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Kapitel 26

The fat man couldn't hold back any longer. He quietly grabbed a pistol, gently pushed open the car door, and bent over towards the front of the car. Before he could take his first step, I smashed the butt of my pistol into the back of his head from behind. The force was so great that the guy didn't even groan before falling forward into the grass.

I picked up his pistol, pulled off the belt of the unconscious guy, and tied him up securely. Shirlay Yang, wearing infrared night vision goggles, ran over, kicked the fat man awake, deliberately lowered his voice, pointed the gun at his temple, and asked, "Which part are you in? Where are the other two?"

The fat man, still dazed, was nearly scared to death when Shirlay Yang pulled the trigger. He stammered, "I—I'm a local Mongolian. I'm just a hired driver. Those two black foreigners went to the excavation camp of the 'Japan-Mongolia Joint Archaeological Team'."

I tore a piece of cloth off the fat man's body and stuffed it into his mouth. I got up, took the keys from the van, waved to Shirlay Yang, and reached in the direction the fat man was pointing.

After traveling about a kilometer, a large cluster of tents appeared ahead, consisting of blue yurts of various sizes. In the center in front of the yurts, there was a large open space enclosed by a wire mesh fence taller than a person, clearly a high-voltage electric fence.

Shirlay Yang and I crept over quietly and found a large, waist-high hole cut in the wire mesh under some bushes. We carefully crawled through the hole. After only a couple of steps, I tripped over the limp carcass of a large wolfhound. I touched it; it had clearly been drugged by Black Jack and his gang of bandits.

Silence reigned all around, broken only by the chirping of insects in the distant grass, and the silvery moonlight bathed the entire grassland. I cautiously surveyed my surroundings; a light shone from a yurt in the very center, indicating that the archaeological team still had dedicated members studying diligently by lamplight. I thought to myself, "Could it be the Japanese?"

Let's crawl forward. I took the lead and fell into the grass, reaching towards the center of the net. When I got closer, I saw that a hole about half the size of a room had been dug in the grass. It was very dark and deep below, probably more than ten meters from the ground. The newly dug soil had formed a small mound not far away.

Shirlay Yang and I, wearing infrared night vision goggles, scanned the area and spotted a rope ladder embedded in the cave wall not far from us. I gestured for Shirlay Yang to stand guard up there, while I carefully climbed down the rope ladder to the bottom of the cave. The fresh, damp smell of the earth was so comforting that I just wanted to sneeze.

I stood at the bottom of the cave, searching around, and discovered a downward-sloping pit ahead. This archaeological team is something else; the cave they dug was spacious and impressive. I gave Shirlay Yang an OK sign, and she slid down after me.

We braced our weapons, each holding a pistol; Shirlay Yang's pistol was also equipped with a silencer. Hand in hand, we groped our way into the cave. After walking about twenty meters, a large hole appeared ahead.

We crawled into the large cave and were astonished to find that it was clearly the ruins of an ancient palace. The dilapidated stone walls and rammed earth layers systematically marked out the area of the camp, and we were probably in the location of a side hall or outbuilding.

Shirley Yang and I stood in the side hall, carefully looking around. Under our feet were scattered stone slabs, and even after being cleaned, damp grass roots were still curled up in the cracks between the slabs. The archaeological team's excavation work was quite meticulous.

The outline of the main hall has been largely revealed. Through the supporting steel frames and wooden pillars, the side hall is empty, indicating that all the funerary objects have been cleared away. However, there are some circular or square marks made of white lime, which seem to be used by the work team to mark the original locations of the objects.

We stood quietly in the hall, listening intently with our eyes closed. Apart from the faint sound of a few drops of water falling on the stone slabs, the surroundings were utterly silent. Suddenly, I heard light footsteps coming from next door. It was Blackjack! I perked up, beckoned to Shirley Yang, and crept towards the next room.

Before I even reached the side hall corridor, I suddenly stopped. Shirley Yang pounced on my back, her softness sending shivers down my spine. Just as Shirley Yang was about to ask a question, I quickly covered her mouth.

The atmosphere wasn't right. I suddenly smelled a musty, pungent odor in the air, very much like the body odor of the giant rice dumpling I'd encountered before.

I gestured to Shirley Yang to hold our breath. The two of us carefully put on our gas masks, took a step, and then followed a long time later. Shirley Yang and I quietly crouched on the pillars of the hall's corridor and gently crept forward.

Amidst the faint footsteps, the soft clanging of metal scraping against metal could be heard. Someone sighed, as if lost in thought about something heavy.

I grabbed Shirley Yang and quickly crouched behind a pillar, holding my breath. Suddenly, a flashlight beam shone from the other end of the corridor. I heard the sound of a gun being cocked and knew something was wrong. Before the flashlight beam hit us, I pulled Shirley Yang as close as possible to the earthen wall behind the pillar.

Suddenly, a series of footsteps rushed out from the main hall. By the light of the flashlight, Shirley Yang and I were horrified to discover that the footsteps belonged to an ancient warrior, over ten feet tall, clad in full iron chainmail armor. He wore a red-tasseled helmet typical of ancient warriors and brandished a gleaming eight-foot-long sword as he strode towards the flashlight beam.

"It really is an ancient giant zombie," I thought to myself. From his exposed, rusty armor, I could clearly see his white leg bones and long, clawed hand bones, so I figured there was only a skeleton inside the armor.

The man with the flashlight cried out in alarm and opened fire. I heard the muffled thud of a silenced pistol. Bullets struck the armor of the charging Skeleton General, sparks flying. This was something bullets simply couldn't solve.

The skeleton general grew even more enraged, brandishing his eight-foot-long sword (likely an ancient saber used by riders on horseback) and charging forward, swinging it to strike. A scream rang out, and the flashlight, along with half an arm, fell to the ground, motionless, presumably still tightly gripping the flashlight.

Through the infrared night vision goggles, I saw that the man whose arm had been severed was a short black man. After he screamed and crouched down, a figure that looked like Blackjack turned around, dropped a bag, and ran away.

Without any hesitation, the skeleton general charged forward two steps into the gunfire, then slashed diagonally with his sword, severing half of the short black man's shoulder and head along with the severed hand. Blood spurted out, splattering all over his armor.

Overjoyed, it roared, stopped, looked down, picked up the head, chopped off the arm with its saber, tucked it into its waistband, and chased after Black Jack.

The way he picked up the head was a perfect illustration of the movements of an ancient general bravely fighting on the battlefield, beheading enemies to claim credit. Shirley Yang and I were both stunned.

After hearing footsteps in the corridor, I heard a chase and a fight mixed with shouts. I rushed over, picked up the package from the ground, and tiptoed back. I grabbed Shirley Yang's hand and ran out of the cave. We dashed out of the electric fence, fired a signal flare into the cave, and quickly retreated in the direction of Fatty Wang.

We ran a short distance and lay prone in the grass. We watched as the signal flare exploded loudly at the bottom of the cave, startling a large group of staff from the "Japan-Mongolia Joint Archaeological Team" who rushed out of the surrounding tents and shouted as they gathered around the cave entrance. The scene was chaotic and noisy.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Shirley Yang and I quickly hid in the bushes and ran away. After we rounded Blackjack, we took a small van. We hadn't gone far when Fatty arrived in the dark to pick us up. Shirley Yang and I jumped in and sped off in the dark, heading back the way we came. After driving quite a distance, we looked back and could still see the archaeological camp brightly lit, with people shouting and horses neighing.

Suddenly, a loud thud came from behind the car, as if something had crashed into the cargo compartment. A chill ran down my spine; I immediately realized that the Skeleton General was probably chasing after us. I told Fatty to drive carefully, then I took out my wolf-eye flashlight, grabbed a handful of black donkey hooves, and prepared to check the situation through the rear window of the driver's seat.

Before I could even turn on my flashlight, something slammed into the cab roof with a whoosh, sending sparks flying. Shirley Yang and I looked in the flashlight and, oh my god, there it was! A ferocious-looking skeletal creature, its left claw embedded between the steel plates of the cab, its right hand wielding an eight-foot-long saber, was relentlessly hacking at the roof. Its armored body was being tossed around like a leaf by the moving vehicle, swaying back and forth inside the cab.

I instructed Shirley Yang to aim her silent pistol at the Skeleton General's left claw, break its hand bone, and then speed away from it. I casually smashed the rear window with my fist, and a blast of cold air rushed in.

Shirley Yang steadily held the pistol, put on her infrared night vision goggles, and fired five shots in quick succession, each hitting the left claw bone of the skeleton, severing the skeleton's left hand cleanly. The creature, now unarmed, was thrown into the caravan and rolled twice. Fatty accelerated, forcefully throwing the skeleton general out of the caravan, where it tumbled into the roadside bushes. I urged Fatty to turn on the headlights and speed forward; we were far enough away from the "Japanese-Mongolian Joint Archaeological Team" camp that there was nothing to worry about.

The fat guy, wearing infrared night vision goggles, had been driving for a while and was already as impatient as a bear. Now, with the headlights blazing, he was excited, stepped on the gas, and surged forward. Damn it, it was going at a speed of at least 180 miles per hour, throwing me, who was caught off guard, into the passenger seat, almost knocking me unconscious.

I was about to start cursing when suddenly a figure leaped out of the darkness beside the car and jumped onto the front of our caravan. Damn it, this skeleton was haunting us relentlessly.

The Skeleton General leaped onto the hood of the vehicle, swaying unsteadily as he crouched, then slashed his sword under the hood and crawled towards us, clinging to the saber. His helmet had been tossed aside, revealing a terrifying skull with two deep-set eyes staring at us strangely. Damn, that stare sent chills down my spine.

The fat man drove recklessly, the caravan with its headlights on, leaping across the boundless grassland like a ferocious beast, stumbling and lurching towards Ulaanbaatar.

Just as the skeleton general was about to climb to the window, I didn't have time to warn Fatty. I yelled "Stop!" and slammed on the brakes. The caravan braked suddenly, and the three of us slammed forward against the window, shattering it with a crash. The skeleton was flung violently and fell under the wheels with a cracking sound as the wheels crushed its sternum.

I quickly ordered Fatty to start the car and run it over twice more, until the skeleton was crushed into a pile of broken bones. I jumped out of the car, pistol at the ready, and by the headlights, I saw that only the head remained of the thing, still twisting and turning on the ground, looking like it was gritting its teeth.

The fat man followed, casually shoving a donkey hoof into the skull's gaping mouth. The skull shook angrily, turning blackish-gray in the blink of an eye, rotting and crumbling apart. The black donkey hoof also hissed and emitted white smoke, changing color.

I jumped onto the hood of the car and saw deep claw marks left by the bones all over the hood. I tried to pull the saber that was stuck deep in the hood, but I couldn't get it out.

As the moon set and the stars slanted, the night sky over the grassland grew an even deeper blue; it was nearly dawn. Not wanting to waste any more time, we quickly jumped into the car and sped back to Ulaanbaatar, where we parked and went for a nap.

When I woke up around noon, the inn across the street was completely empty. Fatty opened the bag we had retrieved from the cave, and found it filled with a dazzling array of jeweled bronze urns and bottles, interspersed with a strange, bright iron plaque inscribed with jagged symbols that we couldn't decipher.

Shirley Yang copied the inscriptions and gave them to the guide to consult a Mongolian language master. Sure enough, the guide returned and told us that those were the inscriptions of the Mongolian phrase "Chun Ordo Darhut".

What does it mean? "Darhad" is a title bestowed by the Yuan Dynasty imperial family upon the guards who were dedicated to protecting Genghis Khan's secret mausoleum.

In addition, it is said that Genghis Khan built four seasonal camps during his lifetime, which are called "Ordo" in Mongolian. In other words, this iron plaque is a symbol of status, indicating that the owner of the plaque was a high-ranking guard who was responsible for protecting the Khan's spring palace camp.

Upon hearing this, Shirley Yang, Fatty, and I were overjoyed. We looked at each other and smiled, feeling that things were finally looking up.

It now appears that the site recently unearthed by the "Japan-Mongolia Joint Archaeological Team" is the spring palace of Genghis Khan, the great conqueror. The fierce and strange skeletal general is undoubtedly the owner of this gleaming iron plaque, a Darhad (guard) soldier who was buried alive to guard the ruins of the spring palace.

Looking at that strange sign, I couldn't help but feel a chill. Could it be that the Ghost General was chasing us so frantically because of this?

Volume Two: The Four Kingdoms Campaign, Chapter Fifty-Five: Entering the Ghost Tomb

That day, a terrifying message spread throughout Ulaanbaatar: a horrific tragedy had reportedly occurred at the excavation camp of the "Japan-Mongolia Joint Archaeological Team." The team's leader, a Japanese man named Kuriraf, discovered in the middle of the night a strange, bloodthirsty zombie inside a newly excavated tomb. This zombie had murdered two foreign black men who had come to rob the tomb; their heads were severed and missing, presumably eaten after the zombie sucked their blood on the spot.

When the zombie went berserk and began hunting the archaeological team, it was fortunately discovered by Jiulilafu. Jiulilafu was bitten and died from excessive blood loss, while the zombie escaped and is likely hiding somewhere in the vast grasslands outside the city. The government army has launched a search operation, but due to heavy rain that started at dawn and continued all day, the search was temporarily suspended. People warned each other not to leave the city easily in the coming days.

Upon hearing this news, Shirley Yang said to Fatty and me that after the night raid on Handor, Black Jack's death would surely attract the attention of the Mongolian government and Robert and the CIA in the United States. We should leave Ulaanbaatar quickly before they take any further action, avoid the limelight, and find Genghis Khan's mausoleum first.

That's good, it allows me to take the opportunity to conduct an on-site investigation of the Altai Mountains in Mongolia and, based on the "Sixteen-Character Feng Shui Yin-Yang Secret Techniques," confirm the exact location of Genghis Khan's secret tomb.

We braved the rain to purchase a large amount of spare supplies, including a detailed geographical map of the border between Mongolia and northern China. We repaired our large trucks and, after making thorough preparations, left the city that evening and headed north into the Altai Mountains.

Fatty Wang was unusually enamored with the skeletal general's saber. He kept stroking it the whole way, brandishing it left and right at the window, looking every bit like an ancient general going into battle. I warned him, "Fatty, be careful. That eight-foot-long saber must have killed countless people. The vengeful spirits are attached to it; it's bound to be extremely dangerous. You'd better throw it away."

The fat man spat twice, calling me a jinx, saying that good things never come true and bad things always do. He added that children's words are innocent and should be blown away by the wind.

We made a lot of noise along the way, so we weren't too lonely. The best part was that the commotion didn't stop, and the continuous white rain covered our path, making it difficult for our pursuers to find any clues.

The vast grasslands stretched out before us, the sky like a dome, enveloping the entire landscape. The sky was a deep blue, the plains boundless, and the wind blew the grass low, revealing cattle and sheep. Marching through the night here inevitably filled us with a sense of heroic grandeur and poetic inspiration. The fat man even stuck his head out of the car window, brandishing his so-called "Eight Swords of Xuanyuan" technique while howling like a wolf in the white rain.

At that moment, watching the windshield wipers swing back and forth on the windshield, I felt a pang of nostalgia, like the saying "ten years of wandering the rivers and lakes under the lamplight." Recalling the strange events of recent years, I fell into a daze of thought. Shirley Yang, meanwhile, drove intently, flipping through maps along the way.

Perhaps at that moment, none of us anticipated an even greater disaster about to befall us. The fat man was nearly delirious; no one noticed the eight-foot-long saber he wielded in the pouring rain, a faint smudge of blood appearing on its blade. The clanging of the blade grew louder, mingled with the low, mournful murmur of the wind and rain, as if a wronged spirit had opened its ghostly eyes, its nostalgic and furious roar echoing across the blade in the rain.

Suddenly, a deep, resounding neighing of a horse echoed from the depths of the rainy night, as if someone were galloping across the vast grasslands. I paused, pulled Fatty back, and stopped his raucous shouting, leaning forward to listen. But the distance was utterly silent; nothing was there except for the torrential downpour from the sky. The world was swallowed by the rain, endlessly.

After a long while, the fat man looked at me blankly, then secretly lifted the back of my shirt and mischievously wiped his wet, short hair and chubby head. He grinned at Shirley Yang, who was driving, then suddenly leaned close to my ear and hissed, "A ghost—"

It startled me so much that I trembled like a leaf. I elbowed the fat man in the chest and yelled back, "You fucking fatso, trying to scare me to death?"

The caravan drove along the road on the grassland, stretching into the distance. The winding road, washed clean by the heavy rain, resembled a silver ribbon, reflecting white light under the car headlights and extending to the horizon.

The car had been traveling for over three hours, so it was my turn to drive. Shirley Yang brought out some mare's milk wine to help us stay alert. But it had no alcohol content at all; we just drank it like a beverage, and it had a fishy, slightly sweet taste.

The fat man climbed into the back of the truck to sleep. I told Shirley Yang to also take a break in the passenger seat and close her eyes whenever she had a chance. Shirley Yang smiled and nodded, then fell asleep fully clothed.

I drove on into the distance, intending to reach Sukhbaatar, a small town in northern Mongolia, tomorrow morning. I planned to stay there for a while and take the opportunity to explore the terrain of this town nestled in the Altai Mountains.

Without music, the two people beside me were dozing off, and I was also getting tired; my eyelids were drooping. Luckily, Shirley Yang had bought some safflower oil, which I used as a cooling balm to keep myself awake. In the first half of the night, we occasionally encountered oncoming cars, but in the latter half, only our caravan, with its lights on, remained on the vast grassland. The further we got from Ulaanbaatar, the more desolate the roadside became. Eventually, all the yurts and houses disappeared, and as far as the eye could see, the grass was as tall as a person, a complete sign of desert.

I was almost asleep when I called Fatty twice, but he didn't wake up. Afraid of waking Shirley Yang, I forced my eyes open and continued driving.

I was just about to take a nap when a figure suddenly flashed past in front of the car, startling me. I felt as if something tall and big had passed by the roadside and almost collided with the car.

I opened my eyes wide, slowed down, and turned my head to look. Behind me, the roadside was covered with dark, overgrown grass, and I couldn't see anything at all.

Perhaps I was just too tired. I hadn't slept a wink all night visiting Hanerduo, and it had made me a bit hypersensitive, I chuckled to myself. Just as I turned around, I suddenly saw the front of the car jolt violently, hit something white, and then vaguely tip over.

I had a bad feeling, so I stopped the car, quickly woke Shirley Yang, and yelled for Fatty to grab the knife and go check it out. Fatty got up sleepily, muttering, "Damn it, Old Hu won't even let me sleep in peace. I wonder if he's run into some fox or rabbit or something."

I heard the fat man jump out of the car from the back, wearing a raincoat, shining a wolf-eye flashlight, and deliberately holding his eight-foot-long saber in his right hand. He turned to the front of the car, knocked on the window, and grinned at me, saying, "Turn on the headlights!" He leaned down and peeked under the car, looking like a big bear.

The fat man searched around the car body, then took the wolf-eye flashlight and pointed it far behind the car onto the road. He ran back and said, "Damn it, there's nothing here. What did you see? Are you dizzy?"

I had been closely watching the fat man's every move from inside the driver's seat with Shirley Yang. Seeing that there was nothing wrong, I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief and calm down.

The fat man climbed into the driver's seat, cursing, and said to me, "You should take a nap, Lao Hu. You look too tired. You haven't even seen a single fox hair. I'll drive for a while and take over."

I was so tired that I nodded and, too lazy to climb up to the back cabin, I snuggled up with Shirley Yang in the passenger seat and dozed off. I quickly fell into a deep sleep.

Before I could fall asleep, Fatty suddenly screamed. I sat up and looked in the direction Fatty was pointing. In the rain, where the headlights were shining, I saw two small, ghostly figures locked in a fierce struggle in the middle of the road, never stopping.

I slammed on the brakes, and the car came to a stop. The two small figures were still fighting in the headlights, tumbling and rolling. The fat man suddenly accelerated and sped off, but the thing kept appearing in the headlights in front of the car, chasing after it.

Shirley Yang was also startled. Everyone stared blankly, not understanding what was going on. The caravan sped through the rain, with two ghostly little figures constantly moving in front of it. Could they be the spirits of the grasslands who love light? It seems they don't pose much of a threat to us.

After a while, Shirley Yang and I fell into a deep sleep again, leaving Fatty alone to drive the vehicle.

The sound of the heavy rain and the windshield wipers echoed in my dream. I had a strange dream in which I clearly saw three spirits riding white skeletal horses flying in the air outside the speeding caravan. They were fully armored, holding spears or shields, and shouting battle cries around the caravan. They charged and weaved through the caravan, chanting slogans that no one could understand. Suddenly, one of the spirits, dressed in white armor, leaped onto his horse and stopped, steadily holding a carved bow in mid-air, cradling a full moon in his arms. He drew the bow, nocked an arrow, and the arrow flew like a shooting star, a feather piercing through the window and instantly piercing the fat man's back.

In my dream, I was terrified. I reached out to push Fatty away, but he didn't utter a sound, still staring ahead, mechanically driving his car. I leaned over, gritted my teeth, and grabbed the arrow on his back. The arrow was so hot it almost made me faint. I endured the burns and pulled the arrow out, only to see a tiny figure writhing in agony on the arrowhead—it was Fatty's likeness. Damn it, Fatty's soul had been shot out of his body! I frantically tried to catch it. Suddenly, a bright red light burst forth beneath me, and a wisp of spirit surged forth from the gleaming blade of the eight-foot-long saber beside the fat man. It was the White Bone General I had encountered the night before, with the heads of Black Jack and the other man tucked into its waistband. It wielded a small saber and slashed at my hand. I cried out in pain and let go. It swallowed the fat man's soul whole, brandished its long saber, and shooed me aside. It then flew around the driver's cab twice, waved to the three mounted spirits outside the window, and suddenly leaped onto the fat man's head, plunging into his body and disappearing from sight.

I screamed and woke up with a start, only to see Shirley Yang grab me from behind and ask in surprise, "Hu Bayi, what's wrong?"

I wiped away a cold sweat and hurriedly turned to look at the fat man driving. In my dazed state, I was horrified to see the fat man suddenly transform into the skeleton general, gripping the steering wheel, turning to me with a sinister smile, which startled me so much that I fell onto Shirley Yang.

Shirley Yang helped me up. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, only to see Fatty turning his head and smiling at me. I looked closely and realized it was definitely Fatty, so I felt a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. I turned back to Shirley Yang and said, "It's nothing, just a nightmare."

Still uneasy, I leaned out of the car window and looked around. The area around the car was quiet; there were no three horse-riding spirits. Only in the torrential rain did the road in front of the car appear unreal, shimmering like a white jade ribbon under the lamplight.

I leaned back and said to the fat man, "Let me drive, you can rest for a while."

The fat man didn't say anything, shook his head, stared intently ahead, and continued driving.

Since Fatty was going to drive, Shirley Yang and I had no choice but to eat and chat. Looking at our watches, it should be around four in the morning, the darkness before dawn.

Shirley Yang took out a stack of documents and asked me to shine a wolf-eye flashlight on them for her to look through. After going through these different versions of Genghis Khan's secret tomb, we concluded that Genghis Khan's secret tomb might be located in the following places: 1. Ordos Plateau; 2. Altai Mountains; 3. South of the Khentii Mountains in Mongolia; 4. Near Qinghe Daohai Lake in Xinjiang, China, which is Genghis Khan's childhood home.

One of the more credible sources is the mention of "burial in Qilian Valley" in the "History of Yuan Dynasty: Records of Emperor Taizu". The entire history of Yuan Dynasty subtly reveals a place called Qilian Valley, but no one knows its exact location at that time, let alone today, nearly a thousand years later.

Furthermore, Marco Polo's Travels, written in the 13th century, mentions that Genghis Khan, during a siege of Taijin (Jizhou), was struck in the knee by a poisoned arrow and died. His body was transported thousands of miles to a place called Da Otok, located on the southern slopes of the Altai Mountains and the southern slopes of the Burkhan Khaldun Mountains, a place revered by the Mongol nobility. During the journey of transporting Genghis Khan's coffin, everyone encountered was to be sacrificed. After the secret burial, the coffin was trampled flat by thousands of horses, and the entourage camped on the spot. For three years, a dense forest was planted within a hundred li (approximately 50 kilometers) around the burial site, making it impossible to discern which tree the grave was under. All the attendants kept silent and were brutally murdered by the Mongol royal family. Anyone who knew the truth was killed and buried alive with him. Afterwards, the Mongol royal family spread rumors, creating more than ten different versions of the secret burial site of Genghis Khan, leaving the people of the time unable to distinguish the truth.

Shirley Yang believes this passage is the most credible account of Genghis Khan's secret tomb. According to historical records, Marco Polo came to China during his prime and served Kublai Khan for 17 years, eventually rising to the position of governor-general, giving him ample opportunity to access the secrets of the Mongol royal family.

Furthermore, many Western scholars believe that although the Mongols believed in the "Eternal Heaven," and from royalty to commoners they revered the idea of "coming from nature and returning to nature," Genghis Khan, the great conqueror, led his Mongol cavalry to conquer Central Asia and reach as far as present-day Eastern Europe and northern Iran, creating a vast empire spanning Eurasia (which Europeans at the time called the "Yellow Peril"). His life's achievements were difficult to fully commemorate, necessitating a method different from secret burials or sky burials, most likely a tomb built into a mountainside. A key characteristic of Yuan Dynasty tombs was the choice of high ground, avoiding low-lying areas.

This is based on the fact that two figures who had the most profound influence on Genghis Khan's military campaigns were his contemporaries. Qiu Chuji, a Taoist priest of the Quanzhen School during the Yuan Dynasty, was invited to join Genghis Khan's ranks, and nearly a hundred of his disciples remained with the army as advisors. Genghis Khan treated Qiu Chuji with great respect, honoring him as a "divine being." From seeking his advice on the secrets of longevity to heeding Qiu's advice against killing and massacring cities, Genghis Khan revered him as a god.