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by the local governor, Inaljuk, at the border town of Otrar. Genghis understandably demanded the extradition of the governor. Mohammed responded by beheading the leading envoy and sending the others home without their beards. This dangerous insult resulted in a ferociously bloodthirsty response from Genghis Khan.
    400,000 Khwarizm warriors posted along the border river, the Syr Daria, were not enough to stop the invasion of the Mongol hordes. Inaljuk was captured and executed by having molten metal poured into his eyes and ears. The Shah fled, leaving his subjects to be raped or slaughtered. One technique Genghis Khan used on this campaign was the human shield. He herded crowds of prisoners in front of his army, as many as 30,000 at a time, as he moved into the new territory. A terrible catalogue of cruelty unfolded as one town after another was taken. At one, all the women were raped in front of their families. At another, the inhabitants were tied up and shot with arrows. At another, the poor were decapitated, while the rich were tortured to find out where their treasure was. And all this happened at great speed.
    Shah Mohammed fled to a village on the Caspian Sea, where he died of pleurisy. Meanwhile Genghis Khan followed his son and successor, Jelaleddin, in the conquest of the huge new territory. At Herat, where the governor he had installed was deposed, Genghis Khan put the city under siege for six months. When Herat fell, it took a week for all the inhabitants to be killed.
    Remarkably, and undeservedly, Genghis Khan died of natural causes at the age of 65. He set out to chastise the king of Tangut, and thoroughly subdued the territory in the usual way. It was while laying siege to the Tangut capital of Ninghsia in 1227 that he fell ill and died. He has been described as the ‘mightiest and most bloodthirsty conqueror of all time’. The final victims were in a way the most pitiful of all. They were innocent bystanders who accidentally saw the funeral procession making its way to the burial ground in the valley of Kilien. They were all killed. They had seen too much.

Tamerlane The Great
    (1336–1405)

     
    Tamerlane was the great-great-grandson of Genghis Khan. He was born at Kesh, near Samarkand, and given the name Timur. As a young man he nursed the pipe-dream of rebuilding his ancestor’s empire, which had subsequently fallen apart and been divided into a large number of small principalities. It seemed unlikely that he would be able to fulfil this dream, as he was disabled. The locals nicknamed him Timur i Leng, Timur the Lame. Yet in spite of walking with a limp, he is remembered as Tamerlane the Great, a ruthless and sadistic warmonger just like his great-great-grandfather.
    He was 33 when he seized the Transoxian throne at Samarkand, acquiring the power base he needed for his scheme of conquest. He was an expert military strategist and this skill enabled him to conquer Turkestan, Iran, the Ukraine, Crimea, Georgia, Armenia and Mesopotamia. Tamerlane did not reward those loyal to him with support. Governors who appealed to him often found they were betrayed once he had taken control of their kingdoms.
    Tamerlane invaded India, leaving a trail of destruction across the north all the way to Delhi, which he totally destroyed, massacring the 100,000 inhabitants.
    Tamerlane looked extraordinary. Apart from the limp, he was tall, with a huge head. He was also white-haired even from childhood. He was altogether a frightening figure, and he relied on fear above all to ensure the allegiance of his subjects. Even so, revolts were common, and cruel and brutal reprisals equally common. Cities were destroyed out of revenge. Whole populations were slaughtered. Huge towers made from his enemies’ skulls were built for Tamerlane to look at with gratification. On two occasions he ordered thousands of his enemies to be walled up to die slowly of suffocation. On another occasion he had his enemies thrown over a