By: Mir M.Hosseini
Chengiz Khan was born in 1162 in Mongolia. The founder of Mongol empire is infamous for his brutality for slaughtering entire population of resisting cities and destroying infrastructures. Under Mongols, total population of Persia fell from 2,500,000 to 250,000 due to mass extermination and famine. According to the legend, after defeating the Jin dynasty and taking control of China, he sent a caravan of 500 men to establish trade ties with the Persian empire but the caravan was attacked in Otrar and his men were killed. Then he sent peace ambassadors to Shah himself but they were all but one beheaded; thus a war began resulting in destruction of the Kharazmshah dynasty. His military strategy included gathering good intelligence and having a network of spies. He took Bukhara in March 1220 and Samarkand a month later. In 1221 he destroyed the ancient city of Balkh and devastated Khorasan to a degree that it has not fully recovered to this day. The victories of Chengiz army continued with capturing Armenia, Georgia, Syria, Baghdad, and east Europe. The empire's expansion continued for more than a generation after his death in 1227. In 1241 Mongols defeated the last defending Polish-German and Hungarian armies During the 1250s, Mongols destroyed the Abbasi Caliphate in Baghdad. After that the Mongol army lost the Battle of Ayn Jalut near modern-day Nazareth which marked the end of their expansion. His last ruling descendant, Amil Khan of Bukhara, was deposed by Soviet forces in 1920. Chengiz Khan died in the twenty second year of his reign at the age of 66. The Mongol invasion inflicted more suffering on the human race than any other event in the world's history of which records are preserved.