Genghis Khan, born Temüjin around 1162 and given the imperial title in 1206, was the founder of the Mongol Empire and one of the most consequential figures in the history of the world. Within the space of a single generation, he unified the Mongol tribes of the Mongolian steppe, conquered much of Central Asia and northern China, and established the political and military institutions that would, within a few decades, project Mongol power from the Pacific to the Carpathians. At the time of his death in 1227, the empire he had built was already the largest contiguous state in the history of the world, and the empire that his sons and grandsons would build in the following decades would be larger still.
This page is a complete overview of the life, the conquests, and the legacy of Genghis Khan. The narrative below is drawn from the Secret History of the Mongols — the only major historical source written by Mongols — from the chronicles of Persian historians such as Juvaini and Rashid al-Din, from the testimony of Chinese, Armenian, and European observers, and from the modern scholarship that has reshaped our understanding of Genghis Khan in the last fifty years.
The Early Life of Genghis Khan
The early life of Genghis Khan was marked by betrayal, exile, captivity, and a long, patient struggle to rebuild the power of his family. He was born around 1162, the eldest son of the minor Khamag Mongol chieftain Yesugei and his wife Hoelun. The family belonged to the Kiyat sub-branch of the Borjigin lineage, which claimed descent from a legendary common ancestor called Bodonchar, and the Borjigin pedigree gave the family a claim to rule that no amount of personal ability could have created on its own.
When Temüjin was about nine years old, his father was poisoned by enemies of the Khamag Mongols, and the family was abandoned by most of its followers. The years that followed were difficult. Temüjin’s mother Hoelun raised her children in poverty on the steppe, and the young Temüjin learned early the importance of political alliances and personal loyalty. The most important of his early alliances were with a young Mongol nobleman named Jamukha, who became his blood-brother (anda), and with the Keraite prince Toghrul, who had been an old friend of his father.
Temüjin’s path to power was far from inevitable. He faced a number of serious setbacks in his early career, including a brief period of captivity among the Tayichiud, who had once captured his father. He was eventually rescued by Toghrul and brought back to his family, and the experience taught him the value of alliances with the powerful. From these inauspicious beginnings he slowly built a following of his own, and by the late 1180s he was emerging as a major figure in the eastern steppe.
The Unification of the Mongol Tribes
The unification of the Mongol tribes was a long, complicated process that took more than two decades to complete. Temüjin defeated the Merkit, forced the submission of the Tayichiud and the Kerey, broke the Tartar confederation in a campaign of deliberate extermination, and finally crushed his old rival Jamukha at the Battle of the Chakirmaut in 1204.
The unification was not merely the political consolidation of the Mongol tribes. It was also a sweeping social revolution. Genghis Khan broke the old aristocratic lineages by promoting men of low birth — the smiths, the orphans, the men of the common herd — to positions of command. He reorganized his followers into a new decimal structure of units of ten, a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand, called tümens, and made the loyalty of a warrior to the khan more important than his loyalty to his clan. He abolished the blood feud, replacing the endless cycle of clan-based vengeance with a system of imperial justice. He gathered children from conquered tribes and raised them as imperial wards, breaking the chain of tribal identity and creating a class of warriors whose only loyalty was to the throne.
On the banks of the Onon River, in the spring of 1206, a great kurultai — an assembly of tribal leaders — proclaimed Temüjin as “Genghis Khan,” a title whose precise meaning has been debated for centuries but which is generally understood to denote something like “oceanic ruler” or “universal sovereign.” The proclamation marked the foundation of the Mongol Empire, and the date — 1206 — is conventionally used to mark the beginning of Mongol imperial history.
The Reforms of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan was one of the most consequential political reformers in the history of the world. His reforms transformed the political, military, and legal structure of the Mongol people, and they created the institutions that would be the basis of the Mongol Empire for the next century and a half.
The most important of his reforms was the decimal military reorganization. Genghis Khan divided his followers into units of ten (arban), a hundred (zuun), a thousand (mingghan), and ten thousand (tümen), and appointed his own commanders to each unit. The decimal structure gave the Mongol army a flexibility and a discipline that had been lacking in the old tribal levies, and it became the model for the imperial armies of the khanates for the next two centuries.
The second major reform was the promulgation of the Yassa code of law, a written body of law that bound the entire Mongol nation. The Yassa was not a comprehensive civil code in the Roman sense; it was a tightly focused set of rules that regulated military service, hunting, hospitality, religious freedom, theft, adultery, and a list of capital crimes. Its central principle was that the security of the army and the unity of the people stood above the interests of any individual or family.
The third major reform was the establishment of a new imperial guard, the keshig. The keshig was a body of ten thousand men, drawn from the most loyal and able of Genghis Khan’s followers, who served as the personal guard of the khan. The keshig was the training ground for the future commanders of the Mongol army, and many of the most famous Mongol generals, including Subutai and Jebe, served in the keshig before being given field commands.
The fourth major reform was the establishment of a new imperial administration. Genghis Khan appointed his own chancellor, the Uyghur scribe Tatatunga, to keep the imperial records in the Uyghur script. He also appointed two of his most trusted followers, Yelu Chucai and Mahmud Yalavach, to manage the taxation and finance of the empire. The imperial administration was small by Chinese or Persian standards, but it was highly efficient, and it allowed Genghis Khan to manage an empire that was, even in his own lifetime, much larger than the Mongol heartland.
The Conquests of Genghis Khan
The military campaigns of Genghis Khan are among the most remarkable in the history of warfare. Within a single generation, the Mongol armies conquered more territory than the Romans had conquered in four centuries, and the empire that they built was, at its height, the largest contiguous land empire in the history of the world.
The first major campaign was against the Tangut Western Xia, a kingdom on the upper Yellow River that had been a persistent threat to the Mongol heartland. The campaign of 1205-1209 was the first test of the new Mongol army, and it was a decisive success. The Western Xia was forced to submit and to provide tribute to the Mongol court.
The second major campaign was against the Jurchen Jin Dynasty, a sophisticated state that ruled North China and that had been a major power in the region for a century. The campaign of 1211-1215 was a long, slow process. The Jin had a sophisticated bureaucracy, a large army, and a string of fortified cities along the Great Wall. The Mongols besieged Beijing (then called Zhongdu) in 1215 and captured it after a long campaign; the Jin court withdrew to Kaifeng and continued the war. The war was not finally completed until 1234, almost a quarter-century after the war began.
The third major campaign, and the most famous, was the conquest of the Khwarezmian Empire, a great Central Asian state that controlled most of what is now Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The campaign of 1219-1221 was triggered by the treacherous execution of two of Genghis Khan’s envoys by the Khwarezmian Shah Muhammad II. The Mongols responded with one of the most devastating campaigns in military history. Within three years, the great cities of Bukhara, Samarkand, Merv, Urgench, Balkh, and Herat had been sacked. The Shah fled and died destitute on a Caspian island; his son Jalal al-Din rallied the remnants of the empire in Afghanistan and inflicted the only major defeat the Mongols would suffer during the conqueror’s lifetime, at the Battle of the Indus in 1221.
The Military Genius of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan was one of the greatest military commanders in the history of the world. The Mongol army, which he created and led, was the most effective military force of its time, and the tactics and strategies that he developed were studied by military commanders for centuries after his death.
The basis of Genghis Khan’s military success was the discipline and organization of his army. The decimal structure gave the army a flexibility and a responsiveness that was unknown in the contemporary world. Each warrior knew his place in the order of battle, and each commander knew the warriors under his command. The army could move quickly, change direction in mid-march, and concentrate its forces at the decisive point. The army was also, unlike most of its opponents, a meritocratic organization: a warrior could rise through the ranks on the basis of his ability, regardless of his birth.
The tactics of the Mongol army were also distinctive. The army was based on the use of mounted archers, who could shoot accurately from horseback at a full gallop. The army was organized into units of five archers, called the “carac,” which combined the functions of a tactical unit, a logistical support unit, and a bodyguard. The use of the feigned retreat — a tactic in which the Mongols pretended to flee, drawing the enemy into a pursuit, and then turned and counterattacked — was particularly effective against enemies who were not used to the speed and flexibility of Mongol cavalry.
The logistics of the Mongol army were also remarkable. The army could travel light, living off the land and the herds in many cases, and it could remain in the field for months at a time. The army was supported by a train of supply wagons — light, four-wheeled carts, two per warrior in the standard tümen — that carried dried meat (borts), aaruul (dried curds), millet, and spare arrows. The army was also supported by a corps of scouts and messengers (achi / elchi) that gathered intelligence and reported on the movements of the enemy.
The Personal Life of Genghis Khan
The personal life of Genghis Khan has been the subject of much fascination and speculation. He was married to Börte, the woman his father had chosen for him, and the marriage was the foundation of his political alliances. Börte was kidnapped by the Merkit in her youth, and her rescue was one of the formative events of Temüjin’s early career. Börte was, by all accounts, a remarkable woman, and she played an important role in the political life of the Mongol court.
Genghis Khan also married several other women, including his secondary wife Yesugen, the sister of his ally Toghrul, and his concubine Yesui, the daughter of a conquered chief. The marriages were political, but they were also personal, and the imperial harem played an important role in the political life of the Mongol court.
Genghis Khan was the father of a large number of children. His four sons by Börte — Jochi, Chagatai, Ögedei, and Tolui — were the most important. Jochi, the eldest, was the commander of the western campaigns and the founder of the line that would rule the Golden Horde; Chagatai was the founder of the line that would rule the Chagatai Khanate; Ögedei was the second great khan of the empire; Tolui was the father of the great khans Möngke and Kublai and the founder of the line that would eventually rule the Yuan Dynasty.
The family tree of Genghis Khan is one of the most extensive in the history of the world, and his descendants can be found in the ruling families of a number of modern states. According to a famous study published in 2003, roughly 8% of the men living in the region of the former Mongol Empire — about 16 million people — carry Y-chromosomes that are likely to be descended from Genghis Khan. The claim is controversial, but it is a striking reminder of the demographic legacy of the Mongol Empire.
The Death of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan died in 1227, in circumstances that remain disputed. The most widely accepted account is that he died while on campaign against the Tangut Western Xia, possibly as a result of illness or injury. According to one tradition, he fell from his horse during a hunt and died of his injuries; according to another, he was killed in battle against the Western Xia; according to a third, he died of a fever contracted during the campaign.
The death and burial of Genghis Khan has been the subject of much speculation. According to a widely repeated story, the Mongols, in their grief, killed the entire population of the Western Xia capital and destroyed the city, in order that no trace of the place that had caused the death of the great khan might remain. The story is almost certainly exaggerated, but it is a reminder of the deep impression that the death of Genghis Khan made on the Mongol ruling class.
The burial of Genghis Khan is also the subject of much speculation. According to the tradition recorded in the Secret History of the Mongols, the body of the khan was brought back to Mongolia and buried at an undisclosed site, probably in the Khentii Mountains near the Burkhan Khaldun. The exact location of the tomb has never been confirmed by excavation, and the Mongols have traditionally refused to disclose it. The tradition is that anyone who disturbs the tomb will be cursed, and the Mongols have maintained the prohibition against entering the area around the suspected site for centuries.
The Legacy of Genghis Khan
The legacy of Genghis Khan is complex and contested. For medieval European chroniclers, he was the scourge of God, the apocalyptic horseman of the Book of Revelation. For medieval Chinese historians, he was the founder of a foreign dynasty whose legitimacy was always partial. For medieval Islamic historians, he was the wrath of God sent to punish the disunity of the Muslims, and the central catastrophe of the age was the sack of Baghdad, which would be carried out by his son Hulagu, not by Genghis Khan himself, but was often attributed to his legacy.
For modern historians, the legacy of Genghis Khan is more nuanced. The “Black Legend” of the Mongols, which emphasized their destructiveness, was dominant in European and Middle Eastern scholarship for centuries. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Mongols were sometimes held up as exemplars of enlightened despotism, sometimes as primitive destroyers, and sometimes as the great unifiers of the medieval world. In the twentieth century, the rise of nationalist movements in the successor states further complicated the picture.
The most balanced modern view treats Genghis Khan as a complex historical figure who combined genuine administrative genius with horrific violence, who produced both the Pax Mongolica and the devastation of entire regions, and who left a deep imprint on every society he touched. He was, in this view, neither the greatest achievement of human civilization nor its greatest catastrophe, but rather one of the most important transformations in the history of the world, comparable in scale and consequence to the rise of Rome, the spread of Islam, or the European conquest of the Americas.
Sources
This page draws on the following scholarship:
- John Man, Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Legacy (London: HarperCollins, 2004) — the most readable modern biography.
- Paul Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) — the most thorough single-volume biography in English; originally German, trans. Thomas Nivison Haining.
- Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (New York: Crown, 2004) — readable, well sourced, somewhat populist.
- David Morgan, The Mongols (2nd ed., Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), ch. 1–2.
- Igor de Rachewiltz, ed. and trans., The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century (2 vols., Leiden: Brill, 2004–2013) — the standard scholarly edition, with extensive commentary.
- Timothy May, The Mongol Conquests in World History (London: Reaktion, 2012), ch. 1–3.
- Rashid al-Din, Jami’ al-Tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles), c. 1300–1311; partial trans. W. M. Thackston, A Critical Edition of the Compendium of Chronicles (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1998–1999).
- Juvaini, Tarikh-i Jahangushay (History of the World Conqueror), c. 1260; trans. John Andrew Boyle, The History of the World Conqueror (2 vols., Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958).