Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [60]
But the real bounty took the form of human capital. Along with engineers, Genghis Khan brought back from northern China entire regiments of soldiers and officers, many of whom had deserted to the Mongols: acrobats, jugglers, contortionists, musicians, singers, and dancers, as well as skilled workers of every kind, including tailors, pharmacists, translators, potters, jewelers, astrologers, painters, smiths, and doctors. Despite—or perhaps because of—his own illiteracy, Genghis Khan specifically recruited scholars of all ethnicities, like the erudite, polyglot Yelu Chucai, a member of the Khitan royal family, who would advise Genghis Khan wisely and loyally to the end.
Religious tolerance continued to be a hallmark of Genghis Khan's rule. It turned out to be a powerful tool of empire building as well. For example, not long after Genghis Khan returned to the steppe from China, Muslim envoys arrived from the central Asian city of Balasagun in modern-day Kyrgyzstan. The envoys explained that the Muslims of Balasagun were suffering harsh religious persecution under their Christian khan Guchlug, who had prohibited the Muslim call to prayer and the public worship of Islam. They sought protection from the great Mongol Khan, and he was happy to oblige. The Mongol army invaded Balasagun, beheading Guchlug and incorporating his territory into the Mongol Empire. Shortly afterward, Genghis Khan proclaimed freedom of worship throughout Guchlug's lands. Thus it was that the man whom Europe later called the Scourge of God came to be known in the East, from Tibet to the Aral Sea, as a defender of religions—and even, according to the medieval Persian chronicler Juvaini, “one of the mercies of the Lord and one of the bounties of divine grace.”21
CONQUERING WESTWARD
Perhaps Genghis Khan, who now controlled the entire Silk Road between China and Arabia, was sated with war. Perhaps, as historians often suggest, at nearly sixty he had accumulated enough bounty and wanted to live the rest of his life in tranquility on the steppe. Whatever the reason, in 1219 Genghis Khan proposed a peaceful trading relationship with the Muslim sultan Muhammad II of Khwarizm.
In the thirteenth century, the Muslim world was divided. The Seljuk Turks dominated Asia Minor, and there was an Arab caliph in Baghdad. But the sultan of Khwarizm, also a Turk, ruled the largest territory, a great empire stretching from India to the Volga River, including the magnificent cities of Nishapur, Bukhara, and Samarkand. The Muslim lands were the richest in the world, and their civilization in many ways the most advanced. No existing society had a higher literacy rate among the general population, or superior mathematics, linguistics, agronomy, astronomy, literature, and legal traditions. It is not surprising, then, that although the sultan of Khwarizm ostensibly accepted an offer of peace from Genghis Khan, within a year a 450-man Mongol trade delegation was slaughtered in Khwarizm territory. When the news reached Genghis Khan, he dispatched envoys to the sultan, demanding retribution. The sultan responded by killing the chief envoy and sending the others back to Genghis Khan with their faces disfigured. This proved to be a mistake that not only cost the sultan his empire and his life but “laid waste a whole world.”22
Like the Jurchen emperor, the sultan of Khwarizm did not believe the Mongol forces posed a serious threat. Khwarizm's major cities were powerfully fortified; between the Mongol steppe and Khwarizm's borders were two thousand miles of treacherous mountain and desert terrain, which no army