He created one of the first international postal systems.Īlong with the bow and the horse, the Mongols most potent weapon may have been their vast communication network. In his old age, he even summoned the Taoist leader Qiu Chuji to his camp, and the pair supposedly had long conversations on immortality and philosophy.Ĩ. He was known to pray in his tent for multiple days before important campaigns, and he often met with different religious leaders to discuss the details of their faiths. The Great Khan also had a personal interest in spirituality. While Genghis and many others subscribed to a shamanistic belief system that revered the spirits of the sky, winds and mountains, the Steppe peoples were a diverse bunch that included Nestorian Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and other animistic traditions. This tolerance had a political side-the Khan knew that happy subjects were less likely to rebel-but the Mongols also had an exceptionally liberal attitude towards religion. He passed laws declaring religious freedom for all and even granted tax exemptions to places of worship. Unlike many empire builders, Genghis Khan embraced the diversity of his newly conquered territories. All told, the Mongols’ attacks may have reduced the entire world population by as much as 11 percent. Censuses from the Middle Ages show that the population of China plummeted by tens of millions during the Khan’s lifetime, and scholars estimate that he may have killed a full three-fourths of modern-day Iran’s population during his war with the Khwarezmid Empire. While it’s impossible to know for sure how many people perished during the Mongol conquests, many historians put the number at somewhere around 40 million. He was responsible for the deaths of as many as 40 million people. After routing the Tangut forces and sacking their capital, the Great Khan ordered the execution of the entire Tangut royal family as punishment for their defiance.Ħ Scandals That Rocked the Winter Olympics 6. He followed up on his victory by returning east and waging war on the Tanguts of Xi Xia, a group of Mongol subjects who had refused his order to provide troops for his invasion of Khwarizm. The subsequent war left millions dead and the Shah’s empire in utter ruin, but the Khan didn’t stop there. Genghis had offered the Shah a valuable trade agreement to exchange goods along the Silk Road, but when his first emissaries were murdered, the enraged Khan responded by unleashing the full force of his Mongol hordes on the Khwarezmid territories in Persia. One of his most famous campaigns of revenge came in 1219, after the Shah of the Khwarezmid Empire broke a treaty with the Mongols. Genghis Khan often gave other kingdoms a chance to peacefully submit to Mongol rule, but he didn’t hesitate to bring down the sword on any society that resisted.

Civ 5 mongols