Epic Novels
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Kublai Khan
“What is conveyed here is the sense of awakening, the
loneliness and exhilaration of power, the danger and
satisfaction of opening up new frontiers. Enjoyable and
readable.”
Australian Book Review
“The strength
of Amy McGrath’s writing lies in her attention to detail, in
her vast knowledge of the period, and in her powerful
admiration of the hero figure.” Australian Book
Publisher
Greater than the
Caesars of Rome, the Mongolian dynasty of Genghis Khan went
‘wherever horses’ hooves could go.’
Genghis Khan
warned his family to be as one or suffer. Like the Caesars,
they were not as one and consequently suffered all the
curses of the Caesars….family quarrels, intriguing
ministers, treacherous slaves, rebellions, civil war and the
new political terror of the Assassins. But, most amazing of
all, the Empire grew none the less.
And the genius of
Genghis Khan did not die with him. It lived on in his heirs
– to expansion of his Empire, to the Yuan dynasty in China,
to the empire of Tamurlane and the Moghuls of India.
The greatest of
all Genghis Khan’s descendants was his grandson, Kublai, the
child he prophesied, when only 4 years old and many others
stood between him and the succession, was most worthy to be
his heir.
Genghis Khan’s
prophesy came true when Kublai, a genius in peace and war,
emerged triumphant from the family turmoil to rule an empire
so large and peaceful it was said a maiden with a gold bar
on her head could travel for three years unharmed by any
man. Kublai Khan’s Empire reached from the China sea to
Poland, swept south-west to Baghdad and Jerusalem and
received tribute even from Burma and India. He unified
China, restored the Grand Canal to Shanghai, and introduced
many reforms.
Kublai Khan lived
through many threats to his life, on and off the
battlefield. He was saved from the worst threat of all from
the man he trusted most, his Arabian Prime Minister Achmad,
by his son and his mistress, Miliha.
Kublai was the
only member of his family to die in his bed when 84 years
old. He was the first, and truly only, Great Khan, a
Colossus who bestrode his world and his time. The succession
of his Yuan dynasty fell late 14th century, but
extended in the east through Tamurlane’s revival of power
into the Moghul dynasty of India.
The story of
Kublai Khan begins thus in the early 13th
century:
“The vast reach of grassy ‘steppe’ plains, mountains and
Gobi desert, known as Mongolia, runs east to west between
Chian and Siberia. It is bounded on the south by the
artificial barrier of the Great Wall of China built by
successive Emperors of northern China over a thousand years
to keep the ‘barbarian’ nomad
Mongolian tribes out; on the west by the natural barrier of
the rearing Altai Montains; on the north by the fierce
Siberian forests, on the east by the hostile Tartars of
Mancharia.
When Genghis Khan
was born as eldest son of a ruling family of one of
Mongolia’s seven nations, a bitter civil war had raged
amongst them for many years reducing his family to
poverty-stricken refugees hunted down by implacable enemies
– a time they forever after called the ‘Time of Chaos’.
From his earliest
age, Genghis Khan’s mastery not only of all the arms of war,
but also the art of warfare, was obvious to all who crossed
his path, whether friend or foe. If ever a man was born to
lead, when a leader was most needed, it was he.
As the years
passed, he ended the divisions that had impoverished the
Mongolian nations, leaving them at the mercy of incessant
intrigues and incursions from the kingdoms ranged along
their southern borders – the Tangut to the west, the Chin to
the east. Then he welded a common army into one of the
greatest fighting machines the world has ever known by
pitting it against the formidable armies and massive cities
of both these rich, highly organised kingdoms. And so by
overwhelming command, acknowledged by the allegiance of all,
he earned his heroic titles – man of Iron, Ocean Great Khan,
Lord of Earth and Time and the Four Quarters of the World.
He made the country he ruled rich and prosperous through
safe and peaceful trade that began to reach out ever
further beyond the narrow scope of his original world – not
only south with Mongolian furs and silver to bargain for
Chinese silks, carpets, jewels, but also south-west through
Central Asia along the ancient Silk Road.”
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