Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire

Between 1206 and 1368, an obscure group of Central Asian nomads exploded across the steppes and established the world’s largest contiguous empire in history - the Mongol Empire. Led by their “oceanic leader,” Genghis Khan (Chinggus Khan), the Mongols took control of approximately 24,000,000 square kilometers (9,300,000 square miles) of Eurasia from the backs of their sturdy little horses.

The Mongol Empire was rife with domestic unrest and civil war, despite rulership remaining closely linked to the original Khan’s bloodline. Still, the Empire managed to continue expanding for nearly 160 years before its decline, maintaining rulership in Mongolia until the late 1600s.

Before a 1206 kurultai (“tribal council”) in what is now called Mongolia appointed him as their universal leader, the local ruler Temujin — later known as Genghis Khan — simply wanted to ensure the survival of his own little clan in the dangerous internecine fighting that characterized the Mongolian plains in this period.

However, his charisma and innovations in law and organization gave Genghis Khan the tools to expand his empire exponentially. He soon moved against the neighboring Jurchen and Tangut peoples of northern China but seemed not to have had any intention of conquering the world until 1218, when the Shah of Khwarezm confiscated a Mongol delegation’s trade goods and executed the Mongol ambassadors.

Furious at this insult from the ruler of what is now Iran, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, the Mongol hordes sped westward, sweeping aside all opposition. The Mongols traditionally fought running battles from horseback, but they had learned techniques for besieging walled cities during their raids of northern China. Those skills stood them in good stead across Central Asia and into the Middle East; cities that threw open their gates were spared, but the Mongols would kill the majority of citizens in any city that refused to yield.

Under Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire grew to encompass Central Asia, parts of the Middle East, and east to the borders of the Korean Peninsula. The heartlands of India and China, along with Korea’s Goryeo Kingdom, held off the Mongols for the time.

In 1227, Genghis Khan died, leaving his empire divided into four khanates that would be ruled by his sons and grandsons. These were the Khanate of the Golden Horde, in Russia and Eastern Europe; the Ilkhanate in the Middle East; the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia; and the Khanate of the Great Khan in Mongolia, China, and East Asia.

In 1229, the Kuriltai elected Genghis Khan’s third son Ogedei as his successor. The new great khan continued to expand the Mongol empire in every direction, and also established a new capital city at Karakorum, Mongolia.

In East Asia, the northern Chinese Jin Dynasty, which was ethnically Jurchen, fell in 1234; the southern Song Dynasty survived, however. Ogedei’s hordes moved into Eastern Europe, conquering the city-states and principalities of Rus (now in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus), including the major city of Kiev. Further south, the Mongols took Persia, Georgia, and Armenia by 1240
as well.

In 1241, Ogedei Khan died, bringing to a temporary halt the Mongols’ momentum in their conquests of Europe and the Middle East. Batu Khan’s order was preparing to attack Vienna when news of Ogedei’s death distracted the leader. Most of the Mongol nobility lined up behind Guyuk Khan, the son of Ogedei, but his uncle refused the summons to the kurultai. For more than four years, the great Mongol Empire was without a Great Khan.

history.com