Batu Khan's order was preparing to attack Vienna when news of Ogedei's death distracted the leader. In 1241, Ogedei Khan died, bringing to a temporary halt the Mongols' momentum in their conquests of Europe and the Middle East. Further south, the Mongols took Persia, Georgia, and Armenia by 1240 as well. Ogedei's hordes moved into Eastern Europe, conquering the city-states and principalities of Rus (now in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus), including the major city of Kiev. In East Asia, the northern Chinese Jin Dynasty, which was ethnically Jurchen, fell in 1234 the southern Song Dynasty survived, however. The new great khan continued to expand the Mongol empire in every direction, and also established a new capital city at Karakorum, Mongolia. In 1229, the Kuriltai elected Genghis Khan's third son Ogedei as his successor. These were the Khanate of the Golden Horde, in Russia and Eastern Europe the Ilkhanate in the Middle East the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia and the Khanate of the Great Khan in Mongolia, China, and East Asia. In 1227, Genghis Khan died, leaving his empire divided into four khanates that would be ruled by his sons and grandsons.

The heartlands of India and China, along with Korea's Goryeo Kingdom, held off the Mongols for the time. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire grew to encompass Central Asia, parts of the Middle East, and east to the borders of the Korean Peninsula. Those skills stood them in good stead across Central Asia and into the Middle East cities that threw open their gates were spared, but the Mongols would kill the majority of citizens in any city that refused to yield.

The Mongols traditionally fought running battles from horseback, but they had learned techniques for besieging walled cities during their raids of northern China. He soon moved against the neighboring Jurchen and Tangut peoples of northern China but seemed not to have had any intention of conquering the world until 1218, when the Shah of Khwarezm confiscated a Mongol delegation's trade goods and executed the Mongol ambassadors.įurious at this insult from the ruler of what is now Iran, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, the Mongol hordes sped westward, sweeping aside all opposition. However, his charisma and innovations in law and organization gave Genghis Khan the tools to expand his empire exponentially. Before a 1206 kurultai ('tribal council') in what is now called Mongolia appointed him as their universal leader, the local ruler Temujin - later known as Genghis Khan - simply wanted to ensure the survival of his own little clan in the dangerous internecine fighting that characterized the Mongolian plains in this period.

Genghis Khan by Norman Itzkowitz