A succinct history of the End of the World
Here is the answer to the question “what ever happened to the Silk Road of Central Asia?” from Frederick Starr’s incredible book, Lost Enlightenment. The short answer: Genghis Khan. Here is Starr’s comprehensive yet succinct account of the utter destruction of this world - I have supplied some headings, and boldfaced the cities destroyed:
The First Mistake
Sensing both opportunity and danger, [ruler of the Khwarezmid Empire] Qutb al-Din Muhammad sent a delegation of merchants to meet with this fast-rising Mongol ruler. Chinggis Khan received the group amicably and went so far as to state that he recognized the shah of Khwarazm as the ruler of the West, just as he, Chinggis, was ruler in the East. In the ensuing mood of euphoria, the Muslim merchants on the delegation showed Chinggis their goods, unwisely jacking up the prices well beyond their actual values. Chinggis calmly asked if they really thought that Mongols had never before seen luxury products and were ignorant of prices. The Muslims then offered the goods as gifts, but Chinggis insisted on paying the asking price for them.
“Genghis Khan seated on his throne with his wife, as depicted in a 15th-century Persian work.” Image Source
The Second Mistake
In the summer of 1218 Chinggis Khan reciprocated by sending a Mongol delegation to Central Asia. The participating diplomats and traders were drawn from conquered Muslim communities in Xinjiang. The caravan of five hundred camels paid a peaceful visit to Bukhara, selling and buying goods, but when they stopped in Otrar on their return the local head of the Khwarazmian government accused them of spying. He forthwith beheaded the diplomats and murdered all the merchants.
The official who committed this momentous deed was named Inalchug, and he was drawn from the nearby nomadic tribe of Kipchaks, from whom the rulers in Gurganj drew many talented officials. Qutb al-Din Muhammad had given orders for Inalchug to seize the caravan’s goods but not to kill the traders. It was a disastrous move. A single camel driver survived to report to Mongol headquarters what had happened.
Retribution (1)
Hearing the news, Chinggis Khan at first showed astonishing restraint, merely demanding that Qutb al-Din Muhammad turn over to him his official from Otrar. When the headstrong shah of Khwarazm refused, Chinggis Khan took it as a casus belli, which it surely was. By September 1218, he had crossed the Tian Shan [Mountains] with an army of 150,000 Mongols and Uyghur Turks. After capturing Otrar and killing most of its inhabitants, he executed the greedy Inalchug by pouring molten silver down his throat.
Otrar as it appears today. Image Source
I am a Reasonable Man
This strange combination of forbearance and raw brutality was to be the hallmark of Chinggis Khan’s entire campaign in Central Asia. The eastern Uyghurs submitted and he left their cities untouched; the same happened at a number of Central Asian cities and towns. But resistance or, worse, reneging on capitulation doomed the population to extermination by Chinggis’s forces.
Retribution (2)
Having reduced Otrar to ruin, the Mongol forces beset Bukhara. The local garrison retreated to the citadel and fought fiercely, which assured that the Mongols would take revenge by killing most of the population and devastating the city itself. Thirty thousand refugees struggled to reach a neighboring town but were captured and killed on the way. The same followed in Samarkand, where, as usual, the Mongols designated artisans for Mongolia and certain women and children as slaves. Here, though, a group of Muslim clergy offered their surrender, which saved some of the mosques from destruction.
A Personal Matter
The routes the various Mongol armies followed across Central Asia and Afghanistan were defined not by prospects of booty but by the paths of Qutb al-Din Muhammad and his son, Jalal al-Din. The main force drove Qutb al-Din Muhammad to an island in the Caspian, where he died so impoverished that he was buried without a shroud. Chinggis himself chased Jalal al-Din clear across Afghanistan to Multan in the Indus Valley, where the heir to the throne of Khwarazm dealt a punishing blow against the Mongol forces before escaping once more. As opposed to those who see the Mongol conquest as an inevitable hurricane from the East, this phase of the campaign suggests instead that it began as a calculated punitive expedition directed against the shah of Khwarazm, his son and heir, and those loyal to them.
And Still They Messed With Him
No sooner had the Mongols wreaked their vengeance against the two leaders than they confronted the Central Asians’ readiness to fight rather than surrender, and to pretend submission in order to strike back later. The response of both the Iranian and Turkic-speaking natives of the region recalls the behavior of their forebears when facing the Arabs five centuries early.
Retribution (3)
The Mongols responded with a war of extermination that reached its culmination in the attacks on Khojent, Tirmidh, Nisa, Ghor, Balkh, Bamiyan, Nishapur, Tus, Herat, Merv, and Gurganj. They employed storms of arrows, flanking tactics, and feigned retreats in open country and used siege engines and pots of burning naphtha against cities. A contemporary observed that they fought “like trained wild beasts after game.”
Merv as it appears today. Image Source
Again, I am a Reasonable Man
Should the many instances of resistance be ascribed to confidence in their own military prowess or to the fact that the locals believed that even capitulation would not save them from destruction and death? Many towns and cities, including Nur north of Bukhara, Qarshi in southern Uzbekistan, and Sarakhs, chose to surrender and as a result survived. The taxes the Mongols subsequently imposed on these places were generally considered fair. Many surrendered because they had been so exploited and humiliated by the Khwarazmians that they assumed the Mongols could not be any worse. The Khurasan historian Juvayni, admittedly in the pay of the Mongols, stated categorically that Chinggis Khan left in peace those cities that capitulated, saying that “whenever towns along the way submitted he in no way molested them.” But reports of the terrible fate of other cities convinced doubters that not even unconditional surrender would save their lives. While there were many motives for the Central Asians’ decision to fight, sheer desperation was surely among them…
A Rough Two Years
Chinggis Khan’s onslaught of 1219–1221 left all Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran under Mongol rule… Unlike the invasions of Persia and Russia, the Mongol assault on Central Asia was highly personal, a war of revenge calculated to punish the shah of Khwarazm and the entire population for their defiance and perfidy. The result was a war of extermination. Estimates of the death rate at Samarkand, which was treated relatively mildly, approach three quarters of the population.