The boy Temujin grew to manhood, but not before he'd lost his father to poisoning, murdered his brother, been cast into the wilderness by his clansmen, been held captive by former friends, and barely escaped with his life. Within a few short years, however, the unlikely Temujin had united the Mongol tribes and set his sights on more distant lands. The Mongols called him Genghis Khan.

Genghis first went after the Tangut tribes to the Mongol homeland's west. The Khan's first major foreign adventure wasn't an easy one, but by 1209 he had brought the Tangut tribes to their knees. But this was only the beginning of the carnage.

Temujin next set his eyes on the east and the south--the land ruled by the Jin Dynasty of China. At Badger Pass, the Mongol forces routed the Jin soldiers, killing many thousands. In 1215, Genghis Khan took Beijing itself (known as Yanjing at the time), forcing the Jin emperor to abandon the entire northern half of his kingdom.

Far to the west lay the khanate of Kara-Khitan (roughly modern-day East Turkestan, called "Xinjiang" by today's Chinese government). This was to be Temujin's next battleground. Just 20,000 Mongol soldiers brought about Kara-Khitan's capitulation by 1218. Genghis Khan's blood-soaked empire now stretched from the shores of China in the east to modern-day Kazakhstan in the west.

Still the warrior-emperor of the Mongols thirsted for more. And what more natural target than his new neighbor, the Khwarezmid Empire? Khwarezmid domains stretched from modern-day southern Kazakhstan to the shores of the Persian Gulf, encompassing most of modern-day Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and half of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. The ironic thing here is that Genghis Khan at first tried to establish a robust trade partnership with the Khwarezmids, but his 500-man caravan was attacked by a Khwarezmid leader, who later refused to pay reparations for his deed. Genghis then sent a group of ambassadors to the Shah of the Khwarezmid Empire, hoping still to build some sort of diplomatic trade relationship...but the Khwarezmid Shah promptly beheaded all but one of the Great Khan's representatives.

THE GOBI

Temujin's response? Organize two hundred thousand of his solders and all of his best generals and invade the Khwarezmid Empire, of course. Genghis personally led the way.

The Mongols laid waste to the empire. Entire cities were leveled. Whole populations were wiped out. According to one source, the Mongols even diverted a river so that it flowed over the previous emperor's birthplace, thereby erasing it from the map.

(And what happened to the Khwarezmid leader who had attacked the Mongol trade caravan? He was executed by having molten silver poured into his eyes and ears.)

After the brutal conquest of the Khwarezmid Empire, the army split, one half continuing east, the other under Genghis Khan heading across Afghanistan and northern India. By the time Genghis Khan returned to Mongolia, he found that the Tangut and the Jin had formed a coalition against the Mongols. In 1226 his troops ran over the combined Tangut and Jin armies all over again, and in 1227 they took the Tangut capital. Eventually all the Tangut leaders surrendered, but Genghis Khan still executed the entire Tangut royal family.

While on this second campaign against the combined Tangut-Jin enemy, Genghis Khan died. No one is quite sure how it happened. Some say it was in battle. Some say it was old age. Some say he fell off a horse. Some even contend that it happened during a painful sexual encounter (which the reader can look up him/herself for further details). Either way, he was buried in an unmarked grave in Mongolia, probably somewhere close to where he was born. Allegedly everyone who saw the burial party was massacred so as to keep the site protected.

Whew, that was a lot of blood.

Following in Genghis Khan's footsteps is not as easy as some of our other Footsteps subjects. Just ask Tim Cope who, in 2007, stumbled across the Ukraine having finally finished the great trek from Mongolia. He had planned for an 18-month journey. It took three years.

Just a precaution.

Our starting point: Karakorum, famed capital of the Great Khan's empire before his grandson, Kublai, moved it to Beijing. Once the capital of the largest unbroken empire in history, there's not much left of the place today. The traveler must make his/her way to Mongolia's Övörkhangai Province, then to the town of Kharkhorin (round-trip flight from Ulaanbaatar on AIR MIAT:US$53). From here, the "ruins" of Karakorum aren't far.

Hop on a plane on Ulaanbaatar and fly to Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China (Air China: US$680). Yinchuan was once named Xingqing--capital of the Western Xia, or Tangut, empire. Genghis brought this place to its knees first. Lots of interest lies in this large city (pop: almost a million) through which the Yellow flows, including several mausoleums.

From here we head east, to Temujin's next victim-state: the Jin capital, now known as Beijing (US$21 for the 19-hour, 1,335-kilometer trip on the K178 train). Beijing, one of China's two major "show cities," also holds much of Mongol history within its walls, though it has been much "Sinicized" by the current government, as well as previous governments.

For US$100 or less, one can make one's way by road or rail from Beijing, through Xian, Lanzhou, Jiayuguan, Dunhuang, to Turpan. One has now entered what was once the frontier of the Kara-Khitan khanate. Continuing on, one comes to Urumqi, current capital of "Xinjiang." The once-great city of Kashgar comes next.

From Kashgar, one drives to Samarkand then on to Bokhara, both ancient cities of deep historical import, and both victims of Genghis Khan's wrath--for it was here that his soldiers laid waste to the Khwarezmids.

For under US$150, we next turn our sites on Afghanistan, but alas! It is still a war zone--almost a thousand years later. In times of peace we would make our way into that beautiful country, then on into northern Pakistan, where Genghis' armies roamed. From here the Mongol warrior returned home, destined again to fight the Tangut tribes and the Jin.

Traveling this vast road, one comes to realize how incredible a thing it was that such a land as this could have been ruled--centuries before the Internet, the telephone, or electricity--by a nomadic tribe from the faraway steppes.

MORE FOOTSTEPS:

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GENGHIS KHAN
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THOR HEYERDAHL
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JUAN BAUTISTA DE ANZA
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF LT. HENRY LIDGBIRD BALL

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