Memorable World History/Authors

Genghis Khan (Part XI)

In Europe

Genghis Khan had a positive reputation among western European authors in the Middle Ages. English philosopher Roger Bacon applauded the scientific and philosophical vigor of Genghis Khan's empire, and the English diplomat Geoffrey Chaucer wrote:

"The noble king was called Genghis Khan,

Who in his time was of so great renown,

That there was nowhere in no region,

So excellent a lord in all things

"

The Italian explorer Marco Polo said that Genghis Khan "was a man of great worth, and of great ability, and valor."

In Japan

Japanese such as Kenchō Suyematsu have claimed that the ethnic Japanese Minamoto no Yoshitsune was Genghis Khan.

Mixed

In China

There are conflicting views of Genghis Khan in the People's Republic of China. The legacy of Genghis and his successors, who completed the conquest of China after 65 years of struggle, remains a mixed topic. China suffered a drastic decline in population. The population of north China decreased from 50 million in the 1195 census to 8.5 million in the Mongol census of 1235–36. However, most of them were victims of plague, floods, and famine long after the war in northern China was over in 1234 and was not killed by Mongols. Since the 1340s, Yuan China experienced problems. The Yellow River flooded constantly, and other natural disasters also occurred. At the same time, the Yuan dynasty required considerable military expenditure to maintain its vast empire. The Black Death also contributed to the birth of the Red Turban movement. Other groups or religious sects made an effort to undermine the power of the last Yuan rulers; these religious movements often warned of impending doom. The decline of agriculture, plague and cold weather hit China, spurring the armed rebellion. In Hebei, 9 out of 10 were killed by the Black Death when Toghon Temür was enthroned in 1333. Two out of three people in China had died of the plague by 1351. An unknown number of people migrated to Southern China in this period.

In Inner Mongolia, there are a monument and buildings dedicated to him and a considerable number of ethnic Mongols in the area with a population of around 5 million, almost twice the population of Mongolia. While Genghis never conquered all of China, his grandson Kublai Khan completed that conquest and established the Yuan dynasty that is often credited with re-uniting China. There has been much artwork and literature praising Genghis as a military leader and political genius. The Mongol-established Yuan dynasty left an indelible imprint on Chinese political and social structures for subsequent generations with literature during the preceding Jin dynasty relatively fewer.

Genghis Khan supported the Chinese Daoist sect leader Qiu Chuji and after personally meeting him in what is now Afghanistan, gave him control of all religious affairs in northern China.

Negative

Invasions like the Battle of Baghdad by his grandson are treated as brutal and are seen negatively in Iraq. This illustration is from a 14th-century Jami' al-tawarikh manuscript.

In the Middle East, and particularly in Iran, Genghis Khan is almost universally condemned as a destructive and genocidal warlord who caused enormous destruction to the population of these areas. Steven R. Ward wrote that "Overall, the Mongol violence and depredations killed up to three-fourths of the population of the Iranian Plateau, possibly 10 to 15 million people. Some historians have estimated that Iran's population did not again reach its pre-Mongol levels until the mid-20th century."

The invasions of Merv, Samarkand, Urgench, Nishapur, Bamyan, Balkh and Herat among others caused mass murders, such as when large portions of Khorasan Province were completely destroyed. His descendant Hulagu Khan destroyed much of Iran's north and sacked Baghdad, although his forces were halted by the Mamluks of Egypt. Hulagu's descendant Ghazan Khan once returned to beat the Mamluks and briefly gain control of Syria but was eventually defeated. According to the works of the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, the Mongols killed more than 70,000 people in Merv and more than 190,000 in Nishapur. In 1237, Batu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, launched an invasion into Kievan Rus'. Over the course of three years, the Mongols annihilated all of the major cities of Eastern Europe with the exception of Novgorod and Pskov.

Giovanni de Plano Carpini, the Pope's envoy to the Mongol Great Khan, traveled through Kiev in February 1246 and wrote:

They [the Mongols] attacked Russia, where they made great havoc, destroying cities and fortresses and slaughtering men; and they laid siege to Kiev, the capital of Russia; after they had besieged the city for a long time, they took it and put the inhabitants to death. When we were journeying through that land we came across countless skulls and bones of dead men lying about on the ground. Kiev had been a very large and thickly populated town, but now it has been reduced almost to nothing, for there are at the present time scarce two hundred houses there and the inhabitants are kept in complete slavery.

Among the Iranian peoples, Genghis Khan, along with Hulagu and Timur are among the most despised conquerors in the region.

Although the famous Mughal emperors were proud descendants of Genghis Khan and particularly Timur, they clearly distanced themselves from the Mongol atrocities committed against the Khwarizim Shahs, Turks, Persians, the citizens of Baghdad and Damascus, Nishapur, Bukhara and historical figures such as Attar of Nishapur and many other notable Muslims. However, Mughal Emperors directly patronized the legacies of Genghis Khan and Timur; together their names were synonymous with the names of other distinguished personalities particularly among the Muslim populations of South Asia.