Genghis Khan’s love of conquest appears evident in a quotation attributed to him: “Man’s greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping…”
In 1215, in the early days of Mongol empire-building, Genghis Khan’s armies surrounded the city of Zhongdu (modren-day Beijing). Years later, a traveler who noticed a white hill was told it was the bones of Zhongdu’s inhabitants.
It is said that even on his death bed, Genghis Khan ordered the killing of the entire population of Xi Xia, a neighboring state that had defied him.