27.5 Central and northern asia: a.d. 1201 to 1300

Central and northern asia (see map this same section, next chapter)

Back to Central and Northern Asia: 1101 to 1200

At the turn of the century Ali-ad-Din came to the throne of Khwarizm as Muhammad II and he soon added southern Khurasan and its peaceful Persians to his empire. To the east was the Tranoxiana Empire and to the northeast of that the powerful Buddhist Empire of Kara Khitae, screening Islam from the new power developing in Mongolia around Karakorum. It was in 1206 that Temujin, leader of the Yakka tribe of Mongolians of the Gobi desert, in council with other tribal leaders of the region, took the title of Genghis

It was the normal procedure of the Mongols to send emissaries ahead, bearing lavish gifts and suggesting trade, with new regions. Thus, before attacking Khwarizm in 1220, Mongolian merchants arrived with 500 camels laden with gold, silver, silk and sables. But Ali-ad-Din murdered the ambassador and the merchants and confiscated the gifts. When still another ambassador arrived at Samarkand to protest, the Shah, himself, burned the beards and hair of the escorts and sent the ambassador's head back to Karakorum. Then with 400,000 Turks and Persian auxiliaries, as well as thousands more armed slaves, Muhammad Shah sat back and awaited the arrival of the supposedly small, inferior Mongol army.

But the fate of Khwarizm had been sealed and the first attack occurred at the city of the original emissary massacre where Genghis Khan's two sons, Ogedei and Chagati, destroyed the city and killed everyone but the guilty governor, who was taken back to the Great Khan's headquarters where molten metal was poured into his eyes and ears until he died. A second Mongol force, led by Jebe Noyon