Genghis Khan

Temüjin (鐵木真), known to history as Genghis Khan, united the feuding tribes of the Mongolian steppe and in 1206 was proclaimed their supreme ruler. He reigned until his death in 1227, and in those two decades the Mongols overran much of northern China, Central Asia and eastern Iran and reached the steppes north of the Black Sea.

He never ruled China as an emperor. The conquest of the whole country was completed by his grandson Kublai Khan, who founded the Yuan dynasty and honoured Genghis Khan posthumously as its founder, with the temple name Taizu (太祖).

His campaigns were among the most destructive in recorded history. He was also a gifted organiser, and the army, law and administration he created held together an empire that his sons and grandsons extended from Korea to eastern Europe.

Early Life of Temüjin

Temüjin was born near the Onon River, in what is now north-eastern Mongolia. The year is usually given as 1162, although other dates are also proposed. His father, Yesügei, was a chief of the Borjigin clan; his mother, Hö'elün, had been carried off by Yesügei from a Merkit bridegroom. The Secret History of the Mongols, the only surviving Mongol account of his life, says he was born clutching a clot of blood in his fist, which was read as a sign of his future.

The steppe of his childhood was divided among rival peoples, among them the Mongols, Tatars, Merkits, Kereits and Naimans. Raiding, blood feuds and shifting alliances were part of ordinary life.

Early Struggles

When Temüjin was about nine, his father took him to the Onggirat people and arranged his betrothal to a girl named Börte. Riding home, Yesügei shared a meal with a group of Tatars, old enemies of his, who poisoned him.

Without a leader, Yesügei's followers abandoned his widow and children. The family survived on roots, wild fruit, fish and small game. In a quarrel over food, Temüjin and his brother Khasar killed their half-brother Begter, an early sign of the ruthlessness that marked his career.

Some time later the Tayichiud, the rival Mongol clan that had led the desertion, captured Temüjin and held him in a wooden collar. He escaped with the help of Sorqan-shira, a Tayichiud dependant, who hid him in a cart of wool.

As a young man Temüjin married Börte and sought the protection of Toghrul, ruler of the Kereits, who had been his father's sworn brother. When the Merkits raided his camp and carried Börte off, Toghrul and Temüjin's boyhood friend Jamukha helped him win her back. Her first son, Jochi, was born soon afterwards, and doubts about his paternity troubled the family for the rest of Temüjin's life.

The Rise to Power

Temüjin gathered followers through generosity, reliability and force. He rewarded men for loyalty and ability rather than birth, and many who joined him had left their own clans to do so. A group of Mongol nobles acclaimed him khan of the Mongols, which set him against Jamukha, by then his chief rival for leadership of the steppe.

In 1196 he joined Toghrul and the Jin court of northern China in a campaign against the Tatars, and in 1202 he destroyed the Tatars as a people, killing most of their men and absorbing the rest. His alliance with Toghrul then broke down. After a narrow escape, Temüjin surprised the Kereit camp in 1203 and defeated them. Toghrul fled and was killed by Naiman frontier guards.

The Naimans of western Mongolia were the last great power on the steppe. Temüjin defeated them in 1204, and their prince Kuchlug fled westwards. Jamukha, who had sided with the Naimans, was handed over by his own men and put to death.

One story from these years shows how he judged men. A young Tayichiud archer shot Temüjin's horse from under him in battle. When captured, the archer admitted it openly. Temüjin spared him and renamed him Jebe, "the arrow", and Jebe became one of the great Mongol generals.

The Kurultai of 1206

In 1206 an assembly of the steppe nobility, a kurultai, met at the source of the Onon River and proclaimed Temüjin Chinggis Khan, the form from which "Genghis" derives. The meaning of the title is still debated.

He was now master of all the "people of the felt-walled tents". The old tribes were broken up and their men redistributed into new military units, loyal to the khan rather than to their clans.

Genghis Khan himself continued to live as a nomad, moving between seasonal camps in a large felt tent. The Mongol capital at Karakorum was built only under his son Ögedei.

How Genghis Khan Governed

Genghis Khan could not read and never lived in a city, yet he laid the foundations of a working state. Much of it he learned from others: captured scribes and officials, Muslim merchants, and Khitan and Chinese advisers who had served the Jin.

Writing and Records

After the defeat of the Naimans, a captured Uyghur official, Tatar-Tonga, was set to teach the khan's sons to write Mongolian in the Uyghur script. The Mongolian script that grew from it is still in use today. Shigi Qutuqu, a Tatar boy raised in the khan's family, was made supreme judge and ordered to record his judgements, and the allotment of people among the princes, in a register known as the Blue Book.

The Yasa

Mongol law under Genghis Khan is known as the Yasa. No text of it survives, and what we know comes from later writers, mostly Persian, whose reports differ. They agree that it combined steppe custom with the khan's own decrees and punished theft, adultery and disobedience severely.

Religion

Genghis Khan followed the Mongol worship of Tengri, the Eternal Blue Sky, but he did not impose it on others. Clergy of the religions the Mongols met, Buddhist, Daoist, Muslim and Christian, were generally exempted from taxes and labour service in return for praying for the khan. In 1222 he received the Daoist master Qiu Chuji at his camp in the Hindu Kush and questioned him about the secret of long life.

Trade and the Relay Posts

Merchants were valued both for their goods and for their news, and Genghis Khan protected the caravans that crossed his lands. The system of relay stations known as the yam, which later allowed messengers and officials to cross the empire with fresh horses at every stage, had its beginnings in his reign and was organised on an imperial scale by Ögedei.

The Mongol Army

The new Mongol nation was organised for war. Every man of fighting age belonged to a unit of ten, grouped into hundreds, thousands and ten thousands (tümen). Genghis Khan chose the commanders of the thousands himself, and many were men of humble origin who had proved their loyalty over years of service.

At the centre stood the keshig, the khan's personal guard, enlarged in 1206 to some 10,000 men. It included sons and brothers of the commanders, who served both as guards and as pledges of their families' loyalty, and it trained many future generals and officials.

Discipline was strict. Looting was forbidden until a battle was won, and the spoils were then shared by rule. Conquered tribes were not left intact but divided among the units, so that old loyalties could not re-form.

Intelligence and New Methods

Genghis Khan took great care to learn about his enemies before he attacked, using merchants, envoys and defectors as sources. He was equally ready to adopt new methods. Steppe cavalry could not take walled cities, so after his first campaigns in China he recruited Chinese and Khitan engineers to build and work siege engines. Rivers were dammed or diverted, and captives were driven ahead of the army to fill ditches and absorb the defenders' fire.

Rivals Within

Even after 1206 his authority was challenged from within. The shaman Kököchü, known as Teb Tengri, gained great influence and tried to set Genghis Khan against his brother Khasar. The khan eventually allowed his youngest brother, Temüge, to have the shaman killed. Personal loyalty to the khan remained the bond that held the empire together, which is one reason why every succession after his death was contested.