Genghis Khan Research Paper

Many people today have heard about the Mongolian leader Genghis Khan. We generally see him as a ruthless person who did not care about his people that he ruled. Genghis Khan is mostly known for his brutality and for the fact that he and his army were responsible for killing close to 40 million people. However, in Mongolia he is seen as a hero and the greatest leader they have ever had. Genghis Khan was able to start from having very little and rising in power in order to unite many people and different tribes of Mongolia and to conquer land that the Mongolian people still cherish today.

Born in north central Mongolia near the border of Siberia in 1162, Genghis Khan was great since his birth. When he was born, he was holding a blood clot

in his hand which, according to Mongolian folklores, means that he was meant to be a great leader. Genghis Khan's birth name was Temujin Borjigin and he was a descendant of Khabul Khan, the first leader of Mongolia (Genghis Khan Biography). When Temujin was only nine, his father, Yesukhei, took him to live with his future wife Borte. When Temujin's father was on his way home, he was killed by the Tatars, a rival tribe who invited him to dinner to make peace. While he was there he was poisoned and killed for past crimes that he did against the Tatar tribe. When Temujin found out about this, he went back home to claim his position as head of his clan. Many of the members of the clan refused to be led by someone who was so young, so the clan abandoned Temujin and his family to avoid feeding them all (Genghis Khan Biography). After the clan left, Temujin's family lived like nomads and survived mostly on wild fruits and small game. In an argument about sharing the food that they had got, Temujin killed his older half-brother Bekhter, making him head of his household (Genghis Khan New World Encyclopedia). When Temujin was 16, he married Borte making an alliance between the Konkirat tribe and his own. When he was 20, Temujin was captured by his former clan and was enslaved for a short time. He eventually escaped and began to build up an army of about 20,000 men and slowly rose in power. Temujin wanted to get revenge for his father's murder and to unite all the Mongol tribes under his rule (Genghis Khan New World Encyclopedia). Temujin defeated the Tatar tribe that killed his father and gave orders to have every Tatar male who was more than three feet tall killed. After multiple victories over rival tribes, many other leaders agreed to have peace and gave Temujin the title of "Genghis Khan," which means "Universal Ruler," and they also named him the supreme god of the Mongols (Genghis Khan).
Genghis Khan was known for his leadership and his brutal war tactics.

Rather than having a military that was large in numbers, he had specific tactics that made his army more successful than any other military at the time. He would often send out spies to find out what his enemies' motivations were and what type of weapons they used. Many of the weapons that Genghis and his army used were improvised versions of weapons that came from the Persians or Chinese (Hays). The Mongols had a high level of mobility and speed and would overwhelm their enemy. Genghis' army relied mostly on bows and arrows and only used man-to-man combat after they disorganized the enemies army (Mongol Empires). The archers that were armed with shields would get off their horses and fire at the enemy, while others who were trained would shoot while they were still moving on their horse (Alvarez). Genghis Khan's most successful tactic was his use of psychological warfare on his opponents. The Mongolian army was known to be the most brutal army at the time, so when people heard that they might be coming, people often committed suicide or left their homes to avoid any possible contact with Genghis and his army (Hays). After a victory, Genghis would use propaganda to instill fear into other empires. He would often times ask for voluntary surrender, and if the surrender was true, he would save the people. After the Mongols would capture the city that just surrendered, they would pretend to leave to

see if the surrender was real. If there was resistance after, Genghis and his men would kill everyone within the empire. The only ones who might be saved would be those who could be of use to Genghis. These people were often engineers who would help the Mongols develop new weapons and find out other ways of taking down empires (Hays).
In 1211 Genghis Khan's army attacked the Jin Dynasty in northern China. While he was in China, he was also fighting against Muslims in border empires (Genghis Khan Biography). Genghis never intended for there to be any type of conflict with the Khwarizm Dynasty that was mostly a Turkish dominated empire that included present day Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Iran/ Persia (Genghis Khan). Genghis' initial intention was to establish trade relations with Shah Ala ad-Din Muhammed, the ruler of the Khwarizm Dynasty (Genghis Khan New World Encyclopedia). However, the ruler of the Jin Dynasty in China exaggerated what Genghis did in order to take over China, so the Shah of Khwarizm was very suspicious of Genghis' offer of trade (Mongol Empires). Genghis was unaware of the Shah's suspiciousness, so he sent a caravan of 500 men to the Dynasty to make an official offer. While they were on their way, the Inalchuq, the Governor of Otrar within the Khwarizm Dynasty, arrested all the men because he thought that they were a conspiracy against the Dynasty. When Genghis found out about this, he sent three more men to demand that the others be let go. These men were also captured and then all of them, including the 500 man caravan, were all killed. Genghis ordered that his men be sent back, so the Shah sent back the body and the head of one of his soldiers (Mongol Empires). In 1219 Genghis began to plan a three part attack on the Khwarizm Dynasty for what they had done to his men. Genghis increased his military from an 80,000 man army to a 200,000 man army for this war (Genghis Khan Biography). His son Jochi lead the fist part of the army to the northeast part of Khwarizm. The second part was led by his other son Jebe to the southeast part, and the third was led by Genghis to the northwest (Genghis Khan). When Genghis and his men entered the Khwarizm Dynasty, they destroyed everything that was there including the irrigation system that the agriculture in many of the major cities depended on and they killed everyone that they came in contact with (Mongol Empires). The Mongol army quickly took control of the cities of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Urgench (Genghis Khan). By 1220 Genghis had seized Otrar, the biggest city within the Khwarizm Dynasty, and destroyed it. The Shah of Khwarizm fled his empire rather than surrender to the Mongols. Genghis sent his son Jebe to find the Shah, but he eventually died from unknown reasons on an island within the empire. In1221 The Khwarizm Dynasty was officially part of Genghis' empire (Genghis Khan New World Encyclopedia). Centuries after Genghis Khans death the Khwarizm Dynasty still suffered from what the Mongols did to it (Encyclopedia Britannica).
Genghis Khan and his Mongolian army was the dominant military force in the 13th Century (Hays).

Before Genghis there was no sturdy central ruler, just a constant rise and fall of powerful leaders (Mongol Empires). Throughout his reign he was able to conquer between 11 to 12 million square miles of land, and even after his death, his descendants continued to expand the empire (Genghis Khan New World Encyclopedia). Eventually his empire covered large parts of Modern day China, Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine, Korea, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Syria, Iraq, Iran/Persia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Moldova, Kuwait, Vietnam, Poland and Hungary ( Genghis Khan). Genghis was able to keep his army together because he treated his soldiers very well and with respect. He also granted religious freedom to his people that he ruled and encouraged trade (Genghis Khan). Genghis died on August 18, 1227 while in China at the Xi Xia Kingdom getting ready for another war with them because they did not supply soldiers for the war in the Khwariezm Dynasty. No one really knows how he died, but it is thought to be that he fell off a horse and died from untreated internal injuries. His burial site remains unknown and with no markings. It is said that the funeral escorts had everyone and everything that they encountered killed in order to keep the location a secret (Genghis Khan

Biography).
Today Mongolia is located south of Russia and North of China. Mongolia covers around six hundred thousand square miles of land, about six times smaller that the United States and has a population close to three million people. About to half of the population lives in the capitol city of Ulaanbaatar, which is only about 23 square miles. The rest of the population live in the countryside of Mongolia in the mountains, deserts and grassy hills. For the most part, Mongolia is a developed country, however many people still choose to live like Genghis did hundreds of years ago. Genghis Khan may have been a brutal war leader, but he was able to unite the people of Mongolia and give them a country that the Mongolians are proud of.