QI The Book of the Dead

towards each other. Raiding, feuding and revenge killings were common.
    ‘Genghis Khan’ was his title, not his name. As a boy, he was called Temüjin (‘iron one’). He was of noble birth: his father, Yesügei, was a khan or clan chieftain. When Temüjin was nine, a group of treacherous Tatar bandits poisoned his father while sharing a meal.
    Temüjin claimed the chieftainship but the clan laughed at him as he was too young to take on his father’s role: he and his family were cast into the wilderness. For three years he scraped a subsistence living for them, hunting small game and gathering wild fruits. At the age of twelve he killed one of his half-brothers for stealing food, cementing his role as leader of the family.
    He married at a very young age, and before long his wife Börtewas abducted by the savage Merkit tribe. To get her back, Temüjin made an alliance with his father’s old blood brother, Toghrul, khan of the powerful Kerait. She gave birth to a son when she came home: she had been away for eight months, and raped, so the paternity of the child was in doubt. Nevertheless Temüjin accepted him, and he was given the name Jochi, ‘The Guest’. Encouraged by their victory over the Merkit, Temüjin and Toghrul began to build a new tribal confederation.
    Temüjin’s great contribution was to draw up a new set of laws, called the yassa . Based on what he had experienced, the laws were designed to eliminate the anti-social opportunism – casual theft, violent bickering, tit-for-tat kidnapping and murder – that made life on the steppe so difficult and dangerous. (Even his own father had carried off his mother from a neighbouring tribe.)
    Under the yassa , food was to be shared. Everyone was free to follow any religion they wished. All men (other than religious leaders and doctors) were obliged to join the army, but recruits were rewarded for their skill not for their family affiliations. Kidnapping women and stealing livestock were forbidden. The pillaging of enemy corpses and property was not allowed until ordered by field commanders. When it was permitted, individual soldiers were allowed to keep the spoils. The children of conquered peoples were to be adopted by Mongol families and treated as equals not as slaves. Captured troops were to be retrained as Mongol soldiers and given the same rights.
    A combination of warrior code, state constitution and Geneva Convention, the yassa was ruthlessly enforced: disobedience brought immediate execution. Although in some ways it was really just a clear codification of existing tribal customs, its tough justice took hold at once, producing professional disciplineamong the existing troops, gratitude from the new recruits (and their families) – and loyalty from everyone. The ranks of the Mongol army swelled and, with each new conquest, Temüjin’s power base increased.
    If this gives the impression that Temüjin was some sort of Mongol version of the Dalai Lama, then it would be inaccurate. He was fair but he was implacable. When, to establish his supremacy, Temüjin eventually had to impose his will on his original allies, the Kerait, he first offered them the chance to surrender and when they refused he crushed them in a series of great battles. The Kerait were by then led by Jamuga, son of Toghrul (and Temüjin’s own blood brother and boyhood friend). When the vanquished Jamuga asked if he could meet his end without his blood being spilled, Temüjin graciously had him wrapped in two felt blankets and then beaten and asphyxiated to death.
    By 1206 Temüjin had achieved the unthinkable, linking all Mongol tribes for the first time into a single league. At the age of forty-two, having outmanoeuvred or defeated his rivals, he was declared Genghis (or more accurately Chinggis ) Khan. Many suggestions have been put forward for the precise meaning of this name – Lord of the Oceans, Universal Leader, Precious Warrior, Spirit of Light, True Khan – but the general idea is unmistakeable: he was the khan of khans . No other Mongol leader ever bore this title.
    You cannot operate an effective legal system without writing, so Genghis Khan borrowed the alphabet of a nearby people, the Uighur, to create standardised written Mongolian. (Uighur derives from Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, though Aramaic, ironically, never developed a written script of its own.) He also instituted a rapid communication system known as the yam . This operated like an Asian