GENGHIS (Jengueiz, Tchinggis, or Zingis) /CHAN, originally called Temujin, a cele brated Mongol conqueror, b. Jan. 25, 1155 A.D., at Deylun-Yeldilk, near the northern bend of the Ferainuran (Hoang-Ho), was the son of Yesukai Bahadfir, a Mongol chief, who ruled over some thirty or forty families or clans, called the tribe of Neyrun, who dwelt between the Amur and the great wall of China, and paid tribute to the khan of East Tartary. On his father's death, he did not hesitate to assume the reins of gov ernment, though only 13 years of age. Some of the subject tribes refused to obey him, and chose another chief belonging to the same family. A war of several years' dura tion was the result, at the termination of which he was compelled to retire to Karako rum, the capital of Toghrul Ungh-Khan, monarch of the Keraeit, and place himself under that monarch's protection. Ungh-Khan gaVe him his daughter in marriage, and. appointed him to the command of his army, in which capacity Genghis gave proof of great military talent, conquering the Mekreit, Tanylt, Jellfieir, and other neighboring tribes. But Ungh-Khan, becoming jealous of his growing reputation, and urged on by envious courtiers, ordered Genghis to lie assassinated. The latter, having taken coun sel with his relative and chief councilor. Karatchfir Nuyan, a youth of his own age, but renowned in Tartar history for his wisdom, resolved to depart for his native coun try. which, after many hairbreadth escapes, he reached at the head of 5,000 cavalry. Raising an army, he marched against his father-in-law; and Toghrul, vanquished in bat tle in 1208, sought refuge among the Naymans. but was slain by the guards situated on the frontiers. Genghis immediately seized upon Toghrul's dominions. In the follow ing year, a number of Tartar tribes, alarmed at his increasing power, formed a power ful league against him. The command was given to TaI-Ungh-Khan, chief of the Nay mans; but in a battle fought on the banks of the Amr, Genghis utterly routed his ene mies, slew their leader, and became at once master of almost all Mongolia. Grander views of conquest seem now to have opened before his vision. In the year 1206, he convoked a kouriltai, or general assembly, on the banks of the Onan, a tributary of the Amur, flowing through his native land. This meeting was attended by deputies from all the subjugated hordes of Tartary, and Genghis contrived to obtain a religious con firmation of his designs. Up to this period he had borne the name of Temujin; but a renowned magician or priest, surnamed Bout-Tangri (" Son of Heaven"), venerated by all the Mongols, now came forward and pronounced him Genghis greatest of khans, or khan of khans, declaring that he should rule over the whole earth. The deputies were duly impressed. About this time the Eighurs, an agricultural and civi lized people, inhabiting the country at the sources of the Hoang.Ho and Yang-tse-Kiang, voluntarily submitted to his sway. From this people, who professed Buddhism, the Mongols would appear to have acquired a knowledge of writing. They adopted the Eighur characters, but preserved their own language, and Genghis selected one of the newly-submitted tribe to instruct his children. The next important incident in his career was the conquest of the northern portion of China, called Khatai. The imme diate cause of the war between Genghis and the emperor of China, Tchong-Hei, was the refusal of the former to recognize the latter as his suzerain, or liege-lord. Most of the Tartar tribes which Genghis had subdued were really tributaries of the Chinese empire; and Tehong-Hei, though not interfering to prevent the conquests of the Mongols, now wished Genghis to acknowledge his superiority by paying tribute. Genghis immedi ately prepared for war, scaled the great wall in 1211, and after a series of bloody and protracted campaigns, Pekin fell into the hands of the barbarians in 1215. Meanwhile Genghis was called back ,to Tartary to quell certain insubordinate tribes, headed by Gutchluk, son ofi*cbief,;(2fAte-Nayintufs, who had:recovered his ancestral dominions, and also conquered those of the Gftr-Khan of Kara-Khatai. These tribes were nearly exterminated in a great light which took place near the sources of the Yenissei. Gutehluk, however, had sonic time before taken refuge in Turkestan, a vast region stretching from lake Lob, in the middle of Tartary, westward to the sea of Aral.
Here he succeeded in making himself supreme ruler, but only to be swept away by the victorious Mongols, now pressing westward in an irresistible torrent. At length Gen ghis reached the Sihoon, the north-eastern boundary of the empire of Khaurezm or Kharism, whose ruler, Ala-ed-din Mohammed, was one of the most powerful sovereigns In Asia. The dynasty to which he belonged had risen into power through the weak ness of the Seljuk sultans; and its sway now extended from the borders of Syria to the river Indus, and from the river Sihon to the Persian gulf. The murder of some Mongol merchants at Otrar, a town on the Sihon, afforded Genghis a pretext for invasion. He immediately dispatched his eldest son, Jiijy, at the head (according to eastern chroniclers) of 700,000 horse, who accordingly burst into Khaurezm in 1210; and after having overthrown the Tartar allies of sultan Mohammed, and fought a long and bloody battle with the sultan himself with no decisive result, captured Samarkand, Bokhara (the valuable library of which he destroyed). and all the other important cities of the country. The Mongols, in three separate divisions, now scoured and ravaged Khaurezm in all directions. In the course of five or six years, they overran the whole of Persia, subdued the inhabitants of the Caucasus, crossed into Rus sia, and plundered the land between the Wolga and the Dnieper. Nor were they less successful in the east; the whole of southern Asia, as far as the Sutlej, experiencing the miseries of their devastations. Sickness, disease, and exhaustion at length enfeebled the Mongol hordes, and compelled Genghis to return to Karakorum, iu Tartary, the capital of his empire, in 1224. During his absence, his generals had been prosecut ing the Chinese war with the greatest success. Genghis, though well advanced in years, was still possessed by the old thirst of conquest; and having recruited his forces, he led them across the great desert of Gobi to the kingdom of Tanjout, in the n.w. of China, the capital of which, Nin-hia. he besieged. Disheartened by the loss of the greater part of his army, the king of Tanjout promised to capitulate at the end of a month; but in the interval Genghis died. Aug. 24, 1227, on the hill Lion-pan, worn out with years and toils. Genghis is said to have had five hundred wives and concubines, and to have left a great number of children, among th.ree of whom he divided his enormous possessions. The third son, Oughtai, was appointed " Grand Khan," and received for his share the country now called Mongolia, with Khatai or Northern China as far n. as the mouth of the Amdr. The second son, Tcheghatai, received Turkestan n. of the Amu or Jeyhfin, and was committed to the guardianship of Karatchar Nuyan. July, for his share, obtained Keptchak, and all the country w. and n. of Turkestan, an immense tract extending from the Caspian sea almost to the Northern ocean.
In the course of his sanguinary career, Genghis is said to have destroyed, by wars and massacres, no fewer than five or six millions of human beings. His conquests were generally accompanied with acts of appalling barbarity, yet we seem to trace through the dreadful history of the man sonic indications of a civilizing tendency. Himself a monotheist, a stern believer in God after the fashion of Mohammed, he never theless tolerated all religions; exempted from taxes and military service physicians and priests; made obligatory the practice of hospitality; established severe laws against adultery, fornication, theft, homicide, etc.; organised a system of postal communi cation throughout his enormous dominions (mainly, no doubt, for military purposes); and so thoroughly organised what we may call the police or civil authority, that it was said one might travel without fear or danger from one end of his empire to the other. He would also appear to have had a respect for men of learning and virtue, and to have retained several of such about his person. The only memorial of Genghis now known to exist is a granite tablet, with a mongol inscription (deciphered by Schmidt of Peters burg), discovered among the ruins of Nertschinsk. This tablet had been erected by Genghis in commemoration of his conquest of the kingdom of Karl-Khatai.