…Or, as I like to call it, Genghis 2: Empire-Building
Boogaloo, in which Genghis – you guessed it – further builds his empire having
united the tribes into one vast and terrible army. With the tribes now all
under his control, Genghis isn’t content to sit back and count the rancid
mutton and has instead settled his sights on an old enemy of his people: The Chin.
First taking Xi Xia (and one of their princesses for a second wife), Genghis
shows that his people aren’t just good at annihilating their enemies from atop
their ponies, but are masters of the siege and – more importantly – propaganda too.
Learning from every enemy he comes across, and being more
than a little sneaky when he needs to, it’s easy to see why Genghis (at least
how he’s characterised here) made such a stunning impact on world history. He
wasn’t just hard as nails (here surviving not just many battles but also assassins
with poisoned blades), but fabulously cunning too. Although, having no idea
about how this all went in real life, I have a funny feeling that his one blind
spot (his alienation of his eldest son, Jochi) is going to come back to bite
him in the ass.)
The battles that spatter these pages are more than a little
pulse-pounding, and I’m still struck with awe at what terrifying warriors the
Mongolians must have been, but having read the first two back to back I’ll be
taking a wee break from the series for a bit as my time in this world was
starting to feel ever so slightly samey towards the end.
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