Genghis Khan
or JENGHIS KHAN (jen'gis khän), a Mongol conqueror; born near the Onon river, Mongolia, in 1162. His father was chief over 30 or 40 clans, but paid tribute to the Tartar Khan. He succeeded his father when only 14 years of age, and made himself master of the neighboring tribes.
A great number of tribes now combined their forces against him. But he found a powerful protector in the great Khan of the Karaite Mongols, Oung, or Ung, who gave him his daughter in marriage.
After much intestine warfare with various Tartar tribes Genghis was proclaimed Khan of the United Mongol and Tartar tribes.
He now professed to have a divine call to conquer the world, and the idea so animated the spirit of his soldiers that they were easily led on to new wars.
The country of the Uigers, in the center of Tartary, was easily subdued, and Genghis Khan was now master of the greatest part of Tartary. In 1209 he passed the great wall of China, the conquest of which country occupied him more than six years; the capital Yenking (now Peking), was taken by storm 1215 and plundered. The murder of the ambassadors whom Genghis Khan had sent to the King of Kharism (now Khiva) occasioned the invasion of Turkestan in 1218 with an army of 700,- 000 men; and the two cities of Bokhara and Samarcand were stormed, pillaged, and burned. Seven years in succession was the conqueror busy in the work of destruction, pillage, and subjugation, and extended his ravages to the banks of the Dnieper. In 1225, though more than 60 years old, he marched in person at the head of his whole army against the King of Tangut (northwestern