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Historical person
1209–1259
Möngke Khan was a grandson of Genghis Khan and great khan of the Mongol Empire from 1251 to 1259. Supported by Batu, he defeated rival branches of the family and carried out purges before strengthening central administration and taxation. Möngke sent Hulagu to conquer the Islamic west and directed Kublai’s campaigns in China. He died during the siege of a fortress in Sichuan, and the unresolved succession led to civil war between Kublai and Ariq Böke.
Möngke appears in Conn Iggulden’s Conqueror series as the last great khan to exercise substantial authority across the whole family empire. Fiction can present him as an austere, capable ruler whose death releases conflicts held in check. His reign connects the invasions of Baghdad and southern China, allowing a novel to show the extraordinary geographic reach of Mongol command.
Series
The Conqueror series traces the rise of Temujin as Genghis Khan and the expansion of the Mongol Empire under his descendants. Across five novels it follows tribal unification, campaigns in China and Central Asia, the invasion of eastern Europe and the succession struggles that eventually bring Kublai Khan…
All books in this series
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
