In the 1930s, we know that
there are Japanese soldiers

that are using metal detection

as a way of exploring Xanadu,

and they came up empty.

But in many ways, that only
contributes to the mystique.

We know that we
found clay figures,

things that would be
considered great treasures,

but not the kind of treasure
that we're talking about

when we say we're looking for
the treasure of Chinggis Khan.

- So with no luck
so far in Xanadu,

some treasure hunters believe

that we should look a
little bit further south,

a few hundred miles
down the Silk Road

at another place where
Kublai Khan held court.

- Kublai Khan decides that
he needs to move his palace

even closer to the
centers of power in China.

And so he's going to wind up

building an even bigger palace,

thus outdoing what his
predecessors had done.

- [Laurence] Beijing has
been China's capital

for over 3000 years,

but in the late 1200s,

it's not the Chinese
who control it.

At the time, the city
is known as Shangdu,

and is the capital of
Kublai Khan's empire.

- Kublai Khan
really sees himself

as both Mongolian and
Chinese in a lot of ways.

He's adopted many of the
mores of Chinese culture,

and so he's going to move

to what we now call Beijing,

and build a massive palace there

as the center point to
administer his far-flung empire.

Everywhere you look,

all of the treasure and loot

and inordinate
wealth of the Mongols

is within this great
palace of Kublai Khan.

- And this is of course Kublai
Khan's proudest achievement,

the conquest of China.

So if that's going to
be his new capital city,

he's going to bring
his treasury with him,

and that again is
the inheritance

that goes back to Chinggis Khan.

[propulsive music]

- In 1271, Kublai Khan builds

his most over-the-
top palace yet.

In fact, Marco Polo
describes this palace

as the greatest
palace that ever was.

- Its walls were covered
with gold and silver.

It has a dining hall that
could seat some 6,000 people,

and then it had
private chambers,

according to Marco Polo,

which housed treasures
including gold, silver, gems,

and the private property
of the Great Khan.

But these were off
limits to outsiders,

so who knows how much was
in these private rooms?

- The cult of worship that
springs up around Chinggis Khan

intensifies under the reign
of his grandson, Kublai Khan.

At one point, Kublai Khan

is gonna go so far
as to construct

a giant eight-chambered temple

at the palace there at Shangdu,

in devotion to
Chinggis Khan himself.

And this was going to become

a site of great
ceremonial importance.

In this temple,

he's going to stock
it with several relics

that were associated
with Chinggis Khan,

along with perhaps jade
ornaments and porcelain goods.

- Shangdu is where
Kublai Khan settles down

for the remainder of his rule

until his death in 1294.

- After Kublai Khan,

we don't have a clear
line of succession.

The Mongol Empire effectively
tears itself apart.

Administering this
size of an empire

over this wide of an area
is all but impossible,

unless you have a very
charismatic leader,

a shared common culture,

and a willingness for

the different disparate
parts of the empire

to remain together.

And that's just really not
the case with the Mongols.

- Given that this is
the primary location

of Kublai Khan
for over 20 years,

this is a really
good potential site

for Chinggis Khan's treasure.

[hooves pounding]

- [Laurence] After the Mongol
Empire falls in the late 1300s,

the Chinese retake Shangdu

and according to some accounts,

burn Mongol palaces
to the ground.

They renamed the city Beijing,

capital of a new Chinese regime,

the Ming Dynasty.

- They destroy Kublai
Khan's Mongol palace

and they set up a new palace
center for themselves,

called the Forbidden City.

[mysterious music]

This would be the
administrative center

for the royal family
of the Chinese Emperor

and his administration,

and it was off limits
to everyone else.

The Mongol period is forgotten.

Those buildings were destroyed.

Who knows what happened to them?

- [Laurence] Then in 2016,

archaeologists working
in Beijing

propose a startling new theory.

- Archaeologists examining
the Forbidden City

find that beneath the palace
today are earlier levels.

They find from the more
recent Ching period,

that underneath this you
have the Ming period,

and below that there
is the Mongol period.

So it turns out that the
palace of Kublai Khan

is probably there.

It's not near there,

it's actually under the
Forbidden City today.

- It's very possible that
if we explore these ruins,

that that might be the site

of Chinggis Khan's
lost treasure.

But like with a lot
of these other sites,

the Chinese government has been

really hesitant to allow digs

underneath the Forbidden City.

For one, its an incredibly
important historic site,

and it's a very large
tourist attraction.

- If it's the case that
Chinggis Khan's treasure

is retained by his successors

and is brought to Beijing

to be in Kublai
Khan's palace there,

it's still possible that
it's down there today.

But unless a way can be found

to do less invasive
archaeological investigation

using modern technologies,

we're in the dark.

We're just gonna have to wait

until that day comes

to figure out
what's under there.

- The influence of
the Mongolian Empire,

and specifically Chinggis Khan,

is still felt around
the globe today.

Chinggis Khan might
very well have been

the wealthiest
human ever on Earth,

and yet we've found
very little evidence

of what happened to his wealth.

- After 800 years,

the lure of Chinggis
Khan's lost riches

is still driving explorers

to corners of his vast
empire in search of clues.

Archaeologists have uncovered

more ancient burial
sites in Mongolia

and a palace in Turkey

belonging to one of
Chinggis Khan's grandsons.

Nothing of great value
has been found yet,

but treasure hunters
can take heart.

There's no shortage
of places to search.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne,

thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."