Chapter 3 Central Asia, Xinjiang, and Tibet 99who was a “brilliant but opinionated writer” in a “single style and full of parti-
san biases”—a kind of Homer, recording the astonishing events in the life of
Genghis Khan. Though it is partly mythological (“At the beginning there was a
blue-grey wolf, born with his destiny ordained by Heaven Above. His wife was
a fallow doe.”), it is a record of Genghis Khan’s life from someone who was
alive and saw it all firsthand.
On one of his campaigns in 1226 Genghis Khan was injured in a fall from
his horse, and he died surrounded by his family at the age of 65. He divided his
vast empire among his four sons (see map 3.1), while the third son, Ogodei,
became the Great Khan after him. Ogodei kept the conquests going as the new
Great Khan, and eventually separate territories emerged under branches of the
Mongol royal family: the sons of Jochi controlled the Golden Horde in Russia;
the descendants of Chaghatai in 1526 founded the Mughal (i.e., “Mongol”)
dynasty in India; Helugu founded the Ilkhanate dynasty in Persia; and Kublai
founded the Yuan dynasty in China.
In China, after absorbing the Song and unifying the three Chinese states,
Kublai attempted to Sinicize his image, ordered the building of an ancestral
temple along Confucian lines, built a Chinese capital, and set up a Chinese ad-
ministration. The capital he called Khanbalik, the City of the Khan (modern
Beijing), with broad straight streets on a north-south axis and east-west streets
perpendicular to them, wide enough to allow horses and military maneuvers. In
the heart of the city the Mongol rulers created a Forbidden City where they
could live as if on the steppes, in gers, and with a wooden palace resembling the
one in Karakoram, drinking large amounts of alcohol, women mingling freely
with men.Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis
Khan, completed the Mongol conquest
of China and consolidated Mongol
rule with the establishment of the
Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). This paint-
ing is by a Nepali artist done shortly
after Kublai Khan’s death.