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In accordance with the Great Khaan's last will, the Mongol Empire was divided among his four sons. His eldest son, Zuchi, received the lands west of the Irtysh River. His second son, Tsagaadai, inherited the territory between the rivers Amudarya and Syrdarya. His third son, Ugudei, was given possession of western Mongolia and Tarbagatai. By tradition, the youngest son, Tului, obtained his father's ancestral land.

In 1229 the Great Hurildai elected Ugudei official successor to Genghis Khan. Ugudei's name is associated with a number of innovations in the development of the Mongol Empire. He set up a regular horse-relay post service (morin ortoo), which lasted until the mid 20th Century, to ensure prompt communication within the empire's entire administration as well as the transportation of dignitaries.

In 1230 Ugudei sent troops to Persia that later, in 1231-1239, also invaded the Caucasus. Guided by Genghis Khan's will, Ugudei concluded a tactical agreement with the Song dynasty of southern China on joint action against the Chin, and in 1231 he personally led a campaign to crush the Chin Empire and complete the conquest of northern China.

The fourth Khan of the Mongol Empire, Munkh (1251 -1259), also undertook two military campaigns: one headed by his brother Khubilai (founder of the Mongolian Yuan State), was intended to complete the conquest of China, and the other (aimed at invading Iran) was led by his other brother, Hulege. In 1258 Hulege took Baghdad and overthrew the Abbasid dynasty.

The wars waged by Genghis Khan's successors resulted in the dispersal of the Mongolian tribes and a considerable reduction in the size of the Mongolian population. On the other hand, however, these wars precipitated the process of unification among various Asian and European tribes, and drew East and West nearer together, something that had never been done before.

After the defeat of the Mongolian Yuan State by the Chinese Min State in 1367, the Mongolian Khans returned from Beijing to their native territory. At this time Mongolia ceased to be the centre of world trade and culture, but the Mongols retained their home territory.

Due to a crisis lasting from 1388 to 1400, various khaans replaced each other as ruler on the territory of modern Mongolia. The eastern and western Mongols' struggle intensified from the beginning of the 15th century as a result of malevolent actions by Ming China. The strife resuited in the emergence in 1452 of the Mongol Oirad state. Some written sources described this period as the period of small Khaganates. In the second half of the 15th century, the Mongol state was divided into east and west and then subdivided into six principalities. The six principalities included such Mongolian tribes as Khalkh, Ordos, Uriankhai, Tumd, and Yunsheby. The western Mongolian Oirads were comprised of the Mongolian tribes of Durvud, Khoshuud, Torguud and Tsoros. The period from the 17th to the early 20lh century was the bleakest in Mongolian history because of the 275 years of Manchu colonial domination.

The difficult process of establishing the Mongolian State was finely described in the famous Mongolian historical manuscript 'Secret History of the Mongols'.

In 1206 at the Great Khurildai (convention) of Mongol princes on the banks of the Onon river, the feudal nobility proclaimed Temujin supreme ruler of the unified Mongol state and conferred on him the title of Chinggis Khaan.

Genghis Khan attached great importance to law and traditions. On ascending to the throne of the unified Mongol state, Genghis Khan undertook several steps to strengthen state power by issuing a code of laws called Ikh Zasag and establishing a system of 95 myangats (units, each consisting of one thousand) that simplified the organization and administration of military and civil affairs; an optimal political system according to historians. The 95 myangats were divided into three areas with the central one under his own rule, while the right and left principalities were governed by Mukhulai and Boorchi.

Through these initial steps towards establishing a system of government of a vast empire, and strengthening and centralizing state power, Genghis Khan thus ensured the security of the northern and western boundaries of his state. Some neighbours, however, continued to pose a threat as their rulers opposed the unification of the Mongol tribes, considering them to be their own vassals.

In the autumn of 1209, Chinggis set out against the Tangud, emerging victorious and having conquered them. In 1211 Genghis Khan, accompanied by his sons Zuchi, Tsagaadai, Ugedei, Tului and brother Khasar, launched a campaign against the Chin dynasty and in 1215, conquered its capital, Beijing.

In 1216, the Khar Kidans were subdued and thus, the Mongol Empire occupied several states of Central Asia and Eastern Turks, its outlying areas reaching the borders of the Khorezm state. In 1218, as a sign of good-neighbourliness, Genghis Khan dispatched a caravan with ambassadors on a diplomatic and commercial mission to the capital city of the Khorezm state, Urgench, but at the frontier town of Otrar the caravan was pillaged and the ambassadors murdered. Furthermore, three Mongolian emissaries sent to Khorezm to investigate the incident were subjected to unprecedented humiliations. At the time the Royal court saw these acts as a blatant insult and a blow to the Mongol state's desire to develop normal trade and political relations between the two states. In the 13th century such a demarche was sufficient to enrage feudal rulers and force them into military confrontation. Accordingly, when invading Khorezm in 1221 after capturing Bukhara and Samarkand, the Mongol troops took Urgench. Genghis Khan's youngest son Tului led the Mongol troops into Afghanistan and northwestern India. The troops under the command of Zev and Subeedei invaded Georgia and Azerbaijan in 1221 and battled with Russian forces for the first time on the bank of the Kalka River. The Russians were defeated. After six years of warring the Mongol Empire expanded as far west as the Black Sea.

In the autumn of 1225, after six years of campaigning in the West the Great Khaan returned to his homeland. Genghis Khan then received the news that the rulers of the Tangud state of Si-Sya had entered into a secret alliance with the Chin dynasty and were undertaking hostile policies towards the Mongols. So, in 1226 another major campaign was launched against the Tangud and in 1227 its capital city Irgai was captured. In the same year Genghis Khan was wounded while out hunting and on 25 August, 1227, Genghis Khan, the Founder of the Mongol Empire, expander of its borders throughout Central Asia and Middle Asia, died.

In 555 B.C. the Jujan khanate was defeated by the Altai Turks and for almost five centuries they were subjugated by the Turkic people - the Turks, Uigur and Kyrgyz. During the period of domination of Turkic peoples on Mongolian territory, the native Mongols lived in the eastern and northeastern regions of Mongolia, forming small separate khanates.

The largest Mongolian tribes at that time were the Khamag (Whole) Mongols, the Khereid, Merged, Naiman, Tatars and others. The basic wealth of the Mongolian cattle-raising tribes consisted of sheep, goats, horses and cattle. There were a few camels, bred chiefly by the Naiman. The horse was a means of locomotion in everyday life and a faithful friend in battle, on the march and in hunting. Under conditions of feudal division and internecine strife the khuree, or ring-shaped disposition of families, was widely used as a means of defence against surprise attack. Vestiges of the clan system, customs and religious beliefs (Shamanism) were retained by the Mongols of that time even after the feudal mode of production became predominant. At the beginning of the eleventh century, Khamag Mongols had emerged in central Mongolia as the leading clan of a loose federation. The Khamag Mongol ulus (state) was ruled by Khabul khan, one of whose most influential successors was his grandson Yesuhkei-baatar. He ruled over the largest of the Khamag Mongol tribes - the Taichuud.

Temujin, the future Genghis Khan, was born into Yesukhei-baatar's family in Deluun Boldog on the upper reaches of the Onon river in 1162. In 1170 Yesukhei-baatar was poisoned by hostile Tatars, and soon after his death his ulus disintegrated. Yesukhei's widow Oelun and her children lived for a long time in misery, but her eldest son, Temujin, turned out to be extremely energetic, enterprising and shrewd. He married Burte, daughter of Khongirad tribal chief Dei Setsen, to whom he had been betrothed by his father, and shortly afterwards began fighting for power over the other tribes, entering into an alliance with Tooril Khan, chief of the Khereid tribe. In 1884 the Merged, who had been at loggerheads with Yesukhei, attacked Temujin's camp, but with the help of his blood brother, Wan Khan, and Jadran tribe's prince Jamukha, Temujin inflicted a heavy defeat upon them.

However the Temujin-Jamukha alliance did not last, since each had claims to rule over the Khamag Mongol. Eventually, Temujin broke with Khereid's Tooril Khan and his ambitious son Sengum and, in a series of major campaigns, he defeated all the Tatar tribes. He subordinated all Mongol Khanates to himself in the year 1205.