A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

process. Walls of farm buildings were often built with mud in which the hardening ingredient was
cattle dung. Men would go and urinate against these walls, with the consequence that white streaks
would form on the wall. This was nitre - potassium nitrate. Someone no doubt tried the experiment
of tossing some of this crystalline substance on a bonfire, and observed that it made the wood burn
with a new fury - it releases oxygen. The next step, which was probably made by some Chinese
alchemist - for they had been at work trying to make semi-magical drugs and elixirs since the fifth
century B.C. - was to find that, in certain proportions, nitre, sulphur and powdered charcoal will
burn with a single bright flash, or - if confined in a tube - explode. (Joseph Needham has a long
account of Chinese chemical experiments with saltpetre in Vol. 5 (part 4) of Science and
Civilisation in China, but does not explain how its discovery came about. He promises more
information in the so-far unpublished Volume 6.) So the Chinese made fireworks, and the Mongol
hordes of Genghis Khan seem to have learned about it from them and brought gunpowder to the
west when they invaded the Kharismian Empire in 1218 A.D. By about 1250 the Arabs had
invented the first gun, a bamboo tube reinforced with metal bands which would fire an arrow. And
so man’s most dangerous invention before the atomic bomb reached Europe around 1300, and
helped to blow apart the last remnants of the Middle Ages.
The warrior who was probably responsible for bringing gunpowder to the west has been described
by one historian as ‘the mightiest and most bloodthirsty conqueror in all history.’ The Mongol
Temujin, known to history as Genghis Khan, was born in 1167 in the wild steppe country to the
north of China. The Mongols were not unlike the Red Indians of North America when the whites
first encountered them: a large number of separate tribes, usually at war with one another. Temujin
was the son of a famous warrior, Yesugei, who was killed by treachery on his way back from
arranging his son’s betrothal to a girl called Borte (or Bertha). Yesugei’s tribe took the opportunity
to expel the widow - fortunately a woman of strong character - and her children, including the nineyear-old
Temujin. For years they lived in the wilderness, and it hardened them and made them
ruthless - in his teens Temujin quarrelled with one of his brothers about a fish, and cold-bloodedly
murdered him. Then their former tribesmen decided to forestall vengeance by taking him captive;
after great hardship Temujin made a daring escape. He emerged from these experiences a
formidable warrior whose strength was matched by cunning and foresight.
The steppe was full of feuding kings - or ‘khans’ - and Temujin made an ally of an old friend of his
father, Torghril, khan of a tribe called the Kereits (a man who had achieved his position by
murdering two of his brothers). And when, one morning, wandering horsemen descended on
Temujin’s camp and stole his wife Bertha, Torghril rose to the occasion, and his warriors helped
track down the kidnappers, who were surprised by a night attack. When Temujin discovered that
Bertha was pregnant, he ordered the massacre of the whole tribe, including women and children.
But - typically - he brought up the child as his own son.
This expedition made Temujin’s reputation, and in due course he was elected chief of his tribe.
This led to a quarrel with his ‘blood brother’ Jamuqa, who felt he had a better claim. Temujin
triumphed eventually, but in the meantime suffered a heavy defeat in battle, after which Jamuqa
had seventy of his followers boiled alive in cooking pots; later tradition ascribed the atrocity to
Genghis Khan, a reflection of the terror that his name - which means mighty ruler -came to inspire.
By the beginning of the twelfth century, China was governed by the great Sung dynasty, whose first
emperor, T’ai Tsu, had united most of the country. But the Sung emperors kept their armies small,
for fear of rebellion, and this brought a worse evil - attacks by the barbarians, chief among whom