Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan). (Instructional Resources Corporation)
Islamic regions. When Chinggis Khan died in 1227 he had not subju-
gated the Jurchens, and the task was left to his son and successor,
¨
g¨dei Khan, who completed it in 1234.
With this, all of northern China came under Mongol control. For a
time
¨
g¨ dei considered exterminating all the Chinese in northern
China and converting it into grasslands for pastoral nomads, but his
ethnic Kitan advisor, Yel¨ Chucai, talked him out of it, convincing him
that Chinese peasants made agriculture possible, which in turn was
responsible for the enormous wealth he was extracting from China.
In 1251 M¨ngke Khan,
¨
g¨dei's cousin, became Grand Khan of the
Mongol world empire and decided to undertake two great conquest
campaigns: one against Persia and one against China. M
¨
ngke person-
ally mounted the campaign against Southern Song China and sent his
younger brother H
¨
leg
¨
to attend to the conquest of Persia, which was
accomplished by 1256. The Southern Song campaign was more diffi-
cult, however, and M¨ngke died in 1259 without having accomplished
it. That honor was left to his brother Khubilai, who became Grand
Khan in 1260 but did not conquer the Southern Song until 1279.
The outright conquest of China may not have been Chinggis Khan's
original intention; he seems to have wanted to intimidate China from a
distancethewaytheXiongnuandTurkshaddonebeforehim.
