For ages the Mongols had dwelt in scattered tribes
throughout their Asiatic wilderness, engaged in petty struggles with one
another for cattle and pasture lands. It was the celebrated Jenghiz Khan, [4]
chief of one of the tribes, who brought them all under his authority and then
led them to the conquest of the world. Of him it may be said with truth that he
had the most victorious of military careers, and that he constructed the most
extensive empire known to history. If Jenghiz had possessed the ability of a
statesman, he would have taken a place by the side of Alexander the Great and
Julius Caesar.
[4] "The Very Mighty King."
MONGOL EMPIRE UNDER JENGHIZ, 1206-1227 A.D.
Jenghiz first sent the Mongol armies, which contained many
Turkish allies, over the Great Wall and into the fertile plains of China.
All the northern half of the country was quickly overrun. Then Jenghiz turned
westward and invaded Turkestan and Persia. Seven centuries have not sufficed to
repair the damage which the Mongols wrought in this once- prosperous land. The
great cities of Bokhara, Samarkand, Merv, and Herat, long centers of Moslem
culture, were pillaged and burned, and their inhabitants were put to the sword.
Like the Huns the Mongols seemed a scourge sent by God. Still further conquests
enlarged the empire, which at the death of Jenghiz in 1227 A.D. stretched from
the Dnieper River to the China Sea.
