10 of History's Biggest Badasses

Chinggis Khaan Was Probably History’s Scariest Figure

A 2003 genetic study revealed that 1 in 200 of the world’s population, about 38 million people, is descended from a single Medieval figure: Temujin, later Chinggis Khaan (1162 – 1227). Founder of the Mongol Empire, the world’s largest contiguous empire, Chinggis was probably history’s most terrifying figure, ever. He committed huge massacres, even genocides, during his conquests, and the Mongol conquests kicked off by him killed about 40 million people. As a percentage of the world’s population at the time, that would be the equivalent of almost 280 million deaths in the 20th century.

At age nine, Temujin’ father, a minor Mongol chieftain, was poisoned, and tribal rivals expelled the widow and her children. Left to fend for themselves in the wilderness, Temujin’s family endured years of extreme want. Things got so bad that Temujin killed one of his brothers for refusing to share a rodent. Growing up hard, Temujin grew into a hard man.

And a charismatic one. By the time he was a young man, Temujin had a devoted following, and led them into bringing the Mongol tribes under his sway, one after another. By 1206, Temujin had destroyed all rivals, and the formerly squabbling tribes had been united into a Mongol nation. So a grand assembly was held that year, where he declared that the heavens had ordained that he rule all under the sky. The Mongols proclaimed him ” Chinggis Khaan”, meaning Universal Ruler.

Chinggis organized the Mongols for war. He was a good judge of men and an excellent talent spotter, and his system was a meritocracy in which the talented rose. He imposed strict discipline, trained his men hard, then set out to conquer world. He started with China, which was fragmented into various dynasties. He began with the Western Xia, and reduced them to vassalage. In 1211, the shifted to the more powerful Jin. In 1215, he captured and sacked the Jin capital, following a victory in which hundreds of thousands of Jin troops were massacred.

Chinggis then found himself ruling a domain that included tens of millions of Chinese peasants. At first, he planned to simply kill them all, and transform their fields into pasturage suitable for the Mongols’ herds. He only changed his mind after taxation was explained to him, and he was persuaded that many live peasants translate into a steady stream of income.

Campaigning in China was interrupted in 1218, after Mongol envoys sent to the neighboring Khwarezmian Empire to the west were executed by its ruler. So Chinggis launched a brilliant invasion that extinguished the Khwarezmian Empire by 1221. It was in this war that the Mongols gained their reputation for savagery, as they marched thousands of captives ahead of their armies as human shields. Millions died, as Chinggis had entire cities and districts massacred for offering the least resistance.

By the time Chinggis was done, Khwarezm had been reduced from a thriving and wealthy empire to a destitute and depopulated wasteland. At the grand mosque in the once thriving but now smoldering city of Bukhara, Chinggis told the survivors that he was the Flail of God, and that: “If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you“. The world breathed a sigh of relief in 1227, when Chinggis was killed by a fall from his horse while campaigning in China.