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The Eurasians Steppe...The Cradle of Horsemen Tribes...
Were they Cimmerians, Scythians or Sarmatians, were they Hiugn Nu, Juan Juan, Keraits or Mongols, they were the Kings of the Steppe.
Some, such as Scythians or Sarmatians, have left a legacy of invaluable treasures; some others, such as Hiughn Nu, from their occidental branch, best known as Huns, have lingered in our fantasy for centuries.
The majority of these ethnic groups, cast out by other tribes, of more power and warriors, or merely migrating under the pressure of an excessive demographic growth, suddenly came out of the steppe. They were first ransacking and ransoming their sedentary neighbours. Then, year after year, allegedly fascinated by the lifestyle of these peasants and villagers, developing regular bonds with local people, forgetting the physical strength and the fighting spirit they had so forcefully acquired by the hard life in steppes, they blended together with sedentary fellowships... From the horizon, using the same ways and showing the same eagerness to get by, another tribe would then come in, certainly for the same purposes, and would re-write this History with the same pencil.
Appearing on the scene, as fast as a gust, and like a gust, just vanishing.
In those far-off times, the steppe was also blowing in terror squalls...
They were Cimmerians, Scythians...
Genghis Khan and the Birth of the Mongolian Empire
Though everything stood against him, he was to create the largest Empire ever on Earth. He was called Temudjin. His childhood may have been awful, his strong-willing personality made him survive. Often betrayed, he always kept his word and demanded his fellows the same conduct. In that Middle-Age, where, across Asia as well as in Europe, a human life is less valuable than a horse, where clashes and battles in the name of a Religion, a Prince or a King are an easy lot, he makes up a penal code so as to get rid of the arbitrary and identically applicable to EVERYONE, he establishes a postal service, which is to endure up to 1949, he sets a strict discipline among his Armies, he makes open commercial routes linking Asia and Europe, he shields Arts and Culture, he promotes religious tolerance...
Beyond these facts, Temudjin raised an Empire, in which the birth status or religion can no longer confine someone in a social class. In Temudjin's Empire, positions, responsibilities and honours are awarded according to one's merit and no longer to one's birth.
Here lies the Major Revolution crafted by this Temudjin, the obscure Mongol child no-one would have bet on.
Temudjin can account among the Great Men of Human History. He remains nowadays better known under the name Genghis Khan.
Continue to the next page, Mongolia from the 14th to the 16th centuries.