Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan was the founder of the Mongol Empire, which is agreed upon as the largest (in amount of land) Empire in the world, and is possibly the most well known conquerer in the world. He started out with the name Temujin, and as the son of a successful general in the Borjigin tribe, but at the age of nine his father was killed by the Tatars, enemies of the Borjigin. After this the tribe leaves his family and journey elsewhere, abandoning his family. Now as outcasts they lived in the mountains, hunting and trapping and animals they could, and foraging for berries. During this time Temujin’s half-brother Behter tried to assert dominance as the eldest born, but Temujin and his full brother Qasar kill him with their bows. After this Temujin offered himself as an adopted son to his fathers former ally, Ong Khan. He also became a blood-brother to a prince of another tribe, Jamukha. After this, Temujin’s first wife, Borte, was kidnapped by another tribe. Calling on both Ong Khan and Jemukha, who was now the Khan of his own tribe, they decimated the enemy and rescued Borte. Unfortunately he and Jamukha became bitter rivals, because of a fundamental rift in their mindset. Jamukha, being from a long line of Khans and noblemen, believed in the aristocracy that was predominant in early Mongolia, while Temujin had scraped himself from the ground to be successful, so he believed in having people earn their stations in life, not be born into them. Eventually this came to a head in the battle of Dalan Balzhut, and though he won, Jamukha alienated many allies by boiling the commanding officers alive. Returning to Ong Khan Temujin consolidated his power and moved east, conquering other tribes. In this the early Khan differed from other tribes in many ways. He would post officers to there positions based on loyalty and ability, instead of their family. When preforming the raid, the standard was for the individual warriors to take what prizes they could and scram, killing any in their way. Temujin instead insisted that no one could take prizes until after all the warriors that resisted were killed. After this they were to find all valuables in the village and place them in an inventory, where the goods would be distributed evenly, with higher officers taking higher prizes, and you became a higher officer by being more loyal and better at the fighting. After this other tribes would simply leave, allowing the other tribe to heal and get ready for round two. The entrepreneur Temujin, of course, changed this. He instead took the aristocracy and leaders and executed them soas to prevent revenge, in stark contrast to the west’s system of ransoming the leaders. After this mass execution Temujin would take the survivors, mostly the young and the women, and add them to his tribe, instead of turning them loose to gather help in revenge. In case you didn’t notice, Mongolia was big on revenge. After several conquests Temujin asked Ong Khan to have his daughter marry the others son, thus solidifying their friendship. However, Senggum, the eldest son of Ong Khan, didn’t like Temujins friendship with his father, and advised him to say no. Strangely, Ong Khan listened and refused Temujin’s request. This was a major breach in protocol and Ong Khan actually defected to Jamukha’s side. However, Ong Khans men liked the young leader and rebelled, killing Ong Khan and defeating Jamukha. After this Temujin was named Genghis Khan, Universal Leader. And indeed, he had little to no difficulty in conquering the rest of the nomad tribes, who were still unused to his strange tactics. After that he went on to the lands surrounding him, and found to his surprise castles and permanent towns. His nomadic men were actually well equipped to sieges, however, since each man hunted for his own and provided his own equipment, so that a single leader didn’t have to coordinate a whole army for a long length of time. They also experimented with diverting rivers to drown the town, but this usually backfired and drowned their camp. Using these strategies the successful Khan quickly captured huge swathes of land, until he died of unknown causes and left his son to rule and grow the empire.