Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [54]
At the same time, Genghis Khan pursued policies that were remarkably tolerant, even by modern standards and certainly by comparison to contemporary rulers. While Europe was burning heretics at the stake, Genghis Khan decreed religious freedom for everyone. He also embraced ethnic diversity, deliberately breaking down the tribal barriers that had previously divided the people of the steppe and drawing into his service the most talented and useful individuals of all his conquered populations. Two generations later, his grandsons Mongke, Hulegu, and Khubilai followed the same strategy on an even larger scale, ultimately building the largest continuous land empire that has ever existed. Far more than their bloodthirstiness, ethnic and religious tolerance allowed the Mongols to achieve and maintain world dominance.
CONQUERING THE STEPPE
The first European to enter the Mongolian steppe may have been the friar Giovanni Di Plano Carpini. In 1246, after a year of crossing Europe on horseback, the elderly friar arrived at the capital of the Mongol Empire in Karakorum. In fact, Carpini was acting as a spy for Pope Innocent IV, who commissioned the friar to learn as much as he could about the Mongols who had terrified and conquered so much of Europe. The unimpressed Carpini described the Gobi steppe as follows:
Here are no towns or cities, but everywhere sandy barrens, not a hundredth part of the whole being fertile except where it is watered by rivers, which are very rare…This land is nearly destitute of trees, although well adapted for the pasturage of cattle. Even the emperor and princes and all others warm themselves and cook their victuals with the fires of horse and cow dung…The climate is very intemperate, as in the middle of summer there are terrible storms of thunder and lightning by which many people are killed, and even then there are great falls of snow and such tempests of cold winds blow that sometimes people can hardly sit on horseback. In one of these we had to throw ourselves down on the ground and could not see through the prodigious dust. There are often showers of hail, and sudden, intolerable heats followed by extreme cold.4
These were likely the same geographic conditions that faced the sixteen-year-old Temujin in 1178. The social conditions, however, were entirely different. In 1178, there was no Mongol Empire or capital—indeed, no Mongol nation. The steppe was inhabited by dozens of vaguely related, constantly warring tribes and clans. The Mongols’ closest relations were the Tatars, Khitans, and Manchus to the east and the Turkic tribes of central Asia to the west. But whereas the Tatars and the central Asian tribes had consolidated themselves into powerful confederacies, the Mongols in 1178 were subdivided into scattered rival bands headed by local chieftains or khans.5
Among the peoples of the steppe, the Mongols were near the bottom of the heap, seen as “scavengers who competed with the wolves to hunt down the small animals.” Nevertheless, among the Mongols themselves, some clans—for example, the Tayichiuds—claimed to be more “highborn” than others, and they asserted their dominance brashly. Later in his life, Temujin would break down the blood-based hierarchy of the steppe, replacing the entire kinship system with a new social order based on merit and personal loyalty. At age sixteen, however, Temujin was nothing and nobody. Moreover, the Tayichiuds sought to punish him for the killing of his half brother in their territory.6
The historical records get particularly murky at this point. It appears that Temujin was captured by the Tayichiuds, endured a period of enslavement, then escaped. Not long afterward, Temujin returned to the clan of his betrothed and claimed Borte as his bride. Although he knew of Temujin's problems with the Tayichiuds, Borte's father honored the promise he had made seven years earlier. One