For three relentless decades, Genghis Khan and his ferocious Mongol hordes thundered across Asia, leaving a trail of death that claimed more than one‑tenth of the world’s population and seizing nearly a quarter of the planet’s land. These 10 brutal moments from his conquests illustrate why his reign remains the most violent chapter in human history.

10 Brutal Moments Overview

10 He Killed His Brother for Not Sharing His Food

Genghis Khan was born the son of a powerful chieftain, but his situation changed when an enemy tribe poisoned his father. The young boy and his family were cast out of their home and forced to scavenge for food, mostly eating plants and discarded carcasses they found on the roads.

When he was 14, Genghis Khan found a fish and brought it back to his family, only to have his half‑brother Behter snatch it from his hands and refuse to share a bite with anyone else. Furious, Genghis Khan stalked his brother until he was alone —and murdered him with a bow and arrow.

Genghis Khan didn’t get away with his first murder completely, though. History reports that his mother “scolded” him, so he at least got a good talking‑to about how, in this family, we don’t murder our siblings.

9 He Beheaded People for Being Over 90 Centimeters (3′) Tall

When Genghis Khan was 20, he led an army against the tribe that killed his father and got his revenge. The Tatar army was crushed, and Genghis Khan set about exterminating the people in an incredibly unusual way.

Every Tatar man was lined up and measured against “the linchpin of a wagon,” which is the axle pin in the middle of the wheel. Anyone taller than these pins—which were 90 centimeters (3′) high—was to be beheaded.

In effect, Genghis Khan’s order slaughtered every male Tatar but the infants.

8 His Victims’ Bones Were Mistaken for Mountains

In 1211, Genghis Khan turned his focus to modern‑day China and attacked the Jin Empire. It was a reckless decision. The Jin Empire controlled 53 million people, and the Mongols had one million. Still, Genghis Khan won.

Within three years, the Mongols had made their way to Zhongdu (now Beijing). The city walls were 12 meters (39 ft) high and stretched 29 kilometers (18 mi) around the city. It seemed impossible to get in, so they didn’t try.

Instead, the Mongols starved Zhongdu out. By summer 1215, the people there were so hungry that cannibalism was running rampant inside its walls. Finally, they surrendered, and the Mongols sacked and burned the city. Months later, a passing eyewitness wrote that “the bones of the slaughtered formed white mountains and that the soil was still greasy with human fat.”

7 An Enemy Archer Shot Genghis Khan, So He Made the Archer a General

While at war with the Mongolian Tayichigud clan, Genghis Khan’s horse was hit. An arrow sailed into the animal’s spine, and the horse fell beneath the warlord’s legs, nearly killing him in the process.

His army marched on and won the battle, and Genghis Khan went out for revenge. He demanded to know who had fired the arrow. He didn’t expect anyone to confess, so he was probably looking for an excuse for another genocide.

But the archer Jebe stepped forward, confessed to the deed, and told Genghis Khan to kill him if he wanted to. Genghis Khan was impressed, so he made Jebe a commander in his army. Jebe later rose to be a general and one of Genghis Khan’s most trusted friends—all as a reward for nearly killing him.

6 He Made His Allies Marry His Daughters and Then Got Them Killed

One of the biggest ways Genghis Khan seized power was by marrying off his daughters to the kings of his allies. When Genghis Khan was behind it, though, even marriage was a death sentence.

For the privilege of marrying one of Genghis Khan’s daughters, the kings were required to cast out every other wife they had. This wasn’t because he was dedicated to monogamy. It was to make sure that his daughters were the only people in line for the throne.

The kings were then sent to the front lines of the Mongolian army. Almost everyone died in combat, and his daughters took over their kingdoms. By the time of Genghis Khan’s death, his daughters ruled an area stretching from China’s Yellow Sea to Iran’s Caspian Sea.

5 He Exterminated 1.7 Million People to Avenge One Person

The marriages might have been strategic alliances, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any love involved. One of Genghis Khan’s daughters loved her husband, a man named Toquchar. Genghis Khan loved him, too, as his favorite son‑in‑law.

When Toquchar was killed by an archer from Nishapur, his wife demanded vengeance. Genghis Khan’s troops attacked Nishapur and slaughtered every person there. By some estimates, 1,748,000 people were killed. Other historians dispute that number, but there’s no doubt that his armies killed everyone they found.

Women, children, babies, and even dogs and cats were tracked down and murdered. Then they were beheaded, and their skulls were piled into pyramids—a request by Genghis Khan’s daughter to ensure that no one got away with a simple wounding.

4 The Mongols Had a Victory Feast on Top of the Russian Nobility

In 1223, the Mongolian army was making its way through Russia and had just won the Battle of the Kalka River. The Russian army had surrendered, their towns had been captured, and the Mongolians decided to celebrate.

The generals and nobility of the Russian army were forced to lie down on the ground. Then a heavy wooden gate was thrown on top of them, chairs and tables were set on top of the gate, and the army sat down for a feast.

They held their victory celebration on top of the still‑living bodies of their enemies, eating and drinking while Russian princes were crushed to death beneath their feet.

3 He Diverted a River Through an Enemy’s Birthplace to Erase It off the Map

When Genghis Khan found the Muslim kingdom of Khwarezmia, he did something unusual: He took the peaceful route. A group of diplomats was sent to the city, hoping to establish a trade route and diplomatic ties.

The governor of Khwarezmia, though, didn’t trust them. He thought the diplomats were part of a Mongolian conspiracy and had them executed. He killed the next group they sent, too.

Genghis Khan was furious. He had tried to be nice, and he’d been repaid with dead diplomats. He set up an army of 200,000 soldiers, attacked, and completely destroyed Khwarezmia. Even after he’d won, Khan sent two armies to burn down every castle, town, and farm they found to ensure that no hint of Khwarezmia survived. According to one story, he even diverted a river to run through the emperor’s birthplace, just to make sure it would never appear on a map again.

2 He Nearly Erased a Kingdom From History for Not Sending Troops

When Genghis Khan attacked Khwarezmia, he asked the conquered kingdom of Xi Xia to send him troops. They refused. Xi Xia tried to take a bold stand against their oppressor, and they quickly regretted it. The Mongolian army swarmed through Xi Xia, destroying everything that they found. They systematically exterminated every member of the population.

By the end, Xi Xia was erased from history. They hadn’t written down their own stories, so the only records of their existence came from neighboring countries. Their language wasn’t recovered for more than 700 years. It took until the mid‑20th century for archaeologists to unearth stones that had their writing on them. In the meantime, every word they had spoken was forgotten.

Genghis Khan died during the battle, most likely from being thrown from his horse. Still, the Mongolian army carried out his work. They slaughtered every person they found, even after their leader was dead and their enemy had surrendered.

1 Everyone Involved In Burying Him Was Killed

When Genghis Khan died, he wanted to be buried where no one could find his corpse. In honor of his wishes, his body was carried miles into the wilderness by a group of slaves escorted by soldiers.

The slaves buried Genghis Khan in a place no one would ever find. To make sure the slaves would never divulge the secret, the warriors massacred them and threw them into the grave. Then the soldiers rode their horses over it and planted trees on top of it to hide the spot.

When the warriors who buried him made their way back to camp, they were promptly slaughtered as well, just to make sure they would never talk. And so Genghis Khan died in a massacre like the ones that pervaded his life, hidden away in a tomb that has yet to be found.

In an age of seemingly endless wars where nations can no longer even know when they’ve achieved objectives, let alone savor satisfying victories, it’s tempting for military students to look to the past. The pursuit of the 10 massive lesser conquests offers a vivid reminder of how empires rose, fell, and reshaped the world. Historians have drawn us neat, definitive maps and provided clear start‑and‑end dates, but the real allure lies in the vicarious sense of power and accomplishment that comes from walking in the footsteps of the victors.

Why These 10 Massive Lesser Conquests Matter

10 The Rise Of The Parthians

 We all know the name Alexander the Great, and as a result, his conquest of the Persian Empire and invasion of the Indian Empire are common knowledge. Much less well‑known is what happened to Alexander’s immense Greco‑Persian Empire after he died in 323 BC without a named heir. Consequently, civil wars broke out which would endure for decades on and off. The most successful of any claimants to the empire was Seleucus I Nicator. By 300 BC, his armies had taken most of modern Turkey through modern Pakistan. Unlike Alexander’s empire, the Seleucid Empire endured for centuries, spreading a religiously tolerant and financially vibrant trade hub. Yet by 247 BC, a kingdom known as the Parthian Empire emerged with its capital in Nisa which over roughly the next 160 years conquered most of the Seleucid Empire. Afterward, the Parthian Empire would become the most prominent force in the Middle East for centuries, eventually falling in 223 AD. 

The real enduring relevance of the Parthian Empire was its role as a rival to the Roman Empire. After Parthian armies demonstrated they could annihilate far larger Roman forces at Carrhae in 44 BC, the Parthian Empire took the initiative for eastward expansion away from Rome and spent the next few centuries bleeding Rome white, leaving it vulnerable to such invaders as the Germanic tribes. Although the Roman Empire outlasted it by centuries, the Parthians did as much to bring about Rome’s downfall as any barbarian army. 

9 Ashoka The Great

Ashoka took the throne of the Mauryan Empire in 268 BC. He inherited a realm that stretched from the Hindu Kush through much of modern Northern India along the Ganges River to the Subarnarekha River. By the end of Ashoka’s reign in 232 BC, it stretched down all but the tip of the Deccan Peninsula and from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. The human toll of this conquest was vast, even by the standards of the time. At the Battle of Kalinga alone, Ashoka’s army was said to have killed 100,000 people while also suffering tremendous losses themselves due to the valor of the Kalingas allowing them to nearly win the day. With those losses in mind, it’s not so surprising that the Mauryans were willing to force a reported 150,000 women and child prisoners into slavery. 

Today Ashoka is at least as celebrated for his alleged attempt at redemption after his conquests left such flows of blood in their wake. He greatly improved the infrastructure of the Mauryan Empire (particularly regarding roads). He not only promoted religious tolerance but helped legitize Buddhism. Most important of all, he was credited with laws abolishing slavery during his reign.  

8 The Swedish Empire

After staying neutral for World Wars I and II, Sweden isn’t thought of as a military powerhouse. But in the 1600s, Sweden was one of the most prominent powers in Central Europe. Beginning in 1560, Sweden fought several wars with Denmark for dominance of the Baltic Sea and came out massively ahead. By 1618 when Ferdinand II of Bohemia attempted to reinstitute absolute Catholic rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the Swedish military had been honed into a disciplined, well‑compensated, and well‑equipped modern force. It would defeat Poland over a four‑year war from 1625 to 1629, defeat Denmark again, and then win over Germany to reject the authority of the Catholic League. By its height in 1658, Sweden had gained control of most of modern Finland, middle Norway, Estonia, and lucrative territory in modern Northern Germany such as Bremen‑Verden.

Sweden had the good luck of being ruled by a couple of military geniuses. First, there was Gustavus Adolphus, who in addition to his numerous battlefield victories reformed Swedish trade and industry to allow a flow of foreign capital and trade so that Swedish weaponry became the envy of much of Europe. His greatest single victory was at the battle of Breitenfeld in 1631, where his mobile infantry and artillery ruined the previously undefeatable Catholic League army under Count Tilly. It was only his death at his second greatest victory in 1632 at Luetzen that stopped him from creating a pre‑eminent unified German nation centuries early and forming a league with Sweden that could dominate Europe. 

After Adolphus came Charles XI. He reformed the entire Swedish government into a combination of absolute monarchy and parliament, which held the economy together and with it Sweden’s many territorial acquisitions, though even Charles XI needed to put down rebellion after rebellion. He also overhauled the Swedish Navy so that it became one of the finest in the world.  

7 The Conquest Of The Aztecs And Beyond

Hernán Cortés first arrived in Hispaniola (modern Cuba) in 1504. After rising through the ranks by taking part in the conquest of that island, in 1519 he disobeyed orders from Governor Velázquez and sailed with 500 men and eleven ships to the Mexican mainland. Over the next two years, he forged local alliances through feats of arms among roughly 200 anti‑Aztec communities called the Tlaxcala. With them at his back, in 1519 Cortés’s men entered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan under initially cordial terms, only to be forced to seek refuge after the Aztecs soured on the Spanish and attempted to kill them. In 1520 the Tlaxcala sided with Cortés as he confronted rival Conquistador Narváez, who had been sent by Velázquez to displace him. Instead, the Cortés‑Tlaxcala alliance defeated and absorbed the new army, then marched on the Aztec capital again, sacking it in 1521. 

This is a well‑covered piece of history, but far less known is what happened next. In 1527, viceroys sent by the Spanish crown to help administer New Spain accused Cortés of poisoning them, forcing him to return to Spain to defend himself. Although acquitted, while he was away he was stripped of his governorship. This was a real pity for the Spanish Empire, as Cortés’s men had been enthusiastically moving through modern Mexico and beginning to settle in Alta California, modern California. However, the initiative for northern expansion was slowed greatly, allowing American settlers to out‑settle and eventually overwhelm Spanish settlers in the 19th Century. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a maverick conqueror.     

6 The Forging Of The Russian Empire

Today Russia is not only the largest nation in the world, at 6.6 million square miles it’s nearly twice the size of Canada, the second largest. This is a nation that in 1462 when it was known as Muscovy was scarcely larger than modern Germany. How did that happen? 

The story of Russia first swelling into a giant power begins with two Ivans. The first was Ivan III who took the throne in 1462 and by the end of his reign had more than tripled the size of the nation by annexing several small principalities and in 1478 annexing the Republic of Novgorod. In 1480, the Mongolian Golden Horde came to confront the rising power and was sent packing. 

What’s particularly notable about Ivan III’s successes was how bloodless many of them were. For example, in seizing Novgorod he mostly exploited internal rivalries to win the territory without a major battle. When confronting the Mongols, the Horde’s military was sent retreating without a fight at all. One of his greatest conquests wasn’t another principality; it was the Princess Sofia Paleologue of the Byzantine Empire, offering tremendous wealth and legitimacy to the rising Eastern European power. 

Then there was the 1547 ascension of Ivan IV, better known as “the Terrible” for his purges and draconian treatment of rebels. His military career was decidedly mixed, such as the 24‑year‑long Livonian War to conquer modern Estonia and Lithuania, which ended with at best a stalemate and was marked by Moscow being burned. Still, he was successful with major territorial gains such as the major cities across the Volga River (while driving the Mongols away from Astrakhan without a fight) and the first conquests outside of the Slavic areas.  

The single largest conquest that expanded the size of Russia began in 1581 when Cossack cavalry under the command of Yermak invaded Siberia. The invasion was retaliation to raids by Mongols under Kuchum as part of an effort to reinstate a great Khanate. Instead of uniting a new empire, Kuchum’s communities fell into infighting, which greatly aided the Russians in the short term as they established forts throughout Siberia, and also left Siberians more amenable to rule from Moscow to end the constant raids on each other. The Russian government immediately incorporated Siberian leaders into the Russian administration instead of treating them as semi‑independent colonies, as European powers often did in the Americas. It also helped that, as with many colonizations, the Russians brought deadly diseases with them. By 1742, the last of the rebel indigenous groups, the Chukchi, was put down. It seems more than the French Empire under Napoleon, the rise of the Russian Empire was characterized by dividing and conquering.      

5 Japanese Empire

By 1905, the expansionist ambitions of Japan received massive validation when it destroyed the Russian Navy at the Battle of Tsushima Straits. By 1910, it had added Korea to its holdings. For the next couple of decades there was a lull in new conquests as the Meiji Dynasty dealt with internal matters such as quashing a socialist movement, surviving massive earthquakes, and reorganizing a largely agrarian economy into a more industrial one. 

The conquests restarted dramatically in 1931 when, under the pretext that the Chinese military attempted to bomb a civilian train, Japan invaded and annexed the Manchurian Province, a move carried out without approval from the Japanese civilian government. A similarly flimsy pretext—the disappearance of two Japanese soldiers on the border to China—was used in 1937 to justify another Sino‑Japanese War, during which most of the Kiangsu and Inner Mongolian provinces were seized, placing significant cities such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the capital Nanking under Japanese control. By 1942, the empire’s high‑water mark included Burma, Thailand, most of Malaysia and Indonesia, and the Philippines. In less than half a century an island nation of fewer than 150,000 people swelled to 2.68 million square miles.     

The Japanese Empire was particularly aggressive in cultural erasure. For example in Korea, not only did 100,000 Japanese people move there while many Koreans were taken to Japan, but Korean historical documents were destroyed en masse. Even forests of native Korean trees were clear‑cut so they could be replaced by Japanese trees. Even today, Japan has many descendants of slaves from its imperial age who attempt to conceal their heritage. 

4 The Rashidun And Umayyad Caliphates

It can hardly be overstated how much the arrival of Islam energized the Middle East. After the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 AD, the Rashidun Caliphate began when Abu Bakr was elected his successor and finished the conquest of the Arabian Peninsula that the prophet started. He completed the conquest but died in 634. His successor Umar waged war on modern Iran; although assassinated in 644, they conquered Iran by 651 under his successor Uthman, who also took Armenia. Uthman was assassinated in 656, and his successor Ali brought Egypt, Libya, and part of modern Turkey into the fold. This was achieved by a military force that never numbered more than 100,000 troops.    

As indicated by the rapid succession of rulers who died shortly after taking power, trouble was brewing from the start. Not only did the Sunni‑Shia split emerge during this period, but Ali was ousted in 661 and replaced by the Umayyad Caliphate. The change in management did nothing to slow expansion. By 700, the Caliphate had conquered modern Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco in the West. In the East, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan were absorbed and India itself was invaded. By 711, the Iberian Peninsula fell, with Portugal and most of Spain under control. It wasn’t until the 732 Battle of Poitiers, a deep raid into France, that the tide began to turn. At its height the Caliphate spanned 5.79 million square miles, approaching a third of the world’s population at the time. 

3 Timur The Lame / Tamerlane

It is surprising how little discussed Tamerlane is today despite being a colorful and successful figure in military history. Born in 1336 into a minor noble family in modern‑day Uzbekistan, he collaborated with the Mongols and by 1364 had distinguished himself both as a mercenary and in helping the Mongols conquer Transoxiana. He then joined forces with his brother‑in‑law Amir Husayn and seized Transoxiana for himself by 1366. During this period he received an infected arrow wound that left him unable to use his right arm and leg properly, earning him the nickname “lame.”

Despite betraying a Mongol leader being key to his rise, Tamerlane styled himself as a fusion of Mongol power and Islam, marrying his sister‑in‑law Saray Mulk Khanum, a purported descendant of Genghis Khan. He emulated Mongol reliance on cavalry and treated resisting cities brutally, destroying landmarks in places like Herat while sparing cities such as Tehran. By 1405, his empire encompassed modern Afghanistan, half of modern Pakistan, Turkmenistan, all of Iran, most of Iraq including Baghdad, the Caucasus, and much of western Turkey—demonstrating a working, if ruthless, strategy. 

2 The Mongol Empire

TopTenz has devoted lists to the Mongol Empire before, but it’s time for a fresh rundown of their conquests. In 1206, Temujin united the steppe peoples of central Asia, and by 1209 they had conquered Xi Xia, a kingdom on the northern border of China. War with China followed, and by 1215 they had taken the capital Beijing. In 1219 Genghis Khan’s wrath moved west when the Khwarezm Empire (modern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran) insulted the Khanate by attacking a protected caravan and murdering the Mongol emissary. Genghis died in 1227, four years before the Mongols completed crushing Khwarezm. He was still alive when the Mongols entered modern Russian territory in 1223, launching a remarkably successful campaign even by Mongol standards. 

By 1240 the Mongols added most of modern Russia and Ukraine, most notably sacking Kyiv. In 1242 they invaded modern Eastern Europe, including Poland and Bulgaria. A conveniently timed death of Khan Ogedei spared much of central Europe from Mongol domination. By 1258 they turned their sights to the Middle East, conquering Baghdad in a particularly horrific manner. In 1260 they were thoroughly repulsed in Egypt for the first time, and subsequent defeats in Vietnam and Japan turned the tide against them. At its height the empire spanned 12 million square miles, unquestionably the largest contiguous empire in world history. 

1 The “Sun Never Sets” Empires

The United Kingdom was not the first empire to claim that the sun never set on its territories. The Portuguese Empire reached that milestone first, with colonies in Africa, India, and the Portuguese East Indies thanks to Vasco da Gama’s 1497 voyage and the 1500 founding of Brazil. It was later eclipsed by the rise of the Spanish Empire under the notoriously incestuous Philip II, which, after conquering the Aztecs, controlled vast swaths of North and South America, Equatorial Guinea in Africa, the Philippines, the Canary, Mariana, and Caroline Islands, and even portions of Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands. Unfortunately for Spain, Philip II’s disastrous 1588 launch of the Spanish Armada into the English Channel resulted in a catastrophic defeat that cost half the 130‑ship fleet, swinging initiative massively to Britain’s favor. 

Control of India began in the 1600s, with the acquisition of major trading centers Madras in 1639 and Bombay by 1661. In 1763 the Treaty of Paris at the end of the French‑Indian War yielded control of Canada and gave the kingdom massive holdings in North America even after the American colonies left in 1783. Around that time in 1788, 736 convicts were landed in Australia. In Africa, colonization started in 1787 when 300 freed slaves loyal to Britain during the American Revolution and 70 white prostitutes were landed in Sierra Leone. From that awkward beginning, control expanded to include lands from South Africa in 1820 to Egypt by 1899. By 1841 Britain had acquired the lucrative islands of Hong Kong and Taiwan. By the time Britain reached its greatest size in 1920, with territorial concessions from Germany and the Ottoman Empire, it spanned 13.71 million miles, and 412 million people—a quarter of the world’s population—lived within its borders. Let’s hope we never see another nation try to top that.