The Mongols conquered thousands of cities, but Genghis Khan condescended to enter only one in history. Usually, when victory was secured, he would withdraw with his courtiers to a more comfortable camp far away, leaving it to his warriors to complete the remaining tasks. One day in March 1220, the Mongol conqueror broke with his unique tradition and led his cavalry into the center of the newly conquered city of Bukhara. The city was one of the most important cities in Khwarazmsulf (present-day "Sudan"), now part of Uzbekistan. Although the city of Bukhara is neither the capital nor a major commercial city, it occupies a lofty emotional position throughout the Muslim world and is regarded as a "noble Bukhara". Known for its title of "bringing glory and joy to all Muslims", the city became a holy place for Islam. Since Genghis Khan was well aware of the importance of declaratory significance in his conquest and entry into the city, he rode majestically through the city gates, through a crowded area of wooden houses and hawker stalls, to the huge masonry complex in the center of the city.
After perhaps the most daring and innovative successful raid in military history, Genghis Khan entered Bukhara. At that time, part of his army was marching from Mongolia in a straight line to attack the border cities of Suanduan, while he himself accompanied Yuanzhong and led another brigade leader on an expedition longer than any other army's route—two thousand miles of deserts, mountains, and grasslands. Finally, they appeared almost inconceivably in the depths behind the enemy lines. Even commercial caravans would detour hundreds of miles to avoid the Kyzylkum Desert, the fabled "Red Desert," but that's exactly why Genghis Khan chose to attack from that direction. By establishing good relations with the nomads of that region, Genghis Khan was able to lead his army through the desert along routes that are still unknown today.
His target, the city of Bukhara, stood in the middle of a fertile oasis on the banks of a tributary of the Amu Darya River, where the inhabitants were mostly Tajiks or Persians, but ruled by the Turkic tribes of the newly established Khwarazm Empire, one of the many short-lived empires of that era. One of the serious fatal mistakes made by Khwarazm Arithmetic was that he plundered The Mongol caravan and disfigured the Mongolian ambassador sent to negotiate peaceful commerce, infuriating Genghis Khan. Although he was nearly sixty years old, when he heard that his men were under attack, Genghis Khan did not hesitate to gather his disciplined and experienced combat unit, once again stepped on the war horse, and asked for his guilt.
Unlike almost any major army in history, the Mongol army was light and had no supplies. Even when crossing the desert during the coldest months, people and horses and livestock require only a small amount of water. Because there is dew in such a season, it can stimulate the growth of parts of the grass, which can be used for herding horses and can attract prey, which is needed by people who hunt for a living. Instead of slowly transporting siege weapons and heavy equipment, the Mongols had a quick-moving sapper unit that could build whatever they needed, using available materials on the spot. After crossing the vast desert, the Mongols encountered the first forest, and they cut it down to make siege ladders, weapons, and other attack equipment.
When the vanguard emerges from the desert and finds the first small tribe, the fast-moving task force immediately changes speed, moving slowly, slowly, as if they were merchants coming to trade, not warriors who attacked quickly. Before the inhabitants realized who they were and heard the alarm, the Mongol army was strolling idly through the town's gates.
After his unexpected appearance from the desert, Genghis Khan did not immediately march and took advantage of the situation to attack Bukhara. He knew that no reinforcements could leave the border cities that were being attacked by his troops, so he could use a painful way to sway the worries and hopes of the Bukharan people. The goal of this strategy is simple and often the same: to force the enemy to surrender by means of intimidation before the battle really begins. Initially by seizing several smaller towns in the vicinity, Genghis Khan's forces released many of the local civilians to flee to Bukhara, where fugitives not only flooded the city, but also greatly exacerbated the atmosphere of fear in the city. The Mongol invasion behind the enemy lines immediately caused great destruction and panic throughout the empire. As the Persian chronicler Atatarik Dzifini described it, when people saw the country dwellers surrounding them, they were "suffocated by the dark dust of the cavalry and cavalry, overwhelmed by fright and panic, and fear and fear prevailed." Genghis Khan began by giving the people two options and began to prepare for a psychological offensive against a city. He offered the people outside the city a clause of surrender that, if they accepted, could join the great and benevolent Mongols, in the words of the Persian chronicler Ciferni, "Whoever submits to them may be given security and freedom and free from the harsh horrors and shame." "For those prisoners who refused to accept harsh terms, the Mongols would put them in front of the army in the next offensive and serve as cannon fodder for the war."
This tactic caused panic among the Turkic defenders of Bukhara. Only five hundred soldiers remained to support the commander of the bukhara castle, while the remaining 20,000 soldiers fled before the main Mongol army arrived. They threw away their cities and armor, like birds and beasts, which just fell into the trap of Genghis Khan, and the Mongol warriors had long been stationed outside waiting for the deserters, calmly executing them.
The civilians of Bukhara surrendered and opened the gates, but a small group of recalcitrant soldiers remained inside the castles of the inner city, hoping that the thick walls would help them stop any siege. After carefully assessing the whole situation, Genghis Khan made an unprecedented decision – to enter the city! His first act was to come to the center of Bukhara, accept the surrender of all, and call for the surrender of the people to provide hay for their warhorses. The provision of Mongol armies and horses was considered a sign of submission to the conquerors; more importantly, by receiving grain and grass, Genghis Khan regarded the subjugated as his subordinates, granted them the protection of the Mongols, and at the same time required them to obey his orders.
From the beginning of Genghis Khan's conquest of Central Asia, we have had a few written accounts of Genghis Khan, who was about sixty years old. The Persian chronicler Mikhail Alauddin Shzzizani, whose depictions of the Mongols was far less gentle than that of Shifini, portrayed Genghis Khan as "a tall, strong, energetic man with thinning and white hair, a pair of cat eyes, with focused vitality, insight and talent and understanding, a daunting attack, a murderous butcher who did not blink, a subversive of his enemies, fearless, bloody and cruel." Because of Genghis Khan's bizarre ability to destroy cities and defeat enemy forces several times larger than himself, Shrizizani also asserted that Genghis Khan was "familiar with witchcraft and scheming, and friendly to the devil." ”
After a planned raid of the city, Genghis Khan turned his attention to the rebellious Turkic warriors who were besieged in bukhara's inner castle. Although particularly unfamiliar to the Mongols, for the settlers of Central Asian oasis cities such as Bukhara and Samarkand, they have witnessed the comings and goings of many barbarian armies over the centuries. The former tribal armies, no matter how brave or disciplined, never posed a serious threat, for as long as the city defenders could find food and water, they could hide behind the thick walls of the inner fort and resist for long periods of time. The Mongols, after exhausting all means, were still unable to deal with the well-trained professional soldiers encountered in Bukhara. Although the Mongols usually had first-class bows and arrows, everyone had to bring their own weapons, so the quality of their manufacturing skills varied widely. Similarly, the Mongol army was made up of all male members of the tribe, who trained in rough pastoral methods; although they were hardworking, disciplined, and devoted to their causes, they lacked the same professional selection and training as the Bukharan defenders. The fort's thick stone walls helped the defenders to hide behind them, and most importantly, no tribal army had ever mastered the complex techniques of siege warfare. But Genghis Khan had a way to deal with them.
The attack was designed as an unstoppable display of strength, and the audience was not the conquered people of Bukhara, but the distant armies and the people of Samarkand, Genghis Khan's next target city. The Mongol invaders demonstrated their newly built siege weapons—ballistas, trebuchets,— that had been used by besieging forces for centuries, and that could not only throw stones and flames, but also shoot out burning liquids, explosive devices, and incendiary material. They brought in huge ballistas mounted on wheels, while the men and horses of the brigade took the tower with retractable ladders, from which they were able to hit the defenders in the inner city. As the attacks were being carried out from over the city, the tunnel sappers began to dig tunnels under the walls. While demonstrating the formidable technical power of the air, above ground, and underground, Genghis Khan also forced his captured defenders of the inner fort to attack the city, some prisoners charging forward, corpses accumulating in the trenches, and others pushing weapons into the castle alive, in this way Genghis Khan aggravated the psychological tension of the defenders.
The Mongols drew experience from the different cultures they had been exposed to, invented and used weapons of all kinds, and through this accumulation of knowledge, they also created a global arsenal of weapons capable of adapting to any situation encountered. The Mongols successfully experimented with fire-breathing or explosive weapons, which were later converted into mortars and cannons. In Chiffini's account, we are confused by the evidence that it accurately tells what happened around them. He described the Mongol attack as "like a blazing furnace absorbing hard wood, the fire is more intense, shooting sparks into the air from the waist of the furnace." "Genghis Khan's army combined the ferocity and speed of the steppe warriors with the highest scientific and technological wisdom of Chinese civilization. Genghis Khan used rapidly maneuvering and well-trained cavalry to deal with enemy infantry on the ground, while using new types of fire bombardment techniques and unprecedented destructive equipment weakened the protective power of the inner fortress walls, allowing the Mongol army to break through the fortress and thus coerce the castle defenders. As artillery fire and death descended on the defenders inside the castle, in The Words of Shifini, the warriors of the Count soon "drowned in a sea of total destruction." ”
Genghis Khan recognized that war was not a physical contest or mere competition between rivals, but an overall cause of one man against another. Victory will not be inclined to those who play by the rules; it favors those who make the rules and impose them on their opponents. Victory cannot be partial. It is complete, total, and undeniable—or nothing. In times of war, it means the indiscriminate use of terror and raids, and in times of peace, it means firm adherence to fundamental elements and unshakable principles that build loyalty among the civilian population. Resistance will face death, and the loyalists will be safe.
Genghis Khan's attack on Bukhara was seen as a great success, not only because the people of that city surrendered, but also because the army also surrendered when news of the Mongol attack reached the capital, Samarkand. If you abandon the country and flee, the Mongols are invincible. Genghis Khan led the main force across the Afghan mountains to reach the river region in northwestern India, while another detachment bypassed the Caspian Sea, crossed the Caucasus Mountains, and entered the Russian plains. From the day it began in 1220 until the rise of Sovietism in the 1920s, the descendants of Genghis Khan, as khans and emirs of bukhara, ruled the city for exactly seven hundred years, the longest-ruling family dynasty in history.