The Destruction of a Prosperous Empire
As to the unfortunate Muhammad II, he was forced to flee, but the Mongols never gave him a chance to find sanctuary and recover for a comeback. Genghis put two of his best generals, Subutai and Jebe, in charge of hunting the Khwarezmian ruler. Muhammad was chased and hounded across his domain to his death, abandoned and exhausted, on a small Caspian island as his relentless pursuers closed in. It was in this invasion that the Mongols gained their reputation for savagery. Millions died, as Genghis ordered the massacre of entire cities that offered the least resistance, and sent thousands of captives ahead of his armies as human shields. By the time Genghis was done, Khwarezm had been reduced from a wealthy empire to an impoverished and depopulated wasteland.
At the grand mosque in the once prosperous but now wrecked city of Bukhara, Genghis told the survivors that he was the Flail of God, and that: “If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you“. Muhammad II brought catastrophe upon himself when he insulted somebody he assumed was just another upstart barbarian nomad chieftain from the Steppe. He discovered, too late, that he had challenged history’s greatest conqueror. Muhammad’s subsequent flight, as he was chased across his ever shrinking domain by relentless Mongol pursuers, could probably be set to chase scene music from Benny Hill.
