Genghis Khan: Genghis Khan, the legendary founder of the Mongol Empire, is a dazzling legendary star in the history of ancient China and even the world. He led the ethnic minority tribes to fight in the east and west, founded the Mongol Empire, expanded the territory to Central Asia, and made a significant contribution to the integration and expansion of China's territory. Kublai Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan, seized power in the Central Plains and established the Yuan Dynasty. Genghis Khan is revered as the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, and his pioneering work has had a far-reaching impact, becoming an unparalleled hero of the Yuan Dynasty and even later generations.
In the course of his life, Genghis Khan carried out many massacres in the process of attacking cities and plundering land, and ordered not to kill three kinds of people, which became the greatest fear in the hearts of the enemy. Although many people have mistakenly believed that "Genghis Khan" was his name, in fact, his original name was "Genghis Khan", which is the honorific title given to him by later generations, which means "to have the four directions of the sea". Genghis Khan was born in the Southern Song Dynasty, when the Song and Jin dynasties in the Central Plains were at odds with each other, and the Mongolian region had not yet been unified, and the tribes were pitted against each other and fought endlessly.
Against this background, Genghis Khan's birth is even more extraordinary. He also pinned high hopes on his son, and named him "Temujin", which means "the most refined of iron". However, it should not have been expected that this much-anticipated eldest son would later become the emperor of the ages who unified Mongolia. At the age of nine, he was betrothed to the daughter of the Hongjirabu, but he was poisoned by the revenge of the Tatars, and Genghis Khan and his mother fled from place to place, hiding from the pursuers.
After several years of enduring humiliation, Genghis Khan began to gather the old tribes, and with his outstanding military skills and political skills, the declining Qiyan tribe gradually became the head of the Mongol tribes. In 1206, Genghis Khan unified Mongolia and was revered by the Mongol tribes as "the khan of the four sides of the sea". Genghis Khan once said: "The greatest pleasure of a man is to conquer the chaos, to defeat the enemy, to seize everything, to ride his horse, and to take his beautiful wives and concubines." Under his leadership, the Mongol Empire continued to expand since its unification.
As a result, later generations had mixed evaluations of Genghis Khan, with some seeing him as a heinous aggressor, but for Genghis Khan himself, this was nothing more than an inevitable means of territorial expansion. Genghis Khan's "three no-kills" policy made the Mongol army a nightmare for Central Asians at that time. This principle includes not killing children, not killing artisans, and not killing deserters, respectively. The first is not to kill children, for Genghis Khan, children are not seen as "enemies" to conquer cities, but as a resource.
During the massacre, he would order his soldiers to leave the young and ignorant children behind and gather them together to educate them in the Mongolian way, allowing them to learn the language and history, with the aim of making them aware that they were Mongols and that they would live and fight as Mongols in the future. Genghis Khan also screened children, and in general, young and ignorant children were best suited to stay, because they had not even formed the concept of "home" and "country", and when they grew up, they would not have doubts about their identity, and they would not have rebelled against the Mongols because of the so-called "hatred of the country and family".
The second is not to kill artisans, because a country needs not only "people" who can reproduce, but also the technology and craftsmanship that support people's reproduction and life. In ancient times, when productivity was low, especially for the predominantly nomadic Mongol tribes, technology and craftsmanship were an important driving force to improve the quality of life and allow them to fight more effectively on the steppe. Genghis Khan allowed these artisans to stay and gave them generous treatment to ensure their loyalty to Genghis Khan, which had a significant impact on the military power of the Mongols.
Finally, without killing deserters, Genghis Khan would actually let go of those enemy deserters who fled because they were afraid of war. Generally speaking, Genghis Khan's army would execute prisoners as soon as they were captured, except for enemy deserters, Genghis Khan would let them go. This policy of "three no-kills" enabled Genghis Khan to win the support and awe of the people after a large-scale massacre, and also played an important role in the formation of the feared Mongol iron cavalry in the later period. Why was Genghis Khan tolerant of deserters who were clearly capable of resisting?This is a question that many people find difficult to understand.
In fact, there are two considerations for Genghis Khan. First of all, these deserters were cowardly people, who chose to flee in the face of the Mongol invasion, even though they had parents and relatives behind them. This kind of cowardly and useless person was the one that Genghis Khan looked down on the most. For Genghis Khan, these people were worthless to him, and with their cowardly character, they would not have the courage to rebel against Mongol rule in the future, and killing them would only tarnish Genghis Khan's own reputation. Secondly, it is a means of breaking the hearts and minds of the enemy's military.
Genghis Khan spared the deserters and saved their lives, but killed those who were still fighting the Mongols and were captured. Under this psychological difference, it is inevitable that some enemy soldiers will want to flee the army out of fear, so as to achieve the effect of weakening the enemy's military strength. This is Genghis Khan's "three non-killing" principle. Genghis Khan fought all his life, and his political wisdom and military skills were very superb, which can be called unparalleled in the world. It was Genghis Khan's lifelong efforts that enabled his descendants to leave an iron-blooded dynasty in Chinese history that would be immortalized in the world.