this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
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Was Genghis already a big dog at this point and the Khwarazmian leader just too full of themself to see who they were picking a fight with, or was this the beginning of the Mongols doing their thing?
A little of both - Genghis had recently united the Mongols under his banner, and he had had several successful expeditions against smaller sedentary polities, but the Mongol Empire's greatest period of expansion would actually be wolfing down the Khwarazmian Empire itself. It would around double the Mongol Empire's land area!
Genghis was fighting a war with China at the time, and the Khwarazmi may have either thought that he would be too distracted and weak to carry on another war, or that ~~they were built different~~ Khwarazmian fortifications would prove too much for a bunch of lowly nomads, just as such fortifications had turned back nomadic raiders in the past.
Unfortunately for them, the Mongols took diplomatic immunity very seriously - both in respecting it and in expecting it to be respected. So when Genghis had two sets of envoys executed by the Khwarazmi for basically no reason, he packed everything up (nomadic armies find that much easier than sedentary ones), put the entire campaign in China on hold, and let loose the full force of the Mongols on the Khwarazmi. And also unfortunately for the Khwarazmi, unlike previous nomadic polities, the Mongols were very good at besieging fortified positions.
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