  BEING MEAN TAKES A LOT of energy and dedication. I can handle all that, but planning the strategies to make it all happen without a glich are so tedious. I'm pretty sure that in a past life I was a member of Genghis Khan's posse. I love the way they are portrayed on South Park and I always wondered what the wrath of Khan actually was.
I also wondered about the Mongol Horde. Apparently, Genghis had a strict philosophy regarding dealing with the enemy. He believed that he was the Pez punishment dispenser for God. You either surrendered or he would annihilate you, all your peeps, cats, yaks, camels, orchards, dogs, vineyards, and anything else you owned or might need in order to survive. He would sweep through your village leaving only a small pile of ashes. Genghis and all the Mongols loved their horses.
They were put on horseback before age 3. Each Mongol owned four to five horses. Most of them rode mares because of the delicious milk they produced. I would like to think that they all had a small stool and used a pail to milk their mares, but I have a feeling that this was not the Mongol way. I will leave you to your own visual imaginings. Mare's milk was very high in vitamin C which kept away the scurvy burvies.
On some occasions, the rider would cut the horse's veins and drink the blood that spurted forth. If the horse died, they died; if it lived, they survived. Mare's milk could be made into a yummy fermented substance called kumiss which was also an alcoholic beverage. There's nothing worse than a bunch of Mongols drunk on horse milk. That's when things really got out of hand.
You know how guys can be when intoxicated. A group of the guys lied and told the Chinese behind the walled city of Xixia that they would go away only if they would send them every cat and bird they had. After they gathered about a thousand of them, Genghis had his men tie bits of cloth to their tails and then set the cloths on fire. The cats and birds fled back to the city and ended up setting off hundreds of bonfires inside the city. While the Chinese were busy stomping out said fires, Genghis and his thundering horde rode in for the attack and destroy mission. His favorite method was to line up each and every villager and than let his men shoot them with arrows as his final act of gotcha.
Genghis had a whole arsenal of dirty tricks. His favorite method was to put fear in the hearts of anyone who wasn't part of his empire. Just knowing that the Mongols were on their way to a city near them put the fear of Buddha into any villager's heart. The original Mongols were professional warriors and had to study at the war academy before being sent out on the road show.
These guys knew what they were doing and had some plays that would make the best football coach look like a rank amateur. Here are some of their favorite moves: Genghis loved this one because it was his patented move and yet the enemy fell for it each and every time no matter where he might roam. No one was ever left alive to tell just how he pulled it off. Genghis would run a test attack on the enemy, retreat to an undisclosed location, and when the enemy followed them to make sure they had indeed run them off, the Mongols would ambush the enemy by attacking them from both sides and also sneaking up behind them.
It was like a Custer's last stand spectacle except Custer was still just a possibility in God's little pantry of things to come. They were quicker than a premature ejaculation. Genghis had state of the art equipment too. His men used giant leather shields to attack from behind or they would use their POW's for human shields. No use in dragging around more baggage than they had to. He also had catapults which could throw large spears, rocks, and battering rams into city walls.
He used Goliath sized ladders to scale enemy walls if it came to it. Whoopee!! Then there were the gunpowder missiles and my personal favorite-the catapult of burning oil. Mmmmmm.....shock and awe, 1200 AD style. Genghis was a man who loved his work. For four days, he waged war against a city of 10,000 people. When the smoke cleared every human, cat, and dog was dead and he was satisfied. I don't understand why he had to involve the cats and dogs in his death campaigns.
I guess there was no Humane Society for anybody to send a complaint scroll to. The life of a Mongol Warrior was most difficult because they virtually lived on their horses and owned several so they could swap them out. Most of them even slept on their horses so they could be ready to go at a moment's notice. He who had the fastest horse lived the longest.
They carried cooking pots, dried meat, yogurt, water bottles, and others essentials for long journeys in their saddlebags. I wonder how often the Warrior came home and what that homecoming scene was like back at the yert? The Mongolian Princess would be all freshly bathed and dressed in her finest after preparing a meal of fish or some small game animal with yogurt, onions and fresh berries for dessert while she waited for her man to come greet her and feast.
Her warrior/husband would stagger in all narsty and stinking of horse sweat with kumiss on his breath insisting that he was going to nail her before eating or doing anything else. After the hasty welcome home, the Mongolian Princess would weep quietly as he ate and watch as he staggered back outside to spend the night with his horse as was his custom. Remember, when I told that the Mongols really loved their horses? What I really meant was that the Mongols were in love with their horses. The Princess just didn't smell quite right and she had no body hair to keep him warm at night so he followed his heart.
Copyright© 2004 Minnow Paws by Catnip Clemens. All rights reserved. It Ain't Easy Being Mean 
