China was not the only region where Genghis Khan left his bloody mark. After a convincing victory over the Jin Empire, the Great Khan set his eyes on the rich Central Asia.
Once again, the nomads were driven by a thirst for profit. The region was economically prosperous. Numerous trade routes stretched through Central Asia, and fertile lands gave good harvests. The choice of a new target for raids was obvious.
The eternal need for money, food and luxury — the eternal need of huge nomadic hordes.
However, Genghis Khan had to face new difficulties. The region was dominated by Khorezm. The state had a good army and its cities were surrounded by strong walls. But did this stop the Mongols? Of course it didn’t.
In this article, two great forces will converge in a grandiose duel. The battle of the Mongol horde with Khorezm begins.
A little background
Khorezm claimed leadership in Central Asia and tried to support its ambitions at the expense of a professional army, which actively participated in the conquests.
To begin with, Genghis Khan realized from the very beginning who he was dealing with. Khorezm was an important player in the region. Possessing a powerful military force, the Khorezmshahs (rulers of Khorezm) pursued an aggressive policy towards their neighbors.
The interests of the Mongols and Khorezm converged in the struggle with the Kara-Kidan Khanate. Khorezm managed to defeat the Kara-Kidan Khanate and put the allied Naiman Khan, Kuchluk, on the throne. However, the new ruler quickly reconsidered relations with Khorezm and joined the Mongols. Genghis Khan though accepted this offer, but as soon as the campaign in Northern China was over, he opposed Kuchluk.
In the course of a lightning campaign, the Naiman army was destroyed. Meanwhile, Khorezmshah Muhammad II managed to capture several cities in Semirechye. By occupying territories, the Mongols ensured freedom of religion for the sedentary population, unlike Kuchluk, who oppressed Muslims.
The Mongols’ democratic approach to religious issues helped improve relations with Khorezm. In addition, the kind Genghis Khan now and then sent ambassadors to the court of Khorezm Shah and offered an alliance.
Tragic incident
Distrust and contempt for nomadic Mongols spread to the peaceful inhabitants of Khorezm.
With the destruction of Kuchluk, the Mongols’ relations with the Khorezmians became stronger. Any invasion was out of the question. Genghis Khan behaved courteously and friendly, but this also alarmed Mohammed. Khwarizmshah feared that the Mongol leader was playing a double game and blowing dust in his eyes, planning a sudden attack.
A wary attitude towards the Mongols led to a tragic incident. In 1218, Genghis Khan sent a rich trade caravan to Khorezm. Most likely, the great conqueror together with his companions decided to sell the loot in Northern China.
Muhammad’s uncle, the governor of the city of Otrar, thought that the caravan was just a pretext for Mongol spy missions. He detained the traders, confiscated the goods, and ordered all witnesses to be killed.
When Genghis Khan learned of this, he became furious and sent three envoys to the court of Khorezm Shah demanding that the governor be punished. Mohammed did not even listen to the envoys. He ordered to kill one envoy, and the other two were shaved naked and sent back to the Mongol leader.
Such an insult Genghis Khan could not bear and began to gather troops.
The beginning of the campaign
The ruler of Khorezm clearly did not expect that the Mongols could mobilize armies so quickly.
Among historians there is no consensus on the number of soldiers of each side, but most are inclined to the fact that Genghis Khan had more soldiers than Khorezm Shah. Nevertheless, Mohammed had at his disposal rich and fortified cities, which made it difficult to capture the state quickly.
At the start of the campaign, the Mongols acted unexpectedly and boldly. Khorezmshah expected that Genghis Khan would gather his army for several months, after which the whole horde would pour through the mountain pass into Khorezm, but everything happened differently. The Mongol Khan sent a vanguard under the command of his sons, Chagatai and Ugedei, through the Altai Mountains. The first thing the nomads did was to lay siege to the city of Otrar, the place where the caravan had been captured.
Otrar held out for five months until a traitor opened the gates from within. But even after the city fell, the garrison in the citadel defended itself for another month, along with the governor. The Mongols suffered heavy losses in Otrar, so after the capture of the city almost all the inhabitants were repressed. Some were executed and some were taken away as slaves.
View of the settlement of Otrar. Kazakhstan, Turkestan region.
Today it is an abandoned city of great archeological value. Mongol invaders visited it, and in 183 years Otrar became the last refuge of Tamerlane.
An unexpected maneuver
While Chagatai and Ugedei held the siege, Genghis Khan formed small armies and sent them to Khorezm. Thus, at the time of the fall of Otrar, there were five groups in the region, which operated at different ends of the empire.
The mobility of the nomads was astonishing, and they managed to do almost the impossible. Thus, in 1220, one of the Mongolian groups traveled more than 450 kilometers across the Kyzylkum desert and laid siege to Bukhara, an important economic and cultural center of Khorezm.
Maneuverability is the real UTP of nomadic peoples.
Due to the remoteness of the city from the Mongolian borders, Mohammed reduced the garrison, and Bukhara was not ready for the arrival of nomads. The defenders thought of nothing better than to engage the disciplined Mongols in open combat.
After destroying the garrison army, the local elite good-naturedly opened the gates to the invaders. This time the nomads showed a little more tolerance than in Otrar, they conscripted all the young men into their army, and the remaining population was enslaved, burning most of the city.
The rapid fall of the capital
The valiant defenders of the capital lined up to fight the Mongols. None of them would ever go back behind the walls of the city.
After the victory in Bukhara, Genghis Khan transferred his forces to Samarkand, the capital of the Khorezmian Empire. In March 1220, his armies besieged the city, which was considered one of the most fortified in the region.
On the third day of the siege, the garrison attempted a breakthrough. Once outside the walls of the city, the Khorezmians prepared for battle, but saw the nomads hastily retreating. Encouraged by their success, the soldiers rushed in pursuit, but it was a traditional Mongolian trap. Having lured the defenders away from the walls, the nomads destroyed all the soldiers of Khorezm.
It is worth noting that Khorezm Shah himself was not in the capital. He twice tried to come to the aid of Samarkand, but both times he turned his troops back, fearing to lose the entire combat-ready army.
Seeing the indecision of the ruler, the capital surrendered on the fifth day of the siege. The city governor bargained with the Mongols the terms of honorable surrender, but entering Samarkand, Genghis Khan immediately violated them. According to good Mongolian tradition, the able-bodied population of Samarkand was converted into slavery, and the rest were killed. The Mongols made an exception only for artisans and engineers.
The fall of Samarkand was Khorezmshah Mohammed’s biggest defeat. The capture of the city had a huge psychological effect: the resistance of the local population weakened, and the Mongol army showed that no fortifications would not save from the wrath of the great khan.
The conflict of Genghis Khan’s sons
Khwarizmshah Mohammed II was ill and psychologically broken. His son, Jalal ad-Din was to face the Mongol horde.
After capturing the capital, Genghis Khan instructed his sons to track down Khorezmshah, but in a few months Mohammed died of pneumonia on a small island in the Caspian Sea, where he fled with his son after a series of defeats.
Despite the death of Khorezmshah the war continued. The next target of the Mongols was Gurganj (modern Urgench). The warlord Humar Tegin seized power in the city and met the Mongols.
The battle for Gurganj turned out to be one of the most difficult for the conquerors. In addition to the swampy terrain and strong walls, the Mongol army faced additional difficulties — the squabble between Juchi and Chagatai about the right way to take the city: diplomacy or storming.
Only Genghis Khan was able to resolve the issue. He removed them from command and instructed Ugedei to take the city by storm. And then the classics — robbery and murder.
A young sadist
Young Tolui wasn’t anything special. Just an executive functionary of the ruling party.
In addition to Ugedei, Juchi and Chagatai, Tolui, the youngest son of Genghis Khan and Borte, participated in the campaign. His father gave him an important and responsible task — to suppress the residual resistance in Khorasan. The young man led an army of 7 thousand men and immediately began the siege of the city of Merv in Feral 1221.
Tolui showed himself a good diplomat, he managed to negotiate the surrender of the city in exchange for the mercy of the civilian population. How could it not be so! The Mongols again violated the terms of the treaty and massacred the population. Some sources say that about 700,000 people died in the city.
Ancient fortress Big Kyz-Gala. Turkmenistan.
For the rest of the year Tolui was active in Khorasan, capturing one city after another. Emptying the treasury and warehouses, the son of Genghis Khan almost never forgot about the planned reduction of the population of cities. This approach had a devastating effect on the entire region for years to come.
Sunspots
While the Mongols were confidently capturing the cities in eastern Khorezm, Mohammed’s son, Jalal al-Din, assumed the title of Khorezmshah and rallied the remnants of his father’s army around him. Under the most difficult conditions, he managed to gather a small army and challenge the most brutal conqueror in history.
Jalal al-Din was determined to avenge his father.
In the next article, I will discuss the final stage of Genghis Khan’s campaign in Khorezm and the first major defeat in the history of the Mongol military machine.