Was Genghis Khan Mongol or Chinese? Now it's finally figured out. When it comes to this conqueror, who is famous in the world's military history, it seems that a veil of mystery has always been shrouded. Where did his ancestors come from? What kind of bloodline does his family inherit? Where was the foundation of his unification of the desert? For a long time, there has been a lot of controversy around the nationality of Genghis Khan. But now, with archaeological discoveries and scholars' research, it seems that we can finally see the light of day and see which kingdom this magnificent emperor belonged to. Is he the son of Mongolia or the proud son of China? Let's find out.
Tracing the lineage: Tracing the roots of the Genghis Khan family
Speaking of Genghis Khan's family roots, we have to start with their family name "Kipchak". This tribe originally belonged to the Xianbei tribe of Beidi, and at one time established the Northern Wei Empire in the Central Plains. At that time, they were relatives of the emperor for generations, and they were extremely honored. It's a pity that the good times didn't last long, the political situation in the late Northern Wei Dynasty was turbulent, and this powerful country with a population of nearly 100 million finally collapsed in turmoil.
The Kipchaks were scattered with the split of the Northern Wei Dynasty, with some people being exiled from the Yungang Grottoes to the Sui Dynasty in the Central Plains, and another group migrating westward to the present-day Xinjiang region. Genghis Khan's ancestors were the tribes that chose to flee north. They marched all the way, crossed the Yin Mountains, crossed the Great Desert, and finally settled down in the foothills of the Altai Mountains and started a new nomadic life.
In this way, after several generations, they have fully adapted to the climate and environment of the plateau. It was only in the generation before Genghis Khan was born that the tribe suffered a terrible catastrophe. Their chieftain, the Wild Horse Rolling Grass, was wandering around in search of new pasture, but was attacked by other nomadic tribes. The enemy gained the upper hand, captured the mustang, and killed his young son, Gidic. The tragic mother witnessed the whole process from the sidelines, and in a hurry, she gave birth to Genghis Khan, the future "Temujin".
This tragedy plunged the tribe into great turmoil and crisis. Without the leadership of the chieftain, the whole tribe began to disintegrate. It was at this juncture that a relative of Genghis Khan began to take on the task, gathering scattered tribal forces and leading them westward, recruiting new nomads along the way. After years of wandering, this scattered tribe has gradually grown and become a force to be reckoned with.
Of course, even if the tribe is reunited, it will still be difficult to really recover. Because in the Mongolian plateau, the intrigue between the tribes has never stopped. Fortunately, Genghis Khan relied on fortune and misfortune, and after experiencing the great trauma of the loss of his loved ones, he exercised extraordinary resourcefulness and courage in the long journey. He established great prestige in various civil wars, and finally was officially adopted by the tribe as "Genghis Khan" in 1206. From then on, he began the expedition to the east and west that shocked the world.
Activity area: Genghis Khan's lifelong gallop road
Genghis Khan grew up living in a nomadic environment on the plateau and was accustomed to trekking across the steppes from an early age. Although his tribe was in chaos for a time, for him, these vast savannahs were his home.
In 1206, Genghis Khan was proclaimed Khan, officially beginning his path to conquest. In this year, he led an elite army to attack his uncle Aqin's clumsy army, and quickly defeated it and brought it under his command. In the following years, Genghis Khan moved to the northeast and successively conquered the nomadic tribes such as Jingku, Zhihehai, and Qichi Guishun, and incorporated the entire Northeast Asian steppe into the territory.
In 1211, Genghis Khan turned his gaze to the West. After several years of arduous marching, he personally led his army to the territory of Islamic Central Asia. After years of conquest, it took only three years to destroy the Karakhanate and Khoizmu dynasties, and established rule in today's Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
At this time, the pace of Genghis Khan's conquest slowed down for the time being. He intended to consolidate his existing territory first, and set about reforming the military system to transform the nomads into a professional army of conquerors. From 1217 to 1219, he concentrated all his efforts on fighting the Namanites in the north, and finally completely defeated this formidable enemy in the terrifying "Nine-Sided Expedition".
In 1219, Genghis Khan moved to the southwest and began his conquest of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. With superb tactical command, it took only one year to capture the then powerful Shuguo and Kipchak Khan. After that, the army reached the north of India, coerced the then Delhi Dynasty into submission, and became a vassal state of the Mongol Empire.
At this time, the claim that Genghis Khan came from China also had some basis. Because in the next few years, he began to infiltrate the northern frontier regions of China. In 1226, Genghis Khan personally led a large army into northwest China and captured the Qarakhanids, which were still part of China's territory at that time. This laid the groundwork for the future conquest of the Central Plains.
In 1227, Genghis Khan went east to Goryeo and forced Goryeo to pay tribute to him. During this time, he was assassinated in the middle of the process, and although he survived, he was also seriously injured. As a result, he had to leave the war on the Eastern Front to the kings to continue to take care of.
Inheritance of the legal system: the Yuan Dynasty and its evolution
After Genghis Khan's heroic death, the vast Mongol empire he left behind fell into a brief period of turmoil. According to tradition, the throne was supposed to be inherited by the eldest son, Torre. However, Torre died of illness shortly after his succession, and the throne soon changed hands to Genghis Khan's other son, Ögedei.
Ogedai was an excellent heir, not only a heroic fighter, but also a political skill. At the beginning of his succession, he immediately stopped his expeditions to Western Europe, focusing on consolidating his existing territory. At the same time, he promulgated a series of reforms to maintain discipline in the Mongol army and ensure the submission of all ethnic groups.
Sadly, however, Ögedei's reign was short-lived, and he died of illness after only four years. It stands to reason that the throne should have passed to his son, but his son was still young at the time, so the throne was eventually succeeded by Genghis Khan's other son, Guiyu Khan.
Guiyu Khan was a charismatic monarch who continued some of the policies of his father and elder brother while also being a pioneer. It was during his reign that the Mongol Empire finally completed its conquest of the Song Dynasty's Central Plains and later unified all of China.
However, Guiyu Khan's life was also quite short, and he died in an accident in just 17 years. The choice of the heir sparked great controversy among the Mongol upper echelons, and the throne was eventually succeeded by Genghis Khan's grandson, Möngke.
Möngke was an extremely young emperor, and his reign was short and tyrannical. Just two years later, just as he was preparing to conquer Europe, he was assassinated by rebels. This also became a short pause in Mongolia's journey to expand its territory.
After Möngke, the Mongol Empire was mired in a long period of internal strife, which was divided into several political conflicts. Finally, in 1271, a prince named Kublai Khan began to make his mark in the midst of this great chaos. Not only did he reorganize the territory of the Khanate, but he also formally established the Yuan dynasty in the Central Plains in 1279.
Since then, Genghis Khan's territory has finally moved towards a high degree of unity. During his reign, Kublai Khan continued to centralize power and incorporated the elders of the Khanate into the imperial court, ensuring the integration of Mongolia with the Central Plains. In 1294, Kublai Khan officially ordered the capital to be moved to present-day Beijing, and the territory of the Yuan Dynasty eventually overlapped with the territory of present-day China.
Comparative analysis: the historical status of Mongolia
When discussing Genghis Khan's nationality, we cannot ignore the historical status and influence of Mongolia as a modern state. As an independent state, Mongolia does have part of the Mongol lineage during the time of Genghis Khan. But on a deeper level, it is not fully representative of the Mongol Empire back then.
The predecessor of the state of Mongolia was the province of Yunyun during the Yuan Dynasty, and its jurisdiction included most of present-day Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. Although the Mongols dominated the region at the time, the entire region was still subordinate to the Yuan dynasty, which was centered on the Central Plains.
It was not until 1635 that the Ming army, which had been wiped out by the Yuan Dynasty, under the leadership of Dolgon, recaptured the Abu Hashli region (present-day Hulunbuir) and gradually drove the Mongols out of the Central Plains frontier. After a long period of infighting, the Mongols finally established the Heshute Banner in 1692 under the unification of Genghis Khan.
However, the scope of this new kingdom was limited to a small part of present-day Mongolia. Its limited power, coupled with its long-term secession by the Qing Dynasty, could not represent the authority of the entire Mongol ethnic group. It was not until after the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 that some descendants of the Hoshut Khanate finally established the "Mongolian People's Republic" in the modern sense.
For hundreds of years, Inner Mongolia had been under the rule of the Qing Dynasty and the Central Plains Dynasty. Many of the nomadic Mongolian aristocratic families here are descendants of the royal family given by Genghis Khan himself. They often have a dual status, on the one hand, as a feudal minister, and on the other hand, as a tribal chief. This makes the Mongolian ethnic groups in Inner Mongolia highly integrated with the culture of the Central Plains.
Thus, from the point of view of ethnic inheritance, today's Mongolia can only be counted as a small part of the descendants of the empire of that year. The Mongol branch in Inner Mongolia follows more of the tradition of high integration between the Genghis Khan Empire and the Central Plains Dynasty.
In addition, from the perspective of territorial scope, the territory of Genghis Khan's empire has long extended far beyond the borders of present-day Mongolia. At one time, it spanned the Eurasian continent and radiated almost the entire civilized world. Therefore, it is somewhat narrow to identify the nationality of this pioneering hussar conqueror as a modern Mongolian state.
Chinese Elements: Blended into Chinese civilization
A closer look at the deeds of Genghis Khan's life shows that he actually has a deep connection with Chinese civilization. From the original origin of the Kipchak tribes, to the later conquest of the Central Plains, to the high degree of integration during the Yuan Dynasty, Genghis Khan's empire was largely influenced by Chinese culture.
Tracing back to its roots, Genghis Khan's family was originally descended from the Beidi people. These former nomadic peoples gradually assimilated into a member of the orthodox civilization of China after moving eastward to the Central Plains. When they go west again, they will inevitably take with them the seeds of Chinese culture.
Observing Genghis Khan's style of behavior during his lifetime, it is not difficult to find that he was very "Chinese" in many aspects. For example, he attached great importance to the hierarchy and bureaucracy in the military, which was the same as the practice of the Central Plains Dynasty. More crucially, after Genghis Khan's conquest of northern China, he absorbed a large number of Han Chinese ministers and generals, and reused them.
The most famous was Yue Fei's descendant, Yue Wen, who not only became an important minister of the Mongol Empire, but was also appointed as the chief general of the conquest of the Southern Song Dynasty. Such a way of employing people is really no different from the Qin and Han empires back then. Genghis Khan even sent envoys to the Southern Song Dynasty to seek advice in order to seek the best way to govern.
By the time of the Yuan Dynasty, the influence of Central Plains culture on the Mongols was even deeper. After Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty, he not only incorporated the Central Plains into the imperial court, but also vigorously absorbed Confucian culture and pursued the policy of "applying China to the body". Under his leadership, the entire regime quickly assimilated into Han culture.
Many scholars believe that the centralized system of the Yuan Dynasty during the period of Kublai Khan, as well as the practice of selecting scholars for the imperial examination and attaching importance to agriculture and mulberry, are all the inheritance and development of the Central Plains dynastic system. During this period, the Mongols had been fully integrated into the Chinese family.
Even the clothing and cultural relics of the Yuan Dynasty fully reflect this trend of centralization. From architectural style to literature and art, all of them show a strong Han color. In particular, the porcelain craftsmanship of the Yuan Dynasty has reached the peak and has become a treasure in the history of ancient Chinese ceramics.
It can be seen that although Genghis Khan is a descendant of nomads, the empire he created has actually been highly integrated with Chinese civilization. As far as nationality is concerned, he can be regarded as the successor and promoter of the orthodox civilization of China.