essay of 3 paragraphs
C ontents
C over P age
Title P age
D edication
E pigraph
T he M ongol D ynasties
Introduction
T he M issing C onqueror
P A R T I
T H E R E IG N O F T E R R O R O N T H E S T E P P E : 1162-1206
1
T he B lood C lot
2
T ale of T hree R ivers
3
W ar of the K hans
P A R T II
T H E M O N G O L W O R L D W A R : 1211–1261
4
S pitting on the G olden K han
5
S ultan V ersus K han
6
T he D iscovery and C onquest of E urope
7
W arring Q ueens
P A R T III
T H E G L O B A L A W A K E N IN G : 1262–1962 8
K hubilai K han and the N ew M ongol E m pire
9
T heir G olden L ight
10
T he E m pire of Illusion
E pilogue
T he E ternal Spirit of G enghis K han
N otes
A N ote on Transliteration
Selected B ibliography
G lossary
A cknow ledgm ents
A bout the A uthor
A lso by Jack W eatherford
P raise for T he H istory of M oney
C opyright P age
T o the Y oung M ongols:
N ever forget the M ongolian scholars
w ho w ere w illing to sacrifice their lives to preserve your history.
T his noble king w as called G enghis K han,
W ho in his tim e w as of so great renow n
T hat there w as now here in no region
S o excellent a lord in all things.
G E O F F R E Y C H A U C E R ,
“ T he Squire’s Tale,”
T he C anterbury Tales (c. 1395) Introduction
T he M issing C onqueror
G enghis K han w as a doer.
W A SH IN G T O N P O ST, 1989
IN 1937, T H E S O U L of G enghis K han disappeared from the B uddhist m onastery in central M ongolia
along the R iver of the M oon below the black S hankh M ountains w here the faithful lam as had protected
and venerated it for centuries. D uring the 1930s, S talin’s henchm en executed som e thirty thousand
M ongols in a series of cam paigns against their culture and religion. T he troops ravaged one m onastery
after another, shot the m onks, assaulted the nuns, broke the religious objects, looted the libraries, burned
the scriptures, and dem olished the tem ples. R eportedly, som eone secretly rescued the em bodim ent of
G enghis K han’s soul from the S hankh M onastery and w hisked it aw ay for safekeeping to the capital in
U laanbaatar, w here it ultim ately disappeared.
T hrough the centuries on the rolling, grassy steppes of inner A sia, a w arrior-herder carried a S pirit
B anner, called a sulde, constructed by tying strands of hair from his best stallions to the shaft of a spear,
just below its blade. W henever he erected his cam p, the w arrior planted the S pirit B anner outside the
entrance to proclaim his identity and to stand as his perpetual guardian. T he S pirit B anner alw ays
rem ained in the o pen air beneath the E ternal B lue S ky that the M ongols w orshiped. A s the strands of hair
blew and tossed in the nearly constant breeze of the steppe, they captured the pow er of the w ind, the sky,
and the sun, and the banner channeled this pow er from nature to the w arrior. T he w ind in the horsehair
inspired the w arrior’s dream s and encouraged him to pursue his ow n destiny. T he stream ing and tw isting
of the horsehair in the w ind beckoned the ow ner ever onw ard, luring him aw ay from this spot to seek
another, to find better pasture, to explore new opportunities and adventures, to create his ow n fate in his
life in this w orld. T he union betw een the m an and his S pirit B anner grew so intertw ined that w hen he
died, the w arrior’s spirit w as said to reside forever in those tufts of horsehair. W hile the w arrior lived,
the horsehair banner carried his destiny; in death, it becam e his soul. T he physical body w as quickly
abandoned to nature, but the soul lived on forever in those tufts of horsehair to inspire future generations.
G enghis K han had one banner m ade from w hite horses to use in peacetim e and one m ade from black
horses for guidance in w ar. T he w hite one disappeared early in history, but the black one survived as the
repository of his soul. In the centuries after his death, the M ongol people continued to honor the banner
w here his soul resided. In the sixteenth century, one of his descendants, the lam a Z anabazar, built the
m onastery w ith a special m ission to fly and protect his banner. T hrough storm s and blizzards, invasions
and civil w ars, m ore than a thousand m onks of the Y ellow H at sect of T ibetan B uddhism guarded the great
banner, but they proved no m atch for the totalitarian politics of the tw entieth century. T he m onks w ere
killed, and the S pirit B anner disappeared.
F ate did not hand G enghis K han his destiny; he m ade it for him self. It seem ed highly unlikely that he
w ould ever have enough horses to create a S pirit B anner, m uch less that he m ight follow it across the w orld. T he boy w ho becam e G enghis K han grew up in a w orld of excessive tribal violence, including
m urder, kidnapping, and enslavem ent. A s the son in an outcast fam ily left to die on the steppes, he
probably encountered no m ore than a few hundred people in his entire childhood, and he received no
form al education. F rom this harsh setting, he learned, in dreadful detail, the full range of hum an em otion:
desire, am bition, and cruelty. W hile still a child he killed his older half brother, w as captured and
enslaved by a rival clan, and m anaged to escape from his captors.
U nder such horrific conditions, the boy show ed an instinct for survival and self-preservation, but he
show ed little prom ise of the achievem ents he w ould one day m ake. A s a child, he feared dogs and he
cried easily. H is younger brother w as stronger than he w as and a better archer and w restler; his half
brother bossed him around and picked on him . Y et from these degraded circum stances of hunger,
hum iliation, kidnapping, and slavery, he began the long clim b to pow er. B efore reaching puberty, he had
already form ed the tw o m ost im portant relationships of his life. H e sw ore eternal friendship and
allegiance to a slightly older boy w ho becam e the closest friend of his youth but turned into the m ost
dedicated enem y of his adulthood, and he found the girl w hom he w ould love forever and w hom he m ade
the m other of em perors. T he dual capacity for friendship and enm ity forged in G enghis K han’s youth
endured throughout his life and becam e the defining trait of his character. T he torm enting questions of love
and paternity that aro se beneath a shared blanket or in the flickering firelight of the fam ily hearth becam e
projected onto the larger stage of w orld history. H is personal goals, desires, and fears engulfed the w orld.
Y ear by year, he gradually defeated everyone m ore pow erful than he w as, until he had conquered every
tribe on the M ongolian steppe. A t the age of fifty, w hen m ost great conquerors had already put their
fighting days behind them , G enghis K han’s S pirit B anner beckoned him out of his rem ote hom eland to
confront the arm ies of the civilized people w ho had harassed and enslaved the nom adic tribes for
centuries. In the rem aining years of life, he follow ed that S pirit B anner to repeated victory across the
G obi and the Y ellow R iver into the kingdom s of C hina, through the central A sian lands of the T urks and
the P ersians, and across the m ountains of A fghanistan to the Indus R iver.
In conquest after conquest, the M ongol arm y transform ed w arfare into an intercontinental affair fought
on m ultiple fronts stretching across thousands of m iles. G enghis K han’s innovative fighting techniques
m ade the heavily arm ored knights of m edieval E urope obsolete, replacing them w ith disciplined cavalry
m oving in coordinated units. R ather than relying on defensive fortifications, he m ade brilliant use of
speed and surprise on the battlefield, as w ell as perfecting siege w arfare to such a degree that he ended
the era of w alled cities. G enghis K han taught his people not only to fight across incredible distances but
to sustain their cam paign over years, decades, and, eventually, m ore than three generations of constant
fighting.
In tw enty-five years, the M ongol arm y subjugated m ore lands and people than the R om ans had
conquered in four hundred years. G enghis K han, together w ith his sons and grandsons, conquered the m ost
densely populated civilizations of the thirteenth century. W hether m easured by the total num ber of people
defeated, the sum of the countries annexed, or by the total area occupied, G enghis K han conquered m ore
than tw ice as m uch as any other m an in history. T he hooves of the M ongol w arriors’ horses splashed in
the w aters of every river and lake from the P acific O cean to the M editerranean S ea. A t its zenith, the
em pire covered betw een 11 and 12 m illion contiguous square m iles, an area about the size of the A frican
continent and considerably larger than N orth A m erica, including the U nited S tates, C anada, M exico,
C entral A m erica, and the islands of the C aribbean com bined. It stretched from the snow y tundra of
S iberia to the hot plains of India, from the rice paddies of V ietnam to the w heat fields of H ungary, and
from K orea to the B alkans. T he m ajority of people today live in countries conquered by the M ongols; on
the m odern m ap, G enghis K ahn’s conquests include thirty countries w ith w ell over 3 billion people. T he
m ost astonishing aspect of this achievem ent is that the entire M ongol tribe under him num bered around a
m illion, sm aller than the w orkforce of som e m odern corporations. F rom this m illion, he recruited his arm y, w hich w as com prised of no m ore than one hundred thousand w arriors— a group that could
com fortably fit into the larger sports stadium s of the m odern era.
In A m erican term s, the accom plishm ent of G enghis K han m ight be understood if the U nited S tates,
instead of being created by a group of educated m erchants or w ealthy planters, had been founded by one
of its illiterate slaves, w ho, by the sheer force of personality, charism a, and determ ination, liberated
A m erica from foreign rule, united the people, created an alphabet, w rote the constitution, established
universal religious freedom , invented a new system of w arfare, m arched an arm y from C anada to B razil,
and opened roads of com m erce in a free-trade zone that stretched across the continents. O n every level
and from any perspective, the scale and scope of G enghis K han’s accom plishm ents challenge the lim its of
im agination and tax the resources of scholarly explanation.
A s G enghis K han’s cavalry charged across the thirteenth century, he redrew the boundaries of the
w orld. H is architecture w as not in stone but in nations. U nsatisfied w ith the vast num ber of little
kingdom s, G enghis K han consolidated sm aller countries into larger ones. In eastern E urope, the M ongols
united a dozen S lavic principalities and cities into one large R ussian state. In eastern A sia, over a span of
three generations, they created the country of C hina by w eaving together the rem nants of the S ung dynasty
in the south w ith the lands of the Jurched in M anchuria, T ibet in the w est, the T angut K ingdom adjacent to
the G obi, and the U ighur lands of eastern T urkistan. A s the M ongols expanded their rule, they created
countries such as K orea and India that have survived to m odern tim es in approxim ately the sam e borders
fashioned by their M ongol conquerors.
G enghis K han’s em pire connected and am algam ated the m any civilizations around him into a new
w orld order. A t the tim e of his birth in 1162, the O ld W orld consisted of a series of regional civilizations
each of w hich could claim virtually no know ledge of any civilization beyond its closest neighbor. N o one
in C hina had heard of E urope, and no one in E urope had heard of C hina, and, so far as is know n, no
person had m ade the journey fro m one to the other. B y the tim e of his death in 1227, he had connected
them w ith diplom atic and com m ercial contacts that still rem ain unbroken.
A s he sm ashed the feudal system of aristocratic privilege and birth, he built a new and unique system
based on individual m erit, loyalty, and achievem ent. H e took the disjointed and languorous trading tow ns
along the S ilk R oute and organized them into history’s largest free-trade zone. H e low ered taxes for
everyone, and abolished them altogether for doctors, teachers, priests, and educational institutions. H e
established a regular census and created the first international postal system . H is w as not an em pire that
hoarded w ealth and treasure; instead, he w idely distributed the goods acquired in com bat so that they
could m ake their w ay back into com m ercial circulation. H e created an international law and recognized
the ultim ate suprem e law of the E ternal B lue S ky over all people. A t a tim e w hen m ost rulers considered
them selves to be above the law , G enghis K han insisted on law s holding rulers as equally accountable as
the low est herder. H e granted religious freedom w ithin his realm s, though he dem anded total loyalty from
conquered subjects of all religions. H e insisted on the rule of law and abolished torture, but he m ounted
m ajor cam paigns to seek out and kill raiding bandits and terrorist assassins. H e refused to hold hostages
and, instead, instituted the novel practice of granting diplom atic im m unity for all am bassadors and
envoys, including those from hostile nations w ith w hom he w as at w ar.
G enghis K han left his em pire w ith such a firm foundation that it continued grow ing for another 150
years. T hen, in the centuries that follow ed its collapse, his descendants continued to rule a variety of
sm aller em pires and large countries, from R ussia, T urkey, and India to C hina and P ersia. T hey held an
eclectic assortm ent of titles, including khan, em peror, sultan, king, shah, em ir, and the D alai L am a.
V estiges of his em pire rem ained under the rule of his descendants for seven centuries. A s the M oghuls,
som e of them reigned in India until 1857, w hen the B ritish drove out E m peror B ahadur S hah II and
chopped off the heads of tw o of his sons and his grandson. G enghis K han’s last ruling descendant, A lim
K han, em ir of B ukhara, rem ained in pow er in U zbekistan until deposed in 1920 by the rising tide of S oviet revolution.
H istory has condem ned m ost conquerors to m iserable, untim ely deaths. A t age thirty-three, A lexander the
G reat died under m ysterious circum stances in B abylon, w hile his follow ers killed off his fam ily and
carved up his lands. Julius C aesar’s fellow aristocrats and form er allies stabbed him to death in the
cham ber of the R om an S enate. A fter enduring the destruction and reversal of all his conquests, a lonely
and em bittered N apoleon faced death as a solitary prisoner on one of the m ost rem ote and inaccessible
islands on the planet. T he nearly seventy-year-old G enghis K han, how ever, passed aw ay in his cam p bed,
surrounded by a loving fam ily, faithful friends, and loyal soldiers ready to risk their life at his com m and.
In the sum m er of 1227, during a cam paign against the T angut nation along the upper reaches of the Y ellow
R iver, G enghis K han died— or, in the w ords of the M ongols, w ho have an abhorrence of m entioning death
or illness, he “ascended into heaven.” In the years after his death, the sustained secrecy about the cause of
death invited speculation, and later inspired legends that w ith the veneer of tim e often appeared as
historic fact. P lano di C arpini, the first E uropean envoy to the M ongols, w rote that G enghis K han died
w hen he w as struck by lightning. M arco P olo, w ho traveled extensively in the M ongol E m pire during the
reign of G enghis K han’s grandson K hubilai, reported that G enghis K han succum bed from an arrow w ound
to the knee. S om e claim ed that unknow n enem ies had poisoned him . A nother account asserted that he had
been killed by a m agic spell of the T angut king against w hom he w as fighting. O ne of the stories circulated
by his detractors asserted that the captured T angut queen inserted a contraption into her vagina so that
w hen G enghis K han had sex w ith her, it tore off his sex organs and he died in hideous pain.
C ontrary to the m any stories about his dem ise, his death in a nom ad’s ger, essentially sim ilar to the one
in w hich he had been born, illustrated how successful he had been in preserving the traditional w ay of life
of his people; yet, ironically, in the process of preserving their lifestyle, he had transform ed hum an
society. G enghis K han’s soldiers escorted the body of their fallen khan back to his hom eland in M ongolia
for secret burial. A fter his death, his follow ers buried him anonym ously in the soil of his hom eland
w ithout a m ausoleum , a tem ple, a pyram id, or so m uch as a sm all tom bstone to m ark the place w here he
lay. A ccording to M ongol belief, the body of the dead should be left in peace and did not need a
m onum ent because the soul w as no longer there; it lived on in the S pirit B anner. A t burial, G enghis K han
disappeared silently back into the vast landscape of M ongolia from w hence he cam e. T he final destination
rem ained unknow n, but in the absence of reliable inform ation, people freely invented their ow n history,
w ith m any dram atic flourishes to the story. A n often repeated account m aintains that the soldiers in his
funeral cortege killed every person and anim al encountered on the forty-day journey, and that after the
secret burial, eight hundred horsem en tram pled repeatedly over the area to obscure the location of the
grave. T hen, according to these im aginative accounts, the horsem en w ere, in turn, killed by yet another set
of soldiers so that they could not report the location of the site; and then, in turn, those soldiers w ere slain
by yet another set of w arriors.
A fter the secret burial in his hom eland, soldiers sealed off the entire area for several hundred square
m iles. N o one could enter except m em bers of G enghis K han’s fam ily and a tribe of specially trained
w arriors w ho w ere stationed there to kill every intruder. F or nearly eight hundred years, this area— the
Ikh K horig, the G reat T aboo, deep in the heart of A sia— rem ained closed . A ll the secrets of G enghis
K han’s em pire seem ed to have been locked up inside his m ysterious hom eland. L ong after the M ongol
E m pire collapsed, and other foreign arm ies invaded parts of M ongolia, the M ongols prevented anyone
from entering the sacred precinct of their ancestor. D espite the eventual conversion of the M ongols to
B uddhism , his successors nevertheless refused to allow priests to build a shrine, a m onastery, or a
m em orial to m ark his burial.
In the tw entieth century, to assure that the area of G enghis K han’s birth and burial did not becom e a rallying point for nationalists, the S oviet rulers kept it securely guarded. Instead of calling it the G reat
T aboo or using one of the historic nam es that m ight hint at a connection to G enghis K han, the S oviets
called it by the bureaucratic designation of H ighly R estricted A rea. A dm inistratively, they separated it
from the surrounding province and placed it under the direct supervision of the central governm ent that, in
turn, w as tightly controlled from M oscow . T he S oviets further sealed it off by surrounding 1 m illion
hectares of the H ighly R estricted A rea w ith an equally large R estricted A rea. T o prevent travel w ithin the
area, the governm ent built neither roads nor bridges during the C om m unist era. T he S oviets m aintained a
highly fortified M iG air base, and quite probably a storehouse of nuclear w eapons, betw een the
R estricted A rea and the M ongolian capital of U laanbaatar. A large S oviet tank base blocked the entrance
into the forbidden zone, and the R ussian m ilitary used the area for artillery practice and tank m aneuvers.
T he M ongols m ade no technological breakthroughs, founded no new religions, w rote few books or
dram as, and gave the w orld no new crops or m ethods of agriculture. T heir ow n craftsm en could not
w eave cloth, cast m etal, m ake pottery, or even bake bread. T hey m anufactured neither porcelain nor
pottery, painted no pictures, and built no buildings. Y et, as their arm y conquered culture after culture, they
collected and passed all of these skills from one civilization to the next.
T he only perm anent structures G enghis K han erected w ere bridges. A lthough he spurned the building of
castles, forts, cities, or w alls, as he m oved across the landscape, he probably built m ore bridges than any
ruler in history. H e spanned hundreds of stream s and rivers in order to m ake the m ovem ent of his arm ies
and goods quicker. T he M ongols deliberately opened the w orld to a new com m erce not only in goods, but
also in ideas and know ledge. T he M ongols brought G erm an m iners to C hina and C hinese doctors to
P ersia. T he transfers ranged from the m onum ental to the trivial. T hey spread the use of carpets
everyw here they w ent and transplanted lem ons and carrots from P ersia to C hina, as w ell as noodles,
playing cards, and tea from C hina to the W est. T hey brought a m etalw orker from P aris to build a fountain
on the dry steppes of M ongolia, recruited an E nglish noblem an to serve as interpreter in their arm y, and
took the practice of C hinese fingerprinting to P ersia. T hey financed the building of C hristian churches in
C hina, B uddhist tem ples and stupas in P ersia, and M uslim K oranic schools in R ussia. T he M ongols sw ept
across the globe as conquerors, but also as civilization’s unrivaled cultural carriers.
T he M ongols w ho inherited G enghis K han’s em pire exercised a determ ined drive to m ove products and
com m odities around and to com bine them in w ays that produced entirely novel pro ducts and
unprecedented invention. W hen their highly skilled engineers from C hina, P ersia, and E urope com bined
C hinese gunpow der w ith M uslim flam ethrow ers and applied E uropean bell-casting technology, they
produced the cannon, an entirely new order of technological innovation, from w hich sprang the vast
m odern arsenal of w eapons from pistols to m issiles. W hile each item had som e significance, the larger
im pact cam e in the w ay the M ongols selected and com bined technologies to create unusual hybrids.
T he M ongols displayed a devoutly and persistently internationalist zeal in their political, econom ic,
and intellectual endeavors. T hey sought not m erely to conquer the w orld but to institute a global order
based on free trade, a single international law , and a universal alphabet w ith w hich to w rite all languages.
G enghis K han’s grandson, K hubilai K han, introduced a paper currency intended for use everyw here and
attem pted to create prim ary schools for universal basic education of all children in order to m ake
everyone literate. T he M ongols refined and com bined calendars to create a ten-thousand year calendar
m ore accurate than any previous one, and they sponsored the m ost extensive m aps ever assem bled. T he
M ongols encouraged m erchants to set out by land to reach their em pire, and they sent out explorers across
land and sea as far as A frica to expand their com m ercial and diplom atic reach.
In nearly every country touched by the M ongols, the initial destruction and shock of conquest by an
unknow n and barbaric tribe yielded quickly to an unprecedented rise in cultural com m unication, expanded trade, and im proved civilization. In E urope, the M ongols slaughtered the aristocratic knighthood of the
continent, but, disappointed w ith the general poverty of the area com pared w ith the C hinese and M uslim
countries, turned aw ay and did not bother to conquer the cities, loot the countries, or incorporate them into
the expanding em pire. In the end, E urope suffered the least yet acquired all the advantages of contact
through m erchants such as the P olo fam ily of V enice and envoys exchanged betw een the M ongol khans and
the popes and kings of E urope. T he new technology, know ledge, and com m ercial w ealth created the
R enaissance in w hich E urope rediscovered som e of its prior culture, but m ore im portantly, absorbed the
technology for printing, firearm s, the com pass, and the abacus from the E ast. A s E nglish scientist R oger
B acon observed in the thirteenth century, the M ongols succeeded not m erely from m artial superiority;
rather, “they have succeeded by m eans of science.” A lthough the M ongols “are eager for w ar,” they have
advanced so far because they “devote their leisure to the principles of philosophy.”
S eem ingly every aspect of E uropean life— technology, w arfare, clothing, com m erce, food, art,
literature, and m usic— changed during the R enaissance as a result of the M ongol influence. In addition to
new form s of fighting, new m achines, and new foods, even the m ost m undane aspects of daily life changed
as the E uropeans sw itched to M ongol fabrics, w earing pants and jackets instead of tunics and robes,
played their m usical instrum ents w ith the steppe bow rather than plucking them w ith the fingers, and
painted their pictures in a new style. T he E uropeans even picked up the M ongol exclam ation hurray as an
enthusiastic cry of bravado and m utual encouragem ent.
W ith so m any accom plishm ents by the M ongols, it hardly seem s surprising that G eoffrey C haucer, the
first author in the E nglish language, devoted the longest story in T he C anterbury Tales to the A sian
conqueror G enghis K han of the M ongols. H e w rote in undisguised aw e of him and his accom plishm ents.
Y et, in fact, w e are surprised that the learned m en of the R enaissance could m ake such com m ents about the
M ongols, w hom the rest of the w orld now view as the quintessential, bloodthirsty barbarians. T he portrait
of the M ongols left by C haucer or B acon bears little resem blance to the im ages w e know from later books
or film s that portray G enghis K han and his arm y as savage hordes lusting after gold, w om en, and blood.
D espite the m any im ages and pictures of G enghis K han m ade in subsequent years, w e have no portrait of
him m ade w ithin his lifetim e. U nlike any other conqueror in history, G enghis K han never allow ed anyone
to paint his portrait, sculpt his im age, or engrave his nam e or likeness on a coin, and the only descriptions
of him from contem poraries are m ore intriguing than inform ative. In the w ords of a m odern M ongolian
song about G enghis K han, “w e im agined your appearance but our m inds w ere blank.”
W ithout portraits of G enghis K han or any M ongol record, the w orld w as left to im agine him as it
w ished. N o one dared to paint his im age until half a century after his death, and then each culture
projected its particular im age of him . T he C hinese portrayed him as an avuncular elderly m an w ith a
w ispy beard and em pty eyes w ho looked m ore like a distracted C hinese sage than a fierce M ongol
w arrior. A P ersian m iniaturist portrayed him as a T urkish sultan seated on a throne. T he E uropeans
pictured him as the quintessential barbarian w ith a fierce visage and fixed cruel eyes, ugly in every detail.
M ongol secrecy bequeathed a daunting task to future historians w ho w ished to w rite about G enghis
K han and his em pire. B iographers and historians had so little on w hich to base an account. T hey knew the
chronology of cities conquered and arm ies defeated; yet little reliable inform ation existed regarding his
origin, his character, his m otivation, or his personal life. T hrough the centuries, unsubstantiated rum ors
m aintained that soon after his death, inform ation on all these aspects of G enghis K han’s life had been
w ritten in a secret docum ent by som eone close to him . C hinese and P ersian scholars referred to the
existence of the m ysterious docum ent, and som e scholars claim ed to have seen it during the apex of the
M ongol E m pire. N early a century after G enghis K han’s death, the P ersian historian R ashid al-D in
described the w ritings as an “authentic chronicle” w ritten “in the M ongolian idiom and letters.” B ut he w arned that it w as guarded in the treasury, w here “it w as hidden and concealed from outsiders.” H e
stressed that “no one w ho m ight have understood and penetrated” the M ongol text “w as given the
opportunity.” F ollow ing the collapse of M ongol rule, m ost traces of the secret docum ent seem ed to have
disappeared, and in tim e, m any of the best scholars cam e to believe that such a text never existed, that it
w as m erely one m ore of the m any m yths about G enghis K han.
Just as the im aginative painters of various countries portrayed him differently, the scholars did
likew ise. F rom K orea to A rm enia, they com posed all m anner of m yths and fanciful stories about G enghis
K han’s life. In the absence of reliable inform ation, they projected their ow n fears and phobias onto these
accounts. W ith the passage of centuries, scholars w eighed the atrocities and aggression com m itted by m en
such as A lexander, C aesar, C harlem agne, or N apoleon against their accom plishm ents or their special
m ission in history. F or G enghis K han and the M ongols, how ever, their achievem ents lay forgotten, w hile
their alleged crim es and brutality becam e m agnified. G enghis K han becam e the stereotype of the
barbarian, the bloody savage, the ruthless conqueror w ho enjoyed destruction for its ow n sake. G enghis
K han, his M ongol horde, and to a large extent the A sian people in general becam e unidim ensional
caricatures, the sym bol of all that lay beyond the civilized pale.
B y the tim e of the E nlightenm ent, at the end of the eighteenth century, this m enacing im age appeared in
Voltaire’s T he O rphan of C hina, a play about G enghis K han’s conquest of C hina: “H e is called the king
of kings, the fiery G enghis K han, w ho lays the fertile fields of A sia w aste.” In contrast to C haucer’s
praise for G enghis K han, Voltaire described him as “this destructive tyrant . . . w ho proudly . . . treads on
the necks of kings,” but “is yet no m ore than a w ild S cythian soldier bred to arm s and practiced in the
trade of blood” (A ct I, scene I). Voltaire portrayed G enghis K han as a m an resentful of the superior
virtues of the civilization around him and m otivated by the basic barbarian desire to ravish civilized
w om en and destroy w hat he could not understand.
T he tribe of G enghis K han acquired a variety of nam es— Tartar, Tatar, M ughal, M oghul, M oal, and
M ongol— but the nam e alw ays carried an odious curse. W hen nineteenth-century scientists w anted to
show the inferiority of the A sian and A m erican Indian populations, they classified them as M ongoloid.
W hen doctors w anted to account for w hy m others of the superior w hite race could give birth to retarded
children, the children’s facial characteristics m ade “obvious” that one of the child’s ancestors had been
raped by a M ongol w arrior. S uch blighted children w ere not w hite at all but m em bers of the M ongoloid
race. W hen the richest capitalists flaunted their w ealth and show ed antidem ocratic or antiegalitarian
values, they w ere derided as m oguls, the P ersian nam e for M ongols.
In due course, the M ongols becam e scapegoats for other nations’ failures and shortcom ings. W hen
R ussia could not keep up w ith the technology of the W est or the m ilitary pow er of im perial Japan, it w as
because of the terrible T atar Y oke put on her by G enghis K han. W hen P ersia fell behind its neighbors, it
w as because the M ongols had destroyed its irrigation system . W hen C hina lagged behind Japan and
E urope, the cause w as the cruel exploitation and repression by its M ongol and M anchu overlords. W hen
India could not resist B ritish colonization, it w as because of the rapacious greed of M oghul rule. In the
tw entieth century, A rab politicians even assured their follow ers that M uslim s w ould have invented the
atom ic bom b before the A m ericans if only the M ongols had not burned the A rabs’ m agnificent libraries
and leveled their cities. W hen A m erican bom bs and m issiles drove the T aliban from pow er in
A fghanistan in 2002, the T aliban soldiers equated the A m erican invasion w ith that of the M ongols, and
therefore, in angry revenge, m assacred thousands of H azara, the descendants of the M ongol arm y w ho had
lived in A fghanistan for eight centuries. D uring the follow ing year, in one of his final addresses to the
Iraqi people, dictator S addam H ussein m ade sim ilar charges against the M ongols as the A m ericans
m oved to invade his country and rem ove him from pow er.
A m idst so m uch political rhetoric, pseudoscience, and scholarly im agination, the truth of G enghis K han
rem ained buried, seem ingly lost to posterity. H is hom eland and the area w here he rose to pow er rem ained closed to the outside w orld by the C om m unists of the tw entieth century, w ho kept it as tightly sealed as the
w arriors had done during the prior centuries. T he original M ongolian docum ents, the so-called Secret
H istory of the M ongols, w ere not only secret but had disappeared, faded into the depths of history even
m ore m ysteriously than G enghis K han’s tom b.
In the tw entieth century, tw o developm ents gave the unexpected opportunity to solve som e of the m ysteries
and correct part of the record about G enghis K han. T he first developm ent w as the deciphering of
m anuscripts containing the valuable lost history of G enghis K han. D espite the prejudice and ignorance
regarding the M ongols, scholars throughout the centuries had reported occasional encounters w ith the
fabled M ongol text on the life of G enghis K han. L ike som e rare anim al or precious bird thought to have
been extinct, the rum ored sightings provoked m ore skepticism than scholarship. F inally, in the nineteenth
century, a copy of the docum ent w ritten in C hinese characters w as found in B eijing. S cholars easily read
the characters, but the w ords m ade no sense because they had been recorded in a code that used C hinese
characters to represent M ongolian sounds of the thirteenth century. T he scholars could read only a sm all
C hinese language sum m ary that accom panied each chapter; these offered tantalizing hints at the story in
the text, but otherw ise the docum ent rem ained inexplicable. B ecause of the m ystery surrounding the
docum ent, scholars referred to it as T he Secret H istory of the M on gols, the nam e by w hich it has
continued to be know n.
T hroughout m ost of the tw entieth century, the deciphering of the Secret H istory rem ained m ortally
dangerous in M ongolia. C om m unist authorities kept the book beyond the hands of com m on people and
scholars for fear that they m ight be im properly influenced by the antiquated, unscientific, and nonsocialist
perspective of the text. B ut an underground scholarly m ovem ent grew around the Secret H istory. In
nom adic cam ps across the steppe, the w hispered story of the new found history spread from person to
person, from cam p to cam p. A t last, they had a history that told their story from the M ongol perspective.
T he M ongols had been m uch m ore than barbarians w ho harassed the superior civilizations around them .
F or the M ongol nom ads, the revelations of the Secret H istory seem ed to com e from G enghis K han
him self, w ho had returned to his people to offer them hope and inspiration. A fter m ore than seven
centuries of silence, they could, at last, hear his w ords again.
D espite official C om m unist repression, the M ongol people seem ed determ ined that they w ould not lose
these w ords again. F or a brief m om ent, the liberalization of political life follow ing the death of S talin in
1953 and the adm ission of M ongolia to the U nited N ations in 1961 em boldened the M ongol people, and
they felt free to reexplore their history. T he country prepared a sm all series of stam ps in 1962 to
com m em orate the eight hundredth anniversary of the birth of G enghis K han. T om or-ochir, the second
highest ranking m em ber of the governm ent, authorized the erection of a concrete m onum ent to m ark the
birthplace of G enghis K han near the O non R iver, and he sponsored a conference of scholars to assess the
good and the bad aspects of the M ongol E m pire in history. B oth the stam p and the sim ple line draw ing on
the m onum ent portrayed the im age of the m issing sulde of G enghis K han, the horsehair S pirit B anner w ith
w hich he conquered and the resting place of his soul.
S till, after nearly eight centuries, the sulde carried such a deep em otional m eaning to both the M ongols
and to som e of the people they had conquered that the R ussians treated its m ere display on a stam p as an
act of nationalist revival and potential aggression. T he S oviets reacted w ith irrational anger to the fear
that their satellite state m ight pursue an independent path or, w orse yet, side w ith M ongolia’s other
neighbor, C hina, the S oviet U nion’s erstw hile ally turned enem y. In M ongolia, the C om m unist authorities
suppressed the stam ps and the scholars. F or his traitorous crim e of show ing w hat party officials labeled
as “tendencies directed at idealizing the role of G enghis K han,” the authorities rem oved T om or-ochir
from office, banished him to internal exile, and finally hacked him to death w ith an ax. A fter purging their ow n party, the C om m unists focused attention on the w ork of M ongolian scholars, w hom the party branded
as anti-party elem ents, C hinese spies, saboteurs, or pests. In the antinationalist cam paign that follow ed,
authorities dragged the archaeologist P erlee off to prison, w here they kept him in extrem ely harsh
conditions m erely for having been T om or-ochir’s teacher and for secretly researching the history of the
M ongol E m pire. T eachers, historians, artists, poets, and singers stood in danger if they had any
association w ith the history of G enghis K han’s era. T he authorities secretly executed som e of them . O ther
scholars lost their jobs, and together w ith their fam ilies w ere expelled from their hom es in the harsh
M ongolian clim ate. T hey w ere also denied m edical care, and m any w ere m arched off into internal exile at
various locations in the vast open expanse of M ongolia.
D uring this purge, the S pirit B anner of G enghis K han disappeared com pletely, and w as possibly
destroyed by the S oviets as punishm ent of the M ongolian people. B ut despite this brutal repression, or
perhaps because of it, num erous M ongol scholars independently set out to study the Secret H istory,
putting their lives at risk, in search of a true understanding of their m aligned and distorted past.
O utside of M ongolia, scholars in m any countries, notably R ussia, G erm any, F rance, and H ungary,
w orked to decipher the text and translate it into m odern languages. W ithout access to the resources w ithin
M ongolia itself, they labored under extrem ely difficult conditions. In the 1970s, one chapter at a tim e
appeared in M ongolian and E nglish under the careful supervision and analysis of Igor de R achew iltz, a
devoted A ustralian scholar of the ancient M ongol language. D uring the sam e tim e, A m erican scholar
F rancis W oodm an C leaves independently prepared a separate, m eticulous translation that H arvard
U niversity P ress published in 1982. It w ould take far m ore than deciphering the code and translating the
docum ents, how ever, to m ake them com prehensible. E ven in translation the texts rem ained difficult to
com prehend because they had obviously been w ritten for a closed group w ithin the M ongol royal fam ily,
and they assum ed a deep know ledge not only of the culture of thirteenth-century M ongols but also of the
geography of their land. T he historical context and biographical m eaning of the m anuscripts rem ained
nearly inaccessible w ithout a detailed, on-the-ground analysis of w here the events transpired.
T he second m ajor developm ent occurred unexpectedly in 1990 w hen C om m unism collapsed and the
S oviet occupation of M ongolia ended. T he S oviet arm y retreated, the planes flew aw ay, and the tanks
w ithdrew . T he M ongol w orld of Inner A sia w as, at last, opened to outsiders. G radually a few people
ventured into the protected area. M ongol hunters snuck in to poach the gam e-filled valleys, herders cam e
to graze their anim als along the edges of the area, occasional adventurers trekked in. In the 1990s, several
team s of technologically sophisticated foreigners cam e in search of the tom bs of G enghis K han and his
fam ily; although they m ade m any fascinating finds, their ultim ate goal eluded them .
M y research began as a study of the role of tribal people in the history of w orld com m erce and the S ilk
R oute connecting C hina, the M iddle E ast, and E urope. I traveled to archaeological sites, libraries, and
m eetings w ith scholars across the route from the F orbidden C ity in B eijing through central A sia to the
T opkapi P alace in Istanbul. B eginning in 1990 w ith the first trip into B uryatia, the M ongol district of
S iberia, I pursued the trail of the M ongols through R ussia, C hina, M ongolia, U zbekistan, K azakhstan,
T ajikistan, K yrgystan, and T urkm enistan. I devoted one sum m er to follow ing the ancient m igration path of
the T urkic tribes as they spread out from their original hom e in M ongolia as far as B osnia on the
M editerranean. T hen I encircled the old em pire by the approxim ate sea route of M arco P olo from S outh
C hina to V ietnam , through the S trait of M alacca to India, the A rab states of the P ersian G ulf, and on to
V enice.
T he extensive travel produced a lot of inform ation but not as m uch understanding as I had hoped.
D espite this lack, I thought that m y research w as nearly finished w hen I arrived in M ongolia in 1998 to
finalize the project w ith som e background on the area of G enghis K han’s youth in w hat, I assum ed, w ould be a final, brief excursion. T hat trip turned into another five years of far m ore intensive research than I
could have im agined. I found M ongolians to be delirious at their freedom from centuries of foreign rule,
and m uch of the excitem ent centered on honoring the m em ory of their founding father, G enghis K han.
D espite the rapid com m ercialization of his nam e on vodka bottles, chocolate bars, and cigarettes, as w ell
as the release of songs in his honor, as a historical person he w as still m issing. N ot only w as his soul
m issing from the m onastery, but his true face w as still m issing from their history as m uch as from ours.
W ho w as he?
T hrough no credit or skill of m y ow n, I arrived in M ongolia at a tim e w hen it suddenly seem ed possible
to answ er those questions. F or the first tim e in nearly eight centuries, the forbidden zone of his childhood
and burial w as open at the sam e tim e that the coded text of the Secret H istory had finally been
deciphered. N o single scholar could com plete the task, but w orking together w ith a team from different
backgrounds, w e could begin to find the answ ers.
A s a cultural anthropologist, I w orked closely w ith the archaeologist D r. K h. L khagvasuren, w ho had
access to m uch of the inform ation collected by his professor and m entor D r. K h. P erlee, the m ost
prom inent archaeologist of tw entieth-century M ongolia. G radually, through L khagvasuren, I m et other
researchers w ho had spent m any years w orking secretly and, alm ost alw ays, alone on studies they could
never w rite dow n or publish. P rofessor O . P urev, a C om m unist P arty m em ber, had used his position as an
official researcher of party history to study the sham anist practices of the M ongols and to use that as a
guide to interpreting the hidden m eanings in the Secret H istory. C olonel K h. S hagdar of the M ongolian
arm y took advantage of his station in M oscow to com pare the m ilitary strategies and victories of G enghis
K han as described in the Secret H istory w ith those in R ussian m ilitary archives. A M ongolian political
scientist, D . B old-E rdene, analyzed the political techniques G enghis K han used in getting and acquiring
pow er. T he m ost extensive and detailed studies of all had been m ade by the geographer O . S ukhbaatar,
w ho had covered over a m illion kilom eters across M ongolia in search of the history of G enghis K han.
O ur team began w orking together. W e com pared the m ost im portant prim ary and secondary texts from a
dozen languages w ith the accounts in the Secret H istory. W e hunched over m aps and debated the precise
m eaning of different docum ents and m uch older analyses. N ot surprisingly, w e found vast discrepancies
and num erous contradictions that w ere difficult to reconcile. I soon saw that S ukhbaatar w as a literalist,
an extrem e em piricist for w hom every statem ent in the Secret H istory w as true, and he had taken the job
of proving it w ith scientific evidence. B ut P urev thought nothing in the history should be taken at its literal
m eaning. A ccording to him , G enghis K han w as the m ost pow erful sham an in history, and the text w as a
m anuscript of m ysteries that chronicled, in sym bolic w ays, his rise to that position. If it could be
unlocked, it w ould again provide a sham an’s blueprint for conquering and controlling the w orld.
F rom the beginning of our com bined w ork, it w as apparent that w e could not sift through the com peting
ideas and interpretations w ithout finding the places w here the events happened. T he ultim ate test of each
text’s veracity w ould com e w hen it lay spread out on the ground at the place w here the events allegedly
happened. B ooks can lie, but places never do. O ne quick and exhausting overview of the m ain sites
answ ered som e questions but presented m any m ore. W e realized that not only did w e have to find the right
place, but to understand the events there, w e had to be there in the right w eather conditions. W e returned
repeatedly to the sam e places in different seasons of the year. T he sites lay scattered across a landscape
of thousands of square m iles, but the m ost significant area for our research lay in the m ysterious and
inaccessible area that had been closed since the tim e of G enghis K han’s death. B ecause of the nom adic
life of G enghis K han, our ow n w ork becam e a peripatetic project, a sort of archaeology of m ovem ent
rather than just place.
S atellite im ages show ed a M ongolian landscape void of roads yet crisscrossed w ith thousands of trails
leading in seem ingly every direction over the steppe, across the G obi, and through the m ountains; yet they
all stopped at the edge of the Ikh K horig, the closed zone. E ntry into the hom eland of G enghis K han required crossing the buffer zone that had been occupied and fortified by the S oviets to keep everyone out.
W hen they fled M ongolia, the S oviets left behind a surreal landscape of artillery craters strew n w ith the
m etal carcasses of tanks, w recked trucks, cannibalized airplanes, spent artillery shells, and unexploded
duds. S trange vapors filled the air and peculiar fogs cam e and w ent. T w isted m etal sculptures rose
several stories high, strange rem nants from structures of unknow n purpose. C ollapsed buildings, w hich
once housed secret electronic equipm ent, now squatted em pty am ong lifeless dunes of oil-drenched sand.
E quipm ent from old w eapons program s lay abandoned across the scarred steppe. D ark and m ysterious
ponds of unidentified chem icals shim m ered eerily in the bright sun. B lackened debris of unknow n origin
floated in the stagnant liquid, and anim al bones, dried carcasses, sw atches of fur, and clum ps of feathers
littered the edges of the ponds. B eyond this tw entieth-century graveyard of horrors lay— in the sharpest
im aginable contrast— the undisturbed, closed hom eland of G enghis K han: several hundred square m iles of
pristine forest, m ountains, river valleys, and steppes.
E ntry into the H ighly R estricted A rea w as m ore than just a step backw ard in tim e; it w as an opportunity
to discover G enghis K han’s w orld alm ost precisely as he left it. T he area had survived like a lost island
surrounded, yet protected, by the w orst technological horrors of the tw entieth century. C logged w ith fallen
trees, thick underbrush, and giant boulders, m uch of it rem ained im penetrable, and the other parts had seen
only occasional patrols of soldiers over the last eight centuries. T his restricted region is a living
m onum ent to G enghis K han; as w e traveled through the area, it seem ed that at any m om ent he m ight com e
galloping up the river or over the ridge to pitch his cam p once again in the places he had loved, to fire his
arrow at a fleeing gazelle, to chip a fishing hole in the ice covering the O non R iver, or to bow dow n and
pray on B urkhan K haldun, the sacred m ountain that continued to protect him in death, as it had in life.
O ur research team approached the Ikh K horig like detectives searching a fresh crim e scene. W ith T he
Secret H istory of the M ongols as our prim ary guide, w e navigated the plain and surveyed the prim eval
landscape from various sm all hills and m ounds. O n the open steppe aw ay from the clear landm arks of
m ountains, rivers, and lakes, w e relied heavily on the herders w ho w ere accustom ed to navigating across
the grass like sailors crossing the sea. A constantly changing cluster of M ongolian students, scholars,
local herders, and horsem en accom panied us, and they intently debated am ong them selves the answ ers to
the questions I w as researching. T heir judgm ents and answ ers w ere alw ays better than m ine, and they
asked questions that had never occurred to m e. T hey knew how herders thought, and although they w ere in
unknow n territory, they easily identified w here their ancestors w ould have cam ped or in w hich direction
they w ould have traveled. T hey readily identified places as having too m any m osquitoes for sum m er cam p
or being too exposed for w inter cam p. M ore im portant, they w ere w illing to test their ideas, such as
racing a horse from one point to another to see how long it took or how the soil and grass reverberated the
sound of horse hooves in this particular place versus another. T hey knew how thick the ice needed to be
in order to cross a frozen river on horseback, w hen to cross on foot, and w hen to break the ice and w ade
through the cold w ater.
T he descriptive quality of som e M ongol place-nam es perm itted us to restore them to M ongolian and
apply them to the landscape around us w ith ease. T he text recounts that G enghis K han first becam e a clan
chief at K hokh L ake by K hara Jirugen M ountain, w hich m eant a B lue L ake by B ack-H eart-S haped
M ountain. T he identity of that place had been preserved for centuries and w as easily found by anyone.
O ther nam es associated w ith his birth, such as U dder H ill and S pleen L ake, proved m ore challenging
because of uncertainty w hether the nam e applied to a visual characteristic of the place or to an event that
took place there, and because the shape of hills and lakes can vary over eight centuries in this area of
w ind erosion and dryness.
G radually, w e pieced together the story as best w e could w ith the evidence w e had. B y finding the
places of G enghis K han’s childhood and retracing the path of events across the land, som e m isconceptions
regarding his life could be im m ediately corrected. A lthough w e debated the precise identity of the hillock along the O non R iver w here he had been born, for exam ple, it w as obvious that the w ooded river w ith its
m any m arshes differed greatly from the open steppe w here m ost nom ads lived and w here m ost historians
had assum ed G enghis K han grew up. T his distinction highlighted the differences betw een him and other
nom ads. It im m ediately becam e clear w hy the Secret H istory m entioned hunting m ore often than herding
in G enghis K han’s childhood. T he landscape itself tied the early life of G enghis K han m ore firm ly into the
S iberian cultures, from w hich the Secret H istory said the M ongols originated, than into the T urkic tribes
of the open plains. T his inform ation in turn greatly influenced our understanding of G enghis K han’s field
m ethods and how he treated hostile civilians as anim als to be herded but hostile soldiers as gam e to be
hunted.
O ur team w ent out repeatedly over a five-year period under a great variety of conditions and situations.
T em peratures varied by m ore than 150 degrees— from highs of over 100 degrees in tracts of land w ithout
shade to a low of m inus 51 degrees, not counting the chill of the fierce w ind, in K horkhonag steppe in
January 2001. W e experienced the usual assortm ent of m ishaps and opportunities of travel in such areas.
O ur vehicles becam e stuck in snow in the w inter, m ud in spring, and sand in the sum m er; one even w ashed
aw ay in a flash flood. A t different tim es our cam ps w ere destroyed by w ind and snow or by drunken
revelry. W e enjoyed the w onderful bounty of endless m ilk and m eat in the final sum m ers of the tw entieth
century. B ut in the opening years of this century, w e also experienced som e of the w orst years of anim al
fam ine, called zud, w hen horses and yaks literally dropped dead around us and anim als of all sizes froze
standing during the night.
Y et there w as never a m om ent of doubt or danger in our w ork. C om pared to the difficulty of daily life
for the herders and hunters living perm anently in those areas, ours w ere only the sm allest of irritations.
Invariably an unplanned episode that started as an inconvenience ended by teaching m e som ething new
about the land or people. F rom riding nearly fifty m iles in one day on a horse, I learned that the fifteen feet
of silk tied tightly around the m idriff actually kept the organs in place and prevented nausea. I also learned
the im portance of having dried yo gurt in m y pocket on such long treks, w hen there w as no tim e to stop and
cook a m eal, as w ell as the practicality of the thick M ongol robe, called a deel, w hen riding on w ooden
saddles. A n encounter w ith a w olf near the sacred m ountain of B urkhan K haldun becam e a blessing in the
eyes of our com panions rather than a threat, and countless episodes of getting lost or of breaking dow n
brought new lessons about directions, navigation, and the patience of w aiting until som eone cam e along.
R epeatedly, I learned how intim ately the M ongols know their ow n w orld and how consistently and
com pletely I could trust in their astute judgm ent, physical ability, and generous helpfulness.
T his book presents the highlights of our findings w ithout recounting any m ore of the m inutia of w eather,
food, parasites, and ailm ents encountered, nor the personality quirks of the researchers and the people w e
m et along the w ay. T he focus rem ains on the m ission of our w ork: to understand G enghis K han and his
im pact on w orld history.
T he first part of the book tells the story of G enghis K han’s rise to pow er on the steppe and the forces
that shaped his life and personality from the tim e of his birth in 1162 until he unified all the tribes and
founded the M ongol nation in 1206. T he second part follow s the M ongol entrance onto the stage of history
through the M ongol W orld W ar, w hich lasted five decades (fro m 1211 to 1261), until G enghis K han’s
grandsons w ent to w ar w ith one another. T he third section exam ines the century of peace and the G lobal
A w akening that laid the foundations of the political, com m ercial, and m ilitary institutions of our m odern
society.
P A R T I
T he R eign of T error on the S teppe:
1162–1206
N ations! W hat are nations? T artars! and H uns! and C hinam en!
L ike Insects they sw arm . T he historian strives in vain to m ake them m em orable.
It is for w ant of a m an that there are so m any m en. It is individuals that populate the w orld.
H E N R Y D A V ID T H O R E A U ,
journal entry for M ay 1, 1851 1
T he B lood C lot
T here is fire in his eyes and light in his face.
T H E SE C R E T H IST O R Y O F T H E M O N G O L S
O F T H E T H O U S A N D S O F cities conquered by the M ongols, history only m entions one that G enghis
K han deigned to enter. U sually, w hen victory becam e assured, he w ithdrew w ith his court to a distant and
m ore pleasant cam p w hile his w arriors com pleted their tasks. O n a M arch day in 1220, the Y ear of the
D ragon, the M ongol conqueror broke w ith his peculiar tradition by leading his cavalry into the center of
the new ly co nquered city of B ukhara, one of the m ost im portant cities belonging to the sultan of K hw arizm
in w hat is no w U zbekistan. A lthough neither the capital nor the m ajor com m ercial city, B ukhara occupied
an exalted em otional position throughout the M uslim w orld as N oble B ukhara, the center of religious
piety know n by the epithet “the ornam ent and delight to all Islam .” K now ing fully the propaganda value of
his actions by conquering and entering the city, G enghis K han rode trium phantly through the city gates,
past the w arren of w ooden houses and vendors’ stalls, to the large cluster of stone and brick buildings at
the center of the city.
H is entry into B ukhara follow ed the successful conclusion of possibly the m ost audacious surprise
attack in m ilitary history. W hile one part of his arm y took the direct route from M ongolia to attack the
sultan’s bord er cities head-on, he had secretly pulled and pushed another division of w arriors over a
distance longer than any other arm y had ever covered— tw o thousand m iles of desert, m ountains, and
steppe— to appear deep behind enem y lines, w here least expected. E ven trade caravans avoided the
K yzyl K um , the fabled R ed D esert, by detouring hundreds of m iles to avoid it; and that fact, of course,
w as precisely w hy G enghis K han chose to attack from that direction. B y befriending the nom ads of the
area, he w as able to lead his arm y on a hitherto unknow n track through the stone and sand desert.
H is targeted city of B ukhara stood at the center of a fertile o asis astride one of the tributaries of the
A m u D arya inhabited m ostly by T ajik or P ersian people, but ruled by T urkic tribesm en in the new ly
created em pire of K hw arizm , one of the m any transitory em pires of the era. T he sultan of K hw arizm had,
in a grievously fatal m istake, provoked the enm ity of G enghis K han by looting a M ongol trade caravan
and disfiguring the faces of M ongol am bassadors sent to negotiate peaceful com m erce. A lthough nearly
sixty years old, w hen G enghis K han heard of the attack on his m en, he did not hesitate to sum m on his
disciplined and experienced arm y once again to their m ounts and to charge dow n the road of w ar.
In contrast to alm ost every m ajor arm y in history, the M ongols traveled lightly, w ithout a supply train.
B y w aiting until the coldest m onths to m ake the desert crossing, m en and horses required less w ater. D ew
also form ed during this season, thereby stim ulating the grow th of som e grass that provided grazing for
horses and attracted gam e that the m en eagerly hunted for their ow n sustenance. Instead of transporting
slow -m oving siege engines and heavy equipm ent w ith them , the M ongols carried a faster-m oving engineer
corps that co uld build w hatever w as needed on the spot from available m aterials. W hen the M ongols
cam e to the first trees after crossing the vast desert, they cut them dow n and m ade them into ladders, siege
engines, and other instrum ents for their attack. W hen the advance guard spotted the first sm all settlem ent after leaving the desert, the rapidly m oving
detachm ent im m ediately changed pace, m oving now in a slow , lum bering procession, as though they w ere
m erchants com ing to trade, rather than w ith the speed of w arriors on the attack. T he hostile force
nonchalantly am bled up to the gates of the tow n before the residents realized w ho they w ere and sounded
an alarm .
U pon em erging unexpectedly from the desert, G enghis K han did not race to attack B ukhara im m ediately.
H e knew that no reinforcem ents could leave the border cities under attack by his arm y, and he therefore
had tim e to play on the surprise in a tortured m anipulation of public fear and hope. T he objective of such
tactics w as sim ple and alw ays the sam e: to frighten the enem y into surrendering before an actual battle
began. B y first capturing several sm all tow ns in the vicinity, G enghis K han’s arm y set m any local people
to flight tow ard B ukhara as refugees w ho not only filled the city but greatly increased the level of terror in
it. B y striking deep ly behind the enem y lines, the M ongols im m ediately created havoc and panic
throughout the kingdom . A s the P ersian chronicler A ta-M alik Juvaini described his approach, w hen the
people saw the countryside all around them “choked w ith horsem en and the air black as night w ith the
dust of cavalry, fright and panic overcam e them , and fear and dread prevailed.” In preparing the
psychological attack on a city, G enghis K han began w ith tw o exam ples of w hat aw aited the people. H e
offered generous term s of surrender to the outlying com m unities, and the ones that accepted the term s and
joined the M ongols received great leniency. In the w ords of the P ersian chronicler, “w hoever yields and
subm its to them is safe and free from the terror and disgrace of their severity.” T hose that refused
received exceptionally harsh treatm ent, as the M ongols herded the captives before them to be used as
cannon fodder in the next attack.
T he tactic panicked the T urkic defenders of B ukhara. L eaving only about five hundred soldiers behind
to m an the citadel of B ukhara, the rem aining arm y of tw enty thousand soldiers fled in w hat they thought
w as still tim e before the m ain M ongol arm y arrived. B y abandoning their fortress and dispersing in flight,
they sprung G enghis K han’s trap, and the M ongol w arriors, w ho w ere already stationed in w ait for the
fleeing soldiers, cut them dow n at a nearly leisurely pace.
T he civilian population of B ukhara surrendered and opened the city gates, but the sm all contingent of
defiant soldiers rem ained in their citadel, w here they hoped that the m assive w alls w ould allow them to
hold out indefinitely against any siege. T o m ore carefully assess the overall situation, G enghis K han m ade
his unprecedented decision to enter the city. O ne of his first acts on reaching the center of B ukhara, or
upon accepting the surrender of any people, w as to sum m on them to bring fodder for his horses. F eeding
the M ongol w arriors and their horses w as taken as a sign of subm ission by the conquered; m ore
im portant, by receiv ing the food and fodder, G enghis K han signaled his acceptance of the people as
vassals entitled to M ongol protection as w ell as subject to his com m and.
F rom the tim e of his central A sian conquests, w e have one of the few w ritten descriptions of G enghis
K han, w ho w as about sixty years old. T he P ersian chronicler M inhaj al-S iraj Juzjani, w ho w as far less
kindly disposed tow ard the M ongols than the chronicler Juvaini, described him as “a m an of tall stature,
of vigorous build, robust in body, the hair on his face scanty and turned w hite, w ith cats’ eyes, possessed
of dedicated energy, discernm ent, genius, and understanding, aw e-striking, a butcher, just, resolute, an
overthrow er of enem ies, intrepid, sanguinary, and cruel.” B ecause of his uncanny ability to destroy cities
and conquer arm ies m any tim es the size of his ow n, the chronicler also goes on to declare that G enghis
K han w as “adept at m agic and deception, and som e of the devils w ere his friends.”
E yew itnesses repo rted that upon reaching the center of B ukhara, G enghis K han rode up to the large
m osque and asked if, since it w as the largest building in the city, it w as the hom e of the sultan. W hen
inform ed that it w as the house of G od, not the sultan, he said nothing. F or the M ongols, the one G od w as
the E ternal B lue S ky that stretched from horizon to horizon in all four directions. G od presided over the
w hole earth; he could not be cooped up in a house of stone like a prisoner or a caged anim al, nor, as the city people claim ed, could his w ords be captured and confined inside the covers of a book. In his ow n
experience, G enghis K han had often felt the presence and heard the voice of G od speaking directly to him
in the vast open air of the m ountains in his hom eland, and by follow ing those w ords, he had becom e the
conqueror of great cities and huge nations.
G enghis K han dism ounted from his horse in order to w alk into the great m osque, the only such building
he is know n to have ever entered in his life. U pon entering, he ordered that the scholars and clerics feed
his horses, freeing them from further danger and placing them under his protection, as he did w ith alm ost
all religious personnel w ho cam e under his control. N ext, he sum m oned the 280 richest m en of the city to
the m osque. D espite his lim ited experience inside city w alls, G enghis K han still had a keen grasp of the
w orking of hum an em otion and sentim ent. B efore the assem bled m en in the m osque, G enghis K han took a
few steps up the pulpit stairs, then turned to face the elite of B ukhara. T hrough interpreters, he lectured
them sternly on the sins and m isdeeds of their sultan and them selves. It w as not the com m on people w ho
w ere to blam e for these failures; rather, “it is the great ones am ong you w ho have com m itted these sins. If
you had not com m itted great sins, G od w ould not have sent a punishm ent like m e upon you.” H e then gave
each rich m an into the control of one of his M ongol w arriors, w ho w ould go w ith him and collect his
treasure. H e adm onished his rich prisoners not to bother show ing them the w ealth above the ground; the
M ongols could find that w ithout assistance. H e w anted them to guide them only to their hidden or buried
treasure.
H aving begun the system atic plundering of the city, G enghis K han turned his attention to attacking the
T urkic w arriors still defiantly sealed inside the citadel of B ukhara. A lthough not fam iliar w ith the
M ongols in particular, the people in the urbanized oases of central A sian cities like B ukhara and
S am arkand had seen m any barbarian arm ies com e and go through the centuries. P rior tribal arm ies, no
m atter how brave or disciplined, never posed a severe threat because urban arm ies, so long as they had
food and w ater, could hold out indefinitely behind the m assive w alls of their forts. B y m ost m easures, the
M ongols should have been no m atch for the professionally trained career soldiers they encountered at
B ukhara. A lthough the M ongols had excellent bow s in general, each m an w as responsible for m aking or
acquiring his ow n, and the quality of w orkm anship varied. S im ilarly, the M ongol arm y w as com posed of
all the m ales of the tribe, w ho depended on the ruggedness of their upbringing herding anim als for their
training; and w hile they w ere hardy, disciplined, and devoted to their tasks, they lacked the professional
selection and training of the defenders of B ukhara. T he greatest factor in favor of the soldiers holed up
behind the m assive stone w alls of the citadel w as that no tribal arm y had ever m astered the com plex
technology of siege w arfare, but G enghis K han had som ething to show them .
T he attack w as designed as a show of overw helm ing strength for w hich the audience w as not the
already conquered people of B ukhara, but the still distant arm y and people of S am arkand, the next city on
his m arch. T he M ongol invaders rolled up their new ly constructed siege engines— catapults, trebuchets,
and m angonels that hurled not only stones and fire, as besieging arm ies had done for centuries, but also
pots of burning liquids, exploding devices, and incendiary m aterials. T hey m aneuvered im m ense
crossbow s m ounted on w heels, and great team s of m en pushed in portable tow ers w ith retractable ladders
from w hich they could shoot dow n at the defenders of the w alls. A t the sam e tim e that they attacked
through the air, m iners w ent to w ork digging into the earth to underm ine the w alls by sapping. D uring this
aw esom e display of technological prow ess in the air, on the land, and beneath the earth, G enghis K han
heightened the psychological tension by forcing prisoners, in som e cases the captured com rades of the
m en still in the citadel, to rush forw ard until their bodies filled the m oat and m ade live ram parts over
w hich other prisoners pushed the engines of w ar.
T he M ongols devised and used w eapons from the different cultures w ith w hom they had contact, and
through this accum ulation of know ledge they created a global arsenal that could be adapted to w hatever
situation they encountered. In their flam ing and exploding w eapons, the M ongols experim ented w ith early form s of arm am ents that w ould later becom e m ortars and cannons. In the description of Juvaini, w e sense
the confusion of the w itnesses in accounting for exactly w hat happened around them . H e described the
M ongol assault as “like a red-hot furnace fed from w ithout by hard sticks thrust into the recesses, w hile
from the belly of the furnace sparks shoot into the air.” G enghis K han’s arm y com bined the traditional
fierceness and speed of the steppe w arrior w ith the highest technological sophistication of C hinese
civilization. G enghis K han used his fast-m oving and w ell-trained cavalry against the enem y’s infantry on
the ground, w hile negating the protective pow er of the fortress w alls w ith the new technology of
bom bardm ent using firepow er and unprecedented m achines of destruction to penetrate the fortress and
terrorize its defenders. W ith fire and death raining dow n on the m en in the citadel, the w arriors of the
sultan, in Juvaini’s w ords, quickly “drow ned in the sea of annihilation.”
G enghis K han recognized that w arfare w as not a sporting contest or a m ere m atch betw een rivals; it
w as a total com m itm ent of one people against another. V ictory did not com e to the one w ho played by the
rules; it cam e to the one w ho m ade the rules and im posed them on his enem y. T rium ph could not be
partial. It w as com plete, total, and undeniable— or it w as nothing. In battle, this m eant the unbridled use
of terror and surprise. In peace, it m eant the steadfast adherence to a few basic but unw avering principles
that created loyalty am ong the co m m on people. R esistance w ould be m et w ith death, loyalty w ith security.
H is attack on B ukhara ranked as a success, not m erely because the people of that city surrendered, but
because w hen w ord of the M ongol cam paign reached the capital of S am arkand, that arm y surrendered as
w ell. T he sultan fled his kingdom , and the M ongol juggernaut pushed onw ard. G enghis K han him self took
the m ain part of the arm y across the m ountains of A fghanistan and on to the Indus R iver, w hile another
detachm ent circled around the C aspian S ea, through the C aucasus M ountains, and onto the plains of
R ussia. F or precisely seven hundred years, from that day in 1220 until 1920, w hen the S oviets m oved in,
G enghis K han’s descendants ruled as khans and em irs over the city of B ukhara in one of the longest fam ily
dynasties in history.
G enghis K han’s ability to m anipulate people and technology represented the experienced know ledge of
m ore than four decades of nearly constant w arfare. A t no single, crucial m om ent in his life did he
suddenly acquire his genius at w arfare, his ability to inspire the loyalty of his follow ers, or his
unprecedented skill for organizing on a global scale. T hese derived not from epiphanic enlightenm ent or
form al schooling but from a persistent cycle of pragm atic learning, experim ental adaptation, and constant
revision driven by his uniquely disciplined m ind and focused w ill. H is fighting career began long before
m ost of his w arriors at B ukhara had been born, and in every battle he learned som ething new . In every
skirm ish, he acquired m ore follow ers and additional fighting techniques. In each struggle, he com bined
the new ideas into a constantly changing set of m ilitary tactics, strategies, and w eapons. H e never fought
the sam e w ar tw ice.
T he story of the boy w ho w as destined to becom e the w orld’s greatest conqueror began six decades
before the M ongol conquest of B ukhara in one of the m ost rem ote places in the inner expanse of E urasia,
near the border of m odern M ongolia and S iberia. A ccording to legend, the M ongols originated in the
m ountain forest w hen B lue-G ray W olf m ated w ith B eautiful R ed D oe on the shores of a great lake.
B ecause the M ongols perm anently closed this hom eland to outsiders w hen G enghis K han died, w e have
no historical descriptions of it. T he nam es of its rivers and m ountains are virtually unknow n in the
historical literature, and even m odern m aps give conflicting nam es to its features, in a great variety of
spellings.
T his territory of the M ongol clans occupied only a sm all part in the northeast of the country now know n
as M ongolia. M ost of the country now spreads across a high plateau in north-central A sia, beyond the
range of the P acific O cean’s m oisture-bearing w inds that w ater the lush coastal plains of A sia’s agricultural civilizations. B y contrast, the w inds that reach the M ongolian plateau m ostly blow from the
A rctic in the northw est. T hese w inds release w hat little m oisture they carry onto the northern m ountains
and leave the southern part of the country dry, a terrain know n as govi, or to foreigners as the G obi.
B etw een the harsh G obi and the m oderately w atered m ountains to the north lie vast stretches of steppe that
turn green in the sum m er if they get rain. It is along these steppes that the herders m ove in the sum m er,
searching for grass.
A lthough reaching only about ten thousand feet above sea level, M ongolia’s K hentii M ountain R ange
consists of som e of the oldest m ountains on the planet. U nlike the jagged, youthful H im alayas, w hich can
only be ascended w ith clim bing gear, the ancient K hentii M ountains have been sm oothed by m illions of
years of erosion so that, w ith only m oderate difficulty, a horse and rider can reach all but a few of the
peaks in sum m er. M arshes dot their sides; in the long w inter, these freeze into a solid m ass. T he deeper
indentations in the m ountainsides collect snow and w ater that freeze into w hat looks like glaciers in the
w inter, but in the brief sum m er, they turn into beautiful lakes of cobalt blue. T he spring thaw of ice and
snow overflow s the lakes and spills off the m ountains to form a series of sm all rivers that flow out onto
the steppe that in the best of sum m ers shim m ers w ith grass as green as em eralds, but in the w orst of tim es
can rem ain a burned brow n for several consecutive years.
T he rivers that flow out of the K hentii M ountains are sm all and rem ain frozen for m uch of the year—
even in M ay, w hen the ice is usually thick enough to support a team of m ounted horses and som etim es
even a loaded jeep. T he long, broad steppes that stretch out along these sm all rivers served as the
highw ays for the M ongols tow ard the various regions of E urasia. S purs of this grassland reach w est all
the w ay into H ungary and B ulgaria in eastern E urope. T o the east, they reach M anchuria and w ould touch
the P acific O cean if not barred by a thin ridge of coastal m ountains that cut off the K orean P eninsula. O n
the southern side of the G obi, the grasslands slow ly pick up again and join the heart of the A sian
continent, connecting w ith the extensive agricultural plains of the Y ellow R iver.
D espite the gentle roll of the landscape, the w eather can be fierce, and changes abruptly. T his is a land
of m arked extrem es, w here hum ans and their anim als face constant challenges from the w eather. T he
M ongols say that you can experience all four seasons in a single day in the K hentii. E ven in M ay, a horse
m ight sink into snow banks so deep that it could barely keep its head up.
O n this, the land by the side of the O non R iver, the boy destined to becom e know n as G enghis K han
w as born. In contrast to the natural beauty of the place, its hum an history w as already one of constant
strife and hardship long before he w as born in the spring of 1162, the Y ear of the H orse by the A sian
calendar. O n an isolated and bald hillock overlooking the rem ote O non R iver, H oelun, a young, kidnapped
girl, struggled to give birth to him , her first child. S urrounded by strangers, H oelun labored far aw ay from
the fam ily that had raised her and the w orld she knew . T his place w as not her hom e, and the m an w ho now
claim ed her as his w ife w as not the m an w hom she had m arried.
O nly a short tim e before, her destiny had seem ed so different; she had been the w ife of another young
w arrior, C hiledu of the M erkid tribe. H e had traveled to the eastern steppe to find and w oo her from the
O lkhunuud, a tribe noted for the beauty of its w om en. A ccording to steppe tradition, he w ould have given
her parents gifts and w orked for them , perhaps for several years, before taking their daughter b ack to his
tribe as his bride. O nce m arried, the tw o had set out alone for the trek of m any w eeks back to his
hom eland. A ccording to the Secret H istory, she rode in a sm all black cart pulled by an ox or a yak, and
her proud husband rode beside the cart on his dun horse. H oelun w as probably no m ore than sixteen years
old.
T hey traveled easily over the steppe, follow ing the course of the O non R iver, and then prepared to
enter the m ountainous range that divided them from the M erkid lands. O nly a few hard days of travel
through the isolated m ountain valleys lay ahead of them before they w ould drop dow n into the fertile
grassland of the M erkid’s herds. T he young bride sat in the front of her sm all black cart unaw are of the horsem en about to sw oop dow n upon her, a violent assault that w ould not only forever change her life, but
alter the course of w orld history.
A solitary horsem an out hunting w ith his falcon looked dow n on H oelun and C hiledu from his
unobserved perch at the top of a nearby cliff. H oelun and her cart prom ised greater gam e than he could
capture w ith his bird.
W ithout letting the new lyw eds see him , the hunter rode back to his cam p to find his tw o brothers. T oo
poor to afford the presents necessary to m ake a m arriage w ith a w ife such as H oelun, and perhaps
unw illing to perform the traditional bride-service for her parents, the hunter chose the second m ost
com m on w ay of obtaining a w ife on the steppes: kidnapping. T he three brothers set out in pursuit of their
unsuspecting prey. A s they sw ooped dow n tow ard the couple, C hiledu im m ediately galloped off to draw
the attackers aw ay from the cart, and, as expected, they chased after him . H e tried in vain to lose them by
circling around the base of the m ountain to return to his bride, but even then H oelun knew that her husband
had not fooled the attackers, not on their ow n land, and that they w ould soon be back. A lthough only a
teenage girl, she decided that in order to give her husband a chance to live, she m ust stay and surrender to
her kidnappers. If she fled w ith C hiledu on one horse, they w ould be captured and he w ould be killed. B ut
if he fled alone, only she w ould be captured.
T he Secret H istory recounts that to convince her husband to cooperate w ith her plan, she told him , “If
you but live, there w ill be m aidens for you on every front and in every cart. Y ou can find another w om an
to be your bride, and you can call her H oelun in place of m e.” H oelun then quickly slipped out of her
blouse and com m anded her new husband to “flee quickly.” S he thrust her blouse into his face as a parting
gesture and said, “T ake this w ith you so that you m ay have the sm ell of m e w ith you as you go.”
S m ell holds a deep, im portant place w ithin steppe culture. W here people in other cultures m ight hug or
kiss at m eeting or departing, the steppe nom ads sniff one another in a gesture m uch like a kiss on the
cheek. S m elling carries deeply em otional m eanings on different levels that vary from the fam ilial sniff
betw een parent and child to the erotic sniff betw een lovers. E ach person’s breath and unique body arom a
is thought to constitute a part of that person’s soul. B y thrusting her blouse at her husband, H oelun offered
him a deeply im portant rem inder of her love.
A fter that day, H oelun w ould have a long and eventful life ahead of her, but she w as indeed destined
never again to see her first love. A s he fled his w ife’s kidnappers, C hiledu clutched her blouse to his face
and turned back to look at her so m any tim es that his long black braids beat like w hips back and forth
from his chest to his shoulders. A s she saw her husband ride over the pass and slip forever from her sight,
H oelun gave vent to the full em otion of her heart. S he scream ed out so loudly, according to the Secret
H istory, that “she stirred up the O non R iver” and “shook the w oods and valley.”
H er captor and the m an destined to be her new husband w as Y esugei of the sm all and insignificant band
that w ould one day be know n as the M ongols, but at this tim e he w as sim ply a m em ber of the B orijin clan,
subservient to its m ore pow erful T ayichiud relatives. E ven m ore troubling for H oelun than the status of
her captor w as that he already had a w ife or concubine, S ochigel, and a son w ith her. H oelun w ould have
to struggle for her position w ithin the fam ily. If she w as lucky the tw o w om en probably lived in separate
gers, the dom ed tent hom es m ade of felt blankets tied around a lattice fram ew ork, but they w ould have
been in close daily proxim ity even if not in the sam e ger.
H oelun grew up on the w ide, open grassland w here one could see over vast expanses in any direction
and w here great herds of horses, cow s, sheep, and goats grazed and grew fat during the sum m er. S he w as
accustom ed to the abundant and rich diet of m eat and m ilk offered by the life of the steppe. B y contrast,
the sm all tribe of her new husband subsisted on the northern edge of the herding w orld, w here the steppes
pushed up against the w ooded m ountains, w ithout enough grassland to feed large herds. S he w ould now
have to eat harsher hunter’s foods: m arm ots, rats, birds, fish, and the occasional deer or antelope. T he
M ongols claim no ancient and glorious history am ong the steppe tribes. T hey w ere considered scavengers w ho com peted w ith the w olves to hunt dow n the sm all anim als, and, w hen the opportunity arose, steal
anim als and w om en from the herders of the steppe. H oelun w ould rank as little m ore than captured chattel
by them .
A ccording to an often repeated account, H oelun’s first baby supposedly struggled into the w orld tightly
clutching som ething m ysterious and om inous in the fingers of his right hand. G ently, but nervously, his
young m other pried back his fingers one by one to find a large, black blood clot the size of a knucklebone.
F rom som ew here in his m other’s w arm w om b, this boy had grasped the blood clot and brought it w ith him
from that w orld into this one. W hat could an inexperienced, illiterate, and terribly lonely young girl m ake
of this strange sign in her son’s hand? M ore than eight centuries later, w e still struggle to answ er the sam e
questions that she had about her son. D id the blood clot represent a prophecy or a curse? D id it foretell
good fortune or evil? S hould she be proud or alarm ed? H opeful or fearful?
In the tw elfth century, dozens of tribes and clans lived on the steppe in, as is characteristic of nom adic
people, shifting com binations. O f all the steppe tribes, the M ongols’ closest relatives w ere T atars and
K hitan to the east, the M anchus yet farther to the east, and the T urkic tribes of central A sia to the w est.
T hese three ethnic groups shared a com m on cultural and linguistic heritage w ith som e of the tribes of
S iberia, w here they possibly all originated. L ocated betw een the T atars and the T urkic tribes w ith w hom
outsiders often confused them , the M ongols w ere som etim es know n as B lue T urks or as B lack T atars. A s
speakers of A ltaic languages, nam ed for the A ltai M ountain range in w estern M ongolia, their languages
bore a distant sim ilarity w ith K orean and Japanese, but none w ith C hinese or the other tonal languages of
A sia.
A lthough the T urkic tribes and T atars had coalesced into several tribal confederacies, the M ongols
w ere divided into m any sm all bands headed by a chief, or khan, and loosely based on kinship ties. T he
M ongols them selves claim a distinct identity from the T urkic and T atar groups. T hey asserted, then and
now , a direct descent from the H uns, w ho founded the first em pire on the high steppe in the third century.
H un is the M ongolian w ord for hum an being, and they called their H un ancestors H un-nu, the people of
the sun. In the fourth and fifth centuries, the H uns spread out from the M ongolian steppes to conquer
countries from India to R om e, but they w ere unable to sustain contact am ong the various clans and w ere
quickly assim ilated into the cultures they conquered.
S hortly after he had kidnapped H oelun, Y esugei had gone on a cam paign against the T atars and killed a
w arrior called T em ujin U ge. R eturning just after the birth of his son, he nam ed the boy T em ujin. S ince
people of the steppe received only one nam e in life, its selection carried m uch sym bolism , often on
several levels; the nam e im parted to the child its character, fate, and destiny. T he bestow al of the nam e
T em ujin m ay have stressed the lingering enm ity betw een M ongols and T atars, but m uch scholarly and
im aginative discussion has surrounded the precise m eaning of T em ujin’s nam e or w hat w as being
conferred upon him by his father. T he best hint of the intended m eaning com es from the M ongol practice
of giving several children nam es derived from a com m on root w ord. O f her four subsequent children born
after T em ujin, H oelun’s youngest son bore the nam e T em uge, and the youngest child and only daughter
w as nam ed T em ulun. A ll three nam es seem to have the com m on root of the verb tem ul— w hich occurred
in several M ongol w ords m eaning to rush headlong, to be inspired, to have a creative thought, and even to
take a flight of fancy. A s one M ongolian student explained to m e, the w ord w as best exem plified by “the
look in the eye of a horse that is racing w here it w ants to go, no m atter w hat the rider w ants.”
D espite the isolation of the M ongolian w orld, the tribes w ho lived there w ere not cut off entirely from the
currents of w orld events. F or centuries before the birth of G enghis K han, C hinese, M uslim , H indu, and C hristian civilizations filtered into the M ongol hom eland; little of their culture proved adaptable,
how ever, to the harsh environm ent of the high steppes. T he nom adic tribes had distant but com plex
com m ercial, religious, and m ilitary relations w ith the constantly changing configuration of states in C hina
and central A sia. L iving so far to the north, the M ongols w ere essentially out of range of the trade routes
that later becam e know n as the S ilk R oute, w hich ran south of the G obi, tenuously and sporadically
connecting C hinese and M uslim societies. Y et enough trade goods filtered north to m ake the M ongols
aw are of the treasures that lay in the south.
F or the nom ads, trading w ith their neighbors and fighting w ith them constituted an interrelated part of
the yearly rhythm of life, as custom ary and predictable as tending the new born anim als in the spring,
searching for pastures in the sum m er, or drying m eat and dairy products in the fall. T he long, cold w inter
w as the season for hunting. T he m en left hom e in sm all parties to roam the m ountains and penetrate the
forests hunting rabbits, w olves, sables, elks ibex, argali (w ild sheep), boars, bears, foxes, and otters.
S om etim es the w hole com m unity participated in hunts, w here they w ould encircle as large an area as they
could and drive the gam e tow ard a central slaughtering point. T he anim als provided not only m eat,
leather, and fur, but also antlers, horns, tusks, teeth, and bones that the nom ads fashioned into a variety of
tools, w eapons, and decorations, and various dried organs that w ere used as m edicines. T he forest also
supplied other goods for trade and daily life, including hunting birds that w ere taken from their nests in
infancy.
T he nom ads traded the forest products, from fam ily to fam ily, ger to ger, tow ard the south, w hile
m anufactured products such as m etal and textiles slow ly m oved north from the trading centers south of the
G obi. T he M ongols survived on the m ost northern edge of this w orld, just at the juncture of the steppe and
the northern S iberian forest. T hey lived as m uch through hunting in the forest as by herding anim als on the
steppe, and they exem plified the m ost extrem e characteristics of both groups. T hey clung to the frayed
ends of thin, delicate threads of trade connecting the northern tundra and the steppe w ith the agricultural
fields and w orkshops of the south. S o few goods penetrated the far north that it w as said that am ong the
M ongols the m an w ith a pair of iron stirrups ranked as the highest lord.
S om e years the hunting w as poor, and the people w ould grow hungry early in the w inter, w ithout a
supply of forest products to trade. In those years, the M ongols still organized their hunting parties. O nly
instead of heading north into the forest to hunt anim als, they m oved out across the steppe to hunt for
hum ans. If the M ongols had nothing to trade, they raided the herders they could find out on the steppe or in
isolated valleys. T he attackers used the sam e tactics in approaching hum an prey as anim als, and at first
sign of attack, the targeted victim s usually fled, leaving behind m ost of their anim als, the m aterial goods
of their hom es, and w hatever else the attackers m ight w ant. S ince the object of the attack w as to secure
goods, the attackers usually looted the gers and rounded up the anim als rather than pursuing the fleeing
people. B ecause the raiders w anted goods, casualties in this type of struggle rem ained low . Y oung w om en
w ere kidnapped as w ives and young boys as slaves. O lder w om en and the youngest children w ere usually
exem pt from harm , and the m en of fighting age usually fled first on the sw iftest and sturdiest horses since
they stood the greatest chance of being killed and the future livelihood of the entire group depended so
heavily on them .
If the escaping m en m anaged to sum m on allies quickly enough, they set off in pursuit of their attackers
in an attem pt to track them and recover their goods. If not, the defeated tribesm en rounded up as m any of
their anim als as had m anaged to elude the captors, and they reorganized their lives as they nourished plans
for their counterattack at a m ore propitious tim e.
F or the M ongols, fighting functioned as m ore of a cyclical system of raiding than of true w arfare or
even sustained feuding. R evenge often served as the pretext for a raid, but it rarely acted as the true
m otivator. S uccess in battle carried prestige for the victor based on the goods brought back and shared
w ith fam ily and friends; fighting did not revolve around the abstract prestige of honor on the battlefield. V ictorious w arriors show ed pride in their kills and rem em bered them , but there w as no ostentatious
collecting of heads or scalps, nor m aking notches or other em blem s to represent the num ber of m en killed
in battle. O nly the goods m attered, not the kill.
H unting, trading, herding, and fighting form ed a seam less w eb of subsistence activities in the lives of
the early M ongol tribes. F rom the tim e that he could ride, every m ale began to learn the skills for each of
these pursuits, and no fam ily could live off only one activity w ithout the others. R aiding follow ed a
geographic pattern originating in the north. T he southern tribes that lived closest to the trade cities of the
S ilk R oute alw ays had m ore goods than the m ore distant northern tribes. T he southern m en had the best
w eapons, and to succeed against them , the northern m en had to m ove quicker, think m ore cleverly, and
fight harder. T his alternating pattern of trade and raiding supplied a slow , but steady, trickle of m etal and
textile goods m oving northw ard, w here the w eather w as alw ays w orse, the grazing m ore sparse, and m en
m ore rugged and violent.
O nly a few details have survived from T em ujin’s earliest childhood, and they do not suggest that he w as
highly valued by his father. H is father once accidentally left him behind w hen they m oved to another
cam p. T he T ayichiud clan found him , and their leader, T argutai, the F at K han, took him into his ow n
household and kept him for som e tim e. L ater in life, w hen T em ujin becam e pow erful, T argutai boasted
that he had trained T em ujin w ith the sam e careful attention and loving discipline that he w ould train a colt,
a herder’s m ost prized possession. T he details and sequence are unknow n, but eventually the child and his
fam ily w ere reunited, either because the F at K han returned the boy to them or because the fam ily joined
the cam p of the F at K han.
T he next know n episode in T em ujin’s life occurred w hen his father took him in search of a w ife at the
early age of nine by the M ongol count, eight by the W estern count. Y esugei and T em ujin set out alone on
the quest to find H oelun’s fam ily in the east, since, perhaps, H oelun w anted her son to m arry a w om an of
her ow n tribe or at least to know her fam ily. M ore im portant than H oelun’s preferences, how ever, Y esugei
seem ed to have w anted to be rid of him . P erhaps the father sensed the com ing struggle that w ould erupt
betw een his son T em ujin and B egter, the slightly older son born to him by S ochigel, his first w ife. B y
taking T em ujin far aw ay at this early age, the father probably sought to prevent the full eruption of the
rivalry into trouble for his sm all fam ily.
W ith only a single extra horse to present to the parents of the prospective bride, Y esugei needed to find
a fam ily that w ould accept T em ujin as a laborer for several years, in return for w hich they w ould give him
their daughter in m arriage. F or T em ujin, this trip probably w as his first venture aw ay from his hom eland
along the O non R iver. It w as easy to becom e lost in unfam iliar territory, and the traveler faced the triple
dangers of w ild anim als, harsh w eather, and, m ost of all, other hum ans. A s things turned out, the father did
not bother taking T em ujin all the w ay to H oelun’s fam ily. A long the w ay, they stayed w ith a fam ily w hose
daughter, B orte, w as only slightly older than T em ujin. T he child ren apparently liked each other, and the
fathers agreed to betroth them . D uring his tim e of apprenticeship, or bride-service, T em ujin w as expected
to live and w ork under the protective eyes of his in-law s. G radually, the intended couple w ould becom e
ever m ore intim ate. B ecause the girl w as norm ally slightly older than the boy, as w as the case w ith B orte
and T em ujin, she w ould initiate him into sexual intim acy at the rate and in the tim ing that seem ed
appropriate to the tw o of them .
O n the long ride hom e alone after leaving T em ujin, Y esugei happened upon an encam pm ent w here the
T atars w ere celebrating a feast. T he Secret H istory explains that he w anted to join the party, but he knew
that he m ust not reveal his identity as the enem y w ho had killed their kinsm an, T em ujin U ge, in battle eight
years earlier. D espite his attem pted deceit, som eone is said to have recognized him and secretly poisoned
him . A lthough quite ill from the poison, Y esugei m anaged to leave the T atars and return hom e to his fam ily’s cam p, w hereupon he im m ediately sent a m an to find and bring back T em ujin, w ho had to leave
B orte behind in the rush to his father’s deathbed.
B y the tim e the boy arrived back at his fam ily encam pm ent, his father lay dead. Y esugei left behind tw o
w ives and seven children under the age of ten. A t the tim e, the fam ily still lived along the O non R iver
w ith the T ayichiud clan. F or the last three generations the T ayichiud had dom inated Y esugei’s B orijin
clan. W ithout Y esugei to help them fight and hunt, the T ayichiud decided they had little use for his tw o
w idow s and their seven young children. In the harsh environm ent of the O non R iver, the clan could not
possibly feed nine extra people.
B y steppe tradition, one of Y esugei’s brothers, w ho helped to kidnap H oelun, should have taken her as
a w ife. U nder the M ongol system of m arriage, even one of Y esugei’s sons by his other w ife, S ochigel,
w ould have been an appropriate husband for her if he had been old enough to support the fam ily. M ongol
w om en often m arried m uch younger m en in their deceased husband’s fam ily because it gave the younger
m an the opportunity to have an experienced w ife w ithout having to pay an elaborate set of gifts to her
fam ily or to put in the years of hard bride-service. A lthough still a young w om an, probably in her m id-
tw enties, H oelun already had too m any children for m ost m en to support. A s a captive w ife far from her
hom eland, she offered a potential husband neither fam ily w ealth nor beneficial fam ily ties.
W ith her husband dead and no other m an w illing to take her, H oelun w as now outside the fam ily, and as
such no one had any obligation to help her. T he m essage that she w as no longer a part of the band cam e to
her, the w ay M ongols alw ays sym bolize relationships, through food. In the spring, w hen tw o old crones,
the w idow s of a previous khan, organized the annual cerem onial m eal to honor the fam ily’s ancestors,
they did not inform H oelun, thereby cutting her off not only from the food itself but from m em bership in
the fam ily. S he and her fam ily w ere therefore left to feed and protect them selves. A s the clan prepared to
m ove dow n the O non R iver tow ard sum m er grounds, they planned to leave H oelun and her children
behind.
A ccording to the Secret H istory, as the band m oved out, deserting the tw o w om en and seven children,
only a single old m an, from a low -ranking fam ily in the band, objected loudly to w hat they w ere doing. In
an incident that apparently m ade a deep im pression on T em ujin, one of the deserting T ayichiud bellow ed
back to the old m an that he had no right to criticize them , turned back, and speared the old m an to death.
U pon seeing this, T em ujin, at this point a boy of no m ore than ten years, is said to have dashed up to try to
help the dying m an; unable to do anything, he just sobbed in hurt and anger.
H oelun, w ho had show n such clearheadedness during her kidnapping a decade earlier, show ed the
sam e determ ination and strength during this new crisis. S he m ade a violent and defiant last effort to sham e
the T ayichiud into keeping her fam ily. A s the clan deserted their encam pm ent, she grabbed up the
horsehair S pirit B anner of her dead husband, m ounted her horse, and chased after them . R aising the S pirit
B anner over her head and w aving it furiously in the air, she circled the fleeing people. F or H oelun to
w ave the banner of her dead husband w as not m erely to w ave his em blem but to parade his very soul in
front of the deserting tribesm en. T hey indeed felt such sham e in the presence of his soul, and fear of
possible supernatural retribution from it, that they tem porarily returned to the cam p. T hey then aw aited
nightfall and, one by one, sneaked aw ay, taking w ith them the fam ily’s anim als, thereby condem ning to a
nearly certain w inter death both w idow s and their seven children.
B ut the fam ily did not die. In a m onum ental effort, H oelun saved them — all of them . A s related in the
Secret H istory, she covered her head, tucked up her skirt, and ran up and dow n the river searching for
food day and night in order to feed her five hungry children. S he found sm all fruits, and used a juniper
stick to dig up the roots of the plants grow ing along the river. T o help feed the fam ily, T em ujin m ade
w ooden arrow s tipped w ith sharpened bones to hunt rats on the steppe, and he bent his m other’s sew ing
needles into fishhooks. A s the boys grew older, they hunted larger gam e. In the w ords of the P ersian
chronicler Juvaini, w ho visited the M ongols fifty years later and w rote one of the first foreign accounts of the life of T em ujin, the fam ily w ore clothing “of the skins of dogs and m ice, and their food w as the flesh
of those anim als and other dead things.” W hether precisely accurate or not, the description show s the
desperate, isolated struggle of these social outcasts on the verge of starvation, living alm ost as m uch like
anim als as like the other tribes around them . In the land of harsh lives, they had fallen to the low est level
of steppe life.
H ow could an outcast child rise from such a low ly station to becom e the M ongols’ G reat K han?
S earching through the account of T em ujin’s com ing of age in the Secret H istory, w e find crucial clues
about the pow erful role these early traum atic events m ust have played in shaping his character, and, in
turn, his rise to pow er. T he tragedies his fam ily endured seem ed to have instilled in him a profound
determ ination to defy the strict caste structure of the steppes, to take charge of his fate, and to rely on
alliances w ith trusted associates, rather than his fam ily or tribe, as his prim ary base of support.
T he first of these pow erful associations w as w ith a slightly older boy nam ed Jam uka, w hose fam ily
cam ped repeatedly nearby T em ujin’s on the banks of the O non R iver and as a m em ber of the Jadaran clan
w as distantly related to the clan of T em ujin’s father. In the ideals of M ongol culture, kinship reigned
above all other social principles. A nyone outside the kinship netw ork w as autom atically an enem y, and
the closer the kin, the closer the tie should be. T em ujin and Jam uka w ere distant relatives, but they w ished
to be closer, to becom e brothers. T w ice in their childhood, T em ujin and Jam uka sw ore an oath of eternal
brotherhood, becom ing blood brothers according to M ongol tradition. T he story of this fated friendship,
and the pivotal events of his life in this early period, reveal m any telling details about T em ujin’s
extraordinary ability to rise above adversity and m arshal the resources he needed to ultim ately tam e the
unbridled violence of tribe against tribe that ruled the steppe.
T em ujin and Jam uka form ed a close friendship as they hunted, fished, and played the gam es the children
w ere taught to im prove their everyday skills. M ongol children, both boys and girls, grew up on horses.
F rom infancy, they learned to ride w ith their parents or older siblings until, after only a few years, they
m anaged to hold on by them selves and ride alone. U sually by age four, children had m astered riding
bareback, and eventually how to stand on a horse’s back. W hile standing on the horse, they often jousted
w ith one another to see w ho could knock the other off. W hen their legs grew long enough to reach the
stirrups, they w ere also taught to shoot arrow s and to lasso on horseback. M aking targets out of leather
pouches that they w ould dangle from poles so that they w ould blow in the w ind, the youngsters practiced
hitting the targets from horseback at varying distances and speeds. T he skills of such play proved
invaluable to horsem anship later in life.
O ther gam es included playing knucklebones, a type of dice m ade from the anklebones of a sheep. E very
boy carried a set of four such knucklebones w ith him , and they could be used to forecast the future, to
settle disagreem ents, or sim ply as a fun gam e. In addition, Jam uka and T em ujin also played a m ore
vigorous gam e on the frozen river that w as som ew hat like curling. A lthough the Secret H istory does not
m ention their use of skates, a E uropean visitor in the next century w rote that hunters in the area frequently
tied bones onto their feet to be able to race across frozen lakes and rivers both for sport and in pursuit of
anim als.
T hese skills later gave the M ongols a great advantage because, unlike alm ost every other arm y, the
M ongols easily rode and even fought on frozen rivers and lakes. T he frozen rivers that E uropeans relied
upon as their protection from invasion, such as the Volga and the D anube, becam e highw ays for the
M ongols, allow ing them to ride their horses right up to city w alls during the season that found the
E uropeans least prepared for fighting.
M ost of T em ujin’s youth w as consum ed by the w ork of helping his fam ily survive. T he gam es T em ujin
and Jam uka played on the O non R iver are the only know n frivolities m entioned in any source on the life of
the boy w ho becam e the great conqueror. T he first tim e that T em ujin and Jam uka sw ore loyalty to one
another w as w hen T em ujin w as about eleven years old. T he boys exchanged toys as a sym bol of this oath. Jam uka gave T em ujin a knucklebone from a roebuck, and T em ujin gave Jam uka one inlaid w ith a sm all
piece of brass, a rare treasure that m ust have traveled a long distance. T he next year they exchanged the
adult gift of arrow heads. Jam uka took tw o pieces of a calf’s horn and, by drilling a hole through them ,
m ade a w histling arrow head for T em ujin, w ho, in turn, gave Jam uka an elegant arrow head crafted from
cypress. L ike hunters had done for generations, T em ujin learned early how to use the w histling arrow to
com m unicate secretly through sounds that other people ignored or sim ply could not decipher.
A s part of the second oath-sw earing cerem ony, boys often sw allow ed a sm all am ount of each other’s
blood, thereby exchanging a part of their soul. In the case of Jam uka and T em ujin, the Secret H istory
quotes Jam uka as saying that the tw o of them spoke to each other w ords that could not be forgotten and
together they ate the unnam ed “food that could not be digested.” W ith this oath, tw o boys becam e andas, a
bond that w as supposed to be stronger even than that betw een biological brothers because andas freely
chose their tie. Jam uka w as the only anda T em ujin had in his life.
Jam uka’s clan did not return the follow ing w inter, and the com ing years separated the boys. T his bond
forged in childhood, how ever, w ould later becom e a m ajor asset and a m ajor obstacle in T em ujin’s rise to
pow er.
In contrast w ith the early intim acy shared w ith Jam uka, at hom e T em ujin chafed under the som etim es
bullying authority of his older half brother B egter, and the sibling rivalry grew m ore intense as the tw o
approached adolescence. A strict hierarchy norm ally ruled the fam ily life of M ongol herders then, as it
does now . In the face of so m any daily dangers from both predators and w eather, M ongols developed a
system in w hich children had to obey their parents unquestioningly. In the absence of a father, w hether for
a few hours or for m onths, the eldest son assum ed that role. T he elder brother had the right to control their
every action, to assign them any task, and to take from them or give them w hatever he pleased. H e
exercised com plete pow er over them .
B egter w as slightly older than T em ujin, and gradually after the father w as killed, he began to exercise
the pow er prerogatives of the eldest m ale. In an account know n only from the Secret H istory, T em ujin’s
resentm ent erupted in an episode that initially appears quite trivial. B egter, it seem s, seized a lark that
T em ujin had shot. B egter m ay have taken it for no other reason than to enforce his claim as the head of the
fam ily; if so, he w ould have done w ell not to have lorded his pow er over T em ujin. S oon thereafter,
T em ujin and his full brother K hasar, w ho w as next to him in age, sat together w ith their tw o half brothers
B egter and B elgutei fishing in the O non R iver. T em ujin caught a sm all fish, but the half brothers snatched
it from him . A ngered and frustrated, T em ujin and K hasar ran to their m other, H oelun, to tell her w hat had
happened. Instead of taking the side of her ow n sons, how ever, she sided w ith B egter, telling them they
should be w orrying about their enem ies, the T ayichiud, w ho had abandoned them , and not fighting w ith
their older brother.
H oelun’s siding w ith B egter portended a future that T em ujin could not abide. A s the eldest son, B egter
not only could com m and the actions of his younger siblings, but he had w ide prerogatives, including rights
of sexual access, to any w idow of his father, aside from his ow n m other. A s a w idow not taken in
m arriage by one of her late husband’s brothers, H oelun’s m ost likely partner w ould be B egter, since he
w as her husband’s son by another w ife.
A t this m om ent of trem endous fam ily tension and potential disruption, H oelun angrily rem inded her
ow n sons of the story of A lan the B eautiful, the founding ancestress of the M ongols, w ho bore several
m ore sons after her husband died and left her living w ith an adopted son. T he im plication of the story
seem ed clear; H oelun w ould accept B egter as her husband w hen he becam e old enough, thereby m aking
him the head of the fam ily in every sense. T em ujin, how ever, decided not to tolerate such a situation w ith
B egter. A fter the em otional confrontation w ith his m other over B egter, T em ujin threw aside the felt covering over the doorw ay, a highly offensive gesture in M ongol culture, and angrily rushed off, follow ed
by his younger brother K hasar.
T he tw o brothers found B egter sitting silently on a sm all knoll overlooking the steppe, and approached
him cautiously through the grass. T em ujin instructed K hasar, w ho w as the best shot in the fam ily, to circle
tow ard the front of the knoll w hile he him self clim bed up the back side. T hey crept up on B egter quietly,
as if stalking a resting deer or grazing gazelle. W hen they cam e w ithin easy striking distance, each silently
placed an arrow in his bow , and then suddenly rose out of the grass w ith bow s draw n. B egter did not run,
or even attem pt to defend him self; he w ould not deign to show fear in front of his younger brothers.
A dm onishing them , in the sam e w ords as their m other had, that their real enem y w as the T ayichiud clan,
he is reported to have said, “I am not the lash in your eye, the im pedim ent in your m outh. W ithout m e you
have no com panion but your ow n shadow .” H e sat cross-legged and still as his tw o younger brothers
continued to approach him . K now ing clearly w hat fate lay ahead, B egter still refused to fight. Instead, he
m ade one final request of them , that they spare the life of his younger full brother, B elgutei.
M aintaining their distance from him , T em ujin and K hasar shot their arrow s straight into B egter, T em ujin
striking him in the back, w hile K hasar hit him from the front. R ather than approach him and risk
contam ination from his blood, w hich w as flow ing onto the earth, they turned and abandoned him to die
alone. T he author of the Secret H istory does not state w hether he died quickly or bled to death in a long,
lingering end. A ccording to M ongol tradition, m ere m ention of blood or death violates a taboo, but this
killing w as deem ed of such im portance to T em ujin’s life that it w as recorded in detail.
W hen T em ujin and K hasar returned hom e, H oelun is said to have read im m ediately in their faces w hat
they had done and scream ed out at T em ujin: “D estroyer! D estroyer! Y ou cam e from m y hot w om b
clutching a clot of blood in your hand.” S he turned to adm onish K hasar: “A nd you like a w ild dog
gnaw ing its ow n afterbirth.” H er scream ing rage at T em ujin is vented in one of the longest m onologues in
the Secret H istory, during w hich, in repeated insults, she com pares her sons to anim als— “like an
attacking panther, like a lion w ithout control, like a m onster sw allow ing its prey alive.” A t the end,
exhausted, she repeated B egter’s earlier w arning as though it w ere a curse: “N ow , you have no
com panion other than your shadow .”
A lready, at this young age, T em ujin played the gam e of life, not m erely for honor or prestige, but to
w in. H e stalked his brother as if he w ere hunting an anim al, just as he w ould later prove to have a genius
for converting hunting skills into w ar tactics. B y putting K hasar, w ho w as the better shot, in front w hile he
him self took the rear, he also show ed his tactical acum en. L ike the horse that m ust be first in every race,
T em ujin had determ ined he w ould lead, not follow . In order to achieve this prim acy of place, he proved
him self w illing to violate custom , defy his m other, and kill w hoever blocked his path, even if it w as his
ow n fam ily m em ber.
W hile the killing of B egter freed T em ujin from the grip of his half brother’s dom inance, he had
com m itted a taboo act that put his fam ily in still greater jeopardy. T hey w ould have to im m ediately flee
the area, and did so. A ccording to M ongol tradition, they left B egter’s body to rot in the open, and
avoided returning to that spot for as long as any trace of him m ight rem ain. Just as both B egter and H oelun
had adm onished, T em ujin now found him self w ith no protector or ally, and he w ould soon be hunted. H e
w as head of a household, but he w as also in danger as a renegade.
U ntil this tim e H oelun’s fam ily had been a band of outcasts, but not crim inals. T he killing changed all
that and gave anyone w ho w anted it an excuse to hunt them dow n. T he T ayichiud considered them selves
the aristocratic lineage of the O non R iver and sent a party of w arriors to punish T em ujin for the killing in
their territory and to forestall w hat he m ight do next. W ith no place to hide on the open steppe, T em ujin
fled tow ard the safety of the m ountains, but his pursuers still captured him . T he T ayichiud took him back
to their m ain cam p w here, in an effort to break his w ill, they strapped him into a cangue, a device
som ething like an ox yoke, w hich perm itted him to w alk but im m obilized his hands and prevented him from feeding him self or even getting a drink of w ater unaided. E ach day a different fam ily assum ed
responsibility for guarding and caring for him .
T he T ayichiud band had several households of subordinate lineages, as w ell as w ar captives, living
w ith them as their servants, and it w as to these servant fam ilies that T em ujin w as turned over as a
prisoner. U nlike the T ayichiud, w ho treated him w ith disdain, he found sym pathy and com fort am ong these
fam ilies w hen they took him into their gers at night. P rotected from the view of the T ayichiud leaders, they
not only shared food w ith him , but in one episode highlighted in the Secret H istory, an old w om an gently
tended the raw w ounds cut into his neck by the cangue. T he children of the fam ily also persuaded their
father to violate his orders by rem oving the cangue at night, to let T em ujin rest m ore peacefully.
T he story of T em ujin’s escape fro m this im possible situation is further testam ent to his character, w hich
w ould shape his rise to pow er. O ne day w hile the T ayichiud m en got drunk and T em ujin had been
assigned to the care of a sim plem inded and physically w eak boy, the captive suddenly sw ung the cangue
around violently, struck the boy’s head w ith it, and knocked him out. R ather than face alm ost certain death
by fleeing on foot across the steppe w earing the cangue, he hid in a clum p of w eeds in a nearby river.
S hortly after a search began, he w as quickly spotted by the father of the fam ily that had treated him kindly.
R ather than sounding an alarm , the old m an told him to flee w hen darkness fell. A fter dark, T em ujin left
the river, but did not flee. H e slow ly m ade his w ay to the old m an’s ger and entered it, m uch to the horror,
and danger, of the fam ily. B ut despite the great risk to their ow n lives, the reluctant hosts rem oved the
cangue and burned it. T hey hid T em ujin in a pile of w ool during the next day w hen the T ayichiud resum ed
their hunt for him . T hat night, they sent him on his w ay, and despite their poverty, cooked a lam b for him
and gave him a horse w ith w hich he m anaged to elude his trackers for the long flight back to his m other’s
distant and isolated cam p.
F or a poor fam ily to risk their lives to help him and to give him such valuable resources, T em ujin m ust
have had som e special attraction or ability. M eanw hile, this hum ble fam ily im pressed him as w ell. T he
T ayichiud, w ith w hom he shared a close kinship tie, had once put his fam ily out to die and now appeared
eager to kill him . T his other fam ily, w hich had no kinship tie to him , proved w illing to risk their lives to
help him . T his episode seem s to have instilled in him not only a distrust of higher-ranking people, but also
the conviction that som e people, even those outside his clan, could indeed be trusted as if they w ere
fam ily. In later life, he w ould judge others prim arily by their actions tow ard him and not according to
their kinship bonds, a revolutionary concept in steppe society.
M ongol traditions and sources acknow ledge only this one brief period of capture and enslavem ent of
T em ujin, but a contem porary C hinese chronicler w rote that T em ujin endured m ore than ten years in
slavery. H e m ay have been repeatedly enslaved, or this episode m ay have lasted m uch longer than the
Secret H istory suggests. S om e scholars suspect that such a long period of enslavem ent accounts for the
glaring absence of detailed inform ation on his childhood. In later years, the tim e of enslavem ent w ould
have been an episode of sham e for G enghis K han, but even m ore im portantly w ould have been a
trem endous danger to the descendants of the fam ilies that had enslaved him . V irtually everyone associated
w ith the slavery episode had good reason to keep silent about that connection, and to m ake it seem briefer
w ould be in keeping w ith M ongol sensibilities that w ould dictate only barely m entioning the bad w hile
em phasizing instead the heroic nature of the escape.
In 1178, T em ujin turned sixteen. H e had not seen his intended w ife, B orte, since his father’s death seven
years earlier, but he felt confident enough in the m atter to go out to find her again. A ccom panied by his
surviving half brother, B elgutei, he set off dow n the K herlen R iver in search of her fam ily. W hen they
found the ger belonging to B orte’s father, D ei-sechen, T em ujin w as pleased to discover that B orte still
w aited for him , even though at age seventeen or eighteen she w as now nearly past the age of m arriage. D ei-sechen knew of T em ujin’s troubles w ith the T ayichuid clan, but w as nevertheless still am enable to the
m atch.
T em ujin and B elgutei set off tow ard hom e w ith B orte. B y custom , a new bride brought a gift of clothing
to her husband’s parents w hen she cam e to live w ith them . F or nom ads, large gifts are im practical, but
high-quality clothing carries high prestige and also serves a valuable practical function. B orte brought a
coat of the m ost prized fur on the steppe, black sable. U nder norm al circum stances, T em ujin w ould have
presented such a gift to his father, but in the absence of a father, he perceived a greater value to w hich he
could put the coat. H e decided to use the sable coat to revive an old friendship of his father’s, and thereby
m ake an alliance that m ight offer him and his now grow ing fam ily som e security.
T he m an w as T orghil, m ore com m only know n later as O ng K han, of the K ereyid tribe that lived on
som e of the m ost luxuriant steppes in central M ongolia betw een the O rkhon R iver and the B lack F orest of
larch trees along the T uul R iver. U nlike the scattered lineages and clans of the M ongols, the K ereyid
constituted a pow erful tribal confederacy that em braced a large group of tribes united under a single khan.
T he great expanse of the steppe north of the G obi fell, at this tim e, under the rule of three m ajor tribes.
T he center w as controlled by O ng K han and his K ereyid tribe, the w est w as dom inated by the N aim an
tribe under their ruler T ayang K han, and the T atars occupied the area to the east as vassals of the Jurched
of N orth C hina under their ruler A ltan K han. T he rulers of the three large tribes m ade and broke alliances
and w aged w ars w ith the sm aller tribes along their borders in a perpetual effort to enlist them in
cam paigns against their m ore im portant enem ies. T hus, T em ujin’s father, Y esugei, had no kinship tie w ith
the K ereyid, but he had once been the anda of O ng K han, and they had fought together against m any
enem ies. T he tie betw een the m en had been stronger than m erely patron and vassal because w hen they
w ere quite young, Y esugei helped O ng K han becom e khan of the K ereyid people by overthrow ing his
uncle, the G ur-khan, or suprem e ruler. In addition, they had fought together against the M erkid and w ere
allied at the tim e of T em ujin’s birth, w hen Y esugei w as on the cam paign against the T atars.
A ccording to steppe culture, politics w ere conducted through the idiom of m ale kinship. T o be allies,
m en had to belong to the sam e fam ily, and therefore every alliance betw een m en not connected through
biology had to be transform ed into cerem onial or fictive kinship. T hus, w ith T em ujin’s father and the
w ould-be K ereyid leader having been cerem onial brothers as andas, T em ujin now sought to be treated as
a son to the old m an. B y giving O ng K han the w edding gift, T em ujin w as recognizing him as his father;
and if O ng K han accepted, he w ould be recognizing T em ujin as his son and therefore entitled to
protection. F or m ost steppe m en, such form s of cerem onial kinship stood as adjuncts to their real kin
relations, but for T em ujin, such chosen form s of fictive kinship w ere already proving m ore useful than the
ties of biological kinship.
T he K ereyid, and the N aim an to the w est, represented not just larger political units but m ore developed
cultures tied, ever so tentatively, into the com m ercial and religious netw orks of central A sia via their
conversion to C hristianity several centuries earlier by m issionaries of the A ssyrian C hurch of the E ast.
W ithout churches or m onasteries am ong the nom ads, the tribal branch of C hristianity claim ed descent from
the A postle T hom as and relied on w andering m onks. T hey practiced their religion in sanctuaries located
in gers, and de-em phasized theology and rigidity of belief in favor of a varied reading of the S criptures
com bined w ith general m edical care. Jesus exercised a strong fascination for the nom ads because he
healed the sick and survived death. A s the only hum an to trium ph over death, Jesus w as considered an
im portant and pow erful sham an, and the cross w as sacred as the sym bol of the four directions of the
w orld. A s a pastoral people, the steppe tribes felt very com fortable w ith the pastoral custom s and beliefs
of the ancient H ebrew tribes as illustrated in the B ible. P erhaps above all, the C hristians ate m eat, unlike
the vegetarian B uddhists; and in contrast to the abstem ious M uslim s, the C hristians not only enjoyed
drinking alcohol, they even prescribed it as a m andatory part of their w orship service.
A fter leaving his bride, B orte, w ith his m other in their ger, T em ujin set out w ith his brother K hasar and half brother B elgutei to take the coat to the C hristian O ng K han, w ho eagerly accepted the gift, thereby
signifying that he acknow ledged each of them as a sort of stepson. T he khan offered to m ake T em ujin a
local leader over other young w arriors, but in a telling display of his lack of interest in the traditional
system , T em ujin declined. Instead, he seem ed only to w ant the khan’s protection for his fam ily, and w ith
that assured, he and his brothers returned to their encam pm ent on the K herlen R iver. T here, the young
groom sought to enjoy his hard-earned tim e w ith his bride and fam ily.
T he m any troubles of T em ujin’s early years m ust have seem ed behind him and his fam ily now that
everyone w as old enough to w ork in som e w ay. In addition to his brothers, T em ujin’s household expanded
to include tw o other young m en. B oorchu had joined the group after a chance encounter w hile T em ujin
w as tracking som e stolen horses; Jelm e w as apparently given to T em ujin by his father, although the Secret
H istory does not explain w hy. W ith these tw o additions, the cam p consisted of seven teenage boys to hunt
and protect the group. In addition to his bride, B orte, T em ujin’s household also included his sister and
three older w om en: his m other, H oelun, w ho w as m atriarch, as w ell as S ochigel, the m other of T em ujin’s
half brother B elgutei, and yet another old w om an of unknow n origin w ho stayed w ith them .
A ccording to the account of the Secret H istory, T em ujin w ould have preferred to rem ain sim ply the
ruler of this intim ate clan, but the roiling w orld of tribal attack and counterattack all around them w ould
not allow so idyllic a life. F or generations stretching back through hundreds of years, the tribes of the
steppes had been preying on one another m ercilessly. T he m em ory of past transgressions lingered. A n
injury inflicted on any fam ily w ithin a tribe served as a license for retribution, and it could serve as a
pretext for a raid even after m any years. N o m atter how isolated they m ight attem pt to be, no group such as
T em ujin’s could go unaccounted for, or untouched, in this w orld of continual turm oil.
A fter all his fam ily had already suffered, now , after eighteen years, the tribe from w hich T em ujin’s
m other had been abducted, the M erkid, decided to seek their vengeance for that slight. T he M erkid cam e
not to reclaim H oelun, the w idow w ho had grow n old struggling to raise her five children, but after B orte,
T em ujin’s young bride, w ho w ould serve to repay the kidnapping of H oelun from them . T he alliance he
had so shrew dly m ade w ith O ng K han w as to prove decisive in T em ujin’s response to this crisis, and the
challenges of the M erkid w ould prove the decisive contest that w ould set him on his path to greatness. 2
T ale of T hree R ivers
T he banner of C hingiz-K han’s fortune
w as raised and they issued forth.
A TA -M A L IK JU VA IN I,
G enghis K han: T he H istory of the
W orld C onqueror
E A R LY O N E M O R N IN G A S the fam ily slept in their ger, w hich stood alo ne on an isolated steppe in the
upper reaches of the K herlen R iver, a raiding party of M erkids raced tow ard them . T he old w om an the
fam ily had taken in lay w ith her head on the ground, but as old w om en often do, she passed m uch of the
predaw n hours drifting in and out of a fitful sleep. A s the horses drew nearer, she sensed the vibrations of
their hooves on the ground. S uddenly snapping out of her sleep, she shouted w ith alarm to rouse the
others. T he seven boys sprang up, scram bled frantically to put on their boots, and raced out to their
horses, hobbled nearby. T em ujin fled w ith his six com panions and his m other and sister, leaving behind
his new bride, his stepm other, S ochigel, and the old w om an w ho had saved them all. In the desperate
tribal w orld w here daily life skirted so close to potential tragedy and annihilation, no one had the luxury
of artificially chivalrous codes of behavior. In the quick decision of their utilitarian calculus, leaving
these three w om en as booty w ould at least slow the raiders enough so that the others m ight have tim e to
escape. F or T em ujin’s fleeing band, the open steppe offered no refuge; they w ould have to ride hard to
reach safety in the m ountains to the north.
B y the tim e the attackers reached the ger, T em ujin and his sm all group had raced off into the early
m orning darkness, but they quickly found B orte hiding in an oxcart that the old w om an w as leading aw ay.
F or several desperate days w hile the M erkid prow led the vicinity, T em ujin stayed constantly on the m ove,
hiding along the slopes and w ooded crevices of M ount B urkhan K haldun. F inally, the M erkid abandoned
their roam ing, and headed off northw est, tow ard their hom e on the distant S elenge R iver, a tributary of
S iberia’s L ake B aikal. F earing that the w ithdraw al m ight have been a trap to lure him out of hiding,
T em ujin sent B elgutei and their tw o friends, B oorchu and Jelm e, to track the kidnappers for three days to
m ake sure that they did not double back to surprise him .
H iding in the forest of M ount B urkhan K haldun, T em ujin faced the pivotal decision of his life: deciding
w hat to do about the kidnapping of his w ife. H e could have chosen to abandon any hope of recapturing
B orte, and that w ould surely have been the expected course, as his sm all group could not possibly take on
the m uch m ore pow erful M erkid. In due tim e, T em ujin could find another w ife, but he w ould have to
kidnap her, as his father had done to his m other, because no fam ily w ould voluntarily bestow their
daughter on a m an w ho had already lost one w ife to m ore pow erful m en.
In the past, T em ujin had relied upon his quick w its to fight or flee, but the decisions had been
spontaneous ones in response to a sudden danger or opportunity. N ow he had to think carefully and devise
a p lan of action that w ould influence the w hole of his life. H e had to choose his ow n destiny. In the belief
that he had just been saved by the m ountain w here he w as hiding, he turned in prayer to the spirit of the m ountain. U nlike the other steppe tribes that had em braced the scriptural and priestly traditions of
B uddhism , Islam , or C hristianity, the M ongols rem ained anim ists, praying to the spirits around them . T hey
w orshiped the E ternal B lue S ky, the G olden L ight of the S un, and the m yriad spiritual forces of nature.
T he M ongols divided the natural w orld into tw o parts, the earth and the sky. Just as the hum an soul w as
contained not in the stationary parts of the body but in the m oving essences of blood, breath, and arom a,
so, too, the soul of the earth w as contained in its m oving w ater. T he rivers flow ed through the earth like
the blood through the body, and three of those rivers began here on this m ountain. A s the tallest m ountain,
B urkhan K haldun, literally “G od M ountain,” w as the khan of the area, and it w as the earthly place closest
to the E ternal B lue S ky. A nd as the source of three rivers, B urkhan K haldun w as also the sacred heart of
the M ongol w orld.
T he Secret H istory relates that T em ujin, grateful for having escaped death at the hands of the M erkid,
first offered a prayer of thanks to the m ountain that protected him and to the sun that rode across the sky.
H e m ade special thanks to the captured old w om an w ho had saved the others by hearing like a w easel. T o
thank the spirits around him , as w as M ongol practice, he sprinkled m ilk into the air and on the ground.
U nw inding his belt from his robe, he hung it around his neck. T he sash or belt, traditionally w orn only by
m en, w as the center of a M ongol m an’s identity. F or T em ujin to rem ove his sash in this w ay w as to
rem ove his strength and to appear pow erless before the gods around him . H e then rem oved his hat, put his
hand on his breast, and dropped dow n onto the ground nine tim es to kow tow before the sun and before the
sacred m ountain.
F or the steppe trib es, political, w orldly pow er w as inseparable from supernatural pow er since both
sprang from the sam e source, the E ternal B lue S ky. In order to find success and to trium ph over others,
one m ust first be granted supernatural pow er from the spirit w orld. F or his S pirit B anner to lead to
victory and pow er, it had to first be infused w ith supernatural pow er. T em ujin’s three days of prayer
w hile hiding on B urkhan K haldun m arked the beginning of a long and intim ate spiritual relationship he
w ould m aintain w ith this m ountain and the special protection he believed it provided. T his m ountain
w ould be the source of his strength.
R ather than m erely giving him the pow er, B urkhan K haldun seem s to first test him w ith a difficult
choice. E ach of the three rivers that flow ed out from the m ountain offered him an alternate choice of
action. H e could return to the southeast, dow nstream to the K herlen R iver, w here he had been living on
the steppe, but no m atter how m any anim als or w ives he m anaged to accum ulate as a herder, he w ould
alw ays risk losing them in another raid to the M erkid, the T ayichiud, or w hoever else cam e along. T he
O non R iver, along w hich he him self had been born, flow ed to the northeast and offered another option.
B ecause it m eandered through m ore w ooded and isolated land than the K herlen R iver, the O non offered
m ore shelter, but it lacked pastures for the anim als. L iving there w ould require the group to scrape by, as
in his childhood, w hile fishing, trapping birds, and hunting rats and other sm all m am m als. L ife on the
O non w ould be safe b ut w ithout prosperity or honor. T he third option w as to follow the T uul R iver, w hich
flow ed tow ard the southw est, to seek the help of O ng K han, to w hom he had given the sable coat. A t that
tim e, T em ujin had declined the offer to m ake him a subordinate leader under O ng K han’s authority. N ow ,
only a year later, w ith the life he had chosen instead shattered by the M erkid raiders, T em ujin still seem ed
reluctant to plunge into the internecine struggle of khan against khan, but there seem ed no other w ay to get
back his bride.
T hough he had sought to create a quiet life apart from the constant turm oil of steppe w arfare, the
M erkid raid had taught him that such a life w as sim ply not to be had. If he did not w ant to live the life of
an im poverished outcast, alw ays at the m ercy of w hatever raiders chose to sw oop dow n on his
encam pm ent, he w ould now have to fight for his place in the hierarchy of steppe w arriors; he w ould have
to join in the harsh gam e of constant w arfare he had thus far avoided.
A side from all the issues of politics, hierarchy, and spiritual pow er, T em ujin show ed how desperately he m issed B orte, the one person in a short and tragedy-laden life w ho brought him happiness. D espite the
em otional reserve that M ongol m en w ere expected to show in public, particularly in the presence of other
m en, T em ujin m ade a strong em otional affirm ation of his love for B orte and of his pain w ithout her. H e
lam ented that not only had the attackers left his bed em pty, but they had cut open his chest, broken his
heart.
T em ujin chose to fight. H e w ould find his w ife, or he w ould die trying. A fter those three difficult days
of pondering, praying, and planning on the m ountain, T em ujin follow ed the T uul R iver dow n to search for
the cam p of O ng K han and seek his help. B ut he w ould do so not as a lonely outcast; he w ould do so as
the rightful son w ho had already brought the pow erful O ng K han a prize sable coat and allegiance.
W hen T em ujin found O ng K han and explained that he w anted to launch a raid on the M erkid, the old
khan im m ediately agreed to help. H ad he not w anted to fight, O ng K han could easily have deferred and
instead offered T em ujin another w ife from the w om en in his ow n encam pm ent. T he old khan, how ever,
had a lingering feud of his ow n w ith the M erkid, and T em ujin’s request offered him a pretext to attack and
loot them once again.
O ng K han also sent T em ujin to seek additional support from a rising young M ongol ally of the khans,
one w ho had been proving him self an adept w arrior and had attracted a sizable follow ing. T his m an w as
none other than T em ujin’s sw orn anda, Jam uka of the Jadaran clan. Jam uka readily agreed to the sum m ons
from his khan to help his young blood brother fight against the M erkid. T ogether they w ould form the
steppe ideal of a good arm y, w ith O ng K han leading the R ight (w est) W ing, and Jam uka leading the L eft
(east) W ing. T he arm ies of O ng K han and Jam uka gathered w ith T em ujin’s sm all band at the source of the
O non R iver near B urkhan K haldun, from w hence they w ould cross the m ountains and drop dow n on the
steppes into M erkid territory along the S elenge R iver, in the direction of L ake B aikal.
T em ujin had survived m any difficult scrapes in his short life, w ithout engaging in an actual raid. In this
raid, he w ould prove him self up to the task, though the raid w as really m ore of a rout. S om e M erkid on a
night hunt in the m ountains saw the attacking arm y and rushed w ord back to alarm their people, arriving
only a little ahead of the invading horsem en. T he M erkid began fleeing for safety dow nstream , and panic
overtook the w hole string of encam pm ents. A s the raiders began their looting of the M erkid’s gers,
T em ujin is said to have raced from cam p to cam p am ong those left behind crying out B orte’s nam e, but
B orte, w ho had been given as a w ife to an older M erkid w arrior, w as loaded into a cart and sent aw ay
from the battle. S he did not know w ho w as attacking her new hom e and did not w ant to be kidnapped
again; she had no reason to suspect that the attack w as launched to rescue her.
T he Secret H istory describes in detail how suddenly, from am id the confusion and turm oil around her,
B orte heard a voice crying out her nam e and recognized it as T em ujin’s. Jum ping from the cart, she raced
through the darkness tow ard the voice. T em ujin tw isted frantically in his saddle as he peered out at the
night and shouted her nam e again and again. H e becam e so distraught that he did not know her as she ran
tow ard him , and w hen she grabbed the reins of his horse and snatched them from this hand, he alm ost
attacked her before he recognized her, w hereupon they “threw them selves upon each other” in an
em otional em brace.
A lthough the other tw o w om en w ere not rescued, T em ujin had w on his w ife back again, and nothing
else m attered now . H e had inflicted upon the M erkid the sam e pain that they had caused him , and he w as
ready to return hom e. T he Secret H istory reports that he said to the attacking troops, “W e have m ade their
breasts to becom e em pty. . . . A nd w e have m ade their beds to becom e em pty. . . . A nd w e have m ade an
end of the m en and their descendants. . . . A nd w e have ravished those w ho rem ained. . . . T he M erkid
people being so dispersed, let us w ithdraw ourselves.”
A fter the decisive victory over the M erkid and B orte’s em otional reunion w ith T em ujin, the new ly reunited couple, still w ell under tw enty years of age, m ight have hoped to live joyously together, at least
for aw hile. B ut as happens in life, the solution to one problem can create another. T em ujin found that
B orte w as pregnant. R ather than describing the trem endous happiness for the couple at being together
again, the Secret H istory falls silent about B orte and their life together for the duration of her pregnancy.
T his silence w ould reverberate through M ongol politics for the next century in a long debate over w ho
had fathered B orte’s eldest child. B orte gave birth to her first son in 1179, and T em ujin nam ed the boy
Jochi, w hich m eans “visitor” or “guest.” M any scholars accept that as evidence that T em ujin did not
believe the child w as his ow n, but he m ay just as easily have given that nam e to signify that they w ere all
the guests of Jam uka’s band at the tim e of the baby’s birth.
T he relationship that the Secret H istory dw ells on in detail at this tim e is T em ujin’s renew ed allegiance
w ith Jam uka. A fter the dram atic rescue of B orte, T em ujin decided to join his sm all cam p w ith Jam uka’s
larger group of follow ers. T em ujin led his sm all band to Jam uka’s encam pm ent in the large fertile area
know n as the K horkhonag V alley, located betw een T em ujin’s ancestral O non R iver and the K herlen R iver.
F or the third tim e in their young lives, T em ujin and Jam uka m ade their vow s of sw orn brotherhood.
T his tim e they sw ore their friendship as tw o grow n m en in a public cerem ony w ith their follow ers as
w itnesses. S tanding before a tree at the edge of a cliff, they exchanged golden sashes and strong horses.
B y exchanging clothing, each shared his body sm ell and, therefore, the essence of his soul w ith the other;
the sash, in particular, em bodied the sym bol of their m anhood. T hey sw ore a public oath to “let us love
one another” and m ake tw o lives into one, never to forsake each other. C elebrating their pledges w ith a
feast, including m uch drinking, T em ujin and Jam uka publicly sym bolized their brotherhood by sleeping
apart from the others under a single blanket, just as true brothers grow up sharing a single blanket.
B y m oving his sm all group aw ay from the protection of the m ountains and out onto the steppe w ith
Jam uka, T em ujin w as trading the life of a hunter for that of a herder. A lthough he loved hunting throughout
his life, T em ujin’s fam ily never again depended exclusively on it for their subsistence, enjoying a higher
standard of living w ith a m ore consistent supply of m eat and dairy products as part of Jam uka’s group.
T em ujin had m uch to learn from Jam uka’s people about the herding w ay of life, in w hich w ell-established
custom s governed all aspects of the yearly routine, and rightly specialized know ledge of the anim als
revolved around the m anagem ent of cow s, yaks, horses, goats, sheep, and cam els, w hich the M ongols
called the F ive S nouts, since they counted yaks and cow s together. E very anim al provided crucial
subsistence m aterials in addition to food, w ith the horse being the aristocrat of them , not being used for
w ork other than riding.
O f course, given the constant feuding am ong the clans, in joining w ith Jam uka, T em ujin w as also
electing to assum e the life of a steppe w arrior, a role at w hich he w ould com e to excel. T heir anda
relationship allow ed T em ujin a special status w ithin the larger hierarchy, so that he did not join as a
regular follow er, and for a year and a half, so the Secret H istory says, T em ujin seem ed content to follow
Jam uka’s lead and learn from him . B ut perhaps for the young m an w ho had killed his older half brother
rather than subm it to his dom inance, any such arrangem ent w ould inevitably becom e irritating, and in this
case, old steppe custom s of caste hierarchy also cam e into play.
U nder the kinship hierarchy, each lineage w as know n as a bone. T he closest lineages, those w ith w hom
no interm arriage w as allow ed, w ere know n as w hite bones. M ore distant kin w ith w hom interm arriage
w as allow ed w ere the black-boned lineages. S ince they w ere all interrelated, each lineage claim ed
descent from som eone of im portance, but the strength of the claim depended on their ability to enforce it.
T em ujin and Jam uka w ere distant cousins, but of different bones, because they traced their ancestry back
to a single w om an but to tw o different husbands. Jam uka descendéd from her first husband, w ho w as a
steppe herder. T em ujin descended from the forest hunter know n in their oral history as B odonchar the
F ool, w ho had kidnapped the w om an after killing her husband. A ccording to this descent, Jam uka could
claim that because he descended from the firstborn son and had been fathered by a steppe m an, his lineage w as higher. S uch stories are used in steppe society to em phasize bonds w hen needed, but they m ay also
provide the pretext for anim osity, and in the relationship betw een T em ujin and Jam uka, the story of their
kinship w ould play both w ays. K inship w as not so m uch the determ inant of relationships as it w as a
general idiom through w hich people m ade, negotiated, and enforced their social claim s.
A s long as T em ujin w as a part of Jam uka’s band, then Jam uka’s fam ily ranked as a w hite bone, and
T em ujin w as a part of the distant, black-boned kin. O nly if he established his ow n band w ith him self and
his lineage at the center could he be considered w hite-boned. A s the m onths passed w ith T em ujin
follow ing Jam uka’s leadership, the account in the Secret H istory suggests that Jam uka began to treat
T em ujin less like an anda and m ore like a younger brother, also em phasizing that Jam uka’s clan
descended from the eldest son of their com m on ancestor. A s already evidenced in his fam ily relations,
T em ujin w as not one to accept being treated as an inferior for long, and soon enough this situation proved
unacceptable to him .
T he Secret H istory recounts that in the m iddle of M ay in the year 1181, Jam uka called for the breaking
of w inter cam p and headed tow ard m ore distant sum m er pastures. Jam uka and T em ujin rode together, as
usual, at the front of the long train of their follow ers and anim als. B ut that day Jam uka decided that he w as
no longer w illing to share his leadership position w ith T em ujin. P erhaps Jam uka realized that T em ujin
had proven very popular w ith the other m em bers of the band, or perhaps Jam uka had sim ply grow n tired
of his presence. Jam uka told T em ujin that he him self should take the horses and cam p closer to the
m ountains, w hile T em ujin should take the less prestigious sheep and goats and set up another cam p closer
to the river. T he w hite-boned Jam uka seem ed to be asserting his authority as the horse herder and w as
treating T em ujin as the black-boned shepherd boy.
A ccording to the Secret H istory, w hen T em ujin received the order, he dropped back w here his ow n
fam ily and anim als w ere traveling in the rear of the train, and consulted w ith H oelun. H e seem ed confused
and unsure how to respond. U pon overhearing T em ujin describe the situation to his m other, how ever,
B orte interrupted and insisted angrily that her husband break w ith Jam uka and that they and w hoever
w ished to follow them set out on their ow n. L ater in the day, w hen Jam uka stopped to pitch cam p and rest
for the night, T em ujin and his sm all entourage fled in secret and continued m oving throughout the night in
order to put as m uch distance as possible betw een them and Jam uka in case he decided to pursue them .
E ither by plan or spontaneous choice, m any of Jam uka’s follow ers fled w ith T em ujin, taking, of course,
their anim als. D espite this fission of the band, Jam uka did not pursue them .
T he rift betw een the tw o young m en on that early sum m er night in 1181 evolved into tw o decades of
w arfare as T em ujin and Jam uka both rose in stature as leading M ongol w arriors and hardened into the
bitterest of enem ies. A fter his split w ith Jam uka, at the age of nineteen, T em ujin seem s to have d eterm ined
to becom e a w arrior leader of his ow n, to attract his ow n follow ers and build a base of pow er, eventually
aim ing to becom e a khan, the leader and unifier of the unruly M ongol tribe. In that pursuit, his chief rival
w ould be Jam uka, and their feud w ould gradually engulf all of the M ongols in a civil w ar. T he tw o rivals
spent the next quarter of a century stealing anim als and w om en from each other, raiding and killing each
other’s follow ers, and struggling to see w hich one w ould eventually rule all the M ongols.
O ver the com ing years, Jam uka and T em ujin each acquired a follow ing of fam ilies and clans am ong the
M ongol people in a constantly shifting set of ephem eral alliances and pragm atic loyalties; yet neither
proved able to unite all the lineages into a single tribe like the m ore pow erful K ereyid, T atars, and
N aim an. A ccording to M ongol oral history, they had once before been united under a single khan; but in
recent generations, no one had been able to reunite them . In the sum m er of 1189, the Y ear of the C ock, and
eight years after his break from Jam uka, tw enty-seven-year-old T em ujin decided to m ake a play for the
title of khan, the chief of the M ongols, w ith the hope that once he claim ed the title, he w ould attract m ore of Jam uka’s follow ers and m ake the claim into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If not, the claim m ight, at least,
provoke a final struggle betw een the tw o and lead to a m ore definitive solution to the rival claim s.
H e sum m oned his follow ers to a steppe beside the B lue L ake at the foot of the H eart-S haped M ountain
w here they held the traditional council called a khuriltai. F am ilies, lineages, and clans voted m erely by
show ing up. T heir presence served as an official endorsem ent of T em ujin as khan; not appearing counted
as voting against him . M erely attracting a quorum constituted a victory. O n such an occasion, a list w ould
usually be m ade and m em orized as a form of election verification, but no tally survives, possibly
indicating a m odest turnout. A large num ber of the steppe lineages, perhaps even a m ajority, still
supported Jam uka.
T em ujin’s tribe, w hich now consisted of his fam ily, a loyal coterie of friends, and scattered fam ilies,
w as sm all by com parison to the other steppe tribes, and he w as still a vassal to O ng K han. T o show that
his new office w as not m eant as a challenge to O ng K han, T em ujin sent an envoy to the K ereyid leader to
reassert his loyalty and to ask his blessing. T em ujin’s envoy explained carefully that all he sought w as to
unite the scattered M ongol clans under the leadership of O ng K han and his K ereyid tribe. O ng K han
agreed and seem ed to w orry little about the unification of the M ongols so long as they rem ained loyal.
O ng K han kept the subservient M ongols divided. B y encouraging the am bitions of both young m en, O ng
K han w as playing the tw o leaders against each other in order to keep both w eak and under his control as
the khan of the K ereyid.
H aving received the support he deem ed sufficient to function as the khan of a m inor group, T em ujin
began a radical process of erecting a novel pow er structure w ithin his tribe, calling on the lessons of his
youth for guidance. A chief’s com plex of gers that served as his tribal center or his chiefly court w as
called an ordu, or horde. In m ost steppe tribes, the khan’s ordu consisted of his relatives and served as a
sort of aristocracy over the tribe, m anaging it and leading it. T em ujin, how ever, assigned som e dozen
responsibilities to various follow ers according to the ability and loyalty of the individual w ithout regard
to kinship. H e gave the highest positions as his personal assistants to his first tw o follow ers, B oorchu and
Jelm e, w ho had show n persistent loyalty to him for m ore than a decade. T em ujin K han exercised a
decisive ability to assess a m an’s talents and assign him to precisely the right task based on his ability
rather than his genealogy.
T he first appointm ents w ent to trusted m en to serve as cooks, a job that consisted largely of
slaughtering anim als, butchering m eat, and m oving large cauldrons for boiling it, but w hich T em ujin also
considered his first line of defense because of a fear he had developed of being poisoned as his father had
been. O ther follow ers becam e archers, and several received responsibility for guarding the herds, w hich
often had to be taken great distances from the m ain cam p. H e appointed his large and strong brother K asar
as one of the w arriors charged to protect the cam p, and he placed his half brother, B elgutei, in charge of
the large reserve of geldings that alw ays stayed close to the m ain cam p for use as m ounts. H e also created
an elite bodyguard of 150 w arriors: 70 day guards and 80 night guards to surround his cam p at all hours.
U nder T em ujin, the adm inistration of the nascent M ongol tribe becam e an extension of T em ujin’s ow n
household.
D espite T em ujin’s success in becom ing recognized as a khan and in establishing his adm inistrative
court, Jam uka still com m anded his ow n follow ing, steadfastly refusing to acknow ledge T em ujin as the
khan of all the M ongol clans. F or Jam uka and the aristocratic w hite-boned lineages, T em ujin w as no m ore
than an insolent upstart w hom the black-boned people idolized but w ho needed to be taught a lesson and
put back in his place. In 1190, only one year follow ing T em ujin’s election, Jam uka used the killing of one
of his kinsm en by one of T em ujin’s follow ers during a cattle raid as an excuse to sum m on all of his
follow ers to battle. E ach side rallied an arm y, probably num bering no m ore than several hundred on each
side, but estim ates of size are only conjectures at this point in the story. In the ensuing battle, Jam uka’s
forces routed T em ujin’s follow ers across the steppe. T o prevent their regrouping against him , Jam uka then perpetrated one of the cruelest show s of revenge ever recorded on the steppe. F irst, he cut off the head of
one of the captured leaders and tied it to the tail of his horse. T he spilling of the blood and the disgrace to
the head, the m ost ritually sacred part of the body, defiled the dead m an’s soul, and tying it to the m ost
obscene part of the horse sham ed his w hole fam ily.
R eportedly, Jam uka then boiled seventy young m ale captives alive in cauldrons, a form of death that
w ould have destroyed their souls and thus com pletely annihilated them . S ince seven represents an unlucky
num ber for the M ongols, this story of seventy cauldrons m ay w ell have been an em bellishm ent for
dram atic effect, but the Secret H istory m akes clear that w hatever he really did, in the w ake of this victory,
Jam uka horrified people greatly and harm ed his im age. T his display of unw arranted cruelty by Jam uka
further em phasized the divisions betw een the old aristocratic lineages based on inherited pow er and the
abused low er-ranking ones based on ability and personal loyalty. T he episode proved a decisive turning
point for T em ujin, w ho had lost the battle but gained public support and sym pathy am ong the M ongols,
w ho w ere increasingly fearful of the cruelty of Jam uka. T em ujin’s w arriors had been routed, but they
w ould slow ly collect together again behind their young khan.
H is rivalry w ith Jam uka w as not yet resolved, but in 1195, w hen T em ujin w as thirty-three, an unexpected
opportunity arose for a foreign raid and substantial plunder that w ould greatly increase his m ilitary
prestige and his econom ic pow er am ong the M ongols. T he civilized Jurched rulers of C athay, to the south
of the G obi, frequently delved into steppe politics as a w ay of keeping the tribes at w ar w ith one another
and thus too w eak to threaten their ow n pow er. A lthough traditionally the allies of the T atars, the Jurched
feared the T atars w ere grow ing too strong, and they instigated O ng K han to raise an arm y to attack them .
O ng K han again enlisted the aid of T em ujin in a quickly arranged alliance w ith the G olden K han of the
Jurched so that they m ight jointly attack and plunder the m uch richer T atar tribe.
In the w inter of 1196, the K ereyid ruler O ng K han and T em ujin w ith his M ongol follow ers set out on
their cam paign against the T atars; their raid, carried out according to the sam e tactics used in typical
steppe raids, but on a larger scale, brought quick and easy success. T em ujin w as profoundly im pressed by
the sum ptuous booty that w arfare could yield. B ecause of their proxim ity to the Jurched kingdom and the
m ore sophisticated m anufactured goods of the C hinese em pire, the T atars ow ned m ore trade goods than
any other tribe on the steppe. A m ong the goods seized, the Secret H istory m entions the im pression m ade
on the M ongols by a cradle em bossed w ith silver and covered by a silken blanket em broidered w ith
golden threads and pearls. E ven captured T atar children w ore satin clothes decorated w ith golden
threads; in one case, a young boy w ore a gold ring in his nose and one in each ear. T he ragged M ongols
had never seen such luxurious goods w orn by anyone, m uch less a child.
T em ujin saw clearly how the pow erful Jurched kingdom used one border tribe to fight another. O ne
year, they m ight ally w ith the T atars against the K ereyid, but the next year w ith the K ereyid and M ongols
against the T atars. T oday’s allies could be tom orrow ’s enem ies, as in the case of Jam uka, and a tribe
conquered today w ould have to be conquered again and again in a ceaseless cycle of w arfare and feuding.
N o victory w as ever decisive, no peace perm anent. T his lesson w ould eventually have a profound effect
on the new w orld T em ujin w ould fashion out of this havoc, but for now the vicissitudes of this particular
w ar had brought an unprecedented num ber of goods to his people and had im proved his standing am ong
them .
T em ujin still had a struggle ahead of him against Jam uka for control of the M ongols. T he w ealth looted
from the T atars attracted m ore follow ers; he now began to increase his pow er over other M ongol lineages
and to expand into their territories. H e could not expand into the area of the great tribes, but he could push
out the sm aller ones such as the Jurkin, a sm all M ongol lineage located im m ediately to the south of
T em ujin’s group along the K herlen R iver. W hen T em ujin had agreed to fight the T atars, he had enlisted the help of his Jurkin relatives, w ho had
initially agreed to join him . B ut w hen T em ujin w as prepared to leave for the cam paign, he w aited for six
days for the Jurkin to arrive, and they never did. Just as w ith a khuriltai, w here show ing up counted as a
vote of support, not show ing up to organize raids constituted a vote of no confidence in the raid’s leader
— in this case T em ujin. R elations betw een the Jurkin and T em ujin’s follow ers had been strained before.
L ike alm ost everyone around them , the Jurkin lineage outranked T em ujin’s lineage, and they often treated
T em ujin and his follow ers w ith scorn. O ne colorful story told in the Secret H istory reveals the anim osity
that had developed betw een the groups.
T em ujin had invited the Jurkin to a feast, shortly before the T atar cam paign w as to begin, but a chaotic
braw l erupted w hen T em ujin’s half brother w as assaulted in an especially dem eaning w ay. B elgutei w as
the appointed guardian of the horses for T em ujin’s band, and he stood w atch over them as the feast got
under w ay. W hen a m an, apparently from the Jurkin group, attem pted to steal one of the horses, B elgutei
chased him , but w as stopped by another Jurkin know n as B uri the W restler. A s a sign that he stood ready
to fight B uri, B elgutei pulled the top of his clothing dow n, leaving m ost of his upper body exposed. R ather
than w restle B elgutei, as w ould have been the custom in a disagreem ent am ong equals, B uri treated
B elgutei w ith contem pt as a lesser by unsheathing his sw ord and slicing B elgutei across the shoulder w ith
it. T o draw blood in this m anner, even w ith just a sm all cut, constituted a grave insult. L earning of w hat
had taken place outside by the horses, the drunken guests began fighting am ong them selves. A s w as
custom ary, they had entered the feast w ithout their w eapons; so the guests began throw ing the dishes of
food at one another, and clubbing each other w ith the paddles used to stir the ferm ented m are’s m ilk that
had been consum ed in great quantity.
N ot only had the Jurkin failed to join T em ujin’s force in the fight against the T atars, they now took
advantage of T em ujin’s absence by raiding his base cam p, killing ten of his follow ers and stripping the
rem ainder of their clothes and other possessions. S o w hen T em ujin sought to expand his territory of rule
in the w ake of victory against the T atars, the Jurkin w ere the first he struck out against. H e launched his
cam paign against them in 1197, and in a testam ent to his now w ell-honed skills as a w arrior and
com m ander, he easily defeated them . A t this point, T em ujin instituted the second radical change in ruling
style— the first being the appointm ent of loyal allies as opposed to fam ily m em bers to key positions in his
entourage— that w ould m ark his rise to pow er.
In the long history of steppe w arfare, a defeated tribe w as looted, som e m em bers taken prisoner, and
the rest left again to their ow n devices. D efeated groups regularly reorganized and counterattacked, or
broke aw ay and joined rival tribes. In his defeat of the Jurkin, how ever, T em ujin follow ed a radical new
policy that revealed his am bition to fundam entally alter the cycle of attack and counterattack and of
m aking and breaking alliances. H e sum m oned a khuriltai of his follow ers to conduct a public trial of the
Jurkin’s aristocratic leaders for having failed to fulfill their prom ise to join him in w ar and for having,
instead, raided his cam p in his absence. F inding them guilty, he had them executed as a lesson about the
value of loyalty to allies, but also as a clear w arning to the aristocrats of all lineages that they w ould no
longer be entitled to special treatm ent. H e then took the unprecedented step of occupying the Jurkin lands
and redistributing the rem aining m em bers of their group am ong the households of his ow n clan. T hough
som e am ong both clans apparently interpreted this as the Jurkin being taken as slaves, as w ould have been
m ore in keeping w ith steppe custom , according to the account in the Secret H istory, T em ujin took them
into his tribe not as slaves but as m em bers of the tribe in good standing. H e sym bolized this by adopting
an orphan boy from the Jurkin cam p and presenting him to H oelun to raise in her ger not as a slave but as
her son. B y having his m other adopt the Jurkin boy, as he had her previously adopt one each from the
defeated M erkid, T ayichiud, and T atars, T em ujin w as accepting the boys as his younger brothers. W hether
these adoptions began for sentim ental reasons or for political ones, T em ujin displayed a keen
appreciation of the sym bolic significance and practical benefit of such acts in uniting his follow ers through this usage of fictive kinship. In the sam e w ay that he took these children into his ow n fam ily, he
accepted the conquered people into his tribe w ith the possibility that they w ould share fairly in the future
conquests and prosperity of his arm y.
In a final display of his new pow er, T em ujin ended the Jurkin episode w ith a feast for both the
victorious M ongols and their new ly adopted relatives. F or the feast, he sum m oned B uri the W restler, w ho
had cut B elgutei at the feast the year before, and ordered a w restling m atch betw een the tw o m en. N o one
had ever defeated B uri, but in his fear of T em ujin’s w rath, he allow ed B elgutei to throw him . N orm ally, at
this point the m atch w ould have been finished, but T em ujin and B elgutei apparently w orked out a different
plan. B elgutei seized B uri’s shoulders and m ounted his rum p like a horse, and upon receiving a signal
from T em ujin, he plunged his knee into B uri’s back and snapped his spinal cord. B elgutei then dragged
B uri’s paralyzed body outside the cam p, leaving him to die alone.
T em ujin had rid him self of all the leaders of the Jurkin. T he m essages w ere clear to all their related
clans on the steppe. T o those w ho follow ed T em ujin faithfully, there w ould be rew ards and good
treatm ent. T o those w ho chose to attack him , he w ould show no m ercy.
A fter defeating the Jurkin, he m oved his follow ers dow nstream on the K herlen into their territory.
T em ujin m ade his new base cam p near the confluence of the sm aller T senker R iver w ith the K herlen.
E ventually, this becam e his capital know n as A varga, but at this tim e, it w as only a rem ote cam p. T he land
betw een tw o rivers w as called aral, “island,” in M ongolian. B ecause the island betw een the T senker and
K herlen R ivers offered a w ide open pasture, they called it the K hodoe A ral, w hich in m odern M ongolian
m eans “C ountry Island” but in classical M ongolian carried the m eaning “B arren Island,” and that nam e is
an apt description for this isolated place in the m idst of a large, open, and treeless prairie.
B arren as A varga m ay have been, it constitutes on a grand scale the steppe herder’s ideal hom e
territory. H erders desire a ger that faces south in order to adm it the light and w arm th of the southern sun
through the entryw ay as w ell as to prevent the cold northern w inds from entering. T hey w ant to face
w ater, but not be too close. A thirty-m inute w alk from the river seem s to be the right distance to avoid
polluting it w ith too m uch hum an w aste. T hat distance also provides protection from the sum m er insects
and flash floods that som etim es rage along the river plains. In addition to these advantages, A varga w as
still close to the place of T em ujin’s birth and to the sacred m ountain B urkhan K haldun, w hich rose about
130 m iles upstream at the headw aters of the K herlen R iver. A varga offered all of this, and from 1197 to
the end of his life, it served as T em ujin’s operations base.
A lthough T em ujin’s follow ers prospered for four years in their new hom e as the size of his tribe
continued to grow , Jam uka refused to recognize his leadership, and increasingly becam e the rallying
figure for the aristocratic clans w ho did not like the changes T em ujin w as bringing to their traditional w ay
of life. In 1201, the Y ear of the C ock, Jam uka m ade a play, w ith their support, for the position of ruler of
all the M ongol people. In a challenge to both T em ujin and O ng K han, Jam uka sum m oned a khuriltai that
conferred upon him the ancient and honored title of G ur-ka or G ur-khan, w hich m eant chief of all chiefs or
khan of all khans. H is people sw ore a new oath of loyalty to him , and to sanctify the oath, they cut up one
stallion and one m are in sacrifice.
Jam uka had not chosen the ancient title m erely because it w as old; he had a m ore directly sinister
m otive. T he last khan to bear the title of G ur-K han had been O ng K han’s uncle, w ho had ruled the K ereyid
people until O ng K han revolted against him and killed him and his brothers. It w as during this revolt that
T em ujin’s father, Y esugei, becam e the ally of O ng K han. B y choosing this title, Jam uka w as publicly
challenging the pow er of O ng K han as w ell as his subordinate, T em ujin.
If Jam uka could w in this w ar, he w ould be the suprem e ruler of the central steppe. H e had on his side
the im portant and aristocratic clans such as the T ayichiud, to w hich T em ujin’s fam ily had once been subservient and w ho had enslaved T em ujin w hen he w as a boy. T he struggle that began to shape up
betw een the tw o M ongol factions portended to be m ore than just a series of raids for loot and captives; it
w ould be a death struggle betw een Jam uka and T em ujin for leadership of all the M ongols. A s the sponsor
for T em ujin, O ng K han organized his w arriors and cam e out to personally lead the cam paign against
Jam uka.
T he prim ary objective of such cam paigns w as never to have to actually fight a battle at all but instead
to frighten the other side by overw helm ing force so that they w ould flee. T o induce this fear, the steppe
w arriors relied on m any tactics. O ne of those w as the display of the S pirit B anners of the opposing
leaders and their ancestors. B efore battle, the w arriors m ade anim al sacrifices befo re the S pirit B anners
as an offering to their guiding spirits and to their ancestors. S uch spiritual dram as w hipped up em otions
and heightened tension. A lineage on one side w ould find it very difficult to fight if kinsm en on the other
side had paraded the S pirit B anner of their com m on ancestor. T hat w ould be tantam ount to attacking one’s
ow n grandfather.
T he prebattle propaganda also involved sham ans w ith their drum s and all their ritual paraphernalia.
B efore the battle, the rival sham ans foretold the future by reading the cracks in the burned shoulder bones
of sheep. T he presence of a sham an show ed that he had forecast victory for his side, and the pow er of that
forecast depended on his past reputation for choosing the w inning side. T em ujin had already attracted a
num ber of sham ans w ho revealed dream s to him , including one nam ed T eb T engeri, w ho w ould later play
an im portant role. T he sham ans added to the occasion by clim bing up on a prom ontory to pound their
drum s and beat m agical rocks w ith w hich they could sum m on supporting spirits and control the w eather.
T he objective w as to entice w arriors on the other side to defect to the superior side or to flee.
W hen Jam uka pitted his arm y against the K ereyid, the num erical advantage clearly belonged to O ng
K han and T em ujin. T he psychological advantage of T em ujin’s cadre of respected sham ans strengthened
his position, especially after a trem endous storm erupted w ith intense thunder and lightning that both sides
attributed to the m agic of the sham ans. M any of Jam uka’s follow ers fled in fright, forcing Jam uka to
retreat. O ng K han’s w arriors chased after Jam uka and the m ain part of his arm y, and he ordered T em ujin
to follow the T ayichiud as they fled back tow ard the O non R iver, the land w here T em ujin had grow n up
and w hich he knew w ell.
W hen T em ujin caught up w ith the T ayichiud, they proved m ore difficult to defeat than expected. T he
steppe m ode of w arfare consisted prim arily of shooting arrow s at one another from horseback or from
fixed positions behind the protection of rocks— or in the case of the w ooded O non area, hastily assem bled
log barricades. W hen fighting, the steppe w arriors sought to avoid being splattered by blood, so they
rarely fought close to one another in hand-to-hand com bat. T he breath or odor of the enem y carried a part
of his soul, and thus w arriors sought to avoid the contam ination of even sm elling their enem y. T he
attackers sw arm ed dow n tow ard their enem ies on horseback, firing arrow s rapidly as they approached,
then turned and continued firing as they fled. S om etim es the defenders rode out w ith long poles w ith
w hich they tried to dism ount their opponents and then shoot them as they stum bled back to their feet.
T em ujin’s arm y and the T ayichiud fought all day w ithout either side gaining a clear advantage, though
T em ujin’s forces apparently instilled the greater fear of defeat in their foes. A ccording to the account in
the Secret H istory, late in the day, an arrow pierced T em ujin K han’s neck. A s darkness fell, the tw o
opposing arm ies laid dow n their arm s and m ade cam p close to each other on the sam e field w here they
had spent the day fighting. T hough this m ay seem strange, by staying close together during the night, they
could m ore effectively w atch each other and prevent a surprise attack.
T hough T em ujin’s w ound w as not deep, he lost consciousness after sunset. S uch w ounds carried a high
risk of infection, or possibly poison had been applied to the arrow . H is loyal follow er Jelm e, the next in
com m and, stayed by his side throughout the evening and sucked the blood from the w ound. In order to
prevent offending the earth by spitting the blood on the ground, Jelm e sw allow ed it. In addition to the religious reasons for his acts, hiding the blood had the practical value of preventing the other w arriors
from seeing how great the blood loss w as. O nly w hen Jelm e w as too full to sw allow any m ore and the
blood began trickling dow n from his m outh did he begin to spit it onto the ground.
A fter m idnight, T em ujin tem porarily regained consciousness and begged to drink airak, ferm ented
m are’s m ilk. B ecause they had cam ped on the battlefield, Jelm e had nothing but a little w ater, but he knew
that in the m iddle of their cam p, the T ayichiud had several supply w agons draw n up in a defensive circle.
H e stripped off his clothes, slipped across the battlefield, and w alked naked am ong the enem y soldiers in
search of airak. F or a M ongol, public nakedness is a great sign of debasem ent, and had one of the
T ayichiud seen him going through the cam p naked at night, they probably w ould have assum ed that he w as
one of their ow n getting up to relieve him self. O ut of politeness, they probably w ould have looked aw ay
for fear of sham ing one of their ow n w arriors. H ad they looked carefully and recognized him , Jelm e
planned to claim that he had just been stripped and hum iliated by his fellow M ongols and had escaped to
the T ayichiud. T hey w ould probably have believed him because of the unlikelihood that any proud
M ongol w arrior w ould intentionally allow him self to be captured naked.
T he T ayichiud did not aw aken, and although Jelm e could not find airak, he did find a bucket of
ferm enting curds and took them . H e brought the curds back, m ixed them w ith w ater, and fed them to
T em ujin throughout the night. A s the m orning light cam e, T em ujin’s sight cleared, and he saw the blood
around him and his half-dressed com panion; he w as confused and asked w hat had happened. U pon
hearing the account of the night, his discom fort at the sight of his ow n blood on the ground so close to him
m ade him ask, “C ouldn’t you have spit it som ew here else?” D espite the apparent lack of gratitude,
T em ujin never forgot how Jelm e saved him from the T ayichiud, and he later entrusted Jelm e w ith som e of
the m ost im portant expeditions of the M ongol conquests.
T he episode of the neck w ound is em blem atic of the deep bonds of loyalty that T em ujin seem ed to have
a gift of inspiring. T hough the steppe tribes of his tim e changed sides at the least provocation and soldiers
m ight desert their leaders, none of T em ujin’s generals deserted him throughout his six decades as a
w arrior. In turn, T em ujin never punished or harm ed one of his generals. A m ong the great kings and
conquerors of history, this record of fidelity is unique.
T he T ayichiud did not know of T em ujin’s w ound, and during the night m any of them began to sneak off
the battlefield. B y the next m orning, m ost of the w arriors had fled, and T em ujin sent his w arriors in
pursuit. A s he had done w ith the defeated Jurkin, T em ujin killed off m ost of their leaders but accepted the
rest as his ow n follow ers. S om e thirty years after his initial capture by the T ayichiud and im prisonm ent in
the cangue, he rew arded the fam ily that had helped him to escape by freeing them from bondage.
W hile T em ujin had been defeating the T ayichiud, Jam uka escaped from the arm y of O ng K han. A lthough
Jam uka had lost the T ayichiud, he still had m any other clans loyal to him , and as he fled to m ore distant
parts of the steppe, he w ould enlist new allies, as w ell, to join his cause. T he final show dow n betw een
him and T em ujin had not yet com e.
In 1202, the Y ear of the D og, the year follow ing T em ujin’s defeat of the T ayichiud, O ng K han sent
T em ujin on another cam paign to plunder the T atars in the east w hile he, the aging khan, stayed closer to
hom e on another cam paign against the M erkid.
In this cam paign against the T atars, T em ujin w ould institute yet another set of radical changes to the
rules that had long governed steppe life, and these changes w ould both antagonize som e of his follow ers,
those of the aristocratic lineages, and deepen the loyalty felt for him by m any others, those of the low er
lineages w hose lives he enriched w ith his reform s and distribution of goods. W hile conducting raid after
raid, T em ujin had realized that the rush to loot the gers of the defeated served as an im pedim ent to m ore
com plete victory. R ather than chasing dow n the w arriors of the raided cam ps, attackers generally allow ed them to flee and focused instead on im m ediately looting their cam ps. T his system allow ed m any defeated
w arriors to escape and eventually return for a counterattack. S o on this raid, his second conquest of the
T atars, T em ujin decided to order that all looting w ould w ait until after a com plete victory had been w on
over the T atar forces; the looting could then be carried out in a m ore organized fashion, w ith all the goods
being brought under his central control and then redistributed am ong his follow ers as he determ ined fit.
H e distributed the goods along the sam e lines by w hich the hunting m en of the forest traditionally
distributed the kill at the end of a group hunt.
In another innovation, he ordered that a soldier’s share be allocated to each w idow and to each orphan
of every soldier killed in the raid. W hether he did this because of the m em ory of his ow n m other’s
predicam ent w hen the T atars killed his father, or for m ore political purposes, it had a profound effect.
T his policy not only ensured him of the support of the poorest people in the tribe, but it also inspired
loyalty am ong his soldiers, w ho knew that even if they died, he w ould take care of their surviving
fam ilies.
A fter routing the T atars, som e of T em ujin’s follow ers ignored his order against individual looting, and
he dem onstrated how serious he w as about this reform by exacting a tough but appropriate punishm ent. H e
stripped those m en of all their possessions and deprived them of the goods seized in the cam paign. B y
controlling the distribution of all the looted goods, he had again violated the traditional rights of the
aristocratic lineages under him to disperse the goods am ong their follow ers. T he radical nature of his
reform s angered m any of them , and som e deserted him to join the forces of Jam uka at this point, further
draw ing a line betw een the higher-prestige lineages and the com m on herders. A gain, he had show n that
rather than relying on the bonds of kinship and tradition, m em bers of his tribe could now look to T em ujin
for direct support; w ith this m ove, he greatly centralized the pow er of his rule w hile at the sam e tim e
strengthening the com m itm ent of his follow ers.
D espite the m inority discontent from w ithin the M ongol ranks, T em ujin’s new system proved
im m ediately effective. B y postponing the looting until the end of the cam paign, T em ujin’s arm y am assed
m ore goods and anim als than ever before. B ut the new w ealth system also posed a new problem ; the
M ongols had not only defeated the T atars, they had also captured alm ost the entire arm y and all the
civilians.
In traditional steppe system s of thought, everyone outside the kinship netw ork w as an enem y and w ould
alw ays be an enem y unless som ehow brought into the fam ily through ties of adoption or m arriage. T em ujin
sought an end to the constant fighting betw een such groups, and he w anted to deal w ith the T atars the sam e
w ay that he had dealt w ith the Jurkin and the T ayichiud clans— kill the leaders and absorb the survivors
and all their goods and anim als into his tribe. A lthough this policy had w orked w ith clans of hundreds,
how ever, the T atars w ere a tribe of thousands. F or such a m assive social transform ation, he needed the
full support of his follow ers, and to achieve that support he sum m oned a khuriltai of his victorious
w arriors.
T he m em bers of the khuriltai agreed to the plan, determ ining to kill T atar m ales taller than the linchpin
holding the w heels on a cart, w hich w as not only a m easure of adulthood but a sym bolic designation of the
nation itself, in m uch the sam e w ay that m aritim e people often use the ship as a sym bol of their state. O nce
again, as a counter to the killing, T em ujin w anted the surviving T atars taken in as full m em bers of his
tribe, not as slaves. T o stress this, he not only adopted another T atar child for his m other, but also
encouraged interm arriage. U ntil this tim e he had only one official w ife, B orte, w ho bore him four sons
and an unknow n num ber of daughters, but he now took the aristocratic T atar Y esugen and her elder sister
Y esui as additional w ives. T he T atars had had a m uch greater reputation than the M ongols, and after this
battle, the M ongols took in so m any T atars, m any of w hom rose to high office and great prom inence in the
M ongol E m pire, that the nam e Tatar becam e synonym ous w ith, and in m any cases better know n, than the
nam e M ongol, leading to m uch historic confusion through the centuries. Interm arriage and adoption w ould not suffice, how ever, to achieve T em ujin’s goal of m erging the tw o
large groups into one people. If kin groups w ere allow ed to rem ain essentially intact, the larger group
w ould eventually fragm ent. In 1203, therefore, the year after the T atar conquest, T em ujin ordered yet
another, and even m ore radical, reform ation of the M ongol arm y and tribe.
H e organized his w arriors into squads, or arban, of ten w ho w ere to be brothers to one another. N o
m atter w hat their kin group or tribal origin, they w ere ordered to live and fight together as loyally as
brothers; in the ultim ate affirm ation of kinship, no one of them could ever leave the other behind in battle
as a captive. L ike any fam ily of brothers in w hich the eldest had total control, the eldest m an took the
leadership position in the M ongol arban, but the m en could also decide to chose another to hold this
position.
T en of the squads form ed a com pany, or zagun, of one hundred m en, one of w hom they selected as their
leader. A nd just as extended fam ilies united to form lineages, ten M ongol com panies form ed a battalion,
or m ingan, of one thousand m en. T en m ingan w ere then organized into a tum en, an arm y of ten thousand;
the leader of each tum en w as chosen by T em ujin, w ho knew the qualities needed in such a leadership
position. H e allow ed fathers and sons and brothers and cousins to stay together w hen practical, but by
forcing them into new units that no m an could desert or change, under penalty of death, he broke the pow er
of the old-system lineages, clans, tribes, and ethnic identities. A t the tim e of his reorganization, he
reportedly had ninety-five m ingan, units of a thousand, but since som e of the units w ere not staffed to
capacity, the total num ber of troops m ay have been as low as eighty thousand.
T he entire M ongol tribe becam e integrated by m eans of the arm y. U nder this new system , all m em bers
of the tribe— regardless of age or gender— had to perform a certain am ount of public service. If they
could not serve in the m ilitary, they w ere obliged to give the equivalent of one day of w ork per w eek for
public projects and service to the khan. T his included caring for the w arriors’ herds, gathering dung for
fuel, cooking, m aking felt, repairing w eapons, or even singing and entertaining the troops. In the new
organization, all people belonged to the sam e bone. T em ujin the boy, w ho had faced repeated rejections
ascribed to his low er-status birth, had now abolished the distinction betw een black bone and w hite bone.
A ll of his follow ers w ere now one united people.
H istorical speculation abounds as to how T em ujin adopted the decim al organization of his people.
S om e of the earlier T urkic tribes used a sim ilar m ilitary organization based on units of ten, and T em ujin
m ay w ell have borrow ed it from them . T em ujin, how ever, not only utilized the system as a m ilitary tactic
for w ar, but he also em ployed it as the perm anent structure for the w hole society.
T em ujin’s solution w as quite sim ilar to that of the A thenian law giver C leisthenes nearly tw o thousand
years earlier, though there is no reason to believe that T em ujin had ever heard of this piece of history. In
order to cut through traditional rivalries and feuds in A thens, C leisthenes abolished the tribes and
reassigned everyone to ten units of ten, thereby transform ing a tribal city into a city-state that grew into the
strongest m ilitary, com m ercial, artistic, and intellectual pow er along the eastern shore of the
M editerranean S ea. V irtually the sam e reform w ould produce even m ore astonishing results for the
M ongols on the steppes of Inner A sia.
A fter reorganizing his arm y, T em ujin instituted one further, seem ingly sm all, reform . W hile keeping his
m ain cam p at A varga on the K herlen R iver, he decided to create a closed territory as the hom eland of the
M ongol tribe at the headw aters of the O non, K herlen, and T uul R ivers around the holy m ountain B urkhan
K haldun, w here he found refuge from the M erkid. “L et no one set up cam p at the source of the T hree
R ivers,” he com m anded. W ith that order, the M ongol hom eland w as closed to all outsiders except for the
M ongol royal fam ily, w ho buried their dead there for the next tw o centuries and w ho returned there for
fam ilial cerem onies and closed fam ily m eetings w ithout outsiders. T he M ongols had alw ays considered
the m ountains w here the three rivers originated as their hom eland, but w ith this new law , it becam e the
secret ritual center of w hat w ould eventually be the M ongol E m pire. T he land around B urkhan K haldun now becam e officially sacred in the M ongol cosm ography, occupying not only the center of the earth, but
the center of the universe.
Instead of using a single ethnic or tribal nam e, T em ujin increasingly referred to his follow ers as the
P eople of the F elt W alls, in reference to the m aterial from w hich they m ade their gers. T he adoption o f
this term after the defeat of the T atars offers, perhaps, the first indication that he had an am bition to unite
all the people on the steppe.
W ith the defeat and incorporation of the m ighty T atars, as w ell as the lesser groups of T ayichiud and
Jurkin, T em ujin gained significant prestige in the w orld of the steppes, a degree of pow er unanticipated by
O ng K han, his longtim e overlord. E ven as T em ujin consolidated his rule over his greatly enlarged
follow ing, he w ould confront yet another great challenge that w ould put his new system to a decisive test.
H is next m ove w ould drive his lifelong rival Jam uka into an alliance w ith his ritual father O ng K han to
com bat T em ujin’s grow ing m ight and popularity. 3
W ar of the K hans
A ll the tribes w ere of one color and
obedient to his com m and.
A TA -M A L IK JU VA IN I,
G enghis K han: T he H istory of the
W orld C onqueror
E V E R Y O N E R E A L IZ E D T H A T O N G K han w as nearing the end of his career, but no one knew w ho
w ould take over for him . A fter m ore than tw enty years of struggle, T em ujin controlled m ost of the
M ongols, but he had not yet conquered his rival Jam uka. O ng K han, w hile generally siding w ith T em ujin,
had continued to play the tw o subordinate khans off against one another. In 1203, the Y ear of the P ig and
one year after the T atar victory, T em ujin decided to bring the issue out into the open and resolve it by
requesting a m arriage betw een O ng K han’s daughter and T em ujin’s eldest son, Jochi. If O ng K han
accepted the proposed m arriage, it w ould be acknow ledgm ent of T em ujin as the favorite over Jam uka.
W ith urging from S enggum , his biological son, w ho had little talent and no follow ing of his ow n, O ng
K han haughtily refused the m arriage. E ven if T em ujin fancied his follow ers as the P eople of the F elt
W alls and refused to recognize the distinction betw een clans, in the eyes of the aristocratic K ereyid royal
fam ily, T em ujin, no m atter how useful he m ay have been to them , w as a com m on upstart. N early a century
later, M arco P olo, assum ing that T em ujin had asked for the bride for him self, recorded the tone, if not the
actual w ords, of O ng K han as later recounted to him by the M ongols: “Is not G enghis K han asham ed to
seek m y daughter in m arriage? D oes he not know that he is m y vassal and m y thrall? G o back to him and
tell him that I w ould sooner com m it m y daughter to the flam es than give her to him as his w ife.”
T he aging khan, how ever, quickly regretted his im petuous refusal and grew fearful of how T em ujin
w ould respond. W ithout question T em ujin now ranked as the best m ilitary leader on the steppe, and O ng
K han knew that he could not risk com ing against T em ujin in battle. Instead, he devised a plan to rid
him self of the potential danger posed by T em ujin through trickery, just as the T atars had killed T em ujin’s
father. O ng K han dispatched a m essage to T em ujin inform ing him that he had changed his m ind and w ould
w elcom e a m arriage betw een their fam ilies. H e set a date and invited T em ujin to com e w ith his fam ily to
celebrate the w edding betw een their offspring. A pparently, T em ujin trusted the khan, w ho had been his
ritual father for m ore than tw o decades, and set out w ith a sm all party tow ard the designated rendezvous
for the w edding feast, leaving his arm y behind. T his m arriage, if he successfully concluded it, could be
the zenith of his career by uniting all the people already under his rule w ith the K ereyid under O ng K han,
and the m arriage w ould put him in the strongest position to succeed O ng K han as the future ruler of the
central steppes.
O nly about one day’s ride from O ng K han’s court, T em ujin learned that the w edding invitation w as a
plot against him . O ng K han had assem bled his arm y secretly and intended to kill him and w ipe out his
fam ily. Just at the m om ent of T em ujin’s anticipated trium ph, he found that not only w as the union not to
take place, but that his very life and the survival of his fam ily w ere endangered. W ith only a sm all contingent of w arrio rs and far aw ay from his m ain body of supporters, T em ujin could not risk a fight.
Instead, he did w hat steppe people had alw ays done in the face of overw helm ing odds: T em ujin ordered
his sm all group to disperse quickly in all directions, w hile he him self and a few com panions fled rapidly
tow ard the east before O ng K han’s arm y began the pursuit.
T em ujin now faced a crisis that w ould be the greatest test of his abilities. H is flight before the w arriors
of O ng K han m ust have seem ed so m uch like his flight, m ore than tw o decades earlier, from the M erkid
w hen they kidnapped B o rte. T he endless cycle of steppe raids seem ed to never end. D espite everything he
had done in his life, little had really changed as he, once again, fled from those w ho w ere ranked socially
higher above him and politically far m ore pow erful.
W ith their unprepared leader on the run, T em ujin’s new ly am algam ated tribe of the P eople of the F elt
W alls faced its first m ajor threat. C ould it hold? W ould the people of so m any different tribes and fam ilies
keep their allegiance and confidence in T em ujin, w herever he w as now fleeing? O r w ould they flee back
to their original hom elands or hastily seek to m ake arrangem ents for them selves under the protection of
O ng K han or Jam uka? T he events that follow ed becam e legendary am ong the M ongols as the greatest trial
and trium ph in T em ujin’s life.
E xhausted and w ithout provisions after days of constant flight, T em ujin reached the distant shores of
m uddy L ake B aljuna. H e looked around him to see how m any m en had survived the flight. H e counted
only nineteen of his m en, and they now faced the possibility of starvation in this rem ote exile. A s they
paused to recuperate by the w aters of B aljuna and decide w hat to do, a w ild horse unexpectedly appeared
from the north, and T em ujin’s brother K hasar set out in pursuit of it. H e brought the horse dow n, and the
m en quickly skinned it. W ithout flam ing w ood over w hich to roast m eat or pots in w hich to boil it, they
relied on their ancient cooking technique. A fter skinning the horse, they cut up the m eat and m ade a large
bag from the horsehide into w hich they put the m eat and som e w ater. T hey gathered dried dung to m ake a
fire, but they could not put the hide kettle directly on the fire. Instead, they heated rocks in the fire until
glow ing hot, then they d ropped the hot rocks into the m ixture of m eat and w ater. T he rocks heated the
w ater, but the w ater prevented the rocks from burning through the bag. A fter a few hours, the starving m en
feasted on boiled horseflesh.
A side from K hasar, the m en gathered w ith him w ere his friends, not his relatives. S om e of his fam ily
m em bers w ere tem porarily lost on the steppe, but other relatives had deserted T em ujin to join O ng K han
or Jam uka. In particular his uncle, one of his father’s tw o brothers w ho had helped him to kidnap
T em ujin’s m other from her M erkid husband, had joined O ng K han against his ow n nephew .
W ith little to com fort them or offer encouragem ent for the future, the exhausted m en seized upon the
appearance of the horse as a supernatural gift that offered them m ore than just food for their em pty bellies.
A s the m ost im portant and honored anim al in the M ongol w orld, the horse solem nized the occasion and
served as a sign of divine intervention and support. T he horse sym bolized the pow er of T em ujin’s destiny,
and its sacrifice, as before any m ajor battle or khuriltai, not only fed the m en, but further em pow ered
T em ujin’s S pirit B anner. W ith only the m uddy w ater of B aljuna to drink at the end of the horseflesh m eal,
T em ujin K han raised one hand to the sky, and w ith the other he held up the m uddy w ater of B aljuna in a
toast. H e thanked his m en for their loyalty and sw ore never to forget it. T he m en shared in drinking the
m uddy w aters and sw ore eternal allegiance to him . In the retelling of the episode in oral history, it
becam e know n in history as the B aljuna C ovenant, and acquired a m ythic aura as the low est point in the
m ilitary fortunes of T em ujin K han but also as the event out of w hich the identity and form of the M ongol
E m pire w ould arise.
T he event acquired a sym bolic representation of the diversity of the M ongol people based on m utual
com m itm ent and loyalty that transcended kinship, ethnicity, and religion. T he nineteen m en w ith T em ujin K han cam e from nine different tribes; probably only T em ujin and his brother K hasar w ere actually from
the M ongol clans. T he others included M erkid, K hitan, and K ereyid. W hereas T em ujin w as a devout
sham anist w ho w orshiped the E ternal B lue S ky and the G od M ountain of B urkhan K haldun, the nineteen
included several C hristians, three M uslim s, and several B uddhists. T hey w ere united only in their
devotion to T em ujin and their oath to him and each other. T he oaths sw orn at B aljuna created a type of
brotherhood, and in transcending kinship, ethnicity, and religion, it cam e close to being a type of m odern
civic citizenship based upon personal choice and com m itm ent. T his connection becam e a m etaphor for the
new type of com m unity am ong T em ujin’s follow ers that w ould eventually dom inate as the basis of unity
w ithin the M ongol E m pire.
A fter hiding at B aljuna, T em ujin form ulated his plan to counterattack. H e knew that he had to m ove
quickly w hile O ng K han w as still basking in his false confidence of having perm anently rid him self of
T em ujin’s threat. T em ujin dispatched w ord of his plan to his follow ers scattered across the steppe, and
the story probably contained all the details of the m iraculous appearance of the horse that saved him and
his m en. In the follow ing days, to a degree that T em ujin him self possibly had not expected, his new ly
organized arm y units of tens and hundreds reassem bled them selves across the steppe. A s T em ujin
m arched w estw ard from B aljuna back tow ard the lands of O ng K han, his m en returned to him from all
directions. In addition, som e of T em ujin’s relatives through his m other and through his w ife B orte, ones
w ho had been loyal follow ers of O ng K han, now deserted their K ereyid leader and cam e searching for
T em ujin’s cam p.
M eanw hile, to celebrate his victory over T em ujin, the still unsuspecting O ng K han organized a large
feast in his palatial golden ger that he took w herever he w ent. O verconfident in his ow n pow er over his
follow ers and unaw are of w hat w as happening out on the steppe, O ng K han celebrated in the illusion that
T em ujin’s follow ers had been disbanded and that T em ujin him self w as far aw ay in the east.
T em ujin’s arm y raced tow ard the place of the feast. L oyal follow ers had gone ahead of them to station
reserves of horses so that as one set tired out, another aw aited his m en. W ith these rem ounts, his arm y
raced, w ithout pause, through the dead of night, in w hat he called the L ightning A dvance. R ather than
approaching the K ereyid court directly across the steppe, w hich w ould have been the easy approach,
T em ujin took his m en over a m ore rem ote and difficult pass that he knew w ould not be guarded.
S uddenly, T em ujin, w ho w as thought to be several days’ ride aw ay, sw ooped dow n on the revelers; his
m en had surrounded the entire cam p. O ver the next three days of hard fighting the K ereyid retreated before
the advancing arm y of T em ujin. M any of the follow ers of O ng K han deserted to T em ujin’s banner, and, as
w as his know n policy, he accepted them so long as they had not com m itted any act of treachery or harm to
their form er leader other than to abandon him in favor of T em ujin.
O ng K han’s arm y w as not so m uch defeated as sw allow ed by T em ujin’s forces. T he K ereyid court fled
in different directions, w ith each m an for him self. O ng K han’s son fled south and, after being abandoned
by his ow n servants, died of thirst in the desert, w hile Jam uka and his shrinking follow ers fled w est
tow ard the territory of the N aim an, the last of the three great steppe tribes not yet defeated by T em ujin.
O ng K han also tried to m ake his w ay alone to the sanctuary of the N aim an tribe.
H aving failed to capture the lead er of his enem ies, or even the son of the old khan, the M ongols had to
account for this failure and dism iss its im portance. T em ujin’s supporters spread stories to denigrate O ng
K han’s reputation and to assure people on all sides he w as dead and no longer a threat. A ccording to the
account circulated by the M ongols, after arriving safely at the N aim an border, O ng K han encountered a
border guard w ho, refusing to believe that the solitary old m an w as the renow ned w arrior khan of the
K ereyid, killed him . T hey said that to atone for the killing of O ng K han, the N aim an queen had his head
brought to her and placed on a sacred w hite cloth of felt in the position of honor at the back of the ger,
opposite the door, w here she could m ake offerings and prayers to it. N othing could be m ore offensive to
M ongol sensibilities than such a bloody item inside the hom e, and nothing could be m ore dangerous than the head, the seat of O ng K han’s soul. A ccording to the story, how ever, she ordered a m usician to play the
m orin huur, the horsehead fiddle, w hile her daughters-in-law sang and danced for the head and she m ade
cerem onial offerings of w ine to it as though O ng K han w ere still alive and an honored guest in her ger.
W hen T ayang K han, the N aim an ruler, entered and saw the severed head, he panicked and shouted in
horrified anger that the head had sm iled at him . W hereupon, he kicked the head off the sacred felt cloth
and then tram pled it to pieces.
S uch stories offered assurance that the old khan w as truly dead, and at the sam e tim e they heaped sham e
and opprobrium on the court of the N aim an, the next target of T em ujin’s cam paign. P ropaganda and
control of public opinion w ere quickly em erging as T em ujin’s prim ary w eapons of choice. T he M ongols
spread stories am ong their supporters accusing the aging T ayang K han of having disintegrated into an
im becile and w eakling w hose w ife and son despised and sham ed him in public. T o build anger am ong
their follow ers against the enem y, the M ongol leaders spread the story that the N aim an queen despised
M ongols as dirty and sm elly savages. U sing gossip as a w ay to build confidence in their ow n m en and to
w eaken the enem y’s resolve, the M ongols reported that the son of T ayang K han m ockingly called him O ld
W om an T ayang, and that he w ould not venture any farther from his ger than w ould a pregnant w om an
going to piss.
A t the sam e tim e that they spread such strange stories about the N aim an court, the M ongols boosted
their ow n spirits w ith stories of how afraid the N aim an w ere of them . S ince Jam uka had joined the
N aim an, stories circulated of how he w ould terrify them w ith descriptions of T em ujin’s w arriors. T he
Secret H istory recounted the horrific description of the M ongols in proud detail: “T hey have chisels for
noses and sharp aw ls for tongues. T hey can live by eating the dew and riding the w ind.” T hey com pared
T em ujin to a starved falcon, but also said that “his w hole body is m ade from copper and iron fastened so
tightly together that no aw l could penetrate it.”
B y contrast to this description, the first M ongol captured by a N aim an advance guard rode a horse so
skinny w ith a saddle so prim itive that the captors sent the horse and saddle from cam p to cam p in m ockery
to convince their fellow N aim an of how pathetic the M ongols had becom e. T em ujin responded to the
captured horsem en episode w ith another trick. S ince he had far few er soldiers than the N aim an, T em ujin
ordered each m an to set five cam pfires every night on the hills w here his arm y cam ped. F rom a distance,
the sm all arm y appeared m uch larger, since they seem ed to have “m ore fires than the stars in the sky.”
T he final battle for control of M ongolia cam e in 1204, the Y ear of the R at, about three hundred m iles w est
of B urkhan K haldun. In the days leading up to the battle, T em ujin tested his new m ilitary organization
based on squads of ten. R ather than com m itting to an all-out battle, w hich he m ight easily lose because of
his sm aller num bers, T em ujin picked at the N aim an w ith sm all and unpredictable hit-and-run skirm ishes.
In the first episode, T em ujin ordered his m en to advance in w hat w as called the M oving B ush or
T um blew eed F orm ation just before daylight. R ather than large units racing in to attack, the dispersed
squads of ten advanced severally and silently from different directions w hile keeping their profiles low in
the predaw n darkness. T his prevented the enem y from seeing how m any there w ere or from preparing for
an attack from a single direction. A fter attacking, the squads fled in different directions, leaving the enem y
w ounded but unable to retaliate before the attackers disappeared.
T em ujin follow ed the sporadic attacks of the M oving B ush w ith the L ake F orm ation, in w hich a long
line of troops advanced, fired its arrow s, and then w as replaced by the next line. L ike w aves, they struck
and then disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, each w ave, in turn, returning to the rear and
form ing another w ave. T he use of the L ake F orm ation caused the N aim an to spread out in a long, thin line
to m eet the long line of attacking m en. O nce the N aim an spread out, T em ujin sw itched to his third tactic.
H e regrouped his squads one behind the other in the C hisel F orm ation, w hich w as narrow across the front but extrem ely deep, allow ing the attackers to channel m axim um force to one point on the now thinned
N aim an lines and chisel through them .
T he tactics seem ed to be, at least in part, an am algam ation of older fighting techniques and hunting
strategies; yet the consistent inability of the perplexed enem y to respond effectively to this form of
w arfare indicated that T em ujin had introduced enough innovation to m ake these strategies uniquely his
ow n. T em ujin had produced a new type of steppe arm y based on a greater variety of tactics and, m ost
im portant, close cooperation am ong the m en and com plete obedience to their com m anders. T hey w ere no
longer an attacking sw arm of individuals; they w ere now a united form ation. T em ujin used a set of
m aneuvers that each m an had to know and to w hich each responded precisely and w ithout hesitation. T he
M ongols had a saying: “If he sends m e into fire or w ater I go. I go for him .” T he saying reflected not just
an ideal, but the reality, of the new M ongol w arfare, and it m ade short order of the N aim an.
T he M ongols w ere gaining the advantage, but T em ujin did not race to victory. T he night before w hat
everyone expected w ould be the decisive battle, he told his m en to sleep soundly. O n the other side,
confused, disoriented, and their line of com m unication broken, the N aim an began to flee during the night.
T em ujin, how ever, held his soldiers in check and did not pursue them . T he night w as dark and m oonless,
and the only escape route w as on the steep back side of the m ountain. U nable to see, the fleeing m en and
their horses slipped and fell into the gorge. In the w ords of the Secret H istory, their bodies piled up like
“rotten logs” at the bottom of the cliff
T he next m orning, the M ongol forces easily defeated the few rem aining N aim an and “finished T ayang
K han.” A m ong the w arriors w ho had successfully escaped, T ayang K han’s son G uchlug fled to the distant
T ian S han M ountains of the B lack K hitan, w hile Jam uka disappeared into the forest. T here w as no group
left w here Jam uka m ight find refuge, and his end w ould com e w ith a slow w him per, not w ith a clim actic
final struggle. E ven the few rem aining bands of M erkid w ere quickly sw allow ed by the grow ing M ongol
nation, and the forty-year-old Jam uka lived as an outcast bandit w ith a sm all num ber of follow ers w ho fed
them selves on w ild anim als. In an odd reversal of fate, the once aristocratic Jam uka had been reduced to
the sam e state of existence that the young T em ujin had faced w hen his father died. In 1205, the Y ear of the
O x, a year after the victory over the N aim an, Jam uka’s follow ers, desperate and resigned to defeat, seized
him and delivered him to T em ujin. D espite the anim osity betw een the tw o m en, T em ujin valued loyalty
above all else. R ather than rew ard the m en w ho brought Jam uka to him , T em ujin had all of them executed
in front of the leader w hom they had betrayed.
T he final m eeting betw een the tw o m en, w ho had fought each other for m ore than tw enty years, form ed
an em otional highpoint of the Secret H istory. R ather than seek revenge against Jam uka, now that he w as
past posing a threat to him , T em ujin offered to unite w ith him again: “L et us be com panions. N ow , w e are
joined together once again, w e should rem ind each other of things w e have forgotten. W ake each other
from our sleep. E ven w hen you w ent aw ay and w ere apart from m e, you w ere still m y lucky, blessed
sw orn brother. S urely, in the days of killing and being killed, the pit of your stom ach and your heart
pained for m e. S urely, in the days of slaying and being slain, your breast and your heart pained for m e.”
Jam uka seem ed m oved by the plea and by the em otion of his erstw hile junior partner w ho now ruled all
that Jam uka once had and m uch m ore. H e seem ed for a m om ent to fall into T em ujin’s sentim ental nostalgia
for the brotherhood of their youth. Jam uka responded, “W e ate the food that is not to be digested, and w e
spoke to each other the w ords that are not to be forgotten” w hile “sharing together the quilt under w hich
w e slept.” Jam uka then blam ed their separation on the influence of another, unnam ed person: “W e have
been provoked by one w ho cuts across us. W e have been goaded by one w ho cam e from the side.”
T he Secret H istory offers a lengthy confession and repentance by Jam uka, but both the grandiose prose
and the detail of its account invite suspicion regarding its accuracy. “N ow , w hen the w orld is ready for
you,” the text quotes Jam uka as saying, “w hat use is there in m y becom ing a com panion to you? O n the
contrary, sw orn brother, in the black night I w ould haunt your dream s, in the bright day I w ould trouble your heart. I w ould be the louse in your collar, I w ould becom e the splinter in your door-panel.”
A lm ost like a m odern law yer pleading for m ercy based on psychological problem s and em otional
disability, Jam uka reflected back on their youth, searching for an explanation of w hy he had been so
draw n to T em ujin and w hy he had betrayed him . Jam uka explained laconically that he him self had lost
both of his parents, had no siblings or trusted com panions, and had a shrew for a w ife. B ut rather than
asking for m ercy in the end, Jam uka asked for death, w ith a single request— that they kill him in the
aristocratic w ay w ithout shedding his blood on the earth or exposing it to the sun and sky.
A lthough he had failed T em ujin in life, Jam uka offered to be a better friend to him in death. H e vow ed
that if T em ujin w ould place his body in a high place, he w ould w atch over T em ujin and all of his
descendants: “K ill m e and lay dow n m y dead bones in the high ground. T hen eternally and forever, I w ill
protect the seed of your seed, and becom e a blessing for them .” L egend says that T em ujin buried Jam uka
in the golden belt that he had given to Jam uka w hen they sw ore the oath of andas.
Jam uka had been T em ujin’s first rival, and now he ended his life as the last of the M ongol aristocrats
opposing him . In T em ujin’s long quest for control of the M ongol clans, T em ujin had defeated every tribe
on the steppe and rem oved the threat of every aristocratic lineage by killing off their m en and m arrying
their w om en to his sons and other follow ers. H e chafed under the authority of anyone w ho stood above
him . H e killed B egter to rule over his fam ily. H e destroyed the M erkid because they took his w ife. H e
killed off the T atars w ho had killed his father and looked dow n on the M ongols as little m ore than steppe
rats. H e overthrew the nobles of his ow n M ongol people and elim inated one by one the higher-ranking
M ongol clans of the T ayichiud and the Jurkin. W hen his ow n ally and father figure refused to allow a
m arriage betw een their respective fam ilies, T em ujin destroyed him and his tribe. W hen the N aim an queen
m ocked the M ongols as her inferiors, he attacked the tribe, killed her husband, and gave her to one of his
m en as a w ife. F inally, he killed Jam uka, one of the people w hom he m ost loved in life, and thereby
destroyed the aristocratic Jadaran clan.
T em ujin now ranked as undisputed ruler of a vast land, controlling everything from the G obi in the
south to the A rctic tundra in the north, from the M anchurian forests in the east to the A ltai M ountains of the
w est. H is em pire w as grass and contained far m ore anim als than hum ans. V ictory on the battlefield alone
did not confer legitim acy of rule until it w as publicly acclaim ed at a khuriltai of representatives from
every part of the territory. If a group chose not to send anyone, then they rejected the rule of the khan w ho
called it. T he khan could not claim to rule them , and, m ore im portant, they could not claim his protection.
T em ujin allow ed another year to restore peace and m end relations before he called the khuriltai to
install him in office. In 1206, the Y ear of the T iger, T em ujin returned to the headw aters of the O non R iver
near his sacred m ountain of B urkhan K haldun and sum m oned a khuriltai, probably the largest and m ost
im portant ever held in steppe history. T ens of thousands of anim als grazed nearby to provide m ilk and
m eat for the festivities. T he lines of gers stretched for m iles in every direction from the cam p of T em ujin,
and at the center of all stood the horsehaired sulde, the S pirit B anner that had guided T em ujin to this
event. D ays of great solem nity and m assive cerem ony alternated w ith days of celebration, sports, and
m usic. T he court sham ans, including T eb T engeri, pounded their drum s and sang by day, and m usicians
perform ed at dusk. T he night air filled w ith the m esm erizing drone of the distinctive type of M ongolian
throat singing, or overtone singing, in w hich m en m ake sounds from so deep inside their bodies that they
can follow tw o m usical lines sim ultaneously. A s w ith every m ajor political event, young people
com peted in w restling, horse racing, and archery, the traditional gam es of the M ongol know n as naadam .
T em ujin controlled a vast territory roughly the size of m odern w estern E urope, but w ith a population of
about a m illion people of the different nom adic tribes under his control and probably som e 15 to 20
m illion anim als. H e ruled not m erely as the khan of the T atars, the K ereyid, or the N aim an. H e w as to be
the ruler of all the P eople of the F elt W alls, and for this new em pire, he chose a new official nam e
derived from his ow n tribe. H e nam ed his people Yeke M ongol U lus, the G reat M ongol N ation. A fter uniting all the people, he abolished inherited aristocratic titles in their lineages, clans, and tribes. A ll such
offices belonged to the state, not to the individual or his fam ily, and they w ould be distributed at the w ill
of the new ruler. F or him self, T em ujin rejected the older tribal titles such as G ur-K han or T ayang K han
and chose instead the title that his ow n follow ers probably already used for him , C hinggis K han, a nam e
that later becam e know n in the W est through the P ersian spelling as G enghis K han. T he M ongolian w ord
chin m eans strong, firm , unshakable, and fearless, and it is close to the M ongolian w ord for w olf, chino,
the ancestor from w hom they claim ed descent. It w as a sim ple, but fitting, title for the new khan.
L ike m ost successful rulers, G enghis K han understood the political potential of solem n cerem ony and
grand spectacle. U nlike m ost rulers confined w ithin the architecture of buildings such as palaces or
tem ples, how ever, the installation of G enghis K han took place on the vast open steppe, w here hundreds of
thousands of people participated.
M ongol public cerem onies created a m arked im pression on visitors and chroniclers w ho described
them in detail. T he fullest surviving account available com es from the seventeenth-century F rench
biographer F rançois P étis de la C roix, w ho had access to now -lost P ersian and T urkish docum ents of the
era. A ccording to P étis, G enghis K han’s follow ers “placed him upon a black F elt C arpet, w hich they had
spread on the G round; and the P erson w ho w as order’d to give the P eoples Voice, pronounc’d to him
aloud the P eoples P leasure.” T he speaker adm onished G enghis K han “that w hatever A uthority of P ow er
he had given him , w as derived from H eaven, and that G od w ould not fail to bless and prosper his D esigns
if he govern’d his S ubjects w ell and justly; but that, on the contrary he w ould render him self m iserable if
he abused that pow er.”
T he cerem ony provided an unm istakable sign of support from his follow ers, w ho publicly
dem onstrated their subm ission by raising him up on a carpet above their heads and literally carrying him
to the throne. T hen they “bow ’d their knees nine tim es before this new E m peror, to shew the O bedience
they prom ised to him .” Just as the presence of each lineage com m itted its support to G enghis K han, the
presence of each sham an show ed that his spirits and dream s had instructed him to do likew ise. W ithout an
organized religion, the sham ans conferred a spiritual blessing on the event and m ade it m ore than just a
political occasion. T hrough their presence, the event becam e a sacred proclam ation of T em ujin’s
spiritually ordained destiny from the E ternal B lue S ky.
S ham ans beat the drum s, chanted to the spirits of nature, and sprinkled airak into the air and on the
ground. T he assem bled throngs of people prayed, standing in uniform ranks w ith the palm s of their hands
facing upw ard tow ard the E ternal B lue S ky. T hey concluded their prayers and sent them skyw ard w ith the
ancient M ongol phrase “ huree, huree, huree” that ended all prayers, sim ilar to the C hristian use of am en.
T his spiritual act m ade each of them a part of the election and sealed a religious covenant not just
betw een them selves and their leader but also w ith the spiritual w orld.
M ost leaders, w hether kings or presidents, grew up inside the institutions of som e type of state. T heir
accom plishm ents usually involved the reorganization or revitalization of those institutions and the state
that housed them . G enghis K han, how ever, consciously set out to create a state and to establish all the
institutions necessary for it on a new basis, part of w hich he borrow ed from prior tribes and part of w hich
he invented. F or his nation-state to survive, he needed to build strong institutions, and for G enghis K han
this began w ith the arm y that brought him to pow er; he m ade it even stronger and m ore central to
governm ent. U nder G enghis K han, cow herds, shepherds, and cam el boys advanced to becom e generals
and rode at the front of arm ies of a thousand or ten thousand w arriors. E very healthy m ale aged fifteen to
seventy w as an active m em ber of the arm y. Just as he had done w hen first elected tribal khan, he
appointed his m ost loyal follow ers as the heads of groups of one thousand soldiers and their households,
and his oldest follow ers, such as B oorchu, took charge of units of ten thousand. H e rew arded m en w ho cam e from low ly black-boned lineages and placed them in the highest positions based on their
achievem ents and proven loyalty to him on and off the battlefield. C om pared w ith the units of ten thousand
that he gave to his loyal friends, those assigned to the control of m em bers of his ow n fam ily w ere m ore
m eager— five thousand each to his m other, his youngest brother, and his tw o youngest sons, O godei and
T olui. W ith only eight thousand for C haghatai and nine thousand for Jochi, even his tw o eldest sons did
not receive a full tum en of ten thousand. G enghis K han appointed trusted friends of his ow n to oversee the
adm inistration for several fam ily m em bers, particularly for his m other, youngest brother, and C haghatai.
H e explained the need for such overseers by stating that C haghatai w as “obstinate and has a petty, narrow
m ind.” H e w arned the advisers to “stay beside him m orning and evening to advise him .”
In order to m aintain peace in this large and ethnically diverse set of tribes that he had forged into one
nation, he quickly proclaim ed new law s to suppress the traditional causes of tribal feuding and w ar. T he
G reat L aw of G enghis K han differed from that of other law givers in history. H e did not base his law on
divine revelation from G od; nor did he derive it from an ancient code of any sedentary civilization. H e
consolidated it from the custom s and traditions of the herding tribes as m aintained over centuries; yet he
readily abolished old practices w hen they hindered the functioning of his new society. H e allow ed groups
to follow traditional law in their area, so long as it did not conflict w ith the G reat L aw , w hich functioned
as a suprem e law or a com m on law over everyone.
T he G reat L aw , how ever, did not represent a single codification of the law so m uch as an ongoing body
of legal w ork that he continued to develop throughout the rem aining tw o decades of his life. G enghis
K han’s law did not delve into all aspects of daily life; instead, he used it to regulate the m ost troublesom e
aspects. A s long as m en kidnapped w om en, there w ould be feuding on the steppes. G enghis K han’s first
new law reportedly forbade the kidnapping of w om en, alm ost certainly a reaction to the kidnapping of his
w ife B orte. T he persistent potential for strife originating in such kidnappings still plagued G enghis K han
w ithin his ow n fam ily in the uncertainty of w hether his eldest son had been fathered by him or by B orte’s
kidnapper, and the uncertainty w ould cause increasingly m ore severe problem s as G enghis K han grew
older.
C oncom itant w ith an end to kidnapping, he forbade the abduction and enslavem ent of any M ongol.
F rom his ow n capture and enslavem ent by the T ayichiud, he knew the individual and personal anguish of
being abducted and forced to w ork as a slave, but he also recognized how detrim ental the practice w as to
the entire social fabric and w hat strong anim osities and violence it perpetrated throughout the tribes of the
steppe.
G enghis K han sought to rem ove every source of internal dissension w ithin the ranks of his follow ers.
B ased upon his ow n experiences over the disruptions that surrounded questions of the legitim acy of
children, he declared all children legitim ate, w hether born to a w ife or a concubine. B ecause haggling
over the value of a w ife as though she w ere a cam el could provoke lingering dissension am ong his m en,
he forbade the selling of w om en into m arriage. F or the sam e reasons, he outlaw ed adultery, an act that the
M ongols’ defined differently than m ost people. It did not include sexual relations betw een a w om an and
her husband’s close relatives, nor those betw een a m an and fem ale servants or the w ives of other m en in
his household. In keeping w ith G enghis K han’s dictum that m atters of the ger should be decided w ithin the
ger and m atters of the steppe decided on the steppe, adultery applied to relations betw een m arried people
of separate households. A s long as it did not cause a public strife betw een fam ilies, it did not rank as a
crim e.
T heft of anim als had alw ays been considered w rong, but it had been com m onplace in the raiding
culture of the steppes, and had also been the cause of lingering anim osity and discord. P erhaps
rem em bering the great harm caused to his fam ily w hen their eight geldings w ere stolen, G enghis K han
m ade anim al rustling a capital offense. A dditionally, he required anyone finding a lost anim al to return it
to the rightful ow ner. F or this purpose, he instituted a m assive lost-and-found system that continued to grow as his em pire spread. A ny person w ho found such goods, m oney, or anim als and did not turn them in
to the appropriate supervisor w ould be treated as a thief; the penalty for theft w as execution.
A side from fighting over lost anim als, the steppe people argued frequently over hunting rights for w ild
anim als. G enghis K han codified existing ideals by forbidding the hunting of anim als betw een M arch and
O ctober during the breeding tim e. B y protecting the anim als in the sum m er, G enghis K han also provided a
safety net for the w inter, and hunters had to lim it their kill to w hat they needed for food and no m ore. T he
law also specified how anim als should be hunted as w ell as the m anner of butchering, so as to w aste
nothing.
In addition to sex, property, and food, G enghis K han recognized the disruptive potential of com peting
religions. In one form or another, virtually every religion from B uddhism to C hristianity and
M anichaeanism to Islam had found converts am ong the steppe people, and alm ost all of them claim ed not
only to be the true religion but the only one. In probably the first law of its kind anyw here in the w orld,
G enghis K han decreed com plete and total religious freedom for everyone. A lthough he continued to
w orship the spirits of his hom eland, he did not perm it them to be used as a national cult.
T o prom ote all religions, G enghis K han exem pted religious leaders and their property from taxation
and from all types of public service. T o prom ote related professions, he later extended the sam e tax
exem ptions to a range of professionals w ho provided essential public services, including undertakers,
doctors, law yers, teachers, and scholars.
G enghis K han m ade a num ber of law s designed specifically to prevent fighting over the office of khan.
A ccording to his law , the khan m ust alw ays be elected by a khuriltai. H e m ade it a capital offense for any
m em ber of his fam ily to claim the office w ithout election. T o prevent rival candidates from killing each
other, he ordered that the death penalty w ould be applied to m em bers of his fam ily only through a
khuriltai of the w hole fam ily and not through any individual m em ber. In so doing, he outlaw ed the very
m eans that he him self had used to begin his rise to pow er— killing his half brother.
M ongol law , as codified by G enghis K han, recognized group responsibility and group guilt. T he
solitary individual had no legal existence outside the context of the fam ily and the larger units to w hich it
belonged; therefore, the fam ily carried the responsibility of ensuring the correct behavior of its m em bers.
A crim e by one could bring punishm ent to all. S im ilarly, a tribe or a squad of soldiers bore the sam e
liability for one another’s actions, and thereby the entire nation, not just the arm y or just the civil
adm inistration, bore responsibility for upholding and enforcing the law . T o be a just M ongol, one had to
live in a just com m unity.
E nforcem ent of the law and the responsibility to abide by it began at the highest level, w ith the khan
him self. In this m anner, G enghis K han had proclaim ed the suprem acy of the rule of law over any
individual, even the sovereign. B y subjugating the ruler to the law , he achieved som ething that no other
civilization had yet accom plished. U nlike m any civilizations— and m ost particularly w estern E urope,
w here m onarchs ruled by the w ill of G od and reigned above the law — G enghis K han m ade it clear that
his G reat L aw applied as strictly to the rulers as to everyone else. H is descendants proved able to abide
by this rule for only about fifty years after his death before they discarded it.
T o run the em pire in general, but m ost specifically to record the m any new law s and to adm inister them
over the vast stretches of land now under his control, G enghis K han ordered the adoption of a w riting
system . A lthough w riting had been introduced to the steppes m any centuries earlier by M uslim m erchants
and itinerant C hristian m onks, few of the native people learned the skill, even those am ong the m ost
sophisticated tribes of T atars, N aim an, and K ereyid; and so far as is know n, no M ongol had learned it. In
his conquest of the N aim an in 1204, G enghis K han discovered that T ayang K han kept a scribe w ho w rote
dow n his pronouncem ents and then em bossed them w ith an official state seal. T he scribe cam e from the
U ighur people, w ho had originated on the M ongol steppe, but in the ninth century had m igrated to the
oases of w hat is now the X injiang region of w estern C hina. T he U ighur language w as closely related and proved relatively easy to adapt for w riting in the M ongolian language. D erived from the S yriac alphabet
used by the m issionary m onks w ho brought C hristianity to the steppe tribes, the w riting w as m ade from
letters rather than characters, but it flow ed vertically dow n the page in colum ns, like C hinese.
T o keep track of his law s, G enghis K han created the position of suprem e judge fo r his adopted brother
S higi-K hutukhu, the T atar boy w ith the golden earrings and nose ring w hom he had found and given to his
m other to raise. G enghis K han charged him to “punish the thieves and put right the lies,” as w ell as to
keep a record of his decisions on w hite paper bound in blue books, the sacred color of the E ternal S ky.
T his close association betw een w riting and the keeping of the law in G enghis K han’s adm inistration
probably accounts for w hy the M ongolian w ord for book, nom , w as derived from the G reek nom os,
m eaning “law .” In the M ongol w orld of the thirteenth century, the law and the w ritten w ord w ere one and
the sam e.
In m aintaining loyalty and cohesion in the vast apparatus of his state, G enghis K han innovated on an
ancient political practice of hostage taking. H e dem anded that each of the com m anders of the units of one
thousand and ten thousand send their ow n sons and their sons’ best friends to him personally to m ake his
ow n unit of ten thousand. Instead of threatening to kill them if their relatives m isbehaved, G enghis K han
introduced a far m ore effective strategy. G enghis K han trained the w ould-be hostages as adm inistrators
and kept them as a ready reserve to replace any ineffective or disloyal official. T he threat of such
potential replacem ent probably did m uch m ore to ensure loyalty in the field than the threat that the relative
m ight be killed. G enghis K han thus changed the status of hostages, transform ing them into an integral part
of his governm ent that gave alm ost every fam ily a direct and personal connection to the im perial court.
G enghis K han divided the elite unit into the day guard and the night guard. A s the nam e indicated, they
form ed a perm anent w atch over him and his encam pm ent, but they functioned as m uch m ore than a
bodyguard. T hey controlled the boys and girls w ho w orked in the court, and they organized the herders of
the different anim als. T hey oversaw the m ovem ent of the cam p, together w ith all the w eapons and
accoutrem ents of the state: banners, pikes, and drum s. T hey also controlled the cooking vessels and the
slaughter of anim als, and they ensured the proper distribution of m eat and dairy products. T he guard
helped to adjudicate legal hearings, carry out punishm ents, and generally enforce the law . B ecause they
controlled the entrance to and egress from the royal tents, they form ed the basis of governm ent
adm inistration.
A ll m em bers of G enghis K han’s ow n regim ent held the rank of elder brother to the other nine units of
ten thousand, and therefore they could issue orders to any of them and expect to be obeyed w ithout
question. U nlike other arm ies in w hich each individual held a rank, in the M ongol arm y, the entire unit
held a rank. T he low est-ranking m an in G enghis K han’s tum en of ten thousand outranked the highest-
ranking m en of the other tum en. In turn, w ithin each tum en, every m em ber of the com m ander’s unit of one
thousand outranked every m an in the other nine units of one thousand.
T o facilitate com m unication so that the orders got to the intended recipient, G enghis K han relied on a
system of fast riders know n as arrow m essengers. T he m ilitary supplied the riders, but the local people
supplied the stations. T he postal service ranked alongside the m ilitary in im portance for the M ongols, and
individual M ongols w ere allow ed to serve in it in lieu of regular m ilitary service. D epending on local
terrain, the stations w ere set approxim ately tw enty m iles apart, and each station required about tw enty-
five fam ilies to m aintain and operate it. A lthough the stations w ere open for pub lic use, m uch of the
inform ation on the individual stations and the total num ber at any given tim e rem ained a carefully guarded
secret, and therefore the inform ation has not survived. S om e idea of its expanse can be derived from the
eighteenth century, how ever, w hen the system still operated and required approxim ately sixty-four stations
to cross M ongolia from the A ltai M ountains in the w est to the entrance through the G reat W all into C hina
in the east.
G enghis K han adapted a variety of older m ethods of com m unication over shorter distances, such as the use of torches, w histling arrow s, sm oke, flares, and flags, for even m ore rapid transm ission of
inform ation during m aneuvers, hunts, and m ilitary m ovem ents. T he herders had earlier developed a
com plicated system of arm signals that could be used long after individuals had passed out of hearing
range, and under G enghis K han these, too, w ere built upon to m ake an ever m ore elaborate system of
rapid and efficient com m unication for use in battle or troop m aneuvers.
P eace and prosperity bred their ow n problem s for G enghis K han. S ix years of peace allow ed, or possibly
encouraged, the intrigues and the petty rivalries that threatened to undo G enghis K han’s hard-fought
unification of the tribes. T he m ore pow erful he becam e, the m ore disagreem ents sparked am ong his
follow ers— particularly w ithin his ow n fam ily, w hose m em bers felt entitled to substantially larger shares
of goods and pow er than his allies outside the fam ily. G enghis K han’s court of trusted advisers included
alm ost none of his ow n relatives. H e sent his m other to live w ith her youngest son, T em uge, w ho by
steppe tradition w as called O tchigen, the P rince of the H earth, and had the responsibility of caring for his
parents in their old age.
W ith a steadfastly loyal arm y and w ithout fam ily or old aristocrats as rivals, new trouble arose from an
unexpected source: T eb T engeri, G enghis K han’s sham an. H e had proclaim ed tim e and again that the
E ternal B lue S ky favored G enghis K han and w ould m ake him ruler of the w orld; he interpreted dream s
and all kinds of signs in favor of G enghis K han’s success and as indications of his great im portance.
G enghis K han exploited not only the supernatural value that T eb T engeri contributed to his court but his
practical value as w ell, as w hen he appointed him to oversee the estates of H oelun and T em uge O tchigen.
T eb T engeri used his position to enrich him self and his six brothers, w ho form ed a pow erful coalition
and, because of his supernatural pow er, had a follow ing w ithin the new ly created M ongol nation second
only to that of G enghis K han him self.
O n one occasion the seven brothers ganged up on G enghis K han’s brother K hasar and beat him .
A fterw ard, K hasar w ent to G enghis K han’s ger, fell to his knees, and begged his brother to help him .
N ever com pletely trustful of his ow n fam ily, G enghis K han rebuked his brother and m ockingly asked how
it w as that he, w ho had once been renow ned as the strongest m an in the tribe, could now be beaten by
these m en. A ccording to the Secret H istory, K hasar broke into tears of sham e as he knelt before his
brother. H e left the ger, and in his anger, fear, and hum iliation, he did not speak to G enghis K han for three
days.
A pparently em boldened by this sm all success against K hasar, T eb T engeri reported to G enghis K han
shortly thereafter that a dream had com e to him in w hich he saw that G enghis K han w ould rule the nation,
but that in another dream he saw that K hasar w ould rule it. H e urged G enghis K han to strike quickly and
firm ly against his brother to prevent any threat to his ow n rule. G enghis K han im m ediately ordered K hasar
arrested and stripped of his sm all contingent of follow ers.
G enghis K han’s m other lived a day’s journey aw ay from his court w ith her youngest son, but she
quickly heard of the trouble. S he already resented T eb T engeri’s pow er over her as one of the
adm inistrators of her estate, and she becam e enraged at hearing of the strife he had caused betw een her
sons. D espite the late hour, H oelun hitched her w hite cam el to her black cart and rode through the night to
reach her son’s royal encam pm ent at sunrise.
A ccording to the Secret H istory, G enghis K han froze in surprise as his m other charged unexpectedly
into his ger, untied K hasar, put his hat back on his head, and helped him to tie the sash around his w aist.
W orking herself into ever greater anger against her eldest son, she sat dow n cross-legged, ripped open her
deel, and pulled out her breasts that w ere now so old, w rinkled, and w orn from nourishing five children
that, according to the Secret H istory, even as she held them up in her hands, they still rested on her knees.
“H ave you seen these?” she dem anded angrily of G enghis K han as she held up her w ithered breasts w ith both hands. “T hese are the breasts that you sucked!” S he then launched into a long tirade against her
son. In m uch the sam e w ords that she had used w hen he killed his half brother B egter, she accused him of
acting like an anim al that gnaw s its ow n um bilical cord and chew s its ow n afterbirth. T o calm and
appease her, G enghis K han agreed to restore K hasar’s freedom and his control over som e of his
follow ers.
S oon after the fight w ith her son, H oelun, w ho w as probably in her late fifties, died. H er property
should have passed, according to tradition, to her youngest son, w ho w anted to add it to his ow n, giving
him control over a total of ten thousand people, m ore than any other fam ily m em ber. T he sham an T eb
T engeri and his six brothers, perhaps w ith G enghis K han’s im plied consent, pushed T em uge O tchigen
aside and seized the estate of H oelun and her follow ers. W hen T em uge tried to get back his follow ers,
T eb T engeri and his brothers publicly hum iliated G enghis K han’s youngest brother by m aking him kneel
on the ground behind T eb T engeri’s backside and beg for his life.
D espite the repeated outcries from relatives, G enghis K han continued to ally him self w ith T eb T engeri
rather than his ow n fam ily. T he only fam ily m em ber to w hom G enghis K han still seem ed w illing to listen
w as his w ife B orte. S he understood m ore clearly than her husband the danger posed by seven pow erful
brothers w ho stood firm ly united and now had their ow n follow ing w ithin the M ongol nation. A fter
hearing of the latest episode, the hum iliation of his youngest brother, B orte angrily explained to G enghis
K han that by allow ing T eb T engeri so m uch pow er, G enghis K han’s ow n sons w ere in danger. Just as she
had been the one to advise T em ujin to break w ith Jam uka back w hen they had com bined their follow ers,
she now dem anded that he break w ith T eb T engeri and his fam ily. If T eb T engeri could do these things to
the G reat K han’s brothers w hile the khan still lived, she asked her husband, w hat w ould he do to the sons
or w idow s after the khan died?
T he next tim e T eb T engeri appeared in court w ith his six brothers and their father, M onglik, T em uge
O tchigin w as w aiting inside the ger w ith G enghis K han. A s soon as T eb T engeri w as seated, T em uge
cam e up to him and grabbed him by the collar of his deel. G enghis K han, pretending that the tw o m en
w ere m erely about to w restle, ordered them to take the contest outside the ger. T em uge, how ever, w as not
seeking a w restling contest w ith T eb T engeri; he w as seeking punishm ent against him . A s soon as T em uge
pulled T eb T engeri through the doorw ay of the ger, three m en w aited to grab and snap his back. G enghis
K han ordered that a sm all tent be erected over the dying m an, and everyone deserted the area.
T eb T engeri w as the last rival G enghis K han had to face from the steppe tribes. W hat he could not
control he had destroyed. H e had neutralized the pow er of his ow n relatives, killed the lineages of
aristocrats and all rival khans, abolished the old tribes, redistributed the people and, finally, allow ed the
m ost pow erful sham an on the steppe to be killed.
G enghis K han appointed a new sham an to take T eb T engeri’s place, but he w as an older, less
am bitious, and m ore tractable character. G enghis K han’s follow ers also learned a lesson. T hey
interpreted his victory as a sign that not only did G enghis K han have m ilitary pow er but that his spiritual
pow er w as greater than that of the m ost pow erful sham an. In the eyes of m any follow ers, G enghis K han
had show n him self to be a pow erful sham an, a belief that m any M ongols have retained until today.
W ith all the nom adic tribes united and G enghis K han securely ensconced as their ruler, it seem ed
uncertain w hat should happen next. H e had spent so m any years locked into the dram a w ith Jam uka and
O ng K han that w ithout them , his large tribe seem ed to lack an objective or purpose. W ithout enem ies, they
lacked a reason to hold together. G enghis K han seem ed to be searching for new ones, but he found no
tribe w orthy of the distinction. W ith no other potential targets, in 1207 he sent his eldest son, tw enty-eight-
year-old Jochi, and his tum en on a cam paign into the area the M ongols called Sibir, from w hich derives
the m odern nam e of S iberia, to secure the subm ission of the forest tribes and the reindeer herders. Jochi
returned successfully w ith thousands of new recruits for the M ongol arm y, as w ell as tribal leaders w ith
w hom G enghis K han negotiated a num ber of alliance m arriages, including one w ith Jochi’s daughter. In addition to the people, Jochi brought back valuable tribute, including rare furs such as black sable,
hunting birds, and other forest products.
E xpansion into the north offered little attraction beyond furs and feathers. It w as the south that captured
G enghis K han’s greatest attention w ith its far greater variety of m anufactured goods— m etal, textiles, and
novelties. H e received the first infusion of goods from the U ighur people w ho farm ed the oases of the
great deserts of the T aklim akan and surrounding areas in w hat is now X injiang A utonom ous R egion in
C hina. G enghis K han accepted their subm ission and, in the only w ay of m aking an alliance, sought to
bring them into his fam ily. H e offered his daughter to the U ighur khan in m arriage, thereby m aking him his
son-in-law .
In the extension of kinship to the S iberian tribes and the U ighur, G enghis K han w as not m erely m aking
alliances betw een his fam ily and their ruling fam ilies. H e w as accepting the entire tribe or nation into his
em pire as fam ilial m em bers, since, in the political idiom of the tribes, granting kinship to the khan w as
tantam ount to recognizing fam ily ties w ith the w hole nation. In this w ay, the idiom of kinship had
expanded into a type of citizenship. A s G enghis K han continued to utilize and expand that idiom in the
com ing years, it cam e to be a form of universal citizenship based not on a com m on religion, as am ong
C hristian and M uslim people, or just on biology, as in traditional tribal culture. It w as based sim ply on
allegiance, acceptance, and loyalty. In tim e, all the non-M ongol kingdom s in the M ongol E m pire becam e
know n as K hari, derived from the w ord for black and connoting in-law s. T hus, select nations such as the
U ighur and the K oreans, as w ell as select T urkic groups, w ould have the honor of being in-law s to the
M ongols, w hereas interm arriage outside of the “black-kin” w ould not be perm itted.
W hen the U ighur khan cam e to the M ongol court for his w edding in approxim ately 1209, he arrived
laden w ith a cam el caravan of lavish gifts, including gold, silver, and pearls of m any sizes, shapes, and
colors. W ithout the craft of w eaving, the M ongols had only leather, fur, and felt m ade from pressed w ool,
so the m ost im portant gifts to them w ere the incredible w oven textiles, including silk, brocade, dam ask,
and satin. T he visit of the U ighurs highlighted the contrast betw een the w ealth of the agricultural
civilization and the poverty of the steppe tribes. G enghis K han com m anded a great arm y but presided over
a largely im poverished people, w hile to the south, beyond the G obi, there flow ed an interm ittent but
im pressive stream of goods along the S ilk R oute. H e w as ready for the opportunity to redress this
im balance of goods and to test his arm y against others, but such an endeavor carried great risks. G enghis
K han w as eager to take the chance, and soon the opportunity, as though delivered in answ er to his prayers,
presented itself.
N o one had yet taken any notice of this upstart ruler and his new ly proclaim ed nation of M ongols.
O utside of the high, inner steppe of A sia, at the tim e, few people paid attention to the killing of one
barbarian chief and the crow ning of a new com er, nor did they relate the destruction of one savage tribe
and the rise of its rival. T he battles of petty tribes fighting over horses, w om en, and bolts of cloth lacked
the apparent im portance of the m uch m ore m om entous struggles of real civilizations. A ll of that w as about
to change.
P A R T II
T he M ongol W orld W ar: 1211–1261
B y the arm s of Z ingis and his descendants the globe w as shaken: the sultans w ere overthrow n: the
caliphs fell, and the C æ sars trem bled on their throne.
E D W A R D G IB B O N ,
D ecline and F all of the R om an E m pire 4
S pitting on the G olden K han
T he hooves of our M ongol horses go everyw here.
T hey clim b to the heaven and plunge into the sea.
Y E L Ü C H U C A I, 1237
IN 1210, T H E Y E A R of the H orse and the forty-eighth year of the life of G enghis K han and the fourth
year of his new nation, a delegation arrived at the M ongol encam pm ent to proclaim the ascension of a
new G olden K han to the Jurched throne and dem and the subm ission of G enghis K han and the M ongols as
a vassal nation. F rom their capital city of Z hongdu, w here m odern B eijing now rises, the Jurched dynasty,
founded nearly a century earlier in 1125, ruled M anchuria and m uch of m odern-day Inner M ongolia and
northern C hina. A s a tribal people them selves from the forests of M anchuria, they claim ed sovereignty
over all the trib es of the steppe. O ng K han had offered allegiance to them in the past, and the Jurched
seem ed eager to reassert their superiority over G enghis K han, w ho had replaced O ng K han as the
dom inant figure am ong the nom ads of the steppe.
Jurched pow er over the steppe rested not from m ilitary prow ess as m uch as from their tight control of
goods flow ing to the pastoralists from the w orkshops and cities across C hina. T he position of a steppe
khan rested on his ability to w in in battle and to ensure a steady supply of trade goods. U sually the tw o
coincided w hen battlefield victory provided an opportunity to loot the defeated. G enghis K han’s
unprecedented success in defeating and uniting all the tribes had the inadvertent consequence of ending the
looting and thereby stifling the flow of goods. S ince all m anufactured goods originated in the south,
G enghis K han could either offer allegiance to one of the southern rulers and receive goods as a vassal
w arrior, or he could attack them and seize the goods.
G enghis K han placed no trust in the Jurched. T he M ongols had m uch closer ethnic and linguistic affinity
w ith the K hitan, w hom the Jurched had defeated and now dom inated. S ensing the pow er of the new
M ongol ruler, m any K hitan had fled from Jurched territory to find sanctuary under G enghis K han. In 1208,
four high court officials deserted to the M ongols and urged them to attack the Jurched, but, fearful of a trap
or som e other nefarious schem e, G enghis K han refused.
T he unexpected death of the G olden K han of the Jurched and the ascension of his young son to the
throne in 1210 offered the Jurched court an opportunity to assess G enghis K han by sending the envoy to
him to announce the change of events and dem and a strong show of subm ission from him . A n idea of the
type of cerem ony expected is contained in an 1878 report in the P eking G azette describing the investiture
of a M ongol official by an envoy from the court of the M anchus, descendants of the Jurched. T he young
M ongol knelt “reverently upon the ground” and, “w ith the deepest gratitude,” acknow ledged him self “to
be a M ongol slave of inferior ability, perfectly unable to repay in the slightest degree the Im perial favours
of w hich his fam ily have been the recipients for generations past, he declares his intention of perform ing
his duties to the best of his feeble pow ers.” H e then “turned him self tow ard the P alace and beat his head
upon the ground . . . in grateful acknow ledgem ent of the Im perial bounty.”
G enghis K han knew full w ell how to kow tow — he had done it on M ount B urkhan K haldun in repeated hom age to the E ternal B lue S ky— but now , at nearly fifty years of age, he w ould kow tow to no m an. N or
w as he anyone’s M ongol slave. U pon receiving the order to dem onstrate subm ission, G enghis K han is
reported to have turned to the south and spat on the ground; then he unleashed a line of vindictive insults
to the G olden K han, m o unted his horse, and rode tow ard the north, leaving the stunned envoy choking in
his dust. G enghis K han’s defiance of the envoys of the G olden K han w as tantam ount to a declaration of
w ar betw een the M ongols and the Jurched. G enghis K han’s need for trade goods already gave him a
reason to m ake w ar on the Jurched, and the dem and from the G olden K han for subm ission now presented
him w ith the pretext for attacking.
A fter the encounter w ith the Jurched envoy, G enghis K han returned to his hom e base on the K herlen
R iver and, in the spring of 1211, the Y ear of the S heep, sum m oned a khuriltai. S ince everyone knew the
issue to be decided, the people could exercise a veto sim ply by not show ing up; if too few people cam e to
the khuriltai, G enghis K han w ould not have been able to proceed. B y organizing a long public discussion,
everyone in the com m unity w as included into the process, and, m ost im portant, everyone understood w hy
they w ere fighting the w ar. A lthough on the battlefield the soldiers w ere expected to obey w ithout
question, even the low est ranking w ere treated as junior partners w ho w ere expected to understand the
endeavor and to hav e som e voice in it. T he senior m em bers m et together in large public m eetings to
discuss the issues, then individually w ent to their ow n units to continue the discussion w ith the low er-
ranking w arriors. T o have the full com m itm ent of every w arrior, it w as im portant that each of them , from
the highest to the low est, participate and know w here he stood in the larger plan of events.
B y including representatives from the allied U ighur and T angut nations, G enghis K han solidified his
relations w ith them and thereby protected the exposed underbelly and rear of his land w hen he launched
his invasion. O n the hom e front, he also needed to inspire his people w ith the courage and understanding
of this w ar. T ow ard b oth goals, G enghis K han appealed to the honor of his follow ers and to their need to
avenge past w rongs, but he also held out to them a m uch broader opportunity of unlim ited goods from the
great w ealth of the cities of the Jurched. A ccording to the Secret H istory, once he felt confident that his
people and allies sto od firm ly w ith him , G enghis K han publicly w ithdrew from the assem bled delegates
of the khuriltai to pray privately on a nearby m ountain. H e rem oved his hat and belt, bow ed dow n before
the E ternal B lue S ky, and stated his case to his supernatural guardians. H e recounted the generations of
grievances his people held against the Jurched and detailed the torture and killing of his ancestors. H e
explained that he had not sought this w ar against the G olden K han and had not initiated the quarrel.
In his absence, the M ongol people divided into three separate groups, one each of m en, w om en, and
children, in order to fast and pray. F or three nervous days and nights, the assem bled M ongol nation
aw aited, bareheaded and hungry, the decision of the E ternal B lue S ky and the orders of G enghis K han.
N ight and day they m um bled their ancient M ongol prayer of “ huree, huree, huree” to the E ternal B lue
S ky.
A t daw n on the fourth day, G enghis K han em erged w ith the verdict: “T he E ternal B lue S ky has
prom ised us victory and vengeance.”
A s the M ongol arm y set out south tow ard the splendid cities of the south, their overly confident Jurched
enem ies aw aited them and m ocked the M ongol advance. “O ur em pire is like the sea; yours is but a
handful of sand,” a C hinese scholar recorded the Jurched khan as saying in reference to G enghis K han.
“H ow can w e fear you?” he asked.
H e w ould soon have his answ er.
In the thirteenth century, the area south of M ongolia now occupied by C hina consisted of m any
independent states and kingdom s containing perhaps a third of the w orld population. W ith som e 50
m illion people, the Jurched kingdom w as only the second largest of the m any kingdom s occupying the territory now included in m odern C hina. T he largest and m ost im portant territory w as under the
adm inistration of the S ung dynasty, heir to centuries of C hinese civilization, based in H angzhou and ruling
som e 60 m illion people in southern C hina. A string of nom adic buffer states separated the M ongolian
plateau from the S ung, each buffer state consisting of a hybrid of agricultural and grazing regions ruled
over by a form er nom adic tribe that had conquered and settled am ong its subjects in order to m ore
efficiently exploit them . F requently, a new tribe em erged from the steppes to displace the older tribe that
had grow n w eak and dissipated from several generations of soft city life. In a long-established cycle, a
nom adic arm y sw ept dow n from the steppe, conquered the peasants and cities to the south, created a new
dynasty, and, after a few years, fell to the attack of another m arauding tribe. A lthough the identities of the
ruling tribe changed from century to century, the system had already been in place for thousands of years.
T o the w est of the Jurched w ere the kingdom s of the T angut, then the U ighur, and finally, in the T ian
S han m ounts, the B lack K hitan. T he U ighur had already m ade their com m itm ent to G enghis K han, and, in
w hat seem ed to be a practice w ar, he had recently subdued the T angut. T he conquest of the T angut took
place through a series of raids betw een 1207 and 1209. T he cam paign w as like a thorough dress rehearsal
of the com ing battle against the m uch stronger Jurched, com plete w ith a crossing of the G obi. T he T angut,
a T ibetan people w ho had created an em pire of farm ers and herders along the upper reaches of the Y ellow
R iver in w hat is the m odern G ansu P rovince in C hina, occupied a w eak link along the line of oases in the
interior desert that controlled the flow of trade goods from the M uslim W est to the C hinese E ast. T he
routes stretched like thin, delicate ribbons across the deserts of the interior and provided the only links,
albeit fragile ones, betw een the great civilizations of the E ast and the W est. T he T angut raids had spurred
G enghis K han to learn a new type of w arfare against w alled cities, m oats, and fortresses. N ot only w ere
the T angut w ell fortified, but they had som e 150,000 soldiers, nearly tw ice the size of the arm y G enghis
K han brought w ith him . U nlike generals w ho had grow n up w ith cities and had access to centuries-old
besieging techniques, G enghis K han had to invent his ow n m ethods. H e quickly learned the sim ple tactics,
such as cutting off the M ongols’ enem ies from the surrounding food supply, but he soon attem pted m ore
unorthodox m ethods, such as w hen he attacked the fortified T angut capital by diverting a channel of the
Y ellow R iver to flood it. W ith their inexperience in engineering, the M ongols succeeded in diverting the
river, but they w iped out their ow n cam p instead of the T angut. N evertheless, the M ongols survived their
dangerous m istake. G enghis K han learned from it and w ent on to conquer the city. In the future, the
M ongols w ould use this m ethod again, but each tim e they w ould be m ore adept at it and use it m ore
successfully.
W ith G enghis K han’s decision to cross the G obi and invade the Jurched in 1211, he had begun not just
another C hinese border w ar: H e had lit a conflagration that w ould eventually consum e the w orld. N o one,
not even G enghis K han, could have seen w hat w as com ing. H e show ed no sign of any global am bitions
inasm uch as he fought only one w ar at a tim e, and for him the tim e had com e to fight the Jurched. B ut
starting from the Jurched cam paign, the w ell-trained and tightly organized M ongol arm y w ould charge out
of its highland hom e and overrun everything from the Indus R iver to the D anube, from the P acific O cean to
the M editerranean S ea. In a flash, only thirty years, the M ongol w arriors w ould defeat every arm y,
capture every fort, and bring dow n the w alls of every city they encountered. C hristians, M uslim s,
B uddhists, and H indus w ould soon kneel before the dusty boots of illiterate young M ongol horsem en.
C rossing the vast G obi required extensive preparation. B efore the arm y set out, squads of soldiers w ent
out to check the w ater sources and to report on grass conditions and w eather. A C hinese observer
rem arked how the advance group scouted out every hill and every spot before the m ain arm y arrived.
T hey w anted to know everyone in the area, every resource, and they alw ays sought to have a ready path of
retreat should it be needed. T he M ongol w as ideally suited to travel long distances; each m an carried precisely w hat he needed,
but nothing m ore. In addition to his deel, the traditional w ool robe that reached to his ankles, he w ore
pants, a fur hat w ith earflaps, and riding boots w ith thick soles. In addition to clothes designed to protect
him in the w orst w eather, each w arrior carried flints for m aking fires, leather canteens for w ater and m ilk,
files to sharpen arrow heads, a lasso for rounding up anim als or prisoners, sew ing needles for m ending
clothes, a knife and a hatchet for cutting, and a skin bag into w hich to pack everything. E ach squad of ten
carried a sm all tent.
T he m ovem ent and form ation of the M ongol arm y w ere determ ined by tw o factors that set them clearly
apart from the arm ies of every other traditional civilization. F irst, the M ongol m ilitary consisted entirely
of cavalry, arm ed riders w ithout a m arching infantry. B y contrast, in virtually all other arm ies, the
m ajority of the w arriors w ould have been foot soldiers. A pproxim ately sixty-five thousand M ongol
horsem en left on the Jurched cam paign to confront an arm y w ith about the sam e num ber of horsem en, as
w ell as another eighty-five thousand infantry soldiers, giving the Jurched an advantage of w ell over tw o
to one but w ithout the m obility of the M ongol force.
T he second unique characteristic of the M ongol arm y w as that it traveled w ithout a com m issary or
cum bersom e supply train other than its large reserve of horses that alw ays accom panied the soldiers. A s
they m oved, they m ilked the anim als, slaughtered them for food, and fed them selves from hunting and
looting. M arco P olo alleged that the M ongol w arriors could travel ten days w ithout stopping to m ake a
fire or heat food, that they drank horses’ blood, and that each m an carried w ith him ten pounds of dried
m ilk paste, putting one pound of it in a leather flask of w ater each day to m ake his m eal. T he w arrior
carried strips of dried m eat and dried curd w ith him that he could chew w hile riding; and w hen he had
fresh m eat, but no tim e to cook it, he put the raw flesh under his saddle so it w ould soon be softened and
edible.
T he C hinese noted w ith surprise and disgust the ability of the M ongol w arriors to survive on little food
and w ater for long periods; according to one, the entire arm y could cam p w ithout a single puff of sm oke
since they needed no fires to cook. C om pared to the Jurched soldiers, the M ongols w ere m uch healthier
and stronger. T he M ongols consum ed a steady diet of m eat, m ilk, yogurt, and other dairy products, and
they fought m en w ho lived on gruel m ade from various grains. T he grain diet of the peasant w arriors
stunted their bones, rotted their teeth, and left them w eak and prone to disease. In contrast, the poorest
M ongol soldier ate m ostly protein, thereby giving him strong teeth and bones. U nlike the Jurched soldiers,
w ho w ere dependent on a heavy carbohydrate diet, the M ongols could m ore easily go a day or tw o
w ithout food.
T raditional arm ies m