Mobility, iron discipline, courage and endurance were what made the Mongol hordes so effective. Terror helped, too. It is said that once, when Chinggis’s troops were facing starvation during a long campaign, he ordered every tenth man killed and eaten, and that this was done without demur.

Each Mongol soldier typically maintained 3 or 4 horses. Changing horses often allowed them to travel at high speed for days without stopping or wearing out the animals. When one horse became tired, the rider would dismount and rotate to another.

The long run of unusually good conditions meant abundant grasses and a huge increase in herds of livestock and war horses that became the basis of Mongol power—a marked contrast to the long and exceptionally severe droughts that gripped the region during the 1180s and 1190s, causing unrest and division.

Khan’s troops, led by his youngest son, Tolui undertook the gruesome task. Women, children, infants, and even dogs and cats were all murdered. Worried that some of the inhabitants were wounded but still alive, Khan’s daughter allegedly asked that each Nishapuran be beheaded, their skulls piled in pyramids.

Upon his death he asked to be buried in secret. A grieving army carried his body home, killing anyone it met to hide the route. When the emperor was finally laid to rest, his soldiers rode 1,000 horses over his grave to destroy any remaining trace. In the 800 years since Genghis Khan’s death, no-one has found his tomb.

The Turko-Mongol saber is a curved sword. It was the Close-Range weapon of Genghis Khan. It also was one of the Short-Range weapons of Vlad the Impaler in the game Deadliest Warrior: Legends.

Genghis was not the first to use animals as weapons, but he may have been one of the earliest to use birds. Let’s look into the details of Genghis Khan’s use of swallows, as well as four other examples of armies using animals as weapons.