When the
Mongols began the
conquests across
Asia, the
Asian Minor and eventually to the outskirts of
Europe, before they sacked a
city, they usually asked for
one-tenth of all the city's
inhabitants to be their
slaves. If they refused or resisted in any way, the
entire population was slauightered to the last
child. Afterwards, if the
city still existed, the people are forced to pay large amounts of
tribute to the
Khan every year or else they would return to
sack the
city. It was in this way that the
Mongols managed to strike
fear in the hearts of everyone in that
era.
Baghdad, a thriving
city of
commerce and the
arts and one of the great cities of the
world at the time, was torched. It never recovered from the
blow. The entire
Asian Minor region was destroyed by the
Mongols and millions were possibly killed (even nowadays that is a huge number, in those days that meant
genocide).
Worse was the treatment of captives by the Mongols after they razed the city. The children were killed outright. The adults however, had more exquisite methods of torture waiting for them. They included:
Being roasted in cooking oil
Impaled on stakes
Trampled by hordes of horses
Dragged along by the Mongol warriors' horses
Ripped apart by horses (they had a thing with horses)
Boiled in water
Tied in sacks and savagely kicked to death
And that's just to name a few. The Mongols really had no qualms about slaughtering thousands of innocents for their own bloodlust.
When any great Khan died (e.g. [Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan), to keep the location of his burial secret, the procession killed everyone that they came across on the way there. They left behind a trail of beheaded corpses the entire way (it was a long ride too).
It was these kinds of atrocities that made Mongol cruelty was famous throughout the world. Mothers in Europe used to scare kids by saying that Genghis Khan will come after them.