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Travels in Siberia: In this chapter the author looks at the Mongols of Central Asia. One of the greatest leader was Genghis Khang. In 1220 he asked a Taoist monk to come to him from Beijing in China to the Mongol encampment far to the West. His journey took about a year and a half. The monk was honest with Genghis Khang and told him that there was no medicine of immortality. The travel of the monk to the Mongols is one of those journeys of exploration that happened much earlier than the more famous European voyages in the 1400's. Christian monks traveled to visit the Mongols from the East and Marco Polo went to the core court of Kublai Khan in 1271-75. His book described these trips and many learned about the Mongols for the first time. The conquest of the Mongols had opened up Central Asia and made it a place people could travel to. Under the leadership of Genghis Khang the mongols attacked civilizations from Beijing to Persia. The mongols were expert horseman and fierce warriors. They were basically a nomadic people use to living outdoors. By 1227 the mongols had conquered Northern China, Middle Asia, the Crimea and the Northern Caucasus. In taking over this land they killed tens of millions of people. They were heartless towards the people they captured including the women who they sent to different harems. Genghis grandson Batu led a campaign against Russia and continued to attack them year after year. They were called Tartars by the Russians meaning Asianatic horsemen.They even conquered the city of Kiev. The mongols forced the Russian population to move into the forests and towards the North. The mongols turned the attention of Russia to the East and Russians began to make journeys into Asia. In 1380 the Russians won an important battle against the mongols although the mongols still continued to attack. Over time the mongols became part of the many peoples they had overrun and the mongol empire shrank. Many mongols converted to the Tibetan version of Buddhism. The Russians sometimes boast that they saved Western Europe from the mongols by ultimately defeating them.