Genghis Khan - founder and first great khan Mongol Empire. The conqueror was incredibly cruel and merciless, so that even Hitler seems like an amateur compared to him. At the beginning of the XIII century. The Mongol Empire subjugated all of Asia, and no enemy could resist Genghis Khan and his bloodthirsty army.
1. 40 million people killed
According to historians, Genghis Khan is guilty of the death of 40 million people, at that time he exterminated 11% of the world's population! Khan's rule even affected the climate in the 13th century: it cooled the planet, preventing the release of 700 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
2. 10-year-old Genghis Khan killed his stepbrother
The future conqueror had a difficult childhood: his father was poisoned by enemy times when the boy was only 9 years old, so his mother raised seven children alone. The family was starving. One day, half-brother Bekter did not share food with Genghis Khan, for which he was killed by him.3. Genghis Khan is not the real name of the Khan
The real name of Genghis Khan is Temujin. Yesugei, the boy's father, named his son in honor of his captive Tatar leader Temujin-Uge. And "Genghis Khan" is not a name, but a title. "Khan" is the ruler, and "Genghis" once meant "ocean", but in today's context is translated as "supreme".
4. Brutal methods of torture
The Great Khan poured molten silver into the eyes and ears of his enemies. He also liked to bend a person like a bow until the spine broke. And he celebrated his victories literally on the bodies of opponents. So, the Mongols put boards on the Russian nobility, set up a table and chairs and began to feast until their victims were crushed to death.5. Beauty contests among captives
Genghis Khan loved women and after each conquest he selected the most beautiful captives for himself and his army. The ruler even arranged beauty contests among the concubines. There were several thousand women in his harem, many of whom bore him children.
6. The Great Khan won victories over the strongest armies
Khan's army numbered 90 thousand Mongols, and the Jin dynasty - 1 million. Nevertheless, Genghis Khan won. The conqueror defeated 500,000 Chinese soldiers before gaining control of Northern China and Beijing.
7. Turned Enemies into Followers
In 1201, during the battle, the archer Zurgadai killed Genghis Khan's favorite horse. The ruler was quite surprised and instead of execution he appointed the archer as a commander. And Zurgadai became his most faithful general.
8. There is no exact data on the appearance of the khan
Despite the variety of images of Genghis Khan in school textbooks and other literature, no one knows exactly what he really looked like. Some historians believe that the conqueror had red hair.
9. Father of many children
Genghis Khan believed that the more offspring a person has, the more significant he is, so he did not sit idle. According to experts, today about 8% of Asians are his descendants.
10. National Hero of Mongolia
Higher state award Mongolia is the Order of Genghis Khan. His portrait is placed on the paper money of Mongolia, replicated on souvenirs, hotels, restaurants, and airliners are named after him.
11 Iranian Genocide
In the XIII century, the Khorezm Empire fell from the Mongols of Genghis Khan, almost disappearing from the onslaught of the enemy. Then the Khan's soldiers exterminated 3/4 of the Iranians. Only after 700 years the population was able to reach the pre-Mongolian level.
12 Genghis Khan Was Tolerant Of Different Religions
Ruler in free time studied Islam, Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity. He wanted people with different religious knowledge to be able to live peacefully in the Mongol Empire.
13. Punished offenders
The Great Khan allowed people to live happily as long as they followed his laws. Any violator of the order was waiting for a sad fate. For example, when the ruler of one of the cities of the Khorezm Empire captured the trade caravan of Genghis Khan and killed all the merchants, the Khan sent 100 thousand soldiers to the city. Thousands of inhabitants were killed, and their ruler was poured with molten silver in the eyes and mouth.
14. Mysterious death
Genghis Khan died in 1227, he was 65 years old. The place of burial of the great conqueror remains a mystery, and the causes of death are still rumored. Sources call different causes of death - a sudden illness, a consequence of a fall from a horse. There is a version that the ruler was stabbed to death by a young Tangut princess.
15. The largest continental empire in the history of mankind
Genghis Khan founded the largest continental empire in human history. Mongol Empire covered 16.11% total area land mass of the Earth, which is 9.266 million square miles. The state included territories from the Danube to Sea of Japan and from Novgorod to Cambodia.
Introducing Interesting Facts about Genghis Khan
Historians claim that outwardly Genghis Khan did not look like a Mongol at all. Blue eyes and curly Brown hair with which the ruler was endowed is not at all characteristic of people of this race.
Many sources give statements that Genghis Khan and his children had crazy sexuality and insatiability in intimate life. Proof of this is the found chromosomes of the Genghis Khan family in more than several dozen ethnic groups on the territory of Eurasia. Only according to official data, he had 5 sons. Scientists have made the assumption that after only 300 years the great ruler could become the owner of more than 5 million descendants.
Terrifying facts exist about the extent to which Genghis Khan was a cruel executioner. After each battle, his soldiers had to kill more than 50 captives each.
Then, to deprive the corpses, ears, make a kind of "necklace" out of it and bring such a tribute to the ruler himself.
Did you know that in the battle that took place in the city of Nishapur in 1221, Genghis Khan sent about 2 million people to the next world with his army? The most amazing and terrible thing is the time during which he was able to do such a bloody job - only 1 day for everything about everything.
In Mongolia, they still use the Uighur alphabet, which appeared thanks to Genghis Khan. This happened when the Uighurs themselves went over to the side of the Great Ruler and became officials, and some even some kind of teachers for the inhabitants of Mongolia.
Karakorum is the capital of the Mongol Empire, founded in 1220 by Genghis Khan.
The great ruler left this world around the summer of 1227. There is no exact information about his death. So, it is known that in 1225-1226 the whole winter period he was very ill and the attack on the Tanguts was postponed. However, the remains of Genghis Khan were found after the defeat of the capital of Zhongxing, the Tangus state. It turns out that the battle in which he could not be due to illness was the last in his life history.
Another video that is interesting to watch. It refutes some facts about Genghis Khan, and adds new ones.
Other interesting facts about Genghis Khan can be found web pages the Internet.
Between 1206 and his death in 1227, the Mongol leader Genghis Khan conquered an area of almost 31 million square kilometers - more than any person in history. On his way through Asia to Europe, he left behind millions of corpses. But also the cruel conqueror modernized Mongolian culture, introduced religious freedom and helped establish contacts between East and West. Here are some interesting facts about the great ruler, who was a military genius, political statesman and bloodthirsty conqueror.
1. Real name
The man who became the "Great Khan" of the Mongols was born on the banks of the Onon River around 1162 and was originally named Temujin (Temujin), which means "of iron" or "blacksmith". He received the honorific name "Genghis Khan" only in 1206, when he was declared the leader of the Mongols at a tribal meeting known as "kurultai".
Although "Khan" is a traditional title meaning "leader" or "ruler", historians still debate the origin of the word "Genghis". It may have meant "ocean" or "justice", but in context it is usually translated as "supreme ruler".
2. Difficult childhood
WITH early age Temujin experienced all the difficulties of life in the Mongolian steppe. The Tartars poisoned his father when the boy was only nine years old, and his own tribe later expelled his family, forcing his mother and seven children to survive on her own. The boy hunted and fished to survive, and as a teenager, he even killed his own half-brother who stole food from him.
When Temujin was a teenager, rival clans kidnapped both himself and the young wife of the future conqueror, and at one time Genghis Khan was a slave until he managed to make a daring escape. Despite all these difficulties, by the early 1120s he had established himself as a formidable warrior and leader. After the young leader had accumulated a whole army of supporters, he began to make alliances with the heads of the main tribes. By 1206, he had already united the steppe peoples under his command and began to conquer.
3. Appearance
Despite the fact that Genghis Khan was such an influential person, almost nothing is known about his personal life or even about his appearance. Not a single portrait or sculpture of the great khan has been preserved, and the bits of information that historians know are often contradictory or unreliable. Most stories describe him as tall and strong man with a wild mane of hair and a long, thick beard.
Perhaps the most unusual description is the story of the 14th-century Persian chronicler Rashid al-Din, who claimed that Genghis Khan had red hair and green eyes. Such a claim is doubtful, since Al-Di never met the khan in person, but such traits were not unheard of among the ethnically very diverse Mongols.
4. Former enemies
The Great Khan appreciated talented people, and promoted his officers based on their skill and experience rather than their background or even personal affection. One famous example A similar belief in meritocracy occurred during a 1201 battle against the rival Taichigud clan. An arrow hit the horse of Genghis Khan, killing the animal on the spot, and the great khan himself was crushed by the horse. He literally survived by a miracle. When the army of Genghis Khan won the battle, the commander ordered the prisoners to line up in front of him and demanded to confess who fired the very arrow that killed his horse.
One soldier stepped forward bravely and claimed that he had done it. Genghis Khan, amazed at the archer's courage, made him an officer in his army and later nicknamed him "Jebe" or "arrow" in honor of their first meeting on the battlefield. Along with the famous general Subutai, Jebe eventually became one of the greatest Mongol warlords during their conquests in Asia and Europe.
5. Revenge
Genghis Khan often gave other states the opportunity to peacefully submit to Mongol rule, but did not hesitate to draw his sword if he was resisted. One of his most famous revenge campaigns was carried out in 1219, after the Shah of the Khwarezmid Empire broke his treaty with the Mongols. Genghis Khan offered the Shah a valuable trade agreement to exchange goods along the Silk Road, but when his first emissaries were killed, the enraged Khan responded by unleashing the full force of his Mongol hordes on Khwarezmid territory in Persia.
The ensuing war resulted in millions of deaths and the fall of the Shah's empire, but Genghis Khan did not stop there. He continued his victorious march, returning to the east and starting a war with the Xi Xia Tanguts, a group of Mongol subjects who refused to obey the order to provide troops for the Great Khan's invasion of Khorezm.
6. The death of 40 million
Although today it is no longer possible to know exactly how many people died during Mongol conquests, many historians believe that there were about 40 million. Censuses conducted during the Middle Ages show that China's population dropped drastically by tens of millions during the Khan's lifetime, and scholars estimate that he may have killed about three-quarters of the population of present-day Iran during its war with the Khwarezmid Empire. As a result, the Mongol invasion may have reduced the population of the entire world by as much as 11 percent.
7. Tolerance
Unlike many builders of empires, Genghis Khan was loyal to the cultural and religious diversity in the conquered territories. He enacted religious freedom laws for all, and even provided tax breaks for the ceremonial sites of various cults. This tolerance was politically motivated - the khan knew that happy people less prone to rebellion, and the Mongols themselves had an exceptionally liberal attitude towards religion.
While Genghis Khan and many others believed in a system of shamanistic beliefs, honoring the spirits of the sky, winds and mountains, there were Nestorian Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and other animistic cults among the steppe peoples. The Great Khan also personally showed interest in spirituality. He is known to have prayed in his tent days before important military campaigns, and he often met with various religious leaders to discuss the details of their faith. In his old age, the Khan even summoned the Taoist leader Qiu Chuji to his camp, and they allegedly had a long conversation about immortality and philosophy.
8. International postal system
Along with bows and horses, the most powerful weapon The Mongols may have had their extensive network of communications. One of Genghis Khan's early decrees was the creation of an organized courier service known as Yam. This medieval express delivery consisted of well organized network post houses and way stations located throughout the empire. Stopping to rest or change to a fresh horse about every 10 kilometers, official couriers were often able to travel up to 300 kilometers a day.
The system allowed free travel with goods and information, but also functioned as the "eyes and ears" of the khan. Thanks to the Pit, he could easily keep abreast of military and political developments and keep in touch with his vast network of spies and intelligence officers. "Yam" also helped protect foreign dignitaries and merchants during their travels.
9. Grave
Of all the mysteries surrounding the life of Genghis Khan, perhaps the most famous is the circumstances of his death. The traditional narrative says that he died in 1227 from injuries sustained in a fall from a horse, but other sources list everything from malaria to a wound in the knee. However, as he was about to die, the khan did his best to keep his final resting place a secret.
According to legend, his funeral procession killed everyone she saw on the way to the burial place, and then prancing on horseback for a long time along the grave of Genghis Khan in order to hide even the slightest traces of the fact that someone was buried in this place. The tomb is most likely on or near a Mongolian mountain called Burkhan Khaldun, but to this day its exact location is unknown.
10. Memory
Genghis Khan today is considered national hero and the founding father of Mongolia, but in the era Soviet power in the 20th century, even the mere mention of his name was forbidden. Hoping to eradicate all traces of Mongolian nationalism, the USSR tried to destroy the memory of the khan by removing the slightest mention of him from school textbooks and forbidding people to make pilgrimages to the conqueror's homeland in Khentii. "Restored" Genghis Khan in the history of Mongolia after the country gained independence in the early 1990s.
The most famous Mongol in the entire history of the existence of the Mongolian nation is Genghis Khan (real name Temujin, Temujin), he is the founder of the Mongol Empire - the largest continental empire in the history of mankind. Genghis Khan, this is not a name, but a title that was bestowed on Temujin at the end of the 12th century at kurultai.
Childhood and youth
Temujin was born in the family of an influential leader of one of the Mongol tribes Yesugei in 1155 or 1162, but at the age of nine his father was poisoned by enemies, and the family had to look for a livelihood. The family's condition was so deplorable that, according to one legend, Temujin killed his brother because he ate a fish caught by Temujin.
The family of the future khan wandered from place to place, so that they would not be found by the relatives of the murdered Yesugei, who took away from the family the lands that belonged to them by right. Temujin had to make a lot of effort to become the head of the Mongol tribe and eventually avenge the death of his father.
Family
Temujin was betrothed at the age of nine to an eleven-year-old from the Ungirat clan, the wedding took place when the young man turned sixteen. From this marriage were born four sons and five daughters. One of these daughters of Alangaa, in the absence of her father, ruled the state, for which she received the title "princess-ruler". It was the descendants of these children who had the right to claim supreme power in the state. Borte was considered the main wife of Genghis Khan and had a title equivalent to that of an empress.
The second wife of the khan was a merkit woman, who gave birth to two sons to the khan. Only Khulan-khatun, as a wife, accompanied the khan in almost every military campaign, and she died in one of them.
Two other wives of Genghis Khan are Tatars Yesugen and Esui were younger and older sister, with the younger sister herself offering her older sister as a fourth wife on their wedding night. Yesugen gave birth to her husband a daughter and two sons.
In addition to four wives, Genghis Khan had about a thousand concubines who fell to him as a result aggressive campaigns and as a gift from allies.
Genghis Khan used dynastic marriages very profitably - he gave his daughters in marriage to allied rulers. In order to marry the daughter of the great Mongol Khan, the ruler drove out all his wives, which made the Mongol princesses first in line for the throne. After that, the ally went to war at the head of the army, and almost immediately died in battle, and the daughter of the khan became the ruler of the lands. Such a policy led to the fact that by the second half of the XIII century his daughters ruled from the Yellow Sea to the Caspian.
Khan's cruelty
Many bloody battles of the great khan occurred only because of revenge. So at the age of twenty, he decided to take revenge on the tribe that was responsible for the death of his father. Having defeated them, Genghis Khan gave the order to cut off the head of all the Tatars, whose height exceeded the height of the axis of the cart wheel (about 90 cm), thus only children under the age of three survived.
The next time, Genghis Khan avenged the death of his son-in-law Tokuchar, who died from the arrow of one of the warriors of Nishapur. Attacking the settlement, the Khan's troops killed everyone in their path - even women and children did not escape revenge, even cats and dogs were killed. By order of the daughter of the Khan, the widow of the deceased, a pyramid was built from their heads.
Genghis Khan did not always seek only to conquer foreign lands, sometimes he wanted to establish relations through diplomacy. So it happened with the kingdom of Khorezm, where an embassy was sent on behalf of the great khan. However, the ruler of the kingdom did not believe in the sincerity of the intentions of the ambassadors and gave the order to behead them, their fate was repeated by the next embassy sent by the Mongols. Genghis Khan brutally avenged the murdered diplomats - the two hundred thousandth army of the Mongols killed the entire population of the kingdom and destroyed every house in the region, moreover, by order of the khan, even the river bed was moved to another place so that the river flowed through the area where the king of Khorezm was born. Genghis Khan did everything to wipe the kingdom off the face of the earth and any mention of him disappeared.
During the conflict with Khorezm, the neighboring Tangut state, the kingdom of Xi Xia, which had already been conquered by the Mongols, also suffered. Genghis Khan asked the Tanguts to send an army to help the Mongol army, but was refused. The consequence of this was the complete destruction of the Tangut kingdom, the population was killed, and all cities were destroyed to the ground. Only mentions in the documents of neighboring states remained about the existence of the kingdom.
the largest military operation Genghis Khan became a campaign against the empire Jin- territory modern China. Initially, this campaign seemed to have no future, since the population of China was over 50 million, while the Mongols were only one million. Nevertheless, the Mongols were victorious. In three years, the Mongol army was able to reach the walls of Zhongdu, present-day Beijing, the city was considered impregnable - the height of the walls reached 12 meters, and they stretched for 29 km around the city. The city was under a Mongol siege for several years, famine began to rage in the capital, which led to cases of cannibalism - in the end, the city surrendered. The Mongols plundered and burned the whole of Zhongdu, the emperor had to conclude a humiliating treaty with the Mongols.
Mystery of death
The great Mongol Khan died in 1227 during a campaign against the Tangut state, exact reason death is unknown. Scientists are inclined to several versions:
- Aggravation of the injury received in 1225, received during a fall from a horse,
- A sudden illness associated with the unfavorable climate of the Tangus state,
- He was killed by a young concubine, whom he stole from his lawful husband.
Dying, the great khan appointed his third son from the main wife of Ogedei as his heir - he, according to the khan, possessed military strategy and a lively political mind.
The exact burial place of the khan remains a mystery to this day. Possible places of burial are Burkhan-Khaldun, Mount Altai-khan, slope of Kentei-khan. The Khan himself bequeathed to keep the place of his grave a secret. To fulfill the order, the body of the deceased was taken deep into the desert, the slaves accompanying the body were killed by the guards. During the day, the soldiers rode horses over the grave of the khan in order to raze it to the ground, upon returning to the camp, all the warriors participating in the funeral were killed. The secret hidden in the 13th century remains a real mystery even today.
The history of mankind is, first of all, the history of wars. However, many people have very little understanding of life path such an outstanding, no doubt, conqueror as Genghis Khan (Temujin).
The future greatest invader in history was born on November 14th. In 2012, this date became not less than the “Pride Day of Mongolia”. So let's see what kind of pride it is, after all. We present you 12 interesting facts about Genghis Khan
Oddly enough, but the most famous, probably, the representative of Mongolia, and the most successful of its commanders ... was not ethnically Mongol! By at least, his appearance is completely atypical for this people.
At least sixteen million modern people may consider themselves descendants of Genghis Khan. This amazing fact was established only in the twenty-first century by a group of Russian geneticists from Magadan. Most of the Khan's descendants live in Mongolia and China.
Genghis Khan himself was not only a successful conqueror, but also a ruthless occupier. His army always behaved with particular cruelty, even by the standards of the Middle Ages, the soldiers were pushed to this in every possible way by the command. After each battle, the victorious army became a detachment of executioners, literally obsessed with a thirst for extermination and destruction.
Having captured the city, the Mongols gathered all the surviving defenders and ordinary inhabitants in front of the crushed walls. It was the duty of each of the soldiers to kill as many captives as possible, it was supposed to confirm the murder not only with words, but with whole necklaces from the ears of the unfortunate victims.
The subject of discussion is even the burial place of Genghis Khan. About eleven years ago, a joint group of archaeologists (simultaneously from Japan and Mongolia itself) discovered the foundation of a building in the northwest of China, which they considered the conqueror's mausoleum. There is a version that he was buried somewhere nearby. But she has no hard evidence. Only guesses.
The genealogy of the first khan of all the Mongols was carried on until the end of the First World War, and only in the 1920s it was withdrawn from Buddhist monasteries and donated to the museum.
The largest of the battles was carried out by Genghis Khan in 1221 - six years before his death - during the storming of the Persian city of Nishapur. Then the army under his command killed, as it is believed, at least two million people in one day.
The terrible conqueror is the initiator of the adoption of the Uighur alphabet in Mongolia, which still prevails on its territory.
Genghis Khan died or perished in 1227. Precise information about the time, place and cause of his death has not been preserved. Interestingly, the battle, which was postponed due to the illness of the khan, was the last fought by the Mongols during his lifetime.
The equestrian statue of Genghis Khan is not just a monument, even of a huge size. This is a whole two-story architectural complex.
At the peak of his conquests, he controlled 22% of all land on the globe.
