Genghis Khan: Emperor of All Men PDF
Preview Genghis Khan: Emperor of All Men
Genghis Khan, The Emperor of All Men Harold Lamb 1928 SCRTPTUM EST DE SAPTEVTE; IN TERRAM ALIENARUM GENTIUM TRANSIDIT, BONA ET MALA IN OMNIBUS TENTABIT. HIC OPUS FECIT: SED UTINAM UT SAPIENS ET NON STULTUS. MULTI ENTM FACIUNT QUOD FACIT SAPIENS, SED NON SAPIENTER, SED MAGIS STUITE.” “God in Heaven. The Kha Khan, the Power of God on Earth. The seal of the Emperor of Mankind” THE SEAL OF GENGHIS KHAN Foreword THE MYSTERY .. If Part I Chapter I. THE DESERT—*..—ig II. THE STRUGGLE TO LIVB 25 III. THE BATTLE OF THE CARTS 35 IV. TEMUJ1N AND THE TORRENTS 45 V. WHEN THE STANDARD STOOD ON GUPTA—55 VI. PRESTER JOHN DIES—65 VII. THE YASSA—73 Part II VIII. CATHAY—8l IX. THE GOLDEN EMPEROR ... go X. THE RETURN OF THE MONGOLS 98 XI. KARAKLORUM——IO4 Part III XII. THE SWORD-ARM OF ISLAM—113 XIII. THE MARCH WESTWARD—1 22 XIV. THE FIRST CAMPAIGN—1 29 XV. BOKHARA——136 XVI. THE RIDE OF THE ORKHONS—146 XVII. GENGHIS KHAN GOES HUNTING—154 XVIII. THE GOLDEN THRONE OF TULI—* 1 62 XIX. THE ROAD MAKERS—* 170 XX. THE BATTLE ON THE INDUS—1 8O XXI. THE COURT OF THE PALADINS—l88 XXII. THE END OF THE TASK—192 Part IV AFTERWORD ...... Notes I. THE MASSACRES—.. II. PRESTER JOHN OF ASIA—... 212 III. THE LAWS OF GENGHIS KHAN—214 IV. THE NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE MONGOL HORDE——2l8 V. THE MONGOL PLAN OF INVASION—221 VI. THE MONGOLS AND GUNPOWDER—224 VII. THE CONJURERS AND THE CROSS—228 VIII. SUBOTAI BAHADUR V. MIDDLE EUROPE—229 IX. WHAT EUROPE THOUGHT OF THE MONGOLS 236 X. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE EUROPEAN MONARCHS AND THE MONGOLS * 239 XI. THE TOMB OF GENGHIS KHAN—243 XII. YE LIU CHUTSAI, SAGE OF CATHAY—245 XIII. OGOTAI AND HIS TREASURE ... 248 XIV. THE LAST COURT OF THE NOMADS—252 XV. THE GRANDSON OF GENGHIS KHAN IN THE HOLY LAND—.... 265 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 267 INDEX—.—... 277 ILLUSTRATIONS GENGHIS KHAN—Frontispiece Facing Page ARCHERY PRACTICE—36 A CHINESE WAR CHARIOT—40 SHAMAN TEBTENGRI, THE MONGOL WIZARD 52 MAP OF EASTERN ASIA AT THE END OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY—^6 MAP OF THE KHARESMIAN EMPIRE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XIII CENTURY 58 THE CHINESE EMPEROR K*IEN LUNG VISITING THE TOMB OF HIS ANCESTORS 98 GENGHIS KHAN’S CAVALRY AFTER A VICTORIOUS RAID IN CENTRAL ASIA——IO2 A FORMAL AUDIENCE AT KARAKORUM—IO6 A BATTLE SCENE——132 HUNTING SCENE IN THE KHARESMIA REGION—Ij6 A PERSIAN HUNTING SCENE—1 88 GHAZAN, THE 1L-KHAN OF PERSIA—2O4 GENGHIS KHAN Foreword. The Mystery SEVEN hundred years ago a man almost conquered the earth. He made himself master of half the known world, and inspired mankind with a fear that lasted for generations. In the course of his life he was given many names—the Mighty Manslayer, the Scourge of God, the Perfect Warrior, and the Master of Thrones and Crowns. He is better known to us as Genghis Khan. Unlike most rulers of men, he deserved all his titles. We moderns have been taught the musterroll of the great that begins with Alexander of Macedon, continues through the Caesars, and ends with Napoleon. Genghis Khan was a conqueror of more gigantic stature than the well-known actors of the European stage. Indeed it is difficult to measure him by ordinary standards. When he marched with his horde, it was over degrees of latitude and longitude instead of miles; cities in his path were often obliterated, and rivers diverted from their courses; deserts were peopled with the fleeing and dying, and when he had zx appear to be the most brilliant of Europeans. But we cannot forget that he abandoned one ajmy to its fate in Egypt, and left the remnant of another in the snows of Russia, and finally strutted into the debacle of Waterloo. His empire fell about his ears, his Code was torn up and his son disinherited before his death. The whole celebrated affair smacks of the theatre and Napoleon himself of the play-actor. Of necessity we must turn to Alexander of Macedon, that reckless and victorious youth, to find a conquering genius the equal of Genghis Khan Alexander the god-like, marching with his phalanx toward the rising sun, bearing with him the blessing of Greek culture. Both died in the full tide of victory, and their names survive in the legends of Asia to-day. Only after death the measure of their achievements differs beyond comparison. Alexander’s generals were soon fighting among themselves for the kingdoms from which his son was forced to flee. So utterly had Genghis Khan made himself master from Armenia to Korea, from Tibet to the Volga, that his son entered upon his heritage without protest, and his grandson Kubilai Khan still ruled half the world. This empire, conjured up out of nothing by a barbarian, has mystified historians. The most recent general history of his era compiled by learned persons in England admits that it is an inexplicable fact. A worthy savant pauses to wonder at “ the fateful personality of Genghis Khan, which, at bottom, we can no more account for than the genius of Shakespeare. 11 Many things have contributed to keep the personality of Genghis Khan hidden from us. For one thing the Mongols could not write, or did not care to do so. In consequence the annals of his day exist only in the scattered writings of the Ugurs, the Chinese, the Persians and Armenians. Not until recently was the saga of the Mongol Ssanang Sctzen satisfactorily translated. So the most intelligent chroniclers of the great Mongol were his enemies a fact that must not be forgotten in judging him. They were men of an alien race. Moreover, like the Europeans of the thirteenth century, their conception of the world as it existed outside their own land was very hazy. They beheld the Mongol, emerging unheralded out of obscurity. They felt the terrible impact of the Mongol horde, and watched it pass over them to other lands, unknown to them. One Mohammedan summed up sadly in these words his experience with the Mongols, “They came, they mined) they slew trussed up their loot and departed” The difficulty of reading and comparing these various sources has been great. Not unnaturally, the orientalists who have succeeded in doing so have contented themselves mainly with the political details of the Mongol conquests. They present Genghis Khan to us as a kind of incarnation of barbaric power a scourge that comes every so often out of the desert to destroy decadent civilizations. The saga of Ssanang Setzen does not help to explain the mystery. It says, quite simply, that Genghis Khan was a bogdo of the race of gods. Instead of a mystery, we have a miracle. The medieval chronicles of Europe incline, as we have seen, toward a belief in a sort of Satanic power invested in the Mongol and let loose jan Europe. All this is rather exasperating that modern historians should re-echo the superstitions of the thirteenth century, especially of a thirteenth-century Europe that beheld the nomads of Genghis Khan only as shadowy invaders.
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