f this troop
Temujin was accustomed to scour the country, hunting out Vang Khan's
enemies, or making long expeditions over distant plains or among the
mountains, in the prosecution of Vang Khan's warlike projects,
whether those of invasion and plunder, or of retaliation and
vengeance.

Temujin was extremely popular with the soldiers who served under him.
Soldiers always love a dashing, fearless, and energetic leader, who
has the genius to devise brilliant schemes, and the spirit to execute
them in a brilliant manner. They care very little how dangerous the
situations are into which he may lead them. Those that get killed in
performing the exploits which he undertakes can not speak to complain,
and those who survive are only so much the better pleased that the
dangers that they have been brought safely through were so desperate,
and that the harvest of glory which they have thereby acquired is so
great.

Temujin, though a great favorite with his own men, was, like almost
all half-savage warriors of his class, utterly merciless, when he was
angry, in his treatment of his enemies. It is said that after one of
his battles, in which he had gained a complete victory over an immense
horde of rebels and other foes, and had taken great numbers of them
prisoners, he ordered fires to be built and seventy large caldrons of
water to be put over them, and then, when the water was boiling hot,
he caused the principal leaders of the vanquished army to be thrown
in headlong and thus scalded to death. Then he marched at once into
the country of the enemy, and there took all the women and children,
and sent them off to be sold as slaves, and seized the cattle and
other property which he found, and carried it off as plunder. In thus
taking possession of the enemy's property and making it his own, and
selling the poor captives into slavery, there was nothing remarkable.
Such was the custom of the times. But the act of scalding his
prisoners to death seems to denote or reveal in his character a vein
of peculiar and atrocious cruelty. It is possible, however, that the
story may not be true. It may have been invented by Yemuka and Sankum,
or by some of his other enemies.

For Yemuka and Sankum, and others who were combined with them, were
continually endeavoring to undermine Temujin's influence with Vang
Khan, and thus deprive him of his power. But he was too strong for
them. His great success in all his military undertakings kept him up