When we consider the Mongol Horde, when we think of Genghis Khan, we always imagine faceless thousands riding their horses across Asia, conquering China, India, Afghanistan and coming right up to the Eastern reaches of Europe. But what was Genghis Khan's past, how did he come to rule such a mighty force? Was he the born leader of the Mongol masses, or did he have to fight for control?

When Genghis Khan was born, he was the son of a small clan leader and without any power. His clan was small, an extended family, and his father had stolen his wife and Genghis' mother from another tribe, right out from under her old fiance's eyes. When his father died, the clan was left without a leader, and they were forced out of the local tribe and into the woods, where they survived for a few years as hunters.

From this poverty came sudden wealth: Genghis married a young woman from another family, a wedding arranged while his father had yet been alive, and from this marriage he received a fine cloak of sable as the dowry. He cunningly took this sable cloak to one of the great lowland tribes and offered it as a gift to the tribe's leader, insinuating himself as the leader's son. When he returned home, he lived in peace until his mother's old tribe raided for revenge and took off all their womenfolk. It was at this point that Genghis asked the lowland leader for men for a counter raid, and, with the help of his blood brother's tribe, he smashed the rival tribe and regained his wife.

For a while he then traveled with his blood brother's tribe until his brother's growing disdain for him caused him to leave, taking half of his blood brother's people with him. He then began to work for the lowland leader, going on battles for him, but each time improvising a new set of techniques that allowed his might to grow by absorbing ever more warriors. When he finally was large enough, he ended up challenging his very leader for supremacy, and thus began the snowball effect that lead to his becoming the Genghis Khan of legend.