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From his camp at Karakoram, on the Kerulon, he marched in a straight line through Kuku Khoten and the Ongut country to Taitong, securing an unopposed passage through the Great Wall by the defection of the Ongut tribe. The Kins were unprepared for this sudden and vigorous assault directed on their weakest spot, and successfully executed before their army could reach the scene.
Important places like Taiyuen and Taitong surrendered to him after a merely nominal resistance, and when they fell there was no further impediment in the way of his marching on Pekin. No preparations had been made to defend Pekin.
'It is wonderful, writes Colonel Gordon, 'to see the long line of wall stretching over the hills as far as the eye can reach. From Kalgan they travelled westwards to Taitong, where the wall was not so high. There they saw huge caravans of camels laden with 'brick tea' going towards Russia.
But the border fortress of Taitong and the Kin capital, Tungking, successfully resisted all the assaults of the Mongols, and when Genghis received a serious wound at the former place, he reluctantly ordered the retreat of his army, laden with an immense quantity of spoil, but still little advanced in its main task of conquering China.
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