18. Temujin Killed His Brother In a Quarrel Over a Squirrel
The great Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan was born Temujin, the son of a minor tribal chieftain. When Temujin was nine, his father was murdered, and tribal rivals then banished his widow and her family of five children to fend for themselves on the harsh Mongolian Steppe. For the next several years, the family survived on wild fruits, carcasses, squirrels, and other small game that Temujin and his brothers were able to hunt. It was supposed to be a death sentence, but Temujin’s mother managed to keep her children alive. Or at least managed to keep most of them alive: the family endured such dire want and poverty, and things got so bad, that Temujin killed an older brother for refusing to share a marmot – a type of big squirrel native to the Mongolian Steppe.
The ruthless Temujin grew into a tough but charismatic man, and as a youth, he began gathering a small and devoted following around himself. He had an instinct for tribal politics, and he parlayed his steadily growing band of followers into bringing the disparate Mongol clans under his sway, one after another, until he unified the entire tribe under his leadership. Temujin then implemented sweeping reforms, aimed at erasing intra-tribal distinctions. He accomplished that by the extreme but effective expedient of exterminating the Mongols’ fractious tribal aristocracy. He then combined the commoners into a unified tribe, bound by their personal allegiance to Temujin.
