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40 Awe-Inspiring Facts About Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire

Khalid Elhassan February 3, 2019 24 min

Toghon Temur, last Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. Wikimedia

5. The Fragmentation and Collapse of Genghis’ Empire

Although the various Mongol khanates owed nominal allegiance to Kublai Khan, they increasingly acted as independent entities, and took to warring amongst themselves. Kublai Khan, who was more focused on ruling his own realm in China – which was wealthier than all the other Mongol khanates put together – did little to interfere. He had come to appreciate the benefits of civilization, and decided to leave his roughneck relatives to deal with each other in their roughneck ways, so long as they did so far away.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.