QI The Book of the Dead

Pony Express, consisting of achain of manned refuelling stages at 140-mile intervals all over the empire. To run a yam station was a well-rewarded, high-status job. A messenger would arrive, hand his package on to a fresh horseman and then rest and recuperate. In this way, a message could travel over 200 miles in a single day, outstripping the fastest army. The service was safe and secure: for merchants wanting to move goods or information it was also free. The yam was to turn the Silk Road into the medieval world’s most important highway.
    None of this would have been possible without the superiority of Mongolian troops. Highly skilled, mobile and disciplined, Mongolian mounted archers were self-contained fighting units. Protected by light helmets and breastplates made of leather or iron plates, they carried two powerful small composite bows made from horn, wood and sinew, each as powerful as an English longbow but much quicker to use and re-load. Their quivers contained a selection of arrows for different jobs: armour-piercers, blunt ‘stun’ arrows, even arrows that whistled, which were used for sending messages. They also carried a small axe or mace. Each man had a saddlebag with his own food rations, rope and sharpening stone, and a string of five or six spare horses. This meant there was no baggage train or camp followers to slow things down. A Mongol army could travel well over a hundred miles a day – they ate on the move and even stood up in the saddle to evacuate themselves while galloping along.
    Genghis was a superb military planner. Each campaign was mapped out in advance and extensive use was made of spies and field intelligence. The troop structure was based on the decimal system: squads (10 men), companies (100), regiments (1,000) and divisions (10,000). Commanders controlled regiments and were given a high degree of independence.

    A Mongol attack was devastating and virtually impossible for a traditional army to withstand. Appearing at terrifying velocity, the cavalry suddenly split into three or more columns and mounted a multi-pronged assault. The tactics required remarkable horsemanship and the troops were rigorously trained. This was done through hunting exercises. A posse of horsemen would set out into the steppe until game was sighted, surround the animals at speed and at a distance, and then gradually close the circle making sure nothing escaped.
    The Mongols usually tried to ambush an army and destroy it in the field rather than besiege a major city, but when the time came they were both ruthless and highly original. Innovative siege warfare was another of Genghis Khan’s great skills. First, small undefended local towns would be taken and the refugees driven towards the city, putting pressure on living space and food resources. Next, rivers were diverted to cut off the water supply. If necessary, siege-engines were then deployed, built on site from local materials by prisoners of war. Mongol catapults were particularly effective, sometimes firing the bodies of plague victims over the city walls: one of earliest examples of germ warfare. Once a city was taken its leaders were captured and executed to remove the focus for any future rebellion.
    Brutal though this sounds, even Mongol siege techniques bore witness to the sense of fairness that Genghis Khan had enshrined in the yassa . Arriving in front of a doomed city, the Mongol commander would issue the order to surrender from a white tent: if the city complied, all would be spared. On the second day, he would use a red tent: if the city surrendered, the men would all be killed, but the rest would be spared. On the third day, he would use a black tent. After that, no quarter was given.

    Genghis Khan’s achievements can hardly be overstated. By the time he died (still fighting, in north-western China in 1227) he had transformed a haphazard patchwork of squabbling goatherds into an empire of unparalleled military strength, with a language, a constitution and an international postal service. In Mongolia today, he is still considered a national hero.
    Though he was said to have more than 500 concubines (and untold numbers of bastards), Genghis Khan stayed loyal all his life to his original wife Börte and their four legitimate sons. He had appointed his third son, Ogedei, as his successor and for fifteen years things went well. Under Ogedei’s leadership the Mongols put down a rebellion in Korea and demolished the Russians, Ukrainians,