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The conquest brought Genghis to the borders of Khwarizm, a new Islamic kingdom encompassing Uzbekistan, eastern Iran and Afghanistan, conquered by a cruel jackanapes, Shah Muhammad, who had heard eyewitness accounts of the sacking of Zhongdu. The shah was convinced of his own superiority over the coarse Mongols and by his own success. But the conqueror was about to be out-conquered, the classic case of jaguar–crocodile predation. When Genghis dispatched Mongol envoys and around 400 Muslim merchants, the Khwarizmians executed them, sending the heads to Genghis.

‘Avenging the avengement; requiting the requital’, Genghis planned the invasion of this new theatre. His favourite wife Yesui warned, ‘When your body falls like a great tree, to whom will you leave your peoples? Which of the four sons?’

‘Even if she’s a woman,’ mused Genghis, ‘she’s righter than right.’ All the sons had distinguished themselves as commanders but all were flawed: Jöchi had an uncontrolled temper; Chagatai was meticulous but harsh; Tolui was the best general; Ögodei, the favourite, was big, cheerful and conciliatory. All were raging alcoholics. Chagatai hated Jöchi.

‘Do we have to be governed by this Merkit bastard?’ cried Chagatai.

‘Our father never said I was different, how come you do?’ replied Jöchi. The princes fought but were pulled apart.

‘Ögodei is merciful,’ proposed Genghis’s generals. ‘Let’s have Ögodei.’

‘Jöchi, what do you say? Speak!’ cried Genghis.

‘Let’s say Ögodei,’ agreed Jöchi.

‘Ögodei, speak!’ said Genghis.

‘How can I say, I can’t do this? ’ replied Ögodei, displaying the required but also characteristic modesty. ‘I will do my best.’ The princes approved.

‘That will do,’ said Genghis.

In 1219 Genghis invaded Khwarizm, sending Jebe and Subotai as the vanguard, followed by Prince Jöchi^* with one column, while he led the other with Prince Tolui towards Bukhara (Uzbekistan), a cultured Persianate city with 300,000 inhabitants and a famed library. Genghis used the great mosque as stables – ‘There’s no fodder in the countryside; fill my horses’ bellies!’ Then he addressed the elite: ‘You’ve committed great sins. What proof? I am God’s punishment.’ Then the citadel was stormed, the people enslaved, the library burned, before he moved on to Samarkand, where he was joined by his other sons. They were dispatched to take the Khwarizmi capital Gurganj (Urgench, Turkmenistan). When the city fell, 50,000 Mongol soldiers were ordered to kill twenty-four Gurganj citizens each, which would mean 1.2 million people. This may have been the largest single massacre in history.

The shah fled, pursued by Jebe the Arrow and Subotai, in a hot chase that ended with Muhammad’s lonely death on a Caspian island. His more able sons did not give up: they sought an alliance against Genghis with the sultans of Delhi in India but were ultimately destroyed.

Genghis mopped up Afghanistan and northern Iran, slaughtering the entire populations of Balkh and Herat. Tolui took the resplendent former Seljuk capital Merv,^* where Genghis sat on a golden throne and ordered the burning of Nizam al-Mulk’s library. Next, declaring, ‘These people resisted us,’ they separated hundreds of thousands of men, women and children into herds and then slaughtered most of them like sheep. ‘Genghis Khan ordered the counting of the dead,’ wrote the Arab historian al-Athir, who interviewed survivors, ‘and there were around 700,000 corpses’ – an exaggeration, but again one of the most atrocious days in all history. Those kept alive as slaves were driven ahead of the Mongols as human shields, a practice already used in China. During the siege of Nishapur (Iran), Toquchar, married to Genghis’s daughter Checheikhen, was killed by an arrow. When the city fell, his widow took command, orchestrating the killing of everyone, the heads of men, women and children collected in different unisex head towers. Perhaps it was Genghis’s daughter who devised these dread towers, which became architectural statements of Mongol ferocity. Genghis’s favourite grandson Mutugen, son of Chagatai, was killed at the siege of Bamian (Afghanistan). At dinner, Genghis informed the father, banned grieving and then ordered the destruction of Bamian: there would be no plundering, just fire and death. Even dogs and cats were killed. These cities never recovered.