In the 1160s, on the floodplains of the Onon River in northeastern Mongolia, a boy named Tamujin was born. As a young man, he organized an alliance of rival tribes among those of the grasslands north of the Gobi desert. Years later, as the fierce warrior-leader Genghis Khan, he led a vast army of nomads out of the grasslands, across deserts and against societies who had the misforture to share time and space with the all-powerful Mongols.
1220. Samarkand, Central Asia. From the city’s northwest gate, the inhabitants of Samarkand could only watch in terror as the enormous army approached. Perhaps 80,000 riders could be seen. According o one writer, they appeared more numerous than ants or locusts,[more than] the sand in the approaching riders drove thousands of captured civilians as a human shield.