Chapter 5, Sultan versus Khan Summary and Analysis

In 1219, Khan left for Khwarizm. By year's end, the Mongols had taken all of the major cities in the whole empire, leaving the sultan abandoned and dying on an island in the Caspian Sea. In four years, the Mongols conquered the cities of central Asia with ease, including Bukhara, Samarkand, Otrar, Urgench, Nishapur, Hamadan, Tabriz, and Tbilisi. They crushed every army they found, from the Himalayas to the Caucasus, from the Indus River to the Volga River. But in attacking Khwarizm, Khan attacked an entire ancient civilization combining the Arabs, Turks and Persians, one of the most sophisticated and richest countries in the world, with a high degree literacy. Since the sultan's regime was only twelve years older than the Mongol Empire, many dissensions made him easy to destabilize. Khan had an army of between...