Mongol general Muqali dies campaigning in Jin China

1224

The trusted commander whom Genghis Khan had left to finish the Jin dynasty died of illness during the long, grinding northern China campaign. Muqali had been the first Mongol general to master siege warfare using Chinese engineers, a tactical revolution that his successors would apply from Baghdad to Budapest. His death slowed but did not halt the Mongol advance, which ground on for another decade.