page_title: Genghis Khan
section_title: In China
hierarchical_section_title: Genghis Khan / Perceptions / Mixed / In China
caption_attribution_description: English: Genghis Khan's Monument in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
context_page_description: Genghis Khan, also officially Genghis Huangdi, was the founder and first Great Khan and Emperor of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death. He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of Northeast Asia. After founding the Empire and being proclaimed Genghis Khan, he launched the Mongol invasions that conquered most of Eurasia, reaching as far west as Poland and the Levant in the Middle East. Campaigns initiated in his lifetime include those against the Qara Khitai, Khwarezmia, and the Western Xia and Jin dynasties, and raids into Medieval Georgia, the Kievan Rus', and Volga Bulgaria. These campaigns were often accompanied by large-scale massacres of the civilian populations, especially in the Khwarazmian- and Western Xia–controlled lands. Because of this brutality, which left millions dead, he is considered by many to have been a brutal ruler. By the end of his life, the Mongol Empire occupied a substantial portion of Central Asia and China. Due to his exceptional military successes, Genghis Khan is often considered to be the greatest conqueror of all time.
context_section_description: There are conflicting views of Genghis Khan in the People's Republic of China. The legacy of Genghis and his successors, who completed the conquest of China after 65 years of struggle, remains a mixed topic. China suffered a drastic decline in population. The population of north China decreased from 50 million in the 1195 census to 8.5 million in the Mongol census of 1235–36. However most of them were victims of plague, floods and famine long after the war in northern China was over in 1234 and were not killed by Mongols. Since the 1340s, Yuan China experienced problems. The Yellow River flooded constantly, and other natural disasters also occurred. At the same time the Yuan dynasty required considerable military expenditure to maintain its vast empire. The Black Death also contributed to the birth of the Red Turban movement. Other groups or religious sects made an effort to undermine the power of the last Yuan rulers; these religious movements often warned of impending doom. Decline of agriculture, plague and cold weather hit China, spurring the armed rebellion. In Hebei, 9 out of 10 were killed by the Black Death when Toghon Temür was enthroned in 1333. Two out of three people in China had died of the plague by 1351. An unknown number of people migrated to Southern China in this period. James Waterson cautioned against attributing the population drop in northern China to Mongol slaughter since much of the population may have moved to southern China under the Southern Song or died of disease and famine as agricultural and urban city infrastructure were destroyed. The Mongols spared cities from massacre and sacking if they surrendered like Kaifeng, which was surrendered to Subetai by Xu Li, Yangzhou which was surrendered to Bayan by Li Tingzhi's second in command after Li Tingzhi was executed by the Southern Song, and Hangzhou was spared from sacking when it surrendered to Kublai Khan. Han Chinese and Khitan soldiers defected en masse to Genghis Khan against the Jurchen Jin dynasty. Towns which surrendered were spared from sacking and massacre by Kublai Khan. Khitan did not like leaving their homeland in Manchuria as the Jin moved their primary capital from Beijing south to Kaifeng and defected to the Mongols.
  In Inner Mongolia there are a monument and buildings dedicated to him and considerable number of ethnic Mongols in the area with a population of around 5 million, almost twice the population of Mongolia. While Genghis never conquered all of China, his grandson Kublai Khan completed that conquest and established the Yuan dynasty that is often credited with re-uniting China. There has been much artwork and literature praising Genghis as a military leader and political genius. The Mongol-established Yuan dynasty left an indelible imprint on Chinese political and social structures for subsequent generations with literature during the preceding Jin dynasty relatively fewer.
caption: Genghis Khan Monument in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
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