How to conquer the world?

Do you really, really want to know how to conquer the world? Well, if in your heart you sincerely cry out, with all the drama, tears, and emotions, “Yes! I really, really want to conquer the world” then your welcome to read on, provided that you are still within the bounds of being sane. Just a warning this article is very lengthy which is evident by a simple glance at the scroll bar on the side. So please do your water and toilet breaks already before you resume reading to the paragraphs below.

 

How to conquer the world is the simplest and easiest question to answer, but before you fulfill your destiny of world domination, I believe that the relevant question is “Why do you want to conquer it?” Assuming you went pass the why question, then continue reading this article. But if you cant find the answer to the why question, you might want to save time and effort by doing more productive things like watching TV or eating donuts instead of reading this article. Don’t worry ill try to write another article about how not to conquer the world, you can read that instead. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be lengthy also. It might even be just a blank page.

 

As the saying goes, there are many ways to skin a cat, but why skin a cat when you can conquer the world? There are many ways to conquer the world, amongst the many options are: conquering it by brute force, conquering it by severe intimidation and lastly conquering it by earning the respect and free submission of the people. There probably are more options but as far as the article is concern it covers only those three.

 

I have chosen three great conquerors of the world as a case study for all the three options that I have just presented. These three conquerors went down in history as people who built the largest empires in the world each distinct to what they believed in. For the conquer by brute force slot, I choose Ying Zheng (more commonly known as Shih Huang Di). For the conqueror that uses severe intimidation, Genghis Khan would be suitable for this. Lastly, for the benevolent and respectable Conqueror, I couldn’t find a more appropriate person than Cyrus the great.

 

Just to give you an idea about the size of the empires these men built, please see the map below:

 

YING ZHENG (QIN SHIH HUANG DI)

 

Let’s begin our case study on the first category, like what the cliché always say, first things first. The brute force conqueror is no other than Ying Zheng, the first emperor of China, builder of the ancient wonders: the terra cotta warriors, his own mausoleum, and of course the Great Wall of China. During the warring states period of China (China during that time was not united, instead its composed of seven kingdoms constantly hostile to each other), a boy by the name of Ying Zheng, who was thirteen years of age, inherited the thrown of the Qin kingdom. However, he was only a king on paper but in the real life he was just merely a puppet of his mother. Eventually his mother had another lover and they had two sons. By this time, his mother wanted him dead to open the thrown to her new sons. But Ying Zheng found out about this plot and by the age of 21 he staged a palace coup. He banished his mother from his kingdom after brutally killing her lover and two sons. I wouldn’t want to describe the actual process of how the lover and the kids were killed because it might be disturbing. Imagine being tied up on all limbs with horses pulling in each side? At first you might be glad for the extra inches that would be added to your height but then eventually reality will hit you, as the pain increases more and more and you’ll notice that you are not Mr. Fantastic. You’ll never believe it but your limbs actually separate from the body once pulled with great force. Next is that blood would come out and all, until you succumb to death and that’s it. See, I told you it was disturbing. Now stop imagining it already..

 

In order for Ying Zheng to create an army strong enough to conquer all the other kingdoms he first need to take care of feeding a very big army. His solution was very simple, he improved irrigation in his farmlands by carving a canal through a mountain that was blocking his access to the river. He added dikes and flood control systems so that on all seasons his irrigation system can supply water to the farmland. Simple right? Next on his list of how to build a strong army was the improvement of the weapons. For this he needed to discover a new kind of metal, Iron. Iron is tough as well as light. Ying’s army now have longer and stronger weapons. In addition, he also introduced new weapons like the triggered crossbow. To cut the long story short, eventually a superior army like that brute forced itself into conquering the rest of the warring states. At the age of 38, Ying Zheng has unified the whole of China. He proclaimed himself Qin Shi Huang Di (The First Emperor). Now the mantle of heaven is in favor of him.

 

 

 

Since Ying’s reputation as a tyrant and merciless conqueror grew, he was faced with many assassination attempts. This actually made Ying Zheng very paranoid. For fear of being assassinated, he hired servants to guard him all night and move him from one building to the next so his assassins wouldn’t be able to find him. He also hired doubles so as to decrease the chances of being assassinated. With all the safety measures, he still couldn’t stop thinking about the time when he can no longer be protected by his servants. He cannot die, if he did, the people he tortured and killed would be able to get their hands on him, because the Chinese believed in the after life. So he commissioned his “magicians” (scientist during that time) to find the legendary fountain of youth. His “magicians” were successful, they were able to find mercury, the logic behind it is that it preserves metal, so the human body could also be preserved. True enough, since that day Ying Zheng never grew old. He died younger than what he should be. But Ying Zheng had an insurance policy, since the age of 13, he already forced his people to create his mausoleum filled with mercury and traps. It was guarded by a detailed copy of his actual army in clay form known to us as the terra cotta army. This army is suppose to guard him in the after life. It was so exact that modern archeologist can determine the age of his soldiers, the armor and weapons they used, and the battle formation they form. It reminded me of the Joson paintings during the Joson period of Korea. In the museum of Seoul, it was said there that the paintings where so detailed that the modern doctors would know what kind of skin disease the person in the painting has.

 

Much of the technology during Ying Zheng’s time was lost, due to Ying Zheng’s sin to the world, the burning of Chinese books and the massacre of its scholars. He wanted to erase the records of his tyranny from history, he wanted the history of China to start from him, he wanted people not to be educated so they can remain as his puppets without any arguments. But no matter how much he tried to hide it, stories would always come down in history. That’s why in everything one does, one must be very careful because it will always have a reverberating effect to the future.

 

I’m glad we’re finally done with Ying Zheng. Now we can move on to our next category; conquering by severe intimidation. It is said that the world greatest conqueror is an Asian, a Mongol by the name of Temujin, which means “Iron worker” in his native language. From the moment he was born, his parents made him to believe that he was destined to be a great conqueror mainly because he his fist was clutching a blood clot when he was born. You can say its just superstition but really, it really is just superstition. Although the predictions eventually became reality, the real secret is the very high price that Temujin paid. The road to glory for Temujin was far from what we can say a walk in the park. Glory would always be paved by sacrifice, self-discipline, and hard work; otherwise everybody can easily traverse that road stripping it of any glorious characteristic. I believe that the road to being the greatest conquer of the world is open for all human beings, but only the person who wants it the most can take the spot.

 

TEMUJIN (GENGHIS KHAN)

 

Temujin is the son of Yesugei, a chieftain of a small tribe in Mongolia. At a very young age Temujin was trained to be a man, a tribal leader after his father. His mother, Ho’elun, trained him in the arts and culture area while his father trained him in the arts of warfare. Culture and arts is equally as important as military skills even to warriors and especially to a chieftain. Ever wondered why a Japanese Samurai is trained in calligraphy, poetry, and tea ceremonies? Well, let me elaborate that since even I also have some questions in mind about what I just wrote. What is the difference between a knight in shining armor and a barbarian with an extremely large weapon? The knight lives by the code of chivalry, he is refined in the way he carries himself during meal time, war time, and party time. You can not say that the code of chivalry lessens the knights potential to win a battle, it actually increases it because the balance gives him self discipline and makes him more of a human being, enabling him to fight for what is right and to defend the weak. This gives him a vision an answer to what he is fighting for. Never underestimate a man who is fighting for something, those kinds of men were the ones who dictates the direction of the world.

 

One day when Temujin and Yesugei went to another tribe for Temujin to choose a wife (Temujin was still young during this time, the girl he will choose will only be his bride only upon reaching a certain age). Temujin (13 yrs old) chose Borte (14 yrs old) a girl from the Konkirat tribe, which according to Temujin, is a woman of beauty. On their way home, they passed thru Tatar’s territory (Enemy territory) to show respect to the enemy tribe, his father accepted a “friendly” meal with the enemies, little did he known that the free meal was not really free, and that the pleasure was indeed all to his enemy. When they were on their way home, his father suddenly dropped ill, he was poisoned. His father soon died.

Now Temujin’s life would be very complicated. Instead of being the next chieftain, as what Mongol tradition as well movies like Lord of the rings and Stardust dictates, the next king would be the son of the king; His own tribe abandoned Temujin and his clan in the Mongolian plains. One time, it was said that there was a thief in the clan, Temujin went on a quest to discover who the thief was. He soon discovered that the thief was his own brother, so Temujin, killed him for breaking the law. There was another scenario wherein, the Tatars have attacked Temujin’s clan, capturing Temujin and making him a prisoner. But Temujin eventually escaped after killing his guards. He was captured many times and escaped many times as well. His survival skills was really good that even if enemies would try to chase him and track him down he manages to escape. News spread of Temujin’s honor and bravery that people begin to respect him as well as fear him. This talent of his will prove very useful later on in his life.

 

Fast forward a little bit, the time finally came when Temujin finally married Borte. They were happily married but sadly without a decent honeymoon. The Tatar’s really love making Temujin’s life miserable, and they succeeded once again. They attacked Temujin’s tribe once more and captured Borte. One thing that Temujin’s mother taught him was to value alliances, and Temujin remembered that. He asked for help from Togrul, his father’s blood brother. Togrul agreed but they still waited many months before they attacked the Tatars. Together they took revenge against the Tatars and Temujin got Borte back. But wait, there is more… Temujin not only got one person back, not one, not three, but two… He also got an instant son as Borte was pregnant when he rescued her.

 

Eventually, word of his alliance with Togrul reached the other Mongol tribes. They had a campaign of uniting all the Mongol tribes using the single arrow analogy. “One arrow can easily be broken, but a group of arrows is invincible.”. Their campaign was so successful that Mongols from different tribes joined them. In effect he was able create a very large army. But still numbers do not win a battle, it may aid a lot, but it can never guarantee success, in fact in some of Genghis Khan’s greatest battles, he is often out numbered. This just proves that the secret of his army is not in numbers, it’s in the skill, discipline, tactics, and superior weaponry. Under his command, the Mongols became known as excellent horsemen, they can shoot arrows with great precision while riding a horse. Genghis Khan is also a master of the psychological war, he would ask each men to light at least three camp fires so when enemy spies would scout at night, they will be intimidated by the size of the army.

 

But intimidation alone is not sufficient; it needs to be backed up with outputs. Genghis khan trained his army to work like a single machine, stories after stories would say that the Mongols are like devil horse men. The Mongols were the first ones to launch the blitzkrieg ( German word for “Lightning attack” which was used by Hitler during the World wars) attacks and they were also the army that would run in a seemingly random manner but end up surrounding the enemy. Legend has it that when the Mongols would cross the Gobi desert, each man would bring three horses. When the horse that he is riding would finally die of exhaustion, he will drink its blood and eat its meat, then continue riding the next horse. Imagine that, the vehicle is also the lunch box and the water jug, how efficient can you get? Because of this they no longer need to stop for rest and they no longer need to bring a supply wagon. In order for Genghis to accomplish the tactic of surrounding the enemy with his smaller army he would often take his men for a game. The game is to spread them over a large area of land and go for hunting. The twist is that they must encircle the animals in the area and kill them in a certain order like tigers first, then wolves, etc. This game, when applied to the battle field is very effective as it trains its men to kill in an orderly manner.

 

Genghis Khan valued each of his generals. Contrary to Mongol tradition during that time, Genghis khan rewarded ability and loyalty alone. In fact one of his generals, Subodai, was just a son of humble herdsman. But Genghis Khan placed him in a high position in his army. Since this went against Mongol tradition, he incurred the wrath of Mongol nobles; amongst them was his own blood brother, Jamuka, which revolted against him but Genghis Khan defeated him.

 

His well trained army eventually gained its reputation as an army you wouldn’t want to mess with. Genghis khan’s army is known for brutality as they do not want survivors in a battle field. They would often offer a city the chance to surrender and no one will be harmed or fight but if defeated everyone will be decapitated. Of course, not everyone is really decapitated, Genghis khan believed in cross pollination, in acquiring knowledge from other people, so after conquering a city, the artisans and the skilled workers would be offered a chance to work in Karakorum, the Mongol capital city. That’s why during Genghis Khans time, the most advanced city was Karakorum, it was brimming with ideas and inventions.

 

The art of intimidation really worked for Genghis Khan as it saved him a lot of battles since the enemies would rather live and surrender, then fight and get an instant head cut. To cut the long story short, Genghis khan conquered biggest land area any conqueror has conquered in a single mans life time.

 

People can say that Genghis Khan is really brutal and barbaric, well it maybe true but what really caught my attention when I was studying his life is that he is not just a brutal leader whose main goal is based on personal gratification alone. We have more brutal and barbaric leaders, but they accomplished nothing. Amongst them was I think the most brutal of them all is the empress dowager, Tzu His. Genghis khan was operating on a different dimension, you can say its vision, or mission, but in reality it is really love for his people. I cannot help but remember Lee Kwan Yew that day, August 9, 1965, when he was crying in national television over the separation of Singapore from Malaysia. Back then Singapore was just a barren swampland with nothing, not even water. He needed to do whatever it takes for his people to survive but look at Singapore today. Great men are not really defined but what they can do, but by what pains them. And it’s the same thing with Genghis Khan, he truly loved the Mongol people and wished them to have a better future, well of course it was at the expense of the Chinese, other Asians, and Europeans that he conquered.

 

He first unified his people so that they can be a nation, not just a group of tribes. He created a code of laws to govern his empire, he called it Yassa. In the code of laws it is stated that there should be no Mongol slaves. He conquered all the neighboring countries so that his people would feel safe and protected and that his people would acquire their knowledge. The Mongols really prospered during the reign of Genghis as skilled workers from all over the world developed Karakorum. Karakorum became the center of technology, medicine, and the arts.

 

Well, I think that’s it for Genghis Khan. Still want to continue? Well, since you’ve read already up to this far, might as well continue reading right? The next one , I think, is the greatest of the three. His name is Cyrus the great, he is amongst the few people who deserve to be called “the great”. In history channel he was called as the excellent benevolent manager of men. Historians would call him the humanist. The Jews would call him the anointed one and the liberator. His own people calls him father. And the Ionian greeks whom he conquered calls him a just and worthy law giver and ruler. But who is Cyrus the great? And why was he called the great?

 

CYRUS THE GREAT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 Cyrus the great is the founder of the Persian Empire under the Achaemenid dynasty. Little is known about his childhood, in fact, I don’t even know if this is true. It looks too Hollywood to me, but let me give it a try. Remember the story of Romulus and Remus? The two unwanted babies who were disowned and abandoned to die on the river but was taken cared of by a she wolf but despite that they eventually founded the Roman Empire? Well, it’s not like that but it’s somewhat similar. Like Genghis Khan, Cyrus was born with a prophesy. The prophesy is that he would overthrow, Astyages, his grand father someday. Well, you know what that means right? Somebody has to die… so Astyages asked his servant, Harpagus, to do all his dirty works. You know, like any mad scientist, they need their Egor. Without the Egor, there wouldn’t be any Frankenstein, coz no one will pull the lever (I also don’t know why the mad scientist cannot pull it himself?). But this time, the Egor couldn’t do it, the baby was just too cute for him to send to the afterlife. So he gave it to Mithridates, a herdsman of the king, to baby sit indefinitely.

 

To cut the long story short, the king soon found out that Cyrus was alive. Cyrus’ behavior was too noble to be a herdsman’s son and that he looked like Astyages. As punishment, Harpagus was tricked to eat his own son. But Astyages allowed Cyrus to live this time, he was even returned to his real parents Cambyses and Mandane. I told you it looked like a made up story from a barbershop (The one the barber tells all his customer to keep them entertained), blame to the “Father of History”, Herodotus. He was the one who wrote that, I just spiced it up a little.

Eventually, on 559 BC, Cyrus’s father dies making him an instant king of Ashan. During this time, Ashan is just a small sub kingdom under the Median Empire. The Median Empire is the empire that was ruled by Cyrus’s grandfather, Astyages. Well, like Temujin, Cyrus also fulfilled his prophecy. Harpagus and Cyrus, both joined forces and rallied their armies against the Medes until they captured Ecbatana which was then the capital of Medes.

 

Cyrus at this point, dominated all of Persia. Now it was time for him to conquer the world. The first empire to succumb to Cyrus was the Lydian Empire. It wasn’t Cyrus’s initiative to fight the Lydians. It was the Lydians who first attached his empire in Cappadocia. So Cyrus, invited the Ionian Greeks to revolt against the Lydian Empire. The Ionians agreed and as Cyrus and his army was marching towards the Lydian capital of Sardis his army grew bigger and bigger as men from all over the Ionian nation joined to his cause.

 

But as we know already from the previous articles, numbers do not win a battle. Cyrus is not just a benevolent leader or a political savvy, He was also a brilliant military strategist. In the battle for Sardis, he placed the dromedaries (smelly camels) in front of his warriors since it causes the Lydian cavalries to panic. It turns out that the Lydian horses don’t like the smell of these smelly dromedary. Well the strategy worked and it aided a lot in his victory. Up to this day, military schools would still teach the strategies made by Cyrus the great. In fact, one of the greatest conquerors named Alexander the great, visited the tomb of Cyrus the great on his way to Persia. Julius Caesar is said to have swept over the tomb of Alexander the great because he thought that Alexander accomplished so much at a very young age and he accomplished nothing (this was during that time before he crossed the Rubicon river and conquered Rome). And Alexander the great admired and paid homage to Cyrus the great. Imagine that, the two of the world’s greatest generals pays tribute to Cyrus the great.

Next on the list was the whole of Asia Minor and then finally the Babylonian empire. It was said that when Cyrus’s army marched to the city of Sippar on October 10, there was little to no resistance. No battle took place. Similarly on October 12 when his army marched to Babylon there was again little to no resistance encountered. He basically conquered cities by negotiations alone. Why do you think city after city would surrender to Cyrus the great with little or no resistance? To be able to understand this scenario, let me just walk you through the story of what happened in Babylon the day Cyrus the great proclaimed himself king of Babylon.

 

 

It is customary for a conqueror to pillage the city he just captured. Usually he would brutally execute the king to serve as an example to all the inhabitants. Rape the women, enslaved the men, destroy all the gods and goddesses and impose their own religion to be practiced, and loot the whole city. They call it the victor’s justice. But the day Cyrus marched into Babylon, he introduced a revolutionary idea. He first showed his respect to the Babylonian gods and goddesses proclaiming freedom of religion. Then he let the nobles be nobles. He set the Jewish slaves free. He also proclaimed the very first known laws of human rights. This was the press release that spread thru out all of the kingdom. Since most of the city states where not treated as justly as how Cyrus would treat them (keep in mind that most of the city states that were captured came under Babylonian and Lydian rule), so Cyrus became known as a liberator rather than a conqueror. In addition to this, Cyrus never believed in slavery, if you take a look at his magnificent city like Pasargadae and his magnificent projects, all of these where paid for. No labor cost was spared. Because of these reasons cities would wish that he take over rather than be ruled by their present empire.

 

Using this strategy, Cyrus easily and quickly created one of the largest empires in the modern and ancient world. It’s even bigger than twice the Roman Empire. But the real legacy of Cyrus is not in the bigness of his empire. Eventually his empire became the modern day Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, and so on and so forth. It became independent countries that require a passport and a visa to cross each other. The legacy of Cyrus is the Cyrus cylinder. The cylinder that contains the first record of the human rights law. Today a replica is kept in the United Nations office (In the second floor right between the security council and the economic council rooms), to remind them that they are dealing with issues of life and death, war and peace, and of human rights. It is even said that when the American constitution was being drafted, there were two books that were required for them to read. One is the Prince by Machiavelli which advocated government based on fear and the second book was Xenopontis (The education of Cyrus) which states that a government should be benevolent and just. Well, we can review the US Constitution and find out that rather than being feared, the government chose to be loved. They followed a Cyrus the great.

 

Unfortunately, Cyrus the great, like an Alexander the great or a Julius Caesar, died before he can ever complete his empire.There finished at last. So do you still want to conquer the world? You can follow the footsteps of Ying Zheng, Temujin, or Cyrus. But if you ask me? Why do you need to conquer the world? What good would it gain you if you built the biggest and largest empire in the world and at the very end just be confined in a tomb for the rest of history? You can end up like a Ying Zheng eager to erase history because of the evils that he did, or maybe like a Temujin who is hated by others but loved by his people, or like a Cyrus the great, who is remembered not just as an empire builder but for his contribution to humanity, the very first human rights law. 

 

~ nobody