The Mongols are expansionist and militaristic. They start the game with Warrior Code and Pottery and build Keshik horse archers instead of knights. The history of the Mongol tribe began with the birth of Temujin, born in c.1167 AD in the wild steppe-land of Mongolia, which is bordered by Modern Day China and Russia. When Temujin was nine years old, tribal rivals poisoned and murdered his father Yesugei, creating a power vacuum in the tribe that resulted in the exile of young Temujin and his family as fugitives. In time Temujin would return to claim his inheritance, forge political alliances, and vanquish old rivals. In 1204 AD he summoned a kuriltai war council and proceeded to unite all local nomad tribes by force. It was at this time he received the title 'Genghis Khan', meaning 'Great Ruler'. China, at the time, was divided by three sects: the Ch'in, who were the most powerful, reigned in the north at Peking; the Sung occupied the South; and the Hsi-Hsia, the weakest of the 3, inhabited the western flank of the Great Wall. The Mongol conquest against China began in 1211 AD when the consolidated tribes of the Great Khan struck at the Hsi-Hsia, with tremendous success. Not impressed with the defeat of his weaker neighbor, the new Emperor of Ch'in insisted on a public display of servitude from Temujin. Temujin reacted by ordering a general advance against the Ch'in Empire. The resulting war lasted for approximately 23 years, and ended in the complete destruction of the Ch'in. During this campaign Temujin ensured that the epic war upon the Ch'in did not occupy all of his resources and time; there were older enemies to address. Amid the war against the Ch'in the Mongols also rallied against the Kara-Khitay, one of the original Kuchlug tribes that had fled from defeat during Temujin's war of unification. Victory over the Kara-Khitay provided the Mongols a common frontier with the Shah of Khwarizm, who ruled a large Muslim state that stretched from modern day Iran to the southern Soviet Union as far as the Caspian and Aral seas. In 1219 AD the Mongol horde gathered for the first of several large operations against Muslim and Persian enemies. After defeating the Shah, the Mongols had access to Russia. Not content with remaining a peaceful neighbor, Temujin permitted his generals