Genghis Khan: the story on HearLore

Genghis Khan

Temüjin was born clutching a blood clot in his hand, a motif in Asian folklore indicating the child would be a warrior. This strange birth sign marked the beginning of a life that would reshape the world, yet the boy who would become Genghis Khan faced a childhood of brutal abandonment. Born between 1155 and 1167, likely in 1162, on the banks of the Onon River, he was the eldest son of Yesügei, a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan, and Hö'elün, a woman from the Olkhonud clan. His father's death when Temüjin was only eight years old shattered the family's security. Yesügei had been poisoned by Tatars after sharing a meal with them, a violation of the sacred steppe tradition of hospitality. The clan that once followed Yesügei immediately abandoned his widow and children, leaving them to survive by gathering roots, nuts, and fish in the harsh wilderness. The young Temüjin was forced to kill his older half-brother Behter to secure his position as the head of the family, a taboo act that the Secret History records with chilling detail. This early trauma forged a personality defined by ruthless pragmatism and an unyielding drive for survival. He learned that loyalty was the only currency that mattered, and that the weak were destined to perish. His charisma, however, began to attract followers even in these desperate years. He formed a blood brotherhood with Jamukha, a boy of aristocratic descent, and they swore an oath of eternal friendship. Yet, the bonds of the steppe were fragile, and the path to power would be paved with the bones of those who once stood beside him.

The Baljuna Covenant And The Rise

In the early summer of 1196, Temüjin participated in a joint campaign with the Jin dynasty against the Tatars, earning the honorific commander of hundreds. This victory marked a turning point, transforming him from a fugitive into a de facto equal ally to his former patron, Toghrul. However, the steppe was a place of shifting alliances, and the relationship between Temüjin and Toghrul quickly deteriorated. Toghrul, the khan of the Kerait tribe, began to view Temüjin as a threat to his own power. In 1203, Toghrul attempted to lure Temüjin into an ambush, but the plan was overheard by two herdsmen who warned the young leader. Temüjin was soundly defeated at the Battle of Qalaqaljid Sands, and his forces scattered. He retreated to Baljuna, an unidentified lake or river, where he waited for his men to regroup. It was here that he swore the famous Baljuna Covenant, a pledge of loyalty to his faithful followers. The oath-takers were a heterogeneous group, men from nine different tribes including Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists, united only by their loyalty to Temüjin and to each other. This group became a model for the later empire, termed a proto-government of a proto-nation by historian John Man. The Baljuna Covenant was omitted from the Secret History, likely because the author wished to downplay the role of non-Mongol tribes. This event demonstrated Temüjin's ability to build a meritocratic army that transcended tribal lines. He absorbed the Kereit elite into his own tribe, taking the princess Ibaqa as a wife and marrying her sister Sorghaghtani and niece Doquz to his youngest son Tolui. By 1204, at the Battle of Chakirmaut in the Altai Mountains, the Naimans were decisively defeated, and their leader Tayang Khan was killed. Jamukha, who had abandoned the Naimans, was betrayed to Temüjin and executed. With the death of his rivals, Temüjin was left as the sole ruler on the Mongolian steppe.

Common questions

When was Genghis Khan born and where was he born?

Genghis Khan was born between 1155 and 1167, likely in 1162, on the banks of the Onon River. He was the eldest son of Yesügei, a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan, and Hö'elün, a woman from the Olkhonud clan.

What happened to Genghis Khan during his childhood that shaped his future?

Genghis Khan faced a childhood of brutal abandonment after his father Yesügei was poisoned by Tatars when Temüjin was only eight years old. The clan abandoned his widow and children, forcing the young Temüjin to kill his older half-brother Behter to secure his position as the head of the family.

How did Genghis Khan die and when did his death occur?

Genghis Khan died on either the 18th or the 25th of August 1227, though the exact nature of his death remains a subject of intense speculation. Historical accounts suggest he suffered from an illness, possibly malaria, typhus, or bubonic plague, or was struck by lightning, while legends claim he was injured during sex with the Xia emperor's wife.

Who succeeded Genghis Khan as the ruler of the Mongol Empire?

Ögedei was recognized as the heir to the Mongol throne and crowned as khan in 1229 after a kurultai attended by his brother Tolui. Tolui served as regent after Genghis Khan's death, establishing precedents for mourning and succession that ultimately led to Ögedei's appointment.

What was the Baljuna Covenant and why was it significant?

The Baljuna Covenant was a pledge of loyalty sworn by Temüjin to his faithful followers at an unidentified lake or river after his defeat at the Battle of Qalaqaljid Sands in 1203. This oath-takers were a heterogeneous group from nine different tribes united by loyalty to Temüjin and to each other, forming a model for the later empire.

How did Genghis Khan reorganize the Mongol society and military?

Genghis Khan reorganized Mongol society into a military decimal system where every man between the age of fifteen and seventy was conscripted into a tumen, a unit of a thousand soldiers. This system replaced old tribal identities with loyalty to the Great Mongol State and included a bodyguard corps that served as a military academy and center of governmental administration.

The Great Assembly Of 1206

Now the sole ruler of the steppe, Temüjin held a large assembly called a kurultai at the source of the Onon River in 1206. Here, he formally adopted the title Genghis Khan, the etymology and meaning of which have been much debated. Some commentators hold that the title had no meaning, simply representing Temüjin's eschewal of the traditional title, which had been accorded to Jamukha and was thus of lesser worth. Another theory suggests that the word Genghis bears connotations of strength, firmness, hardness, or righteousness. A third hypothesis proposes that the title is related to the Turkic ocean, meaning master of the ocean, and as the ocean was believed to surround the earth, the title thus ultimately implied Universal Ruler. Genghis Khan then began a social revolution, transforming the Mongols' tribal structure into an integrated meritocracy dedicated to the service of the ruling family. As traditional tribal systems had primarily evolved to benefit small clans and families, they were unsuitable as the foundations for larger states. Genghis reorganized Mongol society into a military decimal system. Every man between the age of fifteen and seventy was conscripted into a tumen, a unit of a thousand soldiers, which was further subdivided into units of hundreds and tens. The units also encompassed each man's household, meaning that each military unit was supported by a family of households. This was intended to ensure the disappearance of old tribal identities, replacing them with loyalty to the Great Mongol State. The highest tier was occupied solely by his and his brothers' families, known as the Golden Family. Underneath them came the black bone, composed of the surviving pre-empire aristocracy and the most important of the new families. Commanders such as Subutai, Chormaqan, and Baiju all started out in the bodyguard, before being given command of their own force. This particular reform proved extremely effective, and even after the division of the Mongol Empire, fragmentation never happened along tribal lines. Instead, the descendants of Genghis continued to reign unchallenged, in some cases until as late as the 1700s.

The Conquest Of The Khwarazmian Empire

Genghis had now attained complete control of the eastern portion of the Silk Road, and his territory bordered that of the Khwarazmian Empire, which ruled over much of Central Asia, Persia, and Afghanistan. Merchants from both sides were eager to restart trading, which had halted during Kuchlug's rule. In 1218, a caravan of 450 merchants set off to Khwarazmia with a large quantity of wares. Inalchuq, the governor of the Khwarazmian border town of Otrar, decided to massacre the merchants on grounds of espionage and seize the goods. Muhammad, the Khwarazmian ruler, had grown suspicious of Genghis's intentions and either supported Inalchuq or turned a blind eye. A Mongol ambassador was sent with two companions to avert war, but Muhammad killed him and humiliated his companions. The killing of an envoy infuriated Genghis, who resolved to leave Muqali with a small force in North China and invade Khwarazmia with most of his army. Muhammad's empire was large but disunited, and he declined to meet the Mongols in the field, instead garrisoning his unruly troops in his major cities. This allowed the lightly armoured, highly mobile Mongol armies uncontested superiority outside city walls. Otrar was besieged in autumn 1219, and the city fell in February 1220. Genghis had meanwhile divided his forces, sending Jochi northwards down the Syr Darya river and another force southwards into central Transoxiana. He and Tolui took the main Mongol army across the Kyzylkum Desert, surprising the garrison of Bukhara in a pincer movement. Bukhara's citadel was captured in February 1220, and Genghis moved against Muhammad's residence Samarkand, which fell the following month. Bewildered by the speed of the Mongol conquests, Muhammad fled from Balkh, closely followed by Jebe and Subutai. The two generals pursued the Khwarazmshah until he died from dysentery on a Caspian Sea island in winter 1220, 21. Meanwhile, the Khwarazmian capital of Gurganj was being besieged by Genghis's three eldest sons. The long siege ended in spring 1221 amid brutal urban conflict. Jalal al-Din, Muhammad's son, moved southwards to Afghanistan, gathering forces on the way and defeating a Mongol unit under the command of Shigi Qutuqu. Jalal was weakened by arguments among his commanders, and after losing decisively at the Battle of the Indus in November 1221, he was compelled to escape across the Indus river into India. Genghis's youngest son Tolui was concurrently conducting a brutal campaign in the regions of Khorasan. Every city that resisted was destroyed, including Nishapur, Merv, and Herat, three of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world. Contemporary Persian historians placed the death toll from the three sieges alone at over 5.7 million, a number regarded as grossly exaggerated by modern scholars. Nevertheless, even a total death toll of 1.25 million for the entire campaign, as estimated by John Man, would have been a demographic catastrophe.

The Final Campaign And The Death

Genghis abruptly halted his Central Asian campaigns in 1221, realizing that the heat and humidity of the South Asian climate impeded his army's skills. During his lengthy return journey, he prepared a new administrative division which would govern the conquered territories, appointing commissioners and local officials to manage the region back to normalcy. He also summoned and spoke with the Taoist patriarch Changchun in the Hindu Kush. The khan listened attentively to Changchun's teachings and granted his followers numerous privileges, including tax exemptions and authority over all monks throughout the empire. The usual reason given for the halting of the campaign is that the Western Xia, having declined to provide auxiliaries for the 1219 invasion, had additionally disobeyed Muqali in his campaign against the remaining Jin in Shaanxi. In either case, Genghis initially attempted to resolve the situation diplomatically, but when the Xia elite failed to come to an agreement on the hostages they were to send to the Mongols, he lost patience. Returning to Mongolia in early 1225, Genghis spent the year in preparation for a campaign against them. This began in the first months of 1226 with the capture of Khara-Khoto on the Xia's western border. The invasion proceeded apace, and Genghis ordered that the cities of the Gansu Corridor be sacked one by one, granting clemency only to a few. Having crossed the Yellow River in autumn, the Mongols besieged present-day Lingwu, located just south of the Xia capital Zhongxing, in November. On the 4th of December, Genghis decisively defeated a Xia relief army. The khan left the siege of the capital to his generals and moved southwards with Subutai to plunder and secure Jin territories. Genghis fell from his horse while hunting in the winter of 1226, 27 and became increasingly ill during the following months. This slowed the siege of Zhongxing's progress, as his sons and commanders urged him to end the campaign and return to Mongolia to recover. Incensed by insults from Xia's leading commander, Genghis insisted that the siege be continued. He died on either 18 or the 25th of August 1227, but his death was kept a closely guarded secret and Zhongxing, unaware, fell the following month. The city was put to the sword and its population was treated with extreme savagery, the Xia civilization essentially extinguished in what Man described as a very successful ethnocide. The exact nature of the khan's death has been the subject of intense speculation. Rashid al-Din and the History of Yuan mention he suffered from an illness, possibly malaria, typhus, or bubonic plague. Marco Polo claimed that he was shot by an arrow during a siege, while Carpini reported that Genghis was struck by lightning. Legends sprang up around the event, the most famous recounting how the beautiful Gurbelchin, formerly the Xia emperor's wife, injured Genghis's genitals with a dagger during sex. After his death, Genghis was transported back to Mongolia and buried on or near the sacred Burkhan Khaldun peak in the Khentii Mountains, on a site he had chosen years before. Specific details of the funeral procession and burial were not made public knowledge, the mountain declared a Great Taboo, out of bounds to all but its Uriankhai guard. When Ögedei acceded to the throne in 1229, the grave was honoured with three days of offerings and the sacrifice of thirty maidens.

The Meritocratic Army And The Succession

Genghis's senior commanders were appointed to the highest ranks and received the greatest honours. Bo'orchu and Muqali were each given ten thousand men to lead as commanders of the right and left wings of the army respectively. The other commanders were each given commands of one of the ninety-five tumens. In a display of Genghis's meritocratic ideals, many of these men were born to low social status. Ratchnevsky cited Jelme and Subutai, the sons of blacksmiths, in addition to a carpenter, a shepherd, and even the two herdsmen who had warned Temüjin of Toghrul's plans in 1203. As a special privilege, Genghis allowed certain loyal commanders to retain the tribal identities of their units. Alaqush of the Ongud was allowed to retain five thousand warriors of his tribe because his son had entered into an alliance pact with Genghis, marrying his daughter Alaqa. A key tool which underpinned these reforms was the expansion of the bodyguard. After Temüjin defeated Toghrul in 1203, he had appropriated this Kereit institution in a minor form, but at the 1206 kurultai its numbers were greatly expanded, from 1,150 to 10,000 men. The bodyguard was not only the khan's bodyguard, but his household staff, a military academy, and the centre of governmental administration. All the warriors in this elite corps were brothers or sons of military commanders and were essentially hostages. The members of the bodyguard nevertheless received special privileges and direct access to the khan, whom they served and who in return evaluated their capabilities and their potential to govern or command. Commanders such as Subutai, Chormaqan, and Baiju all started out in the bodyguard, before being given command of their own force. The tribes of the Mongol steppe had no fixed succession system, but often defaulted to some form of ultimogeniture, succession of the youngest son, because he would have had the least time to gain a following for himself and needed the help of his father's inheritance. However, this type of inheritance applied only to property, not to titles. The Secret History records that Genghis chose his successor while preparing for the Khwarazmian campaigns in 1219. Rashid al-Din, on the other hand, states that the decision came before Genghis's final campaign against the Xia. Regardless of the date, there were five possible candidates: Genghis's four sons and his youngest brother Temüge, who had the weakest claim and who was never seriously considered. Even though there was a strong possibility Jochi was illegitimate, Genghis was not particularly concerned by this. Nevertheless, he and Jochi became increasingly estranged over time, due to Jochi's preoccupation with his own appanage. After the siege of Gurganj, where he only reluctantly participated in besieging the wealthy city that would become part of his territory, he failed to give Genghis the normal share of the booty, which exacerbated the tensions. Genghis was angered by Jochi's refusal to return to him in 1223, and was considering sending Ögedei and Chagatai to bring him to heel when news came that Jochi had died from an illness. Chagatai's attitude towards Jochi's possible succession, he had termed his elder brother a Merkit bastard and had brawled with him in front of their father, led Genghis to view him as uncompromising, arrogant, and narrow-minded, despite his great knowledge of Mongol legal customs. His elimination left Ögedei and Tolui as the two primary candidates. Tolui was unquestionably superior in military terms, his campaign in Khorasan had broken the Khwarazmian Empire, while his elder brother was far less able as a commander. Ögedei was also known to drink excessively even by Mongol standards, it eventually caused his death in 1241. However, he possessed talents all his brothers lacked, he was generous and generally well-liked. Aware of his own lack of military skill, he was able to trust his capable subordinates, and unlike his elder brothers, compromise on issues. He was also more likely to preserve Mongol traditions than Tolui, whose wife Sorghaghtani, herself a Nestorian Christian, was a patron of many religions including Islam. Ögedei was thus recognised as the heir to the Mongol throne. Serving as regent after Genghis's death, Tolui established a precedent for the customary traditions after a khan's death. These included the halting of all military offensives involving Mongol troops, the establishment of a lengthy mourning period overseen by the regent, and the holding of a kurultai which would nominate successors and select them. For Tolui, this presented an opportunity. He was still a viable candidate for succession and had the support of the family of Jochi. Any general kurultai, attended by the commanders Genghis had promoted and honoured, would however observe their former ruler's desires without question and appoint Ögedei as ruler. It has been suggested that Tolui's reluctance to hold the kurultai was driven by the knowledge of the threat it posed to his ambitions. In the end, Tolui had to be persuaded by the advisor Yelü Chucai to hold the kurultai, in 1229, it crowned Ögedei as khan, with Tolui in attendance.

The Legacy Of The World Conqueror

Genghis Khan left a vast and controversial legacy. His unification of the Mongol tribes and his foundation of the largest contiguous state in world history permanently altered the worldview of European, Islamic, and East Asian civilizations, according to Atwood. His conquests enabled the creation of Eurasian trading systems unprecedented in their scale, which brought wealth and security to the tribes. Although he very likely did not codify the written body of laws known as the Great Yasa, he did reorganise the legal system and establish a powerful judicial authority under Shigi Qutuqu. On the other hand, his conquests were ruthless and brutal. The prosperous civilizations of China, Central Asia, and Persia were devastated by the Mongol assaults, and underwent multi-generational trauma and suffering as a result. Perhaps Genghis's greatest failing was his inability to create a working succession system, his division of his empire into appanages, meant to ensure stability, actually did the reverse, as local and state-wide interests diverged and the empire began splitting into the Golden Horde, the Chagatai Khanate, the Ilkhanate, and the Yuan dynasty in the late 1200s. In the mid-1990s, the Washington Post acclaimed Genghis Khan as the man of the millennium who embodied the half-civilized, half-savage duality of the human race. This complex image has remained prevalent in modern scholarship, with historians emphasising both Genghis Khan's positive and negative contributions. For many centuries, Genghis was remembered in Mongolia as a religious figure, not a political one. After Altan Khan converted to Tibetan Buddhism in the late 1500s, Genghis was deified and given a central role in the Mongolian religious tradition. As a deity, Genghis drew upon Buddhist, shamanistic, and folk traditions, for example, he was defined as a new incarnation of a chakravartin, idealised ruler like Ashoka, or of Vajrapani, the martial bodhisattva. He was connected genealogically to the Buddha and to ancient Buddhist kings, he was invoked during weddings and festivals, and he took a large role in ancestor veneration rituals. He also became the focus point of a sleeping hero legend, which says he will return to help the Mongol people in a time of great need. His cult was centred at the Ordos, today a mausoleum in Inner Mongolia, China. In the 19th and early 20th century, Genghis began to be viewed as the national hero of the Mongolian people. Foreign powers recognised this, during its occupation of Inner Mongolia, Imperial Japan funded the construction of a temple to Genghis, while both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party used the memory of Genghis to woo potential allies in the Chinese Civil War. This attitude was maintained during World War II, when the Soviet-aligned Mongolian People's Republic promoted Genghis to build patriotic zeal against invaders, however, as he was a non-Russian hero who could serve as an anticommunist figurehead, this attitude swiftly changed after the war's end. According to May, Genghis was condemned as a feudal and reactionary lord who exploited the people. His cult was repressed, the alphabet he chose was replaced with the Cyrillic script, and celebrations planned for the 800th anniversary of his birth in 1962 were cancelled and denigrated after loud Soviet complaints. Because Chinese historians were largely more favourable towards him than their Soviet circumstances, Genghis played a minor role in the Sino-Soviet split. The arrival of the policies of glasnost and perestroika in the 1980s paved the way for official rehabilitation. Less than two years after the 1990 revolution, Lenin Avenue in the capital Ulaanbaatar was renamed Chinggis Khan Avenue. Since then, Mongolia has named Chinggis Khaan International Airport and erected a large statue in Sükhbaatar Square, which was itself renamed after Genghis between 2013 and 2016. His visage appears on items ranging from postage stamps and high-value banknotes to brands of alcohol and toilet paper. In 2006, the Mongolian parliament officially discussed the trivialization of his name through excessive advertising. Modern Mongolians tend to downplay Genghis's military conquests in favour of his political and civil legacy, they view the destructive campaigns as a product of their time, in the words of the historian Michal Biran, and secondary to his other contributions to Mongolian and world history. His policies, such his use of the Yam, his establishment of the rule of law through an independent judiciary, and human rights, are seen as the foundations that allowed the creation of the modern, democratic Mongolian state. Viewed as someone who brought peace and knowledge rather than war and destruction, Genghis Khan is idealised for making Mongolia the centre of international culture for a period.