Mongolian conqueror. Gengis Khan, Khan of the Mongols extended his power on the Central Asia, septentrional China and Russian Turkestan. Founder of a line of dominators, it is one of the least well-known characters, but also one of most famous, the history of the men.

After having unified Mongolia (Ulus Mongolian) under its authority, Gengis Khan organizes its empire on which it makes reign a severe discipline.

An early fame
9 years old, Témudjin has already an astonishing reputation: it would have killed a bear with naked hands. His/her father, Yèsugèi, chief of the clan of the Torrents, promise in marriage it to Bortë, of the powerful clan of Khongirats. Yèsugèi dies soon, poisoned by Tatar. Fearing for its own life, Témudjin flees in the mountains but it is captured by the enemy of its family, Targutaï, of the clan of Taïdjioutes. He escapes. Its fame grows and of many young people avid people of adventures join it. Among them, Bortchou, Djelmé, Djebé “the Arrow”, Subötai will remain always its “four wild dogs”.  

Warrior and strategist
At 19 years, Témudjin, that the historians depict us large, dry and muscular, is a savage warrior but also a skilful policy. It gathers the clans around him. The decisive part is played in 1201. Thanks to a disconcerting tactic, taken again with the Scythian riders, Témudjin demolishes all its enemies, the Turks naïmans, Tatars and especially, with the battle of the Seventy Coats, its Mongolian rivals, Taïdjioutes. Kouriltaï (the Great Council) of 1206 devotes it supreme leader of the Mongols. It will be from now on known under the name of Tchinkkiz Khan (Gengis Khan), the “universal sovereign”.  
 
The code of Gengis Khan

Yassak is the code promulgated by Gengis Khan the shortly after Kouriltaï of 1206 to try to give a cohesion to the Mongolian people (the people defeated were not submitted there). In this code, Gengis insists on the principle of its absolute sovereignty and on the need for the union of the Mongols. Yassak in addition constitutes an exhaustive and rigorous penal code which surprises by its direction of justice (any offense must be attested by three witnesses).

The large ones which oppresses the weak ones are condemned without call. Yassak extends to all the fields from the existence and it shows to us Gengis Khan under an ignored aspect. Adultery is severely punished, the drinking bouts are authorized. once a month. It is interdict to urinate in public and to bathe during a storm (?).

Civilizing code, Yassak insists on the expensive virtues with the nomads: whoever will not share its meal with the traveller will be punished. This code extends to all but, special favor, the four faithful companions of the Khan will see their the first eight forgiven offenses.

The conqueror of high Asia

In a few years, Gengis will take along to the conquest of the world numerically weak people, torn by the fratricidal fights and hardly left Turkish hegemony. The Mongols will break the dash of Islam towards the east and will endanger Christendom.  

The conquest of China
Having succeeded in unifying its people, Gengis Khan launches, in 1215, its riders with the attack of China of North. The war is of a brutality without equal: the civilians are massacred, the turned over fields, the flush dams, the filled channels. Beijing burns during 70 days. The cities resist savagely. Gengis creates an embryo of government with the “four offices ouïgours”. It turns then to the west and conquers the empire of the Turks Kara K' itaï (Kara-Khitaï, today Eastern Turkestan): he is from now on Master of all high Asia (1218).  

The conquest of Kharism
In 1220, it destroys the Turkish empire (rival of Kara K' itaï) of Kharism (or Kharezm, today Turkménistan); it returns the Muslim populations to their imans, while Djebé and Subutaï circumvent the Caspian one in a raid flash and demolish the Bulgarian ones of the Volga and the Russians: Europe intends to speak for the first time about Gengis Khan. In Kharism, Gengis is shown less hard than in China: the Moslems are not subjected to the severe Mongolian law.

The incarnation of the yellow peril

This man then old, jovial fellow, amateur of feasts, are also a complex character. It would be false to see in him an uncultivated barbarian: in Karakorum, its capital, nestoriens, Moslem Shiites and Sunnits, mazdéens, Buddhists, brahmanists, taoists and even Christian Romans come to discuss religion and philosophy; Gengis listening with interest.  

It will have an end worthy of him. In 1227, it moves towards the kingdom of Tangoutes of Kan Sou, to appease twenty years an old revenge, in spite of the curse of a monk Tibetan. He dies in the evening of the victory, on on August 18th, 1227. It was never known if it were of disease or poisoning. Always it is that it had its revenge: 300 ' 000 heads tangoutes had fallen into the day.  

In addition to the considerable repercussion of his conquests on Asia and even on Europe, one can affirm that the influence of this conqueror was larger still beyond the centuries. Anticipated personalization of the “yellow peril”, it undoubtedly strongly contributed to stir up imaginations and to give to Europe its cohesion vis-a-vis Asia.