-Genghis Khan, Last words to his commanders

“With heaven’s aid I have conquered for you a huge empire. But my life was too shot to achieve the conquest of the World. The task is left to you.”

-Genghis Khan, Last words to his sons

Solely raised by his mother when his father died while he was at a young age, he not only survived the harsh surrounding, but also grew up to united all of the nomadic tribes, setting the stage for world conquest. He and his descendents would continue his conquests, and within a space of 80 years carve out the largest continuous land Empire that the world would know to this day. They developed a reputation for ruthlessness and brutality. Indeed whenever their enemies did not capitulate to them, they did not hesitate to conduct wholesale massacres upon the population. To the Europeans, the stereotype of them being barbaric plunderers intent merely to maim, slaughter, and destroy, earned them the moniker “The Devil’s Horsemen”. However, this ignores the fact that in the lands that they conquered, they instituted many reforms to facilitate mercantile trade and established a vast postal network that stretched throughout their Empire. Creating the first direct link between Europe and the Far East, inspiring not only a trade in goods, but peoples and ideas. Indeed this contact would lead to the Age of Exploration in Europe, as people sought faster and safer routes to China, as the Mongol Empire began to decline. Vestiges of Mongol authority would continue for several hundred years, but indeed their Empire disintegrated almost as quickly as it had started. With those who kept to their nomadic ways returning or being driven back to the steppe lands from where they came, or being absorbed by the native population that they had once ruled. As the Chinese explained it to Genghis Khan, “what you conquer by horseback you cannot govern by horseback.” In essence it is what happened to the Mongols.

Reference Sources:

*      Life in Genghis Khan’s Mongolia by Robert Taylor

*       Genghis Khan by Judy Humphrey

*       http://franklaughter.tripod.com/cgi-bin/histprof/misc/genghis.html

*       Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy by Paul Ratchnevsky

*       Conqueror of the World by Rene Grousset

*       http://ron.heavengames.com/gameinfo/nations/mongol/mongol.shtml

*       http://www.occultopedia.com/g/genghis_khan.htm

*       http://www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/fall99/kong/Index1.htm

*       Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection by John Man

*       Secret History of the Mongols: The origin of Chingis Khan by Paul Kahn