Genghis Khan

I was born Temüjin by the Onon River. When Tatars poisoned my father, my family was cast out; we lived on roots and fish. The Taichiud clamped a cangue on my neck; I slipped it in the night and fled. I took Börte back from the Merkit and gathered men who would follow a felt tent rather than a line of blood.

The steppe bled itself with feuds. I broke the old bones of tribe and clan, set men in tens, hundreds, thousands, and lifted the worthy—blacksmith’s son or noble—by their deeds. At the great kurultai of 1206 I was named Chinggis Khan. I kept our discipline with clear orders and swift punishment, so that no quarrel among us could cost a campaign.

Against the Xia and the Jin I learned cities: walls, granaries, and engines. I took Chinese and Muslim engineers into my service, built siege carts, and sacked Zhongdu in 1215 when it defied me. Those who opened their gates kept their lives and their craftsmen; those who struck my envoys found none.

When the governor at Otrar seized my merchants and my envoys were killed, I crossed deserts and rivers and broke the Khwarazmian throne. I set relay posts and issued paiza so a rider bearing my seal could pass from the Khingan to the Caspian. I took scribes and the Uighur script to send orders across the winds, and I let lamas, imams, and priests keep their prayers while my herds moved.