How The Mongols Perpetrated The Worst Massacre In History
Each Mongol soldier was ordered to kill 24 men in the city
“I have heard of such a quantity of slain that I did not believe the report and so have not recorded it,” — Historian Juvaini on the Sack of Urgench.
There were many terrible massacres throughout history. According to Brandon Christenson at Real Clear History, some of the worst occurred during China’s Qing Dynasty.
But one massacre had no parallels. Persian historian, Juvaini, documented the Sack of Urgench by the Mongols, where the Mongols invaded the Khwarazmian Empire and utterly decimated the city. In Urgench, Juvaini says the Mongols enslaved all women and children, while each Mongol soldier was ordered to kill 24 men in the city. With 50,000 soldiers, this would have meant the Mongols killed 1.2 million citizens.
No one is sure whether Juvaini exaggerated the account of the events of Urgench, but here are the details that are officially known:
According to Dr. Kaveh Farrokh and Dr. Manouchehr Mostagh Korasani in Medieval Warfare, the Mongol Empire was rapidly expanding prior to the invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire. Genghis Khan had successfully united several steppe tribes in Mongolia and had conquered northern China by 1206, leading to the…
