The Mongol Empire

In 1200, Eurasia was a patchwork. The Jin dynasty ruled northern China. The Jurchen, the Tangut, the Khitan held territory in between. To the west, the Abbasid Caliphate was fragmented but still cultural center of the Islamic world. The Byzantines clung to what remained of their empire. The Kievan Rus' statelets feuded among themselves. The Khwarazmian Shah controlled Persia and Central Asia and considered himself the most powerful ruler alive.

None of them took the Mongolian steppe seriously. They had no reason to.

The steppe was vast, cold, and largely invisible to sedentary civilization. The people who lived there were Pastoral peoples who migrated seasonally across the grassland belt stretching from Hungary to Manchuria, following their herds of horses, cattle, sheep, and goats. Steppe nomads were skilled cavalry fighters but rarely built permanent settlements. Their decentralized, kinship-based social organization made them difficult to conquer but also difficult to unite — until Chinggis Khan. who lived in felt tents, followed their herds, and organized themselves into competing clans and tribes. They had raided settled civilizations for centuries. They had never built one.