9 The Invasion of China

Chapter 8 The Invasion of China In 1210, the Golden Khan, ruler of the Jurched Empire, died. The new Golden Khan, his son, sent an ambassador to meet with Genghis Khan. To the Jurched people of China, the Mongols were nothing but a raggedy band of nomads. The Jurched representative demanded that Genghis Khan bow to the power of the great Golden Khan. If Genghis Khan was lucky, perhaps the Golden Khan would give him a meager bit of treasure in exchange for his loyalty and military service.

But Genghis Khan would bow to no man. Instead, he cursed the Golden Khan's name and spit in the direction of China. Then he jumped on his horse and galloped off. This was a declaration of war. Genghis Khan knew it. In the spring of 1211, he summoned his people. The Mongols separated themselves into men, women, and children to pray for guidance. After three days at the top of Burkhan Khaldun, Genghis Khan came down from the mountain and announced to his people: "The Eternal Blue Sky has promised us victory and vengeance."

That May, 65,000 Mongol soldiers left for China, crossing the six-hundred-mile-wide Gobi Desert in just one month. When they arrived, they began terrorizing the countryside, burning villages and destroying crops.

Peasants fled to the Jurched's walled cities for protection, clogging the roads. The cities overflowed with refugees. With too many mouths to feed and the crops destroyed, food became scarce. People starved to death. THE MONGOL WAR MACHINE GOING TO WAR TOOK A GREAT DEAL OF EFFORT. BUT THE MONGOLS THOUGHT OF EVERYTHING. SCOUTS WENT AHEAD OF THE ARMY TO CHECK FOR WATER SOURCES, ROUGH TERRAIN, GRAZING LAND, AND HUMAN SETTLEMENTS. ONCE A ROUTE WAS CHOSEN, THE ARMY LEFT. EACH MAN CARRIED ONLY WHAT HE NEEDED—FLINTS TO START FIRES, SEWING NEEDLES, DRIED MEAT AND MILK PASTE, CANTEENS, LASSOS, AND ARROWS. BECAUSE OF THIS, THERE WAS NO NEED FOR A SLOW-MOVING SUPPLY TRAIN, VULNERABLE TO ATTACK. BUT THE MONGOL ARMY WAS NOTHING WITHOUT THEIR HORSES. THEY TRAVELED ENTIRELY ON HORSEBACK, SWIFTLY AND

EFFICIENTLY. EXTRA HORSES WERE BROUGHT TO BE MILKED, EATEN, OR RIDDEN WHEN OTHER HORSES GREW TIRED. IF THE MEN RAN OUT OF WATER, THEY DRANK HORSES' BLOOD. SOLDIERS FOLLOWED THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THEIR COMMANDERS TO A FAULT. THEIR LOYALTY AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY MADE THEM AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE. The Mongols used many methods to attack the Jurched cities. They enslaved Jurched engineers and had them build catapults, which threw stones or vats of boiling liquid at the walls. They dammed rivers to flood the cities. They built oversize bows called ballistas that shot large arrows that could break through walls.

Trickery worked, too. In the "dogfight" tactic, the Mongols purposefully dropped their supplies and rode away. To the Jurched, this looked like the Mongols had retreated. The city gates were opened and the Jurched emerged to collect the supplies the Mongols had "dropped." The Mongols quickly raced back and entered the city. The great Jurched cities fell—Shenyang, Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi. The Jurched surrendered. The Golden Khan pledged