Genghis Khan fought endlessly throughout his life, leading the Mongol Iron Horse to lay down a vast territory. In the three consecutive western expeditions in his military career, the people of Central Asia, West Asia, and Europe almost experienced a catastrophe and countless deaths!
However, there is a saying in Chinese Taoism called "misfortune and happiness depends on", and although Genghis Khan's aggression made them suffer from war and even reduced their population by more than half, it unexpectedly promoted the development of the European capitalist economy and indirectly promoted the rise of Europe.
What's going on here?
The Mongol army was originally strong, especially good at riding and shooting, after occupying the Southern Song Dynasty to unify the Central Plains, digesting the advanced technology of the Central Plains, having sufficient population support, and having enough resources as a backing, it can be said that after Genghis Khan established the Yuan Dynasty, the strength reached an unprecedented strength.
Nikolai Ryerich, a well-known Tibetan scholar of the former Soviet Union, said: "No nation has been so powerful since the beginning of time. Genghis Khan, who had no intention of going west, opened the door to death in Europe because of the greed of one man. Genghis Khan's expansion into the outside world began with a war with Khwarazm.
In 1218 AD, a Mongol caravan was killed on a trade route through the border of Khwarazm. In order to stabilize the trade, Genghis Khan wrote a letter to Hua Lazi Mosha:
"Let our people keep the roads that are always and abandoned open, so that merchants may travel safely and without restraint."
At this time, Genghis Khan was not fighting with his people because they were killed, and he sent a caravan with gold and silver jewelry to negotiate peace with the overall situation.
However, when this caravan was passing through the upper reaches of the Syr Darya River, Hai'er Khan, a garrison of a city in the kingdom of Khwarazm, became suspicious of this rich amount of money, and he not only privately detained the caravan, but also reported it to the lord of the city that the caravan was a traitor sent by Genghis Khan for a sneak attack, and the city lord who listened to the rumors indiscriminately ordered the killing of all the people in the caravan and withheld their property.
While Hai'er Khan was still complacent about getting this "flying wealth", he didn't know that he had brought ruin to the entire country. For he was provoking the most powerful people in the world at that time.
When Haier Khan slaughtered the caravan, there was a man who escaped the disaster, he desperately fled back to Mongolia, and told Genghis Khan tearfully about the caravan experience, Genghis Khan was furious and vowed to avenge them. However, as a leader, he did not want to directly clash with the armed forces at this time, so he first sent the envoy Bahe la to lead two retinues to make peace, hoping to resolve the dispute by peaceful means.
Who expected that the leader of this Khwarazm tribe was very unreasonable, not only did not admit his mistake, but killed three envoys.
This completely angered Genghis Khan and led to the first western expedition. Genghis Khan did not give them another chance, and directly led the army to go on a crusade to investigate the guilt. The Khwarazm Empire claimed to have an army of 400,000, but in fact less than one-tenth of the soldiers could fight, so the Mongol army had the upper hand compared with the two sides. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan, the Mongol army was so strong that it did not stop until it reached the Timur Confession Pass in Huarazimo, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack since ancient times, and once had a poetry cloud:
"Thousands of rocks and valleys are deep in the stream, and the rocks on the side of the stream are lying on the road, and iron hooves are not allowed in ancient and modern times."
The terrain here is very steep, and there is a stream as a barrier, and the creek is full of rocks, there is no place for horses to stay, and there is no way to let the war horses pass. However, the Mongol army did not retreat, but took local materials, built forty-eight bridges, and directly killed them. It can be seen from this that Genghis Khan has made up his mind to destroy huarazm.
After five months of bitter fighting, they broke through the city where Hai'er Khan was located, and then went west to fight. At this time, it was close to crossing Central Asia, but the Mongol army still had no intention of retreating, and did not retreat to the Central Plains until April of the following year, after Genghis Khan completely occupied the Khwarazm State.
In this war, Genghis Khan's methods were very fierce. In order to frighten all the cities in Central Asia, and to reward the soldiers, he ordered all the soldiers to burn and loot after breaking through the city.
Hegel said: They have swept from the plateau to the trough, destroyed everything that is present, and retreated without a trace like an erupting flash flood – there is absolutely no inherent principle of survival.
This slaughter strategy deeply shocked the Europeans and Central Asians of the time. They believed that Genghis Khan was sent by God to punish them, so they called Genghis Khan the "Whip of God." All men who had fought in the war were put to death, and the male craftsmen who had craft were taken into slavery, and the rest were recruited into the army, leaving the meat shields for the Mongol soldiers during the next siege.
According to statistics, after the war, the population of these Central Asian and Western Asias decreased by fifteen million people. However, this was only the first western expedition in Mongolian history. With the experience of his ancestors, genghis Khan's descendants launched two more western expeditions, the second from Mongolia to the northwest and to the west of the West Asia, and the third from Mongolia to the southwest, all victorious.
These wars brought almost the entire Middle East and West Asia into the hands of the Mongol army, and the people of the outer lands suffered countless casualties, especially in the third western expedition, in order to quickly capture the city, the Mongols actually threw the plague-infected corpse into the city with a catapult, due to the poor medical conditions at that time, the people's health awareness was weak, and these corpses soon caused the largest plague in European history - the Black Death.
Because of this epidemic, the population of Europe has been drastically reduced by half, which is simply appalling!
The bitter lessons that Genghis Khan and his descendants have taught these countries have become opportunities. The British historian Wells said in his Compendium of World History:
"The story of the mongol conquest is truly one of the best in all history. The conquest of Alexander the Great cannot be compared with it in scope. As a creative people, as disseminators of knowledge and methods, their influence on history is great."
Some people will wonder how there can be a "death benefit" that is obviously caused by the three western expeditions that have brought great damage. Where are these benefits reflected?
First of all, we must understand that the three western expeditions of Genghis Khan and his descendants established four khanates, one of which became larger and larger, and this process itself was a process of shuffling the power within the entire territory.
Economically, it has broken the original traditional feudal mode of rule, enabled various countries and regions to regain new vitality for development; connected the East and the West, promoted exchanges between the East and the West, enabled the exchange of advanced technologies and crops between the two sides, brought China's advanced gunpowder and compass to Central Asia and the West, and improved the production capacity of the West.
There were many geopolitical changes that unified the Russian regions and made the faith of islamic countries more condensed; they stimulated the exploration ambitions of Europeans, broke the shackles of traditional theology, and promoted the emergence of the Renaissance and the rapid development of navigation.
More importantly, this mass extinction has completely changed the original economic model. Under the conditions of low productivity, the small number of people could not support sufficient production demand, prompted Europeans to carry out reforms, promoted the emergence of capitalism and industrial revolution, and laid a solid foundation for the subsequent take-off of Europe.
The description in "The Indomitable King Temujin" by the German professor François von Erdoman subverts people's perceptions:
The russians and Germans, as well as the peoples of Western Europe, were able to attain such a strong and civilized level as they are now, which was undoubtedly a stimulus and a gift for the conquest of the Mongols and Mongol armies. In a sense, Genghis Khan was simply a benefactor of Europe!
Therefore, during the Western Expedition, Genghis Khan and his descendants caused great losses to the people of Central Asia and Europe, but the "welfare" brought about by this damage also contributed to the rise of Europe!